#jungle fun: calendar

[moveslikeanape]

[vamptember]

IT'S TIME TO GET READY FOR THE VAMPIRE PARTY AGAIN! 🦇

Welcome back to Vamptember, everyone! Miss us? We missed you! 🖤

For the month of September please join us in MAKING VAMPIRE STUFF! Fic, art, headcanons, playlists, fic recs, meta, anything you can think of! Base it on the books, the movie, the show, the musical, or even that other movie! Canon or AU!

RULES 1. There are no rules. Please have fun! 2. Each day has THREE PROMPTS in case one doesn’t speak to you! Pick one or combine them or rearrange them, it's up to you! 3. Tag your posts #vamptember so that we can reblog! If your post isn’t showing in the tag please don’t hesitate to DM it to us!

Tell your friends and share to spread the word! Daily prompts (3/day) under the cut! 

5+1 / Pantheist / Leather

Dissection / Rome / Bathed

FREE DAY

"And why were such things made in the world?" / Folk Horror / Second Breakfast

Fix-It / Midnight Sun / Stain

Rio de Janeiro / “You should leave.” / Aeneid

Reverse AU / Fragrant / Calendar

Metamorphosis / St. Patrick’s Cathedral / “What’s out there?”

Fatal Domain / First Time / Doctor

FREE DAY

Royalty AU / Flowers / Les Innocents

“Love never dies a natural death.” / Creamy / Les Diaboliques

POV Switch / Bittersweet / Ocean

Vision / "You knew?" / Creature

The Paragon of Animals / Dress Up / Jungle

Coffee Shop AU / Email/Text Message / Kemet

FREE DAY

Fairy Tale / Baby / Aliens

Genderswap / Priest / Favorite Song

Cowboy/Cowgirl AU / Pearls / San Francisco

Sense of Humor / 1990s / Heaven or Hell

Strip / Mad Scientist / Carnival

Enemies to Lovers / Good Luck Charm / Egypt

FREE DAY

Snowed In / Urban Legend / Heartbeat

Secret Lover / Amnesia / Outsider POV

Fake Dating / Glasses / Uruk

News / Jealousy / Present Day

Unreliable Narrator / Sunlight / Fight & Make Up

Sonoma Compound / “Take me home.” / Bed Sharing

[starlightkun]

❧ word count: 22.3k ❧ warnings: cursing, inaccurate descriptions of constellations bc this is a fantasy world ❧ genre: fluff, mild angst, slow burn, blind date, strangers to idiots friends to lovers, modern magical creatures au, college au, werewolf sungchan, human reader, ft. siren shotaro & various magical neos (and another extra special guest appearance!), same universe as strawberry sunday ❧ extra info: this work is set in the same universe as strawberry sunday but can be read as a standalone! there is no continuing plotline between fics in this universe, they simply take place in the same world/magic system and may have overlapping characters (neos may pop up in more than one work!) ❧ author’s note: so this is technically the spiritual threequel to my two werewolf jeno fics (pupsick + abh) but you still don’t have to read those to understand this one at all! this is absolutely meant to be read by itself! and this one is also very self-indulgent, from the a.c.e song title to werewolf sungchan, i had a very great time on this one, hence the word count. if you guys have even half the fun reading this as i did writing it, you’ll have a blast. enjoy! ❧ sequel ❧ EDIT DEC 2024: this fic had a brief allusion to a former 127 member in it. i’ve edited this fic to take it out, but if there are any mentions of him that i missed, inconsistencies, or plot holes, please let me know!

─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ explore the strawberry sunday universe more here!

baby i’m your changer, changer, love is not a danger

Reclined on the plush, soft grass of the front lawn of your college with your hands behind your head, you basked in a particularly lovely patch of sunlight. It was January, the very beginning of the year and the semester, meaning that this would normally be a very chilly and unpleasant endeavor. Except you were sandwiched between two dryads. Dryads weren’t in and of themselves extra warm like dragons or werewolves, nor could one dryad on their own change the weather—and would most likely be influenced by it rather than the other way other—but if you got two together, and they were in a good enough mood, they could generate a little bubble of springtime around them. And for some reason, Jaemin and Donghyuck were in exceptionally high spirits today.

You knew the two dryads from Magical Botany Club, which you had joined your freshman year after you’d managed to kill the small cactus that your parents gave you as a housewarming present for your dorm. They were the only ones who didn’t immediately label you a lost cause, and instead saw you as a challenge. Now, your junior year, your apartment was a jungle to rival that of a dryad’s home, and you were even Vice President of the club this year.

After a long, refreshing inhale followed by an even longer exhale, you finally asked, “So what’s got you in such a good mood? It certainly can’t just be finalizing the calendar of club activities this semester.”

Jaemin was club President, and Donghyuck the Secretary/Treasurer, so this little sunbathing session before the start of the semester on Monday was really supposed to be an Executive Board meeting.

“Who, us?” Jaemin replied innocently.

“No, I was talking to the cardinal on Donghyuck’s leg,” you retorted sarcastically, gesturing to said bird that had also settled in to enjoy the cozy rays.

“We’re not planning anything,” Donghyuck said in the same tone as Jaemin.

You propped yourself up on one elbow to look down at your friend properly, narrowing your eyes at him suspiciously. “I just wanted you to share whatever good news you had, I didn’t think you two were planning anything, but now I definitely do. What’s going on?”

“Donghyuck, you idiot!” The other dryad hissed at him.

“What is it? Don’t tell me you and that fairy are going to try to convince your human friend that aliens are real again. Leave that poor guy alone, he’s got enough on his plate just dealing with all of you being real and jerks to him.” You scoffed disapprovingly, remembering when they recounted that story to you at club a couple years ago. You had been tempted to check on Renjun yourself when you spotted him at the library the next day, but you didn’t know him personally, and didn’t think he’d appreciate it in the moment. Especially not since he looked like he was really focused on his work at the time, so you just let him be.

“It’s nothing like that, I swear,” Jaemin promised. “It’s nothing bad at all.”

You sat up all the way to be able to look at both of them at once. “Okay, what is it then?”

Donghyuck sat up too, the cardinal hopping up to his shoulder. “Long story short, we have a friend that we want to set you up with.”

“No thanks, guys.” You shook your head.

“You won’t even let us tell you about him?”

“I’m not really looking for anything right now. Not after my ex—”

Jaemin pushed his phone screen in front of your face then, a picture of a guy on it. It was presumably the friend they wanted to set you up with. He was around your age, tall—if where his head was in comparison to the doorway of this building was to be believed, wearing a black leather jacket. It looked well-worn, though, as if it might not have been his originally, handed down or thrifted at least. And yeah, he was cute, you weren’t blind. But you also knew not to just eat with your eyes, or else you’d get a tummyache.

“Seriously, Jaemin?” You looked at your friend over the phone screen. “You think I’m that shallow? One picture and I’m going to throw everything away?”

“Dude, show her the—” Donghyuck flapped his hand at the other dryad insistently.

“Oh, right, right.” Jaemin nodded as he began swiping and tapping on his phone fervently.

Donghyuck kept talking to you, “Of course we don’t think you’re shallow. We always meant to tell you about him, too. His name’s Jung Sungchan, he goes here, too, he’s a werewolf, he’s really nice, uh… Jaemin? Some help?”

You let out a sound that was a mix between a snort and a scoff. “Yeah, he sounds great.”

“Okay, he’s really more Jaemin’s friend than mine, sorry,” Donghyuck admitted. “Jaemin? What’s taking so long dude?”

“I don’t know! I can’t find it for some reason, I think he deleted it!” Jaemin muttered, his voice panicked. “I’m checking Jeno’s Instagram right now.”

“So Jeno knows him?” You asked. You didn’t know Jaemin’s werewolf roommate as well as you knew the two dryads, but you did know that they were all friends. “Are they in the same pack?”

“No, they actually know each other through Jeno’s… Ha! Found it!” Jaemin yelled out in celebration, flipping his phone around for you to see.

It was another picture, this time of Jeno standing next to the person you now knew to be named Sungchan. They were at what looked like a u-pick strawberry patch, each proudly holding up a large bucket filled to the brim with strawberries. Sungchan was in a white tank top—a brave choice for a strawberry farm—and shorts. Despite the outfit showing off a lot more of him than the last picture, it was his bright, happy grin that caught your eye, and you had to consciously make sure your gaze didn’t linger too long on the picture.

Turning your attention back to your friends, you prompted Jaemin, “Well? Do you know any more about him than he goes to our college and is a nice werewolf that knows Jeno?”

“Right! Yes!” Jaemin sat up straight at attention as you saw Donghyuck do a little fist pump of victory out of the corner of your eye. “He’s tall—”

“I can see that, he’s like almost two heads taller than Jeno; I meant his personality. This isn’t me saying yes, by the way.” You pointed to yourself and Jaemin talking. “This is me gathering data. I wanted to take time for myself after what happened with my ex, remember? I think it might be enough time, but I need a bit more than ‘he’s nice’ to get me out there.”

“Of course, of course. I really appreciate you even considering this for us,” he squeezed your arm for a moment before letting it go. “He’s really smart, Dean’s List every semester, uh, it might take a minute for him to warm up at first, but once he does, he’s funny, and insightful. And he doesn’t have that constant go-go-go energy that werewolves usually do, he’s so much chiller, so if you were worried about that, don’t be.”

“And, sorry, I know he’s your friend, but I have to ask…” You winced. “He’s not one of those werewolf guys that only dates human girls as like… you know… an ego thing?”

Donghyuck snorted, “Oh he’s not, promise.”

Tension you didn’t know you’d been carrying in your shoulders relaxed at that. “Good.”

“We do have to tell you one thing though,” Jaemin grimaced.

“What?”

“This isn’t just a random set-up because we think you guys would be cute—”

“Oh God, what’s wrong with him?”

“Nothing! Nothing!” He rushed to reassure you. “Like, that part is true, we do think you’d be a good match.”

“Let me guess: the ‘but’ that follows that sentence is related to the ‘long story’ that Donghyuck mentioned earlier?”

Jaemin nodded reluctantly. “Yeah… long story long, Sungchan made a deal, and his end of it was letting us set him up with anybody of our choosing.”

“You’re using a date with me to punish him?” You stood up, brushing the grass off your back. “Yeah, hard fucking pass. Thanks, guys, you really know how to make a girl feel special.”

“No, not a punishment!” Jaemin scrambled to get to his feet as well. As you walked off, the air around you turned cold again, marking when you left their bubble of spring. He called after you, “Y/N! I’m sorry! Please!”

You didn’t want to go back to your empty apartment yet though, so you found yourself meandering into a familiar storefront. Jasmine & Pearls, a boba tea shop just around the corner from your college campus. There was only one customer ahead of you in line, and you stared blankly at the menu just to look at something. You weren’t feeling very adventurous today, so you’d probably get your regular go-to order. After the customer before you had been helped, you shuffled up to the counter, messing with your phone case to pull your punch card out of the back of it.

“Hey, Y/N!” Shotaro, the siren working behind the counter today, greeted you cheerily.

The iridescent pink scales under the tip of his button nose and apples of his cheeks shimmered in the fluorescent lights, making him look like he had a perpetual hint of rosy blush across his skin. That, and his cherubic smile could almost make you forget what those scales and his flashing silvery eyes really meant—he was a siren, could lure you to your death if he so wanted to. Obviously, he didn’t want to, had no reason to, and that would literally be a murder charge nowadays, but you nevertheless found it fascinating that such a being was just here serving you boba tea.

A few months ago, you realized that you came here probably too often once all the workers knew your name, but by then it was too late. It was just too convenient, delicious, and pleasant of an atmosphere for you to feel ashamed enough to stop coming.

“Hi, Shotaro.” You smiled back at him. “Just a regular honey milk tea with boba, please. No charms today.”

“On it!” He accepted both your punch card and credit card from you. After handing them back, he spun around to make your drink, and you went to go wait for it at the bartop at the other end.

Curious, and with nothing better to do in that moment, you pulled up Jeno’s Instagram on your phone. From the main grid on his account, all you could see was pictures either with or of his partner. Cute. Then you finally saw one of them at a strawberry patch, Jeno in the same outfit as the picture Jaemin had shown you before. You clicked on that one, and sure enough it was a whole set of photos. You swiped through to find the one of him and Sungchan holding the buckets of strawberries. And Sungchan was tagged.

You looked up at Shotaro. The customer ahead of you still hadn’t gotten their drink. You checked the notifications on your phone. Nothing new to reply to. Well, here it goes. You clicked on his account.

And he was private. Well, good for him. Internet privacy.

You went back to Jeno’s Instagram to check if Sungchan had maybe appeared in any more posts. You just wanted to see if you could glean anything more about him.

You finally found him again in what looked like a big group trip to Cape Solaria at the end of last summer. There were probably fifteen people here at least. He popped up in a few different shots, playing beach sports with Jeno and some other guys that you didn’t recognize; joining in on throwing some poor guy—who you presumed to be a witch, judging by the ritual tattoos he was covered in from neck to ankle—into the ocean; and sitting around a campfire roasting marshmallows with Jaemin and Renjun. And in every single one, Sungchan had such a genuine, pure, joyful smile. Like he was fully enjoying the moment and the people with him. Yeah, maybe you were projecting, but... surely it wouldn’t hurt to give it at least one chance?

“Y/N? Hello?” Shotaro was calling for you from the counter, shaking a drink that was presumably yours.

You snapped your head up, sheepishly turning your phone off and stuffing it away in your pocket. The other customer was nowhere to be seen; it was just you and the siren.

“Sorry, sorry.” You rushed up to accept the cup.

“It’s alright, you seemed like you were in the zone.”

You grabbed a straw, punching it out from the plastic wrapping. “In the zone of a little cyberstalking, as much as I hate to admit.”

“No shame here, we all do it. Who was it? Can I see?” He grinned mischievously.

“No,” you said flatly, stabbing your straw through the top of the drink. “My friends want to set me up.”

“Want to? Sounds like you haven’t said yes.”

“Perceptive.” You took your first sip.

“But you were cyberstalking them... So, you’re considering?”

“Ugh, I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Why not? Human lives are short.”

“Right. Thanks for that reminder.”

The bell above the front door rang then, announcing the entrance of another customer.

“Always here to help,” Shotaro patted your forearm before walking back to the register to greet the newcomer.

Two weeks later and you were nervously double-checking the name of the restaurant and the time that Jeno had sent you. Yep, this was it, and you weren’t weirdly early. You couldn’t believe how strange this felt, going on a date again. Comparing your outfit to the casual café as you walked in, you felt only a little better that you weren’t overdressed or underdressed either.

Your eyes scanned the building for Sungchan. You’d done enough cyberstalking on your own time in addition to the photos that your friends kept showing you to hype you up that you were certain you’d recognize him easily. It looked like you’d gotten here first. It was seat-yourself, so you might as well grab a table for the two of you.

You’d just come to a stop in front of a little two-seater and took your purse off to hang off the back of your chair.

“Y/N?” A voice came from behind you, accompanied by a gentle tap on your shoulder.

You spun around, immediately face-to-chest with someone. Looking up, you did, in fact, recognize the face of Jung Sungchan. He was admittedly cuter in real life than in the multitude of pictures that Jaemin and Donghyuck had continued to show you in preparation for the date. You didn’t want to know what they’d been doing to prepare Sungchan.

“Hi, Sungchan?” You still phrased it like a question, watching as the man’s features relaxed into an easy smile of recognition.

“Yes, hello.” He raised his arms up slightly at the same time that you did, and you realized that the both of you were now presumably having the same internal debate about if you were supposed to hug your blind first date hello as a greeting.

Ultimately, the two of you did go in for an awkward short hug, and you let out a nervous chuckle, feeling the warmth radiating off of him in the brief contact. You immediately looked down at the table, “Uhm, should we sit?”

“Of course, yeah.”

And as the two of you sat down on opposite sides, you looked up from your fidgeting fingers to your date’s face, not expecting his brow to be furrowed as if he were troubled by something, his gaze affixed on you.

You shifted in your seat uncomfortably. “Is everything okay?”

“You’re not wearing any perfume...” He commented, and you let out a minuscule sigh of relief. That’s all it was, he was just a bit put off that you hadn’t put on a perfume like one might’ve normally done for a date. A detail that he would’ve of course picked up as a werewolf.

“Not that I expect any brownie points for this, but I uh, I didn’t want to overwhelm your nose, in case there were any smells you’re particularly sensitive to,” you explained, picking up the menu that was already sitting on the table.

“You did your research.”

“Oh, I’ve dated a couple werewolves before, actually.”

“Really? You got a type or something?” As soon as the word were out of Sungchan’s mouth, he went to take them back, seeming surprised even at himself, “Sorry, that was—”

“No, no, I get it,” you cut off his apology, your tone reassuring. You knew that there were people who had a disturbing preference for werewolves, so you could understand why you dating now three werewolves might initially look a little suspicious. “Uh, I went to a kind of small high school. Private school. There were a couple of packs in my area that sent like all of their kids there, so my graduating class ended up being like 75% werewolves. It was just kind of statistics, I guess.”

“Oh, okay. Sorry about that, again,” Sungchan apologized once more, relaxing in his seat a bit more as he actually started to peruse his own menu.

“Anyway, that’s not a great first date topic.” You forced out a light-hearted chuckle.

“What’s not?”

“Past relationships? I think that’s third or fourth at least, don’t you?”

“Mm, yeah, of course. Sorry.”

Desperate to redirect the conversation to a much lighter, neutral one, you asked, “So what’s your major, Sungchan?”

“Earth Sciences.”

“Geology or Climatology track?”

He perked up at this. “Meteorology and Climatology.”

“And what made you want to study that?”

“Well, at first I thought I wanted to study astrophysics, but it was too much math and too little actual space. But I really liked my Intro to Weather class I took my first semester to cover a random credit so I switched to that and it stuck.”

“Wait, was it a morning Monday-Wednesday-Friday with Professor- Professor...” Suddenly, the memory struck you. “Oh! Hwang? Fall semester three years ago?”

“Yes, I believe so...” He answered, head tilting with intrigue.

“I think I had it too!”

“Really?”

“Yeah! I took it to get that Science credit as well.”

“I’m sorry to say that I don’t remember you at all.”

“It’s okay, I don’t remember you either,” you laughed, just amazed at the coincidence. “It was a big auditorium.”

Sungchan must have figured out what he wanted, as he set down his menu and leaned his elbows on the table to give you his full attention. “So what are you studying?”

“I’m an Interdisciplinary Major,” you told him happily, thrilled that the conversation was going much more smoothly now. “I was a bit indecisive, too. Except I couldn’t find one thing that stuck like you did. So I chose two: Sociology and Magical Creatures Studies.”

His eyes dropped from yours as he scoffed under his breath, sitting back in his seat.

And there went your pleasant conversation again.

“What was that?” You asked tersely.

“I didn’t say anything.” He shook his head like he was trying to clear the unpleasant tone from the conversation, but you weren’t going to let him go that easily.

“No, but clearly you have an opinion. So go ahead.”

“Not really, I was just wondering if you’ve even dated anyone that wasn’t a werewolf.”

You crossed your arms over your chest. “You think my major is just me cruising for a new boyfriend or something? Very expensive and essay-intensive compared to dating apps.”

“I didn’t mean it like that, Y/N,” Sungchan held his hands up, looking back up at you again. His features turned apologetic. “I just… I don’t know, I’m sorry.”

“So were you going to actually ask me that if I didn’t confront you, or were you just going to make assumptions?”

“That really was rude of me,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. “But, I mean… how do you ask someone something like that without coming off as a bit rude?”

“I suggest phrasing it like a genuine question instead of an accusation.”

“Right.” He took a second as if to compose himself, then asked, his tone much more conservational, “So, you said you dated a couple werewolves in high school. Uh, have you dated anyone else since coming to college, then? Before this?”

You did your best to return your own voice and manner to civility as well. “Dates here and there, but as for serious relationships, just one, I dated a human guy briefly.”

“And why did you break up? If you don’t mind telling me. I get it if it’s too personal.”

“It’s fine. He cheated on me.”

“So you’re of course looking for loyalty. Like, you know, a dog.” Sungchan fired back spitefully.

“Okay, I think we’re done here, Sungchan,” you declared, putting both your hands on the table to prepare yourself to stand.

“Y/N, I’m so sorry,” he rushed to try to apologize for the umpteenth time that night, but you’d heard plenty by now.

“No, it’s fine, really,” you assured him, still moving to get up out of your chair and grab your purse. “You’ve obviously had some bad experiences in the past, none of which I’m privy to. It’s not fair to you to constantly be suspicious that your date has ulterior motives for being with you. But it’s also not fair to me to have to constantly defend myself either.”

He was quiet at that.

You continued, “We both deserve to be able to relax and have fun, and that’s clearly just not going to be able to happen. It’s okay, sometimes things just don’t work out. So, I’m going to go, and I hope you have a great rest of your day.”

And with that, you turned around and left the café.

The ringing of the bell above the door of Jasmine & Pearls barely registered in the back of your mind as you lumbered right up to the cash register the next day.

“Good afternoon, Y/N!” Shotaro greeted you cheerily.

“Hi, Shotaro...” You couldn’t muster up anything close to his level of enthusiasm, letting out a sigh. “Same old, same old, please.”

“Uh oh. Sounds like the date didn’t go so well?” He surmised, ringing you up then starting on your order.

“No, it didn’t,” you leaned against the counter to keep talking to him. “Barely lasted ten minutes.”

“That’s rough. You end it or did he?”

“I did. It was for the best but still... I thought I was going to really like this guy.” Based off nothing but social media posts and word of mouth from friends, but you really were hopeful. You’d had a good feeling, and had trusted Jeno, Jaemin, and Donghyuck. And it blew up in your face.

Note to self, never fucking trust those three again.

“Don’t feel too bad, Y/N. Seems like it’s going around.”

“What do you mean?”

“My roommate’s date last night was a bust too.”

“We should make a club,” you chuckled cynically.

“Or I can set you up?” The siren offered hopefully.

“Thanks, but I’m good. I said I was going to take some time to focus on myself after my last relationship, and I meant that. Last night was me testing the waters, and I fucking drowned.”

“That special, huh? Or, I guess not, in the end.”

“Well, at least now I know, you know? No ‘what if’s to mess with.”

Shotaro enthusiastically slammed your drink down in front of you. “Hell yeah, Y/N. A clear head.”

“Exactly.” You pulled the cup over to you.

He put the packaged straw down on top emphatically. “Fuck that guy.”

“Bit extreme, Shotaro, but I appreciate the sentiment,” you grinned, hitting the straw against the counter to pop it out from the plastic wrapping.

“You’re coming to our Valentine’s Day event next month though, right?” Your friend asked, pointing to the poster taped to the wall advertising the event. The evening of February 13th at the boba shop, with a special themed drinks menu and activities to do.

“Of course. Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Great!” He beamed at you.

“Anyway, I’ve got to go, and you’ve got more customers. See you.” You took your drink with you towards the exit that a whole gaggle of high schoolers had just come through, waving to the siren over your shoulder.

“Bye, Y/N!”

Pulling open the door of Jasmine & Pearls some weeks later, you were immediately greeted by an array of red, pink, and white. The entire store had been redecorated for the event. A short stage was set up against the far wall of the dining area, a small photobooth in another corner, and a station where you could learn to make an origami heart, if the pictures on the instructions taped to the wall above it were anything to guess off. The shop was already bustling and buzzing with energy, filled with couples and groups of friends. All in all, it looked like it was shaping up to be a successful night for them.

You got into possibly the longest line you could remember having waited in at Jasmine & Pearls in a while—you’d learned the rush times and had become a pro at avoiding them in order to get your boba fix as quick as possible—and continued looking around with a smile on your face.

Unfortunately, you were flying this one solo. Your friends were all either working or studying tonight, and you weren’t going to flake after already promising Shotaro just because you couldn’t find someone to come with you. But you could have plenty of fun by yourself. And, you didn’t make any promise to stay the whole night. You’d stay just to finish your drink and maybe make an origami heart or two, depending on how good you were at them.

Finally, it was your turn to order, and you walked up to the register already with a big smile on your face.

Shotaro was manning the register while another employee fulfilled the orders. Your friend’s face lit up immediately. “Y/N! You made it!”

“I told you I would. Did you doubt me?” You questioned in mock offense.

“Not for a second,” he declared. Pointing to the little standee menu that was on the counter, he asked, “So what’ll you have? I recommend one of our specials for the occasion, obviously.”

You looked over the three new drink options that were advertised as for tonight’s event only. One in particular caught your eye, strawberry milk tea with heart-shaped brown sugar tapioca pearls, and an added feel-good charm. “That Lovebug sounds good.”

“Perfect! I knew you’d get that one! Coming right up!” He rang you up, but only took your credit card from your hand. “Sorry, no regular punch cards tonight. Instead, every purchase of a drink comes with a special event-only punch card.”

“Oh?” You raised your eyebrows as he handed you a small pink card with four circles on it, one already punched out with a heart-shaped hole punch.

“Yep! If you complete all the activities we have tonight, you can redeem it for a free drink! You’ve already gotten a punch for purchasing a drink, then we’ve got the photobooth—” he pointed to the large box. “Just bring your photo strips up here, and I’ll punch the card for you. And the origami, same thing. They don’t have to be professional, as long as you tried, just show them to me, and I’ll give you another punch. And then my boss, Baekhyun, is going to be hosting Valentine’s Bingo in like ten, fifteen minutes. He’ll punch everyone’s cards who participates.” He gestured to the stage, where you now saw a man starting to mess with a microphone and small table. “Don’t worry, you can play single.”

“Huh. Sounds good to me.” You tucked the card into your pocket. “Thanks, Shotaro.”

“Your drink will be out in a second!”

When you finally heard your name being called out by the other employee, you walked up and took the cup from him gratefully. It was another siren, who you weren’t nearly as familiar with as Shotaro, but you still offered Yuta a smile as you accepted the drink.

You looked at the heart-shaped boba at the bottom of the cup fondly. “Cute. Thanks, Yuta.”

“Of course! Now enjoy the ambiance.” Yuta shooed you away with a smirk.

You saluted him casually. “Heard.”

Meandering around the store, you took in the kitschy decorations in various heart, Cupid, rose, and arrow shapes all around. Despite your own striking out in the romance department as of late, you couldn’t find yourself wanting to muster up any morosity for the atmosphere. It was too endearing, and you were someone who just loved love. And maybe the feel-good charm in the boba pearls was doing its job pretty well.

Legally, Jasmine & Pearls couldn’t sell any charms that had effects as strong as alcohol, drugs, or hexes, or they’d need special licenses for that, but the little charms and enchantments available in some of their boba options could influence one’s mood for a short amount of time. Feel-good, tranquility, energy, focus, that kind of stuff.

A lot of the tables had been pushed to one side to make room for the stage, so you took your drink to the bar seating that was against a window, keeping your eye on the figure on stage. As he was readjusting the microphone, you caught a flash of scales under his skin, realizing that he too was a siren, and suddenly the employment choices felt a bit more intentional than coincidental.

Red and pink heart-shaped confetti had been sprinkled along the bartop, and you brushed some of it aside to be able to set your cup down. You were humming along to the love song playing over the speakers as you scrolled on your phone when you swore you heard your name. Straightening up a little, you listened carefully for it again.

“Y/N?” Someone gently tapped on your shoulder this time.

You turned around atop the stool you’d been sitting on, not prepared for who was behind you. Jung Sungchan was standing there, hands stuffed in the pockets of his worn black leather jacket. Honestly, you hadn’t thought much about him since your date five or six weeks ago. Your focus had been on school— with this being your junior year, you had a lot to get together in order to be ready to apply for grad schools, Botany Club, still going to work, and keeping up with friends around all this somehow. One failed date that wasn’t even in your top five worst dates hadn’t really been keeping you up at night. And yet somehow here he was.

You were sure that the surprise was evident on your face, and you probably left just too long of pause hanging in the air before you finally said something. “Oh, Sungchan, hi.”

“I thought that was you. Hey.” He offered a friendly smile.

“How are you?”

“I’m—” He was cut off by a distant shout of his name that only got closer.

“Hey! Sungchan!” It was Shotaro, the siren approaching with a prepared drink and straw, shoving them in the werewolf’s hand. “Dude, you can’t just walk away from the counter like that while we’re making your drink, then I have to come chase you down when you don’t hear your name.”

Sungchan accepted it from the employee guiltily. “Sorry, Shotaro.”

“Anyway! I’m glad you two have met.” Shotaro beamed at the pair of you, throwing an arm around Sungchan’s neck. “Y/N, this is my roommate I was talking about, Jung Sungchan. Sungchan, this is Y/L/N Y/N, she’s a regular here and goes to our college.”

Your eyes widened minutely in alarm as you suddenly connected way too many dots. Oh god, Shotaro’s roommate had an awful date, Sungchan is Shotaro’s roommate, you and Sungchan had gone on a date that night, the very same date you had also complained to Shotaro about. And who knows what terrible things Sungchan might have told the siren about the date, about you. After all, you had been the one to walk out on him.

You felt like you were going to puke as Shotaro gave Sungchan a sharp slap on the shoulder, winked at you behind his roommate’s back, and walked back to his station behind the counter.

After a heavy, long, awkward pause, Sungchan finally spoke up. “So… what did you get?”

“Oh, uhm… the Lovebug. What about you?”

“Me too, same. Lovebug.”

Another pause as you watched Sungchan open his straw and poke it through the plastic seal covering the top of the drink.

“So are we going to address the elephant in the room?” You decided to just get it over with.

“Which one? I feel like we have a whole herd at this point.”

You couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Okay, fair. I meant Shotaro. I’ll be the first to admit that I confided in him after our—I’m sorry to say but—disaster of a date.”

“That’s a generous assessment, actually.” Sungchan agreed. “And I told him about it too. I mean, we live together, it was hard for him not to notice when I came back home less than an hour after I left.”

“Ah, yeah…”

“I didn’t say anything bad about you, by the way. I told him it went horribly, because I ruined it, of course, but you were perfectly lovely. Truly way more level-headed than I deserved.”

“Oh, no, Sungchan,” you tried to reassure him. “Really, like I said before— Sometimes things just don’t work out.”

“I know. But still, I treated you awfully, and I am really, really sorry about that.”

“Thank you.”

A crackling came from the speakers up front, snapping your attention back to the man on stage. Baekhyun had gotten the microphone connected, and you saw Shotaro darting from the stage to his spot at the register as his boss called for everyone’s attention. “Hello? Hello? Great, this is working.”

He flashed a dazzling smile to the small crowd. “Hi, if you don’t know me, I’m Byun Baekhyun, I own Jasmine & Pearls here. If you’re in line, don’t panic, we’re not starting quite yet. I just wanted to thank everybody for coming out here tonight, this is honestly a much better turnout than we had expected. I, of course, also want to thank my two incredible employees, Shotaro and Yuta, for working tonight too.”

The two sirens behind the counter both waved as they got a round of applause, then everyone’s eyes were back on Baekhyun.

“We’re going to be starting Valentine’s Bingo in about five minutes or so. I just want everyone to know that you will need a partner for this. So if you came out here by yourself, find another single person out there and you know… get talking.” He grinned, and you swore his gaze lingered on you and Sungchan for a millisecond too long to be coincidental. “Okay, awesome, I’ll be back up here in five to get it started.”

Your eyes flashed over to your friend that was working, remembering exactly when he told you that you could play the game by yourself, and now suddenly you needed a partner. Shotaro was contentedly ringing up a customer’s order, though, seemingly not even paying you nor Sungchan any mind.

“So, uh, want to partner up? For the bingo?” Sungchan asked, then rushed to tack on, “Unless you’re waiting for somebody?”

“I’m not waiting for anybody,” you smiled, gesturing to the stool beside you for him to sit down.

“How have things been with you?”

“Good, they’ve been pretty good. Just a lot of school and Bot Club.”

“Bot Club?”

“Magical Botany Club. I’m the Vice President this year.”

“Oh, cool. So that’s how you know Jaemin, then.”

“Yeah, yeah. Him and Lee Donghyuck, we’re all on the board together.”

“How’d you get into it?”

“Because I sucked at gardening,” you admitted with a laugh. “My freshman year, my parents gave me this cactus to have in my dorm, and I killed the thing somehow. They can survive in deserts and the most extreme climates in the world, and it perished in my dorm room. I joined Bot Club hoping for some tips, and everyone just immediately thought I was beyond help. Jaemin and Hyuck were the only ones who actually took the time to help me. And it took a lot of time.”

Sungchan was smiling too, genuinely. “You must have grown to really like it, to stick around after getting your cactus caretaking tips.”

“Yeah, I do.” You nodded. “What about you? How’s school been for you?”

He grimaced a little. “Could be better, honestly.”

“Oh no? Why? What’s wrong?” You frowned.

Before Sungchan could answer, another person had approached the two of you. It was Baekhyun, a stack of square bingo cards in one hand and box of markers in the other. His silver eyes seemed to glitter in the lights as he smiled at you, his opalescent scales refracting a whole rainbow of colors where they sat just under his skin along his cheekbones, bridge of his nose, and forehead.

“Hi!” He greeted the two of you cheerfully. “Are you two together?”

“Oh, uh, yes,” Sungchan nodded, reaching out to grab your bingo sheet and marker before the store owner flitted off to the next pair of customers.

He set them down on the counter in between the two of you, but your focus was still on your conversation.

“So what’s wrong, Sungchan?” You asked, taking another sip of your drink.

“I mean, it’s just been a bit stressful is all,” he said, running a hand through his hair. “One of my professors asked me to do research with him, and then I took an SI position with another professor too, on top of all my classes. Just kind of got a lot on my plate.”

“Oh, okay. But that sounds like a great opportunity, at least. Your professor asking you to do research with him.”

“It is, it’s some seriously cool stuff.”

“What’s—”

Baekhyun clearing his throat into the microphone from the front cut you off, and you gave the werewolf an apologetic look.

“Sorry. But I do want to hear about it later, Sungchan,” you squeezed his arm before turning around to face the stage.

“Alright, we’re going to be getting started then.”

As Baekhyun kicked off the first round of bingo, you found yourself tapping the marker against the bingo card as you sat there. Out of the corner of your eye, you saw Sungchan awkwardly leaning over as he tried to look at the sheet too, and you realized you’d been hogging it.

“Oh, sorry, here,” you moved the sheet more into the middle, at the same time that you scooted your stool over towards him to lessen the gap between you. “Is that better?”

Sungchan’s shoulder was just behind yours as he looked over you at both the card and the stage. “Yeah, yeah, thanks.”

“Did you want to mark them off? Sorry, I just grabbed it without thinking.” You offered the permanent marker out to him.

“No, it’s all yours.” He shook his head, then tapped his finger to the middle spot. “But you did forget the Free Space.”

“Oh, shit, thanks.” You crossed it off with an X.

Baekhyun called out number after number, and you and Sungchan worked together to search the small card for them.

You clicked your tongue as you couldn’t find the one the shop owner had just called out, and were about to pick your cup back up to take another sip of your drink, when Sungchan spoke up happily.

“Found it!”

“Oh, where?” You hovered the marker over the card, scanning the little letters and numbers.

“Right there.” He’d pointed, but his hand was gone too fast, and you lost it again.

“Wait, where?”

“Right…” he reached over to wrap his own hand around yours that was holding the marker, and dragged it over to the correct square. You giggled as he guided your hand to draw a messy X like you were a toddler learning to write your letters for the first time. “…There.” He finished, letting go of your hand.

“Ahh, okay,” you nodded slowly. “I see… I’m illiterate.”

“Well, I wasn’t going to say it.”

“Hey!”

Sungchan laughed as you gave a half-hearted smack against his chest, and you couldn’t help but smile too. After all, it was your self-deprecating joke first.

He patted your back, apologizing through his chuckles, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“Apology taken under consideration.”

“Oof, I don’t like the sound of that. Anything I can do to better my chances here?”

“Hmm,” you hummed, pretending to think as you tapped the capped end of the marker against your bottom lip.

Sungchan watched you, his elbow resting on the bartop and his cheek in his hand. The only thing separating you two was the bingo sheet, the game which you weren’t even focused on anymore. Your back was entirely turned to the stage now, gaze set only on the werewolf next to you.

Just as you’d parted your lips to make your proposal, you happened to hear Baekhyun announce the next number.

“O13!” The siren’s voice carried well through the speakers. “O13!”

You let your eyes flick down, immediately catching on that open square on your card. And it completed the row. You marked it off, a giddy grin spreading across your face as you went to elbow Sungchan. “Look!”

“Oh damn! Nice!” He raised his hand, as did you, as he called out. “Bingo! We got bingo!”

Baekhyun’s features lit up as he stopped his progress of reaching for the next bingo ball. He practically purred into the microphone, “Well, well, seems like we’ve got our first bingo. If one of you could read it out so I can double-check it, then we’ll see about getting you two your prizes.”

Sungchan called out your five spaces, and Baekhyun nodded with each one, the room erupting into applause when he declared that you two had won that round.

“Alright, come up here so I can give you your prizes and punch your tickets.” The siren waved you up.

You looked to Sungchan expectantly, and he gestured for you to go up ahead of him. Instead, feeling a bit uneasy with the entire café’s eyes on you, you latched onto his forearm and dragged him up right alongside you.

“So you each are getting a gift card to the shop—” He handed you two small cards, then turned around, where Yuta had appeared with a couple more items. Baekhyun then handed each of you a denim baseball cap that had the logo of the shop on the front in lilac purple thread. “And Jasmine & Pearls embroidered hats. Thank you so much for coming here and playing.”

You accepted both prizes from him, feeling over the embroidery on the cap with your finger.

“And if you’d give me your event punch cards, I’ll go ahead and give you your punches now, since you unfortunately, won’t be allowed to play to win again. Fairness and all that.”

You and Sungchan handed over your punch cards, and the siren gave each of you another heart-shaped punch before giving them back.

“Now, we will be playing two more rounds, so don’t worry if you didn’t win this time,” he announced to the rest of the crowd as you and Sungchan headed back to your seats. “I’ll hand out brand new cards to everybody, and we’ll restart. Y/N and Sungchan, you’re free to play again for fun, if you’d like. You just can’t play for profit.”

Sungchan looked over at you in a silent question, and you shook your head. You were happy to play and win just the one time. After all, with everybody else still occupied, this would be the perfect time to do the other activities with little to no lines or crowding.

“No thank you, we’re bingo-ed out for tonight,” Sungchan called out, and the host nodded graciously.

“Very well. Everybody else hold tight while I come around to distribute new cards.”

As the two of you finally sat back down at your seats and looked over your prizes, you realized that you had never introduced yourself to Baekhyun. Not when he had passed out the cards, nor when he was giving you your prizes. But he knew your names. You snapped your head up towards the counter suspiciously again, but Shotaro was once again minding his business, cleaning out one of the machines.

Sungchan was readjusting the sizing of his hat, then finally pulled it on, offering you a lopsided grin. “What do you think?”

“Looks good on you.” You tapped the brim of it, feeling a familiar airiness in your chest, one that you hadn’t felt in some time. “You wear baseball caps a lot?”

“For sure, so I’ll get good use out of this.”

“Wear them for fashion or do you play a lot of sports?”

“Oh, uh, both, I guess? I like how they look, and I usually wear them when I’m out playing whatever to keep the Sun off my face, yeah.”

The pictures from Jeno’s Instagram of Sungchan on their trip to Cape Solaria suddenly came to mind, and you diverted your eyes down to the gift card in your hand as your skin started getting warmer and warmer. At this rate, he was going to be able to hear your heartbeat picking up the pace and the idea of that in and of itself was embarrassing enough to make it gain even more speed.

“So…” Sungchan inhaled, and you looked up with both your eyebrows raised.

Admittedly, you’d completely forgotten where the two of you were in your previous conversation. “Hm?”

“Do you want to finish the other two punches together?” He asked. “I know they’re not partner things, but we’re both here, and everyone else is busy doing bingo, so it’s probably the best time to do them and—”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking.” You grinned at him, standing up off your stool. “I’d love to, Sungchan. Besides, you’re still supposed to tell me about your research, remember?”

His features lit up as he followed you over to the origami station. “Right, right! Are you sure you want to hear about it, though? It’s on climate change and how it affects human disease, it’s a little doomsday-ish.”

“Ah, perfect for the holiday.” You pointed to the giant paper cut-out of a cartoon Cupid hanging above your heads, then reached for your first square of red paper. “I’m sure, go for it.”

“Okay, cool,” he beamed at you, grabbing a piece of patterned pink paper.

As Sungchan walked you through all the intricacies and machinations of the topic that his research with his professor was on, you were genuinely happy at how much you understood. He didn’t mind slowing down to answer your questions, or explain concepts that you didn’t know already. And you two could have an actual conversation tangential to the topic, because you had taken a Magical Conservation class just last semester that dealt directly with how climate change was affecting a lot of magical creatures, such as sirens who typically lived in and around glaciers that were now losing much of their native habitats due to the lack of year-round sea ice at the poles. And all the while, you both tried your damndest to make an origami heart.

“Okay, what the fuck?!” Sungchan huffed, cutting himself off in the middle of a thought about disease vectors. He smacked his crumpled piece of paper that looked nothing like a heart onto the table. “I’ve taken engineering classes, how am I getting bested by a primary school arts and crafts project?”

“It’s not a—”

“It literally says ages 8 and up on the instructions.”

You pressed your lips together in a line. “Ah. So it does.”

Yours didn’t look much better. It seemed as though you were both getting bested by a project meant for children.

“Well, Shotaro did say we just had to show him we tried and we’d get the punch,” you reminded him.

“No, no, I can get this,” he shook his head, grabbing a fresh sheet. “I just need to focus, and not talk while I do it. You’re too much of a distraction.”

“My apologies, I’ll be quiet this time,” you chuckled, covering your mouth with your hand as you leaned against the table to watch him try again.

He made every fold with precision, but you found that you weren’t really watching him fold so much as you were watching him. His brow was set in concentration, a small crease emerging in the knit of his brows, his eyes narrowed slightly, and the very tip of his tongue poking out from between his lips. It was cute, adorable, endearing, everything in the thesaurus, and you could’ve sat there and watched him fold origami hearts all night if he wanted to, punch card and free drink be damned.

Sungchan stood up straight, his features relaxing into a proud grin as he held his completed piece up for you to see. It was definitely a heart this time, a simple baby pink color, and you were amazed at how straight the lines were.

“Nice, Sungchan!” You praised him. “That’s what those engineering classes were for, huh?”

“I wasn’t going to let some project for ages 8 and up that Shotaro picked out get the best of me!” He declared, and you could practically see his chest puffing out with pride. “I’m not going to give him the satisfaction.”

You couldn’t help but laugh. “So that’s what this was? Fragile STEM major ego?”

He narrowed his eyes at you. “Isn’t sociology a science?”

“I think you’re the first hard science major to ever say that.”

“It ends in -ology.”

“So do phrenology and astrology.”

“Fair. But seriously, is it not?”

“It is. But usually, you engineering and whatnot majors don’t like to consider us ‘soft sciences’ like sociology and anthropology and psychology to be ‘real sciences,’ whatever the hell that means.”

“Ohh, yeah… I’ve got better shit to do than tell a scientist that they’re not a scientist.”

“Like make children’s crafts.”

“Exactly.” He gave you another smile brighter than the Sun.

You nodded firmly. “A much better use of your time. Now, are you ready to take these to Shotaro?”

“Yeah, let’s go!”

As the two of you walked up to the counter, you continued your earlier conversation, “And I will remind you that I’m actually an Interdisciplinary major, and also study MCS. Both of which are considered humanities, a label that I wear with pride, even more so than the ‘soft science’ one.”

A smile tugged at the corner of Sungchan’s mouth as he looked down at you. “Noted.”

Shotaro was standing at the register, hands folded over each other and a smug smile on his face as he watched the two of you approach together. “Well, hey, guys! Congrats on your win!”

“Thanks, Shotaro.” You smiled back, holding your paper heart out to him. “We did the origami too.”

Sungchan held his up too, and you could see the proud look on his face as he did so.

“His is a lot better than mine,” you admitted as the siren took just a second to appraise them. Seeing the two side-by-side, yours was a bit misshapen, folds across parts that were supposed to be flat from you having to undo and redo parts over and over again.

“That’s okay! You guys just had to try,” Shotaro reminded you, picking up the hole punch. “Punch cards please?”

With just one punch left, you and Sungchan headed over to the photobooth in the corner. It was set up so that you didn’t have to pay for any of the films. Sungchan climbed in first, and you watched nervously where his head almost hit the top of the entrance.

“Goddamn this thing is tiny,” he observed as soon as he had poked his head in past the curtain.

“Is it small or are you a giant?” You asked pointedly.

Sungchan had fully entered the photobooth then, and retorted back, “Get in here and find out.”

As you parted the curtain and put just your first foot in, you immediately realized how cramped the two of you were going to be. “Okay, maybe a bit of both.”

“Uh-huh.”

Sungchan was already sat on the bench, and pressed himself as far back into the corner as he could to give you enough space to sit next to him. Your leg was squished in next to his, and his arm ended up around your shoulders. He was warm, as expected for a werewolf, whose body temperatures all ran naturally higher than humans.

As he shifted his shoulders and arm to settle around you, he double-checked, “Sorry, is this alright? It’s tight in here—”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s fine,” you turned your head to give him a smile, but were instead caught off-guard by just how close his face was to yours. If either one of you shifted forward right now, you would hit noses. Your breath hitched in your throat as you made eye contact with him. Oh, he could definitely hear your heartbeat in the tiny space afforded by the photobooth, surely as clear as you could hear it thudding in your own ears. God, you’d always thought he was cute, but something about being so close, and the lights in here hitting the angles of his face just right, he was striking, handsome. You curled your hands into fists in the material of your pants, not trusting yourself not to grab him and do something too wildly out of pocket.

The screen played a short melody at you, knocking you from your trance, and you turned your focus back to your task.

Pressing a couple buttons on the touchscreen, you looked between the height of the camera and Sungchan, squinting. “Is your head even going to show in frame?”

Sungchan swallowed, then cleared his throat before he spoke, as if his mouth had gone dry. “Guess we’ll find out after.”

“Alright, it’s a four-cut.” You announced after skimming the easy illustrated instructions. “You ready?”

“As I’ll ever be.” He gave you a thumbs up.

“Okay. 1, 2, 3.” You pressed the start button before sitting back in your seat against him again.

You smiled and held up a peace sign for the first one, and in the split second of the flash going off, you heard the werewolf next to you curse under his breath, “Fuck! That’s bright—” accompanied by the feeling of him flinching back, and immediately followed by a distinct thud.

Turning around as much as the space could allow for, you saw Sungchan curled in on himself, his eyes squinted shut presumably both in pain from the flash and from where he had just smacked the back of his head against the wall of the photobooth, judging by the hand he was cradling it with.

“Ooh! Sungchan, are you alright?” You asked through giggles, unable to get over the comical thunk! sound that his head had made.

Another flash went off, startling him into hitting his head again with another bonk! and this time you couldn’t help but burst out into full-bodied laughter, turning back toward the camera to not laugh directly in the poor guy’s face. You could barely see the third and fourth flashes because your eyes were squeezed shut as you laughed, running out of air and having to prop yourself up with a hand on Sungchan’s knee to not keel over.

Finally, you started sobering up enough to squint your eyes back open, and through your tears, you saw Sungchan smiling down at you as well.

“Alright, I don’t know if it was that funny…” he sighed, still holding his head.

“I’m-I’m sorry,” you tried to apologize through your wheezes. “It was the sound, and the two in a row, it was just too much for me. I’m not laughing at your pain, I promise. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m alright. Thanks.” He reassured you, dropping his hand from his head and resting it on the one that you still had on his knee. “I… I really like your laugh.”

Your hand suddenly tingled. “Oh. Thank you…”

After a beat, he shifted his gaze from yours. “So where do the films print out at?”

“Uh, on the outside of the booth. Should be two, one for each of us.” You said quickly, getting up to exit the booth and put some space between the two of you again.

Sungchan followed you out, and you easily found the dispenser, where there were in fact two film strips. He grabbed them for you, looking over them first. A smile spread across his face as he continued holding them, and you started getting antsy the longer that you hadn’t seen them.

“What, are they that bad?” You asked with a light chuckle.

“What?” He snapped his focus up to you.

“You’ve been smiling at them for an awful long time. Did I blink or something?” You joked, knowing very well that you were laughing for half of them.

He sucked in air through his teeth, shaking his head regretfully. “Yeah, I think for your own sake, I should keep both of these. I mean, I look great but—”

“Sungchan, let me see!” You reached for them, but he yanked his hand back from you at the last second.

You lunged for them again, but he once again kept them just out of your reach, a sly grin on his lips. The next time you tried to grab them, he held them above his head, and he most unfortunately had a significant height advantage over you.

You were already in his personal space from grabbing for them before, practically chest-to-chest (well, really chest-to-face), and now had to crane your neck straight up to look at them. With a huff, out of breath, heart racing for more than one reason now, you weakly pulled on his shoulders as you pouted, “Sungchan, please!”

“Here, I warned you.” He said melodramatically, handing you one copy of the film strips.

You eagerly held it in both hands, scanning over the four pictures on it. The first one was normal, it looked like Sungchan had taken your lead and both of you were smiling and throwing up peace signs. The second one was where everything went to chaos. Sungchan was wincing in pain in the corner, holding his head, as you had the back of your head to the camera, one hand reaching uncertainly towards him. In the third, you were turned back towards the camera, a little blurry as you laughed, and Sungchan was squinting one eye open to look at you. And in the last one, you were still laughing, leaning on Sungchan for support as there was nothing but simple joy on your face; and Sungchan’s features had relaxed out of pain as he gazed down at you with a fond smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. Not as wide as yours was, but no less dim.

“These are so cute! You liar!” You elbowed Sungchan in the side.

“You didn’t let me finish. I look great, but you look radiant.”

“Good save.” You joked, but couldn’t suppress the smitten grin that wormed its way across your face. “And I’m keeping mine.”

Sungchan reached into the pocket of his jacket then, pulling out his pristine, baby pink origami heart from earlier. He held it out to you. “I-I wanted you to have this, too.”

“Aw, Sungchan…” You accepted the paper heart from him.

“Feel free to throw it out when you get home, I get it.”

“Hey, stop that.” You pinched his forearm where the sleeve of his jacket had fallen down. “Don’t do something sweet and then immediately take all the sincerity away by covering it with a layer of self-deprecation. If you’re going to be a sweetheart, own up to it or don’t do it at all.”

He rubbed at the back of his neck, and you could see a flush creeping up from his collar to his cheeks. “You’re right. I wanted to give you that, sans trash can.”

You were beaming, tucking it into the inner pocket of your jacket and patting it. “Thank you, Sungchan. I’d offer you mine, but I think it really should go in the trash.”

“Look who’s not taking her own advice, hm?”

“Alright, if you want it,” you sighed, taking your own lumpy attempt at the origami heart out of your pocket and handing it over to him.

Sungchan plucked it from your fingers smugly. “Thank you.”

“I expect you to be buried with that now, by the way.”

“I’ll be sure to write it in my will.”

The two of you were still chuckling as you walked up to the counter again, your film strips and punch cards in hand to show them to Shotaro. Your siren friend reviewed the pictures with a shit-eating grin on his face.

“You guys are so cute,” he commented so very subtly. “But uh, what happened here, Sungchan? Did you hit your head on something? How did you manage that one?”

As you covered your mouth to hide your giggles at the memory of the double bonk! resurfacing, Sungchan took his film strip back from his roommate. “Alright, are you going to give us the punches or not?”

Shotaro punched the final heart-shaped holes into both your cards. “And with that you’ve completed all the punches! Unfortunately, you can’t redeem the free drink tonight, but by all means, you are more than welcome to stay and hang out some more. We’ve got extended hours tonight, so you can keep doing the activities if you like, or just, you know… stay and chat or something.”

“Right, thanks, Shotaro.” Sungchan led you away with a hand on your back.

You ended up back at your original seat that you had sat at for the bingo game. The game finished while you were in the photobooth, the other patrons now milling around the shop again. Some were sitting, sipping on their drinks and enjoying each other’s company, others at the origami stations, others lining up at the photobooth, and still others back at the register ordering again. You looked down at the film strip in your hands before tucking it away safely with Sungchan’s origami heart. Looking around, you saw that Baekhyun was making rounds now that he was done hosting bingo, greeting customers and having conversations with everyone he stopped to talk to.

You didn’t want to leave yet, to have this night be over, to have your time with Sungchan be done. At least not without knowing if you’d see him again. This had been fun, really fun, and you wanted to see him again. Every bad first impression of him you’d gotten from your date had been wiped away.

“Hey, Y/N?”

You snapped your focus back over to him at the sound of his voice, trepid and unsure. You offered him a reassuring smile as you replied, “Yeah, Sungchan?”

He had taken his hat off, and was messing with the seam along the bottom band nervously. “I know I already said this, but I really am sorry for everything I said to you before. I was so incredibly wrong about you.”

“And I’ve already said thank you, so I suppose I’ll say I forgive you this time.” You squeezed his forearm. “So would you stop apologizing now?”

“I know we can’t start over completely, but…”

“Yes?” Your voice pitched up hopefully, your heart soaring along with it.

“Friends?”

Splat. Your heart plummeted back down with tremendous velocity.

It took all your willpower to keep your face from showing the disappointment you’d felt, and even then, you were sure it still fell minutely. You slapped on a rehearsed, customer service smile for him, too shocked that you’d apparently misread everything so badly to do much more than go through a script of what you should say. “Yeah, sure. Friends.”

Sungchan beamed at you, another heart-stopping, adorable, lopsided grin that now made your chest squeeze painfully. “Okay, great! Thank you, seriously!”

You threw open the door to Jasmine & Pearls the next morning so violently that it swung back the other way and rang the bell twice.

“Shotaro.”

The siren perked up to greet you. “Oh, Y/N! Back to redeem that free drink already, huh?”

“Sungchan here?” Your eyes flicked around the shop warily. You couldn’t see him, but now that you knew that the two of them were roommates, you had to be more careful.

“Oh, I see.” Your friend grinned, crossing his arms over his chest. “No, you just missed him, actually, he had class, popped in on his way to campus.”

“Thank god,” you groaned, collapsing into a stool near the pick-up counter, face in your arms.

“Uh, I’m going to make you a drink. Your usual?”

“Sure…” You mumbled, the sound even more muffled by your arms.

As Shotaro prepared the drink, he picked your conversation back up. “Now, what happened? You two looked like you were having a lot of fun last night. Not to pat myself on the back too hard.”

You lifted your head up just enough to rest your cheek on your arms so your friend could hear you when you spoke. “Did he tell you?”

“Tell me what?”

“Remember that awful date I went on last month?”

“Vaguely.”

“And Sungchan went on a bad date the same night.”

“Yeah. Did he do some kind of ‘all cards on the table’ confessional with you to try to scare you off?” Shotaro sighed, tossing his hand towel over his shoulder and putting his hands on his hips. “Listen, don’t worry, I know he says he ruined his date that night, but really he’s a big puppy—don’t tell him I said that, he’ll tear my throat out.” He paused, as if realizing what he had just said. “And don’t worry about that ‘tear my throat out’ thing either, I swear he’s super sweet. Honestly, something must have been wrong with that girl, he’s not—”

“It was me.” You cut him off bluntly.

“Huh?”

“Sungchan and I were each other’s terrible date that night.”

The siren slapped a hand over his face with a groan. “Oh my god, what did he do?”

“Now you think he did something? Two seconds ago, you swore there was ‘something wrong with that girl.’” You raised your eyebrows.

“Yeah, but I know you, Y/N. Him saying he fucked up and made you walk out? I can believe that.”

“We don’t have time to unpack all of that, but thanks, I guess.” You settled your cheek in your hand instead. “Anyway, it was all a mismatch at the time. He had his reasons, and I had mine, and I left. I didn’t harbor any ill will towards him, nor had I even thought about him until last night.”

Shotaro snorted, placing your finished drink in front of you. “Oh, well, can’t say the same for him.”

“What?”

“Whatever he did, he felt terrible about it. He kept talking about how he wanted to apologize to you, but he didn’t think you’d want to see him.”

You blinked at him. “Seriously?”

“I just thought it was like when you accidentally say ‘you too’ when the waiter tells you to enjoy your food and then you can’t stop thinking about that interaction for the next six months.”

Remembering the gist of your very short conversation from your one and only date with Sungchan, you shook your head. “No, not quite.”

“But it seems like you two made up last night, right?” Shotaro asked, head tilted.

“Yes, last night was so much fun. It’s what our first date should have been. We got to talk, and get to know each other, and joke, and laugh, and maybe flirt a little bit; and he’s funny, and smart, and a lot of fun...” You explained, trailing off pitifully at the end.

“So what’s the catch?”

“Well, I don’t know why I thought that at the end of the night, when he said,” you dropped your voice to mimic Sungchan, “‘I know we can’t start over completely, but—’ I don’t know why I thought that was going to be followed up by him asking me out, but it wasn’t.”

The siren’s jaw dropped. “It wasn’t?”

“Nope. Friends...” You said with weak enthusiasm, giving him two thumbs-up and a feigned smile as if you were being held at gunpoint.

“Ooh, Y/N...” Shotaro grimaced.

You dropped your head into your hands in defeat. “And somehow I feel even stupider than I did leaving that date.”

“I’m going to ask him what the hell he’s thinking.”

“No the fuck you’re not!”

“Y/N—”

“I told you this in confidence, Osaki Shotaro, not so you could you blab how pathetic I am right back to him!”

“But I just did that with him to you.” He pointed out innocently. “Seems a bit unfair.”

“Thanks for just agreeing with me on the pathetic part.”

“Well—”

“You’re not helping!”

“I’m trying!” He threw his hands up in exasperation. With a sigh, he came up to lean against the counter, voice turning sympathetic once more. “Look, Sungchan probably just thinks that you would want nothing to do with him romantically after he ruined it so stupendously last time. So he doesn’t even want to put you in the awkward position of rejecting him again— or, he at least thinks you would reject him again.”

“You really think so?” You asked quietly, watching a bead of water run down the side of your cup.

“Best I can come up with.”

And all the hope in your chest puttered out like a limp, half-filled balloon. “So that was a guess.”

“I’m a siren, not a mindreader, sorry.”

“Ugh, I’ve got to go. Thanks, Shotaro. For the boba. You were useless otherwise.”

“Bye!” Your friend waved to you cheerily.

Being friends with Sungchan was pretty easy, actually. You already had a lot of the same friends (it was sort of weird that you hadn’t met before that date, you realized), and as long as somebody else was there, it was easy to ignore the ever-present, ever-growing crushing pain in your chest whenever you were with him. You didn’t like that it was like this, you hated being that person pining over one of their friends who had explicitly said that they just wanted to be friends. You’d tried to get yourself to feel like this about other guys—the cute phoenix in your Criminology class, or the funny gryphon that you were partnered up with for a project in your Introduction to Interdisciplinary class. But it was useless, your thoughts always came back Sungchan. And you weren’t friends with him in hopes that one day it would be different, either; you really didn’t want to be that friend. You were just enjoying Jung Sungchan, in whatever capacity you got him in.

And right now, that was a rather tenacious study buddy. When you’d off-handedly mentioned an upcoming test that you hadn’t studied for yet, he immediately made you compare schedules so that the two of you could do a study session before it. So now you were reviewing flash cards of some key concepts as Sungchan was hunched over a notebook of his own. Working on his research with his professor, you were pretty certain. He switched between his computer and handwritten notes so frequently that you weren’t sure how he kept it all straight, and all the numbers and Greek letters and letter letters made your head swim trying to decipher it. As long as it all made sense to him.

It all mostly made sense to you when he would explain it to you, if you were actually listening to the words he was saying and not just thinking about how nice his voice sounded, or how pretty he looked that day. Your brain was truly rotting from the inside out.

And you two were alone. You didn’t know if he had invited any of your other friends and they couldn’t make it or if this was a “just us” thing. That was something that he did that always made it so hard for you to keep your rule of never hoping for more. Sometimes you two would hang out and invite Shotaro and Jaemin and Jeno and Jeno’s girlfriend and maybe even some more of their friends that you weren’t as familiar with; and sometimes when you’d ask if you should invite anybody, Sungchan would reply with a shoulder shrug and a casual non-explanation that this should be a “just us” thing. You could never delineate what made an activity worthy of a group invite or a “just us” thing.

You stared at your screen with immense focus. Not on what was on the screen, your thoughts had long drifted from dryad folk tales and were now in an endless rumination on what the hell a “just us” thing was. You’d been to group study sessions and study sessions with just Sungchan. Group movie nights and movie nights alone with Sungchan—those were an especially bittersweet kind of awful, as he liked to share blankets. Group dinners and dinners with just the two of you. So what made something a “just us” activity? What was the—

Something in your periphery caught your attention, and snapped you out of your pensive thoughts that you’d been stewing in. It was a small, white, origami heart being pushed up from the bottom corner of your computer screen. You took it, smiling at Sungchan across the table from you, who sat up straight now that he no longer had to reach so far to deliver it to you.

Upon second glance, it looked like the heart was made out of notebook paper from his spiral notebook with notes on it in blue ink. You squinted to make out some of It in his messy scrawl, but gave up after reading just a portion of a complicated, technical word.

“Thanks, Sungchan.” You ran your fingertip along the crisp edge of the paper heart.

This had been one habit he’d picked up since the Valentine’s Day event at Jasmine & Pearls, he now made origami hearts whenever his fingers grew restless and he had access to a suitable piece of paper that could be torn to size if needed. You were usually the target of receiving them and now had a steadily growing collection in a small jar on your coffee table. You didn’t have it in you to throw them away.

“Something wrong, Y/N?” Sungchan asked. He had presumably noted the intense way you’d been staring at your screen the moments prior. “Or is the material just that bad for your test?”

“Ehh…” You sighed, rolling your neck out. “Just tired. Ready for the semester to be over, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Is this made of your notes, by the way?” You held up the origami heart.

“Stuff I had to rip out and redo, I messed it up.”

You then stood up to crack your back, groaning at the cathartic cracking sounds that came with it. “God, I think my spine needs to be folded up like that origami, holy shit.”

“Fix your posture,” Sungchan snorted. “You sit like a little shrimp using a computer.”

Your jaw dropped as you put a hand to your chest, unsure of whether to laugh or be offended. Ultimately, you keeled over with laughter, having to plop back down in your desk chair—hunched over—to catch your breath again. Sungchan was watching you with a fond smile, reclined back in his chair with some not very great posture himself.

“A shrimp?”

“A little shrimp,” he corrected you. “A cute little shrimp using her little computer and fucking up her back in the process.”

“Alright, it’s not my fault you’re literally a tree. Anybody is a little shrimp compared to the man who almost broke a photobooth because he was too tall for it,” you teased him back through the fresh squeezing of your chest at him calling you ‘cute,’ even if it was followed by the words ‘little shrimp.’

“You’re never letting me live that one down, huh?”

“Never. I’ll be telling that story at your funeral, where you’ll be buried with my mangled origami heart, remember?”

“You’re banking on the fact that you’re going to outlive me in this scenario.”

“Right, my bad. Werewolves are the hardier species, so obviously you’ll outlive me.”

“Well, statistically—”

“Statistics say nothing about the power of spite, Sungchan. I will outlive you out of spite, so that I can tell that story at your funeral. And if not, I will have a backup recording of me telling that story, and in my will, have orders that it be played at your funeral.”

“You’re going to put it in your will to make sure you have the last word in case I outlive you? Which, statistically, I will.”

“Yes.”

The two of you held your defiant eye contact for another moment before you burst out in coordinated laughter, all tension fizzling out.

“I do expect that fucked-up origami heart to go down with you, though,” you pointed at him through your laughs, still only half-serious.

“Only if one of the hundreds I’ve given you by now makes it down with you,” he nodded, holding his pinky finger out.

You linked yours with it. “Deal.”

“Deal.”

As you walked out of the library together after you’d finally determined that your studying was over, Sungchan checked his watch.

“You doing anything else tonight?” He asked.

“Nothing in particular.” You shrugged. “Eating dinner. Sleeping. Why?”

“Want to come over?”

“Is Shotaro going to be home?”

“He’s closing at the shop today I think.”

You bit the inside of your cheek. Apparently sensing your hesitation, Sungchan nudged your side as he teased, “What? Am I not fun enough for you? You need Shotaro there to convince you to come over, too?”

“Yeah, you’re such a snoozefest, Sungchan,” you wrinkled your nose, elbowing him back. “Taro’s the only thing that keeps me from falling asleep every time I’m over at your place.”

“You hurt me, Y/N.”

With a melodramatic sigh, you relented, “I suppose I’ll make an exception. But I will nap where I see fit if you bore me too much.”

“I’ll take my victories where I can get them.”

At Shotaro and Sungchan’s place, you followed Sungchan into his bedroom. Normally, if Shotaro were home, the three of you would all hang out in their living room. But it was just you and Sungchan.

He toed his shoes off and flopped onto his bed face-first, spread-eagle.

“Oh, and who were we worried about taking a nap?” You scoffed, taking his desk chair. He had a gridded whiteboard above his desk that was mostly taken up by a to-do list of upcoming deadlines. But a small area labeled “Notes” by the company who made it was dedicated to pictures instead: the film strip of you two from Valentine’s Day at Jasmine & Pearls hung there by a magnet in the shape of a hurricane, a picture from the group trip to Cape Solaria from last summer under a tornado, and another of a younger Sungchan and Shotaro (early high school if you had to guess) at an arcade pinned by a tsunami.

Your friend rolled over onto his back. “I’m not napping, just basking.”

“Basking? In what?”

“Being done with today.”

“Have a bad day?”

“Just long. Had a long week, long semester, long three years.”

“Mm, felt that,” you agreed, knocking your own shoes off and folding your legs up in the desk chair.

The two of you were quiet for a while, and you would’ve thought that Sungchan had actually fallen asleep, if you couldn’t see that his eyes were open as he apparently just stared at the ceiling, his chest rising and falling with even breaths. You let the silence remain, content to just rest your arms on the back of the chair with your chin atop them, and look at him.

“Y/N?” He finally spoke, his voice soft.

“Yeah?”

Sungchan’s head lolled so he could look over at you, his warm brown eyes focused on your face. He had an unreadable expression on his features; not one of sadness, or pain, or really much of anything. It was like he didn’t even know what he was feeling. “Have you gone on a date? Since... you know, the one we went on?”

You blinked. You weren’t sure what exactly you were expecting him to say, but it wasn’t that. After a moment, you shook your head. “No, I haven’t. Have you?”

The corner of his lip twitched, but from your positions, you couldn’t tell if it was pulling towards a smile or a frown. “No.”

Another beat of silence. You continued staring at each other.

“Do you want to?” He asked, his voice so unnaturally devoid of intonation that you once again couldn’t glean the purpose of this discussion.

“What?” The word tumbled out of your mouth fast, defensively.

“I-I mean, are you going to? Like, is there anybody...?”

You looked at him, taking a good few seconds before you answered. He at least seemed nervous now, stuttering, his eyes flitting between you and the ceiling fan.

“No.” You answered plainly. No qualifying statements: any attempts at expounding would just land you in trouble. “You?”

“No...” He echoed. “You would tell me, right? If you were?”

This felt like a trap. Not from Sungchan, you knew he wasn’t like that, but from the Universe, somehow. And no matter what you did, you were going to fall into the spike pit.

“Yeah, Sungchan, of course.” You mustered up your well-practiced casual smile. “Always need approval from the counsel of friends for that kind of stuff.”

He did smile at that—not a full one with teeth, and it didn’t reach his eyes—but he smiled and nodded. “Good. Got to make sure they’re not a weirdo. You know there’s all kinds of magical creatures who will just date human women for the ego trip in bed, right?”

“I did know that,” you chuckled. “But thanks for looking out for me.”

“Always am, Y/N. And I always will be.”

Rocking back and forth from your heels to your toes nervously, you kept your eyes trained on the apartment door in front of you. Sungchan knocked on it. Your actions were stopped by your friend grabbing your arm and pulling you back down to flat feet.

“Y/N, I told you it’s going to be fine, seriously. They’re your friends, too,” he reminded you for probably the twelfth time that day.

When he’d randomly texted you earlier that morning asking if you wanted to go to Jeno’s birthday party with him tonight, you were very hesitant to accept. Mostly because you hadn’t received an invite from the birthday wolf himself. But after some more pestering from Sungchan, you gave in. Maybe if you didn’t have such a weak heart, you would’ve been firmer on your no. But instead, here you were, having signed your name under Sungchan’s on the birthday card the two of you bought on your way over, a gift card tucked inside with enough money pre-loaded on it to cover a nice meal for Jeno and his girlfriend.

“Then why didn’t he—” Your whispered question was cut off by the door swinging open, the bright smile of Lee Jeno greeting you.

“Hey guys, come on in!” The werewolf opened the door even wider, not seeming surprised at all to see you there next to Sungchan. He gave the both of you hugs after closing the door behind you.

You patted his back in the hug, offering a sheepish smile, “Hey, Jeno, Happy Birthday. Sorry to just show up. Sungchan insisted it was fine…”

“Oh, don’t worry about it! Everyone knows if we’re inviting Sungchan that we’re inviting you, too. It’s cool.” He said brightly. “You want something to drink?”

Trying not to get stuck on that little information bomb he’d dropped so casually, you looked around the fairly packed apartment, recognizing most everyone who was there, including a couple people by the drinks table. “You know, I see Jaemin and Donghyuck over by the drinks, I’ll go get it myself. Thank you, though, and Happy Birthday again.”

Jeno perked up in a different direction as if he’d heard his name being called—which he very well could’ve with his superior hearing—and he took off, disappearing into the kitchen. You’d been to Jeno and Jaemin’s place a few times before, mostly to hang out with Jaemin over the time that you’d known the dryad from Bot Club, and more recently, a couple times for group hangouts since Jaemin, Jeno, Jeno’s girlfriend, and Sungchan were all friends.

“I’m going to get some food,” Sungchan nodded towards the same direction Jeno had gone in. “Want anything?”

You stood on your tiptoes, unable to discern any of the options they had available, other than the fact there would be a lot of it to feed the werewolf guests. “Just get extra of whatever you think I’ll like, I’m not very hungry right now.”

“On it.”

While he went to do that, you made your way across the living room to the two dryads you had spotted earlier, both standing by the drinks table.

“Hey…” You said, still feeling awkward despite Jeno’s easy acceptance of you.

“Y/N! Hey!” Donghyuck greeted you cheerily.

“You made it!” Jaemin gave you a one-armed hug.

“Sounds like you were expecting me then?”

“Well, yeah.” Donghyuck said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world (which was bewildering to you, considering you didn’t even know you were coming until this afternoon).

The two dryads exchanged a look.

“I mean, Sungchan was coming, so…” Jaemin shrugged.

Donghyuck peered around the party. “Speaking of, where’d your wolfboy go?”

“He went to get some food. And he’s not. my. wolfboy, you little shit.” You glared at him. “And don’t call him a wolfboy either, you know he doesn’t like to be called stuff like that. Call Jeno ‘puppy’ or whatever all you want but leave Sungchan out of it.”

“I thought he didn’t like dog terms, but wolf terms he was fine with, since he is a werewolf.” Jaemin said.

“Yeah.” Donghyuck nodded.

You put your hands on your hips with a frank sigh, “As if wolfboy isn’t also diminutive and meant to—”

“Woah, abort, abort, Y/N’s going into Renjun-mode.”

Jaemin looked over at the other dryad regretfully. “Worse than Renjun-mode, this isn’t just educational.”

“You two are so obnoxious, I’m going to stage a coup in Bot Club one of these days,” you declared with a scoff.

“Hey...” Another voice entered the conversation from over your shoulder, and you looked up to see Sungchan stepping in between you and Donghyuck, a plate loaded up with food in his hand.

“Speak of the wolf and he shall appear.” Donghyuck had a wicked grin on his face. You were amazed sometimes that he wasn’t a fairy.

“What were you guys talking about? Y/N didn’t look happy.”

“It was nothing, Sungchan, don’t worry about it.” You tried to reassure him, sending pointed stares at each of the dryads with you.

Donghyuck was apparently not going to let up, though. “Hey, Sungchan, you down to do a little thought experiment with me?”

“Thought experiment?” The werewolf echoed.

“Yeah, just real quick. I ask you a hypothetical question, you give me a hypothetical answer. Just for fun.”

“A thought experiment with Donghyuck. Sounds thrilling, sure.” Sungchan agreed humorously, popping a piece of food in his mouth.

“So, if someone were to call you dog-like terms—which we know you’re not cool with and would never do—who would you most be okay with doing that?”

The werewolf narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “Why would anybody do that?”

“It’s a thought experiment, Sungchan, come on. Play in this space with me!” Donghyuck whined, shaking the other man’s shoulder.

“Let’s rephrase then,” Jaemin joined in, a mischievous glint in his eye. You looked around to make sure Chenle wasn’t secretly listening in or something, because this surely had to be the work of your fairy prince acquaintance. You spotted the fairy very engaged in his conversation with his dragon roommate Jisung and a few other people. It seemed like the two dryads really were just deciding to be the absolute worst all on their own.

“Narrower scope. Would you be okay with, for example, Y/N calling you stuff like that?”

“Why would she do that?” Sungchan asked, confused.

“Yeah, why would I do that?” You asked, angry. They were clearly trying to get at something specific, make him admit something.

Jaemin offered an example, “Well, you know, Jeno’s girlfriend calls him ‘pup’ as a term of endearment.”

“And why would I do that?!” You repeated, feeling your stomach drop to the floor at how exactly he stressed those words.

“We’re getting off-topic here, it’s all hypothetical, remember?” It was amazingly Donghyuck who sort of saved you. “We know Y/N would never do it. But like… if she did, for some reason unbeknownst to us, what would you do? Would you be okay with it?”

Sungchan’s brow was furrowed as he seemed to genuinely contemplate this while he ate another bite of food. You, meanwhile, were plotting how best to kill two dryads. You knew enough from Bot Club, maybe a super-strong version of the magical weed spray you used would work... Were dryads more plant or more person?

“Well…” The werewolf finally began his answer, seeming to choose each word carefully. “Since I know Y/N, I know that if she were, in this batshit, hypothetical scenario, to do that, that she wouldn’t mean it in a derogatory way. So I guess I’d be more okay with her doing it than other people. Definitely more than you two weirdos who are posing this thought experiment that isn’t fun at all.”

“Thank you, Sungchan.” Donghyuck grinned at him, then turned to Jaemin. “I thought that was very fun and enlightening. What about you, Jaemin?”

Jaemin nodded thoughtfully. “I had a great time. Y/N?”

“You guys are so fucking annoying.” You groaned, grabbing a piece of food from Sungchan’s plate. “Leave me out of your thought experiments next time, please.”

The spring semester ended not long after Jeno’s birthday party, and you very thankfully didn’t have to take any summer classes, freeing up a lot of spare time for you. Sungchan, on the other hand, had to take a couple courses in order to make sure he would graduate on time. While you jokingly whined and complained when he told you about it, you were secretly relieved to have extra reasons to avoid him. As terrible as that sounded.

This afternoon, while he was in class, you had gone down to the river with Shotaro and Yuta, who miraculously both had a day off work at the same time. You didn’t even realize Jasmine & Pearls had enough employees to let the both of them take the same day off.

You were sat in your pop-up chair on the small beachy area, pulling your phone from your bag to check it while the two sirens continued lazing about in the waist-deep water. There was a text from Sungchan from a few minutes ago, and as you opened it up to read it, you realized that he was just sending you a funny picture he’d found somewhere online.

[you: aren’t you supposed to be focusing on class right now?]

“Sungchan?” Shotaro called out to you knowingly.

“What?” You yelled back, holding a hand up to shadow your face from the sun. Looking around your chair, you grabbed your baseball cap that you’d won in Valentine’s Bingo, pulling that on now that you were out of the water.

“You’ve got this little smile on your face that you only get when Sungchan texts you.”

“No I do not.”

Yuta stood up from where he had been floating on his back, shaking the water out of his hair as he asked you with a smirk, “So you don’t have a text from Sungchan on your phone screen right now?”

Your phone buzzed then, a welcome excuse to not have to answer that.

[sungchan: allegedly]

[you: i don’t want you whining to me when you fail that class]

You clicked your phone off, showing them the blank screen. “Nope, nothing on my screen.”

“You’re such a liar,” Yuta sighed, saying it as if it were as simple of a fact as the sky being blue or the grass being green. He trudged through the water up the shore until he could join you, plopping down in his chair next to yours. They had both kept their legs this afternoon instead of bringing out their tails, and he kicked his apart as he got comfortable.

Shotaro jogged up from the water too, grabbing the cooler and rooting around in it for a second. After securing the other half of his sandwich from the lunch that you all had eaten earlier, he sat down next to Yuta, taking a big bite from it.

You took Yuta’s lead and settled back in your chair, closing your eyes and just enjoying the warmth of the late afternoon Sun.

“He talks about you all the time, by the way.” Shotaro cut into your peace and quiet. If you had something within arm’s reach other than your metal reusable water bottle, you would’ve thrown it at him.

“Shotaro...” You groaned, rolling your eyes. You didn’t even need to ask who he was talking about.

“Seriously! ‘Y/N and I did this today.’ ‘Don’t wait up for me, I’m going to the movies with Y/N.’ ‘Y/N told me this funny story today.’ ‘Did you know such and such about this or that? Y/N’s so smart.’” He admittedly did a pretty good Sungchan impression. You would’ve laughed at it in any other context, but instead you were just annoyed.

“Yeah, well, we’re friends. We hang out, and do things together. He’s going to be talking about me,” you snapped. “He talks about you a bunch too. Because you guys, you know, live together. He also talks about his professors, and Jeno, and—”

“But it’s not the same.”

“Really?”

“Really.” He insisted.

Shotaro clearly wasn’t going to let up, so you momentarily engaged this line of thinking, hoping you could squash it. “What’s so different, then?”

“He’ll find just any reason to bring you up, for one. We’re grocery shopping? ‘Oh, Y/N likes this flavor.’ ‘We should pick this up for when Y/N comes over.’ ‘Shotaro don’t get that, Y/N doesn’t like it.’” His impression turned more high-pitched and whining. “We’re watching TV? ‘This reminds me of when Y/N and I did this...’ ‘I bet Y/N would love this show, we should watch it the next time she comes over.’ ‘Y/N has a shirt just like that character.’ We’re hanging out with other people? ‘Hey Sungchan, what uh, what are you giggling at on your phone over there?’” He first kept his normal tone of voice, then switched into his over-the-top fake-Sungchan. “‘Oh, Y/N just texted me something funny. But it’s an inside joke, so you guys wouldn’t get it, sorry.’ ‘Man, I wish Y/N could’ve come, sucks she had to work.’”

“Are you done?” You asked tersely, unamused.

“I could go on ad nauseum—”

“One could argue you already have.”

Yuta snickered.

“—but let’s call it there.”

“Thank God.”

Shotaro wasn’t done with his spiel yet, though. “I have had multiple friends, when he’ll first bring you around somewhere, quietly ask me if you’re Sungchan’s girlfriend and they like, missed when you two started dating.”

“I get it, I get it.” You said firmly, bringing a hand up to rub your face.

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Y/N, you’re an MCS major, I’m sure you’ve heard about what can happen to werewolves if there’s something discordant in their lives that isn’t alleviated?”

“You think he’s going to get pupsick because he’s allegedly got a crush on me?” You sputtered out in disbelief, your voice caught between a chuckle and a scoff at how absurd that sounded to you.

“It happened to Jeno.”

“Yeah, but he’s Jeno. With all due respect and no intention to kinkshame, he probably lets his girlfriend put a collar on him.”

Yuta shot up as he cackled, slapping his knee and coughing. He scrambled to grab his water bottle, taking a couple sips as he struggled to catch his breath.

Shotaro pushed on like you hadn’t said anything, “Now, I don’t want to have to put up with a pupsick Jung Sungchan, do you? That sounds awful. For me, obviously, since I live with him.”

“Shotaro, you are half-right about one thing.”

“And what’s that?” He asked smugly.

“I am kind of an MCS major. So I also know that Sungchan isn’t overly touchy with me, he hasn’t given me anything of his that smells like him, he doesn’t feed me, or do any other pre-mating behaviors that are ingrained in werewolves.” You ticked them each off on your fingers. “Look, I hate stereotyping you guys by your species. But if he’s apparently so down bad that he can’t help but talk about me every waking second of the day, wouldn’t at least one of these things that are literally instinctual to him have happened?”

Shotaro raised an eyebrow. “You do know that he’s half-werewolf, right?”

“What?” You blinked at him.

“Yeah, his mom’s a werewolf, and his dad’s a human.”

You’d had an MCS class on the Effects of Modern Integration, which had a unit specifically on the subject of cross-species offspring. Some species could have offspring together while others couldn’t, it depended both on genetic similarity and compatibility of their magic. With humans having no magic, that left only genetic similarity as a factor, making them a lot more compatible for producing such cross-species offspring. Werewolves and humans were one of the more common pairings to have such offspring, as they had one of the most extensive histories of living together.

Sungchan’s behavior on your first and only date immediately sprung to mind. His hesitance around humans dating werewolves just because they’re werewolves. “Are they...?”

“Happily married. They helped us move into our apartment last year.” Shotaro apparently knew exactly where your question was going. “But yeah, Sungchan’s half-human. As best I can tell, he’s kind of like a super-zen werewolf. Able to control everything a lot better than full werewolves because all of the wolf instincts and stuff aren’t as powerful.”

“He still shifts?” Despite the estimated number of half-werewolves being greater than the confirmed population of sphinxes, unicorns, and phoenixes combined, there was little actually known about them academically. It was all word of mouth, as no large-scale study had been able to be done on them. They were apparently reluctant to come forward and make themselves known to researchers. And their friends.

“Yeah, every full moon. Which I think is why he really just considers himself a werewolf.”

“I didn’t know,” you admitted, biting the inside of your cheek as you were still absorbing this information.

“Anyway, he can probably control whatever pre-mating instincts he does have a lot better than full werewolves!”

“And he’s probably doing that because he knows that you know what pre-mating behaviors look like and thinks you would get weirded out.” Yuta suggested, finally entering the conversation instead of just letting you two go back and forth over him. “Since you’re kind of an MCS major.”

“Exactly!”

You pursed your lips, an uneasiness creeping up on you about the whole situation. “I don’t know guys…”

“You said he doesn’t feed you?” Yuta questioned thoughtfully.

“No, he doesn’t. And you two are around us plenty, have either of you ever seen him try to?” You asked pointedly.

“No, but what Shotaro was saying about grocery shopping. He always buys your favorite foods, flavors he knows you likes, even makes Shotaro put stuff back that he knows you think are unappetizing.”

“I’ve never asked him to do anything like that.”

“And yet he does. Now, overly touchy is subjective. Does he—”

“No, we’re not doing this.” You cut him off, crossing your arms over your chest.

“Doing what?”

“Dissecting mine and Sungchan’s friendship and putting it up on a conspiracy board. I’m not playing. And if that’s all you guys are going to do, then I’m leaving.”

Shotaro jumped in, “Y/N, why can’t you even consider that—”

“Because he already asked to be friends and I said yes,” you said angrily, feeling your blood finally reach its boiling point. “I knew what I was getting myself into, and having you guys trying to convince me that it’s something that he already said it’s not, isn’t fucking helping.”

They were both quiet for a beat, and you clenched your jaw. You couldn’t keep sitting right now, you had to go somewhere, do something. If you stayed here, somebody’s feelings were going to get hurt. You stood up, stuffing all of your things haphazardly back into your bag. “Actually, fuck it, I’m leaving anyway.”

“Y/N, we didn’t mean to—”

“I know, you think you’re trying to help or whatever the fuck. But just drop it, okay?” You shoved your feet back in your shoes and slung your bag over your shoulder. “I need to go or I’m going to end up saying something nasty that I don’t really mean and regret it. I’ll see you guys later.”

And with that, you took off, leaving the chair you had borrowed from Yuta on the shore. You took your baseball cap back off to mess with your damp hair as you speedwalked down the city sidewalks. All the angry energy from wanting to just go off on your friends was still coursing through you, and despite Yuta having to pick you up and drive you the couple miles or so to the river, you figured that you might as well walk the whole way back home to blow off steam.

A little more than halfway home, your phone buzzed in your hand with a call, and you glanced at it intending to just send it to voicemail. But it was Sungchan. You stared down at it as you waited to cross a street, an unsure thumb hovering over your screen.

Glancing between your phone and the crosswalk signal, it changed to walk, and you rushed to cross. The call went to voicemail.

Just a few seconds later, your phone lit up with the missed call, a voicemail, then a text from him. You sighed, clicking on the voicemail first.

“Hey, Y/N,” Sungchan’s voice came through clearly. It sounded like he was outside, probably on campus and fresh out of class, if you had to guess by the time. “It’s Sungchan. Obviously. Uh, anyway, I just got out of class, wanted to see if you maybe wanted to come over? I know you’re supposed to be with Shotaro and Yuta, but Shotaro just texted me and said—well, it’s kind of a long story. Just let me know if you can come over, and I’ll tell you when you get here, okay? I’m headed back to my place right now. Okay, bye.”

Shotaro.

Still fucking meddling after you asked him to drop it. If you were less than halfway back from the river, you’d turn around and throttle him.

You checked the text from Sungchan.

[sungchan: hey! i’m out of class. are you busy?]

[you: i can be over in twenty. is that okay?]

You shifted uncomfortably as you stood in front of the front door to Shotaro and Sungchan’s apartment. Your hair wasn’t as damp thanks to your long walk in the hot Sun, and your skin was dry, but you still held yourself as you stared down the center of the white door. You hadn’t knocked yet. You didn’t want to know what Shotaro had told Sungchan, having already convinced yourself that it was everything. That you were about to walk into Friendzoning 2: Electric Boogaloo, this time with Letting Y/N Down Easy. It made your stomach churn, your chest squeeze like a vice around your heart, and your head feel like it had been cast in lead.

You shifted your weight between your feet on the welcome mat, trying to muster up the strength to just knock on the fucking door, when it swung open.

Sungchan was in a pair of dark sweatpants and a dark red t-shirt from your school’s astronomy club—dated for fall two years ago. He offered you a familiar smile, stepping back from the doorway to make room for you. “Hey, I thought I heard you. Come in.”

“Hey. And thanks.” You nodded, slipping by him into his apartment.

Wordlessly, he started leading the way further back towards his room. You longingly looked at the wide-open space of the living room as you disappeared down the hallway. In his bedroom, you saw his desk taken up by his laptop and a spread of notebooks and papers. His bookbag was in his desk chair.

“Sorry, I know that’s your usual spot, but I was doing some homework.” Sungchan had noticed where your gaze was focused. He patted the foot of his bed as he went to sit down against the headboard. “Come on, you can sit with me for once.”

You swallowed and nodded, stepping back out of your shoes and setting your bag down. Climbing onto the end of his bed, you sat with your legs criss-crossed, fidgeting with your fingers in your lap.

“So why did Shotaro text you?” You decided to just go straight into it. No small talk or pleasantries about his class or what homework he was working on. “What’d he say?”

“He told me that he told you that I’m half-werewolf,” Sungchan said bluntly. “I figured I owed you a bit more of an explanation.”

Oh. Well that wasn’t what you were expecting at all.

“You really don’t owe me anything, Sungchan,” you shook your head, your eyes trained on his comforter. “You don’t have to explain who you are to me if you don’t want to.”

“I want to.”

It was a touching sentiment, but it felt like a hot knife right in your gut. He wanted to because he cared about you as a friend. Not in the same way that you cared about him.

You could only manage a soft, “Okay…”

“It’s not some big secret, really. I’m not ashamed of my dad or anything. I love him, he’s a cool guy.” Sungchan started, and you felt like that first part was more to reassure you that it was okay for you to know. He was pointing to a picture that you’d seen a countless number of times before, hanging next to the mirror above his dresser. It was of him at his high school graduation, flanked on either side by his parents, proud, beaming smiles on all of their faces. You’d always assumed they were both werewolves when you’d looked at that picture, and only ever noticed that Sungchan got his smile from his mom, and his nose from his dad. The height difference between his mom and dad never really registered to you, as Sungchan towered over both of them, but now you did see that his mom was almost a head taller than his dad. Not a trait intrinsic to either species, just more of a trend.

But then, his tone turned a little more pensive, “I just... don’t tell people at first because I get a whole slew of questions, from the mundane stuff like ‘How was it growing up with one werewolf parent and one human parent?’ Which like... I don’t know, it was like growing up with two parents? To the people who think that I’m some oddity and therefore they can just ask me completely unprompted about what my dick looks like. And then at the end of it, it doesn’t really matter anyway. I’m just some dumb mutt to them, no matter how you look at it.”

“Sungchan—” His name came out of your mouth instinctually, pained, as you could only imagine what he had experienced to ever be able to call himself that, even cynically as he was doing now.

“It’s okay. I don’t really care about those kinds of people.” He reassured you, offering a small smile. “That’s why I don’t waste my time on them anymore. I just say I’m a werewolf, and eventually they’ll find out more if they need to.”

“I’m sorry, that Shotaro just—”

“Y/N, it’s fine, seriously. I’m okay with you knowing. I know you’re not going to be weird about it. And Shotaro knew that too; I’m sure however it came up in conversation, it made sense for him to tell you.”

You thought about the context of when Shotaro revealed Sungchan’s lineage, wincing minutely. “Okay. Thanks.”

“You can ask me questions, I don’t mind since it’s you.” He then added teasingly, “Come on, Miss Magical Creatures Studies, I know you want to…”

“Not because I think you’re some oddity to be studied, but because I care and I want to understand more about you…” You prefaced your question. “Shotaro said that you still shift every full moon. Are your shifts any different than full werewolves?”

“From what I can tell watching other wolves shift, it’s not as painful, for one. So, bonus!” He said the last word with mock excitement. “The shift itself doesn’t last as long. And some wolves, especially younger ones who are going through their first shifts, tend to get kind of moodier in the days leading up to the full moon. I never got that. Just, everything is kind of… less for me.”

“Everything?” You asked, brows furrowed with confusion.

“My senses are more heightened than a human’s but less than the average werewolf, when I’m not shifted.”

“Ah.”

“And I probably wouldn’t fare great in a werewolf arm wrestling championship,” he tacked on lightheartedly.

“Damn, I had you signed up in one for this weekend,” you joked, clicking your tongue in the back of your throat in fake disappointment. “Put money down and everything.”

He played along, “Well, I guess I can still try for you.”

You smiled to yourself, then looked up at him as you took a deep breath. Whether or not you two were here because you cared about each other in different ways, you at least still cared about each other. And you’d be an idiot to throw out that kind of connection. You’d have to suck it up, hunker down, and connect with him on his terms.

“Thanks for being so open about this with me, Sungchan. I know it wasn’t your choice to tell me, and I know you already said it wasn’t a secret either. But still, I feel... very grateful that you would want to share any part of yourself like this with me.” You tried to pick your words carefully, to convey as much genuine emotion as you could without veering too far into romantic territory. You could still easily picture yourself saying something like this to Jaemin, or Shotaro. Maybe not Donghyuck, though.

“Ah, what’s that?” Sungchan squeezed his eyes shut, a bashful smile coming to his face.

“What’s what?” You asked with a breathy chuckle, feigning offense. “Am I not allowed a moment of sincerity?”

“No, you’re not.” He said it in an overly joking tone, so you knew that he wasn’t actually upset with you.

“And why not?” You mimicked his tone.

He sighed, teasing falling from his voice as he fully leaned back against his headboard, seeming to take you in for a few seconds before answering. “Not if you’re going to be looking at me like that when you’re being all sincere.”

“Like what?”

“Never mind.”

“No, no sir. You do not get to start an avenue of conversation like that and not finish it,” you pointed at him accusingly. “What am I looking at you like?”

The werewolf held your gaze steadily as he said, “Like you want something more.”

You felt your stomach drop as you rushed to get up from his bed, putting even more distance between the two of you. “I’m sorry, Sungchan. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

He knew, he knew, he knew.

“Y/N, don’t get me wrong, please.” Sungchan stood up after you, grasping your hand before you could run out on instinct. His grip was loose so that you could leave if you wanted, but the presence was enough to let you know that he still wanted you there, to listen to him. His hand was warm as it held yours, but it burned like you’d grabbed red-hot metal. “I-I think you’re one of the most incredible, smart, fantastic people I’ve ever met. And I’m so grateful that you gave me a second chance.”

“But you don’t like me like that. Yeah, I can see where this is going.” You shook him off, searching the floor for your bag and shoes. This was going to be embarrassing, putting sneakers back on after getting rejected like that.

“No, I do.”

Sungchan’s words stopped you in your tracks, and you slowly turned back around to face him again. Your heart was a drum banging in your ears, you couldn’t trust that they weren’t all—your heart and your ears—playing tricks on you.

“You… what?” You were dumbfounded, staring up at him with a mixture of disbelief and thinly-veiled suspicion. You’d spent far too long convincing yourself that he just liked you as a friend to throw it all out over three words.

“I was going to ask you on another date, that night at the boba shop, I really was,” he explained. “But I realized just how lovely and wonderful you were. And I thought that you didn’t deserve... all the hatred that would come with it.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I love my parents, but growing up I got to see firsthand just the worst sorts of people… The things that my parents would be called, that I would get called, by other humans and other werewolves. It’s gotten a lot better, but I mean, Jeno’s girlfriend got called a knotslut at the park out of nowhere. And you don’t deserve to have that be your life.”

You narrowed your eyes up at him. “You think you’re not worth it?”

It was his turn to be thrown off-guard. “What?”

“You think that you, and being with you, aren’t worth it?” You reiterated.

“I wasn’t really thinking of it like that,” he admitted, scratching the back of his head.

“Do you think that? That you’re not worth it?”

“Well now that you say it like that, no, I don’t think that.” He frowned thoughtfully, his brow set with determination.

“And, I know you didn’t mean it like this, Sungchan, but you took the choice away from me. For a very sweet reason, I acknowledge that. But you didn’t give me a say in the matter. Imagine how that makes me feel.” You sighed, watching guilt flicker across his face. “I’m not going to pretend like I know at all what it was like for you growing up. Or what it’s like now. But I can tell you that I want this, that I want you. I want to be there for you, just like I know you’d be there for me if something ever did happen.”

“Of course I would be,” he declared.

Taking a step closer to him, you tentatively let a familiar airiness return to your chest, chasing out the painful squeeze that had been suffocating you since February. “See? We’ll have each other, Sungchan. Someone calling me something won’t matter as long as you’ll be there with me afterwards. You don’t have to prevent everything bad ever from happening, just hold my hand afterwards until it’s all better, okay?”

“Okay,” he nodded resolutely. “I can do that.”

“And I’ll do the same for you. Deal?” You held your pinky finger out to him.

He hooked his with yours. “Deal.”

Sungchan lowered your connected hands, and you watched curiously as he unlinked his pinky, only to turn your hand over with both of his and trace gentle circles into the palm of your hand with his pointer finger.

“Y/N?” He murmured.

You snapped your focus back up to his face at the sound of his voice, trepid and unsure. He was still gazing down at your hands as you replied, “Yes?”

“I know we really can’t start over completely now, but…”

“If you say ‘friends’ right now, even as a joke, I’m going to kill you with my bare hands, half-werewolf strength be damned.” You whispered through gritted teeth.

He sputtered out a chuckle, shaking his head fondly and the circles on your palm never slowing. “No, no, I wouldn’t do that to you. That would be a terrible joke.”

“Good.”

“I was going to ask...” He inhaled shakily, finally drawing his eyes up to yours. “If we could try that date again?”

A smile pulled at the corners of your mouth, and you nodded quickly. “Yeah, Sungchan. I’d love that.”

Sungchan beamed at you, a heart-stopping, adorable, lopsided grin that now made your chest flutter with hope. “Okay! Thank you, thank you!”

You couldn’t help but giggle at his enthusiasm. “You’re welcome.”

Leaping to your feet at the knock that just came from your front door, you ran to answer it. You threw the door open, abuzz with excitement.

It was just about a week later, and you and Sungchan were finally trying that date again. You’d actually seen him once in the intermittent days, at a previously scheduled group movie night at Jeno and Jaemin’s place. The two of you were all knowing smiles and questionably accidental bumps and brushes of skin under the blanket that you shared that night.

But tonight Sungchan was in your hallway, smiling nervously down at you. “Hi.”

“Hi, Sungchan.” You fidgeted with your shirt. He had specifically told you to dress casually and comfortable, but you still felt weirdly underdressed, even seeing that he was in a t-shirt and jeans himself.

“These are for you,” he said quietly, bringing out a bouquet of flowers from behind his back.

As you accepted them from him, you immediately realized that they were made of paper, intricately folded tulips, lilies, and roses of all colors. You couldn’t help but let out a small gasp, thinking about how much time it must have taken him. “An origami bouquet. Oh, Sungchan…”

“I figured you had plenty of hearts by now…” He said as he flushed from his neck upwards.

“They’re beautiful.” You got on your tiptoes, putting a hand on his shoulder to steady yourself as you pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek. “Thank you.”

His cheeks were bright pink as you turned around to set them down inside, then looked back to him expectantly. The werewolf led the way out to the parking lot, except you didn’t see his car anywhere around. There was a familiar old blue pickup truck, however, which he was walking towards.

“Your car in the shop or something?” You asked curiously. “Why are you driving Yuta’s truck?”

“Utility.” He answered cryptically, opening the passenger door for you.

“What does that mean?” You questioned with a chuckle, scooting into the middle of the bench seat.

You’d gotten your seatbelt situated by the time Sungchan had walked around and opened the driver’s side. He didn’t seem to have been expecting you to be in the middle, pausing for a second, and looking around flustered as he climbed into the truck too.

“It’s a surprise, like I said,” he muttered, fastening his own seatbelt and starting the truck.

Sungchan drove with one hand on the wheel, the other on his leg next to yours. You drummed your fingers on your own knee contemplatively.

“Sungchan?”

“Yeah?”

“Can I hold your hand?”

“Wh— Yeah, of course.” He laughed shakily as you laced your fingers with his. “You don’t need to ask me about stuff like that.”

“Well you’re so tense right now that I was afraid that if I just grabbed your hand, you might freak and crash the car.”

He cringed. “So you can tell?”

“Yeah, I can tell.” You patted his arm with your other hand. “What’s got you so wound up? It’s just me.”

“Well, yeah, it’s you,” he repeated. “I’ve already messed up so many times with you. I don’t want to fuck up again.”

You contemplated this for a second, watching the passing streetlights. “Think about it like this: Could you possibly fuck up again worse than our first date?”

“I hope not.”

“Then you’re already off to a great start.”

“Y/N, I think you need higher standards,” he said without an ounce of humor or joking in his tone.

You couldn’t help but burst into laughter at that. “Sungchan, you made me an entire origami bouquet and organized a whole night out to surprise me. I think my standards are pretty okay.”

“Alright, but you’ve got to promise that this is my last chance. Like, three strikes and I’m out. Seriously, if I was some other guy, I would’ve told you to throw me to the curb a long time ago.”

You looked over at him incredulously. “Are you seriously advocating against yourself right now? Is this some kind of reverse psychology flirting technique that I’ve never heard of?”

“No, I’m just not going to stop being a good friend because you’re on a date with me. I told you I would always look out for you, and I meant it, even if it’s not in my best interest.”

Nodding with a raised eyebrow, you decided to take his advice at face value. “Okay, your input is noted as part of the council of friends’ round table on my new guy.”

You saw a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. “Good.”

“So, did you tell Shotaro what we were doing?” You asked, curious now that the topic of friends had been brought up.

“I told him we were hanging out.”

“Did you tell him it was a date?”

“No. Did you?”

“If I did, do you think you would have gotten out of your apartment unscathed?” You snorted.

“Fair point.”

The car ride passed with mostly idle chitchat, until he made a turn away from the city center, off onto a back road that you were unfamiliar with. The buildings gave way to trees, the streetlights being replaced only with moonlight and the headlights of the truck or any lone car that you would pass occasionally. A while later, the asphalt became a dirt road, the trees around you getting thicker and thicker. You looked around in interest as he slowed the truck to a stop in a clearing.

“We’re here?” You asked, looking over at him. Your eyes had long adjusted to the nighttime, and you could clearly make out his features.

“We’re here,” he confirmed with a nod, turning the vehicle off.

Sungchan climbed out, helping you down with a hand, and you immediately knew why he’d had both of you dress casually. You were in the middle of the woods, being led to the back of the truck by the hand by your date. He opened the tailgate, and let go of your hand to hop up into the empty bed.

“Wait there,” he requested, now well and good towering over you.

You nodded.

He retrieved a large duffel bag from the truck bed, and you looked curiously at everything he brought out of it. Pillow after pillow, blanket after blanket. The truck bed soon looked like a bed bed, and Sungchan came back over to plop down on the tailgate, toeing his shoes off and setting them aside at the end. He gestured to the bedding with little fanfare.

“All done!”

You hopped up next to him, pulling your shoes off as well and putting them away next to his. Looking at him with a knowing smirk, you nodded to the fact that the two of you were still sitting up. “Now what, Sung?”

“Ah, you’re going to make me spell it out?” He rubbed the back of his neck, ducking his head awkwardly.

“No,” you laughed. “I’m not.”

He took that as his cue to lay down first, leaving an open space right beside him. You settled into his side with no hesitation, resting your head on his chest as he pulled a final fluffy blanket over the two of you. Being a half-werewolf, Sungchan was pretty warm, but you were grateful for the extra comfort anyway.

Up above you two was a gorgeous expanse of a night sky. A waxing gibbous glowed down at you, stars twinkling and winking in and out at irregular intervals.

“It’s so peaceful…” He murmured quietly, shifting under you, still settling in.

“I don’t know, it’s kind of scary out here…”

Sungchan moved to sit up slightly, looking down at you with concern. “Really? You think so?”

“Yeah, what if there’s wolves?”

“Oh my god you’re so annoying,” he groaned, even as he readjusted his arms to hold you closer.

You, meanwhile, were giggling maniacally at your incredible joke, hiding your face in his shirt as you tried to recover. “You mean I’m the funniest person you know.”

“In your dreams.”

Looking back up at the sky, you pointed to a random speck of light. “Do you know what star that is?”

“Which one?” Sungchan asked, craning his head to try to get in your line of sight.

“I don’t know, any of them.” You dropped your hand back down to his front. “You’re in astronomy club, tell me about them, you big Earth Science nerd. Which I say with great affection and fondness.”

“Okay, so you see the Moon?”

“That’s not a star. I do know that.”

He chuckled, which you felt underneath your cheek. “I figured as much. So, starting at the Moon, if you go due North—” he pointed, and you tried your best to follow the path of his index finger. “The first and brightest star you can see. See it?”

“Yep!” You nodded, seeing the exact star he was talking about.

“Then go the right, just a little, there’s a pair of twin stars, see them?”

“Mm… mhm! Yes!”

“Okay, down, and over to the right some more, we’re tracing out the top of a head, then we’re going back up, there’s another pair of twin stars, you see?”

You squinted, losing the top of the head he was talking about, but finally found the second set of twin stars he’d mentioned. “Yeah, found them!”

“Cool. Straight down from that pair, we’re going to find one, two, then over to the left to get the chin, over and up to get the other cheek, and up to round out the head.”

You nodded, vaguely able to picture what he was talking about. “Okay… so whose head was that?”

“Oh, I get to teach Miss MCS Major something!” Sungchan teased.

“Interdisciplinary major…” You reminded him under your breath.

“So that was Lykos, the great wolf in the sky. As in, lycanthropy.”

“Back when scientists thought werewolves were humans with an affliction that could be passed on to other humans. The quote ‘condition’ they were diagnosed with was lycanthropy.” You easily pulled a basic definition of it from class. “Of course we know now that’s not true. Like witches, werewolves are an entirely different species, not just a variety of human. And there’s never been any credible account of a werewolf turning a human into a werewolf.”

“Why is it that humans just think everything is also a human, even when it very clearly is not?”

“Well, if I were to give us humans benefit of the doubt? Uh, to relate to it? Empathy? Recognition of yourself in the other? I mean, it’s better than labeling everything a monster and hunting it down. Which, we also did a bit of.”

“Us monsters did plenty hunting of you guys, too.”

“You say as if you’re not also half-human.”

“Hey,” he frowned down at you suspiciously. “Are you recognizing yourself in the other with me right now? I think we should really save that for the second date—”

“Oh, shut up!” You gave his front a smack as you let out an indignant scoff.

Sungchan was kicking his legs under the blanket as he laughed from his stomach, and when you looked up at him, you saw his eyes squeezed shut tight as he cackled. You watched him with a smitten smile, unable to even pretend to be annoyed for any longer as his guffaws petered out to chuckles then to giggles until he eventually sobered up, and settled his gaze with a heart-stopping grin on you.

The two of you were quiet for a moment, just looking at each other, then he broke the eye contact, turning his eyes back up to the stars. “Uhm— I didn’t finish telling you about Lykos.”

You settled back into your spot, and with your ear to his chest, you could hear that his heartbeat was faster than it’d been before. You wondered if he was thinking the same thing about yours in that moment.

“So, Lykos,” Sungchan picked up where he’d left off before. “You can easily find him by starting at the moon to find his left ear. According to werewolf stories, Lykos was the very first werewolf that we’re all descended from. Because he was so great and powerful, once he passed, his soul ascended to be in the stars to watch over all of his descendants.”

“Wow…” You looked at the stars harder, willing Lykos’ shape to be a little more visible to you than before.

“In astronomy, though, the two twin stars that make up his left ear are called LK 1C04 and LK 2C04. They’re both red giants.”

“Are they going to explode any time soon?”

“Stars are kind of always exploding,” he explained enthusiastically. “They’re perpetually combusting and performing nuclear fusion. Well, most stars, if they haven’t run out of fuel yet.”

“What about when they run out of fuel then?”

“Depends on how big they are. LK 1C04 and 2C04 are both red giants, so when they run out of fuel, they’ll turn into white dwarves. So instead of being a burning ball of gas, they’ll just be emitting a very faint light from the remaining energy leftover from their previous nuclear fusion reactions that they can no longer perform.”

“So they don’t get to go out with a bang.”

“No, not really.” Sungchan pointed up at the sky again. “Okay, you remember Lykos’ chin?”

“Yes…”

“So that’s actually the end of the tail of a squirrel, according to some dryad traditions, or a gecko in some human ones.”

Sungchan sketched out the next constellation for you, then relayed the accompanying folk tale. Some scientific factoids would be interspersed too, and you loved hearing the enthusiasm in his voice as he told you about something he was very clearly interested in. And at some point, with his legs tangled up in yours, your hand curled around his waist, your cheek pressed against his chest, his hand casually rubbing up and down your back underneath your top as he still spoke so eagerly, you found your attention slipping away from black holes and how legends of ancient wyvern society said this or that about some other constellation. You were suddenly grabbing him by the collar with two hands and yanking him over to look at you.

“Y/N?” He asked, absolute bewilderment in his features.

“Jung Sungchan, I’m going to say this once, and please don’t take this the wrong way,” you murmured, holding eye contact with him very seriously. “You’re very attractive when you talk about things that you’re passionate about, and if you don’t kiss me right now I think I’m going to explode.”

Sungchan didn’t need to be told twice, reaching up to cup your cheek. Despite your rather blunt and unromantic request, he still tenderly guided your lips to his. Your eyes fluttered shut as you melted into the kiss, the grip you had on his collar relaxing. His mouth was soft as he moved it ever so slightly against yours. His thumb stroked over your cheekbone, the hand on your back pulling you even closer to him. One of your hands grabbed his waist to anchor yourself down to something on Earth.

It ended all too soon for your liking, though. You were pretty sure you could kiss Jung Sungchan forever. He pressed one more quick kiss to the corner of your mouth before leaning back to drink you in.

“You’re so beautiful…” he murmured, stroking your cheek again.

“Sung?” You whispered.

“Hm?”

“Do you want to kiss me again?”

He nodded, and you leaned forward to bump your nose against his. A giddy smile spread across your face.

“Good. Me too.”

sequel :･ﾟ✧｡･:･*

⤷ blog masterlist  | anthology masterlist

[kimjimagery]

This art was base of a illustration for the 2024 calendar drawn by Olivier Schwartz. https://x.com/siondanse/status/1822956767375937539

I thought it was the prefect scenario for Zantafio.

But I did stop at just a drawing; I written a short short story to go with it!

Zantafio Inferno

By KimJ

“Where am I? How did I get here?” Zantafio says to himself as he walks through a mysterious cave, he doesn't remember how he got there the last thing he remembers was he was carrying the Marsupilami that he knocked out with a tranquilizer and ran off with it leaving Spirou and Fantasio to get attacked by the jungle animals, then something hit him in the head and when he came to he became dizzy and then attacked by the natives who ambushed him in the density of the jungle and now all of a sudden he finds himself in the cave.  

“I must have run in here to escape them,”  he thought and continued to wander looking for a way out, he saw a light at the end of the cave and quickly ran to it but as he got closer and closer the stench of brimstone assaulted his nostrils as he stumbled through the cave. 

When he finally ran out he was met with the terrifying sight. A smoke filled sky, a landscape of jagged, molten rock, lava, and the sounds of tormented souls echoing through the desolate air. And the air was filled with an infernal heat. He saw a colossal, fiery gate, and etched upon it, were the words "Welcome to Hell."

His heart, pounding like a war drum, nearly burst from his chest. “This can’t be real!” Zantafio Exclaimed.

All of a sudden the gates opened up on their own like it was beckoning him to enter. Zantafio immediately turned around and made a mad dash back the way he came only to be met with a fiery gust of hot wind pushing him back to the gate and through it. Zantafio tumbles on the ground as the gate closes shut. 

"Well, well, Look what the flames dragged in!" A voice bellowed.

Zantafio got up to see two giant figures towering over him. “No! it can’t be!” Zantafio said to himself in disbelief.

Before him stood devilish versions of his arch-enemies, Spirou and Fantasio. Red skin, eyes burning with infernal flames, wings, horns, and pitch forks.

"Welcome to Hell, Zantafio," Spirou sneered, his voice dripping with malice as he they greeted Zantafio with a sinister laughter.

"We've been expecting you." Fantasio boomed, his voice a thick, echoing rumble. 

Zantafio stared at them, fear gripping him like an icy hand around his throat. How could this be? He had never done anything so bad... or had he? He couldn't remember.

"I never did anything... wrong," he stammered, his voice trembling.

"Wrong?" the devil-Spirou chuckled, a sound that was like nails scraping against a chalkboard.

"Everything you did in your life, every little transgression, every selfish act and misdeeds, greed and hatred, it all led you here!"

 Zantafio’s face went pale as he remembered all of the things he had done in his past and gulped.

“And now that you're here we can have some fun”  Fantasio chuckled menacingly as he snapped his fingers.

A tiny, demonic creature scurried out from the shadows, its fur red and its eyes glowing. It was a demon version of Spip, the squirrel, only now it was a being of pure malice. The little devil-Spip snarled, its tiny teeth bared in a threatening snarl. It lunged, its claws extended, aimed straight for Zantafio, and bit him on his ankles Zantafion cried out in agony.

Then more rustling sounds interrupted his despair. Zantafio’s eyes widened as he saw a fearsome sight around him swarms of mini-devil squirrels, each one brandishing pitchforks and devilish grins.

“No!” Zantafio shrieked, backpedaling frantically, but his retreat was futile. With surprising speed, Spip and his hellish entourage charged at their prey, chattering with malevolence. Zantafio’s heart raced as the tiny devils leaped upon him, biting his ankles and nipping at his shins, the sharp little bites clawing and ripping his clothes and stabbing him with their little pitchforks.

“Look at him!” Spirou mocked, leaning against a molten rock as he roared with laughter. “Poor Zantafio, brought down by a bunch of furry squirrels!”

The heckling continued as the demon-like squirrels swarmed Zantafio.

“Get them off! Get them off!” Zantafio screamed. He began to run to get away from the demons. He tried to fight back, but the little devils were too quick, agile, and numerous. He was helpless, overwhelmed, the demonic squirrels attacking him in a hellish frenzy.

He continued to run until he couldn't take the pain any longer and fell to the ground and shield himself in a fetal position hoping to protect himself as best as he could from the little demons.

Spirou and Fantasio were doubled over, their laughter echoing the fiery landscape.

"Oh, Zantafio," the devil-Spirou cackled, his voice dripping with sadistic delight. "This is just the beginning.”

“You have a lot more to experience here. And you have all of eternity to look forward to” said Fantasio Grinning maniacally.

The laughter continued, echoing in Zantafio's ears, the cackle of the devil squirrels fading into a gruesome chorus. Their laughter echoed through the abyss, a cruel symphony that shattered Zantafio's hope. He realized that his torment was endless, a never-ending cycle of suffering.

Zantafio's body convulsed violently as he continued to shield himself against the relentless assault. But his resistance was futile. The devils held him captive, their power overwhelming.

As the pain reached its peak, Zantafio'yelled out one final scream.

“Aaaaaargh!”

Then Zantafio woke up, he was drenched in sweat. His heart pounded as he looked around he noticed that he was back in the jungle.

A sharp sting was in his back and he reached behind him to remove whatever it was as he pulled it out and brought it up to his face he noticed that it was a dart from those natives that attacked them no doubt it was a poison tip dart but thankfully it wasn't poisonous enough to kill him for that he was thankful.

Zantafio looked around and realized that he was in a small ditch-like hole, he must have stumbled in there to hide from the attacking natives and luckily it worked. Zantafio leaned back against the walls with a sigh of relief remembering the nightmare he just had and chalked it up to the hallucination brought on by the poison. 

One thing is for sure he is still alive to scheme for another day. And one way or another he will find a way to seek revenge on Spirou and Fantasio and get rich in the process.

THE END

Art and Story © KimJ

Characters © Dupuis

[rainbowcaleb]

If you need a goofy little fic distraction right now, here is 1.2k short and sweet words about surprises, costumes, Jester, Fjord, Beau, boats, bagels, baguettes, buns, breads and more 💙🍞

(Read and comment on ao3)

“Jester, this is an awful lot of bread.” Fjord pushes past the two heavy bags by the door, their canvas sides obscuring what’s inside but the heads of the baguettes peeking from the top are clue enough.

“Hellooo, I'm in the kitchen!”

He can hear her voice despite the well padded room muffling the sound; Jester’s skill at projection is the stuff of legend. He side steps another crate that smells suspiciously like yeast and a large sunflower patterned tote bag of buns as he gingerly makes his way through their house. “Beau is with me, she says she ‘has the stuff’ . Should I be worried?”

Beau’s sigh is audible even though Fjord doesn’t have eyes on her in this carbohydrate jungle. “What part of ‘need to know’ escapes you?”

“Kneed to know!” They’re close enough to the kitchen now that Jester pokes her head out of the doorframe giggling. “That’s a good one, Beau.” Miraculously there’s nary a crumb on Jester’s all-black lace outfit, incongruous to the room behind her piled high with crusty rustic loaves.

Fjord has experience in how to navigate this. “Wow, don’t you look lovely today, also, if you could perhaps tell me what is going on—”

“Can you hold out your arms?” Jester steps towards him and lifts her arms straight, a strange mimic of a hug as if one has never done it before.

Fjord does so, but continues his gentle prod. “My love, would it be okay if I grabbed a snack? It looks like we have plenty extra.”

“Whoa, your wingspan is so wide.” Jester looks at Beau. “You think you brought enough?”

Beau gives Fjord an appraising look. “You working on your traps and lats? Some pre-wedding routine? Looking good.” She grins at Jester. “Yeah, I have enough.”

“Absolutely not!” Jester rounds back on Fjord, taking advantage of his raised arms to wrap her own around his waist. “The bread isn’t for you. It’s not really for me either. It’s the theme , Fjord.”

Fjord knows if he doesn't or if he does asks it's a trap either way, but it’s a risk he must take. “Someone want to clue me in?”

“Fuck man, did you forget?” Beau laughs then covers her mouth to hide it. “He’s all yours, Jester.”

“Should I pre-apologize?” Fjord glances over Jester’s head at Beau. She shrugs but there’s a glint to her eye he doesn’t like.

“It’s fine , like totally, I know you’ve been super busy this week finishing up the whole ‘buying another ship for the fleet and hiring a crew thing’ but you really should look at a calendar once in a while.” She squeezes his middle then quickly shoves her hands under his shirt. Jester tickles like it's her mission to seek, destroy, and cause the most giggles.

“Mercy!” Fjord laughs. “I concede! Do I need to wave a white flag above my head?”

“Depends, are your undies white today, and can you take 'em off and wave those?” Jester pats his stomach and pulls her hands back out with a smile.

“Absolutely do not forget I am in the room right now.” Beau speaks from behind the safety of her hands shielding her eyes.

“Pbbfft, you’re no fun.” Jester sticks out her tongue but does take a step back. “It’s the costume party today! The neighborhood contest? All the kids are going to be stopping by for treats ‘cause I’m trying to bribe them to vote for us?”

“Oh.” Fjord inhales; some part of him knew it is today and that part of the chaos of this week had been decorating every surface with fall leaves, gourds of all sizes and painted face persuasions, and Jester’s insistence of sampling a strange but bountiful variety of baked goods. He knows it doesn’t look good that he forgot, but to be fair his makeshift panel for hiring new crew had included Marius for ‘reading people to see if they’re the right fit’— whatever he meant by that– and Kingsley who in their words ‘think the newbies need a bit of a test first’ which Fjord learned the hard way was just skirting the lacey edge of unethical. He is feeling exhausted after a week of too much peopleing and too little fire extinguishers on board a wooden ship.

“The party is tonight.” He says simply.

“And you, my lovely to-be, are just in time for the costume fitting. Have you been practicing your bat screech?”

“Ah.” It all comes back to him in a buttered bread scented rush. The half-conversation he heard Jester and Reani having. The craft night with Veth and Yasha. The suspiciously full bag Beau is currently carrying. “I’m not good at animal voices the same way I am with accents.” Fjord tries to shrug like he isn’t afraid of what is in store.

Jester sighs. “Just promise me you’ll do your best. I heard the best themed house on the street gets free cinnamon crunch rolls for a month .”

“Darling, my love, we are surrounded by rolls right now.”

“And that’s for the bribe! Keep up!” Jester smacks his arm lightly.

“Yeah, keep up, Captain.”

Fjord sends a lukewarm glare Beau’s way but he is intelligent enough to know when the battle is lost. He has to keep his eyes ahead on the war.

“Are our friends joining us?”

Jester takes the bag from Beau’s arms. “Duh, of course! Caleb is helping Reani teleport over and she’s bringing the headbands. Veth says she’s gonna try and get Luc to be a baby bat but he’s been really teenagery this week so who knows. Yasha and Caduceus picked up their costumes this morning so I bet they’ll be here any minute!”

“Do you need me to run out and get anything?” Fjord eyes the distant door, half-walled off by baked fences.

“Nope!” Jester pops the ‘p’ with her mouth. “Just put on the sexy bat costume and we can start the night with a bang!”

“I am right here. ” Beau repeats.

“Surely Beauregard, you’d want to be the sexy bat instead? Yasha would love to see you…” Fjord tries to think but it’s like the flour has seeped into his brain. “Flap around sexily?”

“I don’t need any help there.” Beau flexes and sends a wink to Jester. “No, this bat costume is made. Just. For. You.” She pokes his arm with each word like deflating a balloon with a barb.

“Captain Tusktooth, won’t you do it for me?” Jester’s voice lilts up and Fjord knows what he will see when he meets her eyes. Glossy, round, perhaps a little magically enhanced to be utterly convincing, but that may just be Jester’s natural charm.

“Just for tonight?” His willpower is crumbling like the pastry crumbs below his boots.

“Yes!” Jester hugs him again. “Just for the party!”

“It’s only a couple hours?”

“Maybe like four or five or maybe six,” Fjord’s sudden cough sounds strangled. “It might go past midnight, but yes just for tonight! My sexy little flappy Fjordy bat, please do it for me.”

“For you, always yes.” He doesn’t have it in his heart to say no. Fjord can suffer the embarrassment for a few hours. He knows the smiles and laughing kisses from Jester will be worth it. Plus, who are they to pass up free cinnamon crunch buns for a whole month ?

[saywhatjessie]

Ringing Up The Lights

Advent Calendar Day 21! (prompts by @raven-cincaide-words) Today’s prompts: Christmas Decorating | New Relationship | Caring Act Fandom: Ted Lasso - Pairing: RoyJamie & TedTrent 1.7k[Ao3]

Was a little embarrassing wanit?

Jamie might have just hired someone to hang his Christmas lights – he was Jamie Tartt, he couldn’t just go crawling around on ladders. He could fall and break his legs! His very valuable legs! But Phoebe had been very excited to help him decorate, saying Roy never let her put too much Christmas stuff in his house.

“I will not have that performative Christian garbage steal focus from my menorah.” 

And, yeah, that was fair play.

But Jamie’s house was fair play, and he was happy to let Phoebe go crazy with the generic garland and tinsel he’d ordered from the shops.

And if she was decorating inside, he had to decorate outside. And he had no idea how to do that. He’d never had a dad to teach him.

So he’d called Ted.

“So you see, that’s why we got the light clips, Jamie! Back in the day we needed to staple these babies to the roofs.”

Jamie pursed his lips. “But wouldn’t that put a bunch of holes in your roof?”

“Yes it would, Paul Rudd! But if you were smart, you’d only nick a couple shingles. Easier to replace if things went south.”

Jamie nodded, mentally jotting that down.

Ted had been dead helpful. Helped him and Phoebe plan what they wanted their lights to look like. Helped Jamie measure everything so they could get enough lights. Told Jamie about the different kinds of lights he could get. Like dangly ones! Or lights that could change colors! Jamie got real excited when he thought about the different styles. It was like playing dress-up with his house.

They’d chosen base pink with rainbow focal points and white accents. It was gonna look fucking sick, Jamie couldn’t wait to be able to do it himself next year.

But having Ted here was actually pretty fun. Maybe he could ask Ted to come over even without helping him with the lights.

��Well that’s that ledge done!” Ted said, from the top of the ladder. Jamie held it steady. “You wanna try to do the next one, Jamie? You think you got it?”

“Yeah.” Jamie said, nodding up at Ted. “Yeah, I can do it. I’m gonna be so good at this decoratio’ shit.”

Ted laughed. “Well I’ll bet, Joan Jett! Let me climb down and we can move the ladder onto the next one.”

Jamie nodded again, moving a bit to the side so Ted could dismount the ladder.

When Jamie got to the top himself on the next ledge over, he got a bit nervous. He didn’t super love heights.

“There you go, Jamie! Just hook your arm around the ladder and you can use two hands. You just gotta get the first two clips and then you can get on the roof and clip them from the top.”

Jamie took a deep breath, working with the clips. His eyes started to blur with how hard he was concentrating on them.

“So, you wanna tell me what you and Roy are doing for the holidays?” Ted prompted. “It’s real nice of you to let little miss Phoebe take over your house like this.”

Jamie laughed. “I had to talk her into the pink, actually. She’s been on a green kick. Getting into lizards.”

Ted laughed back. “That explains why she’s making inside look like Jurassic Park. So much garland it’s like an extremely evergreen jungle.”

Jamie hummed, clipping the lights on the same place he’d seen Ted start on the other side.

“Roy and I are doing Christmas with my parents at my house,” Jamie told him. Because we’ve got the match on boxing day. But Hanukkah is actually the whole week between Christmas and New Year’s this year! So we’re doing eight horny nights.”

Ted chuckled, and Jamie looked down to see him shaking his head. “The natural successor to Sexy Christmas.”

Jamie hummed, biting his cheek to contain a grin. “Jewish people are so wise. All their celebratin’ is in the nighttime. We don’t even have to miss training or nothing.”

“And thank heavens. Just don’t be too sore to play.”

“That’s a little personal, Coach. innit?”

Ted helped his hands, immediately putting them back to steady the ladder when Jamie’s eyes went wide with panic.

Jamie breathed, looking back at the roof to clip the second light. Then he threw the rest of the string on the roof and climbed on after it.

“Ooh, this is mad. I hate this. Why am I doing this meself? My sexy little body’s too valuable to die.”

“You’re not gonna die, Jamie, you’re doing great.”

Jamie breathed again, refusing to stand up. He crawled along the roof like the lizards Phoebe loved so much, grabbing the lights and reaching toward the edge to clip the next one.

“What about you and Trent?” Jamie asked, trying not to think about how high up he was. “What’s the story there?”

Ted hesitated, making a noncommittal sound. Jamie rolled his eyes.

Roy was inside with Phoebe helping her decorate and making lunch for all of them. He was sweet like that. He and Jamie had a good thing going.

Trent Crimm was also inside. He’d come with Ted. For what reason, Jamie couldn’t even fathom. He wasn’t good in the kitchen. He wasn’t tall enough to help Phoebe reach the really high places. He could probably lift her up to reach but that was about it.

Jamie thought if anything Trent would be out here heckling them, just spending time with Ted and watching him with the lovesick eyes he’d been watching him with for years now.

So something was up and Jamie wasn’t above fishing.

Well maybe he was now physically above fishing because he was so so high up. But Jamie was trying not to think about that.

“Come on,” Jamie tried again. “Did I interrupt a date asking you to come here? Sorry if I did. You could have told me no.”

“No, I wouldn’t do that, Jamie,” Ted said, automatically. “It’s really no trouble. And Trent was happy to come along.”

“So it was a date?”

“Uh…”

Jamie looked down at him. His mustache twitched in indecision. 

Was he unsure if it was a date or was he unsure if he should tell Jamie it was a date?

Either way… “Tell me he’s at least told you he’s in love with you.”

Ted choked, looking down. Jamie clipped the next light.

He actually clipped the next three lights, scuttling across the roof on his belly, before Ted answered. “Yeah, uh. Yeah he did.”

“About fucking time,” Jamie said, emphatically. “Did he tell you how long he’s been in love with you?”

Ted cleared his throat. “Yeah. Yes. Yeah he did.”

“Cool,” Jamie said grinning. “Hope you reacted better than Roy did. I told Roy I’d been in love with him since I was a lad and his brain about exploded.”

Ted choked on a surprised laugh. “Yeah, ha, yeah that sounds about right.”

“Not sure why that was a surprise, if I’m honest,” Jamie said, face scrunched in thought as he remembered. “He knew I was obsessed with him. Knew he was my favorite player. Saw the poster in my room. Of course I was in love with him!”

“Well, ah, Jamie, Roy probably thought you loved the idea of him,” Ted said, haltingly. “It’s different to like someone you don’t really know. And then you know them you might be disappointed.”

“Well, that’s a load of bollocks,” Jamie said, easily. He was getting close to the last of his lights. “Yeah, I had a crush on Roy Kent the player. Would wank over his poster as a teenager or whatever, but that illusion shattered when I met him, didn’t it? He was a right prick to me. So then I got to see the real him and love him that way, fucking obviously. And he fell in love with me back because I’m sexy and amazing at football and I’m gonna be twice the legend he ever was. So of course we’re in love and shit.”

Jamie clipped the last light and looked down to see the stricken look on Ted’s face.

And something in Jamie’s head went thunk and he got it.

“Oh, Coach, is that what happened to you? Did you think Trent fell for your yeeha bullshit and he’s not gonna like the messy coach underneath? Because, like, he was there for all of it, yeah? He reported your panic attacks and everything. And he’s a Diamond Dog so he’s been in on all your weird little thoughts and feelings. And like you’re all fit in a weird coach way. And not like Roy’s fit and a coach but different. So like he’s definitely in love with you for you. And he’s Trent Crimm, he’s got the sexy reporter thing going and he called you on your bullshit immediately which I know you liked and he’s still got all that earnest enthusiasm you have so of course you’re gonna fall in love with him back.” Jamie shrugged – not an easy feat when he was still belly down on a roof twenty feet above Ted’s head. “‘S not that complicated.”

Ted looked up at Jamie like Jamie had been speaking Mandarin – like Ted wasn’t quite getting it – but Jamie had to get off the roof now. He could let Ted figure shit out when he was safely on the ground.

“Ted, can you hold off on an aneurysm until I’m down the ladder please? Or maybe get Roy?”

Ted just nodded, stepping away from the ladder and running into the house.

Jamie sighed, shuffling back to the ladder as he waited for Roy to come out.

Roy lumbered outside, looking around before his eyes travelled up the ladder to find Jamie.

Jamie waved.

“Oi!” Roy said, immediately grabbing the ladder. “Come back down here, you muppet, you’re too valuable to fall off the roof and die!”

“That’s what I said!” Jamie called. “Please just hold that still, I’m coming down.”

Roy grunted. “Wanna tell me why Ted and Trent are making out in your kitchen?”

Jamie laughed. “I think I’m a love psychic.”

“You’re a bellend,” Roy replied easily. “But I’m happy for them. Trent was getting pathetic.”

Jamie reached the ground, turning to grin at Roy, still standing very close. “Not like us.”

Roy rolled his eyes but leaned down to kiss him. “No, not like us.”

[copperbadge]

sam! your wall o' posters and stuff is amazing. how do you plan out a wall like that? do you move stuff around? how do you hang it all, aer you not worried the drywall will give or do you use command strips or something

Oh, let me give you the full view of the front hallway, I don't think I've ever shared the whole thing. If you're standing with your back to the green sofa I'm always sitting on, with the cat tree to your left, this is the view of the left side:

[ID: A photograph of my hallway with white and blue rugs, a green wall, and numerous posters hung on it -- they range from hand-drawn art to commercial prints, theatrical posters, and museum exhibit ads. One looks like it's blank, but it's a framed lighting plan I did for a theatre show, and just doesn't show very well on film.]

And if you look to your right, this is the other side, which includes the hallway to the bathroom and bedroom:

[ID: The same hallway, just the other side; prints here include indy artist prints, pages from calendars, a massive ad for Immersive Van Gogh, and an air intake vent painted green. A couple of cardboard boxes are in the hallway, waiting to go to recycling.]

I didn't really plan any of it, but I had a bunch of the framed posters already when I moved in, so I tended to "group" them -- some of the puzzles are together, most of the theatre posters are together, et cetera. It's not heavily regimented, and honestly I just kind of put in hooks wherever I thought things would look nice -- there are a few I used a level and a bit of string to make sure they aligned, but not many.

The drywall's not very thick -- it's basically 3/4" pasteboard -- so you can't really put up shelving on it or anything, or the whole thing would be a cat jungle gym. But it's well solid enough for hanging framed prints, most of which are just hung on those little angular hooks you nail into the wall. A few of the heftier ones are hung on screws, but the frames themselves are generally fairly lightweight. Down at the end you can see bags displayed on the wall, those are on small coat hooks anchored into it.

I forget how it looks because, you know, I live here, but watching people walk in for the first time and take in the long hallway just plastered in framed posters is pretty fun. Most of them have a sentimental meaning of some kind. I have begun to rotate them out once in a while -- the pinboard in the first picture replaced a gallery print that used to be there, which I wrapped and put in storage. But mostly I'm just using the Full Wall as a reason to prevent myself from going ham every time I'm in an Artists Alley or a print store.

[elisysd]

Happy birthday

Cruel Summer Masterlist

Julia's first birthday

Lyanna was busy preparing the guest room for her mom and Fred as they were coming for the weekend to celebrate Julia’s birthday while carefully watching her playing with cubes in her baby park. She was now almost one. Time flied and it seemed like yesterday that Lyanna was announcing to Charles that he would be a dad. And now she was organizing her daughter first birthday party. Not many people were invited, just their families and close friends like Pierre and Kika, who were Julia’s godfather and godmother. It would be a nice little get together, at least if Charles was refraining himself to invite the whole town. He was so excited and happy to be there for her daughter’s birthday. It was something that he worried about a lot and when he got the race calendar for the year and saw that the weekend of the 16th of June was free for him, he was so happy.

As Lyanna was finishing up to adjust the last details to the room by putting dandelions in a vase on the bedside tables when she heard the door slam. Julia looked up from her toys immediately, wondering where the big noise was coming from. Lyanna left her on her own for an instant to see what Charles was up to and was astonished to see him struggling with a big box, trying to make it fit in the rather large entrance.

“What the hell are you doing? What is this?” she asked him.

“I was in town to get the groceries you wanted and I passed by in front of this event store that has so many things for birthday party and…”

“Please Charles don’t tell me you went over the top. We agreed on something simple, just a lunch outside.”

“Love, it’s not every day our baby is turning one.” He sheepishly looked at her.

“You are going to give me this excuse every year, I know you.”

“Aren’t you at least a bit curious to know what I bought?”

“I’m scared.”

He rolled his eyes at her and put the box on the floor. It was a huge inflatable castle. Lyanna raised an eyebrow at him.

“Come on. It’ll be fun! She is going to love it!”

“I don’t think she will care Charles. And it’s not like she could use it alone. Maybe if she was older and had friends to play with her it would have been a good idea, but right now…”

“You’re such a buzzkill. I’ll play with her! And I’m sure Arthur will love it too. And we can always call Max to come with Kat and Ethan so Julia has a friend to be with her.”

Lyanna sighed. The last few times Kat came with Ethan to keep Lyanna company and watch their husbands racing, it didn’t go particularly well. Ethan was ignoring Julia most of the time or on the rare occasions he was up to play with her toys, especially the cars, Julia was refusing to give them to him resulting in angry cries from both sides. Lyanna and Kat then agreed to stop trying to force a friendship between their kids and would wait until they were both a little older.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea Charles… Ethan and Julia are not getting along very well for now. And if we could avoid to see her crying on her birthday, it would be nice.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I want to see my princess happy, smiling and laughing. Nothing else. Speaking of, where is she?”

“Upstairs, in her baby park. I was about to put her in bed for her nap before you arrive.”

“I���m going to take care of her.”

“And you leave me with the groceries?”

Charles gave her a sorry smile before running to the stairs and to his daughter. As soon as she saw Charles, her big eyes brightened and she showed him the red car she was playing with.

“It’s a beautiful car, my princess. But playtime is over, it’s naptime now. So daddy is going to put your PJs, can you help me to choose?”

As he was taking her in his arms, he buried his nose in her brown hair. They smelled like lavender. Like her mum. This thought made him smile. He laid Julia on the changing table before taking out a few of her PJs.

“So? Jungle one? Princess one? Or Ferrari one, princess? I have a personal favorite, but I don’t want your mummy to think that I’m obsessed with it.”

He wiggled the bright red PJs in front of her daughter, making her laugh and holding out her arms to take the fabric.

“Well, if mummy says something I’ll tell her that you insisted on it!”

He finished to changer her, tickled her a little before putting her in her crib. He kissed her nose and her cheeks before closing the curtains and leaving the room. Julia’s room had stars on the ceiling that shone when the room was plunged in darkness. That way she was never really in the dark. Charles looked at her bed for a brief instant before closing the door and joining his wife in the kitchen.

“My mom and Fred will be arriving soon, can you help me cleaning a little the terrace so we can eat dinner outside later?”

Charles nodded and they spent the hour cleaning everything from the table to the chairs before dressing the table. He was about to go wake up Julia when knocks on the door were heard. Lyanna smiled, excited, and ran to the door. As soon as she saw her mom she took her in her arms, warmly hugging you. Fred was right behind and step aside to give a quick hug to Charles and patting his back.

“I would love to say long time no see, but we both know it would be lying. How are you doing?”

“Good, I was reading a few notes and I wanted to talk about something to you. It’s a concern I have with the car…”

“It’s out of the question! I don’t want to hear anything F1 related this weekend! It’s your daughter’s birthday Charles, leave your work aside. And that’s also applying to you Fred.” Scolded them Renée.

Fred put both of his hands in the air, not want to contradict his partner. Lyanna laughed a little seeing Charles looking at his shoes like a child.

“Where is my granddaughter by the way?”

“Asleep, I was about to wake her up.” Answered Charles.

“Do you mind if I go, I haven’t seen her in ages.”

The dinner was all about laughs and admiring how fast Julia was growing up. The little girl spent the evening between Renée and Fred that were helping in feeding her and keeping her entertained. Even though it has been a while since Fred and her mum had started dating, it was always a bit weird to Lyanna to see them together. She knew that it would always be the case, at least as long as Charles or Fred were at Ferrari together. She still had a hard time considering Fred as anything other than Charles’ boss, even if Fred as trying his best to make her forget it.

The next day it was Julia’s birthday. Lyanna had woken up at dawn to prepare everything and was surprised to already see Fred in the kitchen.

“Good morning! I hope you sleep well.” She greeted him.

“Perfect, Lyanna. The bedroom is amazing. Coffee?”

“Yes please! I’m going to need it!”

“Big day ahead. Don’t worry everything will be fine. If you need help with anything, you can ask me.”

“If you could keep Charles in check, it would help. I’m sacred he will go over the top for Julia. The way he loves her is really cute but he is spoiling her.”

“She is such a daddy’s girl.”

“Oh that she is.”

“She admires him so much. You can see it in her eyes, I struck me when you both came to Monaco GP. I wouldn’t be surprised if she turned out to follow her dad’s path.”

“You know what? I would not be surprised either…”

The morning was filled with sweet scents coming out of the kitchen as Lyanna and her mom was preparing everything for the lunch. In the backyard, Fred was helping Charles setting up the castle.

An hour later, the guests were starting to arrive with birthday presents. Arthur was the first one to spot the castle and run to it as Pascale was trying to tell him to be careful. Everything went well, Julia was taken care of by everyone, getting cuddles and kisses from her uncles and aunts. Arthur was playing with her in the castle, soon joined by Pierre. For a moment Lyanna was scared since the two men were not the most delicate ones, she knew but the warm hand of Charles on her thigh made her relax. As they were almost attacking the cake, she heard the doorbell. Surprised she looked at Charles who was suspiciously avoiding her gaze.

“What did you do, again?”

“I don’t know what you are talking about.”

She sighed and got up to open the door. She was surprised to see Max, Kat and Ethan but also Mick Schumacher and his fiancée with their newborn, Romy who was a little over two months.

“What are you guys doing here?”

“Charles invited us for Julia’s birthday. He said that it would be nice for her to be around kids.” Explained Max.

“And don’t worry, Ethan is in a good mood today, it will be fine.” Kat reassured Lyanna.

“I’m not worried, it’s just that I would have liked to have a little heads up from my dear husband. That being said, Mick I’m so happy to see you, it’s been a while!”

“Yeah, parenting and all you know how it is. I don’t think we had the pleasure to introduce you to our little Romy.”

Lyanna looked at the little baby in Mick’s fiancée arms and smiled gently. She was cute with her little blond hair and big blue eyes. Finally, Lyanna showed them around and brought them in the backyard where laughs and talks could still be heard loudly. A few other chairs were pulled out by Charles and Lorenzo for the new guests and Lyanna made her way back to the kitchen to bring the cake.

In her godfather’s arms, Julia was intensely looking at Romy and the baby reciprocated her curious gaze. Julia smiled brightly at her and waved making Romy smiled as well. She then showed her the little cars she was playing with, inheriting little hands movements from the newborn.

“If someone and any doubts in regards of your fatherhood, one look at Julia can really convince them that she is your daughter. She looks exactly like you and seems to love cars.” Observed Mick.

“She doesn’t play with anything else other than the little cars. She has an obsession with them. It’s cute.” Said Charles.

“That reminds me, Ethan is exactly the same. We had to buy car plushies too because he didn’t want to sleep without cars around him.”

“Could it be something else with you guys as dads?” asked playfully Kika.

Soon enough, Lyanna was back with a strawberry cake that she put in the middle of the table, in front of Julia. Everyone stood up as Charles and Lyanna were making their way to their daughter to take her from Kika’s arms. As Lyanna was lighting up the candles, Charle was making his daughter bounce in his arms as he was giving her sweet kisses on her cheek to make her laugh. He could swear it was his favourite sounds in the whole wide world. As he was explaining to Julia how to blow the candles, everyone started to sing ‘happy birthday’ to the little girl. And when Julia was ready to try to blow the candles out and took a huge breath with Charles, Ethan beat her to it under the stunned gaze of the guests.

No one knew what to do or what to say. The silence was only broken by Julia’s screams and cries. Charles tried to calm down his daughter that was watching Ethan with daggers in her eyes. Max took his son in his arms and brought him away from the rest of the guests to scold him. As they were walking near a tree, Ethan looked at the little girl, a proud grin on his face.

Kat was profusely excusing her son’s behaviour to Lyanna who was only saying that it was not a big deal and that she could still lighting them up again. But still, Kat told her that they were going to leave to avoid further drama. Charles was feeling guilty. It was his fault. It was him who had invited Max and his family when Lyanna had told him it was not a good idea. He had ignored her and now because of his stupidity, his daughter was crying like he had never seen her cry before.

“Don’t worry Charles, they are just kids. It’s going to get better with time.” Tried to tell him his mother.

“I should have listened to Lya… I ruined my daughter’s birthday.”

“Serves you right. Always listen to your wife, she knows better!” said Artur, receiving a hard look from Pascale that made him shut up.

Max excused himself to Charles and tried to kiss Julia that had her head buried in her father’s neck. When the Verstappens finally left, the mood was not at partying anymore. Lyanna tried to lighten the candles again but Julia was not the smiley and happy girl she was before and it broke her heart. As she was walking back to kitchen pretending to have forgotten a knife for the cake, she let a few tears run down her cheeks. Charles, knowing his wife all too well, followed her and intercepted her to bring her in a corner of the room away from prying eyes.

“Love… I’m so sorry” he said as he was erasing her tears and taking her in his arms where she let the sobs come out of her throat.

“It’s a disaster Charles…”

“It’s entirely my fault.”

“You couldn’t know…”

“Hey, listen to me. We are going to walk back there with happy smiles and pretend that nothing happened, okay? We are going to eat this amazing cake that you baked and we are going to give Julia’s her presents. And it will be fine. And tomorrow, I’m taking you both on the yacht to spend the day as a family. Just us.”

“I just want to see my baby stop crying…”

“Me too, love, me too…”

When they came back, everyone was trying their best to forget about what had happened. Artur and Pierre were back in the castle with Julia to make her laugh and play with her and Lyanna was relieved to her the giggles of her daughter coming from it. They cut the cake and ate it while resuming the conversations. Lyanna and Charles were taking care of Julia as Carla was snapping a few pictures here and there to have happy memories of the day. Julia had been spoiled rotten for her birthday, especially by Charles and Pierre who had taken his duty has godfather very seriously. Despite the incident, it was a happy day and one Charles and Lyanna would never forget. On her side, Julia would never forget it too. But for a whole other reason. In her one year old little mind, the blond boy with the proud grin who had ruined her chance to blow her candles out would remain forever her enemy.

================

taglist: @zendayabelova @purplephantomwolf @ru-kru @dakotali @blueflorals @aundercover @ruleroftheuniverse @fangirlika @writerscurse @elijahmikaelsonbitch @leclerc13 @karmabyfernando @stargaryenx @pitlanebabe @boiohboii @reengard @shikshinkwon @smoooothoperator

[ithinkyouhealedmyheart]

30 Days of November

I initially got the idea when I saw @myloveforhergoeson Halloween prompts and decided to take a crack at it. (I hope the tag was okay!) It's Ronnie's birthday month, and the story has just started, but it's something worth celebrating regardless!

Did you know she's a Scorpio?

--

Crisp Air

In Vermont, you can always tell when the weather changes. The leaves change color and fall, the air gets colder, and sometimes, even snow falls. It was safe to say Veronica missed Vermont. The palm trees didn't change color, and the sun never stopped shining. It was always warm.

She sat on the balcony of apartment 3-K, leaning against the railing, her cheek pressed into the cold metal. Her notebook sat open on the table behind her. Ronnie was glad her dad got a job in L.A., but sometimes she hated being alone. It was even worse when she couldn't figure out a new melody to go with the lyrics she was thinking of. Listening to the guys making music in the studio with Gustavo was fun, and it birthed the incomplete lyrics. In a way, it all made music sound better.

'Cause you know that Things get so bad You've got my back Make me wanna sing

She hoped for a breeze—for something—anything to let her know that Los Angeles wouldn't be summer all year round. The lack of cold air bothered her in October, but the guys threw a mandatory scary movie marathon to distract her. But the day after Halloween, it was setting it. Ronnie missed the way the air stung the inside of her nose. How the air would whip across her face and numb the apples of her cheeks.

"Oh, baby, it feels like, it feels like. Music sounds better with you," She sang under her breath.

Soon, it would be Christmas, and she would have no idea. The concrete jungle remained unchanged as seasons passed. The only thing that let her know was the forever-changing date on the calendar. She sniffed and sat back in her folding lawn chair. She was supposed to be writing music but couldn't take her mind off it.

Where had the crisp air gone, and how much would she miss it? The transitionary period between holidays was surely going to be a tough one, but at least she could look forward to her birthday.

--

[linuxgamenews]

Experience the Mind-Bending Talos Principle DLC for Escape Simulator

The Talos Principle DLC launches free for Escape Simulator first-person puzzler game on Linux, Steam Deck, Mac, and Windows PC. Thanks to Pine Studio's bold creative mindset. Available for all to play now on Steam with its 92% Positive reviews. Pine Studio just dropped some exciting news for Escape Simulator fans, teaming up with Croteam and Devolver Digital to bring us the new Talos Principle DLC. It’s free and available right now on Steam. In this latest update, you'll dive into a world inspired by The Talos Principle series, taking on puzzles that mess with your sense of time and space. Whether you prefer to fly solo or team up with friends, you’ll be challenged to break out of a simulation using some pretty wild solutions. But wait, there’s more! If you’re an Escape Simulator fan, you’re going to like what’s coming next. Mark your calendar for December 5th because the new ‘Mayan DLC’ is releasing for $5.99 USD / £4.99 / 5,89€. This content will throw you into four brand-new escape rooms set deep in the Central American jungle. While adding even more epic puzzles to solve on Linux or Steam Deck.

Escape Simulator: The Talos Principle DLC Trailer

If you’re new, here’s a quick rundown of what the game has to offer:

Solve Epic Puzzles You’ll explore a growing collection of escape rooms, all with unique themes. Whether you’re navigating the Labyrinth of Egypt, solving mysteries aboard the Steampunk Airship, or escaping the quirky Mini Skeld room. Each location brings fresh puzzles to crack. Team Up With Your Buddies Co-op play is where the magic happens, even in The Talos Principle DLC. Every room supports online co-op, so grab a friend or two, put your heads together, and tackle these brain-busting challenges as a team. Get Creative with Custom Rooms One of the coolest parts? You can build your own dream escape room using the Room Editor. Or, if you want more content, dive into over 4000 custom rooms made by the community. The possibilities are endless! Personalize Your Look Want to add some fun to the gameplay? You can customize your character with silly hats and themed outfits that match each puzzle environment. It’s a fun little touch that makes the The Talos Principle DLC experience even more immersive. Highly Interactive Gameplay In Escape Simulator, you can pretty much interact with everything. Smash stuff, melt locks, move furniture—you name it. If it’s not nailed down, it’s fair to pick up, and you can definitely toss it at your friends! So, what are you waiting for? Get in on Escape Simulator: The Talos Principle DLC now! Remember, you’ll need the base game to access the DLC content, but trust me, it’s worth it. And don’t forget to keep an eye out for that Mayan DLC coming in December for even more escape room goodness. But you can play the new Free content on Steam. If you do not own the base game, it's on Steam and Humble Store. Along with support for Linux, Steam Deck, Mac, and Windows PC.

[pico-digital-studios]

BonziBUDDY Rewritten Tips & Tricks

This is one program I recommend for people to give a shot! It's essentially BonziBUDDY if it really was the virtual assistant it was designed to be, with no data scraping involved at all. In this post, I'll share some fun tips and tricks as to getting the best use out of him so far.

Sorting out the Error Messages

When you download the software, you'll get Microsoft Agent stuff installed alongside with Microsoft.NET 3.5 if you don't have them. However you may notice an error message pop up mentioning a "Runtime Error", which will cause the program to not work as intended.

So to get it fixed, just go to this website, download the .zip archive, and you'll see .msh files for Bonzi and MaxALERT. Copy the Bonzi one to C:\Windows\msagent\CHARS, then when you load the application again, it will work as it should do! However, on later versions of Windows, you might notice a blue box appear where Bonzi is shown at. You can move him about whenever if you need a better view of something, though older versions like Windows XP shouldn't experience the blue box issue and should be transparent as intended.

All Bonzi needs to know

Compared to the original software, the only thing Bonzi really needs to know is what name you would like to be addressed by. Once he's got that, he'll get to introducing himself, which you can skip by simply moving him. After that, you're welcome to utilise him however you wish!

Jokes, Facts and Songs

This version of Bonzi has 75 (groan-worthy, though right up my alley) jokes pre-installed, alongside 75 different pieces of trivia he can tell you, either on odd occasions or when prompted to by you. He's also got 20 different songs he can sing to you, which naturally come to show their age in his voice, but are enjoyable nonetheless. You can even listen to some audio with him, though for the time being, he can only play .wav files.

Calendar and Download Manager

Yes, both of these are not just for show! The Calendar and the Download Manager are both fully functional and can be used as you see fit. Naturally, there are programs that can do these things better, but it was pretty good for its time.

Can run MASH (Microsoft Agent Scripting Helper) scripts!

Yes, this is one gorilla capable of handling other Microsoft Agent scripts! You can run .msh files through him at any time you want. Though if there's ones with him in it, it is recommended to hide him with the "Hide" button before you load it.

And one more thing I can mention - his current version has one of his stories, "Bonzi and the Polizoof!" (the one about the jungle animals discovering a camera), pre-installed if you find that interesting. And with that, that's all I've got to say right now! Hopefully you can find good use in the work TMAFE have pulled off with the software!

To prove that it works, here's Bonzi sharing a fun fact with me while I'm playing Solitaire on a Windows XP VM!

[moveslikeanape]

[toinfinitywinning]

How it Began? As a kid, until something bad happens all you know is innocence. Bounce back. Resilience. Words and thoughts your growing mind can’t get its synapses matured yet. And by bad, I mean it rocks you. You’re crying. You’re asking why for the first time poor thing it’s forever; you’re confused. You cannot process the magnitude of the incident and sometimes may even require Counseling to help guide you through it…NVR goes away.

And then.

I mean it’s sad, Right? Being born isn’t your introduction “hey!” realization and rationality Day, it’s your Birth Day. Period. Everyone’s glad you’re here. But you’re not going to know anything for a Long time. Everyone’s with me. Hopefully, b/c I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout no babies. And Well, most people R glad you’ve come unless you’re..ok no not that rn.

BUT

First time you are hurt and are able to process and internalize that new feeling it’s like welcome to the jungle we got fun and games! And I remember that moment for me. It wasn’t when I smacked my head and got hit with bats and sliced my fingers open trying to whittle (Dad’s fault) to make a teepee which now I’m not sure should be a thing. Also tried to make a tornado bottle like those science fair ppl had. The ones that won. B/c they actually figured out how to puncture a hole in a plastic 2 liter top without stitches and having to explain what in the Hell you were doing (Heather u said you might be here so I know you’re with the gear Shift trauma rn). For me until now it’s never been me physically hurt or incapable that’s defeating me—defeating—adjective : defeated—also adjective but untrue. This is different and I hate it b/c of that. I was born with vampire senses at least that’s what vampire diaries says. I feel everything so intensely that often it has trickled over to affecting me physically. I suppose a Good example is a panic attack but I’ve moved onto bigger things. I’ll be one of those ppl on ppl magazine whose ღ ended hearing bad News. This could get dark so I’ll Stop at bad News. It’s funny -I have all this time. And most of the time I don’t enjoy the time but I’ve thought a lot of that time some about when I was a kid. Just free fallin’. Before I got the anxious bug again I was fine being serendipitous and sporadic. One time I put a Friends name in my calendar even tho I knew I knew the time. That stuff. So back to the carefree kid. Like, 8+ I have to clearest memories. I want to take a sec to say how sad that is!! There is no question that I was the kid with the most bandaids. There are pictures and I Love them. Pain didn’t really bother me. Not like this. And I’ve had a lot of very serious injuries and surgeries. Why can’t I be her? It’s all about control.Sometimes staying in a State of any negative, sad emotion or trying time becomes comfortable so it becomes routine. Safe. This can Go downhill quickly. But I promise something from my psych minor talks about this my sister would know. Anyways you gotta get out and can’t.

I was in this State Right before I got sick but I pulled myself out of that creepy Ass Edgar Allen poem pit and swing thing b/c I didn’t like it anymore. But this is a Choice promise. And there’s not statute of limitations on how Long it takes you or if you even get to make a Choice time which is already a Mountain.I tend to be really open and candid. I would be a horrible Celebrity. First of all they’d only have pictures of me in sweatpants. But the openness isn’t for me or really anybody unless someone does see it and be seen. I never had that. And that’s no one’s fault. We didn’t have Smart phones which ironically give us cancer and often stupidity from the crap you read due to that algorithm. A few people reached out in my DM’s and on posts to just do this I guess and throw in a Basketball time to time.I was stuck. And I had well…a very eye opening bad experience. I don’t think I’ll ever share that publicly. But I was terrified. Something came over me when I got to my car and it wasn’t a Voice it was a direction. To home. Safety. Familiar. Routine. I knew sooner than immediately that I was done. That’s it. There’s a pattern in this pattern. You see?So all that is taken care of and now we will work on my eating Disorder. Anorexia, restrictive ED/exercise bulimia and body dysmorphia. You get it. Add this in with Addiction. Talk about stuck. All I can think of to compare it to is that scary book w/ a wizard and a whirlpool and IDEK how it ends but that was always enough for me to be done w/ that story. So, You’re bound to have one after losing 150 lbs over two and a half years and now can see your bones and muscles. Hey you’re confident again Good for you. This will not sustain. You lost weight probably all the wrong ways anyway but it worked. And you’re still in control. Things have changed and u know what to do to keep your skeleton up. One gust of wind or fainting and head stitches again having to hurry and tell your Apple Watch not to call the rescue’s and you’re an inch closer to hospitalization. Doin’ fine.All I had Left was my eating Disorder to work on and I’d made so much progress. I’ll expand on this but you actually have to eat when you’re sick. I won’t thank COVID-19 for that tho. Sometimes u can follow all the rules and still get *BEEP, explicative!* sooner or later it would have risen. So that infamous Day I’d just finished my hour walk and like had been doing about to eat w/ my Parents. I remember it like it wasn’t a 26 month old toddler Day away. One sniff. Mom -please get COVID tested. I remember being annoyed. B/c I have taken all the precautions. Well so do a lot of people and things still happen OUT of our control. This became the problem. Two saddest things about that next few days is I made my Dad say Shit when I came up positive then gave it to my Mom. I cannot tell you the guilt I would be carrying had this been the other Way around.I had lived my Addiction free Life and started to heal my ED rest of my Life. For 3 weeks. I felt so light. Felt so free. Brave and proud. More authentic. B/c being stuck and not being able to fix things yourself takes a lot of deleted Pride and bad bad bad experiences apparently. Wakey wakey. Why’s it gotta be that Way? At least it’s the Gentry way. I’d rather not keep that up.Crushed. Pre healing I couldn’t Exercise for 2-4 hours daily. Wake up at 5 am still kinda dazed and do 100 push-up’s then 10lb weights, several sets. Not one thing from a video or trainer but i can see everything chiseled so gotta be doing something right. Then walk a mile and a half or 10000 steps before you even answer a call at work. All this to have your evening free. To see your ribs and sometimes ✔ the camera Cloud to make sure that 10 pound added weight doesn’t happen. Showering at lunch break. Oh it was a machine. And ppl knew. I’m very aware. I lean toward empathy as well.

I was very very sick. Different sick. And TBH as much of Hell this is and might forever be I’d rather this. Even a broken ღ that was your stupidity and blinders anyway. Although I cannot control this it’s not an intensity of emotion in those skinny Ass bones I can’t turn off anymore. Need size zero and xs. Ghastly. I can answer a question of would you rather in this Case. My ღ literally aches. It’s all of the omnipresent and then some. So intense and relentless. I could change my mind tomorrow. Right now.

This Pain is Physical. Not my fault. Wasn’t abused. Can’t control this either and I’d never wish it on all but one person but idk. I feel things that intensely. I’d be the X-Ray Report that says torn or damaged in about nine places after my ACL tear. The Report was an entire page LOL. That is not common I don’t think. Should’ve just said everything is bad take your 2nd of now Four ambulance trips with your Dad to the ER.

Let me be clear. This is very hard to put into words. It’s less I guess that I wouldn’t barter but sometimes you’re just like please give me that Pain instead, just for a while.

Right now I am comfortable in Pain. Isn’t that pathetic yet tragic? I meannn. Whole body Pain. It’s emotional too trust me but this it takes first. Imagine…the control freak. This is not acute. Feeling without Pain even temporarily is kinda scary and better word unsettling. You want to get better of course but your body has done such a 180 that it becomes what you’re worried about and what makes you nervous. It’s an evil Domino set mouse wheel. Let me also add that long-haul Covid and dysautonomia and pots all of them happened because my body had gotten so healthy again it went in overdrive to try to help me and then couldn’t stop. How nice. Kindly. I’ve learned things about my body and about what people can experience and I didn’t want to. I will never again scoff at someone for saying that they are debilitated because, they are in constant pain or too “tired”... They can’t be safely aware. I’m ashamed I ever thought that about people because there is no take a Tylenol and lay down. There is no taking a nap and you’ll wake up refreshed. That’s all bullshit at this point, and it hurts if you have to ever explain it because you can’t, like so many other things until it happens to you you don’t really know how you feel like a lot of things you can swear that you’ll react one way or the other but when something happens to your kid or someone you love (dare i say abortion as a topic) all the sudden it’s personal and you’re thinking something you never thought you would. Or not. The struggle is actually real.



There is a lot of trauma or some type of PTSD with being this sick for this long as well because you sit comfortably, you know exactly what’s going to happen. If then, then that some of which are terrifying I shake I can’t believe anyone has to deal with this and yet I’m not even one of the most serious cases if you can believe that. Then there’s the Gaslighting. Go to stone ridge and admit yourself for anxiety. NAH. Thankfully all of my docs have been first class with no doors blown off.

I want to say I’ve learned a lesson.. karma. I deserve this. I should’ve seen it coming. Let me be clear again. No one deserves this and yet we’re human and stuff still happens to good and bad people. losing control has been difficult, but I feel like I’ve learned so much about, literal heartache and pain that only someone who was going through the same thing can identify with. there aren’t words. I’m not trying to paint a picture of someone who is on oxygen and dying or taking chemo, but I think that you can hold sadness in several different ways without feeling guilty. you can own What you’re going through. it’s OK to be angry at God at anything and I’ve had to realize that and it’s taken a long time and I think I still am working on it because I think I’m over here. not famished. not taken hostage. not bombed. I have a bed to lay in when I feel bad. U can’t compare things like this and you shouldn’t anyway. I think in doing that it’s never productive anyway. I don’t like being helped which is ironic because I have some co dependencies still and yearning to stay close to what is familiar and home and safe I’ve had to put my or whatever aside and my confidence out the window because yes, you will gain weight not exercising that much but you literally can’t do things at first. I was using a cane to get to the bathroom. I would pant no exaggeration like a dog for at least an hour sometimes after walking 10 feet, ask my mom she was on the couch across from me and we’re both thinking what just happened. or you have to use spoons because you’re shaking so much. Don’t even try a fork w/ rice. or you’re so confused that you always have to have what I would say and interpreter at this point, and praise God that there r doctors surrounding me. I have needed so much help and I think part of accepting help is also allowing someone else to practice stewardship and I think somewhere possibly the Bible at some point you can’t continue to deny someone’s help because they have to have the experience of helping and we both know each feeling. Frankly need it sometimes there are things that not even Gentry will speak of that I’ve gone through but somehow I’m thinking wow Pooh bear was correct. I really am stronger than I seem and I thought that the last time I was in a bad place life is nuts except help, if you don’t have the hope or faith let your family hold it for you. It’s still there. You just can’t get it yet and I cringe to say it, but I have learned so much and whether I heal completely or not writing all this again is therapeutic one, but two when people can identify with someone else, it is a very intimate experience the kind of intensity I feel with everything. I tell people I don’t want to hear ‘you’re going to get better’ because you don’t know that. we can pray for it, but I’ve given prayer a hard time as I’m able to complain, not going to church routinely. Then again going to church is just the building. Sadly tru 4 2 many. a reflection of your yearning for community and a place of hope and routine. we know from the current state in this world that going in a church and coming back out there’s nothing Christian about it, but I’m thankful that I have been held. I’ve even asked. Dad has even had to hang onto me. I’ve been in a wheelchair. I’ve had a bed pan. things that would normally humiliate you. You get humbled immediately. You may have your arms and legs, but there will be times you will need to be pried off the floor, there will be times that your head stays on a cold marble kitchen counter for hours because you don’t have the strength to walk 20 steps to your bed. Covid sucks. it has ruined lives, marriages, people have gone bankrupt. People have died. Mistreated. People have had experiences much worse than mine, and they didn’t deserve it either even if they didn’t take precaution like I did which is part of why I was so frustrated with getting sick. and again i was at that point I had gotten healthy. So ofc, the more prone your body go into hyperdrive. Trying to heal you. and that’s still where I’m at.

[open-hearth-rpg]

Open Hearth Video Roundup - March 1, 2024

Welcome to the weekly Open Hearth Gaming video roundup!

These recorded sessions represent only a portion of the games we play every week, and anyone is welcome to join the fun! If you'd like to play in games like these, join our Playabl community and click on the "Calendar" tab to sign up for upcoming games. To browse our entire library of session videos, please visit our YouTube Playlists page.

Discussions, Panels, and Seminars

An Introduction to Designing with Cortex Prime Anders

Open Hearth Gaming Calendar

The Hunted Madelancholy runs for Blake Ryan, Donogh, Sabine V., and Thomas Manuel A fossil hunt leads to exploring cave depths, leading to sinister finds...elsewhere...

The Hunted Lowell Francis runs for David S., Dom, Madelancholy, and Marc Majcher Our group heads to an East Coast island to look into local legends, and return one member to a place she'd escaped from years before. Dropped off by the ferry, they find no place to stay and a small community seemingly abandoned. Then they find the first body...

The Mecha Hack: Q’ku Riposte (Session 5) Anya Reyes runs for Lowell Francis, Marc Majcher, Matthew Arcilla, and Sherri The pilots head back into the jungle to look for the teens that went missing hoping against hope that they made trough the night. Looking for them they find themselves in a Kaiju nest and the colorful fauna that dwells there.

The Mecha Hack: Q’ku Riposte (Session 6) Anya Reyes runs for Lowell Francis, Marc Majcher, Matthew Arcilla, and Sherri The team waits at Node’s farm for the group that Madonna has sent after them. Here waiting for the battle they share stories and dig deeper and deeper into the mysteries of Aurelia. By the early morning they are in combat and meet one of Madonna’s Aces.

Pressure (Session 1) Lowell Francis runs for Anders, Donogh, Puckett, and Rob Abrazado The first half of a two part series of Pressure, a new industrial sci-fi TTRPG from Osprey. We set up characters and drop the team into the thick of it. Tasked with following up on a distress signal from a bankrupt corporation's base, the team find themselves at odds about completing the assignment or getting the eff out of there.

Pressure (Session 2 of 2) Lowell Francis runs for Anders, Donogh, and Rob Abrazado The second half of a two part series of Pressure, a new industrial sci-fi TTRPG from Osprey. Our team heads to get material for their engine, but encounter a distress call from the station. But on arrival they find things not as they expect.

Alien Dark: Alfa & Omega (Session 1) Alun R. runs for Joshua Fox, Nate Y, Rod Santos, and Will H The crew of the USCSS Alfalfa (a military surplus UPP cargo hauler sold into commercial United American use) and their passenger are heading to a Weyland-Yutani 'shake'n'bake' colony in the outer rim territories. Aboard are Pete Kennedy (the Company Rep looking for ways to build even better worlds), and newbie Pilot Linh Kahali is looking forward to the excitement the frontier is said to offer. There's also Scientist Karl Jorgensen, facing a health condition he can't afford to treat, who has taken an unskilled job to gain financial security for his family when he's gone. Finally, AWOL Colonial Marine Gart Weathers has been blackmailed by the Alfa's Captain to meet her need for an Engineer. When they wake from hypersleep the Alfa is NOT where it is supposed to be and a proximity collision alarm reveals a huge potential salvage opportunity literally rolling towards the Alfa. They discover that MU-TH-UR has become 1VAN and that they have been classified as 'brothers and sisters of the proletariat'. There's nifty flying, a need for EVA, and a UPP airlock that works! Then...1VAN powers up a reactor; life-support begins to kick in; and there are bodies...lots and lots of bodies...

Alien Dark: Alfa & Omega (Session 2) Alun R. runs for Joshua Fox, Nate Y, Rod Santos, and Will H The Alfa's crew divides up to reach Engineering and the Bridge in the hope of re-starting the Omega's FTL drive and getting her back to the most valuable salvage payment they can imagine...despite the bodies... There's convicts revived as the their cryopods sense life support re-starting; cavernous engineering spaces with sinister shadows; and a valuable looking briefcase. Then convicts reap revenge, more chests explode, and there's the ultimate sacrifice to help a decent man escape; before a passenger with a gun seems to have other motives and thrusters malfunction...

Trail of Cthulhu: Fearful Symmetries: Arc Two (Session 3) Lowell Francis runs for Alun R., Paul Rivers, Sherri, and Will H The circle starts pulling the threads of their investigation more tightly-- encountering persons both helpful and malign. An attempted ritual fails and the group decides that they must enter into the lion's den-- only to discover that the horrors are closer at hand than they thought.

Godbound: Sundered Cycles (Session 29) Lowell Francis runs for Dan Brown, Ethan Harvey, Patrick Knowles, Sherri, and Tyler Lominack Meeting a croc, wandering in dreams, a legal threat, dragon building, consultations, gifts, and more-- and then planning begins for the pantheon to begin their walk into the mythic realm.

AKA: The Transponder (Session 1 of 2) Donogh runs for Anders, Jonathan, and Sabine V. Our agent Carter tracks down a shady arms dealer, but their Company handler James struggles by proxy versus their Agency boss Robert to prevent Air Force One’s transponder key from getting into the wrong hands. Meanwhile the conspirator JC plays both sides...

Star Wars Saturday

Fellowship (Session 3) Rich Rogers runs for Cody Eastlick, Greg G., and Steven Watkins The fellowship find out the Imperial plot on Vuarlock and disrupt a parade.

Stars in the Dark: Stars in the Dark II (Session 1) Anders runs for Marc Majcher, Mark (they/them), Rich Rogers, and Steven Watkins Somehow, the Game Returned - We're back! Still on 1313 on Coruscant, but now the New Republic has taken over, and instead of a gang of violent street criminals our crew is a gang of (violent?) deniable assets for the new regime, specifically the Office of Trade and Industry. The game is still Blades in the Dark, though now more heavily modded with rewritten character and crew playbooks and some rules tweaks. This episode has character and crew introductions for KZ the Jockey and his one true love the LAVr QH-7 Chariot, Rook the Mandalorian Relic, L3T-2455 "Elliot" the liberated assassin droid Salvaged, and Winger the Spider, who just happens to show up when important stuff goes down, don't worry about it, as well as some legwork before their first job.

Off-Calendar Highlights

The Between: Stars and Suns, Season Two (Session 1) Madelancholy runs for Jack, Mike, Sarah W., and Steph "New Hunting Grounds" - Season Two is finally here! A somehow younger Legacy, Sir Atticus finds himself working for Hargrave House, alongside Explorer Dame Georgie Benbrook-Carter, the Unseen Ernest Marit-Savage, and the Changeling Finn Quickely, as the dark work continues and a new Mastermind comes in to play...

The Between: Stars and Suns, Season Two (Session 2) Madelancholy runs for Jack, Mike, and Steph "Appearances" - The investigation continues at a society salon and the fashionable Savile Row. Sir Atticus and Dame Georgie realize there are darker influences at play, and Finn gets a bespoke suit and an evening meeting. Then, a new day dawns bringing a new Threat to Hargrave House.

The Between: Stars and Suns, Season Two (Session 3) Madelancholy runs for Jack, Mike, and Sarah W. "Masquerade" - Finn snoops in Madame Beaumont's shop, Sir Atticus discovers strange things in an apothecary, and Ernest gossips with a textile merchant. In the evening, the Midsummer Masquerade is a place of meetings, bargains, and ritual...and Hargrave House loses a hunter.

The Between: Stars and Suns, Season Two (Session 4) Madelancholy runs for Jack, Mike, and Steph "New Hunter, Chance Meetings" - Investigations continue into the Figgs' case, as Dame Georgie has an encounter at their home above the shop and Sir Atticus gains a raggedy acquaintance. A new hunter joins Hargrave House, and she takes some Time to look into a strange anomaly.

[arkhams-asylum-for-misfit-shit]

The DC Legacy Challenge

This is the DC Legacy Challenge! Each generation is (loosely) based around a character, either hero or villain, from DC comics. It includes 10 generations, plus 7 extras for the truly committed (or those who'd like to swap one out for something else). The ultimate goal of the challenge is to HAVE FUN!

Packs

This challenge was created with a conscious attempt to do something different every generation, and as such no consideration was given to packs. If you don't have a pack you need for a certain thing, feel free to substitute anything to suit what you've got, or even skip the whole gen if you want to.

For example, if you don't have Eco Living, then Poison Ivy would be fine with the Loves Outdoors trait, rather than Green Fiend. Don't have Bowling Night Stuff? As far as I know, Superman has never bowled once in his life. It was just for a little extra fun.

Expansion Packs

Cats & Dogs, City Living, Discover University, Eco Lifestyle, For Rent, Get Together, Get To Work, High School Years, Island Living, Seasons, Snowy Escape.

Game Packs

Dine Out, Jungle Adventure, Spa Day, StrangerVille.

Stuff Packs

Bowling Night, Home Chef Hustle, Nifty Knitting.

Additionally, for the bonus generations past 10, you'll need Horse Ranch, Cottage Living, and Moschino Stuff for the Vixen gen, Realm of Magic, for the Zatanna gen, and Get Famous for the Supergirl gen.

I think that's all of them (might have missed one, or a few).

Starting Funds

Easy: $20,000 Medium: $1800 Hard: $0

Rules of Succession

There are none! Play your legacy however you want; eldest child, matriarchy, or just whichever name you like best. The rules of succession are entirely up to you.

Inheritance Rules

Unless stated otherwise, you can take as much of your household funds with you as you want, if you're moving your heir out of home with each gen. Or you can send them out into the world with nothing. I personally take about 10% of the household funds.

General Rules

As above, it's important to remember the rules of this legacy are not strict. Even the order of the generations can be mixed and matched to suit you. I just want you to have fun with it; but if you need them, here's a few:

Play on Normal lifespan.

You must reach the max level of each gens chosen career.

The skills section indicates which skills MUST be maxed.

Barring the Supergirl gen (if you get to it) you CANNOT change your sims aspiration until the noted one is complete, but after that, the choice is yours.

Occult sims should not be carried on to the next generation, but if it happens, it happens.

Loans are permissible during gameplay, either through mods or cheats, so long as they're paid back.

But again, PLAY AS YOU LIKE. Maybe you always want to have a pet, maybe you don't want to kill other sims in the Joker gen, maybe you want to grab that Money Tree in gen one and never worry about money again. The point is fun, so go have it!

Suggestions

Don't get caught up in the name of each gen unless you really want to go full tilt; those are just who each gen is inspired by. Superman doesn't have to be Clark Kent. They don't even have to be a man. Get creative.

That calendar is there for a reason, add a few holidays, including a family reunion.

Think about adding your own favourite hero's or villains! There's a whole multiverse of characters to base a gen on out there (I didn't even use Flash, guys).

GENERATION 1: SUPERMAN

Your home, your family, everything is gone, so you're starting new on a new world, holding fast to the tenants of truth and justice ingrained in you. You fall madly in love with a co-worker and want nothing more than to settle down with them, and your dog, spending your life hiding just how truly impressive you are, only allowing yourself to stand out when you set fire to the bowling balls every time you hit the lanes.

Aspiration: Love > Soulmate Traits: Cheerful, Outgoing, Cringe Career: Writing > Journalism Branch Skills: Writing, Bowling Rules ☆ Marry a co-worker, or have the sim you marry become a journalist. ☆ Have a dog. ☆ Complete the Crystals collection, and display them in a part of your home called your Fortress of Solitude.

GENERATION 2: POISON IVY

Your parents were sickeningly in love and you swore you'd never become so dependent on another person, but you can't help how possessive you get. They're yours, but your partner and family are a distraction; all you really want to do is spend time with your plants. You're obsessed with them, crafting your life to revolve completely around them; your home, your job, your hobbies. Finding a collection of magic beans will allow you to truly become one with what you love the most.

Aspiration: Nature > Freelance Botanist Traits: Jealous, Loyal, Green Fiend Career: Gardener > Botanist Branch Skills: Gardening, Flower Arranging Rules ☆ Become a Plant Sim. ☆ Have a full greenhouse you tend to religiously. ☆ Grow a Death Flower.

GENERATION 3: WONDER WOMAN

Your parent never had much time for you, so you make time for everyone. You give all of yourself to the world, making friends where you can, making a difference even when you're told you can't. Your choice is always kindness, and you lead with respect for all your fellow sims. All you keep for yourself is your love for exploring beautiful art from ancient history, which you feel oddly connected to.

Aspiration: Popularity > Friend of the World Traits: Good, Art Lover, Proper Career: Politician > Charity Organizer Branch Skills: Charisma, Archaeology Rules ☆ Find the Amazonite Harvest Knife, Amazonite Skull, & Bullseye Amazonite Gold Perereca. ☆ Earn a Pristine reputation. ☆ Adopt at least one child.

GENERATION 4: JOKER

At some point in your childhood, something went horribly wrong in your head and you never really grew up. You become obsessed with pranks and jokes and the older you get, the more cruel they become until you reach the stage where the only time you feel good is by making others feel bad. Ingrained with your parent's leadership skills, you form yourself a gang of like-minded sims and have the time of your life reigning hell on the world.

Aspiration: Deviance > Chief of Mischief Traits: Goofball, Erratic, Mean Career: Criminal > Boss Branch Skills: Mischief, Comedy Rules ☆ Kill at least 3 other sims. ☆ Create a gang (club), and a funhouse for them to hang in. ☆ Earn an Atrocious reputation.

GENERATION 5: ORACLE

Your out of control parent caused a horrible accident that changed your life, but you refuse to let it limit you. You cut them out of your life, but you lack nothing with a close group of friends, and a hobby that keeps your hands busy and clears your mind. You're brilliant and determined, and going to change the world from behind your keyboard.

Aspiration: Knowledge > Computer Whiz Traits: Genius, Overachiever, Geek Career: Tech Guru > Start-up Entrepreneur Branch Skills: Programming, Knitting Rules ☆ Always work from home. ☆ Live in a penthouse loft, your Clock Tower. ☆ Form a club (anything you want) The Birds of Prey! ☆ Win the Hackathon and Ultimate Gaming Test at GeekCon.

GENERATION 6: AQUAMAN

You grew up in the city and hated it, so as soon as you're old enough you move to the islands and don't look back. You thought all you wanted was to chill with a drink by the water at the end of a long day keeping the beaches clean, but you've the strangest urge for more; the ocean draws you in and begs you to become one with it and you can't resist its call.

Aspiration: Nature > The Curator Traits: Vegetarian, Loves Outdoors, Child of the Ocean Career: Conservationist > Marine Biologist Branch Skills: Fitness, Mixology Rules ☆ Become a mermaid. ☆ Live in Sulani. ☆ Never EVER go fishing, or cook a fish dish. Fish are friends! ☆ Complete the Seashells collection.

GENERATION 7: BATMAN

You didn't even have a tv growing up but you recognize that technology is the future, and your skill with it gives you a good income with which to raise the large, thriving family you crave. You want to be a good parent, but you can't ignore the dangers that lurk in the world, and it makes you over-protective and distant. Lucky you were able to engineer up some help around the manor, to step in with the kids when you step too far back.

Aspiration: Family > Successful Lineage Traits: Gloomy, Paranoid, Family-oriented Career: Engineer > Computer Engineer Branch Skills: Robotics, Wellness Rules ☆ Live in a manor home. ☆ Have multiple children, all named after birds. ☆ Create a Servo to be your Alfred.

GENERATION 8: GREEN LANTERN

Your parent was obsessed with keeping you and your siblings safe, but you realized very early on that there was a whole world - a whole universe - out there that also needed protecting. You've got a powerful adventurous streak that sees you pushing the extremes, both in work and for fun. You don't just want to climb the highest mountains, you want to go higher and further than anyone else before you and you've got the will to do it.

Aspiration: Athletic > Extreme Sports Enthusiast Traits: Self-Assured, Adventurous, Active Career: Astronaut > Space Ranger Branch Skills: Rocket Science, Rock Climbing Rules ☆ Try for baby in your personal rocket ship. ☆ Complete the Space Rocks collection. ☆ Your significant other gets fridged (they must die).

GENERATION 9: LEX LUTHOR

You spent a lot of your childhood alone, your parent off on adventures, and it made you grow resentful about the aliens that drew them away. Hatred drives you into your career, if only so you can learn the skills you need to destroy those you most despise. You become so bitter and cruel no one would imagine that in another life you could've been a musical genius. You've got your future planned out, right up until the targets of your experimentations do a little experimenting of their own and you're left with the end product.

Aspiration: Knowledge > Nerd Brain Traits: Hates Children, Evil, Ambitious Career: Scientist Skills: Logic, Violin Rules ☆ One child only, from alien abduction. ☆ Have a negative relationship with your child. ☆ Have a home laboratory. ☆ Finish either the alien collection, or the elements collection.

GENERATION 10: MARTIAN MANHUNTER

It was no secret that you were an unwanted child. You grew up lonely and despised, craving for a connection to a home you could only dream of. When you leave, you take with you only the portal that will allow you to finally see where you come from. Determined to be nothing like your parent, you're drawn to the phrase 'protect and serve' and try to find pleasure in the simple joys of life, like perfectly baked cookies.

Aspiration: Food > Appliance Wiz Traits: Glutton, Unflirty, Generous Career: Detective Skills: Handiness, Baking Rules ☆ Inherit NO money. ☆ Be an alien. ☆ Complete the Experimental Food Print collection. ☆ Travel to Sixam.

BONUS GENS

+1. BLACK LIGHTNING

You didn't grow up with much, so you worked hard to put yourself through school and get a good job so your kids would have more. Your family is your world, you're fiercely protective of them, and busy as your work keeps you, you still always make time to spend with them, whether that be sharing a meal, a night out, watching a movie together, or playing your guitar for them.

Aspiration: Knowledge > Academic Traits: Hot-Headed, Bookworm, Family-oriented Career: Education > Professor Branch Skills: Research & Debate, Guitar Rules ☆ Have only two children. ☆ Enjoy a family night, every single week. ☆ Contribute knowledge to the Research Archive Machine several times.

+2. VIXEN

You've had an affinity for animals since you first bonded with the family pet. You've an eye for fashion that pays the bills, and feel a deep connection to where you come from, but you really just want to spend all your time with your furry friends, training them and taking care of them.

Aspiration: Animal > Friend of the Animals Traits: Animal Enthusiast, Horse Lover, Child of the Village Career: Freelancer > Fashion Photographer Skills: Veterinarian, Photography Rules ☆ Surround yourself with animals. ☆ Tend to your animals vet needs yourself. ☆ Win the Ultimate Horse Championship.

+3. CATWOMAN

You grew up surrounded by animals, but only one creature ever earned your respect; the cat. You spoil yours rotten, giving them all the love and attention you can, even cooking homemade meals for them. Your partners can't hold a candle to your adoration for cats, so they come and go, and your affinity with the felines saw you taking on some of their traits, learning the ability to sneak in and out of places quickly and quietly.

Aspiration: Love > Serial Romantic Traits: Cat Lover, Kleptomaniac, Noncommital Career: Unemployed Skills: Mischief, Gourmet Cooking Rules ☆ Make money through selling stolen objects. ☆ Own at least two cats at all times and treat them like the gods they are. ☆ Complete the Feathers collection.

+4. ZATANNA

A strange feeling came over you in your youth and led you into the world of magic. You're determined to master this ability, and even use it and your own innate flair to make a living on a stage, entertaining the gullible masses who never fail to fall for your charm. You don't think you're better than others, you know you are, and magic only proves it.

Aspiration: Knowledge > Spellcraft & Sorcery Traits: Self-Assured, Romantic, Snob Career: Entertainer > Comedian Skills: Comedy, Charisma Rules ☆ Become a spellcaster and reach the rank of Virtuoso. ☆ Have a familiar. ☆ Live in Glimmerbrook.

+5. DEATHSTROKE

You've got a strong sense of honour, but your morals are somewhat … skewed, so it's no surprise that your country uses your abilities to do the jobs they'll never admit to commissioning. Your downtime is spent taking cash from other dodgy sims at the card table, and expertly crafting your own bullets, cleverly disguised as candles. Oh, and you've made yourself the oddest friend.

Aspiration: Athletic > Bodybuilder Traits: Mean, Maker, Perfectionist Career: Military > Covert Operator Skills: Fitness, Fabrication Rules ☆ Form a cards or sabacc club with a few other characters of ill-repute. ☆ Have at least one declared enemy. ☆ Become good friends with Grim, through whatever means necessary.

+6. BLACK CANARY

Growing up under someone beholden to an organisation, you're determined to make your own way and answer to no one. You're talented enough with music to get famous performing, but there's a lot of power in your voice, and you'd prefer a quieter life. You settle instead into a small flower shop, selling beautiful bouquets.

Aspiration: Creativity > Musical Genius Traits: Creative, High Maintenance, Music Lover Career: Business Owner Skills: Piano, Singing Rules ☆ Run a successful flower shop. ☆ Win a karaoke competition. ☆ Complete the City Posters collection. ☆ Only have one child.

+7. SUPERGIRL (Coming Full Circle)

You're the last in a long legacy. All of your family, and their history, live in you and you want the whole world to know your name, their name. So you get to work becoming famous enough that when you tell their story, everyone will listen. It's not an easy task; as much as you want to make friends and have people like you, you just don't quite understand other sims, almost as if you're an alien on a strange new world.

Aspiration: Creativity > Master Actor Traits: Clumsy, Socially Awkward, Outgoing Career: Actress Skills: Acting, Painting Rules ☆ Unlock and finish the Grilled Cheese aspiration. ☆ Start off with a negative relationship with your spouse. ☆ Write a screenplay about your family.

Got more hero's or villains in mind? Go for it, create your own, get that alphabet achievement if you can! Have fun, nerds.

[whatsonmedia]

Thursday Thrills: Dive into the Summer Festival Extravaganza!

August has arrived, and the festival frenzy is on fire! From beats that move your soul to moments that make you whole, this month is a symphony of experiences waiting to unfold. Let the rhythm of August lead you to unforgettable adventures, where music, magic, and memories collide in a spectacular dance of life. Step into the spotlight and let the festival season ignite your spirit! Edinburgh Festival 5 - 29 August With over 3,000 shows taking place, there is something for everyone at the Edinburgh Festival 2023. Headline acts include Sir Cliff Richard, TV presenter Gail Porter, film director Ken Loach, comedian Rhod Gilbert, playwright Alistair McDowall, and the musical "The Book of Mormon." There will also be a number of special events taking place, such as the Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Edinburgh Military Tattoo. The festival is a celebration of the arts and culture from all over the world, and it is a great opportunity to see some of the best performers in the world. The lineup is diverse and eclectic, with something to appeal to all tastes. Whether you are a fan of theater, comedy, music, dance, or something else entirely, you are sure to find something to enjoy at the Edinburgh Festival 2023. So what are you waiting for? Book your tickets today and experience the Edinburgh Festival 2023 for yourself! Tickets & More Info>edinburghjazzfestival.com Stowaway Festival 18 – 20 Aug Stowaway Festival, a remarkable independent event, has firmly etched its place on the festival calendar. Elevate your festival camaraderie to new heights at this open-air extravaganza. Unleash your inhibitions, embrace the carefree spirit, and immerse yourself in a boundless realm of fun. Stowaway Festival is the ultimate destination for a grand-scale, all-out celebration. Dive into the beats and rhythms, as top DJs and live music artists set the stage for an electrifying experience. From seasoned ravers to newcomers and even the little ones, everyone can dance beneath the stars until dawn. But that's not all – Stowaway's enchanting concoction includes hidden parties, a serene woodland spa, exhilarating wild swimming and canoeing, moments of wellness and relaxation, and an array of activities for kids. Embark on a journey of discovery, unveiling the secret wonders of Stowaway's realm. With a big line-up to keep you toe-tapping all weekend which includes Crazy P, Dan Shake, David Rodigan, Eats Everything, Soulworks, Nicky Blackmarket, Roy Ayers, Easy Star All-Stars, House Gospel Choir, Irvine Welsh, Jamz Supernova, Joe Goddard, Little Dragon, Todd Edwards, Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy, Junior Jungle, Balearic Ultras, Ben Virgo, A For Alpha, Harvey Skipper, Jono McCleery, Dr Dubplate, Diego Soundsystem, Alabaster, Llewellyn Brothers, Robots With No Soul and more Tickets & More Info> stowawayfestival.co.uk Notting Hill Carnival 27-28 August The Notting Hill Carnival is back in 2023, and it's going to be bigger and better than ever! With over 2 million people expected to attend, this is the ultimate celebration of Caribbean culture. The lineup for 2023 is still being finalized, but you can expect to see some of the biggest names in Caribbean music, including Machel Montano, Beenie Man, and Spice. There will also be a wide variety of other performers, from steel bands to dancehall artists. In addition to the music, the Notting Hill Carnival is also known for its colorful costumes and vibrant atmosphere. So whether you're looking to dance the day away or just soak up the culture, the Notting Hill Carnival is the place to be in August 2023. Tickets & More Info> nhcarnival.org/ Escape 19 Aug Big brand festival company, Climax Live are going all out to host one of the biggest mash ups in Swansea Wales, this summer.  Taking things up 10 notches, party loving people going to this danceathon can get their groove on to some of the biggest current names in House, Trance, Drum & Bass and more.  It’s a one dayer for the hardcore stayer making the most of every moment.  Think rave to the grave! With expectations to dance to the hotest tunes from the packed dancefloor clubs to the field of dance music dreams.  EDM heaven.  With all the festival paraphernalia making this one raver one stop until ya pop n drop. It’s a time for the great dance music Escape! Expect a line-up of DJ royalty for the marathon rave up. Including Alex Kidd, Ben Hemsley, Born on Road, Bryan Kearney, DJ Isaac, Danny Howard, David Rust, Disrupta, Ellie Cocks, Faze 2, GW Harrison, Gally & Jusice, Ilario Alicante, John O'Callaghan, Judge Jules, Juliet Fox, Kanine, Kings of the Rollers, Layton Giordani, Marco Carola, Marco Faraone, Maria Healy, NOIZU, Nicole Moudaber, Paul Clark, Paul Clark, Paul Woolford, Sander Van Doorn, Shy FX, Wilkinson, Will Atkinson, Will Rees, Zatox Tickets & More Info> escapefestival.co.uk Green Man 17 – 20 Aug Long standing independent festival, returns each year bigger and better in beautiful Welsh surroundings of Breacon Beacons South Wales.  Offering a mixture of arts, music and also includes literature, film and children's entertainment, as well as stalls and organic foods on the 'village green'. It’s such a good festival, its loyal 25,000 festival goers always leave happy yearning for next year.  The festival has sold out Expect live music from bands, solo artists and a mighty selection of DJS including Confidence Man, First Aid Kit, Devo, Spiritualized, Amyl And The Sniffers, Slowdive, The Walkmen, Young Fathers, The Comet Is Coming, Lankum, Snail Mail, Squid, The Delgados, Horace Andy, Daniel Avery (LIVE), Sudan Archives, Obongjaar, Courtney Marie Andrews, Dur-Dur Band, Alabaster Deplume, Beth Orton Tickets & More Info> greenman.net Trentham Live 17 – 20 Aug Trentham gardens in Staffordshire hosts its annual live music events across this weekend in its amazing location.  The line-up for the weekend’s entertainment features sells out tours from some of the UK and Global most favourite bands, well-known singers and legendary DJs whichever night you choose to go. You’ll be met by a crowd of people who are up for a great time with likeminded people. The line-up includes McFly, The Hoosiers, Feeder, Jake Bugg, The Feeling, Chase and Status, Sigma, Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight, Olly Murs, Natalie Imbruglia Tickets & More Info> trentham.co.uk Beautiful Days 18 – 20 Aug The Levellers' Family Music Festival, orchestrated by DMF Music, stands as an independent labor of love, free from sponsorship or funding. Welcoming all to Devonshire's divine Escot Park in 2023, it offers diverse stages, Site Art, a Children's Area, Healing Village, Walkabout Theatre, family camping, and real ale bars. The coveted lineup includes Suede, Primal Scream, Levellers, Johnny Marr, The Waterboys, Indigo Girls, The Dead South, The Proclaimers, Gaz Coombes, Reef, and Gok Wan. Don't miss this enchanting, sold-out event uniting music, art, and celebration. Tickets & More Info> beautifuldays.org Hospitality In The Woods 19 Aug Returning to magnificent surroundings of Beckenham Place Park London. One of the biggest and best drum n bass DJ line-ups on the UK summer festival calendar.  It’s time to get your best rave on for the supreme d'n'b brand, Hospitality records festival. Promising to deliver big on every aspect. All you have to do is show up in your best happy vibe. Featruing a stellar line-up of d'n'b elite to feast ya dance music feet on this is going to be one very special one-dayer that its festival lovers have been waiting all year for.  Hot on the line-up is Netsky, High Contrast, Camo & Krooked, Ayah Marar, Metrik, London Elektricity, Roni Size, Calibre, LTJ Bukem, Etherwood, Harry Shotta, LTJ Bukem, Sub Zero, Bladerunner, Goddard, Kasra, Disrupta, Bryan Gee, 2Shy, MC GQ, Nu:Tone Tickets & more> hospitalityinthewoods.com Read the full article