#getting harassed by the steering committee

[princescar]

Thinking about how tf did Nagito knew about Ryoko.

He never canonically meets her, and we never hear or see him and Matsuda meet (ik he has dementia and thats Matsudas specialty, but he has never made a refrence to his treatment, let alone that matsuda is his doctor, which is weird bc chihiro makes a refrence to him and hes refrenced on hajimes page of the artbook). Also he includes the a Madarai brother chilling with them.

But then i think about the dr0 refrences he makes in sdr2.

one of his loved gifts is ryoko's notebook. Damaged, of course, but hes the only one who loves it, nobody even likes it (Not even Mikan). But he also makes a comment during a FTE that hes been reading a novel where a highschool girl is caught up in a serial killer case, but turned out to be the killer in the end. Which sounds alot like Dr0.

Which makes me think, did he read Ryoko's Notebook when Junko died?

She does keep the notebook, stated on the last chapter of Dr0. So she would still have it, and Nagito did go to the school for her hand, so he could’ve easily gotten it. He could’ve then read it, knowing what had happened and learning about Ryoko and Yasuke. Also why he includes the Madarai brother when there would be no connection outside of dr0.

[clonerightsagenda]

I keep prefacing these by saying I had a shitty day, and that somehow keeps being true. What a week. But in honor of my seven shitty days, let's review Chancellor Bradley's seven shitty children.

As I mentioned in the last post, every time Bradley needs to burnish his image a bit, he adopts a kid to get himself some good press. That's pretty much the extent of his involvement in their lives - he prefers to go for older kids in the foster system so he can leave them to take care of themselves. They have quite an age range, and I'll list them from oldest to youngest.

Also, they presumably have real human names, but I'm not making some up because that would only cause confusion.

Wrath - The oldest, in his late twenties and could have emancipated himself from his father's bullshit by now, but he hasn't. Has a steady relationship with a perfectly nice and extremely normal woman, and they're essentially parenting the latest adoptee (Pride) which is one reason why he hasn't picked up stakes yet. Spent some time in the military before coming back for a poli sci grad program. He's a good politician because he's used to kissing ass, and he's fine with being a yes man for administration. Most people find him quite charismatic, and the cute baby sibling he's often toting around doesn't hurt. One of the two siblings allowed to have a car.

Lust - Second oldest, the other sibling with car privileges. She is a trans woman, in her mid twenties, idk what she's studying but she has managed to get appointed on a whole bunch of university committees as a student rep. She hears things. She knows things. She occasionally steers things in the direction the chancellor wants, but she's not particularly devoted to him - when she realizes things aren't going Father's way, she applies to transfer to another school and takes Gluttony with her. A frat boy whistled at her Once. It did not happen again.

Greed - Similar age to Lust but he's getting his own post. I acknowledge that's exactly what he would want.

Sloth - Sloth spends most of his time either sleeping or high, and the instructors can't do much about it because he's the chancellor's kid. His assignments seem like the work of a precocious middle schooler and that's because they are - he pays Pride to do them for him. The football team captain (Alex Armstrong) keeps trying to get him to try out but despairs. The one time he threw a football at him trying to get him to catch it, it just bounced off.

Gluttony - Lust and Gluttony are actually bio siblings or at least spent some time in foster care together; they're one of the closer sibling relationships besides Wrath and Pride. Gluttony has some developmental issues and is enrolled in the special ed program at the teacher's college. If seeing Ling and Lan Fan is a cause for concern for the all you can eat dining hall staff, Gluttony's appearance is a red alert.

Envy - Like many unhappy people, Envy enjoys harassing people on the Internet, a skill they put to use targeting Maes Hughes to wreck Roy's campaign. Although it's hard to say they have 'friends', they have some level of LGBTQ solidarity with Lust. In winter weather, students will sometimes see Envy stubbornly stomping through the snow in a skort and crop top while Lust drives next to them yelling at them to get in the damn car already.

Pride - Pride is legitimately a little kid and has done nothing wrong. Except academic dishonesty I suppose.

[a-student-out-of-time]

I can’t believe they’d waste my time like that...awful, ridiculous...

I should’ve booted them all out when I had a chance...

???: But you didn’t.

Again!? Who else is-!

Evening, Emina-chan~!

And what do you want?

Well that’s not a very nice way to greet people.

And what reason do I have to be nice to you?

Finally being honest with me, huh? Seems your true personality comes out when there aren’t any journalists around.

If this is part of some bid to get me to confess to something that happened 30 years ago, it’s meaningless.

And what would you know about honesty or personality anyway, Ouma-san? You’re just an ex-model.

Ouma-sensei.

What?

You might look down on me for how I treated you and the others in our class, and that much is fair. But while you were scamming people with counterfeit art, I went to university.

Did I tell you I have two Master’s Degrees? I’m Ouma Kasumi, PhD, LPC, and that officially makes me Ouma-Sensei, thank you very much.

As if a few pieces of paper are going to make you anything more than what you are.

Like the one you have from the Steering Committee?

...

Let’s think about this, shall we?

You strike me as an overachiever, someone who was pressured to succeed in life above all else. You came from an average background, and you seem ashamed of that.

Do you even still talk to your parents?

That’s none of your business. Why are you even here?

People know your crimes, and some of us are willing to give you an easier out. But you keep going. You really think nothing can touch you, don’t you?

I think you all need better hobbies than harassing successful artists out of jealousy.

Jealousy? You think that’s what this is all about? Most of the people here are doing just fine on their own. More than that, they’re successful!

Yes, but I’m different. I wasn’t from a privileged background.

Why is it that none of you will acknowledge that fact? I rose from nothing, I clawed my way to the top, I made sacrifices, and my work gathers full crowds whenever there’s an exhibit. Who cares if I broke a few lousy rules to do it?! If I didn’t, someone else would’ve!

...You really believe that, don’t you?

I’m a winner, Ouma-san. It comes with the territory. You think I liked being in this position? Of course not. But it’s what was demanded of me, and so I accepted it and proved myself.

Now, I am a Nijiue. I’m one of the best artists of all time, and the mother of three of the greatest artists in all of Japan.

Could you or anyone else have done it and made it this far? Would you have kept going? Success is their metric, and victory is all they care about.

None of you would understand how much I’ve had to sacrifice to be where I am. None of you care to understand.

Wow...that’s rough, buddy.

Sounds like you’ve really put a lot of work into making it all the way to the top, huh?

More than anyone else in that god-forsaken class.

You plan on staying up there for a while?

As long as I possibly can, no matter what it takes.

Well, if that’s how you feel, I guess I can’t talk you out of it.

Just one piece of advice, Emina-san: you should be careful when you’re standing at the top. After all, if something knocks you off, remember...

It’s a long way down.

!!!

*Emina runs into her room and slams the door shut*

Nishishishi...

*Kasumi heads off, laughing*

[despair-to-future-arcs]

Hiromi’s supposed to attend Hope’s Peak academy, but didn’t? Suspicious.

Hiromi... the Ultimate Marine Biologist; she was quite gifted in her research on marine life, her research on fish and her papers on whale hunting was use to shut down a few whale hunting businesses, something that was a tradition in Japan.

Ah right... Gundham did speak of her in regards to her research, even naming her the 'queen of sea life' and it isn't just papers she had done but was able to be a huge help with stopping whale hunting...

She was able to shutdown a entire fashion line due to them using whale products, clean up the ocean including removing garbage of fish that ended up trap in and stop a oil platform from exploding too.

Damn... she really is an activist, huh?

Yeah and the oil platform... that is quite the feat, no wonder Hope's Peak took notice of her.

But she still ended up in the Reserve Course. Why was that? How come?

Well... I think the reason you all probably won't like but I did heard about this...

Toshiro Kuzuruyu, Fuyuhiko's father - bought Hiromi's spot under the request of Natsumi Kuzuruyu - Fuyuhiko's little sister.

Huh? Wait so... my dad bought her spot?! But that Hiromi girl should of went, why did they allow it!

Well aside from that the Steering Committee also care for money so they accepted this bribery and it was under Natsumi's request; she wanted to attend Hope's Peak as the Ultimate little sister to stand beside you no matter what and choose her which of course it was allow.

I'm not sure why she did, as Hiromi and Natsumi never met before but she had reasons, however after her death and Hiromi was enroll - it was treated as if Hiromi was always there while Natsumi and Hatomi were treated as dropping out for 'personal reasons' by the staff... well, except for you Fuyuhiko and Class 77-B.

Huh...?

Given that students of Hope's Peak were under the assumption that Natsumi was scouted normally and since how you view her as the Ultimate little sister, you felt that Hiromi took your sister's position and just... lash out at her.

I...I did that?

Yes you did, Fuyuhiko; you tormented the poor girl almost to a point where she was scared to come to school and actively try to avoid you. Insults, harassments and threats too.

But after hearing what happen to your sister and the entire situation, I... can understand why you lashed out and it seem you didn't handle your grief very well but even then, that girl... all she wanted to do was help people and this is how she gets treated?

...I...I did that...?

Fuyhiko...? Are... Are you alright dude?

Fuyhiko...?

...

...

[almostfancywombat]

Shadow Dancer

It was near sundown when a young man, extravagantly yet poorly dressed for the weather, stumbled into Abe-Kes, dazed like he hadn’t slept in weeks. He hardly managed to step a foot beyond the entrance gates before Zhenviny saw him inhaling dirt and took pity. Carelessly obeying the whimsy that had ruled him since birth, he heaved the unconscious man over his shoulder and set off in the first direction his eyes landed on.

From behind the bar’s counter, Makka caught a glance of Zhenviny through the window. She watched as he threw the saloon door open, boots scraping the carpet. Shouting over the small yet rambunctious crowd of the Wheeleri, Makka greeted him with false enthusiasm.

“Tzi-tzi, Sheni ! Delivering parcels? I ordered ahead, but Tergi Bazhnik’s tomorrow, and nothing’s arrived. I’m sincerely fearful that Khyivchuk might skin me should it not, so let’s hurry that along.”

Expertly evading her accusatory tone, he took a jab at her appearance. Spoken with a grimace, “Gee, Makka. Worry about yourself first. You look straight horrendous. Been dreaming lately?”

Head tilted, he was the splitting image of innocence. He brandished those sky eyes like a weapon. While Makka wanted to be offended, it was merely an observation. Zhenviny’s manners were atrocious. He’d even tell his Mati worse.

“Appreciate it,” grumbled Makka, “but spare yourself the worry. As soon as my head hits the pillow, I’m practically like the dead.”

Makka rolled her head to the side and pretended to slit her neck. Zhenviny promptly smacked her.

“Don’t joke like that.” He spat, puffing and shaking like a bird. “You’ll live a long, healthy life, or so help me. Let’s change topics. I get uncomfortable when you talk like that. We speak intention into reality, don’t you know?”

“I got a fine talent for bringing bad things to fruition.”

“Shut it, Makka.”

Clicking her tongue, Makka ceded. Poor Zhenviny still lived in the past, so it was best to entertain his emotional conceit, lest she wrought a nervous breakdown on his behalf.

“Where’s my package?”

In typical Zhenviny fashion, he took the defensive. “Jump a horse and bring the matter to Akinnalabuk if you got any issues.”

“Got me there,” she huffed, sensing his eagerness to switch topics. “But, hey! When Nascha came over, she said Akinna gave birth. Visiting now would be strange, wouldn’t it?”

“Run into the tihsik and call it a holiday for all I care. Heavens know you need it, and so would Akinnalabuk.” He rolled his eyes, adjusting his bag. His hands ghosted over the fur rucksack draped across his shoulders.

Despite his crassness, Makka assumed the large sack meant he had finally harassed that tight-pursed merchant and retrieved her orders. She was about to thank him profusely when suddenly, the bag shook and coughed and became a person wearing a coat. Makka took a step back and sighed, then rubbed her forehead free of the crease forming there. Contrary to local beliefs, the Wheeleri wasn’t a welcome committee. She was even less pleased to be appointed its head. Impossibly, every visitor found a way to test her. While she dealt with conflict well enough, the local chieftain, Saye-Nochta, disagreed with her methods. Although his paranoia meant she was kept under constant surveillance, he still had his own obligations to tend to.

For once, Makka found herself wishing he was present. Instead, Saye-Nochta was busy completing rounds in the surrounding villages. Without his jurisdiction, she’d steer from conflict, only acting if provoked.

Makka groaned. She’d already ended two fights since the Wheeleri opened for the day and wasn’t above starting one if Zhenviny’s stranger posed a problem. But with such foreign dress and looks—neither of which belonged to the desert-dwelling groups in her state—she took a hasty intrigue. Poor Zhenviny stood swaying, searching until his eyes met hers. As was customary, she regarded him lukewarmly.

Please don’t let this be what I think this is, she begged.

“I found him just outside Abe-Kes,” panted Zhenviny, donning a tired smile. Sweat seeped from his sandy tresses. A whiff of something unpleasant carried when he leaned forward. Likely due to that coat he always wore, no matter how bad the heat. “He said something interesting. Maybe it was fevered mumbling, but it was enough to concern me.”

Makka countered his zeal with a tight-lipped grin. While his nature wasn’t half as hospitable as his actions, Zhenviny acted in extremes. One of Abe-Kes’s resident strays, Makka had never appreciated his self-proclaimed obligation to people like her. In their youth, he’d gathered miscreants by the dozen, and after years of weeding the troublesome members out, only she remained. Their pack of two, sometimes more, was enough for her, but anyone possessing the Tchevtok name seemed to have an innate sense of goodness, no matter how misguided their actions appeared to outsiders.

“It’s near closing time, don’t you know?” Waving him off, Makka hissed. Considering the slew of robberies and territory breaches that had occurred in the past month, interesting was the last thing she needed. “Xen te’elo! Get!”

“I swear, you’ll wanna hear him out. Got Miss Jiu in house? I wanna get our guest patched up before taking him to registration.”

As the saying went, the Tchevtoks had silver eyes. Not a day went by without them prying into matters unconcerned with their names. Zhenviny belonged to a family of scared snoops, digging for answers, then running before the consequences of the uncovered truth caught them. Truly, she shouldn’t have expected any better of her dear, bothersome friend.

“Jiuavu’s out. Pa got a bite in Sak-Che, so she tagged along to ensure he wouldn’t die, I s’pose, but I wish she’d taken that annoying brother with her. Though, if a healer’s what you need, Lyudlya’s filling in.”

“Far-flung! Can’t believe he just left you to tend to the Wheeleri. Your rotten brother can’t be worth all that.”

Shrugging, Makka dismissed his concern. The very least she could’ve done was tend to Pa’s business. It was what loaned his name weight, the only reason people still tolerated his disappointment of a daughter.

Tongue clicking against his cheek, Zhenviny scowled. “Come over, won’t you? Mati always makes too much.” His gaze momentarily softened before returning to his stoic front. “She’d want you over, anyway. We got a new shipment of books, and one’s filled with Teyai patterns and such, so she might wanna consult over your dress. Couldn’t find any news about your brother’s missing things past the Midlands, but you know how that goes.”

“Inni ko’oj!” Makka cooed, leaning over to rest her hand on his. “You’re still looking? Oh, my heart, my soul! My Sheni!”

Scoffing, he shifted his weight from foot to foot. “If you’re so grateful, help me with this lug.”

Setting her cleaning aside, Makka went around to help lower the stranger into a seat. Zhenviny removed the hefty bag from his shoulders and planted it in the stranger’s lap. She glanced at his fashion, noting the thick coat, his shirt’s high collar and obscene embellishments. Even in the dim light, he glittered like a lake when the sun hit just right.

“He speaks Motec? Anything else?”

“Mont’s what he’s mumbling in, but he’s got an accent. It’s tickling my mind, thinking where he comes from. Looking like that, speaking like this…”

“Olut schop bin odyalve? Oyak yaduy suluy. ” Using dreadful Luzhen, Makka questioned the stranger’s odd fashion. Pure styles weren’t common in the region. Makka’s own seamstress was none other than a Luzhen who took painstaking care to include her Teyai sensibilities.

“Neni znyau.” Zhenviny shrugged, then switched, prodding the semi-conscious boy. “Doll Face here entered on the wrong foot. First, he stumbled into someone, then Sayenko got it twisted and accosted him before I intervened. Fortunately, he left to wherever he goes every odd month or so. I barely managed to convince him to leave me him.”

“Firstly, why’s he still in town? Ain’t he supposed to be drawing treaties with the Lasahkaaiya?”

“Was. Something came up at the office and shut it down, apparently. But, gods willing, we’ll explain it’s only a misunderstanding with Doll Face. Don’t wanna stress miy khanyatyy Sayenko anymore than he already is.” He brought a hand to his lips, making the Kiizen gesture of prayer.

Makka grimaced at the nickname. Affection had no business belonging to someone like Zhenviny. Thoroughly disturbed, she figured she couldn’t face any worse shock and turned toward the newcomer, taking in his sunburned face. There was a dull luster to his being. He reminded her of a fire, holding himself like embers clinging to charred wood.

“Alright, so, hear this,” she said, carefully presenting. “You got no place to stay. I got guest rooms upstairs and dishes that need washing. Ain’t a big thing, but you can stay until tomorrow, if you need.”

Company would be nice, she thought. With Pa gone and Nayati creeping around, she felt lonelier than ever and wouldn’t dare bother Zhenviny or Saye-Nochta, knowing how vital they were to keep the village running. She imagined wasting the day away, chatting with Doll Face about his homeland and travels, discovering if he had anything worth trading.

Excitement teeming, she nudged him. “How’s that sound? You up to it? It’d be nice to have someone else here. Maybe I’ll put you up to shining silverware or teach you how to work kottai. Won’t it be nice to take some back to make for your family? They keen on stuff like that? Say, where’re you from? You ever had kottai?”

When he didn’t stir, she wondered if he spoke Mont at all. Granted, constructing a house was easier than forming a sentence in that elusive tongue. It was a language with odd lifts, extensive vocabulary, and words that were built upon instead of being capable of standing alone.

“Yuumi-kax , his soul’s lost.” Leaning down, she tried peering at his face. “You’ve seen better days, ain’t you?”

Head lolling to the side, his gaze landed on Makka. Tired and smoldering, it was still intense enough to knock the breath from her lungs. Dark, narrow eyes of silver danced around, refusing to settle.

A faint, pleasant voice carried from parched lips. “With offers of food instead of thrashings,” he snapped, hunched over to hold his stomach. “Nowhere in my trip was half as endeared to threats as the first man I crossed here, and I entered through Tsedi’naw !” There was a weakness in his shoulders as he tugged at his collar, fanning himself, displaying a patch of skin stained a blistering red. “Yuragom kitte! Imagine the start when I realized outlaws were kinder than your law man!”

His accent used long consonants and irregular pauses that softened his tone and lifted his words. Makka felt that if he sang, it would’ve sounded like the heavens opened. But he spoke so much and so fast, and all of it was new. She had half the mind to tap his forehead and act surprised when she felt warm flesh. Real. He was real and staring back and she couldn’t even begin to fathom understanding him. Not with that spitfire speech nor mysterious character. Yet, despite his sweaty, dirt-coated appearance, he had an evident appeal, an aura of intrigue.

His features were unusual. Pale skin, mostly untouched by the sun, save for the sunspots dotting his round face. He had small, sharp eyes without creases, bordered by straight brows. He had a flat nose atop thick lips, and protruding cheeks.

“Oh, you followed the river?” Absent-minded, Makka handed him a cup. Doll Face hummed, swaying as he downed the beverage in a single, long gulp. “I got trade associates up there, but the trip costs a month of work and ichen. Gotta wait ‘til the slow seasons to do anything outside of here.”

While she lived in a peaceful region of thirteen tribes, the worry of addressing an outsider made her stomach churn. Her stranger could’ve come from a place with loose manners or treated everyone like high hats. There were too many chances for a slip-up, and she didn’t even know if they’d be able to properly communicate.

Usually, she’d call upon her divine force, the shadows for knowledge, but the fickle beings had initiated a standoff months ago and wouldn’t deign to help her traitorous self. Makka grabbed and polished a cup until she spotted her reflection, then continued with another to soothe her itching hands. “What trouble landed you here?”

She asked, although she already had an idea; Saye-Nochta, law and punisher in one. Typically, anyone in his blackbook made Makka’s, but the stranger seemed primarily harmless. Still, until such could be determined, she aimed to drive him away until the ever-reliable Saye-Nochta returned. There was still an evening’s worth of kottai to grind and no need for distractions.

Doll Face muttered into his hands. “It isn’t ‘straight proper,’ harming an innocent traveler.”

“We can’t name you innocent because you ain’t from these parts,” said Zhenviny, matter-of-factly. “But if you wanna change that, let’s share introductions. Arosiy Tchevtok’s the name, but I’m tagged Zhenviny.” An unspoken rule in Abe-Kes was never to directly inquire about someone’s past, but he danced around such, stating basic facts to prompt. “Outside our regular jobs, Makka and me do peacekeeping, so you’re keeping good company—my pa’s even the Holy Man in Toskolaiv and I oversee strays in the central village. If you’re looking to head elsewhere, just holler. Still, I gotta escort you to registration before anything.”

Thinly veiled threats clung to his overbearing politeness, but Doll Face wasn’t inquisitive. Instead, he countered with a resolute claim.

“I seek no true destination. I am merely here to retrieve objects once mine, and perhaps collect new treasures if I may.”

Hooting, Makka placed her hands on the counter and leaned back. That wasn’t suspicious, not at all. Occasionally, the foreign Little Hats bargained to grant foreign workers entrance, usually for specialized work or trade that the region otherwise lacked. Multicultural-inspired wares had found a sudden demand, primarily the Luzhen-influenced ones, so it was possible the stranger was merely a part of some strange cross-governmental program.

“Bak-wakax ? You got a permit? For how long?”

“Erm… The who to do what?”

Despite all her languages, the proper word eluded Makka. She knew what she wanted to say, but not how to speak it into existence. Fortunately, Zhenviny took it upon himself to intervene.

“Just ‘cause I understand don’t mean everybody does.” Annoyed, he enunciated, picking up her slack. “She means a seasonal worker, but I don’t believe we’re expecting any from your parts.”

“I suppose I can be something of the sort,” mumbled Doll Face. “Foremost, I seek High Noon. Would you know where to find him?”

There was a stillness to Zhenviny that no one would’ve noticed otherwise, but Makka knew him better than herself, and even with a blank expression, he looked like he’d been asked to summon a demon. Ever so slightly, his lips flattened and his grip on his cup grew just a bit tighter.

“Knowing local diction’s a talent,” he praised, playing dumb, “but salvation happens where bells ring. I’ll take you to the Grand Temple in Toskolaiv, if you’d have it. Or another place, whichever way your beliefs sway. There’s a few in the region—the Anpao even got this fire pit.”

“No, sir. I need High Noon to guide my journey. There are items I seek.”

Scorpion venom pricked Makka, paralyzing. There was no mistaking it. High Noon, spoken with the correct pause and tone. Shaking her head, she conjured a delusion; the words must’ve turned into something the stranger didn’t mean, a case of mistaken identity.

It was a common enough phrase, innocent without knowledge. It was a time of day. He only wanted to see the sun at its peak. The valleys surrounding Abe-Kes boasted a gorgeous sunrise. High noon also meant ‘salvation’ in Motec. Nothing about Doll Face seemed remotely Kiizen, but practices weren’t restricted to a single type of person, so Makka refrained from assumptions. Yet the longer she looked at him, the more unease settled into her heart. She despised the notion that some people simply didn’t have a place to belong.

“Ain’t searching in the right locations if you’re in my place,” she gruffly said, walls steadily rising. Her reputation would be soiled if she refused to help someone in need, so she stubbornly yielded, sharing that there were always families looking to feed in exchange for stories, and a guest house existed in the Luzhen settlement. What a shame. They could’ve been friends if only he’d kept that name from his mouth.

Doll Face gave a shaky laugh, clutching at his midsection. “Abe-Kes and that name are all I have. I lack strength and resources to walk another mile. I can offer a small sum, but little more until I find him.”

“Your scuffs could fetch some.” She glanced at his shirt and sighed at her callousness. Nobody took Makka’s pity, not even a half-dead man. She’d simply send her regards if he teetered past that, but she couldn’t spare herself the pain. “For now, I don’t got the will to give another hairsbreadth.”

“Please,” he begged, eyes wide as he stood, bracing on the counter “I must meet High Noon to ask help of him. Only his powers alone can help me.”

His hands shot forward and wrapped around hers. They were large and warm, and in his gentle hold, she nearly melted. But Zhenviny shoved him before Makka asked what allowed him to keep such smooth skin. Where hers was scarred and rough, his were smooth and unblemished.

Thoroughly scandalized, Zhenviny acted as if he’d been slighted. “Oy, oy! Get your hands off her! Who do you think you are?”

Doll Face looked as if Zhenviny asked him to uncover the universe’s secrets. There wasn’t an inkling of malice to his actions. He seemed as innocent as a child, unaccustomed to a foreign land’s customs. However, Makka was too sap-headed to call attention to it, and the dubiously sober patrons swerved their way. Gazes trained on the stranger, hands creeping toward waistbands.

“Poryadku! Yáʼáníshtʼééh! I’m fine!” She quickly clarified, eyes darting. She raised a hand, dispelling any worry among the loyal customers. She knew the sudden touch wasn’t offending; the slip-up must’ve been a cultural difference, because she sensed he was far touchier.

“Pardon my manners. I don’t understand your rules here.”

“Get to learning,” Zhenviny snapped. His hands rested on the counter, drumming. “Ignorance ain’t helping your case, and if Makka or Sayenko doesn’t like you, nobody will, and word spreads fast when it concerns potential threats. Lest you wish to sleep with the nashokeus —”

“What is ma-sha-skyuu ?”

“Why you—”

Doll Face flinched as Zhenviny rose, caught in his shadow. He brought his arms up to shield himself. “I mean wrong by you!”

“Apologize, then.”

The stranger paled. “Pardon?”

“Apologize to Makka, and I’ll see how I feel about entertaining you.”

Once the apology fit Zhenviny’s standards, he resumed his front. “Suitable,” he murmured. “Since you made peace, we’ll hear you out now.”

“Don’t go making promises for me, Zhenviny.” She closed the distance between them and glared. “Go eat your coat. You’re making the poor man out as a convict when he’s only here to search for someone he won’t find.”

All the necessary information had already laid itself out. Asking any more didn’t make any sense; a stranger entered town, then Saye had a skirmish, and as usual, the aftergrass became hers. Only this time, Makka wouldn’t remain passive in their shenanigans.

Puffing his chest, Zhenviny surveyed the room for an imaginary threat. “Sure, he won’t. Not as long as I have any sway.”

“Please,” Doll Face sighed, face planted against the table. His hair splayed out as he ran a finger across the counter. “I don’t intend to stay long. If you may, I’ll take the information and be on my way.”

Makka nearly forgot the supposed purpose of bringing him and still wasn’t sure why she was tossed into the mix. Already, she longed for the day to end. “Then, let’s see the busy man out. I also got somewhere to be soon.”

Although she tried to hide it, unease crept into her. She hoped Zhenviny would catch on, but his priorities lay in putting on airs for strangers.

“Lazhe. Meni potribno lenni dorostarym chodar .” There was something Zhenviny was waiting for the stranger to say, and he didn’t care how long it took to hear it. Yet another irritating habit. Whenever he got an idea, he’d stop at nothing to fulfill it.

“How kind of you, claiming responsibility,” grumbled Makka, joining Zhenviny on the other side of the counter. Reaching for the keys in her pocket, she passed them over, intending for him to take Doll Face to the storage room. “Take them, but he’s leaving once you’re done. If he goes around kicking mounds after, I’m taking both of your legs out.”

Zhenviny laughed, reaching over to slap my shoulder. ‘You can try,’ the gesture said. Begrudgingly, she agreed because he’d act difficult otherwise. With him standing by, closing was made easy; reputations preceded everyone in Chan-nup’a Kaajol.

Barflies drove out in heaps, patting him on the back, offering sweet partings. With him standing prudent, no one dared to even look at Makka. Known pay-laggards even passed coins and dipped their heads, and by the time they cleared the saloon, only the stench of kottai brew lingered. After spending all day rushing between it and tables, the kitchen didn’t seem too appealing. Makka hoped his family wouldn’t mind her intrusion at their table tonight. While eating alone made a usually joyful time a chore, the last thing she wanted was to swell his head and admit she wanted to share a meal.

“If you’re up for it, I was thinking we could harass the outpost master. Maybe after, we could—”

Before she explained her grand plan, the stranger collapsed. His body quivered as it slammed into hers, and Makka seized his shoulders, supporting him as he leaned forward. Coughs rattled his body. Something warm splattered onto her. Bile seeped into her apron, smelling like soured milk.

“Sorry,” he said. Tears pricked the corner of his eyes before they rolled back to reveal the whites. Legs shaking, he lost balance and fell over, his entire body going slack against hers. His shoulders were surprisingly bony.

“Sakes alive!” Makka cried, struggling to keep upright. “The poor man’s exhausted. What’d you say happened?”

“Sayenko didn’t rough him up, but he scared him good.”

“X’la! Sometimes, you’re so dense.” Heads bumped as Makka loaded Doll Face onto Zhenviny’s back, careful to avoid dirtying him. Groaning, she ripped her apron off and tossed it over a chair. Any sane person would’ve quivered before the man. Zhenviny himself wasn’t much better, but he had the advantage of a conventional appearance.

“Everybody in power’s gotta be a bit dumb,” he dismissed. “Otherwise, we’d be corrupt. But sometimes I do worry that being so open-minded means Sayenko’s brain will shake loose someday.”

Makka’s laughter shook off any lingering anger. How she adored Saye-Nochta; despite a strong intuition and keen eye, he was plain stupid in some regards. Such went his misplaced distrust of short-haired men, which meant it didn’t touch the chin. He was warier of outsiders than even her. In the case of Doll Face, Saye-Nochta must’ve gotten mixed up. The man was dribbling puke and seemed as threatening as a newborn calf.

“I think it’s already gone if he accosted this guy.” If anything, she expected that he would take a beating instead of giving one.

“If you think so,” he began, voice strained and wary, “then I’ll trust it. Your word is law, Makka, but we’re putting him in the storage room and I’m waiting with you ‘til he wakes.”

Makka clicked her tongue. First, she hadn’t made the trip with Pa, and next, she was condemned to playing doctor when she’d been promised an interrogation. At this point, she was fixing to wail on him, unleashing months of fury. Only the stranger kept her from lashing; she wouldn’t have entrusted anyone with Zhenviny, much less, the ailing newcomer. Since she couldn’t justify the surge of protectiveness, it remained undisclosed.

“People gotta stop doing things without asking me,” she mumbled as if Doll Face vindictively chose to fall ill.

With everything about the encounter bogging her down, Makka weighed her options. To allow him to stay, or not? To allow him to get closer to her, then High Noon by proxy? Maybe, if she played her cards right, she could—

Sighing, she shook her head. Gathering the stranger’s belongings, she followed Zhenviny into the storage room. No, she wouldn’t seek anything from Doll Face just yet. If an opportunity arose, if he mentioned anything noteworthy or pertaining to business, she would seek it. Otherwise, she would strive to feign disinterest.

Scheming wasn’t part of a proper lifestyle, anyway, and Makka still needed to sort things out with the Wheeleri and Khyivchuk’s Tergi Bazhnik. A bird of passage no longer, these were far better things to concern herself with.

[beesandwasps]

This is not “instantly”.

Don’t Ask Don’t Tell was a coward’s way out. When the US military was integrated on racial lines, the President issued the order and the rules were changed within a week. Sure, there were still racists in the military (lots and lots of racists), but the rules were against them almost instantly. Clinton could have just done the same.  (And for people who were worried about gay men hitting on straight men, I remind you that there were already women in the military and the rules forbade enlisted men to harass them in any sexual way — although perhaps there was some reason to worry since those rules are largely unenforced and we routinely get to see senior officers become scandals because they’ve been doing it for years and nobody stopped them. Maybe an equal “threat” would have resulted in better enforcement.)

In any case, why didn’t Clinton just do that? Well, you see, Clinton is a center-right politician, and the former chair of the Democratic Leadership Council, a self-appointed group which wanted to steer the party’s policy. And what direction did they want to steer it in, you ask? I’ll let Wikipedia answer that question:

The DLC argued that the United States Democratic Party should shift away from the leftward turn it took in the late 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. One of its main purposes was to win back white middle class voters with ideas that addressed their concerns.

Clinton and his fellow-travelers were against any sort of fight for civil rights. They still are — the difference is that now, they’ve been in charge of the party for 30 years. Joe Biden was another member of the DLC. So was Al Gore.

How can it come as a surprise that Republicans can destroy civil rights, when for three decades their only major opposition has been very explicitly not defending civil rights?

You want this to stop? Then kick all the DLC, center-right, pro-corporate types out of the Democratic Party. They’re everywhere — the DLC itself disbanded in the mid-2000s because they had filled so much of the Democratic National Committee with their own members that they no longer felt the need to have a separate organization. Until these people are gutted from the party, which will mean getting rid of most of the people running it, you can expect things to get worse.

[Warning: This story contains references to suicide.]

Longtime 2SLGBTQ activist Clare Nobbs has been celebrating Pride month in Toronto for more than three decades — but this year a rise in harmful rhetoric has left her anxious and angry.

"I'm angry because our identities are apparently up for debate. There are questions around who we are, and why we should be celebrating," Nobbs told The Current's Matt Galloway.

"But I reject that … I refuse to be ashamed of who I am. And so I will be celebrating," she said.

"I'm celebrating community and I'm celebrating love." [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[dreamofhircine]

becoming popular so you can monetize it used to be the hip cool thing to do on the internet but I literally can not see the benefit to being popular and appealing to anything except like the greasy incel population

dudes like pewdiepie and the five interchangeable youtubesmen that are popular at any given time or do twitch streams or some other dumb bullshit are virtually unassailable no matter what harmful shit they say or do because their fanbase is willing to tolerate and defend and fund that

but nobody else that’s popular online is getting the benefit of that, bandcamp musicians and youtube speedrunners, vine-stars and funny internet personalities that engage w/ anything approximating a queer or leftist audience get locked out of access to the spaces that greasy neckbeards waltz freely into and they end up just being starving artists who more often than not have deep-seated trauma and mental illness that renders all other forms of employment nonviable

I can’t imagine the tremendous weight of stress on anyone popular in leftist e-media circles (except like the Chapo Trap House team, but I’m certain that like 2/3 of that crew came from money already so w/e) can avoid throwing up from anxiety every single day at the thought that one day something is gonna happen and they’re going to be blacklisted, shunned and decimated in a way that is unique to leftist spaces to do

[alicanta77]

Boys Like This

Pairing: y/n x Haechan

Themes: fluff, angst, badboy au

Warnings: swearing, mentions of smoking, mentions of sex, sexual harassment (one drunk guy gets a bit too close)

Words: 18.8k - this was meant to be like 3k max someone save me

Tag list: @honei-n (happy birthday bubs!! ilysm and i’m sorry i’m not there to give you the biggest hug but have this instead) @lebrookestore @ch3nj1​ @ridinhyuck​ @cacaubs​ @cheonsa1004 @tyongf-sunflower99​

——————————————————————————

If you’re looking for the personification of the bad boy stereotype, look no further than Lee Donghyuck. His legs were clad in ripped black jeans and on his shoulders always lay his signature black leather jacket. His usually bruised knuckles were adorned with silver rings and the cigarette that hung from his lips all made him look like the typical bad boy out of a cheesy 90s romance film.

As infuriating as the smirk that was constantly plastered on his lips was, and the way he insisted everybody called him ‘Haechan’ instead of Donghyuck, you couldn’t deny that something about him pricked your interest.

Maybe it was something to do with how self assured he was, the confidence he radiated in simply being himself and being in his own skin that made people almost resent him for it. Or maybe it was something to do with how he reminded you of every boy that your mother would warn you about when you were growing up, being told to steer clear of the boys in black, they would be the ones to break your heart.  Maybe it was the fact that as soon as anybody new arrives in the area, they’re immediately told to ‘Avoid Haechan, he’s bad news.’ And you weren’t the exception to the rule.

There’s just one problem, you never do what you’re told.

So when you were told to stay away from Haechan, you simply rolled your eyes and kept walking, you weren’t afraid of some bad boy. You’d moved around your entire life, your father’s job meaning you had to be prepared to pack up and travel wherever he needed you to, and, throughout your time you had heard of and come across every kind of character that there was in a high school. A few groups in particular always stuck out to you.

The jocks. Probably the most famous group and likely the first group that comes to anyone’s mind when you talk about high school. Jocks are an elite crowd, often very popular and normally find themselves very important. For them, high school tends to be the best time of their lives, sadly finding that this popularity and fear doesn’t translate to the workplace. Jocks are a large group as well, in fact, they often have so many members that they divide into sub-categories, usually by sport. You have the baseball team, the football team, the soccer team etc. and then these are ordered into a hierarchy apparently based on the importance that each team has to the school when in reality it’s down to how attractive/popular the team captain is.

Splitting off nicely from the jocks come the cheerleaders. Originally part of the same pack but grew in popularity when they adopted mean girls cliché. Therefore, in order to gain more power and dominate the school, they became a separate breed. The Head Cheerleader was guaranteed to be just as popular as she was bitchy, a stereotype that you were fed up of. What if they were actually nice people and felt as though they had to be rude cause that was what the “role” of Head Cheerleader asked of them? What kind of a place would that be? Anyway, getting back to the point, the best thing to do with this group, would be to avoid them entirely.

Then, usually the polar opposite in terms of popularity, come the nerds/geeks. You had never really been sure why this particular group was always picked on. You always thought that being smart and doing well in life was something to brag about, but then, maybe you just had weird opinions. They formed a cluster and stuck with it, whilst also managing to keep themselves to themselves. They sat at the same seats in class, the same table at lunch and never argued back. Despite their deathly awkwardness and shy behaviour, they were usually pretty good people. You just had to be willing to put in the effort to break through their shell.

Next come the artsy kids. This group can, once again, split into sub categories based on Theatre, Art, Dance and Music but that depends on the size of the school. Normally they just come under the umbrella term of the artsy kids. Very easy to pick on but are normally left alone. They’re pretty chill and mostly mind their own business, despite often being slightly obnoxious about the art that they specialise in. You swore that if one person asked you to go and see their one woman show you might punch them. You’re a broke student, why would you pay to put yourself through two hours of pretentious speech? Yeah, the artsy kids weren’t quite your scene.

Honourable mentions go to the stoners, the class clowns, the hipsters, the ‘I was born in the wrong generation’, the gamers and the punks. But there was only one group left worth mentioning.

Finally, the last stereotypical school clique would be the troublemakers, otherwise known as the bad boys and bad girls The commonalities between the two groups tend to include things like, black ripped clothing, silver jewellery, sassy attitudes and bad decisions. They never stray from their crowd, finding other groups too boring and stuck up for their taste. The cheerleaders and jocks attempt to pick on them, but it rarely works out in their favour. Instead of leaving victorious while dropping the mic, they often find themselves running back to their respective groups with their tail in between their legs. They like to either find relationships with their own kind, or play around with various people until they’re bored. Things are never too serious for this group.

So as soon as you arrived, you knew you’d need to find somewhere to fit in. You didn’t really conform to one of the many cliche groups that roamed this new school. You instead thought that people were a mixture of all of them, and shouldn’t be defined by a single personality trait, but that often wasn’t the most popular opinion. In fact, that opinion is why you often found yourself alone, wandering the halls by yourself. Sometimes people pitied you (usually the hipsters or artsy kids who tried to make you “find your passion”) but, to be honest, you didn’t mind it.

Being by yourself meant that you didn’t owe anything to anyone, and it meant that you could turn the school upside down and disappear without regretting a thing. After all, that’s how you left your last three schools.

---

You walked through the doors on your first day, to empty folders tucked under your arm as you walked towards the Principle’s office. You had barely made it five steps before some guys in a football jersey stopped you. He moved in front of you, buffing himself up in an attempt to look more impressive. You refused to speak first, instead just raising your eyebrows judgmentally.

‘So what should I call you?’ He purred, looking at you through hooded eyes.

‘You shouldn’t.’ You cut back, already tired of his attempt at flirting. You knew you had “new kid” written all over you and this wasn’t a genuine attempt, but most like rather a “welcome to the school fresher” and you weren’t here for it.

‘Trouble it is.’ The guy flirted, sending you a cheesy wink to which you could only respond with a groan and an eye roll.

‘God could you get anymore cliche? You may want to be a bit more inventive if you wanna impress me.’ With a quick tilt of your head, you turned and stalked past him to the other end of the hall, leaving the poor jock with his mouth hanging slightly open at your reply.

You felt a bit bad turning him down so intensely like that, but you also knew that if you didn’t make a strong first impression, you would be like fresh meat to them. And you didn’t want to go through that again.

---

After meeting the Principle, getting his painfully rehearsed welcome speech, then dealing with the three students who called themselves the “Welcome Committee”, you briefly stopped off at your locker to grab the text book that had been left there for you and place your empty folders there. You wouldn’t need them until your classes anyway. You picked up the textbook and grabbed a pad of paper that was conveniently left there for you as well and headed towards your Maths class.

You walked through the door, sighing in defeat as you saw you were one of the last ones to arrive. This meant that all eyes were on you and the teacher stood up and introduced you as the new student.

‘So y/n why don’t you tell the class a little bit about yourself?’ The teacher gave you a wide smile, one that you were sure was meant to reassure you but it honestly just creeped you out slightly.

‘Uhhh, sure. My name’s y/n and I moved here about a month ago.’ You sent the class a quick nod before attempting to move off to head off an empty seat at the back.

‘Ahhh come now y/n, I’m sure there’s more that you can tell us.’ The teacher stopped you in your tracks, as you let out a breath of annoyance.

‘Ok. I’ve never lived anywhere longer than a year, I like coffee and I’m done with this now.’ You quickly moved away before the teacher could stand up and make you continue. You slouched in your seat, crossing your arms and letting out another sigh of frustration.

You had just opened your books and prepared to start listening when the door swung open again. All the heads in the class, including yours, looked to see who would be walking in so late. A boy appeared, his honey skin glowing slightly in the morning sun that reflected off his leather jacket and silver jewellery. He probably couldn’t get more cliche, but he also couldn’t get more beautiful.

‘Haechan, you’re late.’ Your teacher snapped and you looked back at the boy walking through the seats. 

So this was Haechan, this was who you had been warned about earlier. You remembered the annoyingly cheery welcome that this group of three had given you, yet this preppy ginger was the only one who spoke. You were sure she was a really lovely person, she was just way too excited about the first day of school to not be annoying. Anyway, she’d told you about the groups at school and made a point to mention this “Haechan”. Her exact words being:

‘Let me save you the trouble, Haechan is the last person you want to get involved with here, in any way. He puts himself as number one and nothing and no one is going to change that. It’s in your best interests to stay away from him.’

And yet, despite your absolutely minimal effort to avoid him, this Haechan was standing at the front of your class, and you couldn’t lie, you were already intrigued.

‘Yeah I’m aware.’ Haechan retaliated, his bored voice bringing you out of your memories and back to reality.

‘Do you feel like apologising?’ The teacher asked, a very forced smile on his face. Haechan turned back towards him, breathing in as if he was thinking before responding with a smile.

‘Not really, no.’ He then turned away and walked towards the back of the classroom. He approached where you were sitting, examined you quickly causing you to frown at his behaviour, before he pulled out the chair next to yours and collapsed into it.

He slouched back into his seat, crossing his arms and staring mindlessly at the front of the class, where the teacher was still sending him the stink eye.

‘Haechan, did you bring your books?’ The teacher asked with the kind of tone that told you he probably already knew the answer.

‘Nope!’ The boy replied, popping the ‘p’ and causing the teacher to obviously roll his eyes.

‘Well, maybe our new student, y/n, would be nice enough to share with you for today?’

It took everything in you not to roll your eyes at his statement. But you still shifted your textbook in between the two of you so that he could see it. Haechan sat up in his chair slightly in surprise, as if he wasn’t expecting you to actually do it.

‘Thank you y/n. Now let’s begin-’ The teacher turned back to the board and began the lesson.

After only about five minutes you realised that you had done this entire topic in your previous school. It had been necessary for you to pass the entrance exam here, so you knew all of this already. You huffed once again in frustration, dropping your pen and leaning back in your chair as you began to pick at your nails. Why would they bother to ask you to know something that they’re just going to teach you as soon as you got here?

You could see Haechan notice and begin to subtly watch your behaviour so you leant forwards to whisper to him.

‘Is there something interesting about me?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m trying to figure out.’ Haechan replied, his voice just as soft as yours was and yet you couldn’t resist the shivers that it sent down your spine.

“Well let me know if you find anything?’ You spoke softly, turning away from him to look at the ceiling as he did the same.

‘Haven’t you been told to stay away from me?’ He asked you, not even bothering to look back towards you.

‘Oh yeah, I got that speech. The welcoming committee was quite informative about you and your personality.’ Now that got his attention. His head turned, as he looked at you out of the corner of his eye, examining your features carefully.

‘So...’ He spoke, dragging out the word as he looked at you.

‘So?’ You asked, not sure what he was getting at.

‘Why aren’t you doing as you were told?’ He questioned, leaving you to turn back to him with an amused look on your face.

‘What makes you think I wanna do what they tell me to? They look as though they have the personality of milk.’ You groaned, remembering the fake happiness that radiated off them.

Haechan couldn’t help the chuckle that came up in his throat, unable to believe just how accurate your words were. Nobody in that school would quite be able to admit that that girl wasn’t drop dead boring.

‘Well, you’re a little firecracker aren’t you?’ He smirked at you, causing you to simply raise an eyebrow in reply. ‘I think you’re gonna fit right in with us.’

‘Who says I want to?’ You smirked back, now enjoying the interaction you were having.

‘Do you want to?’ He leant in closer and you could smell the mint of his breath.

‘We’ll see. Don’t want to give away all my secrets so quickly.’ You pulled back, leaving Haechan awkwardly leaning over half of your desk just as the teacher turned back around.

‘Haechan! Not only are you not paying attention but you’re distracting y/n as well. If you’re not going to pay attention you can wait outside until you’re prepared to take this class seriously.’ He snapped, and Haechan turned to you with a surprised look on his face, not expecting you to have set him up like that. He nodded, unable to keep the small smile from his lips and stood, walking swiftly out of the door at the front.

He leaned back in for one second, just to cheekily wave at the teacher who looked as though he was about to explode and it took everything in you to stop yourself from laughing.

A couple more minutes passed before you were bored beyond belief. You were starting to think that getting your only source of entertainment, Haechan, kicked out of class wasn’t the smartest idea you’d ever had. You were halfway through counting the black marks on the ceiling when you heard a very quiet tapping from behind you, You turned around in your chair to see Haechan standing by the floor length window at the back of the classroom. He was on the outside looking in and quickly gestured for you to follow him.

He cracked the window open slightly and leant in, getting just close enough to you to whisper:

‘I’ve played your game, now it’s my turn. Your move y/n, are you gonna live up to your attitude or are you all talk?’

With that he moved away from the window, hiding behind the wall as the teacher turned around again. You didn’t want to get caught sneaking out on your first day, but you also couldn’t stand the idea of letting Haechan win. Somehow the boy was an addictive kind of annoying, no matter how infuriated or annoyed you had gotten, you already wanted more.

You waited for the teacher to turn around and quickly piled up your books, placing them on the shelf under your desk. This was your only class of the day and you were in here the next morning so you weren’t too fussed about leaving them behind.

You began to get up but your eyes suddenly caught sight of blue haired guy sitting a couple of rows ahead of you watching you. He raised his eyebrows in question, as if asking if you were going to go, to which you shrugged and he shrugged himself before turning back around.

You waited until the girl at the front had finished asking her question and, when the teacher turned back to the front to go through the example on the board again, you made your move. You quickly pushed your chair back, relieved when it didn’t make a sound and climbed out of the window. You pulled it gently shut behind you and turned to left, finding yourself face to face with Haechan.

‘Wow, for a minute then I didn’t think you’d have the balls.’ He grinned at you, pulling you out of sight of the class as you began to walk away.

‘Well as you can clearly see, I do. So what now?’ You replied, unable to stop yourself from grinning back.

‘Now we have some fun.’ Haechan said, the smile he sent you this time was the opposite of innocent and it made your heart pump.

This was someone you would enjoy causing trouble with.

---

The two of you decided that leaving the school and skiving on the first day was a bit too cliche and unoriginal, so instead you came up with the idea that, no matter what you guys did, it had to be on school grounds.

‘Interesting...’ Haechan mused, the smirk that you were already familiar with gracing his delicate features. ‘So we cause as much chaos as we like, and do what we like, but there’s a much higher risk of getting caught...’

‘Exactly.’ You clarified. ‘But we can leave for lunch though! I want McDonalds.’ You quickly added, Haechan laughing slightly at your expression.

‘Agreed. So we’ll have our fun here, then head to McDonalds for lunch. Tell you what, why don’t we leave a little earlier than the lunch break so that we avoid bumping into the rest of the students?’ Haechan watched as you nodded in agreement.

You allowed your gaze to drift around the unfamiliar halls until your eyes came to rest on the smoke detector on the wall. Suddenly an idea popped into your head. It was stupid, reckless and if you got caught you would be in serious trouble. Sounds ideal.

‘Hey Haechan?’ You began, turning towards him with a grin on your face.

‘Yeah?’ He answered, a grin appearing on his own. He didn’t know what you were planning but he knew it would be interesting.

‘Have you ever set off the fire alarm?’ You asked, raising an eyebrow as his furrowed in thought.

‘Like falsely pulled it? Yeah.’ He admitted, nodding like it was no big deal, but you shook your head.

‘No, not falsely pulled, actually set it off.’ You watched as his jaw dropped slightly and he shook his head. 'Yeah, neither.’ You told him, before looking away. He followed your gaze to see the smoke detector on the wall.

You both turned back to each other.

‘Well...’ Haechan began, a mischievous grin stretching across his face. ‘There’s a first time for everything.’

---

The alarm blared through the school as you and Hyuck laughed to yourself as the school emptied.

‘No talking!’ A teacher behind you barked, causing the two of you to roll your eyes in sync. Why you had to walk silently during a fire alarm you would never know. If the school was actually on fire you would be sprinting out of it swearing at the top of your lungs, not walking silently in an orderly fashion.

The two of you had had to find a way to set off the alarm, so you put your heads together. Neither of you had managed to come up with anything that wouldn’t get you caught, and you were about to give up when you noticed the cigarettes in Haechan’s pocket. Now that gave you an idea.

You had lit the cigarette and, with Haechan supporting you from beneath as you sat on his shoulders, managed to stuff it inside the fire alarm. You gently blowed on it, to make sure it was lit and there was smoke coming off it and suddenly the alarm blared throughout the school. You then proceeded to slip off his shoulders, him catching you easily in his arms and you both quickly moved into your respective bathrooms.

You stood by the door and counted to five before opening the bathroom door and leaving again. You’d noticed the men’s bathroom door next to you open and Haechan walked out. The two of you blended seamlessly into the crowd of students as they made their way out to the assembly point.

You had decided to hide in the bathroom for a couple of seconds so that neither of you were spotted underneath the fire alarm. You thought that if they noticed the bad boy and the new girl under the fire alarm that ended up having a cigarette stuck in it, the game would be over before it had even properly begun.

Students poured out of the doors of the school, lining up cleanly and efficiently on the sports pitches. You were standing in sections, divided by years and then each class split into lines. You faced your teacher at the front as they called out student’s names from the register.

‘Here.’ You spoke out as you heard your name, a similar call coming from your partner in crime behind you as his name was called. You turned around to face him. ‘Lee Donghyuck?’ You raised a teasing eyebrow.

‘Yep, that’s my real name.’ He replied, looking down at you.

‘So, can I ask then, why Haechan? Donghyuck’s a nice name.’ You wondered, tilting your head out of curiosity. 

Haechan opened his mouth to answer but before he could, a boy who you recognised from your Maths class came up to the two of you.

‘Already corrupting the new kid Hyuck?’ He joked, a large smile on his face. 

‘Trust me man, she barely needs corrupting.’ Haechan replied, laughing at his friend. ‘Y/n, this is Jaemin, he’s one of my closest friends.’

Jaemin flashed you a smile that you swore almost blinded you. You shook his outstretched hand and returned his smile with one of your own.

‘I’ve gotta say, I was impressed to see you follow him out of that window y/n. It looks like you’ve got some guts.’ Jaemin spoke, his face showing how he was clearly surprised. ‘And I’m guessing from what happened in Maths that this fire alarm may have something to do with the two of you?’

You and Haechan shared a grin and that small action told Jaemin all he needed to know. Jaemin laughed in disbelief, muttering something about how exciting the rest of the year was going to be if this was how you were acting on the first day. You couldn’t quite hear him though, your attention focused on the way that Haechan studied the features on your face, with such intensity you would think he was never going to see them again.

You spent the time making conversation with Jaemin and Haechan, getting to know the two boys, but your attention was drawn away from them when a fire engine made its way into the school gates. All the conversation surrounding you dwindled to a stop as one student asked what was going on.

‘Since there was no fire drill scheduled for today, we needed to call the fire department to determine what caused the alarm to go off.’ Your teacher explained.

The three of you looked at each other in disbelief, all of you unable to stop yourselves from giggling at the chaos you’d caused. You couldn’t help but think that Jaemin had been right. If this was day one, who knew what adventures this year would bring you? You’d never liked a place so quickly like you had here. Maybe for the first time in your life, you’d found somewhere you could actually see yourself staying.

You didn’t want to let yourself get your hopes up though. You had only been in this city a short while, and your father’s job would always mean that you had to move by this time next year. You couldn’t afford to get comfortable.

The boys watched as the firefighters entered the building, attempting to determine what caused the alarm to go off. It didn’t take long before they emerged with one of them holding a small plastic bag. A bad that you assumed that had the cigarette in. The teachers came into a small circle to have a short conversation before turning back to the waiting students.

The Principle suddenly stepped forward, immediately commanding attention from every student present as he began to speak.

‘This fire alarm was no drill. Nor was it an accident. We have evidence that it was set off on purpose and I seriously suggest that anyone who knows anything about how this happens steps forward. Do not make this any worse for you than it already is.’

With that, he turned, and made his way back into the school. An uneasy silence lay over all the students. You teacher walked back over to your group and spoke to the rest of you there.

‘Since it’s so close to lunch, we’ve decided to let you go early. But-’ They raised their voice as everyone began to move off. ‘This incident will not be taken lightly. To anybody who may have been involved, it is in your best interest to own up to it.’

You noticed their eyes were fixated on Haechan, and how they narrowed slightly. They seemed to fully believe that Haechan was involved with setting off the alarm.

‘They always assume it’s me. Whenever anything happens.’ He whispered into your ear and you nodded in understanding. ‘So... McDonalds?’

---

Haechan pulled back into the school grounds after your trip for lunch, Jaemin jumped out of the car and waved at the two of you before heading back into the building. While you and Haechan had a free afternoon, Jaemin didn’t, so, after some begging and bribing on Jaemin’s part, Haechan begrudgingly agreed to drop him off.

You turned back around to Haechan, wondering if you should propose to do something together, or if he was bored of you and had other things he’d rather be doing. However, before you had the chance to make up your mind, Haechan spoke for you.

‘I know where to go now.’ And with that he was off, driving out of the gates and off down the road. You couldn’t help but notice how good of a driver he was, always managing to keep his awareness on the road even when he was talking to you. 

Haechan fumbled for something down near his feet, letting out a happy giggle when he found it and pulled out an AUX cord. He offered it to you, telling you to put something on the speakers.

You raised your eyebrows in surprise at his offer, considering he’d adamantly refused to let Jaemin play any of his music on the way to grab lunch, instead choosing to listen to the radio.

‘Already letting me choose the music? Damn, I feel special.’ You teased as Haechan laughed.

‘Just don’t play that song and we’ll be good.’ He looked over for a split second, noticing your offended face and quickly continued. ‘It’s a good song, don’t get me wrong, but all Jaemin plays is girl groups and you reach a limit of how many times you can hear a grown ass boy with blue hair sing Feel Special.’

You looked down at your phone, chuckling to yourself at Haechan’s story. You scrolled through your Spotify to find a good playlist, eventually settling on your driving music one. ‘What You Know’ by ‘Two Door Cinema Club’ started to blare through the speakers.

Haechan nodded, his fingers immediately tapping on the steering wheel in time to the song.

‘Good song!’ He complimented smiling at you as you gasped over-dramatically.

‘Ahhhh, Haechan likes my music taste! I have officially won at life!’ You placed one hand on your heart to emphasise your point as Haechan rolled his eyes, laughing at you. ‘Where are we going by the way?’ You asked, looking out of the window and realising you had no idea where you were. You were still new to the area so you hadn’t got everywhere memorised yet.

‘We’re almost there, don't worry.’ He replied, not giving you an answer in the slightest. You leaned back into your seat, accepting that he wasn’t going to tell you and just listened as Haechan began to sing gently along to the song. You were surprised by his voice, it was soothing and honey-like, the opposite of his image.

You watched him out of the corner of your eye, secretly enjoying listening to his voice more than the music.

---

You were standing behind Haechan in a quiet little coffee shop, looking at everything on the menu. Everything looked so amazing you could feel your mouth watering just from looking at the display cakes. 

‘Any idea what you want?’ Haechan asked over his shoulder as you nodded.

‘I’m gonna get the Caramel Frap and a muffin of some kind.’ You replied. ‘What about you?’

‘Doubleshot Vanilla iced Coffee and a brownie. You gonna have coffee in your frap?’ He answered, moving forwards in the line as the person in front of you finished.

‘Always!!!’ You answered in a sing-song voice as Haechan rolled his eyes muttering something about you being as bad as Jaemin.

He stepped up to the counter and gave the cashier a friendly smile.

‘Hi, please can I get one large Caramel Frap with coffee and whip, one large Doubleshot Vanilla iced Coffee, one brownie and-’

‘Whoa what? It’s okay I can pay for myself.’ You interrupted him but he brushed you off.

‘Nah it’s fine, this is on me. And one peanut and banana muffin please?’ He finished the order and your eyes widened at his choice. ‘All the muffins here are good.’ He explained turning back to you.

‘Haechan I-’ You began, slightly in a panic.

‘Y/n, I told you I’m paying.’ He insisted but you continued.

‘Seriously I can’t-’ You stuttered, desperately trying to get your point across.

‘For the last time, y/n I am paying!’ He cut you off again.

‘No! I’m allergic to peanuts...’ You hurriedly told him and watched as his expression morphed into one of utter dread.

‘Oh god.’ He mumbled before turning around and almost throwing himself across the counter in an attempt to correct his order to a white chocolate and raspberry muffin. He turned back to you with the treats in his hand and gave you a sheepish smile. ‘Sorry.’

‘It’s okay, you didn’t know.’ You laughed, looking down at the muffin in your hand that smelt absolutely delicious.

It didn’t take long before your drinks had arrived and Haechan hurried you back into his car, claiming there was one more place he wanted to show you.

---

You were sitting on a bench in a deserted area of the park. Haechan had explained that if you wanted privacy, to come down here as people normally don’t bother to walk this far. He pulled his cigarettes out of his pocket, offering you one which you refused, before lighting his own.

‘It’s always worth it though. The tranquility that you get just from being a little further out.’ He looked sideways at you, tilting his head when he saw your confused expression. ‘What?’

‘Nothing it’s just... Why are you telling me all this? I mean I was told that you were aloof, never telling anyone but a close few details about yourself, keeping everything a mystery and yet here you are. With me, someone you’ve known now for about five hours and so far we’ve skived Maths, set off the fire alarm, brought the fire brigade to school, bought McDonalds, grabbed a coffee, almost killed me and now you’re talking to me about tranquility. You just... It doesn’t seem like something you’d do with someone you just met.’ You admitted, shrugging your shoulders as you finished.

Haechan looked away from you for a second, taking a drag from his cigarette before he faced you again to answer your question.

‘Well, I guess the only thing to say to that is, not all rumours are true. And yes, you have a point, not a lot of people sit and talk about tranquility with someone they just met, but not a lot of people get into trouble worthy of suspension on the first day. And even less of those people are willing to do it with me. Maybe that has something to do with it.’

‘Tell me something, then. Which rumours are true?’ You challenged.

‘Some of them.’ Haechan admitted. ‘I do smoke, I do cause trouble, I did sleep around quite a bit, and yeah, I hurt some people in the process. And also, yes, I didn’t really care that much. But the one thing I never did was lie to anyone or give them the impression that it was ever something more than just one night. That’s why I was “unsympathetic” to anyone. They knew what they were getting into so why is it my fault that they couldn’t handle it?’

Your jaw dropped slightly, not expecting that kind of answer. You mumbled a quick ‘fair point’ and turned your gaze back to the scenery. The river in front of you flowed gently, coursing it’s own way through life, the sun reflected off the constantly moving waves, casting flecks of light to dance across yours and Haechan’s bodies.

‘But I don’t think I’m gonna be doing that again. It makes you feel kinda empty, like you’re searching for something but anytime you come close to possibly having a chance at finding it, you take it away from yourself. Do you see that up there?’ Haechan changed the topic suddenly, pointing to a cliff edge in between the trees. You squinted slightly, trying to get a look at it, but it was difficult to see through the leaves.

‘Yeah, I think so. What’s up there?’ You asked, turning your body towards him as he grinned.

‘Real tranquility. If you ever want to properly get away, that’s where you go.’ He told you and you looked back. ‘From up there you can see the whole city.’

‘But how do you get up there?’ You wondered and Haechan simply winked in response, tapping his nose twice to signal that he wasn’t going to tell you. ‘Will you ever actually tell me anything when I ask?’

‘We’ll see princess, we’ll see.’ Haechan grinned, turning back to the river but at some point having moved closer to you, so close that your legs were almost touching.

Your heart was pounding, yet you weren’t sure if it was from the nickname or the close proximity of the two of, or both. As much as you tried to convince yourself otherwise, you had a strong suspicion it was the latter.

---

Before you knew it, another month had passed in your new city and you weren’t feeling so much like the obnoxiously new kid. You knew your way around without getting lost, your professors had started to get to know you and stopped treating you like you were made of glass because you were new, and you had a good group of people around you.

Haechan had easily become your closest friend, his constant teasing covered a layer of love that it took him a while to show to you. But once he did, you were constantly smothered by his affections. And if Haechan wasn’t smothering you, then Jaemin would be. Once you got to know him, Jaemin was almost too nice for his own good, his caring and loving nature making him a very easy person to get along with. There was never an awkward moment between the two of you and already, he felt like a friend you’d known for years.

Apart from those two, you had also become friendly with Momo from your sports class, Hyunjin from Chemistry, Siyeon from History and Dino from Music. But none of them really held a candle to how close you were with Haechan.

You found yourself spending most of your time with Haechan, Jaemin often came too but you realised pretty quickly after befriending him that, wherever you were, Haechan would find a way to be there too.

Your friendship hadn’t gone unnoticed by the rest of the school either. In fact, you were surprised by how quickly it had gone around that the two of you were close. The day after you had gone out for a coffee, you had walked into school to be greeted with confused stares and hushed whispers surrounding you everywhere you went.

You did your best to just ignore them, you told yourself you couldn’t care less what people here thought of you, it wasn’t as if you would be here for long anyway. Their whispers and accusations sometimes got to you slightly, but every time you finished your classes and saw Haechan waiting for you with his sunshine smile, you found all your worries melting off you.

You had always met some pretty cool people wherever you went, but you had never met anyone quite like Haechan, nor had you ever expected to. You already knew that he was something you would miss about this town when you inevitably left.

‘Bye Dad!’ You shouted through your house, a similar response coming from his study as you walked out of the front door. Even though you didn’t have class until late morning on a Tuesday, you and Haechan made it a tradition to grab a coffee together before it started.

And as you turned around there he was. Leaning out of the open window of his car grinning at you.

You smiled back in greeting, before climbing into the passenger seat, grabbing that aux cable he had offered you, and setting down as he took off.

Haechan had officially entrusted you with the music, naming you the car DJ much to Jaemin’s discontent. You were often on the receiving end of his whiny complaints about the injustice and unfair treatment he was getting.

Haechan pulled into the street that your favourite bakery was one, parking his car swiftly before you both made you way into the shop. You had arrived a little later than usual due to traffic, so you quickly approached the counter.

You leant forwards, catching the barista’s attention and gave them a smile before telling them your order.

‘Hi! Please can I have one Caramel Frap with coffee, one chocolate chip cookie, one Doubleshot Vanilla Iced coffee and one brownie please?’

The barista nodded, handing you the card machine as you quickly tapped your phone before Haechan could complain. You turned around, expecting to see him watching you in surprise, but instead he was nowhere to be seen.

The barista handed you the cookie and brownie in a bag before they moved to make your coffees as Haechan jogged into the shop.

‘Left my phone in my car.’ He explained before moving towards the counter.

‘Here.’ You said, offering him the bag which held his brownie. ‘Your coffee is on the way.’

Haechan reached for the bag slowly, confusion all over his face as he looked inside it.

‘I got you a Doubleshot Vanilla Iced coffee.’ You informed him, relishing in the way his face lit up with excitement at the mention of his favourite drink.

‘Why- You didn’t have to do this!’ Haechan whined. ‘I’ll pay you back!’

‘No you won’t.’ You said firmly, ignoring his protests. ‘I never paid you back for the first time we got a coffee together so this counts for then. Now we’re even.’

‘How did you know what to get me though?’ Haechan wondered, looking up at the menu.

‘I remembered?’ You offered, laughing at him slightly. ‘Plus you mentioned it to me a couple of days ago that it was your favourite so I thought it was safest to go with that one.’

You head turned towards the counter as your name was called, signalling that your drinks were ready. You walked over to collect them, missing the way Haechan watched you go with the softest smile on his face.

You handed him his drink as the two of you made your way back to his car.

‘Ready for class?’ You asked, groaning slightly at the thought of your history lecture that was looming.

But he didn’t reply, instead just looked at you. You tilted your head in confusion at him, wondering why he wasn’t starting the car.

‘Haechan?’ You asked and something in him seemed to wake up.

‘Hyuck.’ He corrected, turning away from you and beginning to drive away. ‘Call me Hyuck.’

You couldn’t help the small smile that spread across your face as you cruised through the streets.

‘Hyuck...’ You repeated to yourself under your breath, unaware of the way that Hyuck’s lips twitched upwards into a smile slightly as you did.

---

For the next two weeks you fully utilised your new privilege, calling him Hyuck at every opportunity you had. You also couldn’t stop yourself because every time you called him Hyuck, he would turn around to look at you with the largest grin on his face. There was no lying that both of you were happy with the rapid speed the two of you were becoming so close you were almost inseparable. 

You were lying in your bed on Friday night, your chemistry textbook and worksheets from hours ago lay abandoned on your desk as you stared up at your ceiling. Your final lecture had been cancelled, so you originally planned to come back and try to get some work done. Only, once you started did you realise that your mind was just a fuzzy mess and there was no way you were going to get through it.

Instead you decided to go to sleep, hoping that some rest would help you clear your head and you’d feel more refreshed the next morning. However, your attempt to get an early night for once was disrupted by your mind and body purely refusing to let sleep take you. 

You groaned, rolling over on to your side and staring at your clock. The numbers shined brightly in your face, the red 2:08am reflecting off your eyes as you stared at them. Turns out it was Saturday morning.

You were just about to give up and go downstairs to watch something, when you noticed your phone screen suddenly light up. You grabbed your phone and lifted it to your face to see a text sitting on your home screen.

Hyuck: yo

Hyuck: are you awake

You grinned at your phone, texting back a quick reply.

You: yeah

You: couldn’t sleep. why

Hyuck: come outside

You furrowed your eyebrows at that, silently moving to your window and pulling the curtains back. You looked down at your drive and saw Hyuck’s car sitting there with him in the driver’s seat staring up at your window. You made eye contact with him and he nodded towards his empty passenger seat. You held up a finger, asking him to wait a minute, and you shut your curtain again.

You quickly grabbed a pair of shoes and ran out of your bedroom, making sure to grab your keys on your way. You made your way through your house, leaving a quick note for your dad in case he woke up and thought you had disappeared, and slipped as silently as you could out of your front door, jogging down to the car that was waiting for you.

‘God it’s cold out there!’ You exclaimed, rubbing your arms to warm yourself up as you directed the heaters in his car towards you.

Hyuck raised his eyebrows at you, replying sarcastically.

‘Well, maybe if you’d worn more than a thin t shirt in October this wouldn’t be a problem.’

You looked down at what you were wearing, huffing when you realised he was right. Your choice of pyjamas, a t-shirt and jogging bottoms, while comfortable, were not doing much to battle the cold night air. You opened the door to run back inside and grab a jumper but Hyuck stopped you.

‘Don’t worry, I had a feeling you would do this, so I came prepared.’ He leaned backwards, reaching into his back seat and pulled out a hoodie of his before dropping it into your lap. ‘Here, wear this.’ He told you, quickly turning his attention back to his car as he got it started.

You looked down at the hoodie in your lap, unable to stop yourself from smiling slightly, and you whispered a quick thanks. You pulled it over your head, allowing yourself to be submerged in the soft fabric. The first thing you noticed was Hyuck scent taking over your being. You were surrounded by him and it was much more comforting than you were expecting.

Unknown to you, Hyuck found himself unable to take his eyes off you. Seeing you in his hoodie made his heart beat a lot faster than he was willing to admit, and, if he was being honest, he didn’t want you to ever take it off.

Hyuck began to drive and you found yourself automatically reaching for the aux cable. You decided to play one of your favourite songs that you hadn’t heard in a while, and soon ‘(Un)Lost’ by ‘The Maine’ gently filled the car, immediately reinforcing the relaxed atmosphere.

‘You hungry?’ Hyuck asked, and you shrugged slightly.

‘I could go for some ramen to be honest.’ You replied. ‘What’s going to be open at this hour though?’ You looked out of your window and found yourself filled with confusion. ‘Where even are we?’

‘Somewhere I like to come when I can’t sleep.’ He answered you. ‘Also, don’t worry, I know a place to eat.’

You hummed in response, trusting Hyuck’s judgement when it came to food. You had learnt that he always knew the best places. You couldn’t help the feeling of deja vu you were having, flashbacks to the time you and Hyuck first got coffee together and he refused to tell you where you were going, travelled through your head.

You stared out of the window, trying to recognise any of your surroundings, but you were on an empty road with trees on either side of you. If you weren’t with Hyuck you would have been terrified.

Eventually, he began to slow down, and you spotted a neon lit diner to your right. Hyuck drew the car to a halt and you both climbed out. He noticed the slightly nervous look on your face as your eyes darted across the dark woods surrounding you, and held out a hand. You smiled shyly, reaching out for him. The second you felt his hand in yours, you immediately relaxed and allowed Hyuck to pull you towards the diner.

A small bell sounded, signalling your arrival as Hyuck pushed the door open, and a man who you assumed was around mid-twenties appeared from the back. One look at the two of you and his face lit up into the biggest smile.

‘Donghyuck! Welcome back!’ He exclaimed, throwing his arms out to the side for emphasis.

‘Hi Johnny.’ Hyuck laughed, bringing you forwards as the tall male came around the counter to give him a hug. He pulled away from the hug and turned towards you. ‘Johnny, this is y/n. Y/n, this is Johnny, he runs this diner.’

‘Ahhhh, so this is the famous y/n!’ Johnny laughed, turning towards you. ‘It’s nice to finally meet you.’

‘It’s nice to meet you too.’ You replied, slightly taken aback at how nice this guy was.

‘So the usual?’ Johnny asked Hyuck and he nodded in response. ‘Anything for you, y/n?’

‘Surprise me.’ You said, having no idea what this place even offered, and Johnny nodded, his large smile never leaving his face.

‘Oh, Taeil is in the kitchen tonight if you want to say hi.’ Johnny said, turning back to Hyuck. Hyuck’s eyes lit up at the mention of Taeil and he turned to you, telling you he’d be back in a second.

‘Don’t rush, Hyuck.’ You laughed. It was clear from Hyuck’s expression that he hadn’t seen this Taeil in a while.

‘Tell him the order while you’re there?’ Johnny shouted, getting a shout back in reply. Johnny chuckled to himself, offering you a seat by the island and sitting next to you. ‘You know, Donghyuck talks about you a lot when he’s here.’

Your eyes shot up to his, your eyebrows lifting slightly in surprise and he nodded.

‘Yeah, you must mean a lot to him. Not only are you wearing his hoodie and you get to call him Hyuck, but he brought you here. That’s something...’

‘What makes you say that?’ You asked, sending Johnny an appreciative smile as he poured you a glass of water.

‘This is his safe space, the place where he comes whenever he wants to escape. Mainly from other people.’ Johnny gestured around him, and you followed his movements, your eyes resting on the seats, tables and jukeboxes that decorated this place.

‘I don’t get it, why would that make me important to him?’ You asked, looking at Johnny once more.

‘Well, most of the time, when you want to escape from something, you don’t bring the thing you’re running from with you. Donghyuck has never brought anyone here, not even Jaemin, and those two grew up together. So for him to bring you here, you must be something pretty damn special.’

You were speechless by the time Johnny had finished. You had been completely unaware of just how much Hyuck had cared for you. You weren’t even aware of the smile that was stretching across your face until Johnny chuckled.

‘I can see he’s special to you too.’

You looked back at him and nodded.

‘I...’ You swallowed slightly before speaking again. ‘I wasn’t expecting to care for someone this much.’

Johnny lifted up a hand, placing it on your shoulder and squeezing gently. You found the gesture surprisingly reassuring and you sent him a grateful smile.

‘For what it’s worth, you two make a good pair.’ Johnny said. ‘I’m glad he’s found someone he cares for this much.’

At the moment a laughing Donghyuck came bursting back through the kitchen doors, quickly followed by a slightly shorter male who you assumed was Taeil. Taeil looked up and saw you.

‘This is y/n?’ He asked Hyuck, who nodded in confirmation.

You stood up to greet him, placing your water on the counter as you did so.

‘It’s nice to meet you.’

‘You too, I’m Taeil.’ Taeil introduced himself, and you smiled at him.

Hyuck held up two boxes of ramen, the smell making your mouth water.

‘Shall we?’

---

You sat on the hood of Hyuck’s car and looked out over the skyline. The entire city was illuminated, the lights shining through the darkness and creating bright patterns in the night. You were mesmerised by the sight in front of you, the beauty of the twinkling lights demanding your attention.

The two of you were currently at the look out point which Hyuck had pointed out to you the day you had first met. It was a cliff edge that you could drive to, and it was only a couple of minutes away from the diner.

Your trip to the diner has been surprisingly entertaining. It was clear that Johnny and Taeil had known Hyuck and each other for a long time, but they made sure to welcome you and make sure that you felt comfortable. They wanted to know about the previous places you’d been to and any stories of your life or previous schools that you wanted to share. There was never an awkward moment, the three of them being so quick witted with their humour that you were in stitches the entire time. It felt as though you had spent the past half an hour laughing with old friends.

You didn’t know how long it had been since you’d felt an environment like that.

Hyuck was silently watching you, studying the reflection of the city lights in your eyes and wondering what was going through your mind. He eventually forced himself to tear his eyes away from you and back to the scenery in front of him. This view was normally the only that could set his mind at ease no matter what he was feeling, but after today, after seeing you interact so well with the friends he called his family, after seeing how beautiful you looked in his hoodie, how ethereal you were sat on his car in the moonlight... all Hyuck wanted to do was kiss you.

‘I’ve got to say, out of all the places I’ve lived, this is my favourite view.’ You softly broke the silence and Hyuck found his gaze wandering back towards you again.

‘Can I ask you something?’ He asked and you hummed in response. ‘How many places have you lived?’

You turned your head towards his and thought for a second.

‘Honestly... there’s been so many, I don’t think I could tell you the exact number.’ You told him. ‘I’ve moved around since I was a kid, we rarely stayed anywhere longer than one year before we headed to a new city which always seemed to be as far away from the previous one as you could possibly get. My dad’s job requires him to move wherever the company asks him to move, so we’ve never really had a choice. It’s nice, I guess, I get to see all these amazing places and travel so much already, but...’ You trailed off, unsure whether to continue.

‘But?’ Hyuck encouraged, looking at you with nothing but support in his eyes.

‘But it’s hard.’ You admitted. ‘People don’t really see how difficult it is. Everyone sees me as the lucky one, they tell me they wish they could travel like me, and see all the things I’ve seen. Someone even once told me that they wished they could only live in one place for one year before moving on, because then they wouldn’t have to worry about caring for anyone but themselves. Sometimes, for me, it really feels like that. But that it’s a good feeling. I’ve never lived anywhere longer than a year. I’ve even never lived anywhere long enough to call it home. I’ve never had a friendship, or relationship of any kind for that matter, that didn’t end a month after I moved away.’

‘You have your parents though, right?’ Hyuck asked, and you nodded in response.

‘Yeah, I have my dad. My mum, umm, she-’ You paused for a minute to take a breath. ‘She didn’t like the constant moving, she always said she found it too difficult. So, when I was nine, she decided she wasn’t going to move on with us. One night, she packed her bags, walked out the house and never came back. I haven’t seen her since.’ You confessed. You had never told anyone that, yet somehow, it felt safe to tell Hyuck.

‘I’m sorry.’ Hyuck offered and you sent him a smile.

‘It’s okay, it was a really long time ago.’ You tried to reassure him, even though you knew it wasn’t very convincing. ‘Moving like this... it’s a lot more lonely than you think it is.’

Hyuck moved himself slightly closer to you so that you were almost touching. He lifted his hand, and gently tucked your hair behind your ear before cradling your face.

‘You don’t have to be alone here. I’m going to be right beside you.’ He promised, the sincerity in his voice scaring you slightly. You knew that he meant it with every fibre of his being.

You didn’t know who leaned in first, nor did you care, but, either way, the two of you began to lean in. Your lips were almost touching when you stopped. Hyuck, noticing your movements, stopped immediately as well, his lips so close that his breath was gently fanning your face.

‘I’m leaving at the end of this year.’ You whispered, not moving away from him.

‘So we have two thirds of it left.’ Hyuck argued, his thumb gently stroking your face.

‘I’ll break your heart.’ Your voice was even softer than before, wavering slightly with emotion as your eyes fluttered shut.

‘It’ll be worth it.’ Hyuck whispered back, before you allowed him to finally close the distance.

He pressed his lips to yours, it was sweet, innocent and everything that a first kiss should be. You lifted up your hand to rest them on his wrists as he pulled away. He moved his hands away from your face and brought them down to your waist, pulling you closer and you wound yours around his neck.

You leant in again, this time kissing him with more passion. You were so overwhelmed with how much Hyuck cared for you, and how much you cared for him that all you wanted to do was show him, and this was the only way you knew you. Neither of you said it, but you both knew this was the start of your relationship, a secret kiss in a hidden place, with only the stars in the sky as your witnesses. And, honestly, it couldn’t be more perfect.

---

You closed the front door as quietly as you could, wincing as the lock audibly clicked into place. You briefly stopped to grab the note you had written for your dad before leaving and scrunched it up into a little ball before throwing it away. You then began to make your way through your house, tiptoeing silently past your dad’s room before making it into the safety of your own.

You fell into bed, pulling the covers up and smiling happily into them. No one had ever made you feel this way, and you couldn’t imagine ever feeling this way about anyone else.

There was something about Hyuck that made you want to just do things. Not in a “throw caution to the wind and cause chaos” kind of way, but in a motivational kind of way. He made you want to work harder, to fight for what you want, to always give people a chance to see the real them, to say yes more.

You couldn’t imagine what your life would be like if you hadn’t followed him out of the window on the first day. And if you could do it all again, you knew, you wouldn’t change a thing. You pulled the sleeves of Hyuck’s hoodie down over your fingers as you found yourself, once again, comforted by his scent.

It was only then that you realised you had forgotten to give it back, quickly reaching for your phone to text him.

You: i still have your hoodie

Hyuck: keep it for now

Hyuck: you can give it back to me at school on monday

Hyuck: or you can wear it

Hyuck: actually no

Hyuck: please wear it

You: i promise

You: night hyuck x

Hyuck: night

Hyuck: sleep well <3

---

You had kept your promise to Hyuck, wearing his hoodie into school and you were blown away by the amount of attention it had gathered. You would have thought that people would have more interesting things to talk about, but the main conversation topic in the corridors for the past week, was yours and Hyuck’s relationship.

Today was the Wednesday of the week after that Monday. You had a single lecture in the afternoon, while Hyuck was stuck in school until the end of the day. You had never been happier to hear the bell ring, signalling your escape from the most painfully boring Chemistry lecture of your life. You exited the classroom, laughing with Hyunjin as you complained about the hell you had just been put through.

He waved you a friendly goodbye, one which you returned before you walked towards your locker. You placed your books inside it and closed the door, making sure to lock it shut. You turned around, almost jumping out of your skin when you spotted three girls waiting for you to finish.

‘Can I help you?’ You asked, confused beyond belief as to why they were silently standing by your locker.

The one in the middle spoke first.

‘We just want to look out for you honey. Haechan is bad news, and we don’t want you to get hurt.’

You frowned at them in disbelief, wondering why on earth they were telling you this. You had never even seen any of them around Hyuck before.

‘Yeah, he’s a  bad boy for a reason and we’re just worried that you're blinded by his charms. We’ve all fallen for it at some point, and we don’t want you to get manipulated like the rest of us.’ The brunette on the left piped up as you rolled your eyes.

‘Ok, this is very.... weird. Also, it’s not really any of your business, so thanks for your concern, but I’m fine by myself.’ You picked your bag up from the floor, swinging it over your shoulder.

As if a switch had been pressed, the expressions on the girls faces changed in a flash. Gone were the sympathetic looks and wide eyes as judgemental gazes and cocky smirks replaced them.

‘I don’t know who you think you are, but you’re not the golden girl. You’re not the exception to the rule, the one who’s going to be able to change him, so stop trying. You’re not that special. You’re wasting your time and you’re going to end up with a broken heart.’ The one of the right spat, surprising you with her sudden change of tone.

‘She’s right.’ The middle one took charge again. ‘He’s nothing more than a cigarette puffing, selfish asshole. Just remember, we’ll be here when it all goes to shit.’

They began to strut their way down the corridor, leaving a very confused you standing by your locker.

‘Y/n?’ A voice suddenly rang out. You turned towards the sound to see Jaemin coming towards you. ‘What was that all about?’

---

You sat next to Jaemin on a bench at the nearby park. You dragged him down the river to find a deserted area, before sitting down to explain what had happened. Jaemin had insisted that you talk him through it, not wanting you to feel alone.

‘-so they reassured me that it was going to fail, no matter what.’ You finished, staring at the river in front of you.

Jaemin didn’t respond for a minute, just watched you as you finished speaking. Eventually, he broke the silence between the two of you.

‘You know, something that comes with having a reputation like Hyuck’s, is that everyone puts their own spin on it. Everybody likes to come up with new things that he’s done or find a rumour that sounds like him and spread it. He’s been ignoring it for god knows how long, but that doesn’t stop it from happening. I’m not going to tell you how to feel, that’s not my job. However, I am going to tell you this.’

Jaemin readjusted his seating, moving so that he was facing you more. You mimicked him, turning your side towards the water.

‘Hyuck is brave, and self assured, and confident, and cocky, but, just like everybody else, he has his weakness. And for him, it’s love. He’s completely terrified of falling in love. When Hyuck slept around last year, he didn’t do it just cause he wanted sex, or cause it was a confidence boost to get those girls. He did it because he wanted company, because he was lonely. But, he could never let it be for longer than one night because then he was putting himself at risk.’

‘At risk of what?’ You asked, and Jaemin sighed before continuing.

‘Of getting attached, of catching feelings, of being vulnerable, of caring. Hyuck’s afraid of falling in love with someone because, if he does that, then there’s no turning back. He’s at their mercy, and no one will have the power over him that that person does. And that terrifies him.’

You nodded as Jaemin spoke, taking in every detail. When he finished you leaned back on the bench, this time staring up at the clouds as they passed. Jaemin had made a lot of sense and, although you would never admit it, you did understand his fear of being in love.

‘I care about him.’ You began as Jaemin looked back towards you. ‘I care about him a lot. But there’s this part of my brain that’s telling me he’s got a reputation for a reason. That this only has one ending and I’m kidding myself if I think I’m any different from the previous girls.’

‘You’re kidding yourself if you think you’re anything like them.’ Jaemin huffed. ‘And, if you’re going to think like that, if that’s going to dominate your mind, then honestly, you should spare Hyuck the pain. After everything, he deserves to actually have someone who loves him, not someone who doubts him. If you can’t see past his reputation, then it’s not fair to string him along.’

You could tell from Jaemin’s eyes that he meant every word. As soon as he said that, it was like a cloud had been lifted, clearing your vision. You leant forward, forcing him to look at you while you spoke truthfully.

‘I’m not going to judge him on his reputation. I don’t want to. I care about him, and that’s all that matters. And I don’t care about what other people think about him, because I know him.’

Jaemin nodded at you, a smile forming on his face.

‘Good.’ He looked down at his watch. ‘Aren’t you supposed to be meeting him at yours tonight?’ He asked, looking back up at you.

You pulled out your phone, checking the time and your eyes widened. You and Jaemin had spoken for a lot longer than you had thought, and at this rate, Hyuck was going to beat you back to your house. You stood up, thanking Jaemin before giving him a quick hug and running home to Hyuck.

---

One takeaway, four movies and three deep conversations later, Hyuck had fallen asleep. You quietly closed your laptop, placing it on the floor as you climbed out of your bed. You picked up the food containers, carrying them downstairs to the kitchen as you cleaned up slightly.

You dropped the takeaway boxes into the bin, before washing your hands. You thought for a second before grabbing two glasses, which you filled up with water and made your way back to your bedroom.

When you arrived, you spent a short amount of time standing in the doorway and just watched Hyuck sleep. He looked so angelic when he slept, all the stress and worries of the day melted off his features. You placed the water next to your side, moving around the bed to place the second one next to him.

You stepped forward, lightly grabbing the blanket and pulling it up to cover him with it. You lifted up a hand, placing it in his hair and you gently stroked it. He let out a contented hum in his sleep and you smiled down at him. You removed your hand, replacing it with your lips for a soft kiss on his temple and then proceeded to stand up and move around to your side of the bed.

You lifted up the covers and climbed in. Hyuck, as if sensing the sudden weight, rolled over, his arm finding its way around your waist before you had even laid down properly. His other one snuck underneath you, unnoticed by you until you lay down and found your head resting on it. Hyuck tightened his grip, pulling you close into his chest as you were surrounded by his embrace.

As much as you loved sleeping in his hoodies, this was by far the better option. You rested one hand on his chest, the other one winding around his waist and you curled up as close to him as you could.

You shut your eyes, letting your mind drift back to the conversation you had with Jaemin earlier, and the unprovoked attack from the girls in the hallway, and, easily, you came to one very solid conclusion.

The girls in the hallway may have been talking about Haechan, the rumours, the past mistakes and the persona, but you knew Donghyuck. You knew the boy that would stay up until 2am watching movies and chatting with you about life because you couldn’t sleep. You knew the boy that pulled you closer to him, even when he was fast asleep. You knew the real Donghyuck, and you were getting very scared that you were falling in love with him.

---

Time started to pass faster and, before you knew it, another month had passed. Your father had met Hyuck officially as your boyfriend and loved him. You had met Hyuck’s parents too, thankfully getting on their good sides even though they weren’t around much. You had managed to convince Hyuck to quit smoking, something that he had found surprisingly easy. Any time you asked how he did it, he’d claim that you were more addictive than any cigarette ever could be and give you a sweet kiss. Hyuck had been the perfect boyfriend to you, caring, fun, teasing and through it all, he still felt like your best friend.

You were preparing to head off and see him today. You grabbed your phone and keys before leaving your room and jogging down the stairs. You landed gently at the bottom and began to head straight for the door when you heard your father’s voice.

‘Y/n? Will you come in here for a minute sweetheart?’

You followed his voice into his study to find his standing by his desk, his phone in his hand.

‘Dad? Is everything okay? I’m meeting Hyuck in like ten minutes so I can’t be long.’ You said, checking your phone for the time.

Your father turned around to face you, leaning backwards so that he was sitting on the desk behind him.

‘Yes of course! Sorry, I’ll try to make it quick. Would you be happy to stay here for a bit longer than normal?’ He asked, getting straight to the point since he knew you had places to be.

‘Like this town?’ You wondered and your father nodded.

‘Yes, right here. In the same town and same house. Would you be okay with staying here for longer?’ You father spoke, this time raising his eyebrows in question.

‘How much longer?’ You asked, remaining suspicious and skeptical so that you didn’t get your hopes up.

‘Well, I’ve been offered a permanent position here, and I accepted it. So as long as you like.’ You jaw dropped at his words, unable to process what he was saying.

‘No more moving?’ You asked him.

‘No more moving.’ He confirmed and you burst out into a happy laugh, running forwards to hug him.

‘Oh my god, Dad that’s amazing! I’m so happy for you!’ You gushed, pulling out of the hug to see his smiling face.

‘So you’re happy to stay here?’ He asked and you grinned back at him.

‘I think I’d be okay with that.’

---

You made your way through Hyuck’s house, stopping only to briefly wave at his parents, before arriving at his room. You could hear him talking inside, so you entered as quietly as you could. He turned around as you entered, smiling and coming towards you to place a soft kiss on your cheek before turning his attention back to his phone call. The smile hadn’t left your face since your dad had told you his news, and you couldn’t wait to tell Hyuck.

He walked towards his window while talking, clearly attempting to wrap up the conversation without being overly rude. You approached his desk, chuckling at the piles of papers and discarded assignments that lay on it. Hyuck never was one for keeping things neat. You tilted your head slightly as one piece in particular caught your eye.

You reached for it, pulling it out from the bottom of the pile and scanned the words, your heart sinking as you did. The title as the top stood out the most: “the to-DO list”.

As you read further and further down the page you saw name after name of different girls in the school, and next to them were a short list of pros and cons, and the number of points they were worth. There were even lines though some of the names with ticks next to them, which you could only assume meant that they were checked off.

You recognised Siyeon and Momo’s names, neither of them having a cross through, but you also recognised the names of the “Welcoming Committee”. They were the same girls who cornered you in the corridor to warn you about Hyuck, and you ignored them. All three of their names were on the list, and all three of them had lines through them.

When your eyes reached the bottom of the page, your heart stopped. You forgot how to breath and you felt as though time suddenly stood still. You stared at the final name, the latest addition to the list that had the highest points and a bright red line through it.

Y/n Y/l/n - 150 points

Pros: new kid, gullible, not around for long, won’t stay to cause you trouble

Cons: defensive, needs effort to be worn down, not as easy as previously assumed

You stared at your name, the tears that filled your eyes blurring it slightly, but not making it any less real. This was a game. Hyuck and his friends were playing a game about who could get the most of the girls. You were just a target to him, something to tick off his list. And he had.

You registered Hyuck hanging up the phone and you furiously blinked away your tears.

‘Sorry about that. I was trying to-’ Hyuck stopped talking mid-sentence, his phone falling from his grip in shock when you turned around with the list in your hand. His eyes shot from the paper to you again, but one look at your face told him everything he needed to know.

‘What’s this?’ You whispered, holding up the piece of paper for him to see.

You watched as Hyuck’s jaw dropped and fear and panic took over his features. His mouth opened and closed repeatedly like a fish out of water.

‘What is this?’ You asked again, articulating every word. ‘Please tell me it’s not what I think it is. Tell me that this isn’t some sick game, that- that I’m just some game to you.’

You watched as Hyuck struggled to form a reply, obviously lost for words at what was happening.

‘I swear to god Hyuck, you better tell me the truth right now or I am gonna walk out of that door and I am not coming back.’ You kept your head up, refusing to let him see how affected by this you were more than he already had.

‘Tell me!’ You shouted, your temper flaring as your patience ran thin.

That seemed to finally get through to Hyuck, his eyes snapped towards your face as he stuttered out some weak reply.

‘No- no- no it’s -it’s not what you... No y/n I don’t... I can’t explain it I just-’ Hyuck looked at you, his eyes full of desperation but you couldn’t find it in you to feel sympathy for him.

You let out an empty laugh, one of pure disbelief at your own foolishness. You couldn’t believe that you really thought you were important to him. It’s Lee Donghyuck for Christ’s sake. He has a reputation for a reason. What made you think you were special enough to break that?

You swallowed, lifting your eyes to Hyuck’s once more and realised that you didn’t know a thing about the boy who stood before you. You opened your mouth and, with a shaky voice, you spoke.

‘You know, I was told by so many people that I wasn’t the exception to the rule, I wasn’t the golden girl, I- I wasn’t the one who could change your ways or prove that you were more than just a cigarette puffing, leather jacket wearing, selfish ass hole. But, god... I really hoped I was. And for a minute there, I actually believed it... you actually let me believe it. Maybe that’s why this hurts so much.’

‘Y/n please-’ He began, reaching out for you with one arm but stopped cold at your next words.

‘Save it, Haechan.’ Your use of Haechan instead of Hyuck struck Donghyuck right to his core. You hadn’t called him Haechan in the two months since he’d given you permission to use Hyuck, instead taking pride in the fact that you were close to him to not only call him by his real name, but by his nickname. When you used Haechan, he felt as though someone had picked up a blade of ice and driven it straight into his heart.

He had no idea why this was hurting him so bad. He knew from the moment he walked in and saw that look on your face that something was wrong. He never liked seeing you upset, but watching that door slam behind you, he never would have been able to presume that him being the cause of your upset would have been so heart wrenching.

There’s something about knowing that you’re the reason that the person you love most in the world is crying, that can rip a man’s heart in two. And for the first time in his life, Donghyuck began to experience what heartbreak was like.

---

You ran out of the door, tearing down the streets as fast as the tears were running down your face. You felt small, you felt ridiculous, you felt humiliated, you felt as though you were five years old again. And all you wanted to do was run away.

The irony was impossible to ignore. Your entire life, you had hated moving. Always leaving everyone behind, allowing them to forget you and forcing yourself to forget them. Every city, town or village you had lived in, you had wanted to stay, make friendships that would last a lifetime, fall in love, grow old in the same place you grew up, but you never could. Now for the first time in your life you were finally staying in one place, a place that you were supposed to call home, and yet, you wanted nothing more than to leave it.

---

‘Ok, I’m just going to say it. You’ve done a lot worse to a lot of other girls and you’ve never had this severe of a reaction before. Why now? What’s so special about this one that she’s the reason you’re suddenly experiencing the feeling of guilt?’ Jaemin leaned forwards towards his friend, hoping to finally get a solid answer out of him.

Jaemin had received an SOS text from Donghyuck and immediately moved to meet him at the local bar. He was currently sat across from the aforementioned, watching as his friend had a mini meltdown in front of him. This was the most emotional that Jaemin had seen Donghyuck in a while, and he knew that there was something about you that Donghyuck was refusing to admit. 

‘I don’t know, but when I was standing there, looking at her face as these tears began to fall... all I wanted to do was to run up to her and wipe them away. To hold her and reassure her that... that I’m going to be the one to protect her from harm, not cause it, that I’m going to be the one who she’s safe with, the one who provides her comfort, the one who...’ Donghyuck trailed off at the end leaving Jaemin unable to catch what he was saying.

‘Alright, so here’s my next question: Why didn’t you?’ Jaemin raised an eyebrow at Donghyuck’s moping figure as his head shot up.

‘Why didn’t I what?’ Donghyuck questioned, too tired and emotionally worn out to actually think through what he was being asked.

Jaemin rolled his eyes so hard that he thinks he actually saw the one remaining braincell of his that had survived this conversation, the rest of them choosing to jump ship and abandon him.

‘Why didn’t you go elephant hunting? What do you think?! Why didn’t you do all those things you wanted to? Why didn’t you tell her how much she means to you?’

Donghyuck paused for a minute, thinking back to when he saw you standing there, completely vulnerable, with all your walls down for just him to see.

‘I was scared...’ He admitted, looking up at his friend slowly. ‘I’ve never felt like this before and I don’t know what it means to do this kind of stuff and be good at it. What if I told her the truth and she didn’t feel the same? What if I scared her away when I told her how I felt? I was scared that she wouldn’t want anything to do with me if I told her I loved her.’

Jaemin didn’t respond for a second, his mind taking it’s time to wrap around the fact that Donghyuck was in love. He knew that you meant more to Hyuck than he had ever let on, but Jaemin never would have expected for his friend to have fallen in love with you.

‘Donghyuck... I don’t think you’ll lose her if you tell her you love her. But I do think you may lose her if you don’t.’ Jaemin watched Donghyuck’s expression change as the realisation of the reality of Jaemin’s words dawned on him.

‘What do I do Jaemin?’ He asked, begging to know how to get you back.

‘Do what you couldn’t before.’ Jaemin told him. ‘Tell her the truth.’

---

You could feel all eyes on you as you walked through the main gates the following morning. It was the first time you had walked in by yourself, Haechan having insisted on driving you every morning he could, so this seemed to alert people that there was something wrong. 

You held your head high and refused to let them see how emotional you were, biting the inside of your cheek anytime you could feel your eyes begin to water slightly. If it were up to you, you would have stayed at home today, choosing instead to drown yourself in chocolate and chick flicks, but, unfortunately, your dad was working from home so you had to come in.

You made your way towards your locker, unable to avoid making eye contact with a couple of people along the way. You accidentally caught eyes with the trio of girls who you had become all too familiar with from their welcome when you arrived and their more recent “friendly” advice by your locker.

‘Aww hun, we tried to warn you...’ They crowded you, one of them stroking your hair and all of them effectively drawing all the attention towards you once more. ‘We wanted to protect you from this...’

You tensed up, irritated and a little creeped out by the unwanted contact.

‘Fuck off!’ You spat, pushing them away from you. They stepped forwards again, obviously trying to paint themselves as your saviours in front of the rest of the school who were watching.

‘Sweetie, we just want to help! We knew this would happen and-’

You cut them off, speaking quietly at them through gritted teeth.

‘You don’t know shit about what happened. Stop pretending like you care about me and go back to whatever it is that you do, and leave me alone.’

With that, just like it had in the hallway, the fake smiles and false pretences melted off the three witches, as they rolled their eyes at you before strutting away. Gossiping just loud enough for you to hear.

‘If she actually thought that relationship was real she’s such an idiot.’

‘I know! I mean, it’s Haechan for crying out loud, is she dumb?’

You screwed your eyes shut, resting your forehead against your locker as everyone else began to disappear from around you. You took a deep breath, trying to calm yourself and opened your locker. An envelope fell out of it as the door opened, the white paper landing on your feet.

You looked down at it in confusion, bending down to pick it up. You turned it over and examined the messy handwriting on the front. You immediately recognised it at Haechan’s and your eyes flew back to your locker, scanning it to see if he had left anything else. Your gaze focused on a bar of chocolate, which you pulled out and examined.

You nodded in disbelief. Did he really think that a bar of chocolate and a letter would make up for all that happened? When he couldn’t even look you in the face and give it to you himself? You grabbed your books, slamming your locker shut out of anger. If Haechan actually wanted to make amends, he should stop being such a coward and have the courage to face you himself to say whatever he wanted to. You weren’t going to give him an easy way out. 

Before you headed to your class you stopped briefly to dump the letter and chocolate in a nearby bin, unaware of Donghyuck’s teary eyes watching you as you did so.

---

You walked into the local bar, exhausted from the long day you had just had and desperate for a drink. The bar was a college bar, but it was famous amongst students to turning a blind eye towards seniors that may not be of legal drinking age yet.

That day, you had found flowers on your desk in History, your favourite coffee waiting for you at lunch and another letter and chocolate bar in your locker by the end of the day. By this point, you were fed up with it. Everyone had been pointing at you and watching you the entire day, trying to figure out what had happened, and these gifts were not helping to keep you away from everyone’s prying eyes.

All you wanted was to just sit at a booth by yourself and think for a minute before walking home. Unfortunately, life in the form of a slightly drunk baseball jock had other plans.

‘Hey there.’ He approached you, getting a bit too close for comfort.

‘Hi.’ You greeted politely, moving away from him slightly, an infuriated sigh falling from your lips when he followed you. 

‘Don’t run from me. What do you say that you and I get out of here okay?’ He purred, his face coming closer to yours so that you could smell the alcohol on his breath. You pushed against his chest, the alcohol coursing through his system worsening his balance making him take a few steps back. ‘Feisty... I like that.’ He began to advance again, making you quickly speak up.

‘Okay first of all, I just want to get a drink. Second of all, why would I leave when I’ve just arrived? Third of all, why would I leave with you?’ You turned away from him, rolling your eyes as you did so.

However, the message didn’t seem to go through his thick skull, with him pushing himself right up against you, his hand dangerously low on your back and he whispered into your ear, making your skin crawl.

‘You’ll pay for that later sweetheart.’

‘Hey!’ A different voice cut through and before you could register what was going on, an arm had wound its way around your shoulder and successfully pulled you away from the creep. ‘Back off.’

‘What do you think you’re doing, Na?’ The baseball player asked, his eyes narrowing as he noticed Jaemin pulling you away from him.

‘Spending some time with my friend, now beat it beefcake.’ Jaemin kept one hand on you, moving his arm off your shoulder but staying close so that you were comfortable.

‘Well, get in line I saw her first.’ He leant forwards to grab you again, as if you were some kind of prize that he’d won.

‘She said no.’ Jaemin said calmly, watching as the jock’s face screwed up in frustration as he lunged for you again, hitting Jaemin’s free hand as he reached out to stop the drunk from touching you.

‘That doesn’t matter.’ He began to raise his voice, the alcohol in his system fuelling his idiotic actions.

‘Allow me to explain, and I’ll use small words so you’ll be sure to understand.’ You had to stop yourself from smiling slightly at Jaemin’s words, his sass never failed to make you laugh and the fact that a couple of people in the bar had turned their heads towards the commotion made it even better. There was now an audience to watch as Jaemin obliterated the drunk baseball player in front of you two. ‘No means no. I understand that may be hard for you to understand, having taken so many hits to the head, but welcome to the 21st century you warthog faced buffoon.’

With that he turned away, making sure to keep himself between you and that jerk and guided you towards an empty booth as the jock was escorted out of the bar for uncivil behaviour. He sat down across from you and quickly whipped out his phone asking if you wanted anything.

‘I was originally planning on just getting something that wasn’t too strong but after that little experience I think I’ll take a vodka coke, thanks.’ You breathed, enjoying the safety of the booth that you were sat in.

Jaemin simply nodded, tapping away on his phone before putting it back into his pocket.

‘What do I owe you?’ You asked, reaching for your own phone so that you could pull up your mobile banking but Jaemin shook his head.

‘Why don’t you just get the next round?’ He proposed and you nodded in agreement.

‘Sounds fair.’ You trailed off after that, silence falling over the two of you as you tried to figure out what to say.

‘Thank you...’ You began. ‘For stepping in like that, he wasn’t backing down and I don’t know what I would have done if you weren’t here.’ You were a little shaken up by it. Guys, especially drunk guys, had a tendency to be a bit gross and over comfortable but none of them had pursued and threatened you the way that guys had today.

‘Don’t mention it. He’s kinda famous for doing that kind of stuff, unfortunately people have just come to accept it. It’s fucked up.’ Jaemin chuckled. ‘People can get so used to seeing someone harass a woman that they begin to turn a blind eye.’

‘Yeah...’ You trailed off again, not sure how to respond.

Your drinks soon arrived, a waitress placing them down on the table in front of you. You reached out and grabbed the glass with your drink in as Jaemin picked up his. He lifted it to his lips and took a sip as you mirrored his actions with your own.

‘If you were meaning to catch Hyuck, he just left.’ Jaemin said suddenly, and you sent him a tight smile.

‘I wasn’t so don’t worry about it.’ You replied quickly, praying that this wouldn’t be the entirety of your conversation.

‘He misses you, you know?’ Jaemin continued softly, watching your face for any kind of reaction as you sighed.

‘Does he now?’ You muttered, staring into the dark brown drink in your hands.

‘Yes, y/n, he does.’ The certainty and clear frustration in Jaemin’s voice made you lift your eyes up to stare at him. ‘I’ve known Hyuck a long time and there’s something about you that’s stopped him in his tracks. He cares for you.’

‘He’ll move on. He always does, doesn't he? Soon he’ll stop wasting his money on the flowers or food and find his next girl to conquer. Don’t get mad at me for figuring out what was going on before he got the chance to pull the rug out from underneath my feet.’ You argued, slightly fed up that this was the only thing you could take about. You and Jaemin had always got along well so it upset and infuriated you that you had lost that relationship too.

Then Jaemin spoke again, this time the words that fell from his lips hitting you like a truck.

'Look, the list was never Hyuck’s idea to begin with, in fact he was really against it. The day you found it was the same day where he called our group to let them know that he was burning it, “it can only cause pain” were his words. The names that were crossed, weren’t crossed off by him. This old friend of ours, someone who we don’t speak to anymore after this, he heard about your relationship and gave Hyuck the list when he came back into town. Hyuck never wanted it, he never even looked at it once since he was given it, and he certainly didn’t care about it or use you just to cross your name off it. And the fact that you think that... y/n it’s killing him.’ He leant forwards as you averted your gaze, and forced you to look him in the eyes again. ‘Y/n, I've seen him work very hard to get girls and I've seen him work very hard to get rid of girls. I've never seen him work this hard to keep one around.’

And with that Jaemin stood, leaving the drink he barely touched sitting on the surface in front of you. You stared at it, not bothering to watch the boy leave as his last words swirled around in your head.

‘I’ve never seen him work this hard to keep one around.’

---

You stepped outside, shutting your front door behind you. You had arrived home from the bar to an empty house and having not felt like cooking, you decided to get a takeout. However, the one place you were really craving was only doing pickup so you had to walk there to order and get it. You pushed on the door, checking it was locked and then turned around, only to stop dead in your tracks when you found yourself face to face with Haechan.

The two of you just stared at each other, you refusing to speak first and, even though Haechan had practiced what he was going to say about a million times on the way over, all words had now left his mind. Eventually you just gave him a tight lipped smile and a nod and made to walk past him.

‘Wait! Y/n wait, please!’ Haechan called out and you slowed to a stop, lifting your eyes up to look at him once more. ‘I, um... I owe you an explanation.’

‘Really Haechan, you don’t have to it's pretty clear what was going on. It’s chill, we’re done and that’s fine. I’m just gonna do my thing and move on like I’d always planned and-’ You shrugged before getting cut off.

‘For the love of god y/n, would you please stop acting like everything’s fine and start dealing with your crap!’ Haechan snapped, causing you to look at him in shock. ‘Look, I’m sorry I snapped but... God, you don’t have to always pretend like it isn’t a big deal. You’re allowed to be upset about things. I hurt you, I know I did. You trusted me, confided in me, cared for me and I threw it all away, and it’s okay to be hurt by that. I’m not saying that I want you to feel hurt, obviously, but... not every has to mean nothing to you.’ Haechan was pretty much mumbling by the end of it, furious with himself for shouting at you when he was here to apologise.

‘Nothing? You think what happened meant nothing to me?’ You asked in disbelief. ‘Hyuck, when I saw that list, it was like everything I had ever thought, every reason I had ever had for keeping my walls up was proved true. I know it may seem like a small deal to some people, but it isn’t to me. It isn’t, okay? You lied to me, manipulated me for weeks, months even, and I feel like such an idiot. And don’t you dare think for one second that you mean nothing to me because the reason it hurt so much is because it was you. Nobody else has the power to hurt me and heal me like you do. And I keep my guard up, I keep my walls up, even when I’m upset, especially when I’m upset, because I don’t want someone to know what power they have over me. Because... if they see how much I care about them, how much I love them, what’s stopping them from using that against me? Once someone knows about it, I don’t have control over it anymore. Once someone knows about it, my heart is completely in the hands of, and at the mercy of, the person I love.’ You ranted, the tears in your eyes gathering rapidly as you tried with everything you could to blink them away. You never told people the truth about how you felt, scared about how they would react to the real you. In fact, telling Hyuck this was terrifying.

Hyuck stared at you with wide eyes, his expression, for once, was unreadable.

‘Love?’ He asked, hope reaching out across his face as you finally managed to get a read on him.

You swallowed, the fear that you had previously been trying to explain began to bubble up as you forced it back down.

‘Yes Hyuck, love...’

‘You’re calling me Hyuck...’ He pointed out, his voice just as soft as yours.

‘I guess I am.’

‘Do you love me?’

Your eyes shot up at his question, leaving their previous view of the tarmac of your drive and instead settling on Donghyuck’s brown eyes, ones that were currently glistening with tears.

‘Does it matter?’ You whispered. ‘It’s not going to change anything. It all still happened.’

‘But it didn’t! Well, it did, but I never wanted it to happen in the first place. I never wanted anything to do with that stupid list! I told him it would only hurt people and now I’ve gone and hurt the one person that I truly love and it’s not fair!’ Your eyes widened at his words, unable to process that fact that he just said love. Hyuck began to wind his hands through his hair as he continued his angry rant that wasn’t really directed at you but rather anyone who would listen. ‘I burnt it. I burnt the fucking list but it was too late and now it’s all a mess and it’s my fault cause I should have burnt it when I first got it. I never even scratched a name off, I’ve only spent time with you this year and I only ever wanted to and I want only you now and I’m not making sense anymore and-’

‘Hyuck!’ You interrupted, stopping him mid rant as his words began to turn to nonsense. His innocent doe eyes looked into yours and you refused to break eye contact. ‘Love?’ You asked, repeating Hyuck’s question from before.

You wanted as his demeanour completely changed. He forced some air into his lungs, dropping his shoulders as he took a deep breath. He lifted his head and locked eyes with you for the thousandth time that night, yet this felt very different. There was something in his gaze that held you captive, even if you had wanted to look away, you wouldn’t have been able to. Your eyes never left his, even as he began to speak and you saw the truth in his words through his sincere expression.

‘I’m not good at this. This kind of moment, this conversation where I admit how I’ve been feeling this entire time. I’m good with music, I’m good with food, I’m good with jokes and making people laugh, but... I’m really bad when it comes to looking someone in the eye and telling them how I feel. Especially if that means letting my walls down. I’m not here to tell you that I’m falling in love with you. I’m here to tell you that... I’ve already fallen. And I was terrified of falling for you, because it was so easy. The way you always remember my coffee order, or the way you drape a blanket over me when I fall asleep on the sofa, or the way that you made me care more about my life, about who I am and how I impact others. Loving you was so easy and that’s why it was so god damn terrifying. Because I couldn’t stop myself. No matter how hard I try, I can’t stop myself from being in love with you. I am utterly, hopelessly, irretrievably in love with you. More than you’ll ever know. And for the first time in my life, that doesn’t sound so scary.’

By this point, the tears that had been previously threatening to fall were now steadily making their way down his face. You knew that you looked no better, your vision was blurry and your throat was tight. He refused to look away from you, not even to wipe the tears from his face, instead, he kept talking.

‘And I know that this doesn’t change anything. You’re still leaving at the end of this year, but that’s just over seven months away. And, even though I know how it’s going to end, I want those seven months with you. I do. I want them more than anything. And I will do anything it takes to earn your trust back.’

There wasn’t a single speck of doubt in your body that Hyuck was telling the truth. This wasn’t Haechan speaking, this was Donghyuck, vulnerable, emotional and broken Donghyuck talking to you from his heart, begging for your forgiveness and understanding. You found it impossible to tear your gaze away from him, your eyes glued to his as you tried to come to a conclusion in your mind.

No matter how many times the irrational part of your brain tried to convince you this was all a trick, some elaborate scheme that will end up with you getting your heart broken, you couldn’t hear it. It was outweighed by the sheer volume of every atom, every fibre of your being screaming out for the boy you loved, for Donghyuck.

‘Hyuck, I love you... But I don’t want you to have only seven months with me.’ You began. Donghyuck’s face quickly fell, as if accepting defeat and he sadly nodded. ‘I want you to have more than that. And I know that it doesn’t seem possible, because I’m moving, but, what if I wasn’t...’ You trailed off as Hyuck’s eyes filled with hope.

‘What are you saying?’ He asked, his lips twitching as he fought back a grin. He had never wanted anything more than he wanted you to be saying what he thought you were saying.

‘I’m saying, my dad got offered a permanent position here, and he took it. I’m not moving. I’m staying here, in the only place on earth I want to stay. Because, here, I get to be with you.’ You revealed.

A second passed as the revelation sank in and Donghyuck’s face split into the biggest smile you had ever seen on him. He rushed forwards towards you, his arms making their way around your waist as your bodies crashed into each other. You wound your arms around his neck, dropping your head into his shoulder and feeling him do the same. You breathed in, savouring the feeling of being wrapped in his embrace, the place you had missed so much.

Hyuck eventually lifted his head out of your neck, looking you deep in the eyes before he leant his forehead on yours and breathed out a soft:

‘I’ve missed you.’

You couldn’t stop the smile that grew on your face, nor could you stop your reply.

‘I missed you too.’

You pulled your forehead away from his, watching as his gaze flickered down to your lips and back up again, a questioning look in his eyes. You nodded, giving permission and Hyuck wasted no time in pressing his lips to yours.

You could have sworn fireworks went off. You had never understood that saying until that very moment, but right there, you felt an explosion of love that you hadn’t known was possible. You pressed yourself into him as his arms pulled you as close as possible until there wasn’t any space between your bodies.

You both pulled away to catch your breath, yet neither of you moved away from the other at all. You stayed just as close as you had been, with Hyuck’s arms never loosening from around your waist. He couldn’t stop himself from laughing slightly, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

‘I love you.’ He laughed, provoking a chuckle out of you too.

‘I love you more.’ You replied, grinning up at him as he raised an eyebrow at you.

‘Not possible.’ He answered back, his voice softening as he leant down to kiss you once more.

Hyuck kissed you again, and again, and again. He kissed you throughout the whole night, only stopping to whisper confessions of his love or to attempt to pull you closer to him than you already were. He came with you to pick up some takeout, he also insisted on paying, but even when waiting for the food, he held you tightly in a back hug.

He pulled your legs over his on the sofa at yours as he fed you your takeout while you watched a movie together. And he kept his tight grip on you as you went to sleep, tangled up together like vines, so intertwined that it seemed impossible to pull them apart.

Hyuck never ended up telling you why he held you so tightly that night. In his defence, you never really asked, and, as much as Hyuck allowed himself to be vulnerable and honest around you, this was something that he kept as his own little secret. As his own little confession. Whenever Hyuck was struggling, he just thought back to this night and how amazing it felt to finally have the girl he loved wrapped in his arms, with the knowledge that she will still be there when he wakes up.

He had finally found someone who he loved and would do anything for, and he never wanted to let you go.

---

Not even one month later, it was the Winter Formal. The school had decided to put a monumental amount of effort into it, hiring out a local ballroom and turning it into a winter wonderland, complete with fake snow, white trees, gentle lighting and sparkly white silk hanging around the room. You would be lying if you said that your breath wasn’t completely taken away when you walked in.

Yet none of it compared to the feeling of walking in with Hyuck on your arm.

Hyuck had surprised, not only you, but the entire school it seemed when he walked in with a smart suit on, a white flower in the pocket and green tie neatly around his neck. It seemed as though all eyes were on the two of you when you entered the hall, and you were sure that Hyuck’s look was something to do with it.

Of course he disagreed. He insisted that it was all to do with the green gown that you were wearing, claiming the way it hugged your figure in all the right places and the slit in the thigh made you look like a dream. Walking out of your house to meet Hyuck and seeing his jaw literally drop was a major confidence boost. That boy knew how to make you feel good about yourself.

You met your friends at the dance, and not even two minutes after arriving, were immediately pulled onto the dance floor by Jaemin.

‘You guys look good!’ He commented, flashing you his million dollar smile. ‘Probably the best out of everyone here. ’

‘Well we thought it was best to make an impression.’ You shrugged, grinning back at him.

Just as Hyuck opened his mouth to reply, your maths professor walked past, unable to stop himself from commenting.

‘Nice to see you finally put some effort into your appearance Haechan.’

‘Thank you sir. You too!’ Hyuck replied cheekily, before turning back to the two of you with a confused look on his face.

‘Was it just me or was that a little bit weird?’ He asked the two of you.

‘Just a bit, yeah!’ You replied, laughing as Jaemin agreed with you.

The music began to slow down and Jaemin, not wanting to get stuck in the masses of couples who were taking to the dance floor, said a quick goodbye before moving away.

Hyuck gently grabbed your hand with his, wrapping his other hand securely around your waist and pulled you in close to him. You rested your free hand on his shoulder and gently began to sway to the music.

The whole scene felt like something out of a movie. The soft lights were gently shining down on the two of you, making you feel as though you were the only two people there as the atmosphere surrounded you, enclosing you in your own little bubble. You found yourself getting lost in Hyuck’s eyes as the music faded slowly into the background, the sound of your heart beating for the boy in front of you overpowering everything else.

There really was nothing that you wouldn’t do for Hyuck. And, no matter what people told you, no matter what rumours you hear, you knew that you knew him. The real him. Not Haechan, not the bad boy cliche image that he puts up everyday, not everyone else’s perception of him as the kid who didn’t give a damn about anyone or anything. You knew Hyuck for who he truly was, all the good, the bad and the ugly. You had seen him at his highs and his lows, you trusted him with your heart and you knew he would never break it.

After all these years of moving and leaving things behind, you had finally found somewhere you could call home. Only it wasn’t a place. It was a person. And you knew that, as long as he was looking down at you with that much love in his eyes, you wouldn’t need any other home ever again.

Maybe senior year wasn’t just the best year of your life as everybody says it is, but also the beginning of the rest of it.

Roll credits.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 27, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

The contours of politics today look much like they did yesterday. President Biden is forging ahead through executive actions—today pausing oil and gas leases while switching the government to electric vehicles— while the two factions in the Republican Party claw for supremacy.

Dead center of both of these political fights is the future of this country. Will Trump and his supporters seize control of the government—by means legal or illegal—or will the country steer itself back to the norms and values of democracy?

The dangers of Trumpism are becoming clearer each day. Today, for the first time, the Department of Homeland Security issued a national terrorism bulletin that warned of violence from domestic extremists angry over “perceived grievances fueled by false narratives” and emboldened by the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. The bulletin expires at the end of April.

Law enforcement has moved National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., in part to guard against violence on March 4, a day that QAnon supporters who still believe Trump is part of an elaborate trick to reclaim the nation from the Democrats think will be the day on which the former president is finally sworn in for his second term. (March 4 was the nation’s original inauguration date; it changed under Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1937.)

In testimony yesterday, the acting chief of the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington told the House Appropriations Committee that at least 65 officers filed reports of injury after the January 6 attack. The chair of the Capitol Police officers’ union, Gus Papathanasiou, put the number closer to 140. "I have officers who were not issued helmets prior to the attack who have sustained brain injuries. One officer has two cracked ribs and two smashed spinal discs. One officer is going to lose his eye, and another was stabbed with a metal fence stake," he said. One officer died of injuries sustained on January 6. Two officers have since taken their own lives.

Meanwhile, a video emerged today of the new Republican representative from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene, harassing David Hogg, who survived the mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, on Valentine’s Day 2018. Greene followed Hogg down the street in Washington, D.C., in March 2019, with an accomplice filming as she badgered him, called him a crisis actor paid by George Soros, told him she was armed, demanded he talk to her, and called him a coward. He walked on, without engaging her.

The video emerged the day after reporters discovered old Facebook activity on Greene’s page in which she responded positively to a commenter talking of hanging former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama and another talking of killing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

While Representative Jimmy Gomez (D-CA) has called for Greene’s expulsion from Congress, leading Republicans in the House responded to the Facebook news simply by saying they condemned violent rhetoric on both sides. Today, Republican House leadership assigned her to the Education and Labor Committee.

Republican lawmakers seem to be siding with Trump’s supporters, turning against the ten House Republicans who voted for Trump’s impeachment. In the House, Trump supporters are trying to throw Liz Cheney (R-WY) out of her spot in the party’s leadership, and the former president’s new political action committee is ginning up anger against her as it urges primary challengers to jump into the race in 2022.

Increasingly, Republican lawmakers are pushing to let Trump off the hook on impeachment. In the Senate yesterday, Rand Paul (R-KY) insisted that a former president could not be tried on an impeachment charge, and 45 Republicans agreed with him. This is not necessarily a signal of how the eventual Senate vote will go, but Paul said it was: he insisted this was a sign that Trump would not be convicted. Republican lawmakers seem to be coming down on Trump’s side as polls show that while most Americans are horrified by the attack on the Capitol and blame Trump for it, most Republicans- 78%-- don’t blame him. Republican lawmakers are accusing Democrats of divisiveness in their move to hold the president accountable.

Some Republicans are, though, alarmed at the idea that a president might get away with inciting an insurrection that endangered our elected representatives and our government itself—remember the next three people in line for the presidency were in the Capitol when the rioters stormed it—and which came perilously close to making good on threats against individuals, including then-vice president Mike Pence.

Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) dismissed the idea that the country could have unity without addressing the causes of the current anger. “I say, first of all, have you gone out publicly and said that there was not widespread voter fraud and that Joe Biden is the legitimate president of the United States? If you said that, then I’m happy to listen to you talk about other things that might inflame anger and divisiveness,” he explained to Dennis Romboy of Deseret News. “But if you haven’t said that, that’s really what’s at the source of the anger right now.”

Also notable is the firm stance of Representative Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), who has bucked his party to speak out against the former president’s attacks on the election and incitement of the rioters. “I’ve felt very isolated in my party,” Kinzinger told Ellen McCarthy of the Washington Post.

While the Republican Party’s apparent embrace of Trump and all he now stands for is grabbing headlines, Biden and his administration officials are taking on the radicalization of his opponents in a new and promising way. They are demonstrating an approach to sidelining Trumpism by shifting the focus off the exhausting drama of the former president and his supporters and onto a functioning government that is working for ordinary Americans.

When a reporter today asked White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki if the administration had any comment on Greene, Psaki made it clear the administration was not going to give any oxygen to her or those like her. “We don’t, and I am not going to speak further about her, I think, in this briefing room,” Psaki said.

While Biden is starving the Republicans of oxygen, he is also working to address the conditions that have fed desperate conspiracy theories and divisions. In America, such societal breakdown is associated with periods in which ordinary people face economic hardship. Biden is moving quickly on a range of issues that are popular among ordinary voters of both parties, including addressing the country’s extreme inequality. After all, one of the complaints that drew voters to an outsider in 2016 was the belief that government no longer worked for the people and needed to be shaken up.

Today’s executive order on addressing climate change talks at length about creating “good-paying union jobs” and “tapping into the talent, grit, and innovation of American workers.” It calls for the government to buy zero-emission vehicles made in the U.S., and to rebuild federal infrastructure, creating construction, manufacturing, engineering, and skilled-trades jobs. Job creation and infrastructure development were both promises the previous president made in 2016 that boosted his support but which never really came to pass. If Biden can actually deliver on them, he could reclaim those Trump voters for the Democrats, as well as addressing climate change and our failing infrastructure.

Biden’s people are also making sure we see a White House that is addressing issues that created concern in the past administration. They are upholding old norms—holding daily press briefings, for example—honoring science, restoring government websites, and treating members of the media with respect.

They seem to be trying to remind us how our democracy is supposed to work.

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[leftpress]

| July 24th 2019 | Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)

We have a lot going on and I wanted to be sure we are in touch with you even if you are not attending the convention!

Reminder to Chapters and Members of the Critical Need for Confidentiality in the Grievance Process

Jane McAlevey Tools from No Shortcuts to Organizing for Power Series

Democratic Socialist Labor Commission (DSLC) Update

Electoral Endorsements in California and Ohio

DSA In Office Gathering in Atlanta

Convention is Coming Up!

Pre-Convention Budget Webinar for Members

Delegate Convention Emails

Reminder to Chapters and Members of the Critical Need for Confidentiality in the Grievance Process

On the July 8 call of the National Political Committee Steering Committee, the SC voted to send this letter to members.

The entire process for Resolution 33 grievances and non-Resolution 33 cases may be seen here, as well as resources for chapter Harassment and Grievance Officers.

Jane McAlevey Tools from No Shortcuts to Organizing for Power Series

In the last two months, hundreds of members attended three mass organizing calls with Jane McAlevey, ending on July 10 with a call on how to use these techniques to strengthen your DSA chapter. In moments like now, when the boss class is doubling down on their campaign to divide, conquer, and spread fear, it is more important than ever that we build effective chapters who can both mobilize, but also organize.

Stay tuned for an August follow up call to see how folks have applied Jane’s lessons, and in the meantime, here are some tools she developed for chapter members in DSA. We hope you can try them out and then get on our next call!

DSA chapter charting conversation rap

DSA chapter charting worksheet

DSA 1 to 1 organizing conversation roleplay debrief checklist

If you missed any or all of these mass calls, click here to watch the three videos. At the link you will find a discussion guide for No Shortcuts, brought to you by the DSA Fund, dedicated to education and outreach about Democratic Socialism. Learn more or support the DSA Fund here.

Democratic Socialist Labor Commission (DSLC) Update

The DSLC is hosting a call featuring the leaders of Labor Working Groups, Committees, and Branches throughout the organization. They will be discussing the approach they take to the labor movement in their chapters, campaigns they’ve taken on, and issues they’ve faced. We are still finalizing a time and agenda, but you can pre-register for the call at this link.

And check out the DSLC’s Labor 101 curriculum! There will be an opportunity for delegates to participate in a Labor 101 session at the convention, which is a great opportunity to bring this training back to their home chapter.

Electoral Endorsements in California and Ohio

The National Electoral Committee is proud to endorse Dean Preston for San Francisco, CA Board of Supervisors and Liliana Rivera Baiman for Columbus, OH City Council!! Both are up for election Tuesday, November 5th. Vote for them if you live in town, donate to them if you can, and reach out to eric@dsausa.org to volunteer remotely for them or our other candidates like Shaun Scott in Seattle.

Dean Preston wrote the Right to Counsel ballot measure that San Francisco DSA endorsed and won, and is known as one of the lead organizers who helped save CA rent control in 2008. He has represented tenants in eviction cases and victims of police misconduct as a lawyer, and now he is running to represent working people on San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors. This is a chance to elect a DSA member who has already worked alongside the chapter to office and boost their fights for a green new deal, public transportation, and of course, tenants’ rights and affordable housing.

Liliana Rivera Baiman is a mother, labor organizer, and DREAMer activist who is running because Columbus workers shouldn’t need more than one job to survive. That means good union jobs with benefits, and a city that can support them. She’s a member of Columbus DSA and knows that without municipal ID cards and public internet, it’s hard for everyone to take advantage of everything the city has to offer. With public services that are funded by prioritizing the good of all over the good of developers, Liliana believes everyone can thrive.

DSA In Office Gathering in Atlanta

The past few weeks we have seen what happens when the Wall Street wing of the Democratic Party attacks their left flank. It opens the door for the likes of Trump to go on the offensive, galvanizing and growing his base from among those who would like to return this country to pre-Reconstruction economic and social relations.

Outside the formal political arena, DSA members across the country have attended and in many cases helped organize Close the Camps mobilizations. It is critical that our chapters be part of broad based majoritarian coalitions organizing both in direct actions and in civil society against the increasing neo-fascism of the Republican Party, the accomodationism of too many moderate Democrats, and the corporations who assist ICE and other institutions of oppression.

We are also working inside the formal political arena, supporting our members in office to use their resources to facilitate working class self defense in their communities, and helping new democratic socialists candidates run for office at all levels of government. Dozens of DSA members currently in office will gather concurrent with the national convention to build our national network and find new ways to leverage our independent, collective power.

Convention is Coming Up!

It’s been great seeing members on social media discussing some of the many resolutions before delegates at the convention, and knowing many of you are holding chapter meetings to discuss them as well. Delegates will make major decisions about the direction of the organization in just two weeks.

We will also hear from inspiring leaders both inside and outside DSA, including:

Sara Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO. During the government shutdown, Nelson released a video calling on flight attendants to stop working and support air traffic controllers sickouts. Hours later, Trump cut a deal to end the shutdown. Now she’s standing up against climate change, supporting the Green New Deal, and calling on airlines to stop enabling deportations.

Linda Sarsour, DSA member, co-founder of MPower Change, Palestinian-American community organizer, former executive director of the Arab American Association of New York and Women’s March board member.

Together we will marshall our strength for the struggles ahead. We want nothing less than a planet for the many, not the few!

Pre-Convention Budget Webinar for Members

The Budget and Finance Committee is organizing a Preconvention Webinar Budget Presentation on Sunday, 7/28th 8pm ET/7pm CT/6pm MT/5pm PT. The call will be one hour long and will include an mid-year budget analysis. This call will be limited to DSA members as of 7/11/2019.

To verify memberships are up-to-date with their dues, we ask that you RSVP for access to the call. Every member who RSVPs will receive a recording of the call.

Delegate Convention Emails

Are you a national convention delegate but not receiving convention bulletin emails? You may not have filled out the full registration process! Email RegHelpDesk@dsausa.org to check.

Learn more about our national convention here.

The post Special Mid-Month Dispatch appeared first on Democratic Socialists of America (DSA).

[Read More On LeftPress.org]

[sciencespies]

NIH Director Francis Collins To Step Down In 2021 After 12 Years

https://sciencespies.com/news/nih-director-francis-collins-to-step-down-in-2021-after-12-years/

NIH Director Francis Collins To Step Down In 2021 After 12 Years

It’s the end of an era. After 12 years at the helm, Francis Collins, MD, PhD, announced today that he will be stepping down as director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) by the end of the year. Here’s a tweet from the physician-scientist-leader-motorcycle-rider-rock-musician announcing his plans:

Whoa, this is a bit like hearing the end of the Beatles, ABBA, the Spice Girls, NSYNC, and One Direction runs, although Collins and the NIH are not breaking up. Far from it. He will be stepping down from his role as director but will continue to lead his research laboratory at the NIH. It’s just that with the longest ever term, Collins as director and the NIH have been like peanut butter-and-jelly or avocado and basically anything else. The two have long been associated together with each other.

In fact, no other Presidentially-appointed NIH Director has served for more than one Presidential administration, let alone three. His name is not Dr. Francis “The Rock” Collins. That nickname is kind of already taken. Nevertheless, Collins has been a rock before and through what has been a really rocky past several years for America.

Remember 2009? That was when America was still recovering from a major recession and far too many people wearing Crocs, not that the two were related. The world was also in the midst of another pandemic, the 2009 H1N1 flu pandemic. Well, August 17, 2009 was when Collins first officially became the the 16th Director of the NIH, after President Barack Obama nominated him and the Senate soon confirmed him unanimously. Collins subsequently continued in the position through the rest of Obama’s two consecutive terms, President Donald Trump’s one term, and the first year of President Joe Biden’s presidency.

In a statement from the NIH, Collins related that “It has been an incredible privilege to lead this great agency for more than a decade. I love this agency and its people so deeply that the decision to step down was a difficult one, done in close counsel with my wife, Diane Baker, and my family. I am proud of all we’ve accomplished.”

He continued by saying, “I fundamentally believe, however, that no single person should serve in the position too long, and that it’s time to bring in a new scientist to lead the NIH into the future. I’m most grateful and proud of the NIH staff and the scientific community, whose extraordinary commitment to lifesaving research delivers hope to the American people and the world every day.” Note that Collins used the word “scientist” here. A scientist is who should be leading any scientific endeavor, initiative, or organization unless “messing up” is one of the goals. After all, you wouldn’t have a clam bake announcer who doesn’t have any football experience lead a football team, right?

Collins was already a rock star of a scientist prior to leading the NIH. He had been the bedrock of the then-super-ambitious goal of mapping the human genome. He had led the Human Genome Project and served as the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) from 1993 through 2008. That work rocked the world as knowing what parts of human DNA handled what body functions has led to many new discoveries along with potential ways of treating different diseases. He’s an elected members of the Institute of Medicine and the National Academy of Sciences. In 2007 then-President George W. Bush presented him with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. As you can see, Collins’ appeal extended across both major political parties.

Over the past decade plus, Collins has launched a number of large biomedical initiatives. For example, there was the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, which supported researchers developing new technologies to better understand how the brain works and address problems such as Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia, and psychosis. Another example has been the All of Us Research Program, an ambitious project that has already gotten a million Americans to offer data on themselves to help researchers determine how different factors affect health and move more towards precision medicine. Precision medicine means better tailoring medical treatments and health care to different people. A third example has been the Accelerating Medicines Partnership, which has brought together public and private entities to accelerate the translation of initial scientific discoveries in labs into real products on the market.

Collins has steered NIH through some of the most tumultuous years that the scientific community has faced in recent memory. From 2017 through 2019, former President and current Mar-A-Lago resident Trump repeatedly proposed to Congress massive cuts in NIH funding and scientific research in general. Such cuts would have been a huge punch in the face to science in the U.S. and made America grate and far less than first in World. Fortunately, with Collins and others advocating for the NIH, Congress essentially said “oh, no you didn’t” and “WTH are you doing” to the Trump administration and ignored these proposed reductions. They chose instead to increase the NIH budget.

Then there has been that little thing called the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. Ever since the early days of the pandemic, when toilet paper suddenly became the new gold and people learned that “flattening the curve” had nothing to do with body shaping, Collins worked to help put together major initiatives to help develop new ways of preventing and treating Covid-19. These included the:

Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV): a public-private partnership to accelerate development of new vaccines and treatments

Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostic (RADx) program: to catalyze the development of new Covid-19 tests,

Community Engagement Alliance (CEAL) Against COVID-19 Disparities: to assist disadvantaged communities hit hardest hit by the pandemic

Researching COVID to Enhance Discoveries (RECOVER) Initiative: to address the growing problem of long Covid.

Throughout the pandemic, an anti-science sentiment has permeated many political and business leaders like a gigantic lingering fart. This has kept Collins and other physician scientists caught between a rock and a hard place, trying to tell everyone, “help us help you,” kind of like what the Tom Cruise character did in the movie Jerry Maguire. Through it all, Collins has remained focused on combating both the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and the anti-science hogwash at the same time.

Most recently, Collins has been working with the White House to propose to Congress an innovative new agency, called Advanced Research Project Agency for Health (ARPA-H), that would be housed under NIH and aim to catalyze higher-risk, higher-reward biomedical and health research. As I described for Forbes previously, ARPA-H, if approved by Congress, could help get past some of the risk-averse, “fund more of the same stuff” tendencies that the current NIH peer-review process may continue to propagate.

Collins and his band The Affordable Rock N’ Roll Act (ARRA) played at the 2019 DCSWA (D.C. Science … [+] Writers Association) Holiday Party in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Bruce Y. Lee)

Bruce Y Lee

Collins has been willing to rock the boat as well when it comes to doing something about many long-standing issues that have hampered the progression of science. One issue has been the structural racism that exists throughout the scientific community and has been holding back the work and advancement of many scientists of color. Another barrier that Collins has tried to tackle is sexism and sexual harassment. For example, back in 2019, Collins announced that he will no longer appear on any “manels,” as I covered for Forbes. The term “manels” may sound like a piece of furniture or a new cologne designed to drive you wild but are actually all-male, non-diverse panels that have been driving a lot of scientists wild in a bad way. A third barrier has been scientists and organizations hoarding data as if they were toilet paper and not sharing such information with the rest of the scientific community and general public.

Collins also rocks literally. He is an accomplished musician and formed a band originally called “The Directors,” which eventually became the “Affordable Rock ‘n’ Roll Act (ARRA),” and consists of various past and present NIH members. The band has made a number of appearances in different venues, including our 2018 D.C. Science Writers Association (DCSWA) Holiday Parties in Washington, D.C. As a member of the DCSWA Board and planning committee for the party, I can say the AARA was certainly “affordable” and really rocked the joint.

Through it all, Collins has brought a distinctly human face to running the NIH. Despite his many accomplishments and responsibilities, he’s remained very accessible to other scientists and the public. He’s reminded everyone that scientists can be highly effective and multi-talented leaders who can enact change across a wide range of sectors. In essence, Collins has reminded everyone that physician scientists can really, really rock.

#News

[enubus]

When Joe Biden first pitched the idea that his massive spending agenda would actually cost “zero dollars,” most Americans laughed. Then people realized he was serious, and other Democrats including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi began repeating it. Then the Leftmedia “fact-checkers” hedged, calling the claim misleading but essentially insisting Biden needs time to see how things shake out before declaring it the whopper it really is. For the moment at least, whether Biden intends to spend $0, $3.5 trillion, or the more realistic $5-6 trillion, his agenda is stalled on Capitol Hill.

We’ll admit the bickering between Democrat factions has been entertaining, though we’re also keenly aware that it’s mostly theater. Bernie Sanders and his faithful Socialist Squad disciples are pushing hard for a big agenda. They know that even if Joe Manchin and Krysten Sinema succeed in reducing the price tag, even by a couple of trillion dollars, they will have built or introduced the entitlement state objectives they set.

The story of ObamaCare over the last decade proves how difficult it is to end a new entitlement.

Let’s be clear: Biden outsourced his agenda to Sanders. Even though he began his presidency by championing the “infrastructure” spending bill — only a fraction of which is actually infrastructure — he has now thrown it under the bus in favor of Sanders’s larger bill. According to Fox News, “Biden now claims that his Build Back Better agenda does not include the bipartisan infrastructure bill but only the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill, even though Democrats have attempted to use the former to pass the latter.”

So-called Democrat moderates must be feeling some whiplash. They’ve been demanding the bipartisan infrastructure package pass before even considering anything further. The radical leftists who actually run the party want just the opposite, and Biden has joined them.

“I wrote the damn bill,” Biden insisted of the larger one when he traveled to Congress to twist some arms. “Even a smaller bill can make historic investments in child care, day care, clean energy. You get a whole hell of a lot of things done.” He told them he doesn’t mind sacrificing infrastructure on the altar of socialism.

But can Democrats get this done? Despite a public pledge to hold a vote by September 27, Pelosi keeps having to delay a vote on the “infrastructure” bill that already passed the Senate because the far-left wing is holding it hostage to the bigger bill. Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer have now extended the debate for another month.

Meanwhile, leftist activists are chasing Sinema into a bathroom and kayaking to Manchin’s houseboat to heckle and harass them. Neither senator seems phased — other than doubling down.

Pelosi, Schumer, and Biden have all seemingly concluded that losing their congressional majority in 2022 is likelier than not, so they better enact their fundamental transformation now. And as for the supposed conscientious objectors in the middle, they may talk a tough game, but it’s largely a theatrical farce.

Veteran political analyst Philip Klein zeroed in on Manchin, writing: “To sum up, in the past year and a half, Manchin has already voted in favor of $6.5 trillion worth of spending, and he has indicated a willingness to vote for at least another $1.5 trillion, which would bring the total to $8 trillion. And he is trying to portray himself as the voice of fiscal sanity, because he is not willing to go from $8 trillion to $10 trillion. Call Manchin whatever you want, but responsible budget hawk, he is not.”

Democrats have the votes to pass whatever they like, and the bickering is little more than theater to make the final product seem somehow less radical. That’s why Democrats chose Joe Biden instead of Bernie Sanders — only to allow Sanders to steer the ship from the Senate Budget Committee anyway. Fighting over a trillion bucks here or there is just for show.

[berniesrevolution]

Like many women, Margaret McLaughlin is used to dealing with sexism and harassment, whether it’s on the street or in the workplace. And the Democratic Socialists of America, where she is the Washington, DC, chair, isn’t always a refuge.

“At steering committee meetings, I’m interrupted by men who feel they can talk over me,” she said of her organization, which is 65 percent male. She’s not alone. Other socialist women have told her they’re “tired of men not paying attention to the world outside of them,” she said. “It comes out through harassment, abuse, mansplaining, or ignoring women.”

Allegations of sexism against the socialist left aren't new. During the 2016 primary, some Hillary Clinton supporters argued that misogynist "Bernie Bros" were unfairly criticizing their candidate. To many leftists, these criticisms felt like a smokescreen to distract from centrists’ unwillingness to confront more fundamental class divides.

But now similar criticisms are coming from within. A series of controversies over the past two weeks — many of which have stemmed indirectly from sexual assault allegations against Harvey Weinstein — has reinvigorated a debate over whether the socialist left has done enough to condemn the misogyny in the ranks of a movement explicitly devoted to gender equality. Socialist women are becoming increasingly vocal in decrying what they call socialist men’s encouragement of misogyny, while also stressing that leftist attacks on the Democratic Party cannot be reduced to sexism and that sexism is not confined to the left.

For McLaughlin and other socialist women, the fate of a renewed American socialism may hinge on this fight. Though the DSA quadrupled in size in the past year alone, it’s still a blip in the larger left-wing universe. Whether the new socialist left can transcend its peripheral status will depend on if it can incorporate — and listen to — the women in the movement demanding a firmer stance against sexism.

“I don’t think the men of the left are any more or less misogynistic than any other group of men,” McLaughlin said. “But leftist men just think with the equality of classes and races will come the equality of genders, but that’s not necessarily true. If men aren’t willing to do the work, it’s not going to happen.”

The latest controversy on the online socialist left, explained

Before we get to the recent controversies that have brought the issue of sexism on the left to the fore, here’s a quick rundown of the main players involved:

The Democratic Socialists of America: The 30,000-member-strong DSA has grown rapidly across the country since Bernie Sanders’s presidential run and Donald Trump’s election. (Jeff wrote a broader explainer about DSA, which you can read here.) Its founding was explicitly committed to anti-racist and anti-sexist work against capitalism, and — though often dominated by men at the local level — it boasts women leaders at the top of its leadership structure.

Chapo Trap House: A leftist comedy podcast hosted by four men (Will Menaker, Felix Biederman, Virgil Texas, Matt Christman), and one woman (Amber A'Lee Frost), Chapo Trap House earns enough through its Patreon account to gross approximately $1 million annually. (The show has about 20,000 subscribers, who each pay $5 per month. Jeff, a co-author of this piece, is a paying subscriber.) It’s been the subject of numerous profiles, including in the New Yorker and the New Republic, and it is known for delighting in vulgarity and mockery of liberals it views as uninterested in confronting the horrors of capitalism.

Cum Town: A podcast co-hosted by comedian Nick Mullen, Cum Town grosses close to $250,000 annually. The two shows openly swap compliments and promote each other, though Cum Town is much more vulgar and says it is not interested in politics. (One of Cum Town’s hosts, Adam Friedland, was a Vox Media employee.)

The hosts of Chapo have actively promoted the DSA, while Cum Town is less political. But both have vocal, overlapping fan bases who are active online, and both have gained an outsize visibility on the left — Chapo and its fans don’t represent the full spectrum of American socialism, but few socialists, other than Sanders himself, have as big an audience or as large a platform from which to broadcast their views.

Earlier this month, Josh Androsky, an officer with the DSA in Los Angeles, tweeted a photo of himself and two of the hosts of Chapo Trap House — Menaker and Christman — posing with Bill Cosby’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame (the tweet has since been deleted). The caption, "Hey libs try taking THIS statue down,” was a reference to conservative responses to calls to dismantle Confederate statues.

The tweet, Androsky later explained, was meant to be a criticism of Hollywood in the wake of revelations about Weinstein:

But as DSA-LA acknowledged, many saw it as an inappropriate joke at the expense of harassment and assault victims. “The use of glib and ironic language around such a serious issue minimized the experience of survivors,” the steering committee of DSA-LA said in a statement. “Our city is littered with monuments to men who have abused the women in their lives and confronting that cannot happen if the conversation is one that is too hostile or glib for women and survivors to want to participate in.”

Androsky apologized for the tweet, resigned from the Los Angeles steering committee, and pledged to undergo sensitivity training. Chapo Trap House has donated $10,000 to the Victim Rights Law Center, which helps victims of sexual abuse and assault, and the podcast hosts apologized for the Androsky joke immediately.

(Continue Reading)

[lsesu]

End of Year Review: David Gordon, Community & Welfare Officer (2019-20)

As I reflect on my last 12 months as your Community and Welfare Officer, a few things stick out. I think about the people I have met, the multi-faceted and extraordinary work that students do, and the opportunity I have had to make change at LSE.

As a sabbatical officer, everything I do must be in the interests of LSE students, and I have tried to instil that in all of my work, with varying degrees of success. One area I have worked on most is mental health at LSE, through partnering with the school, running events, and also being critical of LSE. LSE has a long way to go in constructing a truly supportive environment around mental health, from the classroom to the counselling service. This last year, I followed in my predecessor Faye's footsteps by lobbying for increased mental health professionals in the counselling service. Off the back of SU lobbying and LSE taking mental health increasingly seriously, they have hired four new full time members of staff – two counsellors and two mental health advisors. This increase in staff resource is virtually unheard of, and represents a great step forward, but is by no means the final step - LSE has a long way to go.

Some of my most popular work this year has been the creation of Wind Down Wednesday, which sought to provide students with a relaxing event every Wednesday to focus on themselves and disconnect from the business of an LSE schedule. Some stand out events were the collaborations with the Visual Arts Society, ginger bread house decorating, and of course bringing hedgehogs to campus with over 200 people queuing to play with them.

My biggest project around student welfare has been trying to create and implement a support map, a set of webpages that present all of the support available to LSE students in one place with an interactive and user friendly design. We conducted focus groups and surveyed over 250 students, with exceedingly positive feedback. We are so close to getting the map implemented by the LSE, but I will have to wait a few more weeks to find out for sure. If the support map is implemented, it will be my proudest achievement.

Another area of work I have taken on is trying to improve the SU's process for dealing with motions passed at Union General Meetings. Previously there was no formal process for acting on a motion, but I have set up a process whereby once a motion is passed it is presented to the SU Executive Committee who are ultimately responsible for delivering the aims of the motion. I have also had the pleasure of working with student campaigners on the Sexual Violence and Harassment motion that was passed, including Laura Goddard my fantastic successor. In response to that motion I have worked closely with the school to ensure that the single point of disclosure principle is at the heart of its strategy, along with hiring a member of staff to support students directly. As a result I co-chair the LSE's Task and Finish group on Sexual Violence and Harassment - the purpose of which is to see through the objectives listed in the SU motion. We have made some tremendous ground so far.

I can't really talk about my year as an SU Officer without mentioning LSE's committee and working group structure. There are so many meetings. So many. From Academic Board, where big decisions have been made, including the decisions this year to offer resits to all UG students and to Taught PG students, to Welcome Steering Group, which is at the fore of LSE's sense of belonging and community, all the way to SU Liaison Group, where we meet with LSE's top people and discuss the big issues affecting students. Navigating all of these committees and meeting groups has been challenging, but also allowed myself and fellow officers a chance to sit at LSE's tables and scrutinise their policies and procedures in ways that would otherwise not have been possible.

And what have the last three months of my term been like? Exhausting. As the realities of COVID-19 and the persistent Lockdown from regular life set in, the dynamics of my role changed massively. With fellow officers, I have had to focus majorly on the Trustee role that makes me one of LSESU's company and charity directors, sitting on the Board as a member and as Chair of the Audit and Risk committee. We have had to set a budget for the new academic year, dealing with huge amounts of uncertainty and risk. We also took the decision to put around half of our staff on furlough, something that has seriously helped us to stay financially afloat. All the while, we have been fighting with the school over their priorities and consideration of students - calling for a more sympathetic and demonstrably compassionate approach.

It would be remiss not to mention my fellow sabbatical officers, Jack, Martha, Anooshka and Zulum. Martha and Zulum were both in their second years as sabbatical officers. They led by example, and from them I gained the confidence to be critical, and to use my voice as an elected representative to have impact. They both made me a better officer. Jack and Anooshka have been great colleagues too. All of us were new to the role, bringing different perspectives and enthusiasm for serving students of LSE. I learnt a great deal from them too, and I am proud to call all of these people my friends, I look up to them all, and am very excited to see what they get up to.

It truly has been an honour and privilege to serve as your Community and Welfare Officer for this last year, and I am over the moon to continue in the SU as your General Secretary for the next 12 months. There are big challenges ahead, but also opportunities, and I am looking forward to everything that the next year will bring.

Thank you,

David Gordon, Community & Welfare Officer (2019-20)

[victor-criss]

continued from:

@slinkhard

- the other side had lots of interesting characters too, but i remember getting annoyed with how they were like all king’s heroes, where their committee is mainly the white dudes in charge again with frannie as secretary and mother abigail being allowed some kind of figurehead position.

oh, and the stupid ‘thank you, men!’ speech, and the bit with her mean mom and saintly dad who thinks ‘life is cheap, but abortion makes it cheaper’, yawn.

(iirc, someone on a03 did a long yuletide fic basically rewriting the end to have frannie, nadine, lucy and sue walking west; which was amazing.)

larry is one of my favorite characters and i was shocked that even he was just like “okay, yeah” at that john wayne men only bullshit. lmao the “thank you, men” bs makes me want to hurt someone. (and holy shit, do i need that fic in my life.) i hope whichever screenwriters tackle the stand do more justice to the women (fran and abagail and nadine in particular) but i’m not holding my breath.

-i liked bev/richie’s friendships a lot in the book, i’ve read fic of the pairing and liked it, although i was also happy with it on a platonic level (isn’t richie one of the three like stan and mike who get skipped over in the sewer orgy ~*loving descriptions*~? cause actually, his reaction might have been interesting, considering he and bevvie seemed to know each other the best prior to the beginning of the book) since she’s so sexualised by everyone else.

i think this is why i tend to skew towards bev/richie (and to a lesser extent, bev/stan and bev/mike) when it comes to shipping bev with the other losers, because you’re right, they didn’t sexualize her the way the others did. richie constantly thinks she’s beautiful, but an off-the-cuff “oh shit bev is gorgeous” thought is usually followed by ten other non-appearance things he admires/finds cool about her, so i allowed it, haha. the biggest thing that sold me on them is when he’s only joking about her not participating in the ritual of chud because she’s a girl, but bill (+possibly some of the others) absolutely fucking isn’t. (and screaming at “colt-like legs and burgeoning breasts”. take a pill and chill, uncle steve.)

- i remember reading ‘thinner’ and getting creeped out how often the daughter, who literally has no characteristics apart from being pretty like her mom was, is described constantly as wearing these old clothes that show the edge of her ‘panties’. like, enough! the unaware ‘she was too young to realise what hot jailbait she was’ trope makes it more humbert-y than it already was.

i read thinner in high school and i remember being so actively grossed out by the descriptions of all the women in it. (and not that the protagonist is a stand-up guy, but the fact that he blames everything on his wife just kept creeping me out because i could imagine legions of male readers nodding along and being like “well, he’s not wrong!! evil blowjob-giving temptress!!” rme.)

- the movie took the traditional ‘your dream girl has been saving herself for your kisses!’, like yes, the big concern i had about this 13 year old girl wasn’t harassment or vulnerability to sexual abuse, it was whether or not she’s easy. and the book took the more neo-liberal ‘hey, i’m a modern man, women have this amazing power of creation and shit, dude; i’m sex positive and anyway, it’s *~her choice~*

yeppppppppp. and let’s not be worried that 15-year-old henry and his even older friends and grown-ass men (and god knows who else) have been harassing and also possibly doing non-consensual things to this 13-year-old girl (i also dislike how both the movie/miniseries age up the bowers gang yet still find time to include the henry/bev undertones from the book, because a 12yo boy lusting after an 11yo girl is apparently no different in their minds than a 15/17yo boy actively sexually harassing and touching a 13yo girl, which says A Lot)

- and he has the nerve to pull the ‘we didn’t believe it!’ bit. like, yes, you did, don’t try and whitewash yourselves now. a line about how you don’t need to explain yourself to us bevvie, we like you, would have worked ten times better.

lmfao when he acts as if he wasn’t the one trying to stop richie from mentioning henry to her. (why you always lying.mp3) and not to mention how gross the rest of them were. (and stan winking at bill when they talk about the play, even though he was so fucking rude to bev moments earlier? because she’s not their friend in this movie, got it, she’s damaged goods, but he’ll still be boyishly proud his friend was ~first to score a kiss from her. cool.) one of the earlier scripts had that scene go along the lines of: bill asks if the rumors are true, beverly gets mad and asks so what if they are, bill says, “you’re my friend and i just want to know that you’re okay.” WHY THE FUCK WAS THIS CHANGED. WHY. (i know, because men. because they don’t see the staggering difference between that scene and the one we got in the movie. or maybe they did, and wanted another chance to turn bev into even more of a fantasy for male audience members.)

- meryl streep couldn’t save the bill/bev/ben triangle for me, haha.

preach to the fucking choir lmao. i really liked jeremy ray taylor’s ben, and he had tons of sweet scenes with bev (ignoring the kidnapping/kiss, because i’m still mad), but i dislike the whole “bev belongs to ben and bill” undercurrent in the text and also the movie - i think even richie has a thought along those lines, acknowledging that ben accepts bill as his rival because it’s ~expected~ and ~just how it is~ and ~his right as the leader of the group~ but if richie would actively pursue bev, it would be a very different and unacceptable thing? wish i could remember the passage. 

- i like suggesting that it would have been more acceptable as the group whacking off each other, nothing enrages them more. the girl getting fucked to the point of pain (and the weird bit after about how men don’t understand how ~*empty*~ you feel afterwards) by everyone is a wholesome paen to group dynamics, but friendship is strictly no-homo guys, srsly! (one of those essays called it Bev ‘steering the boys from their gender insecurities into…safely normal heterosexuality’ which is so on the nose.)

lol i’m gonna start doing that now, too. and wow at that essay. so true, especially for eddie. 

- i read a fic where they’d basically genderswapped leigh for lee and it worked really well with the style, surprisingly.

yet something else i need to read! there’s so little for that fandom and it’s one of my absolute favs (ditto for pet sematary, which seems to yield almost no fan works)

[danganromps]

(art by Golden-stag with link to their post here: https://golden-stag.tumblr.com/post/164853973137/as-per-request-i-drew-my-pals-maltesegeek96-shsl)

Hopes Peak Academy Student Profile:

Name: Jun Ishikawa. Talent: Super High School Level Hacker Gender: Male Height: 121.9 cm (4’0”) Weight: 21.8 kg (48 lbs) Birth Date: 4th April (Age 11 on admittance) Chest Size: 50 cm BMI: 15 Blood Type: A Likes: Soft Pillows and Fluffy Blankets Dislikes: Overheating Machinery Previous School: Kudo Konan junior high School

Family: Grandmother: Noriko Ishikawa (Deceased) Grandfather: Katsuo Ishikawa (Deceased) Mother: Fuzen Ishikawa (Revoked parental rights) Biological Father: (Status unknown) Stepfather: [Name Redacted] (Revoked parental rights) Legal Guardian: Great Gozu (Alive)

Skills:

Advance knowledge on computers, specifically in the field of hacking and coding. Well versed in Japanese and English. Basic knowledge of Swedish and German. Intelligent with high school level education despite age. Photographic Memory.

Background:

Jun Ishikawa was born on the 4th April XXXX to Fuzen Ishikawa (Age 19 at time) and [Father Unknown] The mother had to leave the college she was attending at the time and career in modeling became stagnant.

In his 4th year, Fuzen attempted to abandon Jun at [Redacted] Park approximately 4 hours drive from their listed down residence, the incident had been investigated but no criminal charges were filed.

Since starting Elementary, Jun was noted as being a quiet, if silent student, often staying out of group activities. (More details in Psychological Profile) Through research it was discovered this was when Jun began to develop as a hacker, quickly making his way up an international hacker organization known as [Redacted]

At the age of 6, Fuzen married a wealthy man named [Redacted] and they had moved to central [Redacted] in an upscale apartment. From then, Jun began to isolate himself as his mother and stepfather often leaving him alone for days on end with Jun’s only contact with the outside world being through his computer and through Hacker.

Between the ages of 6-9. Jun had participated, and on occasion lead, cyber attacks on many corporations both private and public to expose corrupt dealings that had occurred.

One of these included the attack on the [Redacted] Bank, where several accounts were emptied of funds for 10 hours before the money was returned to the accounts. This also saw to the incarceration of the 4 other members involved with the attack.

On the 18th March XXXX, Jun had performed two separate hacker attacks single handedly. The first being the removal of secure files from the [Redacted] Tech Subsidiary of the Togami Conglomerate by the request of his stepfather, though the documents were returned subsequently, and the release of misappropriated funds and details of the planned ‘Izuru Kamakura’ project by the Steering Committee to create the SHSL Hope.

When a scout from Hope’s Peak arrived to speak with the Ishikawa family, it was discovered Jun had been effectively disowned due to the perceived failure of the breach on the [Redacted] Tech.

With the admittance of Jun as a student for Hope’s Peak Academy, the Great Gozu had volunteered to be listed as the boy’s guardian, required to fill in the necessary documents on the Hacker and give in monthly reports.

Execution:

1) “Hack the World” (Based on talent) Jun is sent into a labyrinth like maze, running around avoiding Monokumas dressed as security as he uses a laptop to open doors and find a way out, the Monokumas getting closer as he eventually makes it to the exit. but just as he’s about to open the door, a warning saying “Fire wall” appears, before a literal wall of flames erupts from flamethrowers, forcing the hacker to jump back, falling onto the floor as the laptop break. Jun stares in horror as the Monokumas surround him, giving him no option but to curl up and cry as they proceed to delete him (tear apart). 2) “Worthless Trash” (Based on personality)

A trap door opens beneath Jun, dropping the hacker down a garbage chute where he wakes up in a snow covered street. He’s then harassed by monokumas dressed as people, shouting jeers whilst throwing bottles and garbage at him, saying he’s not wanted. Eventually as the boy wonders/limps around, he sees a silhouette in the distance, recognizing it but not sure why as a bright light behind them makes it hard to see their face. Jun limps towards the person, smiling and happy. Only for the person to turn out to be a cardboard cut out, which falls back as the boy approaches it, revealing an 18 wheeler truck speeding towards the stunned Jun, unable to move, the hacker is run over and his body left on the spot as roadkill.

First of all - WOW! That's a very in depth profile...I don’t know where to start! But I certainly have to give you a huge well done on just how much info there is, you’ve definitely put a lot of work into it. SHSL Hacker is certainly an excellent skill to have, and it certainly sounds as though he knows his stuff. His (rather sad) backstory really gives reason to his talent in a way that a lot of the Danganronpa characters do in the games. As for Jun himself...well isn’t he just the cutest?! He’s got the sort of face that makes you want to give him a hug, so it’s not unexpected that Gozu would become his guardian.

As for those executions, the first is a very Danganronpa-y one, giving him a little slice of hope before the despair kicks in. The second...damn that’s harsh!

Absolutely love this OC, thanks for sending him in!

-Alice