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anyamaris · 1 year ago

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The Art of Love

Word Count-2854

Summary- A solitary hike while on vacation to Jeju Island leads you to an encounter with a fascinating creature, and possibly a new form of art.

Pairing- Mermaid!Hyunjin x Artist!f!reader

Trope-Strangers to Lovers AU

Warnings-Fantasy elements, Hyunjin is a kumonryu koi merman, I think that's it?

Tags- @cultofdionysusnet @wooyoungmybelovedhusband @yoonguurt @shinestarhwaa @babesindestroyland @lemonhongjoong @stardragongalaxy @kpop-stories-21 @flowerboykun @millennial-fangirl @ericssmile @kthpurplesyou @changbinslovelylegs @yeosxxx @ssaboala @millennial-fangirl @starillusion13 @duchesskaren

A/N- This is for the event with @cultofdionysusnet Where the Shoreline Meets the Sea, so make sure you check out the other SKZ members by other network members! I hope you enjoy my addition to the collab!

“It’s so beautiful!” you gasp as you make your way into the cottage you’ll be staying in during your trip. The murmur of voices from your group of friends just drives up your excitement, the small exclamations of oohs and ahhs making you smile. Watching them claim their rooms, you just go explore other areas and decide that you’ll just take whatever is left. You were more concerned about getting out to see the beauty of the island and planned on tiring yourself out enough that you’d be happy sleeping on the couch.

Going to join your friends, you get swept up in the energy and glance out to the beauty that is Jeju island. Patting the carrying case with your sketchbook and pencils, you smile happily as you discuss the finer details like groceries and such. Letting your mind drift off as you listen, you gaze dreamily out the window, picturing all of the beautiful things you’ll come across to add to your portfolio; the memories you’ll make this summer in this cottage, or out on the sand of the beach, on the patio as you share your time with your closest friends.

As the weeks go by, you spend the majority of your time on the beach, doing random activities, occasionally venturing out onto the ocean, or into the little town. But the strongest pull for you has been the mountain. Mount Halla, or Hallasan mountain, amongst other names you’ve heard it called in the time you’d been here. Despite the numerous names, it alone has the singular strongest pull for you.

The first week, you and a few others had ventured onto the small hiking trails near the base. It would be a silly thought to want to climb the mountain itself, but you find yourself enchanted by the beautiful greenery, the plants and animals as well as the vast open sky above it all. It was perfect for a solo hiking trip. And that’s what you planned on doing today.

Leaving a note for your friends, you double check your supplies, making sure you have some snacks and water, as well as your sketchbook and pencils. You’d informed everyone of your plans the day prior, so the note was just a courtesy to remind them. Checking the charge on your phone, you let yourself out the door to walk out into the predawn morning.

Walking the trail as the sun rises is an added bonus to the already gorgeous surroundings, and you happily climb out of the transport as they drop you off to walk towards the trail you’ve been down with the others a few times now. Humming to yourself, you just take in the environment, eager to reach the small area you’d noticed on the last visit.

The sun is climbing the sky when you finally spot the barely noticeable little opening, and once you are able to venture a little closer to it, you smile. It’s definitely a trail and your excitement skyrockets as you push aside the vegetation and walk through for a little bit and it opens up completely. “Found you!” you whisper to yourself and there’s a little extra bounce in your step as you follow the trail into the forest beyond.

You spend half of the day walking, admiring the beauty of the area, taking the trail that winds up the side of the mountain. Occasionally, you stop to sketch something, a flower or a tree, maybe a bird if you can manage. But when you come upon the pond at the edge of a clearing, you can’t help but hunker down, unpacking all of your art supplies to set up camp and pour your heart into the drawing. The trees ringing the beautiful water give it the perfect frame, and the pretty water lilies with the gorgeous blooms have you losing yourself in your art.

Occasionally you hear a small splash, or the chirp of a bird…sometimes the bark of frogs. It’s not until you feel a tickle on the back of your neck do you notice that you’re no longer alone. You had been concentrating on the vegetation near the farther side of the pond, but when you happened to glance away from your sketchpad to take in the whole area, you fall backwards with a yelp.

“Hello there.” the soothing voice says, and you stare with your mouth hanging open, blinking like an idiot. Before you is a shirtless (naked?) man, just his torso above the water. He is resting his head on his hands near a rock and watching you, his big brown eyes taking you in calmly. His long dark hair was streaked with patches of white, and his rich, chocolate eyes were studying you like he was fascinated.

“Who-” you manage to get out, your hand on your chest as you stare. “I am Hyunjin. My name…my name is Hyunjin. It’s been awhile since I spoke to a human.” he murmurs and you frown at him. “Excuse me?” He just sighs, and motions over his shoulder, and you catch your breath as you watch a large black and white tail emerge from the water. The sheer beauty of the almost transparent end of the tail looks like silk, and unlike most fish you’d seen, the skin of the tail itself appeared smooth, not scaly.

You barely notice that you’re creeping forward, your hand outstretched as you reach for him. You snap out of it and snatch your hand back, your eyes flicking back to the man the tail seems to be attached to. His bored, almost sad expression has you closing your mouth as you study him. “Hyunjin?” you ask him softly and he nods, blinking slowly up at you. “Are you..a mer..maid? Merman?” His soft smile has a hint of a smirk as he tosses his hair off his shoulder.

“It’s all the same in your language, much different in mine. It all means the same, of course.” he responds and you just nod, drawing your knees up to get comfortable. You take in his bare torso, his slender arms, his handsome yet almost painfully beautiful face. “Why are you here instead of…” you gesture to the distance. “ …the ocean?” His eyes grow pained and a frown tugs at his full lips, making you immediately regret your question. “Forget what I asked!” you say quickly and a small light touches his eyes at your panic.

“It’s fine. I cannot go into the salt water, sadly. My friends all are able, but I am confined to the waters inside of the island.” You feel a small weight on your heart as he says it, still processing even finding a creature like him but the idea of being stuck here was heartbreaking. “Can you leave the water?” you ask him softly and he smiles at you. “Yes, I can, for a time.” he nods, then pulls himself out onto the rock. You gasp as you take in his beautiful black and white tail before a shimmer forms the tail into two legs.

Then he’s pulling himself up to stand in front of you and you choke on a strangled scream, covering your mouth as your cheeks turn red. “Oh yes…I had forgotten…humans are not used to naked bodies.” he says, turning to walk away towards a small path you hadn’t noticed before. Stopping, he looks over his shoulder at you and smiles.

“If you give me a moment I’ll dress, and you can have a meal here as well as a place to rest for the evening.” With that he turns and disappears, leaving you with the mental image of his long, lean naked body and his…prominent … endowment. Slapping your cheeks, you breathe out heavily, for the first time noticing the sun dipping down below the mountain. “Oh my god!” you yell, realizing you had lost track of time and now it was going to be night soon.

Making your way along the path you watched Hyunjin walk down, your mouth hangs open at the sight of a small cottage under the canopy of trees. The flora is overgrown and creeping along the sides of the small building, onto the roof and you can’t help but be reminded of fairy tales from your childhood. Imagine, meeting a mermaid on a foreign island who lives in a cottage, you think, overjoyed at your discovery.

You finally close your mouth as you take in the beauty of the area, your eyes settling on the gorgeous creature named Hyunjin. He’d put on a pair of loose fitted pants to cover himself and was now settled on the small rock wall beside the little house. Leaning back on his arms, he was just studying you with a slightly wary expression, and you can’t help but capture the seeming underlying sadness again.

“Hyunjin.” you say his name, turning it over and his eyes flicker a bit as you watch him. Clutching your bag to your chest, you look around, taking in the darkening sky. “May I…would I be able to camp here for the evening?” you ask him, mildly embarrassed. He just tilts his head at you as you shuffle your feet and stammer. “Camp? Are you asking if it’s alright to sleep here?” he responds and you just bite your lip and nod.

“I lost track of time, with my drawing and well…I don’t want to-” “Of course you may. I would not want you to risk injury to yourself, or for you to get yourself lost in these woods. There are many creatures on the island, much more of a risk to a human than I. You’ll be perfectly safe here, little one.” “Y/n.” you say shyly, enchanted with his form in the setting sunlight.

“Is this your name?” he asks and you nod, giving him a small smile. “Why are you so wary? You may sit, relax.” He gestures to the small area with some flat rocks and a few logs. “Apologies for my lack of seating and comforts…I don’t have much need for them.” You smile broadly at him, settling yourself on a flat rock, leaning against a log. “I’m fairly simple to please, actually. This is wonderful.” You motion around you, taking it in again. “I think it’s lovely here.”

He gives you a bright smile and looks around at the cottage. “I suppose. What is it you were doing earlier?” he asks, noticing as you pull out your sketchbook again. “Oh…I am…well I want to be an artist. I was drawing the beautiful lake you..where-” “Ah! Might I see what you drew?” he asks, pushing himself up to come crouch beside you, curiosity lighting up his face.

“Oh…sure..it’s not great but…” you open the book to the page you’d been working on and he slips down to sit beside you as he looks at the sketch you’d done. You can’t help but study his profile as he tucks his hair behind his ear, admiring his almost otherworldly beauty. He glances at you and blinks as he notices your face only inches from his. “It is quite beautiful. You drew my home…” he tilts his head at you as your cheeks heat up, leaning even closer to you.

“May I see more?” he asks and you blink rapidly as you tear your gaze from him. “Yes, yes of course.” you stutter and he smiles as you flip through the book, explaining the different things you’d found as you wandered that day, then going back to other days. You don’t miss the wistful sigh as he takes in the ocean and the view from your rental cottage where you were staying.

“Is it quite lonely here?” it just slips out but his eyes meet yours and you can see the pain behind them at your words. “Ah…I’m so sorry, I don’t know why-” “It is quite lonely, yes. Occasionally I will travel to the ocean to meet my friends, but I cannot join them in the waters there. I like it here, but it is very solitary.” He frowns at you and wipes a tear you hadn’t noticed running down your cheek.

“Why are you sad?” he asks, tilting his head to study your face yet again. “Oh, I just can’t imagine not being able to go see the people I care about…I…I actually quite like being alone at times, but to be unable to …” you try to recover, smiling a bit as you close your sketchbook, but he is cupping your face, startling you.

“Thank you,” he whispers, brushing your lips with his and you gasp, but don’t pull away. He settles back, a small smile on his face as he puts his arms behind his head, looking up at the quickly fading sun. Too stunned to speak for a moment, you can only bring your fingers to your lips in shock. Finally finding your voice, you watch him stare off into the sky.

“Why are you thanking me?” you manage, your voice barely a whisper. “Hm…for giving me the gift of your company. For sharing your heart with me.” he gestures to the drawings. “For making my home into art.” Then he gasps, drawing his long legs up to fold them as he puts his hand to his mouth. “Oh…I made a mistake, didn’t I? Was I wrong to touch you? I know I’ve been told humans don’t touch like…” he gestures, and you shake your head, trying to suppress a smile.

“No..well…yes normally it would be strange to be kissed by someone I don’t know.” His eyes go soft as he smiles at you, making your heart flutter in your chest. “Are you saying that it’s fine that I did it?” his eyes take on a mischievous glint and you start to sputter, forming noises but no words. He throws his head back to let out a laugh and you can’t help but feel your cheeks flush.

But then you’re laughing along with him, his infectious giggling has you snorting. “Ah…I haven’t laughed in a long while…” he beams at you and you can see the sadness has retreated a bit as he stares at you. “Would you keep me company tonight then? Tell me about yourself?” he asks and you nod, setting your things to the side to get more comfortable.

“I would love that. Would you tell me about yourself as well? I…am curious…” he just smiles at you and agrees without hesitating. “I would love nothing more.”

By the time you finally drift off to sleep, the sun is making another appearance and your voice is harsh from how much you’d shared with Hyunjin. You only remember laying your head on the log as you watched his gorgeous face, wanting the night to last forever. You vaguely remember his musical voice soothing you, murmuring sweet nothings as dreams wash over you.

Waking up, you take in the unfamiliar surroundings of a small room, and notice that you’re on a soft bed. Sitting up, you realize that Hyunjin must have carried you in and placed you here. When you finally emerge from the small house, you smile as you glimpse the lean man turn towards you in the light of the morning sun.

“Good morning, Hyunjin.” “Good morning, my Rose.” he says back and you blush. “Rose?” you can only ask, and he nods. “Red roses are my favorite flower.” You walk up to him and look at him curiously. “Then why am I-?” “I’ve decided that you’re my favorite as well, so I shall call you my Rose.” You can’t help but giggle, but when his arms wrap around you and his lips descend on yours, you shiver in delight.

“Are you claiming me, Hyunjin?” you ask semi playfully, feeling as if you’re in a dream. “Perhaps I am. Only if you’re willing to be, of course. For the duration of your time here, might I?” You only nod at him as he tips your chin up to brush his plush lips against yours once more. “I’d like that…on one condition…” you whisper and he draws back with a questioning look.

“Anything you’d like.” he professes and you smile up at him. “I’d like to draw you…in the lake..in your home. In your true form…may I?” he just blinks at you, happiness washing over his features. “I’d love nothing more. So you’ll return?” he asks you, his eyes pleading.

“Will you spend the summer with me here, my beautiful Rose?” he whispers.

“Yes, Hyunjin…every moment that I can, I will be here with you.”

You know your friends will call you crazy, and you just might be. But just one night spent with this amazing being has you feeling things you’d never felt before. Whatever it was, you were going to explore it with Hyunjin.

Who knows what would come of it, love or heartbreak, passion or agony. Perhaps all of the above. But that’s what art was, and you were definitely dedicated to your art.

Maybe this was just the art of love.

#codn wtsmts #cultofdionysusnet #Stray Kids Hyunjin fluff #Hyunjin fluff #Stray kids collab fanfic #stray kids au #Hyunjin au

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the-martyrfication-of-the-matron · 6 days ago

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One of the cooler things about your AU is the fact that is seems to have been a Mech Scifi Fantasy First that over the generations and years turned cyberpunk dystopia.

From my understanding, is seems that the Divine Warriors were all mech suit operators who fought their big bad and now their mechs are used as parts for the now flesh and steel cybernetics. That is a very cool and incredibly smart concept. (Weirdly kinda makes me think of the Divine Warriors as a Voltron esc group)

Now, heres a question. Does this take place in space and the mechs are used for interplanetary travel and fights or is this all on a single planet like earth? Cause mechs always make me think of space.

Mechs always make me think of the ocean and I blame Pacific Rim. I’ve never watched them properly, don’t know what they’re about, pretty sure there’s at least one scene of a mech in water.

Anyways!

I’m not sure if I want it to be planetary or inter-planetary. I know O’Khasis is the main city, with different areas of it and towns outside, but do I then make Ru’Aun the planet? Have Tu’La be another planet they’re in close proximity to, and at war with? Have the Enki Warrior Island be a moon of Gal’Ruk?

But if it’s all on one planet like canon then places like Tu’La would just be different countries. Which means I don’t have to figure out space travel technicalities, even though I kind of want to.

I’ve not ironed that part out yet.

But thanks for the compliment for my Mech -> cybernetics lore. Whilst a lot of cybernetic parts aren’t directly harvested from mechs anymore, there’s only so much metal to go around, you can definitely tell which mech designs someone used for their parts. Obviously the Ro’Meave company uses the Matron designs commercially and the Protector designs for the family, but the SKs are Destroyer-inspired, Scholars tend to privately commission Keeper-patterned parts, and so on. Not only for the symbolism of it, but the functions too. Like Destroyer and Protector designs tend to be bulkier, with Protector designs being sleeker and more durable, whilst destroyer designs are, well, more destructive and jagged. You get the idea.

#aphmau #aphverse #aphblr #sci-fi au

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zenzaaaaaaaaaaaa · 2 years ago

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fics currently enjoying free real estate in my brain meat

BNHA -

Skydive by AriesBuenos Midoriya Izuku helps a serial killer be slightly less of a serial killer.

Residual Hope by SimplyKaren Midoriya Izuku helps a DIFFERENT serial killer be much less of a serial killer. reconcile by whatagoodegg Trapped in baby jail with a supervillain. Race against the clock to see who can radicalize who (and we’ve both had traumatic childhoods).

Apex Predator by silver jackdaw Can I get twenty more of these protective, badass, and self sacrificial little bitches.

Personality Swap AU by BelleAmant Impostor syndrome turned useful skill: the musical. BNHA/Persona 5 -

Dost Thou Even Steal Hearts? by BukuBuku Persona 5 Protagonist destroys the status quo while balancing police related trauma and the fact that God hates him. Danny Phantom/DC -

lex luthor's ascent from supervillainy to fatherhood by halfagone Jeff Bezos kinnie grows a heart raising a half-dead teenager.

Bus to Nowhere by foldingfacets Danny Phantom is homeless in Gotham, comedy ensues. DC -

in the healing of trauma by StoriesAreMagic Tim Drake gets the shit beat out of him but he's just fine babyyyyyy.

Signed Red Robin by @mediacircuspod Tim Drake tries to be a professional, ending a business relationship, much to the confusion of the family he is abandoning.

Banshee In A Well by @liverobinreaction Tim Drake can't really... die. He just also does it a lot.

How To Train Your Dragon -

A Thing Of Vikings by @athingofvikings 1.5 million of glorious, beautifully researched historical fantasy fiction with dragons.

Naruto/Game of Thrones -

Whirlpool Queen, Maelstrom King by cheshire_carroll Sansa Stark politics so hard she breaks ninja society a little. Owl House -

Weekend at Belos's by @watery-melon-baller So. You need to keep a regime together while hiding the leader's body (he’s your uncle) and your bird (who hates the regime) won’t stop fortnite dancing over his rotting corpse. Percy Jackson -

Constellations by liketolaugh Percy goes to therapy for suicidal thoughts and also all of the Trauma. Wildly cathartic.

Oh Yeah, No, I Totally Forgot by BlueberryLimoncello Just because Sally Jackson was abandoned by the king (of the sea) doesn't mean she has to give up on the queen (that guy's wife).

Citizens of Glass by @mrthology Turns out godhood is less of a choice and more of a duty. Star Wars -

Don't Look Back by @this-acuteneurosis Leia time travels to pre-Clone Wars times and does politics very very good.

Of Queens, Knights, and Pawns by chancecraz Leia time travels to the start of A New Hope. Complex emotions and familial relations ensue. In Which Series by Ariel_Sojourner Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker time travel to the Clone Wars and do war very very good.

Certain Point by @esamastation Obi-Wan Kenobi time travels to the Clone Wars and also does war very very good.

Civil Wars, Whistleblower Tactics... by @jackdaw-kraai Luke Sk- Sorry, Luke Lars is a very good engineer. Darth Vader approves of his new underling/adopted son. Star Wars/Assassin's Creed -

Sailing the Stars by @esamastation Desmond Miles ends up in the Clone Wars and does neutrality very very good.

#fic rec #fic recs #i tried to get the authors that had tumblrs but i might have missed a few

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chierafied · 9 months ago

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WIP Tag

Was tagged by @annabtg and @siriuslychessi, thank you lovelies!! 😘💕

List the titles your top five priorities for WIP updates (link your fics for new readers!)

An upcoming scene, event, or detail in each fic that you're looking forward to writing

Bonus: make a poll for your followers to vote on which top 5 WIP they are most excited to see an update on!

Then tag 10 writer friends!

My WIPs:

1. The Silence (SessKag)

He’d always known that words had that power to inflict great hurt. But he had never realised that the silence he so valued could do the same."

2. Honey, I Rose up from the Dead, I Do It All the Time (SessKag)

It’s been four years, seven months and twenty-one days since the miko left. Not that Sesshoumaru keeps track; why should he be bothered by the absence of one puny human?

3. Sengoku Love Story (SessKag)

No concrete upcoming stuff for this yet, but I want to come back to this story soon!

4. Jilychallenge Fairy Tale AU

No plans, only vibes. Going after one's own fate. Might do historical AU or fantasy vibes? 🤔

5. A gazillion different jily microfics based on the prompt lists

There is a war to be won and I'm parking myself in the trenches.

Open tag because I don't feel like thinking about names.

#fic meme #meme tag #wip tag #chie: my polls #jily #sesskag #tumblr polls #chie: my fics

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faun-the-hound · 2 months ago

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Fantasy Au post again cuz I wanna talk about it.

(links to picrew posts, if you want individual character info and partial designs: part 1(Garroth, Zane, Aph, Laur, Dante, SK's), part 2(Zoey, Levin, Malachi, Nana, Lucinda), part 3(Vylad, Nicole, Aaron), part 4(Phoenix Drop residents), part 5(Jo9), part 6(werewolves)) I honestly forgot Travis and Cadenza, so I'll put them at the bottom

In these posts I've referenced a number of things without much context, and I've left out a number of things present in the Aphverse.

The Fantasy AU doesn't currently have an official name, but to simplify, it's Aphverse characters in a high fantasy setting, more blatantly fantastical than MCD, taking locations from MCD and personalities from a mix of MCD MyStreet, and putting the characters into a (kind of as far as I'm aware) original plot.

It focusses on Aphmau, an 'angel' originally from another continent (Tu'la), who crash landed on Ru'aun after fleeing cultists who she was sold to as a child. They worshipped her for her resemblance to their Goddess, and her snow white wings. She's not actually an angel, but aviakin, a bird person, a dove specifically.

She crashes on the shore of Ru'aun after flying across the ocean for several days, battered, starving and dehydrated and is found by Garroth, a dragon exiled from his family, and Zenix, the tiefling kid (sixteen) he's travelling with. Having been kept in essentially a glorified birdcage her whole life, Aph stays with them, getting to be good friends with the boys. Zenix stains her wings blue-purple to hide them, making her look more like a weird magpie and less like the Goddess.

Eventually they're captured by these guys under the name Callers of The Void, a cult Zenix was indoctrinated into, then later fled from and was actively being hunted by. Aph escapes, meets Laurance, a merrow/merfolk, and rescues her friends, and a woodland elf named Zoey who was also being held captive along with a sickly aviakin child she'd been trying to care for (Levin).

Across Ru'aun, Corruption has been spreading, killing people and animals alike and turning them into essentially zombies, mindlessly hunting anything that moves and spreading the Corruption to other villages and towns. The Corruption originated in the middle of the Sacred Forest, creeping through the villages and towns scattered throughout it, slowly eating away at the magic that flows through the natural world, turning it against itself.

Aph and the gang had already been dealing with monsters and Corrupted beasts travelling outside of the forest, but being forced to go through it to escaped the Callers brings to light just how bad it had gotten, and Aphmau makes a decision- she was going to save Ru'aun, find the source of the Corruption, and destroy it. Her empathy and naïve optimism drives her to seek a way to save the miserable, fearful people living within the boundaries of the Sacred Forest, and eventually, she succeeds, making a number of new friends and allies along the way, finding herself a new home and family. -----------

Travis and Cadenza below cut

Cadenza(merrow), and Travis(demon)

I don't have much for their inclusion or stories. Cadenza is the adoptive daughter of Meteli's two Lords (Joh and Hayden, they're married) and is good friends with Laurance, who often swims over from Bright Port, where he lives and works as a pickpocket. They aren't related, but they're the only merrow in the area, so they regard each other as family anyway.

Travis is from Gal'ruk, lives on an entirely different continent to the main story, so I've no clue how he'd get involved, but he probably will. I'm thinking, rather than being a social outcast because he's a demon, he's an outcast because he's royalty. Still because of his father, but for different reasons. Perhaps he meets the group while on a diplomatic trip or something, I dunno.

gimme ideas for them please and thanks.

and also feedback on the Au as a whole.

I'm gonna turn it into a fanfic eventually

#aphblr #aphmau au #faun's fantasy au #lore #aphmau cadenza #aphmau travis

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novella-writers · 3 months ago

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Hey Stays! 💖✨I’m looking for a literate to advanced literate style writer who can join me for a Stray Kids rpf. Matching my multi-paragraph to novella length replies is highly appreciated! I’d love to meet someone consistent and communicative with a high muse for the characters and the plot!

I’m a 25+ EST-timezone, Discord writer looking for an OC x SK pairing and am more than happy to write doubles with you and your bias. I have tons of plot ideas stored in my Notes app and always up for collabing together. Some different genres I’ve been brainstorming are;

Realistic scenarios

Magical/Fantasy/Supernatural

Dead Dove

A/B/O Dynamics

Soulmate AUs

Am definitely looking for a rp that is equal parts smut and plot. If you’re interested or want more information like this post and I’ll reach out.

Like if interested!

#stray kids rp #rpf rp

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transfemlogan · 1 year ago

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Its sk funny designing outfits for the sides in aus cuz its like . Either their canonical outfits r 2 dramatic 4 a casual au (COUGH COUGH ROMAN & REMUS) OR theyre too SIMPLE for a fantasy or whatever au (PATTON & VIRGIL)

& then it cuts 2 logan & janus im always just "well. Button up shirt. Maybe a vest." "Janus gets his gloves still. He can keep his caplet also"

#revy.txt

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rayshippouuchiha · 2 years ago

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I've finally hit the point where I have to write the first fic for a fandom. I'm crying. There's nothing on Ao3 and I didn't bother checking FFN since I don't know how they tag CNs. Heroic Death System is so good, though. Maybe that's the problem. Its so good that no one ever wanted to add on. Or CNs just aren't popular. T-T All I wanted to do was read about Shang Ke BSing a reason for the change in behavior. But there's nothing at all. So now I'm going to have to write all the fics for it. I'll start with Arc 2 Redux since that Arc eats at me the most.

BTW, Heroic Death System is a Quick Transmigration story where Shang Ke has to have a Heroic Death as ordered by the System to fix the plotline that went badly thanks to the OG body. (Quick Transmigration refers to the Host being tasked with a mission and once its completed, taken to another world to continue on. Sometimes its to fix the plotholes, sometimes to "keep the plot on track". Usually in the case of the later, the Host accidentally gets the MC or target character to fall in love which derails the plot entirely. Whether or not there's penalties or workarounds depends on the System. Most of the QT novels I've read, in the case of romance, have the partner reincarnating across the worlds as well, so its still one partner. Usually it means there are Past Life Shenanigans in the background.) SK has a great internal thought process, its always funny. In the earlier Arcs he's a bit oblivious but he catches on partway through Arc 2. Also, it's a bit spicy in the later Arcs. SK ends up eagerly welcoming his lover's advances in the later lives even if he has to hold off for a while to stay in character. Each Arc is a great mini-story in its own right, if you like tragedy, with all but 2 Arcs having a repeat where SK can return and live a happy life with his partner. If SK gets a good score on his life, he can earn Rebirth cards that let him live with his lover's different incarnations. Also, there's Past Life Drama that comes up and makes it so there's suddenly Plot! in the later Arcs. It was pretty interesting. Good Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Time Travel (in some characters PoV), MPreg (in some lives), some Torture not explicitly described, Illnesses/Disabilities, Shapeshifters, Beastpeople, Sentinel&Guide, Fantasy, Cultivation, AlphaxAlpha, God AU and Ghost AU are the main things SK lives through. Also, his partner is very ... forceful isn't quite right. He loses SK every life in traumatic circumstances so his subconscious wants him to make the most of every moment, which leads to quick romance and ... OK, honestly, he's kinda yandere in some lives from past life trauma. He's very much the domineering CEO type in this, blended with yandere moments. SK is ok with this since he can get back together with his partner quickly in the new life and because his partner chills out in his redos since he stays with him. I'm trying not to give out spoilers for anyone who wants to read this later. Each Arc, not counting his redos, are about 10 or so chapters each, so they're good for bitesized reading. There's 275 chapters altogether, fully translated on snowycodex . com.

Anyways, I love the redo lives and I just keep imagining how SK explains his differences/BSing a reason for the change from OG body's actions. My Heart Beats For You (CW: brain tumors, heart diseases, car accident, kinda suicidal behavior(which occurs throughout the novel, i.e. the title)) has me in a death grip that randomly visits me a lot so I have high hopes I can write something good for it. I'm planning on having SK be "drunk" and whitewash his past to his lover and his friends. I have so much of the story he'd tell plotted out by now but I'm just going to have to figure out how to space it out and add in interruptions from the other characters.

(*/▽＼*) I want to share it with you if I can finish it. I'm a huge fan. I'd love to see what you think.

Fuck yes babe this sounds fantastic. Link me when you get it done and I'll check it out!

#RayRambles #love when y'all get passionate about stuff like this

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ayyy-imma-ninja · 2 months ago

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It’s been ages since I’ve been on tumblr. I wanna read up on an au of yours but I am indecisive. Which one would you recommend? :3

oh gosh uuuuuuuuuuuuuuh QwQ

i dunno!

the current one I'm focusing on is the Fairy AU, I had updated the Serial Killer AU and my mermaid AU "Cosmic Tides" on AO3. The other two, Playroom and Royal Guard, don't have stories just yet.

If you like fairies and fantasy filled with sweet wholesomeness and heartbreaking angst, Fairy AU!

If you like some unhinged stuff and Rulebreakers getting their just-desserts, SK AU!

giant mermaids, Cosmic Tides!

#answered ask #fairy au #dca fairy au #dca!serial killer au #cosmic tides #playroom au #dca playroom!au #royal guard!au #fnaf daycare au #fnaf dca #fnaf dca au #dca au #fnaf daycare fandom #dca community #dca fandom

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wirewitchviolet · 2 years ago

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The Entire Plot of Final Fantasy 14, with all the expansions, and some serious analysis of how good it actually is. (Part 8 - Post-Shadowbringers)

Last time, we covered Shadowbringers, the more or less universally agreed upon best expansion. Nicely self-contained, well-structured, focused, and not bogged down with any poorly done morally grey stuff. Bad news is, this interlude before the next expansion has a lot of stuff that’s bad and dumb and ill-fitting to the established setting, but at least there’s not a lot of it, and the exceptions are pretty great stuff.

First thing’s first, since everything is all perfect and settled here in the First, and you’re actually able to do so, unlike everyone else, everyone suggests you maybe slip back home to check on how things are going with the whole final war against the empire and all that. Estinein really stepped up to the plate as stupidly powerful protagonist putting out fires everywhere and popping back to talk with Tataru and Krile. He really recovered nicely from his whole previous life-quest wrapping up weird and being possessed and covers stuff pretty well. He has been hanging out with freaking redemption-arc-Gaius though, and he has good news and bad news about what’s up with the empire. The good news is, the whole plan to avert the everyone-gets-killed-by-biological-weapons future by taking pressure off the empire seems to have worked out. The bad news is they’re getting back into the weird giant robot approach. One of these is just a rebuilt Ultima Weapon that Estinein gets to deal with in a bit where you play as him in full ridiculous-dragon-powers mode, the rest of this you have to deal with in Werlyt, one of those new break-aways from the empire that isn’t important enough to bother putting on the map somewhere that isn’t covered in clouds. Cid’s there though, and wow has he been busy. Also it struck me earlier that the one and only time he got a new outfit back in Heavensward it came out really like, 1970s, heading to the disco?

Like remember Bones’ look from the first Star Trek movie?

We start out with the first new model, Ruby Weapon, and yeah, we’ve got a whole set of gemstones here. It looks pretty Evangelion. And then partway through the fight it gets... decidedly more Evangelion when in defeat the “oversoul” system in it activates and... it’s probably better to show than tell here. Skip to about 5:40 for the important bit.

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But I guess I also have to explain what is hands down just the stupidest, most badly written sidequest chain in FF14. So... Gaius. The “creeping mendacity” guy. Big ol’ nazi, hates all us primitive savages, strong should rule the weak, main villain of the base game? We’re retconning that he has like 7 or so beloved au ra orphan children he raised to keep them safe from all the evils of growing up in the empire, and already that’s just a hard no from me. That absolutely goes completely against everything about his established character. But we’re running with that retcon. We’re also, for some reason, retconning that the one female general under him in the base game, who incidentally had this whole speech before you fight her about how obsessively in love with him she is, was one of these children. I have no idea WHY we’re retconning that, beyond this all being just the worst, it adds nothing to this dumb thing except one of these other kids is jealous or whatever.

Anyway because they all love their dad so very much, after he uh... defected from the empire to start killing Ascians as a whole thing, they all decided to follow in his footsteps with this whole Weapon project, making a whole bunch of giant robots, that they all pilot, and which have this whole “oversoul” thing built in which... A- completely overwrites the pilots mind with that of some bigshot imperial general or other (in this first case, Nael, the big bad of 1.0 who does not appear in the game as it stands AT ALL besides here, kind of, and in the Bahamut raid 98% of players just completely skip, followed by in no particular order Gaius himself, Zenos, and uh... ones that don’t really come up). Not satisfied with killing the pilot by completely overtaking their mind like that, it also kinda melts their body into goo to power it up. With Ruby this doesn’t quite work right and you get this cool back-splits-open-goo-girl thing but that’s a defect the rest just get a boring second phase. And their big plan is to use these suicide-robots that destroy their minds to take down the empire that has oppressed them for their whole lives and honor the new path their dad is on, after first proving their combat readiness by... trying to kill their dead, and also the resistance to the empire, but, mostly you. It’s kinda just the absolute worst plan ever?

Meanwhile Cid just got super bored having to sit things out for a whole expansion and decided to kill time by... also building a giant robot. Something something found it in some Allagan ruins, made some modifications. In particular it originally came with big rending claws and he modified it to hold a lightsaber because he’s just a big ol’ nerd like that. I want to state for the record that this is still completely stupid and we really probably shouldn’t have two giant robots swinging lightsabers at each other and activating forcefields while fighting over the ocean that were both built by random nerds in a world where people still use maps that are half covered in clouds and we had a whole big thing about impoverished rice farmers trying to scrape up enough resources to like, charge at some people with spears, but... you can go to the hanger Cid keeps it in and pose on its shoulder and my heart is not made of stone.

Sadly you only get to use this thing for literally one fight. It’s surprisingly hard too, you have this whole mode-shifting system where you can toggle a damage boost and a shield on and off that need careful managing and a big laser cannon that needs to be precisely aimed. After that it “took too much damage and needs repairs” although it is reconfigured later to fly around and provide a big platform to stand on while fighting another weapon.

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Another baffling layer to all of this is the commander officially heading up the suicide robot division. He’s introduced in this cutscene where he’s just shot from the neck down getting all sweaty from doing pushups and gulping down a big glass of milk, and like... I can’t see any sort of world in which you introduce a character in this way if you aren’t trying to bait people into getting all horny for the sexy new villain, but every other time you see him he’s just... literally the Sewer King from that one episode of Batman? With the orphans?

I swear it’s an intentional reference. Right down to him also having a giant pile of orphans (on top of Gaius’ kids) he makes poke each other with hot brands when they misbehave. All he needs are the glasses. I feel like the sexy scene had to have been a tease at the end of one patch and then they radically shifted direction or something. So anyway all of these idiot children take turns getting in big robots and exploding themselves and you punch the robots, while this too cartoonish to be intimidatng jerk keeps whipping them and sacrificing random people to test more of this oversoul stuff. Eventually we’re down to just two kids left alive, and one of them has enough sense to sneak off and tell you she realizes that this really is just the stupidest plan anyone has ever had and wants you to intervene, but her brother’s already been dragged off to be turned into the core/brain of Diamond Weapon, which rather than having the combat data or whatever from some old general just has an idiot uh... mashed into goo with his brain preserved permanently stuck in the robot. Which is already what they were doing with all their pilots, and he doesn’t really have any particular combat expertise so, this is dumb.

Girl with a smidgen of sense has to get in the actual pilot seat though... and she does have the sense to remember that the whole point of this in theory was to get the best possible giant robot and start attacking the empire, so she tries to just gun down everyone in the lab, but they just cut the power while she’s charging her laser. Then they’re about to kill her but the Overmind, as opposed to oversoul system kicks in and Big Brother restarts the whole thing and gets her to safety. And then... still doesn’t attack the empire, despite this clearly being the last chance to do so. Instead we go right ahead with the standard boss fight. You win, Sewer King shows up to taunt you, Big Brother vaporizes him, and then, the path finally cleared to take his new death robot body and start smashing up the empire, the dream he and basically his whole family literally sacrificed their lives for, exactly according to the plan he personally came up with... does the whole “I can’t live like this, as a cool robot, please put me out of my misery.” So Gaius does, and then we just kinda... pretend this whole sidequest chain never happened and never bring it up again. Not even Cid’s giant robot which would really trivialize a lot of problems and is in full working order with cool upgrades at the end of this. You can go visit it in the hangar all you want, but, that’s it. Oh and your only reward for any of this is some guy makes a gunpla of every robot and you can decorate your house with them if you have one.

Once you’ve finished or completely ignored the stupidest sidequest chain ever, the biggest news from back home is that being in a coma for some unspecifed amount of time is kind of bad for you, and it might be worth maybe considering putting everyone’s souls back where they belong before their bodies die. As is everyone’s kinda just staying alive because Krile has given up sleep to spam heals. Having some actual time pressure, everyone does some brainstorming and realizes that hey, you can go back and forth all you want, and you drag your whole inventory along with you. Why not just like shove everyone’s soul into a magic crystal of some sort and keep them in your pocket? Ultimately this works, but there’s a few complications involved since everyone’s souls have been manifested as physical bodies for a few years eating snacks and such so they’re kind of heavy and none of you really knowing how to do any of this, but G’raha has an in with the local equivalent of Matoya, a nu mou named Beq Lugg (no offense to “Master Matoya” Y’shtola). There’s a whole lot of technobabble about needing to keep memories along with souls and special crystal vessels G’raha needs to infuse with his blood... and the slight hiccup that he kinda doesn’t have blood anymore being all crystalized but he makes due, and I don’t want to get into most of it, except it involves porxies.

I didn’t really have time to get into this, but on top of all the other flavors of fairy, there’s these things called porxies which are basically piglets with dumbo ears. There’s a random bit of background NPC frollicking where a pixie turns another pixie into one for fun, but mostly they’re familiars made by no mou out of clay. One does the whole nightmare eating tapir thing as part of the pixie tribe quests too. In this case though, the idea is to make a specialized one to suck out elemental imbalances from people, which will be of some use in getting everyone turned into a crystalized soul you will presumably take back home and... cram into the mouths of their unconscious bodies or something. This still takes most of this interlude to finish setting up though. The important point for now is that Beq Lugg mentors Alisaie in how to make her own specialized soul-cleansing porxie she names Angelo. And she’s a terrible sculptor.

As an added bonus, to test this, they try sucking some of the light taint out of some of the people in the slowly-dying-of-turning-into-a-monster-angel hospice, and specifically pull the emotionless kid who wandered out into the desert from that one cut scene I linked last time back from the brink enough to talk and mourn people some. Hey, Alisaie’s arc and a really horrific death scene get a nice payoff!

The next bit of major unfinished business before clearing out is dealing with Eulmore, because you kinda killed the guy who was in charge, and was personally providing food for everybody, and was keeping everyone in a magically induced chill malaise. They decided to make Chai-Nuzz, the middle-aged cat boy who hired Alphinaud to paint his surprisingly nice wife and then also oversaw the construction of the mountain sized golem that’s still quite visible anywhere nearby clutching that still-hovering mountain, and yeah, that seems like nice qualifications, but then he vanished. Turns out it’s not responsibility jitters though so much as knowing he’s not really qualified and looking for an advisor who is. He finds a former bureaucrat, who does the whole test of character thing, and you end up teaching him how to ambush a berserk talos or three so they can be disabled, repaired, and put to work as farming equipment. While you’re in the area you also dip back to the bottom of the ocean which kinda still has that big magic air bubble that’s still messing with the nice fish people, and help them out a bit with the problems that lead to, like their queen being ready to lay a huge clutch of eggs and having problems from not being submerged. Did you know what a birthing rope was? Because you bring her one.

The other thing going on in the vicinity of Eulmore is a couple of the local dwarves playing around with explosives and blowing a hole into Nier: Automata. This is the setup for our big party raid, and I have very mixed feelings. It’s a decidedly less elegant handling of a crossover than “would you like to help me research my new play, Final Fantasy Tactics?” in that we literally just have this whole absolutely huge crashed space station with like transforming fighter jets and city sized industrial robots from a decidedly more high tech game right on the other side of these silly dwarven mines. Plus we’re in a dimension that only exists because one god punched another really hard and that theoretically should only effect your home planet.

On the other hand, while it fits in really awkwardly for FF14, so far as I can tell this is weirdly well integrated into the canon of the Nier games? I still need to play the whole series, but I’ve picked up a bit from osmosis. The most interesting thing here is that while the actual major characters from Nier Automata are here, the first character we introduce is 2P. The palette inverted version of protagonist 2B who only exists because 2B was a crossover character in SoulCalibur 6 and the decided to get cute with the player 2 variation. And now we’re taking that sorta joke fighting game cameo-born character and actually fleshing her out a bit in this crossover with an MMO. I can’t really speak much on the plot past that because it’s really tied in with the source-game’s plot and I lack familiarity. Things do go pretty bad for this pair of dwarves making the discovery of these high tech android ruins though. There’s an air strike on their village that leaves it in ruins for the duration of all this, and personally end up dead and/or replaced by android duplicates and/or stuck in another dimension. Once you’ve wrapped the whole thing up though there’s this oddly drawn out prologue where you have this real-world weekly task of walking back through one of the now enemy-free dungeons seeking out items of interest for the dwarves to study as they rebuild, and get messages from one of the missing pair. After a month or two of these there’s a proper epilogue where the two lost dwarves find eachother and head off to... somewhere for a happy ending. It’s all a bit odd.

And of course mechanically it’s full of the sort of full-on bullet hell mechanics the Nier games are known for and an otherwise very noticeable difficulty spike from how these things tend to go, because the director of those games had a say in it. Also you get a replica of 2B’s outfit for your trouble and a good number of people are delighted that the leg piece is a thong that noticeably gives your character a bigger butt. That’s a thing.

Speaking of raids, the real big piece of unfinished business before you all really focus on going home is that Ryne has been feeling particularly ambitious and dragging her dad Thancred and what I’m still pretty sure is his dad’s on the downlow love interest I’m wary to commit to a pronoun for Urianger along to search the world spanning desert beyond the wall of life-destruction in this very Star Wars Landspeeder sort of vehicle, trying to find some sort of way to maybe fix most of the world being lifeless white sand, and they found... a thing, which they decide to call Eden.

It’s kinda like... half-spaceship, half- two semi-abstract angelic women fused together, and between the nerds you have looking into it, the general speculation is that way back a century or so ago when Ardbert and friends kinda defeated evil a little too hard, the big fancy final boss defeat light show with too much light element gave rise to this thing, which promptly started sucking all aether out of the planet, which just kinda glassed the place for the most part and caused all life to die with a few exceptions that became the first sin eaters. It’s mostly inert, besides the boss fight waiting when you step inside... which I probably shouldn’t downplay so much because I mean it gets one of these attacks.

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But you smack that inner core down and then you have access to a nice little ship control room, and the surreal realization that nobody’s all that shocked because really between some of the stuff in Imperial bases, Ayz Lla, and Omega’s whole deal, this is far from the first time you’ve seen this sort of setup. Anyway Ryne figures since she has the whole Oracle of Light thing going from kinda absorbing the weird Minfilia/avatar of Hydaelyn deal she was possessed by for a good chunk of her life, she should be able to just kinda take control of the whole thing and maybe get it to spit all that aether back out. Once you get it airborne though you have this confusing fight where this goth disaster with the sort of extreme platform heels I’ve only seen in fetishy specialty stores shows up carried by a sin eater and starts casting spells on a weird time delay. She’s unconscious after, and when she wakes up she’s kind of a rude jerk but more important has really severe memory issues, and wants to just kinda hang out while you check this out because she doesn’t know why she’s there either.

She’s not super clear on her name either but the voice in her head that tells her to do things calls her Gaia. She slowly warms up over the course of things as troubled goth weirdos with mysterious pasts tend to do in this game, but mostly you’re still focused on getting all that aether out of the big weird pinata. In a moment that really suggests your character just should not be left without supervision from people more responsible than Thancred and Urianger, you come to the conclusion that the most efficient way to get crystalized aether properly dispersed back out into the world is for someone to summon a god and for you to kill it. Kinda seems like a terrible idea to introduce that concept into a world that doesn’t have it, but you’re good at killing them and Ryne’s got plot armor against the whole Tempering thing that leaves you mind controlled thanks to her whole deal, so you pick a god for each element, do your best to describe them to her, she summons them, you kill’em, and sure enough, a bit of the matching element spills back into the local environment each time.

The details of all the gods come out a bit wrong thanks to the telephone game, which is what justifies these as a new set of boss fights. Leviathan has two heads. Titan’s kind of a robot. You don’t really have a dark god on file so you go with the Cloud of Darkness who’s decidedly less green and more full-bodied. After the first couple you start getting real needlessly reckless about it. Ifrit and Garuda you summon at the same time because hey those were total speed bump fights, right? And of course when you’re describing Shiva Ryne gets all excited about the tragic romance angle and Ysayle doing the personal possession thing instead of a standard summon. So despite everything going fine she insists on doing it that way and gets way too into character and ends up with this mini-Hraesvelgr all entwined around her and freezes you so Gaia has to step up and smack her with a giant hammer to knock her out of it. Otherwise things go pretty well, but I really have to wonder how it is you describe Ramuh as this pretty human looking guy with a big beard or confusing lightning orb collection mechanics (all of these give you a dialog choice between describing their appearance and getting all 4th wall breaky about the fight mechanics) and then Ryne goes and summons this.

That’s not even close Ryne. That’s way too neat of a beard, and for the rest of this you seem to have just been thinking about that poster on the Avatar’s wall in the intro to Ultima 6. Teenagers and their horny furry-adjecent phases, I swear.

Absolutely terrible segue, but speaking of Ryne being horny, her and Gaia absolutely 100% start dating during all of this. It really kinda sneaks up on you because FF14 is terribly addicted to doing a plausible deniability will-they-or-won’t-they/is this just a one-sided crush thing every single time they go there, with the exception of one minor side quest in this expansion where you help some woman work out how to propose to her girlfriend, but they go all in here. They’re going on little coffee dates and Ryne makes a necklace out of a leftover magic ice crystal after the Shiva bit for Gaia to wear and stuff. It’s pretty darn cute and wholesome.

Obviously this is setting up a big tragic turn where the voice in Gaia’s head actually belongs to Eden, which is also actually an Ascian, kind of. See the last boss Aldbert and friends fought was this pair of Ascians who did the whole Dragon Ball/Steven Universe fusion deal, which I may have mentioned a couple others doing in Azys Lla or I might not have bothered because everything involving Ascians not called Emet-Selch is incredibly boring and forgetable. He killed’em too hard with some sort of light-overload thing. One of them died in the pretty standard way everyone does where you go to the great aether flow/lightstream for a bit then get reincarnated as some person, but the fused bodies of both of them turned into this weird Eden thing and the other’s soul has just been stuck in it all lonely and hopelessly romantic and looking for the other’s reincarnated self. This isn’t a longwinded way of saying “so turns out Gaia’s an Ascian” because like, technically the way this works is that literally everyone everywhere is and that’s not a big deal, the losers who suck just never died and have been around forever, and this one’s obsessed with Ryne’s new girlfriend.

So the final dungeon capping all this off is her getting absorbed in by her jerk past-life ex who’s systematically destroying all her memories of cute dates with Ryne kinda like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and you have to charge in there mounting a defense against big shimmery memories of like going to this one place with good coffee and chocolate chip cookies and defending it from memory trashing monsters, and her forgetting everything and then it coming back to her while she’s pondering why she has such a dorky necklace and Ryne’s screaming from across a void at her. It is absolute peak power-of-love-and-friendship JRPG BS and I am totally here for it. And then of course if the whole thing wasn’t already super gay we make it really overt by just having this little paradisical private grotto with a giant rainbow crystal in it at the end.

I am as usual skipping around a bit. There’s a mandatory break in the Eden stuff until just before the next expansion properly starts, so Thancred and Urianger are no longer around to see all the drama at the end, but I legitimately keep having to remind myself that anything else even happens in this interlude. Hildy and friends don’t actually show up despite the clear setup for it, as Covid lead to a bit of cut content. The only other things we really have to deal with are a dungeon that doesn’t really bother having a proper setup, wherein you go investigate something in the basement of the Crystal Tower and it turns out there’s a little mini version of Alexander down there, with Cid’s personal branding stamped all over it, followed by a recording of Biggs from the averted dark future talking about building it from what they learned studying the original in the hopes of avoiding this stuff. I don’t think we really needed an explanation for how G’raha went back in time along with going to another dimension, but it was bothering Emet-Selch since it’s not something Allagans ever worked out, so, quick closure on that. Also the music is very good and there’s some running gag about people dancing to it.

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So that’s pretty fun. And yeah. That’s it. That’s the whole free patch interlude. Everyone goes off and says their goodbyes to all the people they’ve been hanging out with for the past several years and you wrangle them up to go home. Oh wait, right, right. There’s some dumb Ascian garbage first. And like, extra dumb at that.

So as part of your “let’s leave this place as nice as we can tour” you give a big public speech to set the record straight that Ardbert and friends were not in fact just a bunch of huge jerks who set off the apocalypse, but were good proper adventurers helping people and clearing their map of sidequests and all that, and everyone should stop using “warrior of light” to invoke like the worst possible person. And then Ardbert himself stands up out of the crowd to talk about how great you are too, and everyone cheers, and then you get a bit worried because wait, no, only you ever get to see him, and also you like permanently absorbed his soul into yours to cure the whole turning into a final boss disease thing. Having dealt with this before, everyone concludes that this is yet another instance of some Ascian jerk digging up someone’s corpse to run around in. Specifically Elidibus since he’s the only one who isn’t dead and got kicked out of running around in Zenos’ corpse.

He’s got this whole thing where like I get it, but it’s dumb, and it doesn’t actually go anywhere. Running with the assumption that you are in fact still the same protagonist from 1.0 who had a vision of this, or at least that you watched the original opening cutscene where it happens, you saw a big fire-y apocalyptic meteor shower, which triggered some sort of like ancient soul memory of one of those happening when the Ascians had their apocalypse that made them summon Zodiark way back when, and that in turn ignited your whole psychic Echo powers, and those let you pick up on Hydaelyn saying that whole “Hear, feel, think” thing from the start of the game, which according to this jerk she just kinda has running as a constant public broadcast to anyone who can pick it up, and they all get psychic visions and run around being level 1 adventurers from there on.

And he proves it by just running all around the First putting on illusiory meteor storm shows and giving huge swaths of the population the same call to adventure. Partially to taunt you about not really being all that special, and partially to get the ball rolling on that whole light overflow for the whole world deal. That part of it never really goes anywhere though. There’s also this thing about him having personally been the one to originally summon Zodiark all Shiva-style serving as his heart and it not making sense that he gets to be running around if so which... is a weird thing to even bring up when it just gets kinda lazily hand-waved away in the end. There’s also a bit with “lesser Ascians” who know the new body trick and on the team but are really kinda just otherwise normal human mooks are showing up everywhere that also goes nowhere.

Like I said, this patch wave suffered from some serious cut content thanks to Covid so they might have been planning more with this and never paid it off. As is, it’s just propaganda with this guy siccing would-be hero types on you and summoning some in from other dimensions and such. It would potentially be neat if the “in this world the forces of light are bad so you have to play villain” thing were a theme Shadowbringers actually committed to in a real way, as is it’s just kinda dumb and pointless. Like everything with Ascians. It does however cap off with my favorite sort of dungeon, where you have to just kinda book it with the help of some weird magic shortcuts through every overworld map to get from Eulmore to the Crystarium to hole up, and while you’re running and getting attacked from all angles, like literally every single friend you’ve made over the course of the expansion shows up to fend off big waves of mooks so you don’t lose your momentum. There was one of these setting up Shadowbringers too, and there’s ANOTHER at the end of this patch set, but like, keep’em coming. I love these.

Then you fight what’shisface and he takes on the form of “the original Warrior of light” which is like, the depiction of the collective main character from FF1 as per Dissidia’s interpretation. And like the rest of this total BS because in the process of this whole plot arc you basically work out that the Ascians had this whole fancy council called the Convocation of 14 (which has nothing to do with the 14 pieces the world was broken into or with the 12 gods plus the two Ascian gods, it’s just a number we keep using because it’s FF14), and basically the only member of it who didn’t suck was strongly implied to have been you, pre-shattering, AKA Azem, and Emet-Selch’s dead boyfriend’s accidentally made conscious ghost hands you the matching badge of office which is used from here out as the go-to hand wave for where you’re getting other party members from for boss fights where it wouldn’t make sense for anyone else to be there. Anyway you smack him around, he banishes you to the shadow realm, Emet-Selch’s ghost is hanging out and unbanishes you because aside from all the evil empire founding he really is a nice guy who likes you, G’raha pulls a weird trick kinda like Moenbryda to suck his soul out and trap it in the crystal tower itself, and then it’s finally time to head back.

Well, again, after everyone takes a goodbye tour. And people are starting to pass out because their bodies are dying from not having souls in them. But yeah, Y’shtola has to say goodbye to the cat man (as opposed to catboy) who she has clearly been either sleeping with for the past few years or waiting for to grow enough of a spine to offer her more than soup, Alphinaud has to say goodbye to his adopted catgirl mom, you have to go bring Ardbert’s old warrior of light crystal to his old amaro pal and let them know his soul’s just kinda in your body now, Alisae’s mourning her (girl?)friend who died horrifically and checking in on the kid she fixed with her porxie that she died to save, Urianger has books to pack and maybe some off-camera pixie thanking for helping work the whole trans thing out, and Thancred has to say goodbye to Ryne. That one sucks, since she’s kinda the whole party’s adopted daughter, but she doesn’t have a comatose body on the otherside to jam a soul in, and she’s got her new goth disaster girlfriend to spoil, so, she’ll be fine.

G’raha’s in kind of a weird spot because he’s totally coming with you but his physical body is here, and also he’s kinda been pushing himself too hard with various big heroic sacrifice things and is kind of like 90% crystal 10% super old cat boy now. But, he’s got a crazy idea about how TECHNICALLY he totally does have a body back there. His past self, still in that version of the tower, not having gone through the whole dark future he averted by forcing you to take a break, and he’s pretty sure he can just kinda crystalize himself, you pass that off to young him, they just kinda merge since they’re the same person and have the same memories up until the point you do that, and tada, just a normal 20 something catboy with however many hundreds of years of extra memories. Which works out just fine somehow.

Back home there’s a big ol’ teary reunion with the two ultra short Scions who didn’t get to come along, and Tataru is nice enough to sew up recreations of everyone’s cool new goth phase looks and host a tea party, during which Alisaie is talking to Alphinaud and frankly just breaks the 4th wall to gripe about how everyone else gets cool new outfits and class changes and they’re still looking like they have since Heavensward, to which Alphinaud says they’ll get their turn and the rest needed it more. Which is totally referencing how they were still all using their release models before this expansion whichwere a few years out of date posability wise.

We’re still not quite done though! Gotta set things up for the next expansion after all. So getting right back into that, when last we checked on the empire outside of visions of doom from G’raha’s now averted timeline, Zenos had come back from the dead in a pretty convoluted way, and killed the emperor. Which WOULD make him the new emperor except you know that’s a pretty huge crime and also not even a country full of nazis are stupid enough to want this guy in charge. Hell, he doesn’t even want to be in charge. He just killed his father because if he didn’t he’d just go poison the whole population and kill a bunch of people without any big climactic duels, most importantly with you. Instead they’re just kinda having a civil war now while he hangs out in the throneroom as an official enemy of the state after killing everyone who tried to take him out before someone had the idea to just legislate that hey, none of us our with this guy.

Also hanging out in there is the hands down worst villain ever in the whole game, another Ascian, which doesn’t make sense because by my count they’re all dead. He’s just one of those “lesser” ones though, where someone found the reincarnated version of someone on their big evil council, taught him annoying immortality tricks, and gave him the badge of office. Since then he’s gone and found the single-most punchable face in the world to wear, that of Yatsuyu’s somehow even worse brother, with the whole dumb fake peace treaty plan. He’s very theatrical and dancing around and talking about his big evil plan and Zenos basically just tells him “hey do whatever the hell you want as long as it ends with me getting to have another date/duel with the protagonist,” and goes back to watching the empire just kinda burn down in a really devastating civil war.

Meanwhile Alisaie has the bright idea that if her magical big-eared suck-pig (which she named Angelo if I didn’t mention it, games past the SNES get only the weirdest name drops) can cure being on one’s way to turning into a sin eater, maybe with some tweaking it can also fix the whole Tempering thing. So, quick field trip to Azys Lla with G’raha so he can use his bloodline security clearance to get info on what they worked out on this, and short verson yeah. The info dump is on a failing hard drive so they need to get Cid to help fix it, but it’s the same principle, should work on anyone who’s not like, turned into a horrible fish-monster levels of god corrupted. Only problem is setting up the porxie with the right magic tricks is pretty time and magic consuming. Alisaie basically runs to make a test case of that traumatized to hell kobold kid who like I keep saying is the core of her whole character and yeah, pulls him back to just normal, functioning levels of traumatized. Also he’s voice acted and it’s not just shrieking sounds like in the kobold tribe quests and it bugs me.

So, cool. We have worked out a cure for religion. Only problem is scale. Quick visit to Matoya to pick her brain on that. She’s both flattered and really annoyed to find out that Y’shtola’s been impersonating her, and that frankly nobody ever comes to visit her when they don’t need a favor, but she has the bright idea to just make one giant horrible “mother porxie” that constantly spits out pre-templated ones that just need a competent magic user to de-religion anyone who isn’t too far gone. She has a super whimsical giant golem kiln in one of her many ridiculous back rooms, you just have to smack around some elementals and hop on buttons to get it working, fight a berserk giant flying pig with a little crown, and you’re good.

Anyway, hey! You know who we haven’t really checked in on since literally before the start of Heavensward when there was that awkward incident at the party, other than the peace talks with the emperor which went badly? Merlwyb, the admiral of Limsa Lominsa and first likeable character in the game! Since the problem of the big nazi empire is kinda resolving itself, she’s been turning her attention to the other big consistent narrative theme, and looking to solve racism. Or at least to get a formal treaty going with the local kobolds and sahaguin. This isn’t going over with a bigshot pirate captain (’s second in command running things while he’s sick), who kinda thinks it’s total BS that they’re this whole pirate nation and they’ve kinda stopped killing people and taking their stuff entirely, and has been particularly avid on screwing with monster folk because see they’re not really people, is his logic. Merlwyb has no patience for that, and just kinda goes, look, pirate rules, you don’t like how I run things, you challenge me to a duel, none of this sneaking around behind my back crap. Kid’s an idiot and accepts this, she shoots the gun out of his hand, the actual captain of his ship gets out of bed to ask hey what the hell about him being such an idiot and apologize.

Then right after that, she’s like, right, cool, now we have all these stolen crystals from the other locals, and this religion cure, let’s make a peace offering of these, I’ll personally walk in with enough crystals they’ll definitely have a priest try and summon Titan to kill me, Alisaie does her thing, actual peace talk time. That’s pretty much how things play out, except, you know, he has a lot of reasons to hate humanity besides the whole religious zealotry thing. Merlwyb goes yeah, fair point. When we first settled here we totally made a peace agreement on how to share things and totally screwed you over in a colonialist fashion rather than stick to the spirit of it. Here’s the gun I used to kill my father, who signed that and later got turned by Leviathan, if it’ll sweaten the deal here, feel free to kill me with it. He doesn’t obviousl, and hey, peace achieved.

So Alisaie, for real, I think you owe the nice cool pirate lady an apology for implying she was a bloodthirsty racist way back with the faction picking speech commentary at the start of the game. Things broadly get patched up with the other four races off camera, but all this gets interrupted because there’s suddenly big ominous imperial looking towers all over the world. This bugs the heck out of me because up until now a huge deal has always been made about territorial control and transportation logistics and such and just teleporting big buildings in all over does not fly with that at all. Everyone goes to Ala Mhigo to talk about it because frankly they just have the nicest meeting hall out of anyone. Ul’dah’s might be close but the last big meeting everyone had there ended pretty badly. Anyway Fandaniel, whose name sucks almost as much as his personalty and his plan, shows up with “Lunar Bahamut” because you can’t be a terrible villain without recycling better ideas, and explains his terrible plan. Roughly, “I don’t care about that whole restoring the world thing the proper Ascians were all into, I wasn’t there for any of that. I just want to kill everyone in the world and then myself.” SUCH a downgrade after this last expansion. Hell he’s a downgrade from freaking Lahabrea.

Anyway Thancred shows up for the after-meeting meeting at Scion HQ to share our other reveal. What’s up with the towers is the new unbearable jerk here worked out a plan where the citizens of the empire started worshipping the empire itself as a god and did the summoning thing. Just, religion-ified hyper-nationalism. So on top of getting set on fire along with other horrible things thanks to a civil war, almost the whole population of the empire is now all zombie-like with religious compulsion, and the imperial palace is this sort of nightmare tower that I guess is just like popping out sub-towers all over the world, also putting out that worship us field.

So naturally, we have a small little strike force going in to check one of these towers out consisting of... not you for once! Rauban has access to Fordola who’s still all in on suicide missions to repent, and Arenvald who... I swear is totally an established character I just haven’t mentioned him. There’s a bunch of minor background people who hang out at Scion HQ, he’s one of them, he went off to have a more major role in Stormblood but doesn’t really do anything specifically worth calling out, has an interesting little backstory about his mom slicing his head open because he was maybe growing that “third eye” the imperials have, he just kinda randomly has the whole Echo thing because some people do, involved in a lot of Fordola stuff. Anyway they sneak in, set off an alarm, get jumped by “Lunar Ifrit” he’s stuck in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. They do find out though that the towards have hundreds of people embedded in the walls just like in Bahamut’s prison to summon whichever god they worship constantly, on demand.

Time to run around a bit and gather info. Tiamat summoned actual Bahamut forever ago, so Estinein’s off to pay her a visit and see if she has any insight here. The Scions are looking for Estinein because... frankly he’s cool and it’s nice to keep him in the loop on these things. You bump into him, he’s all “wow you look so much more mature and manly Alphinaud!” ... to Alisaie. She has no clue but is mad about someone making a fake version of her dead boyfriend/god and wants to help but, you know, she summoned the actual one and reminds you she might just end up doing that again what with the whole Tempering thing. Tiamat’s weird like that. But, you know, we’ve got a cure for religion now. No more excuse for just standing around Azys Lla in the weird bondage gear, come help with stuff. Specifically that other cool all-your-friends-show-up-to-help dungeon I mentioned, when Fandaniel and his pathetic fake Bahamut are terrorizing the cool lizard people by Ul’dah. Kind of a speedbump fight, the whole “lunar” gods thing is just kinda here for a little boss filler without needing new designs really.

Anyway, the liberated lizard pals are now onboard, getting their religion cures distributed. Ditto for all the others. For real, Alisaie and Merlwyb just kinda ended religion and racism between them, everyone’s cool with everyone now. Unless you’re still grinding out those tribe quests, then there’s still jerks around I guess. You shouldn’t be though, best content in the game.

Krile figures hey, why don’t I go back to Nerd Town (aka Sharlayan, aka Old Sharlayan... the ruins from Heavensward were kind of an expansion site, they still have a turbo nerd college town off on an island) and ask the neutral-in-every-war scholarly jerks there if they maybe want to help because the empire really shouldn’t qualify as a side anymore when not taking sides, it’s just kind of hell on earth and full of zombies. OK I shouldn’t say zombies for this sort of thing because actual zombies are a thing and they’re actually all very nice and polite, but you know what I mean. Anyway, she’s taking off, and figure’s hey, seat’s open, let’s maybe officially make Estinein part of the team? Welcome aboard you super helpful idiot.

It’s seriously just boardroom meeting season. You have another one to officially welcome everyone who didn’t count as human to your grand old alliance and also formally quit it with that don’t count as human thing because really what the hell with that. Anyway I don’t think that meeting’s even over when Nerd Town sends a representative over to answer Krile’s inquiry formally. Turns out it’s the twins’ father, and he is just a gigantic asshole. His response is basically, “no, screw you, it’s not actually ‘the end of the world’ just because some jerk says he wants to kill everyone, and hey while I’m here, screw my father, he sucked, and screw my kids, you suck, and you know what, I’m officially disowning you when I get home.”

Krile calls on the phone after (I’ve mentioned that’s a thing right? Technically they’re called linkpearls and it’s like some kind of quantum entangled clam and pearl thing or something? In-game rationalization for chat functionality that gets used pretty constantly in the plot to just... make phone calls, rings and everything). Anyway she says everyone in Nerd Town’s hiding something, ASAP people should come check it out. First though we need to have a proper gameplay endcap. The deal with the towers is they’re sucking all the aether out of the world to redirect it somewhere (turns out the moon, eventually, which I don’t think the characters really clue into until a bit later, but we get villain cutaways, but it needs storing somewhere first). Anyway, we have a big showdown in Carteneau, which is where the big end of 1.0 battle was happening when the apocalypse happened and I think is where the PvP stuff nobody cares about happens and I couldn’t point it out to you on a map to save my life. Between Thanalan (country Ul’dah’s the capital of) and Mor Dhona apparently, as I check a wiki. Anyway, big ol’ fight against all these lame Lunar gods with the whole party, and by that I mean control actually rotates around and you play as if not all I think at least most of your NPC pals for different bits.

We get a cutaway to Fandaniel doing the whole evil advisor thing, “oh they’ve stopped us from gathering party there, we’ll just have to redirect to an area we still control, heh heh heh” sort of crap but... honestly Zenos doesn’t actually care in the slightest what this guy does, it’s not his evil plan, he’s literally JUST here to kill/bang/be-killed-by you and has kinda just spent this whole patch series looking through his pile of absurd weapons for one that seems cool enough to bring for the rematch, settling on a big ridiculous switchblade-y scythe.

Meanwhile, yeah, time to see what’s up in Nerd Town. Before leaving you get a weird vision/brief glimpse of some woman with one of those lame Ascian masks all warning you you’re the only one who can stop the forthcoming apocalypse. But of course actually hopping the boat has to wait until next time.

Oof, I could have sworm MOST of this was in the next expansion proper, but this patch set really is just super heavy on foreshadowing the next expansion. I believe part of that is there was apparently some sort of writers room issues with the next expansion where basically, they had two ideas for what to do next, couldn’t decide which to do first, and kinda ended up just cramming both into a single expansion which among otherthings caused a BUNCH of setup to leak out over here.

I’m planning to finish this write up by the end of the month or close to it, hopefully people throw enough money at my Patreon that I can continue to survive past there. Meanwhile a couple quick last thoughts I probably should have squeezed in before now:

I don’t know if I mentioned this but all through Shadowbringers G’raha is constantly casting all the spells that were “grey magic” in FF6 (mute, float, invis, exit, etc.) which otherwise don’t exist in FF14, and I just think that’s a fun little gimmick to work in. Also I think I mentioned the bunny girl dancer that’s his captain of the guard? She’s not a super important character but there’s an interesting dynamic where she’s got a huge crush on him and is broken up about him leaving, but totally gets that she never had an actual chance, because he has a super obvious dorky crush on you to the point he’s oblivious.

Also, role quests. Shadowbringers had these instead of job quests. 4 for combat classes, 5 for crafters/gatherers. Pretty simple plot progression. The crafting ones are all about doing stuff around the Crystarium like helping the local vet and a girl who restores antiques, but then one has you help a cryptozoologist prove invisible brontosauruses are real, that’s kinda neat. The combat ones are all about the backstory for the rest of Ardbert’s old party. But there’s this whole thing where after you’ve done all of them, the woman running the bar who’s coordinating all the bountyhunters confesses to you in a pretty overly dramatic way that she was ALSO in Ardbert’s party, and before that she was one of the heroes in the Thirteenth, AKA The Void, or if you’re me just hell.

Turns out when things got screwed up there, the Ascians made basically the same deal with her they did with Ardbert. Hey, go to this other dimension, try and fix the cosmic balance by pushing things the other way. So she did and feels real bad about it. You forgive her because whatever, things worked out. But also, hey, she’s lonely, and while I think I forgot to mention it at the time, there’s also some kid who showed up back during that whole “Warriors of Darkness” setup who was also from the Thirteenth, doing the same sort of world hopping deal, who gives you a bunch of exposition on that. So you end up smuggling him over to the First in G’raha’s soul transfer crystal, presumably after rinsing it out first, they get to hang out. Nothing super important about this yet but I want to have mention of it here for sometime later.

Next up is Endwalker, which really sells itself here as being the actual ending of FF14′s story for real, flat out, and promises a trip to the moon.

#final fantasy 14 #ff14 #final fantasy xiv #ffxiv #hard mode ryne-shiva has magical girl transformations apparently

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thearmyprof · 1 year ago

Text

Namu and the Wind

Who Has Seen the Wind?

by Christina Rossetti

Who has seen the wind?

Neither I nor you:

But when the leaves hang trembling,

The wind is passing through.

Who has seen the wind?

Neither you nor I:

But when the trees bow down their heads,

The wind is passing by.

Rating: T

Pairing: Namjoon/Jimin

Word count: 6,194

Genre: Modern Fantasy!AU, Non-Idol!AU, Magic Realism

Warnings: No Major Warnings, past minor character death

Read on AO3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49403005

Other tags: Mentioned Jeon Jungkook, Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, past original character death, Strangers to Lovers, Fluff, Softness, Kind of Philosophical, Supernatural Elements, Alternate Universe - Magical Realism

He watches as the clear water pulls away from his bare feet, partially sunken in the dark sand, already turning bright red from the frigid water. As the wave retreats, it makes a sk sk sk sound as it pulls the rocks and pebbles with it. He is grateful for the brief reprieve brought by the sunlight—the first he’s seen since his arrival to the island three days ago—warming his cold toes as he watches the next wave rattle towards him. A bald eagle soars by, just above the water. He should have come sooner, he thinks to himself.

“You know how much I love you, right?” Wrinkled hands, soft and covered in age spots, pat his cheeks gently.

Another wave pulls at his feet, pain from the iciness finally giving way to numbness.

“I love you so, so much.”

He should have come sooner.

He holds the phone to his ear with his shoulder as he digs through his pockets for the house key.

“How are you holding up, Namjoon-hyung?” the voice on the other end of the phone asks.

“Fine, you know,” Namjoon shrugs and immediately drops the phone onto the worn wood deck with an impression clacking noise.

“Fuck,” he says as he inspects the phone. No new cracks.

“Hyung?” he can hear his friend asking and he remembers he’s on a call.

“Sorry, sorry, Jungkook-ah,” he says, putting the phone back to his ear. “Dropped the phone trying to find the house key. Wish this place had a keypad lock.”

“Maybe you can install one,” Jungkook says.

Namjoon hums noncommittally. Then smiles as he finds the key in the zipped back pocket of his shorts.

“Unless you’ve changed your mind about staying.”

“No, no. It’s just,” Namjoon pauses as he lets himself through the door, toes off his shoes, and inhales deeply the smell of the previous owner the house hasn’t relinquished yet. “It’s just weird.”

“Well, you have time,” Jungkook says. “No need to rush any decisions.”

“I just,” Namjoon starts and flounders for the right word. “I feel like I’m a guest here. Like she’ll be back after a long weekend.”

His voice trails off as he looks around the living room. The furniture is worn and mismatched. An unwashed coffee mug still by her chair. Then his gaze lands on the simple wooden box on the mantle, housing her ashes.

“It just takes time, hyung,” the younger says on the phone.

“Time,” Namjoon replies absently. “Yeah.”

It takes another four weeks to stop feeling like a guest in the house that is now his. Namjoon can’t pinpoint exactly when the shift happened, it being so gradual. First, throwing out perishable food in the fridge past its due date. Then, emptying the cupboards of unexpired, unopened food Namjoon will never eat for the local food bank. Then, refilling the cabinets again with food procured from H-Mart in Seattle—the ferry ride being picturesque, but the whole day out just for food from home being exhausting. Then, the front hall coat closet is emptied to make room for some of Namjoon’s belongings, the previous occupant’s useful things being donated again to the local shelter. Then, Namjoon’s pretty beach rock and glass findings from his daily walks become a collection featured on the mantle, the wooden box removed to a safe place in an unused bedroom. Little by little, the old house that was once his grandmother’s pride and joy becomes Namjoon’s home.

Namjoon curses under his breath when the coffee pot apparently decides it no longer needs to make coffee. He looks forlornly at his empty mug. This won’t do at all.

He huffs as he pulls his tennis shoes and grabs the key from the dish on the little table by the door. He admires the blue and purple hydrangea and the pink sweet peas in full bloom as he walks down the winding path marked by pavers from the front porch to the road.

As he reaches the road, Namjoon turns left and starts walking towards the café and nursery. He passes a few houses, spread out with large yards all alive with plants and trees, their owners still asleep or in the midst of morning routines. The ocean breeze from off the bluff carries the soft sounds of waves on the shore and the smell of salt on the air that Namjoon finds comforting.

He walks up a long, steep hill at the end of the sleepy residential road feeling the burn in his glutes, which would bother him less if he’d been able to have his morning caffeine first. Maybe this means he’s earning a pastry with his coffee.

At the top of the hill, more trees and houses dot the way. Turning right, he walks another few minutes before he comes to a small, quiet village center. There is the coffee shop, garden nursery, post office, and small convenience store. He’s driven past this place many times, as it’s on the only road toward real civilization, but has never stopped in before. It’s cute. Quaint. A throwback to an era when neighbors know each other’s names and the coffee shop owner knows everyone’s orders before they arrive.

The coffee shop is equally cute and quaint inside as out. Chickens is apparently the theme. The motif carries through all of the décor and even into the naming of specialty drinks and baked goods. Namjoon stands in line and studies the chalkboard menu, trying to decide on what to order, brow wrinkling trying to decipher the meaning behind the various names.

“Maybe I can help you, sir?” the middle aged woman at the counter asks.

Namjoon steps up to the counter and puts on his best dimpled smile. Yes, help. He needs help. He asks, “Maybe you can tell me the difference between the Cluckuccino and the Eggpresso?”

The woman lets out a low chuckle, “Let me explain, the Cluckuccino is a latte with a hint of cinnamon and vanilla. Or if you’re feeling adventurous, try the Eggpresso with an egg yolk!”

Namjoon wrinkled his nose in disgust before he can school his features into something more neutral, “I think for today I’ll just get a plain americano. Oh, and uh, blueberry scone, or whatever you call it.”

“The Clucky Blueberry Scone it is,” the woman says with a grin. “Anything else for you?”

“No, no, I think that’s good,” Namjoon says quickly.

“You got it,” the woman says. “That’ll be $12.45.”

Namjoon blinks at the price for a moment before he hands over his credit card. Forget cute chickens and themed village centers. It’s all a front for bandits and thieves. Highway robbery is what this is.

As he waits for his order, Namjoon takes in the surroundings. The coffee shop is cozy, with mismatched chairs and tables that look like they’ve been here since the 80s. There are shelves full of vintage knick-knacks and trinkets, and a sign hanging above the door that reads “Chickens Crossing.”

It doesn’t take long for his order to be ready and he leans into the door with an elbow, one hand grabbing tightly to his very hot americano and the other holding onto the bag with his scone. Namjoon thanks the woman before stepping back out into the sunshine. He decides to take his scone to go and explore the nursery next door.

He sticks to the outdoor portion of the grounds, with plants and flowers spilling out of pots and baskets with more of the same hanging from hooks screwed into large wooden frames. There’s no distinct aisles or really much rhyme or reason he can see for the layout, except for the obvious shade plants are under an arbor and the sun plants are out in the sun.

Towards the back of the nursery is a small metal table with two chairs. Grateful that it hadn’t rained last night, Namjoon sits on one of the chairs to enjoy his breakfast and caffeine.

For the outrageous price, the coffee was okay. The scone was good, clearly baked this morning with good ingredients. He’s still not sure it’s worth the price though.

A breeze blows through the garden carrying the smell of salt and tide with it. The leaves of the potted hydrangea in front of him—the blossoms on this one a brilliant pink color—shimmy and wave. Namjoon watches with a small sort of reverence. No wonder his grandmother had decided to stay here, in this place that was so far away from home.

“Oh, hello there,” a soft voice says. Namjoon turns to find the owner of the voice, thinking perhaps they are speaking to him.

But, it turns out, they are not speaking to him. A young Asian man, perhaps in his mid-20s, with auburn hair is bent over a tall stalk of a plant with large purple blossoms at the top. He’s wearing a dark green canvas apron over his fitting blue jeans and white tee-shirt, indicating he’s an employee.

“You’ve bloomed so beautifully,” the man continues, perhaps unaware he has an audience. “You’ve worked so hard. Good job.”

Namjoon can’t help but be a bit endeared by the man as he boosts the confidence of the flowers in front of him. He gives a brief start when he realizes he’s been listening to the man speak in Korean.

“Uh, hello,” Namjoon says in Korean, voice cracking a bit. After clearing his throat, he continues, “I couldn’t help but notice you’re Korean?”

The man whirls around with round eyes, mouth agape, hand clutching at his chest. “Oh, you startled me. I didn’t realize anyone was here.”

“I’m sorry,” Namjoon says, turning his lips down in a bit of a frown. “I just got excited to hear someone else speaking Korean. My brain gets so tired hearing English all day.”

The man breaks into a smile then and anything Namjoon might have said next vanishes from his mind. The smile is sparkly and warm, with his cheeks pushing his eyes up into adorable crescents. Namjoon feels a flush creep onto his cheeks.

“Oh, I’m so glad to meet another Korean,” the man says. He bounces over and sits down gingerly in the other metal chair at Namjoon’s table. “I’m Park Jimin. It’s very nice to meet you.”

“Kim Namjoon,” Namjoon says, his smile working to match Jimin’s smile intensity. “Nice to meet you.”

“And, what do you do, Kim Namjoon?” Jimin asks with a cute tilt of his head.

“Ah, I’m a writer. Novels, mostly.”

“Oh, a writer! How exciting!” Jimin says with an enthusiastic energy. “Have you written anything I’ve read?”

“Uh,” Namjoon starts, mind trying to provide any book title of his. “I mostly write science fiction? My most sold book is probably ‘Spring Day.’ But don’t worry about it if you haven’t heard of it. I’m not really that famous.”

Namjoon feels his gut curling a bit in embarrassment as he rubs a palm across the back of his neck. When he glances at Jimin, he sees excitement in his eyes.

“Spring Day is your book? The one about time travel and a love story between two people from different eras?” Jimin asks eagerly.

“Uh, yeah,” Namjoon answers, feeling slightly overwhelmed by the enthusiasm of the other.

“Oh, I love that book. The pure longing and sadness of two people who come from two different worlds,” Jimin says wistfully, looking over at the hydrangea. “I didn’t realize that was yours. I don’t think it’s published under the name Kim Namjoon, is it?”

“Ah, yeah, RM is my pen name. Early on, I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to actually sell any of my stuff. I don’t know. I felt more confident being someone else.”

“Well, it’s amazing that, here, of all places, I am meeting you,” Jimin says with a smile. “Ah, I wish I had my copy. I’d ask for an autograph.”

“Thank you,” Namjoon says softly with a grin, still feeling a bit bashful. “That means a lot to me.”

Jimin leans back in his chair and looks around the garden with a contented sigh. “It’s so peaceful here, isn’t it? I love working in the nursery. It’s my dream job, really.”

Namjoon takes a sip of his coffee and nods in agreement. “Yeah, it’s beautiful here. And you clearly have a talent for it. I saw you talking to those flowers earlier.”

Jimin blushes slightly at the compliment, a small smile on his lips. “I just love watching them grow and change. It’s like seeing your hard work pay off right in front of you.”

Namjoon takes another sip of his coffee, trying to calm the nerves that are fluttering in his chest. He’s both endeared and intrigued by the man in front of him.

“So, are you a tourist?” Jimin asks.

Namjoon startles out of his wandering thoughts. “A tourist? No. What makes you say that?”

“Oh,” Jimin blinks. “I’ve just never seen you here before. And I would definitely remember you.”

Namjoon feels his cheeks pinkening at Jimin’s comment. He clears his throat before he says, “I, uh, inherited a house down the road recently. So I’ve only been here for, uh, a month or so.”

“Oh! I don’t know why I didn’t make the connection before!” Jimin says excitedly again. “You’re Kwon Seulgi’s grandson.”

Namjoon nods, a little dumbfounded.

Jimin’s face falls a bit. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“You knew her? My grandmother?” Namjoon asks.

“Yes, I would help her with her garden. It was hard for her, especially, you know, towards the end,” Jimin says.

Namjoon nods, familiar guilt curdling in his gut.

Jimin takes a deep breath and looks back at Namjoon, his smile returning. “But, it’s good to see the house is being taken care of. Your grandmother loved her home and really put herself into it.”

Namjoon nods in agreement, feeling a sense of pride. He says, “Yeah, I’m going to try my best to keep it up.”

“I’m sure you will,” Jimin says with a reassuring smile. “And if you ever need any help with the garden or anything, just let me know. I’d be happy to lend a hand.”

“Thanks, Jimin,” Namjoon says gratefully. He takes one last gulp of his coffee before standing up from the table. “I should probably get going now, but it was really nice to meet you.”

Jimin stands up as well, his warm smile still plastered on his face. “It was really nice meeting you too, Namjoon-ssi. I hope we run into each other again soon.”

Namjoon nods, a small smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “Please call me hyung. And I hope so too. See you around, Jimin.”

As he walks away, Namjoon can’t help but feel a sense of excitement about the prospect of meeting Jimin again. Maybe, just maybe, in this strange land where coffee shops embody chicken puns and one has to spend a day traveling to get Korean ingredients, he has a potential new friend. Or more than a friend, the traitorous whisper in his mind says.

July and August on the island mean most days are filled with sun, which rises early and sets late in the evening. While the occasional overcast or foggy day occurs, most days are warm and dry.

Namjoon settles into a routine. He continues his morning walks down the hill to the beach where he wanders up and down the shoreline for at least an hour. He never tries to time it with the tide, so some days the tide is so far out the rocky shore gives way to truly sandy beach. Other times, the tide is so high, it’s lapping against the concrete seawall.

After his walks, he takes his light breakfast to the small front room he’s converted into his office. There, he tries to get a few hours of writing done, before he sets himself to the tasks of sorting through his grandmother’s possessions and fixing up the house.

Some of the days—the best days, if one were to ask Namjoon’s opinion—Jimin comes over in the late afternoon, after his shift at the nursery has finished. He works good-naturedly in the gardens of the house until the skies over Seattle are painted pink, orange, and purple, a reflection of the sunset happening behind the island.

As the sun goes down, Namjoon makes tea for the both of them and they sit on the porch drinking and admiring the view. Some nights they talk, sharing stories both innocuous and meaningful. Some nights they just sit in comfortable silence as the sky grows dark.

“I didn’t know her very well. Most of my memories are vague, from childhood. She somehow came into this house long before I was born,” Namjoon says into his cup of tea.

The sky is full of bursts of pink, purple, and orange over Seattle. The sun had been warm today, almost too hot, as Namjoon watched Jimin work on pruning back some trees from the comfort of his little front porch office. Now, though, as the sun begins to set, a cool breeze blows off the Puget Sound making the hot sun a distant memory.

“We would visit,” he continues, now watching the colors changing across the sky, “when I was little. So I have memories of running around this garden, looking for treasures.”

He laughs at the memory and glances at Jimin to see if he’s bored the younger man yet. Jimin gives him a soft smile.

“I would spend hours reading up in the apple trees,” Namjoon says and points down the yard to the gnarly old apple tree, now propped up by a two-by-four. “My grandmother started calling me Namu.”

“Namu,” Jimin tries it out quietly with a grin. “Can I call you Namu-hyung, then?”

Namjoon laughs, loud and bright in surprise. “Sure, Jimin-ah.”

Namjoon watches from his front office window as Jimin whispers to the peach blossomed water lily in the small pond off the deck of the house. Namjoon remembers helping digging out that pond when he was young, on one of his summer visits. Digging out the hole, laying tarp, nestling the lilies in their pots, filling the pond with water. He had wanted to get fish, but “we don’t need to feed the raccoons and herons, Namu-yah” was all his grandmother had said.

Namjoon tilts his head as he watches Jimin. He imagines—or at least he tells himself he is imagining it—the lilies bend their faces towards Jimin, as if eager to hear exactly what he has to say. Namjoon can relate.

“Do you ever regret?” Namjoon asks another night, after the sun is gone and the stars dot the sky. The stars are so bright here, despite the light from Seattle across the Sound. The Milky Way is a visible band across the heavens.

“Regret?” Jimin asks. Both their voices are low, as if they are afraid of disturbing the night. A frog croaks from the pond.

“Yeah, regret,” Namjoon echoes. He’s quiet for several minutes before he says, “Sometimes I regret the choices I made when I was younger. When I didn’t know what was going to be important to me later. Who was going to be important to me later.”

Jimin hums in thought. Somewhere, probably up on the main road, they can hear a car drive by.

“I don’t– I don’t think I regret,” Jimin says after another sip of his tea. “We can never know who or what will be important later. The best we can do is live for what is important now, I guess.”

“Yeah, I guess,” Namjoon says, swatting away a too-friendly moth. “I just– I wish I had spent more time with her, here, before she was too sick to know me.”

“She knew you,” Jimin says quietly with confidence. “She was your grandmother. I don’t think she’d want you regretting.”

“Maybe,” Namjoon says.

Another frog joins the first, creating a chorus of night sounds.

“I left my home,” Jimin says, voice sounding far away. “I lived by this river that ran off a mountain. I knew every tree, plant, animal. I knew each nob and bend in the river. But, after being there for so long, I felt like I needed to see more of the world.”

Namjoon hums and asks, “So you came here?”

“Well, first I ended up in Busan,” Jimin says with a chuckle. “That was the closest town to my river.”

“Ah, that explains the accent,” Namjoon says with a grin.

“Yes,” Jimin returns his grin. “Then, I guess, you could say, I let the wind blow me here.”

Namjoon laughs. “Must have been a strong wind to get you all the way across the ocean.”

Jimin smiles, all toothy with his eyes disappearing into his cheeks. “Well, I had an important person to meet.”

Namjoon feels his cheeks warm up and he turns his gaze determinately into the bottom of his empty tea cup. He clears his throat and murmurs, “Aish, is it really that late?”

Jimin laughs as he stands and takes Namjoon’s cup. “I’ll wash these before I go, Namu-hyung.”

He’s feeling good about the amount of words he got onto the page today. While he’s pretty sure most of them are garbage, he’s proud of himself for actually getting something out at all. Pushing back from his desk, he stands and peers out the window to the porch.

Jimin is leaning against the railing, facing the Sound, but his eyes are shut. Namjoon feels his breath catch for a moment. There is something so incredibly soft about the younger man—that makes him beautiful. The wind off the water plays with his hair and a smile graces his lips.

Namjoon runs to the kitchen to get two glasses of water, as an excuse to go out and stand with the other man.

“The weather is nice today,” Namjoon says, setting the glass down the railing next to Jimin.

“You know,” Jimin says, “there’s so much in this world we can’t see. But we know it’s there.”

Namjoon watches the soft expression on Jimin’s face, still turned into the breeze, his eyes still closed.

“We can’t see them, but they still change the world. The most important things we can’t see.” He raises his hand, palm out, as if feeling the breeze blow.

“Like the wind?” Namjoon asks.

“Like the wind,” Jimin agrees. “We only know it’s there because it’s changing things, moving things, changing the world around it.”

“Like music,” Namjoon thinks aloud.

“Music?” Jimin asks, opening his eyes and looking thoughtfully at Namjoon.

“We can’t see it, but it changes the world,” Namjoon says.

Jimin nods and turns to look back over the Sound, seemingly lost in thought. After a few minutes, he turns back to Namjoon and looks at him intently. He says, “Like love.”

Namjoon feels his cheeks burst into flames, but a smile grows on his face. He nods slowly. “Like love.”

“What do you say, when you’re whispering to the plants?” Namjoon asks. It’s overcast today and Jimin had mentioned it would probably rain tonight.

“You might not believe me,” Jimin says, a cheeky grin on his face.

“Try me,” Namjoon says, smiling, dimples on display. He finds he’s been smiling like this a lot lately.

Jimin sets his glass down on the little table they’ve set out for their little tea breaks. He turns his body so he’s facing Namjoon from his chair.

“I am casting spells,” he says. His face is serious, but his eyes twinkle mischievously.

“Spells,” Namjoon deadpans.

“I told you you wouldn’t believe me!” Jimin says, clearly trying to look hurt but failing.

Namjoon looks around the yard. All the plants look incredibly happy and healthy. Everything is overflowing with blooms and fruit. He turns back to look at Jimin again, starting to question, just a little bit.

“Spells,” Namjoon says again, this time it almost sounds like a question.

Jimin’s face lights up with his smile. He laughs a little as he says, “Spells. Really!”

“If you say so, I’ll believe you,” Namjoon laughs.

“You know how I said I lived by a river?” Jimin asks, voice sobering.

Namjoon shifts in his chair sensing the change in mood. He nods and watches as Jimin bites his bottom lip.

“Well, I was, how would you say this? I was the guardian?”

“Guardian?” Namjoon asks.

Jimin makes a small, frustrated noise in his throat. “I don’t know the word for it. I was a spirit guardian.”

“Spirit guardian,” Namjoon echoes, brows furrowed.

Jimin nods, looking a bit nervous as he eyes Namjoon. “I was a guardian of the river for hundreds of years. But, I wanted to see the world. I wanted to see the things everyone who traveled on my river talked about. So– so, I became human.”

Namjoon blinks. “You’re serious.”

Jimin nods, eyes now trained on the deck in front of him.

“Hundreds of years,” Namjoon says absently.

“But only 27 human years! So, you’re still my hyung, Namu-hyung,” Jimin says quickly, gaze flickering over the other man’s face before settling over the Sound.

“Did you get to see it?” Namjoon asks.

“What?” Jimin looks back at Namjoon, brows pinched together.

“The world,” Namjoon explains. “You said you wanted to see it. But you’ve been here, in this garden all summer.”

“Oh,” Jimin says, looking at Namjoon wide-eyed. “Well, yes, I traveled around for most of my twenties. Then I found myself here. Like I said, the wind sends messages. It brought me here. To you.”

His last words are a whisper.

“I’m glad,” Namjoon says.

Jimin looks at him in question.

“I’m glad you got to see the world,” Namjoon clarifies. He reaches out across the table in between them and takes one of Jimin’s hands. Despite his working in dirt and shrubbery all day, Jimin’s hands are soft and small in Namjoon’s. After reveling in the warmth for a moment, he adds, “And that you found your way here. To me.”

Namjoon looks at the vase of flowers, cut from his own garden, and arranged by Jimin, as it sits on his desk. A large blue hydrangea blossom hangs to one side, light peach colored rose and dark purple dahlia blossoms crowd the rest of the space. It rained overnight and the deck is wet still.

He hears a knock at the door to his office. He wheels himself around and then stands to open the door. Jimin is standing with a smile on his face, auburn hair pushed off his forehead, still a bit damp.

“Were you out in the rain?” Namjoon asks.

“Only on the walk here,” Jimin says with a large smile.

“Let me get you a towel,” Namjoon says as he grabs Jimin’s shoulders and turns him around back into the house. “And some hot tea. Can’t have you catching a cold.”

Jimin giggles—a beautiful sound like tinkling wind chimes, Namjoon thinks—and lets Namjoon manhandle him back into the living room.

“You can’t get a cold just from walking in the rain,” Jimin laughs. “That’s just myth. A little rain is good for you. Especially if you’re a former river spirit.”

Namjoon laughs at that, but still guides Jimin into the kitchen. “Well, then, how about I don’t want you dripping on my floors?”

“Ah, the real reason comes to light,” Jimin says with a nod. Then he giggles again. Namjoon thinks he might lose his mind in the endearing adorableness.

After he’s dry, wrapped in a comforter with a warm cup of tea in his hand, they stand together in the kitchen looking out the window. The rain picked up again while Namjoon was fussing over the kettle.

“The plants will be happy,” Jimin says. “It’s been very warm this season.”

Namjoon bites back his political commentary about global warming and capitalism. Not the time, he thinks. Not when Jimin has that endearing smile on his face.

“Drink up, friends, drink up,” Jimin whispers, eyes trained on the garden out the window. He turns to look at Namjoon with a large grin. “A spell, see?”

Namjoon nods, brain short-circuiting. Without another thought, he leans forward and brushes his lips along Jimin’s, still warm from the tea. Jimin gives a small, startled noise, but doesn’t pull away.

Namjoon pulls away far enough to get Jimin’s face into focus and asks, “I– Was– was that okay?”

Jimin nods, biting his lower lip with a grin.

“Can I–” Namjoon cuts himself off with a swallow.

“Kiss me again, Namu-hyung,” Jimin whispers.

Another spell, Namjoon thinks, before he leans in for another kiss.

Namjoon comes back from a walk on the beach to find Jimin busy weeding under the bushes near the deck, morning glory intent on taking over everything uninvited. Jimin’s figure is illuminated by the mid-morning sun, his slender frame bending to pull weeds from the soil. He’s surrounded by vibrant green plants swaying softly in the wind, some reaching out to him as if begging for attention. The overhang of grape vines that hang from the metal arbor creates a dappled shade of sun and shadow on his skin, and the rhododendron bushes seem to be leaning in closer, as if they too want a bit of his attention. Jimin is humming to himself, a soft melody that is carried on the fresh summer breeze, mingling with the scent of the Sound. The chirping of birds and buzzing of bees intermingle with Jimin’s melody, creating a tranquil harmony in the air. Another kind of spell, perhaps.

Not many of the trees surrounding the property turn for the fall, being evergreen, but the apples are finally harvested and those not turned into sauce and preserves are taken to the neighbors and the local shelter. Autumn feels well underway and the last of the hot, sunny days have passed.

Hovhaness’s Mount St. Helens Symphony plays on the living room speakers, as Namjoon and Jimin snuggle together on one of the worn couches, watching the sunset. Everything about them is soft and slow. Namjoon wouldn’t want it any other way.

Jimin, whose back is half-resting on Namjoon’s chest, turns his head and tilts it up for a kiss. Namjoon obliges by meeting him the rest of the way and giving him a languid kiss. Soft and slow.

The room mostly looks the same as when Namjoon moved in, until closer inspection. His rock and sea glass collection takes up most of the mantle. A better stereo system takes up home on the far wall with surround speakers installed in the corners of the room’s ceiling. Only recently, Namjoon finally washed and put away his grandmother’s coffee cup. The house mostly smells of Namjoon now.

Later, they settle again with fresh cups of sleepytime tea, Jimin resting his head on Namjoon’s shoulder.

“I have to leave for a while,” Jimin says.

“What do you mean?” Namjoon asks, brow wrinkling.

“It’s my birthday soon. I have to, uh, go back home. Just for a little while,” he says.

“Oh.”

“I have to check in on– on the river,” Jimin says, voice low. “It’s sort of part of the deal for being here the rest of the time. Plus, my parents insist on seeing me in-person.”

“I see.”

“I’ll miss you,” Jimin murmurs.

“Come here, when you get back,” Namjoon says.

Jimin tilts his face to see Namjoon’s. “Of course, Namu-hyung.”

“No, I mean,” Namjoon clears his throat. “Come live here, when you get back. Live here, with me.”

“Oh.”

“If you want,” Namjoon quickly adds.

Jimin relaxes his head again, his cheeks comfortably against Namjoon’s shoulder. Namjoon can feel his smile.

“I’d like that.”

Namjoon feels the hole of Jimin’s absence. However, instead of moping and feeling sorry for himself, he decides to finally finish cleaning out the house. Certain items are saved and put in special places, to commemorate the previous owner and her place in the current tenants’ hearts. Everything else is clean and donated or taken to the dump. Namjoon feels lighter than he has since moving in.

Space is made for Jimin—closet space, shelf space, his own room, if he wants. The whole house feels like it’s getting ready for new life.

Namjoon goes to the nursery at the top of the road one day when the sun happens to be shining. He wanders through the outdoor plants and then heads inside to see what else there is for sale.

Sitting near the counter is a table of small bonsai trees. He picks up one with a single trunk and a few branches, small leaves precariously clinging on.

“That blooms lovely purple flowers in the spring,” the woman standing at the register says.

“Is caring for it difficult?” Namjoon asks, eyeing the little tree.

“I’ll throw a care guide with it, if you like,” the woman says with a smile.

The door at the front of the store opens, the little bell at the top jingling. A brisk breeze follows through the store, seemingly excited to have found its way into the warmth as much as the customers.

Namjoon watches as the little leaves sway momentarily. He can put his beach rock collection under it, he thinks.

“I’ll take it,” he says, moving to the counter. He eyes the little tree again. “And any and all guides you might have.”

“Namu-hyung!”

Namjoon hears the shout before he sees the man shouting. The airport is packed. Neither he nor Jimin had accounted for the Thanksgiving holiday when booking the flight. Everywhere Namjoon looks there are people, pushing through the crowds with carry-on bags and suitcases in tow. Lines of people snake out from ticket booths and security checkpoints, while families and friends reunite with luggage is scattered here and there, adding to the general chaos. The whir of rolling suitcases and the occasional call of an announcement can be heard above the din. The airport is bursting with activity and everyone seems to be in a rush to get somewhere.

Finally, through the mass of people, he sees familiar auburn hair sticking out from under a black beanie. He’s wearing comfortable sweats and a hoodie, pulling a worn rolling suitcase haphazardly behind him. He races towards Namjoon, eyes wide and filled with joy and anticipation, face beaming, and throws himself into Namjoon’s arms.

“Jimin-ah, I hope your flight was okay,” Namjoon says into Jimin’s neck. He wraps his arms tightly around the other, one hand grasping the back of Jimin’s hoodie and the other embracing the back of his head, holding him tight.

He hears Jimin sniffle. “There was some turbulence. It was fine.”

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Namjoon says. “I missed you.”

“I missed you too, hyung.”

“I thought we’d pick some food up at the H-Mart on the way to the ferry, unless you’re too tired,” Namjoon says.

Jimin shakes his head. “I slept on the plane.”

“Alright, let’s go home then,” Namjoon says with a smile.

Jimin brushes the tears Namjoon pretends not to see away from his eyes. “Let’s go home.”

It’s cold, but clear as the water pulls away from the rocks on the beach making its now-familiar sk sk sk sound. The water glimmers and sparkles in the winter sunlight. Seaweed cling to rocks, while seagulls fight over some shelled sea creature in the distance. An old, dilapidated set of pilings—great tall timber, now rotted and barnacle covered—stand out of the water, cormorants pose on the tops with their wings outstretched, drying in the sunshine.

Jimin has been back now for three weeks. This is only the second day since his return that it hasn’t rained. The first non-rainy day, they came down to the beach to the small part of the bank that belongs to the property, where once stairs had gone from the top to the bottom, allowing his grandmother easier access to the water. They had washed away many years ago now, the bank constantly eroding into the Sound. Namjoon and Jimin sat on a washed up log to watch the tide roll in and eventually spread his grandmother’s ashes into the water, letting her forever be a part of the island that she loved so much.

Now, taking the opportunity of the sun shining again, Namjoon walks hand in hand with Jimin, stepping out of the way of the water as it rolls softly back towards them. The wind blows in from across the Sound, carrying the scent of salt and tide. As leans into his frame a bit, probably to steal some of his warmth, Namjoon bends down to kiss Jimin’s temple. When he straightens up again, giving Jimin’s hand a squeeze, he thinks he hears the message on the wind, “Welcome home.”

#bts fanfic #thearmyprof #fae bts #bts ff #romance #minimoni #magical realism #soft

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