#i need to save as much money as possible between now and the surgery

[autos-ismos]

.

[serkonans]

the way we handle medical leave in the states even for people with good benefits is cruel

[skyjynxart]

Emergency Commission Sales

I- don’t know where to begin. 

This started as a vet bill fund, but now the situation is just- so much worse, because when I arrived at work yesterday, I was told I am being let go. They were extremely unclear as to why exactly, but as I live in an at-will state, it doesn’t really matter.

I have no job, a massive vet bill to pay, a wisdom tooth coming in, and a car with no heat going into winter. 

I don’t really know what I’m going to do beyond the immediate coverage of vet bills, because I submitted over 140 applications with no response before I finally heard back from this place- there are just more people looking for jobs than there are jobs remotely near where I live, but I can’t afford to survive, much less move. 

Financial Details: One of my cats has one, possibly two abscessed teeth that need removed. I paid $260 for a vet visit, blood work, and antibiotics. I got the quote for what surgery will cost this morning, and they are estimating between $1,175 - $1,715, depending on if he needs both teeth taken out or just one.

I have been putting off my own wisdom tooth removal while I saved up for it, because it will cost $1,100

I don’t know how much it will cost to fix the heat in my car for winter.

My monthly expenses are $460/month because the cost of my medication has gone up after my sliding scale application was denied. I still have to pay $380 of those monthly expenses for November.

As of now, if I forgo my own dental care entirely, and empty my savings entirely, that will still leave me -$851 in the red. Anything that does not go to covering this month’s expenses and Severus’s vet fees will go to either next month’s expenses, or to saving for my own dental needs.

I will be figuring out a more sustainable plan over the next few days, but my current focus is on the immediate issue in front of me.

For the immediate moment, I am offering the following:

25% off my kofi shop using the code SEVVYTEETH . This goes until the end of the month. https://ko-fi.com/skyjynx/link/SEVVYTEETH 

3 Commission Slots I will be opening 3 commission slots for ANY TYPE on my price sheet: https://skyjynx.carrd.co/#pricing Those 3 pieces will be started once I finish my current owed art [https://trello.com/b/TCd6yTnL/art-queue] (everything in ‘currently working on’) When those are all finished, I will open 3 more slots. I am more than happy to draw your OCs, your blorbos from games/tv/etc, or even spicy content (*some kinks at my discretion, but feel free to ask!)

REMINDER: Kofi & patreon subscribers have access to discounted pricing which can be found here: https://skyjynxcomms.carrd.co/ 

If you'd like to claim a commission slot you can do so by DM

If you just wanna toss some money my way, I do have a ko-fi for tips: https://ko-fi.com/skyjynx

Reblogs/boosting apprecaited. <3

[echodrops]

The Promises I Made (2023)

Oh man. Oh man.

At the end of last year, I said that I had really struggled through 2022 and hoped that 2023 would be an easier year, but also that I didn't want to count any chickens. Which was... ultimately the right mindset to have, because 2023 was even worse for me than 2022. Between the stressors of work, money, and things just falling apart on me left and right (car is still in need of $3000 worth of work...), I couldn't be more glad that 2023 is over.

Consequently, it was a very bad year for promises. Possibly the worst year I've ever had since I started, actually. Oof, icing on the cake after all the disappointment I dealt with this year.

Still, a tradition is a tradition. Here are the promises I made for this last year!

2023 Promises

1) Work on the Texas house yard. It’s still never really recovered from the frost that killed everything in 2021 and it looks pretty shabby right now.

Status: Broken, mostly. I did have the gardener come and do a lot of trimming as well as take out one dead tree, but still, one dead tree remains, and the tree in the backyard has grown roots so big now that they've exposed a underground wire, so uhhhh... gonna have to deal with that this year...

2) Get both bedroom floors sanded in the Utah house upstairs.

Status: Broken. This just didn't happen. No money. But it really, really needs to happen soon though... Oof...

3) Get the Utah house sprinklers up and working ALL the way for this summer.

Status: Broken. This is the hardest promise on this list, I swear to god. This city in Utah has NO ONE who is willing to work on normal residential sprinklers. Please someone save me.

4) Actually get the back fence fixed up and the greenery back there trimmed and managed.

Status: Broken. Well, one day...

4) Put a new sink/vanity in the downstairs bathroom of the Utah house.

Status: Broken. I sure... made a lot of promises about the Utah house, didn't I... Where did I think all this money would come from...

5) Related to that, lose at least 20 pounds. 2020-2022 was not kind to me and the stress eating was real.

Status: Broken. I didn't gain weight this year but I didn't lose any either. RIP.

6) Take my mom on a road trip to one of the U.S. states that she has not been to before.

Status: Broken. I was busy all summer and we just didn't do this.

7) Get back in touch with the allergy specialist to continue working on my allergy/inflammation issues.

Status: Broken. Yikes, seven in a row without a single kept promise. Anyway, I did want to do this, but again, the surgery they want me to have will take all my insurance and then $2000 out of pocket. It's just... not going to happen...

8) Go through my closets and donate or throw away clothes that I know I will not wear.

Status: KEPT. Oh my god, one I actually did. I ended up donating SO MANY shirts to Goodwill.

9) Finish at least five books this year.

Status: Broken. I finished two I believe. But... maybe the 50+ 100k word fanfics I read this year could count instead?

10) Organize my documents (especially student papers)—my desktop and documents folders give me nightmares just looking at them. 

Status: Broken. Jesus, why am I so allergic to this promise? I think it's been on the list for like three years running now.

11) Help Kacchan through her first semester as a teacher! Exciting!!

Status: According to Kacchan herself, this promise has been kept. Go me.

12) Get a decent paper shredder to shred old mail. 

Status: Kept! I finally got a shredder!!

13) Clean off my back patio/car port area so I can park my car there again.

Status: Broken. Literally there's not that much stuff out there other than my coworker's old bikes she dumped on me. Why have I not done this...

14) Get the Texas house dishwasher fixed… I’m so tired of washing dishes by hand… How do people do this, oof.

Status: Kept! I got a newwww dishwasherrrrrr. I am so happy...

15) 100% complete FF16 babyyyyy!!

Status: Broken. I played it, but did not 100%. Too busy. TvT

16) Talk to an HR rep about my retirement savings so that I can consolidate my retirement accounts. I have been putting this off for like five years now.

Status: Broken. I think this has been on the list for years too. And given the current uncertainty of my workplace, I honestly think at this point I might be better off not asking anyone who works there for any financial advice...

17) Do at least one artwork to actually use that new paint program I bought. 

Status: Broken. Well, I THOUGHT about it. Does that count?

18) Pay my credit debt down by at least $2000. I’m still paying off the hell year but I hope I can make progress on this.

Status: Broken. The hell year of last year became Hell Year 2.0, Economic Boogaloo this year. So many things went wrong and had to be paid for. My wallet is C R Y I N G.

19) Finish making changes to master courses. No more major revisions!

Status: You know what, I'm going to count this as kept, because we're now down to the really specific courses that only one or two professors teach. So, close enough!!

20) See a zone-tailed hawk. This is another rare-but-possible bird for my area.

Status: Kept! Conveniently, one flew over my car one day?? I got only a terrible cellphone photo, but I did see it. Yay!

21) Attend the FFXIV Fanfest in Las Vegas!

Status: Broken. I tried!! But I did not win the lottery for a ticket, so I was not able to go. This one was pretty much out of my hands, though.

22) Update HaaH at least once. Please, Echo???

Status: ...I'm sorry, forgive meeee. OTL

23) Get the small leak fixed in the side bathroom of the Texas house and have the faucets replaced.

Status: Plumbers are... so expensive... Broken.

24) Look into the cost of light housekeeping services to give myself a little more time to do things that aren’t work.

Status: Technically kept... in that I did look into the costs... But ultimately, I chickened out of contacting anyone. I don't know why, but I feel like even if I got a housekeeper, I would be so embarrassed by my house being messy, I would frantically clean it the day before the housekeeper arrived anyway...

25) Catch up with hanging up all the charms/pins I’ve gotten recently on my corkboards; these are just sitting in boxes/bags around the house. D;

Status: Broken. My god, I thought about doing this so many times this year but I just never did it... I even both MORE charms and then didn't hang them.

26) Use Spotify more often or cancel my Spotify Premium subscription; it’s not worth it if I don’t use it.

Status: Kept. I cancelled it when they decided to raise the price. Cancelled Amazon Prime and Netflix this year too. Honestly way too tired of companies raising the prices of subscription services while offering LESS quality than in prior years.

27) Get an art display book to preserve my great grandfather’s artworks.

Status: Kept. They are safeeeee now.

28) Fix the screens on the Texas house.

Status: Broken. Probably for the best I didn't do this though, since the dog developed a habit of scratching at the office WINDOW to be let back into the house...

29) Bird watch at a specific location in Texas. It’s my secret where since I’d rather not share my specific location on social media, but let’s hope I can finally make it to this place!

Status: Kept. I didn't see many birds there though, RIP.

30) Finally get rid of the dirt pile in the front of the Utah house.

Status: Broken. I feel like the dirt pile is getting smaller and smaller over time as erosion takes its natural course, but I didn't really do anything to decrease the pile this year.

31) Sign NeNe (my puppy) up for the intermediate dog training course.

Status: Broken. I thought about this several times, but decided not to in the end. I wasn't massively impressed by the trainer she had for her puppy class, and honestly she's pretty decent at learning things at home anyway.

32) This is super nerdy, but my bro got me the FFXIV cookbook and made me promise to actually use it, so I guess I’d better at least try to make something from it.

Status: Broken. I keep making this promise and continually forget it, over and over.

33) Take down the remains of the wooden fence posts at the Utah house.

Status: Broken. This one I could have done and just... did not do. I'm pretty useless.

34) Take part in the fitness challenge at work this coming semester.

Status: Broken. To be fair to me though, in August I fractured my pelvis and basically couldn't do anything past basic walking all the way until December so I kind of have a semi-reasonable excuse for this one.

35) I will remember to take my medicine on time, all the time. Taking them late is messing things up quite a bit.

Status: Mostly kept. There was a night or two where I did forget, but since I literally require this medicine to live, I can basically immediately tell when I need to take it again, so most nights I do take it on time.

36) Get a stand for the toaster oven in the break room so we can finally use it!

Status: I'm going to count this as kept even though we did not get a new stand. Instead, we rearranged the order of the room to make it possible to fit both the toaster over and the microwave on the same countertop. So the toaster oven can indeed be used now!

37) Get my car detailed because the inside really needs to be vacuumed.

Status: Broken. My god, the car needs this so desperately now. But... money...

38) Go horseback riding on the island. I’ve never ridden on a beach before!

Status: Broken. Nobody really seemed that interested in going with me, and I thought it would be weird to go alone...

39) Eat healthier. Maybe cutting out snacks is too much to ask, but at least replace some average meals with salads, etc. and overall make an effort to actually eat better. Sometimes the fact that I feel like garbage is my own fault.

Status: Broken. The stress eating was extreme this last year. Please save me.

40) Wait, I should probably acquire a Playstation 5 so I can actually play my new copy of FF16, lol.

Status: Kept.

41) Help make sure the new tutoring requirement for the English classes goes over well.

Status: Kept, in that I did the best I could with a very, very weird plan. We immediately abandoned this plan the moment the grant expired anyway, since no one liked what admin had wanted us to do.

42) Finish decorating the main office. I’ll feel better if my workplace reflects the level of professionalism and school spirit that I envisioned it having this year.

Status: Broken, and I'm not going to roll this one over to the next year because I am 100% stepping down from my current administrative position and going back to being a full-time instructor again, so I will not need to decorate the main office anymore! Whoo!

43) Catch every variant of Vivillon in Pokemon Go. I’m currently missing Icy Snow, Marine, Meadow, Monsoon, Ocean, Polar, River, Sandstorm, Savanna, Sun, and Tundra, if anyone would like to be friends!

Status: Broken. I caught some of the ones I was missing but I really didn't play as much Pokemon Go this year. Broken pelvis decreasing walking ability but also just got tired of the game pushing more and more microtransactions, so I kinda took a longggg break.

44) Try to be more comprehensive with giving feedback to students. I’m always good at providing detailed comments on essays, but I’d like to spend more time commenting on smaller assignments too this year.

Status: Broken. Every year I try, every year I feel like I still haven't given enough. Maybe the issue with this promise is that I don't really know what is "enough" for the students compared to what I personally think I should give...

45) Make sure the retirement party for my coworkers who retired this year goes off without a hitch and honors them well.

Status: Kept. Oh, this was so nice and so much fun. It was really great seeing the retiring faculty members so emotional over how much we were able to honor them and their contributions to the school.

46) Take part in more activities on campus; I have a tendency to not attend many events because they’re in the evening when I’m tired, but I should really stay more often.

Status: Kept, though mostly by necessity. I kept constantly getting called in to help on things, even in other departments.

47) Write some Chainsaw Man fanfic for @mistystarshine!

Status: Broken. I'm so sorry, this just did not happen. I wish my work schedule was manageable instead of actually insane. There are so many things I want to write and do for myself, rather than for work...

48) Help my parents tear out the carpet in my old childhood bedroom.

Status: Broken. My mom talked about it a lot, but it never ended up happening.

49) Do something to destress (massage, pedicure, something?) at least once per month. I gotta take better care of myself…

Status: Broken. So broken. I only got more stressed this year. More and more and more and more...

50) I will keep my promises! 

Status: Oof, mostly broken. Next year I'm going to set a reminder for myself so that I remember to check my promises every few weeks or something...

Kept promises: 15

Broken promises: 35

Another year, another chance, I guess. See you all in 2024!

[belovedrival]

Random Wednesday thoughts

I sometimes feel like my brain is a ball in a pinball machine these days, ricocheting from one thing to another, before going back to the same spot.

My new job has been okay. Last week I didn’t get many hours, but already this week I’ve gotten more hours in, and it’s only Wednesday.

Jonas had an appointment with a specialist yesterday. He’s going to have surgery next month. It’s a minor one, an outpatient procedure, but I’m already trying not to let my worries take over. Oof.

Earlier this week I observed the other preschool class in session. They need an aide, and I said I’d be possibly willing to do it. I just wanted to observe things. It would be nice to do it; the teacher is experienced, the school is excellent, I’d be at school at least part of the time Jonas is there (not in his class). But I don’t know how I’ll manage getting hours in with my online job if I’m working there. Stay tuned.

Managing our schedules now with one car is difficult. If we had another car things would be easier. On the other hand, we don’t have the savings right now to get one. Meh. Money: don’t have it, can’t live without it.

I am DONE with summer. It’s been way too hot recently and our yard is looking dry and stubbly. I pretty much gave up on the garden when we got back from vacation a month ago, and I still need to get in there and clean it out. COOL DOWN, WEATHER.

There’s been an ongoing saga with my parents for…well, a couple years now. My dad is F I N A L L Y retiring next March. They sold the house they’d lived in since 2017 back in May of this year and are now living in an apartment. They haven’t made up their minds where they’re moving to once Dad retires, or if they have, they haven’t told me and my siblings their final decision. It’s between 2 places that are very far apart in distance: think of living in either Minnesota…or Texas.

The problem with this is they keep talking about buying a house in one location and either buying a condo or renting an apartment in another. 1 location near my sister (8 kids), the other near my brother (4 kids). I’m not offended at all that they’re moving further away from me. I just want them to MAKE. A. DECISION. My sister and I agree that Mom is more than ready to decide and move on (literally) but Dad is either stuck in I’m Still Working and I Don’t Want To Decide Now or he keeps hedging for a myriad of reasons. The not knowing what’s going on with them, plus my dad’s denial of his health issues (ongoing condition), drives us crazy. Mister very rationally told me that I need to make peace with not knowing (for now), but I find it hard to do because I don’t think the hedging and not making a decision is good for either of theirs’ mental health. Argh.

Anyway, I hope you’re having a good week. 🙂

[bigskydreaming]

Like, I am very conscious of the aid people have given me and try not to ask any more than is absolutely necessary because I do not enjoy asking for charity like at ALL. But I am less than a year out from when I had a twenty thousand dollar (out of pocket) surgery to address a longterm disability caused by a gaybashing when I was nineteen and that flared up about seven years ago and caused constant, daily migraines, chronic pain and other issues that limited my ability to work while I spent the next six years doing literally everything I could to save up for that surgery while maintaining an expensive as fuck insurance plan that was the only option for getting the surgery DOWN to that ‘manageable’ price tag in the first place. Between that and the costs of just staying alive for those six years, even with e-begging and lots of help from people, I wiped out every cent of my savings and put myself in massive debt and tanked my credit as that was the literal only way I could afford that surgery and regain a decent quality of life. I STILL don’t even have fucking TEETH because every single one had to be pulled in order to do the surgery since to realign my jaw properly, I needed an even bite and after years of destroying my teeth every time I used one side of my face and one side only to do my best to chew and eat food, pulling every single one of my teeth and getting as-literally-cheap-as-possible-dentures instead of trying to repair my teeth first was quite literally the only real option without further dragging out the surgery timeline because I was basically bedridden by the time I actually did get it. After years without being able to work regularly, my ability to go back to my old careers are basically nil and I’ll have to start over from scratch - when I can even afford to - as in the meanwhile, my job options were limited by having a years out of date resume and pretty much all of my paycheck does go to managing my debt, trying to rebuild my credit, and basic cost of living while scrounging together pennies to try and save up now for the many bone graft surgeries I’ll need if I ever want to get teeth implants instead of relying on dentures for the next several decades. So yeah, I ask for help, mostly just when I don’t have money left over for food or the couple hundred dollars I spend monthly in meds because lmao, my various neurodivergencies don’t really help with all of that and I literally can’t afford to go off my meds or miss my regular schedule with them without risking everything I HAVE managed to pull together in terms of routine and income-generating ability.

So do I enjoy e-begging? Fuck no. Am I constantly trying to figure out better ways to supplement my income? Hell yeah. I’ve been trying to put together things like a patreon where people actually get something in exchange for money sent my way, for like, months and months but when I’m not working I’m fucking exhausted because grinding nonstop for six years through constant chronic pain and stress with zero days off will do that to a guy, and I haven’t exactly been able to kick back and enjoy myself even since the surgery. 

And I do my best not to put shit like that on my posts and just keep things to the bare minimum because not only do I not love dwelling on all that, I’m genuinely not trying to guilt people into anything or play the sympathy or pity card because when you used to pride yourself on being independent and self-reliant pretty much from the age of ten because your family taught you from an early age not to rely on anyone but yourself, it’d take even more therapy than I have now to actually be okay with the fact that I’d probably be dead by now without the kindness of internet strangers having helped me stay alive at times when I hadn’t eaten in days because I was busy keeping a roof over my head instead.

But sure, random internet anons - my little post about asking for $5 or $10 is an attempt to make people feel bad about getting blue checkmarks or their financials in general, as opposed to whatever that was.

[brazenautomaton]

okay so I can't just let this go. your tags on this post were

#i can't stress enough#how much most doctors fucking hate insurance companies and for-profit healthcare#when it comes to the cost of healthcare doctors are scapegoats#surgeries and medical procedures are services that require highly trained labor#to ask a surgeon to do a surgery for free is no different than asking a retail worker to work off the clock#we need to direct criticism entirely towards insurance companies when it comes to lucrative medical costs#your doctors want to be paid for their service#insurance company executives want to profit off your need for medical treatment

what do you think the insurance company does? what is the actual thing you think is happening here, what is the step by step process you believe is taking place?

and what do you think the difference is between "paid for their service" and "profit off your need for medical treatment?" because there isn't one.

doctors profit off of your need for medical treatment. that's why they're doctors, it's why being a doctor is so lucrative, it's why the stereotypical rich husband is a doctor. doctors go to expensive school for a long time and have to develop a lot of very specific skills, so their time is worth a lot of money.

their time is in fact worth so much money (plus hospital overhead costs) that normal Americans cannot possibly pay for it. it is unreasonable to expect a doctor to work for free -- so in a normal circumstance, if the insurance company did not exist, the patient would be unable to get the surgery, and the doctor would not have anyone else to blame -- he is the one charging more than this person can afford to have this life-saving surgery.

in america right now, the purpose of medical insurance is to take this service, which is ruinously expensive such that zero normal people could ever afford it, and move around the risk and juggle the money and do group contract negotiations so that the number of normal people who can afford it is not zero. you think that "for-profit healthcare" is an infinitely deep abyss that accounts for an infinite amount of resources and if profit was all abolished then everything would be free, and it's not.

medical insurance companies make a profit margin of 3%. don't even try to pretend this is an "oh boo hoo poor companies" thing, this is about how things are expensive. if all for-profit medical insurers were ordered to right now stop seeking profit and just ensure all of their income is paid out in medical coverage, the price of medical treatment would go down by 3%. all of the rest of that money is being used to pay people for their work, people who cannot be told to work for free.

3% is not the difference between this guy being able to have this lifesaving surgery and being unable to afford the deductible. if the insurance company no longer operated for profit, this person would still be unable to have the surgery, because the amount of money the surgeon needs is still incredibly high.

this is not about "evil CEOs cruelly making a profit off of your need for medical care," because the profit isn't what goes into the CEO's pockets, the profit is used to reinvest in the business. the amount of money the executives make off of the company's overall income is a rounding error. if you removed it entirely from the ledger you would not be able to pay for anything else. that's like trying to cut the US military budget by making one single army base buy ballpoint pens in bulk at Staples. it's such a minor amount it may as well not exist. (the wealth of the CEO is the value of stock they hold, which is the ownership of the resources that are currently in use by the company to do useful things with, they are the exact and literal opposite of hoarded, they take zero resources away from the rest of the company's efforts).

This is not a thing where "evil corporations" explains anything. the problem is that American health care is actually, in real life, in the world, ruinously expensive and people cannot actually in real life in the world afford treatments that should be simple and would massively improve their quality of life. The health insurance companies are not responsible for this. The only thing health insurance companies do is pay doctors and skim off 3%. Health care is not 3% too expensive, it is 1000% too expensive. The problem is that health care costs too much. Screaming about the evils of profit does not address the fact that health care costs 10x as many inflation-adjusted dollars as it did 50 years ago and nobody is making any more profit, not even the evil wicked CEOs. There is an actual serious problem that cannot be blamed on the evils of companies, and when you decide the solution to this problem is to scream more at the people who could make health care 3% cheaper, you're wrong.

Abolish for-profit health care insurance.

[lycorid]

The description is a little misleading; it only applies to the first woman and her arc; the rest vary between female characters of different ages and different professions (all centered around the service industry - whether that’s host/hostess clubs, prostitution, rent-a-girlfriend, etc.) There’s also some romance but uh… lol.

I really enjoy this manga. The characters are flawed and they’re written well enough you can understand their motivations and why they went into their respective industries or make the choices they do, and they’re allowed to be human without needing to be saved or fixed by a man. They’re hypocritical, they make stupid decisions, they lie to themselves and others, they help each other out, ultimately they are just women trying to make their way through life.

There are romances as mentioned in the description, though the focus is much more on the women and their lives.

The manga also makes no attempt to be ‘timeless’ by giving you a vague idea of the era; it stays topical, focusing on the modern era. Covid is a background element in the later chapters, with characters wearing masks and having to change their services due to restrictions. There’s also a, or rather, two, popular arcs due to a specific character and the subculture she represents that was popularized around ~2019/2020. I’d say shes my favorite due to relatability, but the latest chapters (as of now) with Emi feel like looking in a mirror and getting a right hook to the face every time I see my reflection.

As always, thar be spoilers below

For the first arc, I really loved that Yuki decided to turn the man down; I also love that it had people arguing in the comments over whether it was the right decision or not. I was expecting a stupid “knight in shining armor saves the poor woman” but nope. Good for her.

I also like the various ways they all approach their jobs (I hate calling most of them jobs but it’s short and gets the point across, I think.) with Yuki being very meticulous, knowing exactly what the men want from her and working her ass off to provide exactly that so she can get the money she needs. I think this is partially what makes the manga such a rough but good read for me; life fucking sucks for all of these women and they’re trying to survive in whatever way they can, and they are not immune to societal pressure.

Yuki wants money to get cosmetic surgery to get rid of her burn scars and needs money to get through college. She’s also fairly cynical and sensitive to others words, reacting with cold disgust over hearing one of her clients talk about how they can’t forgive anyone who doesn’t love their parents. She thinks “It’s the sort of talk that makes me realize this person was probably treasured by their parents and raised with love.” We get a short flashback showing a young Yuki in shabby clothes surrounded by garbage as she quietly seethes over the man casting judgement over others when he couldn’t possibly understand why they’d make those decisions. At her core, she’s a depressed woman who learned money is the only thing that matters, that “money can’t betray” her, money has no expectations. Men want something from her, money doesn’t; she’s allowed to want instead.

Ayana is obsessed with looking beautiful and has no problems scamming (lol) her clients to get just a little more money. She’s incredibly cynical and judgmental towards others appearances. The most telling quote from her is “Even people who say ‘I don’t judge people by their appearance’ still judge people by their faces at some point. Who would favor the ugly one?” which I think explains her thinking so incredibly well; she was treated like shit because of her appearance, and she sees others be treated like shit because of their appearance and so she ‘chooses’ to be beautiful. If she wants to be treated well, she has to play the game. In her arc, her beliefs are proven both right and wrong; a woman she deems ‘ugly’ is in an incredibly happy and loving relationship, while her own lover flinches at a photo of Ayana’s childhood appearance when she dumps him. Her world later comes tumbling down from the men realizing she was just using them for money (NO SHIT, THATS HER JOB) and leading to them harassing her and her eventual firing. Her ending is very bittersweet. Typing this made me realize Ayana is one of my favorites as well lol, I think I relate to her as well in the cynicism aspect and experiences with other’s treatment due to your appearance.

Moe in a way is similar to Ayana, though she chose to not give a shit and to stick with people who liked her for who she is, but that doesn’t mean she’s immune to the societal pressure to be beautiful. Her spiral begins with her first visit to a host club, where she meets a newer host there, and slowly falls in love with him and begins spending more and more money to afford to visit him, until she becomes a prostitute just to keep up with the bills. After her interview (in which the owner rapes her to ‘show her the ropes’) she begins to question whether the relationship is worth it and places the outcome on a coin flip; If he doesn’t answr the phone when she calls, she’ll end this fucked up spiral. He answers.

I could talk A LOT more about this manga and its characters but I’ll leave it there. I’m leaving out a lot of context because I don’t want to write a novel, these are just the quick notes so far. The Moe arc is a lot more fucked than I presented it; the relationship, if you can even call it that, is incredibly twisted and it’s painful how far she goes for a man, who’s written so well you can completely understand why she fell for him. Even knowing what a Host is and the shit they do for money, there are scenes that make you wonder if he felt anything for her at all or if she was just another client.

The scene where Moe wears a very small sailor uniform for a client and breaks down sobbing while the male client berates her for ruining his time… dear god.

“When I knocked on heaven’s door, there was no place for me on the other side. But I will not waver anymore. In my life, I am the main character.” Her ending hurts, but at least she got away. Yua Takahashi, the girl who introduced her to Host clubs and the main character of the next arc, did not.

Anyway, I love this manga.

[danidanialsblog]

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[petinsurancenewzealand]

Unforeseen Emergencies: How Pet Insurance Can Save The Day

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you couldn't pay for your pet's emergency care? If not, you might be lucky. But if so, then I hope that you have learned from this experience and have taken steps to protect your pets in the future. 

The good news is that there are some affordable options available to help make sure your pets always get their preventative care when they need it most! 

The first thing we should discuss is how best pet insurance for dogs works and what it can do for both your wallet and their health.

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Pet insurance for dogs can help with emergencies, unexpected expenses and injuries. It also provides financial protection if your dog gets sick.

If you have a pet that has an accident or is injured while in the care of someone else (such as when they go on vacation), pet insurance can help pay for the medical bills associated with treatment and hospitalisation. 

If your dog experiences an illness, such as cancer or diabetes, pet insurance for dogs may cover much of his/her veterinary costs because these diseases are often expensive to treat effectively.

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If you’re like most pet owners, you probably don’t think about how much your dog or cat needs to be healthy in order for them to live happy lives. But knowing the right medical care for your pet is critical if they need it in an emergency situation.

Pet insurance can provide comprehensive coverage for emergency services, from diagnostic tests and surgical procedures to hospitalisation and medications. 

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Source By : Unforeseen Emergencies: How Pet Insurance Can Save The Day

[tom-failure]

God, your mind! You're really making me think here.

Okay, I'd love to piece together the history of Zen's bike here, so let's try and do it.

Before I start on it, I really wanna rule out the gift aspect, and here's why. I think he's okay with gifts from fans because 1) those are things very explicitly just sent as tokens, they aren't really these utilitarian things, per se, just mementos, at least as far as I remember; and b) there's an exchange there. Zen works his ass off. His job is his hobby and his life. So he shares his hard work and its results with his fans, and they share their love, little trinkets, and words of praise. There's no power leverage on the fans' side, so I think this is why he likes it. He's the bigger giver, so to speak. To accept a whole bike, idk what he would wanna repay it with. I don't think it was a gift to start with.

So. In his teenage years (I usually guesstimate 13-14, given it happened in middle school) he ran away from home. He survived, worked odd jobs, extorted money, and was, by his own confession, 'exploited'. He had older biker friends (we even invite one to the party, he's an owner of a lamb bbq café now, so at least some of those guys are decently well-off). However, help comes with strings attached, and Zen evidently learned that early and didn't want to rely on that help too much beyond what is completely necessary. Hence his constant struggle to get money of his own, even if it meant he had to work his every waking moment and do what he calls 'bad things'.

The next thing we know is that, according to the revised timeline, 2 years before Another Story, or 3 years before Original Story, 20-year-old Zen has an accident, as a result of which he is severely injured (his life is on the line, and his left leg is threatened with amputation) and is taken to the hospital by the stalking V. As gratitude for saving his life, Zen accepts the offer to join the RFA which V mentions he's previously declined.

So, somewhere between 14 and 20, he picked up biking. The legal age to ride the model I picked up for him is 18 in SK, but we know young Zen was not good friends with the law, so it's easy to assume he could have learned to bike younger than that. Likely somewhere around 14-16. But he didn't have a bike of his own. I would think when he was about 17-18, one of his better friends sold him his old bike for some symbolic sum.

Now, to the crash itself. From the canon evidence summed up quite well in this post, it happened because he was speeding, turned a corner, couldn't brake, and hit the guard rail (which, articles tell, is one of the worst ways you could crash while turning a corner). We are told that Zen could lose his left leg, or it could end up paralysed as a result of that crash. He has to be rushed into surgery. Now, I'd think saving Zen's dream, and also apparently his life, indebts him enough towards V. So the additional incentive doesn't seem necessary. And also, I very much agree that V would not want that bike, or any bike, anywhere near Zen again.

However.

From watching a few videos of corner turning motorbike crashes, the bikes don't seem to get obliterated. I think even though it likely aided in crushing Zen's leg, and was definitely damaged, it was salvageable. But someone had to salvage it. And after V has secured Zen for the RFA, Rika tells V that she has a bright future planned for the child prodigy.

Which makes me think that, on the one hand, it's extremely likely that you are right, and that Rika, who kept tabs on everyone, salvaged that bike and got it fixed in order to gain additional leverage over Zen. She is said to have had contact with rich and influential party guests, which I think is how she secured the funds, so it probably wasn't a problem. And in that case when V 'disappeared' her from the RFA's life, he effectively shielded Zen from possible guilt tripping and exploitation.

On the other hand, Rika wanted Zen to become a superstar. She likely needed him to be the media presence of the Mint Eye: beloved by people, followed and obsessed over, he was the perfect candidate. In that case, giving him his motorbike back was dangerous, given how Zen eschewed any protective gear, as evidenced by his CGs.

His ass is riding with no helmet. His ass is gonna fuckin die.

I think that a possible candidate would be Seven, given he's rich, he's a bit of a speed junkie himself, he's partial to Zen, and he's perfectly willing to indulge his own and others' follies, but he's still in college at that time, conveniently sent abroad. He does already work or perhaps is being trained for the agency, according to the revised timeline. But, as he explains in Ray route, his cars are not just an expensive hobby, but also basically assets he can quickly and easily sell in case he needs money [for his own or Saeran's safety], so he likely wouldn't part with them anyway.

Others either have no money, or no reason yet to care. So Rika seems to be the one most likely candidate.

What the fuck kinda bike does Zen ride?..

[angelisverba]

thinkin’ bout you

in which harry owns a flower shop and has a major crush on a girl who comes in to buy flowers every once in a while (and he’s too shy to ask for her number) 

word count: 17.3k

paring: florist!h and y/n

warnings: just some pinning and lustful yearning. m for mature...

author’s note: i’ve been working on this forever. not to pick fav’s but i think florist!h comes second to sl23... hes just so.......well, you’ll see!!

*    *    *    *    *    *

When Harry was given the option to go on a playdate with his car-loving and dirty-nailed schoolmates or spending the weekend at his nan’s house, he would often pick the latter. 

He preferred to spend his afternoons frolicking with her Siamese kitty in her wild-flower filled garden, sunbathing in the open grass, or napping on a quilted blanket under the large, round oak tree, with the kitty nestled into his tummy, keeping him warm. When he woke in the arms of his nan as she carried him inside the house for a glass of cool lemonade, he bore a band of pink sunburn over his button nose, and the blue and white striped Mickey shirt was sticking to the areas where his furry friend had provided an extra heat. 

So, it was safe to say that from the start, Harry’s tastes weren’t what could be considered ‘average’ or ‘normal’ or ‘straight’ for a heterosexual male of his age in current society. 

Not that he ever valued those opinions, but their impressions rang in the back of his loving head when the women who he brought to the comfort of his home made hurtful ‘joking’ comments on how ‘peculiar’  his choice of decor was or giving him prolonged strange looks before shaking their heads and yanking their clothes off so that they landed in a forgotten heap in some unimportant corner of his room. 

Granted, he still got a good shag, but it wasn’t enough to fulfill his desires regarding any actions associated with relationships. He wanted someone warm and soft and kind. Someone who wouldn’t judge his home, his music choices, his clothing, or anything else about him. A girlfriend, not a fuck. 

Long ago, he’d stopped caring about what others said about him. Adopting this mindset had given him some of the happiest and healthiest moments of his life (albeit occasionally, doubts merged with the ghastly shadows of his loneliness). Business at his flower shop increased as his charm increased with positivity, and a new life within him bloomed like a baby rose bud when he accepted that being single was okay. The ribbons of his bouquets bouncing with an added umf and the mist that landed on his skin when he changed the water in the flower buckets only enhanced the golden hue of his skin. 

Harry even took to renovating his home a bit. 

 Coincidentally, his apartment was located on the floor above his flower stop, and contained a significant amount of singular flowers in vases or bouquets in empty corners to prove it. An array of pastel colors smeared on the once blank walls. Bambi pink in his bedroom, sage green in his kitchen, and a French blue in his living room. The couch was a suede papaya three-seater with black and white checkered pillows, and the coffee table was an emerald-tiled piece standing on top of a geometric lavender carpet, a soft contrast against the dark oak of his floorboards. Harry’s taste in pop-culture, art, and literature was displayed on the frames hanging off his walls. Pictures and posters of his favorite pieces like Matisse’s Blue Nudes and Goldfish and The Dance II. An enhanced, enlarged photo of maraschino cherries and a raven haired pin-up girl. Another glass table by the end of the couch held a silver candlestick and a small statue.

Sometimes, the miniature Greek statue he bought at a thrift store of a man with his nakedness pure and unobscured to the viewers' eyes made his dick bloat against the seams of his pants. If he stared at it for too long, his eyes drawn to the softened cock between thighs that looked so flesh-like even though it was carved out of some clay or ceramic material, his mind would travel to sensual, honey-red places that he hadn’t been in so long. Harry’s imagination explored- as cheesy as it sounds- the sexual aspects of the male genitalia, and therefore his own sexual expeditions and how much he missed giving or receiving a good fuck. More often than not, he ended up with himself in his fist, forehead sparkling with perspiration under the candle lights in his room as his thighs and abdomen clenched with every buck of his yearning hips. 

The doorknob of his room was in the shape of an eye, the iris colored a brilliant blue. His king bed- no, frame, just a minimalist white base, pushed up against the wall with two tables on either side, both of them loaded articulately with vintage trinkets and ceramic ring trays shaped like seashells to hold his jewelry. His bedsheets were a stylish combination of pastel colors; lilac comforter, mint and sky pillows. Previously, they had been snow white sheets with strawberry print, but a woman he brought over said they looked like the sheets her five-year-old niece had. 

He changed them the week after that.

On the windowsill, a pot in the shape of a white, blue-eyed kitty with vines of string of hearts kissing the floor. A mirror in the shape of a heart with a pink trim besides the lightswitch, above his brown dresser. In the corner, a bookshelf stuffed with books that spilled over the seams, and perpendicular to it, the home of his pet chameleon, Owen (he wanted a cat, but when he went to the pet store and saw the dehydrated creature, he couldn’t leave him there). A 16 x 16 x 30 inch tank filled with a branch that cut across halfway. It was full of all the things he might need, maybe even too much of it, but it didn’t matter because when Harry was home Owen spent most of his time hanging off the collars of his shirts or snuggled in the ruffles of his hooded sweatshirt on his shoulder. The small, color changing friend adored his owner, and only morphed into a mild red color when Harry didn’t feed him more mango. 

The renovations occurred in his bathroom; a cherry-red covering the walls because it looked boring before (at least in his opinion).  The gold piping of the sink accentuated nicely with the darker color, and the sun seemed brighter when it streamed in through the window above his ceramic claw-footed tub. Owen particularly liked the misty showerhead stall in the corner, and as long as he kept his eyes to himself, Harry didn’t mind it if his green friend wrapped around the showerhead and enjoyed the mimicked tropical atmosphere. 

For awhile now, it had been just him and his chameleon (and maybe his mum’s cat if she was going out of town and needed a sitter) but he didn’t mind it. 

He got to meet new people everyday within the parameters of H’s Garden, and they all tended to overshare when it came to buying a bouquet. ‘My wife just had our son, want to see a picture?’ or ‘my boyfriend and I have our anniversary on Saturday’ and even ‘my sister had plastic surgery so me and my dad need something that says ‘congrats you look like Kim Kardashain now’ how ‘bout it?’ 

Stories ranged from sweet, to grotesque, to sad, to funny, and sometimes even evil- Harry didn’t like customers that gave flowers as a ‘fuck you’. He thought it was a waste of beauty and sacrifice. Flowers were living things that had their lives cut short in order to provide momentary satisfaction and life long memories to the receiver, not bitter feelings of revenge. Although it was still business, it pained him that such a pretty arrangement be misused. It was one of the cons of his work. He created what he considered to be masterpieces, and had no control over where they would end up, whether it be as a centerpiece for a candlelit dinner, or in the trash after the apology for a strong argument hadn’t been enough. 

However, Harry couldn’t deny that he didn’t love his job, because he did. 

When he turned 16, he’d determined that he wanted a peaceful life with a job that wouldn’t bore him. He wanted to be as stress free as possible, with his spirituality as a prominent highlight in his lifestyle. When he turned 18, he had determined that he wanted to be a florist, and began to save up to open his own shop with the occasional help of his friends and sister. He refused to take anything from his mother because he wanted to be the one giving her gifts and money and everything good after all of her sacrifices in raising him. Call him a momma’s boy. Harry loved his mother. 

Online seminars and college classes became his best friend, teaching him everything he needed to know about accounting, stocks, and how to keep his business going. He was a businessman first, florist second. During the slow seasons (the start of winter and an awkward half-week between summer and spring) he relied on his investments to triple-ensure that he had enough money to stay afloat. 

On his 22nd birthday, as a gift to himself, he signed the lease to the building that housed all of the pretty plants in temporary buckets full of flower food and water, and hired a graphic designer to design the cursive, golden letters that spelled out the name of his shop above the front door. 

 Now, three years later, he lived as happy as can be. 

And he wasn’t lonely anymore. 

Well, if you wanted to be technical, his relationship status was still a checkmark over the box labeled ‘single’, but his heart couldn’t be fluttering any harder at the sight of one of his regular customers, and she was there, creeping around in his brain to keep him company. 

She was the complete opposite of every girl he’d ever been with. She was sweet, kind, funny, and didn’t judge him for the way he dressed, or his profession. In fact, they bonded over things that previous women had… slyly berated him for. The color of his nails, the lace of his collar, the pattern of his flared pants,  and even the sheep on his baby blue sweater vest.  

She stole his heart the moment she walked through his door with a soft smile on her face, a sparkling gleam in her warm eyes, and placed it in her pocket the moment she said, “it smells lovely in here!”

Harry, awestruck and blushing because well, she was pretty and wore a shade of purple that somehow made her hair look so soft. Two strands of hair were pinned at the back of her head, essentially keeping the rest of it away from her face save for the few baby wisps that rested gently against her cheeks like a lover’s caress. The stuttering, stumbling cupid’s-bow-struck fool replied with, “thank you. It would be my pleasure to help you with anything you’d like,” and that had been his name, signed on the dotted line of a soul contract. Only she was not the devil. She was an angel. 

But even then, it wouldn’t matter. If she was the devil, if she was an angel, something in between or something new entirely he wouldn’t care because he was half gone for her already. 

“In that case,” she smiled, and Harry’s heart sang a melody it never had before. It was like the sun beamed from the spaces between her teeth and tickled the fuzzy spot beneath his earlobe. She had the most amazing voice, tranquil and clear and ethereal. “I just moved into a new apartment and wanted the place to feel like home. I thought maybe flowers would give it a little life.” 

He vividly remembers that the color of her cheeks changed to that of what is called a ‘blush’, but he didn’t know if it was a trick under the light, or a product of his wistful imagination. Her fingers gently skimmed the petals of a rose from it’s bucket near her hip, and one of the straps of the tote bag on her shoulder disrespectfully dropped away from her shoulder. He wanted to simultaneously rush over and fix it for her, and yell at the inanimate object for not being grateful of the fact that it had the opportunity to cling to her shoulder.

But, before either of these inner-conflicts met a sound resolve, her delicate fingers righted what was once wrong, and Harry cleared his throat, embarrassed because he’d stared for a little too long. He wanted so badly to ask for her name and how she liked her eggs in the morning, but instead he said, “there’s nothing like a bit of something pretty to brighten your day. Did you have something specific in mind?”

He hoped that the meaning of his words wasn’t caught on her, or that would be totally embarrassing and ‘loser’-like. 

When she walked out the door with a content smile on her lips, his own heart was beating faster than the flapping of a hummingbird’s tender wings. He was sure that he had never laid eyes on a pair of lips like hers, neither the feeling that blossomed in his chest at the thought that she might be smiling just for him to see and enjoy. 

Of course, it was a silly crush. One that clawed and gripped onto his sweaty palms with no sign of letting go. Maybe, Harry thought, it was because he hadn’t wet his wick in so long, and the interaction he’d had with her had sparked irrational, poem-inspiring feelings within the love cavern of his ribs. Because how could he fall head over heels with someone he didn’t even know? Surely, the swarm of hormone-pumped butterflies in his stomach was the beginning of a dead-end infatuation. 

Right? 

Harry went that entire day, appalled at the apparent angel he had the fortune of being in the presence of in her short fall from the tender heavens. He wondered where she placed the flowers she bought (an arrangement he was particularly proud of, full of lilac, delicate stems of lavender, and puffs of baby’s breath wrapped with a white bow) and where that tiny extension of him was. At the entrance of her home, right below the place she rested her hand against as she tugged her shoes off? At the center of her table? Maybe besides her bed? Where she would see the purple petals and white of him as he wrapped it every time she woke up or went to bed? He hoped- as much as it was a romantic thought- that it wasn’t the last one. He’s been so awkward, so pink. A blush on his cheeks he hadn’t remembered being there since the time he yelped, startled, at the unexpected pain of a tattoo needle, the artist pointedly peeved. Acting like such a boy. 

Right before crawling up the steps of his apartment, heart still bleeding with love-blood from the deadly tip of Cupid’s arrows, he made himself a mini version of the bouquet he’d made her, and placed it at the center of his tiled coffee table. 

*********

A few days trickled by, and the memory of her face drifted in and out of his mind like a giant sway of fabric slowly billowing in the wind. He was just so… struck by a slab of awe, stunned by her kind of beauty. Natural, the kind that hooks you in it’s purity, like the golden beams streaming in through transparent curtains on a warm spring afternoon. 

Her strawberry lips curved elegantly under her nose, and displayed a smile that leaked some sort of heady drug into the air because the air was sweet when he breathed it in. And when he handed the bundle of flowers over to her, the pads of her delicate fingers skimmed the rough ridges of his knuckles. He wondered immediately what kind of moisturizer she used, and if it smelled like honey or lavender or peaches. She smelled sweet. Sweeter than all of the flowers in his colorful soul shop put together. The colors that belong to her, on her person and worn by her, were more captivating than any of the tones that painted the petals on his plants. 

Owen got a kick out of this whole ordeal, though. Harry’s passionate mood had him divulging in munching and nibbling on things that tasted the way he felt; ambrosial, fresh and pure. It resulted in the purchasing of endless amounts of fruit, with many bites given to the tiny chameleon. Mangoes, strawberries, oranges, grapes, pears (Asian pears, if the store carried them, they were Harry’s favorite), peaches and guavas. The sudden craving for fruit might be explained as just a casual craving, but deep deep down inside, Harry knew that it was because he wanted to replicate the feeling that coursed through his golden veins when she giggled at something she happened to find funny. 

He wished that he had caught her name. The girl had paid in cash (and left a five dollar tip Harry fawned over), so he couldn’t have read it on her card, and he was halfway between charming and awkward that he didn’t even think of asking for it until the minute the door closed behind her, bells tinkling in announcement of her exit. He wished for a hundred different things, but he was not the type to live in regret. Not anymore. So after about a week of floundering in her memory, he meditated for an hour, tropical incense on one of his bedside tables, and cleared his mind as best he could. 

The next morning, he did the same thing. Woke up with heavy limbs, plopped himself down on his blue mat and stretched in various positions, his white boxers hanging low on his hips. His lips and eyes were sticky with sleep, and the back of his nose ached with cold air that he must’ve breathed in throughout the night after forgetting to close the window (again) but the pleasurable twinge of stretching aches between his joints were the perfect way to start his day. They urged his mind to transform into the still surface of water, clear and collected from any unproductive-pinning thoughts towards a girl he would most likely never see again. 

Even his clothes reflected his refreshed mindset.

Harry donned his favorite pair of flared  trousers in an earthy brown color, nestled snugly on his slender hips and around his thighs. The tight fit accentuated the way his back tapered into his waist, glutes shapely and sculpted. A maroon sweater vest that had a teddy bear embroidered on the middle of his chest, the small latte-toned stuffed animal seemingly childish, but on him it only directed attention to the spotlight daze of the velvety heart sheltered underneath his breathless plate. Underneath, a mustard long-sleeve shirt with tiny cherries printed on them. Some straight, some tilted or lopsided. His shoulders and biceps were hidden in the floofy bunches of cloth, anonymity given to the true thickness of his ink slathered skin. 

He looked like a corduroy dream. A thick milkshake of patterns and colors, but he managed to pull it off.

A tiny gold hoop on his right ear gleamed under the morning sun coming in through the windows and a pearl necklace rested against the downy skin of his throat. Slender fingered tipped with a coat of pure white, with his ring fingers accented in a shimmery pink. Chunky rings adorning the base of his digits; a silver rose, a band of dancing teddy bears (a running theme with him), two gold rings with his initials H and S on one hand, and a simple ruby stud from his graduating class. 

He looked good, he knew that he looked good, and was ready to begin a bright, healthy, non-pretty-girl-thought-polluted day. Even the old woman had pinched his cheek whom he had been assisting- a regular-had said he looked like a proper ‘nice boy’ along with ‘when are you going to her a lovely girl to help you run this place, Harry?’. He didn’t have the heart to tell her that he had momentarily sworn off women until his broken sentiments healed, and they had a long way to go. 

In the middle of wrapping a smashing set of tulips and fern stems with a cherry red bow, the bells adorning the top of the door frame dinges, announcing the entrance of another pleasant customer and giving passage to a gust of chilly air. Harry looked up to greet the customer with his usual pleasantries of ‘welcome! I’ll be with you in a moment!’, but the words died on his throat in a desperate hussle, just as the little mermaid had given up her voice to meet her gallant prince.  

It was his own personal little slice of heaven presented to him on the black and white checkered floors of his shop. Hair loose against her shoulders again, eyes cast downwards to inspect a bucket of fresh daisies that tickled the space above her bare knees. How she could wear a skirt in this biting weather, he didn’t know, and it partially prevented him from continuing his pursuit of admiring her because the first thought his caring mind jumped too was, ‘is she cold? And if so, does she need a sweater? Because I will gladly give her one.’ His second thought, however, was ‘how could someone be that beautiful?’. The third was something along the lines of ‘all my yoga has gone to shit, and I’m okay with that’. 

He cleared his throat, tightened the bow around the stems of the flowers in his hands and said, “I’ll be with you in a moment, love!” His head bowed, looking at his work because he wasn’t sure he could afford the medicals for the paralysis that was sure to take over his meek self if they made eye contact so soon. Harry needed a moment of homeostasis, his soul adjusting to her dulcet presence. 

The woman he was assisting, Edna, spoke, drawing him out of his daze, but he had been so deeply in thought that he had not heard what she said. 

“What was that?” He asked her. He grabbed Kraft paper from the roll by the register to wrap up her arrangement. 

“The girl. You like her?” She was smiling at him, wagging a finger the way his nan used to do when she caught him with his hand in the cookie jar. “Don’t lie to me, I recognize that look. I’ve given and received that look many times throughout my life.” 

The woman was not wrong. With age, comes wisdom, Harry thought, smiling to himself at being caught. A dimple carves itself into his cheek, nestling onto the space above the corner of his mouth as if he had no choice in the matter. The apples of his cheeks were shadowed with a dusky pink, and the tip of his nose was twitching like a rabbit when it stood on its rear and sniffed the air, only he was coy after just being caught and wanted to avoid the question as much as possible. 

“I’ve got no idea what y’talking about,” he chuckled, keeping his voice low so that the intriguing stranger in the store didn’t hear that their topic of discussion was her. He moved over to the register to ring her up, and even slid in a discount he applied to customers he liked. 

“Next time I come in,” Edna said, passing Harry her debit card, “I hope to hear that you got her number, dear. Don’t let these opportunities pass you up. Life is short. And who knows? She could be the one.” Harry gave her the card back after charging her, and handed her the flowers, too. All the while Edna was grinning at him, shaking her head like she knew something he didn’t. 

“Take care, Edna. And don’t forget to change the water every 2 days with the flower packets I placed at the stems,” he reminded her, sweetly wiggling his red-lacquered nails at her retreating woman as butterflies awakened in his stomach in a furious flood of nerves. The girl was looking around, her hands hovering over the up-turned faces of a bundle of lively sunflowers, browsing and quietly humming to herself as she waited. 

There was no backing out of this, even if he wanted to. And he didn’t! He didn’t want to back out. The girl was a customer, and he would have to approach her no matter what. But she was so pretty it was also intimidating. He doesn’t remember ever being this nervous while approaching someone, especially one he harbored feelings for. His heart was pounding so loud, he was sure it was audible. 

“Hello,” he wanted so badly to add ‘love’ at the end of his greeting. “Are y’finding everything a’right?” He asked her, his hands wringing themselves, palms moist with sweat from his unyielding need to impress her. The pink tip of his tongue poked out to swipe across his full bottom lip, and soon after that his teeth sunk down into it, nibbling with uncertainty. Harry made sure that he was standing straight, body aligned to face hers because in that psychology course he took once, he learned that it was a subconscious tactic to engage interest and pleasant replies to attempts at wooing another. 

At the sound of his voice, the girl jumped, startled at the sudden vibrations of Harry’s husky voice. Her delicate feet, he noticed, skittered on the floor from her tiny jump, and her doe eyes widened, shouldered rising and falling at a quicker pace than before from the new rush of light fear. When she realizes that it’s just him her hand flattered over the base of her neck and her collarbone in attempts to soothe her racing heart. 

“M’s sorry,” he whispers, his hand clamping over his mouth, and then lowering to his chin when he speaks again, “didn’t mean to scare y’love.” This time he can’t restrict himself. It comes so naturally, like the endearment was meant for her, and when a flush covers the bridge of her nose his first instinct is to coo at her for looking so cute. The second is a surge of guilt for having scared her to such an extent. 

“It’s okay,” she says, a little out of breath. The blush on her face was partly because she was embarrassed at her own reaction, while the other was that she had let herself act so freely and uncoordinated in front of someone that looked like him. Handsome and sweet and eyes so green they refreshed you upon first glance. Like the cool burn of water going into a mouth that had just chewed a stick of minty gum. “I want to buy these flowers.” 

God help him. Her voice alone was enough to make him melt. The lilts and melodies of her voice swarming all four of the ventricles in his heart with warmth, and every blood cell that passed contained a glowing heat, buzzing with her energy. 

She points to the sunflowers, her gaze lingering on them with longing. A soft smile toying on her mouth, and Harry could see the tendons in her throat stretch as she inhaled to add another thought to her sentence, “Do you sell vases by any chance?” The girl looked at him shyly, her eyelashes almost twinkling as she blinked, and his heart soared, “I had a really nice one in the shape of a big Coca-Cola bottle, and I accidentally knocked it over, so now I have nothing to put them in.” 

Harry is incredibly enamoured by subconscious gestures that take over her hands as she speaks, fiddling as if the vase she spoke about was in her hands, all in one piece before it was broken. He’s quiet throughout her tiny ramble, listening and taking note of her enticing antics. She’s looking down at the floor or the flowers or her hands, and when her eyes dance over to his steady gaze, “I’m rambling aren’t I?” she murmurs bashfully. 

“No, no it’s a’right. I can look in the back for something if y’like?” He suggested, arrowing a thumb to the ‘back’ he mentioned. “Did y’want anything in particular?”  

“Oh, I don’t wanna be a troubling customer!” She squeaked, concerned with becoming a nuisance she didn’t want to be. 

“Y’not a bother, love. M’promise. I’ll go look f’you. What color did y’have in mind?” He asked her, tone calm and soothing to reiterate his sentiment. She was not a bother. The only thing about her that bothered him was the fact that he did not know her name, and even that was his own fault for not asking her. 

His hands rest on his hips, tattooed cross momentarily hidden by the bunch of his sweater vest  as he waits for her to respond, his eyes locked on her mouth, her own tongue subtly licks her lips, adding a sparkly sheen to it that only drove him crazy. Ever the jilted fool, his mind jumps to what it would feel like to kiss her, or what it would feel like if she kissed him in other places. What fruits she tasted like, and what kind of kisser she was. A timid one? With a patient mouth waiting to be broken open with the force of his own? Frugal? Opening her mouth and giving him everything she had to offer. 

“Something pink, please. If you have it.” That smile again. One that told a million apologies it didn’t owe, with her eyes pinching at the corners with whatever nonsense culpability she felt. Her voice was sweet, Harry thought, like wind chimes on a summer morning. 

Feeling guilty for allowing such dirty thoughts to gallop through his mind when she was so… so pure. Like an angel. Even her way of presenting herself was shy and sweet, yet he was thinking about kissing her. Was that perverted? She was a customer he had seen twice, and his mind was already running wild with luscious assumptions; a sunday topped with a red cherry of sensuality. How awfully dirty of him. 

But! But those were not the only thoughts he had. He wanted to ask her what happened to cause her to drop her vase, and where she had bought it. If it was vintage, considering it was a Coca-cola bottle, and if she had any accidents while cleaning up the mess of broken glass. He wanted to hear her thoughts. No, better yet, he just wanted to hear her talk. He wanted to get to know her. To know if she was as nice as she looked. 

“‘Course,” he mumbled, his eyes shamefully downcast to the floor. “Be righ’ back.”

Harry stalked off to ‘the back of the store’. Truth was, there was no back of the store containing vases. There was only a small closet with boxes of items he might need around the store, like flower food, rubber bands, and decorative paper for the bouquets. A crate of bottled water for when he got too lazy to climb up the back stairs and into his home. 

His home. 

Plucking the keys from his pocket, a ring that held a ceramic swan his closest friend Mitch had gifted him with a humble admission of ‘saw this at a thrift store and thought about you, H, I had to buy it’, and five keys: one to the front door of his shop, one to the cash box in the register, one to the mailbox, another to the front door of his apartment, and one to his car. The one to his front door was painted at the head with pastel pink nail polish, so it was easy for him to pick out when he was dead tired after a long day of being on his feet (spunky shoes that he liked to wear sometimes didn’t help ease the ache on his back, and neither did his posture). 

The back door that led to the stairs had locks on both the inside and the outside. A deadbolt and chain on matching sides of the door to ensure comfortable sleep at night, and peaceful work time during the day. Not having to worry about curious children opening doors or nosy customers relieved him. It was a little amatuer, but the door made a loud noise when opened because it wasn’t quite level, and he had a tiny key so he could lock it from the outside, too. 

A loud shucking noise resonated through the store as he pulled the door open, and then again when he closed it behind him. The delicacy of his dainty yet large hands were nearly comical around the tiny golden pin stud that hung from the chain, almost slipping from his hands with nerves as he slid it in place. Harry didn’t think that she was nosy or anything like that, bit if he was going up to give her a vase of his own personal collection, he didn’t want her to find out and feel even more intrusive that she already did. 

He was a huge giver, and upon hearing her say that she broke her flower pot, his mind was already thinking about the perfect one to replace it. It just so happened to be sitting on his shelf with a bundle of dying lavender. Climbing up the stairs (the ache in his thighs was a mere twinge compared to what it was when he first moved here), Harry huffed and thought to himself all the ways he could ask for her name and number. 

Listen, I really like y’and would like to have y’number?”

Do y’wanna have my number so we can go out sometime if y’feel like it?”

“Is it alright if I get y’number so we can go out sometime?”

“Hey, love. What’s y’name?”

Nothing’s making sense to him. The pick up lines he had stored in his head for the rare times he would flirt with a girl were slipping from him. None of them seemed worded right to use with her. Too abrupt or too brisk. Not sweet enough. He wanted to treat her gently and to be worthwhile of her time. Plus, it also had to be smooth enough that it made her forget she was paying him for flowers or it would be awkward. He was a twenty-six man for crying out loud, not a twenty-one year old smile at the bar looking for a good time. This wasn’t a ‘good time’. This was… a courting. An inquiry to a relationship. A rose rose in a candlelit room. 

Harry opened his front door and moved in a quick jog to a table besides his hi-fi that held a translucent pale pink glass, fat at the base before twirling and widening a few inches at the lip. An image of a nude mermaid puffing out at the front like an engraving. Cuddling it into his breast, he grabbed the lavender, speed walked back to his kitchen where his toe banged against the metal of the trashcan as he pressed on the lever to open it. He hissed fuck under his breath and shucked the dead lavender into the bag before turning back to his door, closing it behind him, but not locking it because he didn’t want to keep her waiting. His feet moved quickly down the stairs, the one hand not holding onto the vase cupping a hand over the side of his hips that held his keys so they didn’t make much noise. 

The button on the chain slipped from his fingers a few times from their repeated clamminess, and when he was ready to finally twist the knob, he paused to take a breath and collect himself. Harry ran a hand through his hair, fixed his collar, and dusted off his pants legs. He wanted to look perfect for her. 

“Don’t be stupid,” he murmured to himself. He had a good feeling about this. About her. And if he messed this up because he looked bad or said something weird he would kick himself into a muddy ditch. 

Taking a deep breath, he opened the door and calmly walked back, “I’ve got the last one,” he said, tapping the tip of the vase with his pointer finger. It was a lie, right through his teeth, but he was happy to tell it in return for the way she was looking at him in that moment. His eyes rounded out as he approached her, like the curves of hearts that made up the heart-eye emoji, or the puppy-dog face. Just another physical display of his growing affinity towards her. 

“Oh my god!” She said,  “It's so pretty!” The trapped crystals in her irises twinkled with bewilderment at the treasure Harry’s presented her with.  She’s got a smile on her face, and he can’t help but think, ‘wow, she looks like a freshly bloomed white lily’. 

There’s a vintage print hanging in his corridor, a ‘flower language chart’ with different types of flowers and a sentence beneath them describing the messages they send. For example, red carnations= my heart aches for you. The description beneath white lilies reads ‘my love is pure’. 

She asked him if it wasn’t too pricey, and he made up some fake sale he had going on about a hybrid BOGO in which if she bought an arrangement she would get a vase included in her purchase (he added “I’ve got a shipment of new ones coming in an I need the space cleared out before they get here” just to make sure his fib is believable.) And he explains this so shyly. Harry can’t keep his eyes locked on hers because she’s staring at him with an intensity that lets him know she's really listening, and it makes him squirm.  The tips of his fingers tap against the vase, and he’s tripping over his tongue, which is ridiculous because he already talks so slow. 

“I guess I was right in waiting then,” she said casually, waiting for Harry to finish ringing her up. 

His finger froze over the touch screen of the sleek, modern device (he wanted nothing but the best for his store) and listened to the exciting roar of blood through his eardrums at her words. I guess I was right in waiting then? What did that mean? That she was planning on coming back to see him and didn’t? Of course, it could also mean that she was going to buy something else somewhere else, but he couldn’t stop the vine of ripe hope that swelled around his chest. And she looked so apprehensive while saying it. As if she was walking on glass and was looking for cracks as she stepped. As if she was waiting on him to catch on to something.

Harry cleared his throat and looked at her through the corner of his eye, trying to be as discreet as possible as his fingers continued their deliberate work on the screen, “What d’you mean, love?”

“I was going to stop by sooner, but I just got in my head about it,” the girl shrugged, and adjusted the ends of her cardigan so they wrapped around her torso. She had a different bag this time, one of those reusable market bags that was made up of holes, and it was filled with two books and a can of green tea from the vegan store down the street. Harry thinks he can make out one of the titles on one of the spines, which looks suspiciously similar to something that he has on his own shelf. 

“Why would y’get in y’own head about coming to m’flower shop, hmm? It’s hardly that intimidating,” he chuckles to play off the dashes of pink and red that are painting themselves across the bridge of his twitching nose, “I don’t bite, either.” 

And he hopes that his wistfulness isn’t meddling with his vision because he swears that he can see a matching reaction on her own doll face. “I know! I know, it’s just that I can’t help it sometimes. Talking to other people makes me nervous.” 

Harry could coo at her right now. He doesn’t, though. He nods and smiles at her before reading her total out to her, “That I get, too. But y’doing just fine with me, love.” 

Waiting patiently as she digs through her bag for cash, he tries to not stare. However, it’s impossible. His eyes had a mind of their own dragging against the forces of his will to feast on her image again. Her hands and the tip of her nose. The base of her neck and gentle swell of her clavicles. The swoops of hair that hung in a curtain from her shoulder as her head tilted in search, and the how her teeth bit down into her lip in concentration. Harry counted the amount of times her eyelashes met her waterline in those few seconds of comfortable silence. Three. 

“I thought I had cash on me today,” something in her bag clicks, and she pulls out the rectangular card Harry’s become familiar with, holding it out to him between two deft fingers, painted with red hearts on a white base. “I guess I used my last twenty at the organic food store down the street,” she said. 

“It is pretty easy to get lost in there, isn’t it?” He took her card from her, and tried not to make it obvious that he was eager to read her name off of it as he inserted it into the machine. The embossed letters into the plastic read y/n y/l/n, and when he turns back to look at her, he can’t help the smile that spreads across his boyish features.

Y/n. 

Y/n, y/n, y/n.

This is what it must feel to be let in on a secret that’s worth millions of dollars. It must, because Harry’s heart is soaring with a closure he didn’t know he needed. Y/n, y/n. Her name tickled him. Stroked him. Lathered him with the honey smoothness of the beeswax shampoo he bought at that fateful organic store. It was a fitting name. Sometimes, one could tell a person ‘you know, I actually thought you were a Amy or a Jessica’, because their looks and style just didn’t match the strength or modesty of their name. But not y/n. It fit her like a glove. There was no other way to make sense of the way Harry’s brain was thinking. The name was her. 

“What?” Her lips quirk up into a smile and her eyebrows dip in confusion. Why was he looking at her like that? Did she have something on her face? Here she was, opening up to a cute stranger and she had something on her face? This, she thought to herself, is humiliating. Her finger dusted off non-existent crumbs from the corners of her mouth, “do I have something on my face?”

“No! No, no.” Harry’s careful beam simmered down from it’s previous brightness, and his hand nervously filed through the swoop of chocolate curls sitting on his head like a cinnamon roll. “I just think y’name is pretty thas’ all.” 

He murmured the last part so that it was practically incoherent, and lowered his gaze as a searing heat stretching like saran wrap around his head and the divot on the nape of his neck.  Oh, God. He was fucking blushing. Great Harry. A normally favorite among the ladies had been reduced to murmurs and thick, uncoordinated movements. 

Like dropping her card when she piped up again. 

Voice as small and quaint as his had been, "you think my name is pretty?” Her fingers are wrapped around the frail straps of her bag, tight enough that her knuckles were white and Harry was scared that she’d bury her fingernails into her palm. 

“I think y’very pretty.” He whispered back. He can’t even bear to look at her in fear that he’s totally fucked himself over once and for all. His logic was this: what girl wants to be told by the guy they’re buying flowers that they’re pretty after he reads her name from her debit card? Especially one who (if outside female sources are to be believed) dresses “the way my mother did when she was a girl in the seventies”? Jesus, fuck. He must’ve looked ridiculous. 

Harry opened his mouth to backtrack and apologize for being so unorthodox in his workspace, a breath sitting on his tongue with words ready to spew out, but the bell began to chime and it yanks his head from the register to the front and instead he said, “welcome! I’ll be with you in a moment.” 

Flustered and full of regret, the flower connoisseur returned his wired gaze back to y/n, who… was smiling at him? The kind of smile that said ‘oh my god, I can’t believe you just said that. Now please say it again’? Was he… dreaming? Did he have to pinch himself in order to verify that he wasn-

“Thank you... what’s your name?” Y/n looked at the card from his hands and sunk her hand- carefully, as to not get her fingers stuck in any of the tiny holes- and there was another clicking noise before she took her hand back out. That angel-like smear of girlish happiness was still on her, decadently radiating positivity and secret affection. Goodness leaked from the seams of her bones; through the cracks of her breastplate, radiating from her chest to Harry’s. He could feel it now. He could feel that his previous assumptions about her nature were true. She was altruistic and tender, like the inside of a bird’s wing. 

“Harry. M’name’s Harry.” This time, he didn’t hide his happiness. Even his eyes shone with a heightened, clear and sparkly shade of liquid evergreen. The joy that bounced inside of him like ricocheting metal balls in a pin game machine. His slender hand, fawn-skinned and graceful like the legs of a deer, stretched out between them. His mother had taught him that along with the first introduction of his name, a handshake must be present, always. Dipping his head slightly, and his words spongy with love-ditz, Harry rumbled, “Nice to meet you, y/n.”  

She placed her hand in his, and was practically swallowed by only his palm. He curled his fingers around her, thumb and middle finger overlapping around the clammy center of hers. So she was nervous, just as he was. Y/n was trained on their embracing limbs, and he could feel a spot on his neck where the skin palpated from the rush of blood as she observed their entwined digits. Their hands moved up and down, up and down between them for longer than necessary until her chin twitched back up to meet his, and she blinked mawkishly, slowly, like the videos of rehabilitated barn owls Harry sees on his Instagram. 

Then, suddenly, as if she remembered she was not the only one present, y/n jolts upright and shakes her head dazedly. “It’s nice to meet you, too, Harry. I like your nail color,” she added. 

He’s cheesing. A shit-eating grin too big for his face and it carves dimples into the flesh of his cheeks. His name on her tongue had never sounded so appealing, like it was made for her and only her to say. Not even the turtle-doves that cooed outside his window in the mornings sounded as beautiful as she did saying his name. And she complimented her nails! She hadn’t scrutinized him like others had, instead, she displayed her admiration for them. No one- well, actually he can’t say that without offending Mitch- no female of his age had ever received him with such open-mindedness as hers. If he didn’t have any self-restraint, he would giggle. Instead, Harry pulled his hand back so that their perfect moment wasn’t sullied with bouts of bad timing, “thank y’love. I like yours, too. You’ll have t’come over sometime and paint mine, yeah?” 

Y/n laughed, and he breathed a sigh of relief that he hadn’t been too bold, “I’d love too!” With glee frozen on her, she turned to look over her shoulder at the customer who was browsing the flowers Harry had in buckets, “I don’t want to hold you back from a customer for so long. I’ll stop by again soon, Harry. Thank you so much for your help.” 

The moment her hands reached for the wrapped bundle of sunflowers and the mermaid vase, a metaphorical grey cloud of rain and thunder manifested in the space above his head, and blocked all of the sunshine from spanning across his toned, lithe body. Did she really have to go? He wanted to whine. Maybe even wrap himself around her ankles like a child that refused to leave the park. They were only just getting to a mutual spot of comfort! Forget the other customer, he wanted to shout. Harry would kick them out and flip the sign to ‘closed’ if it meant only a few more minutes in the presence of her candy-coated charisma. 

But he knows that’s unrealistic, and settles with, “it was my pleasure, y/n,” a flirty wink (at least he hopes it is), “I’ll be waiting f’your next visit.” His taffy lips wrapping effortlessly around his smooth words, fueled by her welcoming receptiveness to his advances. It would be easy to be himself in the future, a little smoother and eloquent in his language and feeling. He was usually clear with what he wanted from anyone, and made it a pleasurable experience in all aspects for both parties involved (once it was three). Harry wanted to sweep her off her feet, and he wanted it to be an enjoyable experience for the both of them. Revel in that feeling of blooming emotions in a new relationship. A healthy one, in which he wasn’t receiving back-handed compliments all the time. 

He wasn’t superficial enough to push anyone off the table based on looks alone, but it did help that y/n had the disposition of an angel. An ethereal voice, supple lips that looked so silky and soft they had to feel that way, too, and hands that felt so tender in his. Perfect for holding on a late night stroll, or over the center console of his car when -if they go out on dates. 

What really hooked, reeled, and sinked him, though, was the fact that she was so nice to him. From the start, she’d been nothing but polite and sweet with him. Don’t even get him started on the way he swooned at the tone of her voice when he said that her name was pretty! So quiet and velvety, careful and calculated like she wanted him to know that it was okay. That she wasn’t thrown off by his comment. He nearly toppled over, clutching his heart with his legs jutting straight up into the air like a frightened goat. 

It wasn’t until the bells stopped ringing the sad notice of her exit that Harry realized he passed up the perfect opportunity to ask for her number, and as he kicked himself over it, he walked with the perfect customer service face he could muster to help the other person in his store. 

***

Harry was having a shitty morning. 

Not the kind of morning where every aspect of his routine is a terrible mishap, but like the water being too cold and the stove not working or the bottle of oat milk in the fridge being empty so he couldn’t make coffee. No, everything was fine and rolling smoothly, as it should. 

His water was the perfect temperature and ran down the toned bumps and divots of his muscles like the relaxing thrums of a lover’s caress in the midst of prowling heat. As soon as it hit his back, he released a sigh of contentment, his shoulders hunching and head rolling back and his hands roamed his shoulders and the back of his neck, rubbing away any aches that existed. The branch of eucalyptus that hung from the golden pipe of his showerhead fused a thick minty scent into the steam that fogged the glass wall, and the calming aroma helped the tendons loosen like the deflating limpness of untied shoelaces. He spent a few minutes just standing there, inhaling and exhaling deeply and feeling his lungs open and stretch beneath his rib cage. 

It almost made him wish that he’d opted to use his tub for a hot bath instead. 

He was able to cook an egg just fine on his stove, with dashes of Everything Bagel Seasoning with a side of avocado and a slice of toasted cranberry walnut bread, the same thing he had every morning. The carton of oat milk was brand new from his trip to the market the day before, and his coffee tasted the same as it always did. But… he was just... sad. An melancholy soreness that eroded against the insides of his body, consuming him slowly but surely and leaving him with a lost feeling of emptiness and unimportance. 

He thinks he might know why he’s feeling this way. 

While he’s stirring his scrambled eggs, he’s wondering how y/n likes hers. Over easy? Sunny-side up? Scrambled, like him? Did she even like eggs in the morning? What did she eat in the morning? He knows that some people ‘aren’t hungry’ in the mornings, though that’s only because they’ve gone hungry in the mornings before for an extended time period, and after so long of not feeding their growling stomachs, their brain discontinues the signals of hunger. Harry hopes that isn’t the case with y/n, and that she’s eating the proper three meals a day every day. 

And while he dipped a mini vegan chocolate croissant that he got at Whole Foods, he also wonders what she likes to dip chocolate croissants into, or if she even likes chocolate croissants. If she was a person who likes sweet treats, like strawberry tarts with powdered sugar over them or something lighter, like fruit cut into small squares in a bowl. When Harry was younger and would visit his nan on the weekends, she would pick fresh strawberries from her garden and cut them up for him when he’d woken from his nap. Sometimes, she would even sprinkle half a tablespoon of sugar over them. He wonders if she’d ever eaten strawberries like that. 

It’s been a week and a half, he still hasn’t seen her, and his heart is yearning. 

Harry knows he’s not in the correct headspace to assist other people with a cheery disposition about an hour before opening time, and decides it’s best if he writes a note on the door about how the shop wouldn’t open that day because he didn’t want to taint the reputation of his business by snapping at a customer for the only bundle of sunflowers he had, or dissolve into a puddle of love-sick tears in the middle of ringing someone up. Though really the notice just says ‘H’s Garden will not be opening today. Sorry for the inconvenience!’ followed by a frowning face and a lopsided, filled-in heart. 

Harry drags his feet back up the stairs, his lower lip jutting out in a discreet but depressing pout, and grabs Owen from his tank so that the chameleon could curl into the shoulder of Harry’s hoodie while he moped on the couch to sappy rom-coms that would only make him think about her more. At least there was someone there with him, even if his small green friend only used him for mangoes and papaya. They sit together for the entirety of Romeo + Juliet, and when it’s over, Harry’s sniffly and standing up to return Owen to his enclosure and to clean because the riotous emotions that whirl within him are too much to process while sitting down. 

Cleaning wouldn’t help him solve his problems, but it would help him cram all of his worries into a tight corner at the back of his mind- sort of like when dirty laundry began to overflow in the hamper and it requires extra force to shove it all in, only to come all back out like a memory sponge. His tormented thoughts on y/n could be compared to a dramatic inner monologue, very similar to how Romeo feels about his Juliet. But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks? It is the east, and y/n is the sun. Harry has the play on his book shelf (the one with the side-to-side modern English translation because he was never quite gifted in the English department) and as he reaches for a bandana to tie his hair back, he finds himself resonating with a particular line: parting is such a sweet sorrow.

There was no need to change any of his clothing, since he was already dressed in one of his more impromptu outfits; grey sweats and a white t-shirt that read ‘women are smarter’ in black across his chest. He tied the red bandana into a knot at the back of his head, and lifted it over his chin so that it settled on his forehead, sweeping his hair back with a final push back. It doesn’t get in his way when he crouches to clean his various tables, spraying cleaning products with his shirt pulled over his nose, another organic product that’s supposed to be less harmful and smells like cinnamon and sandalwood. His shoulder blades begin to ache because he’s being a little more aggressive than he has to be, but the green tiles were sparkling so he was content. 

He washes the dishes, mops the kitchen floor, vacuums the carpets, cleans Owen’s habitat, and tidies the mail that piled up on the table when he finally calls it quits. Scouring his brain for something to do, to keep him busy- his brain busy, Harry settles on the floor with his back to the edge of his bed. He’s shirtless now, and is in need of another shower but he’d rather not because he knows he might end up crying over the possibility that he’s scared y/n off. There’s a book in his hands and a Frank Ocean record playing softly in the background that mentions something about ‘I've been thinkin' 'bout you, do you think about me still?’ and it’s not helping his case at all.    

It’s no use. 

There’s a plague of darkness buzzing like cicadas in his ears. He fears rejection and criticism. That maybe, she was only pretending in order to make the situation more pleasant so it ended sooner. Most of all, he feared that it would always be this way. That he would never find someone who embraces who he is as a person. Always met with mean side-eye glances or second looks of displeasure and confusion. It isn’t always that way, though, because then that would mean he gets absolutely no action, and that isn’t true. 

Harry is very… well-educated in matters that concerned sexual intercourse, but it was always a one-night stand ordeal. It was never ‘I really like you we should go out sometime’. In fact, he noticed that only time his approaches were well received were those in which he was dressed in a calmer manner. Simple, solid colors with sneakers or a t-shirt. Girls would flirt back, make good conversation, allow him to buy them a few drinks, and when he’d take them to his apartment they’d ask why he lived on top of a flower-shop, and if it was his sister or female-friend’s palace that he was crashing. Sex would ensue, but his heart wouldn’t be as present and engaged as he wanted it to be. 

Wrong. It was always so fucking wrong, and God, if he didn’t get out of this apartment he’s going to breakdown and cry and there’s no one to call to come over because Mitch is on a trip with his girlfriend, Sarah, and his other friend Jeff is on his honeymoon in Sweden. They were the only two on his mental speed dial list during the rare occasions he had a crisis, as they were the two that Harry had ever really opened up to. Mitch was a bit closer to his heart. They’ve known each other since their school days and practically grew up together (at one point they had small crushes on each other, which were confessed years down the line). Jeff was the owner of Winsome where… where y/n had mentioned spending her last twenty dollar bill. He didn’t have an issue opening up to them. He liked opening up to them, but he didn’t understand why they were the only two that ever truly opened their arms to him. 

A walk, he decided, would help him… air out his brain. Calm down. Breathe a little deeper, a little easier. 

He threw his white shirt back on, and a forest green sweatshirt that donned the emblem of the school he went to earn his business degree that fit him wide around the shoulders and felt like a marshmallow. Putting on a pair of beat up shoes, he shoved his keys into his pocket, hobbling and nearly losing his balance because he was moving way too fast. The door closed behind him with a slam, and even though he was still wearing the bandana around his head, wispy stray curls framing his face in a wild mane, his distress palpable through his appearance, but he doesn’t care. He just needs to get out and feel the cool air against his skin. 

There’s a backdoor behind the stairs that will take him to a small alleyway that leads to a back parking lot where other shop owners that live at the top of their stores on the same side of his street parked their cars. He unlocks it from the inside, and throws his shoulder into it, desperate to her out. When it shuts behind him, he doesn’t turn back because it’s the kind to lock from the outside when closed. His fingers curl into the ends of his sleeve so that the tips of his fingers (nails now changed to a sparkling silver color) are the only parts of his hands visible. 

Rounding the corner, he whistled the cheeriest tune he can muster. His lips are puckered and his cheekbones high with the extension of his mouth. He’s not very happy on the inside, though he remembers reading something somewhere that if you pretend to be something long enough, you’ll eventually become it. If he pretends to be happy, then he’ll actually be happy. 

Right?

Harry rounds the corner of the parking lot and turns on to the main street. It’s only two in the afternoon, so there's people crawling in and out of shops anywhere. He even sees a man and a woman peeking into the window of his store, and he would feel bad if he wasn’t in a shitty mood already. He’s so out of it, that he nearly yells ‘get your hands off my windows!’. He doesn’t though, because for a moment the woman becomes y/n and the man becomes him, wrapping a ringed hand around her waist and whispering in her downy ear ‘they’re closed, darling, let’s go somewhere else’ and she straightens dejectedly, pouting playfully and standing up and her tippy toes so that she could press a quick kiss to his lips. 

That image fades though, and the couple continues with their stroll, hand in hand, and his heart is wrenching, writhing and trying to yank itself free from it’s place in his chest because it hurts too much to stay. 

Cars whizz past, and he skirts in and out of people on the sidewalk, keeping his pace fast and focused. There’s no intended destination, he’s just moving with the intent to forget the pretty girl who haunts him. Her voice is all he can hear. Her smile is all she can picture. And the rest of her is all he can imagine, which is exactly what hurts the most. Imagination only goes so far, fulfils so much with uncertainty of what the truth was and what wasn’t. Harry could imagine her with her feet up on the lip of a bubble filled tub, a glass of wine in her hands, but then…what kind of wine did she like? Or did she even like wine? And did she even have a bathtub to stretch out in after a long day? 

He curses the crimes he may have committed in past lives to deserve this torture. This unbearable pain that felt like he was being dunked in a slow-acting acid. He can do nothing about it but keep walking with labored will power. He passed his shop, and a bakery and a small thrift store that sells used clothing for way too much money. At the propped open double-doors of Jeff’s Winsome, he decides to talk in and browse. There’s so many items that smell good and taste good, that it was fun to just walk in and look. 

“Back again so soon, H?” 

Spinning on his heel, Harry comes face to face with Niall, a brunette, fit, Irish bloke with a chummy smile and a killer sense of humor. The two have brokered a sort of friendship, considering the amount of time (and money) that Harry spends there. Niall has even started calling him ‘H’ in silent homage to his flower shop. 

“Y’know I can’t stay away,” Harry attempted to joke, his lips pulling up in a weak smile, “plus, I think I needed s’more of the peppermint essential oils f’my diffuser.” 

“‘Course ya do! You're worse than the bloody vegan mums that come in asking for gluten free baby powder!” Niall cups a hand over his mouth and loudly whispers to so that only Harry catches his verbiage. There was a woman in the back of the store, looking through soaps in the limited kid’s section, the same exact kind that Niall was speaking about. “Go on and look around then, I’ll be here when you’re finished.” He said. 

Harry only nodded his acknowledgement, and moved in between wooden walnut shelves. The entire store had a caramel brown color scheme, with only the inventory adding color to it. Macramé potted succulents and plants added to the natural, outdoorsy feel. Winsome had an interesting mix of smells from all of the aromatherapy based products it housed, but it only added to the appeal. 

Currently, he held a packet of four lip balms that advertised to be ‘100% all naturally derived ingredients with no artificial additives' infused with ‘healing power of crystals’, two of them ‘citrine cherry' flavored, and the remaining ‘garnet guava’. The brand name is something in Italian that he can’t read, packaging thick and a triangle made of arrows in the corner signaling it can be decomposed and/or recycled. He had the same exact ones at home, only they were all misplaced and- 

“Harry?”

A small, timid voice called his name from behind him, and he froze. He knew that voice. It was the same one he had repeated over and over in his head for the past week, waiting for her promised arrival with a hopeful heart. 

His eyes go wide with recognition, body still and stiff like a deer caught in headlights. His heart begins to rump at a furious speed, loud in his ears like a million stampeding hooves. The packaged products in his hands shake, and then she speaks again, “Harry, is that you?” 

Is this really happening right now? He’s embarrassed at having been caught with lipstick in his hands of all things, but he can’t put them back now. It was too late for that. He lets them hang at his side, and turns around. He hopes there isn’t perspiration dripping from his temples because all of a sudden he wants to yank his sweater off. 

Harry turned, slowly. He feared that if he moved too fast she would fly away like a startled dove. 

“Y/n…” He’s breathless, but he manages a pitiful quirk of the corner of his mouth, which he licks over right after, “hi.” 

She’s wearing a dress this time, frilly at the hem which fell just above her knees. It’s pink and covered and lined with blood red trim at her forearms. A string of pearls glistens at the base of her throat, and her lips are covered in a sheen of lipstick. Her hair, however, is a tousled mess, pieces of it framing her face and untucked from her bun as if she had been jostling around. Her cheeks are flushed with the cold, and clearly that thin beige cardigan hanging off her elbows is doing nothing to keep her warm.

Y/n smiles at him, with the same shakiness, “f-for a second I thought I was talking to the wrong p-person.” 

 It’s quiet again, and they’re both fidgeting. Y/n’s knees knock together as she shifts her weight from foot to food, and Harry idly rubs his finger under his nose and sniffs boogies that aren’t there. She’s staring at the ground and rocking back and forth on her heels and he can’t think of anything to say because he’s so paralyzed by the fact that she’s actually standing in front of him, and looks as gorgeous as ever. Had he somehow manifested her presence? 

While she’s hiking up the ends of her sweater so that they’re situated properly on her shoulders, he says the first thing that comes to his mind. “Aren’t y’cold?”

Her head snaps up and she peeks at him from under her lashes while flattening a hand at her thigh, “a little bit.” 

Harry watches her tuck her hair behind her ears and wonders if she came walking from her apartment again. In the cold. Dress as she was. Not that he had a problem with the way that she was dressed! He understood that sometimes when people grew bored they used the smallest occasions to dress up and have some fun and get out of their homes. He did it too, sometimes. To clear his head. Hell, isn’t that what he was doing now?

“D’you need a ride home?” He stumbled over his tongue to backtrack, not wanting her to think that he was a wierdo or anything like that, “t-that is if y’walking, I wouldn’t want you to get sick or anything like that. S’bit chilly out today.” 

Y/n smiles shyly at him, a blush on the highest points of her cheeks, and rubs the side of her face against the fabric of her cardigan, “thank you, for the offer, but uhm… it’s my friend’s baby-shower-gender-reveal thing today and I came with my other friend to some last minute gifts and some flowers. I was going to buy some stuff from here because she’s crazy about the whole ‘no preservatives’ and all but, and I was also going to stop by your shop to buy some flowers, but I saw you were closed so I…I’m rambling again.” She sputtered out the last bit, and pressed the tips of her three middle fingers to her lips to stop the words from coming out. 

Harry smirked at her antics, but it’s more of a repressed smile, and the rest of his humor gleamed in the sea-glass of his eyes like a message in a bottle. 

“S’alright, love.” He’s still holding the lip balms in his hand, and he can feel the moisture that’s collecting on his palms dampening the Kraft like material as he gestured to her dress with the tip of his chin. “Y’wearing pink. I take it y’want the baby to be a girl?”

“Actually, I know it’s a girl. She told me,” y/n pips, shrugging smugly. 

Harry laughs at her this time, “Did you finish with all your purchases here? I can make an exception and open up f’you.”

“Oh, Harry, I don’t wanna bother you! Because if this was your day off then-”

He lifts a hand to get her to stop, and uses the opportunity to twist around and put back what he had in his hands. The conversation is flowing so smoothly now, that all of his previous worries are gone. He can only focus on her and the way her eyelashes fluttered and the crystalline sparkly in her voice. 

“Y/n, it’s fine. D’ya finish here? We can head over to the shop now if you’d like.” Harry points a thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the door. 

“Uh, no. I just got here so I still have to go grab some things,” she said, pushing her hair past her ears again. He thinks that she can probably tell the disheveled state her hair was in, because she begins to pop off a pin in her hair to readjust it. He doesn’t mind it, though. He thinks she looks cute. Angel-like. 

He nods, rolling his hands into fists within his sleeves so that the cuffs hang over his knuckles, and tries not to trip over his legs as he backs away. “A’right. I’ll wait f’you in the front, then. Take y’time, love.” 

“‘Kay,” she gleams at him, biting down on her bottom lip, and Harry turns away fully before he starts whining about how cute she is or before there’s a dent in the heather grey fabric of his sweatpants.  

At the front, Niall has his chin at the palm of his hand, and as he gets closer, Harry lifts his head to see that the brunette is wiggling his eyebrows mischievously. There's a shit-eating grin on his face that clearly points to a mountain of teasing in the near distance. 

“A little love-struck, mate?” He said, as soon as Harry was within hearing distance. At least he had the decency to keep his voice down, he thought. 

Harry flips him off, “oh, bug off.” 

Silver glitter sparkling on his nails, and his gaze strays to the floor, bashful of how clear his affection was. He turns to rest his bum against the counter and pulls out his phone to appear busy as he waits for y/n, mindlessly opening Instagram to have something to do (and to stop him from glancing at her ever two seconds).    

“Yup. I knew it. Have y’asked her out yet?” Niall doesn’t stop to let Harry refute his question, “y’know she comes in sometimes, after stopping by your place? And she just will not stop talking about how nice yeh were to her.”

Harry’s head snaps up from his screen so fast, something at the back of his neck creaks with the force. Instagram is long forgotten.

“What? Are you fuckin’ with me right now?” He doesn’t mean for his words to come as aggressive as they do, but the thought of her speaking to someone else about him is… well, it’s thrilling. 

Alarmed, Niall’s hands come up near his face in the motion of surrender, “no, man! Dead serious. Think she likes yeh, honestly.”

He can only say: “Fuck me.”

Niall is about to respond when a quiet voice breaks their stares, “I’m all finished.” 

“Already, babe? I’ll rig ya up, then!” 

He’s quick to slide the few products over the scanning square, and y/n and Harry stand beside each other silently, their height difference laughable. Niall’s gaze flickered between them with no commentary, and his lips pucker with a wiggling smile when he finally announces her total. A bit too much for a small changing blanket, oatmeal-based baby lotion, pacifiers with a lavender infused towel attached to ‘aid with goodnight night’s sleep’, and a bamboo hairbrush with a tuft of soft bristles. 

Nonetheless, she provides the money with a pleasant smile. Harry can see a bit of tightness around her eyes that suggests discomfort, but he doesn’t say anything. Niall hands her a paper bag with her purchase, “there yeh go! Have a good day now, y/n! And be good, to Harry!” 

Harry’s eyes widen at Niall’s last comment, and it takes every bit of self-restraint in him to not reach the other counter and whack him in the back of the head. Instead, he shakes and ducks his head in near shame.

Y/n, however, quips back with “I’ll be nice only if you’re nice,” and bumps her shoulder against his before walking towards the door, looking over her shoulder at Harry who’s smiling wide now, and trailing after her with no regard to Niall at all. 

He shouts something after them about being rude lovebirds, but Harry doesn’t care. He’s floating after this heaven-sent like cartoon characters being led to a freshly baked pie with their nose on the scent. His rump high in the air like the Lorax disappearing into the light in the clouds, utterly ignorant to everything else. 

When they’ve both stepped outside, they speak at the same time, 

“Let me just-”

“Do y’wanna put-” 

Harry and y/n giggle at each other, 

“You go first.” 

“Y’speak first.” 

And then they laugh again. Harry pretends to zip his lips and throws away the key, and she says radiantly, “I’ll drop this off in my friend’s car really fast and we can walk to your flower shop.” 

Watching her approach a car parked two spots away, a girl with blue, pink, and brown hair leans over to the passenger side, seat belt straining against her throat and when she sees Harry, she waves and it makes y/n push her back to her spot behind the driver’s  side. Whoever this girl is, she and Niall have to meet, seeing as they can’t mind their own business. He chuckled and waved back, that girl laughing along with him and it made y/n cover her face with her cardigan covered hands. 

“I’m sorry about Charlotte,” she said when she got back, “she doesn’t know how to mind her own.”

“A bit like Niall, it seems.” Harry said. He waits for her to catch up before beginning to walk down the street. Side to side, shoulder to shoulder. They’re so close, Harry can feel the warmth of her body heat through the fleece of his sweatshirt. It’s cold, and she’s still this warm? 

“Maybe,” her eyebrows raise, and her head tilts towards him, “they should meet.” 

“Tha’s exactly what I was thinkin’!” His voice rises with his excited agreement, and the tip of his nose wiggles as he scrunches his nose. 

As they get closer, to H’s Garden, Harry reaches into his pocket for his keys, fingering through them so that they wouldn’t have to stand in the cold for so long. He didn’t want her to get sick. 

“I’m sorry, Harry. I feel really bad about this,” she whispered beside him, looking up at him with doe eyes as she worried her lip between her teeth, the sheen of gloss adding an extra allure to her image at that moment. “It’s your day off, and I’m bugging you.” 

They stood in front of the door now, underneath the green umbrella cover that extended from the top of the door and down the side of the window. Harry waited for her to step into the little alcove created by the indent of the door before stepping in after her and jiggling the key into the lock. He resisted the urge to pull his lips down into a cooing frown at the look on her face. She really was worried about disturbing him. If only she knew that he spent the entire day moping (and nearly crying) over her. 

He sucked on his teeth, “oh, love, please worryin’ about it. Don’t wanna see that frown on y’pretty face anymore okay?” His confidence was slowly coming back, “s’not my day off, I just didn’t feel like speaking to customers today.” 

Shrugging, he opened the door, and took a step back to allow her to step through first. Y/n ducked her head as she passed him with a murmured ‘oh, okay’, and he followed right after her, wanting to get away from the cold too because he knew that his nose was probably pink at that moment, but what he didn’t anticipate was for y/n to stop right after breaching the threshold, and bend over at the waist to pick something up from the floor, causing Harry to bump into her at such an awkwardly sexual angle with all of his momentum. 

Considering he was half twisted away from her and in the middle of pulling out the key from it’s slot, the amount of force in Harry’s push from behind was enough to cause her to nearly fall forward, a surprised whimper slipping from her lips. Harry, determined not to see her fall, lets go of the key and reaches out just in time to grasp her hips on either side, pulling her back towards him mid-fall so that she doesn't collapse on her face. 

However, in the midst of all of this Harry forgets himself and uses a bit too much force. Not to mention, the implications of their position makes him hyper aware of every single place their bodies touched, her small frame against his lithe, tattooed body. 

This moment only lasts for a few seconds, but he can feel everything. 

He can feel the easy give of the skin of her hips underneath each finger that touched her, the softness of the flesh on her thighs against his sturdy knees. The fabric of his sweatpants is suddenly non-existent, and it’s almost as if he felt every taught tendon of her legs, frozen with efforts of helping catch or brace herself. The heat of her groin is flush against his, and it makes him want to scream with a sudden sensitivity. Her ass is practically seated on him, full and malleable against the points of his laurel covered hip bones. Harry’s semi-hunched, as her weight also pushed him back, and the position is doing nothing to help his frenzied mind settle. He feels like shit because he’s being a horny, pubescent kid instead of asking her if she’s okay, but then y/n moves back into him to straighten fully and their centers grind. Her dress is semi-bunched at the halfway point of her bum, and he can feel heat emanating from her, radiating back on his bloating cock. He has to stifle a moan when she pushes herself up with the tips of her fingers. 

Just as quickly as it started, it’s over. Y/n is dusting her bum off so that her dress falls and covers her modesty, and she’s beet red in the face, not looking at him. Which was fine by him, he was too ashamed to look into her eyes. 

He clears his throat (something he’s doing a lot around her) and asks if she’s okay. 

“Yes. Yes, I’m okay. This was on the floor,” she squeaked, holding up a neon yellow notice sheet in her hand. That damned thing was what caused all of this?

It’s a notice from the delivery men that said, ‘sorry! We missed you!’ with a time and date messily scrawled on the dotted lines. Harry had forgotten that he was getting a shipment of several plants that morning. 

Cursing, he takes it from her, “t-thank you. Now how ‘bout those flowers?”

It’s awkward, obviously, but y/n is severely silent. Harry’s still stuffy in his pants, but he ignores it and doesn’t add any fuel to the fire because there’s more pressing matters at hand than a boner. Y/n is the most quiet she’s ever been around him, considering all of her word vomits and ramblings, and he’s suffering. Definitely beating himself up in his head for having ruined the moment. He held onto her for a second too long, frozen. She must feel so embarrassed, and he was self-endulging like a fucking asshole. 

Harry asks her questions on what flowers she’d like, and she answers by pointing or bringing a stem to him, laying it on the counter without a word. A mixture of dahlias and baby’s breath with a handful of feverfew to make the pink in the dahlia’s stand out. He lays them out on his work table, cutting the ends at an angle where they need to be cutted and laying them out on a sheet of clear, dusty rose paper. Three packets of flower food are strewn at the corner, and y/n busies herself by fidgeting with them. He grows concerned when he makes a comment on the kinds of ribbons he had stored and she doesn’t say anything. Not even a nod or a hum. 

Eventually, he decides he’s had enough of her neglect, and pauses his work to devote her some attention.  

“Love, I’m sorry about what happened,” he said softly, trying to catch her eyes, “I know it probably made y’uncomfortable, and I didn’t do much to make the situation better, but I just didn’t wanna see y’fall.”

Y/n’s head is already dipped, so he can’t see her face, but when her shoulders begin to shake, he knows he’s utterly fucked. She starts to sniffle, and his eyes go wide. The paper crinkled as he set down the baby’s breath he’s holding in his hands. He hates seeing people cry, not because he didn’t know how to deal with it, but because he often ended up crying along with them. Also, he just didn’t want to see her cry. Harry wanted her to be happy, glowing, and smiling. Not dull with dollops of woeful distress in liquid form.

He rounds the corner and spares a look out to the street, wanting to make sure that there is no strange onlooker eavesdropping on their interaction. His hand reaches out to stroke her back or shoulder comfortingly, but he thinks better of it and drops his arm. She most likely would not like to be touched, considering what just happened between them. He drops his head, seeking face-to-face interaction, and speaks as gently as he can, “y/n, what’s wrong?” 

She avoids his search, and turns the other way while sniffling, “you probably think I’m weird now or something after that.” 

“No!” Harry exclaimed, jerking his head back as if he’d been struck, and her words practically had. He can’t believe that she would think that and even go as far as verbalizing her thoughts when he worshipped the ground she walked on and didn’t even know her that well, yet. “No, no. I don’t think that. Y’tripped, that’s all. Happens to everyone. If anythin’ I’m the weirdo for grabbin’ y’the way I did, and I’m really sorry about it.”

Y/n dig the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, “that was so embarrassing, I should’ve told you I was gonna stop or something. I always embarrass myself in front of cute boys and I never know what to do. I just-” 

Harry interrupts before she can dig herself further another hole. He highlights a segment of her words, dropping everything else in hopes of changing the conversation and taking her discomfort away, and mostly because he was bursting with relief and happiness. She had said that she thought he was cute, just how he thought that she was adorable, and nice, and everything good. They were on the same level, their minds in sync. Did that mean…

His voice is airy and light because of what she had just admitted, “y’think I’m cute?”

She stills with awareness of what she’s just said, and a puppy-like noise seeps from the back of the throat before her hands sink further into her eyes, embarrassed. Harry tenderly wraps his fingers around her small wrists and pulls her hands away from her face, murmuring about ‘don’t rub y’eyes anymore, love, y’gonna hurt’ with nothing but kindness. A millisecond of distraction speeds through his mind at the softness on the inside of her wrists. 

There’s a trickle of blubbering in her part, her bitten lips bumping against each other as she attempts to backtrack, “I mean- I- I-”

Harry decides that it’s now or never. It was a bit inconvenient, perhaps, but with her revelation his confidence soared and he was more prepared now to ask than he ever had been. So, he goes for it, “can I have y’number?” 

A moment of semi-uncomfortable silence as the unknown tips the scale. Would she say yes? Would she say no? His head was spinning and he hoped his nose didn’t start bleeding or something because y/n nods slowly, smiling, and then, “okay.” 

He’s elated. He was the polar opposite of what he had been that morning. If only Owen could see him then. He doesn’t waste any time reaching into his back pocket and handing her his unlocked phone. They don’t share any words, only coy glances and flirty quirks of the lips as the tips of her fingers move on his screen. Harry can’t believe that he’s finally getting her number, after nearly a month of pinning. 

When she’s finished, she clicks it off and sets it next to him with an added pat to the back of his suspiciously clean white phone case while he’s tying the flowers together with a loose rubber band at the ends to attach the food packets. He’s fine with working in silence now that she's not crying anymore. He throws occasional glances in her direction, and catches her watching his hands while fiddling with her own. Her brows were furrowed and her mouth was twitching. 

“Will you text me?” She asked him. 

He’s careful not to bruise any of the petals as he sets them down again, pausing with his ministrations to pick up his phone. He wiggles his eyebrows at her and types a quick ‘Hi. It’s Harry :)’. He hits send, “until you’re sick of me.”

“I don’t think that’s possible.” She shakes her head, and Harry’s reminded Rachel McAdams in The Notebook while she’s in complete denial of her feelings for Noah. The comparison makes his heart flutter, considering the romance of the onscreen couple. “How much do I owe you?” 

Harry waves her off, “it’s on the house.” She begins to argue, but Harry stops her before she starts rambling again, “y’better go or you’ll be late, love.” He holds out the arrangement to her, tufts of baby’s breath poking out from between the vibrant dahlias like fluffy clouds, the feverfew looking like miniature white daisies in the center. 

She looks at it, and back at him before huffing, “fine, but you’ll have to let me return the favor.”

“Of course,” he smirks, “with dinner, maybe?” 

They’re both gleaming at each other now, “okay.” Y/n takes a step back, her body half twisted as she walks away, but it remains like that for a moment as her eyes rake him up and down, a murmur following, “bye, Harry.” 

His veins charge with electricity, and his dark taffy lips part at her actions. Had she just checked him out? He doesn’t recover quick enough to return her goodbye because the previous swirl of arousal in his navel was bristling back to life at the implications of that look. Calm, slow, steady, and her eyes remained doe-like and innocent. 

She had to have known exactly what she was doing, whispering his name the way she had, looking over her shoulder and under her eyelashes the way she did. Deviously provoking his thoughts to begin a new with a reinspired fervor. The space in his underwear was growing tighter by the second, a blissful ache swelling. 

Before any other customer stepped in after her, Harry locked the door, and jogged up the stairs to prepare himself a nice, hot bath, simultaneously cursing and thanking the stupid fucking delivery men.  

********

Harry can’t stop thinking. 

Obviously, this is a huge issue for him. He was constantly thinking, and well, who wasn’t? The process of thoughts wisping around in his brain was one that he often put an unnecessary amount of energy into because he had no one to filter these thoughts onto, releasing them through a conversation to prevent the exhaustion of his brain and heart. A prime example of these mishaps being the depressing slump that occupied his demeanor that very morning. 

This?

This was different.

As soon as the apartment door was shut behind him, Harry pulled the suffocating sweatshirt off of his upper body, fingers hooking in at the collar and yanking it off with a swift tug. It landed somewhere on his kitchen floor, and he didn’t stop to take note of its final destination. Instead, his legs instinctively took him to his bathroom. 

Chest heaving, Harry walked to the small window leaking sunlight and rolled the stick between his fingers to close the blinds. His thumb dipped into the waistband of his boxes and dragged them down lopsidedly, the tiger tattoo roaring as it became exposed. When the blinds are fully closed, the white extension clangs against the shutters from his aggressive release. His body was slowly being consumed by a raging fire stoked by the illicit images his brain conjured of the innocent, unsuspecting y/n.

His inner turmoil consisted of guilt for using her image that way and justification from the conspiring rake of her eyes along the upper half of him that was visible behind the counter. He was so fixated by her, that her look alone felt like a tempting caress along his skin. And it all happened in a matter of fucking seconds. That’s how gone he was. That’s how fucking gone he was. Harry guesses that the easy excitement also had to do with the fact that he hadn’t gotten laid in a while (he only ever gets lucky when he goes out to the bars with Mitch or Jeff, and they’d been gone for a significant amount of time) and the strong affinity he had for the girl who bought flowers from him.  

Explanation or not, he had to do something about the problem in his pants. He was painfully hard, and when he shucked his pants off fully, his underwear dragged with the movement and pressed against the tip of his swollen prick. A darkened patch of moisture bloomed where the head was, and he saw stars at the short pressure. He wouldn’t take his pants off just then, though. He liked to stall his pleasure as much as he could so that when he finally did cum, his stomach muscles contracted and his toes remained curled for more than ten seconds. 

He twisted the golden knobs of his tub so that the water would come rushing out at a borderline scalding temperature, and opened the small cabinet above the toilet for a bottle of almond and coconut shea butter bubbles. He uncapped it and bent over the edge of the tip, the cool, porcelain lip touching his crotch and provoking a choked whimper to leave him. Jerking his hips back, he poured the soapy liquid into the spot where the water cascaded, and retracted his hand when the beginning of froth formed along the surface. 

The heady sweet smell permeated the air with the rising levels of bubbles, and Harry couldn’t wait any longer. Because he liked to torture himself, he closed his eyes and slowly dragged the hell of his hand over the outline of his cock, a groan ripping though the silence. It’s so painfully good, that he does it one more time, and he jolts forward. He removes his hand, slips his thumbs underneath the waistband of his boxers, and lugs the fabric down his hips at an excruciatingly slow pace. The head of his member smearing precum all along as he moves and when he gets caught in the ripples of his boxers the muscles in his thighs flex at the ripple of pleasure that zips into his nerves. 

“Fuck,” he hissed under his breath. His mind was a spinning vintage reel of slideshow images of y/n. Y/n on bruised knees, her mouth wide open and her own drool on her tits, the tip of his cock flat on her tongue as she pleads with weepy eyes for him to cum down her throat. When he finally springs free of his underwear, a hefty slap rings out as his dick collides against his abdomen, right on the space underneath his belly button. 

There’s a stripe of liquid on the trail left by the mushroom head of his prick, and Harry’s eyes roll to the back of his head, throat straining as he hovers over the bathtub. He doesn’t remember the last time he’s ever been this hard over a girl before, and it’s driving him crazy. He doesn’t know if he’ll be able to last as long as he usually does. As he swings a leg over the edge of the tub, the hot water encasing his calf, he’s thinking about how soft she is. The inside of her wrist and the palm of her hand. If she’s that soft on an external part of her body that’s used everyday, he can only wither away at the idea of what the inside of her thighs feel like. 

Bubbles are swarming up now, swathing his thighs and buttocks as he sinks into the sloshing water. When he’s completely seated and satisfied with the belly-button level of water, he clumsily throws a hand in the direction of the knobs to shut them off, and reclined his head against the curved end of the tub with his eyes shut. 

He hikes up his knees so that they’re resting against the porcelain walls, and mindlessly ruts up into the water at the filthy images he’s picturing, white foam collecting in sparse clouds over the math on his chest. He doesn’t know what’s gotten into him. It’s as if his body is being transported back to the moment his hips clashed with y/n’s. At the recollection, his mouth drops and his eyebrows pinch in a silent moan. The feel of her flesh underneath his fingertips has him bobbing in the water, and the next ideation has him gripping the base of his cock. 

Vividly, he pictured her on all fours, keening back onto him as her pussy enveloped him in warmth, a warmth that is almost replicated by the temperature of the water, dripping and making a mess of him but what’s turning him on most of all is the easy flushness of their bodies. He had felt the way her bum gave way under his hold, and he imagined the bounce of her flesh as he thrusted into her. 

He moaned a broken call of her name with his eyes still shut, and heard the trickling of water as his fist rolled up his stiff prick, squeezing at the tip so that a few more droplets of precum dribbled out. With his thumb, he rubbed over the red mushroom head and lathered it in slow, leisurely circles, a throb pulsating with the beat of his heart as he returned to flicking his wrist over himself. 

The way that he looked at him and the sound of his name on her lips seared into his memory. Airy and willowy, similar to it resonated in his brain with the fantasy of sinking into her for the first time, stretching her and having her preen and arch with desperate whimpers of his name for more. Harry considered himself to be ‘well-endowed’ and his size was a factor of what sent him careening over the edge as girls mewled over his size after he’d bottomed out. He wanted y/n to mewl under him, both of them falling apart at the seams at the mutual pleasures because if Harry’s this broken over just the thought of her, then he’s sure he’s going to lose himself beyond recognition after he’s buried himself into her velvety walls, slick with her arousal and so fucking warm. 

Just as she had been earlier that day. There had been two layers between them- the fabric of Harry’s pants and her panties- yet, he was still able to feel an immense heat from the apex of her thighs against his cock. He needed more than this. He needed her, not just his hand driving him closer to the edge. 

His jaw clenched as he bit back on a particularly loud moan, for no reason other than he enjoyed self-sabotage from time to time, and the speed of his jerking hand increased. His other hand gripped the side of the tub, and his legs flexed as he began to thrust up into his own fist, a trail of bubbles sticking to the tanned muscles. The cut rectangles of muscles of his abdomen glistened like freshly chopped cubes of apricot with the droplets of water that remained clinging to him. His breath came in labored, strained puffs as the palm of his hand twisted, tightening at the tip and loosening at the base. 

For a moment, he paused and cupped his balls, massaging them as the fantasy in his head continued. His mouth wrapping around y/n’s nipples, her eyes glazed over from previous orgasm that he wanted so badly to give her. She’d whine something soft and quiet to match her personality, ‘please, Harry, please I want more. Need another Harry, please’, and he’d speed up the movement of his hips, driving deep into her and cooing into her ear about, ‘c’mon, darling. Give m’another then. Y’want it so bad, yeah? Give me a’fucking ‘nother’, and she’d release a peircing moan that explodes in his eardrums while arching into him. She’d squeeze impossible tight around him, gushing with her own cum. 

The water in Harry’s tub sloshes around his ankles, and the muscles of his abdomen clench so that he’s closing in on himself, sputtering on an outrageously loud cry that he can’t contain and his hand increases the speed of his filthy ministrations because he’s right on the edge. He’s about to fucking cum and the back of his eyelids burns with the possible variances of y/n’s face in ecstasy provided by him with his nose deep in her cunt, lapping at the sweet honey that spills with every whimper of, ‘please let me cum, Harry. I’ll do anything, I’ll be good, please let me cum. 

He tensed violently, his face contorted painfully as white ropes spurt from the tip of his cock over his fist and onto his chest, blending with the white almond foam. His feet are braced against the edge of the tub and his head falls back and his stomach tenses even further, the final leaks of his cum dribbling out. 

With the fuzziness that comes after an orgasm, his body melts back into the water that’s still warm, and his jerks with a pant as he allows his softening prick to sink into the water. The head on his hair is matted in a chocolate smear across his forehead, and his lips are a raging heart of cherry blossoms, parted with arduous gasps of recovery breath. His hands fall into the water at his sides, and with the lapping movement of the liquid against his sensitive member, he ruts into nothing again. 

Reclined with his eyes closed and heartbeat slowing, Harry murmurs a final, “fuck me,” at the extreme sensations that had raked through his body. 

Somewhere in the muffled distance, his phone dings with the notification of a text message, and with a tired noise of resentment, he sits up and reaches for his sweatpants that lay in a messy puddle besides the tub. His fingers drip darkening spots onto the grey material as he rummages for his phone, and then he finally clicks it on...

It’s her name, lighting up his screen, and the text reads: 

y/n <3 : so… dinner? 

Harry doesn’t think he’s ever crushed on a girl this hard before because even though he’s just completely physically spent himself, there’s something stirring in the depths of his tummy just at seeing the heart she put next to her name. 

He couldn’t be happier. 

*    *    *    *    *    *

and here he is!! what do you guys think?? pls pls pls leave your feedback in my askbox! i’d love to hear your thoughts! and if you really really loved it, don’t be afraid to press that reblog button <3333

[be-kind-to-the-animals]

It’s been awhile but I figured I would give an update on some of the hens! 🐔 As always donations are super appreciated and more helpful than you could imagine. It’s been a very expensive last few months and I have another large expense coming up this week, so any help would be amazing.

Venmo: @Cassie-M-79

PayPal: https://paypal.me/cmoeller79?locale.x=en_US

So what has happened recently? I lost Paprika to cancer in her digestive tract. It was awful and heartbreaking, and I miss her. She was doing awful after suddenly losing a ton of weight and stopping eating, and went in for spay surgery as my vet thought she had an oviduct issue. Sadly it turns out she had cancer all throughout her digestive tract and this was not something that could have been prevented or fixed. I had to let her go.

Rosemary had surgery before her, and thankfully is doing great! She got an impacted oviduct and a lot of egg material was removed along with the oviduct in her spay surgery. Between X-rays and surgery, she was over $2000.

Now Clover needs surgery. She was having egg issues so I was already trying to get her in for a spay, but then she was injured. She got lots of X-rays and it was determined she possibly broke her keel bone. It was an extremely stress full few days trying to find out what was wrong, and I thought I was going to lose her to internal injuries. Thankfully nothing internal was injured! Broken bones suck but we an fix those. She is now doing awesome and feeling so much better, and has her surgery on Friday to spay her. After spending over $600 unplanned for her emergency trip and X-rays and second vet trip a couple days later, it’s been a lot. Her surgery like all the others will run me around $1800.

I’m running out of money and these girls get sick faster than I make money. Costs are rising for everything and it’s hard to keep these girls healthy when they have egg issues so young. Once spayed, they’re healthy for years. 3 of my hens are spayed, Clover will be the fourth. After that I have 3 more left to spay. Once they’re spayed I can finally stop worrying so heavily and costs will go down dramatically as reproductive care is the most expensive part of caring for these girls. I just have to figure out paying for Clover and my last 3 girls, and I can finally breathe. If anyone can make a small donation (seriously, even $1 helps!) I would appreciate it so much. These girls deserve the world, and it’s Clovers turn to get her life saving care.

Venmo: @Cassie-M-79

PayPal: https://paypal.me/cmoeller79?locale.x=en_US

Follow me on @fernsandwildflowers on Instagram for more information on Clovers injury and how everyone is doing! ❤️

[snowlily95]

Aerith in light of healthcare provider

So, I've wanted to write an analysis about Aerith in light of her medical viewpoint for quite a long time but only recently got the chance to complete it. It is well known in the game that Aerith is the healer of the story. She possesses a great MP with a limit break to heal and buff people which greatly affects your gameplay. Of course, you can equip others with Healing and Prayer materias to render them useful for healing as well. But story-wise, no one can take away Aerith's status as the healer. We know in canon that Aerith provided herbs to the Sector 5 slums doctor to create medicine. And if you finished the Corneo Stash side quest in Chapter 14, you can return to the church and see a couple of elderly sitting on the pew praying. And when you come closer to them you'll hear them talking about how they didn't see Aerith around and they're sure she's alright and probably be around healing people. You know, since the Sector 7 plate just fell. (Even though Aerith is not alright actually coz she was kidnapped by Shinra by this time) Point is, we are fed by the NPCs on how much Aerith had helped around as a healer. She had been doing this for years.

While being in denial about who she actually is, being a healer had always been implanted in her. She is used to it. When you're used to being a healer, there's a certain level when you have a different reaction compared to others. The way you think is different. Apart from that, she's also a Cetra. And we knew for a fact Cetra had a certain affinity towards souls who are returning to the Planet. Meaning, as much as she is used to healing others, she's also used to sensing death.

My whole point is that being a Cardiac Anaesthesiologist and Intensivist as I am, I can totally relate my position with Aerith, as we both have constantly helped people and encounter death on daily basis. While I'm pretty confident that the majority of these might be coincidences (because I'm pretty sure there are no doctors in the SE team), I thought the coincidences are pretty cool to ponder upon and I'm amazed at how the subtle differences between Aerith's reaction to events from other characters.

I'm gonna ignore the meta part of Aerith, mainly because I'm not discussing how much Aerith knew, and if there was anything in jeopardy of what she knew whatsoever. So we're gonna focus on the fact that she is used to healing and feeling people's death. People who are used to death on daily basis had a certain unique view on life and death. And that affects how we act upon facing them too. While this is evident throughout Remake, I'm gonna focus on the plate drop event to be more concise. I will also use Tifa as a comparison to make it easier to see the difference between the reaction of the two. Let’s start!

1) Aerith is quick in emergency situations.

When you are used to people dying, you developed a certain immunity and you are able to have a sound mind and composure at the sudden change of event. As healthcare providers, we face stable situations turning into critical real fast. And we have a switch in our minds that turns us from standby mode to rescue mode. This is exactly what happened to Aerith when Don Corneo revealed Shinra's plan to blow up Sector 7's support pillar. Tifa is part of Sector 7. It is her home. Which is why her reaction showed how she was super devastated, she slowly stood up and muttered "They wouldn't..." because she couldn't believe it. Aerith? She had that switch in her mind, and she immediately turned and say "Come on, guys! We gotta go!". She switched into that critical mode in a second. It helps that she's also not personally connected to Sector 7, and thus her judgment was not as impaired. Of course, they both switched into the critical mode in the sewer, but it was at the moment of revelation that made it different. Just like how healthcare providers switched at the moment of revelation that their patients are at the brink of death—you immediately jumped into rescue mode.

2) She plans for the worst.

Remember after they defeated Abzu and Tifa started to question Corneo's information? She didn't want to believe it, because it didn't make sense to destroy your years of efforts building the plate just to get back to a small group like AVALANCHE. Think about the money they put in to build it, they're gonna have to put them all again. In fact, along their way out of the sewer, Tifa voiced out multiple times how this had been bothering her. But I'm intrigued with Aerith's reply "If he's telling the truth, then we should go. And if it turns out he was lying, then so what?". This here is exactly what doctors do. We plan and prepare for the worst. And if the worst didn't happen, then so what? If you ever had life-saving surgery, your doctors would tell you "You need this surgery coz you might die. But if you do the surgery, there's a high chance you'll survive, but there's a small chance you'll die too". And we prepare for that small chance that our patients die. No, we don't let our preparations lacking because we hope they'll survive. We prepare for the worst outcome possible and get all the equipment ready in case they'll die. If they didn't, then so what? It doesn't mean our preparations were futile efforts. It only means we were prepared. And that line of Aerith seriously hits home to me.

3) She hopes for the best.

Before they crossed the water sewer, Tifa once again voiced out how she couldn't stop thinking about what Corneo said, and she was still hoping that he was lying. And then Aerith said, "The future isn't set in stone". (Again, I'm gonna ignore the meta part of Aerith) And then she proceeded to set up that small date with Tifa. Believe it or not, this is actually what we do during bad calls. We'd talk about what we would do after all this ends; we'd go out dining, or playing games/darts, or go drinking, or whatever it is that makes us happy. Just to keep our minds calm and to allow us to hope for the future, even if it's just a few hours away. It gives us hope and courage to go on. We plan for the worst, but we hope for the best. The more critical the situation is, the more you need to be level-headed. And needless to say, after this point onwards, Tifa is much more calmed down from her struggle to keep herself focus.

4) She follows orders.

This might sound weird to some, but the ability to cast away your worry and focus on what you can do, instead of what you should do, is important in emergency situations. You need to know what you don't know. You don't get in the way of your comrades. If you're not good at intubating, you don't insist to intubate in emergency situations just because you wanna help. Seriously, you'll just make things worse. When Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith were attacked before climbing up and out of the sewer, Cloud asked both Tifa and Aerith to keep going. Aerith immediately answers "Okay" and left—without a single but. This is significant because it shows that Aerith knew she'd be better off leaving. She doesn't need to offer help, coz her help was not needed. This is not the place where she could help. The ability to recognize this is very important for healthcare professionals. Tifa was a bit more reluctant to leave, but that's probably because she is a martial artist in-game. Also, the fact that Aerith could still joke "We're not delicious" is just so real lol! Yup, we joke sometimes when we're facing deaths—doesn't mean we lose focus in saving the dying person in front of us, don't worry. And then it happens again when they reached Sector 7 when Cloud asked them to stay with Wedge as he goes up, Aerith immediately answered "sure"—because she can "patch" Wedge up, it's where her abilities lie. This is even more accentuated when an injured Wedge argued that he can still fight when he clearly can't—making this point even more obvious. Aerith is someone with a healthcare mind, Wedge was not.

5) She supports her comrades emotionally even when she’s worried too.

When they reached the surface, they spotted a Shinra helicopter. Cloud assured them they're only on patrol. Aerith turned to Tifa and said, "Don't worry, we'll make it in time". This moment is also very iconic to me. As I mentioned, I'm an anaesthesiologist. We are the support doctors to surgeons and physicians. Those moments when we're operating on AAA surgeries and the patient is losing liters of blood and literally dying, we're pumping bloods in with our hands and get those Level 1 machines operating, and the surgeons would be panicking because it keeps bleeding? Yep, I did say it before. "We'll make it. Just concentrate on the surgery and don't worry about the bleeding", even though I'm sweating and dying here trying to keep the patient alive. But I pretended to be calm in front of my team and cheered them on. Because the whole team needs to keep calm. If one of the team loses hope, then bid your chance farewell. As an anaesthesiologist, we're almost like the anchor in the room. People look at us to know if everything's alright. I need to tell them it's alright, so they need not worry. Aerith knew Tifa is worried. And she tried to keep Tifa calm with reassurance. Even if she probably freaked out herself.

6) She doesn’t discriminate.

After they defeated the ghost at the haunted maintenance facility, Cloud tried to kill it, and Aerith didn't let him. When Cloud said that thing was dangerous, Aerith said she knows and added "but even so..." she didn't feel right about killing it. (Let's ignore the fact that the Ghoul was a lonely creature for now) It then goes to drop the train wreck which almost killed them had it not been for Cloud. Now this would have been avoided had Aerith let Cloud killed it—maybe. But here's the thing. When you're hyper-aware that people are dying left and right, you value life more. No one deserves to die, even the worst criminal in the world. You're a law-abiding citizen? You're a criminal? It doesn't make a difference to us. I know this is something super hard to comprehend. But technically only when the law subjects the criminal to the death sentence that a person should be left to die. I've been a doctor for eleven years, I was a prison doctor for two. I had the first-hand experience of dealing with criminals. It's not my job to determine whether they deserve to die or not. It's not my call whether they will turn a new leaf had they lived. I know this is something others find difficult to relate to and agree with—happens to my non-medical family and friends. The verdict to us is simple. It's a life. It's worth saving. Period. (Technically the ghosts are dead though but my point still stands)

7) She tries to her best abilities and lets go of what is out of her control.

Tifa's emotions are tampered with again when they confirmed Shinra was going to drop the plate when they overheard the Turks conversation. Her voice shook, we can literally hear it. Aerith's response was "all we can do now is keep moving". And she's right. When they reached Sector 7 and the Whispers were preventing them, she said "we have to get past whatever it takes". And later on, Tifa left to help Cloud and Barret, and Aerith agreed to get to Seventh Heaven to ensure Marlene's safety. Wedge had a short mental breakdown when he realized he was no good to anyone up or down the crime scene. And Aerith told him "We can still save a lot of lives", "That's no excuse to give up", "I need to know I did everything I could". Her encouragement helped Wedge save more people. Some argued, did she not care about the lives that already died? Now here's my point; no, we don't. Sorry if this sounds harsh, but really. What can we do for people who are already dead? Nothing. What can we do for people who are still alive? Everything. And this is the core of being a healthcare provider—we prioritize. Yes, we're also humans. We can get emotional when our own friends and relatives die. (Aerith might not be as calm had it happened at Sector 5) But when we put the healthcare provider cap on, we mean business. That is why when disasters happened, and we triage people with a black tag? That's when we know we couldn't do anything for them. We don't mourn at the black tags. We move on to the other tags instead. So that we know we already did everything in our power to help. And yes, it doesn't matter even if we lost more lives than we saved. It's worth it, even if we only saved one person out of thousands of deaths. Just like how Aerith saved Betty in Sector 7. That one life is worth it.

[barnesbabee]

𝓹𝓵𝓪𝔂 𝓭𝓪𝓽𝓮 - 𝓯𝓲𝓷𝓪𝓵

|| ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ || ⇜ᴘʀᴇᴠɪᴏᴜꜱ - 21

⟿ ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ: No sensible person would turn down their boss if they looked good as good as Seonghwa. But maybe they would wish they had…

⟿ ᴄᴏɴᴄᴇᴘᴛ: CEO!Seonghwa x reader, bestfriend!Yunho x reader || Social Media!AU || no gender specified for the reader

ᴛᴀɢʟɪꜱᴛ: (send me a DM or an ask to be added) @ateezappreciation @shinyddeonghwa @lilithpooped @cloudyyeonnie@yeosangmystar @wooyoung-a @sanisms @mingismoon @lovelyvitamin @anawwyd @annasbannas @im-just-trying-to-survive-man @uglychildd @oddlittlefandomist @hwahomie @jin-neck-shaft @lovelyvitamin @yeosangmystar @skmoonchild @lovelymultiwrites @sunwooyoung

Panic settled in the room as Seonghwa's words echoed in your heads. Yunho was dead, Mingi disappeared, San wasn't waking up and the body was gone.

And meanwhile, you were getting railed in Seonghwa's office. You felt sick to your stomach, not knowing what to do, or where to even start.

"Someone say something!" Jongho yelled, at the top of his lungs, finally breaking his calm character.

The silence in the room was heavy and you suddenly felt as if you couldn't breathe, as if someone was gripping your throat from the inside. As if on cue, San groaned and his eyes fluttered open.

"What the fuck?..." He groaned, as he sat up straight with the help of one hand.

San rubbed the back of his head with his other hand, hissing as he moved it up and down slowly.

You and Seonghwa ran towards him and knelt beside the man.

"San what happened!?"

San sat against the sofa, feeling too sick and too dizzy to sit up straight on his own. He took a couple of breathsm trying to recollect what happened before he blacked out.

"There really isn't much to say, right after Y/N left Mingi asked me to get him something from the kitchen and when I came back someone, I'm assuming Mingi, hit me with something in the back of the head. Next thing I know I'm waking up next to Jongho."

Seonghwa stood up, visibly stressed and irritated.

"Y/N I- I can't take this anymore. I'm tired, I'm stressed out, I wake up, go to sleep and go through the day stressed but I try to keep calm and be reasobale but I just can't anymore! I need to rest, I need time!" Jongho said.

His voice was shaky, his face was red and his eyes were desperate and tired. He had huge bags under his eyes, and he looked as if he wanted to cry, but was too tired to do so.

"I... I know. I know what you're feeling because I'm feeling it too, but the body is gone, and you know that if the body is found we'll all be questioned by the police and if he turns himself in he will also be questioned by the police and we both know that in either case they will be asking questions. The body is decomposing! They'll start asking why he didn't come right away, what happened between the murder and the confession, and it doesn't take much for Mingi to break! If he goes down he'll bring us with him!"

Your voice was unstable from crying, and you, just like every other person in the group, regretted helping Mingi. You should have stayed mad at him. You shouldn't have babied him and helped him cover up a murder. But it was too late, friendship and compassion won over you as if you were in a kid's cartoon where the power of friendship could overcome anything. But it didn't.

"Each of you get in one of my cars. We're splitting up and looking for him. Keys are in the ignition, let's go. The sooner we find him, the sooner it will all be over."

Seonghwa turned his back and started walking towards the garage, giving them no time to oppose themselves to the plan, or to complain at all.

Four motors roared in the garage as each of them left in their respective car to look around. He couldn't have gone very far, it had only been a couple hours and Mingi had no car and no money for a cab.

It was becoming increasingly hard for San to throw off Wooyoung. They had been spending a lot of time together and these past few days he had barely talked to the younger boy, making the latter suspicious that either San had gotten tired of him, or that he had found someone else. Either way Wooyoung was panicking and constantly blowing up San's phone, which was just the cherry on top. After the 10th ding sounded from his phone, San pulled over for a second and called Wooyoung.

"Heeey Woo." He said, trying to sound as sweet as possible.

"San what's happening? Please tell me if you're getting tired of me... Don't give me any hopes, because I really like you."

"What? No Wooyoung, I like you, like... a lot. Really. But I've just been busy with consoling Y/N, and there was a bunch of issues in some paperwork from my part-time job so I had to work on that as well, it's just been a very tiring couple of days, I'm sorry... Can I get back to you once I'm done? I need a little rest."

As far as Wooyoung knew you were still upset at Mingi.

"Alright fine, but I expect a nice homemade dinner once you're free."

"Of course baby."

San hung up with a sigh, relieved that he bought his excuses, and started the engine once more, resuming his search.

San was driving around the town, searching places with fewer people and hidden spots where rarely anybody went to. He ended up in a couple bad neighborhoods, which in retrospect it wasn't very smart since he was riding a Rolls Royce, but they hadn't been making good choices the past few days. Seonghwa headed back to the cabin where they had found the body, you searched every bridge and police station and Jongho went to his apartment.

It was minute 12 of driving around when you received a call. It was a group call with everyone involved.

"The body is back in the cabin. It's covered with all the leaves and shit we put here."

"Don't touch it, get out of there for now. I'm still trying to get to his house, anyone got anything?"

Jongho's question was met with a bunch of no's.

"Well I'm almost at his house and I can see- oh my God. I found him. I found him he's standing on a balcony and I think he's gonna jump everyone get here!"

Jongho hung up and you told Seonghwa the address. Thankfully you were close by and got there in no time. Jongho sprinted up the stairs and by the time you and San got to the house he was trying to talk Mingi out of it. Mingi was standing on the edge of his balcony, on the other side of the railing, but still holding onto it. Jongho was crying and begging Mingi to come to his senses and to come back inside, as he gripped his arm.

"It's no use Jongho, just let me go! This is not up to you!"

You and San got up to the balcony as well, trying to talk Mingi out of it.

"Mingi please! We'll get through this I'm begging you, we can't lose you too!" You yelled.

You wanted to stay composed but you couldn't help the tears streaming down your face. Even Jongho, who was usually very uncomfortable displaying his emotions, was crying and begging.

When Seonghwa got to the scene, he was terrified. He didn't know what to do, which was a common thing throughout the past few days, and it was killing him.

Everyone was pulling on Mingi's left side, trying to pull him up along with Jongho, so, without anyone noticing, he jumped outside the railing, and slowly walked towards Mingi without him noticing either.

Once he was close enough, he grabbed the man and pulled him up and over the railing, while holding himself stable with one hand on said railing.

However, Mingi's selfishness was bigger, and in the end, he showed that no matter what other people did for him, he was going to put himself first.

Mingi was mad, he thought his friends were being selfish and had no say in the matter, so while being saved, while going over the railing back into his house, he kicked it away with all the strength in his body, making him fall back.

Seonghwa, who was holding onto Mingi, failed to grip the railing harder and fell with Mingi, looking into your sad, panic-filled eyes as he fell to his death.

You bent over and watched the man you loved fall, in what felt like slow motion. His body hit the ground, and with an ugly cracking noise, Seonghwa's head split open.

You sprinted down the stairs, and once you got down to the ground people were circling the two men, taking pictures and gasping at the scene. You shoved away everybody in front of you so you could reach Seonghwa. His face was nearly intact, but the pool of blood surrounding his cracked skull told you there was no way he'd survive. His chest moved up and down quickly, for a couple of seconds, indicating the intense pain he was in.

"Seonghwa I'm sorry- I-I'm so sorry! Please... I love you..."

Just as the last three words left your mouth, you could see his lips twitch, before his chest stopped moving, before his eyes lost all of their color, before his body went limp in your hands. You stayed there, holding the face of the deceased man you once loved, your clothes soaking his blood and you cried out for forgiveness.

You didn't dare look at Mingi, but you sure hoped he was dead.

But he wasn't. And in the end. When the ambulance and the police came, they took Seonghwa to the morgue and Mingi to the hospital. Mingi ended up surviving after intense surgery, but not for long, because you would end up killing him.

"You don't get to live!" You told Mingi, as you stabbed gagged him and stabbed him over, and over, and over.

He died in a slow, agonizing way, just like you wanted him to. After all he put you, San, and Jongho through, after the sleepless nights, the constant stress, after staying the love of your life he still thought he'd get a second chance!?

You made sure he suffered, and you made sure he knew how much you hated him as you pierced your old, blunt, and rusty knife into his body.

San and Wooyoung ended up fleeing the country, and Jongho joined the military, both too afraid to face the reality and their past actions, seeking any refuge outside of their past lives. They did end up hearing about Mingi's death, and neither of them seemed to care. After everything, they just gave up on him completely.

You were arrested for Mingi's murder, but after confessing everything, and giving a couple touch-ups where you removed Seonghwa, Jongho, and San from the story, and after leading them to Yunho's body, the lawyer from your case pleaded not guilty, and blamed your acts on the heavy toll the incidents of helping your best friend, and the death of your lover, had taken on you, and the judge agreed that you should be under house arrest, with a government assigned professional that would assist you, take care of you, and report back to court.

Was that the end? Was that all there was to your life? That seemed to be the case... Sooner or later you'd end up joining Seonghwa however, you knew that much, you just hoped he was somewhere waiting for you.

[bigskydreaming]

I’m still working as best I can towards getting the surgery I’m always talking about in these posts, because when I tell you how much that will fundamentally change every aspect of my life right now, I’m not kidding. As usual, I’m way behind on rent, haven’t been able to afford new meds in a couple weeks, and am low on food and energy, with the first of the month being tomorrow and like.....I’m trying so hard to get the surgery at least before the end of the year, because as soon as I do, not only does it address all my health issues, I’ll be able to ditch the super pricey insurance I have to maintain just to keep the surgery I’ve otherwise paid for even a possibility? 

(Again, the surgery is already paid for, all 21K of it.....the reason I keep having to put it off is not having any extra to pay for rent and food while I’m stuck in bed recovering for a month after it, since I’m perpetually behind and stuck in the hole as is).

My breakdown of actual expenses, priority wise is:

- $812 per month insurance, without maintaining these specific benefits, I’ll owe additional money before they’ll even do the surgery, and there’s no way I can afford the out of pocket surgery price tag

- $1400 rent (there’s two of us living here, and we’re essentially living at one of those extended stay motels that give deals to people who are otherwise homeless, which is us. Yes, there are cheaper places we could live, even in LA a studio apartment can be found for like half this, but both of our credit scores were trashed in maxing out loans and credit cards even just to get us this far and we have no ability to rebuild our credit score while scrambling to keep up with day to day expenses as is, and we have no one who could co-sign on a cheaper apartment for us)

- $230 medication (I have an annoyingly high metabolism which means only specific pain medication works for me in the first place, as well as ADHD, C-PTSD, clinical depression, anxiety, something that is not OCD but is OCD related and hard to explain to people not familiar with it, and a few other things in the mix. I take four medications monthly, or am supposed to, and this total includes the cost of my refill apppointments, because many of my meds are controlled substances they won’t refill without monthly check-ups. Currently have been off my meds for over two and a half weeks. Its been grand)

- $80 phone/internet (necessary for most of my freelance work as well as refill and doctor appointments, etc. has been disconnected for over a week so there’s an additional $20 reconnect fee)

And anything I have left over after that goes to food. Literally the ONLY thing I need to finally be able to KEEP a surgery date is like....being able to afford rent, meds and food for the month after the surgery as my jaw will be completely wired shut, and I’ve been told to expect that I will not be able to get out of bed and move around for at least two weeks minimum.

But the SECOND after I’ve recovered from surgery, I can change so much of this? I can drop my pricey insurance, with the money I save from that I can fairly swiftly up my credit again as I’m less than 5K in debt overall, my biggest credit card is only $1K limit, I just can’t even afford to make tiny payment installments when I’m constantly behind even just on rent, as soon as I up my credit a bit and without the pain/medical issues limiting my ability to travel and use public transportation, I can find us a cheaper place to live, and like......between that, the gains I can make on sleep, nutrition and rest I can up my ability to find freelance jobs proactively, get more done, turn my attention back to various original projects that can potentially bring in money but that I haven’t been able to devote any attention to while needing to keep my focus such as it is limited to just producing fan content when and where I can since its mostly just mutuals and followers keeping me afloat as is and fan content caters to established fanbases whereas I simply don’t have the time, energy or focus to spare on building a fanbase with original content even though that’s potentially what can net me more money in the longrun, I’m just....stuck on short-run mode, lol. And have been for several years, so we’re talking law of diminishing returns here, as opposed to the expansion packet that original content can potentially reap, so add the frustration of that to ye olde mental/emotional turmoil.

ANYWAY.

Current sources of income other than donation posts are a part time job at a nearby fast food joint for minimum wage (limited hours though because I don’t set the hours and also physical disability makes this pushing it even as is), freelance work ghostwriting (mostly for self-published erotica and romance, though open to anything, please feel free to DM me if you have any potential work here, freelance editing (again mostly for self-published authors as that’s where I have the most contacts but open to anything), cover design (again mostly with self-pub authors but open to other stuff).

Other options I’m looking into to expand my potential income or revenue streams are making a youtube channel with more video essays on a range of topics, TikTok videos of various skits and scenes I’ve written for fandoms I’ve in, developing a Patreon with options for things like input on what output I create in those first two arenas, as well as things like capitalizing on my work history in the publishing and self-publishing industries as well as in Hollywood to step by step show the process of taking an original novel from single logline to fully self-published novel or querying agents in the traditional publishing world as well as mapping out similar journeys/processes in self-producing new media content as an actor or writer hoping to eventually create for film or television, etc.

Like, there’s a lot more I can do or offer there, its just first and foremost I’m hampered by time, energy and productivity constraints brought about by my lack of meds, food, and constantly needing to catch up on rent and insurance before I can even think about actually creating along any of those latter lines because I have to weigh the potential for greater income from longer term projects versus guaranteed income from short term projects of less broad potential but more immediate gains.

Anyway, I just went into detail here in ways I haven’t before hoping to shed a different light on the otherwise sameness of me constantly asking for help for the same thing, but like, please know there’s so much I can do to change my situation and I WANT to do, but there’s simply no way for me TO do that without meeting a certain threshold first, and like....that’s what I’m struggling to reach, month after month. After that? Could be a whole different ball game. 

https://ko-fi.com/kalenp

https://paypal.me/bigskydreaming?locale.x=en_US