#i need interesting composition lighting fashion an Idea. i need it all

[faneth]

the way pinterest hates fat men

[seramilla]

God I love the idea of velvette & Odette bonding, like Velvette starts to see Odette as a female figure that she could go to whenever she feels lost or confused or she just simply needs comfort that only an older sister can give.

Odette has interests in things that Velvette would have never considered interesting back then but now, they are simply fascinating to her. (Hc:) Odette likes to do photography sometimes in her free time. It’s not professional or commercial but it’s something, that she enjoys—and Velvette finds it so fascinating that something so simple could be so enjoyable, yet she finds it comforting and interesting to watch as Odette takes photo’s of the blinding lights of the other cities in the pride ring or the animals in the wrath ring.

It’s something that’s so simple yet— Velvette doesn’t want to give it up, and she doesn’t want to give this dynamic she’s built up with the carmine family.

Velvette has no shortage of women in the Carmine household to go to when she has trouble. If she's tired, or needs a snuggle, Clara or Kiki will fit that bill nicely. If she needs to talk fashion, or run over some ideas in her head, Verosika is only a few texts away, or down the hall in Odette's room. She's not quite comfortable going to Carmilla and Sera yet. The older couple will often seek her out if they sense she needs an ear, but she's not yet brave enough to set those types of interactions in motion on her own.

Odette, until recently, was simply the...other sister. Not that Velvette had disliked her, mind you; she just never knew how to approach the stoic woman without being awkward about it. Odette is the biggest introvert Velvette thinks she's ever met -- she's trying to get better at not saying the wrong thing, which unfortunately leads to her not saying much at all, and giving the wrong impression that Velvette doesn't care for her.

The one thing Velvette can appreciate about her, she thinks, is Odette's eye for little details. That includes the talent she recently discovered the older Carmine sister has, which is photography; a skill she herself can greatly appreciate, because she's always trying to learn how to get better at posing and lighting her subjects in her studio. Things like that take her a lot of time, effort, and hard work; for Odette, it's almost effortless. Velvette can choose the picture-perfect outfit and put it on the picture-perfect model, but posing and lighting a scene perfectly in a matter of seconds? That's all Odette. It isn't long until Velvette's curiosity gets the better of her, and she nonchalantly tries to start a conversation about it with her girlfriend's sister.

Odette doesn't go looking for the perfect subjects, but finds that candid moments of people and creatures just existing in their lives provide the best results for her. She tells Velvette to see more with her mind, than simply trying to create the best artificial setting for her portfolio. Velvette starts doing more outdoor shoots after this advice, and is less demanding that her models always strike specific poses. She starts letting them do what feels natural, to let art imitate life, instead of trying to force it on them.

Velvette values Odette's advice, even if her work will never have the perfect composition that Odette's has. That's fine with her, though; even the little things can vastly improve the canvas of her work, and for that, her outfits have never looked better on her models, and they've never appeared more natural and life-like in her clothes. She might not be able to admit it to anyone else, but perhaps Velvette has more she can learn from the elder Carmine sister than she once thought. It couldn't hurt to find out more, at any rate.

[inumerable]

Toyin Ojih Odutola - A Countervailing Theory. These shoddy images I took two weeks ago visiting the Hirschorn with Doyun. We had been walking around the National Mall and popping into museums and made it with about 50 minutes to spend between here and the Laurie Anderson retrospective. Honestly, we went to Laurie first and spent too long with her - I need to return for more time with these large chalk and charcoal drawings. They make me want to sing and cry they are so beautiful - 40 drawings in all, depicting a speculative prehistoric narrative of a gender-segregated society in which the Eshu (female warriors) and Koba (male servants) genders may not consort, but two individuals choose to anyway. I love to see the strokes of narration, the graphic-novel style panels at this size, and the dark, overworked musculature turning the figures in heavy patterns. When I was in art school, narrative work was very out of fashion, and identity based work was only beginning to re-popularize. I remember this floor of Hirschorn being endless re-curations of modernist sculpture an only mainstream international rockstars like Ai Wei Wei. This story is told panel by panel in the round walkabout of the inter hall, and the darkness is accompanied by an eerie soundscape. Countervailance, to my knowledge, is the idea in a [political] environment in which more than one power is capable of emerging, one can emerge to counter another with equal force. This explains the fictive of the described matriarchy, and speaks to my own interest in the possibilities of speculative mythology. The point is neither the truth or the best alternative, simply that there could be one with matching sway. What felt ironic (or at least, hard to read as intentional) is that even in the spotlight of this Nigerian artist’s black drawings about a Black people, the museum couldn’t get the lighting right. Standing facing them head on, the glare from the spotlights on the shiny graphite and velvety charcoals washed the paper images out of comprehension. Only approaching them at a deep angle kept the composition intact and the expressions readable. It’s not the right kind of poetics, but it is a little funny. 

[dweemeister]

The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T (1953)

Theodore Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss, remains best-known for his children’s books. The Cat in the Hat; Green Eggs and Ham; and Oh, the Places You’ll Go! are household names in English-language literature. Seuss’ bibliography overshadows his work in films, beginning with the adapted screenplay of his own book, The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins (1943) – directed by George Pal as part of the Puppetoons series. During WWII, Seuss was heavily involved in propaganda films and the Private Snafu (1943-1946) military training films. After the war’s end, Seuss returned to writing children’s books, but also continued to write for movies. The Academy Award-winning animated short film Gerald McBoing-Boing (1950) benefitted from Seuss’ story work, and Seuss’ success there inspired him to write a screenplay for a live-action fantasy film. That screenplay – the unwieldy rough draft coming in at over 1,200 pages – was The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T. The eventual movie, produced by Stanley Kramer (1960’s Inherit the Wind, 1961’s Judgment at Nuremberg) and directed by Roy Rowland (1945’s Our Vines Have Tender Grapes, 1956’s Meet Me in Las Vegas) for Columbia Pictures, would be Seuss’ only involvement in a non-documentary feature film.

Like many who speak English as their first language, Dr. Seuss’ books graced my early childhood. So integral to numerous children’s youth is Seuss that his whimsy, wordplay, and authorial stamps are easily recognizable. In that spirit, the cinematic record of live-action Seuss adaptations consists of the scatological Jim Carrey in How the Grinch Stole Christmas (2000) and the visual nightmare that is Mike Myers as The Cat in the Hat (2003). Compared to the original works, both films are ungainly, casually cruel, and overcomplicated. Not promising company for Dr. T. But even taking into account the three animated feature adaptations of Seuss – Horton Hears a Who! (2008), The Lorax (2012), and The Grinch (2018) – and the fact that Columbia forced wholesale deletions from the rough draft script of Dr. T to achieve a feasible runtime, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T is arguably the most faithful feature adaptation to Dr. Seuss’ authorial intent and signature aesthetic.

In other words, this is one of the strangest films you may ever encounter. No synopsis I could write in one paragraph will ever capture the film’s bizarreries.

Little Bart Collins (Tommy Rettig) is asleep during piano practice and his teacher, Dr. Terwilliker (Hans Conried), is furious. His overworked, widowed mother Heloise (Mary Healey) intuits Terwilliker’s unrealistic expectations (Terwilliker wants to teach the next Paderewski) towards Bart’s piano skills and inability to concentrate. Heloise also appears to be quietly eyeing the plumber August Zabladowski (Peter Lind Hayes) and his wrench. With the lesson done for the day, Bart falls asleep again. This time, he dreams that Terwilliker is now the leader of the Terwilliker Institute, a pianist supremacy mini-state which is built upon five hundred young pianist slave boys (hence, 5,000 fingers) forcibly playing Terwilliker’s latest compositions. His mother is Terwilliker’s unwilling, hypnotized assistant and plumber August Zabladowski (Hayes is essentially playing the same character, but in a different world) is Bart’s only ally around. Together, Bart and Mr. Zabladowski must evade the Institute’s guards as they attempt to undermine Terwilliker’s plans for his next concert.

In its final form, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T is a muddled mess of a story. The analogues between Bart’s reality and his dreams are inconsistent, several would-be subplots never resolve (or at the very least develop beyond a basic idea), and the film’s initial lightness is subject to rapid mood swings that make this picture feel disjointed. Indeed, Seuss’ sprawling social commentary in his first draft – including allegories and themes of post-WWII totalitarianism, anti-communism, and atomic annihilation – is in tatters in this final product. The viewer will witness brief fragments of those ideas, remaining in this movie as the barest of hints of the contents of the original screenplay’s rough draft. Even now, Dr. T inspires psychiatric analyses and accusations that Bart’s relationship with his mother reveals signs of an Oedipal complex (to yours truly, the latter is too much of a reach). The grim nature of Terwilliker Institute renders Dr. T unsuitable for the youngest children. For older children and adults, try going into this movie without expectations of narrative logic and embrace the grotesque aspects that only Seuss could imagine.

If my attempts to describe this movie’s preposterousness through its narrative and screenwriting approach have failed, perhaps I can capture that for you by writing on its technical features.

For its sheer narrative inventiveness – inconsistencies, abrupt tonal shifts, nonsense, and Rowland’s uninspired direction aside – The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T is nevertheless an ambitious film, and Columbia bequeathed a hefty budget to match that ambition. Much of that budget went to the film’s visuals. This is an extravagantly-staged motion picture, as nothing could do Dr. Seuss’ illustrations justice without fully committing to his geometric impossibilities: skyward ladders and improbable connections between rooms, an eschewal of right angles and straight lines, and architecture bound to raise the ire of physics teachers. One could compare this to German Expressionism, but Dr. T’s sets tend not to dictate the film’s mood nor are they subject to high-contrast lighting. Seuss went uncredited as the concept artist on Dr. T, and it was up to Clem Beauchamp (1935’s The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, 1952’s High Noon) and the uncredited matte artists to commit those visuals to the real world. Outside of animated film, Beauchamp and the matte artists succeed in creating twisted sets that seem to leap off the pages of Seuss’ most artistically interesting books. Some of the sets appear too stagebound, but the production design accomplishes its need to resemble a world borne from a fever dream (or, at least, a young pianist’s nightmare).

This movie’s outrageous costume design (other than Jean Louis’ gowns for Mary Healey, the costume designer/s for this film are uncredited) comprises absurd uniforms and two of the most ludicrous hats – the “happy fingers” cap (see photo at the top of this write-up) and whatever the hell Terwilliker dons in the film’s climax – one might ever see in a film. Most of the costumes are laughably impractical and ridiculous to even those without fashion sense. In what might be the tamest example, while working under Terwilliker, Bart’s mother wears a suit that is all business formal on the left-hand side and bare-shouldered, sleeveless, and nightclub-y on the right. The delineation of real life – which barely features in the film’s eighty-nine minutes – and this world of Bart’s dreams could not be any more unambiguous thanks to the combination of the production and costume design work.

The disappointing musical score by Fredrich Hollaender (1930’s The Blue Angel, 1948’s A Foreign Affair) and song lyrics by Seuss rarely connects to the larger narrative unfolding. Seven songs make the final print, with nine (yikes!) Hollaender-Seuss songs ending up on the cutting room floor. Seuss’ wordplay is evident, as are Hollaender’s melodic flourishes. Columbia, a studio not known for its musicals, assembled a 98-piece orchestra – the largest musical ensemble to work on a Columbia film at the time – for The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T alone. That lush sound is apparent throughout for the numerous nonsense songs that color the score in addition to the incidental score. It is unusual to listen to a collection of novelty songs orchestrated so fully. Listen to “Dressing Song: Do-Mi-Do Duds” and its complicated, seeming unsingable lines:

Come on and dress me, dress me, dress me In my peek-a-boo blouse With the lovely inner lining made of Chesapeake mouse! I want my polka-dotted dickie with the crinoline fringe For I'm going doe-me-doe-ing on a doe-me-doe binge!

The rich orchestration seems to hail from a more lavish film. But too many of these songs are scene-specific, and rarely does Hollaender utilize musical quotations from these songs into his score. “Get Together Weather” is delightful, but it seems so isolated from the rest of the film; elsewhere, “The Dungeon Song” exemplifies a macabre side to Seuss seldom appearing in his books. Nevertheless, Hollaender is able to demonstrate his playfulness across the entire film, none moreso during any scene with the bearded, roller-skating twins and the “Dungeon Ballet”, in which the music complements stunning choreography and fascinating props that recall the jingtinglers, floofloovers, tartookas, whohoopers, slooslunkas, and whowonkas from the Christmas television special How the Grinch Stole Christmas! (1966). Yet, Hollaender’s film score and the soundtrack with Seuss seems to demand something – anything – to tie the entire compositional effort together. Perhaps a song or some cue like that was cut from the film, which is ultimately to its detriment.

Hans Conried (who starred as Captain Hook in Disney’s Peter Pan several months prior to Dr. T’s release) stands out from a decidedly average Peter Lind Hayes and Mary Healey – Hayes and Healey, in a sort of in-joke, were married. Conried’s performance as the sadistic, torture- and imprisonment-happy music teacher can be considered camp, but this is anything but “bad” camp. He throws himself completely into this cartoonish role, sans shame, complete with mid-Atlantic accent, and topped off with exaggerated facial and physical acting that fits this fantasy. As Bart, child actor Tommy Rettig (best known as Jeff Miller on the CBS television series Lassie) seems more assured in his performance than most child performers his age during the 1950s. His fourth wall-breaking asides seem more appropriate in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but Rettig makes it work, and inhabits Bart’s flaws wonderfully.

Columbia demanded numerous reworkings of Seuss’ script, leading to several reshoots – most notably the opening scene (Seuss opposed the conceit of Bart’s dream framing the film) – and a ballooning budget. Upon its release in the summer of 1953, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T bombed at the box office and was assailed by critics. A crestfallen Seuss, who could not stand the production difficulties that beset the film from the start of shooting, would never work in feature films again. He would dedicate himself almost entirely to writing and illustrating children’s books, with many of his most popular titles (including The Cat in the Hat, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, and Green Eggs and Ham) published within a decade of Dr. T’s critical and commercial failure. His hesitance to participate in filmmaking informed his reluctance to allow Chuck Jones to adapt How the Grinch Stole Christmas! thirteen years later. Animation suited his books, Seuss thought, and he would never again pay any consideration to live-action filmmaking.

The reevaluation of The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T has seen a rehabilitation of the film’s image in recent decades. Home media releases and television showings have introduced the film to viewers not influenced by the hyperbolic negativity of the film critics working in 1953. This is not a sterling example of Old Hollywood fantasy filmmaking, due to a heavily gutted screenplay, scattershot thematic development, and incongruent musical score. Yet, the movie’s surrealistic charms and Seussian chaos know no peers, even in the present day.

My rating: 7/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found in the “Ratings system” page on my blog (as of July 1, 2020, tumblr is not permitting certain posts with links to appear on tag pages, so I cannot provide the URL).

For more of my reviews tagged “My Movie Odyssey”, check out the tag of the same name on my blog.

[algernoninwonderland]

Hi i rlly like ur blog and ur takes!!, whats your fav episode of ml?

Hi! Thanks! It may not look like it, but Miraculous isn't a show I that I hate, because I don't tend to watch shows that I hate unless I really want to rip them to shreds. Which requires some intellectual honesty, so I need to watch everything so that I can discuss everything.

Miraculous is a show that frustrates me, because I actually like quite a few episodes! So giving you only one answer is going to be super hard. Would two-parters be considered as one episode? Who knows. I'll try to give you two answers for each season, and my favourite season 4 episode this far.

So, season 1! It was a fun one, there are very few outright bad episodes, it was a very promising one overall!

Stormy Weather

It is, to me, the best season 1 episode, and maybe the best episode of the show proper. It's basically all of what Miraculous can be, condensed in twenty-two minutes, and while it also includes some of the show's flaws, they are rather minor here.

The storyboarding is stellar, the use of shot composition is genuinely terrific and so is the visual storytelling in general, the character acting is brilliant, the rendering is the best the show has ever gotten, the lighting is so expressive, they make full use of the show being 3DCG by moving the camera around in ways that make sense rather than having it spin around stupidly and meaninglessly as would often be the case later on. The character writing is really effective, so that, by the end of the episode, you know who these characters are, and you've got a few ideas of where the show could be going next and you find yourself wanting more. It establishes the storyworld and the basic character dynamics in a very efficient way and it made a strong impression on me. This is how you make a pilot episode.

The Origins two-parter.

It's the proof that the show can attempt character arcs and continuity and be good at it, and make the Love Square actually appealing and not a somewhat annoying gimmick. It captured what falling in love as a teenager actually feels like, and that's an impressive feat I've rarely seen anywhere else. Thank Étienne Guignard for the Umbrella Scene, he's the one who boarded it (he went on to work on some of the best sequences in Steven Universe: Future). Back then, “they're made for each other” made actual sense and didn't make me want to turn off the show. It's a satisfying two-parter.

Moving on to season 2! Which also did tons of interesting things which made up for less competently-written and animated episodes.

Dark Owl

Worldbuilding revolving around civilian characters? In my episode of Miraculous? It's a rarity but we love to see it! It's a very fun one, the pacing is great and M. Damoclès' Knightowl cosplay/Batman fantasy actually makes a lot of sense and is very entertaining. The Love Square interactions in this one are great, that bit of reveal for the kwamis actually felt impactful, something actually happens to M. Damoclès once he's been deakumatised and what caused his akumatisation in the first place is being addressed and solved. It's very enjoyable! Just thinking about this one makes me smile.

Riposte

I like sabre fencing. I like perfectionist “gifted” kids crushed by parental pressure who put on a front of coolness but are still just kids underneath. So of course I liked Riposte and I loved Kagami from the very start. The fencing animation is good, they get the timing and poses right, the rendering is actually pretty great for this one too. It makes sense that Marinette would behave this way and have such a strong bias against that other fencer, even without knowing that it's Kagami. It's not without its flaws, the reveal that “it's actually a girl and she's cute, and could this be a rival for Marinette?” annoys me, and “she's Japanese, therefore that whole Samurai BS, in the year of our lord 2017” makes sense considering who her mother was but we could only make inferences back then, also it doesn't make it any less orientalist bullshit. Nevertheless, it's an episode I really quite enjoyed.

Moving on to season 3!

It's my least-favourite season so far. Doesn't mean there aren't good moments in it. I would put Oblivio on this list if not for the last two minutes which are, if you'll pardon my French, utter dogshit that makes me hate what they're doing with Chat Noir, it kind of ruins everything. Because the rest of the episode is genuine fun, like, actually genuinely fun and then this shit happens. Desperada could be a good Adrien episode but it's disguised as a Luka episode and it's just not very memorable. Most plot-heavy episodes have very mediocre execution and questionable creative choices that make me frustrated with a lot of them.

Chris Master

It doesn't get talked about a lot, and I understand why, but I also really like this one. The art direction is fun and reminiscent of A Town Called Panic, one of my favourite Belgian cartoons ever, which uses real toys and stop motion. The animation is lovely, the show remembers that Marinette is a fashion designer for once. Chat Noir is fun. The akuma is fun. It's just a fun time overall! Sometimes, you just want to watch giant toys and weird flying fish and Miraculous delivers on that.

Ikari Gozen

Hate the orientalist BS, hate that they're doing the whole Samurai spiel in, wow, 2019, but aren't actively disproving it by having other characters not buying into that. These are the only two Japanese characters in the show for crying out loud. Hate that Kagami is still wearing a school uniform for no good reason, even when doing kendo. Despite these flaws, Ikari Gozen is great, for both Marinette and Kagami. It has some of the strongest character writing in this show and I didn't expect that.

Moving on to season 4! But you probably know what my favourite episode so far is, it's the same as everyone else's.

Gang of Secrets

It's not perfect, not by any means, but it does so many things right that I can't help but like it. It builds on everything the show has been so far, and it's a very gratifying experience for the viewer. Continuity gets to play a major role for once. Alya finally gets to be a fully-realised character again, the show stops treating sadness like a fashion accessory and actually does something good and clever with the theme of its episode. And most of everything clicks together in a way that delivers in terms of emotional payback. This episode is a game changer. I hope there will be other episodes like that in season 4.

[lotus-baby]

are you insane like me been in pain like me (otsutsuki stuf 😭😔)

disclaimer i don’t think this is what the writers had in mind it’s not rlly theories they’re just funny headcanons, and it's not very interesting or conclusive i just had all this bouncing around in my head. also i dont know any stuff abt physics or biology or anything i just want to babble about alien ideas

ok so under the assumption that the otsutsuki as a species:

have adapted to frequent travel in space and across different dimensions with a large variety of climate and gravity values.

spend most of their time growing and cultivating chakra fruit, farming them as their main energy source

are humanoid*, but physically sturdier than them in an unknown variety of ways. 

(*ok  why are they so humanoid????? humans are NOT designed for their lifestyle... and some of them think they’re soooo superior too like sit down my guy you’re embarassing yourself we aren’t even reproductively isolated. and why is compatibility even a detail they made canon?? who in the writers studio was like, yeah you know. we have some alienfuckers out there lets print it)

this is all the thoughts i have:

kaguya had the ice dimension and the lava dimension, and she wasn’t particularly bothered by the cold or heat, so they’re probably able to regulate body temperature to a much wider scale than humans. if their lifestyle is based on visiting different dimensions and planets with different climates, they’d need to adjust temperature not to freeze or burn. it’s temperature change or lots of layers and they like, never change their clothes. so i'm assuming it's the former

okay i know naruto doesn’t usually make a lot of sense and i know the otsutsuki are an asspull, but for the sake of conversation, i have no idea how they breathe when they travel. there’s no air in space. so hypothetically, let’s assume that they’re anaerobes (and don't need oxygen) who for some reason are structurally similar to humans. what is their nose for?? or maybe they have a nose because do need air, they just hold their breaths for a really long time? like space whales? blood composition can carry more oxygen? or their respiration doesn’t involve oxygen but a different gas????? 

also there isn’t any sound in space (they’re still seen talking though…this is when boruto’s High Quality Worldbuilding really shines through). i don’t think hearing is their most important sense, even if they live in areas with sound, they frequently travel in a soundless environment. unrelated to biology, it would be more convenient if they had a soundless form of communication (some form of sign language?)

their bones are sturdier than the bones of humans/animals on earth. kimimaro’s clan is descended from kaguya, and his bone weapons were strong enough not to break against the metal that kunai were made of. i’m not sure what effect constantly switching between different levels of gravity would have on their bones and muscles though, as they were shown to be affected poorly by high gravity (kaguya’s spiky dimension). may frequently need recuperation time after travel? (inconsistent theory though, urashiki dropped from planet otsutsuki™ to the moon with what i’m assuming is a pretty wack gravity change and was physically ready to beat the shit out of toneri as soon as he landed)

aside from chakra pills or whatever, what can they eat? toneri from the branch family is shown eating human food (where tf did he get it by the way… do they doordash to the interior of the moon...), but his branch is also fairly genetically different from the main family (no horns, exhibits no particular mutations upon absorbing large amounts of energy). It makes sense that their diet needs to sustain the growth of denser bones and maintain their body fat (this is rlly important 4 temperature stuff if you want to live but a lot of them are fairly thin?? where is the energy stored???) but otherwise it would be fun if they could digest things that are like, clearly inedible by human standards, like heavy metals and toxic stuff. or if harmless-to-human foods would make them sick.(maybe acidic stuff :D)

some of the functions they need to perform (space travel, maintaining body functions in varying pressure levels and temperatures, etc.) would require a lot of (non-chakra) energy to complete. would they need to store energy in their bodies somehow? 

(momoshiki not conserving any chakra makes me mad for no reason. you have a finite amount of energy! even if you beat them your dumbass will not be able to fly back!)

more of a cultural question, do they age slowly but continuously eating chakra fruit or do they reach a prime at which they start to eat fruit? is it considered a coming of age ritual? “son one day this will all be yours” but parasitic...

they have a lot of weird magic eye powers but it would make more sense to have a higher range of sight on the light spectrum than people or smth. being limited to the human vision spectrum + human senses would be pretty ass if you needed to see anything in deep space. would’ve been more helpful to sense heat or UV better.

they might be so creepy pale + wear white clothing because white reflects light + heat better than other colors (its the same reason space suits are white)?? 😕 temperature regulation and would stand out against space, which appears dark because there are few objects for light to reflect off of. but i like the idea that they are slightly flourescent for jokes and funnies. (i'm just thinking abt the fashion potential, maybe it's more a statement to wear shiny things? maybe duller colors is their equivalent of camo print? what does their wedding clothes being black have to do with this?)

some of their rinnegan may be shiny + gold because it deflects light the same way reflective sunglasses do, because while there’s not a lot of objects in space, the things that are there appear brighter the closer they are to a light source, and the glare can get irritating to the eyes. im kind of bullshitting though.

how do the transformations work? chakra doesn’t usually have mutagenic properties when it comes from the user themself (it usually only happens with sage/nature chakra, ex. jiraiya turning toadlike, juugo’s curse transformation), but urashiki absorbed his own (eyes?) chakra and turned into a bird monster. maybe they’ve all just been sitting in solar radiation too long…

ohhhhhhhh kay thats all good night <3

[quickspinner]

Beautiful Dreams - Ch 4 Beautiful Dreamer

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | AO3

The hard part, he thought, was over; the cards were on the table, he’d asked her out and she’d agreed. Even so, Luka suffered from an annoying lack of chill for the rest of the week. He kept it together for his students, but outside of work, he was nervous, jittery to a degree that was both embarrassing and frustrating. The days, which had been slipping past without much notice from Luka, were suddenly crawling by.

Luka found himself picking up his guitar more and more, trying to work out his feelings, or at least his nerves, through his music. He wasn’t entirely unsuccessful; he had most of a new song written, and when he sent a demo of his progress to the rest of the band the feedback was positive—more enthusiastically positive than it had been for any of his recent compositions, actually. Not that the feedback had been bad before, but the difference was noticeable. He made a mental note to revisit that with his bandmates later.

At least something good came out of his distraction. 

He cleaned his apartment, he organized his student files and his cabinet of inspiration music, and realized he hadn’t added to it in some time. That made him feel a little guilty. Luka usually tried to let his students pick their own music but he liked to have a variety of ideas on hand when they got stuck or needed a change. He hadn’t refreshed or even rotated the collection in months. 

Once that injustice had been rectified he was kind of out of productive uses for his energy. He played until his fingers were sore, he worked out until his arms felt like noodles and he thought another pushup might kill him, and when he couldn’t take it anymore, Luka picked up takeout and went over to bug Juleka and Rose and cuddle the baby.  

“You’re pathetic,” Juleka told him, her normal deadpan tones colored with fond amusement as she watched him, stretched out on her living room floor, playing with Angelique’s little hands and making silly faces at her while she lay on a blanket and blinked up at him. 

“Believe me, I know,” Luka said, smooching tiny fingers. “But I brought you dinner and it’s your favorite, so try not to give me too hard of a time over it.” 

“Mm.” 

Luka grunted as Juleka stepped on him on her way to the kitchen. “Don’t grow up to be mean like Mama J,” he whispered to Angie. “Be sweet like Mama Rose, okay?” 

“You know...I’m actually glad you’re nervous.”

Luka rolled to his side and looked back to find Juleka had paused. He noted with amusement her perfect modelesque three-quarter turn and over the shoulder look. “I thought I was embarrassing,” he said, propping his cheek on his fist. 

“You’re always embarrassing,” Juleka agreed. “Even so. I’m glad you’re nervous. I’m glad you care enough to be nervous.”

Luka looked down at the carpet, tickling Angie’s toes. “It’s been a rough year,” he agreed quietly. 

“Rose and I have been really worried about you,” Juleka sighed, turning around to face him fully and folding her arms. “We’re still worried about you, honestly. You’ve always been all about going with the flow but you’ve been taking it to an extreme for a while now. You don’t go out anymore except to come here. You don’t seem excited about anything anymore. You have good days every now and then but...it just makes me really happy to see that you care about this enough to be nervous. That’s all.”  

Luka felt a stab of guilt that made it hard to meet Juleka’s eyes. She’d had so much to deal with, and he hated to be a burden for her. 

She turned quickly and headed into the kitchen before he could say anything. Luka sighed and laid his head down on the carpet, letting Angie’s hand curl around his index finger. “Okay,” he breathed. “You can grow up a little bit like Mama Jules.” 

***

The sun had mostly set and the lights of Paris were beginning to shine as Luka met Marinette in front of the Louvre. She was waiting for him by one of the fountains, staring into the foaming water rising from the middle. The fact that she was there eased at least some of the nervous energy fizzing under his skin. Luka had been a little afraid she would bail on him. Marinette didn’t answer when he called her name and jolted when he touched her arm.

“Sorry,” he chuckled, sliding his fingers down her arm to take her hand. “I didn’t mean to startle you.” 

“I didn’t, um, I was just—just thinking,” she said, shuffling her feet and not meeting his eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to get so distracted, uh…”

“You were thinking or you were worrying?” Luka asked gently, ducking his head slightly to get a better look at her expression. “Marinette, if you don’t want to do this, or you’re not ready, or anything at all—” 

“No,” she said quickly, finally meeting his gaze. “No, I...I want to. I want this.” Her fingers tightened on his, almost painfully. “I just...don’t want to mess up.” 

Luka laughed, shaking his head. “It’s not a test,” he teased, tugging her hand lightly. “If you’re worried about impressing me, Marinette, here’s a hint.” He leaned down a little and grinned. “I’m already impressed.” 

She squeaked and blushed and Luka chuckled. “Do you want to go inside?” he asked, “Or would you rather watch the fountain a little more?” 

“Oh, no, we can—we can go inside, I was just, I mean, it’s pretty at night and—”

“You’re allowed to enjoy the fountain, Marinette. We can stay here and watch it all night if you want.” 

“No, really, I’m done,” she sighed, turning away from the fountain and facing him fully. “I’m ready.”

Luka smiled and stepped back, still holding her hand. “Then shall we?” 

Marinette broke into a genuine smile, and followed his gentle pull. 

It was late enough that the tourist crowds had gone to seek out the Paris nightlife, and the museum itself was relatively calm. 

“What would you like to see?” Luka asked once they were through the door and strolling through the wide halls. “Musée de la Mode, or have you been over that more times than you can count already?”

“I have,” Marinette admitted. “But honestly, I never get tired of it. I find new inspiration every time I go. Just breathing the history here is inspiring.” 

History smelled a lot like tourists to Luka, but he just smiled. “Do you want to do that, then?” 

“Wouldn’t you be bored? Isn’t there anywhere you want to go?” Marinette asked, looking up at him.

Luka shrugged. “I mostly just like to wander and see where I end up. It’s not hard to find things to appreciate here, and it’s actually been a really long time since I last came.”

“That’s true,” Marinette agreed. “I love it here.”

“And to tell you the truth,” he continued, “I find the passion of other creators inspiring all on its own. So why don’t we go see the Musée de la Mode if that’s what you want to do, and you can be my guide and explain to me what I’m seeing. My sister modeled for years until she retired to become a talent coach, so I’m not completely stupid on the subject, but I still know next to nothing about the artistry behind it, so I’d love your perspective.” 

She smiled shyly at him. “Okay.” 

They made their way to the correct wing, and after only a nudge or two from Luka, Marinette forgot her self-consciousness. She was beautiful in her enthusiasm, animated and glowing with repressed excitement as she got into her subject. The conversation was actually less one-sided than he expected. Fashion and music were both influenced by their historical and political context, and Marinette seemed interested in what he had to share as they talked about the various time periods. He blundered into one or two stupid questions but he actually didn’t mind looking a little silly when it made her laugh like that. As it turned out, the museum had recently begun their latest temporary exhibit, so there were several things that Marinette hadn’t seen. She fell silent as she examined the new pieces, but her alert curiosity was just as interesting to him, and Luka waited patiently each time until she was ready to move on—more and more reluctantly each time, it seemed. 

The next time she got caught up in a piece, Luka touched her arm. “Do you want to stop here for a little bit?”

Marinette turned wide eyes up at him. “Oh...no, no, that’s okay, um...I can...some other time or something, I can come back—” 

“Marinette,” Luka said, shaking his head slightly with a smile. “We’re in no hurry. We’re just here to have fun. There’s no schedule. If you want to sit down for a minute and just take something in, that’s cool. I don’t mind. Especially if something’s inspiring you, I don’t want you to rush through that just to accommodate me. Shall we sit down?” 

Marinette hovered, looking a bit like a deer in the headlines, suspended in indecision. Luka felt a pang in his heart for her. “There’s no schedule,” he repeated. “Just you and me. We can stay here and look at this one piece until closing if you like, it’d be fine with me. You’ve taught me a lot and I wouldn’t mind taking a breather just to let everything sink in.” 

That seemed to tip her. “You’re sure you don’t mind?” she asked weakly. 

“I don’t mind at all.” Luka turned and sat on a nearby bench. “See? This is fine. I’ll just relax here for a minute, you look as long as you want.” 

They spent the rest of the visit lingering in that one small area, Marinette hovering back and forth between a few pieces, and occasionally coming back to the bench to sit down and sketch something in a small notebook she had in her purse, talking distractedly to him about her thoughts and ideas. Luka didn’t understand more than half of it, partly because his knowledge of fashion and its terms was still pretty lacking and partly because Marinette frequently interrupted herself, changing direction mid-sentence. Luka didn’t mind; he found her creative process as fascinating as the art around him and his heart leaped every time she touched him without thinking, her hand catching his arm or pressing his knee when she was struck by a new idea.

Luka tried to be useful, to ask helpful questions when she wavered and give opinions only when she asked him, to not get caught staring at the way she pursed her lips and scrunched her nose when she was concentrating or the bounce in her step when she ran back to look at some piece or another that she wanted another look at. 

“I hate to say this,” he murmured finally, keeping his voice low to avoid startling her as he leaned one arm on the bench behind her. “But they’re going to be closing soon. Best wrap up if you can.” 

Marinette’s head shot up and she looked up at him, wide-eyed. “Oh, I—I didn’t realize I was spending so much time—”

“It’s fine,” he interrupted her, unable to resist reaching up to slide a stray lock of hair back from her cheek and over her ear and pleased by the way she blushed at his touch. “I didn’t mind it, honestly, I’m really enjoying myself actually. I just don’t want you to get caught in the middle of something, so go ahead and get to a stopping place if you can.” 

Marinette bit her lip and looked down. “I’m...really enjoying this too. It’s been a long time since someone had time to listen to me ramble who wasn’t paid to, and you’re a good person to bounce ideas off of. Thank you. Sorry for taking up so much time though.” 

“If I’m having fun and you’re having fun I don’t see that there’s much to apologize for,” Luka chuckled. “I wouldn’t object to spending more time with you, though...would you like to take a walk when we’re done here?”

“Yeah,” Marinette said, a shy but happy smile spreading over her face. “I’d really like that, Luka.” 

Her cheeks pinked at the slow smile that spread over his face in response. “Then finish up,” he said, “and we’ll take a walk. We’ve still got about half an hour before they come to kick us out.” 

She turned back to her paper and Luka tried to use the time to get himself together. She was too cute and whatever tiny chance there had been that going out with her would cure his infatuation was rapidly diminishing. 

***

They stopped to get crêpes from a street vendor and ate them on a bench by the fountain Marinette had been admiring previously. Marinette seemed deep in thought, still immersed, he suspected, in whatever inspiration she’d found in the museum, so Luka stayed quiet, though he was itching to know what was going on in her head. 

He was watching her absently lick the last bit of cream off her lip when she shook her head slightly, and as she looked up and smiled at him he felt her come back to the moment and smiled back. 

“Shall we walk?” he asked, before she could apologize again, and offered his arm once they’d tossed their trash. “You found your calling early, didn’t you?” Luka asked as they began to walk. “Did you go to school for it too?” 

The night was brisk but not uncomfortable, and as clear a night as Paris ever got. School seemed to be a comfortable subject, long enough ago for both of them not to bring on too many painful memories, and they swapped stories as they strolled along. 

They broke off to listen as they approached a set of street musicians, a small group playing instruments as a man and a woman sang. 

“Oh, that’s beautiful,” Marinette breathed. “It’s not in French, though, is it? I wish I could understand it.”

“It’s Italian,” Luka told her. He concentrated for a moment, listening. “It’s about someone who thought they’d given up on finding love, but now they’ve met someone and those feelings are coming back.”

“You speak Italian?” she whispered to him as the instruments took over.

“Music terminology’s almost all in Italian,” he shrugged. “And I needed a language requirement for my degree anyway, so it seemed like the natural choice. I speak some Scots and some English too, but I got those mostly from my mom and dad, not formal training. Would you like to dance?”

“Oh, I—“ Marinette looked around. One or two couples were swaying together. “Um, s-sure?” 

“That sounds like a no, Marinette.” He nudged her lightly with his shoulder. “It’s okay, we don’t have to. We can listen for a bit and then move on if you like.”

She smiled up at him weakly. “I’m kind of terrible at this, aren’t I? First I lecture you, and then I ignore you, and everything I say has you wondering if I really want to be here.”

“You’re kind of out of practice,” Luka chuckled, reaching to catch another stray bit of hair that the wind was whipping across her face and tuck it behind her ear. “That’s okay. But I’d rather you didn’t agree to things you’d rather not do just to make me happy. If you don’t want to do something or don’t like something we’re doing, I wish you’d just tell me.” 

Marinette sighed, and gave him an apologetic smile. “You’re right. I’ll do better. Um, no, thank you, as much as the idea of dancing is appealing, the reality of it in my case...well. I’m kind of a klutz and I have two left feet and I prefer to dance in places where I’m not going to draw so much attention.” 

Luka grinned. “See? Not so bad, was it?” 

“It was a little bad,” Marinette pouted. “You’re probably an amazing dancer.” 

Luka snorted. “I’m an average dancer,” he corrected her with a grin. “Off the stage, I have good rhythm but no style, as my sister frequently tells me. You’re probably used to all kinds of fancy moves and aside from a few Scottish reels that would not go at all with an Italian love song, all I can do is a good old-fashioned sway-in-a-circle slow dance.” They both laughed.

“It would be amazing to dance like that after years of being critiqued after ever stupid party and social function and—” she cut herself off and shook her head briskly and said, “You know what? I think a good old-fashioned sway-in-a-circle slow dance sounds amazing. Will you dance with me, Luka?” 

“I’d love to,” he chuckled, stepping towards her and lifting his hands to her waist as she put hers on his shoulders. Just as they came together, the singers hit a final, long note, and the song was over. Luka and Marinette looked at each other, and both broke down laughing, leaning on each other for a moment before slowly separating. “Maybe we should just keep walking,” Luka suggested, still laughing as he took her hands. “Shall we?”

“Please,” Marinette grinned up at him, eyes sparkling as she squeezed his hands, and his eyes fell to her lips shimmering pink in the light from the streetlamps. He took a deep breath and dropped one hand, tugging her gently into place beside him with the other as he angled their walk towards Pont Neuf. 

***

“I don’t have anything against digital music,” Luka protested, as they strolled beneath the trees of the Square du Vert-Galant where it jutted out into the Seine. “The computer can be an instrument just like anything else in the hands of an actual musician, but XY, he’s just...his music is just so tired and unoriginal. It’s like he’s not even trying. Maybe sometimes he comes up with things that aren’t painful to listen to, but even his good stuff doesn’t have any soul. I’d never judge anybody for making money with their music, but I question whether he does it for any reason but money.”

“It’s true, his music is very…” Marinette wrinkled her nose. “Bland. Heartless is a good way to put it.” 

“I’m glad we agree,” Luka grinned at her as they paused at the point of the triangular walkway, where the Seine surrounded them. He nodded at the river. “I grew up on a houseboat on the Seine,” he said. “Coming down here is kind of like coming home.”

“Do you miss it?” Marinette asked.

“Sometimes,” he sighed. “It was cramped and it was messy and nothing was ever where you left it because the wind would pick up and rock the ship juuuust enough to roll stuff under the furniture. Sometimes my friends would get seasick when they visited, and we were always stepping all over each other, but...it was home, you know? Do you miss the bakery?” 

“Sometimes,” she echoed back to him, and they shared a smile. “It was too warm, and my parents were always working and sometimes there were days when I didn’t want to be nice to everybody but I had to because we couldn’t offend a customer. And whenever Papa wasn’t paying attention and burned something it took forever for the smell to go away.” She shrugged. “But sometimes, the smell of fresh bread makes me tear up a little bit, you know?”

“The Seine doesn’t smell as good as bread,” he chuckled. “But I know exactly what you mean.” He took a breath, and sang lightly, “I’ve been walking, walking these shores all my days.” He grinned at her as he finished, “But with you by my side I am walking on the waves.” 

Marinette giggled, covering her mouth at the girlish sound. Luka just grinned wider and looked back to the river. 

“Do you have a song for everything?” she asked, bumping against him lightly.

Luka shrugged, pleased that she felt comfortable enough to tease him. “I’m a collector, I guess. There’s always memories in music for me.” He took a deep breath of the cold wind coming off the river and was hit by a wave of nostalgia. “My love is like a red red rose, that’s newly sprung in June,” he sang softly. “My love is like a melody that’s sweetly played in tune.” He sighed, and Marinette squeezed his arm. He looked at her and smiled softly. “As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,” he sang, “How deep in love am I…” He reached out and tucked that loose strand of hair behind her ear again. “And I will love thee still my dear, till all the seas run dry.” 

Marinette blushed and looked away. Luka started them slowly walking again, turning his back to the river. “I still can’t sing the second verse,” he said. “The narrator goes far away, but swears they’ll come back.” He swallowed, looking away. “But she’s not coming back, no matter how much I wish she would.” He smiled ruefully at her. “I guess being down here reminds me of her. God, sorry, you’d think I’d be past it by now, but...I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to ruin the mood.”

“You didn’t,” Marinette smiled, nudging him with her arm. “And I don’t think it’s something you get over, not completely. You can’t put a timeline on that kind of grief.” She sighed. “I think it’s beautiful that you loved her so much. I’m really close with my parents too, always have been. I can’t imagine losing them. I know it’s not something I’d get past easily.” She leaned her head on his shoulder.

“Are you warm enough?” he asked, as another chill breeze swept through. “We can go somewhere else if the wind is too much.”

“No, this is good,” she said, snuggling into his arm a little. Then she seemed to realize what she was doing and straightened. “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be, not on my account.” He slipped his arm around her waist and tugged her gently into his side, but kept his hold loose and easily broken. “I didn’t ask you out because I wanted you to keep your distance. I’m happy if you’re comfortable being close to me.”

Marinette looked down. “I still think you could do better.”

Luka stopped walking and faced her. “Marinette, when you say you aren’t special it just makes me want to show you even more that you are.”

She went from pink to red. “But—” 

“No, no, turn it around,” he chuckled. “I’ve been on maybe three dates in the last year, all firsts, and all pretty much to get my sister off my back. You’re the first person I’ve actually wanted to spend time with in forever. Not only that, you’re a business executive and a famous fashion designer with an international brand. I’m just a musician, and not a very ambitious one at that. I like playing small venues and I like teaching my students. No plans for stardom here.” Luka spread his arms a little, as if inviting her to check him for hidden ambitions. 

“There’s nothing wrong with that,” Marinette said earnestly, surprising him a little. “There’s a lot to be said for doing what you love and not letting money twist it into something you didn’t mean it to be.” 

Luka let his hands fall and put his arm back around her waist, starting them walking again. They walked in silence for a moment before Marinette spoke again. “It used to be my greatest dream to work for Gabriel,” she said wistfully. “But I never thought I’d be there forever, you know? It was always just the first step.”

“What’s the next step?” Luka asked curiously.

“Apparently there isn’t one,” Marinette said bitterly, and then sighed, hanging her head a little. “I can’t leave,” she said quietly. “There’s no one else to step up and take my place as head designer. Gabriel’s stocks took a huge hit during the divorce because everybody assumed I would quit. There’s other designers but no one with the kind of understanding I have of Gabriel’s customers, and no one the shareholders would trust because I was trained by Gabriel Agreste himself in his vision.” 

“What about your vision?” Luka asked, squeezing her lightly, and Marinette scoffed. 

“Gabriel made it clear a long time ago that, much as he respected my talent, he had no room for my vision. Customers want a consistent, unified approach, classic with just enough innovation to keep things fresh, but not so much that they think it’s too risky.” 

Luka frowned. “Gabriel’s gone, though. I mean, I don’t know anything about fashion and not a whole lot more about business, but shouldn’t you be able to take the company any direction you want?”

Marinette shook her head sadly, staring at the ground. “His legacy remains, and Adrien wants to keep it that way.”

Luka bit back something impolite. He’d long since given up Adrien’s dad as not worth thinking about, but he couldn’t help feeling a sudden flash of annoyance at his friend. How stupid could you be, to put someone with Marinette’s passion and creativity inside a box like that and insist she stay there for—what? Loyalty to a man who had treated his son like dirt, or worse, like nothing more than a company asset, his whole life? 

“If you could do anything you wanted,” he said, genuinely curious, “What would you do?” 

“I’d start my own brand from the ground up,” Marinette said immediately. “I know it sounds stupid, but I’d go back to working in my home on commission and I’d start from scratch. Build my business the way I want it. Build a brand with my name on it and not Gabriel’s.” She sighed. “Maybe it’d never be as big...it’s kind of a late start after all. But at least it would be mine.” 

Luka smiled. “It doesn’t sound stupid at all. Maybe I haven’t known you all that long but I feel like I know you well enough to say you’re an independent type of person. I can see how having something that’s yours and building it yourself would appeal to you.”

“Most people would give a limb to have the kind of boost early on that I did,” Marinette snorted softly. “To throw away all that, it’s...it’s crazy.”

“You didn’t do it for the boost, though,” Luka replied, finding it hard to keep from pulling her closer. “You did it because you loved Adrien and that was the price of being with him. Why would you think less of yourself for that?” 

“Because I—” Marinette burst out, and then paused, and lowered her voice, and Luka felt a pang. He’d seen Adrien do exactly the same sort of thing. “Because I ought to be grateful, instead of resenting it. Anyone else would have been ecstatic.”

“Maybe,” Luka conceded. “But no one who felt that way would have loved Adrien as honestly as you did.” He sighed. “I feel bad for Adrien, I feel bad that he got dealt such a shit hand with his family. I feel bad that it seems like he couldn’t let go even after Gabriel died. I feel bad for him that all that cost him someone like you. And I’m sorry, I’m supposed to be showing you a good time, and instead we’re stuck on depressing things.” 

Marinette smiled. “Maybe you should sing for me again.” 

Luka’s grin was mischievous. “Maybe I should. Beautiful dreamer,” he sang, and Marinette groaned. “Wake unto me…” 

“Luka!” Marinette whined over him as he continued, trying to control his laughter. Marinette turned away from him, folded her arms and pouted. 

“Beautiful dreamer,” he sang, reaching for her hands. Turning her back towards him and leaning close, he locked eyes with her, voice going from teasing to earnest. “Queen of my song, list while I woo thee with soft melody.” Marinette blushed. “Gone are the cares of life’s busy throng,” he leaned closer, eyes on her lips. Her eyes widened and her breath quickened. “Beautiful dreamer, awake unto me.” He changed course quickly and kissed high on her cheek. He laughed as Marinette blushed and spluttered, and then she shoved him hard with both hands, making him stagger. 

“This is so unfair,” she hissed. “I’m such a disaster and you’re so smooth and cool and calm—“

Luka caught her wrist and pulled gently. “Come here, dreamer.” He pulled her forward gently until he could lay her hand on his pounding heart. Her eyes widened slightly as he covered her hand with his own and laced his fingers through hers to hold her there. “It’s been doing that since we met,” he told her softly. “I’m crazy about you, Marinette, and I am nowhere close to calm.” Luka watched her lips part in surprise, saw her gaze darken. He didn’t even realize he was leaning in until her free hand slipped behind his neck and her face tilted up to meet him. He held her eyes until just before he slowly, softly pressed his mouth to hers, deepening it when she pressed closer to him. She made a helpless noise in her throat and pushed up on her toes as he wrapped his arm around her waist. When she didn’t pull away he grew bolder, nipping lightly at her lower lip and dipping his tongue into her mouth when she gasped. It felt so good, the way she clung to him, so warm and alive and moving in sync with him like they were made for each other. Her hand moved from his hair to his face, down his neck and across his shoulder, around to his back, the roving of her fingers as intoxicating as the movement of her mouth against his. His own hand ached to wander but he kept it firmly planted against her lower back, pressing her into him.

When her lips left his, he didn’t open his eyes right away, taking a moment to breathe. Beneath their hands his heart was beating even harder than before, if that was possible, and he felt her fingers flex against him as she sank back until her heels were on the ground once more. 

When he did finally look, her cheeks were turning a deep pink that matched her sweet lips, and he could see the panic slowly growing in her eyes. He bent and kissed her again, softly this time, reassuring. “That was amazing,” he murmured, nuzzling her cheek. “Don’t be upset, Marinette, please. We can go as slow as you need to, baby, okay? You’re all right. I’ve got you.” He let go of her to move his hands to her arms and rubbed up and down gently. She let out a shaky breath, and leaned into him. Luka folded her into his arms, shifting his rubbing to her back. After a minute, she raised her face, nose nudging his shyly, and he obliged her with more soft, affectionate kisses. 

Eventually she grew brave enough to kiss him, to shyly taste his lips and explore his mouth. He kept her wrapped up tight and safe and let her set the pace, enjoying the different kind of torture her painfully, deliciously slow escalation played on his deprived body. 

At last she pulled away from his lips, panting lightly, pushing against his chest until he loosened his arms around her. “I think, um...I think I need to stop.”

“Okay,” he said, nuzzling her jaw and leaving one last soft kiss at the hinge. “You want me to take you home?” 

“Yes.” 

“Can I see you again, Marinette?” he asked, a little nervously. Maybe this had all been too much for her, maybe she really wasn’t ready, and what was he going to do if that were so? He was already in so deep…

“Yes, please,” she said, burying her face in his neck. “Soon.”

Relief made him weak, and he was glad to hold onto the rail when they went down the stairs of the metro station. Once again he felt like a stupid teenager, giddy to be holding hands and leaning on each other on the ride back to Marinette’s home. As he was walking her up the stairs to her apartment, something else occurred to him.

“What do you want to do about Louis? It’s your call, of course, but if we’re going to do this again, I feel like we should talk to him,” Luka said, caressing her knuckles absently with his thumb. 

“Yes, I was thinking that too,” sighed Marinette. “I know he’s already figured out something’s going on. He’s very perceptive, and well…” she gestured to her pink cheeks. “I’m not exactly subtle.”

“You’re perfect,” Luka smiled as they paused outside of her door. “Maybe if he’s willing, we could take him to a movie or something? Something he likes to do? And if that goes well, Jagged Stone’s going to be in town in a couple weeks, I can get tickets. He doesn’t do too many shows anymore, maybe Louis would like to see his mom’s oldest client in action while there’s still the chance.” He winked, and Marinette laughed. “Ask him about it. I don’t want to make him uncomfortable or push my company on him. If he’s not ready to spend time with me, I won’t be offended.”

Marinette laughed. “Are you ever offended?” she asked, running her thumb over his cheek affectionately.  

“Sometimes,” he chuckled, catching her hand. “I try not to sweat the small stuff, though.” He started to lift her hand to his lips, only to have her pull it away quickly.

“Sorry,” she said, reddening. “It’s just, the kiss on the knuckles, that was Adrien’s thing, I don’t—”

“I understand,” Luka said, and then smiled mischievously. “Wasn’t going for that, actually.” Keeping his eyes on hers, he reached for her hand again, lifted and turned it, and placed a gentle kiss on the little ladybug tattoo. “That okay?” 

Marinette smiled. “Yeah.” She sighed. “Thanks for putting up with all my hang-ups. I don’t think many guys would be as patient as you, and...well, I’m grateful.”

Luka leaned forward and laid his forehead against hers. “It’s not like I don’t have my own baggage. Everybody does. Besides, you’re worth it, Marinette. Any guy that wouldn’t wait for you is an idiot. You’re an amazing person, there’s nothing wrong with you, and you’re so worth it.” 

“Um,” Marinette said softly, moving away just enough to be able to see him clearly as she looked up from beneath her lashes. “You are too. You know that, right?” 

That caught him off guard, and he blinked at her for a moment. Marinette brought one hand up and laid it a little tentatively against his cheek. Luka leaned into it as she spoke. “I can, um...w-well you’ve obviously been going through a lot too. And I don’t really know how...I don’t want to promise anything I can’t keep but…” She sighed. “I’m not as good at this as you are. I’m not, I don’t want...ugh…” She broke off and bit her lip. 

“Take your time,” Luka said, putting his hand over hers. “I want to understand.” 

“I just mean...even though I joke about how annoyingly composed you are...that you’re allowed to not be perfect. Those moments, when you miss your mom, you don’t have to apologize to me for that.” She swallowed, and her voice was a little thick when she continued. “I don’t know if I can be what you need,” she said in a rush. “But you shouldn’t be sorry for needing it. Not at all.” 

Luka let that sink in a moment, and then smiled softly. “Thank you for that,” he told her. “Honestly, that’s enough. If you can just let me work through it as long as it takes, then that’s enough.” 

“I can do that much,” Marinette smiled, and it only trembled a little. 

He angled his face slightly in invitation, and she moved to meet him in one last, tender kiss. “Good night, beautiful dreamer. I’ll see you soon.” 

“Good night, Luka,” Marinette said, adorably shy as she looked up at him. 

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9 | Chapter 10 | AO3

~~~

I've never had to not use a song before because it was TOO perfect, but this time I just decided quoting any of the lyrics would be so on the nose as to be almost comical. So, I'll just leave this here, the song Marinette and Luka were listening to on their walk:

[cherubchoirs]

Have you ever heard of Leverage (TV series)? It is about a five-person team: a thief, a grifter, a hacker, and a retrieval specialist, led by former insurance investigator, who use their skills to fight corporate and governmental injustices inflicted on ordinary citizens. I like to think that Akira would do something similar when he grows older. If you don’t mind me asking, what types of jobs do you see the members of the Phantom Thieves having as they grow up?

i’ve heard of the show but i haven’t seen it myself, although i 100% agree that is totally akira!!! i think akira, at first, holds a lot of odd jobs because he likes meeting new people, seeing different places, and having all kinds of experiences...and it keeps his schedule flexible so that he can work as a burglar. he only steals from those who deserve it, doing meticulous combing of their backgrounds and digging all the dirt on them - he retrieves valuables for himself and often grabs blackmail material too in order to make them change their ways. however, akira works as the daring, hands-on type, becoming a modern day arsene that thrills the public with his daring heists and brings people to justice for crimes that wouldn’t otherwise be brought to light. he does this for years but...he scales a lot of high-rise buildings, a dangerous gamble that finally doesn’t go his way one night, and the fall he takes leaves him with a bad back and using a cane after lots of physical therapy to recover. he moves forward after that to go into activism, using a degree in law to work as an advocate for prisoner’s rights in japan...but definitely still continuing to work as a thief that now orchestrates heists in a similar way to what you mentioned where he stays behind the scenes. SO...i’ve thought plenty about akira obviously sdkfsjfd but as for the others!! 

- ryuji is a physical therapist - i never thought ryuji actually came off as dumb tbh, he just seems unfocused and like he’s given into labels. like i noticed that ryuji can be incredibly insightful and asked some really good questions...and i just want him to achieve so much more as an adult than he ever thought he could. he works especially well with kids, connecting to them easily and having the kind of upbeat, high energy they need to feel happy even after a serious injury. and i imagine ryuji is like. super buff. dude’s ripped. and the kids can see that he has an injury too but it didn’t stop him working out, playing sports, or having a good life even if there are certain things he can’t do (i hc ryuji lives with chronic pain and running is eventually too hard on his leg) he’s honestly a great doctor in general who makes people feel at ease even if he can be overly excitable, it’s just part of his charm lol 

- ann does become a model like she wanted, but i imagine she gets a business degree to learn how to eventually run her own modeling company. she wants a place where the models feel safe, where they aren’t used or abused in any way, and all claims of harassment are taken DAMN seriously and ann will ruin any photographer/company/manager that tries to take advantage of a model. additionally, she really wants to expand the kind of models that can find work in japan - ann herself knows what it’s like to be singled out for being different, but she also knows she doesn’t face half of what many minorities do. she wants them all to be see as beautiful and fashionable, she wants all people to be able to open a magazine and see someone like them held up as the image of beauty. 

- yusuke can’t be anything but a fine artist lmao his work includes a TON of travel, finding inspiration in all corners of the globe as well as making tons upon tons of international friends wherever he goes. he stays with them more often than not, barely even having a permanent residence, and none of the thieves are surprised when they get a text from him backpacking in australia or exploring a city in peru. it makes his work super eclectic, a beautiful blend of styles and compositions that he’s seen around the world (madarame WISHES he actually had the range!!), although his favorite will always be traditional japanese painting since that’s what his mother loved. 

- makoto initially goes into the police force wanting to be a commissioner...but even she is shocked to learn how disgustingly corrupt the force is. she knows what akira faced and the trumped up charges that would have been brought to the phantom thieves, but actually getting into on the other side was something else entirely. so she decides to work for internal affairs to climb the ladder to the top as quickly as possible. yes, she wants justice in the streets, but that will never be accomplished is the police are simply allowed to do as they please, so she decides she must take them to task first. it’s still working in a corrupt system, but she is MERCILESS, never caring how many people attempt to brick her out - she knows every loophole and makes various connections to get her where she needs to be to bring crooked officers before a court of law. 

- futaba continues to live with sojiro for a long time, but she easily develops her own software and makes good money from it. i sort of got the idea that futaba could definitely make a living like this from p5d honestly, where she says she made the top app in the app store but just did so anonymously (or something like that!!) so she didn’t get paid. i think she would just develop software and games and things like that on her own because traditional work just doesn’t suit the way she thinks and operates, and she’s happy to work all on her own. she also definitely, definitely helps akira with his heists and stealing info on assholes that deserve to be taken down while doing her own hacking on the side. 

- haru continues to oversee the company, but i think she scales it back quite a bit in order to be sure they maintain good quality and good policies. like ann’s business, all of her employees feel safe and comfortable to report any grievances and it’s known as one of the best places to work as haru keeps a close eye on things. she does get the cafe she wanted, although she wishes she could be there in person more. she works closely with the manager and all the employees know her though, making an appearance at least a couple times a week to relax and get that one on one interaction with her workers and customers. it has a beautiful little garden too that anyone can help tend, plus haru makes sure any unused food goes to help those in need (and those in need can always come to the cafe for a meal, just like her grandfather wanted).

- goro goes into law, where he works as a lawyer in family court. i always really liked the idea of him being a lawyer since i think his relationship with sae was an important one, but it’s definitely just a passion for him too because he’s tenacious in getting the outcome that’s in the best interest of children in any given case. he knows how little the legal system tends to care about kids in these disputes, and it’s even worse when they are orphans or in foster care, so he wants to be the one person on their side even if he has to fight against the whole system for them. and he. really definitely does fight that system tooth and nail, known for being brutal in court and exceedingly thorough in the evidence he compiles. no one took him seriously at first because oh he’s just that wannabe kid detective, but they all learned VERY fast how dangerous an opponent he really is. surprisingly, though, everyone sees the total 180 he does talking to kids, his voice soft and warm but full of confidence, and he’s done amazingly well helping out social workers that otherwise can’t find an advocate

[hitbythunder]

Among the Gods of Asgard -4

A dark!Thor x Reader, minor Loki x Reader story with all the drama and angst you’re craving. Including Alexander Skarsgard as Balder.

–> Read also on AO3

Summary: The gods are being loved and feared in equal parts by their subjects, more the latter by the thousands of slaves working for them. Ten feet tall, powerful and immortal are the rulers of all beings within the Nine Realms. You, the daughter of an Asgardian merchant, fancy the three handsome princes of Odin - like any woman does - and dream of actually meeting them instead of watching them at public events. That is until, as a consequence of Loki’s tricks, you are being forced into slavery at the royal court. Amidst this harsh new reality, you catch the attention of the god of Thunder who then seeks to make you his alone. You are nothing but a toy, a puppet, in the god’s eyes and he will use you as he pleases.

Do not hope for mercy.

**** WARNING: dark story, manipulative Thor, heavy rape/non-con elements, no happy ending in sight

____________________________xXx____________________________

The common baths consisted of several large basins distributed among adjacent rooms, all joined by one antechamber from which the exit lead to the rest of the palace. At this hour, the lights decorating the richly painted walls were already dimmed and the little fountains here and there turned off. Silence hung over the damp, warm rooms and the mortal girl faded perfectly in, her small figure darting through the thin mist, the faint sound of her bare feet on the cool tiles swallowed by the long skirt swirling around her legs. For a few moments she vanished inside one of the adjacent rooms, then appeared again only to hurry into another. Obviously she was searching for something in vain. Turning her pretty head from side to side, the mortal stood in the middle of the antechamber and sighed deeply in frustration, unaware of the pair of eyes resting on her, observing and scrutinizing from not too far away.

Her dress was beige, plain and just like any other maid's, with the neckline almost covering the collarbones so that there was little skin showing except her arms. The piece of cloth was held in place mainly by two bronze clasps on each shoulder and would droop like a potato bag down to her ankles if not for the thin belt around her waist. Currently she had her hands stemmed in said location, her hips leaning cheekily to the left and her bosom protruding nicely. Still searching she turned around again, presenting her backside which was worth surveying too.

Out of drunkenness, curiosity or boredom, the silent observer then decided to make his presence known before the girl had the chance to leave. An unmistakable ripple of water echoed through the many rooms as he moved his large body in the basin, cutting the mist like a knife and startling the girl. Instantly she wheeled around in the direction of the sound and narrowed her eyes to peek through the curtain of mist. The bare lights in the adjacent room hampered a clear view from afar so the girl walked a little inside, each step cautiously taken. Her heart skipped a beat when she saw the blonde god sitting in the basin.

Can this night get any worse?

"Finally someone to pour me more wine!" Thor cheerfully held up his goblet, indicating for the girl to get moving, as he leaned against the edge of the basin. The foaming water covered him just up to his chest, leaving the rest above that line bare to behold. Tiny pearls of water mottled his sun-kissed skin, perfectly underlining the contour of each muscle in the dim light. In full awareness of his impressive physique, Thor looked expectantly at the girl across the basin.

Time for some fun.

Albeit with hesitation, _________ approached the god and picked up the large jug standing on the floor not too far away from the goblet it was meant to supply. It's within a large arm's reach - his reach! ________ thought sourly, her strained limbs protesting against the new effort. He seems to be in a good mood tonight but better not risk anything. With the image of the servant girl flying across the room in mind, she placed every step wisely as not to slip on the wet tiles or trip over her own feet. Luckily, the god had already emptied the jug by half – probably the source of his joyous spirits – and thus reduced the likelihood of spilling. Other dangers had evolved as a consequence, however, because Thor was mean and cruel even absent any alcohol.

The girl ignored the staring of the god as best as she could as she refilled the goblet in his hand, a strange shudder creeping up her spine. The crown-prince sensed her growing nervousness due to his presence, how she avoided to meet his intense gaze and how quickly she withdrew after pouring, creating more distance between them. It made him smirk. "It was you on the balcony the other day." he said and took a long sip, not averting his dark-blue orbs so as not to miss her reaction. Since it wasn't a question but rather a statement of known facts, ______ saw no point in denial and replied in a calm, professional fashion:

"Please forgive my blunt and disrespectful behavior, your highness! I didn-"

"Did you like what you saw?" Thor interrupted her, obviously not interested in her (boring) apologies, catching her completely off guard. Maybe he would screw out the desired reaction this way. What was she supposed to answer? The truth (It was smoking hot and kept her dreaming for over a week) or a lie (Your face looks ridiculous while fucking?). Hel no! Better come up with something in the middle.

"Well, it was pretty far away and with my myopia...I merely got the gist, your highness!"

A diplomatic and eloquent excuse, not exactly what the god had aimed for, nor what he was used from his personal slaves. Yet, come to think of it, Balder had mentioned her manners recently and how well she made up for the merchant's insolence. This new line of thoughts made the god drop the former topic and after a brief pause he spoke up again:

"My brother seems rather pleased by your services, so I have heard. But that leaves me wondering why you came to the common baths alone at this hour?" That's an easy one, just don't make some puns..._________ thought to herself as she collected some proper words.

"Prince Balder has already retired and sent me here to search for his golden bangle which appears to be missing, your highness." she replied, standing stiff like a column beside the bronze jug, a little away from the basin. The nervousness kept her fatigue at bay, but still she failed to realize what crucial detail of information had just slipped her mouth. In contrast to Thor, whose dark-blue eyes were aflame. "How fortunate..." he put the goblet down onto the tiles to his right and reached a little farther behind, grabbing something. "..that I found it earlier!" ________'s eyes widened at the sight of the bangle in the god's left hand, turning it playfully for her to behold the sparkling metal. "Imagine it was to fall into the wrong hands!" Thor's gaze traveled from the girl to the bangle and back again.Both knew he had her then - as if he hadn't had any power over her earlier. Everything ________ needed to do in order to get out of here and be finally reunited with her longed for bed, was to get that stupid bangle from the god. Easy as that.

"Please, if your highness would be as kind as to hand it to me, I could bring it to his owner!" she suggested, praying that he would agree and let her leave. "You mentioned that Balder is already sleeping, so why the hurry? Better keep me entertained some more!" The answer hit the girl like a slap across the face, her hopes destroyed, and with sagging expressions she watched as Thor put the bangle as far away as his arm would allow, impossible for her to obtain. Why can't he play nice?! As she silently cursed herself for not having considered her words earlier more wisely, the god grew impatient.

"Go on, dance for me!" His growl made her jump slightly and so she began to move, reluctantly at first - there was no music to rely on - but less so when she thought of a nice familiar tune. The sweet taste of wine flooded Thor's mouth while his other major senses were focused on the swaying hips of the maid. Again he mustered her, like he had briefly during the meeting in Loki's chambers hours ago. But this time he did so more thoroughly, his sparkling eyes raking slowly over her small body. Pretty without doubt but nothing compared to the stunning, flawless beauty of a goddess - that's what most men would conclude. But not so Thor. As the god drank in all the details of _________'s shape, every curve and every mark, he had to admit that this 'non-perfect composition' was rather attractive, even seducing. Due to the dress swirling around her, Thor had merely a vague idea of the flesh beneath and his curiosity grew with each of her alluring movements. Whether the alcohol was to blame or not, that girl had awoken something basic inside him, some deep secret desire that was finally surfacing - Thor could feel it as his mind-set switched to predator-mode. He wanted her to worship him, to beg for his attention. Suddenly he had an idea and reached behind, trading the goblet for the bangle again. At the same time, the girl had stopped dancing, her movements dying away as did the inaudible song in her ears.

"You want that, right?" A superfluous question, judging from the way the girl's eyes were glued to the bangle in his hand. Oh how he enjoyed having power over others. "Then go get it!" ________'s eyes followed the metal as it slipped through the god's loose fingers and fell into the water, sliding down to the bottom of the basin. There it lay, in front of the god, free for her to take and yet even more out of her reach than ever. For _______ had never learned to swim.

But if I get it I can leave. This might be my only chance!

Chewing on her lower lip, she weighed her options and came up with a rather risky plan: The water was too deep for her to stand, so she would jump right in and dive down to the ground, grab the bangle and push herself off with her feet to get back to the surface. In and out in one go. After inhaling deeply she jumped into the water, fully clothed and not caring that she splashed the prince. Patiently Thor waited for her to resurface, intending to keep her inside the basin with him, and he waited. And waited.

The bubbles of air above her diminished as her lungs were emptied. Actually finding the bangle on the ground hadn't been that easy and the whole plan seemed rather stupid to her, especially now that she was drowning. There was no strength left in her bones to fight, she could barely keep on holding the piece of metal. When the first spots of darkness emerged at the corners of her eyes, she suddenly felt two large hands grabbing her roughly by the upper arms, pulling her upwards and out of the water.

Coughing violently and shaking all over, ________ crouched on all fours on the edge of the basin. "Stupid girl...." Thor grumbled in annoyance as he sat down on the underwater step in front of the wet mess, one arm resting on the cool tiles and his torso twisted. This really hadn't turned out as intended. "What were you thinking?!"

The girl sat up and brushed the strands of wet hair out of her face, a cocky smile spreading between slight coughs. "I thought you wanted me to entertain you -cough-" The impending suffocation had made her lightheaded and Thor couldn't help but laugh at that.

"Tsk!"

Then he noticed the bangle in her right hand, her fingers tightly clawed around the metal. Did she just risk her life to fulfill Balder's order? What a dedicated maid... Thor wondered as he watched her regain some composure. Completely wet from the quick swim, the thin cloth of her dress was now clinging to her body like a second skin and revealing much to the beholder. Each curve, each hill, even some flesh shimmering through here and there. Thor licked across his lips, his loins stirring. This night was far from over and he needed her closer.

"Here, have a sip to calm down!" the crown-prince said as he offered her the goblet in an attempt to loosen her up. A noble gesture if not for the second thoughts.

"No, thank you, your highness... I don't drink." Of course she wouldn't take the bait just like that. "Then I order you to drink!" the god extended his arm further, bringing the goblet almost up to her mouth when she finally took it. But instead of letting go, he guided the goblet in order to ascertain that a large gulp of the expensive liquid rushed down her throat. The skin of their fingers on the metal faintly touched.

A few moments later, the wine had accomplished the desired impact and _________ truly had calmed down a bit. Not entirely, of course, because that would only be possible when she was away from the prince. Norns, she needed some decent sleep! But Thor had other plans for her. "Now that you are wet anyway, you can as well wash me!" Thor emptied the goblet in one sip and put it away for good. Then he turned towards the maid again, a wide grin plastered across his bearded face. "Regard it as compensation for saving your life!" Completely flabbergasted, but realizing that she had been given an order nevertheless, ________ stared at the god who obviously had taken a liking into teasing her. Great, absolutely great!

She had no choice but to let herself sink into the water, carefully this time so as to remain with her feet on the stone step one could sit upon. From a large bowl filled with colorful soaps standing next to the basin, ________ then took a blue one and rubbed it between her hands – the hands which were going to actually touch a god! She would have never expected that to happen in her life. As uncomfortable and out of place as she felt, the maid decided to start with the arm resting on the edge and remain as far away from the prince as possible. Thor could have burst into laughter at her naive attempts, knowing that they would be all in vain eventually. But he refrained from doing so, in fact neither of the two ushered a word and silence flooded the baths. Gently the mortal applied some foam on his massive arm, her small hands sliding over the tight biceps and triceps, then onward over the shoulder to the broad chest as far as she could reach. Thor sat still the whole time so that he wouldn't scare her away, watching her with wolfish eyes.

Compared to him she was not only small, she was tiny. Thus it would take a while for her hands to rub every spot of his body atop the water line, her warm soft palms gliding in circles across his divine flesh. But Thor wanted those hands elsewhere. Would she even be able to encompass him? Thor became very aroused by that thought and purposefully ignored the shouts of his consciousness, forgetting about them at once when he spied a pair of stiffened nipples under her wet dress. The stirring of his loins intensified. "Don't forget the rest below the water..." he ordered in a husky voice, blurred by both the wine finally affecting him and his growing arousal. Impatience hit him like a bolt when the girl hesitated to obey, her bright eyes full of doubt and shock. "T-this is profoundly inappropriate, your highness!" "I don't care about etiquette!" He rumbled. With some effort, the god ripped his gaze from her bosom to meet her eyes, pleased by the obvious blush and the fear he found on her face. Still she didn't move and so Thor suddenly grabbed her right hand with his and guided the way down. A growl escaped the god and the crimson on _______'s cheeks flamed up upon reaching the desired goal. Inappropriate or not, Thor was rock hard and throbbing.

"Are you refusing me?" the god grumbled when he felt her hand slightly retreating from his flesh, his own hand still keeping hers in place. ______ shook her head, swallowed hard and began to slide her hand along his shaft. Thor let go of her hand then and relaxed fully against the edge of the basin. Since there was too much of him for one hand alone, the girl soon used her other too and even then she barely reached around his girth. Thor was on fire. “Good girl...” Her cool breath on his heated skin did little to soothe the flames of desire within him, on the contrary, he only wanted her to be closer. So he put his right hand on her back and pushed, forcing her to lean a little bit further across his lap as she knelt beside him. Most of her body was under water now, but Thor explored her backside with his hand, squeezing and rubbing the soft flesh in a possessive manner. She was so delicate, so fragile under his touch and Thor knew that he could break her at a whim. Like a toy in his mighty hands. Those slim hips he felt were teasing him, quickening his imagination about her womanly treasure – how wet it would be, how hot and tight. A violent shudder of pure lust rushed through the god. The delightful tension was overwhelming as _______ continued to pump him, her slender hands sliding along his thick shaft.

“Faster!” Thor wasn't able to say more as his apex dawned upon him, threatening to wash over him like a grand wave during a tempest. Longing for the final moment, the god reached over with his left hand and cupped her deeply flushed face. Without effort he forced her to look at him, her eyes widened and watery, while his thumb parted her moist lips to invade her pretty little mouth and fill it. Like I would elsewhere...

Thor came with a loud grumble, his whole body contracting as the hot squirts diffused with the water. Overwhelmed and utterly succumbing to the bliss, his eyes fell shut as he rolled his head back. That was exactly when the mortal slipped off.

[eunahfmdarchive]

so-so - full lyrics credit, full composition credit, full production credit. date: january 2021-ish. word count: 1,813, not including lyrics. as per usual, this sucks <3 but also it was kind of fun. did i write it well? no, but it was fun. uHH don’t bother reading this, and beth i’m really sorry that you have to. CW: very brief mentions of sex.

what’s her sound? eunah laments over the question for a long time. is it problematic for her to investigate her musical identity so closely? does it make what she writes less sincere? or on the contrary, does it make the end product more thoroughly thoughtful? last year, eunah spent a lot of time questioning her style of songwriting. it mostly came as a result of appearing on our songs, where the different assignments pushed her out of her comfort zone. and since then, the music she writes has become more varied. even so, eunah feels an urge to return to her roots, to write something with more theatrical leanings. over the last year, she’s become a lot more concerned with writing songs that will sell, trapping herself within walls of dimensions entertainment’s design.

it would be nice to write something just for her, for a change.

rather than settling down in front of her piano with her notebook to write another generic love song, eunah decides that, for once, she wants to be as honest as she can in what she creates, instead of dressing up her feelings inside of another song for dimensions’ approval. 

it’s not like nobody’s good enough for me i just don’t quite feel like it i meet guys once or twice or maybe a few days but the awkwardness is always there

when it comes to romance, the last couple of years have been ... interesting for eunah. she’s happy where she is right now, contented in her singleness, but things haven’t always been that way for her. only a handful of weeks ago, she was seeing someone, and entertaining the idea of making it official. a lot of boys have come and gone with surprising fleetingness, all of them usually inspiring a song or three. nowadays though, when she thinks back on them and their relationships, she doesn’t feel much. she remembers their dates and kisses in a largely neutral fashion, and finds that, even without those guys by her side, she feels just fine. it’s sort of disheartening to realise that maybe she’s still the girl she was three or so years ago, back when she was so much more emotionally distant. she doesn’t seem to be able to make any romantic relationship last. or maybe, it’s just that she’s become less dependent on others. maybe, she’s more independent than she thought. she’d like to fall in love for real one day, to let go of her inhibitions completely and feel freely, but the idea of that is scary as well. as happy as she is right now, maybe it’s safer for her to maintain a certain amount of distance in her romantic affairs. perhaps this is just the way she loves -- neutrally, carefully, awkwardly, but sincerely.

she still isn’t confident enough to have sex with the lights on. 

no matter who i meet so-so being alone is just so-so not so exciting but not all that bad (so-so) i’m starting to forget what love is supposed to be like i can’t even remember

though i’m jealous of couples (how lucky) i’m not that lonely being alone (it’s quite alright) my phone never rings and I’m free on weekends the only thing i hate is myself in front of the tv

so-so is just the right way to express it. the song, she realises, isn’t just only for herself in the context of thinking too hard about what the company wants, but it’s taking back at least some of her creative agency from her exes. she loved them, truly, but it’s freeing to write as eunah -- just eunah, rather than a version of herself connected to someone else. 

there’s a desire for companionship underlying it all. that’s unavoidable. people are desperate to rid themselves of loneliness more than anything else, she thinks. but eunah isn’t lonely. being alone isn’t an issue for her, but non-action is. the image of herself reflected back at her on a darkened television screen makes her wrinkle her nose. it makes her feel like she isn’t being productive, or that at the very least there should be someone sitting next to her, arm thrown around her shoulder. or, when she sees herself on the screen, singing about love, or, more recently, acting in love. is it normal to feel jealous of her on screen self? maybe.

but there’s no prince and princess ending for hong seol either. that’s a refreshing aspect of the show, of the character. 

she supposes though, that that’s part of her motivations too. if she isn’t attached to someone in her personal life, she’s attached to someone else via her profession ... she likes that, she thinks, the ability to slip into a second skin. she likes the time she has alone too, though. 

once again, everything is just so-so.

the lyrics come together easily enough, a rare blessing for someone like her, who usually pieces scraps of sentences together for weeks until she finds an order that she likes, habitually swapping things around at the last possible chance, ten minutes before stepping into a recording booth. with the actual music itself, eunah’s a lot less finicky and fickle. sitting in front of her piano, eunah thinks about let me in -- she’s come a long, long way since then, but she’s still that girl. she spent a lot of time trying to recover a previous version of eunah, but she came to the conclusion, eventually, that she’s not going to be able to go back there. she’s changed, and that’s okay. maybe this won’t be the song to show her progress through its lyrics, but she thinks it could be a song to call back to let me in in a stylistic sense. a song with a musical sort of tone. 

it’s a self indulgent decision to return to her roots, in much the same way that choosing to write an uninterested, bored-with-love love song was in the first place. the songs she’s written most recently have taken her out of her comfort zone. dancing cartoon, count you out, painting and seattle alone all forced her to use a little more brain power than she’d usually put into coming up with melodies, and twice as much brain power again for the ones she produced for. eunah doesn’t consider herself to be that good at production yet, so she focuses on making a type of song that she could hopefully work with easily. eunah’s hands pause atop the keys of her piano. she wasn’t sure at what stage she’d mentally committed to producing the song herself as well, but she apparently had. 

her progress on the song is quicker than usual. writing this song -- she thinks she’ll call it so-so after all -- isn’t as strenuous as writing some of her others. eunah’s never been the type to believe that a song’s worth directly equates to the amount of blood, sweat, and tears shed in the process of making it. in fact, she finds it relaxing, as she constructs a mid-tempo, largely cheery tune for her lyrics. the melody still turns somber at some points, to fit the more contemplative parts of the lyrics, but the music quickly picks up again for the chorus. she wants the song to really be something that highlights her voice and her abilities. the music, she decides, will ultimately be an accompaniment in a very true sense. a lot of the songs idols put out nowadays have instrumental heavy choruses rather than vocally focused ones. it doesn’t even stop there, extending to pop songs from overseas too. eunah doesn’t mind that to listen to, or to perform in 7rophy, but she doesn’t think that she could pull off something like that by herself. 

when she pushes back from her piano, all of her notes scribbled down messily across a handful of pages, eunah breathes out a tired sigh -- tired, yes. sad? frustrated? no, quite the opposite. she hums her new song to herself as she drifts off to sleep.

once the melody is pinned down and she records the vocals, eunah plants herself squarely in her studio at dimensions headquarters, essentially living out of there for a handful of days and leaving crys’ care to her roommate. it’s not officially her studio or anything, but it’s the one she uses nine times out of ten that she needs somewhere to work on her music. she’s grateful for the space, and for the agency she has over her solo music. she knows, however, if the finished product isn’t what dimensions want, they’ll make whatever edits they want. that’s why this stage, the final one, is so important. she’s busy these days with press junkets and promotional material for cheese in the trap, and this is the first chance she’s really had to toy around with the song’s production properly. there were moments that eunah could have stolen before, but she wanted to wait for a time in her schedule when she was able to consistently work on it. she’s made some amendments to the tune and lyrics since, the last of which happened right before recording the version of her vocals that she went with. she realised after how the lyrics might be read or interpreted more sadly than she initially intended them to come across. she leans into it though, pleased to see her song taking on somewhat of a life of its own. with that in mind, recording went smoothly.

it is sad, she ultimately agrees, even as she arranges the background instrumentals in a decidedly happy leaning order. acting through her voice is something eunah has always prided herself on. it’s her strongest skill -- some would probably say it’s her only skill. if that really is the case, eunah thinks that it’s a fine skill to have, if she can really only have one. it’s a good thing too, because after countless edits and a spread of versions with only slight differences for her to choose from, the one that eunah likes best is the one where her voice does most of the work. the arrangement of the instruments isn’t particularly interesting or unique, but it’s pretty and listenable, and does exactly the job she wanted it to. it’s a perfect accompaniment for her voice, climbing in just the right spots to support her belts, and lulling into silence just after her vocals softly peter out. there’s backing vocals added throughout, layers of her own voice propping her primary self up, appearing in just the right places as echoed confirmations of the lyrics’ lamentations. eunah likes a song that comes with all the bells and whistles as much as the next musical theatre fan (professional? she supposes she is) or noise music performing idol, but she think a song like this is what suits her best. though she set out on a well-intentioned but always doomed quest to define her style by returning to her roots and making something theatrical, she ended up with something simple. something that, in its difficulty level, might be described by its own title -- so-so. maybe she’s just less dramatic nowadays. her emotions have definitely been reined in, in a good way; in a manageable way. worrying about her music’s sincerity won’t get her anywhere.

and anyways, it’s fine, she thinks, for me to be so-so about things. i spent too long losing myself to my emotions already. eunah figures that, to some extent, life is good if life is boring. submitting it with a slight, but satisfied smile, eunah can only hope that the title isn’t predictive of the song’s reception.

[segenassefa]

6: Brand Focus: Los Angeles Apparel

September – the season of changing leaves, pumpkin spice lattes (those are nasty but if I speak…), and – usually – back to school shopping.

However, now that life has transitioned online, there is no reason to wear anything that is uncomfortable or at least two sizes oversized on a day-to-day basis. But – and don’t fight me on this - there is nothing more satifying than new and quality loungewear.

This is where Los Angeles Apparel comes in.

The brand formerly known as American Apparel rebranded as Los Angeles Apparel – the same basics brand, full of heavyweight cotton, styles ranging from classic to contemporary, and a wide range of colours, everything from neutrals to neon colours.

After bankrupting twice, American Apparel was purchased by Canadian manufacturer, Gildan, in 2017. Gildan went on to rebrand and remove the more notable points of the company’s marketing strategy – namely, the borderline pornographic advertising and sinfully high price range (some AA products can now be purchased on websites such as Wordans and Amazon).

Founder and Montreal native Dov Charney (who has his own demons, including accusations of sexual harassment and mismanagement of funds when he ran American Apparel in 2014*) then decided to take his ideas elsewhere, introducing Los Angeles Apparel.

Now operating out of a south Los Angeles warehouse, LAA poses itself as an ethical, basics, brand, paying workers between $15-$20 USD, as well as overtime pay and benefits, and varies from other fashion retailers in the amount of transparency to behind the scenes of their warehouse and in the production process – many of the brand’s Instagram stories include shots of models, posing outside and throughout the warehouse, and well as videos of various garment and production workers at their daily dyeing, stitching, and cutting tasks. Another plus of this brand is the composition of the garments, specifically their sweatshirts and sweatpants, tops, and bodysuits. Most places do not manufacture goods with 100% cotton - traditional brands either use a 50/50 blend of cotton and polyester, or an 80/20 blend for goods in the heavyweight category. Using 100% cotton leads to a garment that looks even better with wear and tear, as well as prevents pilling, worn out elastic cuffs and hems, as well as less discolouration. Lastly, LAA is mostly devoid of branding – their clothing has no flashy logos or tags, no awkward stitching or excessive distressing, product styles, and unsavoury colour combinations – likely stemming from their roots as a wholesale blanks company. There is a bit of 90’s flavour to the styles shown on the website, included oversized sweats and t-shirts, lots and lots of pleats (pants, skirts, shorts, everything), as well as having more fresh-faced models, both men and women.

I’ve never personally been a huge American Apparel shopper – the original brand was not the most inclusive in terms of sizing as most of their items run on the smaller size (even to this day – their 2XL fits more like a very roomy XL) or were the dreaded “slim fit” (the ugliest cut of clothing to touch down on this face of the Earth, please don’t argue with me). However, since rebranding, Charney and the rest of the LAA team began to embrace more true-to-size and oversized fits. After rebuilding my wardrobe with quality basics, I can say about 80% of my wardrobe is from LAA – the pieces are good quality, minimal, and tasteful. Also, as a person who tries to be as ethical with my spending practices as possible and invest in quality clothing, I feel a bit better knowing the $40 t-shirt won’t be falling apart in the wash or after a few wears. For anyone who has considered dipping their toe into LAA or has been looking for other basics to add to their collection, here is a listed review of my favourite items from Los Angeles Apparel**.

HF09GD Unisex - Garment Dye 14oz. Heavy Fleece Hooded Pullover Sweatshirt

If I had the power to get rid of all of the hoodies in the world and replace them with only one, this would be it. This hoodie is thick as hell to the point where sometimes it feels like canvas, but not in an uncomfortable way. The colours are also super rich – my favourite one is Chocolate (one day we will talk about how brown is the supreme neutral for its ability to be and blend with both warm and cool tone colours, but I digress). Another interesting thing about these hoodies is that they don’t hold smell the way I’ve found polyester blends do and when washed, literally smell like an entirely new garment. This is also one of the products that I found is actually more of an oversized fit, and as with most cotton goods – stretch (but not unreasonably) with wear. It comes in a huge selection of colours as well and the sizing is fairly unisex, as both me and my boyfriend have worn this hoodie and have marveled at the quality. While it is an investment ($100 CAD per hoodie, about double that for the whole set), it is truly the hooded sweatshirt I’ve ever owned.

Size: XL, Colour: Chocolate, Price: $100 CAD

3380GD - Heavy 2x1 Rib Crop Tank

As our beautiful friend who was floating around Twitter not too long ago said, “Get into eeeeet!”. And she was absolutely right. This tank top is made for the people who want to get into the w*fe-beater/undershirt-as-a-shirt trend but don’t particularly enjoy the length or thinness of those traditional tops. This cropped tank is a racerback, but not to the point where it is completely unwearable without a bra, provided you have a convertible bra. This top is also 5% elastane as opposed to polyester (for those who are curious, elastane is a member of the Lycra and Spandex family, so the stretch in this top will also provide some shaping benefits). While it does only come in two colours for the time being, I’m one of those people who owns everything in my closet in both black and white, so this was perfect for me. Another thing to note, all my BBWs, this top does not roll up or require too much adjusting throughout the day, and sits just above the belly button for a cropped look without making you look like Roger the Alien (you know what I’m talking about….). This tank top is relatively affordable, considering the wearability, and the ribbing isn’t too noticeable so if you wanted a nice cropped but semi conservative top, this just might be it.

Size: L, Colour: Black, Price: $30 CAD

1215GD - Heavy Jersey Garment Dye Casual Pants

Ok, you know when you want to wear sweatpants, but you also realize that maybe the occasion is not appropriate, or you just need a little bit of pizzazz without all of the frump? This is these pants. When I first read the reviews, I was skeptical, but after realizing all I own are jeans and sweatpants, I copped a pair. I wore these in 75-degree weather, walked a good three or four miles, and was comfortable all day. Plus, unlike most traditional womenswear pants, these pockets are DEEP. Like Mariana Trench deep, which I love because one thing about me – I’m going to use a damn pocket. I would say to avoid these if you aren’t into the straight leg look because with a t-shirt, they do give very public-school art teacher vibes, but they also come in a huge range of colours. A lot of people complain about the elastic band for a lot of their products (too tight), but personally I prefer that – it provides a longer wear time before you have to wash (since it takes longer for the garment to stretch out) and keeps everything cute and covered. These pants are also a nice alternative to jeans, and even come in the couple shades of blue to mimic the idea of dark/light wash. The price is a little obscene for some casual pants, but I think you’re someone who usually wears pants from Urban Planet, H&M, or even Zara, these will be a nice upgrade, sure to last a very, very long time.

Size: L, Colour: Black, Price: $52 CAD

1406GD - Long Sleeve Garment Dye Mockneck T-Shirt

Another one of my favourite things about LAA is the fact that a lot of their products are unisex (while not explicitly labelled as such, you will see a lot of the same items in both the men and women tabs on their website). I love a good long sleeve shirt, but my proportions were never too forgiving to pull it off without looking like a 1960’s ghost, or like I had gotten dressed in the tent section of Home Depot. This top is more of a boxy fit, but the bottom is cropped enough to make it hit just above the thighs for a nice, slouchy look. The colours in these are also super nice, veering more towards neutrals and pastels. This shirt looks good with bike shorts and tucked into jeans, and (the best part) the white is not see-through at all, which was one of my biggest complaints when buying shirts from brands like Hanes, Gildan, Fruit of the Loom, and Keya. The neckline is a lot higher than most traditional crew necks, but I’m a fan. Plus, I feel like it looks a lot better when you layer jewelry over it. If you’re springing to get a basic colour, I’d say it’s totally worth it, at $41 a pop, considering that it’ll last damn near forever.

Size: XL, Colour: White, Price: $52 CAD

B128CF - Long Sleeve Crossfront Bodysuit

The bodysuit that started it all. Y’all. The number of compliments I get whenever I wear this top is insane, not to mention of all the bodysuits I have purchased from this brand, this one is the most flattering, the most versatile, and the most forgiving, in terms of sizing. The cross-front bodysuit is a happy medium for people who want to get into the criss-cross top look without the hassle of strings and shit like that. Not to mention, many bodysuits in this style tend to be ribbed – and not the good kind of ribbing either *retches*. I own this bodysuit in both a medium and a large, and my advice would be to size down, especially if you’re planning on wearing it without a bra (not much of a choice considering this bodysuit has a deep, deep, V neck) and will definitely add to the effortless look of the whole ensemble. This bodysuit can be dressed up and dressed down, but my favourite way to wear this is with some slouchy ass sweatpants, white sneakers (preferably a little beat up) and a small shoulder bag – ad square or transparent sunglasses for some big 90s energy, like you just left a Bikram yoga class or something. The colours on this could be better – aside from the white, black, and flesh toned colour, I really don’t see a purpose for the coral or blue shade, but I may be biased considering I do avoid bright colours like that. Now, it may seem a little overpriced for what it is, but I promise you – in my years of bodysuit research, the only brand that’s coming close to this, especially for larger chested laydeez, is Capezio, and that’s literally dancewear. Like, industrial ass dancewear. Regardless, this bodysuit is top 2 and it’s not 2.

Size: M, Colour: White, Price: $49 CAD

BD12 - Bull Denim Oversized Bag

If I had to give a name to my aesthetic – particularly when it comes to accessories – I’d say I’m somewhere in between “Bag Lady” by Erykah Badu and first year art student in the Midwest working part time at a dusty bookstore. This bag is more of the latter. For reference on size, it’s about as big, laid flat, as my large Telfar, but when on, doesn’t have the same structure, thus keeping it from looking like a burlap sack (or keeping you from looking like Santa on December 24th). The material is bull denim, which is similar in texture and style to regular denim, however, dyed to give it a rich and uniform colour. Also this bag comes in literally all of the ROYGBIV colours, plus black and white, and in a variety of styles and closures (they have one with a zipper for people who are diligent about things like that, as well as a more standard tote size and shape). This bag is perfect for literally everything – I like it when I go grocery shopping, or even getting from A to B when I have to carry a million things. Another bonus is the construction of the strap is thick without being comical, meaning that you won’t have those nasty lines in your shoulder after a long day, and you won’t have to worry about a strap busting and embarrazzzzing you (Nella Rose voice) when you’re out. In terms of pricing, you could get a little pleather number from H&M for the same price, but if you don’t take yourself seriously, then just say that (kidding!). as someone who loves the look of a good canvas tote, without wanting to look too much like a crunchy granola kinda person, this bag is lowkey one of my favourites (sorry, Mr. Clemens!).

Size: OS, Colour: Navy, Price: $58

Notes:

*= We do not condone predatory behaviour from anyone, but it is important to highlight that just because you love something doesn’t mean it’s perfect. Part of being a responsible consumer is also knowing about who you purchase from, not just what and how things are made. I am aware of this and am taking accountability for not knowing this information sooner.

**= All of these opinions are my own and not sponsored. Product codes will be listed in the title, and sizing, colour purchased, as well as CAD pricing will be listed at the end of each review.

[sleepless-in-starbucks]

Earth, Pluto, and Sombrero Galaxy for the space asks ( ˘ ³˘)♥ ( ˘ ³˘)♥ ( ˘ ³˘)♥

Earth- Where’s your home?Because I like to be a Vague Shit I’mma answer with America. As soon as I can flee tho it’ll be Canada or somewhere fun.

Pluto- What time is it right now where you are?Hmmmm Triple Kiss I feel like you’re looking to tell me it’s bedtime again hmmmm. But for you’re information it’s about six thirty (by the time I finished the list tho it’s now like. eight thirty ish)

Sombrero Galaxy: Do you have a crush right now?Laughs in aroI do have several platonic crushes/squishes if that’s what you meant tho. And I am treating them just like one should treat crushes: telling no one and never facing my feelings. I’m good at this alright.

And idk if you saw the tags or not but you fell within the 90% chance of getting space Remy ranting because damnit I love him. In this case it’s more like... sneak peak at an idea for a fic I might write one day in the distant future of whenever school stops hating me though.

So it’s losleep because I’m predictable af

Remy who’s gone most of his life slowly having the life stomped out of him

He’s always loved space but no one wanted to listen

Like. Ever.

His rants got shorter and shorter until they just stopped happening

He started wearing his sunglasses both to hide his excitement when someone else starting talking about space (so he wouldn’t get called out or mocked) and to hide his hurt when he was mockingly called ‘starboy’(If anyone had meant it nicely, he would have loved that nickname)

He switched his constellation covered leather jacket for a plain one

By the time he made it to high school he was a whole different person

Dead inside, dead outside, missed half his classes (but still passed them all), sarcastic and generally considered the most infamous bad boy in the school

Logan of course wants nothing to do with him

Remy’s a mess, Logan’s not, and ap courses are hard enough without a bad influence

Remy doesn’t have the zeal or care to chase Logan in this one (which given my love of flirty Remy is so crazy, I know

)But a biology trip to an aquarium ends up with them as bus buddies

Logan expected to hate it but Remy’s normally quiet unless you give him something to sass so the ride there is surprisingly peacefully

And when they get there Remy lets Logan go wherever he wants and look at whatever (Remy mostly came on the trip because the teacher said it was mandatory to passing and he forgot to call in sick the morning of)Logan starts out just looking at the exhibits, pointing out a few facts

Remy doesn’t seem the most interested in what he’s saying, but sometimes his mouth will tip upwards just a little or an eyebrow raise will pass his shades

And Logan takes that positively and slowly but surely starts talking more and more and longer and longer until he finds one sign talking about sharks and just absolutely rants about all the sharks he can name, excitedly, making connections haphazardly as he jumps between species

Remy’s smile is nearly a grin at this point and damnit it’s a good thing he’s wearing sunglasses because the amount of pure adoration in his eyes was rather embarrassing

Logan glances over at him halfway through his explanation of thresher sharks- one he had been happily going on with for a full five minutes- and his speech falters, much to Remy’s disappointment

He mumbles an apology and starts to head for a different exhibit when Remy stops him like ‘??? why you stop’

And Logan looks disappointed in himself when he says he didn’t realize he had been going on so long, he is sincerely sorry, especially since Remy’s stuck with him and hence can’t walk away from his infodumping

Remy’s just ‘honey why would I want to walk away’

Logan is Surprised because like poor Remy no one’s ever wanted to listen to him rant

He tries to call Remy on faking interest and then Remy recites several new shark facts right back at him so it seems he does care

Logan’s still on edge about ranting more in the aquarium but Remy pokes him a lot for more info, and they spend the entire ride back chatting about it (read: Remy slowly falls more and more in love with Logan while the nerd continues to explain every wonder of the deep sea he can come up with)

The school has a whole scandal over the smartest kid suddenly hanging out a lot with the bad boy

They wonder what they’re planning when really every lunch is just a chance to do more ocean info dumping

As they get closer, conversation shifts into more areas: into different sciences, into maths (most of which is Remy squinting suspiciously at Logan for understanding all the formulas), into talking about fashion and movies and everything under the sun, really, except space

Logan’s started to notice how Remy will pause whenever the topic moves to space before skillfully redirecting them into another topic

Logan knows that hesitation- the hesitation of wanting to say so much and fearing it’ll be shot down immediately, a sort of fear that’s not natural so much as it is taught, and he starts to wonder if Remy’s as uncaring as he likes to pretend he is

After all, Logan came to high school swearing off feelings in general, along with ocean talk- avoiding not only a specific type of ridicule but avoiding getting hurt by any insults

It’s not that far of a stretch to assume Remy did something similar, just in a different way

So Logan, using his Big Brain suggests that one of their study dates (yeah they started having study dates a while ago. techincally they’re not dating, just studying/chatting but like,,,,,,,,,,,,, yeah) happens closer to night, sprouting some mostly bs about the brain absorbing more information at night

Remy doesn’t see anything coming so he agrees

They start off studying in Logan’s house but then Logan says he needs a break and starts to head outside

Remy’s confused as to why he’s heading outside but Logan says he likes to breathe the fresh air

When Remy questions why Logan needs to breathe the fresh air on the roof of his house Logan says he likes the height

Remy just shrugs it off and follows him because a) he’s not expecting a trap and b) Logan’s cute he wants to follow him alright

Logan, beautiful smart magnificent Logan, starts casually talking about the stars

He doesn’t know a lot about them, he notes, and then points at a random one and casually wonders out loud about what it’s named

Remy has an answer suspiciously quickly (normally he’d be more reserved but, and I will continue to say this, Logan a Cutie. he wants to impress him)

Logan slowly lures him deeper into the trap by starting with praise (’I didn’t know that. thank you for telling me.’) and follow-up questions (’what’s that one next to it?’ ‘is it a part of any major constellations?’)Remy slowly but surely gets more into it, short one-word explanations morphing into descriptions that morph into histories and exact chemical compositions (or at least what they’re believed to be) and ages and more

At some point he took his sunglasses off to see better and Logan could not be more in love

His eyes are literally sparkling, and now that Logan can see his eyes he sees they’re coffee brown with golden specks like the stars are literally in his eyes, which is a rather romantic comparison coming from Logan, but he’s pretty sure it’s just the truth

Remy’s never been as alive as he is in that moment, and Logan wants the moment to never end, to watch Remy continue to point and gesture and explain, jumping between history and mythology and science, and Logan’s suddenly unsure why he ever questioned Remy’s ability to do so well in school- he’s just always been hiding his reasons for knowing so much

Exactly like Logan did, he glances over for a moment, and Logan was ready to faint at the utter joy on his face, and ready to cry at how quickly it died as Remy shut his mouth like a steel trap

His apology is brief, just a tough ‘sorry’ followed by a ‘we should probably get back to studying...’He tries to leave and Logan grabs his arm before he can, getting him a confused stare that’s both hopeful and pained

Logan askes why he stopped

Remy says something about boring Logan/getting in the way of study time/other miscellaneous bs

And Logan just goes ‘I don’t think you could ever bore me. Especially not with such an interesting topic. And one you enjoy so thoroughly’

Remy’s highkey ‘excuse me lies are mean’

‘good thing I’m not lying then’

Remy: :O

Remy’s further attempts to avoid the issue eventually lead to Logan just stating the obvious of ‘you listened to me infodump about the ocean why can’t I listen to you infodump about the universe’

‘this is different’

‘I find that doubtful’

‘the ocean is really interesting, who wouldn’t want to listen to a rant about it- and hey you looked so cute and happy to, I mean it would be criminal not to listen-’

‘the universe is just as interesting as the oceans, arguably more so. and the way you phrase that, as if you are not just as cute and happy- unarguably more so- is quite misleading’

Remy’s been minorly murdered by both genuine interest in his interest and also that compliment

He finally mutters something about starboy (’but I’m just starboy...’)

Logan’s Confusion and when Remy mumbles how that’s what all the middle school classmates called him he’s minorly (read: MAJORLY) furious

Like yeah he went through the same thing but doing this to Remy ??? illegal

He says so

Remy scoffs

Logan says so again, but with more feeling

Remy scoffs again but with less feeling. He mentions, offhandedly, that is wasn’t really that bad of a nickname- it was the venom everyone had in their tone when they said it that made it awful

Logan Sees An Opening And Makes His Move

He scoots closer to Remy and gently cups his face and turns him to look at him, and softly, so softly, a whisper in the night, lost as quickly as a speck of sand from the top to the bottom of the hourglass in the light wind, he says,

‘then let’s lose the venom’ quietly quietly ‘and you can be my starboy’ a promise, a lovely promise, lovelier than any promise Remy has heard before, so sincere, so perfect, and sworn beneath a starry sky of cloudless night, where every star will hold that promise and watch it too completion, galaxies swirling in beautiful normality as they inch closer and closer like stars too close and spiraling towards each other until they meet, and instead of the vast darkness of a black hole forming something so bright it would sear your eyes right out of your face explodes into existence instead

A lovely night to fall in love and be loved for all of you, even the bits the world tried to force you to hide

[night-unfurls-its-splendour]

I'm watching the entire series of Game of Thrones for the first time. I've made my way to season 3, making sure to watch as many commentaries as I can. Last night I listened  to the Set Design / Costume Design commentary for S3 Ep 4: "And Now His Watch is Ended".

I know most historical costume Enthusiasts / Critics either don't touch, or make exceptions for Fantasy productions and on the whole I agree with that. But something about the Game of Thrones costumes (and how the show's popularity has impacted costume design on productions actually set in the medieval / Renaissance time period) has just really been bothering me.

(Perhaps you see what I mean here with Contessina De Bardi in Medici: Master's of Florence and her sneaky mini structured neckline)

It may be a couple of things, but lots of the ... insights from Michele Clapton shed some light on this for me. I have a few questions.

First: North of the Wall, we spend some time in this episode with The Night's Watch at Craster's Keep. Of Craster's wives, Clapton said [Disclaimer this is not an *exact* quote because I couldn't find a transcript anywhere and my sister sent back the Netflix DVD and I do not have an idetic memory - but the important parts of the comment are, in my own estimation, accurate] : "With Craster's wives I got this idea of them just having bits of rabbit, whatever they can get, woven with grass..." this raises in my mind, SO many questions.

Firstly - we ARE north of the Wall, yes? Where,  as we have seen, the ground is just about ALWAYS covered in snow, or 90% mud. So where is the grass coming from? And also what they are wearing is so clearly not grass?

This also provides a segue into my second question.

Do sheep exist in Westeros?

Why is it that this show has such an aversion to wool? Every man wearing protective clothing is wearing Leather (or rather I should perhaps say "vegan leather"). Every Hearty Weave (TM) appears to be an attempt at Linen; and every Fine Lady is wearing Silk satin, or if you're Olenna, silk brocade (in obviously hot weather, because naturally elderly ladies benefit from heat stroke).

I've not seen one woollen cloak. Not. One wool... anything really. I ask myself "Why?"

100% natural wool is wondeful. It's naturally flame retardant; it keeps you warm; it breathes well; it's soft in a light weave; it's strong in a heavy one; its water repellent. So what is with this endemic erasure of wool? Even productions like 2018's Mary Queen of Scots have had costume designers like Alexandra Byrne who, when searching for a durable fabric for cold and rainy Scotland, came out with a wardrobe comprised entirely of DENIM. Which,  as we all know is the WARMEST AND MOST COMFORTABLE of fabrics when damp. Now we all know Byrne's real reason for using denim is because it's cheap. The problem is Byrne tried to justify it by saying all of that guff about wanting a fabric that wears well in rain (Which,  I cannot stress this enough- denim does not) and, of course because denim would be "ReLaTaBLe". But I digress.

All that aside, perhaps the things that bother me most are components and composition. Which is where we get into the wooly (heh) area of me being a person with interest in HISTORICAL costume, critiquing a FANTASY series.

So let's just get this out of the way: I'm not saying that anything that the costume Department did with this series was "Wrong" [with one exception, but we'll get to that when we get to it]. I'm just going to say that I don't like the way it was approached, and my reasons on WHY. 

I think I have a modicum of justification for my opinions here because, fantasy is fantasy, yes but the concepts of "Fantasy" and "Medieval" have become so strongly connected that the line between them has become so blurred in the modern mind as to be almost non-existent anymore. We're in a strange cycle here. "Fantasy" was directly inspired by Medieval and over the years took more and more creative wiggle room because, the great thing about fantasy is, you can make it whatever you want it to be aesthetically. But as Fantasy and Medieval have become so intertwined, more and more creative license has been taken with the latter, so that the original inspiration has become beholden to imitate the art it inspired.

But I'll save my pontification on the modern eye and Medieval fashion for another post, and try to keep on track only as far as this affects my feelings on Game of Thrones.

My justification is that GoT is not just inspired by Medieval England/Europe in the broad sense that most Fantasy of the Sword and Sorcery variety is; it was SPECIFICALLY inspired by ONE ERA of English History, The Wars of the Roses [15th century] (with character inspiration from other eras, as recent as the 16th century).

The thing about being interested in Historical Fashion is, once you know it, you can't UN-KNOW it. For example, my understanding of the medieval approach to clothing composition is "Cut as little as you need to because sewing is tedious". You don't want to have to sew more than you have to because what's the point of that? Practically no clothing in the medieval period was tailored because why bother doing that when you can just sinch it with a belt, or lace it up the sides? Is any of that applied here? Nah. Because when we look at Sansa's dresses, look at those obviously machine stitched, perfectly pristine seams. ~whistles~.

I'll never throw shade at a costume department for using sewing machines, but I will shade them for not bothering at all to make clothing for a universe that has no sewing machines look like it was made in a universe that has no sewing machines.

  I can agree with not holding Fantasy series to historical standards - to a point. To wit: as long as it's believable IN-UNIVERSE.

AS FAR AS WE KNOW, the GoT universe doesn't yet have Mechanized looms. Now I know that they make some pretty unreal lace in Myr, but I just can't think of any in-universe justification for the texture of Danny's blue number in season 3.

Another thing that bothers me is the proliferation of corsets and how those corsets are approached.

Here are some historical corset facts.

• the term 'corset' wasn't widely used to refer to structured undergarments outside of France until the late 18th century (1700's). Before tart they were called "stays" (16th-17th century) or "a pair of bodies" (15th-16th century)

• structured undergarments first appeared in the 15th century, as the bodice of under-dresses(kirtles) were lined with reed or Buckram to provide back and breast support and provide a smooth surface for the gown worn over it. It also provided a foundation for multiple layers of petticoats, so the waistbands wouldn't dig into your sides.

• Structured undergarments that existed independent of a kirtle or petticoat aren't in evidence until the 16th century (Elizabethan/Renaissance) and aren't widely used by all classes until the late 17th century.

• Most 16th-17th century boned foundation garments had straps, since they didn't reach down much farther than the natural waist,  unless they were designed with a high back.

• Corsets, stays and other structured undergarments were never worn without a shift/chemise/slip underneath because...

• Corsets chafe.

• Corsets are difficult to clean, but shifts are easy to launder. Shifts protect your skin from chafing and protect your very expensive corset from the oils produced by your skin

(Reproduction example of 15th century style kirtle, from Prior Attire. Source video here)

(Sansa's... corset here has this bizarre low back and 18th century style tabs on the bottom? It also seems to lace only down to her navel. Not quite sure what's going on here, it really doesn't seem to be supporting her at all.)

The reason I hate, hate, hate the way Sansa is costumed under her...  very suit-like gowns is  because she never ever is shown (so far) wearing anything under her corset; her gowns are all long-lined, flowing and loose fitting; and show only wears (usually) one petticoat under them. So in short, I dislike that Sansa wears a corset because Sansa has NO REASON to be wearing one.

◇◇◇◇Another Thing◇◇◇◇

I want to spotlight on a little thing from the commentary that really hits on one of my larger problems with the aesthetic interpretation of this show in general.

During one of the scenes with Stannis and Melisandre, Clapton mentions that they made Melisandre's hair a darker shade of red in season 3 than it was previously. She says the phrase "sort of makes her more earthy".

Yes. Let's make the FIRE priestess more EARTHY. LET'S JUST DO THAT. AS OF THIS SHOW ISN'T "EARTHY" enough.

There's this fantastic quote I read somewhere by GRRM about how he loves fantasy because it's colorful, where real life is gray and brown and olive and dull. Melisandre is arguably the most colourful character in the show/series. In the books, EVERYTHING about her is Red. And not just red. She's scarlet and crimson. When she's introduced there's this fantastic description of her wearing flowing robes of scarlet silk with slashes in it revealing a darker, blood red fabric underneath.

That was passed up for a monotone, very simply cut red gown and I can't stop asking myself why a designer would scrap something like that without even trying to pay homage to it.

This show just sort of takes everything colourful in Martin's world and MAKES it gray and dark for the sake of Gritty Realism (TM). I suppose that's part of trying to appeal to a wider audience, but I just find it increadibly visually uninteresting.

◇◇◇◇ONE MORE LITTLE THING◇◇◇◇

Is this the sofa from the Study in Clue?

???

[sugaxjpg]

event horizon; m

⤷  The city of Crystalfall had, just like any other small town, the good, the bad, and the ugly. You were familiar with the first one, and Min Yoongi, in all of his despondent and reckless glory, taught you about the rest.

✓ Couple: Yoongi x Reader | Criminal!AU 

✓ Filed under: angst, fluff, smut

✓ Look out for: violence, drunk driving, and drugs; a relationship slowly getting toxic

✓ Words: 30,782 (yes, I know) 

Author’s Note: Inspired by the setting of “Riverdale”. I’d like to put out a PSA and say that this fic has moments that are quite toxic/abusive, and by no means I approve this kind of behavior, nor am I romanticizing this. It’s all fiction, and I treated it the best way that I could. Nevertheless, feedback is always welcome and, oh boy, I hope the ‘read more’ works on tumblr mobile. 

⤷ Song rec: Chase Atlantic - Triggered

⤷ This story is dedicated to @pantaemonium. Happy birthday to my beautiful, talented, unique wife. Love you lots. 

According to physics’ theory of general relativity, the event horizon of a black hole is a point of no return. It does not matter how you have reached that specific part of the universe, nor how you feel once you touch its insubstantial traces ― in that speck of victory and defeat, the only thing that holds any sort of significance is the fact that, even against your best attempts, you cannot go back to where you once were. The gravity is too strong, the pull is more than you could ever take; you are trapped in a position paused in time, unable to comprehend the nothingness that lays beyond; how even the light curves and attempts to escape from that cosmic abyss.  

Your story began the same way it ended: with a poorly thought-out decision, and a promise of better days. For the lack of a better definition, Min Yoongi, with all of his melancholic and dream-like existence, became your event horizon.

Tempestuous and dense clouds had long fallen over the suburban town once you entered that pleasant diner place, hearing as the rhythm of the rain danced against the foggy windows, almost overlapping the dim ringing of the bell that signaled your arrival. With no hesitation, you walked towards your usual table, ordering a hot cup of chocolate after greeting the friendly employees, and waited for your friends to come to your peculiar reunion.

The diner, decorated by a clear 50’s style, was permeated by a delicate aroma of vanilla and cinnamon, holding tightly to the warmness that could not exist outside. For a few hours now, the summer rain had monopolized the small town, balancing out the overwhelming heat waves that had hit you the week prior. From the corner of your hot pink sofa, you watched the droplets running down the glass next to you and, even if for an instant, you swore you could perceive the characteristic smell of petrichor that came alongside it; floating amongst humid strands of glass and quivering branches.

Your beverage arrived in a couple minutes, faster than your friends did. The delectable taste of your hot chocolate, present in so many past meetings, awakened your nostalgia promptly. You had no idea why you had been summoned to the diner that summer afternoon, but the blunt request had been the first message that popped up on your group chat that morning, illuminating your screen the same way that the sun’s rays brought brightness to your bedroom. Joohyun’s text came in the form of an abrupt and dry “3pm at Mercy’s. Good news!!” followed by the confirmation from your other friends. It wasn’t as if impulsive meetings had never been set up in the same fashion aforetime, but it was odd regardless, especially because of the lack of details.

Joohyun had been your best friend ever since you could remember and, just as far back, you could recall occurrences in which her decisions snowballed into ridiculously large problems. Back in third grade, when she decided that she wanted to lie about who gave her the answers of a test and ended up involving the entire school board; or perhaps during your junior year of high school, when she accidentally started a sexual rumor about you after misunderstanding your euphemism in Biology class. You two were almost polar opposites, but, in the end, you complemented one another, and your friendship had a harmony that you struggled to put into words. The two of you just worked, and that was all you needed to know.

Yet, you were annoyed as hell at her. You hated her cryptic 10am messages.

The sound of the bell ringing called you away from your meditations, and suddenly you could hear the vague melody of an indie song playing in the background, coming from the speakers above your head — the composition came crashing on your perceptions like waves that broke at the bay, soothing your worries instantaneously. You had no idea how you hadn’t noticed it before.

You looked up and smiled lovingly at your approaching friend, eyes following the hypnotic motion of her mermaid-like hair, brown as chocolate, as she walked hurriedly towards your table. “There you are,” you spoke calmly, “I thought you wouldn’t show up.”

She breathed out and raised her eyebrows in a expression of exhaustion. You could see underneath her eyes the marks of her sleepless night, and had to fight back the blooming of your inner preoccupations. Perhaps you could ask her about that later. “Sorry, things are a mess at home,” Joohyun said, agile while placing her bag on the table and sliding on the sofa opposite from you. Against the bright pink leather, her slim figure stood out even more. “Were you waiting for long?”

“Five, ten minutes at most,” you responded — it wasn’t as if you ever expected for her to be punctual. “You know where the others are?”

Your friend nodded. “Hoseok and Namjoon are together, they won’t take long,” Joohyun told you, running one hand through her hair, trying to fix the mistakes only she could perceive. “They were driving by that fast food near the supermarket by the time I called, which was like, two minutes ago.”

You chuckled. “Checking to see if you would be last one to arrive?”

She sighed, shoulders falling in a silent confirmation. “You know me too well.” Then, before you could even consider an answer, her charcoal-colored eyes oscillated to the half-filled cup on your hand, her eyebrows raising in interest. “Let me have some, please. You know that I love hot chocolate.”

“I do.” You slid the mug towards her. You weren’t the biggest fan of the drink — it got quite nauseating after the third slip — but you had gotten it for your friend. You did know her very well, so you were positive she would be eager to get her usual sugar rush by the time she arrived. “Now, why did you call us here for? An intervention?” you asked.

Joohyun took a second to respond, closing her eyes to fully appreciate the rich taste that filled her mouth, and humming out in delight. It was fascinating the effect that hot chocolate had on her, it was almost as if her exhausted look had completely faded away by the moment she looked back at you, eyes slightly widened by animation. “Don’t you want to wait for them?”

“I’m curious, you know that,” you verbalized, a tinge of guilt staining your words. “There’s no need to torture me any further.”

And that was the complete truth. Ever since you received her message, that was all that you could think about. It was as if Joohyun’s text was the Sun, and your thought process circled around it like Mercury, fast and restless, waiting for an answer to appear in the star-covered horizon. It was far too tempting to be there and not wish for it to be uncovered immediately — besides, the boys wouldn’t care, you knew that.

Your friend smiled back, setting the mug on the wooden surface. Around its alabaster border, was imprinted the touch of her lips, red as cherry. “You’re lucky I can’t hold myself back.” She leaned forward on the table, placing her hands on top of yours in sheer expectation, her palms warm. The world came to a halt. “Okay, so... you know about The Cave?”

Your eyes narrowed in suspicion — you did not like that one bit. “Vaguely…”

But you knew about that place very well, and you were positive that, coming from her, such mention could never be the precursor of good news. The excited look that was projected over Joohyun’s doll-like features did not say that The Cave had been burned down or something alike, but that it was vivacious as ever, ready to take more victims in.

As much as you already knew where this conversation was heading, you still felt the impact of her words as they departed from her throat. “I might have gotten us a way in.” She smiled openly.

It was your time to lean forward, eyebrows furrowing into an image of your inner exasperation. “Joohyun, are you insane?” you whispered, guided by preoccupations. Not for you, but for her — she was going, regardless of your opinion. “That place isn’t for us. Do you want to be killed?”

Just as you had foreseen, your best friend disregarded your words instantaneously. “Oh come on, just—“

Once again, the ringing of the bell broke the serenity of the establishment, making the two of you move away from one another, backs pressing against your respective seats. The leather couch was often so comfortable, but now it felt like it was trapping you against the table, feeding off your nervousness and sticking to your skin; there was a bad feeling looming over your head.

From the door came two silhouettes — Namjoon and Hoseok — and the smell of fried food. Your stomach was fast to present its hunger the second that your eyes met the brown bags on their arms, slightly stained by circles of oil. God works in mysterious ways, after all.

Namjoon was the first one to speak, moving quickly to seat across from you. His pallid green jacket was covered in droplets of rain and, somehow, it matched the aura of that lugubrious diner flawlessly. “Hey guys.” He placed the food on the table, and angled his hips backwards, trying to place his body on the small space between the surface and the couch. “What did we — dude, just move over, it ain’t that hard.” He pressed his shoulder against Joohyun, who gave a little jump to the side while poking her tongue out at him. “What did we miss?”

Instead of answering promptly, your fingers were agile as you reached out for the brown bag. “Oh my god, fries,” you almost whined those words of relief as you peeked inside, salivating. Just then did you realize your lunch had been only a half-eaten apple, and your body could not be angrier at that poor fitness decision.

Hoseok scoffed as he sat down next to you. If you hadn’t been pressing against the opposite wall already, you were sure he would have asked for you to move over as well — the kid loved to take up space. “Your deduction is impeccable, Sherlock,” he told you with a grin. His dark red hair was one shade deeper because of the rain — it was a bit pushed back, but it still it managed to send droplets down his forehead. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

You nodded and shoved a fry in your mouth. The assuagement was immediate, and you swore you could hear a chant of angels inside your head. “Thank you,” you said — both at your friends and the faceless creator of such divine meal, “you guys are awesome.”

Joohyun’s fingers were fast to curl around the bag’s edge, pushing it towards her, “YN, give me some,” her voice came out in an order. Your eyes flickered between the fries in her hands and the empty cup of hot chocolate next to her as if to say ‘are you sure about that?’, a memo she promptly grasped. “Today is my cheating day. Let me live.”

Namjoon chuckled as one of his arms reached out to get the other bag, which the two of you had miraculously overlooked. Hoseok had been wise to get two extra-large portions, he had to recognize that. “Whatever you say, baby,” he mocked her, and then turned his head in your direction. The anemic lights of the overcast sky curled around his features impeccably, painting the picture of his puzzlement. “So, what were the two of you talking about? Sharing is caring.”

“Did you hear that? Sharing is caring.” You pulled the bag from your friend, ignoring her full-mouthed complaints. “Joohyun here was just telling me her suicide plan,” you complained.

The girl rolled her eyes, clearly irked at your up-right attitude. “YN, why are you so dramatic? I get that you’re the mom friend, but don’t spoil the fun.” She turned towards the newcomers with a fresh, commercial-worthy smile — another miracle that her teeth were not stained by her copious amounts of chocolate and fries, but that was a subject for another meeting. “Boys, I was just talking about that place, The Cave,” she explained.

Next to you, Hoseok stopped chewing. “The abandoned industry complex at the east side?” He swallowed the food with weird eagerness, his eyebrows raising in muted excitement — oh my god, did the other bag have cheddar on those fries? You needed to check it out. “Damn. What about it?” he asked.

She licked her reddish lips — both from excitement and the need to get the remnants of salt out of her mouth. Joohyun, once again, allowed for her inner exhilaration to push her forward on the table, her black eyes scintillating in a frenzy of adventurous emotions, pendulating between the two boys. “I might have found a way for us to go in,” she spoke out, her hiss-like tone making the entire scene comical — she looked like a supervillain, in the most awkward of ways.

And, of course, your friends reacted precisely as you expected them to — like kids.

The thrill that washed over Hoseok’s face made it seem as if he had just received a present, glistening inside his eyes like the stars that decorated the night sky. “Sweet!” he exclaimed, voice one pitch higher. “How did you manage that?”

You tugged the oil-stained bag out of his hands in a gesture that was a bit too harsh. Noticing that you had forgotten the cheese-free portion, the other girl acted quickly to get it. “Hoseok!” you reprehended, anguish filling your lungs. “It’s on the east part of town, in case you forgot. It’s a place for gangs and, I don’t know, contract killers,” you said, reaching down the bag. Definitely had cheddar on it. “Do you seriously think that’s a good idea?”

Unaffected by the urgency of your tone, Hoseok shrugged your worries away. “So? We just stay out of trouble. And give me back my fries.” He pulled the portion out of your hands. That constant fighting for food could not be healthy friendship-wise. “Go on, Joohyun, how did you manage that?”

Namjoon grinned wickedly. “Her boyfriend probably got her a free ticket.”

As he spoke, the other girl saw glimpses of his chewed food inside on his mouth. Joohyun cringed her nose in disgust. “Gross. First off, we’re not dating,” she hurried to deny, even if the pale shade of scarlet around her ears told no lies. You all knew very well that they weren’t dating because of the other guy — some weird outlaw from the sewers or something, a ninja turtle for all you cared —  hated compromise, and not because she didn’t want it. “Second: yes, he did get me in, but that’s not relevant. I can take people with me, so, please?” she whined, prolonging the last word into an irritating ‘pleeeease?’. “Guys? It’ll be fun.”

Hoseok drew back against the pink couch, running his hands through his wet hair. You had no idea how he hadn’t traced a path of orange cheese through it, but your friends seemed to be in the mood to do the impossible that day. “I’m in,” he said. Not a surprise.

Across from you, the other boy spoke up, “I might have to see when I’m free, but I’m in too.”  Namjoon agreed. “When is it?”

“Tonight,” she responded.

“Count me in, then.”

You groaned out in pure irritation. Quite honestly, your mood would’ve been so much worse if you didn’t have your escapism by food to tame the tides of your chaotic thoughts. “You guys can’t be serious,” you complained, looking around to see if, amongst any of their features, you could find any remnant of reason. Nothing. “Am I the only sane person left living?”

“Between the four of us, yes,” Hoseok answered, but did not seem to truly feel any sort of empathy towards your cautious attitude. If he hadn’t been eager to get a confirmation from you, he would’ve teased you much further. “You’re coming or not, grandma?”

You crossed your arms, defensive. “No fucking way.”

Namjoon raised his eyebrows as he shoved three more cheese-covered fries inside his mouth. You had started to think that maybe they should’ve gotten more. “So Miss Responsibility is just going to let her friends alone?” he teased, mouth half-full. He really needed to learn some basic manners.

You narrowed your eyes, looking your friend up and down. “Kim Namjoon, don’t you dare take advantage of my altruism.” You pointed at him. And it was your time to reach for another fry — rather angrily, if you could say so yourself. You couldn’t stay mad at them for long when your fingers were covered in cheddar. “Even if you have a good point,” you added.

“So…” Hoseok raised his eyebrows in unspoken expectation, leaning playfully towards you. “What is it gonna be?” he asked in a cheese-scented exhalation.

Your patience could only go so far. “Fine!” You threw your hands up in a theatrical signal of your surrender. The others smiled victoriously, sharing words of encouragement amongst them — a pack of demons, that was what they were. “But I’m leaving early, and I’ll complain the entire time,” you added.

“Seems good enough for me.” Hoseok placed his palms on the surface, and got up to his feet. “I’m getting us some more food, since the two of you seemed to forget that we are all sharing,” his eyes vacillated between you and Joohyun. “The usual?”

The table was filled with nods and hums of agreement and, in the next moment, Namjoon was getting up to go alongside Hoseok, claiming he probably would pick the wrong things — again. When you and Joohyun were alone once anew, your friend suspired, turning her head towards you.

Joohyun placed her palm against the back of your hand. Amongst the lines of her dark irises, you could almost read the the words that encompassed your head like vexatious insects — it seems like you will have to deal with it, “Loosen up, baby.” She pouted, crooking her head slightly to the side. Oh, she was finding joy in that small victory, and you knew it. “We’ll have fun, I promise. Something tells me that you might even find someone interesting,” she teased. “Only the Lord knows how much you need to put that sexual energy into something else… or someone, really.”

You scoffed, rolling your eyes at the absurdity of her claims. “You wish, Joohyun.”

She pouted. “We’ll see about that.”

Outside, the rain had stopped drumming against the opaque windows, and the fragile incandescence of the sun had started peeking over the diaphanous mountains of the storm clouds. There was a certain whimsical feeling to that scene, an uncharacterized emotion that resounded inside your chest, erupting in-between your lips in the form of a prolonged sigh.

If Joohyun had been mistaken that afternoon, that would have made the upcoming weeks much, much simpler for you.

Crystalfall was, by definition, a small town.

With its astonishing twelve thousand inhabitants and mundane church meetings every Sunday, it stood as a gentle agglomeration of buildings in — as Hoseok would say — the middle of no place, right next to nowhere at all. It had received that name for its dazzling waterfall and source of drinkable water which had, primordially, catalyzed the migration towards the land, many years before you were ever born.

Just like most small towns, boredom was mandatory a good amount of the time, and there was little to no task to be fulfilled during summer break, once you went back to its veridian fields and sun-kissed afternoons, taking a time off university. In fact, besides Namjoon — whose family owned a considerably large farm nearby, and had to take his afternoons off to take care of the crops and animals —, none of your friends seemed to find anything thrilling to do, instead choosing to spend time in the house, watching movies or talking for hours about the most frivolous of subjects. And, quite honestly, you liked it like that. You had always appreciated the simpler aspects of life.

Crystalfall was no big deal, but it was home, and you loved every part of it.

Well, almost every part.

You had been lucky enough to be raised on the west side of town, where most of the families did. It was, as Joohyun would say, a sheltered castle of dreams, a countryside paradise — a boring piece of utopia. There was little to no crime amongst its inhabitants, and the biggest outrage that took place had been the time in which a few middle school kids dared to steal some bread from the chapel, a matter that rapidly got taken care of.

That, however, had been amongst the locals of the westside; the east didn’t hold the same amount of benevolence amongst its people. You hated to have your mind so fundamented on that basic dichotomy of good and evil, but it had been the only way you could describe the ridiculously large differences between the two parts of that same town. While the west was a “boring utopia”, the east bordered on a bone-chilling anarchy; the womb of a few of the worst criminals your state had ever had — gangs, murderers, drug dealers, kidnappers, rapists: you name it, they had it all.

You constantly felt threatened by that, like it was the presence of death itself looming over your life. As much as the thugs of the east side often messed around with their own kind and, besides that, you were sure that there were good individuals living amongst those incarnated devils, you could never really felt safe in those parts of Crystalfall — so, in return, you avoided it the best way you could. It worked. For some time.

Nevertheless, now you had thrown all those efforts out of the window, for your friends were dragging you right into the lion’s open mouth.

You could barely keep up with their pace as they ran down the deserted streets, their heavy steps reverberating throughout the obfuscous night. Joohyun’s hand was holding tightly to your own as she pulled you to walk faster, unable to hold back her excitement. She glimpsed back just so you could notice the phantasm of a smile being casted over her roseate, petal-like lips. Her hand felt warm and inviting against yours, contrasting with the hyperborean winds of dusk. “Come on, we’re late!” she exclaimed, almost as if talking to herself. “I promised him we’d be here by eleven.”

“I never saw you as someone punctual,” you complained, but were sure she did not hear your voice amongst the fragile traces of wind. Behind you, Hoseok and Namjoon were whispering something you could not catch.

The industrial complex had been deactivated around fourteen years ago and, now, it didn’t go beyond a mere phantasm lingering stubbornly amongst the memories of the senile locals. Nowadays, most inhabitants of Crystalfall knew it as the perfect spot if you wanted to meet your local drug dealer, or perhaps mingle with people that seemed to be a better fit for jail than for a small religious community. Bottom line: even if The Cave was the closest to a club that your town could ever get,  it didn’t mean it was a good alternative.

Through shattered windows came the dust-filled rays of a deep damascus light, casting down the earth that piled up on the outside of the relinquished complex and, as you moved closer, you could start to make out the vague melody of an Eagles song echoing past it. Instead of what you had expected, however, there were no gangs piling up on the outside of the abandoned construction, no obnoxious fights to break the tranquility of midnight. The Cave, in all of its hellish expansion, appeared to be bigger than you had expected, mayhaps because of the overwhelming desolation that impregnated each and every broken tile; each centimeter of the atmosphere. It was a zombified beast living off the liveliness of its occupants.

The four of you arrived at the large, corroded metal door. Joohyun said something to a couple of big guys that stood by it and, by the mention of her (not) boyfriend’s name, they appeared to put their guard down a bit. As much as they were not precisely frightened of the people from the westside, they were absolutely horrified at the concept of allowing undercover cops into their world, and the consequences they would have to face by the hands of their own counterparts.

Nevertheless, your friend took care of the matter rather effortlessly and, within a couple of minutes, the entrance was being unlocked for you. With a hesitant suspire, you followed the three of them into the epicenter of bad decisions that was The Cave.

Okay, perhaps you imagination had taken the best of your judgement, for you did not expect the decoration of the place. It wasn’t much — and by no means fancy — but it was gorgeous regardless.

The Cave still looked like an industry complex, with its large rectangular-shaped construction, wooden boxes and empty buckets piling up at the corners, and dense concrete floors, but whoever was in charge of changing up the place did not disappoint: the large metal bars that sustentated the tall triangular ceiling had been covered in christmas lights, pouring down the room in beautiful orange cascades; inducing the ambient to border on the spectral, since it was its only light source. All over the walls, kaleidoscopic posters covered up the dry grey painting and the broken bricks, speaking in silent promises — all-you-can-eat contest; make your bets at the winners of sunday’s dog fight; Maurice’s Bear: knockout version; and other advertisements for less puritan, adult-centered services. Not that dog fights were that good.

There was a strong smell of alcohol and something burning around the static air; the Eagle’s song had then changed into a band you did not recognize. Passing your eyes swiftly over the crowd, you could see some large men playing poker on a secluded table — one of which had an disgracefully large snake tattoo over his right cheek and forehead — and, right next to them, a group of girls laughing loudly at something they were discussing. There were other, smaller groups scattered around the place, talking vehemently in roaring voices, minding their own business as the night progressively moved forward.

“Won’t you look at that,” next to you, Joohyun’s tranquil voice sounded, dragging you back to your position. Her flaming crimson lipstick was burning under those conflagrant lights, standing out against her skin and her dark hair; curling upwards on her lips as a timid smile germinated upon them. “I see my man. I’ll talk to him real quick, I’ll be right back.”

Before you could even figure out what to respond, she had already tapped you on the shoulder, and was walking firmly towards a crowd of leather-covered strangers. You had no idea how she had seen her pseudo-boyfriend amongst them. You sighed. “Sure. Have fun.” You turned around to meet your other friends. “Seems like it’s just the three of us, g—”

“—Dude is that a dart throwing competition?”  Hoseok pointed across the room, over your shoulder, and Namjoon followed his stare with furrowed brows and the hint of competitiveness shining inside his eyes. Part of your soul cracked then: you knew exactly where that was heading. “I’ll totally kick your ass this time.” He laughed.

You opened your mouth to protest, but you were far too slow. In the short time span that took you to verbalize one syllable, the two of them were passing by your side, completely ignoring your presence. “Over my dead body, Jung,” you heard Namjoon snicker.

Exhaling from your nose, you closed your lips. “That’s great,” you mumbled to yourself. That night was going to be amazing, wasn’t it? “Predictable. But great.”

Then again, your adventure had barely begun. Out of alternatives, you found yourself going towards the bar and asking for a glass of water — the last thing you needed was to lose full control of your actions and moral judgement in a place like that, especially when you were taken there under the unspoken mission of babysitting your friends. You couldn’t allow yourself to be taken away by the compelling necessity that was to drown your problems away in oceans of cheap liquor, no matter how gorgeous those polychromatic bottles looked on the walls.

You had precisely ten minutes of peace before the changes in your life started to take place.

With your peripheral vision, you noticed a broad silhouette arriving, moving quickly to seat on the bench next to you. Primordially, you thought nothing of it — there was no reason to — and continued to pay attention to the flowery details of your dahlia-colored summer dress; thoughts traveling many miles away from that overflowing place. It was only when a voice — deep and thunderous — sounded next to you that you understood your position. “You’re here alone, sweetcakes?” it inquired.

Just by the tragic usage of that pet name, you knew the two of you were off to a rocky start.

Trying your best to keep your expression neutral, you looked him up and down — from his ginger beard to his piercing ice blue eyes, then back to the overabundance of reptiles tattooed on his exposed forearms — finally, away from him and back to the strangers in the crowd. The was the last thing you needed for that night was a viking cosplayer wanting to ask you out. “I’m with my friends,” you responded, rather dryly.

He hummed, and placed his arm on the counter. “No boyfriend, then.” The red-haired smiled openly. He was clearly a large guy, and from the bad side of Crystalfall — you had no idea how he could take rejection, and you weren’t very excited to find out. “You’re not from this part of town, are you?”

You decided to keep your posture as respectful and detached as you could possibly manage. Answers were difficult to come up with when you were that uncomfortable. “Is it that obvious?” you said, turning your head to take another peek at him. He was definitely much older than you, most likely around ten years, and his breath reeked of cigarettes and cheap alcohol. “I don’t want to be rude, but I’m not interested in finding a boyfriend either. If you know what I mean.”

“I do.” He winked. He did not know what you meant. “Maybe we can have fun just for ton—”

His speech was paused abruptly and, for an instant, a loud sound broke the static, followed by even a louder one, of flesh meeting leather. Your discombobulated mind needed a few instants to fully comprehend that those noises had been the sound of another man patting your viking counterpart in the back, perhaps with the force that could be comparable to a heimlich maneuver.

Ah, the night was getting better by the minute.

“Hey, man,” the newcomer greeted, skirting his large figure. As he came into view, you could perceive the petulant smirk that curled up on his flower-like lips, and the murderous glint that lit his dark eyes aflame. Quite the combo, if you could say so yourself. “It’s been a while.”

The red-haired man paused. His thrilled face withered into one that you could only describe as a mixture of irritation and apprehension — the same sentiment when a wasp is banging against your window, but you’re not insane enough to open the glass and watch as nature gets the best of you. Some things are better left unbothered and, apparently, that guy was one of those. “Yoongi,” he spoke that name as if it burned his tongue. “What can I help you with?”

His feline grin did not subside: in fact, you were sure it grew a few millimeters. “I’m glad you asked. I’m here to talk with an old friend.” He signaled with his head towards you — who, as anyone in that place could tell from your flabbergasted features, had never seen that man before in your entire life. “If you don’t mind, of course.”

Though, from his tone alone, it was clear that there was no space for debate. “I don’t.” The other man stood up, and only then did you realize the noticeable size difference between the two. In a way, that observation was chilling, for there was certainly some sort of compensation from the part of the smaller one — in that side of town, it was nothing good. “We’ll catch up later, sweetcakes,” the viking told you.

You opened your mouth to respond, but the so-called Yoongi laughed in disgust before you could verbalize anything. “No, you won’t.” He patted the guy on the back once again, this time a bit lighter; smiling freely as the other groaned something intelligible, then turned around to leave. “Keep movin’, dude,” he said, his speech clearly filled with mockery. “Let’s catch up later.”

Yoongi exhaled in artificial relief, placing his drink over the counter. The liquid was red as fresh blood, contrasting against his golden-kissed skin. “Well, he won’t bother you any further,” he told you, turning around to face the barman — who, you noticed, had been extremely entertained while witnessing that peculiar exchange. “Fill this up for me, man?”

The boy blinked, barely understanding the sentences that dripped in the space between them, before nodding energetically. “Yeah. Sure thing, Yoongi,” he agreed as he reached for the cup.

There was something about that man’s demeanor that got the best of you — perhaps the way that he held himself with such imprudent confidence, or the puzzle that formed just beyond his obsidian irises, inviting you to dive deeper into his mysteries. Phosphorescent, halcyon lights dripped down his features with perfection, his skin glowing slightly under the overwhelming brilliance — his semblance living on the thin line between human and seraphic. He was dazzling as a model, as desirable as the devil.

Yoongi looked just like a bad decision would, only a bit more tempting.

“That was a bit overdramatic.” You took a sip of water, trying to hide the smile that started creeping up your roseate-tinged lips. Even your friends would be able to tell that a guy like that could never mean good news — so why were you so drawn to him? It was so weird. “What are you, Yoongi, the big boss around here?”

Clearly he hadn’t been expecting that inquiry, for he promptly scoffed at your words. “Nah, not really,” he said, stare still locked to the barman, following the ruby liquid that was poured on his crystal-clear cup; two cubes of ice. “We don’t have leaders around here.”

“Anarchy. Always good for the soul.” You raised your cup in a silent cheer, watching as he laughed at your words — strangely, you found yourself enjoying that sound a bit more than you should. “You didn’t need to step in, though. With, you know, that guy.”

As he turned his head to find your eyes, you swore you had forgotten how to breathe for an instant. Underneath heavy eyelids, his look was sharp and gelid as a dagger, piercing directly at your soul. “Were you enjoying the talk?” he spoke slowly, voice an octave lower.

“Not at all.” You cleared your throat — you could not tell why you were so nervous all of a sudden. “Why the violence?”  

The charming stranger smirked. “I wasn’t violent.”

“Yeah right.” You rolled your eyes, and placed your cup back on the surface. Yoongi followed the motion of your slender fingers with clear interest, and his stare lingered on your skin, following up the path up your arms. “You slapped that man's back like he was choking on his inner demons.”

He shrugged, leaning against the surface with flawless grace — his every action was a dance, a frail path of endless daydreams being painted through the atmosphere. “It was nothing.” Yoongi ran one of his hands through his hair. His skin was marked by pallid blue veins, his hair was stygian as the nocturnal skyline, morphing into the adumbration of the poorly-lit room: you would be lying through your teeth if you claimed you didn’t feel attracted to him. That was bad. It was really bad. “So… you’re here with friends, right?”

“You overheard that.” You grinned. From the other side of the bar, the barman placed the drink on the surface with a mumble-like ‘there you go.’

It wasn’t a question, but he responded regardless. “Yes. And I overheard that you’re not from this part of town.” Yoongi spoke further, his sculptural lips forming his sentences with endless fluidity. He looked up at you. “What is a west beauty like you doing in a dreadful place like this?”

“Babysitting my inconsequential friends,” you overlooked his hidden compliment, even if you could not dissimulate the shade of geranium that bloomed upon your cheeks. “What is an east hunk like you trying to get out of a conversation like this?” you asked back.

He hummed and elevated one of his eyebrows. “You often have these trust issues, or is it just with me?” he provoked.

You smiled. “I often do. But you’re magnifying them.”

“Fair enough. You’re not from here.” Yoongi took his drink to his mouth, and the strawberry liquor — you assumed — stained his lips with an anemic shade of rufescent. “I’m just trying to get to know you. Which is hard, since you haven’t even given me your name yet.”

Presenting that stranger with any sort of information about you was most likely an unwise decision, but you did it regardless. “It’s YN.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Exotic,” he mocked, “I’m glad I got something out of tonight. Quite the day off.”

“Stop fucking with me.” You pushed his shoulder in a playful manner, watching as, on his lips, blossomed the traces of a diverted smile. He seemed to be such a nice guy, maybe you had judged him too soon. “Why, did my damsel-in-distress moment interrupt your business around here? Are you a dealer or something?” you joked.

Yoongi shook his head in a silent disagreement, forging a surprise far bigger than the one he witnessed. “Wow. Because I’m in a bad side of town? Talk about judgement.” He rolled his eyes. Then, against your expectations, his face grew serious, and he turned back to look at you. “But why? Want me to hook you up on some crack?”

Your lips parted in amazement. “I’m—“

He could not hold back his laugh then, and it was his turn to push his shoulder against yours. “I’m just messing with you, chill,” he said. “You should’ve seen your face.”

Overtaken by relief, you breathed out. “Damn, why did you do that for? I was going to say yes.”

“Sorry, couldn’t hold back.” He grinned — oh, he was definitely handsome. “I’m here just to have some fun, believe it or not. I was talking to some old friends, you know, catching up. Taking my mind off things.”

You agreed. “I should do that, but I’m constantly worried about something.”

“That seems like a chore,” Yoongi spoke with honesty, his tone as sacchariferous as caramel. Just by hearing his voice in such soft, casual manner, you could feel your chest being filled up with oceans upon oceans of interest, its growing tides crashing just at the bottom of your throat. That couldn’t be good. “What’s in your mind now?” he asked.

“My friends. Like those two, Hoseok and Namjoon, over there with the darts.” You pointed at the other side of the construction just in time to see Hoseok get the maximum ponctuation, his dart standing out right at the central red circle of the target. He jumped out in endless bliss, pointing at Namjoon and laughing victoriously. Next to you, Yoongi chuckled at the scene. “They love to go a bit crazy on the alcohol, and they always end up in insane places. This one time, Hobi took a cab and woke up two towns away, it was crazy.”

“Let me guess, you picked him up?” Yoongi asked.

You pouted. “It’s that obvious?”

“You seem like someone who would do that.”

“I’m his friend, it’s the least that I could do.”

“No one could’ve picked him up instead?”

You shrugged, unsure of what to respond. You didn’t know where the man was getting at. “I mean, I don’t know.”

“I do. I think he called you because he knew how you’d react.” Yoongi was talking fast, and saying all the correct words. You could tell that he had a sharp, quick-witted mind, for he responded to your sentences with zero vacillation — as Joohyun always said, smooth talkers are a dangerous type; they knew just how to carry you away. “You’d pick him up, maybe scream at him about being reckless, and let it pass. Am I right?”

Your shoulders fell in muted concordance. “Unfortunately.”

Yoongi smirked. “Thought so. You’re a Good Samaritan, west beauty.”

From the vague touches of playfulness amongst his precisely-built syllables, you though he might have been making fun of you. “Is that... bad?”

He took an instant before answering. “Not if you don’t overdo it. People might take advantage of that.”

You frowned and turned your gaze away from him, allowing for your attention to float back to your two friends. Hoseok and Namjoon were discussing loudly about one of them cheating, and nearby expectators were laughing along, perhaps a bit more invested than you’d believe possible: the two never had issues making friends. “I don’t overdo it,” you said in an annoyed whisper — it sounded as if you were trying to convince yourself.

“Yeah? So why are you here?” From your peripheral vision, you could see as he leaned his head to the side, trying to catch a glimpse of your dimly lit features. Still, guilt made your gaze oscillate to the opposite direction with almost flawless timing. “Throwing your night away because you wanted to make sure they were okay. They’re adults, you can’t babysit them forever. If they only get a pull on their ear every time they fuck up, they’ll never learn to weight the consequences.”

You scoffed, crossing your arms before your chest. You knew he was right. “Pretty talk for a guy in a thug bar.”

“That doesn’t invalidate what I said.” Yoongi spoke with tranquility, as if he already knew what your advances would be. It was odd, very odd — how genuinely he seemed to care, and how well he read you. “It’s like that saying goes: don’t set yourself on fire to keep other people warm. Help them out, sure, but I can tell you’re wearing yourself thin because of it. That’s not the best idea.”

You sighed. “I guess.”

He found your determination to keep your walls up to be, at the very least, entertaining. Still, he wouldn’t bulge — he never backed away from a good challenge. “Let me ask you something.” Yoongi placed his arm on the table, moving a bit towards you. His voice morphed into a profound, concentrated tone, words coming out in a whisper-like formation. Yoongi’s breath was sugary, carrying along the aroma of strawberry. “Would they do the same for you?”

Your eyebrows moved together, and you looked back to meet his stare. “How so?”

He shrugged and leaning back on his bench. It was a weird dance he was performing there — getting closer and then far from you, oscillating the inflections and volume of his mellifluous voice in a way to draw you nearer. “Would they pick you up if you were in trouble, would they accompany you somewhere they didn’t want to go because they were worried about you…? The list goes on,” Yoongi explained.

You thought for a second. Reality was rather dreadful once you came to terms with the fact that your friends weren’t as worried about your safety as you would like them to. “Joohyun would, I’m sure of that. She’s my other friend.” You cleared your throat. “But I’m not sure about the guys.”

Yoongi hummed, but did not buy the truth you were trying so vehemently to sell him. He examined your features like an attentive predator, trying to find the cracks on your mask. “Where’s Joohyun now?” he asked.

You knew exactly what his intention was the second that inquiry poured from his cinnamon-colored lips. “With a guy.”

One of his eyebrows raised. “She left you alone, then?” Yoongi questioned, traces of bitterness ornamenting his speech. “In a sketchy place, filled with strangers, knowing fully well you didn’t even want to come.”

You chuckled, humorless. “Yeah. Sounds so shitty when you put it like that, though.”

He sighed. “Tell me something.” Once again, he tilted his body closer to you. “Would you do that to her? If you had come to see me, and she was the one who was left behind, would you feel good about that?”

There was no need to ruminate on that inquiry, for you already knew the answer. “Not at all. I wouldn’t do that.”

Yoongi pressed his lips together and raised his eyebrows in an expression that spoke ‘that’s what I thought’. “Well, then that’s something to work on,” he said, then seemed to dive into an instant of thought. Maybe there was pity within his stare, but you could not be sure, perhaps you were just projecting. “Hey, all I’m saying is that you have to give yourself some value too. Gotta keep yourself together so you can help others with their broken pieces. All that crap.”

His words were so cliche that you would not help but laugh at the ridiculousness of it. “Where did you read that? In a minion meme for suburban moms?”

“I just came up with it.” He smirked, clearly proud of his impromptu work. “Cool, right? Some calendar shit right here.”

You took one of your fingers to your cheek and pretended to wipe away an invisible tear. “It was inspiring, to say the least.” You giggled. There was a certain insubstantial wave of security that encompassed his proximity, and it allowed for you to have a free conversation with him. That man was really something else. “Thank you, Yoongi. You’re cool.”

He raised his empty cup in a silent cheer. “Always a pleasure, YN,” he grinned, the lowered the object back on the table. Yoongi cleared his throat. “So... when do I see you again?”

You looked at him. There was something at work in your spirit that you could not quite comprehend — your eyes examined the exquisite person that was Yoongi, and it seemed as if your heart was filled with nostalgia, completely overthrown by a sentiment that did not belong alongside that stranger. Joohyun was right: smooth talkers were the worst, they could tear your walls down and make it seem like you did it yourself.

And that was your first mistake when it came to Min Yoongi: you trusted him far too easily.

“I’ll tell you what,” you started, turning around on your bench. Over the counter, your fingers were almost touching, and you swore you could feel the warm aura emanating from his skin. “Whenever you want to, I’m down.”

From the delight that was casted over his features, you could see that he couldn’t be more pleased at your response. “Alright. Let’s go have some fun one of these days.”

You leaned in, interested. “Got something in mind?”

“I might,” he disclosed with a grin. “Listen out. This might sound a bit crazy, but stay with me.”

So, you did.

It was a bit over two in the morning and your companion for the night had already left when you reached out for your friend amongst a crowd of strangers, poking her on the shoulder. “Joohyun, sorry to interrupt, but I’m going home,” you said as she turned around, her eyes wide and cheeks painted by a faint tone of cherry. “You can get a cab, right? Hoseok and Namjoon will probably leave together.”

The response, however, did not come from her. “I’ll drive her home. I didn’t drink.”

You looked to Joohyun’s side, meeting the face of her (not) boyfriend. He was definitely not your type, and you were sure she could do a lot better if she didn’t have such a gargantuan weakness towards bad influences. Not that you could judge her after what you had pulled that night. “Alright, man that I don’t know,” you were sarcastic as you spoke, and you noticed that the unknown guy did not appreciate your attitude. “You’re good?” you asked her.

Joohyun smiled warmly at your protectiveness — you didn’t know then, but she appreciated it deeply. “I’m good, YN, you can go,” she guaranteed with a nod. “Thanks for the heads up.”

“Sure thing.” Your eyes flickered towards the guy for another instant, but he was already paying attention to a discussion that happened behind your figure, his lips somewhat parted as his eyes squinted in absolute attention. Quite the airhead that your friend had gotten there. “By the way…” You breathed out. “You were right. I did meet someone interesting.”

Her eyes lit up in a level of excitement that, almost certainly, had been enhanced by alcohol. “That’s great!” she exclaimed. “Tell me everything later.”

“Will do.” You agreed with a movement of your head. “Thank you for bringing us here tonight, and you—” You poked the guy, who blinked a few times as he crashed back into reality. “Thank you for getting us in.”

He mumbled something that you believed sounded like “whatever, chick I don’t know,” even if his speech was a bit too groggy for you to follow. There was no alcohol in his breath, and he certainly didn’t seem high. He just seemed a bit slow and, combined with his clear dislike for you, he most likely didn’t feel like having a proper conversation anyways.

Well, you took that as your invitation to leave. Next up, saying goodbye to Hoseok and Namjoon, and making sure that they hadn't stabbed each other’s eyes out with darts.

Their ebullient screams of exhilaration got to you before their images did, mingling with other, equally loud laughs. From what you could see, their little show of competitiveness had resulted in quite the audience agglomerating around the two of them, finding the situation a bit funnier than it was — and thank booze for that. You could only imagine what kind of circle of hell The Cave would be if most of its crime-leaning users weren’t drunk out of their minds.

“Namjoon, Hoseok,” you called out, trying your best not to get hit by one of the passersby. “I’m leaving. Are you guys alright?”

“Yeah, we didn’t drink,” Namjoon answered, his gaze still locked on the target. His fingers were holding his dart so strongly that his fingertips turned white, his concentration was so intense that he most likely didn’t notice his roseate tongue poking at the corner of his plump lips. “Can’t miss these shots.”

Namjoon made his sensational shot, but it came nowhere close to the central circle — in fact, it almost missed the target completely. Hoseok slapped his shoulder, unable to hold back a resounding laugh. “Clearly, you can. I’m still winning, man,” he teased. “Keep on trying, though, this is what dreams are made of.”

You could not help but smile alongside your friends, a certain sensation of amiability spreading throughout your chest. You really cared about those guys, and you were more than blissful that you all got a great night out of what, at first, appeared to be a nightmare. Perhaps they were right, perhaps you really should let yourself go more often.

But, well, you had already started, in a way.

With a final check on your friends, you allowed for your gaze to travel around The Cave for the terminal time that night. Truly, those christmas lights made everything much more ethereal, and you certainly wouldn’t mind coming back there another time — especially now that you knew someone of those lands.

Yeah, you wouldn’t mind at all.

Without further ado, you made your way to the front door, and welcomed yourself into the obfuscous veil of dusk. Around your legs, your summer dress danced, blown away by the tremulous touches of that hyperborean breeze. You placed your hands over your thighs in an attempt to keep the fabric in place, and stepped onto the dust-covered ground.

Yoongi was leaning against the brick walls, his black leather jacket morphing with the crepuscular aura of the night. Twilight danced on his skin as he raised his green bottle up to his lips, delighting on the ambrosial taste of his liquor. Once he heard you stepping outside, shoes making dry sounds against the earth, his head turned towards your figure. He smiled then, satisfied. “Said goodbye to the kids?” he inquired, even if he already knew the answer.

Your heart leaped inside your chest — he had scared you. “Yeah.” You inhaled the cool air. Behind your back, it seemed that the vibrations of the slow rock song stretched out into the infinity of the nocturnal winds, booming inside your spirit ― a clear cacophony if compared to the beating of your heart. “They didn’t seem to care much, they were kinda busy.”

“If they are your friends, they did care.” Yoongi took the bottle back to his lips, taking the remnants of the drink. The green glass used the luminescence of a nearby pole to cast emerald-colored shapes over his somber features. “Maybe they’re just taking you for granted. Happens.” He sighed once he lowered the bottle.

You looked at him and frowned. A dense mist had fallen over the asleep city. With its cloud-like nature, it curled around relinquished constructions and dispersed the lambency of fluorescent lights, those which flickered rhythmically amongst the colorless expansion, painting the white smoke by what resembled a purple hue amongst the penumbra of midnight. For an instant, you stood there, amazed at the way that landscape resembled a daydream; Yoongi’s image bordering on a mirage.

At last, you spoke out, and your words carried not the weight of certainty, but of fear. “Maybe.” You allowed for a despondent, timid smile to materialize at the corners of your rose-painted lips. “Do you go around coaching people or is it just me?”

“Just you.” Yoongi responded with no hesitation. Against the pallid touch of moonlight, he appeared to be a lost phantasm, a bittersweet soul looking for a way to anchor himself back to hope. Perhaps he had just found it. “Not a lot of people listen to me. I’m avoided most of the time,” he said, “Not that I care about it.”

Weeks later, you would ask yourself profusely how the hell you could have ignored the blatant red flag swirling in the air, right in front of your face. Then, however, you had succumbed to your ephemeral, curious bliss, and instead chose to ignore the warning signs that started to emerge within your head. “They should,” you told your new friend, hoping your words carried along the touches of your gratitude. “Thank you again.”

Yoongi smirked as he licked the remaining drops of liquor on his lips. “You’re welcome, west beauty,” he responded. “See you next week, then?”

“Wouldn’t miss it,” you responded, voice dancing just above a timid whisper. Your timbre, as light and ethereal as a tulip’s petals, carried along into the cool breeze, dispersing into the skyline. It wasn’t just a promise, it was a request to the stars. “It’s a date.”

The week that followed your night in The Cave passed in a rush of contrasting emotions and haze-covered dialogues.

After Namjoon had scrambled to arrange another meeting at Mercy’s the next day, you took your time hearing your friend’s stories about the former industry complex before you said anything about your upcoming adventure. The boys were clearly excited, talking continuously about the individuals they had met and the dart competition that, according to Hoseok, he had won; but, according to Namjoon, it had been a close tie.

“We’re even thinking about, like, forming teams or whatever, apparently some guys from the east side already have one,” Namjoon had vocalized, ignoring the other boy’s continuous protests. “But that’s about it. What you have to share, Joohyun?”

With a smile and a flick of her hair, the girl started pouring out her stories. As much as she promised to spare the spicy details of her romantic endeavors, she could not hold the same mercy towards the gossip that surrounded the group she had been thrown into. Joohyun spoke, in a voice as velvety and sweet as candy, about the time that someone was thrown over the bar and crashed against all the beverage; or about the man that constantly threatened to hang his counterparts on the christmas lights, but was terribly afraid of heights — making his plan virtually impractical.

Though, that was not the point of her monologue, and the two of you knew that very well. “But… there’s something else. Something more important.” She turned to you, a smirk already creeping up on her lips. “Isn’t it?”

You took a deep breath, and leaned back on the couch. All eyes were on you now, dripping seas upon seas of expectation. “Yeah…” You cleared your throat. “I might have… a date?”

Hoseok almost choked on his saliva. “Are you for real?”

“As serious as a heart attack,” you answered.

Then, as expected, the questions started flooding the space between your bodies. Who the lucky guy was, what he did, how in the living hell he managed to drag you out of your bed and into an emotionally threatening situation, so on. You answered them with a lingering smile on your lips and the sensation of change creeping up on your back; the feeling that something incredible was at work all around you.

It had been years since you felt that kind of infantile nervousness; the sensation of butterflies caressing the insides of your chest, their wings quivering in expectancy. As one day fell into the next and Yoongi’s messages became more and more frequent on the screen of your phone, that feeling only intensified, burning at the edges of your ponderations like wildfire, sending shivers up and down your skin. It had been an audacious — careless, hotheaded — decision, but you managed to neglect the consequences that approached on the horizon.

You could not comprehend the effect that Yoongi had on you and, quite frankly, it felt a bit frightening. Call it a crush, mere carnal desires, or the treacherous side effects of curiosity — the point was that, even against your best attempts, the idiosyncratic man kept returning to haunt the corners of your mind; his voice singing amongst your most profound of reveries, whispering the promises you could never wish for. If it had been anyone else to approach you in that place, you would have never accepted to accompany them in a date; so why had it been so easy with him?

Back then, you could not see the reality that curled around his figure like venomous, thorn-encrusted vines — Yoongi looked like a supernova, but he was just a black hole, sucking you into his gravitational field with every movement of his pallid lips. Though, some truths were very well hidden under a veil of enigmatic sentences and thaumaturgic glares. Eventually, they would all come crashing down.

Still, you were far from that fateful moment — a couple months, to be exact. No, you were still looking down to the abyss, still feeling the tingling of excitement washing down your figure. First, you had to fall to the bottom of the well and, only then, you could start your way up.

At last, the anticipated day arrived. Your animation awakened alongside the primordial traces of aurora, and the obnoxious ringing of your phone, which shook you out of a dreamless sleep. Upon answering the unfitting call, you were met with Joohyun’s voice on the other end of the line, wishing you good luck and requesting for you to keep her updated on recent occurrences. With a tender smile, you thanked her, and said that you would be more than glad to have a night of gossip after that entire deal was done with — fries, ice cream, and terrible movies; just the way you two adored so much.

Once you hung up the call, however, a new surprise awaited on your device.  

Slowly, you were starting to realize that you had a tendency to gravitate towards people that enjoyed cryptic messages far too much for your own liking — and your new friend was no different. Yoongi had texted you saying to meet him in the parking lot of a local supermarket, a bit after seven, where he would be buying some supriments for your undisclosed date.

Countless times throughout your week of daydreams and presuppositions, you had pushed the boy to share the surprise he had prepared for the two of you, but you remained unsuccessful. Yoongi would merely chuckle at your radiating desperation, claiming that all that you should know is that it was a special occasion, and there was nothing you could say or do that would make him change his mind about disclosing it. His one and only hint had been that it would be in a known spot around town, hiding in plain sight.  

But that didn’t help much, did it? It was a vague as possible.

Which, again, was a common theme with him.

Asymmetrical to the suspicions that started to propagate within your chest, you moved forward with your date and, before you could tell, the horizon had already adopted the lambent haze of the setting sun, burning amongst the buildings like a golden aura.

If one were to follow the path of the tenuous — yet dreadfully suffocating — summer wind throughout the pacate streets of Crystalfall, they might have catched a glimpse of your figure against the scalding sun. You walked towards the center of the town with your heart in your throat and your hands shaking, dress waltzing in the air alongside the rich scent of lilacs and roses — courtesy of downtown’s famous flower shop, always open for late lovers. All around you, vivacious trees trembled underneath the magnificence of the season, their leaves casting hypnotic shadows against the crepuscular asphalt, hiding in shades of green and brown.

It was an instant paused in time, paused in memory. Some days are so permeated by exquisiteness that you could not help but believe that they were made for grandiose purposes; that their heavenly symmetry could only mean the new beginning of a phase in your life. Either by coincidence or fate, that was precisely what that date was.

You saw Yoongi’s car — a black 67’ chevy impala — the instant that you arrived at the back entrance of the supermarket. Other than another blue truck at the edge of the parking lot, the place was completely desolated; its monochromatic cement painted by an intense hue of apricot, reflecting the overwhelming summer heat on your exposed legs. Not much later,  as you walked towards the vehicle, you saw the reason of your chaotic thoughts emerge behind it.

In the background, the sounds of the traffic was muted, and the trees had become static — the universe had come to a halt, and the only aspect still in focus was him. His hair was disheveled, slightly pulled back and touched by droplets of sweat and, on his lips a pout was formed, permitting for a prolonged sigh to depart from in between them, losing itself amongst the heavy atmosphere. You moved closer with hidden reluctance, accompanying the manner that the muscles of his shoulders tensed up as he placed something inside the car; his back curving so he could take a last look at the job he had done.

As Yoongi adjusted his posture and placed his hands over the trunk’s edge, ready to lower it, you swore your mind had gone completely blank. Instead of the leather jacket that your gaze had expected to meet, the summer heat had forced your new friend to cover his chest only with a white tank top. The piece of thin fabric allowed you to see his built in its full form and, more than that, paved the way so your eyes could trail up and down the black lines on his skin. Yoongi had always had a vague touch of demonic, wicked allurance to him, but that was just too much — that was temptation in its rawest form, wrapped in ashes and smoke.

Though, you had barely no time to fully take in what he was presenting you. Upon perceiving your presence, he looked up at you and his lips twisted into a cheerful smile. “West beauty,” he greeted, closing the trunk. Your eyes vacillated between his inky hair and the dark tattoos that covered up his exposed arms, drawings contrasting so beautifully against his skin. “You showed up.”

Fighting against the rapid beating of your frantic heart, you forced yourself to exhale your worries through your nose. With steady steps, you paused before him, paying close attention to the way that his caliginous eyelashes casted small shadows against his cheeks — every detail seemed to be precisely architectured so he could pull you deeper into perdition. “Wouldn’t miss it,” you responded, signaling with your head towards the car. “Shall we?”

He agreed with a nod, and made sure to open the door for you before swiftly moving to his seat. Once the two of you were inside and the low murmuring of the ignition broke the silence, your voice resumed. “By the way,” you begun, turning around and watching as he bucked his belt with a low clicking noise, “if you’re planning to murder me, I’ll kill you.”

“Seems like a fair trade.” Yoongi chuckled. “You can put the emergency number on dial if that makes you feel any safer.”

You forced out a sarcastic laugh, crossing your arms before your figure. Beyond the parted windows, a dense cloud covered the rays of the radiant sun, and the world fell into fugacious darkness. “Very funny,” you vocalized. “It already is.”

Light had long vanished beyond the mountains once the two of you arrived at your destination — the waterfalls.

In all its natural purity, the cascades of Crystalfall stood like a forgotten deity against the horizon, crashing down on a valley encrusted by lime-covered rocks and altitudinous pine trees like an enormous lion roaring into the midnight, many miles away. The water was a bright shade of cyan once it was bathed by the lambency of daytime, though, at night, its translucent flow had succumbed into an abyssal tone of indigo, its droplets reflecting like pearls against the effulgence of the moon before, at last, they morphed into the furious white vapour that floated above the lake like smoke.

For the first time in you life, you fully grasped its magnificence.

You had gone there only once, when you were a kid, but the experience was impossible to compare. With Yoongi by your side, you could notice every little detail of nature reflecting within his figure — the crystalline beauty of the water drops that flickered like diamonds inside his eyes; the sound of whispering trees that echoed within his speech; the feeble caresses of the wind against your skin, resembling the ghost of his fingertips against your own.

After sneaking past the ocean of  dry foliage and unbothered animals, the two of you stayed just over a verdigris hill — where, even with the distance, you had a sensational view of those gargantuan landscapes, and the thunderous sounds of the water did not bother the volume of your speech. In an aura of romanticism that you had not expected, Yoongi had planned a picnic for the two of you — which ended up being an overabundance of sweets over a red towel. As you were starting to notice, he might have been a bit weak when it came to the flavour of strawberries, for that was the common element amongst his packages. Not to mention the main dish: strawberries and chantilly.

Though, you were not even close to complaining about any of that. Yoongi lived with a thin layer of bliss covering his every movement; his eyes continuously oscillating back to you, silently inquiring if you were enjoying his company, if he was playing his part correctly. And, heavens, he was. There was no way he could have made that first date any better.

Minutes decayed into hours and, before you could notice, the sands of time had passed by, echoing alongside the boisterous roaring of Crystalfall. With the same fluidity of the cascading waters, the two of you prepared your picnic, and dove into all sorts of conversations — hope-filled sentences; silent requests of a kinder future for the two of you; slender cracks of the past you sought so hard to cover. You came to understand the mystery that was Min Yoongi a bit better and, besides that, found out that the two of you weren’t as different as you first pictured.

He was an eclipse: dull and obscure, but surrounded by a threadlike line of light. Beyond the twilight, an entire universe was hidden.

At some point, as snow-colored clouds tenderly held back the silver illumination of the midnight moon, Yoongi held your hand; his thumb caressing your soft skin in a constant assurance of his presence. In an unforeseen flash of euphoria, you swore that your hearts were beating in unisound, and the ballad of nature could be heard alongside his mellifluous speech — those beautiful words he had no problem using to break your walls down.

You swore that you were meant to be, that he had been handmade for you to love.

Who were you to deny the requests of fate?

“You met me in a very weird time of my life, Min Yoongi,” you spoke out, stare scrutinizing every minute detail that whispered amongst the slender trees; trembling alongside the mumbling leaves. Life in Crystalfall might have been a simple one, but its paradisiacal elegance was not mundane whatsoever.

With one of his arms pulling his body upwards, he looked up at you — his abrupt gaze was blinding as a glimpse of sun through dense storm clouds. “Is that good?” he asked.

There was a second of silence before your answer came out. “You tell me.” You suspired, inhaling the cold mountain air, purifying your lungs. That had become your small fragment of heaven, and you wished you could stay there forever. “It’s so out of character for me to have accepted your invitation — like, come on, you’re from the east side, no offense. I met you last week, I  know barely anything about you.”

He raised one finger, pausing your speech. “Don’t forget that you met me in an abandoned factory that was turned into a bar for thugs.” Yoongi added, the hint of a smile creeping up on the corners of his lips. “Sounds like every parent’s dream.”

You chuckled, finding his reaction rather adorable. “You won’t have to worry about that. My parents are out of the picture,” you said. From the way that confusion was casted like a shadow across his face, you were certain of which doubt had sprouted in his head. “They didn’t die, don’t worry, they’re divorced. But they don’t speak to each other and sure as hell don’t speak to me.”

Yoongi turned his body around, his chest now facing you. Something gleamed within his semblance, but you could not define which emotion it was. “Well at least you know who your parents are,” he spoke. “I’ve skipped from foster home to foster home my entire life, raised in the streets, all that. Not the best of influences, if you ask me.”

“That’s so rough, sorry about that,” you attempted to verbalize your compassion the best way that you could, placing your hand over his. You could not even begin to imagine how it could have been for him — to be raised with no family, no safe port, surrounded by the worst that humankind could offer. In a way, it was no surprise that Yoongi had been attracted to the east side of town, you figured that it was the only reality he had ever known.

He shrugged it off, though, perceiving your empathy as an image of pity. Yoongi hated to feel vulnerable, hated to be treated as something to be protected. “I deal with it. I’m not the same person anymore,” he said. The boy must have seen the confusion that was projected over your features, for he hastly changed the subject. “Now you know more about me, though. You’re from here?”

“Kind of. Raised here, born four towns away,” you told him. “My aunt takes good care of me.”

He seemed puzzled at the prospect. “And she’s okay with this date?”

You took a deep breath and redirected your gaze away from him; the phantasm of a smirk already showing its signs. “Well, I didn’t exactly give her all those details about the thug bar. But she’s happy I’ve met someone,” you spoke. On your tongue, the sweet taste of chantilly still lingered, and it instigated you to reach for another strawberry. “She says that I needed  it.”

Yoongi hummed in an unspoken concordance, paying close attention to your moon-bathed features, seeking for cracks on your controlled demeanor. “You’ve been feeling lonely lately?”

In some way, his question hurt something within your spirit, throwing salt in a wound that you didn’t even know it was there. Though, there was a time and place to face those demons, and your first date just wasn’t it. “Not exactly. I just stay in my head a lot,” was what you responded instead. Even if you felt secure by his side, there were some parts that you simply did not share with anyone. “I love my friends to death—“

“—Even if they take advantage of your altruism,” he interrupted.

“They care about me, in their own way.” You took a bite of the strawberry, unable to meet his gaze — it was able to look directly at the most vulnerable parts of your soul, and that was the last thing you needed them. Smooth talkers. Always the smooth talkers. “Anyways, I love them, but we seem to always be in totally different frequencies, you know?”

“I do. I feel the same.” Yoongi intertwined his fingers on your own, making your gaze navigate back to his own — those pupils that held everything and nothing at all. “I think everyone feels left out at some given point of their life, it’s normal. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing to be alone, or even lonely.”

“I never really cared about it, it was kind of the norm of my life.” You breathed out, and looked down — your hands, bathed by the pallid, silver-like illumination of the moon, stood out against the deep carmine of the towel. “The more I grow up, the more I feel like I’m out of sync with everyone.”

“The more I grow up, the more I realize there’s no rhythm to follow.” Yoongi threw back, watching as your eyes widened in confusion. Your expression showed an emotion that he could not identify, as if you had just realized something important, something that had been hidden right underneath your nose. “Damn, west beauty, just march to the beat of your own drum, whatever works.”

You could not hold back a laugh — a tender, liberating chuckle that erupted at the bottom of your throat, exorcising all the mischievous devils that had been encompassing your head for too long. “Thanks, Coach.” You smirked. “Freud got nothin’ on your bar psychology.”

“Shut up, you brat.” He laughed, taking one of his hands to push your shoulder playfully. “You really got no respect, uh?”

You rolled your eyes. “Says the man who offered me crack.”

“Jokingly,” he corrected, “Also, before my goldfish memory makes me forget to say this, just enjoy the moment. Some things aren’t meant to be understood, and we can’t be narcissistic enough to feel like we’re the chosen ones, that we deserve a special answer. Just don’t be a prick, you know?”

“Wiser words have never been said.” You smiled longingly. Something was flourishing inside the walls of your fast-beating heart, and you could not control its roots radiating throughout your entire being. “You sound like you would like a simple lifestyle. You know, on the westside.”

“Yeah, maybe one day, when I’m tired and bitter, I can get a farm like the rest of the old people in Crystalfall.” Yoongi smirked faintly at the prospect — it didn’t sound so bad when he said it out loud. “I’d have to dedicate my entire life for that, though, and I can’t stay still for too long.”

You raised one eyebrow, placing your elbow on the towel, merely a few centimeters away from him. “You’re here with me now.” You lowered your body to the same position as his. He has so close you could perceive the sugary aroma that sprouted in between his lips.

His gaze fell to your parted mouth, somewhat stained by the red tinge of strawberry. “I mean in the same city.”

“Oh, so you’re leaving me the second this date ends?” you asked, playful.

He paused at that. Yoongi’s eyes were atramentous as the night that surrounded the two of you, but there were no constellations scintillating in his pupils — there was only a fathomless fall, an unsolvable puzzle. “I didn’t say that.” He took one of his hands to your cheek, caressing the place with his thumb. You heart got trapped in the confinements of your throat as, gradually, the boy started to lean in, his nose brushing lightly against your own. “Besides... I can make an exception for a west beauty like you,” he whispered.

Yoongi’s lips tasted like a storm, like he was hiding hurricanes beneath his tongue. The boy kissed you patiently, slowly, taking his time to caress your lips with his before he parted his mouth enough to deepen his actions. Your mind was miles away, but you had the impression you heard a low, shriveled groan reverberating in the space between your mouths as your tongues met. Time ceased to run for an instant, then, it all came crashing down.  

Your eyes remained shut for a second when the boy moved away, your full attention still focused on the phantasm of his kiss, the sensation that still waltzed on your lips. At times, merely the right kiss is enough to make someone fall — the precise impact that would make you lose your balance, to decay into the pit that was those amaranthine black eyes.

That night, at least, it was.

Once you opened them, you were met with a weak smile from his part. “Can I ask you something crazy?” Yoongi’s lips touched yours as he spoke.

“Depends,” you said underneath your breath, utterly taken away by his beauty.

With stardust in his eyes and the cosmos expanding at every inhale, Yoongi was the ruler of your own shared universe, holding your hands through the infinity of time and space. When he spoke, you felt as if his words were written in the stars, guiding you towards the future you were meant to live. “I want you to run away with me.” He took his fingers and placed one strand of your hair behind your ear. “Not forever, just for a little while. We can get in this car and just go around some places, be nameless for some time. I feel like you and I could use some relaxation.”

You raised your eyebrows, walking in the thin line between worried and intrigued. If it had been anyone else, you wouldn't have even considered such preposterous idea — however, it was Yoongi, and he knew how to push all the right buttons. “Like a road trip?”

He shrugged. “You could say that. What’s your answer?”

“Oh, what the hell.” You placed a small kiss on his lips, and whispered against his parted mouth. “I’m in.”

And then he took you for another kiss.

Right then and there, you made the decision that would shape the weeks to come.  There you stood, staring down at the abyss that was Min Yoongi, wondering what could follow your jump. The air was thin and smooth as silk, brushed against your skin like the gentle caresses of butterfly’s wings. It was static and devoid of sentiment; phlegmatic; empty. Beneath your feet, only darkness. 

“Whatever this is,” you thought in a flash of reason, “it isn’t love.” 

And jumped. Fell.

The first three weeks passed by with little to no incidents, and you had started to believe you had found paradise on earth.

After you had accepted the man’s proposal for a miraculous getaway, the two of you made your plans as if it would be the last adventure of your lives — from the route that you would follow to the attractions you would see. Taking advantage of his free spirit’s memories, Yoongi made sure to highlight the best cities he had seen nearby, his face growing serious every time he looked up to meet your anxious gaze. He would speak smoothly then, following the rhythm of the melody only the two of you shared, and tranquilizing your negative thoughts promptly.

“West beauty, I want to share the world with you,” he would say, his fingertips touching the skin of your cheek as if he could write poetry on it. Yoongi’s voice was like a rich verse, a sublime rhyme that continued to echo within your soul. “I know it’s crazy, but I’m sure you'll love it. Just give me a chance.”

It was crazy, and you knew it. You felt as if you had been possessed by a recklessness that was completely alien to you — pushing you to pursue that insane road trip by the side of a man you knew nothing about, but yet that understood you so profoundly. Of course you were beyond worried — you had every reason to be — but, once again, you had long commited your first error, and your misplaced trust would take some time to fully disappear.

So you went forward with it. You came back home, invented some strangely believable story about meeting some college friends to your aunt, and packed your bags as adrenaline rushed through your veins, electricity sparking at your fingertips. You had spent your entire life following rules so thoroughly that the mere prospect of running away — for some time — with a man you barely knew was impossible for your aunt to even conjure. There was nothing holding you back from entering the most dangerous situation you had ever placed yourself in.

But oh well — some of the most unexpected blessings can disguise the most pernicious of curses.

Two days after your date at the waterfall, just as Sunday’s sun was starting to set, you met the boy at the Yellowside bridge — which connected the two parts of the town, split only by a slender river. Just as he had promised in a previous message, Yoongi had parked his cars amongst the veridian-painted trees, in a blind spot covered by bushes. It was a gorgeous afternoon: chilly, yet pleasant; silent, yet permeated by the whispering of leaves and the quiet crashes of the river’s water. There was a vague scent of flowers and humid ground mingling in the air, dancing along the singing of birds. It was perfect, after all.

Yoongi was leaning against the passenger side of his vehicle, eyes scrutinizing something on his phone. Behind him, the horizon was painted by thin brushstrokes of apricot and burning amber; setting the strands of his black hair on fire, shining like a golden aura around his angelic features. To catch him in such breathtaking landscape was an unique experience, so fantastic that your worries were silenced for an instant.

It didn’t take long for him to grasp the sound of your hurried footsteps against the dry foliage. “I’m here,” you said as he looked in your direction. Your hands were holding tightly to your backpack, and you felt like you carried the weight of the world in there. “Ready to go.”

In that simple sentence, you promised him everything that you had. And he accepted promptly.

Your partner in crime showed his gentlemen side that day — he opened the passenger door for you, then moved to place your backpack on the back seat, along with his own baggage. Yoongi’s car had the same scent as last time — strawberries, with a vague touch of mint.

The next instant, he was already sitting next to you and turning the ignition. “To infinity and beyond,” Yoongi claimed, closing the door with a loud exclamation. The sound resembled a gunshot to your arrhythmic heart, making it skip a beat. That was crazy. You were crazy. There was no way that could end well. “Let’s enjoy life together, west beauty.”

Nevertheless, as his car started to move, you didn’t verbalize any of your inner worries. A few minutes later, they were merely a ghost at the back of your mind — you came to the realization that the two of you had the world ahead of you, and it was yours to take.

In the progression of a few hours, the sky was painted by a deep shade of blue, then succumbed into a star-encrusted stygian. The roads expanded before you like paths into infinity, illuminated solely by the lights of his car — a small comet crossing the endless universe in respectful silence. On the radio, a slow song played on repeat, each melody decaying into the next one, dispersing its beautiful notes amongst the indoors air. With dreamy eyes, you followed the trees moving next to you, turning into a obfuscous blur of forms and sizes. A personal cosmos had opened itself for the two of you, and you adored the tranquility it brought along.

Three hours later, you arrived at the first of many motels. The purple luminescence of the neon sign ondulated on the surface of nearby puddles, a mystical aura walzed within every detail of that place. As you opened the passenger door and stepped into the cool air, you felt as if your entire life was opening like a flower in front of you.

In the strangest of ways, being on the run felt like home.

And so, you dove into it.

Before you could even notice, the days morphed into weeks, and the weeks into almost a month. Yoongi loved you kindly at first, taking his time to explore the nature that was born within your figure. He caressed your fingertips with endless delicacy, delighted in the honey of your tongue and drowned in your sweet soul, touching every crack, loving every wound. His hands were made of promises, his words were soft as silk and, together, they drew poems across your skin.

“I think that I’m in love with you, west beauty,” he would whisper against your mouth as the auric sunlight creeped through the cracks of the curtains, losing no time before dwelling in your kiss once again. Yoongi suspired against you, mind still slumberous, and limbs still intertwined around your half-naked figure. He was like the moon — mystic, lonely, overpowering. He controlled the tides of your ocean with endless delicacy, crashed against you and then retrieved back with tenuous kisses against your lips.

For those moments, you would feel free. You had convinced yourself, in a haze of impromptu decisions and impermanent pleasures, that you had fallen for him. You had sewed your mind in such way that you vehemently believed that you loved Min Yoongi just as much the moon loves the stars, like the clouds kiss the sun. You loved him like the Yellowside river’s water runs on, like the seasons pass, and you two were left with brown leaves and naked twigs — vulnerable and weak. You loved him like prismatic flowers blossomed during the spring, like earth embraces the cold droplets of the falling rain. You loved him like you. Like him. Like the two of you.

God, you loved him.

Yet, somehow, someway, you knew the two of you were not meant to last — so, you were left to whisper to him your deepest secrets, attempting to keep your head above water; your heart above desire, as you succumbed into the fathomless ocean that was Min Yoongi. You continued to fall for him, in between caresses, in between lamenting sighs; but, then, your every movement became coated by a thin layer of reluctance; the poltergeist of a broken heart beating inside the walls of your chest, banging against your ribs in unspoken pleas for mercy.

Those paranoid flashes of reason, however, did not last for long. Yoongi silenced your demons with the touch of his tender kiss against your lips, muted their whispering voices with the booming sound of clubs — asking for you to dance the night away, to be carried by the rhythm of freedom, to scream out in deserted roads and hear as your pain was washed away by the ice-cold winds of change. You did all of that for him: from the never-ending hours spent inside his vehicle to the constant moving between motel rooms, you accepted his words, took them as your personal truth, and allowed for them to guide you into a land where there were no problems in sight. A land in which he was your world, and you were his.

For some time, that was sufficient.

When Yoongi asked for more of you, there was no fiber in your being that even contemplated the idea of turning it down. As he kissed an invisible route through your neck, past the mountains of your breasts, and into the lines of your stomach, there was nothing within you that made you hold back the river of your own desire. In that muffled motel room, the only sound that pierced the static was the constant spinning of the fan’s blades, and your voice, tender as the vernal season. “Yoongi,” you mumbled against the skin of his neck, goosebumps spreading across your own. You wished to feel him so badly that it was consuming your soul, setting your mind on fire — there was nothing else that mattered. “I want you.”

And, heavens, only God knew how much he wanted you too.

Tracing the pattern from your clit to your entrance, Yoongi grunted as he felt your liquids running down his digits; listening to your soft sighs as he pushed past your folds, teasing his way in — but never fully doing so. For a few times, there was all that he did: brushing lightly his fingers from your opening to your clit, never applying the satisfactory pressure or entering you. You despised his patience sometimes.

In dissonance, as soon as he moved back his head and his hooded eyes met your own, needy ones, all the remnants of his self control were lost. He could tease you another time — then, he needed to have you.  

With a passionate kiss, the man took you in his arms and, with a strong pull, elevated your hips from the soft mattress; fingers not wasting a single second before pulling down the cotton of your underwear. He groaned against your mouth once he felt the sensation of your center against his hard, clothed member, pressing down just right.

An ambrosial taste of nectar was pouring form in between his lips, rushing through your veins, intoxicating your senses with its mephitic sweetness. Against your chest, you could perceive the fast beating of his own heart, resounding like drums inside your ears alongside a deep, rusty grunt of desire. “Baby,” he whispered — begged. “Let me have you, please.”

There was no need to ask, for you had already given him every sign of consent that he needed. Who would you be to decline such compelling proposal?

And so you gave yourself to him — again and again; until your legs were trembling and your weak lungs could not take in the dense air anymore. You gave yourself to Yoongi as if the world would reach its ending in the following morning; as if the pleasure of his enticing touches were enough for you to live on. You dove into the melody of his moans and whines; cried out in need as he prolonged your euphoria just a little bit longer; fucked you a little bit deeper; ruined you a little bit further.

In those moments, everything felt as marvelous as it could be.

Before you knew it, those instances had been incorporated to your routine. And, for that, Yoongi was dangerously creative. He would have you the way he wanted it, when he wanted it: he would fuck you mercilessly against the wall, take you in the hot tub at late hours of the night, would accompany you in your showers, making you beg for him with the right movement of his digits and the flick of his tongue.

You loved the way he looked then: his eyes so filled with flames; his breaths so raspy, so deep; his cheeks painted by a vague tinge of cardinal. Droplets of sweat decorated his abdomen and his forehead, shining around his opaque gaze as he took you deeper, rougher, whispering sweet nothings into your ear. “You’re all mine, west beauty,” he moaned out once, voice rotten by desire and certainty. “You take me so well, baby, I love you so much—”

He did, he really did. Yoongi, in all his breathless bliss, could only compare your image to the empyrean, cherubic beauty of angelic sculptures, embellished by the eroticism of forgotten nymphs. He adored the way your body — more specifically, your ass — moved as he fucked you so mercilessly from behind; jumping up and down on the motel bed at the will of his strong thrusts. “You like this, baby?” he asked in a hushed tone, fingers digging to the curvature of your waist. You cried out his name in a clear agreement. “Yeah? You like my cock? You like when I fuck you like this?”

“Yeah, oh my god,” you whimpered, turning your head on the pillow to look at him. God, your mouth was so swollen, you had been biting the pillow so hard you barely noticed it.

But Yoongi did. The dream of decorating such gorgeous, immaculate features — those lust-filled, cherry-painted lips he venerated so much — with the whiteness of his release made him thrust against you even harder. “You feel so good, you’re so tight,” he praised. It had become even more difficult to find the right words to speak now that his high was hanging like sword over his head. “You’re such a good girl, aren’t you? You’re so good.”

“Y-Yeah, Yoongi…” you cried out, hands holding tightly to the pillow as if it was the last fragment of reality that could chain you down to the delicious present of his actions. Your hair was disheveled, spread all over the mattress like a cascade. “Harder, please,” you requested in a whine.

Yoongi moaned again and again, opening his eyes just enough so you could perceive the way his irises shone in absolute concupiscence — he looked like something straight out of a daydream, a tempting demon lurking in the shadows of your desires; from the way his hair was gleaming in droplets sweat to his parted, gasping red lips. “Take it baby,” he said. Ordered. Once again, you did as he said, perking up your hips and feeling as he hit your sweet spot. “Yeah, that’s my girl, come on.”

Fuck, how he loved to have you that. Yoongi could cum just at the mere sensation of your wetness, the way you moaned and cried under his rough touches; fighting to reach your climax as his member thrusted in and out of your soaked center. He was so hard it was almost painful to endure, cock pulsating inside you as his hips slowly started to lose their precision, movements growing erratic, stained by pleasure.

His climax washed over him, breaking upon his cloudy perceptions and erupting on the tip of his tongue in a long, drown-out moan. Yoongi could make a vouch in the name of the stars, in those glorious times of victory and defeat, that you were the closest to heaven he would ever get; the bliss in your eyes could never be comparable to anything else that he had ever witnessed.

There was one detail, though, that needed to be taken in consideration: those had been just your adventures behind four walls, in the confinements of your neon-lit rooms.

Other times, you two wouldn’t even get to the motel, and had to make good use of his car. And that was your favorite time. In all honesty, you did not hate it one bit — in a way, you preferred it over the bed, or any other location he had ever took you.

“You know I can’t hold back when you tease me like this,” Yoongi said once, struggling to park his car in a nearby alley. For all he cared, he could put it right beneath an open semaphore and have you then and there, open and ready for him. He didn’t care if anyone saw it, frankly, it only made his job a bit more fun. “Can you stop with that? Fuck,” he complained.

You smirked, and your hand brushed against his clothed member once again; fingers delicately tracing the outlines of his erection. In his black pants, his cock throbbed in the thought of how you would feel around it, the concept so concupiscent that made him bite his lower lip in sheer desire. There was only so much he could take. “Stop with what?” you teased, clicking your seatbelt in anticipation — the black stripe dragged against your chest, pushing your low-cut blouse slightly to the side.

Lucky for both of you, he wasn’t in the right mental state to play those tempting games, and his head had been utterly focused on finding a right place to camouflage his chevy — the alley ended up being a bit broader than he first thought, so it made his torturous times a bit easier to endure, even if he was growing terribly annoyed at the constant, mocking movements of your hands against his arousal.

To be fair, Yoongi was a patient man, but he had been bothered by your presence far longer than that. Ever since he had seen you get out of the bathroom with that luscious short skirt, your body had been all that he thought about — the repercussion of the bar’s song had turned into white noise inside his skull, the faceless silhouettes of strangers could never compare to the way the fabric moved upwards as you danced, presenting him with appetizing glimpses of your ass in that white lacy underwear.

By the end of the night, when the two of you were departing from that overflowing establishment, he could no longer keep his hands away to himself. Now, Yoongi was patient, but he was no prude when it came to public displays of his desire — his touches lingered from the sides of your breasts to the curvature of your waist; moving down to squeeze your ass as his lips sucked on the flesh of your neck, placing red-bitten caresses all over your skin. The motel was just too far away, and he needed to have you at that very instant.

The second that his car was parked amongst the consolidated shadows of a nearby construction, Yoongi helped you onto his lap, your back towards him, hands moving up and down your exposed thighs, seeking for the cotton of your panties underneath your devilish skirt. With his pulse echoing like thunder inside his head, the boy stared in hidden fascination as he pulled your underwear haphazardly from your center, presenting him with a luscious view of your dripping sex.

Producing a low, satisfied groan, Yoongi took one of his fingers to your entrance, delighting on your wetness. “Won’t you look at that,” he provoked, voice deeper than usual. “It seems like there’s no need for me to play with you tonight.”

You bit down on your lower lip, pressing your ass against his erection as if to prove your unspoken point: you weren’t the only one who had been a bit carried away. But, hell, could someone blame you? The simple hypothesis of being with Yoongi inside his car was enough to send shivers down your spine, the images of past meetings flashing like a projected movie inside your mind. The position and the friction that his car gave you was just perfect, and the thrill of getting caught by oblivious citizens only enhanced your excitement.

Yeah, the motel could wait.

“Lean over, baby,” Yoongi requested in a whisper against your neck, his hands moving upwards on your chest, pressing your tits together. The contact was rough, showing you just how much he needed to have you.

Placing your hands over the wheel, you did as he requested, listening as the sound of his zipper sliced the silence of the closed ambient. All over the rain-covered windows, thin layers of fog covered the outside world, blending with the obfuscous luminescence of nearby signs, bleeding in geranium and sapphire.

As Yoongi pulled down his pants and you heard the sound of plastic filling the air, your voice resumed its speech. “Don’t you want to turn on the radio?” you asked. “I know how much you love fucking me to some good music.”

“I do.” His palms came in contact with your waist, pulling you body back down on his lap. Against your asscheecks, you could feel the touch of his cock, hard and ready for you. “But I love hearing you more,” he completed.

Leaning your head back, you placed it against his right shoulder. Through the curtain of your eyelashes, you watched as he undressed you, opening the buttons of your blouse one by one. “Yoongi,” you called. “You can do this later.”

Light as a feather, his lips came in contact with your exposed neck. “I can,” he agreed, opening the last one. His palms traveled from your stomach to your breasts, cupping them over your bra — the same white lacy underwear that was driving him crazy. You moaned softly at the sensation of his rough touches, your ass perking up against his erect member. “I know I can. But I love when you get like this.”

You swallowed dry. “Like how?”

“Like this.”

As if he had been expecting your inquiry, one of his hands flew to his mirror, and oscillated it towards the two of you. On the reflection, you could see yourself — cheeks flushed, half-parted lips and hooded eyes — and the eroticism that gleamed inside Yoongi’s eyes. You had discovered that he had quite the liking for mirrors when, by mistake, the two of you had received the honeymoon suite of a fancy motel, and ended up with a mirror on the ceiling.

But that was a different story.

“Baby,” Yoongi called you, pressing down on your boobs with a bite against your neck. Against your back, his erection throbbed against your skin, and felt yourself clenching in anticipation. “I’m gonna put it in, alright?”

And you agreed with a hum and raised your figure a bit, because that was all that you could do then.

Yoongi rubbed himself against your wet folds once, twice, feeling their moisture as a deep groan broke behind his teeth. At last, just when you’re about to complain about all the time that he was taking, you feel the lethargic, heavenly sensation of his cock sliding inside you, stretching you out.

Then it was your time to steal the spotlight. With a heavy exhale through your nose and your palms finding support on the wheel, you begun moving your body up and down, dwelling in the aphrodisiac sensation of his member inside you. Some strange way, it felt a bit more personal than your lust-covered mind had foresaw — with Yoongi whining and moaning against your back, inhaling your sweet scent with every slow rise and fall of your figure. Every time your absent-minded gaze flickered towards the small oval mirror, you would see him, with his mouth parted and eyebrows furrowed in absolute focus, accompanying the bouncing of your breasts as your rhythm increased in speed, the sound of your wetness filling his ponderations with lewd ideas.

His digits dug deeper onto your hips as he felt the approaching waves of his high, unexpected and merciless. “Oh yeah,” he moaned out, throwing his head back. Yoongi’s eyes were closed in endless bliss, the sound of his flesh hitting yours repeatedly was all that he could hear. Underneath his thighs, the leather of his car seat was sticking against his sweaty skin. “Take it deeper, baby, come on. Fuck my cock.”

Once again, you could not help but fulfill his request.

As his cock pounded in and out of you, his own breathing was growing heavy under the angelic characteristic of your form; reason long forgotten. “Just like that, yeah,” Yoongi spoke in a whisper. Neediness was plastered all over his face, gleaming inside his irises as they fell to the obscene movements of your body against his. God, you were everything he wished to have at that time; the movement of your hips against his was driving him to the edges of his sanity. “Fuck, you’re so hot, baby, I can’t believe you’re mine,” he disclosed.  

“Yoongi,” you whimpered out his name in a personal prayer, knees and thighs trembling as you felt your delight increasing by the second. Your mind had went completely black, hyperfocusing on the hypnotic, harsh thrusts of his cock in and out of you, the rolling of his hips against your own, fighting for more. The heat in your lower body was becoming unbearable, ready to come crumbling down at any given instant. “It feels so good, I’m—”

He groaned as he felt your walls tightening around him. “Can you come for me, baby?” he asked. The sobs and whines that left your lips were as addictive as nicotine, immersive as the song of a siren; you struggled to blurt out a prolonged, moan-like confirmation. “Yeah? Do that for me, baby.”

Of course you could — for Yoongi, you would go to the moon and back. Euphoria took over your senses as your orgasm washed over you, his name coming out in broken sighs in between your swollen lips, dissipating in the foggy atmosphere of his warm vehicle. Behind you, the man cursed at the way your walls pulsated around him, taking him just right.

Yoongi placed his hands on your ass, squeezing your flesh strongly as you kept sitting up and down on his erect member. The man, utterly overwhelmed, whined against your neck something that resembled the fragmented syllables of your name, his cock filling you up again and again as his limit fastly approached. “I’m gonna come,” he moaned out, throwing his head back against the seat. His abdomen clenched, his lungs produced a trembling exhale. “Fuck, just feel me, baby, come on.”

Even if the ghost of oversentibility had started to haunt your bones, you ignored the exhaustion of you limbs, and continued to fuck yourself with his cock, waiting for Yoongi to reach his high. Instead, you focused on the luscious way that his voice resounded all around you as he thrusted upwards, diving into the astonishing way you wrapped around him.

It did not take long for Yoongi to find his release, holding down to your hips as he did so. With a few terminal, spasmodic movements, he finally came undone, and let go of your figure for an ephemeral second.

Though, you knew that it would take a bit more than that for him to be fully satisfied.

“Look at that, what a mess.” Yoongi chuckled behind you, and his index finger met the path between your folds — you were so sensitive that you leaned forward, placing your hands on the wheel for support. The sound of wetness was lewd, but you loved it, and you loved Yoongi’s touch even more. “So much fucking cum,” he praised, breathless. “You take it all so well.”

Your lips were swollen from both his touch and the constant biting from your part, and they pulsated as you attempted to form a comprehensible sentence — with the afterglow of your orgasm still weighing down on your muscles, and his fingers tracing circles up and down your core, there was not much left for you to work with. “I should…” You swallowed dry, fingers holding tightly to the leather as he moved towards your clit. “I should clean up.”

“Why? We’re not done yet.” He chuckled behind you, the sound reverberating inside your bones; sending shivers down your spine. You knew that devilish tone like it was your second language, it was his way to telling you that the two of you would not be getting any sleep anytime soon. “Let’s get to the motel first.”

Of course, the fun was barely starting.

However, as much as those first weeks had been incredible, every sea of roses still had its thorns.

There were other, less pleasant times in which his presence wasn’t that perfect. Instances in which strangers at the bar would widen their eyes once they met his, or perhaps would whisper cautiously once your partner was recognized, their previous conversations turning into alarmed whispers, following the same melody as the hissing of water against burning charcoal. Your gut warned that something was wrong, that a piece of the puzzle wasn’t fitting, but you ignored it. Call it love, call it idiocy, even innocence — the point was that Min Yoongi had you at the palm of his hand, and even the biggest of red flags couldn’t wake you up from your enamored fantasies.

Well, at least not yet.

Hoseok [11:02pm] Hey, where are you? We’re worried, Namjoon said he couldn’t speak to you, and it’s been almost a month since we saw you.

-

You [09:38am] Hey, I’m out of town with a friend. I’m safe, don’t worry about it. Sorry I couldn’t answer sooner.

Hoseok [09:38am] Damn. When are you coming back? We need a to talk about a problem real quick.

You [09:43am] I don’t have a prediction. You’ll guys will have to figure that out without me.

-

With a low hum of approval, Yoongi slided your phone towards you across the white-painted table. “Nice one,” he praised. “Baby steps, I guess.”

You nodded as you inhaled deeply, fingers moving to lock your device again. In the background of the establishment, the ringing that signaled the arrival of another customer ressounded. “I’m really holding back to ask what it is, though,” you said, “what if they’re in trouble?”

He shrugged, clearly not worried at the prospect. His hair, crepuscular as a raven’s feathers, contrasted against the golden luminesce of the afternoon sun that came from the restaurant’s window — in a way, the place reminded you of Mercy’s and, combined with Hoseok’s messages, you only missed your friends further. “You’re not the only person in town. They’ll figure it out,” he spoke as his fingers traced the pink straw of his strawberry milkshake. “Besides, they waited two weeks, it’s probably not that important. Just ignore them.”

Unable to continue staring at the dark screen of your phone — you felt as if it would light up again at any given second — you turned it around, facing your pale yellow cover instead. “You’re probably right.” You sighed. You certainly did not feel as if he was, though. “This feels wrong, I don’t know. I’m not used to saying no to my friends when I know I can help them.”

One of his hands reached out for you, and the warmness of his palm met your own. It was bizarre: his expression did not hold the same amount of heat. “Hey, listen,” Yoongi spoke almost in a whisper as he leaned in closer to you, as if he had been sharing a secret. “I know you’re a very non-confrontational person, alright? I get it. But listen: can you imagine if people didn’t defend themselves ever? Because I don’t know if you’re aware, the world isn’t filled with good intentions.”

You licked your lips, trying to find the words to respond with. There were traces of vanilla stil hiding in your mouth, and the sweetness of it made you nauseated. “I know, Yoongi, but these are my friends,” you responded.

Once such a serene experience, now the mere holding of his gaze felt alien to you. You continuously felt as if you were being analyzed under a microscope, as if you tiniest of actions could be a reason for his disapproval to flourish again. “I know, baby,” he said back, leaning his head slightly to the side. “That doesn’t mean they wouldn’t take advantage of you.”

Your eyes flickered between the world outside and the fathomless expansion of his irises, trying to find a way out of that conversation. You hated when he talked to you like that, like you were a kid. “Your point?” you asked, rather emotionlessly.

He suspired. “My point,” he said, leaning back against his seat. His hand felt like fire against your own, burning your spirit to ashes. “is that there are bad things in the world, and we don’t run away from it. We face it, head high, even if we’re scared shitless, and we tell it to stick it right where the sun doesn’t shine. You can’t allow people to take advantage of you when they are fully aware of their actions, do you understand me? You deserve to value yourself more than that.”

As you were starting to learn, Yoongi had a tendency to monologue about the most tedious of subjects, verbalizing each word as if he was absolutely certain of its veracity — as if you were far too dumb to realize something so obvious. “That isn’t exactly nice of me,” you said.

“You can be nice without being used as a rug.” He took a slip of his milkshake, and it was finally over. Your vanilla drink was practically left untouched, and the ice cream was now a warm, thick liquid at the bottom of your tall cup. “You know that saying, ‘treat others like you’d treat yourself’? Yeah. I think you need to work on the second part, and internalize a little bit of that love towards you every once in a while. They’ll live without their helicopter mother around.”

You chuckled at that last part. His words seemed empty, but you still found yourself leaning towards them — damn smooth talkers. There was no other kind as manipulative as they were. “I’ll try.”

Yoongi smiled openly, victoriously. You had forgotten to look away from the eclipse, and now it was blinding you, muting your senses. “You better,” he verbalized, pushing his empty cup to the side. Every movement was choreographed, every sentence was practiced into a splendiferous delivery — now, the grand finale. “Because, you know, I don’t want you being all walked over by those people. You should, like, just block them at once. I can tell how their messages make you anxious.”

You smiled weakly, attempting to keep your own act together. “Thank you, coach. I don’t think they are, though,” you said. But you didn’t know anymore: Yoongi’s words always made so much sense. How could he be wrong when he was claiming to want the best for you? Your thoughts were a miscellaneous of excuses and torn-apart conversations, flying in circles, pathless and disoriented.

“You’re welcome, west beauty.” He winked at you, then placed the palms of his hands against the table, using it as a sustentation to get up to his feet. Yoongi’s figure, wrapped in that infamous black leather jacket, was now a vortex of twilight amongst a prismatic landscape, sucking all the light in, pouring nothing of it out. “I’ll pay the bill, just a second.”

“Alright.” You nodded, and watched as he walked towards the counter.

That conversation, however, left a sour taste on your mouth, and the faint touch of a bad feeling just at the bottom of your stomach. As if guided by an impulse you could not comprehend, your hands seeked for your phone in a rush of adrenaline. You turned around, and were met by a new cascade of texts from your friend.

-

Hoseok [10:13am] It’s important. You’re with someone from the bar, right? I can’t recall his name rn, but we have to talk.

Hoseok [10:14am] The guy that Joohyun was hooking up with was very alarmed when he found out that you had been seen with him. He’s not good news, I need to know that you’re actually safe.

Hoseok [10:15am] From what I’ve heard, he has fucked some people over, and now he owes them money for some weird job. The guy didn’t know much, but he knew it was bad, blood was spilled and shit.

Hoseok [10:15am] Namjoon heard some dark stuff as well

Hoseok [10:15am] His name’s Yoongi, right? Min Yoongi or something like that

Hoseok [10:16am] Ring me up when you can, alright? Let’s have a talk. I’m worried sick.

-

Your heartbeat increased once your eyes met every new word, fingers growing weak around your phone. It was as if Hoseok’s messages has shaken awake the worries that had been silenced within your chest, chained by the ties of denial. Once your story ended, a few weeks after that day, you would look back at that very instant and, in a bitter memory, would claim that it was when you begun to see beyond the good — and into the bad and the ugly — of who your lover really was.

“Ready to go?” Yoongi’s voice was piercing, making your heart skip a beat. You looked up at him with widened eyes, mouth slightly parted in a way to form words you couldn’t build. You were nervous. He noticed it. “Is everything alright?” he asked, suspicious.

You cleared your throat and placed your phone back in your pocket. “Yeah, sorry,” you said, forcing a timid smile. “Let’s move.”

Later, in an impulsive decision made at two in the morning, you deleted the texts you had received that afternoon. That was what Yoongi would have wanted. He would tell you that he was no longer that man, that you had nothing to worry about. Everything was going to be alright, and he was there to protect you, not hurt you. He would never do something like that. And, for the time being, you would believe in that.

However, as you would soon come to understand, Min Yoongi was a huge, disgusting  fucking liar.

Trouble started showing up eventually, and your make-believe paradise progressively transformed into inferno.

Every time Yoongi showed you a glimpse of his darker side, you overlooked it. You buried your preoccupations underneath the cold motel sheets, hoping they would never be uncovered, that the monsters underneath the bed would never come back to take what you owed them. However, there was a point that it reached dangerous levels, and you could not pretend as if everything was okay any longer.

It started gradually — minor discussions over stupid matters; bar fights, which caused a bloody nose here and there; stealing; reckless behavior on the wheel. One day he was stealing expensive champagne from local convenience stores, the next he was gifting it to you like it was his very own version of salvation, promising you he had bought it instead.  One day he was pushing you away and, the next, he was holding you tighter than ever before. It was emotionally exhaustive, psychologically torturous, to follow the harsh — sometimes unpremeditated — switches of his personality. You constantly felt like you were walking in a place filled with mines, ready to be exploded at any given second.

There were two occurences, though, in which you truly feared for your life. Moments in which all your excuses, all your justifications, fell flat in face of real threat. There was nothing you could tell yourself that would mask the true nefastus aura that surrounded Yoongi once he got into that wicked state of mind — he was just like any other reckless beast from the east side, and he had no worries for your well being. Whoever that version was, you did not love it.

The first one was at the parking lot of a club.

Yoongi had nurtured the awful habit of, just as the night was starting to get tiresome, he would disappear, claiming he saw someone he knew amongst the crowd or, if he was at the motel with you, you’d wake up in the middle of the night to find him gone. Just like all bad things in life, you managed to get used to it and, after the fifth time that it happened, your sadness had turned into a slight displeasure at the pit of your stomach.

More often than not, he would come back as if nothing had happened, and would not answer any of your questions about where he had been aforetime. That was what you had expected that special night, but neutrality was the last thing you received once he reappeared.

Like usual, Yoongi had vanished to talk to some faceless old friends, and you were waiting for him outside of a booming club. For twenty minutes you stood there, alone, leaning against the cold wall and watching as drunken groups staggered in and out of the booming construction — lovers holding onto one another; friends laughing loudly against the wind; or perhaps loners trying their luck for the night.

At some point, a man joined you outside, claiming he just needed to smoke a cigarette. “Rough night?” he asked.

“Rough month,” you responded, friendly. “I’m waiting for my boyfriend,” you said. If you could even call him that. “He usually takes his time when his drunk.”

He nodded, and continued the conversation. The stranger was particularly nice to you. He kept the dialogue somewhat casual, and maintained a respectful amount of space between your bodies. You were under the impression — which quickly got confirmed — that he only wanted a friend to talk to, and wasn’t trying to get anything else out of you. Comforting, the feeling allowed for you to relax under his presence, and you though, in an instant of bliss, that perhaps the long wait for your boyfriend wouldn’t be so bad.

More often than not, you were incorrect when the subject was Min Yoongi.

He came out of the club like a tornado just at the instant that you were laughing at something the kind stranger had said, and he opened the double doors with a movement far to rough for your liking. There was barely enough time for you to look at him, lips slightly parted in surprise, and to take in the uncharacteristic expression that had overtook his features, barely illuminated by the phosphorescent lights of the construction.

Yoongi was not sober, that you could tell. His posture was a little curved, and his eyes were not as white as you would like — besides, his forthcoming actions worked in the favor of your thesis.

He didn’t take long to jump into conclusions, for his vision and mental processes had been funneled by primordial emotions. “And who the fuck are you?” Yoongi spoke out in a groan, his speech slightly dragged. He looked directly at the other man, and took a step closer. “What is this?”

You swallowed dry, and tried to reach out to him. Next to you, the stranger threw his cigarette on the concrete. “Yoongi, it’s fine,” you said. He pulled away from your grip. “We were just talki—“

Now, Yoongi might not have been the biggest guy around, but he was certainly one of the fastest. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” He swiftly walked past you and pushed the man away with all the force he had, stepping in front of you with determination bleeding from his red-tinged eyes. You didn’t know if he was drunk, if he had consumed something else, but, frankly, that was the least of your worries then. “Stop looking at my girl like that, you cunt,” he spat.

Your eyes widened, pulse increasing to a point in which you believed your heart would just give up at any point. Through the anemic clouds of nicotine-painted smoke, you saw as the other man’s gaze faiscated in anger, his hands curling into fists. “Yoongi, he wasn’t—” you started, but it was already too late. The other man’s punch had sliced through the air and hit your boyfriend directly on the nose, sending him to stagger backwards. “Yoongi!” You called out, horrified.

Still, he wouldn’t back away. With the animal gaze that overtook his caliginous eyes, you were absolutely certain he had taken some sort of drugs, for he barely touched the blood on his nostrils before he was charging forward at the stranger; looking as if he had barely felt the impact, even less the pain.

Everything that followed had been saved like a blurry sequence of events inside your head. You could remember Yoongi charging towards the other man, punching him straight in the face with a groan and then, even less than a second later, the stranger had charged against him, throwing the two of them on the asperous concrete. You had no idea how, but Yoongi had been able to throw his weight over the man, and rolled around his figure so he would be on top.

The second that he started throwing constant punches against the other guy, something inside of you screamed that you had to stop that before it was too late — after all, there was no one else around.

With a bravery that did not belong to you, your fingers hooked on the collar of his shirt and, with a force that was moved by your panic, you mustered enough strength to pull Yoongi up by a few centimeters. You were by no means strong enough to take his entire body away from the other man, but the pull seemed sufficient to make him lose his balance. “Stop! The two of you,” you cried out and, with another pull, Yoongi rolled to the side, getting away from him. You took the chance and held your hands out, each of your palms facing a different man. “That’s enough, come on.”

Much to your relief, the kind stranger seemed to agree. “This is bullshit, man.” He spat, staining the concrete with his blood. His face was covered in splashes of purple and red, and the scene was terrifying to witness. As he spoke, blood splattered out of his mouth, covering his teeth in a thin layer of maroon.“You’re fucked up.”

Yoongi breathed out, enraged. “Stay the fuck away from her,” he ordered. You wanted to help the other man just as much, but you were afraid of how Yoongi would react. “I know what pieces of shit like you want.”

The other staggered to get back on his feet and, for an instant, you thought he would fall back down. It was bad — very bad. “Whatever, dude,” he said, his speech slightly groggy. Running the back of his hand against his nose, a thick trail of carmine was imprinted on his skin. He groaned. “You’re fucking crazy.” Then, he locked eyes with you. “You should get out of… whatever the fuck this is. Before it’s too late.”

You swallowed hard, but did not trust your own voice to formulate a sentence in regards to that. “You… should call someone,” was what you said. “It’s not looking good.”

He nodded and, with a mocking grin, mumbled something you didn’t quite catch. You were worried sick for that stranger, but you couldn’t even show it. Next to you, Yoongi’s eyes were burning with the endless flames of his anger, following the silhouette of the man as he turned his back to the two of you and moved closer to the club. “Let’s get outta here,” he whispered, “That guy is coward enough to call the cops on me.”

Unable to think of anything else, you did as he requested, helping him to get back on his feet. Yoongi’s face was by no means as bad as the other guys, but his nose was bleeding and trailing red paths down his face and onto his lips; there were dark purple marks beginning to show around his cheekbones and jaw. His eyes were bloodshot, and you did not have the courage to ask him what was in his system — to be fair, you didn’t even want to know.

The two of you walked across the construction in absolute, sepulchral silence, following the path of your arrival. Yoongi didn’t want to pay for a spot — fifteen bucks an hour was absurd —, so he parked his car in an alley nearby, where he was sure no one would complain. He seemed to have calmed down throughout those transitory instants of quiessence, for even his respiration had taken a much more tranquil rhythm. You though, in a flash of assuagement, that he had come back to his normal, collected state.

Though, it wasn’t the right conclusion.

Before you could even react, you felt his hands holding unflinchingly to your shoulders, forcefully pushing you against the asperous, frigid brick wall of the alleyway. Your eyes widened in a mixture of surprise and horror, watching as his own, blood-colored gaze scrutinized every minor detail on your semblance. Yoongi’s red-stained mouth was curved downwards and his eyebrows were hanging low, twitching lightly as he bit back his fury.

With a hard-bitten groan, he placed a bit more of his weight on you. It didn’t really hurt, but his actions had chilled you to the core. Then and there, you could swear that he was able to murder someone. Perhaps he already did. “Fuck, don’t get in the middle of my shit!” He warned, fingertips digging to your shoulder blades. You could feel as his blood dripped down from his bruised knuckles and onto your exposed skin — the warm liquid seemed like a horrible forewarning. “You want to make me look like I’m a fucking pussy? Is that what you want? You wanna make me look like I can’t take a half-assed beating?”

Overtaken by trepidation, the words seemed to refuse to leave your throat. Your mind had turned into a blank canvas, painted by the scarlet and cimmerian shades of his devastating acrimony. You dream turned into a nightmare right then, paralyzing your members and soul. “No, I didn’t—”

Yoongi grunted. “You know what? Spare me of that bullshit. Doesn’t matter.” He interrupted, pushing you one more time before staggering away from your trembling body, his arms weighing down next to his fast-breathing chest. You were not sure if he was talking about the situation, or you. “Let’s go back. You fucking drive, I’m too wasted for that shit,” he groaned, and threw the keys your way. “If you crash my car, I’ll kill you.”

Which flawlessly ties into the second instance in which you feared for your life. It took place about two weeks later, when Yoongi had changed his mind about the dangers of driving under the influence, and swore he was more than capable to get you two from the bar to your motel.

Then again, Min Yoongi was a liar.

The car ruptured the night like a shooting star, passing by the tall trees in a blur of headlights and worried screams. The mumbling of the motor chilled you to the bone, shaking inside your chest like the drumming of a war; and the sudden swerving of lanes — which happened every time Yoongi saw an upcoming curve — seemed to be the last action that you would ever witness. He maintained the velocity much above the speed limit and, every time you asked him to reduce it, he would raise it even further just to delight in the way your panic increased.

Yoongi looked at the open road like he had been possessed, his unfocused eyes barely seeing something beyond his hooded eyelids. “It’s a highway, not a fuckin’ roller coaster,” he had complained, licking his lips. The car was impregnated with the strong smell of alcohol, and you thought you were going to throw up at any given minute. “Can you stop—“ He burped. “Fuck. Just stop screaming.”

Still, you were in under no condition to be rational. “Yoongi, slow this down!” You cried out in horror, fingers clenching to the leather of the seat. Your nails were already hurting because of how much they were being pressed down against the thick fabric, your heart seemed as if it was about to stop. Next to you, the half-open window sucked out your hair, blowing the dense summer air onto your face at full speed. “How much did you drink?”

You had the impression that the man tried to smirk, but he was too far gone to fully control the muscles on his face. Instead, the corners of his mouth vaguely turned upwards, his expression bordering on the one of a serial killer. “Doesn’t fuckin’ matter,” he told you as his fingers tightened on the wheel. Only one hand was guiding the car, for the other was hanging tightly to the — stolen — beer bottle he had brought along. “Shut up, damn, why are you so loud? Loosen up a bit. Shit.”

The wheel turned and there was a vague scratching of the wheels against the asphalt as he struggled to make a tenuous curve — you could already see the car losing its path and crashing against one of the thick pine trees, killing the two of you instantly.

Yoongi took his bottle to his lips and chugged the rest of it down, not hesitating for one second before throwing it out of his window with a crash you could barely hear. The white lights of the poles flashed over his features like a movie was being projected onto him, presenting you with a person you did not recognize.

“Yoongi, stop this car right now.” You banged your hand against the door, trying to get his attention. The motor groaned as the man pressed down on the gas pedal, making his stance known, and pushing your back against the seat with the new acceleration. Trees were passing by in disfigured blurs of black and brown, and you were sure you were starting to lose blood pressure because of the stress you were under — it wouldn’t be the first time you fainted because of panic. “Oh my god, I’m gonna die.” You cried out, breathless. “Please, Yoongi—“

Yoongi took the back of his hand to clean his stained lips, and then looked at your direction — you didn’t know if his attention on the deserted road would make any difference at that point. When he spoke out, the nauseating smell of alcohol burned down your throat. “As much as I want to right now, I won’t flip this shit over,” he told you with endless annoyance, his eyes filled with a mixture of disgust and petulance. You didn’t know who he was then, and the fright that you felt only increased once you met the eyes of that stranger. “But only if you shut the fuck up. Do that for me, princess, and you won’t have to worry about a thing.”

Even against every nerve in your body, you did as he requested, and bit down on your lower lip. At some point, tears started wetting your cheeks, but you ignored them. Eventually, tough, the car began to slow down.

About ten minutes later, you two arrived at the neon-bathed motel, and Yoongi crashed in bed with a final cascade of curse words and complaints towards you. You only felt relief once you realized he was sound asleep and, even then, you could not rest for the entire night. You were terrified.

The last drop, however, was in the final night you two passed together.

Yoongi had mentioned that one of his old friends was in same town as the two of you, and asked if you would like to accompany him to a local bar, if you wouldn’t feel too left out, since he needed to have a private conversation with the man. As much as the requested was a bit offbeat, you accepted it regardless, for you felt it would’ve been better than to be alone in a small room with poor TV signal, and worries bubbling at the bottom of your stomach. It was better to be with him than to wonder where he was, and that you had learned the hard way.

The two of you arrived there a little past midnight, and were amazed by the slow movement — most of the tables were empty and there were, at most, fifteen other people, staff included, in that secluded ambient. Before you could even mention it, Yoongi briskly excused himself, said that he would be having his “important discussion” for some time, and claimed that under no circumstances were you to interrupt his exchange — unless, of course, it was urgent.

Out of alternatives, you turned to face the shelves decorated with prismatic bottles. As you walked towards the counter, throat arid as a desert, you thought about the night you met him under those auric christmas lights, when he swore he could give you everything and a bit more. Yoongi had made sure to show you — again and again — how your friends had been selfish when they left you behind to fulfill their own objectives, but he was doing precisely the same thing then.  

You were sure he would have a flawless justification hanging just at the tip of his tongue, though, as he always did. Yoongi wasn’t the biggest fan of being held accountable for his mistakes, and he wouldn’t start now.

With a disinterested expression hanging over her features, the purple-haired woman that worked at the bar moved closer to you. She held a piece of grey fabric in one hand and a cup in the other, and didn’t seem as if she was in the mood to make any friends. “What can I get you?” she questioned politely.

You licked your lips and thought for an instant. Behind you, two figures sat down, facing one another. “Just water is good,” you said, “thanks.”

She nodded and moved back to reach for your drink. It arrived much, much earlier than Yoongi did.

You sat there for some time, waiting as the night dragged along; filled by the exhilarated screams of embriagated customers and the constant buzzing of animated conversations. Exhaustion had overtaken your limbs, tingling on your fingertips and ruling over your mind by the time that one hour had gone by — and, with it, five glasses of water and two small trips to the bathroom. Maybe you should have stayed at the motel.

Lamenting the adventures you never got to live, you raised your gaze from the counter, and turned around on your seat. If you adjusted your posture and inclined your neck just enough, you could see Yoongi and another silhouette talking at the corner of the bar, completely immersed in a secretive subject. You thought about asking what it was about, but you were sure he would not share it — Yoongi was a man sustantained by secrets; a petulant monarch sitting in a throne of poorly constructed lies and enigmatic whispers.

Every time you looked at him you would picture a scene: the two of you trying to finish a puzzle, but there’s a piece missing. You don’t know if it’s with you, if you lost it, if you can’t find it. Or if it’s with him. If he’s hiding it from you. In a speck of courage, you would dare to take a look at him, meeting those eyes that are both everything and nothing at the same time. Empty as black holes, full as the brightest star. They push you like waves, then pull like the cold tides. There’s echo e and there’s muffling. There’s him. You don’t know who he is. Then you understand, once again, that the puzzle will not be completed, and you can only guess what that final piece would present. Perhaps one detail would change it all, perhaps it would have been precisely what you had always envisioned. You will never know. He hid it from you during all that time, and you doubted it would ever see the light.

Though, you soon would get an idea of it.

Behind you, a loud cough resounded throughout the establishment. “You saw him right?” One of the men asked, his voice so deep that, for an instant, you thought it was the same guy that bothered you in The Cave, months ago. The story was repeating itself, after all, in the most hypocritical of ways.

But no, you were too far away from home. It wasn’t him, and your friends were nowhere in sight.

The other hummed in concordance. “The Yoongi guy? Yeah. He got here with some chick I didn’t recognize.” He stopped once a sequence of deep, painful coughs ruptured his speech — you did not need to know him to be sure he was a smoker. “Fuck— Not that I expected it would be the same as last time, but ya know.”

“Yeah.” Another long pause. You felt as if your heart was just about to jump out of your chest; your fingertips were sweaty and quivering against the corner of the table. “You think they got him?” he asked.

“Nah. If they did, he wouldn’t be here, he’d be behind bars, where he fuckin’ belongs.” The other laughed. Paused. More coughing. “The guy knows what he’s doing around these streets, it’s not for nothin’ that he’s always on the run.”

The other scoffed at those words — as he spoke, clear traces of jealousy reverberated alongside his voice. “He thinks he’s some hot shit. One of these days we’ll find him dead in a ditch.”  Then, a chuckle. “Can’t say that I’ll miss him. He’s bad news. I feel sorry for the girl he dragged into this. I wonder if she knows.”

“She doesn’t, they never do. For sure. She should get the hell out befo—”

But you weren’t listening any longer. That had been the last drop.

In an impetuous wave of anguish and betrayal, you got out of your seat and looked around to find him. He, who had played you so effortlessly; he, who had completely ruined you with his omissions and imprudent actions. Negligence personified; hypocrisy in flesh. Min Yoongi, in his natural inhabitant.   

The man was the personification of Crystalfall — oscillating between the wickedness of the east and the utopian, artificial benevolence of the west side. You had been a fool to believe he was merely switching between extremes: Yoongi was both of them at the same time, and there was no way that you could have a touch of paradise unless you were ready to face the flames of hell.

You were not. Would never be.

Amongst the crowd, you saw him. Yoongi seemed to be in a heated discussion, speaking fervently with another man — his eyebrows furrowed and his mouth verbalizing poisonous words, head shaking to present his full frustration to the stranger. You wondered as he would punch him too if things got out of control; wondered if he would do something even worse. If one day you thought you knew Yoongi, that certainty had been too far for you to reach.

The other man ran one hand through his curly hair as you walked closer to them, disheveling his pale blonde strands with an anguished groan. He had deep violaceous marks under his eyes and, amongst the freckles on his skin, there was the obvious white line of a fresh scar. “All I’m saying, man, is that you have to get the fuck out,” he spoke with urgency, the same sentiment that gleaned inside his wide hazel eyes. Preoccupation fell like a stone at the pit of your stomach. “They know where you are, and they’re not being throw in prison for what yo—“

Yoongi saw you before he could finish. “—Hey, baby.” He cleared his throat, eyes darting to the man on his side. You knew him well to know that he was ordering the other to shut up before things got worse. “You’re good?”

Reluctant, you took an instant before responding — the stranger looked at you with cautious eyes, measuring your presence. You felt threatened by his rough posture, as if he could jump on you at any given instant. “I’m sorry to interrupt. It’s urgent.” You looked back at Yoongi with hollow irises, chest completely overwhelmed by a mixture of panic and disgust. “I heard some things about you and I… I wanted to talk.”

He opened his lips to respond, then seemed to take an instant to organize his thoughts — you could tell that he knew what it was about; the truth would be uncovered sooner or later, and it was time for him to pay his debt.

Yoongi sighed deeply. “Come on, baby,” he motioned with his head towards the exit. Beyond the wooden entrance, the night was darker than ever; merciless and algid. “Let’s continue this somewhere else.”  

The outside of the bar reminded you of the night you met him, the promise you made to meet him again. You should have never accepted his date proposal, you thought in a glimmer of betrayal and disgust, you should have listened to your gut and never got close to that awful place.

With heavy eyelids, you blinked lethargically, barely feeling the comfortable warmth of Yoongi’s hand at the bottom of your spine as he walked you out of the establishment. You were tired, and had been for as long as you could recall. That memory could trail back to a couple of weeks or a plethora of insomnia-filled days ― not even that certainty you could rearrange. Then again, exhaustion was a paradox of itself: you were too fatigued to even care. You just wanted to sleep. Everything else could burn to the ground, for as much as you cared.

Well, everything else but the reason why the two of you had left so suddenly.

Even turning your head seemed like a huge task ― so, as you spoke, you did not. You proceeded to look straight ahead, underneath heavy lids, waiting for his car to mysteriously materialize into focus as you two walked down the relinquished streets.“Yoongi,” you called out, “you have to tell me what’s going on. You keep protecting your secrets, I don’t know who you are anymore.”

He chuckled as if he had been expecting that inquiry for quite some time. His hand trailed the invisible path from your back to your shoulders. You had started to despise when he touched you there. “I’m not protecting my secrets,” he guaranteed, “I’m protecting you.”

You took a deep breath, measuring his expression — where you once saw everything, now there was nothing to be found amongst the traces of his celestial features. Yoongi was completely hollow on the inside. “And why the hell would you do that?” bitterness countered your speech as you spoke out.

Yoongi crooked his head to the side, looking at you with endless adoration. There was an instant, mercurial and tenuous as the midnight breeze, in which you actually considered that such emotion could be genuine. Though, as he spoke out, his voice came out with no inflection, no sign of it. He was a liar, as you were starting to figure out, but a bad one regardless. “Because I love you, west beauty,” he confessed.

But you didn’t believe that. If Yoongi had told you that before everything else — the reckless driving, the stealing, the violence — you were sure you would have been head over heels for him, convincing yourself that he was your soulmate, the one you were supposed to be with forevermore. You were naive then, but now… now you were just tired. “You don’t mean it,” you said.

He was unaffected by your words. “I do.”  His hand caressed your cheek, and you fought back the need to pull away — so, instead, you just looked to the side, trying to ignore the warm poison that dropped through his touch. Everything felt so fake now, so calculated. “Hey, look at me,” Yoongi requested.

“What?” You did as he asked. Looking into the depthness of his pupils, you thought, even if for an instant, that he could see your soul projected at the bottom of your irises — naked, stripped of pride. It felt pleasantly awful; horribly intimate. It was natural, in the oddest way imaginable. Yoongi knew who you were, but you could not say the same about him. “What are you looking at?” you whispered. His other hand moved to your cheek, then placed a string of hair behind your ear. “You,” he replied, now cupping your face.

You took a split second to examine his face. Yoongi’s eyes were obscure — tenebrous as the night sky, fathomless as the secrets that echoed within his head. When you looked at him, there was nothing but his  piercing gaze; no sound but the harmony of his low, whisper-like timbre. You were completely trapped by the event horizon of his venom-filled aura, held hostage by the tranquility of his hand against your skin. His gravity was too strong. You were being sucked in. You inhaled deeply, trying your very best to organize the catastrophe of your hurricane-like ponderations. “You always stare at me, you know that?” He pouted, leaning his head slightly to the side. “Is there a problem with that?” You did not respond, for you could not find an answer. “Do you even realize you’re doing that?” Yoongi smiled. “Do you even realize how gorgeous you are?” he threw back within a heartbeat.

In the rapid instant that took you to digest the depthness of his words, your mouth hung low. In the following second, you were pulling yourself together. “Of course, I’m a catch,” you joked, unable to take that unforeseen complement. You were never the best when it came to that, so irony was quite often the miraculous escape you went for. “You’re lucky to have me.”

But were you lucky to have him? It surely didn’t feel like it.

However, Yoongi’s words left his plump lips with every ounce of honesty he could possibly arrange, “Yes,” he whispered lackadaisically, leaning in. “Yes, I am.”

Before you could verbalize the thousands of sentences that bolted throughout your mind, every conceptualization ― no matter how big or small ― dispersed into white noise. Your lips touched and, for a moment, you swore you could taste the stardust that melted at the corner of Yoongi’s lips; the constellations that were built and destroyed by the low, feather-like sigh that reverberated against your mouth. The pressure of his kiss was not prolonged, but ephemeral ― and, just are you were starting to melt under its touch, he pulled away.

When you looked back at him, you suddenly did not recognize him anymore. You had to say that it was one of the most terrifying, mind-bending experiences to look someone in the eye and realize, like a thunder that ruptures the skyline, that their semblance had switched into a persona you could not comprehend. Yoongi’s eyes were empty, devoid of any feeling he had presented previously. Abruptly, he was the same man that drove his car so recklessly; the same that would overstep his alcohol consumption; that would take drugs, steal, and push you against a cold brick wall in a fit of jealous anger.

That self-destructing man coexisted alongside the one you had fallen for, and you couldn’t tell who was about to take the lead. “Let’s go back to the motel, alright?” He requested, placing his hand on your lower back once again. “We should have a talk.”

As you would soon discover, that conversation was nothing but the calm before the storm.

No one told you that the cupid’s arrow could hurt so much — that the piercing of your skin wasn’t desired, but an endless anguish to, perhaps, have your chance at a delightful love story. No one told you there could come a time in which you would repudiate it, and the anguish you would feel when pulling it off could be even worse than the way it hurt you aforetime.

Still, you were about to find out that falling out of love what much more difficult than it seemed.

The bedroom door closed behind you with a dry clicking sound and, for a moment, it was the only perturbation that filled the consolidated atmosphere of that motel room. At first, none of you turned on any lights, so the only source of illumination come from the outside neon signs — it came in stripes, casting their lines of turquoise and violaceous over the messy bed. Yoongi never ordered room service, he said it spoiled his privacy.  

“What was that about?” your voice resonated in the darkness, hesitant and rotten by agitation. At first, it found no answer.

Yoongi walked towards the bed with his head hung low, paying more attention to the motion of his feet against the pale pink carpet than the anguish that blossomed inside your chest. “Nothing,” he spoke in a mumble.

You took a step in his direction. “Yoongi,” you called again, this time more desperate. You were so tired of his secrets, of his half-assed excuses. “Stop it. Tell me what’s going on.”

He scoffed at the impatience that permeated your words, finding your nervousness to be a bit pathetic. In his mind, it wasn’t as if telling you something would make any difference at that point — it was still his cross to carry. “I owe money to some guys. Sue me.”

Upon hearing that forsaken confession, the clouds of anguish that circumnavigated your head exploded into nothingness — then, into outrage. Bitterness hung at the tip of your tongue, dripping out like a serpent’s venom in between your syllables. “Yoongi, you need to tell me what in the hell is happening.” You walked closer to him with heavy steps, even if they got muffled against the fluffy ground. “We can work on this together.”

Mercurial, the man moved around the room as if he already had his every act perfectly architectured — just like the night you met him. One second, he was standing by the bed and, in the next, he was getting on his knees and pulling his large backpack from under it. “We can’t. Not this time.”

“What do you mean? Why are you getting that?” the questions continued to pour out of your lips, even if you already knew what his answer would be. You were not half as naive as he thought you were: you just needed to hear it from his mouth. Closure what the minimum he could give you. “Yoongi? Talk to me, I’m not asking anymore.”

The man stood up with a long groan, and threw the object over the bed — it bounced twice, sliced by the phosphorescent lights from the outside. “God damn it, I—” He ran his hands through his hair, pulling at the roots. If you hadn’t been so monopolized by frustration, perhaps you would have been a bit more cautious at the words that you threw his way — after all, Yoongi had showed you countless times that he wasn’t the king of mature decisions. “I have to leave.”

Another step closer, and now you were right besides him. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

He threw himself on the mattress, shoulders falling in defeat. You couldn’t read his expression, it laid somewhere melancholy and disgust — not much different from your night at the highway. “I can’t stay anywhere around here, and I can’t take my car either,” Yoongi explained a bit further now, taking his time to measure his erratic words before they left the captive of his chest. “I have no money to pay them back. Not the amount they want, at least.”

You suspired, and sat down next to him, fingers interlaced over your lap. “So?” you voice came soft, in a whisper.“We can get more time.”

“This was my extra time.” He snickered, sarcastic; gaze lost on the thin blue lines that casted its brilliance over his fingertips — his knuckles were forever marked by bruises, decorated by marks of his past fights. Perhaps those scars had been there the night that you met him, you just never noticed. “In case you didn’t get it, I’m in no place to bargain. If I stay, they’ll murder me, or sell my organs in the black market so I can pay for what I owe them. Simple as that.”

You licked your lips. “Maybe we could—”

“—We couldn’t do anything. You’re annoying the hell out of me with all of these questions,” he interrupted, absentminded. Every time he got detached in such abrupt manner, you knew he was trying his best to control his anger.

Yet, you were in no position to care about his feelings at that point. “Yoongi,” his name came out weakly in between your lips and, for an instant, you asked yourself if you had even vocalized it at all, “look at me.”

He blinked lethargically and did as you requested. “What’s wrong?”

What was wrong is that you had made the mistake of thinking that he could change if you loved him hard enough, but that was clearly not the case. There was something sparking inside his clouded, luciferine eyes that told you everything you needed to know — he held no regrets. He was mad at getting caught, not at his past actions. “Tell me something. And don’t lie to me.” You placed your hand on his cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin underneath of palm. “What did you use the money for?”

Then, he did precisely what you expected he would: he lied through his fucking teeth. Yoongi got the checklist of his poor acting skills and crossed out everything that gave it away — the oscillation of his gaze towards the left, the flaring of his nostrils, and the licking of his chapped lips followed by a dry swallow. You knew him too well, you were no longer buying that cheap mask he used.

“It wasn’t anything illegal,” he verbalized with artificial tranquility, even if you could tell from the inflections on his timbre that he was, in fact, extremely bothered by your interrogation. “I was paying my friend’s rent. He was short… for the past six months. He was going to be kicked out.”

Liar. Min Yoongi was a fucking liar. You just needed one simple question to break the false placidity of his tone, and you could move on from there with much more facility — lucky for you, you knew exactly what would work.

“Why can’t you call the police?” You inquired, forging innocence.

Bingo.  

He raised his hands in a mocking prayer, looking up at the ceiling. “Why can’t I— because!” Yoongi exclaimed, his voice bordering on a scream. Once again, his demeanor switched faster than you could follow. “Fuck, don’t you understand? This money is dirty, this is from stealing and murdering, not honest work in a fucking farm. If the cops knew I was aware of that, which I’m sure they will figure out, I’ll go to jail. I’m guilty by association.”

Then you saw it: something else flickering inside his irises, perhaps a hint of guilt — not because of his past actions, but because of his current one. Yoongi was lying by omission. “That isn’t everything, is it?” You asked him, eyes narrowing for a millisecond. You were trying your best to keep your expression under control so he wouldn’t feel as if you were judging him — which you were, and rightfully so. “Did you do something else, Yoongi?”

Yoongi was delicate — but not the same manner that a butterfly is, or maybe a torn-apart flower. He was delicate as a missile, ready to detonate at any given second. And, at that instant, you had pushed the big red button. “We have to do what we can to survive, alright? It’s not the time for miss perfection to come out and judge a reality she doesn’t understand.” He threw at you, getting back to his feet. You had never seen him like that, so rough, so defensive. “I might have some blood on my hands, I might not, it doesn’t matter now. There’s nothing you can do about it, so it’s better if you don’t even know. I’m not that person anymore.”

Bullshit.

You inhaled profoundly. “If you just let me speak—”

“—There’s nothing to be said. Deal with it,” he interrupted, pointing at something behind you. “Hand me that shirt, do something useful for once.”

With a sigh, you did as he requested, even if you preference would be to choke him with that old, stained piece of fabric. “You’re just gonna leave me behind, I assume,” you spoke out with patience, teasing your way into every new word with endless nausea. After all that had happened, you didn’t know if you wanted to be around him anymore.

“Yeah, sorry about that. Shit got out of my control.” Yoongi ran one hand through his raven hair, disheveling it a bit further. He seemed to be thinking a billion things at the same time, for his speech came out in a wave of rapid words, barely any connection between them. Amongst the darkness of that motel room, he looked like a frenzied demon looking for another soul to feed off from; since, apparently, he had gotten tired of playing with yours. “By the way, before I forget, I need you to get my car and leave it by the bar we met. I’ll ask a friend to pick it up, and you can get a cab nearby.”

But you didn’t care about any of that — fuck, you might even set that piece of shit car on fire if Yoongi continued with that damn attitude. “When are you going?” you asked instead.

He cleared his throat, shoving his clothes into his backpack. “Tomorrow morning, the earlier bus they got.”

With a suspire, you got back to your feet, looking down on him. “Which is?”

“Old Mountain, 5:15am,” he responded. “I already checked and bought my ticket, don’t worry about it.”

“Of course you did.” You chuckled, humorless. Your chest was utterly empty, devoid of any sort of emotion, and your eyes had started to burn under a thin curtain of tears — you would break down at any given second now. “Before you went out to meet with your friend and decided I was a boring game all along, I assume. Something else you forgot to tell me? Maybe how I’m completely worthless for you?”

Yoongi groaned, allowing for his inner infuriated to drip past his lips. “Oh my god, can’t you shut up for one damn second? Let me think.” He placed one hand on the bridge of his nose, trying to figure out if there was something else he needed to do. “Fuck, I don’t have to tell you everything. Learn how to respect people. I didn’t think I’d be the one to teach you that.”

Oh, that was just rich. Talk about reaching limits — you had just flung yourself over yours.

“No, I cannot shut up, you fucking megalomaniac asshole,” you spat out ― shock value long forgotten. For an instant, you couldn’t recognize the roughness within your own voice, nor the way it curled around you like thorns, piercing your skin with gushes of adrenaline. You had been bottling up your emotions for too long now. “You were the one preaching for weeks about how I should stand up for myself, and now that I do, you’re telling me to quiet down? You’re full of bullshit, do you know that?”

Yoongi looked up to meet your gaze, slightly flabbergasted. Something told you that he didn’t expect you to throw the same rudeness back to him, and he didn’t appreciate it in the slightest. “You know that’s not what I fu—”

You rolled your eyes. “Whatever, I don’t give a fuck what you meant,” you threw back, chest bubbling up with fury. “So you can get your bag ready, and I can get mine, and we can both pretend as if we don’t mean anything to one another tomorrow. Seems alright?”

His eyebrows moved together, forming a frown. You hated how he was the one pretending to look so confused, when you were the one who had been taken away from the truth. “Baby, I don’t—”

You took a step towards the man that you once loved, moved by an anger that did not belong to you. “Don’t fucking call me that, you selfish little prick.”

Yoongi stood up from the bed, his fists clenching — regardless, you could see it in his eyes that his demeanor was vacillating, uncertain how to deal with your explosiveness. But of course he did not want that: he wanted you to be quiet, for you to be agreeable. He wanted you to feel bad for your empathy, to focus on the love that — supposedly — you could only get from him. Yoongi wanted you at the palm of his hand, and he didn’t want you to talk back. “What the hell do you want from me, you crazy b—”

Then, something broke inside of you.

Like a switch had been turned on in your mind, you recalled every horrible experience you had by his side — the drunk driving, the pointless discussion and violence, the emotional manipulation. You had never been important to him. He didn’t care. He didn’t love you — if he did, he would have never placed your life on the line, he would have never blamed your kindness for the evils of the world. Yoongi despised your altruism because he wanted you to normalize his nightmarish behavior, so you could think that, perhaps, it had been your fault for being too sensitive.

When, all that time, it has been his fault for being corroded by egoism; reckless, and self-destructive. Min Yoongi was drowning in his own sins, and he was pulling you down to the bottom with him by convincing you that you couldn’t swim.

“—Fuck you, Min Yoongi!” you almost screamed, tears accumulating at the corners of your eyes. For an instant, the man remembered your first night together, the diamond-like droplets that came from Crystalfall. “Fuck you for making me believe you were different, that you actually cared about me. Fuck you for using me, for taking advantage of who I am. You have no right to do all of this to me and then just drop me like I’m nothing, alright?” Your hands curled into fists, and you pushed them against his chest. You wanted to punch him until his rib cage caved in, and you could take his heart in your hands so you could see if it ever even liked you — if it could even beat at all. “You’re just like the people you criticize, you hypocritical son of a bitch. You can’t keep your fucking word!”

Yoongi raised his hands in a quiet surrender, trying to stop the advances of your punches. “YN, please listen—”

“You fucking listen!” You cried out, the last word morphing into a frail whine as his fingers curled around your wrists, pausing your movements mid-air. You were too exhausted to fight, and he was using no force to keep you still — he didn’t need to. “You can’t pay back the money you got, you can’t keep your fucking word to me, you can’t do shit. You’ve been lying to me since day one, haven’t you? You’re playing with me. All this t-time, yo-you’ve—” hiccups interrupted your speech, “Fuck!” you exclaimed, and pulled away, turning your back from him.

In an explosion of anguish that was utterly alien to you, you acted out in sheer despair. The closest object to you got the tides of your anger thrown directly at it, and, with a strong motion, you hit it with all the force you had stored in your bones. The lamp shattered against the wall with a loud exclamation, and it was the final dot your argument needed. The room withered into silence instantaneously, Yoongi’s limbs were frozen in time. Seems like both of you changed through your little adventure — weeks before you had ever met him, the mere idea of damaging property was outrageous for you.

Now, it was nothing but a shattered lightbulb, and pieces of old wood all over an ugly pink carpet. How poetic.

You sniffed. “Don’t worry about it. I have the money to pay,” you told him, voice bordering on a mumble. The flame of anger that had been motivating your speech was completely gone then, leaving behind a trail of white smoke and regretful decisions. You had never felt that empty in your entire life. “I don’t owe shit to anyone.”

The motel room was static for a breviloquent period, filled only by the constant blowfly-like sound of the fluorescent lights flickering over your head. You wished you could turn back time, that you could warn your former self to jump off that sinking ship before it trapped you beneath tempestuous seas, making you unable to breathe. You wished to tell yourself that Yoongi’s kiss tasted like a storm because he hid hurricanes behind his cool facade; that his touch was catastrophe personified, destined to break you down into utter pandemonium.

But you couldn’t. You could only fix your world from that point forward.

Your breath was caught in your throat as you felt his arms curling around your waist, pulling you into a tender hug. His chest, rising and falling rapidly, met your back promptly, Yoongi’s hair fell over your clavicles as he leaned his forehead against your shoulder. Some part of your foggy mind warned that he wasn’t trying to calm you down, but to make sure you would not leave him behind then.

“Yoongi, don’t—” You choked on your own speech. Your throat was dry, your nose was clogged. Nothing was right anymore, and his touch felt like it emanated venom. You wanted him gone, you wanted his atrocious touch far away from where it could corrode you. “Please, don't hug me, I can’t deal with this right now.”

“I’m so sorry,” he spoke against the curvature of your neck, his voice coming out muffled and weak against your skin. You could feel him his cheeks getting wet by crocodile his tears, but you could no longer buy any second of his pathetic little act. Every emotion you ever had towards him had been replaced by utter disgust; and every emotion he ever swore to have towards you had morphed into the nothingness he truly felt. “I can’t believe I did this to you.”

Until the last instant, he would play the victim. That wasn’t his story to tell. “You’ve ruined me, Min Yoongi,” your voice came out firm, like an order; a certainty. There was nothing more that he could take away from you, for all that was left was the same merciless willpower that he had once swore to uncover; the lack of compassion he so desired to achieve. You would not bend. Not for him.

“I know, baby, I know,” he whispered and squeezed you tighter in that fake hug —  but his timbre already too far away for you to listen, his touches were shallow and his arms felt like snakes getting ready to suffocate you. It didn’t matter anymore. “I’m so sorry, please, forgive me— baby, I’m so sorry.”

And, for the first time since you’ve met the human-shaped catastrophe that was Min Yoongi, you didn’t have to look at him to know that he was lying.

You [04:23am] hey, hobi. sorry I’m messaging you rn, I can’t sleep

You [04:23am] there’s a lot in my mind

You [04:23am] i’m coming back home, alright? tomorrow

You [04:24am] tell the others to meet me at mercy’s, 3pm.

You [04:24am] i have a lot of stories to tell

-

You [04:56am] i miss you guys

When you would start to think about how much your soul has changed through it all, you used no words — but an image. You would think of an empty, cerulean-bathed cave, with cold, frozen waters and sharp stalactites. You’d think of an ongoing, periodic sound of something dripping, and the upcoming darkness of the corners you could never see. You would think of gelid emptiness, of deprivation and misery; of crystals made of ice, and of touches of white and blue. You would envision a place that dances between the omnipotent trepidation and the enchanting beauty; a place that is awfully human, yet remarkably devoid of any sort of compassion.

You fell in love with Min Yoongi — or, rather, who you thought he was. You feel in love with a man that was kind and loving, you held your hand as you were about to fall asleep, who caressed your hair as the morning sun slipped past the cracks on the curtains. You fell for the man you had seen at the bar, who took you to witness the beauty of Crystalfall, who promised a world in which the two of you could reign supreme. A man that would ask you to scream on a desert road so you could scare away your demons, not a man that would, instead, yell at you into submission, and shape you into a person you could never be.

You surely did not fall for who he really was. Never in your life would you love someone who put your own line so selfishly on the line, driving embriagated, refusing to slow down even if you begged for him to do so. You could never love someone that was so filled by jealousy that a mere talk with a stranger was seen as a threat; you would never find alluring the way he slowly pulled you away from your friends, convincing you that they weren’t good enough — no, they were far from perfect, but they would never do what he did to you. They would never ruin you, would never leave you behind to rot from the inside out.

When you were to come back to Crystalfall, you were sure they would be there for you, and Yoongi would be far, far away.

The previous night was spent with open eyes and fast-beating hearts. After Yoongi’s terrible attempt at an apology, you removed yourself from the room with a half-assed excuse, and said that you would come back later to help him pack — which you never did. In a state that laid between grief and indignation, you sat down outside, hugged your knees, and forced yourself to look at the neon lights of the motel’s hot tub, trying your best to find the answers you could never reach.

And, for the rest of the night, there you stayed.

You had been expecting for the monsters underneath your bed to crawl out of the shadows and take you down to a place in which demons could torture you forevermore, but you never considered the fact that, perhaps, the real monster had been by your side all along, toying with your emotions and sending you to the edges of panic. Once, you had compared Yoongi to the moon, but forgot to bring up his dark side — the piece of nothingness that could not be illuminated even by the brightest of stars.

You had been naive to compare him to anything but a black hole.

Yes, he had been raised in hell, had walked through a life of crime and was presented only with the worst that life could offer. But until which point could his past excuse his present? You had chewed on on that question for days on end, but still could not find a proper response to it. Some of your thoughts were utterly condemning, saying that it was all on him to blame; while another part of you leaned towards the other extreme, claiming he was merely a product of his twisted story, and needed just a bit of kindness to change his ways. You were sure the answer laid somewhere in the middle, even if you doubted you could ever fully discover it someday. If Yoongi had not passed through all of that, would he be any better? Perhaps he would have been worse? You could never tell. All you knew is that he would not be the one you met that somber night at The Cave, and certainly not the one you had fallen in love with. And those were the positive memories you chose to carry along with you at the day of his departure. You had not fallen in love with the man you drove to the bus station, all covered in blood stains and scars, with deep puddles of purple underneath his tired eyes, but the kind, charismatic man that had took you to the waterfall, who had adored you as if you were his own masterpiece.

You did not fall for a monster, and it wasn’t your fault that he changed into one.

“You have everything you need?” your voice came out soft as you spoke, stained by melancholy. Next to you in that claustrophobic car, Yoongi nodded slowly, his hair contrasting against the foggy, rain-encrusted windows. “Okay. Let’s move before you miss your bus.”

Just like the night before, that morning progressed in a quiet, phlegmatic blur of heavy hearts and discombobulated thoughts — from the instant you two took his bags from the truck of the car, to the very instant Yoongi checked his ticked one last time, pointing at the bus he was supposed to catch. Through all, you were trying to keep yourself together: you could cry later in the car, or maybe in the arms of your friends, but not then. Not in front of him. Not when you swore that your dignity would be the one thing left standing after he had ruined everything else.

You would survive. It was not the first time that someone believed that the world was about to reach for a catastrophe far too big for it to handle, only to continue living through the ashes and the smoke. Vivacity would come again — with someone else, somewhere else. Kinder times are always waiting ahead.

As he involved you in a warm hug, you felt your soul cracking. You knew, at some level, that the two of you were never meant for do or die: you could never last. “Goodbye, Yoongi,” you verbalized those words with care, paying attention to the sour taste that they left on your tongue. It wasn’t just a farewell, it was a promise to the stars. “Take care of yourself.”

Yoongi held you into that hug for a little bit longer. What once felt like a comforting touch, was now suffocating you into a reality you were not meant to face. “Goodbye,” he whispered back as he pulled away, then took a step behind. For a moment, there was only the low humming of the bus’ motor reverberating in between your bodies. “Let’s meet again someday.”

“Definitely.” You nodded. But you knew you wouldn’t — the two of you were toxic for one another, and some things were better left in the past. That, at least, was what you hoped would happen.

He placed his right foot on the first step of the bus, then turned back to look at you. Yoongi’s eyes were overflowing with despondency, and you were certain, even if for a mere, short-lived second, that he was going to cry. “I love you, west beauty.” The man spoke with endless calm, yet profound adoration. It was the last time he had ever said that to you. Perhaps the last one ever. “Stay out of trouble, alright? You deserve a better life than whatever I had to offer you.”

You hesitated for an instant — those words, once so inviting, now crashed like cold water against your skin. Fyodor Dostoevsky once wrote that “being in love doesn’t mean loving”, and that had been the sentence that was echoing in your mind ever since Yoongi told you he would leave. You were in love with him, absolutely and wholeheartedly, but you could not love him. You barely knew him, he was a stranger from the east, a formless shadow filled with acrid demons. If that was love, you didn’t want to be loved.

“I love you too, Yoongi,” you lied — you could do that so effortlessly now, and you knew that he was the one to blame. “Will you come back to visit me someday?”

He simply nodded, uncertain. He couldn’t promise that, and both of you knew that very well. It was for the best if he didn’t.

Just as quickly as Min Yoongi came into your life, he departed from it, crossing the midnight sky like a comet; leaving only a diaphanous trail of ice behind. One second he was there, looking at you against the cadaveric luminesce of the cloudy sky, and on the next instant he was turning his head and walking up the steps of that old bus, leaving you behind like your story never held any sort of significance. Maybe it didn’t — not for him.

The doors closed soon after, and you stepped away. The bus was a pale blue shade, a pale blue feeling; its motor’s purrs resonaning alongside the raindrops that started to pierce the skyline. Completely numbed by his departure, you could only watch as the vehicle trailed away with a loud vibration, grey clouds of smoke exploding in thin exhales on its back. The smell of burning gasoline was strong and merciless, and it felt as poisonous as the sentiment that begun blossoming at the basis of your throat.

With a final inhale, you turned your back to the man you once fell in love with, and started following your own path.

Your story began the same way it ended: with a poorly thought-out decision, and a promise of better days. For the lack of a better definition, Min Yoongi, in all of his despondent and reckless glory, became your event horizon.

And, once you crossed it, there was nothing left of who you once were.

[mothmanhamlet]

A Few Angsty Haikus

Analogical, 2584 words, high school au, fluffffffff, I don’t think there are any warnings to speak of.

Roman gets Virgil to use his services to ask out his crush. Bad poetry ensues.

Roman Prince was many things. He was a jock, a self proclaimed “Matchmaking God”, and the biggest theater nerd Virgil had ever known. Most importantly, Roman would be dead if he didn’t stop begging Virgil in the next 30 seconds.

“Come onnnnnn, please,” Roman begged. They were pinning flyers for Roman’s new “business” idea to the corkboard outside of their math class. Or rather, Roman was pinning flyers, Virgil was just there for moral support. Moral support apparently included attempts at making him Roman’s first customer.

“No,” Virgil said, crossing his arms and leaning on the wall.

“Listen, it benefits both of us! I need my services to get out into the world and you happen to be the perfect candidate!” Roman reasoned, moving his hands a concerning amount for someone who was holding sharp objects.

The services in question were a complicated list of steps Roman called a “confession session”. The idea was that someone filled out the application and Roman would plan out an elaborate display of something that he promised would be spectacularly romantic.  

“No. Absolutely not.” Virgil didn’t even bother looking at Roman, his eyes were too busy scanning around the hallway. School ended not even two minutes ago, so there were still people there. He looked to see who could see him, who could see the poster. Pitifully, Logan was still there, Virgil’s super-genius crush. If Logan saw that poster, his opinion of Virgil would immediately drop. He was too good for that kind of thing.

Roman, sadly, caught Virgil looking just a little too long at Logan and got a brilliant idea. “Well I say you should get a second opinion. Oh Lo-”

Virgil’s hand practically flew to Roman’s mouth, nearly tackling him in the process. Logan, thankfully, didn’t move an inch.

“Do it and you’re dead,” Virgil whispered through gritted teeth. Against his palm, Virgil heard a muffled noise that sounded something like “But can you stop me?”. He looked back at Logan, who was still trying to fit three books and a globe into his already full backpack, and then at Roman, who was looking at Virgil with his eyebrows raised as if to say, “Your move”. At least if he let Roman do this, the embarrassment would be delayed.

“I’ll say yes if you don’t yell when I remove my hand.” Roman nodded and Virgil released his grip on his face, slight red marks where he had pressed rather aggressively. Roman pulled out his phone and started typing.

“I’m emailing you a link to the website. Fill out the form so I can make it spectacular!” Roman said, all too cheery for someone who had to blackmail him into doing it. Virgil just rolled his eyes and started walking down the hallway, trying to shake the small bits of attention that their (rather loud) conversation had gained.

****

Virgil sat down on the purple bean bag chair in his cluttered room and reached for his computer. It was a light grey color and covered in various stickers, his headphones a permanent fixture in its side. He clicked on the link and was immediately redirected to a flashy red and gold website that used hearts like they were commas and used clip art that probably hadn’t seen the light of day since the 90’s. Roman was creative, but sometimes his execution was subpar and unfortunately this was one of those times. Virgil leaned back and read over the questions.  

          1. What is your prospective boyfriend/girlfriend/datemate’s favorite love song?

          2. What type of flower best encapsulates their personality?

          3. Balloons, streamers, confetti, or all?

The rest of the questions followed suit in a similar fashion, and there were a lot. Maybe 30 or so until Virgil got to the end of the application.  

“Who the hell has a favorite kind of sprinkle?” Virgil muttered to himself, trying to work through the questions. Even more surprising than how specific the questions were, was that Virgil actually knew most of the answers. He had never really bought into the whole pining-after-someone-he’d-never-met thing (pretending he even had a choice in the matter), so obviously he had to fall for his lab partner/project partner/person he sat next to in every class. Apparently the teachers thought it was funny to pair up the kid named “Sanders” and the one named “Saunders”. It was that, or just some alphabetization. Either way, it meant they had spent a lot of time together in their first three years of high school. Logan was distant at first, but after a while they opened up to each other. Which was a little weird because Virgil was pretty much the world’s worst lab partner, always assuming so strongly what would happen and planning to mess up, which in turn tended to mess them up. Now they seemed to talk about anything and everything, Virgil’s speaking ability permitted. Logan loved tea and Sherlock and classic literature (Victorianism not Romanticism) and jam and being right and debates and space. He really loved space. Whenever anyone brought up space his eyes lit up and it practically made Virgil’s heart do backflips. He was just glad one of the questions wasn’t “what do you like about them?” because Virgil could have written an essay. What was there, however, was far worse. 

          27. Write 10-20 poems about them.

Now Virgil was an emo nightmare of a person, but he did deviate from the trend in one key factor: He couldn’t write poems. No angsty sonnets for him, no haikus about suffering, no half-baked attempts to write his own songs. Nothing.

Virgil got up from his comfortable chair and started sifting through boxes on the floor, looking for something he’d rather forget. Underneath one particularly dusty pile of biology notes, he found what he’d been looking for, a beat up composition notebook that had served as his 6th grade English notebook. He flipped through the pages, stopping when he finally found the page labeled “poetry rules”. How he remembered this page, he had no idea, but was at least partially thankful for it.  

Haikus: 3 lines. 5 syllables, 7 syllables, 5 syllables. Doesn’t have to rhyme.  

Well that seemed easy enough.

****

Your eyes look really nice  

Magnified by your glasses  

Blue as the ocean   

Your hair looks fluffy  

I want to touch it sometimes  

So soft and shiny  

****  

Logan anticipated a lot of things. He anticipated his AP World History teacher to say something dull or ignorant during class. He anticipated the way his earl grey would taste every morning, bitter with hints of citrus. He even, on occasion, anticipated the perpetrator in his mystery novels, attempting to figure it out before the detective did. What Logan did not anticipate was two of his friends running towards him before he could enter school for the day.

“Logan, something absolutely delightful happened inside,” Dolos said, dressed in a peculiar combination of a suit and rubber gloves. Remus nodded vigorously next to him, munching on what seemed to be frosting in an empty deodorant bottle.

“There’s something inside your locker Nerdy Wolverine!” Remus said, making an attempt at teasing out his own curiosity while simultaneously applying a neon green fake mustache to his upper lip.

“Remus, if it is rats again, I am really not interested, especially after last time-” Logan began, thinking back to the year they had decided to share a locker.

“Of course. Because we totally put it in there,” Dolos interrupted, rolling his eyes.

“I personally think it’s a jar full of angry hornets that’s set to break when you open your locker, releasing into the school and stinging everyone but Dolos says that’s “unrealistic” because he’s no fun,” Remus said, waving his hands around to simulate a hornet infestation.

“But if you didn’t put anything there, how do you know there is something in there to begin with?” Logan asked.  

“There was a sign on your locker,” Dolos said, gesturing to the door, “But don’t worry, it’s super tasteful.” With that, the two walked off, snickering. Despite the fact that school started in 20 minutes, they walked away from school.

Logan arrived at his locker, not knowing what exactly to prepare for. What he found, was his locker covered in dark blue paper hearts, “There’s a surprise inside” written on them. It was more distinctive    than he would have liked, but it certainly wasn’t the worst thing he could have come across. The hearts managed not to cover his lock, so he could easily open his locker, however what was on the inside proved the hearts correct, for it was definitely a surprise.

His locker was covered along the walls, flowers, candy, and streamers occupying any blank space along the sides. In the back of his locker, there was blue poster paper with words Logan didn’t bother to read. On the small shelf he had in his locker, he found sugar cookies in the pattern of the Microsoft logo, littered with little blue sprinkles.  

The most interesting thing however, was on the side of the door. Around twenty pieces of paper folded into little red paper hearts stuck with string onto the inside of his locker door. What was even more intriguing was the fact that there seemed to be words written on them. Carefully, he plucked one of them and unfolded it.

You smile so bright  

Your laugh makes me want to cry  

But in a good way  

Ok, so it wasn’t a great poem, but nevertheless Logan thought it had a particular quaint authenticity to it. He pulled them off, one by one, careful not to rip them. In every heart, he found a haiku of similar quality and theme. Virgil would probably enjoy them, and for a moment Logan considered giving him something like this. Virgil seemed to have a certain affection for particularly bad poetry, and Logan had an affection for Virgil. Besides, it seemed that some of the poems were just lyrics from some of Virgil’s favorite songs, something about falling boys and chemistry.  

When he had finished reading through the poems, Logan decided to have a better look at the poster in the back of his locker. Looking at the giant words on the paper answered some of his questions, but caused even more. Logan, I like you a lot. Go out with me? - Virgil.

 It made sense, that this whole display was a confession of sorts, however what didn’t make sense was the fact that it wasn’t, well, Virgil. Virgil was a little bit extra sometimes, but from what Logan knew of him, he was far too nervous to do something like this. And if it was Virgil, then where was he? Unless he had run off somewhere-

Virgil had definitely run off somewhere. He looked at his watch. He had fifteen minutes till class started, which was probably enough time to find him.

****

Virgil was, for lack of a better phrase, freaking the hell out. He got to school really early, early enough to intercept Logan, who got to school like half an hour before he really needed to. The night before, he realized he couldn’t go through with the showy confession. Logan would probably hate it and then maybe hate him, which would of course happen after Logan rejected him so then Logan would stop talking to him because Virgil embarrassed him with it and then Roman would hate him because it didn’t work and then his life would fall apart. So instead he decided to get to school early enough to intercept Logan and confess to him before he could see the giant confession, then explain what had happened when he got rejected and got it so Logan was never surprised with whatever Roman planned. He would wait in the empty classroom Logan spent study hall in (he worked out an arrangement with the science teachers) and wait for Logan, who usually came there before his locker. He felt like such a stalker knowing that, when in reality he just asked Logan’s friend Dolos.

Which would have worked out great, except Virgil couldn’t stop freaking out. He was just staring at the clock, anxiously waiting for him to come in, all the while mentally running through every worst case scenario. He had around 13 minutes before school started, which meant Logan had to be there. It would be any minute before-

“Hello?”

Logan was there, dressed formally as always, hair slicked back with a polo shirt and tie. Virgil was there too, but he was sitting on a table, staring at the clock above the door.

“Hi Logan,” Virgil said as calmly as he could, which happened to be not calmly at all. “I have, uh, something for you.”

Virgil reached behind him for the card he had made. He painted a swirly blue sky with Logan’s favorite constellation on it. Hopefully he would like it more than the giant display.

“It’s very nice looking,” Logan commented, looking at the front. “It even has Vega on it, my favorite.”

Logan probably didn’t even know what was going on. Virgil thought he was amazing, but even he had to admit Logan was clinically oblivious. Logan opened up the card, looking a little confused and surprised. But not angry or disappointed. So that was a step in the right direction.

Logan flipped around the card to show him the inside. Logan, would you like to maybe go out with me?  “Yes? Assuming you are asking what it seems you are asking, I would love to go out with you.”

What?

Virgil wasn’t sure if he was happy or confused or surprised, the emotions blending in the pit of his stomach. But he said yes. Logan said yes.  

“Y-yes? Are you sure?”

“Yes Virgil, I’m certain.”

Virgil let out a breath. He was in a calmer place and honestly a little light-headed. Logan sat next to him on the table, looking like he wasn’t going anywhere.

“Ok. In that case, be careful when you visit your locker. There’s something in there that’s a little, uh, extra,” Virgil said, trying to be as vague as possible. Logan’s face scrunched up in confusion.

“If you’re talking about the confession you made, I have already seen it. I apologize if I ruined any surprises.”

“You- But- You saw it? And you don’t hate me now?” Virgil asked, it a bit of a frenzy.

“No, not at all. I particularly liked the poems.”

Virgil was surprised. Flabbergasted. Betrayed. He could no longer tell if he wanted to punch or hug Roman. Maybe both.

“It was actually Roman’s idea, but I’m glad you don’t hate me,” Virgil said, wringing his hands and looking at Logan. “I also don’t have too much planned for the actual, um, date. I kind of assumed you’d say no.”

“You do like jumping to conclusions. Fortunately, I am prepared. There’s a new documentary on one of Jupiter’s moons, Callisto, and it will be playing Friday at seven thirty. Does that sound enjoyable?”

Virgil simply nodded with a smile.

“Perfect, I will pick you up at seven. It is, as they say, a date.” Logan said, surprisingly well prepared for someone who didn’t know he would be asked out. Both of them slid off the table, standing back on the ground. Just as Logan began to leave, Virgil reached out and tentatively caught his hand. Logan’s eyebrows raised for a moment, then turned more relaxed.

Slowly and happily, the two walked out together, hand in hand.

[paralleljulieverse]

“One day I’ll be famous. I’ll be proper and prim...”

Sixty years ago, more or less to the week, the famed Italian painter Pietro Annigoni unveiled his latest masterwork: ‘Eliza’, Julie Andrews in ‘My Fair Lady’ (1959).

At the time, Annigoni was the most celebrated portraitist in the world. His dreamily romantic 1954-55 oil of Queen Elizabeth II catapulted the hitherto little known Italian painter to international fame (Wynne-Morgan: 17). Almost overnight, Annigoni became "the most sought-after portrait painter of the decade” (Shearer: 4) attracting a glittering line-up of celebrity subjects including Princess Margaret, Prince Philip, the Duchess of Devonshire, the Shah and Empress of Iran, the Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur and Margot Fonteyn. His services were so in demand that he reportedly “had to refuse thousands of commissions –– 90 out of every 100 ––as the queues of VIPs waiting to be immortalised stretched around the world” (Turner: 8).  

It was against this backdrop that Julie Andrews’s longtime manager, Charles ‘Uncle Charlie’ Tucker, approached Annigoni in 1958 with an invitation to paint his client who was riding triumphant at the time as the star of My Fair Lady. Tucker made the approach via a mutual friend –– Max Farber, an American newspaper editor and PR man who handled publicity for Annigoni’s first US exhibition in 1957 (Randolph: 6) –– which no doubt helped seal the deal (”Surprise”: 7). In his memoirs, Annigoni (1977) recalls:

Although I hardly knew who Julie Andrews was then, I agreed, but nearly a year went by before I was able to start the portrait. On the day I arrived in London, the manager Charles Tucker, took me to see the show and to meet the young actress. I was pleasurably surprised by both and decided there and then to paint her in the costume and character of Eliza Doolittle, the show’s Cockney flowergirl (121).

The meeting of these two disparate celebrities –– the serious, gruff Continental painter and the trilling English Rose –– was the stuff of PR dreams and it drew considerable media attention. “There’s no need to say she is very pretty,” Annigoni is reported to have remarked as he sized up his subject in her backstage dressing-room, “But I expect I shall need some 30 sittings before I am satisfied” (”Surprise”: 7).  

In the end, Julie went to sit for the artist at his Chelsea studio exactly 28 times between April and June 1959 (Rydon: 5). Following these sessions, Annigoni would continue to work on the painting for hours, often late into the night. Ever the perfectionist, he even arranged for a copy of Julie’s flower-girl costume to be sent over from Drury Lane and worn by a model so he could hone the finishing touches (ibid.).

Throughout the more than two month period of the portrait’s production, Julie continued to perform in My Fair Lady, as well as prepare for her wedding to Tony Walton in mid-May. It was a pressured schedule that inevitably led to the odd timing mishap, a source of great irritation to the exacting Annigoni. When, on one occasion, Julie arrived at his studio more than twenty minutes late, the artist was so enraged he refused to answer the door, necessitating a diplomatic flurry of contrite telephone calls to smooth his ruffled ego (Andrews: 258; Annigoni: 121). “He was an arrogant man,” Julie recounts, “the epitome of the temperamental artist” who “demanded total dedication and punctuality” (Andrews: 258). 

For all his irascibility, Annigoni in his memoirs looked back fondly on Julie as “a very sweet girl” (Annigoni: 121). He was especially grateful when, after complaining of a pain in his right arm, Julie arranged for a special house call from Tony Walton’s doctor-father who diagnosed “a cracked humerus” and “treated it successfully” (122). Annigoni was, by all accounts, equally pleased with the portrait itself, quietly considering it to be one of his finer works (Rydon: 5).

Once the commission was complete and the portrait delivered, the enterprising Tucker set about negotiating the sale of reproduction rights to select newspaper and magazine outlets. It was a canny move that not only helped recoup much of the initial £2000 commission fee but ensured optimal publicity for both the portrait and its star (Annigoni: 122). Images of the painting were carried in the international press as far away as Australia (“Annigoni’s Fair Lady”: 122). In October, Tucker licensed Woman’s Own –– a high-circulation magazine that had previously published several stories on Annigoni –– to run a lavish full-colour centrefold “presentation copy” of the portrait (”Star Feature”: 29-31). This special issue was strategically timed to coincide with the PR lead-up to Julie’s four-part BBC TV series in November/December 1959, the first episode of which featured Annigoni as a celebrity guest (Cottrell: 126). Tucker also floated plans –– ultimately unrealised, alas –– for future portraits of Julie as Guinevere in Camelot and “all the different characters of every show she has been in” (Private Correspondence to Max Farber, 21 April 1959; see also “’My Fair Lady’ Star”: 4).

As with much of Annigoni’s work during this period, the Julie Andrews portrait was well received by the public and middlebrow commentators –– “a breathtaking canvas” (Rydon: 7); “surely will rank...in the future with the famous ‘Mona Lisa’" (Cartmel: 16) –– but it proved far less pleasing to ‘serious’ art critics. Indeed, for the most part, the arts intelligentsia of the day took a pretty dim view of Annigoni. The artist’s predilection for representational classicism, coupled with his vocal opposition to then fashionable traditions of abstract modernism, made him an "isolated anachronism” in the post-war arts scene and a frequent target of critical scorn (Turner: 8). Many critics dismissed Annigoni as little more than a technically-accomplished draughtsman, a “purveyor of Old Masterish pastiche” (Rogers: 96). 

When the Julie Andrews portrait was shown at the annual Royal Academy Summer Exhibition in 1960, many reviews were openly derisive. “I suppose it has a faded Victorian charm,” sniffed The Observer (Clutton-Brock: 19). “Signor Pietro Annigoni’s Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady...belong[s] in every fibre to the times and dull skill of late Victoriana,” echoed the Daily Mail (Jeannerat 1960: 7). While The Stage huffed: “With his oil of Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady, Pietro Annigoni could not have been more conventional and unexciting if he had tried with all his might” (”Not Much”: 21). 

The intervening passage of time and the resurgence of interest in figurative portraiture has afforded a less jaundiced view of Annigoni and his place in art history. Following the artist’s death in 1988, his work was subject to a growing critical reassessment that saw him redeemed as an important figure of twentieth-century ‘classical realism’ (Lack: 50-59). A 1995 feature-length documentary mounted a passionate defence of Annigoni as “a prolific and complex artist...a philosopher with the skill to capture a person’s soul” (Bond and Smith). Major retrospectives of his work have since been held around the world and in 2008 a dedicated Annigoni museum was inaugurated in the artist’s native Florence.

It is a context that encourages renewed consideration of Annigoni’s portrait of Julie Andrews as a serious artwork. Pace knee-jerk dismissals of it as mere decorative Victoriana, close reading reveals that, beyond the attractive veneer –– what one critic sneeringly termed “the prettiness of the chocolate-box” (Jeannerat 1961: 3) –– lies a work of considerable intelligence and interpretive depth. For all his technical realism, Annigoni approached the practice of portrait painting as effectively that of an expressive character-study. “I have always painted to please myself,” he declared, “and interpret the sitter as I see and understand [them]” (Shearer: 4). A good portrait needs to be accurate but also communicative, he believed, an expression of character and moral quality beyond the mere impression of outward appearance. It’s an approach that orients his portraits to structural and conceptual duplexity: “he captures the soul of beautiful women...but he also catches the deeper side” (Sullivan: 92).

Here, it is worth recalling the ‘official’ title of Annigoni’s portrait of Julie: ‘Eliza’, Julie Andrews in ‘My Fair Lady’ (Jackson: 84). It suggests that, far from a simple depiction of a single physical subject, the portrait is in fact a complex study of plural subjects. It ‘portrays’ Julie Andrews –– in technically consummate, if idealised, likeness –– but in the guise of Eliza Doolittle, a celebrated character as reimagined in a contemporary hit musical. There are thus three interacting spheres or layers of representation in the work: real person, fictional character, and theatrical role. Looking at the portrait, the observer’s mind moves inexorably between all three, posing an interpretive conundrum: are we looking at an actress in character or a character as realised by an actress?

Taking the idea of layering further, the portrait, like much of Annigoni’s work, is quite literally a work of layers. As part of his commitment to traditionalism, Annigoni was noted for his exacting use of Quattrocento production techniques. Chief among these was the practice of tempera grassa whereby an artwork is painstakingly created on a chalk-gessoed panel through composite layers of pigment mixed with a binding agent, typically egg and oil, interspersed with coats of lacquer (Cookson: 43ff). It is a labour-intensive form of stratified image-construction that lends Annigoni’s paintings their characteristic luminosity with dynamic hues and complex interplay of shadows and light. It also enhances their disarming trompe l’oeuil effect where minutely detailed realism –– limpid eyes, flesh flushed with sanguine warmth, textured fabric–– and precise geometric perspectivalism combine to simulate a sense of perceptual depth that draws the eye in and across the painting’s spatial field and its various objects (Hoopes: 21).

Annigoni’s portrait work is equally characterised by a parallel layering of compositional form. Much like his Renaissance masters, the artist typically sets his subjects in and against a background rich with symbolic import. His celebrated 1954-55 painting of the Queen, for example, was as famous for its romantic depiction of the young monarch resplendent in her ceremonial robes as for the fact that she appears Diana-like towering triumphant over a sylvan English landscape at misty dawn, gazing into “the light of...a new Elizabethan age” (Wynne-Morgan: 17). 

In the case of the Julie Andrews portrait, Annigoni chose to depict his subject against a backdrop of peeling theatre posters. Such was the importance of this background to Annigoni’s vision that he reportedly scoured London to obtain historical playbills from the very date Shaw’s original production of Pygmalion, the source text for My Fair Lady, opened at His Majesty’s Theatre on April 11, 1914 (Rydon: 5). Cracked and peeling in burnished hues of faded gold and green, the backdrop is clearly redolent of age and historical memory. In fact, the curled strips of paper look not unlike autumn leaves falling with the passage of time. Combined with the work’s classical style and bronzed patina, it strikes a decided note of wistful, even melancholic, longing. But what redeems the endeavour from being a simple exercise in sentimental nostalgia –– a common criticism of Annigoni’s work –– is that this elegiac reference to times-gone-by sits within a broader frame of markedly mixed temporalities. 

In a way that neatly parallels the painting’s fusion of representational levels mentioned above, the portrait conjoins past, present and future in convoluted, and ultimately irresolvable, ways. Out of the golden past of Edwardian theatrical history, Shaw’s Eliza –– herself a resurrection of the ancient Greek figure of Galatea –– is reborn anew in My Fair Lady, the contemporary hit show of the painting’s ‘present’ in the late-1950s. That she is embodied here in the form of Julie Andrews, a then-tender 23-year old on the cusp of global superstardom, adds additional layers of futurity to the mix –– as does the fact that Annigoni chose to paint Julie in Eliza’s early flower-girl guise where she is still dreaming of an as-yet-unknown “loverly” tomorrow.* 

The multi-levelled temporality of the portrait was not lost on commentators at the time of the painting’s unveiling:

Annigoni has painted Julie Andrews, who created the leading musical ‘My Fair Lady’ but it is Shaw’s eternal Eliza (46 years old next year––the first performance was in April 1914) who shines through...The portrait was commissioned by Miss Andrews’ manager, Mr Charles Tucker. The woebegone waif, clutching her purse shawl, with her melting mouth and a tear n her cheek, will hand in house. Until he dies. He has willed the portrait to Miss Andrews, a legacy of her first fame (“Annigoni’s ‘Fair Lady’”: 122). 

This 1959 prediction as to the ‘future’ of the portrait was close to the spirit, if not quite the letter, of what transpired. After hanging for many years in Tucker’s London office, the painting was eventually put up for auction at Sotheby’s in late-1975 where it generated considerable interest (Hickey: 9).* Following spirited bidding, the painting sold at fall of hammer to an anonymous bidder for £7000 (£60,000 in inflation adjusted prices) (Jackson: 84; Walker: 11). The bidder was subsequently revealed to be a proxy advocating on behalf of Blake Edwards who had bought the portrait as a gift for his wife. So, in the end, ‘Eliza’, Julie Andrews in ‘My Fair Lady’ came back full circle to its subject who, in her own words, is “thrilled to own it and it hangs in my home” (Andrews: 258).

Notes:

* Some commentators have pointed out that the portrait contains another coincidental allusion to the star’s future as one of the playbills glimpsed in the background appears to spell out the half-hidden words: The Sound of... “How prophetic!” notes Julie (Andrews: 258).

** Several sources, including Annigoni himself (1977: 122), state that the painting was put up for sale by Tucker’s widow after his death. The Sotheby’s catalogue does indeed list “Mrs Charles L. Tucker” as the lot consignor but Tucker was still alive in 1975––he passed four years later in 1979––so his wife’s name was possibly used for taxation purposes (”Obituary”: 6). In her memoir, Julie alludes to the fact that she and Tucker had a gradual professional alienation which resulted in a change of management sometime in the mid-60s (Andrews: 221). She also mentions apropos the auction that: “I heard that Charlie asked whether [the portrait was being bought] on my behalf, and he seemed happy when the fact was confirmed” (Andrews: 258).

Sources:

Andrews, Julie. Home: A Memoir of My Early Years. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2008. 

Annigoni, Pietro and Wright, Robin. An Artist’s Life. London: W.H. Allen, 1977.

“Annigoni’s Fair Lady.” The Sydney Morning Herald. 11 October 1959: 122.

Bond, Richard and Smith, Stephen. Annigoni: Portrait of an Artist [DVD], Italy/Canada: Artatak/Rainbow Films, 1994.

Cartmel, Frank B. “Splendid.” Daily Express. 1 October 1959: 16.

Clutton-Brock, Alan. “New Non-Conformists.” The Observer. 1 May 1960:18-19.

Cookson, Dawn. Painting with Annigoni: A Halcyon Decade as a Student in Florence 1958-68. London : Unicorn Press, 2000.

Cottrell, John. Julie Andrews: The Story of a Star. London: Arthur Barker, 1968.

“Fair Deal.” The Guardian. 13 November 1975: 6.

Hickey, William. “Under the Hammer: Annigoni’s Fair Lady.” Daily Express. 29 October 1975: 9.

Hoopes, Donelson F. Pietro Annigoni: A Retrospective Exhibition. New York: Brooklyn Museum, 1969.

Jackson, Anne, ed. Art at Auction, The Year at Sotheby Park Bernet, 1975-1976. New York: Rizzoli, 1976.

Jeannerat, Pierre. “Christ at Cookham...the Epitaph of Genius.” Daily Mail. 29 April 1960: 7.

_________. “Just Chocolate (Annigoni flavour) Likenesses.” Daily Mail. 26 April  1961: 3

Lack, Richard. "Classical Realism: The Other Twentieth Century," Utne Reader. July /August 1989: 50-59.

Laws, Frederick. “Annigoni’s 1961 Old Masters So Depressing.” Daily Herald. 26 April 1961: 39.

McIlhany, Sterling. “Pietro Annigoni: Contemporary Florentine Master.” American Artist. 36: 359, June 1972: 24-30.

“’My Fair Lady’ Star Seen as Fairest of Them All.” The Age. 18 November 1959: 4.

“Not Much at the Academy.” The Stage. 5 May 1960: 21.

“Obituary: Charles L. Tucker Dies; Impressario [sic].” Hartford Courant. 14 May 1979: 6.

Randolph, Nancy. “Chit-Chat.” Daily News. 11 December 1957: 6.

Rogers, Malcolm. From Elizabeth I to Elizabeth II: Master Drawings from the National Portrait Gallery. London: Art Services International, 1993.

Shearer, Lloyd. “The Ladies Love His Portraits.” Parade. 5 January 1958: 4.

“Star Feature: Annigoni’s Portrait of Julie Andrews.” Woman’s Own. 3 October 1959: 29-31.

Sullivan, Robert. “Pietro Paints the Queen.” Daily News. 5 June 1955: 92.

“Surprise for Julie: Annigoni arrives to paint her.” Daily Express. 16 April 1959: 

Turner, Francesca. “Annigoni: Isolated Anachronism.” Evening Post. 9 May 1977: 8.

Walker, John. “Meet...Understated Superstar.” Observer Magazine. 6 June 1976: 10-11.

Welles, John. “Meet Julie Andrews: Understated Superstar.” The Observer Magazine. 6 June 1976: 

Wynne-Morgan, David. “Painter of the Queen: Annigoni, a Dazzling Story of Success.” The Age Literary Supplement. 15 December 1956: 17.

Zeri, Federico. Italian Paintings: Florentine School: A Catalogue of the Collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: MMA, 1971.

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