#i just prefer to assume people don't know things than assume they do and provide all necessary information

[icewindandboringhorror]

What would you choose? :0c

(note: original image is from HERE (link) - but I edited it to add a wider variety of options.. also added $3 extra to the total, even though I know that makes it more uneven lol, I thought if you're adding 10 whole extra items, the money to spend should at least be increased slightly, if that makes sense..)

[bookwyrminspiration]

wait so elves belly buttons pop off when they get pregnant right. and maybe im incorrect but i interpreted that to mean they just fall off. like theyre gone. but elves can get pregnant multiple times obviously. so does that mean they can just grow a new belly button??

You're a little off, but you've got the spirit! The belly button doesn't fall off--that's not something that's really physically possible? It's an indent in the skin, it doesn't have its own flesh, it's the shape of the negative space between other flesh where something used to be--including for outies. What sticks out isn't the belly button itself, its the surrounding skin. There's nothing to fall off because its an indent, and if the protruding skin of an outie fell off that would kinda just turn it into an innie and then we're still in the same boat

Elves' belly buttons don't pop off in pregnancy, they pop out--become outies if they weren't already, which happens in some human pregnancies as well if you want to look up visuals. And elves' turn pink too, for some reason. So no, elves are not out here growing new belly buttons, they're just turning inside out and back again with each pregnancy (unless said elf has an outie naturally)

hope that helps :)

[horrorhot-line]

saiki's nsfw alphabet

➵ pairing: saiki x female!reader

➵ word count: 5.3k

➵ genre: nsfw

➵ warnings: minors dni. this post is pure smut, no plot here.

➵ summary: pretty self explanatory, the nsfw alphabet on your favourite boy.

➵ masterlist  (requests are open)

horrorhot-line © 2024. all rights reserved.

notes: so from the recent poll i've learnt one thing, ya'll are horny for this man, and of course i shall provide, but in the meantime i thought i'd upload a nsfw alphabet (give you guys crumbs) since i've done it for the other fandom i write for, hopefully this satisfies you all until the next chapter of ftl is out <3333 @ne0n-s this one's for you since you called me daddy— this author doesn't shy away from child support.

credit to @the-coldest-goodbye for the template

edit: saiki kusuo by his own canon is not a minor, read this for more context <3

➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵       ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵

➵ a for aftercare (what is he like after sex?)

you come first, always. the moment saiki finally empties his balls inside you after pulling yet another orgasm from you, his thrusts shallow as he tries to make sure every drop ends up inside your cunt and post-nut clarity hits him. not in a bad way, in the way he immediately thinks about your comfort. his mind cleared of lust when his balls are empty, you'll be leaking hours later and he knows his work is done. with that, he picks you up softly, knowing from reading your thoughts that you can't walk, legs shaking as your spent form lays on the bed. he does quick work of cleaning you every time, before he brings you back to his bed, gently placing you down before he slips in next to you underneath the covers, waiting until your arms and leg find his, draping yourself over him like a blanket before you try and pick his mind about how the sex was, a routine for you since he never says it himself. he finds a way to deflect the question, most of the time."how do you have the energy to talk but not go to the bathroom?" "uh— no, you're not gonna change the subject this time. now, what did I do to make you horny?""good grief woman, let me sleep." "kusuo!""fine… you backed up on me when I was cuddling you. it was a natural bodily reaction." you don't listen though, too busy assuming (rightfully so) that he was an ass guy, taking your notes. not true, he definitely preferred your tits over your back.

➵ b for body part (his favourite body part of his and also his partner’s)

he likes his hair, more specifically he fucking loves likes when your arm reaches underneath his shoulder as he fucks into you from above, fingers gingerly trailing up his back before they find their way to the back of his neck and into his hair, pulling lightly at the locks as he slams his pelvis into yours. his expression won't change, but if you ever took the chance to put your hands on his chest for leverage, you'd know just from his heartbeat the kind of effect you have on him. now whether you pick up on it or not, he loves prefers your tits, it's the first part of your body his hands grab whenever he has the chance. he will never tell you, but he loves using them as handles for when he's fucking you, hand on your tits as he pulls your body to meet his thrusts, keeping you there for a second longer as he bottoms out, dick impossibly deep in your cunt, tip bullying rather than kissing your cervix. when your eyes roll to the back of your head, and he reads your thoughts, of how you can barely breathe, how you can feel him in your gut, he curses himself for nearly cumming. "your heart rate spiked, thinking about me using you again?" "…people will hear you if you don't stop whining, pull my hair if you can't take it— like you usually do."

➵ c for cum (anything to do with cum, basically)

when saiki is done, pulling out after he's sure he's emptied every last drop of his cum inside your pussy, he spends a moment watching your chest rise and fall, covered in slick and sweat and his eyes will trail down to where his cum starts leaking out of you, only to use his fingers to shove it right back in, not blinking an eye as you twitch and complain about sensitivity, too busy making sure you don't waste all of what he has to give. he won't admit it, but just the way you squirm, pawing at his hand as he fingers you slowly is enough for him to go another round. "…how tired are you?" "like on a scale? 9.5 buddy, and this pussy is off limits until that number goes below 5." the latter sentiment falling on deaf ears as saiki continues to finger you. "…can you go one more round?" "seriously— but we just—" you end up with another creampie, surprise, surprise.

➵ d for dirty secret (self-explanatory, a dirty secret of his)

it's not that he doesn't have a dirty secret, it's more the fact he has too many, but his biggest one is probably the fact that he tries to see how many times he can make you cum before he does. he enjoys watching you come undone, from his fingers to his tongue, to his dick. saiki's a lowkey sadist, and so he adores likes pushing you past your limits, especially since you look so damn good fucked out, pupils blown and the dirtiest thoughts and images running through your head, urging him to pick up the pace as he forces you to take him all over again. is it any surprise that he'll mentally set a number and he won't stop fucking your bruised pussy until he reaches it? no, no it isn't."don't lie, I know you can cum again, y/n, and I'm going to keep going— until you do."

➵ e for experience (how experienced is he? does he know what he’s doing?)

he has no experience, your body being the first he was ever comfortable to touch, that being said, it doesn't mean he's clueless. his telepathy comes in clutch, and your thoughts and desires, the ones you try so hard to control until he has you alone and you come undone under his gaze. they guide his hands as saiki squeezes your nipple between his thumb and index, watching as you writhe under his touch, overstimulated from how he's spent the better half of an hour teasing myou, making sure you're so far gone, that you practically sob when he finally pulls out his cock from the confines of his draws, he'll drag his length up and down your slit, tip catching on the hood of your clit, and when you slap a hand across your mouth to stop yourself from moaning too loud, he takes the chance to shove himself inside you in one go, and if you opened your eyes instead of squeezing them shut as you try and get used to the intrusion, you'd see the smirk twitching at the corner of his lips."tell me how you want it, y/n. use your words."

➵ f for favourite position (this goes without saying. will probably include a visual)

this is a hard one for him, but if he really had to choose it would be fucking you standing up. the first time he tried it was in a storage closet at school. your idea of fun had been to sit behind him in class all day, thinking of the most indecent things he could do to you if he just made a move. he knew you were trying to get him to crack and make the first move like he did the first time he fucked you in that very same classroom. sure he had popped a boner, but he wasn't about to let you phase him more than that, saiki had self-control after all. he didn't. when lunch rolled around, you found yourself in the boys changing room, his fingers wasting no time to pull your panties to the side and shove his middle finger until it was buried to the knuckle inside your already wet cunt. and when he heard the thoughts of a group of people heading for the same room you were both in, his hazy brain supplied the closet as a hiding place, which was located in the far corner of the room and had been cleared out, pulling you in after him. said students entered, gossiping about what not as they looked for their misplaced belongings, but saiki wasn't paying attention, he was preoccupied with the way you were trapped against the back of the closet and his chest, looking up at him with pleading eyes, and damn, that self-control of his was hanging on by a mere thread. one that snapped when your hand found his, leading them to your cunt yet again. he didn't waste any time after that, pulling up your leg with one hand, using his pants zipper as an opening to get his dick out and line up with you, pushing in ever so slowly so you don't make too much noise and alert the others in the room. for a moment saiki wasn't sure what came over him, to risk exposure like this wasn't something he'd allow normally, and yet when he felt how deep he'd managed to get inside you from that angle, hitting a spot you let him know telepathically that he's never hit before, and the way your pussy quivered around the base of his length, gave him the answer, his tone barely above a whisper as he lowered his head to your ear. "you got what you wanted— happy?"

➵ g for goofy (is he more serious in the moment, or is he humorous, etc)

he's serious in the moment, maybe too much sometimes, to the point where every so often you'll wonder if he actually feels anything since his expression doesn't change much, even when he's fucking you into the mattress, one hand on your hip pushing you against his length, the other rubbing your clit so you can cum on his dick again. then, when the thought does cross your mind, even if you don't bring it up, he'll go out of his way to show you just how much you affect him. eyebrows furrowed, sweat coating his body as he fucks into you, lips parted ever so slightly, and if you listen closely and hold back your moaning, you'll hear the way he groans against your skin as he tries to hold back from filling you up with his cum right then and there. then again, he's not always serious, since he likes to talk to fill the silence, more like he enjoys the way you clench around him since you love the sound of his voice."just like that. come on, y/n, cum for me."

➵ h for hair (how well groomed is he, does the carpet match the drapes)

he doesn't shave regularly, then again, he doesn't need to. you did ask him about it once since you swore you'd never seen him trim down there, and the monologue he went into breaking the fourth wall again as he explained how he used telekinesis to make sure he didn't develop a bush and halted the growth when it reached a certain length, truth be told you zoned out. you prefer him unshaven anyway, the happy trail of pink that goes past his sweatpants and makes your mind run wild when you catch sight of it every time his shirt lifts to show skin, the pink in general is such a pretty colour you can't imagine not seeing it every time he whips his dick out. of course, saiki knows this all too well with how he invades your mind with his telepathy, and it's the main reason he's opted to keep it.

➵ i for intimacy (how is he during the moment, romantic aspect…)

saiki isn't romantic with his words. ever heard of the saying, you don't have to say 'I love you', to say I love you? this man is the definition of show, don't tell, and even if the esper doesn't proclaim his love for you out loud from rooftops or skyscrapers, you see it clearly in the way he holds onto whatever part of you he can, pulling you impossibly close as he slowly grinds into you from on top, doing his best to drag out your pleasure, watching and listening for any signs of discomfort, and when he finds that one spot that has you seeing stars, he won't stop until your eyes roll to the back of your head and he's trailing kisses down your neck as you push against his hips with your palm to try and slow him down— and when you do, he'll grab your hand softly, intertwining your fingers and throwing it over your head before he's kissing you again and swallowing whatever sounds threaten to escape from your lips at his brutal pace. "shhh, I've got you. cum for me, y/n, just one more time. come on."

➵ j for jacking off (masturbation headcanon)

saiki doesn't really feel the need to masturbate, he's tried it before and realised that it only adds to his (horniness) frustrations. the only thing that really helps clear his mind is you, but that doesn't mean he doesn't jerk himself off. once in a blue moon when he's waiting for you to get back home and he can't wait, he'll sit in the dining room since the spot has the best angle of the front door, and he'll pull out his dick, stroking it slowly, tugging as he hisses under his breath. he'll let the burning in his stomach grow until it's all he can think about, barely noticing when you walk through the door only to trap you against the nearest wall, hands reaching under your clothes so you can feel what he's been struggling with until you showed up. once he's decided you're ready for him, he'll pull your pants down and panties to the side and fuck you like he can't think straight which he can't."what took so long, y/n? you took a shortcut— didn't you? even after I told you not to… the next time I catch you doing it again, I won't let you cum."

➵ k for kink (one or more of his kinks)

saiki doesn't have kinks he does, he reckons his are the same as yours, since whatever you're into, he is too. though he won't ever say, the most turned on he's ever been is when he's fucking his cum into you, dick still sensitive from stuffing you full of his load, but the idea that this creampie might be the one that gets you pregnant, might be the one that makes you his completely, drives him insane. the first time you suggested that there wasn't a point in using a condom or birth control because you both were old and secure enough to try for a baby, he almost fucked you unconscious. 9 rounds later and he still couldn't get his dick to go down, surmising that the only thing that would satiate him would be when you were expecting. in short, saiki has a huge breeding kink. "no more, kusuo, I can't— please." "no. you can, and you will. you wanted this, remember?"

➵ l for location (favourite places to do the do)

saiki claims he doesn't have a favourite place, your bedroom or his— he doesn't care so long as he can have his way with you. what he refuses to disclose is his favourite place was that one time his friends had a get-together at a karaoke bar, and teruhashi was on her usual shenanigans, trying to woo saiki even after she knew the two of you were official. he had picked up on your insecurities and the hint of jealousy that lay beneath it, and when you left to order dessert for him at the front, he left the group not too long after, catching you in the hallway as you tried to figure out where to go, pulling you into an empty room, locking the door and turning the music on with his telekinesis, the song playing doing wonders to drown out the noises that escaped past your lips as he fucked you from behind and covered your mouth with his free hand for extra measure. he'd never admit, but your frantic thoughts of wanting to enjoy how deep he was hitting and how teruhashi could walk in at any moment, only fuelled his momentum until he was sure that the sound of his hips snapping into you was louder than the speaker of the room. "they— they'll notice, kusuo." "not… if you keep quiet, they won't."

➵ m for motivation (what turns him on, gets him going)

saiki swears you've messed up his mind— made him weird. before, it was you thinking about sex and nothing else in his vicinity that would get his stomach burning until he was thinking about it too, and then he'd fuck you into the sheets until you were satisfied before he went back to whatever he was doing before he was balls deep inside you. now, a mere touch is enough to set him off. from you ghosting your fingers over his back and under his shirt when you're scrolling through the internet, to an innocent look shot his way from across the room when he's busy and you're checking in with him, anything is enough to set him off when he's with you. it was a setback, sure, and it hindered his life every now and then until he took care of the problem. except it's gotten to the point where saiki can't stand not touching you, or being in your immediate vicinity. so now, on your days off, saiki chooses to pull you onto his lap, keeping you there and shoving his dick inside you, multitasking until you decide you can't take it anymore and try and grind against him, only for him to hold your hips in place immediately, your cunt clenching around the base of his cock until the esper decides he'll give into your wants. in short, you make saiki horny and his solution for it is cockwarming.

➵ n for nicknames (what are his favourite pet names for you? what does he call you when you’re both alone?)

truth be told, he doesn't really use nicknames for you, he prefers your name, using it to command your attention when you're drunk on his dick and struggling to take what he gives. from time to time though, he'll let one slip past his lips, enjoying how you clench around him, so close to your release, only for him to shoot you a small smirk and pull out completely so he can admire the way you whine for him to put it back in, smug from how utterly pretty you look drooling over his cock.

"struggling? that's too bad, we're nowhere near finished— be a good girl and behave for me, and I might let you cum again."

➵ o for oral (preference in giving or receiving, skills, etc)

at first, saiki preferred sex by itself and didn't see the need to give or receive, until you asked if he could try eating you out. the first time he did, he thoroughly enjoyed every second, watching as you writhed under his tongue. thinking back to it, maybe it was the way you pulled on his pink locks every time he paid any attention to your clit, or the way you tried to push him away, only for him to grab your thighs and force you to ride out your high on his tongue until you came again. or maybe it was how quickly you came undone, struggling to form sentences. all he knows is when he has the time for it, he'll make you cum on his tongue before he plugs you up with his dick. "wake up, y/n— don't pass out just yet. we're nowhere near done."

➵ p for pace (is he fast or rough? slow or sensual?)

he's both, it's whatever the mood calls for and how mean he's feeling. but he's mostly fast and rough the first few rounds, setting a punishing pace as he holds your hands above your head, forcing you to take every inch, that way he can watch how your face contorts in pleasure at all he's giving you. then, when you've come however many times, he'll grind into you instead of snapping his hips into yours, enjoying how you squirm, only going back to his rough pace when you beg him to. "and here I thought you said you couldn't go another round. what happened, y/n?"

➵ q for quickies (his opinions on quickies rather than proper sex, how often, etc)

saiki prefers real sex any day over quickies, but with how busy life gets, sometimes that's all he has time for. he loves fucking you whenever he can no matter where you two are, since he can always teleport you to his place to take you against whatever wall is closest, so the want he feels for you subsides at least a little until he can fuck you properly like you deserve. he won't ever tell you this, but sometimes he prefers quickies over real sex, if only to watch you struggle to do whatever menial task calls your attention as you struggle to walk around the house with him thrusting into you from behind, he goes out of his way to fuck you as hard as he can so your legs give out, only for him to lower himself onto the floor and fill you up again with his dick as you try to crawl away. "where do you think you're going? we're not finished."

➵ r for risk (is he game to experiment, does he take risks, etc)

you were the one who taught him what intimacy was, beyond what he learnt in sex ed, and his vast knowledge of pleasure is thanks to you being patient until he picked up things by himself. so in essence he's game for experimentation so long as it's not too weird. now, when it comes to risk, saiki would rather avoid it, public sex and so on, since he has an allergy to being the centre of attention— that doesn't mean he hasn't chosen to fuck you in the worst situations, using his powers like invisibility as a fail-safe. like the time he fucked you in an alley on the way to a date, he made the conscious decision mistake of ghosting his hand over your thigh, before stroking the skin softly until your mind was running wild on the train, only to beg him to do something because you couldn't handle going the rest of the day without him taking responsibility. and responsibility he took, pulling you into an alley behind a dumpster, using his power over invisibility to stop anyone from seeing how fucked out you were when he pulled your panties to the side, only to slide in with no resistance, pussy pulsing around his dick as he swallowed your moans by moving your face to the side so he could kiss you from behind. "they can't see, but they can hear you. unless you want me to stop y/n, I suggest you try and keep quiet."

➵ s for stamina (how many rounds can he go for, how long does he last)

the answer to this one isn't simple, since saiki has the libido of a horse. the highest number you can remember is 16, but then again, you stopped counting halfway through the night and then picked up with whatever number you left off at 7 in your mind, 11 in total. considering how high your sex drive has gotten since saiki made you his, you assumed you'd be able to handle it, and the esper would be the one struggling, yet it's the opposite and no matter how you try, it seems saiki is always insatiable. all because he can't get enough of you, and since saiki thinks it's your fault he's become like this to begin with, you pay for it."don't pass out just yet, I expected better y/n— with how you tried to tease me earlier."

➵ t for toy (does he own toys? does he use them? partner or himself?)

he doesn't own any toys, and the old vibrator you used before him is lost somewhere in storage since saiki knows he can please you better than any toy, and if he's not there, then you can wait until he comes back and finally fucks you. masturbating would be an option but saiki prefers you pent up so when the two of you get a moment alone you're so far gone he can have his way with you, teasing you for hours on end, and every time you whine or sob, he'll remind you that the wait is worth it as he shoves his cock back in, hissing at the way you clench around him before leaning down to kiss you and swallow your cries of relief when he fills you up— that, and saiki's fingers can double as a vibrator if you want them to so there's always that option."come on, don't cry now— cum for me one more time and I'll give you what you want."

➵ u for unfair (how much does he like to tease)

he's very unfair but your opinion may be biased, since everything he does even if it's innocent it's not, but you don't need to know that just adds to your frustrations. like when he's enjoying whatever dessert he's managed to get his hands on, he always licks the spoon after every bite, and truth be told it does things to you, especially when he picks up on your staring, and makes eye contact with you as he cleans his utensil. at least, it always ends with you getting your brains fucked. you can't really complain when you're draped over his thighs as he forces you to ride him, deciding you're too slow and taking over as he snaps his hips up into you until you swear you can feel him in your gut. all the while, he'll take his sweet time, teasing that one spot that has your eyes rolling back until he works up the pace to just fuck you until you can feel his tip slamming into your cervix. the cherry on top is how he acts like he doesn't know damn well why you're so horny for him. "i barely did anything and you're dripping all over the floor… why, y/n? care to enlighten me?"

➵ v for volume (how loud is he? what sounds does he make?)

he's not loud, he talks but you rarely hear him feeling good. that's what makes it better in your opinion, since when he does make even the slightest noise, it goes straight to your pussy and it's enough to push you over the edge. so the few times when he's fucking into you, hand over your mouth so no one else can hear how good you're feeling from his dick, the other holding your hip in place so he can push into you nice and slow. when you clench around him, and he buries his head in the crook of your neck, soft groans escaping him at how tight you are, you cum on the spot, the last string of your sanity snapping, and it only spurs him on, his volume increasing if only by a little, moaning quietly as he loses himself to the pleasure, his thrusts speeding up, not giving you a chance to come down from your high when you feel another orgasm building up. "that's it, just like that y/n. cum for me again."

➵ w for wildcard (random headcanon for him)

saiki always cleans you up first, whether it's tissues on hand or a wet cloth, he'll make sure to wipe you down first and clean up after you before he fixes his own image. you don't pick up on it straight away, mostly because of how fucked out you are after, but the one time you do, it melts your heart instantly. it's not a huge gesture but it still pulls at your heartstrings as you watch him carefully wipe away the cum from your thighs, ignoring how he raises his eyebrow at your epiphany, rolling his eyes afterwards. "it's not a big deal, stop giving me googly eyes." "wha— well, I never.""…you need to stop watching that bridgerton stuff and go out for once, hug a tree or something."

➵ x for x-ray (what’s going on in those pants of his)

he's not big, or small, to be honest, the first time you got a good look at saiki's dick, you were sure it was perfect, like the size and look. his dick is pale, like his skin but his tip is always an angry red when he's hard, and it manages to kiss your cervix every time he's fully buried inside you, and his size is big enough that you can see a slight bulge in your stomach when he's inside you. correction, his dick is perfect for you.

➵ y for yearning (how high is his sex drive)

yearning, well it's not exactly yearning for saiki. it's much more than that, it's wanting to swallow every sound that leaves your lips in fear someone else might hear. like his inability to voice how much you mean to him is let out in the way he zeroes in on every thought going through your head, the mental images spurring him on to kiss you, touch you, ruin you until all you can think of is how good you feel, holding back from filling you up right then and there because you need to be utterly gone for him to be satisfied.

it's definitely more like needing to feel you clenching around him, the desire the only thing he can focus on to the point where the voices of all those strangers he hears every second he's awake is dulled, like you've tuned out some radio until all that's left is the sounds you make as he fucks into you like he's finally snapped and thrown all sense out the window, drunk on your body (which to be fair, he is). more like wanting to pull you impossibly close, your warmth nearly scorching him and all it does is add to the pit of fire rising in his stomach with every thrust into your cunt. it's more like wanting so badly with every fibre of his being to explain what it is he feels for you, and it definitely can't be described with a simple term like yearning, because if he could describe it saiki is sure he burns for you.

his sex drive is very high. saiki has enough energy that even you struggle, and that's saying something with how horny he gets you just by existing. and yet, you're the first one to tap out, albeit after the 9th or 10th round of cum he fills you with, but still. you have to live with the fact that he can fuck you until you pass out and come to again, but you're not complaining. surprisingly, saiki is almost always unstable until you're completely ruined and all you can think about is his dick. the only time he'll ever stop is when he knows you can't take anymore, telepathy always comes in hand for that.

"one more round— just one more and you can go back to working."

➵ z for zzz (how quickly does he fall asleep afterwards)

after the lust subsides, when the haziness clears up and he's no longer pussy drunk, saiki is always ready to pass out. all he wants to do after he's emptied his balls into you, is to pull you close and shut his eyes until the next day. but if there are things he needs to take care of or you want to talk about whatever new thing you're hyper-fixated on, he'll stay awake until you're ready to go to bed. "don't you get tired of scrolling through tiktok and forcing me to react to those weird reddit stories?" "never!" "fine, but if I don't wake up tomorrow, you'll pay." "your empty threats would sound a lot more frightening if you weren't trying to bury your head in my tits."

➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵       ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵ ➵

2024 taglist:

@bre99 @mindless-rock @skylarmoon119 @sle3pyh3ad2 @mylovelysnowflake @alicekumori @imkumichan @lvvcian @hyejoolips @citrusequalsfrogs @tsukikoxo @thecaminator @heartsatoru @poisonapple24 @itsluvly @shirozukie2

[oblique-lane]

Spy tf2 and his identity

Character analysis (or at least my vision on him, if you believe my reasoning)

What do we know about Spy? He's a disguise mastermind. He can pretend to be anyone in order to infiltrate into the scene to do his job - quite literally, stab people on the back. But when he's not in the battle, what is he to his teammates? A suave Frenchman, a gentleman with taste, somewhat a leader.

At least, that's the persona he prefers to show. But is he really..?

What if I tell you that this person never drops his disguise?

For a man who always wears a mask and who's identity being secret is a sacred part of his role in this job, isn't this persona too much to show if it is real? Frenchman, rich, ladykiller... Wouldn't it be too easy to decipher his identity with so much clues provided? Wouldn't it be dangerous?

While Miss Pauling and the Administrator definitely know Spy's real identity, hiding it is a major thing for whatever reason. One could assume it might be because of Scout (obvious guess) but I doubt he's a sole reason. Spy very much enjoys being the Spy all by himself. Do what's the deal?

Let's start from the beginning.

Why did Spy join Mann Co. in the first place?

Let's take this assumption as a fact: people come here out of desperation. They are professionals in their field, yet in their past/casual life there is a pattern of them having difficulties that push them into joining this service. I don't see why Spy would be an exception.

The reason for joining is usually money. Some people question why Spy, a wealthy man from higher society, would join Mann Co. if he has it all already.

Well, probably because he really does not.

Have you ever met an aristocrat? Wealthy people don't get so protective about their expensive suits, they can afford cleaning or a new one. Regardless, rich people don't usually get stingy about material goods, especially if they're mass produced.

At least, not those who were born into wealth.

Spy's defensiveness about his "wealthy stuff", his pomp-ness, disgust and arrogance towards "plebs" gives off a man who knows what it means to live in poverty and who doesn't want to be associated with it ever again.

(Not even talking about his own filthy habits such as not washing his mask and pissing on walls? Jesus Christ)

Dare I even guess that he might be not French at all? His French is so broken. (Although, so is Medic's German, but at least he uses his language much more frequently and in more complex sentences, while Spy only uses French to say some basic expressions, occasionally confusing them with other languages). Definitely not a native.

If anything, he's not giving "rich man" at all, he's giving con man. And that fits my picture perfectly.

So, poor upbringing. How old is Spy? If he's Scout's father (and he was young when he was conceived), I'd say he's no less than 20 years older than him. I'd give him a few more years actually. So, approximately Spy is around 50 at the events of the game (1968-1972). Let's assume he was born somewhere in the 1910s.

Even if he's not French, I still agree that he's probably European. Hmm, what was happening in Europe at the time Spy was a kid?

Oh yeah. The Great Depression.

See my picture: imagine, a child from a lower class family during the Great Depression, his parents were most likely to not take good care about him (both because of the economical situation AND as an echo to Spy's struggles with his own fatherhood). He has to run away from home early and start to make money. Any way possible.

Unavoidably, it leads to crime.

Petty theft, blackmail, scams. Changing identities. Selling low quality products and services. Changing identities again. When older, seducing rich women to stay at their homes overnight, be fed and supported. Running away from the police. Walking into a trap of the mafia, and then joining them as their goon.

In this nightmare of a life he just had to keep pretending to be someone else, someone better and stronger, in order to his ego to not completely shutter. He had to imagine he was an invincible mastermind trickster of some sort, not just a poor boo-hoo victim of poverty who has never knew normal life and care.

And if you pretend for long enough, you become your role eventually... Right?

His true self was long lost forgotten under many layers of new identities. Worse, his true self was never known. And he didn't want it to be known in its ugly and disgusting vulnerability. Narcissism became his lifeline.

It's so much better to be Spy. To be rich and elegant and respected. His ego rebuilt.

[the-s1lly-corner]

Pet names (hazbin edition)

If you guys want me to do some of the other usual characters i write for when it comes to hazbin, let me know! i usually go on ahead and do 3 separate posts for "series" like this but given that these are such short posts with little substance... ill be leaving it up to you guys!

Characters: Charlie, Vaggie, Angel, Husk, Sir Pentious, Alastor

Notes: reader is mostly gn, make reader for angel, fem reader for vaggie, otherwise I will do my best to provide gn/alt variations for any gendered names/names that are traditionally gendered, very short post only really focuses on names rather than scenarios, Alastor is a late addition to the post but his part can be seen as either platonic or queer platonic, use of "they" in this but its not that a pronoun hc i just copy/pasted the thing and didnt feel like editing the pronouns LMAO

CWs: none

CHARLIE

What they call you: Will call you anything you want to be called but I feel she has a love for some of the less common nicknames: Sunshine, Pumpkin, and so on! More often than not she calls you a shortened version of your name

What they like to be called: Similarly she's fine with anything you want to call her as long as it's nothing too dirty or mean, funny enough Sunshine also fits her!

VAGGIE

What they call you: Given that Vaggie canonically calls Charlie "Babe", I don't think it would be too far of a stretch to assume that she would call you the same as a general pet name! Also tends to call you by your nam

What they like to be called: She likes being called by her name, but if you say it when shes in the right mood shes fine with a lot of things!

ANGEL DUST

What they call you: If I said any examples I wouldn't be able to say this blog isn't NSFW/lh but also... It wouldn't be a surprise that he calls you some more vulgar names.. but in a non sexual setting? Babe is his go to for you!

What they like to be called: To the shock of absolutely no one... Love bug is a pretty basic one that hes pretty receptive too, but if you somehow find one in the same vein thats more unique hes going to be all over it

HUSK

What they call you: Sugar, Hon, Babe are his main three asides from simply saying your name. I mentioned before that affection isnt really his thing, at least not being open or overly so... I can see this spreading to verbal stuff too.. he does love you, of course

What they like to be called: Stud, though he seems to try to fight himself to not roll his eyes... Handsome, Lover, just to name a few

SIR PENTIOUS

What they call you: Darling, Dear, Dearest, Love, things like that that kind of give an "older" feel since hes from the victorian era... actually I can see him dropping a few that were popular when he was alive! Also calls you by your name... simply saying someones name is nice, it feels personal and intimate you know, in the right setting

What they like to be called: Happy with whatever you call him, you can call him Handsome or Sweetheart or even a Cutie Patootie... it doesn't matter, hes going to wear it like a badge of honor!

ALASTOR

What they call you: He already calls people things like Dear/Darling, so this ones a given! Can see him calling you Lovely as well

What they like to be called: Prefers his name but under the correct circumstances he lets you call him Hon in return

[scimagic]

Pride and Joy (Mr. Puzzles/Bi! Female! Reader)

───── ⋆ ⋅ ⋆ ⋅ ☆ ⋅ ⋆ ⋅ ⋆ ─────

After a conversation about sexual orientation, you ask Mr. Puzzles a bit of a heavy question about himself and realizations ensue.

Happy Pride Month!! I usually try to keep my content as reader neutral as possible (I don't like to assume things that the reader might not be!) but this is more self-indulgent than usual and I hope you forgive me for that! To celebrate this month, why don't I hit my f/o with the bisexual beam? Hope you enjoy!

"… Puzzles, no offense, like— at all, but do you think maybe you're… gay?"

The TV host sputters in surprise, "I— excuse you?"

"Again, no offense. But to me it kinda sounds like you… haven't really thought about it."

The TV grows silent, no doubt a frown taking the place of his smile. For once—instead of snapping back and waving away such a silly statement—he actually gives it a thought. A sparingly rare one.

He looks away with a nervous hum, shoulders slumping as you walk along the sidewalk. You both keep a slow pace, trying to refrain from tripping as you walk and keep a conversation that is surprisingly much more serious than you anticipated to have.

The leaves of the trees rustle and provide you shadow for your evening walk with your boyfriend, a walk you offered to have as a casual little date. You thought you could stop by stores to shop, or a cafe to sit down, but at the moment— your conversation turned into this. Identity questions, personal preferences, things to better know each other.

But maybe this one was a bit too far...

He was very open about his upbringing, sure, but it sounded like even he didn't know what he liked in people. You suppose that a life like that didn't have much room to explore things about ones self. Let alone explore partner preferences. Hell— you would say you're very lucky to even have had a chance to date him.

Regardless...

You let him gather his thoughts, silently waiting for his response. No use in rushing these type of things, after all. They take time. Otherwise it would be messy for both of you.

Puzzles turns back to the ground below, and like you guessed— with a nervous expression on his screen.

"It's… complicated. I've seen shows about it, but ah… they've never really spoken to me as such. Perhaps some actions… and some… other things— tsk— but! Hah! I mean! Only recently I've been shown the media I consume is not always true to the actual thing so what do I know!?" He sarcastically and painfully exclaims, a view that got shattered to him when you became friends, yet one he's starting to grow out of. He's aware it's for his greater good, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt him still. To be lied to. To know your years of comfort were a lie.

He huffs angrily as he turns away again, shaking his head before glancing back at you.

"Am I..?"

"Are you? Only you can know that for sure, you might know the answer to that already..! You just… haven't realized it yet."

"…"

He grows silent again, nervously fidgeting with the cloth of his gloves.

"Then… maybe?" He shrugs. "I feel… something, yes. But— but I like you too..! As well… If I am— what would that mean for you? For us?" The host frowns, growing even more nervous at the thought of something happening to his first ever real relationship.

"I don't want to let you go just for this!" He waves his hands in front of him, exasperatedly motioning to your situation. You catch one of his arms, hooking it together with your own as you try to gently ground him.

"Hey—! Hey..! No, nothing has to happen to us! You can like both, you know?"

He takes a pause, looking at you as if you just told him the most confusing riddle ever known to man.

"Huh?"

"Yeah! I like both! I like boys and girls. I uh— have a preference for men but I still like pretty girls." You rub the back of your neck, smiling sheepishly at him.

"… Oh."

"Oh…"

The faintest of heartbeats beeps across his screen, tainting it with a light rose color as the line bounces where his cheeks would be.

"Huh… That…" he looks down at the ground with furrowed eyebrows, then looks back up at the horizon, "fits."

"Yeah?"

"Yes… Only— that's not the term, is it?"

"Ah, no. We're bisexual. You and I."

"You and I… Yes… Yes! I like that!" Puzzles beams happily, smiling wide at you as he squeezes your hooked arms.

"I like that very much."

[kedreeva]

So I live somewhere where certain foods aren't readily available. I'm looking to buy a house - smallish house, biggish land is an option(cheaper). I've never kept anything more ~interesting~ than snakes. I went to a restaurant in a city a few years back where I tried duck for the first time and it instantly became my favorite food. Would it be weird to uh, keep ducks for eating? I've no problem with butchering but I'm worried I'd get attached to MY ducks.

I can't really answer if you'll get attached, because I don't know you or your penchant for getting attached. I can answer that it's not weird at all to raise ducks for meat. There are entire breeds of ducks that are great to raise for meat (like muscovies or pekins). Personally, I prefer the muscovy breed because I find them to be adorable (lots of cool color morphs! they do a little butt waggling dance in a circle!), GREAT moms who take on HUGE clutches no problem, they don't require or play in large amounts of water the way pekins do, and they're not as noisy (they hiss, they don't quack). The boys also get quite large, without getting super fat the way proper meat pekins do.

Like that's just. Terrible. I assume they get belly rub sores. The meat is probably good, the fat is probably good cooking. But at what cost?

I can also say that most people do get somewhat attached to animals they raise for food, but I think that's an important part of it. Part of raising animals for food is understanding that you're giving them the best life you can up to the point of butcher, which is often better than whatever life they would have in a factory farm. Part of raising food animals is caring enough about them to do well by them, as the only gratitude you can show to them in exchange for their life. Part of raising animals for food is understanding that you are going to take the life of another creature, and I think that attachment is how we understand the weight of that decision.

Personally, I think that it's right and good for people to get attached to their livestock. I think it helps them remember that they're caring for a living creature that has needs and feels pain. A creature that is deserving of excellent care while alive. I see a LOT of people allowing animal suffering in the fowl world because "it's just a chicken" and the babies "only cost a couple bucks," and "they can be replaced." IMO, it's a particularly callous attitude to have, toward an animal whose life will be taken to provide for you. Even one whose life is dedicated to providing for you while living (eggs, milk, wool, honey, etc) deserves better than to be considered a Thing that can be allowed to suffer merely because it is replaceable.

Lastly, I can say that (for me at least) there's often a major difference between the attachment you feel toward a pet and a livestock animal. Part of it is expectations going in, part of it is time. For pets, the expectation is that you will have that animal for the duration of that animal's average life expectancy, and you can plan accordingly for allowing yourself emotional investment. For livestock, the expectation is that you will only have the animal until its butcher date, which is often quite early in their life. A healthy, well-kept dog you can probably expect a good 10 years from, a cat nearly twice that. The average butcher age for a pekin duck is 3 months old (for comparison, they have an average lifespan of 5 years before their bodies give out from growth and weight issues), for muscovies 3-6 months (with an average lifespan of 20 years). There's just not as much time to get attached in the first place, unless you're getting attached to your breeders.

So, is it weird to raise ducks for food? Absolutely not. Are you going to get attached? I hope so, at least a little bit. And I hope that you feeling that connection to your food source helps you to take excellent care of them until their time comes, and that it compels you to make their end as quick and painless as possible.

[boyfhee]

› HOW TO GET BACK WITH YOUR EX : five do's and don'ts

SYNOPSIS · You were all in for a new start; a new city, new apartment, new department and new colleagues— though, not under the best circumstances— you tried to make it through your early thirties while lost between whether to give up or go on, and then you meet Heeseung, who happens to be on the other end of the same street.

WC · 26.2K ( guys pls give this a chance )

GENRE · melodrama, angst, slice of life, romance, exes to ?

WARNINGS · lots of drinking, marriage talks, mentions of failed relationship and breakups; implications of sexual activity, very existential, mentions of suicidal thoughts, blood, lot's of tense changes ( since this transits between past and present a lot ) please read at your own discretion.

NOTE · i know i'm on hiatus but this was almost done and i had a sudden burst of motivation so here we are. my longest fic till date, i'm so proud of how this turned out. experimented a little with my writing style here, overall a fun experience. i hope you all enjoy this as much as i did, happy reading. ps the quote below is actually by john mark green, but let's assume it's written by hee for the sake of this fic. okay, good bye again, see you guys soon :›

playlist : tune in for better experience hehe

“ And if love may be madness, may I never find sanity again, ”

— Lee Heeseung, Red Wine

I.  Regret and Remorse

You don’t think you’ll ever become someone who’d look forward to the working experience that comes with job transfer. In fact, you don’t think you’d ever become someone who’d grow a liking to job transfer in the first place. 

Autumn of 2022 was supposed to be filled with vacation plans and a self-sobriety program in one of the many remote towns of Gangwon, away from the internet and daily complaints of your employer and family members. To put it simply— you’re tired of the life you’ve been living so far. Looking back, when you were a fresh graduate from one of the best universities of Incheon, life seemed to offer more opportunities than it does now. Your goals weren't any different from other people in the same age group as you, which majorly consisted of getting a job that pays well, maintaining financial security, getting into a good relationship, and perhaps visiting a few places on your travel list that you made in your first year of university. The idea of ‘ideal workplace’ leaves your mind the moment you step into the industry. Over time, you’ve realised that there’s no such thing as a job that fits to your liking and pays well, along with a hundred other benefits ranging from covering medical expenses to providing paid leaves. While that may apply to some, most of the crowd isn’t lucky enough to experience the luxuries of their dream job or workplace. Unfortunately, you happen to be just another person of that kind. 

You wake up, it’s the same old Monday morning— and no matter what day it is, it always feels like a Monday morning. You look through your same seven sets of office attires in your closet and pick one for the day; you go to the kitchen and find the same dish you had last night. You heat it up and eat the same for breakfast. Albeit, you find yourself at a cafe downstreet if you’re hoping for a change of scenery. You go to work, review the same old files, look at your same old colleagues and the same old boss who makes your blood boil. You aren’t the most sociable person and prefer to have lunch at the canteen, and coincidently, it’s the same old menu from four days ago. The day proceeds in the same old direction and you arrive at your apartment by six in the evening if your team leader doesn’t make you work overtime. You make dinner, sleep on the same old bed in the same old room with the same old feeling of dissatisfaction stuffing your stomach, and the same old cycle continues. 

Intellectually, there has been no progress— you've read scarcely half a dozen books, haven't made one new, exciting friend, haven't had a starling or unusual thought. Economically, things are no better— same old bills to pay, same old pay that hasn't been increased over years now. You get your paycheck and half of it goes into buying necessities. It's the same old job, same old routine of nine-to-five workdays, the cheese and ham salad for lunch, same dreary ride home. No change, nothing but routine, sameness, monotony— it's as if you're vegetating.

If you could go back in time and meet yourself when you were still a college freshman with high hopes and even higher aspirations, you would tell yourself to stop. Now that you’ve seen how the world works and have experienced the stagnancy of life, you wouldn’t want your young and carefree self to go through the pain of disappointment after encountering it yourself. You would instead tell yourself to switch fields since finance doesn’t seem to have a lot to offer. Instead, you would push your past self to go for liberal arts when you suddenly wanted to switch majors in the second year. Perhaps, in that case, your life would’ve been a tad bit better. 

Well, better than what it is now, at least, because currently, you’re sitting in the living room of your new apartment with a beer can in hand and tons of unpacked boxes around you. You’ve been thinking of unpacking for over an hour now, but every time your eyes land upon another beer, you’re back on the floor, chugging the drink down and regretting your life choices. Things would’ve been better if you had turned in your resignation instead of waiting till the last week of July for your pay; because now it’s August, and you’re in a new city with a new apartment, and the only thing you remember is the way to the nearest seven-eleven store from your apartment. You don’t want to think of this negatively, really, since you’ve been asking for a change, after all; and nothing is better than starting anew in a completely new location. However, you don’t want to work in the sales department when all you’ve ever worked about is finance. You don’t want to go through the pain of getting lost in the streets and chased by some dog, for you’re hitting thirty and you feel your bones cracking. You wanted a new start, however not in this field. A new start, for you, meant going on a vacation, detoxifying your mind off all the stress and tension, picking up a hobby, focusing on self-care— just anything that would help you change your views about life.   

Your silent remorseful session is interrupted by a knock on the door, and you’re certain you heard a doorbell, however you’re not sure if it’s the alcohol playing with your mind or whether someone is actually waiting at your doorstep. Forcing yourself to stand up, you stumble towards the door, the sudden decrease in blood pressure leaves a hint of dizziness as you step forward. Since you’ve just moved in, expecting anyone besides mails and landlord is pointless. While you remember having a friend living in the same city, you never told her your address so it’s unlikely for her to visit you either. You stand before the door, fixing your hair before moving down to the creases on your shirt as you unlock the door with a forced smile; and the time ceases to exist. 

“Hi,” Heeseung mumbles. 

You step aside to let him in, involuntarily— “Hi,” you breathe out before stressing your mind to come up with a reason for letting him inside. Could it be that you’re so lonely that now, you’re treating your ex as just someone you’ve been expecting to see? Maybe not, maybe it’s because you just moved in and despite the notes that you both ended on, it would be disrespectful to shut the door on someone who came with seemingly all good intentions. 

His steps are laced with hesitation. There’s a Château Margaux in his hands as you notice his fingers nervously tighten around the bottle before he turns around, albeit you avoid his gaze actively. “I heard someone moved in so I came to meet,” A pause, and then: “Didn’t know it was you.” 

He puts emphasis on the word as if it’s a bad thing. As if you’re an outsider trying to invade his peaceful life yet again, only to cause mayhem. However, the question is, had you known that Heeseung lives here, would you have moved in? Or, would you continue to live knowing Heeseung is your neighbour and that you would possibly see him for the rest of your life? You don’t know the answer to that one— not sure if you even want to find one, in fact. The last thing you need is to worry about bumping into an ex. You gesture at him to take a seat and to your surprise, he sits on the floor, exactly where you were having your drinking session before he came along. You grab the wine glasses from the kitchen before making your way back to the living room and sitting opposite to him. There’s a heavy tension in the air, one that is suffocating both of you, though you’re sure a major part of it is arising from you. After all, you let him inside as if he was an old friend, one that you were hoping to see, as if he isn’t your ex. 

Heeseung and you got together in your second year of university. You met him through a mutual friend on their birthday when they invited a few people from another department. You didn’t plan to go initially, you had presentations to make, but something inside of you prompted you to give in and had it not been for that day, you would’ve never come across Lee Heeseung in your life. The first time you met him at the bar, Heeseung seemed to be a heavy drinker— droopy eyes, messed up hair, a few things written on the palm of his hands— he didn’t even come across as someone who paid attention during lessons. However, much to your surprise, he excused himself early, sitting outside with a can of cold coffee he got from the vending machine in his hand while reading what seemed like economics notes compiled in pdf format. Perhaps, Heeseung knew he came off as a showoff when you found him chugging down his drink in an attempt to erase whatever effect alcohol could have on him. 

You sat next to him and all of a sudden, he started explaining how he doesn’t usually dip in the middle of gatherings with friends and step out to study. He simply happens to have a test the next day and his friends dragged him along. Simultaneously, you learnt that it was his first time drinking despite and he swore not to drink anything that wasn’t caffeine. It was nice, really; while Heeseung was busy worrying that you might dislike him for being such a show off, you were enjoying your time with him because in the end, you weren’t a big fan of drinking with your friends either. The two of you talked about wasted matters, complained about subjects and teachers, shared social media handles. It was fantastical, almost unreal, because you don’t remember the last time you clicked with someone so quickly. You didn’t have impressive social skills to initiate conversations, which consequently resulted in you being left out most of the time. It didn’t really matter since relationships and all were secondary at that time, for you had a set goal to work towards. You had always believed that people can make friends and fall in love anytime. However, life gives you just once chance to achieve your dreams. Disconnecting from the public didn't have any effect since you got your work done. While your friends wasted their nights at clubs, you spent it studying and completing assignments. You never felt the lack of friends and interactions eating you slowly. The loneliness didn’t hit you until you graduated with hands full of bills to pay and responsibilities to handle. 

After that night, you started seeing Heeseung more than usual. Despite being in different majors and completely different schedules, you saw him at the campus more often than you used to. It was as if he was always there, waiting for you to find him. Despite changing Twitter and Instagram handles, the two of you barely talked. There was no communication except interacting with each others’ posts, leaving a comment every now and then, tagging each other in stories. You would mutter a soft hello every time you’d bump into him and if fate allowed, you’d have a small conversation. There was no progress in your relationship until a few months after your first meeting, at one of the fests hosted by the Art Department. You had no one to visit with and Heeseung wasn’t interested until you came across him in the library, taking down notes of the lectures he had missed. He asked if you wanted to visit the fest, much to your surprise, and that was the first time you had hung out with Heeseung after knowing him for five months. 

“You seem excited for work,” It’s a question that leaves you confused until your eyes land upon the stacks of files and documents lying stray on the kitchen counter. The next thing you notice is that Heeseung’s voice has gotten a lot deeper, possessing all the necessary qualities of a voice a hiring manager would want to hear in interviews. 

“Do I?” You offer a rhetorical response, not knowing exactly what to say. For a brief second, you considered pouring yourself more drink and going off about your lethargic and unfruitful lifestyle. A chuckle falls off your lips as you stir the wine in its glass, feeling the weight shift from left to right before chugging the remaining liquid down. “I hate my job,”

You pour yourself another glass. Heeseung’s fingers flinch watching your hands reach for the bottle but he didn’t dare interrupt your actions. Another second passes in silence, another sip of wine hits your system. You feel fatigue fill your sinuses as you fight off sleep for another hit— another line of thoughts.  

You can go on for days, complaining about your job, despite knowing that looking down on your work and throwing shade on your boss isn’t going to get you anywhere in life. But at the end of the day, you have nothing else to talk about either. While your colleagues spent weekends drinking, going on dates, and watching movies, you worked your ass off to finish off a project and get a promotion; because promotions come with an increase in pay, and the thing you need the most at the moment is money. Even in school and universities, you used to spend your days and nights studying hard because in the end, the employers from big companies always look for candidates from the top universities, students who graduated with high honours and those who have a lot to offer to the market. Graduating from one of the best universities in Korea in your department should’ve helped you get a high paying job with several benefits. You didn’t lack knowledge, nor did you lack the brains to tackle the problems in finance. You graduated on top of your class so your educational qualifications weren’t below the bar either. If it comes down to experience, one can not expect a fresh graduate to have work experience. In the end, you’re left with the lack of information once again, not knowing why your life turned out this way when every step you took ensured success. 

“Then, why don’t you try doing something that you like?” Heeseung suggests, twirling the glass in his hand, unknowingly mirroring your actions. While he thinks he’s doing a good job at keeping the conversation going, Heeseung knows his advice isn’t worth a penny. Imagine telling a full-time employee to quit their job and do what they like! He thinks to himself, almost ready to take his words back, because he can’t even imagine himself doing the same thing for the sake of a better life. 

“You can’t depend on your likes and dislikes to make a living,” You chuckle yet again, voice laced with bitterness. Failure and disappointment were something you never had tasted until now. You remember the dissatisfaction you felt when your mother gave you sliced apples when you told her you were hungry. You refused to eat, but your mother said that when you’re starving, you don’t look for food that suits your taste. You just eat whatever you get; and thinking about it now, you think it applies to practical life as well. Survival in this world isn’t possible if you depend upon your preferences. Humans have the ability to adapt to various situations, and the key to adaptation is working under different circumstances, often that don’t suit your preferences. That is how you secure your position in the world. If things revolved around one’s likes and dislikes, you sure would’ve been a billionaire for you love to stay on your couch all day and dislike capsicums. 

“What about you?” You counter with the same question. “You look even more tired than how you were in university.” Now, your attention is on his dark circles and weary eyes. The Heeseung you remember from university was phenomenal, having an urge to do anything and everything. His eyes searched for opportunities, hands aching to work on something new. His never ending passion and a desire to know more made him an ideal figure for the juniors as well as someone who the seniors used to envy. However, the eyes of the Heeseung sitting in front of you are telling a whole nother story. They’re talking about the good times while his hands look tired from having a lot on his plate with no time for himself. 

“Work load,” Heeseung sighs, eyes fixed on his drink as he continues to twirl it around. Your gaze shifts to the corner of his lips, watching them curl into a faint smile. “Do you remember how we used to spent weekends hunting for part time—”

And then a pause. Your eyes avert to his’, meeting him in the line of contact; they resonate with just two emotions— regret and respect. You fail to decipher the meaning behind his gaze, you lost the ability to do so years ago. He presses his lips into a thin line, pressing his fingers against the glass in an attempt to suppress his emotions before looking away from you. The comforting silence suddenly weighs upon your shoulders with its hands around your neck, suffocating you to the point of breathlessness; and then you ask yourself— what am I doing? The clock strikes seven and it didn’t hit you how quickly the time flowed until everything dawned upon you. Once again, you’re left questioning your whats and whys about life, for after all, you didn’t expect to spend your evening drinking with your ex. You notice splatters of rain against your window pane as they blur the golden glow of the city scape behind. The rain falls louder, the room fills with the sound of clouds rumbling, you take another sip of wine— it takes you back to your days with Heeseung. 

You don’t know if it’s alcohol blurring your paths down the memory lane, but a part of job hunting with Heeseung also included applying for the same part-jobs and competing so see who gets hired. Although, both of you ended up receiving a polite rejection most of the time, it didn’t affect your relationship. Actually, you don’t think anything regarding job interviews or grades affected your relationship with him. It was a good, healthy race, one that allowed both of you to grow as individuals, for yourselves and for each other. There were days when you came home with the news about getting hired, only to know how his application was rejected or he was fired, and vice-versa. You both took your turns comforting each other— it didn’t feel like your life was any different from his. In fact, every second with Heeseung felt as if you both were living the same life. Watching him go through the exact same thing you went through a few weeks ago, or finding yourself in the same situation you found him merely a few nights ago; it was like watching just another version of yourself.  

Seconds catapult before you. Heeseung gets up and makes his way towards the door. No words are shared, the world is spinning too quickly, it gets harder and harder for you to retrace your steps to figure out how you ended up here. His name falls off your lips— it’s not louder than a soft whisper. You don’t know why you stopped him in his tracks. Is it intentional? Is it involuntary? Or is it because you were hoping for something else? You would never know, at least not now. Months expanded into years and the time when you dated Heeseung still feels like yesterday. It’s as if you woke up— there is his face next to you, the sunlight offering a soft golden glow to his eyes as they light up your whole words. His lips meet yours, a smile emerges under the tender kiss, Heeseung tells you he loves you and you couldn’t be happier. The day rolls by, your steps follow him everywhere he goes, breaths mingling into each other in secluded corners of streets, hidden from the world because it’s a love to be harboured in secrecy. Your hands intertwine with his. It’s two souls living as one, two hearts beating in synchrony. The night rolls by and you’re back in his arms, a little closer to heart, deeper into his mind. The moon sighs in admiration, night slips through his feather light touches as he traces every inch of your skin with love. The sun comes up— and suddenly you’re exes. You never had enough time to process his departure from your life, just the way you failed to process his impromptu arrival this evening. Heeseung is in front of you like the way he used to be. However, just like the first time, the universe agreed but the stars never aligned, and Heeseung is leaving once again as you fail to hold onto him one more time.

“Why don’t you resign if you don’t like your job?” Heeseung stops by his door, and you realise the words that leave his mouth are the same ones that people throw at you whenever they hear you complain about your work life.

“I was about to, but was transferred here. Thought I should give it a try before quitting.” While that doesn’t sound like the most convincing reason, it sure is a plausible one. You had been looking for a change— any change— and throwing away the chance to have one while it had been in your hand would be a bad decision, no matter how unfavourable it sounds at the moment.   

“Doesn’t that sound familiar? When I confessed, you said you weren’t sure about your feelings but would give it a try,” There’s a faint smile on his face, albeit you aren’t able to perceive the meaning behind his words. “I’m sure it’ll turn out better,” 

You take a step towards the door before shutting it completely. You don’t know why he said that, nor do you think you’ll ever get the chance to ask him. Perhaps you wouldn’t ask him willingly in the first place. You turn around, leaning against the door as a sigh escapes your lips. Heeseung has his own life, and so, his own views on different things. If he resents you, you’re in no position to try and change that for him. You don’t think you’re in a position to interfere with his life when you decided to walk out of it in the first place.

If regret was his part to play, then remorse was yours. 

II. Don’t be a ‘know it all’ 

Drinking with Heeseung feels like yesterday, when in fact, you haven’t seen him in four days. 

Life is busy, and it’s even busier for someone like Heeseung who works as a chartered accountant if your memories from last evening aren’t defying you. You can’t imagine yourself in that position, not like you want to in the first place. Excel sheets and tons of documents about taxes are all you could think of when you hear anything along the lines of accountancy, which is intolerable to you, given that you’ve majored in finance, ironically. 

A lot of things in your life are contradicting, actually. You don’t like to cook but cooking for close friends is something you’ve always loved. Examples follow, and at one point you realised that your life barely makes sense. Expectations from friends and relatives made you a try hard, so much that anything less than a perfect score made you feel suffocated. People had desires and interest in certain things, but you needed to be good at everything, and saying that it was for yourself would be a lie, because you had to set an example of an ideal person in front of your younger siblings. Your parents were strict to you and it didn’t feel unfair. You were ten when you saw your mother cry because of all the financial burden, but she had to be the perfect mother for her children, so you never saw her complain ever again. Fifteen year old you didn’t have a goal in mind but she knew that there’s a path ahead of her that leads her siblings on the right track, towards a better future, and so she took it— no aims and dreams of herself, just whatever she could’ve done for her brothers. It was hard at first but the formula to success was easy— hardwork and determination, and all you had to do was avoid distractions. Again, the reality didn’t hit you until you met Heeseung. 

It was as if you were both her two sides of the same coin. Persistence flowed in both of your veins, but every time you looked at him, you realised that he enjoyed everything he was doing. Heeseung enjoyed waking up at four, going out for a jog, attending classes, job hunting, staying up till two or simply not sleeping on some nights. Even on the darkest of the days and coldest of the nights, you would see Heeseung looking at you with a warm smile. He always managed to find a reason to smile, or make a situation humorous enough to make others smile as well. You don’t know how he did that, you never had the chance to ask, but you’re certain that even if he told you, you wouldn’t understand. Heeseung’s principles of living were beyond your comprehension— staying up late yet waking up right when dawn breaks, buying books but never really reading them, researching articles on topics that don’t concern your subjects even marginally— but that’s just his curiosity getting the best of him. 

Often, he’d find himself amidst a financial conflict like any other college student, but it never had an impact on his desires, and he used to say, ‘A sale wouldn’t wait for me to pay my bills so that I can buy my favourite shirt with the money left,’ as if his rent was going to pay itself. If someone asks about the biggest difference between him and you, it’s about desires. You suppress yours while Heeseung lives them like it’s the last time he could ever wish for something. You believe in the cause, while Heeseung did in curiosity, and that’s where it creates a line. Though lately, you’ve been hearing other things about him, new things, if you must say. 

The landlord told you about the Heeseung who’s quiet, who doesn’t leave his house until it’s about work, who eats the same menu for days until his system demands something new, who now has been prescribed actual specs because of his family history of hypermetropia. You find yourself smiling about it because back in university, Heeseung used to brag about his perfect vision, and you would say, ‘family health history is no joke. you take that shit down to your grave,’ and now when it has actually happened, you wonder what he has to say. Hearing stories about him made you realise that a lot of things changed, but Heeseung didn’t. Maybe, the situation demands him to live vegetatively, or maybe he’s saving up for a bigger plan. 

“They say you’re a loner,” You had said one time when you bumped into him on the lift. “That you never leave your apartment except for work,” 

Much to Heeseung’s surprise, a lot of things changed after he entered his thirties, the most prominent being his back pain, which may or may not have arisen from the lack of workout and constantly sitting in front of his desk for hours. He would smile at plants or sit by the balcony, watching the city being ever so lively and yet so monotonous. Afternoon naps became mandatory to continue proficiently for the rest of the day and before he realised, Heeseung became the old man of every highschool student’s imagination. Truthfully, he spent his first few months after graduation in his room, amidst sketching pencils and loose sheets. While other fresh graduates hunted for jobs or ways to fill their resume to fit the companies’ requirements, he spent his early months as an unemployed lad who graduated with top honours from one of the best universities in Korea. For the first time in life, he found himself looking at his ceiling and wondering, what’s next. Heeseung, who always had a plan for something despite seeming reckless, was about to step into adulthood with no plans to follow. 

“I guess I’ll be that,”

He was back in your apartment, same wine in his hand, same old complaints. It’s been quite a few weeks since you’ve moved in and Heeseung always finds himself in your living room at noons when he doesn’t sleep, making small talk about topics that usually stir a little interest. You haven’t had the time to go out with your colleagues and make new friends or explore the city, which gives you a perfect excuse to see Heeseung and call it socialising. Not to mention, you’ve been introducing him to your previous workmates as the ‘new friend’ you’ve made in the new place. 

“We both know you’re not that,” You continue, recalling all the reasons why Heeseung isn’t how people around describe him to be. 

“No one is the same after actually getting a life,” He replies while going through his emails, scrolling down with one hand before placing the wine glass by his side and proceeding to type something. “Look at yourself, for example,” 

You don’t know whether it’s a compliment or an insult. Perhaps the latter, albeit the chances of him noticing a good difference in you are low but never zero. Your eyes fix on his fingers, following them as he types something before clearing it all, and then typing all over again while mumbling the exact same words with an expression ranging from confusion to worry. You reconsider his words, he isn’t half wrong. 

Adulthood is climacteric. You think you’re an adult the moment you turn eighteen but in reality, you aren’t one until you’re in a position to make it through life profoundly, and ironically enough, you don’t think most people get a taste of adulthood until they hit their late twenties or enter their thirties. Your mind traces back to what he said— ‘yourself, for example,’ and suddenly, you become conscious of every single thing that has changed about you. You learnt piano but now your fingers don’t flow smoothly over the keys as they used to, given you haven’t played piano in years. You were a part of the science club in highschool and the student council president in your senior year. You wanted to go into aeronautics but seasons changed and one day, you looked in the mirror and saw the version of yourself who was about to graduate with honours in finance. Even after graduation you had a chance to switch fields but you didn’t, or rather, couldn’t. You were hired in the same year, which gave you even more reasons to continue since it would relieve your dad of the financial burden looming on his shoulders. Maybe, that’s what adulthood is supposed to do to you. You find yourself working in a field you have no interest or experience in and by the time you gain experience, you’re too old to grow an interest. 

Statistically, your school life was much better than college and onwards. You had, although little, but knowledge about all the subjects, a desire to know more, time to yield interest and a will to keep going on. To think, almost everyone in high school grows up under the same circumstances. They either have the opportunity or are given one to pursue what they want, taking it or not is up to them. For you, it was the former. You were given the chance to participate in the maths olympiad which you didn’t because of school exams. You were recommended to the best science institute in the country but you dropped out in just two months. Your music teacher offered you a chance to learn music professionally in Vienna but you never reached out to her on that again. You were given multiple chances to live how you wanted to but you simply discarded them and went with what proved to be the easiest way. 

That moment on a comparatively warm august afternoon, sitting next to him with wine, you went all the way back to all the instances and decisions that lead you to where you were right now. 

On the other hand, you shift your attention back to Heeseung, and even though you never got to know about his childhood or parents properly, you certainly knew that the way he experienced both of them was better than yours. Growing up as a single child gave him absolute control of things that he did and did not want. His decisions were not influenced by his parents, which could be classified as some sort of independence in regards to making his own choices from an early age, but neither did he have any siblings to set an example for. All his life, Heeseung has only lived for himself, and it reflects in his personality, if one tries hard enough to notice. While you had to give up one thing or other for your siblings, Heeseung got a taste of everything he wanted. He knows how it feels to not sleep all night but you never had the chance until much later because you were always thought to sleep on time and wake up early, whether or not you had anything to do. There may have been someone guiding him all along but most of the time, his experience gave him a clear insight and freedom to choose what he wants to do. 

To sum it up, you might be more qualified in terms of academics but Heeseung has more experience when it comes to diverse situations, and experience is all employers want these days in their employees. 

“Well, you still are the ideal candidate for marriage,” You chuckle, remembering what the lady told you a few days ago. You notice him marking a few emails before closing the app, picking the wine glass back up once again. It’s not a surprise to see someone like Heeseung being approached with several martial arrangements. He, despite being described as a loner by a few residents in the apartment, is still the guy with whom you would want to marry your daughter off. He works nine-to-five like any other family guy, is disciplined, comes from a good family and education background, and his looks work as cherry on top.  

“All they want is a guy with a stable job and salary,” He spat with a smile, chugging down the drink in his glass all at once. “That’s not who I want to be,” 

“Who do you want to be, Heeseung?” You ask above the silence lingering in the room, just loud enough to pique his interest. His phone screen lights up with a mail, but his eyes never leave your sight, not even for a second. 

People usually wouldn’t recommend talking to your ex, let alone sharing a deep, therapeutic session about life and self-development. If you say you’re starting as friends again, they would say it’s impossible because the bare minimum requirement to classify as a friend— the lack of romantic emotions— has already been violated. Even if you claim to be over Heeseung and treat him as just another one of your exes, you know there are unsaid feelings blooming in the air. You wouldn’t call Heeseung a friend, he never was one, actually. Heeseung was never there when you actually needed a friend but you never noticed his absence as your colleague, or as your boyfriend. Heeseung is terrible at being friends because he confessed to you the day he introduced you as ‘just a friend,’ to his friends. You wouldn’t consider being friends with your ex, yet you don’t think you could be anything more with him either. You started talking to him as a stranger but Heeseung has always been way too familiar to identity as a stranger. Too familiar for a stranger, too strange to be familiar, it’s another one of the things your life could be contradicting about. 

He looks at you, directing your question back to you as if you’re a better candidate to consult. ‘Who do I want to be?’ All your life, you’ve never done something that counts for yourself. Even your perfect sleeping schedule was meant to set an example for your brothers. Your achievements were never yours to begin with. You were good at piano, but that’s because your teacher taught you. You never composed a piece and simply played what has already been played. Even at work, you do what you’ve been told, and not what you want to. There’s no innovation, just flow of ideas from one level to the other, and it keeps being passed down to a level beyond which, it’s no longer fruitful. ‘Who do I want to be?’ You ask yourself over and over again, but it’s a question you don’t know how to approach. Rather, you would like to know, ‘Who am I right now?’

Just like that, October passes amidst wines and visits from Heeseung every other afternoon or evenings on weekends that weren’t swamped with work. For some reasons, workload increases as December approaches with his cold and calloused hands, which could be the reason why you’ve been seeing less of him lately. Occasionally, you would pour two glasses of wine and sit in the living room, but it would end up with you drinking yours in silence while his’ rests untouched. On nights you stay up till twelve or so, you could hear him unlock his doors in a hurry and shut it just as quickly. Maybe, that’s how a busy lifestyle is supposed to be. Consequently, you stopped waiting for him, coming in terms with reality once again. For a brief while, you considered flying back to your hometown and living with your family for a while, but the idea was dismissed as soon as the announcements about promotions emerged in your department. Once again, you found yourself working day and night with eyes set on no one but Heeseung to spend your upcoming Christmas with. 

Usually, you’re someone who prioritises family over work but a promotion is what you need the most at the moment. Time and patience, they say, but you have neither of those. You don’t have time to sit and rethink or start all over again, time to start from scratch, and patience was never one of your positive traits. At times, you would consider resigning and moving to a whole other country but it was too late to do that. You were no longer a stranger to society, you knew how things work and you had to make things work, with no time to try anything new. At thirty-two, no one wants to see you resign and fly to Maldives for a vacation, to live like you have no worries to worry about, not even yourself. See, that’s the pain of growing up. Parents would tell their children that they have their whole life to do what they like and just a few years to study and make something out of themselves, and it’s nothing but a lie. The truth is, you only have time when you’re young and, as you grow up, time starts slipping out of your hand. A kid is expected to be able to walk by the time they’re eighteen months old, or two years at most. Beyond that, it’s a problem and you have to consult a paediatrician, even if you don’t want to. A student is expected to graduate by the time they turn eighteen, people are expected to have a job by twenty-seven, you’re supposed to be in a relationship before thirty and married by thirty-five. As you grow old, the time to do something runs out and by the time you’re seventy or so, you realise you’re too old to do what you want. 

“I actually wanted to go back this time but, mom’s trying to convince me into getting married,” He said when you accidentally bumped into him this morning, signing off a delivery. Heeseung, in college, came off as someone who would be rather interested in marriages, someone who’d commit to a serious relationship in university and end up marrying them. You wanted to ask the reason but chose not to, maybe because you remind yourself that you’re exes and there are boundaries that should be maintained. 

“So, you just don’t want to get married,” It’s supposed to be a question, albeit it comes off as a statement. You lean against your doorframe, watching him carry his parcel inside and placing it next to his couch. Usually, you’d lend him a hand but today, you simply crossed your arms and waited for him to respond. 

“I don’t want to get married right now,” He replies between huffs. “I can barely take care of myself,” There’s a faint bit of fascination in his voice, a smile evident on his face that leaves you wondering if the slight humour was necessary or whether it’s supposed to be a facade for his rather unsatisfactory lifestyle. 

“Well, you are doing much better than me,” You counter with the same fascination, shifting your weight on both your feet equally in hopes to engage in a full fledged conversation instead of a small talk. “Besides, marriage is a two way street. Being the husband doesn’t mean you have to earn and be responsible for the whole family, or being the wife doesn’t mean she has to cook, there are no roles to play. Marriage is just, sharing what you do, good or bad, right or wrong, and helping each other become a better version of ourselves.” A string of silence follows, you notice his chest rise in an attempt to reply, but words never leave his mouth. You wonder if you said something wrong, but part of you knows you didn’t. Marriage is not as horrific and most of the people make it to be. We all need someone to hold onto, someone who you know will be there when the world isn’t— it’s similar to dating, except you’re committing to just one person, which is better than breaking up and living in vain for months before falling for someone and living the whole process all over again.  

“You seem to know a lot,” But Heeseung never replies and shuts the door, and it’s just you and the silence once again. 

You spend the next few weeks locked in your bedroom, in front of your laptop, making a presentation while living off noodles and beer. You sleep schedule has been in shambles, you’ve grown prominent dark circles, living the vicious cycle of working your ass off with little or no sleep to suffice for your constant workload. This is the most productive you’ve been in a while, especially after your transfer. You wouldn’t say your job pleases you and better, but being aware that this project could really end up with you getting a promotion and thus, a salary increase, is enough to keep you going. 

You were back where you had started a few years ago, reading reports and watching your laptop overheat from all the tabs and applications running at once. You knew what you were doing but everything felt so foreign. The excel sheets spread open with the pointer blinking for you to add an input but your fingers no longer dance above the keyboard like they used to in the first few months of your job. You consulted your seniors, talked to your team leader, watched conferences of qualified professors of your field, took notes, but it all led you to the same thing— deleting and rewriting the whole thing, or simply a blank document that would light up your room on  nights you chose not to sleep. You even considered talking to Heeseung at some point but after recalling the way he dismissed you the morning he was receiving the parcel, you choose not to. While most people wouldn’t mind taking ten minutes to offer a word of advice, you simply choose not to involve Heeseung with your personal issues. 

Taking half days from work using it as an excuse to work on your presentation gave you an opportunity to watch Heeseung leave and arrive at his apartment everyday. You’d sit on your balcony with beer, or tea, rarely, and your laptop on your lap, scrolling through emails and numerous files, and around seven every evening, you’d see him step out of the cab that drops him off right in front of the apartment. On mornings, you usually see him walk up to the intersection which you think is to compensate for the lack of exercise in his routine. Often, you find yourself peeking down from your railing to catch a glimpse of him as soon as the minute hand crosses seven twenty. When he doesn’t arrive by eight, you grab another can of beer and take rounds from your door to the balcony with a pacing that increases with every second that passes. One time, he came home at nine and you rushed to open your door before realising that you can’t tell him you’ve been waiting for him for the past two hours. Good thing is that you had your phone and continued on your way to the apartment garden, telling him that you have to make an important call. 

You met him as his ex and now you find yourself dropping everything and waiting for him as if he’s your first priority. That’s when you realised you needed to create a line, but for now, you don’t mind hanging out in the neighbourhood with Heeseung as his friend, according to how he now introduces you to people he knows. 

“You’re telling me you never went out and explored this place?” His mouth was agape, too shocked to say anything. There were days when your antics spilled out relentlessly, but living in a city for over almost four months and not knowing any of the routes besides the one to your workplace has to be the worst one of those. Even back in university, you preferred to spend weekends in your dorms instead of at some club or bar, like your friends did. It would be a stretch if Heeseung said you are a hopeless case because he was no better, but he wasn’t as bad either, in several ways. 

“Hm, well, work gave me a perfect excuse to not go out,” You say with your eyes glued to the data sheet on your phone and it reminds him of the day you saw him studying Economics outside the bar. These are a few of the similarities that Heeseung noticed between him and you, similarities that he likes to see but is too scared to address in words. “Besides, it would be a waste of time and fuel when you can get the exact same things at your doorsteps.” 

“Is that why you never went out in college either?” He asks finally after a long drawn silence, albeit it never hits you since you’ve been too busy going through the documents on your phone. “Hey,”

“Maybe, but that was more because of academic reasons,” A poke on your shoulder manages to draw a response out of you, but it doesn’t take Heeseung to realise that you’re no longer interested in his questions. “Should we get more beer?” 

Heeseung stares at you, wondering if you still want a response because you’re already picking up cans from the shelves and walking towards the counter for billing. Gradually, he realises that you don’t even remember asking him for his input because you’re simply paying the bills and thanking the woman for her service. Instead of a question, your words resonate more like a statement. As if, you are no longer asking for a third-party input, you don’t need it, you’re simply letting them know your next decision, disguising it as an action of. . . kindness? Soliticion? He doesn’t know.

Now that the sun is approaching the horizon, offering a purple hue to the ever so beautiful sky, Heeseung finally comes to terms with what he thinks about you. His mind traces back to the day you told him that he’s not who people make him out to be and for a brief second, he questions the credibility of your words. You claim to know him, but do you know that he has been living by the edge all this time, or that he has been fired thrice before getting a job in the bank he’s working right now, or that he tried to call you after you broke up with him, that he has been diagnosed with some sort of congenital heart condition? You didn’t lie when you said one’s family health history will follow them down to their grave. And just like you, he doesn’t know much about you either. Even though you’ve told him most of the things, ranging from your family to your current situation, Heeseung doesn’t know who you are. There’s an unfamiliar familiarity, or a familiar unfamiliarity, either works, he doesn’t have a better phrase to describe it. To think, while you consider yourself in a position to classify people’s thoughts on Heeseung as right or wrong, he doesn’t even consider himself in a position to pay for your food, and it’s probably because how you’ve been taking slow steps away from him, eyes still glued to your phone while you keep talking to him as if he’s right next to you, when actually, he’s twenty steps behind. The sun that has disappeared, leaving behind a sombre glow over the whole city, taught him something— that no matter how long you’ve known someone, you never know them enough. There are pieces of you that separate you from them, actions that tell you that no two people are mirrors for each other’s soul, for one’s body and mind knows how to differentiate between self and non self, and no one’s a ‘know it all,’ after all. 

“You’ve changed,” He mentions abruptly, and that’s when you finally look up in his direction, soaking in the awareness that Heeseung is no longer standing next to you. 

For some reason, the evening led you to a local restaurant and while you were busy on your phone again, Heeseung took his time reading the menu card. As he took his time ordering the drinks, your attention shifted to the view of busy streets on the other side of the glass window pane. You watched as the high schoolers had the time of their lives next to a vending machine, following the actions of the book store owner as he reopened his shop for the evening. You swear you heard Heeseung call out your name a couple of times, albeit it felt like a fever dream and you didn’t respond. 

Change, as he described you, you wonder what could’ve changed inside you. You don’t think there’s a lot. You still work like a maniac and refuse to go out. Your complaining nature never changed, but you still don’t voice your problems where you should. You still get terrible headaches and take a pill for every little inconvenience. In the end, you don’t think you’re very different from how you were when you met Heeseung. Except that your hard work barely pays off these days, you think you’re still the same, monotonic version of yourself that he fell in love with, the same you that dumped him on the day of graduation ceremony four years ago.

“You said I changed,” By the time your drinks had arrived, you were knee deep in the simulations that could’ve made Heeseung feel like you’ve changed. “In what aspects, if I may ask,” 

“Like, in general,” He replies with a nod. “I can’t point it out but something about you has changed— well, of course, your age aside,” Liar, he thinks. Heeseung, in fact, knows what has changed, but he doesn’t know how to put it in words. Well, I can’t say you’re no longer looking forward to my opinions on something. Because even though you met as neighbours, even though you’re in a restaurant with him, having a meal and sharing bits of your life’s stories with each other, even though Heeseung looks forward to seeing you everyday— he needs to remember that you started as exes. 

You manage to draw a long hum out of you, nodding cautiously as you take his every word into consideration. They don’t offer much insight about what he’s actually thinking, but again, you never know exactly what is going on inside someone’s head. However, you take your chance to try and get something out of him. “A good change or a bad change?” 

“That’s for you to figure out,” He says softly, tying his words with a long, silent pause that follows closely after. He shoots you a cheeky smile before digging in and you take your time examining his features under the yellow lights of the restaurant, noticing the way he cuts his steak, or the way his eyebrows perk up as soon as his phone rings. You watch him turn to his side as he picks up the call, putting hand on his mouth to minimise the sound, though it was loud enough for you to decipher it clearly. 

You read the slight changes in his expression and gradual curve of his lips swifting upwards. Amidst all, your phone rings as well, interrupting the decorum of the restaurant. You pick it up quickly when Heeseung sends you a displeasing look, though you believe it wasn’t intentional. You didn’t check the caller ID but the voice tells you that it’s your team leader and for some reason, you’re expecting something good. Call it a hunch or the change in scenery tonight but something tells you that there must be good news waiting for you in a secluded corner. While you try your best to focus on what is being informed to you from the other side of the line, you’re too busy analysing Heeseung’s grimace that now you’re mirroring the same smile that’s dancing on his face. He glances at you and his smile grows wider, making you do the same in return. You really hope your call isn’t about the presentation due tomorrow because if yes, then you’re going to mess up, for your attention is nowhere near your call. You’re so lost taking note of every single change in Heeseung’s expression that now, everything your team leader is telling you from the other side of the phone is a blur. It’s as if you’re in a crowded room and the only thing you’re able to perceive is him. You’re so busy indulging in his actions that the only thing you’re able to hear clearly from the phone is that you’ve been removed from the project.

‘I know that you’ve been working hard but the Chairman thinks you’re not skilled enough to collaborate with us on this project,’ You start paying attention to the conversation now, letting everything else around dissolve in the yellow glow of the restaurant. ‘To make sure your efforts aren’t wasted, you’re free to give us a brief view on what you had in mind and if we decide to include it, I’ll put in a word or two for you to the Chairman.’ 

‘Promotion,’ he mouths the word with a cheeky smile when your eyes focus back on him before getting back to his phone once again. You don’t put down your phone and pretend to be on a call to avoid hearing about his good news, or share the bad one from your side. You try to respond with the same smile but your lips feel like they’re frozen. No movements— you don’t know what to say, how to smile; numbness is all you could comprehend. For the first time in all the years that you’ve known him, a slight hint of envy intoxicates the air between you and Heeseung. You should be happy for him— you’ve always been. You’ve always been a part of his success despite falling to the rock bottom on your part. On days Heeseung called you to inform you about the awards he received in a particular competition, you’d invite him over for a celebratory drink even if you, yourself, lost terribly. It was a long drawn process of mutual development and self-care. What people thought of as a relationship written in the stars, was a selfish way of ensuring your well being in the most selfless ways ever. You stayed with Heeseung because he was the only person down to hang out with you in your apartment instead of forcing you to go out. You enjoyed his company because he motivated you to do better, to test your potential and go beyond your limits; and somewhere inside, you knew you were worth the same for Heeseung too. Watching him do well, isn’t that what you wanted? You should be happy for him— but you’re not.  

Heeseung excuses him outside the restaurant once his phone starts blowing up with texts and calls, giving you a chance to drop your facade and let the whole situation sink in. You lean back on your chair, phone on the table as its screen lights up with a message from your team leader, informing the team that you’ve decided to step down from the project— which is a lie but you assume it’s been told to save you for further embarrassment. You sniff, a chuckle falls off your lips, there’s no use of it at all, what’s done is done. On the other side of the glass pane, you could see Heeseung talking on his phone with a triumphant smile, making invincible patterns on the pavestone with the tip of his converses. It feels as if he’s shining against the busy streets behind him, as if he’s the centre of attention at the moment. It takes you exactly back to your graduation day— he was just as happy sharing the news about his graduation with his family. You were sitting inside a cafe and watched him talk for what felt like hours. Your heart was full of the same dissatisfaction, but now that you think about it, perhaps it was just jealousy back then too. While Heeseung was born smart, brimming with passion, you had to fight to get what you wanted. And despite being one of the brightest students in his class, Heeseung’s achievements never had a chance next to yours. You stood in the first three ranks of your school, first five all your college life, been recommended to prestigious schools, were given more opportunities, you were better than Heeseung in all the possible ways. 

You watch Heeseung come inside and pick up his fork, only to put it down and get back to typing once again. There’s a smile on his face and it tells you that you’re equally deserving of the happiness he’s experiencing, perhaps even more than him because life was way harder for you than anyone else you’ve known till date. For the first time in years, you think life is unfair to you because even after giving your best in everything, you’re met with nothing but failure and discontent. No matter how hard you try, your efforts never pay off and people start treating you like a pushover, thinking you would do everything they’d say because you need to put up a good image of yourself in your workplace. You walk hand in hand with failure and watch people succeed with their bare minimum effort. You look at him once again and think, why must it always be you who suffers the pain of failure and shame.

Why me, why not him? 

III. Remember why you broke up

By the time winters arrived and marked their peak, you barely got a view of your neighbour. A part of it could be because of his even busier work life that comes in with promotions. You took the weekend off, saying you have an annual health checkup scheduled at the City Hospital, even though it was a white lie and you never had an appointment with your physician to begin with. Those two days felt longer than usual with the four walls of your apartment making you feel suffocated in your own house. You paced around for hours on empty, rearranging things, cleaning rooms, cooking meals, moving furniture— just anything that would make you feel useful. Truthfully, being depressed over a promotion makes you feel even more stupid about yourself. It’s a part of life, something you involuntarily signed up for when you applied for your job and you can’t run away from it no matter how much you try. Being in the workforce comes with disappointment and pleasure, failures and success; it’s not your first time losing but it still feels like the burden of failure is occupying every little space in your room, making it harder and harder for you to breathe. 

You thought things would be better once you get back to work but everything starts caving in when you hear the team leader discuss details about the project. Initially, they would let you in their meeting, offering you a chance to share your ideas to see if they can cultivate anything better but it didn’t last long either. You started learning about their meetings after work from other colleagues and they started leaving you out of their discussions. On some days, you would sit by an empty table in the canteen and go back to every move you made, trying to track down the mistakes you could’ve made for them to push you away. You didn’t expect them to keep you updated on everything since you’re no longer on the project team, but it would’ve been better if they had simply said that you’re not needed anymore instead of watching you run around cluelessly before you caught a hint. Everything would’ve been a lot easier if you didn’t have to drag yourself around to survive and make a living. On days like these, you would imagine Heeseung in his cabin with a complacent smile, laughing with his friends and receiving compliments. You don’t know why but at one point in time, you started picturing yourself in his shoes while idly resting in your apartment. 

Occasionally, you would hear his footsteps outside your door and stop everything you’d be doing to hear him unlock his door and walk in. Having Heeseung with you was slightly better than living alone and drowning in your overbearing thoughts, but you decided to maintain your distance. Heeseung— apart from being your ex— was someone capable of doing something, anything. You’ve known Heeseung for years and the once carefree young adult found a purpose in life. He had goals to achieve, perhaps a to-do list to complete; you didn’t want to disturb his decorum with your lethargic lifestyle. On some days, he would knock on your door and you’d pretend to be asleep. He would stand for a minute longer and knock again, you would focus on the sound of him tapping his shoes until they faded behind his doors. You started with leaving him on seen and stopped reading his texts altogether. For a few days, it felt refreshing— as if he was never a part of your life to begin with— but the loneliness didn’t hit you until he stopped dropping by your door. And you realised— you were never able to get him out of your life properly. After you broke up, you moved away, blocking all means of contact, but met him at a reunion, and something inside of you prompted to get his number, and so you did. Even though you never talked, you found yourself staring at his number with your fingers hovering over his caller ID. 

It took you years, but you think you’re coming to terms with the truth, that you can never get Heeseung out of your life, and it’s not because you can’t, but instead it’s because you don’t want to. Life without Heeseung felt like a maze, but with him it’s as if you’ve found a way, and you would never admit but having him next to you was so much better than living alone with alcohol. 

When his absence overwhelmed you, you would try burying yourself into stuff as a distraction. It started with books, then painting, followed by poetry, before you would slump on your couch again with no motivation to do anything. Job wasn’t any better or busier. People had little expectations from you and you had even less. At times, you would pace in your living room, trying to complete a presentation or prepare an excel sheet. The deja vu caved in when you’d hear Heeseung’s cab stop by the apartment entrance, except you no longer ran to your balcony to catch a glimpse. You no longer sat on the balcony with tea, waiting for him to arrive. As time passed, you stopped paying attention to the sound of him unlocking his door. His footsteps dissolved in the heavy silence, too miscible for you to perceive. Occasionally, you’d find yourself thinking about him in the shower or before bed, but the thought of him never lasted long enough for it to dawn upon you. Before you knew it, Heeseung became just another neighbour you had, another resident living in the fourteen floored apartment.  

One evening, you bumped into a woman who was standing in front of Heeseung’s apartment. You didn’t see her face, for you were standing behind her with grocery bags, but you could picture what she looked like. Your eyes settled upon her chiffon shirt and the way it complimented figure, her stilettos, a handbag from Lana Marks, you couldn’t help but compare yourself to her. The thoughts about her knowing or being related to Heeseung didn’t cross your mind until a few minutes later. She, despite being someone you never met, was the exact image of how your younger self had imagined herself in future. 

“Excuse me, does Lee Heeseung live on this floor? I just want to confirm,” And her voice is just as captivating. You find yourself staring at her face longer than you should, losing the sense of reality because of all the questions hurdling inside your mind. 

Who even are you?

“He does, but he’s at work right now,” You reply with a bitter smile.

Who are you to him?

“I see,” It seems like she’s about to say something, and you’re not up for a small talk with a stranger, or Heeseung’s girlfriend, or his ex-girlfriend, your ex’s other ex girlfriend, whichever fits the scenario better. Actually, you’re not half against the idea of him dating someone else, not like your refusal will mean anything either. Truthfully, the idea never crossed your mind. You spent your days working days and nights to get the degree you’ve been aiming for, apply for jobs, fueling your hunger for having more and more. 

Maybe, that’s why college is supposed to include one of the most youthful years because after all, it is the only time when you’re free from most of the worries. You didn’t have stress about attending classes regularly or having proper notes like you did in highschool, nor did you have to worry about fitting into the workforce and numerous interviews. College, for you, was the time you could see yourself falling in love, and you did, and now that you stand in your marginally empty living room with your gaze reaching up to the farthest of the buildings touching the sky line, you realise that you don’t see yourself falling for someone the way you did for Heeseung. Perhaps that’s why your conscience refused to imagine him with someone else. Maybe because he had such an impact on you that you don’t see yourself with someone else, you sort of hoped that the time he spent with you had half, if not the same, impact on him as well. 

The evening passed by with you sitting in front of your laptop, scrolling through the document your boss sent you the same noon. The beer cans lie stray on the tiles, right next to you as you shiver under your beige cardigan. You’ve been wanting to close the balcony for a while now, except you don’t want to get up from the cushion that has warmed up with you sitting on it for two hours now, especially in this cold weather. You’re not busy, but you’ve been trying to indulge yourself into little work here and there. Even if it’s just moving your furniture from one corner to another, or going through a file that you’ve already reviewed the previous evening, anything that could make you feel less lonely is welcomed. 

These are the moments when you zone out involuntarily, thinking about Heeseung, or more precisely, his work life. You picture him in his cabin with a cup of coffee, skipping lunch because he has files stacking up on his desk. You imagine him amidst his colleagues at a local bar after working hours, having his drink of relief that hits his system with a wave of satisfaction after a long and busy day. You think about him a little too often for someone who’s trying to forget him. Usually, the thoughts are laced with traces of envy. Today, they’re drowning in something between regret and jealousy. You take a sip from the can in your hand, and suddenly, the image of Heeseung with the lady from earlier pops inside your mind. You’re not sure if they dated, or if they are dating, but you do know that they’re more than friends. Perhaps, it’s just a hunch, an intuition that’s terribly wrong and is driving you to insanity because of all the stuff you’re thinking about. You know you should stop but you can’t help but picture them together. 

Now, you’re thinking about their life together as a couple, the stuff they’d do, the things they’d say. You feel like an intruder peeping into their lifestyles, someone who’s uninvited in their story, a third person. You think about them doing everything you and Heeseung did together, but again, neither of you had a lot of things in your hands to begin with. You had your problems, he had his part-time job, a sorry excuse of a college major that both of you found interesting, along with each other’s shoulders to cry on when needed. While your stories started off as any other tale of love with paths decorated with flowers, it was far from how they portrayed love life in universities in the media. In reality, you barely have time for each other and if somehow you do, you know in the back of your head that you’re missing out on other things. College is, actually, just a bunch of things to do with limited time, and the time is running out of your hands while you sit on your bed and contemplate life decisions, crushing over some person from one of your classes, thinking about the bartender from that cafe downstreet, making up for everything you didn’t get to do during highschool. 

You and Heeseung didn’t have a lot of time to offer each other. Texts were shared, he’d face time with you every morning and you’d call him if you couldn’t see him after classes. Hugs shared in hallways reduced to apologies at your shared apartments, you both went from making out in club rooms to barely getting a glimpse of each other on weekdays. Initially, when he would get back after extra classes, you would be at the door, waiting with your arms open. After sometime, you’d be in your room, busy with your work while he would be lost in his own world of things to tend to. At first, Heeseung’s presence made you feel better about yourself but later on, it didn’t matter if he was there or not. It all felt the same, and the worst part, neither of you tried to work on it. Both you and Heeseung started to get used to the lack of each other. 

Your fingers tighten around the can, your mind goes back to thinking about the lady. Maybe, the lack of affinity in your relationship gave Heeseung a reason to give up and move on. Perhaps, she was everything to him that you couldn’t be, maybe she keeps standing at her doorstep to welcome him after he returns from work, that the two of them seek for each other instead of getting used to whatever has been offered by the circumstances. Could be that every kiss meant as a thank you for being in each other’s life instead of a sorry for not being able to see each other for days and more. Maybe, he is happy with her and you have no right to be jealous because in the end, you gave him every reason to try to forget you. 

Another shot of beer down your throat, another can added to the emptied stacks, your senses start fading into nothing when you hear distant clicking of doors, or perhaps it’s the hangover blanketing the sound for you. With the last bits of energy and soberness left in your system, you get up and open your door. 

“Didn’t expect you to remember me after all this time that you’ve been ignoring me,” Heeseung snaps at you playfully, or maybe, with a hidden sense of disappointment. You have the answer to his question if he asks why you suddenly opened the door when he didn’t even ring the doorbell, or why you’re here standing at your doorstep with nothing but a thin cardigan in this chilling weather. You’re just hoping he won't ask you for the reason you refused to see him until now, because you don’t have an answer to that. 

“Someone came, looking for you,” You say, and meanwhile, in the back of your head, you think of reasons why you actually ran to see him the moment he arrived from work. You don’t want to admit it’s because of the woman from earlier today, you don’t think she’s the reason behind the sudden changes in your mannerisms in the first place. “Some lady,”

A pause, you notice realisation seeping through the cracks of his skin. A second passes, and then another, his eyes tell you that he knows who it could be. “Right,” 

And, Heeseung steps inside your apartment as if it’s yours, and you step aside, letting him in, as if he has always belonged there, and it feels as if the walls have started to fade out the moment he takes a seat on the couch, taking a sip from the bear can you offer him with eyes ever so indulged in him, as if he has returned home after months. Heeseung exhales deeply before letting the words fall off his lips. “We dated for a while,” 

You expected that much, judging from her mannerism and the way she took your name. You had expected them to be in a relationship, or had pictured them as exes who are planning to get back together, a luxury you could never afford. Consequently, you bury those thoughts deep inside, taking a seat next to him, and for some reason, you feel breathless in your own house, on your own couch, with your own bear intoxicating your systems. It’s something Heeseung has always done to you; making you feel out of place. 

You want to yell at him. 

Looking at Heeseung, you don’t know what exactly made you fall for him in the first place. For example, say, you can claim that he dislikes drinking out late with friends and is the type to study even during gatherings based on just one incident. You can sit back and claim to be almost, if not just as, similar to him, pointing out the similarities while completely ignoring the differences, crossing them out of your list of reasons why. But considering everything now, Heeseung has always been different, and a better different. He received good grades even after spending empty hours at your apartment, watching you study. You complained about having day long picnics with him, saying the two of you could use that time more efficiently. As a result, there were nights you could cry yourself to sleep because you were unable to look at your relationship from his point of view. You would kiss him but it’s an apology for the upcoming week that you wouldn’t be able to see him, and you would cancel dates just to study another chapter beforehand. Every single second spent next to him reminded you of all the sacrifices he made for you and every thing you did to disregard his efforts. No, you weren’t a bad partner, his timing was wrong, but saying that would be just another excuse to soothe your aching heart. Looking at him now, it takes you back to all the days you’ve spent together in pain and pleasure, between yes and no’s, do’s and don’ts, a choice between leaving and staying for a little bit longer; the memories are bittersweet like your favourite wine, or rather, they resemble a cold autumn breeze that makes you shut your doors and windows, keeping you from enjoying your favourite season. Time spent with him was short, though nice, but thinking of him makes you blue. You said you wouldn’t see him again but you’re still here, next to him, stuck in the past, still young, still making mistakes, still growing, not knowing if you’ll ever learn. 

“So, how was work today?” You ask, partially because you don’t want to think about him and partially because of the slight curiosity you have regarding his work life, about how it feels to do something he likes, something that doesn’t feel like a chore. 

“You’re not going to ask why we broke up?” He questions back. 

“I figured that it’s your private matter,” 

“She said I didn’t love her,” He says it factually, as if it’s something you’re supposed to know. “That I used her to pass time while waiting for someone else,” His words are unclear, insinuating towards something that you dare not assume, but his eyes are telling you that it’s your fault. 

And for once after you broke up with you, you wonder if Heeseung resents you for calling off your relationship. The thought of him hating you has never crossed your mind, be it your pride or habits to avoid taking the blame. You don’t resent him, he can’t either. You loved each other, you got over it, you broke up, that’s life. That’s the flow of the universe, to meet people and leave him to meet someone else and to keep meeting a new person until you find the one you could stay with. If he thinks you’re the reason why he hasn’t been able to move on, then he’s no different from you, for the thought of him dating someone else has been bugging you ever since the two of you had a drink together on the night you moved in. 

To you, love was inordinate. I love you, Heeseung would say, and you’d ask, how much— he wouldn’t find the words to answer you then. You can go on, pretending none of this ever happened, draping sheets over all the memories about everything you and Heeseung were, in the back of your mind, and fall in love with him all over again, living as all the things you could’ve been. You’ve put too much faith in your love for him, knowing that even after spending the sunsets alone, your mornings will always commence in his arms. There’s fear lurking around, you chose to ignore it. So resentment, in your relationship, was a bliss neither of you could have. For every day that you stood him up, Heeseung paid you back multiple folds. Every moment spent in his arms struck you back with arguments that seemed to get bigger, and none of you were ready to work things out. The pain was mutual, you both hurt each other, then why does it seem like only you’re in the wrong? 

“Turns out, I never gave you a congratulatory gift for your promotion. I should be having a bottle of wine if I’m not wrong,” You get up from your couch; a subtle attempt to change the topic and drive the atmosphere in any other direction except the one it was flowing into. 

Silence takes over, you’re in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, he’s on the couch, the sound of water dripping down your kitchen sink hits your ears as you get conscious of the periodic sounds of the clock ticking. Maybe, wine is just an excuse to get away from Heeseung and everything that his presence takes you back to. It feels like university all over again, where you could spend hours in silence next to each other, though this time, you’re apart, but still, under the same roof. The sense of something being terribly wrong looms in the air, but none of you could bring yourselves to say something, because you both need a shoulder to lean on. There are heavy untold words housing the back of your mind, unasked questions that haunt Heeseung in his sleep, suppressed emotions both of you know couldn’t be expressed so easily this time ‘round. 

There’s no wine at your place, but you put water to boil while preparing hangover soups for both of you. His exhausted grimace tells you he needs it, and you need it even more than him. You’re taken back to the days when either of you would have a run down to the nearest convenience store to the university to get beer and then spend the night before the test amidst alcohol and sheer stress weighing your shoulders. You would refuse to waste your time instead of studying but one look at Heeseung and you’d lose your composure. Blurred words about how both of you should be studying for exams would escape your lips between sips from your cans and, Heeseung would simply laugh at your failed efforts to pull yourself together. On days, you think about the possibility of you and him and you could’ve been if time had allowed, wondering if you could’ve made things right by attending the reunion last year instead of making excuses to pass just because Heeseung was going to be there. You consider every single scenario where he and you could’ve been together if time had allowed, and if either of you had taken a step towards making things right, then again, a voice from the back of your mind would tell you to give up. 

You hear Heeseung let out an exaggerated sigh. “I resigned,” 

“What?” And it feels like your lungs have collapsed. “I mean, you’ve been promoted then, why?” You don’t get it. Resigning from a job that had everything to offer seemed too incomprehensible in your knowledge. Had it been you— had it been anyone else— would think the same.

You’ve spent months in despair, searching for a purpose in the way you make money, a reason to keep going on between oceans of failure with pieces of your shattering will staying afloat. You’ve spent nights staying up, working on a presentation and giving it your everything to secure a better position in your department. Not a day has passed when you didn’t feel like you’ve lost the purpose of everything and yet, kept going with the flow of life to see if something good lies at the other end. And Heeseung would say, who cares about the standards of normal people, but recruiting managers don’t look for something out of the ordinary. They’re not looking for someone who would operate things based on whether it fits their sense of satisfaction, someone who would resign after getting a promotion when other employees struggle to get one. You would consider having a long talk about the choices he made and one he should’ve gone with, but instead, you sit in front of him on the cold winter tiles. 

“Promotions can make you feel good for a while, but they can’t satisfy you in the long run,” He says it easily, a little too carelessly for your comfort. “I just want to do something I like,” And once again, you come to the conclusion that these are the reasons why you and Heeseung wouldn’t have made it even if you had tried.

He’s too different. 

Heeseung has nothing to lose, never had to begin with. When you saw yourself for a whole month, doing everything in the same way, he was out enjoying his life. Now that you’ve managed to pull yourself together and learnt to handle your emotions, though not by a long shot, he shows up and tells you that he has resigned from his perfect job, or rather, a job that would’ve been perfect for you, at least. You would’ve been a better employee, you’re efficient, you don’t make decisions impulsively, have excellent qualifications, know how to separate work and private life, how to separate likes and dislikes from needs and necessities. You wouldn’t have resigned because if you did, you would’ve lost your only source of income, your last straw, something that has been keeping you from returning back to your stagnant lifestyle. You would’ve been a much better employee than Heeseung. 

You’ve seen him living like he has no worries. You’ve seen him switch clubs, change hobbies, drop subjects until he settled with something that satisfies him. Heeseung is about kissing his lovers between paintings at an art museum, promising forever, but he’s so quick to change his heart. Heeseung knows what’s important and what’s not a little too much, he knows what he needs and things that have no use for him anymore. Perhaps, it’s a sense of fearlessness that you acquire growing up the way he did, exquisitely happy and desperately carefree. You think it’s just a waste of time and resources for people like Heeseung because they don’t understand the value of certain things just because they’ve received it too easily. You wouldn’t disregard his efforts because you’ve seen him work hard to make ends in university. Even though things were a tad bit easier for him compared to you, you know it was the hardest time he had during university. You admire Heeseung for his consistency and passion, but you despise him for throwing away something you’ve seen people cry for; something that you’ve cried for, over a hundred times. While you may come to respect his choices when you wake up the next day, but right now, you wish that he was in your shoes, living life the way you’ve been living, suffering, struggling, suppressing. 

“People just don’t get by through society with their likes and dislikes,” There’s a touch of envy in your words, you hope it wouldn’t get past him. You grew up doing everything that would result in a secure future instead of something that satisfies you, to put it straight. The managers at interviews don’t look for candidates with most unique or extraordinary likes and hobbies, but rather they’re in search of someone with experience, ironically, and someone who can adapt to different circumstances without diminution of their efficiency. 

And you think, the childhood people have, or the way they grow up, what they go through and the circumstances they lived in, it really shapes their future selves. Growing up in a financially suboptimal family made you believe that money is everything, and people can try convincing you otherwise but their views wouldn’t alter the truth. Even if you wake up and try to think that money isn’t the most important thing, you would learn to believe otherwise the moment you open your empty refrigerator by the end of this month. You didn’t waste time having highschool romances and university love stories. You’ve had your fair share in having crushes and one night stands until you met Heeseung, and thinking about it now, a part of you knows it was a better decision to stay with him instead of hoping you had someone by your side on days when you didn’t feel like yourself. Perhaps, you did use him like a part of your conscience claims. Maybe at the end of day, away from all the concepts of love and lust, that’s what he was to you, a band aid that needed to be replaced before it infects the very wound it was healing. 

“You’re going to regret it,” It’s a breathy confession, a bitter truth. “Decisions made impulsively, they always leave heavy regrets,” You’ve been walking hand in hand with regrets. You’ve made decisions, many of which you thought would offer great results but instead, left with heavy regrets. You know better than giving up on the perfect job in search of something you’d enjoy doing, or walking in another direction knowing it’s the longer way home. Life has given you your fair share of events to think back to whenever you sit back, planning to do something new. Sometimes, you wonder why all of this only happens with you, and as an answer, you think that maybe, you’re the only one who would take life for its lessons and losses and still keep on going as if nothing ever happened. 

“Then, did you ever regret breaking up with me?” You see, Heeseung was never successful in comprehending the whole logic behind love. He was told it’s warm, but he knows love is the loneliest place a person could ever find themself in; he read that it’s kind, but Heeseung has spent nights spilling tears on his pillow, all because of love. It’s self contradicting; love is supposed to make you feel happy, but it stings. It gets under his skin, makes him unsteady, makes him question everything he has ever believed about love. He didn’t see it coming. Truthfully, Heeseung didn’t see you coming into his life. You were a boon and a blessing, the one who made him feel reckless and out of control; the one he is infuriatingly and inexplicably drawn to. Ironically enough, you’re not the one who tucks him in bed, but instead the reason why he cannot sleep at night. So, Heeseung needs to know if his presence made you feel the same way, or if he was really just another passerby in your melancholy. 

His question is the words you’ve been avoiding to notice ever since you called off your relationship with him. It has been hiding in the back of your head, popping up every once in a while when your heart aches for love and when your arms feel emptier than the streets after midnight. And amidst your heavy heart and cold tiles, your hands find their way to his. A faint apology falls off his lips, whispered in your ears. The moon watches you slip his shirt off his shoulders, your lips tracing along his neck while his hands find solace in your curves as if you’re the home they’ve been yearning for; an old spark ignites again, a beginning of something tragic. 

As the night dwells further into the darkness, the two of you are pulled back into the old cycle of healing and hurting, the give and take where both of you would be standing with your hands stained with losses by the time it ends. Your steps are heading towards actions you couldn’t reverse, and the very reason you broke up flashes in front of your eyes, though faded enough to have you ignore it. Guilt trickles through your fingertips, seeping through the cracks of his skin, his eyes gleam of remorse, and the moment your lips meet his’, fate decides to play into the hands of your history once again. 

IV. One step at a time

It didn’t feel right watching Heeseung being so busy even after resigning from his job. You always see him on his laptop, typing or reading something. Morning to evening, from noon to night, you’d see the lights in his apartment switched on, faint rumblings of furniture and numerous phone calls filtering through his walls and entering yours. He was busy, he was planning something huge, and you didn’t like the sound of it. 

You’ve come to a point in life where you can finally accept your pettiness and slash or, your jealousy. Maybe, it’s one of the few emotions you’ve been feeling over the past week, and now, you finally know the reason why. Waking up this morning, you imagined yourself in his shoes once again— without a job, without a secure financial flow, without a purpose or strong sense on what to do next, just as someone in the workforce who’s contributing to nothing. The furthest your imagination took you was to your terrace, you don’t know how you would live through a life like that. 

Some things about Heeseung have never made sense to you. While he might come off as someone who has plans prior to everything, you always see him as someone who lives his life based on a hit and trial concept. He does one thing, and if it doesn’t fit to his liking, he switches to other, and then other, and then he has a never ending cycle in his hands. You weren’t there when he got a job but you know how Heeseung looks when he is passionate about something. The evidence lies all the way back to university, or during the few months that you’ve witnessed him go to work before quitting abruptly. You’ve spent evenings trying to deduce a conclusion as to why he resigned, and every possibility leads you to the answer that it was a decision made in spur of the moment. A part of you thought about asking him for a reason if he ever had one, but you ultimately realised that a person like him doesn’t need a reason to choose something that he likes; no one does, except you. People don’t put a second thought when it comes to choosing what they like and what they don’t. They date their crushes, eat their favourite food, watch their favourite movies, attend concerts of their favourite artists; favourite, it’s a word that tends to solve most of the trivial problems that arise throughout one’s life. Perhaps, that’s another reason why you decided not to ask Heeseung about the night from two days ago. Even though you made the move, the most he can say about complying and giving in to your acts would be because he wanted to do so; no reason, no plans, nothing. 

Maybe, it was your fault. You could’ve taken one step at a time, starting from dinner, then something else— you don’t know what people do to get back with their exes. You’ve never done that, would have never if it wasn’t for Heeseung, because something about him has you gravitating in his direction. That’s why, you sit on his couch, the TV remote in your hands as a random show plays on the screen. Your eyes are rather focused on Heeseung, who sits by the kitchen counter, typing something on his laptop for the past hour. He has been busy with that lately. You pictured unemployment as lying on your bed all day, or pacing around your apartment uselessly, having the days feel longer and watching the time pass because you have nothing better to do. But, Heeseung is way too busy for someone who has recently resigned, he’s even busier than how he used to be. You asked him about it once, and he said it’s something he has been wanting to do for a while now. Heeseung never gave you the context, but you know he is putting his time into writing drafts for his book. 

Occasionally, you anticipate a small talk with him, but with no signs of Heeseung being interested in anything except his drafts, your eyes instead run all over his living room, taking a note of every single detail that exhibits his taste in interior decor that has changed over time. The wine coloured curtains are a little too vibrant to fit his choices of decors and furniture. You remember him planning out the living room layouts with you back in university when you were still together, when life was beautiful and you were impossibly happy. 

You find it amusing how quickly things change. It’s been years but if you’re being honest, it feels like just yesterday, you were accepted in the university you’ve been aiming for, as if just yesterday, you earned the scholarship, and just yesterday, you had met Heeseung. Your heart still picks up a pace at the sight of him.You’ve spent months thinking about the time you spent with him, regretting every move that led you to the decision to break up with him. You’ve had your fingers just centimetres above his caller ID, just impulses away from making a call, seconds away from asking him to get together back again, heartbeats away from giving into your desires. It started with your falling for him first, and you kept falling harder and harder until you realised that you were at the bottom of the pit and it was getting hard to breathe. You spent years trying to make your way up, step by step, and when you were finally by the edge, he came back and pushed you back to where you had started. You would say you hate him but a part of you wants to believe this could lead to something better than how it was last time, because things have started to feel a lot like love, and you’d like to take a chance with your broken fate yet again. 

“Heeseung,” You call once, voice low and quiet like a whisper, one that dissolves between the sound of television. You expect him to hear, but your words fly by his ears as if they’re of little to no importance. “Heeseung,” You say again, this time a little louder, eyes fixed in his direction, watching the seconds pass and waiting for a reply. For a second, you wonder if he’s pretending to not hear you deliberately, but you push yourself to sit up straight, hoping he’d hear you this time. “Hee,” 

And he whips his head in your direction. It was for a brief second, but you could see a hint of surprise in his eyes. You would’ve said you have accomplished something if Heeseung had spared you a little more attention, but his eyes go back to his laptop and before you know it, his fingers start dancing above the keys yet again. 

“What are we?” You ask, half hopeful, half defeated. You don’t know where the question comes from, or why you are even asking it. Your heart isn’t hoping for a happily ever after romance, your mind isn’t looking for a redemption arc. You’re not hoping for a good response, you’ve learnt to keep your expectations low after everything that has unfolded in the past. You’re not hoping, you tell yourself, but your soul knows otherwise. 

A second passes, then another, your mind starts coming up with answers to your own questions. What could you be? To strangers, you’re neighbours; to your friends, you’re exes; to yourselves, it’s a broad question. You could tell your mind that you’re in a friends-with-benefit relationship that has a terrible lack of communication and get away with it, but your heart knows it was supposed to be something wrong. 

“You tell me,” A soft laugh falls off his lips, it makes him sound like he’s lost as well, just like you. You take it as a good enough response but Heeseung stands up from his chair, making way towards his bedroom as if you aren’t even there, as if your question holds no meaning. You would’ve assumed his response meant that even if you both are without labels at the moment, you could be something in the future. Maybe, your actions from two nights ago would’ve lead to something good if he was less busier, but for now, all they do is guide you to the answer to your own question: 

A temporary fix. 

That’s what you both are. It’s exactly how it was back in university, a sense of mutualism with no sense of responsibilities. Things were obligatory, dates were barely a show to the world for your sorry excuse of a relationship. It started off like a fairytale, as if you both were supposed to meet, meant to fall in love, made for each other. In the first few weeks or even months, having Heeseung next to you felt like a blessing. A luxury to come home to someone, to have someone you can vent to about that one professor who kept dismissing your essays, someone who you can talk about your endless project and seminar ideas and they would reply with the same enthusiasm, someone who could make you feel like you’re seeing the world just by staying within the four walls of your messy apartment. Dating Heeseung had you believing in all the romance tropes you’ve ever come across, so much that you forgot that you’ve been living in a painful reality. 

You tried not to ponder over it so much. You went back to work once the weekends passed, back to your old excel sheets and same old job. Occasionally, you would wish he stayed next to you until you finished your work just like he did back while you were still dating, but you knew it was too much to even hope for. You would say, you’re going crazy. Perhaps, you shouldn’t think so much about the one-night-stand sort of thing you had with your ex, your neighbour. You both are adults, one without a job and other without the will to do the job, both brimming with unsaid feelings, tied to loose ends, holding onto unasked questions for answers, troubled by old memories and the future that was about to come. He deserved an explanation, you had an excuse to share. Whatever happened, was bound to happen. 

Sometimes, you wonder if Heeseung thinks about it as much as you do. Memories from that night haunt your mind like spirits, making it hard for you to focus on anything and everything else, yearning to feel his touch one last time. There are evenings when you’d come home in hopes of having a conversation about what would happen to the two of you in near future, but then you’d see his eyes glued to his laptop screen the moment you enter his apartment and you’d realise that it has only been you all along. Watching Heeseung do well even after giving up his job no longer induces anger or jealousy. Instead, a sense of inferiority floods inside of you whenever your eyes fall upon his figure leaning over his laptop, typing relentlessly with a content smile on his face. And the reason, once again, lies in the concepts of too many similarities and even more differences. 

Months ago, when you were still in Incheon, still bound to your old apartment and old lifestyle, there was a point when you had seen yourself at your lowest. You used to drag yourself to work, force yourself to smile, push yourself to make it through everyday. You struggled to do the bare minimum that was necessary to survive. You wouldn’t say your situation was any better than Heeseung only because you still have a job while he doesn’t, because inside the four walls of his apartment, he’s doing better than any other unemployed person out there. He’s doing better than you while you still had your job, while you still had money in your hands to spend on useless things. You spent months pulling yourself through just to make sure you don’t lose your job, and Heeseung resigns from his’ a little too easily. You feared every second that passed because you didn’t know what the future would hold, and if you still had a future, but Heeseung is sitting on his couch and writing as if he has nothing to worry about. You saw yourself for months, doing the same thing, in the same way, and Heeseung is living every minute as if it offers him something amusing. 

Life was always easier for Heeseung, and you wonder if this is the reason why you’re standing by his door with your nails digging into the palm of your hands. Maybe, if this is why you don’t try to strike a conversation and instead, walk out of the door as if you accidentally walked into the wrong apartment and now that you’ve realised your mistake, you would make sure you don’t repeat it and end up in the same place ever again. 

The next few days pass by rather slowly. 

You’ve been trying to keep yourself busy with work. Though it’s a bit hard to focus when everything else is plaguing your mind, things have started to get into place once again. Additionally, you’ve also been busy trying to grow a liking for your job after getting an earful from your boss. The truth is, you don’t exactly hate your work life. Materialistically, it’s perfect— a good environment, impressive benefits, a considerably loaded paycheck— it’s wonderful, but intellectually, you feel you’re at the same place where you started from. You haven’t gotten a new project in a while ( was kicked off the one that kept you motivated ) not a single new thing about work except reviewing documents and passing them on for signatures. One could tell you to quit and look for something you prefer to do, but resigning and pursuing something that you like, unlike Heeseung, is a luxury you never had on your side. 

Before you realised, it had already been a week since what happened between you and Heeseung. You wanted to talk about it, hoped to, but he’s harder to see than the most. You could see him through your kitchen that faces his bedroom. You would see his shadow roaming behind the curtains, a notebook in his hand, or a laptop, rarely. Heeseung likes to scribble his thoughts on a paper before settling with one, it’s something you’ve noticed back in the university when he spent nights working on his projects while you sat still at the corner of your bed. You can still watch him on and on for hours, sitting on his couch and imagining him walking up and down his living room while working on his drafts. 

Watching Heeseung is one thing you will never get tired of. It’s a little discovery on its own. Every step he takes and every move he makes tells you something new, something you hadn’t known before. You remember sitting next to him in libraries late at night and watching him study. It was supposed to be a simple observation, perhaps an intention to catch onto his tricks and tips to study, and suddenly you see him biting his nails as if his pores are dripping with nervousness. It made you feel better knowing that someone like him has his moments where he’s nervous, even scared, maybe more. Watching Heeseung was something you had on your daily checklist because those moments reminded you that he’s not all strange, that there are similarities, and that he also falls weak, just like you. Watching him felt like watching yourself, as if he’s more you than you are. It felt like taking a look into the mirror and realising that whatever souls are made of, yours and his are the same. 

But mirrors for each other's soul has a cost: by the time they part from each other, the individuals have become indistinguishable. Before their merger, they each yearned for the other; as they part, they part from self. Maybe, that’s why leaving him felt like leaving pieces of yourself and meeting him again felt like you could breathe once again. 

You can hate him for all the reasons why he is better than you and for all justifications you could offer to prove otherwise. You can spend hours explaining why life has been unfair to both of you, yet still he gets to have the better end while you always fall back to the start even after all the times you’ve tried. You can go out and tell the world your tales of misery and braveness, how you didn’t give up even after life dragged you beyond what could possibly be the worst, and you can complain your heart out about how Heeseung, despite having everything you could ever ask for, gave up all because it didn’t fit to his liking. You can call him a coward in front of eight billion people and would still find yourself in front of his doorsteps at the end of the day, just like now, because after all, he’s the only person who would welcome you with open arms. 

“Have you ever tried painting?” You ask while taking a look at all the loose sheets lying around on the centre table in his living room. It comes off a surprise when you find that what he has been scribbling behind his beige curtains were sketches of characters of his novel, rough and messy, some drawn seemingly in love while others had patches of pain in their eyes. 

“As a kid, yeah. My parents made me try almost everything out there,” He replies on his way from the kitchen with two coffee mugs in his hands; and amusingly enough, it would be the first time you’d be having coffee with him ever since you moved, because every other conversation was accompanied with alcohol or wine. “But paint brushes aren’t my forte, really,” You take one of the cups, nodding in the process. Your childhood wasn’t any different, despite the financial shortcomings. You remember taking extracurricular classes at least four days a week, all for different fields, art being one of those. You wouldn’t say your painting skills are worth exhibiting, but they are better than his. Maybe, that’s why you briefly consider pointing out his mistakes, telling him that he could try fixing the body proportions to make the figures look more presentable but again, you refrain yourself from doing so. 

Instead, you take your time observing Heeseung, again. 

A sip of coffee hits your system, you sit on the couch, watching him arrange the sheets into one place. Earlier, it seemed as if Heeseung didn’t care about you seeing his living room in such a mess, as if it’s something you’re allowed to see because it’s you. You notice the way he’s holding onto the coffee mug, you’ve always loved how his fingers wrap around its perimeter completely. It’s one of the things about him that you find attractive. He sits on the opposite end of the couch and you’re sent thinking about the last time you both sat like this, having coffee over silent smiles. One second, you’re thinking about all the good times you’ve had and the next, your mind drifts back into the thoughts from a few nights ago. 

The coffee started tasting bitter or maybe, it’s just your thoughts. From thinking about his hands in yours to the smile that used to warm up your evening, nothing seems to cross your mind except the way you felt when his lips captured yours for the first time in years; nothing compares to that, not even close. You thought it’d be fine this time ‘round, people don’t make the same mistakes over and over again. Meeting Heeseung again was like falling back into the hole you’ve been climbing up, but hitting the bottom never hurt. You thought things would work out just fine because you’ve grown up. You’ve learnt things, you know what you did wrong back then and you know exactly what to do to make things right. All these things, they ran an imaginary conversation inside your head where everything went back to normal. There was a point where you couldn’t distinguish between daydreams and reality, and the truth didn’t hit you until you were sitting on the floor of your shower, hyperventilating his name into your hands; and you asked yourself— is it so bad for people to just use one another?  

Because friends with benefits is also a relationship based on convenience, you don’t get why loving someone the same way is deemed toxic or simply unacceptable. If things had worked that way, you wouldn’t have ever ended up on this turn of life. You and Heeseung would kiss but won’t be in love, sleep next to each other but won’t be a couple, share your secrets but won’t be friends. He would be someone you would’ve seeked on evenings you couldn’t stop crying and you would be someone he could hold onto on days that made him feel like he couldn’t go further. Not lovers, but not friends, just something, someone you could use and not feel guilty about, someone who could walk away a hundred times without hurting you, someone you didn’t feel obliged to focus on. You both could’ve been someone who didn’t feel like a chore to each other. If people could just use each other, perhaps, you and Heeseung would have lasted longer. 

Commitments are hard. Loving is hard, because a day comes where you run out of all the reasons to love. You become selfish, starting thinking about the give and receive, the shortfalls, the absence. The part of your lover that you fell for becomes the very reason why you fall out of love. Instead of appreciating the times spent together, you start complaining about all the minutes that went in waste, all the days they weren’t by your side. You take a step away from the commitment you swore upon and then one day, you start walking away before you even realise. So, loving is hard, and it’s even harder to fall in love again when you’ve walked away once and you’re afraid to do it again, not because you don’t want to hurt the person you love, but because you want to save yourself from hurting all over again.

“How are you doing?” You ask above the silence, voice no louder than a whisper. You’re hoping for a conversation none other than about what happened that night. It’s not because you want him to take responsibility because you’re just as responsible for it, perhaps more. You simply hate how you’re the only one still hung over it, you hate how he can go on with his life without worrying about the things he did that have shifted the ground beneath you. 

“Good,” He replies, just as quietly. A pause follows, you feel his eyes on your while yours are still fixed on the mug, fingertips running circles along its rim. “Great,” And, you find another reason for why you’ve been acting lately. The worst part about walking away isn’t the realisation that you have to leave everything that once made you happy, but instead, it’s the hope that follows you everywhere you go. You hope that they’ll run after you, that they’ll stop you and tell you not to leave, that they’ll beg you to say and tell you they need you, but they never do, Heeseung never did. 

You look at him after much consideration, there’s a certain look of inevitability in his eyes. It’s not welcoming but it’s not pushing you away either. It’s like he’s telling you there would be a moment when you would look at him in a certain way, and you both would cross the threshold from friendship into something so much more. Perhaps, it’s just the mood of time or your imagination that has you seeing things, but you feel a certain innuendo in his gaze and the way it traces every patch of your skin, from your eyes to down your hands, threatening to transverse further down below. It could be an innocent play of eyes, a harmless action that doesn’t mean anything more than. . . something. 

It’s how you begin, your mouth against his, and his fingers tracing along the back of your neck. It feels euphoric and equally sinful, the way his lips move in synchrony with yours, fitting like puzzle pieces. Heeseung tugs you closer by your waist, a faint gasp escaping your mouth that dissolves immediately into your breaths mingling together. He’s pushing you back into the couch, your mind plays all the moments with him like a short film, it feels like a warning sign, but you’re far in too deep to pay attention to anything else except him. Every swivel of his head sends you down a spiral of pain and pleasure, you’re somewhere between pushing away and pulling in. You’re so lost, it feels like you’re on an island and Heeseung is the water. If you’re drawing, he’s the oxygen, if you’re falling, he’s gravity— his presence in your life is contradictory. He’s the reason you’re hurting, and the very reason you like every second of it. Heeseung pulls back, a gaze full of love, he whispers a sweet confession. 

“Date me,” he says. You don’t remember responding, and the next time those words flood back inside your mind is two days after the incident, when you’re laying on your living room floor with beer once again. 

You’re counting now, the amount of times you’ve ended up on the floor with beer, thinking about all your past actions and regretting. It kind of sounds funny to think about it, to think an adult can’t pull their life together and resorts to alcohol even at minute inconveniences. His words haunt your mind day and night, in sleep and when you’re awake, in happiness and in sorrow. It seems like you’re back to stage one, where all he ever did was look at you and all you ever could do was think about him for as long as possible. Focusing on work doesn’t help. You tried shifting your furniture from one corner to the other, avoided Heeseung for three days before he was at your door with the electricity bill that was accidentally given to him. Consequently, your alcohol intake has increased again, not that it ever went down, but frequent meetings at work gave you a reason to stay sober. As for now, you’ve been spending each day the same way, vegetatively, ever so stagnant, like water in an infected pond that is born to numerous parasitic diseases. Your refrigerator is getting emptier day by day, you feel too exhausted to buy groceries. Days transform into weeks, Heeseung leaves for Busan for a week. He didn’t tell you. You overheard it from the ladies in the elevator. Now, there’s a closed door in front of you everytime you open the door to your house. A door with letters and envelopes piling up, a plant that is drying up day by day because looking at it, you assume Heeseung had forgotten about it. When the energy to cook leaves your body, you resort to ordering takeouts. Missed calls from work are the only thing preventing your apartment from drowning in silence. When the last of your hope dies, you resign from work. 

You think you’re going crazy, because you get back to the cycles of standing in the balcony around the time Heeseung used to return from work. A part of you knows he doesn’t work anymore, heck, he isn’t even in the city, but you spend most of your day thinking about him. At times, you wonder the point of all this. You wake up, check your phone for any texts from Heeseung or simply anyone. Fifteen minutes pass and you drag yourself out of the bed, eat ramyeon, watch television, sit on the balcony with bear, watch the people come and go, eat ramyeon for lunch again, sleep, ramyeon for dinner— you needed someone else, something that would break you out of this vicious cycle. There are days when your own skin suffocates you, when the image in the mirror doesn’t feel like yourself but rather, a faceless person. You’ve spent hours sitting in the shower and letting the water prune your fingers. You let your tears wet the bed sheets. For some reason, it feels like you’re coming to terms with reality. 

As days pass by without Heeseung, you’re starting to realise your feelings, able to sort out things you want and don’t. You thought your dream was to live an average, normal life. Looking at it now, you don’t think it’s what you wanted, maybe you didn’t have a choice to begin with. You studied in a prestigious university, you had scholarships to support your tuition fee, you had a job that paid you well enough, you had everything any other person your age would desire, you had those things because you wanted to set an example. You lived for your siblings, you lived for your parents, you lived for the expectations that came with your intelligence and skills. Sitting in the bathtub as your mind revisits every decision you’ve ever made in life, not one was for yourself. Or maybe there was— loving Heeseung. 

Perhaps, at the end of the day, you wanted someone who would love you, someone who would watch you be selfish and slowly clap at the back of the theatre because you’re doing a good job, you’re choosing yourself above everyone else. Heeseung was the person, it’s the only thing you’re so sure about in your life. He was like a saviour in the apocalypse. He’d tell you to blather about your insecure mind that kept nagging you regarding all the things you couldn't do and, he’d explicate how exquisitely it told you lies that you believed. You thought you could reciprocate, but every moment spent next to him reminded you of things he was and things you could never be. You were scared he’d notice your insecurities, the voices tell you that you’re only worth abandoning. You guessed it wouldn’t be hard, you just had to hide your feelings, and years later, your decisions prove you wrong once again. You’re struggling to breathe under your skin, your heart desires for him, you’re falling in deep again, and you’re about to pack your bags. That’s how your life has always been, to avoid getting hurt, you hurt the people you love. 

Maybe, you need him after all. Heeseung was one thing you were certain of in your life— still is— but you had your pride ruling your life, and he had stars to reach. 

At some point during Heeseung’s trip, you pick up a paint brush. It’s a sudden decision, an impulsive move. You wake up one morning and your senses crave the smell of oil paints and brushes. You never had a talent for painting, not by a long shot. You attended classes back in middle school but had to drop out because of your family’s financial conditions. You think you’re trying to copy Heeseung. You both have unsaid words in the back of your mind, both need to convey their feelings one way or another. Heeseung picked a pen, you chose a paintbrush. It’s supposed to be therapeutic, you have heard about art therapy. There is no set subject, you draw whatever comes to your mind. Your first piece exhibits your kitchen. There are unwashed dishes, you used yellow to add a light glow except, you used a little too much of the colour. The second one, an apple from your fruit basket. Third, your ceiling— white, blank, empty, you’ve named it ‘My head’s ceiling,’ as lame as it sounds. Your fourth is the cat that roams the neighbourhood on most nights. You don’t know about anatomy, but you sure do see slight improvements with colouring. Your fifth and the last one is Heeseung from the night you met him for the first time after moving in, and then he finally arrives from his trip. 

“Did you miss me?” He asks you when you show up at his doors in a thin cardigan and a bottle of wine in your hands. Weather was never a problem, any place with Heeseung tends to feel warmer. You walk inside, eyes on the loose sheets lying all over his kitchen counter. You wonder how he will react after hearing about your resignation. 

“I missed drinking with you,” You may or may not have a motive behind your words, maybe you wanted to feel him against you once again, maybe the wine ends up being an excuse again, but the night doesn’t flow in that direction. You tell him about your resignation, he finds it funny after the ‘pep-talk’ you gave him when he resigned. You tell him about your newly found interest in art, he tells you to practise since you have plenty of time. His responses are short and specific, not a word more or less from what’s necessary. His eyes make their way to you once in a few minutes and the rest of the time, they’re on his laptop screen. There are so many things you want to talk about, you have so much to share, so much to do. You had plans for tonight, but all he offers you is a short talk. It’s as if you’re not important anymore, as if you’re the third person between him and his drafts, and he’s doing you a favour by not sending you back to your apartment. He’s being distant, it doesn’t surprise you anymore. Half of it is because of his drafts, the other half, his interest. Heeseung is passionate about what he does. Whatever he does, he sacrifices all of him, it’s about catching his interest. You pour yourself another glass, Heeseung asks you a few questions about his work in progress. You realise he’s losing interest in you, little by little. 

You sort of expected yourself to be better after his return, it turns out to be false. You’re still on your living room floor, hands and clothes having stains of reds and blues. You painted the wine bottle from last night. You haven’t got any sleep, the image of Heeseung pops up everytime you close your eyes. It feels like the world is giving you what you had given him long ago— all the pain and insufferable longing, all the reasons that made him believe that he deserved to be abandoned. When you got busy with studies and a job in your last year of university, ignoring Heeseung seemed to be the only way out of your hectic schedules. You had exams, a job to cater too, money was already a problem so you couldn’t afford giving him gifts on all the days they have made for couples. Heeseung used to show up with something new every single day and no matter how pretty it was, a part of you despised him because it made you feel inferior. Leaving Heeseung wasn’t an option, it was your only choice. He was the only thing you had that you could throw away. 

“Can we talk?” Heeseung shows up at your door on a Thursday morning with words that brushed away any traces of sleep in your eyes. It’s eleven, you woke up barely fifteen minutes ago, and you find him at your door; hands empty, no traces of his laptop or notepad. You think you’ve finally become one of his priorities, after all. 

“About what?” 

“Us,” He responded quickly, he came prepared. “I want to talk about us,” And there it is, confrontation knocking at your door. You’ve been waiting for this moment for a while now, for weeks and more, perhaps, and now that it’s in front of you, waiting for you to hold it’s hand and guide it inside, your body freezes under his gaze. It’s a game of push and pull, like a pendulum oscillating between two extremes. You want him to tell someone about you. The thought of you vanishing completely from his world is unbearable. You can’t stand the thought of being a silent tomb in his heart, you don’t want to be an inscription on the first page of his book. You want him to tell the world about you and promise you a forever, but a part of your heart gently reminds you of the impossibility of the kind of love you’re wishing for. It’s not Heeseung who you can’t trust, rather, it’s yourself. You’re scared of your demons. When things get happier, you get anxious because you might ruin it once again. 

“Do you want to come in for coffee?” And here you are again on your couch with mugs and words you’re busy burying inside. The situation feels oddly familiar, your eyes travel to him. There’s a look of dejection in his eyes. 

You join a wellness club a week after, and Heeseung is the first person to know about it. You saw the advertisement when you went to buy fruits two days ago. It didn’t interest you until you walked back home and found yourself in front of your mirror, thinking of what you were and what you’ve become. Your dark circles have grown prominent, your joints ache from the lack of movement. Walks with Heeseung after dinner are the only reason why you wake up everyday and eat your meals. You have your paint brush and wine, you have every reason to not live any longer. If it wasn't for him, you don’t think you would have been breathing at all. You look up the fitness club on Naver, take your time reading through the programmes they’re offering and the pricing. Maybe, this is the change you needed in your life. Not Heeseung, not money, not a job, but some time for yourself. A place to think about yourself and how you are doing, a place to be selfish without being ashamed of it. 

The first few days were nice, you met new people, saw new faces. One new thing in your life, apart from painting. The sessions mainly focus on meditations, you were never the most patient person in the crowd. Some sort of yoga follows before a break, and that is usually the worst part. You would sit on the wooden floor and watch others talk, their laughter and murmurs filling in the hall. It makes you feel like how you used to be in the university— in silence, by yourself. You had conversations with your mind, with your heart. You looked around and saw eyes looking at you. Every second felt like they were talking about you when in reality, the thought of you never crossed their mind. You were no one, despite being popular, it’s ironic, and you hate how the exact same thing started happening in the club. It would have hardly taken you five sessions to give up and get back to your routine of painting, drinking, and sleeping. When Heeseung asked, you excused it as boredom and unsatisfactory. Actually, you have started feeling better ever since Heeseung returned from his impromptu trip. With him next to you most of the day, you feel functional and sane. You feel like you could think again, you decide to get back to cooking your own food instead of ordering take outs or simply sleeping after drinking. You didn’t see the need to attend the wellness classes anymore until a few days before, when they texted about a trip in the groupchat. You tell Heeseung about it, he locks himself in his apartment for the following days to come. 

You don’t know how or why he made that decision. You spend hours everyday thinking about all the probable reasons, only to end up with nothing. After three days of consideration, you land onto the conclusion that you take too much of his time. It makes sense, of course, he’s busy, he’s working, he has a job, even if it’s basically sitting into his room all day and typing. You, on the other hand, don’t have anything. You have your issues that you project onto people, you have problems you try to ignore, you have indecisiveness and can’t decide what you actually want. You spend too much of your time thinking about if onlys and begging God for last chances. Days pass by without him, alcohol becomes your only solace. The voices in your head remind you of the consequences of your actions. They scream about the mistakes you make, laugh at your actions. They recite tales of how you tend to ruin the person you like, how you’re a parasite and Heeseung is a host, and how you feed on his blood to keep yourself alive. You wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, you feel like wanting to scratch off your skin. At times, you want to run to Heeseung and profess your love to him, tell him how much you want him, how much you need him. You have always been aware of your feelings, of what you wanted, but deep down, you’re afraid that you might be a worthless person after all. And now, you are the worthless person who is trapped in their own empty life. 

You want to try living your life as a different person. A life where you’re not you, and all the things you have now aren’t yours, good or bad. An alternate reality where Heeseung isn’t someone you meet at your lowest, where he isn’t just a use and throw to you. You want to go to a place where nobody knows you and live as if you have no history at all, you want to know how it feels to live without having people expect something from you. A life where running away isn’t the only thing you’re good at. You haven’t talked to Heeseung in five days and you're already on the way to his apartment from the supermarket after getting some fruits. Perhaps, you just want to live a life where his presence and absence wouldn’t mean so much to you, where it wouldn’t cost you your life and pride. 

When Heeseung opens his door and invites you inside without asking any questions, you realise he has been expecting you anyway. Heeseung gets back to writing, you’re left alone in silence yet again. You envy Heeseung. As a writer, he has an inclination to step inside someone else’s shoes, to get under their skin and see the world through their eyes. It’s a blessing, you think, to be able to live as a thousand different characters and experience a thousand different emotions, to be able to express them so beautifully in words and actions. If you were him, you’d live as a different person everyday, in a skin that makes you feel comfortable. You could be a pianist pretending to be nervous, or a ballerina with her broken shoes. When Heeseung doesn’t say anything for the next few minutes, you pick up an apple from the grocery bag in your hand and enter his kitchen to grab a peeler. It’s an old tradition between you two, to say things with actions instead of words, to hug each other when sad, to offer fruits when you’re in pain, to sit in silence when you are sorry. 

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” You say abruptly, letting words fall off your lips without control. Heeseung’s hands stop in the midst of typing, hovering over his laptop. When the sound of keys stops, the air starts feeling emptier and heavier than ever, sending a wave of shiver down your spine. 

“What?” A soft gasp, a voice of disbelief. “Why didn’t you tell me any time sooner?” 

“Well, I am telling you now,” 

“The night before you’re leaving,” 

“I would’ve told you sooner if you could take a break from whatever you’re writing,” A pause. You look at him, his shifts ghosts your sight and falls upon the apple in your hand. You’re looking at the document displaying on the screen, your eyes fall back on the fruit in your hand just a few seconds later. You wish for Heeseung to be more open with you, to yearn for you the way you do for him, to want so much that every moment without you feels like death’s hands around his throat. Maybe, he already does, maybe he wants to but couldn’t because the fear of you leaving yet again is eating him from inside. You have given him all the reasons to doubt himself and you as well, every reason to think thrice before knocking your door. Writing is an escape, you know he has his own problems, after all, how many times did someone pick and pen or and paint brush when they couldn’t pull the trigger? 

“When will you return?” He asks, a little unsure of the question, if he should even ask you. 

“One month,” And you respond, peeling the apples between your words. “It’s a paid trip from the wellness club I joined, some sort of detox, so I don’t think we’d get to talk much either,” Your thoughts aren’t sane, they’re all over the place, everywhere. It’s hard to walk, harder to crawl, it feels like you’re standing in a deep pit, the way out is in front of you but you don’t know how to reach up there. Calling it a detox sounds stupid, but you know you need it, it’s for you, for him, and for whatever the two of you are becoming. 

“It’s alright,” Liar. “It’s just one month,” 

Before you know it, you’re in his arms and you’re hugging him back. Perhaps, you missed the embrace, the warmth of loving and being loved. “Just one month,”

“I love you,” He smiles against your ear, arms pulling you closer. You’re stepping into happiness for the first time in months, you’re reminded of its previous betrayal. And you realise that the person you’ve been yearning for is the one you should step away from. 

V. Should you get back with your ex?

It’s been five years since Heeseung has heard from you. He has been waiting, but he doesn’t have time to sit back in his apartment while putting everything aside. He has been keeping himself busy with drafts and publishing, lost amidst plots and characters he created, living in a whole another universe as an escape from reality. It all makes him sound crazy, or rather, like someone who has been through severe grief. But, Heeseung has been busy thinking about all the new genres he can try and every single thing that he can include in his writing because no one can stop him, and his imagination means no bounds. After all, Lee Heeseung, after five years of waiting and working, has finally published his most awaited work. 

Heeseung isn’t used to distances. They drift people apart, as they once did the two of you, but he didn’t mind anything when it came to you. You were going to return within a month either way, and thus, he found solace in texts and calls while waiting for the days to pass. You’d send him pictures of the city while he’d forward you an image file of another blank document. For days, you both texted restlessly, between meetings, during meals, while taking a walk, before and after bed, it was as if you had returned all the way back to how your life was in university. On days you couldn’t make time to call him due to your busy schedule, he would leave voice notes regarding every single thing he has been up to. It was a small step towards forgetting the past since neither of you tried to talk about it. It was more of an attempt at ignoring your past mistakes and moving on, taking a mental note to not repeat them again. While the need to talk things out bugged both of you every night, you were just fine with whatever the two of you had at the moment. 

Things had started off good, but the two of you started hearing less of each other. His busy schedule or your lack of internet could be blamed. You really needed some time to yourself and it seemed to be the perfect excuse to not text him first, or even back. Days morphed into weeks, weeks into months, Heeseung was finished with the first draft for his next book. That was for you but Heeseung, again, isn’t used to distances. You would see his texts on the top of your notification bar, holding onto a fragile ray of hope that he’ll hear from you anytime soon. You’d see his missed calls, voice notes, emails, direct messages on social media, even a letter he sent once. You could feel guilt pool inside of you, realising that once again, you’re being the one to draw a line, to create distance and while you promised that they wouldn’t affect you both this time ‘round, you’re the very reason why they keep on increasing. But, Heeseung is good at these things, hoping, holding, waiting; he’s good at sad things. Perhaps, it’s just another thing he has come to learn because of you. 

When you didn’t contact him for another two months, he started reaching out to your friends and family. He called your friends and his friends, his family, even. It was like he was in a forest with a lantern, looking for treasure, and the flame went out. 

He used to think he could go a day without your presence. Without telling you things and hearing your voice back. Then, a day arrived when he found himself struggling to feel your presence but the next was harder. He knew with a sinking feeling it was going to get worse, and it wasn’t going to be okay for a very long time. 

Losing you wasn’t an occasion or an event. It didn’t happen once and instead, happened over and over again. Heeseung loses you every time he picks up your favourite coffee mug, whenever that one song plays on the radio, when he unconsciously scrolls all the down to the bottom of his messaging app, coming across your contact. He loses you every time he thinks of kissing you, holding you, or wanting you. He goes to bed and loses you, when he wishes he could tell you about his day and everything that he has planned for the future; and in the morning, when he wakes up and reaches for the empty space across the sheets— Heeseung begins to lose you all over again. 

“What inspired you to write this book?” And now, he’s sitting at his book launch event, a faint smile on his face, a good of pride gleaming in his eyes. Through the years, Heeseung has released short stories and poems; poems that he wrote while looking out of his window at every flight that flies by, hoping you’d arrive one day, while sitting outside next to your apartment late at night, while drinking your favourite wine knowing you would’ve had the whole bottle to yourself if you were to join him. Heeseung would sit on the cold tiles of his living room and let his mind paint a picture of you. The image of you in his mind is blurry, but he feels every emotion you gave him to this day. 

“A friend, my neighbour,” His smile grows wider, a little more filled with sorrow, yearing oozing through the cracks of his skin. “My ex-girlfriend,” Calling you his ex doesn’t seem right since the two of you never broke up. You need to be in a relationship to break up, and Heeseung and you weren’t anything. 

His first poetry work, ‘Red Wine,’ was written in the first few weeks after you stopped contacting him. Those were some of Heeseung’s worst days of life, days he felt like doing nothing except lying down and staying still until his systems gave up due to the lack of movement. He has written about you drinking red wine on the floor just like you do, and on the other side it’s him, cold and bleeding. You’re looking at him— he pictures you as such, and you continue to sip on your wine, watching him bleed. Is there a possibility of you and I? Heeseung wouldn’t know, for you enjoyed your red wine while his blood pooled around your legs, and you wouldn’t flinch because you wouldn’t know if it’s blood or wine unless you taste it, and you wouldn’t know if he’s hurting for you’re too busy dwelling in your own mind.   

“Did you get back with her? Is that why the book is named ‘How to get back with your ex’?” Heeseung thinks the question is rhetoric. Anyone can tell if he and you are together or not after reading the book. Few seconds pass in silence, it’s not the question he’s running from, but the answer that lies around. Heeseung doesn’t know if there was ever a point when you considered taking him back into your life with labels, just as how it used to be back in university. You waited for him at odd hours but never admitted to missing him. He confessed, you never gave an answer, but you kissed him as if he was a part of you that went missing centuries ago. Your touch bled with yearning, love rolled down your cheeks, and you never accepted your feelings. You’re not his lover, he likes to keep you as his favourite incomplete fish. 

“No, actually, we’re not in touch anymore,” Heeseung isn’t familiar with loss. He doesn't have a lot to offer, not at all. Lee Heeseung, in fact, doesn't have anything to give or lose, his hands are empty. He has a mediocre job that he resigned from over a mediocre reason, and a mediocre life, a mediocre apartment with some mediocre flowers in the mediocre vase a friend gave him as a congratulatory gift on graduation day. He has the same mediocre thoughts and books, tropes and genres, no new thought in a while; Heeseung, actually, has more to accept than to lose. 

To think, he has always been on the receiving end of life. 

The first month was the hardest. He started hearing less of you, and then none. Losing you, it was like experiencing withdrawal symptoms. Heeseung would pace around, hours on empty, looking obsessively at his phone to catch a hint of you, just one text, one missed call, anything. His editor continued to call him, even show up at his place, telling him to write, to do his job, but words don’t flow when you’re not around, and the thought of you pains his heart inexplicably. He knows he’s always talking about second chances, how there is always a second shot at things that slipped out of your hands. The day you cut off all contact with him, Heeseung realised that it was probably his last chance with you. He cried the first time the news of Bus M4107 crash on its way back to Incheon. He ran back to his apartment, avoiding getting hit by a lorry only by a few minutes, vision getting blurry as his mind started coming up with all the worst scenarios possible. Heeseung went through all his contacts, looking for names familiar to the two of you and begged them to try to get in touch with you. He spent hours looking at his phone, his eyes were like a searchlight. How they looked at the sky with such longing, how they always turned towards the door hoping you’d walk in any moment. Heeseung doesn’t care if you’re with him, he doesn’t mind seeing you across the street while pretending to be strangers. He doesn’t mind not being able to hold you. Even after all these years, even when he’s Korea’s bestselling author, even when he has everything he has ever dreamt for, his life has voids that remind him of you, but it’s fine. Things were fine, you left him one Sunday morning with his cup half empty. It was supposed to be just a month, but five years later, Heeseung pads around his apartment following your presence that still lingers around. Outside, the rain is already falling, there are still pieces of you behind every door, he can live just fine. He can live knowing you’re here, in this world with him, amidst the eight billion people. It’s better than accepting the fact that you’ve left him alone, forever. 

Fifth month was a little easier, Heeseung published his first short story. He was doing good, and had work to stop himself from thinking of you. Friends and family kept him busy, book signing events occupied most of his days. You didn’t leave his mind, you just started residing less. He thought of it as a routine— every morning, you’d leave his mind as his schedules began. He pictures you floating over the city, over the busy markets and sublime lakesides. You visit sometime in between, when he’s resting on his bed or enjoying his tea. You walk back in and tell him about everything you’ve seen. You talk about the balloons stuck in the tree, about the girl running behind her school bus, and then you leave again and he sits to write. You walk down the streets through the sunset, the fragrance of sea-food spinning in the air. There’s a couple on their first date, a group of friends taking pictures outside a hotpot restaurant, a wife waiting for her husband, a mother picking up her son, a family going shopping, and then you’d come back right before he’s going to bed. You’d tell Heeseung about them, your voice ringing in his ears. You kiss him goodnight, he goes to sleep, your thoughts are like a lullaby. And the next morning, the cycle repeats again.

Around the twelfth month, Heeseung found himself at his lowest. It had been a year since you left, a year since you disappeared off the face of earth with no trace of you even after investigation. The case was closed, Heeseung felt the ghost of you leaving his mind bit by bit. Your empty apartment had been sold off to a woman in her forties, he didn’t like the idea of someone else occupying the place that had once belonged to you. In his mind, you still live there, and you still spend your days lying on the living room floor with wine. The renovation began soon after, Heeseung found himself standing in the living room of your apartment. With every inch of wall painted, the absence of you caved in on him closer. Every inch of brush stroke on the wall covered the evidence of your existence, painting white over the pieces of you that you left behind the closed doors. It felt like a sign to move on, as if the world was forgetting you and so, Heeseung was supposed to do the same. It boils his blood to this day, his heart aches inexplicably. The universe knows you as someone who disappeared off the face of Earth, it doesn’t know you like Heeseung does. It doesn’t know the impact you have on his life, it’s unaware of the little things you did that changed his view about things. People are moving on, the media forgot about all the people who died in the accident. He doesn’t understand how everyone continued with their lives as if nothing ever happened. Twelfth month was the hardest for Heeseung. Disappearing memories of you from his mind froze his mind, he wanted to die, if it meant he could see you again. 

You see, getting back your ex isn’t always about the romantic feelings you had for each other. You can be friends with your ex, or neighbours, co-workers, and it would still mean you got back with them, because getting back together means putting the past behind and working together to help each other become a better version of themselves. Isn’t that what we do even when we start dating our exes; being better than how you were with them in the past, not repeating the mistakes that drifted you apart in the first place? Heeseung doesn’t mind getting back with you even if you’re a stranger he sees at the supermarket. It’s fine even if you’re someone he sees once a week at the subway. If there is even a little chance that you’re here, Heeseung is okay living with just a glimpse of you. He has waited five years, he will wait for fifty more. 

“Do you still love her?” A journalist raises the question, and Heeseung could ask himself the same thing over and over again, always ending up with the same answer: he doesn’t know. Saying that he does would be an overstatement because Heeseung doesn’t know where his heart lies, and denying it would be a blatant lie. So, instead, he likes to think of you as just someone who came into his life and lost her way out of it. 

Just someone who he met one night by the bar, someone he warmed up to so quickly that every single neuron in his body went off with alarms, alerting him of all the possible consequences about how this would take a tragic turn. It happened like this : he met you, and for some reason, he felt more connected to a stranger than anyone else— closer to you than his closest family. Someone who taught him what loneliness is because before you, Heeseung was used to doing things alone, on his own. Someone who made him rethink every life decision, someone who, he knew, would turn his life upside down, and still he let you do it. You were someone he spent his happiest days crying about and saddest moments reminiscing over. Heeseung gave you love, and in return, you gave him an insight on life, an important lesson, and an answer to all his whys and hows. Your love was soft and tacit with all hands and lips and hearts in tandem. It was like a storm and he was walking into it straight. Heeseung is an explorer, you were a traveller. You both met at the intersection, the lights went red, the world stopped for a brief second. He saw love in your smile, he wishes he could see more of it. But you had a plane to catch and Heeseung, he was already home. 

Dedicated to my ex-girlfriend, the one I didn’t expect to meet after years of trying to move on, one who left and came back as if nothing ever happened and turned my life upside down. I think it was obvious that this was about you anyway. I hope you are happy, wherever you are. I hope you’re still here. Thank you for being someone I could rely upon, for being my muse, for being my one and only love. 

—

Thank you for reading, ‘How to get back with your ex’.

[deripmaver]

Which is worse, rape or murder? - Or, should Casca have died during the Eclipse?

Unlike most of my meta posts, this is one I'm making as a direct critique of a specific take I've seen. It's similar to my meta about apostle Casca in that regard, where I want to look at a specific idea and why I dislike it, as opposed to wanting to explore my thoughts on an aspect of canon. To be clear, this is only something I do if I've seen a take a bunch of times, enough so I know it's not a one-off. It's also not something I do because I want to engage in discussion with the people who've said whatever the take is, it's something I do in case other people who agree with me might be interested in a meta post that's more in line with their viewpoint.

I provide this disclaimer because, as I've said a few times now, the idea that it's the better choice to have Casca die during the eclipse is one that I just really dislike, and I make that preeeeetty fuckin clear. I can't control who sees this or who comments, but I did think I should make my stance explicit.

Berserk fandom is an absolute treasure trove of bad takes about rape and sexual assault. Considering the seriousness with which the manga takes rape, despite it's sometimes quite dodgy framing and portrayal, the fact that the fandom is Like That is fully a testament to cishet men's inability to consume media without turning into a brainless amoeba of toxicity.

I have to say, though, what shocked me the most was that this particular take, that Casca should have just died during the eclipse, was not from the dudebro side of fandom ('cause if she had they couldn't make their silly little "casca enjoyed it" jokes).

I'm coming right out of the gate with my opinion, which is a firm no, Casca should not have died during the eclipse, and the story would be weaker if she had. I'm going to presume during this analysis that the people who say this assume that her death would be instead of her rape, as opposed to her being raped and then dying, which would be... Horrific. Even more horrific than canon, lol.

I do have sympathy for some of the people who wish she had died, and in a way I understand, though I vehemently disagree. Some of the posts with this POV sound almost traumatized as they proclaim I wish she would have died, it would have been better. As this is something I've only noticed in the tumblr fandom side of things, where most people are women, I think this comes from women readers feeling furious and sick about one of the most vile rape scenes out there. In some ways its intentionally vile, in others - ie how grotesquely sexualized it is - it's unintentional. Then, of course, she continues to suffer in her disabled, infantilized trauma state. I hear these readers wanting to shout at Miura that he should have just killed her off rather than force her, and us, through reading that. It would have been kinder.

I have... Far less sympathy for others. There's a side of fandom that simply does not care about Casca (in a different way than the dudebros who don't care about her despite gushing about how she's peak tomboy waifu). It's amazing the veneer of progressivism these people put on as they say that Casca should have died, because she did not contribute to the narrative before the eclipse, and she certainly hasn't after. Going to get even spicier for a second and point out fandom's long history of wanting female characters dead because they get in the way of mlm ships, and how I think this is SOMETIMES simply another manifestation of it.

To be fully fucking clear, I do NOT think that being a grffgts shipper (censored so this doesn't show up in the tag LOLLLLL) precludes being shitty about Casca. I think tumblr's demographics, and those demographics' typical shipping preferences, mean that grffgts is naturally going to dominate. By simple statistics, most of the people whose opinions I hate are going to be grffgts shippers. Same with most of the people's opinions I like on tumblr tbh. I do, however, think it's prudent to point out old school fandom misogyny, and how I personally feel it's showing up in the fandom, and also point out that it pisses me off that Casca dying during the eclipse is at all presented as the least misogynistic outcome.

I'm also going to say now that this is firmly being kept in the realm of fiction. In real life, there are horrific discussions about how being a victim of rape defiles you for life, and that it's better to die without the "shame" of being raped than live with it. While I have to be blunt it's difficult for me to separate some of the discussion of Casca dying during the eclipse from that anti-survivor bias I see in real life just because ~we live in a society~, I in general think this sentiment is coming from a place of simply analyzing, narratively, which outcome is less misogynistic given how the rape in canon is portrayed.

Would it narratively have been better for Casca to have died? What about the impact of her death versus her current storyline?

First, I think I need to outline my interpretation of the eclipse rape. I don't think that the decision to have Griffith rape Casca was Miura simply being a misogynistic cishet dude who threw in rape for the hell of it. I also don't think it's OOC. Again, there's much to critique in how it's drawn, but not in the fact that it happened. Griffith, in his moments of feeling out of control and powerless, uses sexual advances to reassert his control over the situation - see Charlotte, or the wagon scene with Casca. A distaste for sexual violence committed by his enemies doesn't mean Griffith is incapable of wielding sexual violence as a weapon himself. In real life, there's a paradox where rape committed by political or social enemies is seen as the worst crime one could ever commit, while the mundane rape committed as a consequence of patriarchy is excusable and the victims should be blamed and shamed. Did Miura have the gender studies acumen to think about that when writing? I dunno, but neither does anyone who thinks he didn't.

I also think it's supposed to establish his actions during the eclipse as fully over the moral event horizon. Without it, it's easy to ask if ultimately, Griffith's decision to sacrifice his followers to a cruel death is justified to create a perfect utopia. With it, it establishes Griffith as acting fully on cruel, malicious impulse in moments of emotional turmoil, which puts his future utopia in jeopardy. I can't be the only one who sees Falconia as a ticking time bomb. Of course, this doesn't mean he needed to rape Casca, but simply that I think it was necessary to his character to do something that crossed that moral line. He could have raped Guts I suppose. Killerbambi has entered the chat.

While I think this might sound strange, I actually think it's immensely validating to have a character who is a victim not just of rape, but of rape committed by someone she already knew. That's genuinely unique in media on the whole, which plays into that paradox I mentioned earlier - in real life, the vast majority of assaults are committed by someone the victim knew. Having the story surround the continual, horrific trauma of betrayal, of having to watch the person who hurt you move on while trauma keeps you in horrible stasis is almost so realistic it's... uncomfortable. Painful. Hard to read.

There's no greater purpose to what happened to Casca. She didn't grow from it, instead she regressed.

Her general lack of agency post-eclipse is much critiqued in the fandom and like. Fucking yeah fair LOLLLLLL BUT ALSO... But also. Fandom on the whole can be so cruel about traumatized female characters, like there's no way they can do trauma "right." In Casca's case, her lack of agency is turned into a reason she should simply have been killed off instead, as though there aren't so many survivors who, while not as literally as she does, retreat into a shell of themselves and are frozen with trauma as the world begins to pass them by. Of course, the critique would be that she's not a real person, she's a female character written in a misogynistic way by a man, but I personally think this overstates Miura's issues with his portrayal of rape. To me, it presents what they think are his biases as justification for their own biases.

Time and time again, I see survivors discuss feeling validated by Casca's trauma response after being assaulted. Even the parts of the rape scene that I vehemently dislike, such as the hyper-focus on Casca's body and the physical reactions she's having, I've seen more than one person say they felt validated because they too had an unwanted arousal response during an assault. I'll still critique the scene, but regardless of if this was Miura's intention, its impact is clear.

I'll again plug this article by Jackson P. Brown, How Berserk’s Casca challenges the myth of the “Strong Black Woman.” Just to show a quote from it:

All of the action of the story after Conviction Arc is in service of restoring Casca's mind. During Conviction Arc and after, Casca has groups of women who love and protect her, with women as her source of safety. Guts is single mindedly focused on bringing her back, putting his body on the line again and again to protect her and restore her. I wondered about including Guts here because I'm sure I'll get some anon about the Beast of Darkness, which again fair LOL. I have complicated feelings on that, but mostly I think the importance the narrative puts on her mind and her protection is touching, and I think this outweighs how the negative things apparently mean that she should have died.

Her story and trauma, despite its flaws, is shockingly realistic and validating to so many people. She's also a key narrative component post-eclipse, and not just ~for Guts' manpain~ or as a helpless plot device, her story is her own. I've written about Elaine as a character and what she represents, but in brief, Casca doesn't disappear after the eclipse. Miura wrote Elaine with these moments where Casca comes to the surface, and while I wish we had more of her POV I think you can look at how she's coping from how Elaine reacts to the world around her.

I also think it's necessary to have Casca at the Hill of Swords. There's Guts, who Griffith torments in the way only a bitter ex can, and Rickert, who doesn't know what happened the day of the eclipse, but I think Casca is the key component in that scene that cuts through all of Griffith's posturing and Guts' anger. She is there, making the real, human cost of what Griffith did during the eclipse unignorable in a way that no other character could. It's one thing for Guts to be furious with him and Rickert ignorant, it's another to have someone who loved him so innocently and dearly trembling just at the sight of him. Let's not pretend that the depth of betrayal in this scene would be the same if you swapped her for, say, Judeau.

It's funny, Miura is quoted as saying that his initial reason for keeping Casca alive was to provide Guts an ever-burning flame of vengeance, an eternal reminder of everything that he lost during the eclipse. What's wound up happening, on a meta level, is that Casca provides the reader a constant reminder of what happened during the eclipse. As more and more focus is given to her PTSD with her revival, the cruelty with which Griffith acted (and continues to act) becomes harder and harder to ignore. It becomes more difficult to push it aside as just bad, misogynistic writing.

And also, quite simply, I like narratives about trauma recovery, and therefore I'll always find Casca's story worth telling despite my frustration with a lot of it. It's absolutely wild to me that for how often I see the fandom complain about her being "fridged" they think it would have been better to see her ACTUALLY fridged, no chance of coming back at all, just dead to fuel Guts' revenge arc. Would it really be better to have her be just another dead girlfriend? Really?

That's really what it comes down to. I like Casca as a character, and I want her to have lived. The people who wish she had died, many of them simply don't like her as a character. Not all, particularly in that first group I mentioned at the start, but many. Everyone has their preferences of course, but I don't think I need to respect when someone thinks a character has so little influence on the narrative that they should have just died, especially if that character is Casca.

If Casca had died during the eclipse, it would not have been a good death. It would not have been brave, or triumphant, or worth anything for her as a character. Judeau died to protect Casca, but even his death was not brave, it was just sad. That's the whole point of the eclipse.

To have Casca die that way would be a disservice to her as a character, far moreso than to have her struggle on as a traumatized victim of sexual violence. That's genuinely what I believe.

[mixelation]

i thought about replying to this post, but then decided it'd be better to make my own. tl;dr OP states that they don't mind a lot types of comments AO3 writers commonly complain about and then calls for writers to read their comments in good faith. i was going to just scroll by this as it seemed to be presented as "this is my personal preference," but then OP calls for more writers to share their feelings. so i thought it might help to explain why i personally don't like certain types of comments

first, OP brings up pointing out typos multiple times. i absolutely despise having typos pointed out, although personally i don't know any other writers who care too much. i delete comments that just point out typos with no other commentary, and the fact that i don't delete comments with actual comments AND a typo pointed out is mostly because the idea makes me feel bad for the commenter. my personal hatred for the typo comments is linked more to being bullied for being dyslexic than anything else, but i do think a list of typos with nothing else is a pretty rude comment, and it ties into why giving unsolicited "constructive criticism" is, imho, rude or at the very least largely annoying

a lot of people say unsolicited concrit is bad because "fic is free." this isn't the reason. it's still rude to personally contact a writer with your criticisms even if you paid for it (assuming you didn't, you know, commission it or otherwise have a right to give such feedback). it's because concrit is essentially useless unless the person providing it understands the goals of the writer and wants to help the writer to those goals. on ao3, the writer's goal might have been to write a little story in one sitting. it might have been to write something hyper self-indulgent and so niche that it makes no sense to any other human being. the writer's goal might not be anything that would necessitate concrit at all. and, no offense, but most "constructive criticism" from random people on the internet is just "you didn't write the story i personally wanted to read" rather than anything that has to do with the story itself. on top of that, when i give people stuff for spelling and grammar, a stunning percentage of the time, people make "corrections" which are simply unnecessary or flat out incorrect. you are not a copy editor, and unless the writer asked in their notes, they have not asked you to edit. don't do it.

also, when you point out typos, there's an implied assumption you expect the writer to fix them. otherwise, why point them out? and the writer has no obligation to do things for you

other types of comments in the post:

‘I don’t usually like this ship but this fic made me feel something’ - I don't personally mind this one unless the tone is REALLY hostile to whatever ship (or trope, or character, or whatever). The reason why this one is often construed as rude is that the writer presumably is a fan of the ship, since they're writing about it. If you criticize other fics about the ship, then you might be criticizing things the author really enjoys. I think tone is a big factor here; this genre of comment can get way more hostile than OP's example.

‘looking forward to the next update’ / ‘I hope you update soon!’ - The wording of both of these is mild, but keep in mind writers with lots of fics have likely fielded a decent number of "update now you [slur]" comments. Also this is inappropriate to say on a fic marked completed (surprisingly common!). My experience on AO3 is that the really aggressive "update now!!" comments are fewer than they used to be and fewer than on FFN, but a lot of writers are still made tired by them. I'd suggest saying something more like "I'm excited to see where this goes" and make sure the fic isn't complete.

‘I love this fic but I’m curious about why you made [x] choice’ - I don't think most writers would mind this one, actually. Usually writers like it when you ask them questions about their work. If I gave any commentary, I'd be a bit careful about tone again-- if you just write "why'd you do [x]" with nothing else, it could come off abrasive or like you think the choice was bad.

i do agree with OP's contention that one's experience as a writer on AO3 will improve if they engage comments in good faith. i disagree with the idea that reading in good faith means every type of comment below outright harassment is appropriate or not annoying. i do not think reading in good faith and just accepting anything anyone says to you are the same. i also don't really believe that writers complaining about annoying comments is creating a comment scarcity, mostly because i don't believe in the purported comment crisis everyone is upset about, and also because i know there were entire LJ communities dedicated to asshole comments. it's not really new.

[razrogue]

thanks to you (Astarion & Tav)

Read on AO3

Summary: A simple visit to a vendor sparked something bigger than he could have ever expected…

Astarion couldn’t recall as a spawn or from his previous life, having anyone on his side that looked after him. Took care of him. Believed in him when others doubted. Gan had been honest about what they wanted even when he hadn’t been so forthright. Even when he was set in his old instinctive ways and trying to keep up his mask, they just chipped away at it at every turn. Many nights they'd walk off from camp, talking about whatever. It was superficial at first, he played the cards he knew. Smile, flirt, seduce, manipulate, it was all familiar for him. Over time though, his usual tactics began failing him. The fractures continued and the facade began to fall away. Then they reached Moonrise and it all seemed like it was ready to come down at last.

She’d introduced herself as Araj Oblodra, trader in the sanguineous arts. A bit over the top he thought to himself but nothing wrong with a little flair. As she chatted away with Gan, he’d noticed her eyes kept darting over to him while they talked stock and potions. Gan noticed it too and finally asked what was her deal.

“You haven't stopped looking at my companion since we walked up,” Gan replied, mildly annoyed.  The trader finally spoke up about her sideways glances.

“Perhaps we could discuss your friend. He’s a vampire, no? A spawn perhaps?”

Astarion swiftly threw up his hands innocuously, "Oh don't worry, we're all friends under the Absolute. I won’t bite."

“Oh but I’d prefer if you did. I assume he belongs to you, no?”

Gan glimpsed over at Astarion before answering, barely masking their disdain, “...he’s his own person.”

Araj clapped as if she'd been told a cute joke, “How utterly adorable. You actually let him believe that.”

The audacity of this lady knew no bounds. Gan sensed Gale moving a little closer to them, ready to diffuse if things got a little heated. She proceeded to address him, “do you have a name, spawn?”

“Astarion, b-bb-but wait…”  He leaned back. The tension was becoming thick and unnerving, he should have just walked away.

“Good. Now Astarion, I’ve dreamt of being bitten by a vampire since I was a young girl.”

"I’m sorry, what? You want to be bitten?? Actually bitten???" In most situations, people were afraid of that happening and here she was lusting for it.

“To feel your life’s blood slipping away? To dance on the edge between life and death?” The drow closed her eyes as she uttered a barely perceptible moan.

“Yes, I want it. Your efforts won’t go in vain. I can provide you with a potion of legendary power.” Araj crossed her arms as if she was putting up her best and final bartering offer.

“It’s not for sale. I will only part with it if you bite me.”

His response was prompt, though not the one she wanted, "I will have to decline."

“Excuse me?? This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and you’re squandering it.”

His tadpole reached out for Gan’s, teasing at the edges of their mind, the sensation quickly building from uneasy to disgusted.

"I gave you my answer," he huffed with finality.

Astarion watched as the vendor ignored him and continued prodding Gan to make him comply with her request. As the minutes passed, a sinking feeling began weighing on him. He was sure he'd just have to work his way through it for all of their sake. Having traveled with Gan for many weeks now, knowing that they hardly ever hesitated when it came to their own wants and needs, he didn't expect what unfolded in that moment. Gan tilted their head at Araj, listening to the drow sulk about Astarion not fulfilling her wish, speaking about him as if he was a thing for her to play with. Astarion had said no. Gan had backed him up. The vendor had ignored them both. He watched as Gan began closing the distance between them. Araj, still prattling on, was oblivious to the small rogue's motions as she approached. He watched in shock as Araj abruptly quieted, eyes widening a bit in terror as she stared at the hooded elf. The drow slowly stepped back and crashed into the table behind her. Bottles and flasks tumbled over and she took the moment to turn around and attend to the mess. Astarion quickly composed himself before Gan turned around to the party and motioned for them to depart. 

Leaving the tower, they had a small trek to get back to Last Light Inn. It gave him time to ponder what had happened and why it'd affected him so much. Almost any other time, he would just check out but he didn't. When he was about to slip back into that darkness, they'd kept him out. Astarion wasn't exactly sure why it touched him in such a way. They didn't really do anything amazing. Not like he’d been swept off his feet. No grand gesture or anything. No sweeping declarations of love which the thought of made him queasy to be honest. They just stood up for him. Didn't walk away when he'd needed them most. And he thought to himself they had a habit of doing that. Whether it was someone by his side, a bandage for his wounds, dining together , or just a good laugh, they'd been there. It was all quite frustrating honestly. No one helped worms like him. Not when there was gold to be had and least of all when they gained nothing in return. Even though their first meeting was by dagger, Gan didn't hold it against him. And after they'd told him it might be useful to have a vampire by their side, he always knew where he stood with them.

All these thoughts racing through his mind, he found it hard to settle once they were back at the inn. Shadowheart and Gale were perched on stools while Gan played bartender and topped everyone off. Astarion sat over by himself, nursing his wine goblet. Why was he feeling this way? What was this? He knew he wouldn’t be able to rest until he’d given them a piece of his mind. He quickly knocked back the goblet and strode towards the bar, determined to get this off his chest and out of his mind so he could think clearly again.

Astarion sidled up next to Gale, faking interest in whatever the three of them were chatting about. When he saw an opening, he nodded, hoping they’d picked up his signal. Still engaged, he saw their eyes quickly dart towards the side door, not missing a beat in their discussion with Shadowheart. He remained for a little bit longer, teasing Gale and debating Shadowheart until he was able to slip away during a natural lull in their discussion.

He headed towards the small cliff just outside the inn by the lake. It was just outside of Isobel’s protection but the fairy’s blessing still illuminated him so he felt safe enough anyway. Astarion didn’t know how much time had passed but between his thoughts and the gentle lapping of the water, he didn’t notice that Gan had finally joined him.

They stood closely beside him, peering out across the water into the vast darkness in silence. The two of them continued to stand there, hands almost grazing, until Astarion couldn't stand it anymore.

"I think we need to talk."

He'd turned to face them, ready to get this bit of unpleasantness over with. He'd say what he had to say, listen to them laugh him off, then all of this could be behind them.

Astarion was gearing up to deflect their response because surely this was going to be a disaster but he wouldn't let them see him suffer. He wouldn't give them the satisfaction.

Gan turned to face him, sliding their cape hood down, freeing their coppery red coils from their hooded confinement. Astarion gasped quietly to himself. This was going to be tougher than he thought and he was wishing he'd drowned the thoughts out with wine so he didn't have to deal with this. They looked up at him and for a quick second he lost himself in their brown depths, until their voice finally broke through the fog.

"Are you all right?"

He didn't expect this to be easy but hearing them ask about his well being was just another crack among the others in his crumbling facade. It wasn't like they'd never asked him before but maybe with the state he was in, this moment felt like a little more than those times. They weren't fresh out of a battle, everyone looking over themselves to make sure no one was injured seriously. This was close and intimate and Astarion decided he better finish quickly.

"What? Oh yes, I think." 

He closed his eyes briefly. The scrutiny was too much even though all the pressure was from his own imagination. With a quick breath, he continued.

"I just wanted to thank you."

Gan stood quietly for a minute before finally asking, "thank me for…?"

He swallowed over the building knot in his throat.

"When we were in the tower…" Astarion paused, "...that vile drow." Her insistence turned demand, how she disregarded his response then his presence carried shades of things he didn’t like remembering and could never forget. As they all stood there, the moment growing tense, Astarion was moments away from just saying it was fine. He'd just suffer through it like he always did.

"I spent two hundred years using my body to lure pretty things back for my master." Nights in taverns plying fools with alcohol, lacing every honeyed word, sinking hooks into them until they'd found themselves back in the palace, unceremoniously dumped as food for his master.

"I was a slave. My wants didn't matter. I was there to do his bidding. That was my worth." When you have something repeatedly instilled into you, being told you're unworthy, your value is less than the dirt you walked upon, it becomes a persistent thought in your mind. The bravado was all an act. An act that he played well. He knew his place and his role as a plaything for others. Then a late night in an alley in Baldur's Gate changed everything. 

The nerves were getting to him. He fussed with a loose thread on his sleeve, trying to settle them so he could just get through this unfortunate chat.

"You could have asked the same of me. Throw myself at her and get whatever she was offering us. It was probably going to be useful! And we need all the tools we can get..."

Astarion threw his head back. Gods, he just wanted to walk away and drown the rest of his thoughts in the poor excuses for wine inside the inn. He'd go hunting but shadow cursed lands aren't fertile grounds for food. 

"Look, you didn't ask me to do something I didn't want to do. And I'm grateful."

Gan, listened and watched as he went through a battery of emotions, before they finally spoke up again.

"I didn't really do anything. You make your own choices now, Astarion."

That one little statement spoken and his knees felt like they'd buckle beneath him. He was making his own choices. There was no master out here since he walked away from the nautiloid crash. No one compelling him to act and behave however they wanted. It was all him now. These were his decisions to make, for better or for worse.

"This is a novel concept, I must admit. And a little intimidating." He turned back to the water, swallowing his discomfort. They'd given him something to ponder without realizing it. Were these feelings he thought he had really about them? Was this about Gan and him coming to terms with something they may have? Or could this be about the newfound freedom he found himself thrust into? A freedom he was trying to understand because centuries had been spent without it. When you're under an overbearing presence that rules your life and it's suddenly snatched away, how do you navigate without it? How do you move about when that domineering hold is all you know?

Astarion cleared his throat. "Yes well…thank you…truly." 

Gan stood there quietly for a few moments more before finally turning to leave, "You're welcome."

With a quick pat on his back, they set back off towards the building. Before they'd gotten too far, they called back to him, "Astarion?" He turned towards them with a solemn look. 

Gan remarked with a sly smirk, "no one tells my personal attack vampire what to do but me." And with that, Gan walked off, leaving a chuckling Astarion to his thoughts.

[underestimated-heroine]

sure this has been said before and said better, but we get into dicey territory talking about romantic/sexual preferences--or "types"--a lot of the time because...well firstly, the subject is obviously intensely personal, but also because quite frequently what's happening isn't:

someone has a preference/type

they are hated for it.

but instead:

someone has a preference/type

they go around talking about it in inappropriate settings and in ways that are hurtful; badgering people and even "testing" them (ex. demanding to know if they're "bad" for not liking [x])

people are disgusted, hurt by them, wary of them...and well, yeah, maybe hate them (especially when systemic oppression plays such a significant role in influencing one's "type.")

to me the most revealing element of this is the power dynamics that are almost always at play; people only get away with it safely if they're "type"-badgering one way...and it ain't up. it reminds me of a well-spotted maxim i read about here the other day:

I’m especially interested in how people police each other’s reactions, and how the accumulation of that policing at the individual and societal level leads us to start policing our own, with disastrous results. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The “national pastime” in the USA isn’t baseball, it’s debating exactly how much other people are allowed to react to something that hurts and upsets them. There’s almost a formula in play, where, the more power I have (or assume I have) relative to you, the more I expect you to keep your reactions to the things I do to you to a decorous mumble that I can safely ignore without having to change anything about myself (but also, the louder I will yell about how “dramatic” and “over-sensitive” you are). 

women can tell you they absolutely don't safely get away with saying they prefer certain things in men. no matter how carefully or how long they avoid hurting anyone, giving the truth demanded of them will very likely lead to anger, manipulation tactics, and quite possibly abuse and violence.

trans women not being considered "allowed" to be "picky" is a major vehicle of transmisogynistic abuse. this is how and why so many trans women are preyed on by violent men. "they're just grateful for anything, "they'll do anything to please", "nothing's off limits"...these are common fallback lines of the transmysoginistic predator. a trans woman who defies this by rejecting someone for not being her type, no matter how nicely, is in a very scary position.

we hear white people say they're "not into black people" all the time. not only is it much more commonly said and accepted than when black folks say they don't want to date white people, but white people are incredibly eager to condemn black preferences overall, barging in on discussions which are really intracommunal.

and radfems use "type"-badgering to "prove" the "men" (trans women) who get angry and upset at them for doing this are "violent misogynists", that "maleness" is violence, and to indoctrinate each other. stories of the angry reactions their "type"-badgering got, screenshots from lgbtq+ spaces where people "ganged up on them" for saying they don't date trans women (usually they also said something along the lines of "i can tell when they're trans") are passed around in radfem spaces as Evidence that the Shadow of Maleness is infiltrating womanhood and preying on them...

...yet they're the ones invoking the maxim.

and sure enough, they are not going to cishet male-dominated spaces to do so. they are "type"-badgering specifically in queer/trans-inclusive spaces. functionally, it is nothing more than reactionary maintenance of a power structure which benefits them, and a bid to provide depth to the sense/fear of victimhood they've externalized and phenomenalized (this is a big part of why we say just don't engage.)

these are just a few examples, obviously. the last one is a good chunk of the reason i really made this post. because despite the fact that i'm sure most of us feel all this should go without saying, or can be shortened to "don't be an asshole", i really think it's relevant enough to the conversation about transphobia and exclusionism in leftist & queer spaces that it does need to be addressed, and probably more often.

[leadenn]

EVEN MORE MOM TANG SHEN

part four I think I don't fucking know I write I don't do math

Raph follows Shen around like a little duckling, all the boys do when she's home since she's gone most of the day, but Raph is basically her little shadow. She calls him that, she arrives home from work and locks the door behind her and she asks where her little shadow is. Then Raph, upon hearing her voice fucking barrels towards her at high speed and demands he be picked up. Mikey and Leo also demand hugs when she arrives home but Donnie would prefer a little pat on the head when she ccomes home.

She's very much a boy mom not in the weird gross way but as in she just loves her sons and gets dirty and gross playing with them bc they're four boys that live in the sewers eight months of the year. Also, post move into the sewers Shen doubles her budget for hygiene bc she can deal with being the crazy widow recluse lady with a cane but she REFUSES to also smell while being that lady.

The risk of being stinky is the only thing she doesn't like about her family life tho, like she adores her sons.

She spends time with Donnie by helping him learn (he often doesn't need help, but she knows he doesn't want to hurt her feelings by telling her that. Shen finds it very sweet) and reading to him. Tbh some of the books he asks her to get for him are beyond her understanding but anything to make her little genius happy. If he wants to listen to free lectures online about physics? She'll happily listen with him. She never wants him to lose interest in learning or feel embarrassed about his passion for science and learning. Despite their situation, she knows that her boy will do great things.

Leo and her read together, and it's things more within her area. History and literature. Sometimes Mikey joins them, but books are usually a Momma and Leo activity. He also is the most interested in their heritage. She's happy to answer any questions about history or folk tales from their culture, and the way his little eyes light up remind her of Yoshi back when they were kids and Shen would tell him and his disgrace of a "brother" stories from her books. She also notices he likes helping her and Yoshi care for his brothers but she never lets him think that it's his job. She does enjoy watching him play big brother though, it was adorable

Mikey has a giant imagination, and he loves to play pretend. He doesn't need to hear stories, because he prefers to tell them. He makes plays up, he makes little puppets out of things he finds around their home in the sewers, and he puts on shows. He likes books, but Shen thinks he'd be better at writing them than reading them. She's happy to encourage his creativity, and she'll always be his biggest fan. If he wants to write or make art as he grows, Shen will move heaven and earth to show how talented and bright her boy is. How? She doesn't know, but she'll do it.

Raph, her little shadow, is happy doing anything she does. He helps her with chores, he helps her cook, he asks her questions about people and what the surface was like, and despite how much he loved their home and family she could tell he wants more. So Shen and Yoshi did their best to give him everything. He loved ninjutsu, he loved playing with his brothers, he loved the books and movies Shen provided them, but he wanted more. As sweet as her little shadow is, he acted out because he wanted to have more than what was safe. It breaks Shen's heart, but there was nothing she could do to make the world a safe place for her boys. Most days, he's content to be Shen's little shadow and be a good student for Yoshi. Shen knew that this wouldn't go away with age.

Also I think Yoshi would assume Shen no longer loved him or felt attracted to him bc of how he looks and just stayed to help take care of their sons. That isn't the case and it takes several years for Yoshi to really accept that Shen loves him no matter what he looks like.

"Are you still 6'1 and muscular?" Shen asked him, and he stopped cutting the cucumbers for the smashed cucumber salad they were making. He had casually mentioned it being okay if Shen was uncomfortable around him. She had just let out a sigh of annoyance. Yoshi was confused, but nodded in reply. "Then don't worry." She said, leaning over and kissing his cheek.

"I love you." He said, because he felt as if he never said it enough. He didn't save their daughter. He didn't save Shen from getting injured to the point of disability. He was a giant rat. The only thing he's provided her in their marriage that he didn't eventually ruin was their sons. Yet she stayed with him, she loved him, she ran her hands through his fur, she kisses him many times a day, and she melted into his arms when he held her.

"I love you too, Yoshi." She said, leaning over to kiss him. She stopped, and glared at the cutting board. "And if you want me to continue loving you, you'll cut the cucumber slices correctly."

He smiles, and kisses her nose. She pokes his with her finger. He smiles wider.

[xjulixred45x]

Hello!Can I please ask for a request for generator rex with Rex and a male (or gender neutral if you prefer) evo reader jealous of Circe? Male reader thinks he’s not worthy but he’s still very protective of Rex and always stays beside him making sure he’s safe and happy. Thank uuu so much for writing for this fandom btw~

Hello sweety! Thank You for the Request!

Rex Salazar x Male! Evo! Reader who is Jealous of Circe

Genre: Headcanons

Reader: Male

Warnings: Jelousy, insecurity, Fluff.

okay, technically you already knew Circe.

It was hard not to when every time she and Rex were in the same place, Rex would run to her and try to convince her to leave Van Kleiss.

and that's why I don't bother you.

for a while.

At first your own relationship with Rex was somewhat similar, him trying to convince you to join Providence.

and you found it fun in a way, it became a kind of game that you really enjoyed because you honestly didn't trust Providence, but you trusted Rex.

He seems like a good guy after all.

and in a way Rex thought the same about you, an Evo boy who had a lot of potential but seemed to be "wasting" it instead of helping people.

He tried to make you see things from his perspective, but he could never make you trust Providence. But he already assumed it, but he was fine with at least having you as an ally.

and thus a beautiful friendship was born.

Noah may be Rex's "normal" best friend, but you were his Evo best friend. best friend, yes.

For the first time in a long time you had a friend, which made a new side of you awaken, wanting to protect him, if Rex ran into you on a mission, you would make sure he finished it and suffered as little damage as possible.

Rex always wanted to protect you too, but you never gave him the chance, you would always be the one to throw yourself into danger with a smile on your face knowing that your friend would be okay. friend.

Why did this word start to bother you?

Rex would OBVIOUSLY scold you afterwards, especially if you threw yourself in front of some dangerous Evo like the Pack or even Van Kleiss, he is already reckless enough, why would you be reckless too? Youre supose to be the smart one! He says.

It's around these moments that you realize that you see Rex in a different light. and understand WHY referring to him as a friend bothers you.

Damn.

You see him MORE than as a friend.

and you also realize something else.

You don't feel like you can do anything about it.

Rex is a great guy, a great MAN, who constantly helps people and tries to save the EVOS even when the government wants to exterminate them. Even when the world is against him, he is a good person.

and you...you only live your life causing problems and you only started to do something useful when he arrived, but apart from that you don't feel like you are someone...worthy.

But when you see when Rez goes after Circe trying to save her from Van Kleiss.

Circe, the same one who has saved his life on several occasions. a person who does have a chance to live a good life with him.

You're not lying to yourself, you're obviously upset when Rex drops everything to go after Circe, but if you were in her situation you'd do the same thing.

However, you don't realize that Rex himself also begins to see you in a different light.

Only unlike you, he's pretty determined to do something about it.

Rex greatly appreciates your protection, he is used to being the one who protects others, so seeing that you treat him like someone who also deserves that same care warms his heart.

In general, he really likes being able to be a normal teenager around you and being THE SAME with you. Seeing how happy you are with just his happiness gives him a serotonin boost.

He also fell hard.

but at the same time he is dense, he does not realize that his efforts to help Circe can be seen as a further interest, and yes, perhaps at the beginning it was like that, but because of how time has passed and he has met more people , has met you, can tell that Circe doesn't interest him in the same way.

But he wants to help her, he won't let Van Kleiss mess with vulnerable people.

but then he notices that you get bitter every time the topic of Circe comes up.

It's not that you get defensive or anything like that, but that you....shut down so to speak.

and he tries to find out what's wrong with you, but either you change the subject or you simply don't respond, which rather than taking him away from the topic makes him cling more.

It's a day he talks about it with Bobo and Noah that makes the connection.

You are jealous.

LIKE OF HIM-

IN THE SAME WAY HE LIKES YOU!

Very happy.

Rex is quite direct, so as soon as he realizes this, he will go straight to telling you everything that is on his mind. It doesn't matter the answer, you have to say it.

and when you tell him your reasons why you were jealous or insecure, he will be quite confused.

Why would you think that you are not worthy? YOU? NOT BE WORTHY OF LOVE? Partly he can't believe it, because you always seemed confident, but he understands that one can pretend a lot beneath a smiling face.

He assures you that, first of all, Circe is nothing more than a friend who he should help, because she was an important part of his investment in society, but that you should never EVER feel jealous of her, you are you, after everything and he loves you.

(It would be quite ironic if you and Circe became friends after she left with the Evos in Hong Kong, in a quieter environment and with the passage underfoot. Rex doesn't know whether to be relieved or scared).

In general, Rex tries to make the relationship equitable, both protect and take care of each other, both physically and mentally.

Regardless of everything, You two handle it very well.

Thank you for Requesting/Reading❤️

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Before I say anything else I want to be clear about two things.

One, if you don't have the energy to respond to this/don't want it on your blog I totally understand.

Two this really is in good faith. I'm not playing devils advocate and I'm not trying to prove a point or do a gotcha or anything.

In regards to the involuntary treatment for addiction(and for mental health issues in general), I don't entirely see the problem, and I was hoping you (or someone responding to your blog) could explain why it's such a bad idea.

I understand that these systems provide the perfect opportunity for serious abuse, and I also understand that they fundamentally are violating a person's freedoms.

I also understand that harm reduction options, like safe usage sites, are the best way to go, and that we should be putting our energy and resources into those.

But I also know in my own experiences I do not always have my best interests in mind, and sometimes I need someone to make me do the right things for myself.

My mental health has never gotten so bad that I have been institutionalized, so I may just not be fully grasping the depth of the flaws in the institutions, or I may not be properly understanding the state of mind of someone who is institutionalized.

However, it feels like assuming everyone will always make the right choices for themselves in the context of addiction and mental health, which doesn't seem like a responsible assumption to make.

Obviously I'd rather these institutions not have to exist, and instead provide people support before it reaches the point these systems are used, but we are not at that point yet, and it seems to me like involuntarily treatment is important in the interim.

Is this a situation where we should allow people to make a decision destructive to themselves rather than remove their freedom to make that decision? Or am I oversimplifying it?

I really am asking genuinely, and I'm very open to someone changing my mind. I just can't understand the issue at the moment.

Answer by @politicsofcanada:

There are a few reasons why I oppose involuntary commitment/involuntary treatment.

First of all, it doesn't work. Overwhelmingly, being institutionalized against your will does not benefit your mental or physical health. I studied this in college as well as having firsthand experience. The isolation and judgement that come with being institutionalized make people more likely to use substances to cope. Also, it is akin to being sent to jail for being mentally ill (which also happens but I won't get in to that right now). I've been in these places and they are not comforting, welcoming, or supportive environments. The concept of being sent to jail for being mentally ill should be more than enough to make people oppose this.

These places are rife with abuse and mistreatment. Staff are often violent, condescending, and sometimes sexually abusive. Much like the prison system, (because it operates in nearly exactly the same way) people of colour, poor people, and lgbtq+ people are overrepresented in the system. Marginalized people are more likely to experience addiction as a result of alienation from society, and involuntary commitment only makes that sense of alienation worse. Overwhelmingly, the best support one can offer someone experiencing addiction is safe supply, safe consumption sites, and community support.

Community support is far more effective than institutionalization. The only reason people prefer to lock people with addictions away is because its more convenient not to deal with them. Actually caring about people dealing with this means including them in your community, not locking them away.

[bespectacled-bookwyrm]

Some Colress Headcanons!

I saw some posted by @colress-commodore-enterprises and was inspired to write some of my own!

Colress squeaks when he's startled or flustered.

He is the second of three siblings: Lusamine is the eldest, Colress is the middle child, and Darach is the youngest.

Cynthia is his cousin; they get on very well.

Colress has long hair! It's mostly straight, but it does curl a bit at the ends. It falls to around his mid-back, but most people don't know about it because Colress usually ties it into a very low ponytail and stuffs it down the back of his shirt, along with brushing his fringe back.

Contrary to popular belief, his blue loopy is completely natural! Colour AND loop! It's a genetic quirk from his maternal side of the family.

Although absolutely terrible at looking after himself, Colress is absolutely amazing with children.

For whatever reason, Colress seems to trigger an instinctive feeling of safety in children. It's to the point where lost kids will approach him for help rather than the very-visible police officer.

On a particularly memorable occasion, Colress took a nap under the shade of a tree and woke up to being used as a pillow by a bunch of sleepy five-year olds.

Colress has quite the sweet tooth! Although fond of most sweets, his favourites are sherbet lemons.

He has been called a human Delcatty on several occasions. Colress didn’t understand why until Rosa showed him the 'Dex entries for said Pokémon.

He has quite a few scars, some larger than others. They're mostly from his experiments or machine mishaps, but he has a horizontal scar across his throat, courtesy of the Shadow Triad.

He is distressingly good at hiding his problems and/or when he needs help. The most notable instance of this was during his tenure as a scientist for Team Plasma. No one had picked up on the pit of apathy and loathing (directed both inwards and towards Plasma, especially Ghetsis) he had fallen into until Rosa all but kicked down his door and dragged the truth out of him.

He prefers to do the "Forehead Bonk of Love" to show Grimsley affection over kissing. He will, provided he's in the mood for it, but he greatly prefers the Forehead Bonk. Naturally, the Delcatty comparisons increased immensely.

Out of the entirety of Team Plasma, he only got on with (and liked) four of them: Aldith, Barret, Schwarz, and Weiss.

He struck up a delicate bond with Ghetsis' Hydreigon. Said Pokémon is now in his care and is basically a house pet. A very intimidating, very traumatised house pet, but a house pet nonetheless.

To Grimsley’s surprise, despite being abysmal at poker, Colress has a terrifying amount of luck when it comes to games that rely purely on luck. As in, win the roulette five times in a row lucky.

Grimsley jokingly calls him a lucky charm and has managed to coax Colress into joining him as an observer for his poker games in the hopes of his luck rubbing off on him. So far, the evidence is inconclusive.

Colress can't bake to save his life. The only baked good he can make is apple pie, and even then it has a 50-50 chance of going catastrophically wrong.

On the other hand, he is a brilliant cook!

Rosa sees him as a father figure, and he in turn sees her a daughter.

Colress LOVES plants. He's an avid gardener, and an anonymous someone keeps on entering him into gardening competitions. Not that he's complaining TOO much; the winnings provide some nice extra income.

It took a long time for him to stop flinching at the sound of someone walking with a cane.

Although very honest about what he did in Team Plasma, he is incredibly reluctant to reveal his personal experiences working for them. Looker can only assume they weren’t good; that scar along his throat is particularly telling.

Colress is actually a very anxious person; he's just very good at hiding it.

He gets on remarkably well with Looker. They inevitably butt heads over some things, but Colress can easily call the man a friend.

Despite being built like a noodle, Colress is stronger than he looks!

Colress used to babysit Lillie and Gladion for Lusamine, back when they were tiny.

He and Darach get along quite well. It's just that they're both so quiet and introverted that people think they're ignoring each other.

He and Lusamine bicker the most; it's usually friendly ribbing or silly spats, but sometimes things can turn nasty. They still love each other regardless.

Colress hums or quietly sings when he's happy during his work. The Frigate never had the luxury of hearing this.

When he squeaks, Colress can sound remarkably similar to squeaky Pokémon toys. On several occasions, Grimsley and Rosa have had to extract the man from underneath the fluffy excitement of their Houndoom and Arcanine.

He and Schwarz once made an unholy concoction they called "The Insomnia Shot". There's so much caffeine in it that only people with the highest tolerance can drink it, and only out of shot glasses. After being kept awake for four days, crashing, and sleeping for a week, the two vowed to never let its recipe see the light of day again.

I may add more as they occur to me.

They were fun to write, too!