#she’s like actively taking notes of people ..

[veilkeeper]

i do have to say that i like elgar'nan and ghilan'nain as our primary villains. because they look like cartoon bad guys on the surface but if you look a little deeper and find all those hidden little notes and codex entries, it's obvious they actually do have complexity that they don't want us to see.

ghilan'nain is actively in mourning. not just for andruil, but also for her fucked up little experiment of an archdemon, her most perfect creation, razikale. at the end of fire and ice, she is ready to throw herself into a fight that she might not win because she's blinded by her own grief, and she only doesn't because elgar'nan holds her hand and pulls her away. protects her. we can find notes that talk about how elgar'nan is concerned that she's not taking time to mourn properly. we know she's checked in on her first creations, the halla, despite the fact that she writes about them in this sort of detached, almost patronizing way. she calls them something she made when she was "untraveled and naive" and that she could never make them again, but she visited them just to see what they might have become in her absence. like she cares more than she wants to let herself.

and elgar'nan calls her sister, despite the fact that ghilan'nain is the youngest of them. he lets her experiment on lusacan for the express purpose of cheering her up. and when she dies he seems legitimately torn apart by it. what should be an opportunity for the first of the firstborn to finally become the sole tyrant he was practically made to be is instead him becoming completely and utterly alone, the only remaining of his kind. i don't think it's coincidence that both he and solas drift to each other as they do, even if it is as enemies. they're too alike, and they're also the only remnants of the old world, their world, that either of them have.

i can't say that i'm particularly sympathetic to either of them—they're both unrepentant monsters who have committed atrocities across millenia, but the fact that they have this hidden depth reminds me that at of the day they are not really anything that no one else is. they are very powerful mages that other people called gods. and people can be very sentimental, indeed.

[sunvylovebug]

A bath together

↬Warnings: There are mentions of nudity but this is NOT NSFW, Y/N is a killer, mentions of murdering …⁠ᘛ⁠⁐̤⁠ᕐ⁠ᐷ

↬ Gender Neutral!Reader, they/them pronouns and third person narration (⁠*⁠˘⁠︶⁠˘⁠*⁠)⁠.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡

↬Author Note: He's such a green flag, such a sweet boy, I want to give Me. Crawling a big hug. Btw finally posting something that has warnings lmao.

↬Summary: Y/N teaching Mr. Crawling about something basic in the daily routine; a warm bath.

↬ Word Count: 1,435 Words

Masterlist

"Mr. Crawling please. I promise you it'll be fun! Fun? You like fun?"

Y/N's question was answered with a vigorous shake of the head. "No... Me no like. No like there. Not going."

"Please? Would you do it for me?" Of course they were gonna try to convince him that way, Mr. Crawling couldn't say no to that look after all.

It's been some days since they left that mysterious world. She went back to her usual activities like going to school and killing people, just the usual stuff for a human their age, right? They have been teaching Mr. Crawling about the human world and the routines that generally develop over time, a very important part of the daily routine is cleaning the body but Mr. Crawling was so hesitant to enter the tub, it was filled with warm water and soap, of course it looked comfy but then why was he acting that way?

Mr. Crawling stood firm in his decision. "Not going."

They sighed. "Would you enter if we did it together? Would you agree that way? You, me, together?"

He smiled and nodded, so he was throwing that whole tantrum so he could be with them. They weren't surprised really, he was a clingy being.

They took off their clothes with some hesitation, how would Mr. Crawling react? Would it be a good reaction? Now they were the one hesitating. And he noticed. "You okay?"

"I'm okay, it's just..." They shook their head. "Nothing."

Once the two were without clothes they shivered a little. "I already took a shower today, taking a bath is not necessary for me..." Y/N said to themselves as they stepped into the tub. "Your turn. Come here"

This time Mr. Crawling stepped into the tub without protest, a happy smile on his face. After feeling the temperature, he giggled, he looked happy. "Fun fun." He said, splashing a little of water.

"See? Told you it was fun... But you usually take a shower first, then get in the tub to relax, you know? The problem is that my shower is too small for someone so tall like you... I mean, this tub is also pretty small but I guess it works, not that bad hopefully. I hope you'll enjoy it." Indeed, it wasn't that big of a bathtub so they were pretty close, his cold back pressing against their chest.

He was happily listening to their yapping, not understanding a lot of course, but Mr. Crawling just liked the way they voice sounds when they're speaking to him, it was a sound that made him feel nice and warm inside.

"I'm gonna wash your hair, okay?" Y/N grabbed the bottle of shampoo, Mr. Crawling didn't understand what they meant with that but he was happy to let them take care of him. It made him feel special.

They started to gently massage his scalp, Mr. Crawling tried to eat the foam and bubbles that the shampoo produced but after they told him it wasn't food he felt somewhat disappointed, it smelled so good, how is it not something he cannot eat? "No food?"

"No, it's not food. It doesn't taste as good as it smells."

Mr. Crawling didn't get what Y/N said but he understood that he can't eat that and he was a well behaved boy so he didn't try to eat it again.

They spent a lot of time just washing his hair, making sure the tips and roots were clean, his hair got dirty when he crawled around and they wanted to take care of it for him. "Your hair is so pretty." They whisper softly.

He giggles. "Me pretty?"

"Your hair. Your hair pretty. But you're right Mr. Crawling, you pretty too."

He smiled and giggled, wanting to hug and headpat them but not being able cause of their position, Instead, he just rubbed his head happily against her neck. They took care of cleaning his body as much as possible while teaching him the basics of how to do it himself as well. He was very cheerful, as usual, always giggling and smiling, enjoying the experience, the attention he received and the gentle touches, the nice words and all the spoiling and pampering they gave him. They made him happy.

They started talking after starting to scrub his legs. "Next time I'll try to kill someone with money... Maybe we could put soft carpet on the floors or something... Your knees get bruised cause of your crawling and... I'm sure you don't feel it that much and you heal pretty fast... but I don't like seeing you like that." They gently kisses his temple, Mr. Crawling smiled and giggled happily.

Mr. Crawling He was having the best day of his life, the warmth of the water, Y/N's body heat, the pleasant aromas of the soaps and shampoo, listening to them humming while they took care of him... It was perfect.

But eventually the water turned cold and soon they got out of the tub, they wrapped a towel around their body to help Mr. Crawling dry himself with another towel. He liked that, it was soft and it smelled good. Everything in that room smelled good, it was different from what he was used to in his world.

"So? Did you liked it?" Y/N asked.

"Yes. Me like this." He nodded his head, smiled happily. "Me like you."

"Thank you. I like you too"

It was time for a new lesson; getting dressed. Mr. Crawling wasn't used to clothes and how humans dress, so they got him a new robe and some underwear. He protested a little at first, something so restrictive felt weird at first but once he got used to it he even liked it. His new robe looked a lot like the old one he had, that made him happy cause he really liked that robe.

"Me pretty, me pretty." He repeated over and over again when he saw himself in the mirror.

"Yes, you're pretty. Very very pretty."

He loved their praises, now that they were dressed and out of the tub he could hug them and give them the headpats he wanted. That made them happy too. He was so clingy. It was new to have someone so in awe of even the smallest detail about them, Mr. Crawling was a faithful devotee and Y/N a deity that he would worship for life.

"Let's dry your hair okay? We're done here."

They went back to the room, having Mr. Crawling sitting down on the edge of the bed, they were behind him, dryer in hand ready to take care of that beautiful and silky hair that Mr. Crawling had.

"This is a little loud but it's okay. It won't hurt." They wanted to make sure Mr. Crawling wouldn't freak out cause of the noise the air dryer made. He nodded and Y/N started doing their thing. The hot air felt nice, it took a good amount of time to dry all of his hair but they did it happily, Mr. Crawling felt excited and that was enough of a reason to do it.

"I'm done, what do you think?"

Mr. Crawling grabbed the air dryer and held it in front of his face, the air was moving his hair back, making him giggle. "Fun fun! Me like fun!"

"I know you like fun." They looked at him tenderly, Mr. Crawling was easy to impress, even the smallest detail could make him very excited, it was refreshing to have him by their side. "You know, I wanna braid your hair... Want me to show you something? You'll look pretty, I promise."

He tilted his head to the side but nodded gently, giving them the hair dryer back. They braided his hair gently, once it was done they made him look at the mirror.

They smiled, he was so excited. "You look pretty."

"Me pretty!" He looks at them with a big smile. "Me pretty... Thank you..."

They looked at the clock, it was almost midnight. "I should sleep now, it's getting late."

Mr. Crawling nodded, understanding their need of rest. They lay down together in bed after turning off the lights. He was hugging Y/N as if they were a delicate piece of art made of glass, something he had to protect. "You pretty... Thank you." He said against their neck.

"This could be a part of our routine... I like it, I wanna do it again."

"Again?" He asks happily.

"Yes. Not now! But tomorrow... Again"

He giggles. "Again! Again! Tomorrow again!"

They kiss his forehead. "It's time to sleep for now, okay? Goodnight Mr. Crawling."

"Night night... Pretty."

[hayleymarriedjakurai]

mouthwashing x drdt

NOT a situation where im like "ok whit = daisuke" no. this is a different situation. their own scenario, trust. XF-Ture Express, despite its reputation for being one of the most reliable delivery services across the galaxy, has a terrible inside system. They have one of the lowest failure rates of the space freighters, being at a whopping 5% chance. Employees are paid a hefty amount, motivated by good working conditions on each ship with quality leisure activities and meal plans. But only the ones who earn it get such treatment. The hierarchy in which employees are forced to participate in never leaves the walls of the building. You do your job right and kill yourself working, you get assigned better ships with better shipments. It is as simple as that. So it is unfathomable when Captain Xander Matthews, considered one of the best, is assigned to a ship that is just barely allowed to launch. The "Fatebringer", is what it is called. It just scraped by inspection and is subpar for an XF-Ture ship, but supposedly it is necessary. Xander's job is not an easy one, but simple enough for someone of his caliber. He is to take this crappy ship, along with a shipment, to the exoplanet where the the better functioning ships are maintained and created. He and his crew will turn in this old junk ship for a sleek, modern one and move the shipment to it. Then on their way back, they will deliver it and return to Earth. Simple, they said. Child's play for a captain with so much experience. So it only makes sense for the best of the best to be assigned with him. Rose Lacroix. Her job is what is called 'the documenter'. She has no real purpose other than to keep track of supplies, as well as record daily minutes regarding every single thing that happens on board that is important to note. Due to her memory, she is considered the best to keep track of large quantities of items/the best to spot minor inconsistencies or things that are misplaced. She only needs to walk around a ship once to get it down properly. She has worked with Xander once before. Arturo Giles. The medic. He is apparently not new to this field despite being so young. He is usually quite unbearable and does not prefer to speak to his fellow employees, as most are deemed "too hideous". Despite his terrible personality, he is undeniably the best medic to have on a long assignment due to his quick efficiency. He claims that one day, the company will realize that he deserves better than what he has. (Despite being named the best medical employee.) He has worked with Rose twice, David once. J Moreno. The best mechanic for any ship, especially one as crap as the Fatebringer. When nothing needs to be fixed, she prefers to help out others if they need it (only if they deserve it, of course.) As much as she would prefer to stay on her own, she knows teamwork always comes first on long hauls. Her true identity is known to the company; they still put her actual name on all official documents and tech. She has to manually hide these things, as well as her ID card. Mariabella Rosales and XF-Ture collaborate a lot for financial purposes. She will advertise them with her existence/commercials/whatever, and they will pay her. And of course, never make J's employment public. If J weren't so good at what she does, they would not have cared. But they really like Mariabella's money so. As of now, Julia Rosales is considered MIA. David Chiem. Xander's co-pilot and good friend. David is usually the morale booster of his crews, always keeping spirits up and energy high despite the monotony of long hauls. He is usually who people will go to for advice or mental health discussions in place of the medic for two reasons: He cannot medically document anything, AND he is just such a fantastic listener! He always knows what to say! Xander and David have lost count of how many shipments they have done together. Teruko Tawaki. The stowaway of the Fatebringer who was not meant to be there. She was never meant to be there.

Teruko is usually assigned co-pilot. She has never worked with anyone else on the ship, so it is unclear whether or not her strange misfortune is known to any of them. Every ship she has ever been on has failed to bring their shipments on time- or at all. She has even seen crew members die in front of her. There have been near crashes, close calls...always when she is there. Nobody can terminate her. She has technically done nothing wrong, and firing her for no reason could mean a lawsuit or her spreading rumors about the company. So when Xander is given his assignment, he can only be dumbfounded when written in pen, he spots it. "Kill Teruko Tawaki. Find a way." And so Teruko is brought onto the ship, unconscious and hidden away. When she awakens, Xander will tell everyone that she is a surprise extra crew member. The excuse is that while she is usually co-piloting, XF-Ture is interested in having Teruko's skills expanded by having her shadowing the best of the best. Teruko, not remembering much, accepts this and trusts Xander. David's true personality is the same in canon: cold, cruel, manipulative. He feels threatened by Teruko's presence. After learning that her usual role is his, his theory is that she snuck onto the ship to prove she is better suited/to get him terminated. He treats her as normal UNTIL the crash. Xander is aware of Teruko's past jobs in vivid detail. He has been given reports, seen the documents...how much happens wherever she goes. He wants to get rid of her as soon as possible to keep the crew safe despite his guilt. Things go smoothly...until he receives word that XF-Ture is done for. It had only been two months, so what happened? The Rosales family suddenly stopped funding them, and everything crumbled after that. Nobody ever realized how much of their funding came from them. Xander felt mild relief. He truly does not want to kill a seemingly innocent woman for the company. After all, if she were truly responsible for any of those terrible things, they would have fired her with no hesitation. There must be a reason why she's still employed. But now they're all out of a job. What does that mean for them? Xander's mental health starts to plummet. Small things on board start to go wrong, and his first paranoid thought is to blame Teruko for being there. He becomes obsessed with reading over the reports from the crews that suffered in her presence. They were right; she's the cause. He confides in David, panicked and drained. Xander was a good man; far too good to kill anyone. Even if the people who told him to do so were technically no longer in charge of them...Teruko still needed to go. There's no reason to do the delivery, and there only thing they can really do is go to the exoplanet to swap out ships for a comfortable ride home. But with Teruko on board, there is no guarantee that they'll even get back to Earth. Xander tells him everything- too much. David decides that Teruko cannot make it back no matter what. Whatever field she gets to next will be riddled with destruction and possibly worse. Everyone here is at the top of XF-Ture, the best in a dead company. It is too late for any of them to climb to the top of another wage slave ladder. So he crashes the ship. Teruko Tawaki must die. If Xander cannot do it, he does not mind staining his filthy hands with more blood. What else happens? Who knows.

[celticcrossanon]

BRF Reading - 23rd of November, 2024

This is speculation only

Cards drawn on the 23rd of November, 2024

Question: How is Princess Catherine? (mentally, physically, and emotionally)

Note: This reading was done with all cards in the upright position

Interpretation: Trying to move on, looking for the positive in things

Card One: The Six of Swords

This was my card for Princess Catherine mentally

The Six of Swords is a card of moving on, transitioning from one way of life to another, leaving something behind, loss that propels us forward.

The energy of this card is of someone who is trying to move on from their problems into a better state of mind.

I think that Catherine is trying to move on from an 'I have cancer I need to have treatment for this' focus to a 'looking forward to a brighter future' focus. I feel that she is trying to - not ignore her problems or health issues, but look beyond them and focus on the positives in her life, both immediate and those in the near future (eg I could attend one event last month, can I attend two events this month - that sort of positiveness). It is very much a card of transition, of the slow progress from 'not being able to do anything' to 'being able to do this amount of stuff per week'.

There is also a sense of sadness for the things she has learnt (such as the entire media being willing to ignore her request for privacy and turn her absence into a cruel 'where's wally' game). I feel that the cruelty has hurt her but she is trying to see it as a lesson about how inhumane the media can be and who she can trust to respect her wishes, and then accept it as a lesson learnt and move on, rather than dwelling on it and getting all upset about it. The energy has that sense of being in rocky waters but trying to move forward to pools of peace.

There is a sense of focusing very strongly on the positive as a way of giving herself hope and being able to keep on going, because you know the future will be better than the present, you just have to get there.

There is also a sense here of a plan for the future that includes the lessons she has learnt the past year. The future will not be the same as the past - she can't go back to how things were in the past, she is not the same person as she was then - but she can move forward and create a future that gives her what she wants after this year of realising what is truly important to her (more safety is what I want to write, more security, not physical bodyguards but being able to protect herself and her children from the cruelty of the press and the disrespect of people who think they are entitled to know everything about the Waleses).

Overall, a transition energy - taking the lessons of the past year and what has stood out as the most important values to her in the past year and using those to create a future that she would like to inhabit.

Card Two: The Five of Swords

This was my card for Princess Catherine physically

This is the card of not being able to win for losing, winning the battle but losing the war, and that is the energy that is coming off this card. Physically, she is still weak, and she is frustrated by that weakness. It's a two steps forward one step back progress and I get the feeling that she is tired of this and frustrated by it, she wants to heal faster so she can do everything she wants to do but at the same time she knows that this sort of progress is normal and overall she is doing quite well. It's very much the frustration of a physically active person who know has to basically start from scratch again and slowly build up their strength and their stamina to their pre-illness levels. I feel that it is going to take a long time for Princess Catherine to be back at her pre-illness levels of fitness, and by long time I mean years before she is fully recovered. She will be able to go out and about sooner than that but it will be very draining for her.

The energy of this card is normal frustration with the slow, non-linear progress that is recovering from a major health issue.

Card Three: Justice

This is my card for Princess Catherine emotionally

Justice is the card of legal justice, but also of any sort of justice, accountability, truth being revealed, honesty, integrity, consequences etc.

The energy of this card is one of determination and frustration. Catherine wants justice for something. Not necessarily legal justice but emotional justice. She wants to feel that she has been seen and heard, that her grievances have been addressed, that she has fixed things so this will not happen again in the future. If you know the story in the bible of the widow who kept going to the unjust judge and saying 'give me justice against my adversary', and eventually she got it - it is that sort of energy, a persistent push to see justice done, see the truth come out, see people face the consequences of their actions. I don't know what exactly this is about, but something is pushing her to get emotional justice for it - the satisfaction of seeing the truth come out about people who have hurt you.

I drew a clarifier for this, and what came out was two cards together, the Sun and the High Priestess, both of which have an energy of truth - the Sun shedding its light on the secrets kept by the High Priestess. The energy here is of a push to reveal the truth about things, an energy of 'I am sick of living with lies'. The Sun can also be a card about children - just throwing that out there.

Justice is the card of Libra, and Libra is all about balance, so it could be that Catherine is struggling to keep her emotions from veering up and down all the time, which is perfectly natural when you are recovering from an illness - it does throw your emotions out of wack and it is hard to stay balanced (and eg not get upset when you can't do as much today as you did last week).

Underlying Energy: The Empress

The Empress is a card of nurturing, femininity. creativity, nature, abundance, motherhood, and also a card of robust physical health. This is what Catherine wants, the desire underlying the above reading - to be healthy again, to be able to nurture those around her, to have the energy to create and play and have fun with her family, to be able to give back to others and nurture the wider community by doing this. It is a goal that will take time to achieve but that is her ultimate plan - to return to health so she has the energy to give to those around her, instead of being too tired and drained to be able to do much about it.

There is a minor anxiety here that she has to be ready sooner rather than later, that she is on a deadline? time limit? because what happens if she has to be queen and she is not physically ready to take on that role? So some fretting and worrying about that, which may just be the illness speaking (as in sometimes small things loom large when you are unwell and you fret about them when they are really not that important). I think this is a pressure she is putting on herself rather than anything external - she will be upset with herself if the time comes and she can't immediately step into the role that she wants to fulfil as queen.

Conclusion:

Catherine is in a very normal state for someone who is recovering from a major health issue. She is trying to get out and do things but her body is holding her back. Progress is slow and non-linear, which is frustrating. She is trying to focus on the positive and on the future. She wants to take what she has learnt over this past year and use it to shape a future that she is happy about. Emotionally, she may be a bit all over the place. There is a persistent desire or push for emotional justice of some sort. She is worried about her rate of recovery as she feels it is not fast enough and she doesn't have oodles of time to spend healing as she needs to be ready to be queen when that time comes.

[madamebaggio]

Notes: Previously...

***

Chapter 14

Edoras

After Théoden said something about a place called Helm’s Deep, he left the room with Gandalf right after him. Sansa suspected the other man - and was he really a man? - was not done trying to persuade the king.

Honestly, Sansa could well understand Gandalf and Aragorn’s frustration at Théoden. She couldn’t claim to be a strategist, but all of this seemed like a bad idea.

She’d once been in a battle where the enemy came to them. She’d hidden down in the crypts with the others, waiting for a miracle. She’d been stuck in a place when the dead rose to kill them all.

Sansa was in no hurry to repeat the experience. She didn’t even need to look at Susan to know the other woman thought the same.

“Your Grace.” Theon hurried near, then bowed when he saw who else was there. “My lords. Your Majesty. I am sorry for interrupting, but…” Now he seemed like he didn’t want to speak.

Sansa immediately knew. “Arya or Jaime?” She asked with a sigh.

Theon cleared his throat. “Both. Arya is fighting the men and Jaime is taking bets.”

Sansa took a deep breath in, before turning to men who’d stayed behind  and Susan and giving them a polite - and brittle - smile. “If you excuse me, my lords, my lady.”

She didn’t need to look behind her to know they all came after her. She’d stepped out the hall and went down the stairs, only to find Arya holding a dagger to a man’s throat.

“Arya.” She called.

Her sister looked up. “Aye?”

She glared at her sister, then her eyes moved to Jaime, who was surrounded by other men. 

“Ser Jaime?”

“Your Grace.” He waved at her. “Next one is about to start. Would you like to make a bet?”

“What I want to know is why you are doing this.” She asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Well, Arya started it.” Jaime said shamelessly, making the younger Stark glare at him. “Someone said she could not fight being that small, she insisted she could…” He shrugged. “I was just exploring the business opportunities.”

“They have just disappeared.” She informed them both. “Get the others, meet me in my chambers. We have something to discuss.”

***

Susan imagined that Sansa had taken her people to talk about the next steps they’d take. She’d get Helga and the others to do the same. She wasn’t convinced they should go to Helm’s Deep. Perhaps, she should go and meet her siblings in Minas Tirith.

If the people of Rohan were planning on staying still for a while, there was nothing the Narnians could do to help. It seemed to her that going to Gondor might be a better use of her time.

She’d just turned into a hallway, when she saw Gandalf coming from the opposite direction.

“My lady.” The wizard came towards her. “It is an honour to meet a Queen of Narnia.” Gandalf bowed to Susan. “Stories from your land have always reached us.”

“The honour is mine.” Susan nodded at him. “The White Wizard. It is good to know someone deserving of the title now has it.”

“You are very kind, my Queen.” Gandalf gave her a small smile. “I was told you and Queen Sansa have been helping.”

“We did what we could, which was not much.” Susan sighed. “We could not prevent Lord Éomer’s banishment.”

Gandalf nodded gravely. “You cannot carry a whole kingdom on your shoulders, your majesty. Especially when there is such malice behind the happenings in here.”

Susan nodded. “I am glad you are here and that the King is back. The question is: now what?”

“Now I would like to ask for your continuous support.” Gandalf told her seriously. “I do not believe this will be as simple as going to Helm’s Deep, which - mind you - is not easy at all.”

Susan sighed. “I was planning on going to meet my siblings in Gondor.” She admitted to him.

“I would kindly ask you to wait for a bit.” The wizard spoke. “Follow us to Helm’s Deep. I have not given up on Théoden.”

Susan frowned. “Do you think my presence there would be of any help?”

“From what I gathered, you have been great company to Lady Éowyn and you have actively tried to help this whole time. I think Théoden might be open to hearing from you.”

Susan sighed one more time. “Fine. We will go.”

Gandalf bowed his head in her direction. “Thank you, Your Majesty.”

“Do not thank me yet. I cannot promise anything.” She pointed out.

“Friends are hard to come by in dark times, my lady. The fact that you are here is already a great promise.”

***

Éowyn hurried to Léoith’s house. They were all leaving for Helm's Deep soon and then they’d be faced with the question of the two ‘intruders’ in the middle of the city.

She didn’t even know how to explain their presence, even though there were so many outsiders in Edoras at this point it might be unfair to judge young Percival and Lancelot. On the other hand, in those uncertain times, more strangers might just be a problem.

“I heard the news.” Léoith said as soon as she walked in. “When do we have to leave?”

“The day after tomorrow.” Éowyn twisted her fingers. “How is he?”

“He is much better, but I am not sure if good enough to walk all the way to Helm’s Deep.”

Most people would have to. They’d save carts and horses for the elderly and the sick, and -even though Lancelot was still in recovery - it’d once again bring back the question of who he was and why he was there.

“Lady Éowyn.” Percival came running into the room. “Are we really leaving?”

She touched the boy’s shoulder. “Yes. We will need to find a way to get you and Lancelot in the middle of the group.”

“We could just leave.”

It was the first time she’d seen him standing up. Lancelot was a tall man, and he seemed much recovered; his skin had more colour in it and he seemed firm on his own legs.

Apparently he was also well enough to say absurd things. “Leave?” She repeated. “Where to?”

“I do not know.” He admitted. “But we have taken enough of your time and kindness. It might be time to be on our own.”

“You cannot expect to take this boy out there!” Léoith protested. “It was a miracle you managed to arrive here. It is not safe, there are too many orcs running free.”

Lancelot turned his eyes to Percival. “You are correct. Perhaps I should leave on my own.”

“No!” Percival protested immediately.

“Calm down.” Éowyn asked the boy, before turning to Lancelot. “You are not leaving on your own.”

Lancelot frowned. “No?”

“No.” She told him firmly. “You are not recovered and it is not safe.”

“But you know it will not be easy to explain where we came from.” He pointed out. “Your people will know we are not from here.”

Then it came to Éowyn. “But you are not the only outsiders,” which she had thought about before, but now it came with a different idea. “Who is to say you are not Narnians?”

***

“We will not make to Gondor.” Jaime pointed out, looking at the map. “It is a risk to move out there right now.”

Sansa sighed. “I will send a letter to Margaery now. She should know where we are headed.”

“I do not like this.” Brienne commented.

Sandor grunted what was probably an agreement.

Theon was quiet on a corner, and Sansa turned to him. “Theon?”

“I have a bad feeling.” He told her simply. “But I do agree that there is nothing we can do at this point. From what we have heard from Arya and even the people around the city, this land is covered in orcs and uruk-hais. We stand no chance on our own.”

“That is what I feared.” She looked at Jaime. “What do you think?”

“We are evacuating a city. There will be families, children, the elderly, the sick… Not everyone here is a fighter and I do not know how big of an army is left here. Any idiot would know this will be a slow moving group. I would attack us on the way.”

“We also do not know how big the army of the enemy is.” Brienne reminded him.

“No, we do not. And, as much as I hope they are no more than a hundred untrained idiots, I would not bet our safety on a hope.”

Sansa pinched the bridge of her nose. She was getting a headache and she had no time for this. “I will write to Margaery now. You go out there and find as much information as you can. Talk to the Narnians, talk to the Rohirrim, talk to the damn wizard if you must.” And she could not believe she was saying that. “Get me whatever you can, because I need to pass on the information to her, in case…” She pressed her lips together.

Arya frowned. “Sansa.”

“In case something happens.” She finished.

The others exchanged looks, but they nodded at her and left to do what was asked of them. Only when the door closed did Sansa notice that Arya had stayed behind.

“Are you feeling unwell?” Her sister wanted to know.

“It will pass.”

Arya snorted. “Do not start acting all prissy now.”

Sansa arched an eyebrow at her sister. “I am still your Queen.”

“Only when it is convenient.” She smirked.

Sansa snorted, her lips curling up. “I will be fine. I assure you.”

“Fine.” Arya seemed to finally accept her answer. “But, Sansa, on my word, say you want to leave and I will get you out. The others would not mind and you know that.”

“I do.”

Arya gave her a firm nod and left the room.

She walked down the hallways, looking for the others, but someone else found her first.

“Lady Arya.”

“Sir Reepichip. What is the news from your side?”

“We are all going to Helm’s Deep.” He informed her. “My Queen has just decided it.”

“So has Sansa. What do you know of the enemy?”

“Nothing more than a few tales. We should find a better source.”

They exchanged a look. “The dwarf.”

***

“What do you think of all these Queens here?” Boromir asked Aragorn, once they were alone.

“I am not sure.” He admitted. “Help is help, but I do wonder what they might be interested in. They all came from far away just to be here.”

“It is bad that we need to worry about war, but now we also have politics involved.”

Aragorn was bemused. “There is always politics involved, my friend.”

“Yes. My brother is the natural diplomat between us.” Boromir had a fond smile on his face as he spoke about Faramir. “I learned it because I must, but he just had something in him.”

“It will be a great pleasure to meet Lord Faramir.” He put a hand on his shoulder. “But back to the current situation…”

“Why don’t you talk to Queen Sansa’s people?” Boromir offered. “I knew Théodred, even if not that well, so I might try and talk to the King.”

Aragorn nodded. “Let us do this.”

Honestly, Sansa could understand well Gandalf and Aragorn’s frustration at Théoden. She couldn’t claim to be a strategist, but all of this seemed like a bad idea.

She didn’t even need to look at Susan to know the other woman thought the same.

“Your Grace.” Theon hurried near, then bowed when he saw who else was there. “My lords. Your Majesty. I’m sorry for interrupting, but…” Now he seemed like he didn’t want to speak.

Sansa immediately knew. “Arya or Jaime?” She asked with a sigh.

Theon cleared his throat. “Both. Arya is fighting the men and Jaime is taking bets.”

Sansa took a deep breath in, before turning to Théoden King and giving him a polite -and brittle -smile. “If you excuse me, my lord.”

She didn’t need to look behind her to know they all came after her. She’d stepped out the hall and went down the stairs, only to find Arya holding a dagger to a man’s throat.

“Arya.” She called.

Her sister looked up. “Aye?”

She glared at her sister, then her eyes moved to Jaime, who was surrounded by other men. “Ser Jaime?”

“Your Grace.” He waved at her. “Next one is about to start. Would you like to make a bet?”

[acediscowlng]

another funny kind of narrative dissonance with dead boy detectives is like. okay. so the boys are convinced that once a ghost's unfinished business is done, Death can find them immediately and take their souls. Which she does. When they're ready to go, she arrives and takes them where they need to go. But therefore this means that the boys immediately have to run away as soon as a case is finished or she'll take them too.

But there's also like. A whole community of ghosts. Just kind of hanging around. Everywhere. Like. In general. There are a lot of ghosts. They seem to be a whole entire community of ghosts. Emma hangs around in a graveyard, a place infamously not associated with death. Suicides apparently automatically get a special version of being a ghost where they are not in Hell but also not taken by Death to the afterlife. Like. Are all these ghosts also under the impression they're like. Pulling a fast one on Death? Do they all think that she can simultaneously turn up to where a ghost is within seconds but also somehow fails to notice a whole community of ghosts just kind of chilling in the same place for decades. Or is this like, a Charles and Edwin thing that no one has the heart to correct them on despite the fact that most ghosts are fully aware that Death simply does not give a fuck where they hang around.

[shalpilot]

confiding

[slumbergoblin]

Hi Mei :)

[saturdaylemon]

Take all the time you need! And please ping me when you expand on those thoughts - if you don't mind.

Okay, back to designing.

I'm moderately opposed to making the Shades talk for previously mentioned reasons, but I could see giving "X speaks of Y" style summaries in the action popup. They're not really the people who died (or almost died), more like impression fossils. The lights are on, but nobody's home. We think.

The Ku Flame

Your idea for Hikari are a worthy inclusion, the only question is how. And the answer to that depends on how the fight works. If I were programming a game I'd be more inclined to do a mostly-standard boss fight with some extra narrative. If I were writing a fic, however, the 2v2 with Path Actions, Talents, and Latents all getting involved would be easier to pull off in that format. The quote would be something like "Ageha, you are relieved of duty!" In a more standard boss fight it fits better as "entering second phase" or maybe post-boss dialogue. In the 2v2 narrative puzzle it can be a Full Boost quote. It really only makes sense to say once; and maybe Ageha's Shade could seem to respond to it? You probably get prompted to activate Light's Radiance for the final blow.

Ageha's Shade shouldn't get minions. He was a general in life, but like you said, he's the last vestiges of the old Ku. He doesn't have an army anymore. On a side note I want this guy to yell "FIX BAYONETS" so bad but guns aren't available yet. Need to pick out a Boost message, a Boost Attack, regular moveset because it can't be all support... so everything. Definitely gets Rally Troops or a similar move by the same name though.

Tanzy was an aspiring playwright, but it seems she never published. In Giselle's troupe she served as director, so it could be fun (more fun in a standard boss fight where there are more characters) to let her Shade mess around with turn order. Like, oh, you were setting Hikari up to counter Ageha's shields off? Haha no the adds just got moved to the top of the round and used up the Vengeful Blade stacks, Ageha's Shade is shouting orders, and Tanzy's Shade is about to hand you your ass. Speaking of adds, the most obvious basis is the other troupe members... but Tanzy pretty conclusively left them behind. Another possibility is to reference her unpublished scripts with unfinished marionettes, or if we want to have some fun, give Tanzy's Shade the same minions as Arcanette. Tanzy begins praying.... -> BREAK HER SHADE NOW! If this is a 2v2, Ruinous Kick makes sense as the Boost Attack because that's half your dudes. In a more standard fight, the Boost Attack should be something a bit more powerful. Regular moveset has the summon, the turn rearrange, probably a buff or two, and maybe a physical attack that inflicts something.

Agnea's Boost quote is mostly babbled interrogatives.

The Crackridge Flame

Ori's Shade is weak to Polearm/Dagger/Bow/Fire. Guess why. (some kind of Light element attack because come on it's in her name) Stop the Presses! / So Tired: inflicts Speed Extremely Down Dear Diary: equivalent to the Merchant job's Rest. Name does not change after Ori's Shade is broken for the first time. Ori can't do this anymore. -> this is gonna hurt

The Final Night sounds like it should be the Boost Attack for Lucian's Shade, but it would also be really funny to have it be the weakest attack. We'd need to name Lucian's other works to name the Shade's attacks... think we could crib Nearer the Flame from the Stormlight Archive? Lucian retrieves a notebook.... -> this is gonna hurt slightly less

Temenos starts going through all of Lucian's works, trying to line them up with the Shade's attacks, and Osvald is experiencing the internal conflict between "not my SpIn, not my problem" and the knowledge that it is Very Much His Problem. Castti is probably in the background like "oh shit I have seen that girl before."

Osvald will offer to explode the person responsible even if you hit Crackridge after Flamechurch. There is no expiration date on Grandpa Blast.

The Toto'haha Flame

Hm, fair point. I figured Castti's usual Slightly Unhinged Boost quotes fit the emotional charge well enough, but this wouldn't be that long after Trousseau. The metaphorical wound is still raw. She could have a Boost quote demanding that the Apothecary's Shade get out of her way. It can't understand her, but she doesn't know that. We could give the apothecary a name, but it also works to leave him completely unknown. Just another cooling body.

Keep the Grotesque Monster's weaknesses (Axe/Bow/Ice/Light), mostly physical moveset since the Apothecary's Shade is handing out debuffs. Give it the Grotesque Monster's Piercing Cry, because if I heard someone like Petrichor start screaming out of nowhere I would be pretty freaked out. Petrichor gives off an ominous aura! -> Apply axe to face, repeat. Hunt the Weak: single target physical, damage increases with number of debuffs and afflictions on target. This is kind of a dark mirror of Drastic Measures, but it works.

Someone's Shade is passing out every negative effect in the game. Bow weakness works, maybe also Dagger and something else for game balance I dunno.

Ochette's Full Boost quote for this fight is "I can't forgive you!"

At some point Temenos makes the connection between some of Petrichor's comments and Roi's disappearance, promptly flips out.

The Flamechurch Flame

The design philosophy here is basically OKAY EVERYONE, PUT ON YOUR ARCANETTE HATS, TODAY WE ARE BEING MEAN TO TEMENOS! And part of that is making him watch two of the most important people in his life aid and protect their killer. So that's 3 and 4. 3 has the extra gutpunch of making him wait for the other shoe to drop.

Crick's Shade can keep his playable moveset. Weak to Sword/Staff/Dark. You know why. Crick is watching Temenos.... -> For a moment, a player could mistake this for a "skip a turn" message, maybe a hint that the people who left the Shades behind are still in there (this is intended to be perceived in-universe)... NOPE THAT'S THE BOOST MESSAGE. Also a callback to the Felvarg. Should we make Crick's Shade have a Boost Attack that sacrifices itself, or is that too limiting in Mean To Temenos potential?

Pontiff Jörg's Shade gets the Standard Cleric Weaknesses of Sword/Dagger/Axe/Dark. It has reason to use the Cleric moveset, but I was thinking we could nab something else from the Claude fight and give it Reflective Veil from the OT1 Cleric. Also, Lock Away. The move that prevents the target from recieving aid or items from any other party member. (And a slight nod to Whatever Was Up With Alpates.) Starts battle by using it on Temenos.

(Balance-wise, Temenos can break Crick with his base kit but not the Pontiff partially because this works with the story - Temenos hitting Crick's worldview with a metaphorical sledgehammer vs That's Your Dad - and partially because between Temenos' Latent and Throné turning into a protective blender it's probably fine.)

Throné uses her "Sorry, but I won't hold back!" Max Boosting quote for this fight, but even using the same voice clip it's meant to come off in a slightly different light. (You ever think about how her HP Thief bark is a sarcastic "You're too kind." and her "healed by Temenos" bark is a much more genuine "You're too kind, Temenos"? Because I have.) Temenos tries to talk himself out of a breakdown when Max Boosting. He fails. Possibly devolving from "keep it together, that isn't really him" early in the fight to beaten-dog whimpering in the second phase.

2v2 narrative puzzle ramble One reason I'm more inclined to use this for a fic is that the Journey For The Dawn locks you out of your daytime Path Actions. Sun's not rising. In writing, there's less trouble with carving out an exception in the game mechanics. The idea I had was that the Shade battles would yank the corresponding travelers into a sort of dream space where it isn't day exclusive or night. Kind of like a cross between Temenos' "The truth lies in the flame" Detective Vision thing and whatever was going on while Hikari duked it out with his shadow. (Said shadow: "Not me this time. I'm not touching that with a ten-foot pole.") From the outside, the two fighting appear to be asleep standing up, twitching and mumbling as if caught in a particularly vivid dream. Temenos "Commitment to the bit" Mistral sees two people snap out of that trance for the first time and immediately goes "Welcome back. ^_^" Throné may or may not be winding up to smack him.

This also works with having both the Arcanette fight and the Shade fight at Flamechurch. Arcanette certainly looks like she could cast Spell of Really Bad Trip. Basically Throné and Temenos are in the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Boss Fight while everyone else is trying very hard to kill Arcanette with hammers.

Back to Path Actions, I still don't know how all of those would work. Going down the list

Agnea: Entreat to get "Tanzy" to show you her journal works, Allure doesn't. Both these people have chosen their paths. Hikari: Challenge is a little redundant but potentially serviceable, Bribe less so.

Partitio: Purchase and Hire could both work for trying to coax "Ori" back to the land of the living. Purchasing a paper moreso. Osvald: Trying to get at Lucian's notes fits Scrutinize or Mug, although Mug is again redundant. Let him see that!

Ochette: Provoke is already happening, especially with Petrichor's Shade dropping everything to focus Ochette down if she summons one of the Creatures of Legend. Befriend is... not happening. Petrichor can starve. (Party pretty sure this is the first time they're heard Ochette curse.) Castti: Inquiring to get the unknown apothecary's name so the party can effectively lay him to rest is kind of sweet. In that vein, Soothe has already been done with Malaya and also believe her she's trying!

Temenos: Guide has also been done already, and Coerce is not only kind of already happening but isn't going to work on Shades. Sorry, Temenos, no chances to say goodbye for you. Throné: Stealing in combat is already part of the Thief kit (also pickpocketing Temenos' family in front of him is Not Cool Dude). Ambush is OP in anything resembling an actual fight, so that's another no.

So we're 4/16, 5.5/16 with partial credit included. Unless you have better ideas. Still wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

Latent Powers, Talents, and EX Skills though...

All Together Now... probably not. Dance Session maybe. Song of Hope a more positive maybe Learned Skills would be great if this were Jin Mei's Shade. See Light's Radiance prompt above.

Hilarious though Negotiate Schedule may be, nothing of Partitio's really works here. Teach... maybe?

Indomitable Beast into Beastly Fangs looks fun. Or Indomitable Beast into Provoke Beasts. Get her ass, fellas! Concoct has potential for showing the Apothecary's Shade how it's done... except it's mindless.

Moonlight Judgement: hehehe. Could have it not proc at the start of battle, wait until Temenos pulls himself together enough to effectively fight the Shades. This works better in the Arcanette + Shades version of the fight. Prayer for Plenty and Heavenly Shine both have story potential. Blessing of Darkness: "Consider the following: mine's better." Veil of Darkness is also good here.

Took "standard class weaknesses" from the Dolcinea fight with Love's Marionette, for the record.

Things about Octopath Traveler 2 that I think about WAY too much 2/????

Under the cut for late game spoilers, loose and speculative nonsense

So the four sacred flames and their connections with the gods connected to each one.

Brand and Sealticge to the Ku Flame

Alephan and Bifelgan to the Crackridge Flame

Dohter and Draefendi to the Toto'haha Flame

And Aelfric and Aeber to the Flameschurch Flame

Going to go ahead and put it out there, that my head canon is that the Moonshade order successfully completed the sacrifices line out in the Book of Night in this manner: Pontiff Jorg (Cleric, Temenos chapter 1), unnamed apothecary in Canalbrine (Temenos Chapter 2), scholar in Canalbrine (who's name I don't remember, also from Temenos Chapter 2) Tanzy (dancer/Sealticge aligned), Petrichor (Hunter), Ageha (Warrior), Ori (merchant), and Crick (Thief, as mentioned in some dialogue in Stormhail about his background).

I feel like, in a lot of ways, these flames would have been great spots for boss fights. I feel like, for a game like Octopath Traveler 2, just getting to relight the flames with ease was a bit too easy. There's a couple of different routes I personally would have taken with them.

Option 1 (least favorite) - the party fights a shadow creature of some type (excluding in Flameschurch because there is already a boss fight there). Alternatively, remix the chosen travelers' final chapter boss fight.

Option 2 - the party fights the shadows of the sacrifices associated with that flames gods (so Ku would be Ageha and Tanzy, Crackridge would be Ori and the scholar from Temenos Chapter 2, Toto'haha would be Petrichor and that unnamed apothecary from Temenos's Chapter 2, and Flameschurch (after Arcanette), would be Crick and the Pontiff (not a fun fight for Temenos especially)). Standard boss fights would be cool, but you could go a step further and have it a two on two fight with the chosen travelers against those shadows where path actions and skills came into play in defeating the shadows. Also makes the relighting of the flames a bit more personal. You've got potential either way with this option for some really cool character exploration and thematic resolution. This one is probably my personal favorite.

Option 3 - the party (or just the chosen travelers for that flame) fight the gods themselves (as a test). There's a few ways to do this too: 1. fight images of the gods. 2. the statues of the gods by the flames come to life and you fight those, not dissimilar to Osvald's chapter 4 fight with the Golem. 3. You fight a being of combined powers of the two gods, a strange and otherworldly combination of Alephan and Bifelgan for example, staff and scales in hand, plying magic and calling allies, making it rain in leaves as easily as flashes of magic lightning, or Brand and Sealticge (which I think would look something akin to Hinoekagura). This is also a personal favorite just to see how when faced with the gods, our travelers might act, when within the world itself the gods are mostly pretty hands off. The situation with Vide is an urgent one, and I think the gods would be willing to test their chosen in the final hour to make sure that they are truly ready.

I just think it would have been neat

[quillkiller]

having so many university au rosier twins thoughts

[deanpinterester]

mcu stans losing their minds on twitter over florence pugh's quote of "i actually like marvel's strict schedule because that means they're not wishy washy and it works for me :)" and they're going SEE MARVEL'S TIGHT SCHEDULE IS NOT A BAD THING and meanwhile the vfx workers are still suffering from supreme crunch Because of the strict schedule but yeah i'm sure the actors' opinions are the only ones that matter 🥴

[party-gilmore]

there was literally… ZERO reason… for her to bring up Jews in that article… at all…

this was a devastating story about a military man fatally self-immolating in protest of america supporting the ongoing message and should have REMAINED focused on him and message, there was… literally no fucking reason for that article to derail and complain about “israel supporters” being “afraid of antisemitism”

…like what the actual fuck.

“You simply cannot fit more America into a single incident than a man dying a horrifying death in protest of war crimes while a first responder screams at cops to stop pointing their guns at him and go get fire extinguishers. If you were to pick a single moment in history to sum up the essence and expression of the US empire, that would be it.”

Caitlin Johnstone, The Most American Thing That Has Ever Happened

[neverendingford]

.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

main take aways from Halloween (1978) rewatch:

michael myers is canonically 21??? this bitch should be at the club

*sees tiddies* ***MURDEROUS RAMPAGE NOISES***

that's it that's the movie

outside of the fact that everyone who has sex is murdered by the narrative, this is a surprisingly chill portrayal of female sexuality? these teen girls are horny and actively enjoying Getting It On with their boytoys. no pushy boyfriends sneaking in through their bedroom windows--these ladies are taking the initiative to sneak out and GET SOME. one of them gets laid and then immediately orders her boyfriend to get her a beer. (yes she gets Slashered soon afterward, but so does the boyfriend so honestly, gender equality.) yes the Final Girl is the only one not having sex, but she's not bullied for that, nor are her friends slut shamed except possibly by being murdered by the narrative

actually the only character who is shown being morally condemned on-screen is michael myers. specifically FOR his violent overreaction to other people's sex lives. (people he is spying on). metaphorically, the villain is American Puritanism sticking its judgy nose into other people's business.

aka Michael Myers Is A Republican

but actually the real villain is the doctor. guy's a judgemental, shaming, pathologizing asshole. and he's been in charge of michael's care since he was SIX YEARS OLD? kid never had a chance. i'd go on a killing spree too

also the parents. where are the parents? it's halloween night and all the teenage girls are home babysitting their younger siblings? come to think of it, michael's first victim was his own older sister, whom he killed while she was babysitting him. teen girls are really shouldering a labour burden here. maybe parentification is the true villain

side note: mike commits his first murder wearing a clown costume...which is never referenced again? his 'iconic' costume is a generic mask and wig and jumpsuit, when we coulda had a Killer Clown Michael Myers??? travesty

i like how the Final Girl and her friend casually smoke weed in her car. yeah she's an honor student and her friend is the sheriff's daughter. yeah they smoke weed. so what it's 1978

(to reiterate, mike is 21 and should be at the club. im not saying he shouldn't be rampaging, im saying it's sad that he broke out, tasted freedom for the first time in his life, and immediately snuck back into his childhood home to go rampaging. let's have a remake where he goes to a nightclub and has a few beers. maybe some slutty dancing. then rampage)

oh no he's hot

[seospicybin]

THE FUCKBOY NEXT DOOR.

PART I

Bangchan x reader. (s,a)

Chapters: Part II / Part III

Synopsis: Having issues to break up with your boyfriend, you seek help from the boy next door and the number one fuckboy in the area, Chan. (10k words)

Author's note: I went through a nasty break up a few weeks ago and this is basically just me trying to cope by being delulu about having a fuckboy Chan as a neighbor. Enjoy x

It becomes a habit now that Chan doesn't know where he is when he wakes up in the morning.

The first thing that he'll do is retrace everything to last night. He was DJ-ing at a club, had a few drinks in between, met a girl who was eyeing him the whole night, had a few more drinks, there was a little touching and a quick makeout session in the dark alley and people can guess what happens after that

So this is where he is right now, the girl's bedroom and he can recall everything that happened last night except the girl's name.

"Fuck!" Chan mutters under his breath.

Judging from how bright the sun is outside, he knows he only has a little window to make his escape so he quickly gets off the bed as calmly as possible. He then tiptoes around to gather his clothes and put them on without making any noise.

However, he fails at it as the head from his belt hits the bed frame and the clanging of metal meets metal echoing in the room.

The girl steers on her sleep and rolls over to the side, she brushes her hair away from her face, catching Chan putting his belt on.

The plan to make a quick getaway has come to a failure but he keeps his cool, continuing to buckle his belt and then plants his hands on each side of his waist.

"Morning," He awkwardly says with a forced smile.

"Morning," the girl replies with a smile then props an elbow against the mattress, sending the duvet sliding down her body and exposing her bare chest to him.

Chan might have been a little drunk when he met her but damn, his fuckboy radar works well even under the influence of alcohol.

"You're leaving already?" She asks, flipping her hair to the back to expose more of those beautiful mounds to him.

Chan has to tell his pervy brain to focus actively, he looks away and picks up his jacket from the floor.

"I promised a friend to help him move out today," He lies, then pretends to check the time on his phone, "And I'm kind of late."

The girl nods then twirls her hair around her finger, "Well then... when can I see you again?"

"I hope soon," Chan says with his charming grin that disguises the insincerity in his answer.

The girl smiles at that which confirms that the grin works, "But seriously, I can't wait to see you again," she says.

"I'll call you," he says because that's what he can promise her at the moment but whether he'll do it or not is uncertain.

"But you don't have my numbers yet," she says with her eyebrows wrinkled in suspicion.

"No, I'm sure you already did," he says, convincing her by scrolling the contacts on his phone.

"Yup. I have your numbers already," he lies again, showing her a random contact on his phone for a quick second.

"But my name is Thalia," she says, cleverly catching the name on the contact.

"Yes, of course, you're Thalia," he says with utmost confidence and his ultimate weapon of a dimpled smile.

The girl seems alarmed though. She sits up on the bed and clutches the duvet close to her chest, "We're going to see each other again, right Chris?"

"Yes," he answers without a beat, and at this point, lying is as easy as breathing to him.

"Can I get a kiss before you leave?"

"Sure," he says, coming around the bed to give her a quick peck on the lips.

The girl smiles when he lets go and watches as he walks to the doorway, "I'll call you, Tanya."

"It's Thalia," she corrects him with an apparent displeasure on her face.

Chan shoves his phone into the pocket of his jeans and takes the time to properly bid her goodbye. Nothing a girl likes more than a sweet mouth and a little assurance, he'll give her exactly that.

"I'll see you soon, Thalia," Chan says with a smile.

"See you soon, Chris," and the girl naively believes him, if only she knew that this will be the last time they're seeing each other.

Yet again, Chan makes another successful getaway.

-

The warm weather of spring makes it a pleasant walk from the bus stop to his apartment building. He wants to stop somewhere for breakfast but his head feels heavy from the hangover, he just wants to go home as soon as possible, have a bowl of cereal then take an aspirin for the pounding headache.

In the lobby, he makes a quick stop to collect his mail and takes a quick check at it, sorting them out on the spot so he knows which ones he should bring upstairs.

From the corner of his eyes, Chan catches his neighbor, you with your boyfriend chatting by the elevator. He notices the gestures, the expression, and the whole interaction, it doesn't take a genius to know that something is going on there that the naked eyes can't see.

Chan throws the unnecessary mail into the trash bin nearby and walks to the elevator, hearing the little conversation going on between you and your boyfriend.

"...the waffles were delicious. We should have breakfast there again," the boyfriend says as he looks at you, "What do you think?"

"Yeah," you meekly answer while looking at the little screen that shows the floor the elevator is stopping in.

Chan tries to remain invisible but his eyes accidentally make contact with your boyfriend so he may as well make his presence known.

"Hi, neighbor," he greets, he knows your name but you seem to prefer to be called that way.

You do what you always do whenever you meet each other in the building, give him a quick judging look and a courteous smile.

"And hi neighbor's boyfriend," he greets your boyfriend next.

"Hi," your boyfriend greets back, "Chris, isn't it?"

"Yes and you are Lee," Chan responds.

"Right. So how was your Friday night?" Lee initiates a small talk.

"I believe it wasn't as good as yours," Chan playfully answers.

"Oh, we just stayed in and watched a movie, right baby?" Lee says, putting his arm around your shoulder.

All of a sudden, you take a step forward and say, "It's here."

The elevator doesn't chime until a moment later but you seem to be more than eager to get in. You turn around to give your boyfriend a quick hug.

"I'll try to leave early so we can have dinner together," Lee says with a quick kiss on the cheek.

"It's okay. Take your time," you say with a faint smile.

Chan quietly gets into the elevator and holds the door open for you, he tries not to look at what's happening in front of him not out of politeness but it's just painful to watch.

"I'll call you," Lee adds, catching your hand as you enter the elevator and kissing it.

"Okay," you say then wave your hand at him.

To help you get out of it, Chan releases his finger off the buttons and sends the doors sliding shut.

"Bye, baby," Lee says for the last time before the doors completely close.

It's just another awkward elevator ride with you and he'll usually try to endure it but after watching all that and trying not to say anything is hard, he can't help but impose.

He glances at you to check whether you're ready to hear about what he has to say but you always have the same stoic expression. Then it occurs to him that he has never seen you smile impolitely or out of joy, or even hear your laugh, but maybe after you hear what he's about to say, he'll get to see a different facial expression on you.

"Oh, man! That was painful to watch," he sighs as he keeps looking straight ahead at his reflection in the shiny furnace of the elevator.

There's no one else in the elevator so you're fully aware that he's talking to you but you don't respond until a while later.

There you go, with your judging look and stoic expression, looking at him as you say, "Excuse me?"

Chan doesn't want to sound rude but beating around the bush isn't his thing, he prefers to be straightforward. He knows it's all based on assumptions but he's pretty sure his judgements are pretty accurate.

He's going to just do it and lay out the facts, he turns to the side, then leans his back against the cold surface of the elevator.

"Your shoulder tightens when he called you baby and the fact you lied about the breakfast tells me that you didn't actually like his choice of restaurant," he pauses to let out a cynical chuckle, "the waffles weren't that good, I guess?"

When he wants to see a different facial expression on you, he doesn't mean seeing your angry one, but oh well, the damage has been done.

"Because I'm a good girlfriend that's why I let him choose the restaurant," you become defensive all of a sudden but that's an unconvincing answer.

"No, you let him choose out of pity," he simply remarks, "And just now, your nostrils flared when I pointed it out."

With all of these signs combined with his personal experiences, Chan narrows it out to one conclusion. He looks at you in the eyes and says, "You're about to break up with him, don't you?"

It looks like you've been slapped right on the face except that the slap doesn't come from someone, it's from the truth that comes out of Chan's unfiltered mouth and he instantly regrets it for meddling in in someone else's business.

"I'm sorry, but why are we having this conversation?" You ask, crossing your arms together in front of you.

"It's not like you're any better. You slept around, you're scared of commitment and now, sticking your nose at my business. You are the kind of person that I deeply despise!" You angrily say with your chest heaving.

It seems like you're saying all of those things about him out of anger because he sees right through you but now he knows why you always give him that judging look. He's the one who started it so yeah, okay, maybe he deserves that but that doesn't change the truth. The problem is what he said and your response, they're heading in the opposite direction.

"I think someone has her panties in a twist," Chan coyly responds.

"Look, there's nothing wrong with wanting to break up. That doesn't make you a bad person," he adds and decides to end the talk right there.

It gets quiet in this enclosed space and it's already suffocating as it is but how lucky that he has to patiently wait for the elevator to ride through three more floors to get out of here.

When the elevator finally dings open, Chan lets out a breath he doesn't know he's been holding but he's not the one in a hurry to exit both this space and the situation. He stays where he is and lets you out first.

When he thinks you don't have anything else to say, you stop right outside the elevator and look at him with a piercing gaze.

"Don't, for one second, think that you had any effect whatsoever on my panties!" You emphasize every word in anger, then storm off.

Know what? Maybe Chan should skip the bowl of cereal and take two aspirin instead. As for you, maybe you need to chill the fuck out.

-

Just because you've been neighbors with Chan for the past three years doesn't mean that you know each other on a personal level.

All you know about him is that he's a DJ which explains why there's always music playing in his apartment, he always wears a sleeveless top to showcase his muscles, and he always has a stupid grin on to show off the stupid dimples on his stupid face, an annoying Australian accent and from how many times you caught different girls taking a walk of shame out of his apartment, it's safe to say that he's the number one fuckboy in the area

So how dare he say all of that stuff in the elevator when he doesn't know anything about you at all? Moreover, what does a fuckboy like him know about relationships?

It shouldn't be hard to ignore because it's something you usually do but gosh, the memory of the conversation still vexed you a few days later.

Then it hits you that it bothers you so much because deep down, you know what he said is true. You've been wanting to break up with your boyfriend and hearing that comes from someone outside that relationship only solidified that thought.

There's nothing wrong with your boyfriend, Lee is nice, too nice even, and when you think about it, maybe that is the problem, he is too nice and that leads you to another problem, you don't know how to break up with him without hurting his feelings.

But you know who can help you with that? Someone who has a lot of experience in breaking up with people.

Oh, what a joy that you find the answer right across your door!

Before you get to ask for his help though, you're fully aware that there's another thing to do and there's no other way to do it but walk up to his apartment, knock on his door, and apologize.

As you're standing there in front of his apartment door, you're dreading it. All sorts of thoughts crossed your head like why did you have to be so riled up that time in the elevator? Why did you have to say that thing about the panties? Just why? Ugh!

Let's just get it over with, you mutter inside your head.

With hesitant hand, you knock on his door and then hold the urge to turn around and run back to your apartment. You let yourself take a step back as you wait for him to come for the door.

Do not open the door, do not open the door, you chant inside your head while tapping your foot against the floor. However, things are not always going the way you want.

The door swings inward and a second later, Chan appears with disheveled hair and he only has one arm in the sleeve of his t-shirt, then you spot a girl's shoes next to his feet.

Oh no, please don't say you're coming at the wrong time.

You reflexively take another step back but he grabs your forearm and then opens the door wider, showing you that there's a girl there.

"It's my neighbor, she's here to remind me about the tenant meeting," he says to her.

The girl looks at you rather suspiciously and crosses her arms together in front of her as she glares at Chan.

"No. Don't you dare try to get out of this, Chris!"

"But it's true. We have to leave now," Chan says, then gives you a look that tells you to lie along with him, "Right?"

Running a quick assessment of the situation, you're certain that Chan is trying to get himself out of it to avoid having a difficult conversation with the beautiful lady. You hate to be the accessory to his crime but if this means that it would help you earn his forgiveness...

"The pigeons!" You make up a lie on the spot.

"The pigeons are ruining our rooftop garden so we held this urgent tenant meeting," you add with what you hope is a convincing smile.

"Oh, those damn pigeons!" Chan heavily sighs with a phony expression.

The lie makes your throat dry and your cheeks hurt from forcing a smile, you have to keep it going as the lady considers whether to believe that the tenant meeting is true or not.

Chan grabs his jacket from the clothes hook and puts it on, "We'll continue this later, okay?" He says to her.

Without waiting for her answer, he gets out of the door and drags you with him to go to your apartment. Once both of you get inside, he immediately closes the door behind him and lets out a long sigh.

"Oh, wow!" He exclaims once he realizes that he's inside your apartment.

He allows himself further inside and leisurely walks around your apartment, checking your kitchen, trailing his fingers on your book collection on the shelf, and observing the potted plants lining up on the window sill.

He walks back to the middle of the room and takes another 360-degree look around the apartment, then nods in approval.

"So, this is what the inside of your apartment looks like," he says in a cryptic tone.

Not sure if he wants you to respond to that or if should respond at all. You choose to remain silent and only respond when his intentions are intelligible.

Chan then sits on the sofa, making himself comfortable, and looks at you, then at what you're holding in both hands.

"Is that for me?"

The jar of cookies you've been unknowingly holding in your hands is a token of apology and it is for him.

"Yes, it is for you," you say, handing it to him with both hands.

"I'm sorry about the other day," you sincerely apologize, but you know you have to let him know what you're apologizing for, "for what I've said to you. I'm terribly sorry."

"Well, since you're helping me with the uh... situation," he coyly says as he scratches his eyebrow, "consider us even."

See? That wasn't so hard. You feel bad for lying to the girl but at least, you've been forgiven.

"Thank you," you add with a smile.

Chan doesn't say anything else but opens the lid and takes a cookie out of the jar. He gets comfortable on the sofa, sitting slumped with his legs spreading wide, and then he takes a big bite of the cookie.

It doesn't take long for him to notice that you have something else to say to him other than an apology.

Before he gets to it, you force yourself to start speaking.

"So, Chris..." you call, then abruptly stop talking. You suddenly have a second thought about asking for his help.

"What's up?" He asks while chewing on his cookie.

It's at the tip of your tongue but your mouth feels like they're sewn shut. You clasp your hands together and muster up the courage to just blurt it out.

"Do you want something to have with the cookies?"

You swear you plan on asking for his help but somehow, your mouth saying a different thing.

"Milk would be nice," he answers.

"Milk. Yes, I have milk," you awkwardly say, slowly making your way to the kitchen like a walking dead.

You take a carton of milk from the fridge and while pouring it into a glass, you're scolding yourself for being so cowardly.

After taking a moment to take a deep breath and muster up the courage to ask, you walk back to the sofa with the glass of milk in hand. With a smile, you hand it to him.

"Thank you," he says, his eyes catching something in your eyes.

You immediately break the eye contact and take another step back, standing and watching him finish his third cookie then wash it down with a sip of milk.

"I hope you don't mind that I'm going to stay here until the girl leaves my apartment," he informs.

"Oh?" You meekly gasp.

"But I can leave if you're uncomfortable," he says as he sits straight on the sofa.

"No, it's fine," you shortly reply, "Take your time."

"Okay, thanks," he says, reclining back on the sofa and continues munching on the cookies.

You can't decide if he stays longer than you expected is a good thing or not. You use the opportunity to reconsider it and walk to the kitchen to get out of his sight.

"Do you need help or not?" You quietly ask yourself as you pour yourself a glass of water.

Why is it so hard? He's right there. All you need is to go and ask for his help.

The water sloshes out of the glass as you fill it too full and you reflexively back away to avoid getting water all over the front of your dress.

"Everything good there?" Chan asks in a slight panic.

That's it! Enough time has passed from overthinking it! You walk up to him and just do it.

"You're right," you blurt out, "I've been wanting to break up with my boyfriend."

Sensing that it turns serious, Chan slows down his chewing and puts away the cookie jar. You expect the I-told-you-so grin on his face but no, he looks saddened instead.

"Things aren't working out," you openly share with a sad sigh.

You take a seat on the ottoman facing the sofa and sadly sigh, "I've been wanting to break up with him for a week now but I just don't know how."

"How long you've been dating each other?"

"Three years," you answer.

"Wow," Chan lowly gasps in awe.

Three years is not a short time, he understands why you hesitate to break up and it isn't an easy decision either.

"I need your help," you hopelessly say, unintentionally becoming vulnerable in front of him.

"My help?"

"Help me how to break up with him," you further explain.

"Of all people, why me?" He asks in utter confusion.

It's hard to answer that without being rude, you decide to let him process the question until it leads him to the answer. After a while, he lets out a dry chuckle and nods, "Okay, yeah. Make sense."

Chan takes another minute to accept the fact that his help is needed because he knows how to break up with someone without feeling awful about it afterward.

"I guess you want to let him down gently?"

"Yes," you answer.

"Well..." he inflates his cheeks then lets the air out through his pursed lips, "You can break up with him through a text."

Which part of 'let him down gently' did he not understand? How is it a good idea to break up through a text? But okay, it's just one suggestion, you give him the benefit of the doubt for now. Who knows he'll come up with better suggestions.

"I'm sorry. No, I can't do that," you kindly refuse his suggestion.

"You can send it when he's sleeping," he adds.

Oh, God! He gives you an even worse suggestion instead of better ones. You know what? This is a bad idea and you regret asking for his help.

"I don't—" You stop yourself from talking and get up from your seat.

"I'll just check if the lady is still..." Your words trail off as you walk towards the door and check through the peephole first, then you get out of the door to check his apartment next.

"Hello? Excuse me?" You shout from the doorway but no one is answering you.

You take it the lady has left and walk back to your apartment to deliver the news to the rightful owner of the apartment.

"She already left," you tell him.

Chan lets out a sigh and closes the cookie jar, he finishes the milk to its last drop and then gets up from the sofa.

"Thank you for the cookies and the milk," he says with his signature grin.

"No worries," you reply, trying so hard to hide the disappointment in your voice.

Chan holds the cookie jar in one arm and takes a step closer to you, "if you need help on how to write breakup texts, I'm just across the hall," he says.

You don't respond to that but keep a smile on for him as to seem polite.

"And good luck!" He says with gentle pats on your shoulder.

The second he walks out the door, you collapse onto the sofa and dread it even more than before. Turns out, asking for his help is not helping at all.

The next day, you meet him as you collect your mail in the lobby and it's hard to ignore him when his mailbox is next to yours.

"G'day!" Chan greets you as he leans the side of his body against the wall while sorting his mail.

"Good day!" You respond and hurriedly walk toward the elevator. You push the button to summon it to the lobby and hope it comes soon enough for you to avoid talking to Chan.

Of course, things don't go as you want it. He comes just in time for the elevator about to arrive, he crumples a few letters in his hand into a ball and then tosses it into the trash bin.

"How did it go?" He asks.

"Pardon?" You nonchalantly respond.

Good thing that the elevator chimes open and you can pretend to forget about what he asked you a while ago. You get inside while clutching your mails in hands in front of you but it's not safe yet as you have to share the elevator ride with him.

"So... the break-up texts? Did you do it?" He asks again, going to the corner of the elevator and leaning his back against it.

"Chris, I think you can't just end a three-year relationship with a text," you put it as nicely as you can.

"Yeah, I reckon," he innocently answers.

It seems like Chan can't tell the difference between what is easy and what is right. It isn't a good idea in the first place to ask for help from someone like him who doesn't consider other people's feelings except his own.

"What are you going to do then?" He asks, shifting his weight on one leg.

Since his help is not helping at all, you have no answer to that yet. This should be something you have to figure out on your own in the first place.

"I'll figure it out," you not-very-convincingly answer.

Chan crosses his arms in front of him, making the muscles and veins on his arms more evident under the fluorescent light of the elevator.

"Lee seems like a nice guy," he remarks with a deep inhale of air.

Well, if you have to compare your boyfriend to Chan, then yes, Lee is a really nice guy. Lee excels in a lot of things, including how to treat a person with feelings.

"Yes," you settle with a simple answer.

"A drawn-out break up is only going to end in a big scene," he says, "Just saying."

Chan has a point. It's worse to prolong the pain for both you and Lee, you can't keep pretending that the relationship works and it's unfair that you keep Lee oblivious about all this.

"We can practice, you know," he offers.

"Practice?"

"On how you're going to break up with him," he explains.

He comes up with a better suggestion this time and is almost endearing even but again, he wouldn't know how a person with real feelings reacts to a break-up which makes you unsure if the practice would be any help.

The elevator is about to arrive anyway so you decide to skip on responding to his offer. Once it chimes, the doors part open and you take the first turn to get out with Chan getting off after you. You turn to the left to your apartment while he turns right. You take the key out of your pocket to unlock the door and push your way in while clutching your mail close to your chest.

"You know where to find me if you need help," Chan says just before you close the door to your apartment.

Hard pass, you answer in your head but you put on a smile for his kind offer, then close the door

-

Okay, you admit it. You were too haste when you said that you didn't need his help. You were doing fine for these past few days, you've been avoiding meeting your boyfriend to give you some more time to think of the best way to break the news to him until he calls you.

The phone rings and you just stare at it, considering whether to pick it up or not. If you pick it up, that means you have to lie to him and if you don't, it'll alert him that things are, in fact, not okay.

The latter seems like a better idea so you pick it up after taking a long, deep breath.

"Hi, baby. Am I calling you at the wrong time?"

Not entirely wrong but it would be nice if he didn't call you, you answer in your head.

"Yeah, sorry, I was in the bathroom," you lie.

"Coconut shrimp for dinner. What do you think?" he asks out of the blue.

"That sounds nice," you easily respond.

"I know you'll like it but, babe, do you mind getting us a bottle of wine on the way?

"I'm sorry?" You ask in confusion.

"For our dinner, remember?" he answers, "I'll cook tonight we'll be having dinner at mine."

You hardly paid attention to him because your mind was always elsewhere, you couldn't remember saying yes to the dinner but you did and it must be out of pity.

"No, of course, I remember, I'm just..." you rake your brain to think of something to say.

"I thought it was next week," you lie again with an awkward chuckle.

"You silly!" Lee says, "Aren't you glad that I called, huh?"

"So glad," you lie, again and again.

"I should start prepping the ingredients so they'll be ready when you get here," he says, his voice exuding enthusiasm.

"Okay."

"Don't forget the wine!"

"I won't."

"I can't wait to see you, baby," he sweetly says.

The lies are piling up so may as well add another one to the pile, "Me too."

"I love you, bye."

Don't think you can lie your answer to that, you gulp air, "Bye," you say to the phone, then quickly hang up.

Desperate times call for desperate measures and you don't know your desperate measure means knocking on your neighbor's door. Probably because you hate to admit that you need his help.

Not long after, Chan opens the door and his head pops out from the gap, "What's up?"

"My boyfriend just called and tonight, we'll be having dinner in his place," you blabber in panic.

It takes a second for him to process it then his face turns a little surprised, "What are we going to do then?" He asks in confusion.

You may be in dread but you catch the error in his question, "We? Now, you got your panties in a twist," you tell him.

"Shame on you!" He responds with a sly grin then opens the door wider and shows himself dressed in nothing but a white towel hanging low around his hips.

He puts one arm against the doorframe and leans close to you as he says, "Cause I'm not wearing any panties right now."

You should have noticed it from his wet hair and the beads of water rolling down his neck, and now that you're seeing the whole of it, your eyes immediately following where the beads of water going, they're going down the outline of his abs and eventually, to where they're all gathered as his pelvic bones leading down to one way: down south.

However, your instinctive reaction goes against what you're actually feeling inside.

"Ugh!" You groan and turn to the side, "Put some clothes on and I'll see you at my place!"

Without waiting for his answer, you rush back to your apartment and close the door behind you as fast as possible, then you rest your back against it.

The images of his naked body flashing through your head, his glistening wet pale skin, and how some parts of his body are blotchy red around the neck and chest. You get flustered all of a sudden, you immediately press the back of your hand to your cheek and you can feel them heating.

"Get it together!" You scold yourself.

After waiting for almost fifteen minutes, Chan finally comes knocking on your door like it's a musical instrument.

"Are you dressed?" You ask with your hand on the doorknob.

"Hardly," he jokes.

You peek through the peephole and see that he's already dressed to what you can say is his usual attire of dark short pants with a matching sleeveless top, showing off his bulging biceps. You open the door to let him in and he coyly walks in, treating your place like it's his own, sitting on your sofa with his legs spreading wide.

"Okay, so, why am I here?"

You stand in front of him with your hands clasped in front of you, "I've been lying to him the whole phone call and honestly, I've been doing it since the moment I decided that I want to break up with him, and I... I don't think I can lie to him again."

It's easy to admit your mistakes to him because he barely knows you and his opinions about you won't matter that much to you.

"I need to do it tonight," you hopelessly say.

"I take it you need my help to practice your break-up speech?"

You hate that he guesses it right but it's also convenient that you don't have to beat around the bush to ask for it. But first, you try to explain the situation as much as possible so he has ideas on what you're facing here.

"Lee is a man of many emotions and I'm not exaggerating when I say he'll likely cry," you inform.

Chan's forehead wrinkles as he processes this piece of information then stifles a nod. It seems like he still has no idea what you want him to do about it.

"I think it's less painful if you acknowledge the dumpee feelings," you blatantly explain.

"Okay, I got you. Let's practice!' He says, sitting up straighter on the sofa and then putting his hands on his knees.

It's just a practice but your anxiety takes over you not just mentally but also physically as your palms get sweaty. You wipe them down your jeans and take a breath.

"Lee," you call him by your boyfriend's name, and even though it's weird that you're roleplaying, you continue, "I want to break up with you."

Chan looks at you and gets quiet for a moment, "Wow. I'm in utter shock and it makes me very sad to hear that," he says with a rather serious tone.

Not the kind of reaction Lee would likely pull off but that will do if you decide to continue with it.

"I'm fully aware that this is so sudden but I've been thinking hard about it for some time and I think this is a decision that I should take," you say and you know it's a practice but you feel something caught in your throat.

"I'm sad and I need time to process it, but I'll be okay," he calmly says.

Chan gets the tone right but you believe breaking up wouldn't be this easy in real life, especially when there are real feelings to protect. To be honest, you're not ready to face the truth that you may hurt those feelings tonight.

"I think that went very well," Chan says, returning to his default settings.

"Yeah, I think that's it," you meekly say.

The worries and sadness are drawn on your face that Chan can easily see through your veiled expression, "If Lee is as nice as you said he is, then you shouldn't worry much," he says.

He waits until your eyes meet his to continue, "He may get surprised or shocked even, but he'll come around and respect your decision."

You can't believe that those words are coming out of his mouth or that he even tries to comfort you, but you appreciate it. Maybe his heart is still there, he just doesn't let it control him most of the time.

He gets up from the sofa and walks up to you, he takes your hands, ignoring how cold and sweaty they feel in his, "You got this," he assures you.

"Thank you, Chris," you sincerely say with a sad smile.

It is time to stop torturing both you and Lee with lies and forcing yourself to believe that the love is still there. It's time to accept the truth that if you can fall in love, you can also fall out of love.

-

It's a surprise that Chan worries about things that aren't his business. He's been playing some music to distract him from his head but he keeps the volume low because he doesn't want to miss hearing the sound of the elevator that will tell him any signs that you're back from the dinner.

Eventually, he tires himself out from worrying and falls asleep on the sofa. He startles always close to midnight after hearing the knocking on his doors.

Half disoriented, he trudges his way to open the door and finds you there, surprisingly, looking nice in a white cotton dress and your eyes dry.

But from the way you let yourself into his apartment, forgetting your impeccable manners and walking with shoulders slumped and carrying your shoes in your hands, he takes it that you did it.

"So... how did it go?" He carefully asks, following you as you're making your way to the sofa and then sitting on it.

You let a heavy sigh and your shoulders slumped even more, "At least, there's no crying," you answer with a sad smile.

Chan is unsure of how to react to that, is that a good thing or a bad thing? He just stands there with his arms crossed on his chest, thinking out loud.

"And even though it was ending... it was incredibly meaningful to me and I'm going to miss him," you say with your lips trembling.

Oh, no, Chan knows when a girl is about to cry, he quickly finds a remedy to it, one that he knows always works wonders for him. He runs to the kitchen and brings a bottle out of his alcohol stash, then hands it to you.

"Let's have a drink!" He says, realizing that he forgot the glass.

"Wait another second, I'll get the glass," he says, sprinting to retrieve two glasses from his kitchen cabinet.

When he returns, he sees that you're chugging the alcohol straight from the bottle. You gasp and then wince from the bitter aftertaste of it.

"Okay, straight from the bottle it is," he says, popping onto the sofa next to you.

You wipe your mouth with the back of your hand and then hand the bottle to him in which he wastes not another second to take a sip of it.

"The thing is... I really care about him but he wanted to get married, and I'm just not ready for that," you share with your eyes blank and looking at the void.

You take a deep breath but it seems like it only sends your heart sinking deeper and deeper, and making it harder for you to breathe.

"And if I'm not ready with a guy as great as him then what if I'm never ready?" You say, turning your head his way with your eyes glassy, pooling with tears.

"What if that was it..." you lift your shoulders then drop them as you let out a low sigh, "my one chance at love?"

The tears start streaming down your face like a bursting dam and Chan knows he can't do anything about it but let them out.

Hearing your words makes him think about what his idea of love is. He used to think that it was something he could get whenever he wanted it but now he knows that he's wrong, because that's just a short-lived infatuation, just some sort of meaningless connection.

From you, he learns that love is a privilege that not everyone can experience.

"What if I never get a second chance?" You ask him the question that he doesn't know the answer to.

"I don't know. I'm just sad," your voice cracks, then you break into tears.

Chan is quick to catch you into his arms and offers you his embrace. He knows he can't do anything about this sadness but he can try to soothe the pain, he's placing gentle rubs on your back as you cry into his chest.

The cry is resounding in this space, echoing the sadness back to you and it makes him inexplicably sad too, and he gets the urge to make it stop.

"It's going to be alright," he murmurs at the top of your head.

You look up with your eyes wet and red with tears caught in your lashes, "Is it?" You croak.

He doesn't know when but he knows for sure that time heals everything.

"It will be," he answers with a gentle caress of his knuckle on your wet cheek, "eventually."

Your eyes tell some more assurance for him and he doesn't know what drives him to do it, but he leans in, then kisses you.

To his surprise, you kiss him back and he knows you're doing it because you seek his comfort and he wants to give you exactly that. He wraps his arms around you and pulls you close, giving you that closeness you seek. He kisses you ever so softly because he knows he's kissing a broken heart and he wants to mend it. He can taste your sadness and the bitterness of it, and also the relief underlying all of it. As he kisses you, he lets his heart open just enough to take some of that sadness away from yours.

As the kiss deepens, the sadness withers, and something else emerges. Chan loses in it for a bit until he realizes what you're trying to do with your hand that reaches for the front of his jeans.

He abruptly detaches his lips from yours and shakes his head, "No, we can't do this," he says.

As much as he fancies you enough to have sex with you, he knows better not to do it when you're not in your right mind and your judgments are clouded with sadness. The last thing he wants is you waking up in the morning full of regrets.

"I want this, Chris," you croak.

"No, we can't," he adamantly says and takes your hand away from him.

"You're sad. You do want this," he says in an effort to put some sense into you.

You roughly crumple the front of his t-shirt and pull him close, "I want– No, I need this, Chris," you say to him with your eyes dark like two bottomless pits.

"Please?" You plead as a tear rolls down from the corner of your eye.

This is the most hopeless he ever heard of you and it breaks his heart. You said it yourself, you need this and he knows what you mean by that. You need the distraction, you need him to take this pain away even just for a fleeting moment, moreover, he can't break what's already broken.

He takes your hand off of his clothes and puts it in his, he leans in until his forehead is pressed against yours.

"Are you sure you want to do this?" He asks once again.

"Yes," you answer without a beat.

That's all Chan needed to hear, he inhales air and puts an inch between your faces. He then tenderly holds your face with both hands and looks at you, unsure where to start but maybe, he can start by making those tears coming out of your eyes.

Chan dabs the tears pooling in the corner of your eyes with his knuckle and without the slightest of hesitancy, he places a gentle kiss on each of your closed eyelids and before you can open them, he captures your lips in a kiss.

Sex is not something new to him but Chan knows that this time is not about physical fulfillment, but a way to offer comfort and hopefully, to also mend your broken heart.

He takes his time to strip away every piece of clothing on you until you're bare, lying on the bed with nothing but sadness that fills your heart.

He touches you with utmost gentleness, using just his fingertips to feel the softness of your skin and you're so pliant, sensitive to his touch.

To make it fair, Chan takes his clothes off as well before joining you on the bed, caging you in between his arms and hovering only inches away above you.

"Touch me," he says to you, taking your hand and placing it on his shoulder.

He then glides your hand down his neck and chest, he makes you feel every inch of his pale skin with him. However, when he looks at you, your eyes remain on his.

"You feel so warm, Chris," you lowly mutter.

He brings your hand close to his mouth and kisses it, then crashes his lips on yours.

The gap between your bodies becomes non-existent as you keep pulling him close, he relents by lowering himself on top of you and props an elbow against the mattress to not put his whole weight on you.

Lips locked, hands around each other, bodies pressed together and the temperature keeps on rising in the room. Chan makes you feel every part of his lips brushing and gliding over yours. He skillfully parts your mouth open with his tongue so he can kiss you deep and hard, yet slow until you run out of breath.

At the same time, his hand makes its way down until his fingers land on your delicate flesh. He touches it tenderly, running his fingers between the folds, and drags them upward to rub on your bundle of nerves.

"Ah..." you moan against his lips as you curve your hand around his neck and pull him incredibly closer.

Judging from it, he knows he's doing it right and he should continue, he applies gentle pressures on your clit, making you drenched and that way, he can slowly put a digit inside of you.

You let go of his kiss to let out a moan and your head falls onto the pillow as he puts another digit into you, two fingers pumping in and out of you.

Chan intently watches as your face contorted along to the pleasure, how your jaws slack open and breathless moans keep spilling out of your parted mouth.

The way you clench around his fingers makes him impatient to feel you and how tight you feel around him, and the noises you make oh, they're his new favorite tune that he wants to keep listening to until his eardrums burst.

He glances down as he pulls his fingers out of you and finds them thickly coated with your essence, it doesn't stop him from shoving them into his mouth and lick them clean.

Chan holds you by the chin to keep you still as he kisses you, "Give me a second to get a condom, yeah?" He says to you and you nod in answer.

He makes his to the bathroom and pulls the drawer open to take a condom. To save time, he decides to put it on right away, he tears through the foil packet with his teeth and rolls the rubber down his hard length.

On the way out, he catches his reflection in the mirror and gets reminded that this is not about him. Tonight, it's all about you.

He returns to the bedroom, finding you still lying in bed naked and hugging yourself. He climbs onto the bed and lowers himself on you, letting you absorb his body heat to warm you.

Craving for another taste of it, he goes down and plants his mouth on your cunt next, tasting you right on his tongue.

You're squirming as his tongue laps over your wetness, drinking in on your essence and then using it to circle on your clit.

He's not the only one getting impatient and asking more of it, you both want it and there's no wasting time anymore. Just before he takes it to the next part, he places a long, tender kiss on your clit and immediately brings his mouth to yours again so you can taste yourself on him.

"I'm going in, mmh?" He says as he endearingly brushes your hair away from your face.

You hold on to his shoulder as he settles himself between your legs, aligning his cock with your entrance but before that, he rubs his length between your folds, lubricating it with your essence.

Your hands fly to your chest, hugging yourself again as you lowly moan to his hard length rubbing over your clit and then, pushing its way into you.

"Goodness fu—" he can't even finish his sentence without breaking into a satisfied groan.

It's just the tip but he can already feel how tight you are around him, he's scared yet excited to push more of him into you. He reorganizes his breathing and rests his hand on your abdomen to do it.

Chan looks down to check and he still has a little more of him that needs to be inside you, he sharply inhales air through his nostrils and pushes the remaining length in one quick push.

"Oh..." you breathlessly moan as you're squeezing on your breasts.

Chan allows himself to take a moment to adjust himself to being inside you and you seem to also need time to adjust to his size because you feel so incredibly tight around him. It makes him wonder how this little thing can take him so well.

He takes your hands away from your chest and puts them around his shoulders, that way he can put his body on top of you, lips locked with yours again in no time as you wrap your legs around his waist, sending him deeper inside you.

As he takes a breath in between kisses, you hold his face and look at him with a different kind of sadness in your eyes which only reminds him that his initial plan is to make it go away.

He starts thrusting into you, wanting to fuck this sadness out of you. He wants to make you think of nothing but how his cock fills you full and how good he is fucking you right now, and soon, he's going to make you feel nothing but immense pleasure.

"Ah... ah... ah..." you moan for every thrust going into you and the skin-slapping sounds echo along with it in the room.

Chan plants his mouth on your breasts to contain his grunts and groans while keeping the steady motion of his hips pulsating against you.

A hand reaches for his chin and forces him to look at you, instantly engaged in eye contact with you. He continues thrusting into you with eyes looking deep into you, they're no longer looking like bottomless pits, they look like deep oases that he wants to dive into.

The next thing he knows, Chan finds himself deep in you, not just physically but also connected with you in a way that he's never experienced with anyone else until now. He feels barer than he already is and instead of shutting himself off, he embraces it and lets you in.

Soon enough, he finds himself lost in it and fully connects himself to you in a way that lets him know how it feels to love without fears or insecurities holding him back, without worrying if it's being reciprocated or not, to love wholly and completely.

"Oh," you let out a broken moan and that's when he notices that you break into tears again.

Chan abruptly stops moving, afraid that something he does is hurting you without realizing it.

"No, keep going, keep going," you tell him with your voice hoarse.

He needs to make sure to continue, he cups your jaw and asks, "Are you okay?"

"Yes, please, keep going, please," You repeatedly nod and plead with your teary eyes.

He wants you to stop crying, he wants you to stop thinking about what hurts you and start to see him as he tries to take this pain away from you. His body picks up the pace, going impossibly fast and also taking himself close to his high.

Your eyes are screwed shut, your breath is ragged and your hands are gripping onto his shoulders, overwhelmed by the pleasure that he brought on you.

The moment he's sure that you already come to your climax, he allows himself to let go and uses all of his strength to give you a few more thrusts until there's nothing left in him but waves of pleasure that wash over him.

"Chris..." you softly call and then pull him for a chaste kiss on his lips, "Thank you."

Chan's face hovers only inches above you as he softly gazes into your eyes, you look so fragile and open like a wound and he's just glad that he can make your heartache gone even just for a while.

"Shh..." he stops you from talking by running his thumb over your lips and then kisses you with his heart wide open. He lets this beautiful feeling pour out of him and into you.

"No, thank you," he mutters his gratitude between kisses.

Thanks to you, he experiences something he's never felt before with someone else, something new, something pure and real, something that feels a lot like love.

When he wakes up in the morning and finds you're not there, it hits him that maybe it is love but Chan is not ready to admit it yet.

-

A week passes and Chan hasn't seen you ever since that night.

He can't tell if you're avoiding him or needing the space and time to piece yourself back from the break-up, he hopes it's the latter. Gosh! Let him be right.

Regardless of what happened, he can live with the fact that you despise him but it would be sad to know if you choose to go down the path of believing that you're not going to find love again.

Chan just needs to know if you're doing okay, that's what matters for now.

Fortunately, the two of you have been neighbors for quite a long time to learn your routine and knockabouts. He knows what you like to do on a Saturday morning, he goes to the lobby and chats with the concierge as he waits.

At the first sight of you entering the apartment building, his heart palpation, and in all honesty, he's just so happy to finally see you after a while.

Are you not seeing him there? Or you're just pretending which only confirms his initial thought that you've been, in fact, avoiding him.

You're walking through the lobby carrying a bag of groceries in your arm, you skip checking on the mailbox and go straight to the elevator. It just happens that the elevator is vacant and the doors slide open after you push the button.

Chan decides to take the risk, sprinting to get into the elevator before the doors close. You already despise him so a little more hate shouldn't be a problem to him.

"Morning, sunshine," He greets you with his dimpled grin.

"Good morning," you politely reply without looking at him.

Things are going back to normal and he should be glad, right? At least, you're back to your usual settings of looking stoic and acting polite, and the best thing about it is you're still talking to him.

"I should learn to avoid people from you. You're good at it," he pushes it a bit just to see if he can crack through this facade.

"Excuse me?" Your head turns his way and with your eyes widen, "I have not been avoiding anyone."

Chan holds the urge to smile for successfully getting your attention and rests his back against the cold, metal furnace of the elevator, "Are you sure?"

"Well, we're seeing each other now," you tell him.

"That's because I know you like to go to the farmer's market every Saturday morning," he says at the same time, admitting that he knows about your routine.

You slowly turn your body facing him and squint your eyes at him, "You've been keeping tabs on me?"

"It's my favorite pastime activity," he shamelessly answers then pokes his cheek with his tongue.

"It's better than watching porn," he playfully adds, something that he knows will annoy you the right way.

"Ugh!" You groan as you look straight ahead.

Oddly enough, that's what he misses the most about it, interacting with you and seeing your reaction to his antics, but you, especially.

"Don't be so uptight," he coyly says.

He takes a step closer to you and puts his hand on the handlebar, "it's not like we haven't slept together or anything."

You let out a scoff and hoist the strap of your grocery bag higher on your shoulder, "I'm shocked you even remember," you say.

You turn your head next and your eyes immediately lock in a gaze with him, "I figure I'm just a low notch on a very long bedpost," you add.

"Are you calling me a man whore?" Chan says, feeling offended.

You take a step closer to him and daringly stare back into his eyes, "I didn't call you a man," you answer with a sly smirk.

There's a few seconds of silence until Chan realizes what you just said to him but you know what? He's going to give it to you, for now.

He looks at you and smiles, "Touche!"

You both look at each other and at the same time, burst into laughter, and it keeps going until the hilarity subsides with each passing second.

Is this real? Did you just poke fun at him with a beautiful smile on your face? Did you really laugh and the sound of not only echoing in this enclosed space but also in the back of his mind? Did he just see a different facial expression on you? Either way, he likes it and he likes how it makes him feel.

The elevator chimes open and soon, the doors part open. He lets you get off first and then takes his turn after, he gets a little disappointed as you both are going in the opposite direction.

"Hey, Chris," you call as he's only a couple of steps away from the door of his apartment.

His heart palpation again but he keeps his calm and then slowly, turns on his feet to face you, "Yes?"

"I'm cooking curry for dinner and I know it'll be not as good as the one you always ordered but you can come and..." your hand is fiddling with the strap of your grocery bag as you speak but your eyes remain steady on him, "see if it suits your taste."

And did you just invite him for dinner? Him, the neighbor you despise so much?

Chan acts coy and scratches the back of his head, he holds the urge to answer right away. He has a reputation to uphold and he reckons, you have to at least wait a minute for his answer.

"Yeah, okay, let's see," he nonchalantly answers but his smile tells otherwise.

You crack a laugh and nod, walking to your door with the keys jangling as you're unlocking it.

Chan thinks that's the end of it until you call his name again, his heart leaps this time and he almost flies his way to you.

"Yeah?"

"Don't worry, I'm not going to ask you what are we," you say with a smile then get inside of your apartment.

That's funny because, after that night, he was hoping that you would ask him that as most girls do but that's where he is wrong, you're not most girls, you are his neighbor whom Chan is secretly in love with.

-

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[north-wilkesboro-moonshine-cave]

why does my roommate have such dogshit taste in tiktoks