#my whole music evolution no one asked for

[sungbeam]

nonidol!jeong yunho x f!reader

yunho might have been the superstar out of the two of you, but you have always been the center of his universe. (you — it's always been you.)

▷ genre, warnings. bffs2l, childhood friends 2 lovers, pining, popstar/singer au, swearing, fluff, humor, angst, hurt/comfort, kissing, mentions of alcohol, mentions of anxiety/nervousness, they physically cannot be apart for too long sorry they've got Attachment Issues low-key..., one kiss (is all it takes—)

▷ word count. 16.3k (guys,, this was supposed to be only like 6-8k i swear 😭)

▷ associated tunes. keep smiling (demxntia), gone too long (lullaboy), tear in my heart (twenty-one pilots)

a/n: hope u guys like this :'))) i had one of the scenes from here stuck in my brain for awhile and so i had to build the rest of the fic around it, and it turned into this monster, so uhm yes... also much love to @jaehunnyy tysm for reading thru it for me 💖

THE DAY YUNHO'S ALBUM hit the Billboard Hot 100, you knew that you were going to need a lot more hands on deck than just you, your roommate, and Jeong Yunho himself.

“There's not enough albums, not enough time in the day, not enough of you!” You exclaimed with your fingers shoved into your hair as you took in the landscape of chaos before you on your living room floor. “Yunho, why couldn't you be ambidextrous?”

His eyes widened, body frozen where he was shoving a slice of beef jerky into his mouth. “Mwe? Pwhy are pyu yellinh ap mwe por?”

“I'm not yelling at you; I'm just wondering why you weren't born with eight arms instead of just two.” There were simply too many albums for him to sign before his agent came to pick them up in two hours, and there were also too few albums for the amount of demand. You always knew your best friend would make it big one day, but you also thought he would have had a whole team by that time.

Technically, you were his team—you, your roommate Trinity, and Mingi who was at his grandmother's for the long weekend. Mingi was five texts away from driving back down to help you guys four hours ago though. But his family needed him right now, and Yunho was firm in ensuring Mingi didn't have to come down and help. We got this, he'd said. It'll be easy, he also said.

Sure. Easy.

“We can't just forge his signature?” Trinity joked in a sleep-deprived daze as she leaned back against the couch cushions. Her mouth opened wide in a yawn. “I'm kidding. Let's not ruin his career.”

Yunho swallowed his bite. “That would be nice.” He cleaned his fingers on the Wet Wipe he had handy by his thigh, then picked up his black Sharpie, spinning the writing utensil between his fingers. “Now where were we? Album number fifty-six—?”

This had taken place just four months after Yunho released his second album, Aurora. It had been nearly a year and a half since Yunho debuted himself onto the music scene, and it was about time people finally began to recognize your best friend for all that he was—multi-talented, charismatic, handsome (on some occasions; you wouldn’t let him catch you slipping up there, though).

Within the next year and a half, Yunho skyrocketed into further altitudes of fame.

There were plenty of changes that occurred, many evolutions to Yunho's team and additions to his discography, but you were always a part of it. Even with your own career dealings, you would drop anything to be there for him, and him for you. Between the morning show interviews and late night recording sessions, there were also the research presentations and study session pick-me-ups.

“Are you sure you don't wanna come with?” You asked from where you were stationed in front of the bathroom mirror, putting on the final touches for your look this evening.

You could hear Trinity's fingers clacking away at her keyboard at the speed of light through her open bedroom door. “I'd love to, but I unfortunately did screw myself over by procrastinating on this paper. Have fun though, and tell Yunho congrats for me.”

Tonight was the album release party for Yunho's third full studio album entitled Youth. It was something he had been working on for years now, only recently having become satisfied with the tracks he chose and produced for it. Due to his sudden rise in fame, the release party was said to be hosting a myriad of big name celebrities and figures in the music industry. And of course, you. You were no one special, in hindsight, but Yunho couldn't begin to imagine celebrating a milestone without you by his side.

By eight o'clock, you were ready to head out.

You bid Trinity goodbye as you hustled out the front door of your apartment and down to the street below. Yunho and Mingi and everyone else would already be at the party; you would arrive on your own via Uber. You wished you could've been with him to get ready like all the other times, but your schedule had been unfortunate as of late. You were lucky enough to have gotten off of work this early.

As you sat in the backseat of your ride, you anxiously fidgeted with your phone in your lap.

(You were, without a doubt, excited to arrive at the party. Due to yours and Yunho's ever-busy and ever-conflicting schedules nowadays—yours because of work and PhD candidacy stuff, Yunho's because of rehearsals for his upcoming world tour—it had been awhile since you were able to hang out in person. You missed your gentle giant of a best friend.)

A loud vibration from it made your heart leap into your throat, and your face lit up in the dark with the incoming notification.

rockstar 🤟: pls tell me you've left the house

You snorted and typed out a swift reply. If I told you I was still in my pajamas…

rockstar 🤟: then i would call u a liar cuz u don't go to work in pjs, weirdo rockstar 🤟: just getting antsy tbh rockstar 🤟: need my star here w me :’)))

You couldn't help the touched pout that came to your face. I'm almost there, don't worry. And who are you calling a star when that's you? He always got a little sappy when he was nervous.

rockstar 🤟: im literally not having fun here without u hurry up :// your phone: isn't this UR album release party 😭 yun, why aren't u having fun? rockstar 🤟: just hurry up your phone: aish okok 🤧 eta 8min mr. impatient

You knew it was the jitters making him say things like that. Once you got there, you hoped you could help reassure him that he could stop worrying for just a second to enjoy himself. Even if Yunho worried about the album and what people thought, you were just as nervous. You hadn't even heard the entire thing—he’d been cheeky and didn't tell you he added a song to it last minute, but you'd listened to everything else.

You just hoped that people would continue to celebrate him and give him the love he deserved.

When your Uber driver pulled into the drop off loop at the front of the venue, you thanked him on your way out and threw the strap of your small purse over your shoulder. Already, however, as you were met with the residuals of flashing camera lenses and frantic paparazzi calls just a little ways down the driveway, the anxiety slowly began to settle in the pit of your stomach.

You could see the celebrities going up the entrance with people asking them to pose for their cameras, to say a word into their recorders.

Immediately, you turned on your heel and began slipping your way to a side entrance. The last thing you wanted was for dozens upon dozens of people to be staring at you, wondering who you were and why you were important. There were definitely people who knew you—you were plastered all over Yunho's social media because that was just what best friends did. But compared to everyone else walking up that driveway? Not a chance. You were nobody, and that was ay-okay to you.

Just as you thanked one of the employees coming out the side door for letting you in, you felt your phone buzz in your hand again, this time with an incoming call.

You picked it up and squeezed it between your ear and shoulder. “You're gonna need to speak up—the kitchen is super loud.”

“You're here finally!” Yunho said to you through the phone. “I was starting to get worried.”

You chuckled as you ducked out of the kitchen and into the main lobby to get to the elevators. The party was taking place somewhere on the seventh floor… if you could get there without getting lost. “Hey Yun, do me a favor?”

“Sure.”

“Calm down, man.”

The elevator sang its arrival and you stepped inside to the sound of Yunho sucking in a deep breath, then exhaling slowly. “I am calm… wait, are you in the lobby? Let me come down and get y—”

“I just got in the elevator, so don't worry—and I really don't think you should be leaving your own party, rockstar,” you teased. “Man, Mingi and Hwa really pulled out all the stops for this place,” you marveled quietly as you gave the elevator carriage a thorough look. It was made of marble and mirrors, every surface polished and crisp, like that of a tailored suit if tailored suits were made of crystals.

“Yeah, it's really great,” he agreed. “Remember the release party we threw for Crescent?”

A fond laugh tumbled out of your lips as you stepped out of the elevator and onto the seventh floor. Your mind filled with memories of his debut album's release party hosted in yours and Trinity's living room with three extra large Domino's pizzas, root beer floats, and a cheap disco ball. It had been a party for four that night—you, Yunho, Mingi, and Trinity—but your friends didn't need the fancy shit to have fun. “Definitely leagues away from this.”

There was a bouncer at the far end of the hallway, and you were certain now that you were in the right place.

“I kind of miss it,” Yunho murmured. You heard the sound on his end shift, simultaneous to watching the doors in front of you crack open and see Yunho's head pop out into the empty hallway.

“I kind of miss it, too,” you said into the phone, your eyes locked on his and a smile blooming over your features at the sight of your best friend, in the flesh.

There was a tender gleam in his eyes as he took you in and said something in a low tone to the bouncer. He stepped out into the hallway, letting the doors behind him shut fully.

“Slowpoke,” was his greeting to you as he scooped you into his embrace. The smell of his cologne was something familiar and delicious, and permeated your senses.

“Worrywart,” you quipped back, wrapping your arms around him to reciprocate.

When you both pulled back, he kept you at arm's length so he could take a better look at you. “I can't believe you're calling me the worrywart! I do recall that one night when Aurora hit the Top 100—”

You silenced him with a look and a playful punch to his shoulder. You pressed your lips together to suppress a smile as he tilted his head back in a jovial laugh. “Quiet, you. For once, I can't believe you're more nervous than I am.”

He gave a sheepish grin, fussing with the unbuttoned collar of his dress shirt, adjusting the chain he wore on his collarbones so the clasp sat right at the hollow of his throat.

You softened. Oh, he was really nervous.

“This album's just big for me; you know that,” he said, almost like he was trying to brush it off.

“I do.” The two of you began slowly making your way back towards the party doors. “Though, I'm excited to hear this mystery song that you snuck on there. I'm sure everyone will fall in love with the album, just like I did.”

He peered over at you then, and you couldn't understand why you were unable to read his expression then. It was… different. “Really?”

You blinked. “Of course,” you replied automatically. “I mean,” you added, “it's you, Yun. What's not to love?”

Yunho seemed speechless for a second, but moments later, he was breaking into a soft-cornered smile. “You always know what to say, Yn. Come on, there are some people who are dying to meet you.”

“Dying to meet me?” You laughed as the bouncer let the two of you into the party.

The party room was a rented out lounge space with wraparound windows that looked out at the skyline in the valley below. The main lights were kept low and warm, illuminating strategic places throughout the space to highlight the prohibition-like interior design. It was something out of a 1920s speakeasy with its velvet couches and dark mahogany wood finishes.

Yunho took you over toward the side of the room to get food first. There was a variety of snacks and small bites on the buffet table, and there was a bar counter shoved into the far corner where a bartender served drinks.

“I've pretty much socialized with everyone in this room already,” Yunho murmured to you as he shoved his hands into his pockets and grinned. “Meaning I can bug you for the rest of the night.”

Your eyebrows shot up. “There has to be, like, fifty people here. We still have the whole party left.”

“Yeah, but I have more fun with you anyway,” he said with a shrug. He reached for one of the little serving cups that held a little roll of rice armed with a slice of wagyu beef on top, all wrapped together with a strip of nori. “Now these—these are fucking amazing, dude. You have to try one.”

You snorted, but grabbed one of the little cups. “How many of these have you eaten already, Yun?”

He tapped his cup against yours like he was clinking glasses together. He chuckled, averting his gaze. “We don't have to talk about that…” His eyes caught onto someone nearby, and he perked up, shoving the entire bite into his mouth so he had a free hand to flag down whoever it was. “Mmh!”

You nearly choked on your own bite as you watched your best friend, who's cheeks were stuffed like a chipmunk's, flap his arm around in the air to get this person's attention because his mouth was currently occupied.

You turned your head to see who he was waving over, and nearly choked again, having to cup your hand over your mouth to prevent rice from falling out. Your eyes widened an alarming amount. “Mmno—!” You mumbled through your bite.

“What? I can't hear you,” he snickered. “Hongjoong hyung! There's someone I want you to meet.”

You made a crazed gesture—no, no, I'm not ready! How dare you ambush me with social interac—you swallowed the food in your mouth as Hongjoong made his way over. You had never met the famed Kim Hongjoong—legendary producer, prodigy musician, favorite model to ever strut down the Paris Fashion Week Runway. He dropped off the grid for a brief three-month hiatus until he suddenly reappeared, but in your best friend's Instagram story. At some point, Yunho had met Hongjoong and won his favor. Then again, it was easy for Yunho to win over anyone's favor.

No one really knew why Hongjoong disappeared like he had, but some speculate it had something to do with his new relationship status: single.

You were always starstruck seeing Hongjoong on Yunho and Mingi's social media, as well as Hongjoong's own platforms. Tonight was no exception.

Hongjoong's hair of the season was a simple light brown that complimented his skin tone and the warmth in his smile. You were used to seeing him in more extravagant garb, but tonight, he chose something very simple, but chic like Yunho.

Yunho and Hongjoong clasped hands in greeting. “What's up, man?” The latter chirped, eyes flickering over to you as you attempted to behave normally.

Yunho gestured toward you, his eyes twinkling as he swept his arm around your shoulders to bring you forward. “This is Yn. Yn, this is Hongjoong. He's the one who produced the album—”

“Now, don't downplay your own efforts, Yunho,” Hongjoong cut in with a knowing look. “You produced so much of it on your own; I fine-tuned and made a couple tracks, but the rest was all you, man.”

“I always tell him he's far too humble,” you agreed.

Hongjoong sent you a smile, extending his hand out. “Great minds think alike, Yn. It's very nice to meet the person this guy doesn't ever stop talking about.”

You laughed good-naturedly and saw Yunho's flushed sheepishness out of the corner of your eye. You shook Hongjoong's hand with a firm, confident grip. “Nice to meet you, too. You're—you’re incredible, by the way. I remember when Yunho posted a photo with you, and I literally screamed his ear off over the phone.”

Yunho winced and held a hand up to his ear, as if remembering the physical sensation of that phone call. “Yup, definitely damaged my eardrum that day.”

“Well, thank you; I'm flattered,” Hongjoong replied pleasantly. “So I'm assuming you've probably heard as much of the album as I have then?”

“I'm sure you've heard the whole thing,” you said. “Yunho has withheld one of the tracks from me, but I've listened to all the rest.”

He cocked his head to the side. “Oh? Which track did—oh.” As he and Yunho made eye contact, you watched as a silent understanding passed between them, and Hongjoong's mouth tugged upward in a teasing smile. “That song.”

You blinked. “What does that mean?”

Hongjoong flourished his hand as if to wave away the thought. “He just wanted it to be perfect, so we were working on it up to the last second. Nothing terribly concerning.”

Ah. You relaxed, but the curiosity still lingered in your mind's eye. “I'm sure it's great, nonetheless.”

“Oh yeah, you're gonna love—”

“Oh-kay! That's enough about the song,” Yunho chuckled nervously as he grabbed your shoulders and began steering you away from a clearly amused Hongjoong. “Let's go say hi to Mingi, hm?”

You threw him a look from over your shoulder, but went along with him toward wherever he'd seen Mingi wandering around. “What has gotten into you tonight?” You teased, though, you also hoped to know why he was so jittery. He wasn't even this nervous about dropping his debut album.

Yunho showed you a bright smile, the same kind of golden-retriever expression that the media knew him well for. It would have been enough if you didn't know him. “Again, it's an important album to me. And the song I added last minute is on the deluxe version, so I wasn't really confident in putting it on the original release.”

“Ah,” you murmured. You reached up to pat the hand that rested on your left shoulder reassuringly. “I'm sure it really is a great song, Yun, and I'm not just saying that. You can make an awful omelet, but you can't make an awful song.”

Your best friend bursted into laughter at the latter comment, and your heart soared to see the genuine smile on his face now. That was your Yunho shining through. “You're right—if I can't scramble eggs, at least I can write a song.”

Over the next hour and a half, Yunho took you on a tour around the room, jumping from friend to friend to introduce you to more of his world. For the most part, however, it felt like an excuse for you to bond with all his friends in teasing him about something or other. But he seemed content enough to see you getting along well with the other people close to him.

He had met plenty of your friends at your work, so it was only fair that you got the same opportunity.

At some point while you were with Wooyoung and San discussing all of the rehearsals for Yunho's upcoming world tour, Hongjoong summoned everyone's attention to announce that it was time to listen to the album. It would be a rather casual affair with the Youth album playing in the background of the party, but you were certain people would minimize their conversations to listen in.

You craned your neck to peer around the crowd to see where Yunho had gone off to. “Wait, guys, did you see where Yunho went?”

Wooyoung and San joined your search, but quickly hustled you into a nearby booth to sit and enjoy the album with your drinks. “He'll find us,” Wooyoung assured you as the three of you slipped into the leather seats. “He wouldn't miss this.”

“He'll at least be here by the last song,” San said offhandedly, his eyebrows wagging up and down.

Your lips parted, your face morphing into feigned offense. “Wait. Did he let you guys listen to the deluxe edition song, too?”

“Maybe,” Wooyoung giggled.

San cooed at your pout. “Awwh, don't take it to heart, Yn-ie. It was supposed to be a surprise for you.”

You raised your drink to your lips, sighing before taking a sip. “Everybody talks about this damn song as if he wrote it for me.”

Unbeknownst to you, the two others at the table exchanged pointed looks between one another when you were looking away. It was a wonder how Yunho was able to keep this all a secret from you. Though, even San and Wooyoung knew how busy you could get nowadays, so perhaps it really was just that easy. Plus, they had all at one point or another been privy to Yunho’s feelings—

“Speak of the Devil,” you perked up at the sight of your best friend emerging from the crowd with the others—Hongjoong, Seonghwa, Mingi, Jongho (vocal coach and album feature), and Yeosang (PR management)—in tow behind him. “We were wondering where you had gone off to.”

Yunho grinned as the lot of them squished into the circular seating arrangement with you, San, and Wooyoung. “Sorry, had to go round everyone up. The album should be queued up and ready to go.” He chose to sit on the end of the booth to your right while everyone else filled it up from the other side.

You offered him a sip of your drink, and he gladly took the glass from you. “So San and Woo were just telling me about how their tour prep is coming. You guys are leaving—what was it—two weeks from now?”

He hummed, smacking his lips as he set the glass back down on the table. “Yeah, it should be just about two weeks,” he said. His arm came up to rest against the back of the booth seat behind you. “You know, you can still come to the first stop with us…” This was said with a very pointed look at you from Yunho, followed by similar expressions from everyone else around the table.

“And you know that day’s when my supervisor holds quarterly meetings that are mandatory,” you shot back. As much as you hated the timing, the day that Yunho and the team planned to fly to their first stop on his world tour, you were required to be present for a very important meeting at work.

The Youth World Tour was something Yunho had been looking forward to and preparing for a long time. Besides working on the Youth album itself, his working hours extended over the past year or so to get ready for this major milestone. You would definitely be able to meet up with them at one of the tour stops, you just weren’t sure which one yet.

Things at your workplace were a little rocky as of late due to shifting management, but you would play it by ear. For your best friend, of course you would make it work somehow.

Your ears pricked up at the sound of strings strumming overhead and your heart leapt out of your ribcage for a moment. “Oh my god, I love this song.”

“You and me both, Yn,” Hongjoong chuckled across the table from you, reaching over so you could bump fists with him, “you’ve got good taste.”

“You’re only saying that because you wrote this one specifically,” Yunho sputtered out a laugh while rolling his eyes.

“It’s a good message,” you said, picking up your drink to take a generous gulp of it. There was a little left at the bottom of the martini glass and you swirled the liquid around before handing it over to Yunho to finish. “I think this one will definitely make it onto my work playlist.”

Yunho draped the back of his hand over his forehead, setting the now empty glass on the table. “Wow, relegated to the work playlist. Is that all I am to you?”

“You are a mood maker,” you pointed out with a teasing smile.

“Bro, you're complaining as if Yn doesn't put her work playlist on for everything she does.” Mingi arched his brows over the rims of his sunglasses. (Why was he wearing sunglasses indoors and at night? You didn't know; he said something about looking cool.)

Wooyoung chuckled. “What? So let's say you're trying to sleep—”

“Yah, I have a different playlist for that! I'm not completely unreasonable.”

“Completely,” Yunho and Mingi said at the same time, then looked at each other with wide, excited eyes. They bursted out laughing at once, too, leaving you to deadpan at the two clowns to your eleven o'clock and three o'clock.

You sighed. “I hate you guys.”

That only made them laugh louder, spurring on the others to crack smiles and for you to do the same.

Yunho calmed slightly, his cheeks hurting from smiling. “Aw, you walked right into that one, Yn.”

“So you're saying you are, in some capacity, unreasonable—oh my god, don't hurt me!” Mingi shrieked as he shoved Yeosang's body in front of him like a human shield as you lurched forward and threatened to grab him.

Yeosang sent Mingi a dirty look as he wrestled out of his neighbor's hold. “Dude.”

“Jongho, protect me.”

The vocal coach popped the olive from his martini into his mouth. “If you can't handle the heat, hyung, stay out of the kitchen.”

You nodded, raising your pointer finger up. “Exactly.”

For the next hour, you and your friends shared good company and conversation, while also commenting on, praising, and enjoying the tunes from Yunho's Youth album. There were a good thirteen songs featured on the album, and while most of them were inspired by real life, you remembered the days and nights when Yunho would break out the white board under his bed to draw out a concept map of the storyline he'd created in his head for some songs. It was like a miniature Easter egg hunt for fans to piece together from album to album.

When the clock hit nearly midnight, you recognized the song that marked the end of the conventional album—track number thirteen, 22. It was a song that reflected and lamented on his early stages of adulthood, all the goods and bads, all the hopes and dreams he had left. It was something that tied the regular album with a satisfying bow, but you were also giddy to hear the secret fourteenth deluxe track.

But as his ethereal voice from 22 faded out, the same guitar chords from the first song of the album began to play.

Everyone at the table paused in confusion.

“Uhh, I thought you were revealing the hidden track tonight, Yunho?” Seonghwa asked from across the table.

Yunho tilted his body out of the booth to peer into the sound booth at the very back of the lounge, a furrow in his brow. “I thought I was, too,” he said as he stood up. “I’ll be back in a sec.”

Before anyone else could say anything, Yunho disappeared past the door to the sound booth. You frowned as Hongjoong excused himself to catch up with him, mumbling something about helping with any technical difficulties.

In retrospect, it wouldn't be the biggest deal if you didn't get to hear the song tonight. You would simply listen to it when the deluxe album dropped in about a week, but you wouldn't deny that you were a little disappointed. Everyone else at this table had already listened to it—why had Yunho not shared it with you yet? Did he think you would judge him or not like it? You didn't think you were ever so harsh a critic, but that would explain why he was so nervous all night.

Regardless, you remained positive.

When Yunho and Hongjoong returned to the table, the rest of you all looked on to them expectantly.

“Something wacky is going on with the system right now and won't play the file for the hidden track,” Hongjoong huffed. He passed Yunho a sidelong glance, and you saw how Yunho avoided his friend's eyes like the plague. “Sorry to disappoint, Yn.”

Everyone's attention whipped toward you, and you straightened like a deer caught in headlights. “Oh, uhm, it's no biggie,” you said. You glanced over at Yunho who, if anything, seemed guilty. Or maybe it was just something apologetic. “Really—I can wait for it to drop officially.”

You didn't like how the air seemed to shift during this exchange, as if all the other boys were sitting on the edges of their seats, faces morphed into mixed ranges of confusion and disbelief.

You cleared your throat. “Anyone want more drinks?”

As the night waned and the party came to a close, you found yourself being helped into another Uber car to head home. After the supposed tech glitch, the remainder of the party passed by without a hitch. At the very end, Yunho popped open a theatrical bottle of champagne for all his guests to close out the celebration.

The backseat door closed just as Yunho ducked in with you, his hand waving out the window to San, Wooyoung, and Jongho passing by along the curb.

The alcohol had gradually made its way to your brain, and there was a light buzzing at the base of your skull that made you feel all warm and fuzzy. You yawned, leaning your head against Yunho's shoulder.

He chuckled, one of his hands coming up to gently pat your head. “Tired?”

“Mhm,” you hummed as your eyelids fluttered closed. “You didn't have to lie, y'know.”

You felt his shoulder tense under your cheek. If only you could feel the rapid beating in his chest, then he'd be as good as done.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he replied innocently, nimble fingers running over the chain links of his wristwatch.

Your eyes cracked open slowly. “Yunho.”

A beat passed, then he sighed. “Are you mad?” He asked quietly and his hand nearest to you found yours as he began to mindlessly inspect the chipped nail polish on your fingertips.

“No, silly. Why would I be mad?” When he didn't respond right away, you let out an exhale of your own. “I mean, I could tell you were nervous about me listening to the song all night. And if you weren't ready for me to listen to it yet, then I totally get that, and I'm okay with waiting. I just would rather you tell me that instead of make Hongjoong lie for you.”

He stopped playing with your fingers. “I'm sorry, for the record. Thank you for understanding.”

You hummed in reply.

The drive continued on with the accompaniment of a random radio station playing on low volume. You weren't going to fall asleep just yet with the alcohol still working its way through your system, but you kept your eyes closed nonetheless.

“I missed you, you know?” Were his first words to break the next silence.

A small smile wormed its way onto your face. “I missed you, too. I feel like we haven't seen each other in forever.”

He chuckled, the low sound rumbling through his chest and into your ear. “Texting can only take us so far. Isn't that crazy? We can't even survive a week without hanging out, but we're… we're about to be separated for so much longer timewise and distance-wise.”

You grumbled. “Don't remind me—wait. Has it really only been a week?” You peeked one eye open, a frown coming to your lips. “No way.”

Yunho smiled, shaking his head. “Believe it or not, stargirl. It's been only a week.”

“In-fucking-sane.”

“You're telling me.”

“How are we going to survive?” You pondered aloud, genuinely. If you couldn't fly out to see him within the first handful of tour stops, you and Yunho at the soonest wouldn't be able to see each other for three weeks. And if you couldn't escape your work duties and your PhD responsibilities, then it would be longer than that. “You're gonna have a closer relationship with your Valorant account than me.”

Yunho snorted. “I already have a closer relationship with my Valorant account than you.”

“Shucks.” You breathed out. “Guess I'll just text Hongjoong then. You know what he told me tonight when we were exchanging numbers? All eight of you nerds have a group chat and he gets ignored like a mom in a family chatroom.”

Your comment made a laugh tumble out of Yunho's mouth. “Did he make that analogy?”

“No, Seonghwa did when he overheard.”

A wheeze. “That tracks.” Yunho licked his lips as he turned his head slightly to glance down at you leaning on his shoulder. With his free hand, he warmed his palm over your head like he could keep you here forever. “So what's this about texting Joong?”

You shifted your position to get more comfortable and clung to his arm to press yourself closer. There was still a little ways to go before you reached your apartment. “I told him offhandedly that I wanna pick up a new hobby… something about crocheting or something, and apparently that guy is like… amazing at everything, so he's gonna help me out.”

“Ah.” The sound was quiet. “I'm glad you guys got along.”

You smiled to yourself. “Me too. He's really cool.”

“Not cooler than me though, right?”

You blindly reached over to pat his chest in warm reassurance. “Don't worry, big guy. I guess you're still the coolest guy I know.”

He clicked his tongue at you with a weak chiding, “Yah. You only guess? Don't tell Mingi that.”

“Oh, I wouldn't dream of it.”

The Uber eventually pulled up along the curb outside your apartment complex. You lifted your head up from Yunho's shoulder and woke yourself up with a good stretch of your limbs.

He helped you out of the car, handing you your purse when you finally got your bearings. “Are you sure I can't walk you up? You look like your knees are about to buckle,” he chuckled.

You shook your head. The cool evening air was helping your brain to sober up. “No, no. Don't worry about it—I’m not as drunk as that one year.”

“Dear heart, how could I forget,” he teased. “Mingi still has the recording of when you begged to be bridal carried.”

Your face warmed at his mention of that memory and you wrinkled your nose at him. “I was gonna say ‘I love you’ along with goodnight, but I suppose not.”

Yunho froze. “What?”

Maybe you really weren't sobering up, because you didn't catch his strange reaction. “Nevermind,” you said flippantly. “Love you, Yun. Good night. Get home safe!”

He seemed to unfreeze, his lungs filling with breath again. A soft smile melted onto his pretty lips as he looked on toward you with a warm fondness. “Love you, too. Good night, Yn.”

He remained where he was outside the car door as he watched you dig your keys out from your purse and open the complex door. When you had one foot inside, you stopped, and turned back to him with a big grin on your face. “Hey!”

“Hey?” He laughed.

“I'm proud of you.”

For the thousandth time tonight, you made him lose his breath, his hold on reality. He swallowed—he wanted to kiss you. “I love you. Get some rest, stargirl.”

You waved to him in reply and he waved back. Then you disappeared through the door and left him there, his heart full and beating fast, the longing in his chest weighing heavier than before.

When you and Yunho were thirteen, you spent the longest period of time away from each other for the rest of your lives. It measured to about one summer break long when Yunho flew to South Korea to spend the entire vacation there and you could do nothing but chat with him via good, old fashioned e-mail.

Now that the two of you were older, even a couple days dragged on like an eternity. And because of your clashing and stacked schedules, a couple days almost always bled into a week.

A week since the release of Youth marked the inevitable release of its deluxe edition and the ever mysterious fourteenth track.

“Yn, wait, can you just help me finish this set of primers?”

You were this close to escaping the lab before one of your colleagues caught you. Taking a deep breath, you resolved to turn back and help them out. One less thing to worry about later, right? You could still listen to the track once you got home.

Except you couldn't, at least not right away. You saw the email on the bus ride home:

Hello TAs! One of your peers has unfortunately been involved in a motorbike accident early this evening. We have been informed that they will recover to full health, but because they are hospitalized, we will need to redistribute responsibilities regarding grades and as to who will cover their TA sections…

You skimmed down the email's contents, knowing you wouldn't be the one filling in as an actual TA. Because you were a first year graduate student in your first quarter, you opted to start off with grading work for now. But even if you didn't have to deal with a whole section of undergraduates, you could feel the blood drain from your face.

“You've gotta be shitting me,” you said, then slapped your hand over your mouth once you realized you'd said that aloud. You mouthed a sheepish “sorry” to a parent and her child nearby, then ducked your head to look at the contents once more.

There was no way they wanted—no, needed—all of those graded by tonight.

This was cruel and unusual punishment, but you knew you were going to do it anyway.

By the time you finished grading, shoveled dinner into your mouth, and took a therapeutically scalding hot shower, it was sometime past two in the morning. Thank fuck it was Saturday.

It was less than twelve hours later that you settled into the passenger seat of Yunho's Lexus sedan with a pair of shades covering your dehydrated, puffy eyes from the world and whatever paparazzi was stalking his car. Yunho glanced over at you with barely concealed amusement. “Well, good morning, princess.”

“You can't see it but I'm glaring at you,” you grunted as you strapped yourself in with the seatbelt. “I can't believe you wake up before noon now.”

“Unfortunately,” he chuckled, peeling his car away from the curb. After an unsatisfactory six hours of sleep, Yunho had woken you up with the obnoxiously loud sound of your phone ringing. You managed to negotiate for him to pick you up in two hours rather than half an hour—and now here you were. You never truly considered yourself a breakfast person and you would have happily slept all the way to lunch, but even through the exhaustion, you wanted to see him as much as he wanted to see you.

He would be gone by the end of the week, after all.

You leaned your head back against the headrest. “I used to have to lure you out of bed with the smell of bacon. Remember when you ate that entire plate of raw-ass bacon and pancake batter that Mingi made?”

Yunho let out a loud laugh that made you smile. He glanced over at you. “Bro,” he sighed, shaking his head, “you know I'll eat anything. Oh my gosh, I will never forget the horrified look on your face when you came out of the bathroom and found out what happened.”

“You looked like a kicked puppy when I told you that you shouldn't have eaten raw bacon,” you snorted. You'd felt so awful that Yunho was such a good eater who didn't complain; he didn't have any negative side effects afterward, thankfully, but you swore to never let Mingi in the kitchen or to let Mingi feed Yunho ever again, so long as you lived.

There was a café a few minutes drive from your apartment complex that the two of you liked to go to. It was a little hole in the wall, located on the second floor above a pet shelter, and the entrance could only be accessed through the stairs in the next-door alleyway.

Yunho adjusted the beanie over his bangs and you shifted your sunglasses up to the top of your head as you entered the establishment. There were a few people seated in the area to the right, but something you liked about this place was its hidden gem quality. (And the drinks and food they served, of course.)

“Hi, welcome in!” The barista behind the counter called before ducking behind the espresso machine. “Give me two seconds, and I'll be right with you.”

“No worries, take your time,” Yunho chirped back as he scoured the menu, eyes squinting and tongue darting out to wet his lips.

You had a general idea of what you wanted already, and you let Yunho know what it was before slipping off into the restroom.

By the time you emerged from the back hallway where the washrooms were, Yunho had finished ordering and was standing by one of the open two-seater tables by the far window with the soft autumn sunlight painting over his features. For a second, you stood at the opening of the hallway, just admiring him. Perhaps it was the lack of sleep making you envision the sunlight dancing around him as he sat down in one of the seats.

Heat rushed up your neck as your eyes met across the café. Gazes locked, you stood frozen, but a smile bloomed on your best friend's face like the coming of spring. It was the most beautiful thing you'd ever seen.

And then he made a face, cocking his head to the side like a puppy with a question. 'Why are you just standing there?’ He seemed to ask.

You shook yourself out of whatever strange daze you'd slipped into, then walked over to join him.

“You okay?” He asked as you took the seat across from him, a teasing lilt to his voice, yet there was still concern in the curve of his mouth.

You waved said concern away. “Yeah. I think I'm still waking up or something.”

“Ah,” he nodded in understanding. He frowned. “What time did you go to sleep last night?”

“Like… some time past two.” On cue, you let out a large yawn, lifting your sleeve up to cover your mouth. “It's okay. I'll just sleep early tonight or something. One of the other TAs got into an accident, so we just had to do some make-up work and I just happened to get home late as it was.”

You could already see the guilt manifest on his face for waking you up, and you were swift to add, “I'll be fine with food and coffee, so 's alright. What about you? How'd you sleep last night?”

“I slept decently,” he replied, leaning forward to rest his cheek against his fist. “I didn't end up dropping the deluxe album, so it was a little more restful than—”

Your brain took a second to catch up. The… the deluxe album… oh. Your eyes went from half-mast to wide open. “You—you didn't release the deluxe? Sorry, I was so busy yesterday that I didn't check my socials.”

“Don't worry about it,” he said with a sheepish smile. “But yeah, I told my manager that I still wasn't ready to release it to the public just yet. I don't know when I'll postpone it to, but it probably won't come out until while I'm on tour.”

Ah. There was that disappointment settling in the pit of your stomach again. This wasn't about you, but why did it seem like he was avoiding your eventual listening to this song? He was almost always sending you audio files without prompting, so what made this one different?

Nonetheless, it wasn't your song. You would respect Yunho's privacy if he wanted to keep this one to himself and his friends.

You unconsciously rubbed your arm. “Oh okay. Yeah, I mean—take your time, Yun. I'm glad you don't feel pressured to release it when you aren't ready.”

His expression softened to something tender that made your chest feel fuzzy. “You'll listen to it soon, I promise.”

The barista called out Yunho's order number, and your friend stood up to go retrieve it. You sighed as you fiddled with the sleeve of your shirt and peered over your shoulder as a pair of newcomers asked him for his autograph and a picture. You watched the pleasant smile spread on Yunho's face as he conversed with them as easy as breathing air, alongside the faint blush over his cheekbones.

No, you didn't know what had gotten into you this morning.

“No, no. You have to loop it through this piece here—yeah, there you go.”

You were so concentrated on following Hongjoong's directions that you didn't even register the sound of Yunho's front door opening and closing. Hongjoong clicked his tongue and scooted closer so he could direct your hands and the crochet hook himself.

“Uhm… hey?”

Both yours and Hongjoong's heads whipped up at the sound of Yunho's confusion. He stood at the entrance to the living room area where, scattered all around you and Hongjoong, were clothes, toiletries, and other essentials laid out for Yunho to throw into his bags.

Tonight marked the evening before Yunho and the team were to set off on the Youth World Tour. Tomorrow, they would fly out sometime in the afternoon, which meant that you would have time to send them off before heading to work and class. However, because you hadn't seen Yunho since this past Saturday when he dragged your ass out of bed for breakfast, you invited yourself over to his apartment to oversee his packing. Hongjoong just so happened to be swinging by Yunho's apartment and you asked if he was up for an impromptu crocheting lesson.

Hongjoong arrived some time while Yunho ran out to the Chinese place down the block to grab dinner, and the two of you had been hunched over the ball of yarn and hook ever since.

“Oh, you're back!” You exclaimed. In your distracted state, Hongjoong took the opportunity to take the crochet piece from you and subtly fix the mistakes you made.

Yunho's brows creased, eyes darting from you to Hongjoong as he slowly placed the takeout bags on the semi-cleared coffee table. “Yeah… Joong, when did you get here?”

You leaned forward to help clear off the rest of the coffee table and to also assist in unpacking all of the takeout containers. Yunho shucked the baseball cap he was wearing off to the side, carding a hand through his dark locks.

“Like… seven minutes ago,” he replied cheekily. His mouth curled into something mischievous as he locked eyes with Yunho. “I can leave, though, if you wanted to be alone—”

“Hyung—”

“I'm messing with you,” he snickered as he handed you the yarn and hook. “I only came by to drop off the emergency backup files hard drive and to give Yn-ie a sneak peek of her crocheting lessons to come.”

(Yunho's eyes narrowed a millimeter. Yn-ie?)

You set the unfinished crochet square down on the couch to walk Hongjoong to the door. “Are we still on for tomorrow, by the way?”

“What's tomorrow?” Yunho twisted around where he was seated on the floor to watch you and Hongjoong make your way to the front door.

“You,” said Hongjoong with raised eyebrows at your best friend, “are going on a plane with everyone else. Because I'm not leaving until the day after tomorrow, Yn and I are bonding over lunch after we see you all off.”

You and Hongjoong finished up finalizing plans in the doorway, followed by amiable farewells. Yunho called out a “good night” to his friend as Hongjoong slipped out the door, and left you and him to the apartment by yourselves.

You claimed the spot on the floor next to him and accepted the pair of wooden chopsticks he extended to you. “I'm sorry if I wasn't supposed to invite him in. I probably should've asked,” you said sheepishly as you snapped the chopsticks apart.

“Oh, no, he's been over quite a few times, so it's all good,” he replied swiftly. “I just didn't expect you two to be so close.” He added a laugh at the end that sounded more nervous to him than it was supposed to.

“We've been texting back and forth, but I guess so. Nothing like the two of you,” you jested, lifting your eyebrows up and bumping your elbow against his.

Yunho grinned. “What's that supposed to mean?”

“You guys spend all that time together in the studio—WHA—NO! Keep those hands to yourself!” You shrieked, rolling out of the way to dodge his hands that threatened to tickle you into submission. Yunho had thrown his head back in a carefree laugh, a beautiful expression in itself, that had you reciprocating.

When you were sure he wasn't going to attack you (affectionately), you scooted back over to your original spot next to him. He smiled to himself at the sidelong glance you casted him, and he went and grabbed one carton of rice for himself and the other for you.

“Thank you for dinner, by the way,” you told him as you opened up your carton, his somehow already opened and spilling over with food.

You once again caught him with his mouth full, and Yunho swallowed the bite of food he had before replying. “Yeah, man. Of course.”

“I swear that I will definitely get the next meal we have—”

“Yn.” He touched the back of his hand against your arm to draw your attention to him. “You literally were the one to make sure I made it out of college alive, like, I can never thank you enough for how much you did for me then and continue to do for me now.”

You swallowed, suddenly blown back by the way he looked at you right now. “I did it because I care about you, Yun. It's not something I expect to be repaid for.”

“I know,” he said with a nod, lips pulled into a tender smile that made your stomach do flips. This was the look no one else got to see from him. Sure, he could fill stadiums of people who would see his big, bright grin that shone brighter than the sun, but… but this one, this smile, was yours. “That goes the same toward this meal, okay?”

Yunho notched his finger under your chin and tilted your head up slightly to meet his eyes. “Don't worry about it.”

You set your carton of rice and chopsticks on the table, he copied your movements, and you wrapped each other in your mutual embraces. The startling realization that you wouldn't see him for longer than a week from tomorrow onward rushed toward you like the coming of a tide to shore. Before you knew it, the water was up to your knees, and you—what were you going to do without him here?

“I miss you already,” you whispered.

You felt him squeeze you tighter, nose pressed against the side of your neck. “I won't be gone too long.” A promise.

“Thank god Seonghwa and Wooyoung can cook.” At the sound of his snort from above your head, you squawked out in your defense, “Who else is gonna make you bacon and pancakes in the morning when you’re dead tired?”

“Hey! I can fry bacon, I’ll have you know!”

You pulled away from him so he could see the look of pure disbelief on your face. “Okay, rockstar. I believe you.”

He scrunched his nose up at you. “That’s not very convincing.”

“I’m glad we’re on the same page.”

Yunho scoffed, reaching over to flick your nose. You let out a sound of indignation and rubbed your nose, a scowl on your face at Yunho’s very pleased expression. And even if you were currently conspiring on how to get back at him, you couldn’t help but resolve something right that second—you would do everything in your power to see his show in two weeks’ time—to see Yunho in two weeks’ time.

The thing about cheap plane tickets was that the cheaper you bought them, the less “amenities” that it came with. The one you’d purchased specifically for two weeks in the future did not allow you a refund. This meant that if something were to arise, you would be a good several hundred dollars poorer, and your plans to surprise Yunho at his show would fall completely through the floor.

Good thing you weren’t about to let that happen, right? …Right?

“You’re sick.” Those were your roommate Trinity’s first words to you as you stumbled out of your bedroom and found her perched on one of the stools at the kitchen counter. She fixed you with an unimpressed look as she stirred around her morning coffee.

“I’m not—” Your own response was cut off by one very untimely cough into your elbow. You wrinkled your nose at the metallic taste at the back of your throat. Great. “—sick.”

“And I’m Oprah,” she deadpanned.

“You could be.” Did you really sound as much like a dying walrus as you thought you did? Holy shit.

She stood up from her stool, setting her coffee cup on the counter, then walked over to you to direct you back into your room. “I’m not permitting you exit from this apartment until you're better. Back to bed with you.”

“But—”

“No buts! If you wanna still be able to fly by the end of this week, then you have to get better, Yn.”

You really, unfortunately, could not argue with that. Nearly a week and a half had passed since Yunho started touring. Opening night had been a massive success, as you’d seen the broadcast and read the reviews on social media. In the concert photos and videos slowly being released online, there was no doubt in your mind that Yunho belonged onstage. He was radiant as a diamond in each depiction of him, and he sounded better and better each night.

Suffice to say, you were beyond proud and happy for him.

In order to make your surprise successful, you informed Yunho’s team of your plans so they could help you get into the concert once you arrived. Your part consisted mainly of finishing all of your work ahead of schedule so you weren’t swamped when you got back. It was nearing the end of the term, meaning there was lots to grade and study, but when you had a goal, you were determined.

The only downside was that, between the long days and nights of work, your body couldn’t fight against the swift rush of early winter air that swept through the city in the past week. Your working hours stretched out longer and longer until your body just… gave up. Or at least, it was giving up.

After calling in sick to your workplace, you crashed back into bed for what you hoped to be a restful nap. Maybe when you woke up, this would all just turn out to be a 24-hour fever.

(It was not a 24-hour fever.)

You didn't even know what time it was when you woke up groggy and your head pounding like there was an active construction site taking place in your skull. Your bedroom was dark, and the world outside your window was also dark. The sound of your phone ringing drilled into your cranium, and you groaned as you felt around your mess of blankets and sheets for wherever that damned thing was—

“Hello?” You croaked into the receiver when you finally grabbed ahold of your phone.

There was a pause on the other end, and you were about to ask who it was when they responded. “Oh my god. You're sick.”

Your heart leapt into your throat at the sound of your best friend's voice and you shoved your face into the pillow. “I'm not sick.”

“Yn, sweetheart, you literally have the sexy sick voice.”

“You think I'm sexy?” You asked in a drowsy, unwell daze. “But anyways, I'm not—” You lifted your face into your elbow in time to practically hack out your lungs. You groaned. “Okay, maybe I am sick.”

Could things get any worse?

You could hear the frown in his voice. “You sound like my worst nightmare.”

“Am I sexy or your worst nightmare? You need to pick an adjective.” You whimpered as you struggled to pull yourself up into a sitting position.

“At least I know it did nothing to that attitude of yours,” he laughed. He sobered for a moment when he heard you groan as the blood rushed to your head. “Hey, do you have meds with you? I can order some and have them there in half an hour.”

You waved him off, even though he wouldn't be able to see. “No, it's okay. I should have taken an ibuprofen before I crashed. I'm sure we've got extra Nyquil around here somewhere…”

You attempted to stand up, a swear falling from your mouth as the vertigo hit you and sent you tumbling back down onto the edge of the bed.

“Yn, I'm sending you medicine—and dinner. That one bistro near your apartment is still open, right? I'll let Trinity know that deliveries are on the—Yn?”

You lifted your head and broke out of your return to unconsciousness. “Hm? Sorry… I did not hear anything you just said.” You rubbed your hand down your face and scooped your phone up to make your way out of your room. You somehow made it to the door, and you leaned against the doorjamb as you pushed out into the dark hallway. “You don't have to send anything, Yun. Trinity's studying for her law school finals, so I don't wanna bother her. Plus…”

You opened up the medicine cabinet in the bathroom and bit back a sigh of disappointment. No cold medicine. There was pain medication, at least, so that should hopefully help you fall asleep again.

At your lack of words, Yunho asked, “No medicine?”

“No, I have some medicine,” you countered. “Just—not the right ones.” Before you could swallow any pills, you hacked out another lung into your elbow; you swore your coughs were sounding worse and worse.

“You know what? I'm flying home—”

You slammed the pill bottle on the bathroom counter. “Don't—what? Yunho, do not fly home. It's literally just a little—” You coughed, “—cold. You have another show in two days. If you show up on my doorstep, I'm not opening the door.”

From the silence on his end, you knew he wasn't in total agreement with you. Maybe the bottle slamming was a little much, but his statement had surprised you. It didn't make sense for him to drop everything for you when you were experiencing something so trivial as a cold.

Not unkindly, you said to him, “I appreciate the concern, but you have bigger things to worry about and care about.”

“You will always be the most important thing I care about.”

His admission was so sincere that your heart gave a violent palpitation in your chest. You struggled to swallow, and it wasn't just because your throat was sore. “And I feel the same way about you,” you murmured, “but I can take care of myself, okay? I'll be back to normal in no time.”

You heard a sigh from his end. “I know; you're right. I just… wish I was there with you right now.”

You could understand that—it was how you felt. But some things couldn't be helped, and Yunho needed to be where he was and you needed to be where you were. You could hold down the fort while he was gone taking over the world by storm.

You closed the bathroom door to give an extra barrier between your voice and where Trinity was studying in her room. After knocking back a couple painkillers, you seated yourself on the floor with your back against the bathtub and your knees pulled up to your chest. “You know what's kind of ironic?” You coughed into your elbow and wrestled down another one bubbling up in your throat. You shouldn't have been speaking so much, but you could deal with the repercussions later. “I think I freaked out when you said you were going to fly home, not just because that's insane, but also because I was going to surprise you by flying out to your show in a couple days.”

He sucked in a breath. “You were gonna come surprise me?”

“Yeah,” you muttered, swiping at your nose and tucking your chin to your knees. Then you had to go and screw it all up, and you couldn't even get your money back. You pretty much accepted that you weren't going to be better by the time the day rolled around, especially not for travel. “I'm sorry I couldn't come see you.”

“No, don't be sorry!” He cooed. “I'm—I’m really sorry you're sick and I'm sad you couldn't make it, but… but think of it this way, hm? As soon as you get better, I'll fly you out to whatever city I'm in and we can hang out and you can come to the concert. All you have to do is get better for me.”

You didn't know if your schedule would allow after this setback, but you were going to remain optimistic. With a small glimmer of hope peering through your chest, you replied, “Okay.”

“Okay,” he said, and you could hear the fond smile in his voice.

“By the way,” you began, and had to clear your throat from how congested it was getting. Maybe some hot tea would do you good. You clambered to your feet to get out of this bathroom and do just that. “Was there a reason you called originally or was it just to say hi?”

A beat of hesitation passed between your question and his answer. “Ah…” There was a wince in his voice, “I, uhm, called because I wanted to know if you'd seen something online, but obviously you haven't 'cause you were asleep, but…”

Seen something online? Your movements with your electric kettle paused. Had someone posted something about Yunho? “What is it, Yun?” Who's ass did you need to beat?

“Seonghwa hyung found out that someone leaked the hidden track online a few hours ago.”

You leaned your cheek against your palm, eyebrows knitting together. “Shit, dude. I'm so sorry,” you said with a frown. That meant some rando on the internet had hacked into someone's files and leaked the song.

A sharp exhale from Yunho's end. “Yeah, I dunno. We're working on getting it taken down right now, but in the event it can't be done soon enough, I think I'm just gonna release the deluxe version in a couple hours.”

It seemed by his response that it wasn't the hacking that was his primary concern. Leaked, unreleased songs happened to every major artist in the industry, and it had most definitely happened to Yunho before this. But this time… this time felt different. You knew how hesitant he was to release this, and having the track get released to the public on terms that weren't his? Well, that just wasn't fair.

“You don't,” you said softly, reaching for a mug in the top cabinet to plop your tea bag into, “have to release it officially right now. You can still wait until you're comfortable.”

You heard sounds of shuffling on his end, followed by the sound of a door opening. You thought you heard Yeosang's voice as he murmured something to Yunho. The exchange was swift, but it reminded you that your time with your best friend here was limited.

“Do you need to go?” You asked, trying to cover up your hope that he didn't have to with nonchalance.

He hummed. “It's okay, I have a few minutes left. They want me to 'okay’ a couple things out on set, but that can wait. Uhm… as for what you said about releasing it—I,” he sighed, “I think this was the push I needed to finally drop it, y'know? I think either way I was going to be scared for—for people to hear it—for you to hear it. But uhm… yeah. That's all I wanted to say. I think it'll probably be released whenever you wake up.”

You poured the hot water of your tea bag, setting the kettle down gently. Letting the steam rise up to help clear your congestion, you could finally think a little clearer now. “I'm sorry this didn't happen on your terms.”

“I appreciate that. I hope you like the song—I… I really hope you like the song.”

A smile tugged at the corners of your lips. “I'm going to like the song, rockstar. You have nothing to worry about, I promise.”

He let out a small laugh and the sound of his happiness, however big or small, made your chest feel heavy. “I’ve missed you so much,” he rasped out. “So much.”

You pressed your forehead to your fist, willing the prickling feeling of tears at bay. “I wish I was there—I’ve wished I was there with you the moment you left. But I'm so, so proud of you. I know I've said this before, but you belong on that stage, Yunho. I'll be there… I'm always there in spirit.”

“You can't say that and expect me not to fly my ass home right now.”

You sputtered out a laugh, which was probably a bad idea, because it led to an utter disaster of a coughing fit. When you finally managed to get a reign on things, you picked up your mug of tea and took a couple ginger sips. It was still piping hot, but whatever scalding temperature it was at somehow soothed your throat and your head.

You set the cup down. “Again, I'll be there in no time, I promise.”

“You swear on your life?”

You sighed, but you pressed your lips into a smile. “I swear on my life.”

Yunho's departure from this call was imminent, and so you made further promises to get plenty of rest and to take care of yourself. You only did so when he promised to do the same for himself. Just after you both hung up, you received a text message from him: Stay up for five more minutes!! The delivery's almost there.

You huffed out a rough-sounding laugh, and bit your tongue around a smile. Of course he had still ordered you stuff. You shook your head to settle on one of the kitchen stools to nurse your tea and wait for the delivery to get here.

When the driver was safely out of bounds of your door, you poked your head out into the hallway to grab the paper bags seated on your doorstep. You had only expected medicine and maybe dinner, but not only were there cold medicines, orange juice, and hot soup from the bistro down the street, but there was a bouquet of flowers there, too.

Butterflies fluttered in your stomach as you pulled everything into the safety of your apartment. Damn Jeong Yunho and his gestures. It didn't mean anything—they were just Get Well Soon flowers, but why did you kind of wish they were more than that?

The Youth album's fourteenth track entitled your space hit the charts at number two. By the time you woke up, still sick as hell, the track had been officially released for about eight hours. You rolled over in bed to guzzle down half a bottle of water and cold medicine, then grabbed your phone.

It seemed that social media blew up while you were asleep. The deluxe drop was trending under a couple different tags, and based on initial skims, you were happy to report that most had everything good to say about it.

Though, some of the commentary made you pause. He has to be seeing someone, said one user. Look at these lyrics. These could only be produced by a man in love.

You had to swipe out of the app at that point. Instead, you went over to yours, Yunho's, and Mingi's group chat together where Mingi and Yunho had waged a meme war while you were asleep after Mingi wished you a “Get Better Soon” message. You sent back your own meme in response and opened your music streaming app to find track fourteen.

The boys would probably all be asleep by now, so they wouldn't respond any time soon.

You found your space exactly where you thought it would be, at the very bottom of the deluxe album. You sat yourself up against your headboard, plugged your earbuds in, then hit play.

If only you knew how much it would rock your world.

Hongjoong was never wrong about his hunches. It had been about a week and a half since you came down with an awful cold and couldn't make it to your intended surprise show, and slightly less than that since the deluxe album dropped. Even before the tour started, life was a whirlwind, but now that the tour was only ramping up further from this point, it had been nothing short of a total rush.

Different cities every week, at least two nights a city—all of it took a toll on both the staff and artist involved. Hongjoong's hunch, however, regarded the artist in particular as he watched said artist keep his smile up to say goodnight to the remainder of the stadium workers who lingered for cleanup. Yesterday was their last show date in this city, and today, Yunho and his team had come by to help load everything up for transport to their next destination. Tomorrow, they would fly out and be in the next city to begin preparing for the next round.

But as Yunho began making his way toward the exit where Hongjoong was waiting for him, it was impossible to miss the immediate exhaustion that flooded his features. He carded a hand through his hair as he checked his phone, then pocketed it in the back pocket of his pants.

“Hey,” Yunho nodded to Hongjoong as he met him at the exit and they both walked out into the chilly evening together. There was already a car waiting at the curb to take them back to their hotel—there was still so much that needed to be done before they left for the airport tomorrow.

“Hey,” he said back. “Everything okay?”

Yunho glanced over at him. “Huh? Oh, yeah. I'm fine; just tired. I think it's a good thing I started packing before we came here earlier,” he mused. For him to pack early? A miracle.

Hongjoong bobbed his head in understanding. “Yeah, I get that, but that's not really—you know you can be honest with me, right? I know this has all been… a lot.” And Hongjoong would understand; he had been in the public eye for so long now, and all of that could be so incredibly draining. From catering to fans and journalists and sponsors, it could be difficult finding himself amongst all that mess.

Plus, Yunho had the added bit of being away from home for a very long time. From what Hongjoong understood, Yunho only used to tour relatively close to home, and when it was farther, it was during his school breaks. He also knew that you were an integral part of Yunho's sanity, and that even before he reached this level of fame, you were his rock, his anchor, his ground control.

Being away from you for so long was beginning to show. When Hongjoong brought it up offhandedly to Mingi, Mingi was swift to agree.

“I—” Yunho began as he slipped into the passenger seat and Hongjoong into the back of the car. He murmured a soft greeting to the driver before strapping himself in with a seatbelt. “—it definitely has been hard,” he admitted with a sigh. “I don't know, Joong. You know that rush you get while onstage, but it just comes crashing down a couple hours later? Like the adrenaline leaves you all at once and all you crave for is home?”

Hongjoong pursed his lips, watching Yunho lean the side of his head against the window as he watched the world pass by. “Yeah, I do,” he said quietly. “The moments between all the rush and excitement, you're no longer distracted from how much it all is.”

A nod. “Yeah.”

“You miss her?” It was less of a question and more so a statement. Hongjoong's hunches were never incorrect. It was both a blessing and a curse.

Yunho's quiet was answer enough.

Hongjoong played around with the back of his phone case. He knew you had listened to the song—he’d asked Yunho and you'd texted Hongjoong, too. Yunho reported that you gushed about the song and affirmed him in all his choices and lyricism as always, but he was certain that you didn't get it. But when you had run to Hongjoong questioning your own feelings and if Yunho had been scared to tell you if he was in love with someone, Hongjoong could confidently say that you did get it, just not one hundred percent.

There was still miscommunication in the message, but he knew that was only something that the two of you could sort out.

“Have you guys talked since last week?”

“Yeah, we have. She's been…” He pushed a breath out of his mouth, “... She's been working her ass off trying to make up for the amount of time she was sick. I don't even know how she isn't getting sick again. I mean—all the shit she has to weather through—I wish I could help.”

And he couldn't, not like how he wanted to, not from so far away. Maybe that was what was eating him up inside the most, besides the fact he believed his feelings to be unrequited.

The car pulled up to the back entrance of the hotel Yunho and his team were staying at for the time being. The two of them thanked the driver on their way out, and they were swiftly greeted by employees coming out of the back for their breaks.

When they reached the warmth of their hotel floor's hallway, Yunho said to Hongjoong, “I miss her so much.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his Youth World Tour hoodie, eyes lined in silver. “I worry about her so much, too. I'm sure she worries just as much about me and I know that she's more than capable about taking care of herself—’cause god, she was the one who kept me afloat all these years, and I—”

I love her.

He slapped his key card against the reader and shoved into his hotel room with Hongjoong trailing after with a sympathetic frown on his face.

“It just feels wrong sometimes when I can't be with her. Is that crazy?”

Hongjoong settled a warm hand on Yunho's shoulder as the latter sat down on the edge of his bed. “It's not crazy,” he said. He'd felt like that about a person, once upon a time. After everything Hongjoong had gone through with his last relationship, one might think he didn't believe in love, but he was still clawing for it. He wanted something that he could see manifesting between you and Yunho. He wanted to help you reach that.

He sighed and sat down next to him. “It's completely valid to feel this way, y'know? She's been a huge part of your life and your passions, and for you to see all this without her seems incomplete.”

Yunho nodded. “Yeah.”

“You can go home whenever you want, you realize that?” Hongjoong asked. “We have time built into each week to give you rest days, man. We can make that work.” It might be a little tiring for so much travel, but one trip back wouldn't hurt, especially when it could help his mental state more than simply powering through.

“I know,” he replied. “I don't… I just feel like I want her to see that I can do this, that she didn't put her trust and energy into someone who would fall so fast—”

“Do you seriously believe she would think about you that way?”

Yunho's expression shuddered, and he let out a shaky breath as he shook his head.

Hongjoong arched his brow. “Exactly. She would never fault you for needing a break. Being human is not a sign of weakness, Yunho. She's your best friend—I think she has more forgiveness and compassion for you than that.”

Yunho swallowed. Of course what Hongjoong said was right. You wouldn't look at him any different if he needed a break; it was just a thing about being kinder to himself. But sometimes it was hard to put that into perspective, and perhaps he just needed someone to do that for him.

With no good choice made without a decent night of sleep, Hongjoong bid Yunho goodnight.

As soon as Hongjoong slipped out of his friend's room, he sighed and mentally calculated what time it would be where you were. You should have been awake.

And awake, you definitely were.

You would be lying if you said you hadn't been listening to the song your space on repeat for the past week and a half. Even as you sat in one of the campus dining halls doing work and eating your crappy sandwich for lunch, your headphones were spilling with your best friend's gorgeous croons.

You questioned everything at the same time. You'd figured out two days after you first heard it that you were in love with your best friend.

The lyrics had resonated with you, and you had come to the startling conclusion that you felt the song's meaning toward Yunho.

All you could do since was freak the fuck out and tell Yunho that the song was incredible. You didn't know who the song was for or about, but you knew it was important to him because of how scared he was to release it. Had he been scared to tell you he was in love with someone? Why?

Sometimes you found yourself tearing apart the lyrics like a rabid trash panda.

I couldn't ever leave you behind They couldn't ever take me away Baby, if I could pick a heaven on Earth It would be anywhere in your space.

You broke away from your work and sandwich to the sound of a text notification. Suddenly remembering how loud your vibration ringer was, you silenced it, then opened up Hongjoong's message: I know you're probably moping and eating a shitty sandwich—what. You glanced down at said shitty sandwich that sat in its equally sad plastic container. How did he know…? —and he's not doing well either. He's miserable, dude.

Everything slowed for you, and it was no longer about your so-called epiphany. You felt your entire body and mood drop at the news. You'd seen social media posts commenting on Yunho's stage presence and brightness never fading, but there were always the one or two who noted something along the lines of him seeming too tired or that perhaps he didn't have enough stamina for this.

The latter comments made your blood pressure spike, but there was, unfortunately, some truth to it. You just didn't think it was this bad.

You pressed the backs of your knuckles against your eyes. You hadn't been doing the best, clearly, and you knew that it was largely because you missed him. Being away from someone you considered home for so long meant that you were bound to get homesick.

You didn't know what to do. There was so much work to be done, and you had just caught up. On top of that, you were short a few hundred dollars from the last time you tried to fly out.

Another message buzzed in from Hongjoong: I think you guys really need to talk.

The organ in your chest rattled around in its cage; it longed to be with its partner. You were starting to understand that now.

The song playing in your ear was slowly petering out, and all you could hear was his voice.

And I've kinda been wanting to ask if we can Skip the 'why’ and get to the 'our’ Because baby, I love your space But I love ours more.

Yunho had not flown home that week. Some emergencies had sprung up as soon as they landed in their new city, and all bets were off to be able to go home. All that he could do was buckle down and get comfortable. Even so, he knew how to make the best out of a situation.

As he stood at the very center of the main stage, he held a hand up to shield his eyes from the bright spotlights shining down on him now.

“Is that better?” Hongjoong's voice echoed throughout the near-empty stadium.

From one of the balconies, Jongho cupped his hands up around his mouth to scream at the top of his lungs, “LOOKS GOOD, HYUNG!”

“Jongho,” Yunho chuckled into his microphone, “did someone not get you a headset, bro?”

A beat passed, and then, “NO.”

Mildly amused laughter cropped up around the stadium in reaction to the youngest's troubles. It was little moments like these where Yunho could forget for one second just how tiring all of this amounted to become. His smile was genuine, and his tongue darted out to trace his teeth—

“Jeong Yunho, put your damn tongue away.”

Yunho's eyes went as wide as saucers, his expression morphing into something like childlike surprise as he immediately retracted his tongue into his mouth. But in the split second it took his brain to process the words that had been said, he also recognized the voice who'd said them. From the big screen, any one of the staff members or you could see the way his face stretched into the widest grin possible, his eyes lighting up like spotlights.

He lifted the mic in his hand up to his lips as he tilted his eyes up to the sound and lighting box far up in the stands. From where he was onstage, he could just make out the shape of you in the box next to Hongjoong—the sneaky bastard. “Ln Yn, get your ass down here right now,” he said, hardly able to contain the excitement in his voice.

You didn't need to be told twice.

You raced down the stadium steps from the box, your legs carrying you as fast as humanly possible without falling. Yunho leapt off the stage and left his microphone behind to meet you in the middle.

Somewhere between the pit and mezzanine, you flew into his arms and he caught you, spinning you around. The glee on both of your faces was enough to make everyone stop and appreciate the tangible love before them. Tears pricked at the corners of your eyes and you pursed your lips to subdue them. You squeezed him as tight as you possibly could; his arms held you firmly around your waist, head tucked into the joint between your neck and shoulder.

“You're here,” he croaked with tears in his voice now. You heard him sniffle, and only held him tighter. He felt the added strength and let out a sob. “I missed you so much.”

Oh, for fuck's sake—you started bawling like a baby. “I—” you sucked in a breath, “—I heard—so I booked a flight—”

This only caused his body to tremble harder. “Oh god… Yn… I…”

You sniffled and brushed your hand over the back of his head in an attempt to get both of you to calm down. “Hey, don't worry about it, okay? It doesn't matter; you know I'd drop everything for you.” When his only response was to press his wet eyes against the heat of your neck, you blinked away your tears. “Plus, I missed you, too, rockstar.”

Yunho let out a watery laugh, gently setting you down onto solid ground. You both looked like a hot mess and a half: snot dripping out of your noses, eyes red and drowned in salty tears. The adrenaline rush from the surprise had trickled out of your system, but your heartbeat continued to rattle around in your chest with reckless abandon. His messy, damp hair; the wobbly shine in his dark brown irises; the way he smiled at you with that something on his face… he was everything to you.

“Glad to know the feeling's mutual,” he said, nudging you with his elbow, then pawing at his eyes to wipe the tears away.

“Good to see you, Yn!” San piped up from the stage with his microphone. He had picked up Yunho's microphone from where he'd abandoned it to come meet you.

You laughed, lifting a hand up in a wave. “Hey, San! Hi everyone!”

Chimes of greetings from all the other boys and staff members cropped up from all around the arena.

Yunho brushed a hand through his hair and wrapped an arm around your shoulders. “Did all you fuckers know about this?”

Mingi was perched on the ledge of the stage. His grin seemed to be the widest after watching your reunion. He tugged the microphone attached to his earpiece closer to his mouth. “Don't tell us you're not grateful now.”

“Nah, I'm just surprised Wooyoung was able to keep his mouth shut.”

Wooyoung didn't need a microphone to let you all know of his offense. You could hear his squawk of disapproval all the way from where you stood—crazy how acoustics worked.

Yunho heard your laugh from beside him, and he glanced over at you to catch the fond look on your face. He hadn't stopped smiling for the past five minutes, and it didn't matter how much his cheeks hurt. You were here; that was all that mattered.

“This place is—” you marveled as the two of you began walking down the stairs together toward the stage. The backs of your hands brushed against one another, breaths away from touching, from lacing, from being together. “—huge. It's so much more—” You felt your lip wobble again, “I don't even know why I'm getting emotional. It's all you dreamed of as a kid, wasn't it?”

The tears pricked at the edges of his eyes again, and the two of you looked back at each other with equally wet eyes and bright smiles. “Yeah,” he nodded, swiping at his eyes.

“You deserve it.”

“All thanks to you,” he said with a sniffle, hugging you to him again. You were solid and real beneath his fingertips—he was so happy you were here. This was where you belonged; none of this felt right without you.

When you finally reached the bottom of the pit, Yunho had to run back up to the stage, and you went through the aisles until you found your perfect seat. It wasn't long before Mingi bounded up the steps to come join you. He brought you in for a long awaited hug of his own.

“What's good, Yn?” He asked with a soft chuckle as he pulled away and settled in the seat to your left.

Just ahead, Yunho appeared onstage with his microphone in hand, and the two of you lifted your hands in sync to wave to your best friend.

You adjusted your bag in your lap, and clasped a hand on Mingi's shoulder. “This is surreal. Does it feel surreal?”

Mingi's lips pulled into a smile as nostalgia made his vision cloudy. “It does, every single time. I'm glad you're finally here—we’re all very happy that you're here now.”

You bumped your head against his shoulder and let it rest there for a moment, and his hand came up to gently pat your head to tell you he understood. You didn't need to say anything.

For the next hour and a half, you and Mingi got to watch Yunho and everyone else run through the last of the day's lighting checks. Periodically, someone else from Yunho's personal team would come and sit with the two of you, then leave quickly when they had something else on their to-do list.

At last, when the session wrapped up and everyone was sent to go home for an early night, you rushed down to meet with Yunho again.

He waited for you to be at his side before leading you down toward backstage. “There's a couple things I need to grab in my dressing room before we can head back to the hotel.” A thought suddenly interrupted his thoughts and his eyes widened. “Do you have accommodations? Please tell me you do.”

“Don't worry—I promise I'm not sleeping on the streets,” you teased. You'd figured all of that out pretty last minute with Hongjoong and Mingi's help.

Yunho nodded, a smile coming to his face. “Okay, good. I was gonna offer my room and I could sleep on the pullout couch.”

The thought of sleeping in the same room as him made your skin warm, and if you hadn't realized your feelings for him before, you would be confused as to why you were so flustered at the thought now. It wouldn't be the first time you had a sleepover. But this would be… different. Oh lord.

The backstage hallways were scarce and dimly lit in order to save energy, but it was enough to guide you and Yunho's way to the star dressing room. You swallowed as you reached the door—the facade plastered with a pretty, gold star with his name on it—and followed him inside.

“Hey, Yun?” You asked him as you lingered by the door and he rushed around to grab his things. The room was decently spacious, and definitely larger than all the other ones from his past tours.

“Mhm?”

“Could we… talk about something?”

He glanced back over his shoulder as he threw things into his bag. “Yeah, ‘course.”

You toed at the polished ground, fingers twisting and wringing in front of you. “It’s about the song. The, uhm, the your space one.”

His movements paused. He looked up and connected gazes with you through the vanity mirror in front of him. Yunho cleared his throat and ducked his head to zip up his bag. “What—what about it?” He asked, shouldering his bag and meeting you back at the door.

He seemed unable to look you in the eyes directly now as he closed the door behind the both of you as you stepped out into the empty hallway.

“I just,” you stammered. Blood rushed up to your face and you could hear your heartbeat thundering in your ears. “I needed to know—I didn’t need to know—it’s your life and your song, and you have every right to have feelings for someone without me knowing. And I think I’m asking this for selfish reasons, but… are you seeing someone?”

The question caught him off guard, his eyes blowing wide open. “Wh—no. No, I am not seeing anyone. Why do you ask?”

“The song—I know I shouldn’t be indulging in what people on the internet say, much less in the opinions of those who don’t even know you, but I couldn’t help but agree with them when they say the lyrics, the—the feeling of the song—you’re in love, and I—” Your breath caught in your throat as you choked on the words lodged there: And I am in love with you.

Yunho pushed an exhale out of his mouth and stepped toward you. So much shone in his eyes right then, and it didn’t matter how much light there was in this damn hallway, his eyes would always glitter like twin diamonds. “I am in love with someone. Yn, I’m in love with you,” he said. “I thought that the song would make it obvious, which is why I was so scared for you to hear it, but I realize now that this was just something I should have said outright.”

Your heart fluttered in your chest and it wasn’t from the nerves anymore. God, your knees felt like buckling from the force of the tenderness in his eyes alone. “You’re—you’re in love with me?”

“I am,” he nodded. He slowly reached for your hands and clasped them within his own. “I’ve been in love with you since that day you ran out of Science Olympiad practice to come to my audition; I’ve been in love with you from the moment you yelled at me for not being ambidextrous and I had beef jerky in my mouth—”

“I did not yell at you!”

He broke out into a cheeky, yet fond grin, his hand coming up to cup the side of your face with his hand. “I’ve been in love with you for so long that I can’t imagine what life was like before I was in love with you—and yes, you did yell, but you can yell at me as much as you like, and I would still be head-over-heels for you.”

Your lip curled in on itself at all of his words, at everything he was revealing to you now. You wished you had known—oh, god, you wish you had known. You didn’t know if things would have been different, but for some reason, you had a feeling that all paths might have led here nonetheless.

You squeezed his hand between your own now. “You’re everything to me, Jeong Yunho,” you rasped out, unable to put strength behind your voice for fear of all of the emotion about to spill out. “And I’m so stupid for taking so long to figure it all out, but I’m in love with you, too, and I’d be damned if I let another day pass without you knowing that.”

Something washed over him in that moment, and he laughed, leaning over to cup the back of your neck and rest his forehead against your own. It was ridiculous, the fact that both of you were giggling and smiling at such a precipice of emotion, but it felt right.

You could feel the warmth of his breath against your lips as he murmured, “Fuck, I wanna kiss you so bad.”

“Then come kiss me, rockstar,” you said, looping your arms around his neck. You drew him down to your mouth and felt his body mold against your own. Every crevice and curve slotted so perfectly with one another, and the heavy longing in your chest slowly eased.

“You guys have been incredible for me tonight—” Yunho beamed as he walked toward the front, center stage and looped the electric guitar strap over his head to the sound of the roaring crowd, “—so I've got a little surprise for you.”

One of the staff members had set out a mic stand and bottle water for him, and he approached both items to fit the microphone into place. Tonight was the Friday night concert being held in this city, and the energy was dialed to one thousand in all the best ways.

He held onto the microphone with one hand. “This song is dedicated to—written for—my best friend in the world, the love of my life, my stargirl. I'm sure you know it—you crazies debuted it at number two on the charts—this is your space.”

His smile tugged up wider at the reaction he received. If anyone in the crowd didn't know the song, they were about to fall in love.

Yunho laughed, shaking his head, as he began checking to make sure his guitar was tuned with practiced, nimble fingers. “Oh, by the way—” he pointed up at the accessory he wore, the crocheted headband holding his hair up and out of his face, with a row of stars across its band, “—she made this for me. Isn't it cute?”

The stadium echoed in choruses of “aw” and cheers.

He could only duck his head with a smile, eyes twinkling with fondness and tenderness at the thought of you. You were in the crowd, but you could be up here with him in spirit. “Yeah, that was me, too.”

After you and Yunho left the stadium yesterday, hands intertwined and a new page in your relationship turned, you’d gone back to his hotel to share a restful evening in one another’s presences. You revealed later that night that you spent the four or five days you were bedridden practicing your crocheting skills until you were able to make him a headband. A row of three stars studded the length of it—stars for your rockstar.

Yunho struck his fingers down the strings of his guitar with a gentle rocking motion from his opposite hand to let the sound reverberate around the stadium. The crowd cried in love as his soulful, beautiful voice filled their ears with love of his own. And as his fans filed out of the stadium for the night and headed home, Yunho could finally return to his home. Because you were here now… no matter how far, no matter the distance, the two of you would always find a way to be in the other's space.

a/n: pls remember to reblog, comment, and send asks if you enjoyed!

atz m.list

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[undreaming-fanfiction]

Eddie's hard work has finally paid off. Corroded Coffin is the new sensation and soon enough, Eddie gets an invitation for an interview, one that could promote the band on a much larger scale. He's excited but also terrified and Steve, being the supportive boyfriend he is (and also CC's unofficial mascot, "the yellow sweater boy" or simply "Stevie" to the fans) offers to go with Eddie. Eddie introduces Steve as his "emotional support ex-jock" and it goes well.

Until it doesn't.

Eddie gets more lively as he talks about the band's beginnings, the inspiration behind their songs and their influences, his own musical idols and influences. He's at ease, gesturing animatedly as he explains the evolution of the band's style, so he's caught off guard when the interviewer brings up that fateful spring of 1986. Eddie freezes, opens his mouth but nothing comes out. The memory of snapping bones, feeling of helplessness...it all comes flooding back.

But where Eddie feels like curling up into a ball and hoping the world will finally leave him alone, Steve is ready and prepared. He grasps Eddie's shoulder - Eddie blurted out a confession in one of his concerts so it's no secret for his fans that they're together, but why tempt fate - and gives the reporter a wide smile, sincere to someone who doesn't know him. He slips into his charming persona and speaks for the first time during the interview. "Thank you for asking this question," he says and the drop of poison easily dissolves in the sweetness of his voice. "I hope my recollection will be enough because I sure don't want to have Eddie go through all that horror again. But I assure you...I was there for nearly all of it. So ask away. I'm glad to finally set the record straight."

And so Steve talks about that March, about how Eddie found Chrissy dead in his trailer, mutilated in such an inhumane way his body took control and got him out, no call to the police, not a single thought. He mentions there was a witness who saw him enter the trailer and immediately stumble out, not enough time to harm anyone (Max has stuck to this story and never changed it, no matter how much anyone pushed). He talks about how he met Eddie later, how shaken he was and how the town started a manhunt for Eddie for no good reason, except that he was different. "He started a club for kids who were outcasts, who just wanted to remain children for a bit longer - and the whole town went to hunt them down. They attacked a thirteen year old girl. They beat up a fifteen year old boy just for belonging to the club."

Now it's Eddie's turn to grasp Steve's shoulder, his arm, worried about his sharp tone, his hardly contained anger. But Steve carries on, staring the reporter down as he stutters that he will have to verify this information. "This is rather different from the official story," he says, his forehead glistening with sweat.

And Steve just flashes the disarming smirk that established him as King Steve once upon a time and tells him to verify it all, please. Because Eddie Munson has nothing to hide and neither does the Corroded Coffin. "It's not different if you paid any attention to the police report," he mentions calmly, leaning back in the chair. "People don't like to speak ill of the dead, but a dead person is exactly who's at fault here. Jason Carver riled up the mob. He bought a revolver after he did that, publicly for self-protection, but..." he shrugs, buries the edge in his voice under his charm yet again. "We have a witness that heard him admit who it was for." Dead men tell no tales, but Nancy Wheeler sure does.

And as the reporter scrambles to put together a coherent thought, Steve lands the finishing blow. "It's a shame you only invited Eddie to discuss this," he says and the sympathy in his voice is almost believable. "After all, his band mates were also targeted and attacked."

The reporter stares at him, speechless.

"Oh, you didn't know?" The disbelief is genuine for once and he leans in, looks the man straight in the eye. "Jason Carver and his friends went to interrogate the band, you know. Only to talk, they said. Except they almost broke Gareth's hand during that talk. Once again...there is a witness. A different one, if you were about to ask. Perhaps you should talk to them too, I can give your their contact details. You know," he adds, smiling at the reporter, "I am incredibly thankful you brought this up. There aren't many who are willing to dig up old wrongs to set things right. I wasn't sure what to expect of this interview, there was always a possibility of someone malicious taking advantage of this traumatizing event, just to get a shocking scoop on a bunch of guys who have worked incredibly hard to get where they are. I was wary because there are always people willing to destroy lives just to get a bit further in theirs. I'm so grateful you aren't one of them. Because I see you as someone who wants to do more than shock their audience...I think you're someone who wants the truth, no matter how ugly it is."

And no matter what the reporter intended before, he is that man now. He nods frantically, assuring Steve that he will bring justice to Eddie and the Corroded Coffin. Steve Harrington has that effect on people - if he believes in someone, that belief is often enough to give that final push. Anything to keep Steve Harrington's faith, not to disappoint that earnest look in his eyes. Eddie almost feels sorry for the reporter - after all, he knows the best what his boyfriend is like when he doesn't hold back. It's a sight to behold.

After a few reassurances from the reporter, the man finally turns to Eddie. "I apologize for bringing up bad memories, Eddie," he says and perhaps this time he means it. Eddie would like to believe that. "Is there...would you like to add anything?"

Eddie thinks screw it and firmly grasps Steve's hand, homophobia be damned. He needs to get through this. "Yes, actually..." he says and his voice is low, almost broken, but at least it's coming out now, carrying the words he's wanted to shout at the world for years now. "That night...was probably the worst night of my life. Worse than when I almost died. Well. When I actually died before someone brought me back," he smiles at Steve, briefly, before turning back to the man scribbling down every word. "It took me a long time to realize I couldn't have done anything to save Chrissy. Hell, some days I still don't believe myself, I'm thinking if I've done something differently, been faster, but...in the end, it didn't matter. Doesn't stop me from feeling like I failed her."

Steve knows these things, of course. That's why he doesn't interrupt, just strokes his thumb over Eddie's whitening knuckles.

"Chrissy Cunningham was a wonderful, bright girl. She was friendly to everyone, even outcasts like me. There is no way in hell I'd ever want to harm someone that...that warm. Kind. The truth of the matter is - for years I didn't defend myself against these accusations that still appear from time to time, no matter what the official investigation said. I didn't sue anyone even though I was advised several times to do so, for the slander, the attempts at my life. Because you...because I felt guilty just for being there. For surviving when she didn't." He looks at the reporter with full force now, straightens his spine. "But I knew Chrissy Cunningham and I know she wouldn't want anyone feeling guilty for something they didn't do. She brought joy to others, not misery. And I want to honor her memory. So once and for all, for the record - I didn't kill Chrissy. I never hurt her, couldn't have. But I still keep her with me as an inspiration, as a soothing voice behind every bitter thought - I don't talk about her, don't use her story for publicity because she didn't, doesn't deserve that. But she's what I think of when I see bright smiles of our fans, when I see young people having fun at our concerts - I wish, more than anything, that she could have been one of them. So I try to bring as much joy into this world as I can to make up for the empty space she left behind, even if that might never be enough. That's all."

The interview spreads like a wildfire. Headlines like "Corroded Coffin's Eddie Munson breaks silence for the first time!" or "CC's frontman reveals details of persecution and mass hysteria in 1986". The news pick up the story, question the people in Hawkins who deflect or begrudgingly admit to their actions, justifying their deeds...but some of them talk. Karen Wheeler becomes the star of the show, recalling in horror the hunt for her daughter and her son's friends. "I vouch for Steve Harrington's recollection," she says firmly, shushing her husband's feeble attempts at deflection. "I'm glad someone finally had the courage to call the spring of 1986 what it really was - a witch hunt."

Eddie finally has the courage to do what he's wanted for years - he names the next album This One's For You, Chrissy. The world knows now, it knows that he mourned for her in his own way and that she meant so much to him, as a first extended hand, as a symbol, as a human being. He donates as many profits as he can to a foundation in Chrissy's name, providing the much needed mental health support to Hawkins children and teenagers. And piece by piece, Eddie Munson heals.

Before the interview becomes the sensation it is, Eddie crushes Steve in a hug and thanks him for everything, for making this burden easier. He's still worried his words will get twisted, that there will be a new wave of hatred, but Steve just chuckles and kisses his head. He reaches into the leather satchel he had at the interview and presents Eddie with a dictaphone - everything they've just talked about recorded. "Please, Eddie," he rolls his eyes in that bitchy way that has Eddie swooning, "I may be pretty, but I'm not stupid or naive."

Apart from the much needed closure and at least partial justice, there is an unusual side effect to this whole ordeal - Steve gets a new nickname in the Corroded Coffin fan base. After the way he handled the interview, after shielding Eddie and his band mates from unwanted attention, he becomes "The Guard Dog Steve", also lovingly referred to as "Golden Retriever Steve". Eddie loves it. Steve finds it ridiculous, but it makes Eddie smile so maybe it's worth it.

[myobsessionsspace]

Hi! I hope you dont mind this. I recently was informing myself more about bts and their past experiences, and i’m very probably wrong but i noticed how a lot of members (all of them, actually) have talked about and showed more or less some struggles, such as jimin, or v when he looked really numb and lost during official events, or yoongi, except for jungkook (and maybe jin?).

Except for that time when yoongi told us he sent jungkook a message saying he loved him (which makes me believe jungkook was going through a hard time), or others “small” episodes, jungkook himself never expressed a specific period of time where he was struggling for whatever reason, and it shocked me to hear him saying in ays that he doesn’t feel like writing his own songs because he doesn’t have much to say. To me it looks like he maybe downplays/avoids talking about his own hard feelings and times, despite probably being one of the members who struggles and struggled the most (his unreleased song being a good example, in my opinion), but i still came here to get another point of view because i feel wrong for being so introspective and making psychoanalyses about him. Maybe my curiosity is having the best of me and that’s all this is about🙏. But really, the way he can go through the most gut wrenching moments and still smile on stage or lives makes this whole thing really interesting to me and it’s more of an appreciation and empathetic thing than anything else.

We saw him saying he doesn’t think he really has a worth, saying he’s not good at everything and has a lot of flaws, we saw him sad during last year’s lives on weverse, but i can’t find anything where he really shared something regarding his own sad and depressed feelings, despite him being such a sensitive individual and being… human, which means he definitely has had hard times.

Do you think there was a specific year/time when jungkook looked sad or different from the cheerful and happy jk we know, and what’s your opinion on him not really sharing it? I hope again my question doesn’t sound inappropriate or rude in any way, i don’t want this to come off as invasive or wanting in any way to force jungkook to express his personal struggles. And really, excuse me if i just missed content and i’m asking things i could easily find myself. I appreciate you so much.

Hi Lovely!

Thank you so much for this ask! It’s sooo juicy 😍

I’ve been mulling over it for a while because it’s something that I could talk about without ever stopping. It’s an ask that could allow me to get into the evolution of Jungkook from trainee days to now, you know.

It’s an ask that I could talk about and ‘compare’ (I hate that though, comparing people 🙈) the members and their different approaches to music when it comes to their group and solo work and how theirs to has evolved.

I’m not gonna lie I felt a bit defensive for Jungkook during his solo era. Something the fandom loves to do is ‘ours are better than yours’ with others, even within their own members, they like to be like ‘our group has the most song writing credits’ which leads to comparison with other groups, which leads to comparisons within the group and members solos etc.

When Jungkook’s turn came around I feel like there was a lot of expectation. I can only imagine what Jungkook himself felt.

Jungkook & Songwriting

‘and it shocked me to hear him saying in ays that he doesn’t feel like writing his own songs because he doesn’t have much to say.’

To this point I think it shows what I’m saying, the expectation and comparison. I think because BTS have always been lauded as involved in their music, because it was something that wasn’t really the standard to kpop for their generation and those before, there’s always kind of been an expectation of them? But I don’t know if it’s because JK is one of my biases, but I feel like he was more ‘vilified’ for an album comprised of songs written by others and solely in English

The thing is though BTS do and have had much more creative control than a lot of kpop groups of their generation and the generations before, it’s not as straightforward as that. I don’t want to diminish anyone’s contribution or years of work, but it would be worth noting how one can get a songwriting credit. The rap line write their own bars, so for any song rap line have a rap verse, that’s an automatic songwriting credit.

Within a song making process there can be so many hands involved and points where tweaks are made, sometimes people can all get together and think tank the creation of the song lyrics, leading to the core group of writers, then through the recording process when tweaks are made more songwriting credits get added etc.

Or someone could write a song and due to the song being their baby not allow for many changes made apart from maybe by one producer, leading to only one or two song writing credits vs 7 song writing credits on one song.

Jungkook’s solo & group contributions

Each song would have a story behind it as to the level of contribution from JK (and other members) but it wouldn’t change the fact that he’d be entitled to a songwriting credit. For example ‘Dreamers’ was a song already done and sent to him for recording, but through tweaks made in the recording process Jungkook earned a songwriting credit.

Songs for ARMY

Whereas we know songs like ‘Still With You’ ‘My You’ were Jungkook’s babies and songs with only credits for Jungkook and the producer.

Isn’t it interesting the songs that Jungkook has the most involvement, if not primary involvement, are the songs about ARMY?

Jungkook has said that he like Jin, don’t hold on to negative emotions. They deal and move on.

However it seems like there’s one emotion that’s always remained constant and true to Jungkook, his love for army. I mean this man was so confident in this that he tattooed ARMY. He grew up with army, they supported his career and cheered him on, he’s said it’s because of being in the group and the group being successful that he’s been able to experience things such as the travels and activities in shows for army and the delights 🥴 of twinkies.

Not only is it easy for Jungkook to speak to army via lives etc it’s easy for him to speak to army via songs. It’s not a feeling he wants to process and move on from.

A Dramatic Shift?

‘and it shocked me to hear him saying in ays that he doesn’t feel like writing his own songs because he doesn’t have much to say.’

Is that all he said?

Where Jungkook talks about wanting to focus on displaying his vocals and focusing on different songs to display them rather than focusing on songwriting

I think I again maybe it’s a combination of comparison and expectations?

He has spoken before of his wish to try singing different stories not his own

If you don’t do anything at all, please have a look at this post and watch the live & video in it, if you want some understanding about Jungkook from Jungkook himself.

Thoughts for Another Time

‘Except for that time when yoongi told us he sent jungkook a message saying he loved him (which makes me believe jungkook was going through a hard time)’

I actually have a whole separate theory about this moment right here. I’ve talked about it with others in the past. It’s something that would need a whole separate post to get into.

Do We Delve Too Deep?

‘i feel wrong for being so introspective and making psychoanalyses about him’

I think it’s the human condition to want to understand. I think it’s not an issue when you want to understand someone, someone that interests you, someone that brings you joy with their person and their talents. I think where you, myself and others have to be careful, is when we go from wanting to just understand someone to judging someone. Being disappointed in them for not living up to our expectations. When we thought we sussed them out and they don’t follow the path we thought made sense based on their past actions and our understanding of them.

With Jungkook, because we are not privy to the inner workings of of his mind, his emotions, his motivations, his day to day, it’s not fair to him as a human to be disappointed when he doesn’t do what we expect based on what he’s done in the past, based on what his members have done, based on what his fans expected.

It’s ok, I think, to sit and think on topics like this but I don’t think it’s ok to then project feelings onto someone because of it. They are our feelings and we need to understand why and then figure out what good they do to hold onto them? What it means going forward if those feeling hold value to us, do we still support, follow, invest or do we adjust our thinking or involvement? That’s what we have control over.

The kind of person Jungkook is

I’d like to preface this by saying I am one person on the internet. Same as anyone else, with no more or less access to him than the majority of us. The same media I consume is what is available to us all. His lives, his interviews, his songs, festas, memories, bombs, episodes, shows, documentaries etc.

All my inferences are from these, not Jungkoook himself, not a company insider, not a friend of a friend of the members, a sister of one of the members siblings friends 🤡 my opinion and opinion only 😅.

He is who he is. He says what he says. Even the members at times feel like they want to dig soul bearing emotions out of him

They’ve been saying for years

When is Too Much, Too Much?

‘Do you think there was a specific year/time when jungkook looked sad or different from the cheerful and happy jk we know’

I don’t think looking to the past and nitpicking, microanalysing etc to point out where he looked the most miserable etc would do good to anyone. Being there in the moment, if we were, we would be trying to show him our love and support, empathising, seeing it to make ourselves not feel as alone, to see him as human etc.

For me to do that now for no reason as to just point out that…he’s…human? Well I think we should already know that. I do think Jungkook really was vulnerable and as open as he could be as an idol with millions of viewers during his lives of 2023.

That, I think, was one of the biggest windows into Jungkook the person, more as who his is now, the adult and not who he was when he was 19, 22, 24 etc. There were so many nuggets that could easily have been missed amongst the fun of the karaokes and cooking and eating etc.

I would advise you or anyone to, whenever you have free time, just pop in one of his lives, start from Feb and work your way through whenever you have a free moment (I know you said you have been 💜).

‘We saw him saying he doesn’t think he really has a worth, saying he’s not good at everything and has a lot of flaws, we saw him sad during last year’s lives on weverse, but i can’t find anything where he really shared something regarding his own sad and depressed feelings, despite him being such a sensitive individual and being… human, which means he definitely has had hard times.’

The thing is with this, in my opinion...when have any of the members been completely and utterly specific? We get little sentences or conversations here and there where we can refer to, but if it’s one thing I’ve come to realise about BTS is that they are good at letting us in without really letting us in. The hardships they have shared tbh can be generalised to each of them, struggling with idol body image, tough schedules, dance routines, being in their heads. Yes some members have spoken about their mental health struggles more than others (Namjoon & Yoongi), they’re not learning dance routines as quick as others or being confident with their dance (Namjoon & Jin).

But they’ve also all talked sometimes as a group of struggles, general to the group as a whole. I think if Jungkook didn’t share their sentiments, he would have said he didn’t?

Did we really know that they were on the verge of splitting until they said so on stage and then afterwards. We know of the few fights they tell us about and then those are the only ones they refer to for years after, and we can count them in one hand, vmin dumpling fight, namgi throwing laundry fight, hopekook and banana fight…?

When watching something like their last Festa Dinner, where the others talked, shared, poured out, like it’s been said in the past, when his hyung hurt is when he hurts. Maybe it is that he didn’t/doesn’t struggle with the same things that the other members struggled/struggle with. Being a trainee and an idol is all he’s ever known being with his hyungs, his friends, family, working, travelling, enjoying good food and good drink is Jungkook. Namjoon (David Quinones and producer Tony Esterly) writing a song like ‘Begin’ to capture Jungkook’s essence?

Source: Doolset Bangtan

We know that Jungkook started trainee life in 2010? Born in 1997, ignoring Korean age system he’d have been around 13? I think we can guess the general kind of hardships pre 13.

Then once trainee life started we’ve heard him talk about having to learn to share, having to learn to dance and sing plus schooling where he probably had people either teasing him for thinking his was ‘a hotshot’ or wanting to be his friend because he was a trainee then a famous idol or constantly filming him, picturing him and gossiping about him? Away from home, constantly aching and exhausted, not knowing if he’d make it.

He has done vlogs where he talks about seeing his parents after a long time and how happy he was, he’s shown how happy he was to celebrate his graduation with his hyung and more interested in hanging out with them, than celebrating with his fellow schoolers. He’s talked with Jimin in a live about how after dance training he found a new passion and considered giving up being in the group.

Blog of his time in The US getting extra dance training & Part 2

It seems like with Jungkook he is someone to focus on the good, instead of the misssing his family, he talks to fans about the happiness in reuniting, instead of the difficulties of schooling he talks about the gratitude in having his idol career be successful enough to not be concerned with not being the best at school etc.

So I’d say over the years he has with little sentences here and there talked about his hardships but they probably don’t stand out as much because he, maybe through conscious effort, tells it to fans when there’s a positive to take from it. Like you also noted: ‘still smile on stage or lives makes this whole thing really interesting to me and it’s more of an appreciation and empathetic thing than anything else.’

He Is Who He Is

I wrote this at a point when I wanted people to understand a bit more about Jungkook, yes it’s in relation to his bond with Jimin but mainly focuses on Jungkook’s personality

His MBTI

Introvert, introvert, introvert!

He’s taken his MTBI several times through the years and one thing that has always remained consistent was his introvertion. talking about others, talking about ARMY maybe comes more easily to him than talking, writing and singing about himself?

He himself takes stock in his MBTI and seems to feel it does reflect him.

Music Is His Love & Passion

when all the members got to design their rooms, this was Jungkook’s design. Music is his love & passion through and through

When you want to make Jungkook happy, give him a karaoke mic and leave him be.

Suchwita - Jungkook Karaoke Special

I don’t think we have to worry for a long long time about not getting new music from Jungkook, songs written by others, songs written by him, songs about others’ experiences and songs about his own, we gotta just

‘Let Him Kook’ TD;LR

Jungkook is as complex a human as any other member but more often than not, a typical introvert, one to live in the now and man of few words.

Vulnerable, raw Jungkook. Listening to the song made by ARMY for BTS after their pause in group activities. Jungkook feeling with ARMY on world tour. Jungkook with ARMY on white day.

Ask him to write a song about ARMY and he can give you 10 but ask him to release a body of work that reflects him through and through, the perfectionist that he is, the introvert that he is, the experiences he’s had that he’s moved on from…as he said, there’s plenty of time for more from him in the future.

After his billboard number one’s for ‘Seven’ his debut solo single

He seems to not be someone to dwell on the sad and the hard but to deal with it and move on. He seems like someone who wants to share the good with people, not have people sad for him, in his songs he seems to want to reflect this hence his songwriting being more in that vein.

He like struggles like everyone else, has hardships like the others, has lows etc but his personality seems to not see the point in sharing to the extent some may want or get from the other members.

The reason we love each of them is BECAUSE they’re not the same, right? Right!

There is soo much more I could say (as one of my biases I could talk about him all day!) but tbh I needed to post this as is, because I was starting to obsess over this ask and letting it snowball🙈

Maybe we can come back to some points and tackle each separately one day. Thank you again lovely!

💜

[pokestudentjune]

In all honesty I'm pretty new to this whole rotomblr stuff, and I'm not all to osure how to work it that well.. But I'd still like someplace to document my life and experiences, as well as share my knowledge about pokemon and plants! Got plenty of cute pics of my pokemon and the ones I meet as well! Please feel free to reach out with asks about myself, my pokemon, or anything in general-- I'll do my best to answer to the best of my ability :)

Here is my current travel team!

Lotus the Ivsaur

Modest, highly persistent. A water lotus variant Ivysaur with a water/grass typing, and practically my soulmate. My first officially owned pokemon, gotten from my grandmothers venusaur as a child. Lotus has grown and matured with me through the years, and is always looking out for me! Shes trained in battle and performance, but we have since retired from coordinating and she'd rather sit back and experience life as it comes.

Scout the Lopunny

Sassy, likes to fight. One of my first wild-caught pokemon, and both me and Lotus's best friend. Shes quite a fan of my more feminine interests, often asking to share my clothes and music. Shes definitely one of my more battle + performance savvy pokemon, and we're working on learning mega evolution together! She wears a light blue letterman jacket I bought for her once, she wanted to dress similarly to an idol group we saw online once!

Grim the Joltik

Jolly, very finicky. He is literally the sweetest little baby ever. He was an unexpected capture, having hopped onto my phone one day and refusing to leave. He loves to suck out the battery life from practically my devices which drives me insane, but I wouldnt trade him for the world. Despite being small for the past few years, I think he doesnt want to evolve which is fine by me! I think he enjoys riding on my head or shoulder.

Jasper the Typhlosion

Rash, quick to fight. A large, bulky, fluffy, shiny typhlosion with a scar across his muzzle. Rescued from a "backyard zoo" situation, it took a long long time to fully gain his trust, but it was worth it. Hes very standoffish but protective of me and the team. Lotus was a big help in calming him during the beginning, and now he enjoys battling to blow off some steam.

Harlequin the Banette

Quirky, impetuous and silly. Perhaps my first ever pokemon friend. We met when I was a small child and he was still a shuppet. Its a bit of a long story, but he stuck through with me during some negative times within my early years even as a wild pokemon, and would frequently visit to keep me entertained through the years. I didn't catch him for many years, but one day after being a trainer for a while, I asked him if he'd like to join my team and has stuck around since. He wears a chunky bandana on his neck thats practically the size of him.

Jade the Noivern

Adamant, alert to sounds. One of the newer additions to the group, i had caught her within a cave and she showed fighting spirit right off the bat. I took the time to train her in between my studies and she evolved into a speed demon. She absolutely LOVES flying and I myself had always wanted to ride on a flying pokemons back, so its a win-win. She looks up to Jasper, and they often spar together.

I have plenty of other pokemon back at home that I'll introduce when the time comes, but these are the ones I think are best suited to help me during my studies! Perhaps I'll switch around the team, maybe I wont. It takes a while to transfer pokemon across regions but who knows where life will take me!

// OOC

Hello hello! Just like June, I am very unfamilliar with tumblr as its been years since I last used it, but I've been religiously stalking rotomblr for years now and i figured its my time to make a blog! Heres a few things about how I'll be running this blog :3

• This will be a mix of anime and game, keeping it semi realistic as I love biology and science but still want to keep some magic from the pokemon games included!

• June is basically a self insert so no weird stuff!

•For Junes universe, fakemon, sentient pokemon, or pokemon/human hybrids or anything similar to that doesnt exist-- again, I'm keeping it a bit semi realistic. Pokemon crossbreeds are fine though!

• This is very casual!! Just for fun slice of life blog :3

• In this world, legendaries are gods and greatly affect the environment, so June may not interact with those who "own" legendaries because she greatly frowns upon messing with the natural order of things.

• Feel free to dm me or send me asks ! I'd love to get to know the community more :)

• Also i might not do many fully pieces and more colored sketches because I am very busy irl unfortunately

• Im okay with interactions from other OCs and canon characters !

If you want to see my art look at #june pics ! working on tags for informational stuff but #june talks will have some fun pokemon info + junes story so far!

• Pelliper Mail is : OPEN

• Magic Anon is : CLOSED

[spacebagfullofstars]

Honda Oddysey Scene but in Evolution

This is a snippet of my X Men Evolution Deadpool AU that's been on my mind lately. Inspired by the most talked about scene in Deadpool and Wolverine

It was hard to tell when exactly the night rolled around. It was still dawn when they arrived in San Francisco and they haven't left their beaten up meat truck since.

Wolverine was still driving without any kind of direction. His mask was on, but his frown was visible through it. Deadpool, driving shot gun, seemed to had completely dissociated himself from his surroundings. He was switching between radio stations and trying to find the right music. The mutant, unfortunately, had to suffer through each song whenever the other man changed his mind. Currently, they were listening to Cher's 'If I Could Turn Back Time'.

A few seconds passed. Another switch, they were listening to 'War' by Edwin Starr.

Another few seconds. 'Shake your Groove Thing' by Peaches and Herb.

Another few seconds. 'Sugar, Sugar' by the Archies.

Before another few seconds passed, Wolverine reached out and turned off the radio, momentarily returning his attention on the road. The lack of eye contact and how quickly it happened made it come off as passive-aggresive.

"I was listening to that." Deadpool said, in all his audacity. Logan didn't give him the luxury of response. The mercenary tried to focus on the window, but without the background noise, his need to open his mouth grew stronger.

"I was going to give you half of the cut, you know." He said after a second, looking at Wolverine, who still refused to give him time of a day. "I'd never make it not worth your time. Think whatever you want of me, I treat my business partners with respect."

"You lied to me." Logan suddenly growled. Somehow, he sounded even more angry than usual.

"Strike two, ferret man." Deadpool said, making a peace sign at him. "I said that I needed your help, and I said that the old Hydra base could be of interest to you. Not my fault they didn't have any info on your past. That didn't count as lying, I just didn't tell the whole truth."

The mutant snarled, making Deadpool jump. He saw him gripping the wheel, which he was sure would leave a few dents. Not that he planned on returning the vehicle at that point.

"What? Tell me honestly, would you help me if I came up to you and said: 'Hey, Wolvie! Some rich weirdo paid me to go and steal something from this place that looks like a horror rip-off of Area 51! Also, did I mention that this place is full of freaky water tanks? Also also, did you know that apparently, our healing factor isn't immune to drowning?'"

"Would've been nice knowin' that before you waltzed right into a trap." Logan retorted through gritted teeth.

"You've had your healing factor longer than I have." Wade said, leaning against his seat and crossing his arms. "That one's just on you."

And just like that, Wolverine's buttons were pushed. Without any warning, he made a sharp turn. Deadpool regretted not tightening his seatbelt when he had the chance as he crashed onto the door next to his seat. The truck fell off the road and down the hill. It was far from a pleasant experience, but thankfully, it survived to tell the tale. It landed on a beach right under their road. It was empty, so the mutant parked on its sand.

As soon as the vehicle stopped, he swung and punched Wade in the face. The mercenary screamed, hiding it in his hands. He was lucky that he wore his red mask because he was pretty sure Logan broke his nose.

"Dude-!" Wade shouted. Before he fully recovered, he felt a strong grip on his neck. Now that Logan wasn't focusing on the road, all of his rage was directed at him.

"You want an apology? Fine, I'm sorry!" The mercenary managed, holding onto the hand crushing his neck. "If I knew you'd be so mad, I'd ask that brute Sabertooth to come! But I didn't, because I like you more!"

Logan roared as he slammed him against the back of the seat.

"You lied to me! You wasted my time! And because of you, we're bein' hunted down like animals!" The mutant's voice was barely there with all those grunts.

"I didn't lie!-"

"Yes, you did! You used my lost memories against me! You knew how much it meant to me to regain them and you still manipulated me into doin' your dirty work! You used me as a weapon, just like everyone else!"

"... Oh, boo-freaking-hoo!" Deadpool frowned, growing more defensive. That shift caught Wolverine off guard. "Little Wolverine can't remember his first day in new school! Guess what, jerk, I don't remember much after my experimentation either! But I don't let that hold me back! Here are some hard pills to swallow: You're so desperate to know your past that you let me of all people make a monkey out of you! Me! Keep trusting the wrong guys and soon you won't even have a future to look forward to!"

After he finished, he looked back at Wolverine. He was staring at him with this empty look that freaked him out even more than the angry snarl. Suddenly, he let him go and Wade fell back on his seat. He coughed and massaged his neck.

"Look, Wolv. I'm sorry." He tried, because he couldn't handle seeing him like this anymore. "Really, I am. But take it from me, maybe it's better to just forget... No hard feelings?..."

He didn't know yet that he said too much. Wolverine was silent for a few more moments. Then, he wheezed. The mutant threw his back against the seat, and running his hand up his scalp, he succumbed to his laughter. It wasn't a pleasant sound at all. It was strained, almost hysterical, and obviously provoked more by his fury than actual amusement. Still, it was the first time Deadpool actually made him laugh.

"Oh wow!... " The mercenary said through his nervous chuckle that was muted by Wolverine. "So that's how you laugh! Just as terrifying as the rest of you!... I didn't say any joke yet, though."

"You didn't have to." Logan sighed deeply, partially regaining his posture. The next look he gave Wade was entirely venomous.

"You are the biggest joke I've ever seen! There hasn't been as much of an audacious, or insecure, or callous stain on humanity than this manchild I have the displeasure of sittin' right next to! You're good for nothin' but spreadin' mysery everywhere you go! You ain't got no morals, no friends, and you make it everyone's problem, 'cause you can't ever accept the fact that your actions have consequences!" Logan paused to catch his breath. Deadpool visibly shrinked in his own seat. Suddenly, the mutant's claws came out and he shoved them to the back of the truck, scraping its surface in a long line.

"Oh, how I wish I pushed you off that cliff first time we've met! Maybe that would've gotten the message through your dense skull, just how much I want to see you set on fire! Hate doesn't even begin to describe what I'm feelin' towards you! Ain't no wonder why that blue woman you keep yappin' about hasn't come back to you yet! You have to make up an imaginary girlfriend to protect your delicate feelin's from the fact that nobody will ever want you! How 'bout this hard pill to swallow: The doctors that tortured you didn't ruin your life! You did! You have to act like an obnoxious clown, otherwise no one would ever give you the attention you're so obviously cravin'! I can't wait for the day when you'll wake up and realise that you'll be spendin' the rest of eternity alone, and you can thank only yourself for that! But that's just wishful thinkin', 'cause you're-" His claws pulled back and he slammed his fist against the marked metal.

"-too-" Slam!

"-stupid-" Slam!

"-to think of anythin' outside of your own bubble of insanity!" SLAM! The wall bended and partially fell apart, just enough for them to see the inside of their cargo.

At long last came the silence. Logan used his hand to support himself from collapsing. He panted and bared his teeth at the mercenary who grew concerningly quiet. Not for Logan, though.

"No more jokes, bub?" He leaned closer and sneered, not being able to resist one last jab. "Come on, give me a real tear-jerker. I'm feelin' like laughin' for a change."

He looked directly into Deadpool's eyes. All he saw in them were two empty voids. The mutant settled back on his seat and tried to catch his breath. A second later and he would've regretted some of the things he said.

"... Take it back." Deadpool murmured softly. Had it not been for Wolverine's super hearing, he would've missed it.

"You don't know when to quit, do you?" The mutant snorted loudly. It was his own enjoyment of seeing the mercenary be put in his place that led him to lower his guard. Before he knew, Wade grabbed the back of his head, painfully gripping a handful of hair and hood.

"I said take it back!" He roared with the anger he never let anyone see. Without any warning, he slammed Wolverine's head against the front of the car. Then he did it again and on his third time he accidentally turned on the radio.

'Why Can't We Be Friends?' by War started playing.

Slam!

'Express Yourself' by Madonna.

Slam!

'You're the One That I Want' from the musical Grease.

"Why you little-!" Wolverine wouldn't take it any longer. He grabbed onto whatever he could and prevented Deadpool from slamming his head again. He pulled out his claws and jammed them into the other's right shoulder. Wade cried out. Using the moment of distraction, the mutant freed himself. Then, he grabbed Wade's head, pulled him close, and then slammed his head against the radio. This time it played 'Don't Go Breaking My Heart' by Elton John and Kiki Dee.

Despite being a taller man, Deadpool had to trouble slipping into a different position in his limited space. He kicked Logan onto the door, breaking the window and leaving a huge dent. The mutant growled, glaring back at him with pure fire in his eyes. Deadpool tried to throw a hit, but Logan caught his fist and then repeatedly punched him in the face. Wade dodged and a hit full of claws meant for him punctured the already beat down back of the truck.

The mercenary used this for his advantage. He managed to grab Logan by the shoulders and then threw him in order to take down the rest of the space separating them from the cargo. They both fell into the cold, smelly abyss where they could barely see each other. Not that it would stop them.

[edenfenixblogs]

hope you dont mind me sending an ask being a total stranger and all, i just don't wanna bother op of that post

fd does bring up the fact kendrick is a BHI/hotep briefly, specifically that that's great ammo for a beef because to most people the bhi/hoteps are considered weird and embarrassing and would be insanely easy to make fun of in a beef (at least according to most black people I've spoken with & fd himself), but also he believes that drake probably doesn't even really grasp what they are because he's distanced himself in such a specific way from the black community (and arguably jewish community as well, though i think fd only kinda alludes to it) in a really specific way- BUT, that it was an evolution, he started out in a very odd cultural position where he was ostracized for simultaneously recieving antiblackness from white & jewish communities he was a part of but also seen as "not black enough" by many black people (and it's still a bullshit take people will have)

that desire to fit in is what led him down a shitty road, but also drake already clearly had some clearly terrible behaviors already. he talks about how kendrick was being unhinged too and isnt necessarily one to talk

overall the video is more about the music history behind it and the connection between it and the current culture, and just kinda what led to this climate that could want the downfall of drake

i dont know if i agree on drake not knowing about BHIs, though i could believe he doesnt with how he really weirdly constantly codeswitches even wrt jewishness, but imho fd doesnt like to touch on areas where he really cannot speak to the experience, he's said as much in the past, so he only speaks very briefly of the black perspective of how hoteps are goofy as hell

sorry for rambling, im really into music, think fd did the video well although i dont agree with all his opinions, and just wanted to articulate it correctly that it's really more about the musical climate than anything else :)

I don’t mind this message at all!!! In fact, I’m so grateful for it!

This is all really good info. I would believe that Drake didn’t know about BHI, tbh. I didn’t know about it until a couple years ago when Ice Cube (who I grew up loving 😭😭😭) did some heinous shit awhile ago and I was like “Why did my man come for us Jews what the fuck??”

And then a mutual told me about BHI and I looked up. And found a whole new group of people who hate, dehumanize and erase us. 🙃🙃🙃🙃

I mean, theoretically, maybe Drake may have had more exposure to it as a Black and Jewish man. His mere existence makes him more of a target for people invested in that kind of ideology. But also, I do and always have very much gotten the sense that he was ostracized from much of the black community for his Jewishness and mixed race reasons—not due any specific issue in the black community, but just because people are always dicks to people who don’t neatly fit into social categories in expected ways. I can also see how being a Black rapper in white-passing Jewish circles could have been very uncomfortable if those white-passing Jews were inclined to tokenize or exclude him. So it’s possible to me that his bilateral isolation might have insulated him from BHI discourse.

Tbh I don’t think code switching is weird in almost any circumstance. It’s just a development in reaction to your environment. I have a really multiethnic and multicultural family and code switch all the time. I think if it seems weird when Drake does it, it might just be because he has not developed (and tbh should never have had to develop) a strong sense of what “version” of Drake he is supposed to be. So when he tries to read the room and meet expectations, be just does it badly. But it’s not his fault in the long run. It is fault of people who expect him to fit those expectations in the first place.

I respect the hell outta fd for staying in his lane and only speaking on what he understands. And with this context I’m glad he brings up BHI at all. Because it *is* relevant. Being Black and Jewish ANYWHERE are both identities that permeate every single element of someone’s lived experience. When dealing with a beef between people where one is Black and Jewish and the other is Black and attempts to usurp Jewishness by re-categorizing it historically and racially…the cultural friction at play is absolutely relevant.

I’m sure it isn’t the whole story or even likely to be the most important factor in their beef. But it is definitely A factor and it wouldn’t have been right to leave it undressed. Especially when the beef took off as antisemitism more broadly was on the rise due to current events.

I am glad to know that most people still see BHI as a goody ideology. There’s still wayyy too many people who believe it, though. I’ve lived with the consequences of their hatred for white-passing Jews for several months now and it is…unpleasant. But mostly it’s heartbreaking. I grew up listening to Ice Cube. I used to cite James Baldwin. I adored Alice Walker. And finding out that they hate me one by one was devastating. But the worst part has been OTHER BHI folks using their words to justify their own hatred of me and all Jews like me while simultaneously making me feel like I was harming them in some way just by existing.

I want to be clear that I do not and never have believed that most black people believe BHI bullshit. I’m only saying that it was a shock to me the sheer number of people who DO believe it and how vehemently they hold that belief and direct that vehement *emotion* directly at me. It’s really good for me to know that people who aren’t Jewish are publicly speaking out against BHI bullshit. It restores a lot of hope for me.

So ok. I’m back on the “maybe I’ll watch in a little bit when I’m less raw” train. I also love music, even though I’m certainly not up to date on it. So I’m intrigued to know more about the musical landscape of what’s going on.

Thanks again!

[melodiousmonsters]

Alright for the first somewhat finished page for my "monstiary" project is blow't because a friend asked me to draw one, I got hyperfixated, and then ended up with a whole bunch of drawings.

btw I'm going to start infodumping on almost all the art posts I make for the time being because I want to talk about my cannon-adjacent version of the monster world more so here we go.

Blow'ts are large amphibious monsters with anatomy somewhat between that of a fish and a mammal. btw I feel like blow't is a very underrated design because people tend to base what's cool or not on a more "terrestrial" frame of reference. But if you think of fish or something (particularly spiny lumpsuckers in this context) something may seem much more interesting design-wise. Like lumpsuckers they have those weird suction cup fins on the bottom of their bodies, which are mostly used for walking actually. Unless it's a baby, then they'll stick to whatever they want whenever they want with no regard to anyone else's wishes

To support their massive sizes blow'ts are filter feeders that primarily eat the stardust that falls from the aurora monstralis out of the air (or water if it ends up in there). Their spines are obviously covered in ridges, but what's less known is those ridges are full of openings to chambers that absorb oxygen and stardust like an unholy combination of lungs and the intestines.

Blow'ts breath in through their spines to not constantly be making noise and out through their non existant noses. Adding nose holes would clutter their face too much so just pretend they have noses ok? When blow'ts breath out of their spines they produce a sound, and the sound vibrates their spines in a way that makes them glow various colors of the visible light spectrum depending on the note played.

Because biology and evolution leans towards things making music, often inconvenient body plans or biological processes will remain if they mean the creature can make sound, especially in monsters.

While adult blow'ts tend to stay on land a majority of the time, the babies are very fond of the seas around light island and they tend to stay in the water. Because they are smaller and their fins are bigger in proportion to their bodies they can swim. To get enough food to grow to their adult size they may occasionally eat fish or any other small critters they come across, thus the fear this lightsquid, a critter endemic to the oceans around light island, is expressing in the presence of one of it's most efficient predators.

Anyway, if you read through this I hope you enjoyed because this is probably how most of my posts will be formatted. There's going to be more pseudo-scientific monster biology posts later on but if you just want some information without any images you can ask me and I can just type stuff out, maybe with a skribble or two alongside it. Doesn't even need to be biology related if it's just about my msm au thing I'll probably answer it if it's not relevant to the barely existent plot thing.

[malachite834]

You're amazing by the way!

Wanna explain why fuecoco, they're evolutions are so cute?

Asking for a friend :3

OH YES PLEASE

Okay let's see:

- Chompy

- Fuecoco is just such a silly lil guy. So shaped and an extremely fun creature. The luttle cutscene with it in the start of Scarlet and Violet is honestly one of my favorite parts of the game; I love how much personality they've given it across the games and anime.

- CROCALOR IS CUTE OKAY. YOU GUYS ARE JUST MEAN. Just look at its hat!! So cute!!!!

- Look at this card of it. How can you hate this face?

- Skeledirge is honestly my favorite fire starter in the whole series. I just absolutely adore its design so so much. And the little bird that accompanies it!!!!! I love that lil creature

- The music themes in Skeledirge's design are so so cool as well as an extreme music nerd, so making a musical crocodilian is just 100/10 in my book

- I also wanna point out this expression that they've given it multiple times in official art, just having one of its eyebrows raised slightly. Literally 🤨 incarnate, I love it

- Crocodilians just in general are always so amazing. I cannot express enough how much I love them and how connected to them I feel, and having so many of them in Pokémon all with such anazing designs is truly the best nwn

And most importantly:

- Chompy

[sol-consort]

Do you think the other species would find it weird how symbiotic humans are with a bunch of our animals?

Birds bond with us like with other birds, even start seeing us as their nest partners if we pet them below the neck (which you should never do bc humans make shitty partners and it sends them into a depressive feather-plucking episode bc they take it as rejection)

Cats domesticated themselves into our lives. Their natural evolution saw benfits to relaying on us for the rest of their existence, literally putting all of their eggs in one basket

We were the ones who convinced dogs to stay with us.

The whole riding horses things, as far as we can tell no other species has a similar thing? (Maybe Krogans with thrash mowers) Camels, too.

Dolphins, the sociopaths of the oceans, like us for some reason and help humans in need a lot.

Sharks don't eat us...at least on purpose. Despite our size, they think we have too little meat and don't see us as viable prey. Only bite curiously to investigate what we are and in self defence.

Pandas' whole existence is maintained by us. They should be extinct by all means, but we stubbornly keep them alive.

There are so many rules and regulations set in place against feeding animals in the wild because they will start seeing humans as friends and forgo all hunting to come form a symbiotic relationship with us.

The many pets we keep, even ones with brains "incapable" of love like tarantulas, snakes, and else. We adore them to death, and they aren't aggressive around us. They recognise as the one who brings them food and offers warmth.

Human vocal cords are pretty good at mimickery. We whistle bird songs back to them, we meow back to cats, we teach parrots phrases. We see a new creature, ask if anyone is gonna bond with it and not even wait for an answer.

They wouldn't find it weird; they have varen and fish, but humans can quickly appear as the "crazy cat lady" of the galaxy from the amount of animals we've domesticated and bonded with.

Salarians had a whole tropical rainforest, yet they never bothered to go further than studying the animals in there. Get a bunch of humans on Sur'kesh and a couple will make it their life mission to befriend as many colorful birds as possible, setting a bird feeder and letting them rest on their shoulder and head, casually talking to them in that high pitched babytalk tone birds adore.

All the cute Pyjaks in Tuchanka you can cuddle with and let them hang around your neck like a cute little baby. I wanna smooch their stupid foreheads aaa.

Or divers being silly and playing with the aquatic creatures in the oceans of the hanar world. Fish actually like being pet! They just don't know it and never get the chance to experience it. Human divers even pet deadly eels at times and twirl them around like silly fat snakes.

It's our brain capacity to see any creature—no matter how deadly —as a potential "part of the tribe" is what gets them confused. At one point, the excuse of our brains mistaking cute fluffy animals with big eyes for human babies simply falls apart. They can understand that when looking at a cat, but how in the world did a human stare at a deadly bear and think, "My baby!" they're bigger than you.

In a lot of our "symbiotic" relationship with animals and pets, we get next to nothing in exchange. We simply do it out of love. Maybe back then, we had a practical use and jobs for these animals, but not anymore. We keep pigeons because they are lovely creatures. We raise shepherd dogs inside our warm homes.

That's it, no, really. All that trouble for love, the animal doesn't even necessarily have to be cute, small, or defenceless. Some humans are more friendly to animals than other humans.

It's the whole burden of existence, the guilt of being self-aware and conscious. We evolved, they didn't, we know what mitochondria is, they don't, we feel bad :(

What music would a cat listen to? What movie would a bird buy tickets to? How would a horse paint? Would blue be a popular clothing colour in a dog society?

They're missing out. on. so. much. The world is so much bigger than they think it is, and it's killing me. Pigs can't even lift their head, most of them have never seen the beautiful cloudy sunsets or the starry glimmering skies. The galaxy and heavens above they've never glimpsed it.

[gallopinggallifreyans]

Okay for the ask game, i’d lobe to hear an opinion on assassin’s creed and also an opinion on TLT

Where do I even START

Assassin’s Creed has, no joke, changed my life. I used to be a polisci/international relations major and HATED IT so bad. Picked up the asscreed Ezio trilogy in 2022, changed my major to archaeology, haven’t looked back. The gameplay varies between games, and I think Odyssey has fairly clean fight mechanics but the parkour is lacking; on the flip side, everything pre-Origins has pretty good parkour mechanics. Unity is supposedly the best but I haven’t played that yet. My favourite part about the games is probably the detail that went into building the worlds. Some of the maps aren’t perfectly accurate and that’s okay since they’re built more for gameplay function than historical accuracy (like the maps for AC2 and Brotherhood). Each game is set during weird periods of history that have a lot of blank spaces with so many possibilities. Like Brotherhood focuses a lot on the Borgia family and their scandals, Odyssey plays with the known history of the Peloponnesian War, Origins takes place in that fuzzy time in early Roman Egypt. And the VISUALS, my god. Please watch a playthrough of Revelations. The moonrise over Ayasofya is the best thing you’ll ever see. I regularly climb the minarets just to watch it. I’ve never been to Türkiye but the Grand Bazaar feels so familiar, the environment reminds me of my birthplace, it’s so comfortable. And in AC2, Florence just feels like home. I can run that city with my eyes closed. Don’t even get me started on the music. Home in Florence (AC2 soundtrack) is my study music. I adore these games so much.

TLT might be one of my favourite series and that’s going up against my longtime favourites Jurassic Park and The Martian. I was soooo hesitant to start it and then I did and yknow what? I’m gayer for it. It helped me study for a couple of my bone/evolution related midterms lol. Tazmuir sets up GtN as a murder mystery and I love those; it was a real treat trying to work out who the killer was. I think I texted my dear snootual about a thousand times with theories. HtN opened my third eye and now I’m writing a thing that’s partly inspired by the second person pov fuckery in HtN. It fucks you up on the first read but it’s pretty straightforward after that. NtN killed me. Emotionally, mentally, physically. It was heartbreaking to know we would never see certain characters again, and it was heartbreaking to find out some characters had come back. On top of all that, TLT dives very deep into a few separate mythologies and I appreciate Tazmuir’s inclusion of Hindu mythology. It’s ancient and vast and arguably an influence on quite a few later mythologies, and I feel like that isn’t appreciated enough, but TLT appreciates it to the point I pulled out my copies of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata just to put together some theories.

In conclusion. These are two of my favourite media in the whole wide world. Deeply impacted my psyche. 10/10

[intothewickedwood]

🐈‍⬛ 🌻 😇 👥️ 🎶 for the ask game <3

Thank you so much for the asks! <3 :D

🐈‍⬛ animal

My favourite animal is a cheetah! I'm just so impressed by their speed and how they run. If I had a mutant power, I'd want it to be super speed. So I want them to teach me there ways!

😇 blorbo

Right now, my The Wilds hyperfixation is so strong I can think of practically nothing else (oopsie). But yes! I love all the Wilds girls but Toni Shalifoe is my favourite <3. Honestly, she might have taken the crown of favourite character of all time at this point. Just gaaah. Such a softie underneath all that understandable anger. Cares so much for those she loves. I love her and all the layers of her character.

Before I watched the Wilds I got really into Legacies again (by finally watching s3 and s4). Absolutely obsessed with Lizzie Saltzman! Very relatable in some regards. Absolutely hilarious! Has so much pain and so many deep insecurities.

Alice Jones from Once Upon A Time, (my beloved) <3! A silly who has suffered too much!!

Chelsea Daniels from That's So Raven. She's so endearing to me. The silliest of sillies. Raven is a very close second, though.

Natalie Goodman from Next To Normal. Relatable in an ansty way.

Peter Simmonds from Bare: A Pop Opera. So relatable. A Cinnamon Roll <3.

Kate Dalton from We Are The Tigers. Sarcasm queen.

Vincent Lin From Adamandi. They may be a murderous blorbo. But they're my murderous blorbo.

Circe from Epic: The Musical. She's just so cool.

Draculaura from Monster High. Again, so cool and I love how much she loves her friends.

Chloe Sullivan from Smallville. Big influence on me growing up. Though I probably shouldn't have been watching Smallville at 9. She just cared so much about those she loved.

Simon Tudor from Jeopardy. His character development is everything <3.

Cloe From Bratz. The biggest drama queen ever and I love her for it.

Kurt Wagner from X-Men Evolution (and just x-men in general). He's such a silly guy.

Shalimar Fox from Mutant X. The most badass, protective queen to ever.

And that's all I can think of, but they're in no particular order. Except Toni. Toni gets the number 1 blorbo badge.

🌻 flower

I don't know much about flowers but I really like the look of Plumeria.

👥️ otp

So many! I shall limit myself to one per show.

Shoni!! (from The Wilds). I think they have made it to number 1 otp status!

Snowing from Once Upon A Time. But also shout out to Curious Archer!

Mizzie from Legacies! Still can't believe they got to be endgame!! I thought it was just gonna be hopes and dreams but the way I screamed my head off!! I love an unrequited love storyline but I love it even more when it then becomes requited. He thought the world of her and then she realised she felt the same about him too and it was beautiful and I cried (and screamed).

Natalie x Henry from Next To Normal. He's just so supportive of her and would do anything to make sure she's okay and that makes me want to cry into my cereal.

Peter x Jason from Bare: A Pop Opera. Everything hurts. But their chemistry was of the charts and they were so in love and I am in pain.

Cheer Wives from We Are The Tigers. They were sooooo bad for each other but needed each other? It was a mess but I was so very there for it.

Quincent from Adamandi. I am once again in so much pain. I can't get over how beautiful the lyrics they sang were when referencing each other.

Freffy from Skins. The way he cared for Effy D,:. He would haved moved mountains just to make her smile. My heart will forever be broken over what happened to Freddie. He deserved so much better.

Dracudeen. Just the whole of 'This is Not How Or Story Goes.' There was no hetrosexual explanation for that and Clawdeen nearly died to save her!

Chlark from Smallville. Next to Simon x Chrissie, they were one of my first otps. No one did friendship like them. But I always wanted it to be more. That whole unrequited thing that was never really given a chance to become requited.

Edited to add: Chlavis! I now one cannot have 2 otps that include the same character but I always go back and forth between which I like best. Chlavis' story was so intense and traumatic but at least it ended up being requited this time around! Extremely requited!

Simon x Chrissie. Tfw the two most terrible people you'd never wanted to be stranded in the wilderness with have the most beautiful, unrushed character development and learn to care for people other than themselves as they slowly fall in love, when there was merely the shallowest one-sided crush you ever did see there before. The way they became heroes <3. And the way Simon just didn't know how to be without Chrissie but persisted in trying to save her when chances were beyond slim. I miss them so much and need to rewatch <3.

Harlan x Cyrus. They had so much chemistry and genuinely had a connection and now we'll never know what happened to them. I wish we got to know them better. Darn you Amazon!

Cloe x Jade from Bratz. It was more of a case of all the unwritten fanfiction I had in my head for them as an 11 year old. But I only let it get as gay as Monster High 2 at the time, which is actually very incredibly gay, so I don't know who my brain was trying to fool.

Lance x Kitty from X-Men Evolution. They had a really interesting connection and were drawn to each other.

🎶 musical artist

I mostly listen to musical theatre songs but my favourite band has always been S Club 7. I'm not sure I have an overall favourite solo artist. Maybe James Morrison!

Thank you again for the asks! They were such a blast to answer!

[putschki1969]

Hi Puts!

I just wanted to gush my thoughts to you about Keiko's recent performances! I was really surprised by the recent Magia live as Keiko hadn't been this dramatic since her Kalafina days. Then I saw some footage of the YK Shanghai concert on VK and... she's actually just like how she used to! With all the energy, the dramatic and cheesy hand movements - everything!

Ever since she started her solo career, it seemed to me like Keiko never wanted to perform like she used to. Even her FictionJunction performances were boring stage-presence wise. It seems like recently she's finally felt like getting back into how she used to perform and honestly it made me really emotional. Watching Keiko having so much fun when performing with FictionJunction in Shanghai, she was really stealing the stage at it just felt like I was watching Kalafina again! A small part deep inside of me thought she somewhat resented Kalafina, but these latest performances has made me remember that she really just loves Yuki Kajiura's music probably more than anyone and I love that about her.

This isn't really an ask, I just wanted to gush!!!

Hi there!

Another reply that's long overdue, I am so sorry!

Absolutely, Keiko's love for YK's music is certainly unparalleled. I'm sure she likes her solo stuff well enough but it's nothing compared to what she feels about YK's work. From what we know, Keiko very much appreciates contributing to something meaningful, having a purpose and knowing her place in the grand scale of things. Being part of the YK family achieves all of that. Her solo work on the other hand is not as structured or target-oriented so Keiko probably just views it as a bit of casual fun on the side.

As for Keiko's stage-presence in the past few years, I personally do not feel like Keiko's performances have ever been truly lacking in that particular department. Maybe some of her solo gigs are a bit stilted and awkward (which is to be expected I guess) but when it comes to FictionJunction performances, I still vividly remember being blown away by her enthusiasm at the YK Live in Taiwan back in 2019. And let's not even mention the most recent Budokan live XD That was on a whole new level of epicness.

I would say Keiko is the type of person who heavily feeds off of her fellow stage members. If she is alone on stage, there's no one to take cues from. However, if she performs with someone she feels comfortable with and who exudes passion, she will naturally let loose too. Another thing to consider is the fact that all the FJ performances we got to see in the past few years were official recordings for home video releases or online broadcasts. These tend to be a bit more toned down in general so Keiko will often fall back on a sort of "business-mode" for those.

Anyways, I am glad you are enjoying Keiko's performances. There's a lot to gush about indeed.

PS: I have really been enjoying your YouTube uploads as of late. The "LIVE Evolution" videos are so much fun to watch and truly fascinating. It must have taken forever to put all the footage together so thank you for that!

[seizethedre]

(In the Land of Gods and Monsters)

Chapter Fifteen: Put Your Hand On My Waist, Do It Softly

Alastor, ever glad to be the center of attention, graced the crowd with a bow, low and neat. When the praises died down, music filled the room once more, this time coming from the jukebox in the corner of the room. With a lazy flick of his fingers, the little musical minions disappeared in a wisp of shadows and green light. Well, that answered that question then.

The angel watched as Alastor hopped off the stage, his legs catching the weight of him easily. Lucifer couldn’t look away. He could only watch as those long, smooth strides ate up the distance between them. His eyes seemed to glow as they reflected the lights above them with all the splendid mystery and appeal of an exploding butterfly nebula. His smile curled high and loose with a sort of cruel delight as he made his way over the king.

If you were to ask Lucifer, God’s once-favorite angel and crafter of literally anything in the universe, he would tell you that he knew art. He practically created it and had spent many hundreds of years perfecting it in all of its forms. He had witnessed the slow, beautiful evolution from rudimentary stick drawings on cave walls to the fucking Sistine Chapel for fucks sake. And don’t even get him started on the art of interpretation because he practically invented the whole ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’ thing. Art is subjective, it’s unrestrained, and its meaning is constantly changing. It’s capable of depth and riddled with layers that are capable of divulging some of existence’s greatest truths and most terrible sorrows.

That being said, if you were to ask Lucifer what exactly it was that he was staring at, he’d tell you that he had no fucking clue and honestly, he was a little afraid to ask.

True to her word, Charlie had set up an exhibition of sorts where those of the residents who felt compelled to share some of their talents could do so. The lobby had been the designated spot for their showcase and as such had been converted into a showroom of sorts, little tables and easels placed around the room to hold up each display.��

Lucifer’s own finished painting had been placed between an exotic pastry dish whose recipe Niffty had concocted when she was alive and Husk’s own little booth where he was busy showing off some magic tricks.

Arguably, it had been the most surprising display of the night, in Lucifer’s opinion at least. He never would have thought their prickly bartender would be one to woo a crowd with a few well-placed deceptions, yet there he was, surrounded by onlookers keen on catching a glimpse of who or what had so many people flocking over. And wouldn’t you know it, the old cat seemed to be enjoying the attention, too, the smirk on his face emphasized by the genuine, happy shine in his eyes as his growing group of admirers gasped in astonishment at another one of his tricks.

Lucifer was likewise drawn to the oohs and aahs, but decided not to stick around when the onlookers started to realize that the King of Hell was in their midst and started whispering amongst themselves instead of paying attention to the show. He dipped out of there real quick, not wanting to draw any more unwanted attention, and instead cruised around the rest of the room, drifting between photography displays and a few more art pieces, and even a collection of poetry.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is how he wound up staring at an eyeful of dicks in all shapes and sizes. Angel Dust’s long hours hard at work in the art studio had culminated in a sculpture which he titled The Tree of Life . The name was, for all intents and purposes, very poetic and profound, however strange the subject matter appeared. In essence, it was a giant sculpted tree made out of dozens of penises. The tree trunk? A penis. The branches? Slightly smaller penises. And the leaves, you ask? Even smaller penises. 

It was definitely an, um, unique take on the matter and very on-brand for the spider’s character and sense of humor. Lucifer was definitely proud of him for putting in the work and admittedly a bit impressed that he had managed to capture such graphic detail into each piece. No two penises were alike, and that in and of itself was an impressive feat. Should Angel choose to continue spending his evenings in the art studio, Lucifer should think he’d become a very skilled sculptor; the kid clearly had a natural knack for working with clay and Lucifer was curious to see how far he’d go.

Taking a step back from the artwork, Lucifer ventured out of the lobby, but not before staring longingly at the stairs that led up to the rooms. The desire to turn tail and run away from the chatter and music was astonishingly persistent, and the thought of having to endure an entire evening of small talk and forced smiles had his skin crawling. But he willed himself to stay; for Charlie. It was the least he could do.

And wasn’t it just funny how life changes things up on you?

Once upon a time, there was a Lucifer that loved going out and being around people. He lived for partying and being reckless, not unlike the way a teenager would after tasting freedom for the first time after enduring years trapped under the same roof as their strict, suffocating parents. His case wasn’t exactly helped by the fact that in those early days, he chose to surround himself with people who had made it their life mission to do whatever horrible things made them wind up in a place like the great, fiery downstairs. 

It hadn’t taken humans long to discover that free will meant that literally nothing was off the table, and no sooner had that discovery been made than Lucifer and the rest of his wretched subjects were living it up in debauchery and abuse. 

It was a distraction, and he could definitely label it as such in hindsight. A damn good one, too. He was mad at Heaven, at himself, at Hell, and at his father. Maybe that anger should have spurred him into productive action much sooner, but the reality of the situation was that his anger was never quite enough. Not for him and certainly not for Lilith.

She had taken to life in Hell with shocking ease. She proved her resilience time and time again, hit the proverbial ground running, and there were so many years where Lucifer felt he had to fight just to keep sight of her. She just didn’t feel the same way he did, didn’t feel the same sadness. Lucifer tried to tell himself that she hadn’t really known Heaven and therefore didn’t realize all that they had been stripped of, that maybe if he told her, if she knew what he knew, they could work together to prove to Heaven they were worthy of their consideration.

That idea was only talked about once, and that was only the second conversation Lucifer had ever had in his life that ended in disagreement.

The truth of the matter was that Lilith didn’t understand. It didn’t matter how many memories he shared with her, or the endless weeks she watched him waste away as he prayed up to Heaven pleading for forgiveness, wondering where exactly he had gotten it all wrong. It didn’t matter that Lucifer would try to describe to her these unbearable new feelings of sorrow that filled every part of him and weighed him down like a drowning man, only to be met with another speech about how he should be sharing her anger and drive to avenge the wrong that had been done to them.

Eventually, he stopped trying to explain. He followed wherever she led, steadfast in that promise he’d made to her all those centuries ago in the Garden to stand by her and make things right. His dreams, eventually, got tucked away into some little drawer somewhere, among all the other miscellaneous things that are thought of often but never spoken about. Lilith’s happiness became his own and the arrival of Charlie only heightened the goodness that was worming its way into their dark little corner of the universe. 

It was enough to almost make him forget that he’d spent the last ten thousand years treading water.

When Lilith had decided she would be leaving, she took all of their happiness with her. She took hold of that ray of warmth and light and he was helpless as he watched it trail behind her on toddling legs, right out the front door. 

For centuries, the tabloids of Hell speculated on the whereabouts of their absentee ruler, and Lucifer couldn’t find it within himself to care, much less to prove them right or wrong. Years of being a recluse had taught him to be wary of the company he held, and these days he much rather preferred to be by himself than with those who would surely point and laugh when they made out the reality of who he was.

Luckily, he had something to motivate him these days; something that made day-to-day life worth showing up for. 

With a twirl of his cane, he squared his shoulders, shaking out his lingering nerves. With all the poised regality and grandeur that only the Original Temptation was capable of giving, he strode towards the hustle and bustle of the event hall.

Into the belly of the beast we go .

From the looks of it, Charlie’s Open House was a huge success. The room they were using as a sort of central hub for the event was full of people of all shapes and sizes. Scattered throughout the room were little booths that advertised their amenities and programs, brochures handed out to any unsuspecting open hand. A couple of their bolder residents were even sharing testimonials about their experiences with the hotel so far. 

Charlie was nowhere to be seen, but if he had to guess he’d say that his daughter was probably out providing a few lucky guests with a tour of the hotel. If he recalled correctly from the staff meeting he had finally managed to show up in time for that morning, Charlie, Vaggie, and Alastor would be taking a few interested parties out for a more in-depth show and tell of the building. All in all, there was a pleasant ambient chatter throughout the crowds that let Lucifer know that so far they had managed to avoid disaster and people were, for the most part, in good spirits. He felt some of the tension leave his body at the realization. 

Deciding to make himself useful, Lucifer walked to one of the nearest tables and snagged a handful of brochures. Surely a good word from the Big Boss couldn’t hurt, right? Who knew, maybe he was a few brochures away from securing himself a spot back on the welcoming committee? Plus, if small talk failed him, he could always use the brochure as a distraction before making his great escape.

He milled around, deciding the best approach would be to take a lap or two around the room and either wait for the inevitable guest to come up to him, or simply take the plunge himself and inject himself into some poor sinners’ conversations. 

As it turned out, he didn’t have to wait very long before he was being waved over by a familiar pink hand.

“Heya short king, why don’tcha come on over and say hi to some of our new friends here?”

And who was he to say no to Angel Dust? Grateful to have something to do, Lucifer walked over to the spider, trying to ignore the stares on him as the masses parted before him followed by the static of curious whispers. He smiled up at Angel, who stood in all his towering confidence amidst a group of awestruck sinners. Lucifer could only assume they were fans of his, but hey, any publicity was good publicity, or something like that, right?

“Hi Angel, who do we have here?”

Angel turned to the demons, waving his left hands in their direction as he introduced them one by one. Lucifer put on his best, most charming smile, eager as always to leave a good impression, and hopefully offset some of the tension that tended to naturally blossom between him and his subjects upon their first introduction.

“This is Slinger, Wiley, and–”

“Wilson!” Lucifer cried out joyfully, a genuine smile erupting on his face as he recognized the last member of the group. Immediately, he was met with three puzzled frowns and one uncomfortable grimace. He blinked, suddenly doubtful that he had mistaken the lizard demon in front of him for the nice gentleman he’d met at the bakery a few weeks ago. “It is Wilson, right? You work at Graham’s?”

The maybe-maybe-not-Wilson looked uneasy as the rest of their little posse looked between the two in confused interest. Angel seemed to take pity on the guy and spoke up in his defense, placing one set of arms on his cocked hips while crossing the other. “Hate to break it to ya, short king, but his name is Milton.” And yeah, okay, Lucifer definitely deserved the sass with which that was delivered.

Mentally, he was smacking himself upside the head for forgetting the poor guy’s name again . Mentally, he was also rolling his eyes at the little Radio Demon who was yapping at him about how important it was for old men like him to preserve their mental facilities through cognitive exercises. Always a fucking asshole, even when he was just a mental projection of the real thing.

Putting thoughts of sometimes-unpleasant red-eyed demons aside, Lucifer smiled at Milton sheepishly, apologizing to the poor guy who looked like he was a breath away from crumbling into ash. 

“Sorry, Milton. I promise I’m not usually one to forget names.” That was a lie, obviously, but a small, harmless one. No need to make either of them feel worse. “Things have been really hectic around here lately. You’ve done a wonderful job with the catering though,” he added hastily, eager to win back some brownie points with his flattery. “I don’t believe I’ve seen the dessert table empty for a second since the doors opened. I can only hope there’s some leftovers when all is said and done.”

 And yeah, Lucifer could be smooth when he wanted to be. Mission accomplished, the subject was successfully changed and any crises that had been brewing off in the horizon went up in flames. Milton no longer looked like he wanted to jump off the balcony and the rest of the group got roped into hearing Milton’s account of how the King of Hell had visited his bakery and put in a personal request that he cater the royal event of the decade.

Lucifer didn’t have the heart to tell him that the hotel was strictly meant to be unaffiliated with royal affairs--Charlie and himself had decided long ago to keep the two separate so as to encourage participation within the hotel for all the right reasons and deter ulterior motives from underhanded sinners looking for proximity to power. Milton was harmless enough though, and he figured he’d let him have this moment in the spotlight. 

He excused himself about halfway through Milton’s rant about how he’d sourced the finest apples Hell had to offer in order to appease the king’s desires for fruit tarts, but not before pocketing that interesting little factoid and making a mental note to tuck a few away from the grabby hands at the dessert table before they were all gone.

Sending Angel a quick nod over the other guys’ heads, he set off again about the room, brochures in hand. He engaged in polite conversation with several of the visitors, answering their questions and telling them about his own experiences with the various therapies they offered. He may have gone on a tangent or two about how art therapy was arguably the best form of therapy they offered, and if he was being a little biased, who had to know? 

Of course, there was the occasional nosy demon here and there that tried their hand at prying for more delicate information, no doubt ready to sell whatever morsel they could get to the tabloid with the highest bid. The questions, unsurprisingly, were centered around subjects about his ex-wife, Heaven and the Extermination, and, oddly enough, whether or not there was any truth behind the rumor going around that he had carried and birthed his daughter. Yeesh, where were people getting their intel from these days?

He had to hand it to himself, despite being a bit rusty in the whole socializing department, he handled their scrutiny well, managing to steer the more unsavory conversations back into more appropriate realms, and by the end of the opening social, his hands were brochure-free and his cheeks ached from faking smiles. Still, confident that he had fulfilled his duty as Supportive Father of the Year, he was about to seek out his still-absent daughter to deliver a good report when a squeal of feedback had him jumping in surprise.

He whipped around to the front of the room along with everyone else, spotting the source of the noise to be none other than Charlie herself. She fumbled with the microphone, holding it away from her with a wince before cautiously bringing it back to her face. Smiling apologetically, she gave it a few experimental taps. 

“Hi, oops, sorry everybody, my bad.” she cleared her throat, finding her composure before continuing. “For those of you who don’t know me, My name is Charlie and I’m one of the owners of the Hazbin Hotel. First and foremost, on behalf of me and all of the staff, we’d like to thank you all for coming out and spending some time with us today. We hope it was informative and helpful for anyone out there curious about what we do here and hopefully we’ll be seeing some of you soon!” She gave herself a round of applause, followed by a few halfhearted claps from the crowd.

“Before we move on with the next activity on the agenda, I’d just like to remind everyone that there are surveys and drop-off boxes located by the main door of the lobby. For those of you who wish to stay a little longer, we’ve set up a dance floor right down the hall…”

Lucifer tuned her out as she gave the rest of her announcements and he didn’t feel particularly remorseful about it either. The rest of the night should be smooth sailing, and in his mind the hardest part was already over. Hopefully with a bit of luck, he’d be able to find a moment to sneak back upstairs for the night and tend to his hands before bed.

His palms were healing nicely, but were in that infuriating stage of the mending process where they itched like crazy. The more unhinged side of him wanted to fuck it all and just sink the sharp edges of his teeth into the irritated skin and shake his head like a rabid dog until the itching stopped, but the sensible side of him said that slathering them in a nice balm would probably work just as well and produce significantly less damage. 

As Charlie wrapped up her little speech, the crowd dispersed. Some lingered in the room chatting in small groups while others headed out the door, half of them heading for the lobby while the rest headed down to the dance hall. Lucifer watched as they left, deciding that he’d just catch his daughter later to fill her in on his rundown of the event. Before he split, he made a beeline for the desert table, selfishly hoping that his precious fruit tarts were still there.

To his surprise, there were a few left, which he promptly sent to the fridge in the staff kitchen for safekeeping. He was just about to leave, when his eyes caught a glimpse of silver and gold. Nestled between the napkins and a mostly-empty rack of macarons, was a small silver platter with a few squares of fried dough. Beignets, he recalled Alastor calling them. He hadn’t tried them at the bakery at the time, but they had smelled and looked good then and even more so today. 

He stepped over to the small pile, plucking one off the top and inspected it curiously. It was deliciously warm, crunching slightly under his fingertips and covered in a thin, oily sheen. He sniffed at it, smelling nothing crazy, just a basic dough recipe. He wondered, not for the first time, just what it was about this seemingly bland treat that had prompted Alastor to request it specifically for this event. But also, if it was good enough for the Radio Demon, it must be good enough to at least give it a little taste. He shook some confectioners sugar onto his piece, like he’d seen Alastor do, before drizzling some honey over it for good measure. Raising it up to his mouth, he took a bite out of one of the corners and chewed slowly, letting his mouth work over the flavors and textures as they presented themselves.

It wasn’t bad, he had to admit. There was a certain pleasantness about the flaky, fried outside of the beignet and how it was contrasted by the fluffy, chewy inside. Milton had done a good job with preparing them in such a way that the oil didn’t dominate the flavor profile, and he thought that the sweetness of the sugar and the honey complimented the simplicity of the dough base well. Lucifer was, by all accounts, satisfied with his findings and contentedly popped the rest of the beignet in his mouth.

For a second, he considered tucking a few more aside for safekeeping, but experience told him that this was a dessert best enjoyed fresh, so he made a mental note to call up Milton later and try to negotiate a recipe out of him. They were pals now, right?

Popping his fingers into his mouth to rid them of any lingering sticky sweetness, Lucifer made his way out of the event room, aiming for the stairs when he heard the tinkling of piano keys coming from down the hall. Standing like a wide-eyed fool in the middle of the hall with his fingers in his mouth, he remembered what Alastor had said yesterday about the music he was in charge of procuring, and suddenly all thoughts about chewing off his hands and getting into bed early were long gone. Without wasting another moment, he walked over to the open doors of the dance hall, and peered in.

The room looked much the same as it had the day before, tables set off to the side of the room with more snacks and beverages. The lights they’d strung up were bright and twinkling, just as pretty as he remembered them. They bathed the room in a soft, yellow light which had taken on a sort of dream-like, hazy quality to it now that the room was full of people mingling about. Lucifer was proud of how the dance hall had turned out, that little kernel of warmth flaring in his chest as he recalled the evening he’d spent with Alasor setting it all up, and suddenly his side was tingling under the memory of the sinner’s hands on him, steady and slender. Why that particular memory came up, he had no idea, but he had to force the ruffled feathers that ran down his spine to settle back down. He could not, however, force away the heat that flushed the tips of his ears, which would hopefully go unnoticed in the dimness of the room.

The angel was snapped out of his wandering by the loud crash of a cymbal followed closely by the quick, energetic beating of a drum. He could feel the vibrations in his chest, following the sensation to the source. 

The stage Alastor had set up was decked out with a full, live band. Erm, live-ish, at least. Little black puppet creatures were playing the instruments, strange little beings that Lucifer hadn’t encountered before. Not hell-born, but also not sinners. They were certainly animated, although he couldn’t say for sure whether they were alive. He felt something coming off of them, something green and familiar, but nothing that would otherwise indicate what exactly these things were. 

He had to hand it to them, alive or not, they knew how to play. Lucifer hadn’t been lying when he said that live music was one of the best ways to enjoy any kind of music. There was a certain life and energy to hearing the raw, unfiltered sound waves move through you, spurring you to movement of your own. It helped that this particular piece was fast-paced and lively, and while Lucifer had entered the room with no intentions of dancing, he found himself moving to the stringy, brassy, drummy noise.

And then the piano started up again.

If he thought that the little creatures were playing madly before, they were nothing in comparison to the furious crescendo of notes flying from the large, worn instrument off to the far side of the stage. Damn, those little fuckers were good . Lucifer’s heart raced in time with the rising and falling of the keys, music dancing across octaves with dangerous speed and envious precision. 

More impressive was the emotion on display, palpable through the waves of music and penetrating his senses with every ringing note. A beast, alive and roaring in all its tremendous, terrible glory. It was chaos in its most raw, burning form. It filled his chest with jolting heat, bathing him in revelry with the strike of a particularly clever chord. He imagined smoke rising under the fury of the player’s fingertips, sure to burn away into ash if they continued to play in such a way. The creatures hastened to play their own instruments, clearly struggling to keep up, which Lucifer couldn’t blame them for, especially if they weren’t completely sentient. It would be like asking a four year old to match Monet’s style and understanding for color with little to no schooling. And as he stood just inside the doorway, flesh prickling under the euphoria of the vibrations ringing through him, Lucifer felt like he was listening to music for the very first time.

So lost was he, so thoroughly hypnotized by the swelling, swirling, burning noise around him, that he couldn’t stop himself from drifting closer. He couldn’t ignore that tugging sensation that had sprouted out of the fire blazing in his heart. An entirely new itch worming its way knowingly from the back of his mind, a question that he knew the answer to, but needed to see it to believe it.

Cymbals crashed again, accompanied by the excited yells of trumpets as Lucifer looked up at the flushed face of Alastor, the elusive piano player responsible for the renovation of Lucifer’s entire understanding of sound and music and art. 

It was like someone had taken hold of him by the lungs and squeezed them free of oxygen, breathless as he was. And maybe he should have felt a little stupid, standing open-mouthed like a moron in the middle of a dance floor while people moved around him, bumping into him and throwing him dirty looks. But it would appear that he was incapable of caring, or constructing any reasonable idea for that matter.

Beautiful .

It was the only thought that his imploded mind could formulate. It echoed and bounced around the corners of his brain, painted itself in big, bold letters across every metaphorical surface inside of him and chanted through him with every excited beat of his poor, tortured heart, spreading through him with the very rise and fall of the piano keys. 

And just as his body burned and buzzed in the most delicious agony, his vision was flooded by a sea of crimson. Bright, red eyes caught his own, a precious shade that splashed across high cheekbones, accented by the dark red collar of an unbuttoned shirt. Alastor held his gaze, sharp and terrifying, and continued to play with the same natural ease that one would use to breathe air. 

Lucifer understood, then, the appeal that moths saw in a flame, uncaring in the slightest that it was Alastor who held the match.

He lost track of how long he lived in the sight of those unblinking eyes. It didn’t matter what reality had been like before, all he knew was this endless inferno and taunting reds and flashing, dangerous smiles.

It was jarring when the music finally stopped. His ears rang in its absence and for a moment he was suspended in a vast plane of emptiness before he was startled back into the present by a chorus of applause and cheers. He looked around, remembering that there were other people in the room with them, his mind slow and thick as he brought his hands up to clap mechanically. 

Alastor, ever glad to be the center of attention, graced the crowd with a bow, low and neat. When the praises died down, music filled the room once more, this time coming from the jukebox in the corner of the room. With a lazy flick of his fingers, the little musical minions disappeared in a wisp of shadows and green light. Well, that answered that question then.

The angel watched as Alastor hopped off the stage, his legs catching the weight of him easily. Lucifer couldn’t look away. He could only watch as those long, smooth strides ate up the distance between them. His eyes seemed to glow as they reflected the lights above them with all the splendid mystery and appeal of an exploding butterfly nebula. His smile curled high and loose with a sort of cruel delight as he made his way over the king. 

His heartbeat hammered in his ears in time with the sinner’s footsteps despite him not being able to hear them over the volume of the music around them. Lucifer was frozen, breath caught in his throat as a wave of uncertainty settled over him. His hands hung limply at his sides, fingers curled into loose fists, lips still parted as though on the precipice of speaking. He was utterly and agonizingly helpless as Alastor walked right up to him, cast him a devious sidelong glance, and walked right past. He could only stare as he followed the slender form of the sinner, could only watch as he threw his arms out wide, ears perked with glee as he cast his attentions elsewhere.

“Rosie!”

“Alastor! My, what a splendid job ya did with that song! I’ll tell you, it’s been a long time since I’ve heard you play like that , my friend.” 

Lucifer could catch the teasing tone of her voice as the tall cannibal woman he had spotted promenading with Alastor weeks ago approached the demon, all amused dark eyes and charming, bright, toothy smiles as she embraced him tightly. 

Like before, he felt the urge to warn her off, knowing that the demon was no fan of nonconsensual touches of any kind, but he was once again baffled when the man allowed it, even going as far as returning it, and no , Lucifer was not miffed about that at all. Clearly they’d known each other a long time and were good enough friends to invade the other’s personal space without tearing flesh apart.

“Well, my dear, Charlie did ask us to share our talents with the guests, and you know I’m never one to disappoint,” he smiled mischievously, head tilting knowingly. Rosie raised an admonishing eyebrow at him, her own grin flattening.

“More like ya never miss out on an opportunity to show off, you peacock.”

Alastor hummed, shrugging his shoulders, and didn’t really dispute the accusation. Rosie broke out into loud, easy laughter, dropping all pretense of modesty as she threw her head back. “Oh Alastor, I’m only teasing. You really did do a wonderful job up there. I’m surprised those puppets of yours could keep up at all!” She nudged him in the shoulder and he responded by waving a flippant hand.

Lucifer, who had been watching the exchange with a stunning lack of discretion, half lost in his bewilderment from before and a general confusion, was startled when the woman snapped her neck over to him, the hollows of her eyes widening briefly before turning back to Alastor. She said something to him that Lucifer couldn’t quite make out and he watched as they both continued their hushed conversation, occasionally tossing a glance his way. 

He shifted his weight, caught and unsure if he should just leave before drawing any more unwanted attention. Before he could make up his mind, the pair of them were walking over him, two of Hell’s most feared and respected overlords on their way to converse with the King of Hell. he didn’t miss the way the crowd around them pushed away from them, providing a wide buffer of space. 

Lucifer gulped as they approached, the woman flushed and practically vibrating with barely-contained excitement while Alastor trailed slightly behind her, hands clasped behind his back and spotting a look of total disinterest, his face still flushed with the earlier redness he’d seen at the piano. The king stood up a little straighter, smiled a little hesitantly, and looked between the two, unsure of what to expect next.

Rosie smiled sweetly as she jabbed a sharp elbow into Alastor’s side and the sinner let out a displeased hiss of static, eyes narrowing fractionally before he plastered a tight, charming grin on his face. 

“Your Majesty, I do believe it’s about time I introduce you to my dearest friend, Rosie. She’s the mayor of Cannibal Town, a fellow overlord, and also the incredible woman responsible for providing us aid in the battle against the Exorcists.”

The cannibal was quick to shove Alastor out of the way, leaving him huffing indignantly at the abuse. Lucifer held in his laughter for his sake, instead focusing on the giddy face of the woman in front of him.

“Oh, Your Majesty, it’s an honor to me be meeting you, truly an honor! I’ll tell you what, that daughter of yours is a real treasure, such a doll!” She held her hand out for him and he took it, shaking it before pressing a chaste kiss to her knuckles. The woman gasped and started to fan her red face with her other hand. “Oh my, you’re quite the charmer, aren’t you?” Lucifer smiled.

“Nice to meet you, Rosie. Please, call me Lucifer. Any friend of Charlie’s is a friend of mine. My humblest apologies for not seeking you out sooner to express my sincerest gratitude for all that you and your people did for my daughter and her friends.”

“Oh, Your Majesty, it was no fuss at all. It was Charlie who did all the heavy lifting. She’s a special girl, that one. Lots of moxie, I can appreciate that,” she winked. “Besides, it’s Alastor here who has some explaining to do.” She turned her narrowed eyes at the sinner who was standing quietly off to the side. She wagged an accusing finger at him. “You mean to tell me that you’ve been living under the same roof as the King of Hell all this time and you never once thought of introducing us?”

“Oh please, Rosie, the news of our esteemed monarch joining the hotel was all over the front page for weeks after the battle. You could have paid us a visit anytime. You know you’ll always be welcomed at the hotel, my dear.” Alastor summoned his staff with a twirl of his hand, leaning against it as was his habit. Rosie eyed it for a second before her face lit up with realization, all of her previous annoyance at having been overlooked clearly forgotten. Her shocked face whipped back and forth between Lucifer and Alastor before finally settling on a wary looking Radio Demon.

“Alastor,” she exclaimed, with all the accusing luster of a woman just now discovering some great conspiracy. She leaned in, placing a bony hand on both of their shoulders as she lowered her voice. “You didn’t tell me that this is what’s been taking up all of your time lately. Those late nights, the rainchecks, the pining .” 

Um, excuse me, what’s happening? 

“Oh! It all makes so much sense now. But why wouldn’t you tell me, Alastor? And you!” she wheeled around, catching Lucifer completely off-guard with her suddenly hostile expression. “You better treat my boy right, mister. I don’t care that you’re the King of Hell, treat him like anything less than the delicate pearl that he is and I’ll sic my entire town on you, this is your first and final warning.” 

The emotional whiplash went on, her face morphing from something menacing to pure pride and adoration as she wrapped her arms around them both and crushed them in a three-way hug. “Oh Alastor, I’m so happy for you! It’s about time, you know? I’ll tell you what, he’s much better than the last guy, eh? The King of Hell! Lucifer Morningstar! You don’t aim low, am I right? Oh I’ll have to have you both over to the Emporium for lunch, you’ll have to tell me all about i–”

The loudest screech of a record scratching that Lucifer had ever heard interrupted her rant and before the room could recover from the audible abuse, Alastor melted into his shadows only to reappear a foot away and out of Rosie’s grasp. The sinner’s face ashen, his eyes black and dialed, twitching while his smile stretched high and painfully tight across his face. The two of them looked at him in shock, Lucifer still not fully convinced that the conversation he’d just unwillingly been a part of was real. Alastor’s shoulders were shaking, as though he were trying hard to keep himself from turning into his full demon form. The music had stopped and all eyes were on the three of them, hushed whispers rushing across the room as some headed for the doors. Lucifer tensed, waiting for the first sign of trouble from the demon, ready to snap them somewhere else where no one could get hurt if things got out of hand. 

Come on, Alastor, pull it together.

It took a few seconds more, but eventually the demon settled down, winning whatever internal war that had raged inside him. The green glow surrounding him subsided and his antlers shrank, he closed his eyes tightly and when he opened them again they were their usual red. The music started back up again, something upbeat and playful, and after a few seconds the crowd returned to their dancing, although the space around the trio never lessened. 

Lucifer looked at Alastor with concern. He opened his mouth to ask if he was okay, or for at least an explanation as to what the fuck was going on, but he never got the chance. Alastor turned to a puzzled and slightly guilty looking Rosie and bowed, offering her a hand. 

“Would you like to dance, my dear.” It was spoken with all the loving patience of a man who hadn’t almost destroyed the dance hall in a fit. The only indication that he was still affected by his earlier outburst was the occasional twitch of his eye and the heavy tones of static that laced his words.

“Sure,” Rosie responded hesitantly, taking his hand. Immediately, Alastor whisked them both away, leaving Lucifer standing alone in the middle of the crowded room, baffled and confused as he tried to process everything that had happened in the last five minutes.

Late nights? Rainchecks? Pining? What was Rosie going on about? Sure Lucifer had picked up on Alastor’s recent moodiness, and maybe at times he was a bit more sensitive than usual, but that wasn’t exactly unusual for someone like him. Come on, the guy was a total drama queen, and Lucifer hadn’t exactly helped the situation by pushing his buttons whenever he could.

Father, this was all too exhausting and the day had already dragged on for entirely too long. He really ought to just escape now while he could. Rid himself of the itchiness that had come back and dive under his covers for a few hours until he forgot all about this mess. 

And yet, something kept him from leaving. An absurd feeling of worry for his, what, friend-slash-acquaintance? He pushed through the crowd, making a beeline for the drinks table and maybe to find a seat somewhere else for a while. He really needed to get this all sorted out, and standing there alone wouldn’t get him any closer to unraveling it. 

He poured himself a glass of something red and fruity, but a quick sniff let him know that there was definitely alcohol in it, not that it mattered to him by any means. He took a sip, smacking his lips at the sweet, tangy bitterness that burned its way down his throat. Not his favorite combination of flavors. He tapped the glass and immediately it was filled with ice-cold water. That was more like it, and he downed the whole thing, suddenly aware of how parched he was. He refilled his glass and looked around the room for an empty spot. 

He’d only taken a few steps towards a lone seat when he felt someone grab and pull at his empty hand. He only had enough time to drop his cup on a nearby table when he was yanked into the tall, willowy body of the cannibal woman.

“Rosie?” he asked, easily falling into step with her dancing. She smiled down at him apologetically, looking every bit like a scolded child. 

“I’m sorry, Lucifer, I figured this would be the best way to talk to you without causing another scene.”

“No need to apologize. Where’s Alastor? What was that all about?”

Rosie led him in a tight twirl, her eyebrows creasing as she frowned, seemingly equally concerned about the sinner. “He’s around here somewhere. Gave me a real earful, too.” she sighed, transitioning into a simple triple step. “It would appear there’s been a bit of a misunderstanding on my part. I’m sorry if I overstepped; that wasn’t my intention, Your Majesty.” Lucifer frowned. Overstep? Misunderstanding?

“What do you mean? Why did you say–”

Oh. 

Oh father, that’s what she meant.

Lucifer's face exploded with heat once he managed to put all the pieces together. Fuck, was it always this hot in here? Someone should come down and check the air conditioning unit because surely there had to be something wrong with it. He gulped, cringing as he glanced up at Rosie, who was looking down at him with a wince and an apology.

“You thought that him and I–that we–the two of us…were together ?”

Rosie nodded solemnly. “It’s just that he talks about you every time he comes over. Granted, at first it was always about how tacky you dressed or your awful taste in hobbies. I let him vent about it because that’s what any good friend would do, but lately the conversation has taken a bit of a turn…” she trailed off, looking troubled. “I won’t say anything else on the matter, as it’s not my place to tell, but I just wanted to apologize if I embarrassed you.”

He frowned, eyebrows bunching up under his own confusion. His gut was squirming uncomfortably as Rosie spun him in another twirl. He didn’t say anything as they continued to dance, too lost in his own train of thought to pay her much mind. 

Truthfully, he didn’t know what to make of it. Should he be embarrassed by Rosie's assumptions about their relationship? Clearly those assumptions had to come from somewhere , right? What sorts of stories had Alastor been feeding her to make her think as much? A few months ago, Lucifer would have surely shuddered at the thought of any kind of relationship with the sinner. Hell, a few weeks ago he was convinced that Alastor was nothing but a selfish, egotistical, narcissistic asshole who only cared about himself, but even now he knew that wasn’t true. It would appear that everything Lucifer had come to know about the demon was slowly and surely unraveling every pretense and opinion he had first formed about him, proving him wrong at every turn.

And maybe Lucifer felt a little guilty about that, too. Because as much as Alastor had shown him that he was capable of apologies and sincerity and selfless behavior, Lucifer hadn’t exactly altered his perception of him to reflect it. For all his talk about friendship, Lucifer went right back to judging and labeling him as he always had, painting him out to be the bad guy he always suspected to be at the first misstep. This time when his face burned, it was in shame.

“I think we have company,” Rosie whispered, and Lucifer had just enough time to register what she said before she was flinging him out in a spin, letting go of his hand at the height of their extension. 

Briefly he panicked, afraid that his momentum would send hum tumbling into the crowd of innocent and unsuspecting bystanders like a giant bowling ball, but his fears were were pacified by long fingers taking hold of him, reeling him in until he was pressed against a warm chest, his own arms crossed over his torso, held in place by Alastor’s expertise. The world spun a little as the taller demon led them into a basic rock step, giving the king ample time to catch his bearings and fall into step with him. 

Alastor didn’t look at him, even as Lucifer prodded for his attention with wide, imploring eyes. He twisted in his arms to face him, one hand going instinctively to the sinner’s shoulder as he turned the palm of the other to press against Alastor’s.

“Put your hand on my waist,” he prompted softly, noting that the demon had gone uncharacteristically stiff despite the song playing in the background being one that the sinner was notorious for enjoying.

Opting to provide some additional aid, Lucifer reached out for his empty hand, pulling it back behind him to place its comfortable weight at the dip of his side. Slowly, he pushed the two of them back into the dance, patient as they found the rhythm and confidence that they were looking for. They sped up, grips tightening as they held onto one another, Lucifer genuinely enjoying the quick, versed steps they took together as he felt his partner loosen up again. He smiled, laughing lightly as Alastor threw him out in a spirited extension, catching his fingertips and turning him back in towards him. He was pleased to see, when he caught himself on the demon’s shoulders, that the smile he wore was genuine, mirroring his own.

“Rosie talked to me,” he commented, his tone neutral and conversational, gauging the sinner’s reaction to the subject. His mouth twisted slightly, but otherwise there didn’t seem to be any impending doom lingering on the horizon. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I’m afraid there’s nothing to talk about, my dear. Rosie has quite the imagination on her.” he paused, a frown line creasing his forehead as he hesitated. Finally, he spoke up again. “She’s been a dear friend of mine for decades now, one of my first and only. You should know by now that I’m very careful of the company I keep.” Lucifer nodded, understanding completely what he meant by that.

“You can’t be too careful around these parts,” he replied. Alastor glanced down at him, searching his face with a quiet pensiveness. 

“I suppose so,” the demon sighed, turning them about in a complex set of footworks and twists. “She’s too kind to me, more so than she ought to be. She wishes for me to find happiness, as any good friend might.”

She wishes for you to find love , Lucifer translated. 

That was a hopeless task down here in Hell. Eternity is a long time to be with someone, and who’s to say you wouldn’t wake up one morning, thousands of years into a relationship, to find that what had once brought you together was now the thing driving you apart? Love was a conman’s scheme, and yet the aching in his chest was telling him it was worth looking foolish over.

“I can see why you like her,” Lucifer said, unwilling to bring up the proverbial elephant in the room if Alastor felt likewise. “She’s a good person. A rarity in a place like this.”

“Not so rare as one may presume,” Alastor quickly responded, eyes flashing with something fierce as he looked down at him.

“Always the contrarian, aren’t you?” Lucifer teased, tilting his head back as Alastor lowered him into an easy dip.

“There wouldn’t be a need for contraries if you simply made sense the first time around, my dear.” 

And there was that term again, the one that Lucifer had heard him use so many times before when talking to other people, now aimed at him. There was no bite of sarcasm laced into it, no condescension in his tone, and he simply smiled through the blush that crept across the apples of his cheeks.

Alastor’s hand left his waist to spin him out once more, catching him by his hands as he returned to their dual orbit. He latched onto the king’s wrists, twisting his palms until they faced upwards. He scowled, looking down at them, static buzzing around him in annoyance.

“What have you been doing to your hands these past weeks? Were my instructions not clear enough? Clean, bandage, and air them out as needed. What was so difficult to understand about that?”

“Okay, first of all, no need to attack me, doctor.” Lucifer pouted, affronted by his accusation and a little shy under his scrutiny. “Second of all, I did all of those things. It’s just that they itch like crazy sometimes and it’s impossible not to poke around in there every once in a while."

“Noted,” Alastor responded flatly, the definition of unamused as one of his ears flicked in a telltale sign of his waning patience. 

“Cut me some slack, Al. It's not like I’ve ever had to deal with an injury this long before. I’m a bit out of my depth here.” No, Lucifer didn’t like being admonished. It reminded him too much of Heaven and their whole holier-than-thou approach to things.

“Hm,” Alastor hummed, dropping his hands and turning away from him. Lucifer gaped, astonished at just how sensitive the demon was benign tonight. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” 

“To show you the proper way to tend to yourself, Your Majesty. Where else?”

"What about Rosie?"

"She's bound to be heading out soon anyways."

And no, Lucifer was not a moron and that look Alastor sent his way was definitely unwarranted, thank you very much. Frankly, he was being very mean to the poor angel who’d done nothing to be on the receiving end of such behavior. What happened to talking? You know, using one’s god-given ability to vocalize thoughts out loud so as to avoid misunderstandings? Clearly the sinner was under the mistaken impression that Lucifer was a mindreader, too. Nonetheless, he trailed after him, definitely not stomping about like a child as he went.

As a matter of fact, to show just how unaffected he was, Lucifer sped up, brushing past Alastor as he moved out into the hallway and towards the lobby, not bothering to look behind him to ensure he was following. He didn’t need to as the sinner’s footsteps were clear enough now that the music was no longer drowning out the sound of them. 

He had just reached the base of the stairs when he realized that the steady footfall behind him had stopped. Fingers poised to snap open a portal to the upstairs landing, Lucifer paused and turned around, wondering if Alastor had beaten him to it and taken his own preferred means of transportation. 

He wasn’t hard to spot, his tall, long figure standing in the middle of the lobby amidst all of the exhibition pieces, looking as still and stoic as a statue himself. A quick glance told Lucifer that he was staring at the painting he’d done of the magnolias and he flushed under the memory of the last time they’d both seen it, the bitter tastes of guilt and regret pressing on his tongue.

Lowering his hand, he walked over to where Alastor was standing, expressionless save for the small, barely upturned corners of his lips. He glanced at him for a while longer before focusing on the canvas in front of them.

“That was the last plant we ever placed on Earth,” he offered quietly. “Handcrafted by yours truly. It was always one of my favorites, although I can’t fathom why. It marked the end of my greatest work at the time, my first real accomplishment. My first foray into the realm of pride, although I didn’t know it at the time. Oh, the irony, right?” Alastor snorted, a sharp exhale of air through his nose, turning to look at him with surprise and curiosity. 

“The last?” he asked, shaking his head. “I suppose I never thought about there being an order to when and how things were made on Earth,” he responded.

“It was a whole process,” Lucifer explained. “Everyone worked together to design and strategize and organize the things we made. Every decision was made with meticulous attention to detail and intention. There’s a purpose behind everything, behind everyone.” 

He looked up at Alastor as he said that, meeting and holding his gaze. He blinked softly, scarlet eyes disappearing behind thin eyelids for a moment.  

“You changed the colors,” the sinner commented, noting the warmer hues that had been swirled into the prevailing whites and cool greens. Lucifer took a deep breath, sighing in a long-suffering manner. 

“Yeah, I kinda had to. Some expert came down to criticize my work and who am I to argue with some know-it-all asshole? It’s not like I created the damn things myself or anything.” He smiled crookedly, reflecting that he meant no ill-will towards the sinner beside him.

“Well whoever he was, he was right. It looks infinitely better this way. True to form and nature,” he replied haughtily. Lucifer couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him at that. He rolled his eyes.

This fucking guy.

“I thought you might have something to say about that.”

“I didn’t mean any offense by it. When I said the colors were off,” Alastor said, the mood sobering as he spoke quietly. “We had a magnolia tree on our property when I was alive, it was a favorite of mine and my mother’s. I can recall several afternoons spent under the shade of that tree, the smell of the flowers in the spring, the way the light would catch them during the sunset.” Lucifer watched as he swallowed. “I meant no offense.”

“There’s no need for apologies,” Lucifer responded, and he found that he meant it, too. Despite how hard he had pushed for one, felt he deserved one from Alastor just a few weeks ago, it seemed pointless and silly now. He felt that he knew better now, understood things differently, and grown since then; they both had. 

Together they stood, shoulders and elbow brushing as they existed in the quiet of the lobby, the echoes of the dance hall reaching out to them in comfortable ambient sound. Lucifer would stand there for as long as Alastor was willing, content with moving on only as soon as he was ready.

“We best be off,” he spoke up. “I can’t imagine those hands of yours are feeling any better.”

They started up the stairs, thoughts of portals and shadows vanishing in favor of pleasant companionship. 

“The itchiness is driving me insane. You know, I’ve thought about using my teeth to scratch them a couple of times.”

“Hm, is that an offer?”

“Wipe that sly smile off your face, Al. You're not getting a piece of this that easily.”

Alastor laughed, deep and sincere, his shoulders jerking as the sounds escaped him. Lucifer laughed alongside him, warmth seeping into that little pocket in his chest nestled right about the area where his heart should be, pulsing in time with the noises coming out of them as they ascended the stairs.

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[tokyogruel]

22 - your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores 👀

from this ask game!

OKAY SO... i know i KNOW yamanaka has said the cover songs have nothing to do with the character's murders... BUT IDGAF ABOUT THEIR MURDERS I CARE ABOUT THE CHARACTERS!!!

the cover songs are SO UNBELIEVABLY UNDERRATED in terms of character analysis and their personalities! the instruments used, the tones of the songs, the lyrics telling us how the character feels... i fully believe the cover songs are extracted from their hearts!! which is why some of them are SO DIFFERENT FROM THEIR MAIN SONGS!

i could go on about all of the character's cover songs.... so i will LOL

HARUKA

two breaths walking: “This is Page 1 of the process of my evolution.” harukas second voice drama is titled "Metamorphosis of the Weak"

"Because I want to hold you, I walk with my two legs. Because it’s lonely on my own, I breathe with you"

"Have you learned the words yet?"

"Hey, suck in my breath again now. I try to say “I love you,” but Instead I’m living my whole life as a sort of oxygen tank. Suck in the words I've spit out and breathe no more"

android girl:

By now I’d rather we build our own “Togetherland”. We’ll click together, so climb aboard. “Pay more attention to me, it’s not enough!”

“Oh, you’re so cute. What’s to be done about you?” I’m tired by now of the way. You resizing compliments makes my heart flutter.

I know I’m yours and yours alone, but do you even like “me”?

All my kisses with you hurt so much when they closed up my throat."

notes: harukas cover songs both focus on poor relationships, choking/the inability to breathe/etc. android girl also has elements of trap music, which is not present in two breaths walking, and as ive said before: trap music is primarily muu's motif

YUNO

sticky bug: "Say that you love me, say that you love me, Since there’s nothing else I need"

"So to put it simply, let’s start recording"

"Your smiling face, your embarrassed face as well. I want to catch every single one of your expressions! So not leaving out a single moment I’ll commit everything to memory."

"As for my dream, it’s to be that stickybug right by your side" "I say “goodnight” only so that I can say “good morning” tomorrow"

"Say that you love me, for if I’m lucky, then at any rate, I really want every single part of you…"

i dont have a lot of comments on this since i dont know yuno that well comparatively, but i do have a theory that yuno's "true murder" is actually tying up a man in her basement and torturing him for pleasure, so... haha which "stickybug" gives a lot of "im obsessed with you" vibes, and...

vampire: "“I can’t take it anymore” you're such a bad boy"

"I want to try it, I want to spit it all out, I can definitely go more"

"It’s Fxxx, it’s sxx, it’s pAxxxUx* Until I eat all of you, screeeeam!"

*

"Longing for someone and then letting that feeling wither is such a turn off. After crying and forgetting about it, it's back to “Hi, nice to meet you.”

"When I spit out everything I was hiding, they were all things that were like "That's so true!" "I reply with no after no, since selfishness is free, I get greedy and miss my chance again"

"It's addicting, right up to the part where I drown in it, screeeeeeeeeeam!!!" "“I can’t take it anymore” I want you to make me say it too"

notes: i really struggle with yunos character, she is surprisingly deceptive. i want to take the "mahiru is a stalker" theory and slap it on yuno, ok? her instrumentals are also very "yuno" and i have not noticed any motifs that connect her to another character

FUUTA

his songs do really feed into the "fuuta is a queer man" theory that i love

mozaik role: "A word bit into you, And I just described the liquid leaked from the wound as "love"

"Just like you and me who have fatal ties."Even so, I love you..." How's that?"

"What's wrong with loving you... I'll tie you, not let anyone to touch you. This must be fate, right?"

"As I don't even know whether it's love or lust, what should I do with giving out?"

"What's wrong with killing myself, if you hate me?" "Disappearing, disappearing, a world of love"

salamander: "Hey, Salamander! Hot is good, don’t you think so? Is it a big deal?" "It’s heating up inside my head" "If you know, I would like you to tell me first, ok?"

"I surrender, I’m already hooked, I can’t function without you anymore" "

"I can’t stop, I don’t want to stop! Make sure to cool it down so you don’t get burned" (*note: the vocaloidwiki says that the line is more along the lines of "make sure to blow on it, cool it down so you dont get burned" and uses "fuu~" (haha fuu~ta), the onomatopoeia for blowing air)

"As many times as possible, I want to be on fire when I reach the climax"

"I want to escape, but I’m not able to"

notes: salamander has a few focuses on guitar, remniscent of haruka's guitar motif. it also has a jazz solo, which, yknow- thats kazui's motif

MUU

mm,y favorit e lesabiam,,,

otome(maiden) dissection: "Let's play Maiden Dissection!"

"I've wanted to feel shame, ever since that night when I realized"

"Good evening, is now a good time?"

"Without you, none of that matters" "Both of us with our masks on, we flirted"

"Yeah, there's a kid there, lost in anything and everything, Shedding tears, meowing "SOS" with their eyes only halfway open"

"This disease, the whole package, I'll send it to you as an attachment. I don't wanna go so far as to share all the things that cause me pain. I just wanna run away from this love..."

"Calling each other by our real names "I don't wanna live" was what I should've said. Will I ever find peace?"

"Sorry for calling you so early. I must've woken you up, huh? Are you up to chat right now?"

"I had a dream where you fell in love with somebody else. Please tell me it's not true. C'mon, love me please?"

"Listen, you've been pretty cold lately"

"Pulling burning passion out of each other. I can't stand you telling me "no!" Will we ever clear up this misunderstanding?"

"Smearing drool on top of the "baguette" (haha get it bc muu is french? do you get it? are you listening to m

"I wanna feel shame, just like I did on that night when I realized"

"it's good as long as it hurts"

MKDR: "I went and said it, I want to be with you just one more time. No, no, to drag things out would be annoying. I’m sorry, come back Carbon dioxide, your atmospheric concentration"

"I want to soak in a dream of a swamp" (夢 muu's name, dream)

"Even if you tell me I’m selfish, I’ll just lap it up. It’s not uncertain, there’s no future. I want to be reborn with your face" (im struggling to find sources for this, but ive heard a few times that there is folklore that when you die, you are reborn with the face of your past life's lover.)

"I went and found out, Even if you flip over the words “I hate you” There’s no “I love you” hidden there"

"I’m mad with idealism, imagining a smile. My bloodshot wish will soon be relieved" "But there’s no love anywhere that’s “just fine”

"A melody of fools with nowhere to go. Retrying – rebirth – teleportation. The number of tries keeps accumulating at the mercy of an endless love"

"I detest love"

"Are you angry? … I’m not angry. We’re perfectly in sync and yet off the beat"

"If this were a movie or a TV show. Though I’d endure it until the credits. I wouldn’t want to watch it again. It’s all too cruel, from beginning to middle to end"

"But I still end up believing in a love that’s “just fine”

"The topography I protected by hating love is beginning to warp properly" (this part im not sure how well it actually translates into english..??? because "typography"... likely means "this person, this character, this ideal" since.. kanji/typography is super super important in jpn language)

"We’ll hurt each other over and over" "But I end up remembering the lie of “I’m just fine”

"I detest love"

notes: both of muu's songs use a lot of "soft trap" music, shes very mellow, and both songs focus very strongly on "painful love", unrequited love, love that hurts her. its likely both of these songs are about how she feels about rei. the music in MKDR also "dances" between your left and right headphones. ive yet to find motifs that connect her to another prisoner. there is a bit of piano in mkdr. there is bass and guitar in otome dissection that isnt in mkdr

SHIDOU

i hat e yo u i hate yuo. ohate you. triage link

liar dance: ""Stolen? Just whatever do you mean?""

"Having made a vow, to you and you alone. Declaring this loveless love of mine in front of you"

"Committing myself to this performance, set lines and all. Those memories we've desperately created and clung to, they blend together and feelings between us intensify"

"Blabbering on about stuff, could you shut up for a bit? Because everything is starting to look like a lie" "Yes, I've realized that we're both guilty here"

"Dance away, liar. This love has swelled up like a balloon, let's turn it into a lie with the prick of a needle. On the count of "I-love-you"

"Having hidden it away so that no one can touch it. A thirsty dance, carving that carbonated melody"

"Damn it! You figured it...wait, whatever are you talking about?" Screwing up time and again is no reason to drop the act. Having fallen into this bottomless swamp, will you even realize you're drowning?"

"Everyone and their brother is laughing at you. Even I've become unable to see you as anything but a lie. But somehow I still have these feelings for you"

"We're already partners in this crime called "love" "Turn me inside-out and I look just like you" "It's nice to meet you, "Crime" and Punishment"

"It's a bit scary, But the moon looks so beautiful, doesn't it?"

delusion tax: "Hey, that girl is pretty great... Her too!" Looks like you’re thinking some pretty nice thoughts over there... Are you really satisfied with just that?"

“That girl is alright… That one works too, I guess”

"Let’s pay the Delusion Tax. For the sake of making everyone’s life oh so wonderful…" "Turning wishes into reality, Right now, buy back your future!"

"That’s right, for all these dirty delusions, let’s settle the bill with this dirty money"

"Existing for your sake alone, mandatory affections and obligated kindness "NO!" to Though you should be satisfied, a voice from within shouts “NO!” We have an idiot on our hands, it seems..."

"Look, just up and borrow the "desired amount" Reality is a bitter-sweet pill to swallow"

"That which you wish for, the person you think of, The past which you hate as well, they’ll all be as you like."

"But those wishes won't really come true, even if you pay. For it’s all a lie, a great big farce. Thanks for all that, that's plenty. These scraps of paper belongs to me now"

notes: shidous cover songs are all over the place. "Liar Dance" has a lot of references to the other prisoners, the instrumentals are??? electronica? guitar? and a soft melody of piano, if you listen close enough. delusion tax goes strong with an instrument i can not place! it sounds, wooden in structure? but i dont know it off the top of my head. delusion tax has car alarms playing at certain points, it also features a piano melody. liar dance has a very small amount of jazz. theres a police scanner in liar dance and i cannot make out the words

ALSO THIS IS GETTING REALLY LONG... ill have to add the other 5 in a reblog,, oh god im so tired. my back hurts

[minecraftbookshelf]

What does the word fae actually, specifically, mean in the marriage of the state AU? Because they’re not really a species, with faeries, elves, gnomes, and the deep folk all being fae/fae adjacent. Plus there doesn’t seem to be any fairy realm/feywild present in the AU, just the spring at most.

So like from a crystal cliffs, scientific perspective, what are they, what characterizes them, where do they come from?

Are faeries really animals at all or more creeperish (based on your creeper lore) or something else entirely? Can there be half faeries, with either elves or humans?

You’ve mentioned before they sort of dissolve when they die, so are they even totally physical, made of bones and fat and such?

What’s the deal with elves being half-fae, is there a biological-ish connection or decendantcy to/from faeries there? With half elves existing for sure, (hi gem) did humans and elves both from a common ancestor, or did one come from the other? Did the separation happen naturally, or was it like hybrids with the meddling of magic or spirits? (Or Aeor?) Are they maybe just totally unconnected, and being similar enough to have half elves just a handwavey/magic thing?

I love really getting into how fantasy world work and they’re history, so all of your Worldbuilding stuff has such a great hold over me, I love how deep you think into the day to day. I think that was the first period in this whole ask, lol. Sending a huge wall of vaguely related questions seems to be becoming a habit. Anyway, have a great day!

Hello! Sorry for the delay, IRL things kept happening!

And buckle up a bit because this is the one where the fact that I'm a massive Tolkien nerd really shows through, we're pulling heavily from the Silmarillion for this one. (Smajor did it first it is part of the canonical lore)

Also I have spent a long time (Since I was like, four years old. I was an extremely normal child and not autistic at all.) with a lot of versions and types of fairy tales, so I do sometimes forget exactly what knowledge of The Rules of the Genre people tend to be familiar with, so if something seems to be missing a few steps in the explanations please ask about it and I will do my best. Sometimes that might just be me pointing and being like "but that's the way it works" but I can try anyway XD

--

Basically, "Fae/Fae Adjacent" is both referring to a specific race, and is also the shorthand that I use to classify the Races That Came First. In Tolkien's work, you have the elves, who woke up an age before the first men. And by the time humanity even existed they'd had like, two wars and a massive migration. They are part of, I believe, the Second Theme of the Great Music, while men are part of the Third.

So when I say someone or a species is fae or kind of fae or any variation of that, it means that they are part of one of the races who have been on the Empires world longer, (several thousand years longer than the mortals) and share some of the characteristics of those races. (With one notable exception that I will get to)

These characteristics are mostly limited to longevity, of different flavors, and inherent abilities that would be classed as magical by mortals but that are usually very understated along the lines of having an exceptionally green thumb. I think I've said it in a previous post somewhere, maybe the Wool one, but Xornoth and Scott's elemental abilities are Very Unusual among elves and are a strong indication of the Divine meddling in their lives.

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The Fae/Faeries who inhabit the Overgrown and are connected to the Spring, are the eldest surface-dwelling beings, and are the Actual Fae. They are most closely related to the Deep Folk, they just separated very early on and, as a species, they are incredibly responsive to environmental requirements and divergent evolution happened very quickly.

Fae are fully sentient. They are people, not animals, just Uncanny People.

The Overgrown and specifically the Spring's Grotto are a kind of Feywild. In that they are very heavily magical and tend to be difficult or impossible to find or navigate to anyone they don't want to be, and mortals in general. They don't tend to take up exactly the right amount of physical space they should. It's also kind of unclear if the fae have more of an influence over the environment or if it has an influence over them. (It's a little bit of both.) They tend to have a lot of variance, as individuals, though butterfly traits and cat traits are both fairly common, and Katherine specifically has both of those. These are less because of connections to said species and more environmental responses.

Some parts of the Overgrown are deliberately kept to be at least a little bit less hostile to visitors, mostly for diplomatic purposes, though visitors are rare for good reason.

(The other rulers, who tend to run in and out of Katherine's house with impunity, are something of an exception to this, and most of them have some level of magical connection to something or other that gives them at least a little bit of resistance or immunity to the surroundings. The primary exception to this is Fwhip, who has had to be extracted from Situations more than once by Gem or Katherine.)

There are also other Fae, besides the inhabitants of the Overgrown, the other three courts just have left. Whether that is just the geographical region or the specific plane of existence is fairly unclear. The Overgrown is home to the Spring Court, who are...not fully seelie or unseelie, though they tend towards seelie. (This does not mean they are truly friendly, or that they aren't dangerous)

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Elves are younger than the Fae proper, though not by much. There used to be a lot more of them, covering the entire mountain range that Rivendell is only part of (this is totally not plot relevant at all :) ) and also some of what is now the edges of the Crystal Cliffs, the Grimlands, and the Spawn Lands. (Which would later become the place the first mortals woke up, thus its name and also status as a neutral location used for most meetings between empires.)

There were a few different peoples among the elves, though they have since been whittled down to two main surviving demographics, though the occasional traits do pop up from others from time to time. Both of these are mountain people, and are the ones that I shorthand as "owl elves" and "deer elves" or "mountaintop" and "lowlands and valleys" respectively, though these are simplifications and not entirely accurate tbh. They have two different, though related, languages. Xornoth and Scott are a mixture of both, which, while not super common in Rivendell, isn't unheard of either. Thus their wings and antlers combo.

Like the Fae, Elves as a species are fairly closely tied to and responsive to their environment, which is why despite the antlers and/or wings, they have a not undeserved reputation for stealth. (as opposed to the Fae, who do sometimes literally become part of the environment, Elves are just very good at blending into it.)

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The Deep Folk, after they split off from the Fae and migrated under the surface, also evolved into a few different branches. Sirens are the one most well known to surface-dwellers, though there are few individuals left who can claim to be a full siren.

The Deep Folk intermingled with their mortal counterparts more than the land-based fae peoples, and so while the Sea Folk are for the most part mortal, some of them tend to be a little bit uncanny or have exceptionally long life-spans. This is incredibly normalized for them and the much stronger segregation between land fae and land mortals was a bit off-putting for a lot of the Sea Folk when they began interacting.

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the Gnomes actually are not technically fae specifically because they are not native to this reality.

Shrub's description of her people and their own nature combined meant that she got classed as a fae race because she had enough in common, but she's not quite fae or mortal. The rules of their home dimension are a bit to the left of this worlds. The decision was mostly made based off of the depth of the connection that gnomes have with their environment, though as a rule they aren't especially long-lived or otherwise magical.

So Shrub isn't Fae, but they aren't Mortal either.

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Allays and Vexes are about the same level of sentience as creepers. just less explosive. They grow from magic the same way creepers grow from the land. They're actually the same species, just different varieties.

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The different Rates of Decay, for lack of a better phrasing have to do with the level of influence and connection to the environment. Also like, if Katherine, for example, were to die in the Spring Grotto, her body would basically disappear instantly; vs if she were to die in the End or the Nether, which are separate planes that are completely foreign to her Nature, her body would be perfectly preserved until it was returned to the Overworld. Even if it was thrown into the Void or the Lava Sea.

I think that answered most of the points? I would apologize for how long this is but I have a feeling you don't mind XD

If I did miss anything or if there are any follow up questions by all means ask them, whether in the notes, as a reblog, or my askbox.

Thank you, as always, for your asks. They are so much fun to answer!

[dumbfilmstudent]

Watching a 14 year old 8th grader

Things I have been told/asked:

She showed me EVERY Pokémon and made me judge them and then told me I was wrong about every single one

Why Luka is a better boyfriend than Adrien Agreste (thankfully something I could understand)

Made me explain the entire plot of Steven Universe bc she saw one episode but couldn’t find the rest

That she is in love with a Splatoon character

Explained the full Five Nights at Freddie’s Lore (maybe better than MatPat who, by the way, she has no idea who he is)

Asked me about those Urban Legend Horror games like Bloody Mary and the Elevator game and then proceeded to have to sleep with every light on bc she was scared

Told me she doesn’t swear and doesn’t respect people who swear and that she has cut off friends who swear. I have to apologize every time I accidentally curse because of this.

She had me read 14 pokemon ffs on fanfiction.net to make sure there wasn’t any adult content.

In that same vein told me that she had learned how to use ao3 filters (something I had accidentally taught her how to do last time I watched her)

Asked me if I knew what Dokidoki literature club is and made me read 5 of those fanfictions too to make sure there was no adult content (there obviously was. How she ended up in dokidokiliterature is beyond me. She said it was because she is in love with Monika)

Made me read the ao3 ship stats and then asked me about every single fandom/show etc

Quick rundown of what she said when I explained them: Hannibal “remind me never to watch that”, Harry Potter “no one even cares about Harry Potter. Is Dumbledore gay?”, Supernatural “why are ppl shipping brothers” and then I explained destiel and how he got sent to hell and then she got mad at me for saying Hell, 911 “why does 911 have a fandom? People being hurt isn’t funny” I had to pick around a bit but realized she thought that 911 emergency calls were being made into fanfiction, BTS “who even are these people”, My Hero Academia “an anime? I don’t watch it. Is there any Comiket Communicate in the top ten?”, MCR “what’s that” I showed her some music and mvs “why do people like this it’s weird” to which I explained ppl were emo bc I didn’t know how else to explain and she said “my friend is a tall and skinny emo” and then wandered off

Made fun of me for thinking 53 degrees was cold. (We live in California. It is cold)

A dream she had where her friends are baking cookies but her one friend who she calls her little brother climbed into the oven

The fact that her friend group play house and she is the oldest sister

While roleplaying as a family they also roleplay that they can all turn into Eevees (this is not a one time game. They have done this for three years)

Asked me why there are so many fanfictions about BTS because she doesn’t understand how ppl can ship real people

While I was trying to explain it I accidentally mentioned the Dan and Phil real people shipping problem and she proceeded to ask me about who they are. I tried to be vague but she kept asking questions until I explained their whole online career.

Asked me what Doctor Who was and what he was a Doctor in.

Made me watch Friday Night Funkin modded videos for what felt like six hours and then had me watch her play animal crossing.

Told me that boyfriend from Friday night funkin was not good enough for girlfriend and that girlfriend should be with Sky from the Sky Mod (I don’t know what these words mean but I’m sure I agree)

Explained an Eevee YouTube fanfiction series in its entirety.

Wandered back and forth across the living room in front of me listening to music in headphones breathing incredibly loudly making me incredibly overstimulated (she’s got a cold it’s not her fault)

Explained her entire friend groups sexuality, gender and pronouns, mental illness, and the Eevee evolution they are when the rp.

Btw the first time I met her she asked me if I had ever had a fictional crush, I said yes, and she said “I only have girl fictional crushes” which through her mother for a loop she told me later, not bc she’s homophobic (she’s literally a lesbian) but because she had never met me before and was surprised how open she was around me.

Today proceeded to try to explain the nuances of bisexuality vs pansexualty. She has never been on tumblr or twitter but was definitely aware of the arguments.

Asked me what one direction is

Got mad that I named a character in a Pilot for a college film class after a girl who is her friend at a math tutoring place who I of course have never met and then yelled at me until I changed the name. I didn’t but she doesn’t know that.

Told me I need to vacuum my car. I do.

Handed me a warhead and watched me eat it with the most malicious look on her face as though she was tricking me or something.

Cooked all of her meals by herself, gets up and leaves for school on her own, does all her hw immediately, doesn’t swear, let’s the dog out every morning. Literally the most self sufficient child I have ever met (was able to do all of this three years ago when I started watching her) the only reason I’m here is in case of a freak accident or because she freaks herself out at night at can’t sleep.

Then she puts the pot she used to cook pasta on the floor for the dog to lick up…

Asked me what pecan pie is