#stole from one of my moots

[yum-zlurplie]

compare ur music taste to mine 😈

[catboyglover]

if tiktok existed in the community timeline (2009-2015) i think abed would have a account where he literally just posts silly little shitposts about cats

[okkalo]

hope all your finals went well!!! 🫶🫶 take all the time you need <⁠(⁠￣⁠︶⁠￣⁠)⁠>

thank u! giving u the biggest smooch anon (•̀ᴗ•́)و ⟡

[mulchpuppies]

you insult david byrne and suddenly thousands of autistic people are coming for you like a swarm of bees

[st4rrth0ughts]

‼️‼️‼️IMPORTANT ‼️‼️‼️

There is an account called ohmyjung on Wattpad that has been taking fanfictions of many tumblr writers and posting it onto their so called ‘books’.

This entire page is bullshit. 1. It doesn’t matter if your tumblr likes are disorganized, hell, mine are too, but hey, ever heard of fucking reblogs?? With fucking tags?? That way you can read your smut and emotional fics separately???

Also, it doesn’t matter whether you credit the original poster. It doesn’t matter if you have the og post linked, the creator linked, because you DIDNT FUCKING ASK FOR PERMISSION‼️‼️

Take @sh1-n0bu ‘s multiples works you have stolen and placed onto Wattpad.

In addition, just because you say that you’ll take the post down if the creator asks you to, it’s not like they are even able to find it?? This only came to light not too long ago, and it was only because @dvlboy found out and told @sh1-n0bu .

This takes away people who like the posts you have stolen because they are now able to find a conventional source to read their fav works. Without supporting the original poster. This is literally stealing.

Also, 10 books? 10 full ‘books’ full of stolen pieces you have never, EVER asked for permission for? If you didn’t ask my moot’s permission to cross post her work, you sure as fucking hell didn’t ask the rest.

You have no excuse. Reblogs exist, tags exist. SIDEBLOGS EXIST.

This person has not received ANY form of backlash. Not a single bit. I have already called them out in one of their chapters under the account FandomWorld2, but that is not enough.

They must be called out on this. They have been posting MULTIPLE fics in a single day for over a year.

Here is the list of creators they have stolen from. And keep in mind this is only the sub! Genshin book. And most is not all of these creators (even if they don’t exist anymore, tagged wrongly, have moved, if so, please let me know) have had at least more than one of their works stolen. In addition, it does not matter if some of these people have deleted or already deactivated their accounts. You still stole many writers’ works for nearly a year and you deserve to be called out on it.

@secretivemessenger @dvlboy @saelipse @uplatterme @sugarcause @piphours @qaevze @sh1-n0bu (I’m so sorry for tagging you three times 😭) @topheecoffe @smashsubs @woncherie @dilucsrevenge @devilris @rene-darling @dains1ief @dottcre @winterjoy500 @nxiispire @fatui-gf @noomiisz @latimeria-fell-from-heaven @mackjlee9 @cyberbark @fanfic-gallery @thedevilsdom @t4rt4gl14 @xkseii @iansrambles @grincubus @cybersp4c3 @sour-chaii @bunny-eats-fox @sinfulcries @akkkkollle @acid-ixx @genacity @1-800-clawro @chifuyusangel @fairydollsteps @lovingelegance @etsuven @k0rek1yos @euph0ric-bliss @seaoflostdreams @darlingpwease @oceisastar @jhuzen @hhonghu @mothmanperson @latimeria-fell-from-heaven @simeralli @yaekiss @yanyanfeii @limitedtempo @nickae

Again, ONE BOOK! Only one book, and this how many creators you have stolen from. I’m going to bet all my life savings, none of these creators have ever received a dm from you asking if it was okay to use their fics.

Once again, thank you @dvlboy for bringing this entire matter to light. The fact that some people have the fucking audacity to do this is beyond appalling, considering a lot of writers put their passion into this.

Also I don’t care if I clog up the tags. This deserves all the recognition, both good and bad.

Personally, I’m grateful I don’t have to see my works get stolen or crossposted. But if I do, I’ll be sure to tell you to your fucking face because I don’t like my works being posted anywhere or by anyone other than me.

[jealousmartini]

Boundaries and stuff?? Girl Idk

So today is my fake 18th🙄 because even though I turned 18 today, my birthday is on the 20th in my better cr so uh. Don't feel shy to wish me a happy fake/early 18th guys👉🏾👈🏾

∘₊ ✧───────────────────✧₊∘

This blog is safe for people who openly (and thw ones who secretly) shift for sex. I see you, I feel you, and I AM one of you gang. Go get that foursome girl. I'll probably post some sex-safe things to put into your script just for you guys.

This blogger is a bisexual she/her girly girl and welcomes lgbtq+ shifters and loa practitioners, female, male, non binary, and trans people who want to experience love freely and be accepted for who they are. This goes for the asexual spectrum, too.

This blog is safe and supports manifesters/shifters who change their age to fit their desired realities. You are not a pedo for wanting to experience young love again and you are not a weirdo for wanting to take back your childhood that this reality stole from you at the age of 3.

This blog supports Palestine and is manifesting the end of the genocide as well as the rebuild of the beautiful country.

This blogger has a mutual age limit of 16 and upwards. Minors younger than 16 are allowed to interact through asks and stuff like that as well as follow this blog, but dms and asking to be moots are a no-no (if you are already mutuals with me and just so happen to be younger than 16, this doesn't apply to you)

This blog is safe for people who want to experience life as animals. Girl literally me too?? Tf??

This blog is safe for people who shift as different races, and also who don't necessarily agree with this. Both have their own reasons that are valid in themselves, but I don't want to see debate wars going on.

This blog is safe and welcomes permashifters and respawners. You guys are so real for dipping this reality, and I'm manifesting you find your way out of here as quickly and as swiftly as possible

This blog understands if you have to kill in your dr like monsters, zombies, pedos.. fuck em up bae.

Bonus!! :: This blog HIGHLY ENCOURAGES KPOP AND ANIME SHIFTERS TO FOLLOW THEM🙏🏾 PLEASE HIT ME UPPPP😫

This blogger also lowkey fucks with shifters/loa babes who want to manifest their desired realities to freely use unique neo-pronouns. LIKE FYM you've got a futuristic cyber themed magical girl dr where you are a cunty cyborg babe with technical powers and your neopronouns are pixie/pixel self?? HELLO??

∘₊ ✧───────────────────✧₊∘

[zedecksiew]

(Don't) Incentivise Ethical Behaviour

In the ongoing project of rescuing useful thoughts off Xwitter, here's another hot take of mine, reheated:

"Being good for a reward isn’t being good---it’s just optimal play."

The quote comes from Luke Gearing and his excellent post "Against Incentive", to which I had been reacting.

My thread was mainly intended as a fulsome nodding along to one of Luke's points. It was posted in 2021, and extended in 2023 after Sidney Icarus posed a question to it. So it is two threads.

Here they are, properly paragraphed, hopefully more cleanly expressed:

+++

(Don't) Incentivise Ethical Behaviour

This is my main problem with mechanically rewarding pro-social play: a character's ethical choice is rendered mercenary.

As Luke Gearing puts it:

"Being good for a reward isn’t being good---it’s just optimal play."

Bear in mind that I'm not saying that pro-social play can't have rewarding outcomes for players. Any decision should have consequences in the fiction. It serves the ideal of portraying a living, world to have these consequences rendered diegetic:

The townsfolk are thankful; the goblins remember your mercy; pamphlets appear, quoting from your revolutionary speech.

What I am saying is that rewarding abstract mechanical benefits (XP tickets, metacurrency points, etc) for ethical decisions stinks.

+

A subtle but absolutely essential distinction, when it comes to portraying and exploring ethics / morality, in roleplaying games.

Say you reward bonus XP for sparing goblins.

Are your players making a decisions based on how much they value life / the personhood of goblins? Or are they making a decision based on how much they want XP?

Say you declare: "If you help the villagers, the party receives a +1 attitude modifier in this village."

Are your players assisting the community because it is the right thing to do, or are they playing optimally, for a +1 effect?

+

XP As Currency

XP is the ur-example of incentive in TTRPGs. It began with D&D's gold-for-XP, and has never strayed far from that logic.

XP is still currency. Do things the GM / game designer wants you to do? Get paid.

Players use XP to buy better mechanical tools (levels, skills, abilities)---which they can then in turn use to better perform the actions that will net them XP.

Like using gold you stole from goblins to buy a sword, so you can now rob orcs.

I genuinely feel that such systems are valuable. They are models that illuminate the drives fuelling amoral / unethical behaviour.

Material gain is the drive of land-grabbing and colonialism. Logger-barons and empires do get wealthier and more privileged, as a reward for their terrible actions.

+

If you want to present an ethical choice in play, congruent to our real-life dilemmas, there is value in asking:

"Hey, if you kill the goblins you can grab their treasure, and you will get richer. There's no reward for sparing their lives, except that they are thankful."

Which is another way of asking:

"Does your commitment to the ideal of preserving life outweigh the guaranteed material incentives for taking life?"

The ethical choice is the difficult choice, precisely because it involves---as it often does, in real life---sacrificing personal growth and gain. Doling out an XP bounty for doing the right thing makes the ethical choice moot.

"I as the player am making a mechanically optimal choice, but my character is making an ethical choice!"

A cop-out. Owning your cake and eating it too. The fictional fig-leaf of empathy over a calculated a decision to make profit.

+

Sidney Icarus asks a question which I will quote here:

"... those who hold to their beliefs of good behaviour don't feel rewarded, and therefore feel punished. And that's not a good feeling. It's an unpleasant experience to play a game where the righteous players are in rags, and the mercenary fucks have crowns and sceptres. So, what's the design opportunity? How do we make doing the right thing feel pleasant without making it mercenary? Or, like reality, do we acknowledge that ethical acts are valuable only intrinsically and philosophically? I have no idea how to reconcile this."

I would suggest that the above dichotomy---"righteous players in rags, mercs in crowns"---is true if property is recognised as the only true incentive.

+

Friends As Property

Modern games try to solve the righteous-players-in-rags "problem" in various ways. Virtue might not net you treasure or XP, but may give you:

Contact or ally slots, which you can fill in;

Relationship meters you can watch tick up;

Favour points you can cash in later;

etc.

How different are these mechanical incentives from treasure or XP, really?

Your relationships with supposedly living, breathing beings are transformed into abilities for your character: skills you can train; powers you can reliably proc. Pump your relationship score with the orc tribe until calling on them for reinforcements becomes a once-per-month ability.

Relationships become contracts. Regard becomes debt. Put your friend in an ally slot, so they become a tool.

If this is what you want play to be---totally fine! As stated previously, games say powerful things when they portray the engines of profit and property.

But I personally don't think game designers should design employer-employee relationships and disguise these as instances of mutual aid.

+

Friends As Friends

In the OSR campaigns I'm part of, I keep forgetting to record money. Which is usually a big deal in such games, seeing as they are in the grand tradition of gold-for-XP?

In both games, my characters are still 1st-Level pukes, though it's been months.

I'm having a blast, anyway.

My GMs, by virtue of running organic, reactive worlds, have made play rewarding for me. NPCs / geographies remember the party's previous actions, and respond accordingly.

I've been given gills from a river god, after constant prayer;

I've befriended a village of monsters, where we now live;

I've parleyed with the witch of a whole forest, where we may now tread;

I've a boon from the touch of wood wose, after answering his summons.

I cannot count on the wood wose showing up. He is a character in the world, not a power I control. Calling on the wood wose might become a whole adventure.

Little of this stuff is codified my stats or abilities or equipment list. They are mostly all under "misc notes".

Diegetic growth. Narrative change that spirals into more play.

This is the design opportunity, to me:

How do we shape TTRPG play culture in such a way that the "misc notes" gaps in our games are as fun as the systemised bits? What kinds of orientation tools must we provide? What should we say, in our advice sections?

+

A Note About Trust

The reason why it is so hard to imagine play beyond conventional incentive structures has a lot to do with trust.

Sidney again:

One of the core issues is the "low trust table". I'm not designing just for myself but for my audience. For a product. How much can I ask purchasers and their friends to codesign this part with me?

Nerds love numbers and things we can write down in inventories or slots because they are sureties. We've learned to fear fiat or player discretion, traumatised as we are by Problem GMs or That Guys.

The reason why the poverty in Sidney's hypothetical ("righteous players are in rags") sounds so bad is because in truth it represents risk at the game table. If you don't participate in the mechanics legible to your ruleset (the XP and gear to do more game things), you risk gradually being excluded from play.

You have no assurance your fellow players will know how hold space for you; be considerate; work together to portray a living world where NPCs react in meaningful ways---in ways that will be fun and rewarding for everybody playing.

You are giving up the guarantee of mechanical relevance for the possibility of fun interactions and creative social play.

+

The "low trust table" is learned behaviour--the cruft of gamer culture and trauma.

When I game with folks new to TTRPGs, they tend to be decent, considerate. I think there's enough anecdotal evidence from folks playing with school kids / newcomers / etc to suggest my experience is not unique.

If the "low trust table" is indeed learned behaviour, it can be unlearned.

Which rules conventions, now part of the hobby mainstream, were the result of designers designing defensively---shadowboxing against terrible players and the spectre of "unfairness"?

How can we "undesign" such conventions?

Lack of trust is a problem that we have to address in play culture, not rulesets. You cannot cook a dish so good it forces diners to have good table manners.

+

This is too long already. I'll end with an observation:

Elfgames are not praxis, but doesn't this specific dilemma in the microcosm of our silly elfgames ultimately mirror real-world ethics?

To be moral is to trust in a better world; to be amoral / immoral is to hedge against the guarantee of a worse one.

+++

Further Reading

Some words from around the TTRPG community about incentive and advancement in games:

+

However, the reason there is a big debate about this is that behavioural incentives in games clearly do work, either entirely or at various levels. This applies outside gaming, as well. Why do advertising companies and retail business use "rewards" structures to convince people to buy more of their products? Why do people chase after "Likes" on social media?

A comment by Paul_T to "A Hypothesis on Behavioral Incentives" from a discussion on Story-Games.com

+

the structure and symbolism of the D&D game align with certain structures and values of patriarchy. The game is designed to last infinitely by shifting goalposts of character experience in terms of increasing amounts of gold pieces acquired; this resembles the modus operandi of phallic desire which seeks out object after object (most typically, women) in order to quench a lack which always reasserts itself.

D&D's Obsession With Phallic Desire from Traverse Fantasy

+

In short, my feeling is that rewarding players with character improvement in return for achieving goals in a specific way impedes some of the key strengths of TTRPGs for little or no benefit in return. 

Incentives from Bastionland

+

When good deeds arise naturally out of the players choices, especially when players rejected other options that were more beneficial to them, it is immensely satisfying. Far more than if players are just assumed to be heroic by default. It gives agency and meaning to player choice.

Make Players Choose To Be Kind from Cosmic Orrery

+

Much has been made about 1 GP = 1 XP as the core gameplay loop driver of TSR D+D. But XP for gold retrieved also winds up being something of a de facto capitalistic outlook as well. Success is driven by accumulation of individual wealth -- by an adventuring company, even! So what's a new framework that can be used for underpinning a leftist OSR campaign?

A Spectre (7+3 HD) Is Haunting the Flaeness: Towards a Leftist OSR from Legacy of the Bieth

+

Growth should be tied to a specific experience occurring in the fiction. It is more important for a PC to grow more interesting than more skilled or capable. PCs experience growth not necessarily because they’ve gotten more skill and experience, but because they are changed in a significant way.

Cairn FAQ from Cairn RPG / Yochai Gal

+++

Thank you Ram for the Story-Games.com deep cut!

( Image sources: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/neuron-activation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majesty:_The_Fantasy_Kingdom_Sim https://www.economist.com/sites/default/files/special-reports-pdfs/10490978.pdf https://varnam.my/34311/untold-tales-of-indian-labourers-from-rubber-plantations-during-pre-independence-malaya/ https://nobonzo.com/ )

+

PS: used with permission from Sandro, art by Maxa', a reminder to self:

[allforhee]

ੈ✩ — 𝐘𝐎𝐔'𝐑𝐄 𝐀 𝐂𝐀𝐓𝐂𝐇! (BLURB) | YANG JUNGWON

୨୧ pairing — non!idol!bf!jungwon x gn!reader

୨୧ synopsis — having jungwon as your boyfriend is full of surprises, and after dating him for a while, he takes you on once again another date. at this date, which happens to be an arcade date, you see the playful and child-like version of him, which makes you fall in love with him more.

୨୧ genre — established relationship, you guys were the best friends to lovers trope

୨୧ warnings — cute coupley stuff, jungwon being absolutely adorable, lovers only starting off their relationship aka still being shy with the lovey dovey stuff

୨୧ word count — 879 words, sorta proofread

୨୧ author's note — a bunch of moots on my twitter have been requesting a jungwon fic... so here it is! i hope you all enjoy and i hope i did my wonie girlies some justice ^^ pls i hope the ending line made sense ik it's cheesy but i love claw machines so i hope you enjoy wonie freaking over claw machines !!

"𝐍𝐎 𝐖𝐀𝐈𝐓, 𝐖𝐄 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐓𝐑𝐘 𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐎𝐍𝐄 𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄!" an excited jungwon squeals as he pulls you by the wrist.

date nights with jungwon were not uncommon. whether it be cafe hopping or watching a horror movie, you had been on many dates with him.

even if it was only a few months into your relationship with him, he always had a surprise up his sleeve. he always made date nights interesting.

as jungwon grabs your wrist to run to what he was pointing at, you take in this new aura of your boyfriend. the surrounding bright neon lights and the glow in the dark carpeted floor made it clear. jungwon had brought you to an arcade.

as you finally reach your destination after what felt like an eternity of jungwon pulling you, you come across a bright light in front of you, a square cube filled with all kinds of plushes. a claw machine.

"ynnie! look! oh i have to win one! where's my game card?" jungwon exclaims as he frantically looks for his game card he bought, prior to the date night.

"wonie, you know this is a scam, right?" you explain to him, as he's still looking for the card in his totebag.

jungwon gasps wildly, and looks at you like you just stole all the stars from the sky. "how dare you?! these are little plushies just waiting to be saved! can't you see their little faces trapped in that horrid cage?"

you laugh at his exaggeration, his face all pouty from your 'insult.'

as he finally finds his game card, his smiling expression beaming, he enthusiastically taps his card on the scanner, before the arcade music starts, and the 30 second countdown begins.

jungwon looks up into the glass cage as he can now move the crane with the joystick. he beams up into the cage as he slowly moves the arm to which plush he wants to get.

"oh- so clo- wait- baby can you check from the sides to see if it can properly grasp it?" jungwon asks, his face beaming with excitement.

you sigh as you move aside, looking into the glass cage from the sides. you decide to play with him a bit, "oh! move it back just a tad bit! yes- a bit mor- right there!"

as jungwon presses the big red CATCH button with confidence, you smile at him menacingly from the side, as the claw completely misses the plush.

"wait— no! i was so close!" jungwon cries out, seeing the claw move towards the drop zone without a plush in it.

you giggle and jungwon spots you, before giving you a pout. "baby~ what was that for?"

"you looked so excited to get the plush! i'm sorry, we'll try again, m'kay?" you confessed, as his face begins to light up again once more.

jungwon smiles and jumps in excitement, before tapping the card once more, and the game starts all over again.

this time, you're actually determined to help him get the plush, after seeing his beaming face and glowing smile. you can't help but wonder how it would be like if you could have that smile embedded in your brain.

as he moves the joystick and the claw moves once more, you grasp his hand—which was holding the joystick and help him adjust. he looks at you with a smile before focusing back to the game.

finally, you make the last few adjustments before you grab his hand to hit the CATCH button. at first, jungwon was surprised with the sudden decision, "ynnie~ that wasn't in place yet!" he whined.

you smiled at him before looking back into the cage, only to find the claw grasping none other than the plush he wanted. as the claw lifted it up, jungwon's eyes were focused. his eyes stuck following the plush, where it moved swiftly, and finally landed in the drop zone.

jungwon let out an excited gasp, before squatting down and grabbing the plush out of the collect here drawer. he smiled at you with that beaming smile, and you could feel your cheeks grow red.

"baby see! i told you we could do it! i caught it!" he smiled, holding the plush in your face, showing it off.

you giggled at him before mumbling "no, you're a catch."

you had thought jungwon was too enthralled in the plush to hear you, but his super-hearing picked up what you said.

"hmm? what did you say?" jungwon questioned you.

you snapped back into reality, gazing into his eyes, "what? oh nothing..."

jungwon laughed, "you think i'm a catch, don'tcha?"

you tried to hide your face in your hands, hiding your red face, before jungwon pulled you in a hug. you continued to hide your face in his neck, embarrassed.

"you don't have to hide, baby." jungwon giggled, as he pat your head, and kissed your forehead out of habit.

you felt goosebumps run throughout your body, before looking up and smiling at him. you kissed his cheek shyly, as you felt a soft item land in your arms.

as jungwon placed the plush he just won in your arms, he beamed at your confused expression, "i don't need the plush, you're always going to be my catch anyways."

taglist; @riekiss @sesameoil721 @desistay (crossed out = i can't tag you)

back to my masterlist?

© 𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐅𝐎𝐑𝐇𝐄𝐄, est. 2024 | do not plagiarize, modify, translate, or repost my works on any platforms.

[generalluxun]

Half-Baked, An ML fanfiction.

So this comes out of my 'Chloe goes back in time' AU. set after she's stolen the black cat Miraculous, but before the repercussions of that have really gone full swing.

This AU came about mostly from asks, so the tag can be searched on my blog for getting up to date on our collective ramblings for it.

Super short Summary: Post S5 Chloe goes back in time into her Origins-timeframe body. She is angry at everyone and everything. She gets herself akumatized early on and steals the Cat Miraculous from Cat Noir(who wasn't taking things seriously, it's S1) Seeing it's Adrien she freaks, breaks akumatization and runs off before Ladybug arrives. Adrien is keeping who stole it a secret(though he tells LB he lost it) hoping he can get it back himself to make up for losing it.

Fic is under the cut because it is 4172 words. I'll also be posting it on AO3 tomorrow.

With the smell of fresh baked goodies taunting her nostrils, Marinette dodged between racks laden with hot trays and mixing bowls of fresh dough. She was already late for school, but seeing her parents frantically running around made her pause.

“Dad?”

Tom flashed her a big smile but immediately turned and fled into the back. Her mother turned from where she was scooping still-warm pastries off cooling trays and into boxes too soon. “Honey, your father and I are very busy today. A large catering order came in unexpectedly. It was extremely short notice, but you know your father.”

Marinette couldn’t help but puff up a little, “It’s the Egyptian opening at the Lourve, right?”

Sabine paused. “Why, yes honey. How did you-”

Marinette gushed, “I knew dad was bummed about missing out on it, so yesterday I took a few freshly baked pastries over to the museum before school. I managed to find a way back to the curator’s offices and wouldn’t leave until he tried one. You should have seen the look on his face! ‘Young lady I think that is the best confection I have ever tasted.’ It looks like it was worth being an hour late.”

Marinette froze mid-pantomime. Her story had run away with her again, perhaps to a few places her mother didn’t exactly need to know.

Whatever Sabine’s thoughts, she kept a gently serene face. “That’s… very clever dear. Only… perhaps you could ask before helping next time? This really is such short notice.”

Marinette winced. “Is it really? I could help! I can just call in sick, then I would be able to-”

Rushing back towards the kitchen, Marinette snagged her foot on one of the giant mixing bowls. She tripped and collapsed into it as it spun, coming to rest blinking up into her mother’s even more concerned looking face. Sabine reached down and helped Marinette extract herself, brushing some wayward flour dust off her backside.

“No, no, that’s quite alright, dear. Your father and I will handle it. It’s not as if sleep is necessary every night. On your way now. You don’t want to be late, again.”

That last word carried the only hint of maternal reprimand, but it was enough. Marinette let herself be ushered out the door. On the way to school she managed to convince herself everything would be okay. It would be fine. It wasn’t the end of the-

The Agreste Limo pulled up in front of the steps to the school, and ‘end of the world' took on new meaning. Adrien got out, but his walk up the steps had none of its usual spring. Even knowing the truth, it was hard for Marinette to overlap the image of him with Cat Noir. Hard, and maybe a moot point.

Marinette shook herself. No. Not a moot point. We will get the ring back. I will get it back. Anyone can make a mistake. She hop-stepped to catch up with Adrien and gave him her biggest smile, “Morning, Adrien!”

He might not know it, but he’d helped her become Ladybug. Now it was up to her to return the favor.

------------------------------------------------

Time was not on Marinette’s side though. Not even half the day had gone by when the school shook as if in an earthquake. Sirens sounded in the distance. Alya had her phone open to a news cast before anyone else even had theirs out.

“-eaking News. A giant man…monster…thing… has once again been sighted in downtown Paris. Police are on their way, but as we approach the presumed akuma I have to wonder, what can they hope to do? Will Ladybug and Cat Noir show up once again to save our fair city?”

Nadja’s voice rose clearly from the tiny screen. Marinette couldn’t make out the akuma clearly as the helicopter circled though. All at once the helicopter lurched.

Nadja turned to ask someone off screen, “What’s that smell?”

The camera jostled, the helicopter lurched again, and the image went dark.

Marinette jumped up, “We have to do something!”

“Do something?” Kim blurted out from the back before anyone else. “Ivan got turned into a giant monster and almost turned half the class into crepes! What are you gonna do? …No offense big guy.”

Marinette heard Ivan mumble something even as she watched Adrien’s shoulders slump in front of her. She had to think fast. “What am I gonna do? I’m gonna go to the bathroom! Can’t think on a full bladder, right? Haha. Ms. Bustier can I go please?”

Another rumble shook the entire classroom.

Nino scrambled to his feet, “It sounds like there won’t be a bathroom to go to pretty soon.”

Ms Bustier raised her voice clearly but gently, “Alright class, everyone out. We rendezvous at the park. Stay with your seatmates.”

Sorry Alya. Marinette bolted for the door.

It wasn’t until she set eyes on the akuma that Ladybug’s forebrain took control back from her reflexes. Fear grabbed ahold of her and queasiness dropped her on unsteady legs on the nearest rooftop. The akuma was huge, topping even stoneheart. It was visible head and shoulders above the rowhouses. The only saving grace was a strange familiarity. It was dressed like a baker, complete with toque on its head and giant wooden peel in its hands.

The combination of silliness and fear forced a nervous giggle from her lips. The giggle reminded her that she was alone this time, her partner couldn’t help her. That sealed her lips once more with fear. It’s all up to me, alone.

Doomsday scenarios pressed into her thoughts even as the akuma strode on in the distance. What’s its power? Why is it here? What is the item? Where is it go-

Ladybug’s brain did the math and drew the line from the akuma right through the school towards… Our bakery!

She was in motion instantly, vaulting two streets closer. She was crouched for another leap when her senses shoved another fact through her emotions. Screams.

Screams weren’t surprising, but the tone was wrong. The akuma swung its peel and something scattered below it. If only for a cat’s sight. Screams of fear turned to joy then fell silent.

Ladybug balked again. She had to think. Emotion wanted her to act, but she couldn’t afford to be wrong. How close could she get? The akuma moved on and she followed from a distance, trying to pick up any clues she could. How close is too close? The akuma plowed through a building in its way. More screams of fear, a swing of its peel and fear turned to joy then silence again.

She needed to get closer. But-

Ladybug was stuck.

----------------------------------------------------------

“Go away!” Chloé stalked across the square, away from the class.

Sabrina trotted after her. “But, Chloé… we’re seatmates! We’re supposed to stick together.”

Chloé spun around and screamed, “Stick together? Is that what you call it? You sure didn’t stick with me when I needed it! Save me the trouble and go play with your new friends right now. Go!”

She jabbed a finger over Sabrina’s shoulder, but didn’t wait to see the results of her outburst. Her stomach felt hollow and sick. Her fingers tingled and her eyes itched. She wanted to scream until she ran out of air, but that hadn’t done any good before.  So instead she was getting away from the others as fast as she could. Chloé jogged across the street from the park and was around a corner in seconds. Sabrina didn’t call after her again.

For some stupid reason that made the sickness in her stomach worse.

Chloé stalked blindly, immune to the cracking of masonry and the heavy tread that threatened to knock her off her feet. Out of her tunnel vision a single figure resolved in the distance. Red, spotted, standing still on a rooftop. Ladybug.

She was just…standing there. The crunch of another building rang out but the hero didn’t move. “DO SOMETHING!” Chloé howled at her, unheard.

She hated Ladybug. Ladybug was lame. Ladybug was a loser. Ladybug was a failure. Ladybug was a traitor. Ladybug… was a hero. Ladybug was supposed to be saving the day. The thoughts rattled around and fought until Chloé squeezed her eyes shut and dug her nails into her hair in frustration.

With a sudden clarity Chloé’s eyes snapped open again. She whipped a hand around in front of her. “You! Come out now!”

The black cat kwami sparked into existence, anger evident on his tiny features.

“Tell me how to transform!” she demanded.

He crossed his arms smugly and replied, “hmmm Mm mffm Hmm.”

Chloé growled, “Talk! You can talk! Tell me!”

The Kwami gasped but still grinned, “That’s the one thing you can’t order me to do, Miraculous or no.”

“Rrraaaaaggh!” Chloé pointed at the distant Ladybug, “She’s not doing anything. Tell me the password or we’re doomed!”

Plagg crossed his little arms, “Give me back to my rightful holder, and she’ll have a partner again.”

Chloé stomped her foot, “No! I can do this! I know what to do better than any of them do right now! I’m the hero!”

Pagg seemed unimpressed. He rolled his eyes,”You? Nobody would make you a hero. What would you even do with a miraculous?”

Chloé's world narrowed again,to a haze of red with a floating black blob in the center. She advanced on him, “I’ll cataclysm the stupid  akuma. I’ll cataclysm stupid Hawkmoth. I’ll cataclysm everyone and everything that gets in my way. No one will take you away and nothing will stop me this time.”

She was seething. Memories of disappointment, failure, and humiliation broke down into the core emotions and blended into a hateful spiral. She waited for the next barb to come, but instead Plagg’s green eyes turned towards her with a spark of devilish curiosity in them.

“Really?” he drew the word out, “That just might be interesting to see.” One fingerless hand thrust at her face. “Don’t think I’m out of tricks though. You just watch yourself.  It’s ‘Plagg, Claws out.’”

Emotion spoke before thought could form, “Plagg, Claws out!”

----------------------------------------------------------

The akuma waded through the remains of the school and Ladybug knew she had to act. The bakery was at hand, and though she couldn’t see from back here, she could just imagine her father standing out front with a rolling pin. She still didn’t have a plan. She hadn’t risked getting close enough to get a good look. It had seemed prudent, but a nagging voice whispered she might just be too scared on her own. Had Cat No- Adrien been brave enough for both of them?

She tensed for a leap, but a sound like a thunderbolt stopped her. A black blur streaked at the akuma. It struck clean, staggering the giant, and clung before scuttling across the akuma’s bulk.

Ladybug was airborne before she had time to doubt. The blur had resolved into a person, a cat person. Her foolish heart leapt for a moment at the impossible idea her partner might have returned. No- it wasn't him. This person darted and leapt from point to point, tearing at the akuma. Buttons, hat, pockets were all ripped and torn. The akuma reeled and swatted at the attacker. One meaty hand connected and sent the black-clad fighter into the pavement in an impressive crater. Ladybug didn’t even have time to gasp before the fighter leapt from the cracked road and was back in the fight.

Ladybug landed, still one block away. In part she was still gathering information, in part she wasn’t sure how to engage with that black buzzsaw in motion. She had time now, her partn-

The other fighter was buying her time.

Ladybug was still trying to understand the ferocity of the assault. The -Ladybug mentally decided on cat hero just to organize her thoughts- was fended off time and again, taking blows that had to hurt. They were -she was- was relentless though, rebounding from being knocked clean through nearby buildings.The akuma’s apron fluttered to the ground like a torn parachute.

It clicked, akumatized object!, just as the akuma found space to swing its bakery peel. This time Ladybug could discern pastries showering down from the end of it. The cat hero was crouched for another leap but instead raised her head and sniffed the air. She reoriented herself and pounced… the confections.

Ladybug had her info. She raised her yo-yo, “Lucky Charm!”

--------------------------------------------------------------------

The smell was irresistible. Chloé dove at the showering pastries, and she wasn’t the only one. Civilians swarmed out from everywhere, her classmates among them. Each and every one scrambled for the treats. There was no stopping it. Chloé bit down on a tart even as she scooped up half a dozen croissants. That she was aware of the compulsion made it worse. She growled around oozing jam and ground her teeth on buttery crust.

The too familiar feeling of helplessness was poison in her veins. Control, she needed to have some kind of control. She couldn’t stop so she pushed in the other direction. She crammed her mouth full until her jaw ached and she could barely breathe. It worked! She had a muffin in each hand but she could move freely again.

She launched herself at the akuma again.

A patch, no. A giant thermometer, no. She broke and broke. The muffins were goo, smashed against her palms. She couldn’t breathe but she wouldn’t stop.

Wouldn’t. Did. She bent double while crouching for another jump. Trying to inhale had dragged a chunk of her food-muzzle into her throat. She choked, coughed, heaved, choked again, and gasped for air. Her stomach twisted around the magical treats she’d already swallowed and dropped her to her knees.

Ziiiiip *thwip*

She was wrapped in a too-familiar away, airborne, grabbed, thumped on the back. She was spun again, free, something was shoved up her nose. Her overstimulated senses finally managed to focus. Her vision focused. Ladybug stood before her, with a tissue box in hand and polkadot tissues up each nostril.

Chloé hissed, “What do you think you're doing?”

“Saving you!” Ladybug grabbed her arm, “What do you think you are doing?”

Chloé pulled free and snarled, “He’s got an akumatized item on him somewhere, I’ll find it.”

Ladybug reached for her, “Do you have any idea what it is?”

Chloé recoiled and scanned. The akuma had turned away from them. It looked over the Dupain-Cheng bakery of all things. A petty part of her wanted to let it smash the place. That part of her became one more thing to be angry at.

She bared her teeth over her shoulder. “No, but I’m not the kind of hero who stands around doing nothing.”

She vaulted away with a protest lost in her wake. She landed and jumped again, elation mixing with rage. Her claws scored the doughy skin on the back of the akuma’s neck, checking the downward bakery-dooming swing of his peel. He swung it at her instead, showering her with sugary bait that no longer had any power over her. Her mouth was open, panting as a part of her breathing. What next? She picked a target and broke it. Then another, and another.

“The peel! Destroy the peel!” Ladybug’s voice rang in her ears.

Ladybug was a loser and probably wrong, but that wooden peel sure was big and this sure would be fun… “Cataclysm!”

She met the akuma’s swing with an outstretched hand. A grove’s worth of wood turned to powder at her touch. The butterfly flew free.

*Thwip* -snap- Ladybug caught and purified it. The akuma shrank to a befuddled looking baker. Chloé stood victorious in the center of a wasteland of violence and destruction.

Elation beat out anger, for just a moment. She threw her head back, spread her arms and, “Raaaaaaaaaaaaaggggghhhhhh!”

-------------------------------------------

The primal scream from right beside her made Ladybug cringe and fumble the lucky charm she had been about to toss into the air. Once she recovered herself the fact that the crisis had passed gave her a moment to actually evaluate her erstwhile companion. Evaluate, and remember that she was not a partner, she was a thief.

A ragged looking thief. Her blonde hair -did the cat miraculous make the user blonde?- was a voluminous mane down her back, bedecked with black metal hooks and barbs throughout. She turned post scream to give Ladybug a maniacal grin, revealing her needle-like fangs in place of incisors. Her heterochromatic eyes, one blue and one green, were feline as Cat Noir's had been, and her pupils were currently giant black moons swimming in color. 

“What are you looking at, Ladybum?” The thief drawled, raising the hand still dusted with cataclysm remains and flexing her fingers slowly.

Her gloved fingers ended in wicked looking black ‘claws’. She wore black leather, that much remained consistent too, but her V-neck collar was torn, not tailored.  Lastly, in place of Chat’s amusing belt-tail she had a razor thin wire wrapped around her waist with a heavy cat's paw pendant hanging from the end.

Ladybug narrowed her eyes, “You stole Cat Noir’s miraculous.”

The thief turned her hand, revealing the paw print ring with three toes left. “Finders keepers.”

Ladybug swapped hands and spun her yo-yo up, “Give it back.”

“No!” The thief lunged, catching Ladybug’s yo-yo mid-spin.

Ladybug countered, wrapping her line around the other girl’s arm ensnaring her. The thief’s other hand went for Ladybug’s neck. Ladybug blocked the lunge with the remaining length of her string, but the other girl’s palm pressed within scant centimeters. They were locked taut. Whoever gave ground would lose.

Those wild eyes were narrowed to slits. No akuma had ever scared Ladybug this badly. The anger melted from those features but the fingers still stretched for Ladybug’s throat. Ladybug felt a prick against her skin. “It has to be a pun, doesn’t it? Of course it does. Call me… Purrge. I’m going to turn Hawkmoth to dust, and anyone in my way.”

Ladybug strained. Her own anger fueled a push that took Purrge’s claws from her skin. “You’re crazy! I’m taking that ring back. You don’t deser-”

*Chirp* *chirp*

The overlapping sounds cut across the tension. Purrge’s eyes darted to Ladybug’s earrings. Ladybug’s were drawn to Purrge’s ring. Her mind raced. Has it been three or four?

Purrge’s lips curled into a sharp fanged grin, “You used yours first. You think you can take me down in time?”

Ladybug wanted to, oh she ached to, but there was more riding on this than personal satisfaction, but how to- A very slight easing of the pressure against her line; was it a ceasefire? Ladybug took a chance.

She pulled back, letting the line go slack. No claws cut off her breath. She didn’t wait. She scooped up the lucky charm and turned, “This isn’t over!  Miraculous Ladybugs!”

Ladybug tossed the charm even as she began her swing. Triumphant cackling bubbled up behind her. She didn’t look back. Paris rebuilt itself as Ladybug swung further away, seeking out a quiet spot and settling for behind a dumpster.

Marinette burst from the shadow of the dumpster at a run. If she got back quick enough maybe she could catch a glimpse. Maybe there would be a clue. Maybe she could get her partner back.

There wasn’t, and she couldn’t. Not yet at least. All that awaited her was the rest of the class. Alya almost knocked her over, grousing and shaking her by the shoulders while delivering a friendly but stern dressing down. At least she wasn’t the only one gone. Chloé had unsurprisingly run off and still wasn’t back. It took some of the heat off at least.

A few of the class, plus her parents, were gathered around a baker who sat head in hands on the curb. Marinette recognized him immediately, from even before the akuma. She scooted into the semi-circle.

“Mssr. Levure?”

He looked up in confusion.

Marinette gave him a guilty smile, “I’m Marinette Dupain-Cheng.”

She saw surprise, anger, then guilt pass over his features.

She continued, “I’m sorry. I think I’m at least partly responsible for all this. I convinced the curator to switch bakeries. I just wanted to help my family… but I didn’t stop to think about how doing it this way would impact them, or you. I know my dad and he’ll run himself into the ground to do all this work. Not only that but our bakery will probably be closed so he can do it. All our other customers will suffer.”

Marinette looked at her parents, who watched her with proud curiosity. She looked back to Mssr. Levure.

“Maybe… both bakeries can share the catering? I’ll make signs. We can promote both and have an even better, more varied selection for our guests. Would that be okay?”

Marinette held her breath. Mssr. Levure, her dad, and her mom held one of those ‘glance and head tilt’ conversations adults so often did. Then he stood and brushed his hands off before holding one out to Tom. “A temporary partnership?”

Tom shook hands, smiling. “Done.”

A small cheer erupted from the half dozen onlookers, and Marinette had the satisfaction of righting at least one wrong today. Still, there was one other… She looked around and spotted Adrien sitting by himself.

“What a day huh?” She announced her presence.

She might be right next to him, but he was still sitting far apart. “Did you see? Ladybug’s got a new partner.”

“Partner?! Oh no no, that’s not what it looked like to me at all. More like a new enemy, or a stray cat, or an enemy cat, or a stray enemy. There’s no way Ladybug would just replace her partner.”

Adrien turned to face her for the first time. The hope on his face was heartbreaking. “You really think so?”

Marinette fidgeted. Instinct said he needed a hug, but, but… he was… and she was…  Nervous laughter bubbled up without warning, “Ha! Sure sure No way! Oh look! It’s Alya! No one knows Ladybug like her. She runs the Ladyblog! Why don’t we go ask her together? I’m sure she’ll know! Come on!”

She waved her arms frantically to signal Alya, kicking herself internally the entire time.

---------------------------------------------------

On a rooftop balcony nearby Purrge landed hard. What should have been a hero landing turned into a stumble, a stagger, and a few lurching steps. A flash of green enveloped her, then Chloé collapsed face first onto the pavement.

Plagg zipped in a wide loop through the air, “What a debut! I think you broke three whole blocks before Ladybug put it all back together. Crack! Boom! That was fun, and you still beat the akuma, so Master Fu can’t yell at me!”

Chloé’s persistently prone repose caught his attention.

“Kid? Kid?”

He floated over, sitting atop her head, no response.  He turned an ear down against her skull, then floated to her back to do the same.

“Tsk, You gotta let the timer run out when it wants to, kid. You’re still pretty small.”

This got a response. The fingers of one of Chloé’s hands curled into a white knuckled fist for the space of a breath before uncurling again.

Plagg hmphed.

A CCTV camera, set up for security footage but never watched, recorded something odd that day.  The blanket from Chloe’s bed lifted itself by a single point and dragged itself out to the balcony(after one of the balcony doors mysteriously rotted off its hinges) The blanket was spread haphazardly over the recumbent heiress.

A little later the trashcan in the suite tipped itself over, and trash began emptying itself onto the floor.

------------------------------------------------

“Master Please! Calm, Master! Here, your beads.” Wayzz hovered nervously with the prayer bracelet in his hands.

“Calm? Calm!” Master Fu paced between the gramophone that hid the miracle box and the small TV in his room. He would stare at the TV, then go reach for the gramophone, then pace back to the TV.

When he turned to Wayzz his face looked pained and afraid, not angry. He pointed at the TV, “How can I be calm when… that?!”

Frozen on the TV was a still frame of Ladybug and a Black Cat wielder who was obviously not Cat Noir, locked in a struggle.

“The Cat Miraculous is out there in an unknown holder’s hands. It could be in danger. The Ladybug could be in danger. If Hawkmoth were to get his hands on the Ladybug…”

He went back to the gramophone again and laid his hands atop it,

“We must get it back. We must be careful, but we cannot delay. Ladybug will need help in the meantime, someone she can rely on, a power that can aid her when there are so many variables in play.”

“Master, do you mean…?”

Fu keyed in the secret combination to open the antique player, and reached for the Miracle Box hidden within. “Yes Wayzz, him.”

[sotiredimbored]

/ intro post /

kuko/ollie, any/all, genderfluid, ace, biromantic, minor, asian-american, infp, slytherin, cabin 7, probably insane, neurodivergent

✩

insta, art blog, vent blog, writing blog, and pinterest!

more complicated info below the cut(pleasepleasepleaselook)

cool info about me!!!

stuff i like✩: pasta, birds, the sound of pencils on paper, reading, writing(ill write for you if you ask), drawing(same with drawing just ask!!), animals, my friends(yeah you deal with it), heartstopper, yaelokre, epic, music(my heart and soul), my pets(i post them sometimes teehee), diet coke, purple grapes, learning languages, cosplaying, analyzing songs , bugs and jellyfish!(theres more but im lazy)

things i dislike✩: homophobes, transphobes, racists, mean people, and cicadas(no questions)

music! ✩: thazvoo, fish in a birdcage, chappell roan, kaden mackay, good kid, cavetown, tv girl, lovesick, baby queen, glaive, conan gray, the neighbourhood, ichika nito, the greeting committee, alex g, noah floersch, pkch, waterparks, sundial, yaelokre, emei, girl in red, SALES, mad tsai, and lyn lapid!!

a cool person(@funz1es) made me a mood board and it's amazing

ᴺᴼᵂ ᴾᴸᴬᵞᴵᴺᴳ: 4 Morant(Better Luck Next Time)(Com Truise)

1:22───ㅇ───── 2:51

↻ ◁ II ▷ ↺

ᴠᴏʟᴜᴍᴇ : ▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▮▯

[idea stolen from @starmanbutitsregulusblack]

my amazing moots who followed me even tho im weird(lmk if you wanna be removed/sorry if i forgot you)

@fishcow99 ˋ°•*⁀➷ actually so cool very good at comforting

@asters-tempo ˋ°•*⁀➷ BREAD AND AXOLOTL BUDDY

@omelettejunkie ˋ°•*⁀➷ cool and very much not scary

@crowofthestars ˋ°•*⁀➷ very nice, funny and such

@charlie-kelly-variant ˋ°•*⁀➷ this is a backup blog of someone else but i added it bc i can do what i want

@kunikisss ˋ°•*⁀➷ AMAZING ART WHAT

@kawaiibarty ˋ°•*⁀➷ gives off flower vibes idk

@butch-marauders ˋ°•*⁀➷ good opinions and also GIRL IN RED

@kermit-is-life ˋ°•*⁀➷ check out this to join the cult of kermit

@formertokenstraight ˋ°•*⁀➷ basically an unpaid therapist at this point(sorry token ik i should unpack my issues *sigh*)

@rat-detector ˋ°•*⁀➷ idk how we are mutual but r a t

@dino1nuggiez ˋ°•*⁀➷ my bestie and the coolest irl person and such

@cheekyboybeth ˋ°•*⁀➷ chappell roan enjoyer

@definitionoffuckup ˋ°•*⁀➷ i stole this intro idea from them so check him out

@your-non-irl-father ˋ°•*⁀➷ star wars vibes

@osemanverseenthusist ˋ°•*⁀➷ so coolio(cheerios)

@mun-urufu ˋ°•*⁀➷ such a nice human very enjoyable would recommend

@raeprise ˋ°•*⁀➷ the moon(yes)

@k-is-for-potassium ˋ°•*⁀➷ b a b n a

@here-am-i-sitting-in-a-tin-can ˋ°•*⁀➷ i misread this username for an embarrassingly long time

@yourlocalbadgerscales ˋ°•*⁀➷ so brave and cool

@stqrgirl3 ˋ°•*⁀➷ here chick the bom from the bompalombalomp

@you-will-never-be-satisfied ˋ°•*⁀➷ coolest and also deserves love

@aesthetic-writer18 ˋ°•*⁀➷ basically a writing god

@gardenoflilys ˋ°•*⁀➷ *insert moth*

@klondyke-the-bear ˋ°•*⁀➷ very nice

@mrtoadthetoad ˋ°•*⁀➷ gives off poet vibes

bea!!(idk if i can tag but the actual tag is tequilaqueen) ˋ°•*⁀➷ nice. good at art. very good

@themortalityofundyingstars ˋ°•*⁀➷ cool person who i never expected to follow me

@barbthebuilder ˋ°•*⁀➷ genderfluid boss

@lifegoalsofafish ˋ°•*⁀➷ ONE OF THE FIRST MOOTS LETS ALL PAY OUR RESPECTS

@garden-of-runar ˋ°•*⁀➷ wow two cool people who i never thought would follow me

@official-panini ˋ°•*⁀➷ *stealthily hands you bread*

@gasolinehornet ˋ°•*⁀➷ httyd core

ok bye

*scurries off into the distance*

[xythlia]

hey this aot "writer" stole your one levi fic word for word they've been caught for stealing before too

https://www.tumblr.com/hvnlydemon/737643010532179968/hi-i-wanted-to-celebrate-returning-to-writing

tysm for bringing this to my attention, and im sorry to be putting this on everyones dashes esp on a holiday but it looks like ppl will act mad weird whether it's a holiday or a regular ass day bc why wouldn't they

anyways this writer @hvnlydemon decided to copy word for word a leviathan fic I posted from last year.

you can see by the dates this is blatantly stolen, she just changed the name to make it fit a character in the aot fandom.

after getting this anon I decided to msg her privately, just to see if we could have a grown up civil convo about it without all this. but turns out we can't

she had the balls to lie to my face & call her post "similar". similar is something like using the same premise as someone else, or maybe the same title but nothing else is the same. it doesn't mean "I just steal a fic word for word, change the name, and lie when I get caught". I wanted to scream when she blocked me because I HATE doing things like this I don't like it but atp she forced my hand so I really don't have a choice (she also blocked a moot who rb'd the stolen fic calling her out on it).

before being blocked I saw other pieces of writing on her blog & to my fellow writers that follow me you should 100% check to make sure she hasn't stolen from you bc I would bet money every single fic is stolen. also please please please report this fic because I doubt she'll take it down on her own

[showmey0urfangs]

Mini Claudia Rant

TLDR: Who are you and what have you done with my Claudia?

I've been avoiding writing meta until the season is complete and we have a clearer picture of WTF is going on, but this felt like a crucial point that needs to be addressed. I've already discussed this with several moots in spaces and it seems I'm not the only one who feels this way. So here it goes:

Let me preface this by saying that I absolutely love Delainey's acting. She does an excellent job at seamlessly transitioning between the all the emotions that Claudia feels. She imbues the character with a sweet vulnerability that humanizes her completely, even in her worst moments. But she can only do so much when the script gives her so little to work with.

One important rule in storytelling is that if a plot point you need to happen requires for your characters to act contrary to their previously established traits, then you need to get rid of it, go back to the drawing board and think of something better to move your story forward. The reason I bring this up is because the way Claudia has been acting in this season, especially in past two episodes, is the complete opposite of how she was previously established, both in the book and in the first season.

In episode 6 and 7 of season 1, the writers go out of the way to show the audience that Claudia is cunning, shrewd, calculated, and most importantly, that she is ruthless and will not hesitate to do what needs to be done. Claudia manages to single handedly orchestrate Lestat's murder, outsmarting both him and Antoinette in the process. We find out that she was well aware that Antoinette was listening in and that she used it to her advantage. She plays on Lestat's arrogance and the fact that he underestimates her to gain advantage over him. Overall, Claudia is shown as a hypercompetent character, capable to overcome her limiting circumstances to free both herself and Louis from what she viewed as a toxic situation.

Hell, that was the entire point of the SA storyline in episode 5 wasn't it, to sell us on the gross and tired trope that somehow being raped turns women into the ultimate badass girlbosses. So WTF happened?

I find it very hard to believe that same Claudia is now completely oblivious to the fact that the theatre coven had been trailing them for months. I find it even harder to believe that she would not realize the danger she's in the minute she sees Lestat's portrait in their lair. That she would go as far as to scoff at Louis when he mentions the risk they are running by staying in Paris. I would expect that level of naivety and stupidity from Louis, but not from Claudia! Claudia takes after Lestat in that she's arrogant and often overestimated her own strength, but she is not foolish. As Louis says in episode 6, she can sense the danger coming from a mile away. So her reaction in episode 2 literally contradicts everything we've been told about her character so far.

The other thing I have a hard time buying is that Claudia would have any interest in these theatre freaks in the first place. Lestat de Lioncourt's daughter would have laughed at their cheap theatrics and turned her pretty nose at the poverty chic squalor they live in, so far removed from the pretty shiny human world that she loves so much. Just like her daddy, Claudia has very expensive taste, something Louis often deplored because of the gigantic hole it dug in his checkbook. 😂

In episode 1 she tells Louis she wants diamond rings and mink stoles to rain from the sky. We see her longingly eyeing a pretty lavender silk dress and then using her meager funds to buy it and get to tailored to her body. But you want me to believe that same Claudia would happily settle for a dusty coffin and blood-stained hand me down robes for the rest of eternity?

Another important point is, do we even remember why Claudia decides to kill Lestat in season 1? She found Lestat's control stifling. She refused to live under his authority and hated being treated as his subordinate—a state that she often compared to slavery. Claudia valued her freedom so much that she was willing to kill for it. And yet you want me to believe that she would willingly sign up to a club that imposes a curfew on its members? That dictates how and when they're allowed to feed, sleep, speak etc. The Claudia we see in season 1 does not like conforming to rules and she does not tolerate being told what to do or how to behave. She would have also scoffed at the idea of having to be deferential to the likes of Armand and the rest of the theatre coven in the same way her father does in episode 3. Lestat de Lioncourt's daughter would have rather gouge her own eyes out than lower them in front of any fucking body!

So again I have to ask, what happened to that Claudia? Why is she suddenly so eager to play resident stooge for a bunch of vampires that she would no doubt view as beneath her, in the same way her father did?

Claudia is fiercely independent and desperate for autonomy. It's literally the crux of her entire struggle; she resents the fact that in the body she's in, she will never truly be able to exist on her own.

We were told repeatedly in the promos and interviews that season 2 would be ✨Claudia's season✨. But I find that once again, she is used as a mere plot device and relegated to the background, as the main conflict in Louis' life seems to have shifted from profound existential questions of good vs evil, and grappling with the loss of his humanity to now being entirely about his relationship with his not-so-dead ex-husband and how much Louis misses him and can't stop thinking about him all the time. 🥴

I mean, how else are we supposed to interpret the fact that Louis no longer seems preoccupied with killing humans, or that he rolls his eyes at the profound philosophical discussions Armand tries to have with him, just before they're rudely interrupted by comedic gags of Lestat serenading him with an approximated karaoke rendition and Molloy struggling with his laptop in the worst stereotype of a clueless boomer.

Molloy is right that this is now a telenovela (and no, a character on screen pointing out a flaw in your narrative in a bout of meta self-critique does not magically stop it from being a flaw). It's The Young and The Restless, but with bit of blood and gore added—and no gay sex either because you can't have too much of that or the advertisers will clutch their pearls. You can show plenty of tities though, that is American A-okay, and it helps us sell more Carl's junior burgers and mercedes Benz SUVs. Good job AMC! ��

At this point the only thing that would rescue Claudia's storyline for me would be a reveal that Louis has mischaracterized the entire thing. That he is painting Claudia's time in Paris under the completely opposite light than what it was in reality. That Claudia was the one who sensed the danger and wanted to leave while Louis dismissed it because he was too dickmatized hypnotized by Armand's sexy hot cheeto eyes. It would certainly be more in line with what was established of their characters in season 1—and also with their book book characterizations, even though that matters a lot less since this is an adaptation and should be viewed as its own separate thing.

I know the strikes affected production a lot of ways, and part of that is felt in the inconsistent writing of the episodes we've gotten so far which imo hampers the show significantly. It doesn't matter how high your budget is, how pretty your sets and costumes are, how talented your actors are, how expense and lifelike you vfx is. It all comes down to the writing. If your script is shitty, you will invariably get a shitty final product.

That said, I'm still holding out hope that these are just growing pains and in the upcoming episodes, all the kinks will be ironed out to give us an overall brilliant second season. Fingers crossed!

[orangeslikesbread]

stole this idea from my moots but

[en-geneisaxx]

'Please don't say that this is the end of us...'

Pairings: Husband!Hoon x fem!reader

Warnings: Swearing (you're gonna be on a rollercoaster of emotions)

Tagging my moots who wanted to read: @pockettwinzz @diorsyun @rinbowaman @heeslomll @heeslut4life @hoonieshoneymain @sungvrhs

Not proofread!!

Part 2:

'Hoon, you really should just talk like the adults you are' advises the elder.

I wanted to, but I suddenly felt disgusted by y/n. Like I wouldn't survive one bit if I was ever exposed to her again. It's so strange... At first, she became someone that I wanted to be my forever, someone I trusted with my all. Now, she's going to be my first ex that I would want nothing of.

'hmm' I mumble. I didn't want to give in so easily, to show it really did hurt me.

'*sighs* You really are a great actor, aren't you?'

'Fuck off, Hee.'

I take my time to think of the best way approaching her. Angry? Sad? Heartless? I was so keen on breaking her that I forgot she didn't even deserve these things. I'm such a monster...

*buzz*

'Now what sick son of-' He stops at the sight of the caller id.

'who is it...'

'...Y/n.'

For some reason, I cried. I wasn't sure if it was because I loathed her for the pain she's caused, or if I missed my two special people that I would die for. Either way, we decided to act asleep (when we should've, it was 3am.)

'Hah, 𝐚 𝐜𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐟𝐫𝐨𝐦 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐯𝐢𝐥.'

He sighs, tired of teaching such a stubborn boy, 'Well, ima be dead now. Just saying.'

'Goodnight, Hee.'

I shift to my side, hugging the pillow the way I would hug her. I tried to resist, but I fell into temptation. I unlock my phone and look through the security camera app, shedding a few tears now and again when seeing y/n still awake, crying. Heeseung's phone vibrates for another 9 times throughout the last 10 minutes, all because of her.

'Y/niee,

𝐈 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞 𝐲𝐨𝐮.'

Instead of counting sheep, I just repeat those words of affection. I loved her, I didn't want her to leave me, fuck no. But if she really did cheat, then it's for the best to go and divorce her. Jin Ae deserved better.

Jin Ae.

Our sweet, precious child.

Gosh, she really is something.

It hits me like a truck when I came to my senses. Y/n did love me. 𝐃𝐢𝐝.

We made Jin Ae out of love, not sexual appetite.

She stressed on how she was so cautious with everything about love, from who she liked to who stole her first kiss, because...

Oh, shit. Why did I just have to remember now.

𝐂𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐰𝐚𝐬 𝐣𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐧𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠.

Y/n...

Am I just being too over the top?

𝐏𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐬𝐚𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐛𝐞𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐡𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐭 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐦𝐞 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐝 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐦𝐞.

A/n: RIGHT, HERE'S PART 2, BUT IMA GET GOING TO CLASS NOW, BYEE

[cuyberpunk]

𝐯𝐢𝐜𝐤'𝐬 𝟏𝟎𝟎-𝐢𝐬𝐡 𝐟𝐨𝐥𝐥𝐨𝐰𝐞𝐫 𝐜𝐞𝐥𝐞𝐛𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 ♤♡♧♢

intro post

okkk first off, i feel the need to say how grateful and happy i am now that there's abt 100-ish of you! (124 as of feb. 9 12:03) to my moots thanks for keeping up w me! and now the celebration!

🍓- ask me anything (avoid any triggering topics. we are keeping this blog a safe space!)

🪐- i'll make you a moodboard of any song / album / lyric / character / anything really!

🧚🏼 - send me a song / album / lyric / color + any character / artist / thing from my intro post and i'll make a moodboard out of it! (basically stole this from @spiderfunkz's 700 followers celly but wtvr)

☄️ - i'll make a moodboard of your blog/personality aesthetic + a song and lyric from that song! (mutuals only)

🌙- i'll recommend you five songs from my playlist(s)! (you can ask for a specific genre or theme if you want)

🎻- i'll make you a 15 song concept playlist based on personality! (mutuals only) [i won't make it on spotify specifically cuz that'll clutter up my account but i'll list it out]

🍄- give me a song to listen to and i'll give my uncertified opinion on it!

💫- i'll recommend a book i've read! (you can ask for a specific genre or theme if you want)

🧸- i'll give you a list of things + a special song that remind me of you! + a quote! (mutuals only)

💕- i'll send you a valentine in your ask box! (mutuals only)

- includes a note from me and a moodboard!

𝐫𝐮𝐥𝐞𝐬:

followers/mutuals only

request these in my ask box to keep everything in one place :3

don't ask for any triggering topics (not sure how you can with these options, but still DON'T)

try to keep the requests to one per ask it can get really cluttered if not

other than the the above go crazy in the asks, you can request as many as you want!

this event closes 15th of march (i will have to take a short break between march 2-9 due to school stuff but i'll answer all the asks when i get back)

again, thank you thank you thank youuuu <3333

luv you all 100-ish to pieces!!

-vick ☆

tagging moots under the cut (don't flop please!! i need a hobby):

@spiderfunkz @daydream-of-a-wallflower @gu1lty-as-sin @dandelions-fly-in-summer-skies @miss-star-dust @rue-the-frog @theshyqueergirl @svnflowermoon @theautistmwitch @pazoo-underscore @daydream-of-a-wallflower @yuriiofthevalley @half-cold-coffee @dorothheaa @iambecomeabook @imperpetuallylost @swiftieannah @lost-in-reveriie @bearrbug @bookish-phile @alltoowelltaylor @a-beautiful-fool @slutvault @qwerty-keysmash @5ducksinatrenchcoat @octoberconstellation @trying-to-be-cool-abt-it @mqstermindswift @s0lit4ir3 @theworstcreature @skeelly @beeisnothere @idontwanttobeabuzzkill @stop-ur-losing-me @grimfox @tiredflowercrown @jewelledmoths @wispy-wallfish @letmeseeallthefrogsinthecity @sleepinginmygrave @sparksssflytv @brenninthetaylorverse

😘

[eoieopda]

aphelion (knj)

aphelion (n): the point in the orbit of a comet at which it is furthest from the sun.

Kim Namjoon was as perfect when you lost him as he was when you found him.

Pairing: Kim Namjoon x AFAB!Reader Type: Flashback Prequel | Genre: Fluff & Angst, Smut | Rating: M (18+) AU: Strangers ⇢ Lovers ⇢ Exes, Lacunaverse (aka Lacuna!AU) Word Count: 19K Content Warnings: ANGST ANGST ANGST; gratuitously autobiographical; POV switches; Namjoon and MC are both musicians but not envisioned as "idols"; emotional support producer!Yoongi; self-insert!OC, jinseo; panic attack implied (crying, rapid breathing, chest tightness); depressive episode implied (lack of self-care, lack of appetite); a relationship dying in slow motion (ouch.) Smut Warnings: Vaginal fingering, lil bit of biting, implied unprotected sex, reader rides it like she stole it. A/N 1: This is the prequel to Lacuna and its sequel, Redamancy. It takes place over the course of two years (2020 to 2022 — we’re pretending COVID never happened, btw) and will have month/date info. at the top of each vignette. You can read the series chronologically (starting here) but I definitely recommend reading in the order it was written (Lacuna ⇢ Redamancy ⇢ Aphelion) because I think dramatic irony is fun and sexy. A/N 2: Endless thank you's to my emotional support moots, @jihopesjoint and @here2bbtstrash for beta-reading this unabashed entry from my diary. A/N 3: To my "Namjoon" — You were the best thing I didn't get to keep. I hope you found the sun. Suggested Listening: Spotify Playlist. ⚠️ 18+ only ⚠️ minors and ageless blogs will be blocked, on sight. my content is not for you. i do not want to interact with you. please respect my boundaries.

2020/7/18; 18:23

As awful as he knew it sounded, Yoongi was grateful to have someone in his life who was equally riddled with social anxiety. That flicker of dread he felt in the pit of his stomach was easier to digest when there was a hand — metaphorical, mainly, because the real thing was the tiniest bit sweaty — to cling to whenever he had to feign extroversion. Before you popped up into his life, perpetually on vibrate mode in the way that he was, he’d ventured out of his studio even less than he did now.

With you, there had always been a silent understanding: neither of you ever wanted to attend the company events that appeared simultaneously on your calendars; neither of you ever successfully shook off the feelings of guilt and obligation that prevented you from bailing altogether; and neither had ever — would ever — consider attending without the other. Co-dependence at its finest, you wore each other like a backpack and held on tight.

One of the terms of this unspoken social contract was that, when it came time to rally for one of the aforementioned, godforsaken label parties, Yoongi rushed over whenever you put up the Bat Signal. Instead of a cartoonish symbol in the sky, it always came in the form of a text — usually with a minimum of six (6) very urgent emojis — declaring a fashion emergency. No questions asked, he showed up on your doorstep every time. Yoongi never had any valuable input to offer, but he could tell you when you looked nice.

You always did, but he tended to keep that part to himself.

When Yoongi finally arrived at your apartment this time, he didn’t bother knocking the way he used to. By now, he knew that part of your pre-party panic included unlocking your door for him whenever you sent out your SOS. So, he let himself in and left his shoes at the door. Immediately, he heard a relieved sigh waft out from your bedroom down the hall.

“Oh, thank god!”

He waited for the blush in his cheeks to fade before he continued his journey to you, willing his standard poker face back into existence before it ratted him out. 

“Do I need to call in a helicopter evacuation?” Yoongi called out to you as he padded off in your direction. “How bad is the avalanche?”

Before he could get halfway to your bedroom door, you poked your head out through the doorway. You had those pink, plastic cylinders in your hair — the ones that looked spiky and uncomfortable, but that you somehow never complained about — and half your makeup done. Even in that cactus-printed bathrobe, Yoongi wouldn’t have been surprised if you wound up with a spread in the next issue of Nylon.

You grimaced. “Admittedly worse than the holiday party, but nowhere near as bad as the Great MAMA Catastrophe of 2017.”

“So…” Yoongi teased with a tilt of his head, “Yes to the helicopter evacuation, then?”

He didn’t have time to emotionally or physically prepare for whatever awaited him on the other side of your bedroom door because you grabbed him by the lapels of his jacket and pulled him inside as soon as he was within your reach.

Oh, good god, kid.

Yoongi opened his mouth to express how impressed — terrified? — he was by the explosion of outfits littering every surface of your room, but he quickly realized that no words would do it justice. He opted for a trademark, flat-line smile and a quiet grunt. You grimaced a second time, knowing full well what he hadn’t said out loud

Scurrying around him, you tore like a tornado through the immediate area to clear a path for him. You were clumsy enough to trip over every stray shoe but had reflexes — shockingly — quick enough to right yourself before your stumbling could send you to the ground. Once the carpet was sufficiently visible, you gestured to the small opening on your bed with a platform boot you’d unearthed somewhere along the way.

“You can, uh —” You continued waving the shoe in the direction of your bed, searching for the rest of your sentence. Yoongi watched in real time as your train of thought left the station.

More than a little endeared by your scattered brain, he offered, “Sit?” 

“Yes!” You snapped your fingers and pointed a finger-gun at him with a sheepish smile, “That. Do that while I try to find my vocabulary. It’s gotta be somewhere in this blast zone…” 

Voice already petering off, you wheeled back around to your regurgitated wardrobe.

Yoongi dropped into the only open spot on your mattress and leaned back to rest his weight on the palm of his hand. Settled into his usual space and routine, he fished his phone out of his pocket to check the time, as if the answer to that question would make a difference. 

It was half-six.

Ugh.

As always, the pair of you would wind up late; and, as always, that would still somehow mean that you’d be the first to show up. No matter how hard you tried to avoid it — leaving later and later for every party — you were perpetually, dreadfully guests numbered one and two.

“I never know what to wear for these things,” you whined, once again a disembodied head appearing in a doorway. 

When did you even sneak off into your closet? How were you physically able to reach it?

The rest of you reappeared underneath your head. You were clutching a dress in one hand and a skirt in the other, looking like your will to live had been hung up in their place. Worse, you had that little anime pout on, which didn’t bode well for the schoolboy crush Yoongi was secretly harboring, but you didn’t say anything. You just kept looking at him, eyes all pitiful and sparkly.

“Do you want me to ask him about the dress code?” he offered, unsure if that was what you were after but otherwise at a loss for solutions.

The look of mild-to-moderate panic washing over your face caused Yoongi to sigh. He knew you were thoroughly starstruck — he’d heard you gush over Namjoon and his new release for hours by now — but maybe he’d underestimated the extent. Your relief was immediate when he waved you off and said, “I’m not going to tell him that you’re the one asking.”

Yoongi [18:30]: on a scale of sweatpants to tuxedo, how hard do i have to try?

While he waited for an answer, Yoongi glanced back up to check your status. You’d once again disappeared in the few moments he’d glanced down at his phone screen. So damn sneaky. There was a significant amount of shuffling coming from the depths of your closet. Something shifted, then you yelped.

“You okay?” Yoongi called out, primed to get up and dig through the presumed rockslide for you.

Meekly, you popped back into view with one hand rubbing gingerly at the top of your head. You frowned. “I found my snow boots.”

“Sounded like your snow boots found you, kid.”

Yoongi’s phone buzzed in his hand. He ripped off the velcro-grip gaze he held on you and blinked down at the screen.

Namjoon [18:34]: Hyung, since when do you give a fuck about trying? lol

Yoongi chewed the inside of his cheek. He wasn’t sure what information to divulge: that he wasn’t asking because he gave a fuck; that you were the one who did; or that the only reason Yoongi was having this conversation at all was because you were the one that asked him to. He settled on something vaguely truthful.

Yoongi [18:37]: fuck off, joonie. since i’m bringing someone special and i want you to meet her.

The reply was immediate and three-fold:

Namjoon [18:37]: Call me Joonie again and see what happens 🤔 Namjoon [18:37]: Wear jeans in case I gotta chase you down for that. For real, though, it’s casual. Namjoon [18:37]: Also 👀

Yoongi shoved his phone back in his pocket without bothering to reply. He wouldn’t know what to say if he did, anyway. You weren’t the kind of person he knew how to summarize in a quick text; so he’d have to let your presence speak for itself. It always did.

When he looked back up from his hands, you reappeared in the closet doorway in a flouncy little dress. He had to stop himself from asking if you’d wear it to his funeral when he inevitably dropped dead. Once he succeeded at that, he swallowed thickly and focused on the two pairs of shoes you were holding, one in each hand.

Your face scrunched up while you mulled over your options. Without looking up, you asked absently and borderline shyly, “Did he respond?”

It took a beat for Yoongi’s brain to catch up; sundress season truly was the silent killer. In the pause, your inquisitive eyes flicked up to see if he’d simply ignored your question. He fumbled, pointed to the chunky, heeled sandals in your left hand, and then shot you a thumbs-up.

You rolled your eyes with a snort and knelt down to slip into his choice without further comment. As you did, you triple-checked that the ankle strap was secured and Yoongi didn’t have to guess why: the last time you wore them out, you hadn’t buckled yourself in properly. The thick tread had snagged on a curb; and your shoe didn’t come with you when you stepped up onto the sidewalk. You waited on one leg, the other foot bare in the wind, while Yoongi returned to the street to grab what you’d lost.

When you finished your ministrations, you stood back up to your full height — now with fifteen added centimeters — and brushed your hands against the back of your dress’ skirt. The expression on your face was somewhere between exhilarated and vaguely nauseous.

You clapped your hands together suddenly and sighed, “We doing this, Yoongs?”

He rolled his eyes so you wouldn’t get the wrong idea. He was endeared by that stupid nickname but unwilling to let you know as much. Still, he followed when you led him out of your bedroom; when you grabbed a laughably tiny and arguably useless purse off your hallway console table; and when you skipped out of your front door.

“Who’s driving?” Yoongi glanced over his shoulder at you as he hit the lock button on your door’s keypad. He didn’t need to ask — you had the alcohol tolerance of a newborn baby and couldn’t assume the wheel after more than two drinks — but he knew it made you feel better when he did.

Sheepishly, you pursed your lips.

He sighed with a microscopic grin, “Garage gate wouldn’t open, so I’m on the side of the building.” Then, he shuffled towards the elevator with you in tow. Even with the added height of your shoes, your short legs still struggled to keep up with his pace. 

As soon as the elevator doors re-opened on the ground floor, you threaded your arm around his and handcuffed him to you with your elbow bent. Before he could make a joke at your expense, you raised a manicured finger and said, “Do not start with me, Min Yoongi.”

So, he didn’t. He simply opened his passenger door for you and closed it once you’d slid into your usual place. As soon as he slid into his and pressed the start button, your phone automatically hooked to his Bluetooth stereo; and he couldn’t even whine about that fact because you’d already queued up some song he’d never heard in a language neither of you knew well. True to form, you didn’t let that stop you from singing along as loudly as you could — all the way to the venue.

It didn’t take long for Yoongi to find a spot or to parallel park in it, much to your amazement. It did, however, take ten minutes of silent sitting for either of you to say a word.

“Do we have to go in there?” you asked, damn near inaudibly. 

Where you sat, your left knee bounced at a speed almost imperceptible to the human eye. Yoongi only noticed because his knee was doing the same. He exhaled the breath he’d unknowingly held hostage and glanced at the time displayed on his car’s touch screen. He grimaced. “Shit started an hour ago. How much do you wanna bet that we’re still the first people here?”

You unbuckled your seatbelt. “Even if we are,” you started as you pushed open the passenger side door, “I’m not waiting to start the clock until guest number three arrives.” You shot him a pointed look as you slid out of the car. Adjusting your dress once you’d made it to your feet, you added, “One hour of kissing hands and shaking babies, then we’re out of here, right?”

Yoongi clamped his mouth shut, but it did nothing to ward off the laughter that made his shoulders shake. He nodded firmly, let his feet hit the pavement, then let his car door shut behind him.

“Compensatory lamb skewers, as usual?” He asked once he rounded the back of the car to join you on the sidewalk. On instinct, you threaded your arm through his to keep yourself on your feet, and your feet in your shoes. “But not from that place you picked last time. I’m ninety-nine-percent sure they clean it with a garden hose at night.”

You grumbled something about never being allowed to pick the restaurant before reaching for the door handle and petulantly jerking it open.

The second your respective feet stepped over the threshold, you both froze. It was the social equivalent of rigor mortis, the pair of you standing with locked limbs and gawking at the sheer number of people inside the hole-in-the-wall venue Namjoon had chosen. Clearly, he’d intended this to be as quaint as possible. Even more obviously, management hadn’t given a shit or fuck about that goal.

“This is,” you inhaled deeply as if you’d never get the chance again, and on the exhale, you wheezed, “So much. Oh my god.”

No matter how many times his shaking eyes scanned over the crowd ahead, Yoongi couldn’t find a single person he recognized, let alone wanted to spend an hour talking to. He snapped to look at you in the same moment you turned to him.

“What an hour this minute has been.”

“Lamb skewers?”

“Yes, please.”

Just as quickly as you’d entered, the pair of you turned to head out the door. Yoongi couldn’t grab the handle before a loud voice rang out from behind, “Hyung!”

A hand clapped Yoongi on the shoulder, spinning him around and leaving his emergency exit out of reach.

“So glad to see a familiar face,” Namjoon’s grin took up his whole face, but his mouth didn’t move with his words. They were forced out through gritted teeth, pleading the way his eyes were: If you leave me here, I’ll kill you.

Yoongi glanced at you out of the corner of his eye. He would’ve asked you — not with words, anyway — to make up some excuse to get you both out of there, to grab take-out and watch Naruto on his couch, but you couldn’t answer. Your starry-eyed gaze was aimed above you, and he’d venture a guess that everyone in the room had disappeared.

Everyone but Namjoon.

Damn it.

Somewhere, somehow, Yoongi heard a record scratch.

“Oh, shit,” Yoongi coughed, suddenly aware of his obligation as a mutual friend. Gesturing languidly between you and Namjoon, Yoongi reported for duty. “Joon, this is —”

Namjoon finally seemed to realize that you were standing there with Yoongi. He tilted his head to look down at you, and as soon as he did, Yoongi watched in slow motion as Namjoon’s eyes grew three times their usual size. Your name barely cleared Yoongi’s lips before Namjoon was extending a hand for you to shake.

Somewhere, somehow, the music seemed to swell.

Am I having a stroke?

The next minute that passed felt like an hour, too, and nobody said a word. It was you looking at Namjoon; Namjoon looking at you; and Yoongi’s eyes flitting back and forth between his friends with a kind of bemusement he couldn’t fake if his life depended on it. He’d crashed-landed in the middle of a drama, and he didn’t know what else to do, so he cleared his throat and said, “Uhh — shots, anyone?”

The next hour flew by in sixty seconds, and Yoongi couldn’t wrap his brain around how that could be. He’d lost faith in the concept of linear time, he knew that much. The two people he sat next to were meeting for the first time, but there was a familiarity present that he couldn’t put a finger on. Like you were both saying hello in this life after saying goodbye in a previous one.

Throughout the conversation, Yoongi couldn’t keep his attention on the words being tossed back and forth; not even the ones he was offering up. Huh, he thought, so, this is what it looks like when people meet who they’re meant to.

“Listen —” You smacked your hand down on the tabletop, swallowing down a laugh as you faked incredulousness. You pointed directly at Yoongi, causing him to choke on his whiskey. “I don’t care if I have to read translations on an app, Nas’ lyricism is unparalleled —”

“Facts,” Namjoon chimed in with a tip of his glass. 

The way your eyes sparkled in response wasn’t lost on anyone.

Yoongi rolled his. “Okay, but from a production standpoint, we all know that —”

Simultaneously, you and Namjoon sucked in breaths. The arguments you let loose didn’t match in words, but the sentiment was the same, downright seismic in its intensity.

“Don’t you dare bring Kanye West into this!”

“Hyung, I swear to God, if the next name out of your mouth is Kanye West, I’m leaving my own fucking party.”

The eldest raised his hands defensively. “Fine, fine, fine,” he conceded. Yoongi slumped a little lower in his chair, accepting defeat. He glanced down at his phone to check the time — as if that wasn’t a lost cause — and when he looked up again, you and Namjoon had deviated down some winding tangent about the core of hip-hop being poetry.

It was odd, the way Yoongi’s stomach flipped then. Not jealousy, but fondness. Hunger, too, though that was secondary to the weird glimmer of pride he felt watching a bridge he’d unknowingly built link two spheres of his life together. There was a strange sense of clarity, to top it all off; one that changed all the question marks in his head to periods.

You and Yoongi would be friends. 

Yoongi would be at peace with that fact. 

The slightly sweaty hand that pulled you through that event wouldn’t be his; and he would be at peace with that, too.

Yoongi would grab lamb skewers on his way home and wait for your call tomorrow to hear how the rest of your night had gone without him.

With a signature, flat-line smile, Yoongi slid off his stool and slid his empty glass towards the bartender. Then, he clapped a hand on Namjoon’s shoulder. The younger stopped mid-sentence with a start and blinked up at Yoongi, whose smirk immediately dropped, deadpan.

He glanced at you and confirmed that you were too busy ordering another drink to overhear. Then, he leaned down towards Namjoon and whispered, “Don’t fuck this up, Joonie.”

Namjoon gulped. Yoongi could hear it as he turned away, letting that smirk reappear once his back was to Namjoon.

He won’t.

2020/7/18; 21:06

Namjoon’s face hurt.

There was a telltale ache in his cheeks that confirmed it: he hadn’t smiled that much, that completely, in a long damn time. At the rate things had gone over the last two hours, he wouldn’t be surprised to catch his reflection in the bathroom mirror and find wrinkles demarcating just how crinkled his eyes had been. It was a wonder he’d been able to see you at all with the way his laughter leaked over his lash lines. Then again, your grin was burned into his brain already. Given the way you lit up, he was convinced that he’d see you — just you — even in the dark.

“Stop laughing at me!” you whined with your hand covering your mouth. Though you tried to hide it, Namjoon could still see you grinning, even with your mouth full. “I feel very attacked.”

He snorted. “Not an attack, just an observation. Can’t say I’ve ever witnessed someone order a beverage they don’t like just to eat the garnish.”

Quickly, you skewered another blackberry with the end of your straw and guided it under the hand covering your mouth. When you placed the straw back in your drink, the fruit was gone; your eyes were sparkling.

“Are you just jealous that you’ve never thought to do it?” You tilted your head to the side as you chewed. The little flex of your eyebrows made his stomach flip, so he swallowed hard and wondered if you noticed.

“Honestly,” he started with a sigh. He slumped down in his seat, looking as pathetic as possible while he eyed the remaining fruit in your glass. “Yeah. Little heartbroken, too.”

“Oh?” You pouted and Namjoon was on the brink of passing the fuck out.

The hand over your mouth dropped. You shifted on top of your stool, grabbed hold of your blackberry malt, and leaned in as you scooted it across the bar to Namjoon. The smile tugging at your lips was petal soft, though the flash of bright white teeth hit him like high-beams. He was a deer; he was frozen; and he didn’t give a shit if you ran right over him.

Elbows against the bar, you leaned even further. This time, when you tilted your head to the side, your hair gave way and left your bare shoulder in his line of sight. For the first time in his life, Namjoon finally understood why something as innocuous as a short-sleeve or exposed ankle was deemed pornographic a century prior. In the year 2020, he was losing his mind over an acromioclavicular joint and some — smooth, touchably soft — flesh.

“Because I haven’t offered to share?”

Jesus Christ.

He was seconds away from biting down on his fist to keep from groaning. That coquettish, candy-coated voice of yours was a problem in and of itself, but when you looked at him from under your lashes like that, Namjoon was ready to call in a bomb threat to his own party. He couldn’t simply fuck off with you, though — not without an excuse he could sell to Bang Si-Hyuk later.

Namjoon needed an out, now. Unfortunately for him, all he could think about was biting down on that shoulder, following the curve of it with his —

He needed to get a grip. Fast.

Swallowing hard, he cleared his throat. “Exactly. Rude.”

You smirked; he winked. To keep his mouth occupied, Namjoon grabbed the spare straw from your drink and speared a blackberry for himself. Holding his prize out in salute, he nodded his head with a smirk of his own. “Geonbae!”

You smiled sweetly again as you watched him pluck the fruit off the end of the straw with his teeth; but you grinned with all you had when the whiskey-drenched berry hit his taste buds like a punch. Sour, unbelievably potent after steeping so long high-proof liquor. Every part of him clenched at once, prompting you to laugh with your whole chest.

What a perfect fucking sound.

“Shit,” Namjoon sputtered. His face unpuckered and gave way to a grin that likely rivaled yours.

“How are you not tanked right now? Seriously, I’m twice your size and can handle my liquor. That —” He waved his hand towards your glass, “— nearly knocked me on my ass.”

You opened your mouth to respond — to tease him mercilessly, he hoped — but you were cut off by the horrendous sound of Namjoon’s phone vibrating against the bar and his own empty glass. The cacophony rattled in his rib cage. Both of you flinched at the sudden interruption, leaving him to wonder if you also forgot that anyone else existed.

Namjoon glanced quickly at the illuminated screen, then back up to you. He would’ve ignored his texts in a heartbeat — indefinitely, without hesitation — but you squeezed his hand as you slipped off your stool to your feet. With your promise that you were headed to the restroom and would be right back, he gave himself permission to look back down at his phone.

Yoongi [21:43]: you tell her about that comet thing? she’s an unrelenting nerd like you. she’ll be into it.

If he could have, he would’ve kissed Yoongi through the phone for two reasons. The first of which was that, in the time he’d spent talking to you, Namjoon had completely forgotten about the one thing he’d talked about incessantly for the past month: the upcoming appearance of Neowise. The second was that, once again, Yoongi had come in clutch with a reason to bail on a social obligation.

Namjoon [21:45]: You’re a lifesaver and I love you. Yoongi [21:46]: ew

Namjoon was still chuckling when, unexpectedly, he felt playful fingertips trail across his shoulder blades. You, he quickly realized as you walked behind him and sat back down on your stool. He shivered, even after the trace of your touch was gone.

“All good?” you asked with a soft smile.

Yeah, he thought, really fucking good.

Namjoon grinned automatically. He picked up the spare straw he’d used earlier and harpooned another blackberry, not having learned his lesson last time. The whiskey hit his tongue, burned beautifully on the way down, and emboldened him.

Without hesitation, he asked, “Do you wanna get out of here? There’s something I want to show you.”

Your wide eyes blinked back at him, then they scanned the room to confirm that, yes, it was still packed with people — up to and including executives from the label. Yes, he did just offer to ditch all of them for you, consequences be damned.

“Yes,” you responded, as if that was the easiest decision you’d ever made.

Namjoon got to his feet and held out his hand to you. “Not afraid of heights, are you?” His smirk all but dissolved when your fingers interlocked with his.

“Not if the fall would be worth it.”

He didn’t know what to say in response to that statement — one so simple, made so easily as if it was a thought you repeated to yourself often. You’d stunned him, really, and Namjoon was uncharacteristically lost for words. So, you both fell into a comfortable silence as he led you out of the venue, ignoring every wayward stare on the way out. 

Even after he opened his passenger door for you and slipped himself behind the wheel, he couldn’t get over what you’d said. It took root in the back of his brain. In all the years he’d been in this industry, he’d determined that there were only two types of people: the ones who jumped without thinking and the ones who only ever did the latter. You, it seemed, were neither.

Not if the fall would be worth it.

As he drove, you hummed along to whatever played on the radio, gaze taking in the city lights. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the neon from roadside signs wash over your face as they passed. Pretty in all colors, he thought, in every light.

Five minutes passed before he realized that you hadn’t even asked where he was taking you. Maybe you’d made an assumption that you were headed back to his place, which, while true, still wasn’t entirely accurate. Or maybe you simply trusted him. Determined that he was one of those calculated risks worth taking.

Namjoon was warm all-over when he finally reached his parking garage and turned into his assigned space. By the time he rounded the back of his car to open your door for you, you were already standing and smoothing down the skirt of your dress.

God bless sundress season.

“Didn’t realize you were a fan of his work.”

He froze. Oh, fuck. 

Swallowing down the embarrassment of broadcasting his thoughts out loud, Namjoon shrugged. The corner of his mouth twitched, threatening to ruin his nonchalance. “Credit where it’s due, you know?” 

He then glanced down at his watch and confirmed that he was running out of time. When he looked back up at you, you were visibly puzzled but you didn’t question him. So, he questioned you:

“You didn’t develop a fear of heights on the drive over, right? Fall still worth it?”

Your response didn’t come in words. To his surprise, you held out your hand and stared expectantly — sweetly — at him until he took it. 

You didn’t have the key code to operate the elevator or any idea where you were headed, but you tugged Namjoon along after you as you crossed the parking garage. It was then that he noticed the sheer height of the shoes you were wearing and how carefully you moved in them. Not like heels were foreign to you, but with deliberate steps as if you expected one or both of them to make a break for it. He made a mental note of it.

After typing in his access code to summon the elevator, Namjoon gazed down at you. Trying to hide his smile again would’ve been an exercise in futility, so he didn’t bother. Without thinking first, he mused, “You know, you still haven’t asked where I’m taking you. That’s a lot of trust.”

“I mean, if my untimely end comes at the hands of Kim Namjoon of all people, my ghost will have a really interesting story to tell.” 

Your snicker made his knees wobble. You stepped into the elevator as it opened, leaving him to stand starstruck outside the doors. 

“Coming?”

When Namjoon finally regained use of his limbs and joined you in the elevator, he pressed the button for the top floor, overshooting his own by three. With every second that passed as the two of you ascended, the centimeters slipped away — overcome by what Namjoon could only assume was a gravitational pull. 

He’d orbit you if he could.

“This way,” Namjoon instructed. He gestured to the door at the end of the hall with a sign that promised roof access.

You stayed close, your hand so near to his that he could’ve grabbed it and held it a thousand times before you reached your objective. He held the door for you and watched you duck under his arm as you stepped through, damn near salivating at the way your perfume lingered in your wake.

The door in question opened to something halfway between an exposed patio and a fire escape. If Namjoon had to venture a guess, none of the other residents knew this place existed; it was exclusively for maintenance staff who needed to access the electrical meters contained in the locked room in front of you. Your eyebrows furrowed as you stared at it, understandably struggling to figure out why Namjoon had brought you to a place like this.

Sensing your confusion, he nodded his head towards a steep metal staircase which led up to the building’s roof. Staircase was a generous description, really. The only difference between those steps and a ladder was the presence of handrails and a slightly more forgiving angle.

When you caught sight of them, your confusion dissolved into surprise. You paused. Anxious eyes darted down to your heels as you shifted your weight from one to the other.

Weighing your options, Namjoon figured. Bare feet or twisted ankles. 

He offered a third and crouched down in front of you, glancing over his shoulder with a smirk. “Coming?” He quoted.

You looked at him in disbelief, like he couldn’t possibly be offering to take you up those steps on piggy-back — but he was, and he was dead serious. He said as much, and you had to bite down on your lips to keep your shy smile to yourself. As had been the case all night, your reciprocal offer was intrinsic trust.

Once you secured yourself on his back, you looped your arms gently around his neck. A quiet giggle immediately flooded his ears. Namjoon peeked at your face hovering over his shoulder and smiled when he saw that you were, too. Your laugh was music, more than anything else.

“This feels like that scene in Twilight.”

Because Namjoon has a sister, he automatically knew what you were referring to, as embarrassing as that was to admit. It was worth it, though, when he bought into your bit. You beamed like the fucking sun when he warned, “Hold on tight, spider monkey.”

He kept one hand on the railing and the other secured over your crossed forearms as he took the steps slowly. When none were left, it was just you, Namjoon, and an uninterrupted expanse of orange and pink. 

“Holy shit,” you gasped, squeezing his bicep.

He took your silent cue and ducked back down so you could return to your own two feet. 

“Beautiful, right?” Namjoon kept his voice low as if he were in a place of worship. 

In a way, he was.

You wobbled, not because of your shoes, but because you were staring straight up, spinning slowly in your spot while you drank in a fleeting, tangerine sky. As the sun continued to sink, bright white stars popped up to take its place. You seemed intent on counting them, but they couldn’t hold Namjoon’s attention — not with you fawning underneath them.

“Reminds me of home, kind of.” You matched his tone like this mattered as much to you as it did to him. “The buildings are always in the way here. After a while, I stopped bothering to look up.”

It felt natural, the way you reached out for his hand to keep you tethered. The same was true when he tugged gently and pulled you closer. You tucked yourself under his arm, nestled into his side. There was heat rising from his chest to his cheeks, but he still shivered.

Trying to keep his focus on the point of all this, Namjoon glanced down at his watch to confirm that the sun’s interference would be gone within minutes. Softly, he dropped his arm so he could place his hands on your waist. You let him turn you until you stood with your back to him; then, you followed his pointed finger with your eyes.

“Keep your eyes on the Northwest, alright?”

Playfully defiant, you turned your head to smirk up at him instead. “I’m admittedly shit at directions.”

Namjoon wouldn’t have noticed if the stars above him disappeared. For all he knew, they’d relocated to the dilated black of your pupils. There was a hint of a challenge twinkling there, too. He wasn’t known for backing down.

“This is the southeast.” Namjoon covered his fondness with a feigned frown and tapped your left hip bone with the pads of his middle and ring fingers. “The sun’s behind you.”

“I know it is,” you acknowledged. Despite that fact, you were still gazing over your shoulder at him. 

Oh. 

His eyes widened when he caught your meaning; yours crinkled at the corners. Namjoon didn’t have a single clue how you could smile that warmly without using your mouth at all.

It’s decided, he thought. Wherever this night takes us, I’m down for the ride. You lead, I’ll follow.

There was a distinct drop in his body temperature when you eventually — belatedly — followed his directions. Instinctively, Namjoon pulled you even closer so he could properly wrap his arms around your waist. Your shoulder blades pressed into his chest as he leaned down to your ear.

This time, you shivered.

“See that up ahead? Under the Big Dipper.”

You were quiet for a moment, likely searching for whatever secret he was pointing out to you. There was no room for doubt when you finally did see it because you gasped for the second time. 

Breathless, you asked, “What is that? A meteor?”

Now visible against inky black, Neowise burned on the horizon. 

“A comet,” he gently corrected you. “A new one — well, one we didn’t know about until March. It’s just now coming out of perihelion.”

At the forefront, its bright white mass led a slow charge down the sun’s gravity well. The tail was smeared behind it as if someone had dragged a paintbrush through the cosmos. Once-in-a-lifetime wasn’t scientifically accurate; and heavenly felt pretentious. Namjoon couldn’t think of a word in any language to describe the way he felt in that moment, but he prayed it would last.

You were equally awestruck. For a while, it was simple, silent wonderment as the two of you kept your eyes on the horizon. Peaceful, despite the faint blare of car horns wafting upwards from the streets below. Namjoon might venture far enough to call it perfect.

“What happens now?” You eventually asked. He glanced down at you when your voice cut through quiet, though your starry eyes didn’t register his movement. Thoroughly transfixed, you stayed still.

Namjoon felt himself frown. The answer was scientific fact, but it sounded like an unhappy ending. 

Like leaving. 

“Aphelion,” he sighed. “It’s headed for the point in its orbit that’s farthest from the sun. All that light you see right now comes from gas made by solar heat, so… it’ll grow colder the farther away it gets. Then, it’ll get so dark that it’ll be more or less invisible.”

You repeated that word quietly to yourself like you were testing the weight of it in your mouth. Aphelion. There was an undeniable heaviness to it. Namjoon wondered if you felt it, too.

He continued, “Not sure if or when it’ll ever be like this again.”

2020/7/18; 23:12

If you could have, you likely would’ve stayed on that rooftop until morning. 

The back of your dress would be even dirtier from sitting down on the concrete the way you had; and your elbows may ache a little more after additional time spent leaning back onto flattened palms, but it’d be a small price to pay. Calm like that was invaluable. Until you stared at that uninterrupted sky, talking through every thought you’d ever had with someone who understood them all, calm like that was foreign to you.

You never had the opportunity to sit still, much less settle. Never got to be quiet, never got to linger. On that rooftop, you received a necessary reminder that your universe was bigger than a schedule full of obligations. Bigger than hotel showers, each less user-friendly than the last. Bigger than drinking boba tea alone in an airport, letting life carry you like a dandelion seed all over the map. 

It was endless.

You wished that moment had been, but the news helicopter hovering nearby had said otherwise. As it turned out, television coverage of the comet was more important than your personal enjoyment of it. The loud chop of propellers against air had been bad enough; the gusts of wind those propellers kicked your way were even worse.

Even though he’d been sitting right next to you, Namjoon had to shout for you to hear him. You’d squinted as if that would make sense of the shapes his mouth had made — it didn’t. You’d heard his voice but not his words.

I need to learn to read lips, you’d thought. The problem with that realization was that the harder you’d focused on his, the more you wanted to nibble on them. And then the urgency you’d felt no longer had anything whatsoever to do with the aircraft. You hadn’t gotten the message until Namjoon stood up and offered his hands to help you stand, too.

Through the climb back down to the door, the walk up the hallway, and the elevator ride to his floor, Namjoon hadn’t dropped your hand. Now, it was taking longer than you imagined was usual for him to unlock his apartment door because the thumb of his dominant hand was still roaming over the back of yours.

“Finally!” 

His sigh was half-exasperated, half-relieved, all swoonworthy when the key — at long last — did what he’d been begging it to do. Namjoon pushed the door open. This time, neither of you had to urge the other to come along.

The second your shoes crossed the threshold into his apartment, you damn near crumpled on the ground they occupied.

Holy shit —?

Less of an apartment and more of an archive, Namjoon’s space was artfully curated. In the literal sense. Everywhere you looked, there was some painting, some exquisite sculpture. All of it was breathtaking — and shockingly breakable, which made you wonder how they’d survived ownership by someone so endearingly clumsy.

He chuckled sheepishly when he saw the way you gawked, open-mouthed, at his collection.

“You didn’t tell me you lived in a museum!” You were dizzy. “I swear, you’re going to have to get security to escort me out at closing time. I’ll stand, and ponder, and muse all day; and I’ll never leave.”

In hindsight, that sounded more like a threat than a warning.

Suddenly rushing so that you could explore more fully, you moved to bend down and undo the ankle straps of your heels. That was, coincidentally, the moment Namjoon attempted to address his own shoes. Your heads collided with a thud that made you both hiss and retract.

“You good?” Namjoon frowned apologetically. As he did, he lifted his hand to run his fingers gingerly over the bump likely forming on the crown of your head. You were too busy vibrating to do much more than nod.

Is one touch all it takes? This doesn’t bode well for you.

As if his goal was to kill you where you stood, he dropped his hand slowly, caressing the side of your jaw with his knuckle and a touch that was barely there. Deep brown eyes smoldered as they focused on you. Then, that husky voice completed the attack combination.

Knock out! Game over!

He tapped your chin with the pad of his thumb and said, “Stay here.”

As if you’d want to be anywhere else.

Before you could wrap your brain around the turn of events, Namjoon knelt in front of you. His right foot remained planted on the ground, leaving his thigh parallel overtop. Thank god for his black jeans. If you drooled at the sight of his quadricep straining against the denim, no trace would be left.

Knees wobbling, you followed his cue and shifted your weight to one foot. The other was guided up to rest against his thigh so he could address the ankle strap for you.

Is your mouth hanging open? Why is it so dry?

Your body shouldn’t have clenched the way it did at something so innocuous. Really, he was being polite. Self-preserving after your eagerness nearly left him concussed. But he must have heard your heart hammering against the wall of your chest because he looked up at you and — no, there was nothing polite about the way his eyes trailed over your body.

Nothing innocuous about his low voice wrapped in velvet saying, “You look like an angel when you look down at me like that.”

It was a miracle that you didn’t break skin with the way you pinched your bottom lip between your teeth.

You must have blacked out after the first shoe was discarded; you weren’t mentally present to notice the other one’s removal. When your soul re-entered your body, Namjoon was back to standing at full height — and he was significantly taller now that you stood barefoot on his doormat.

Incapable of eloquence, you simply peeped, “Hi.”

Either you were going insane, or there really was a faint buzz of electricity humming in the few centimeters between Namjoon’s body and yours. Something was conducting through every nerve of your body, tingling.

“Hi.”

His little half-smile made your stomach flip. You didn’t know what to say next because the only thought in your head was something between a prayer and a plea.

kiss me kiss me kiss me kiss me

When the tip of his tongue broke through the seam of his lips to wet them, the only conclusion you could draw was that he’d read your mind. He didn’t listen, but the glint in his darkening eyes confirmed it: Namjoon knew exactly what you wanted and he was holding back. Instead of his mouth, he gave you his hand. 

Not bad for a consolation prize. 

His fingers slotted between yours like they were the reason those spaces existed in the first place. 

That’s the thing about magnets — they attract what they’re meant to. You didn’t need to look for him to find him. Unpaired electron that you were, you knew it intrinsically when someone was spinning in the same direction you were. Even though it’d been the furthest thing from your mind in every moment leading to the present, you couldn’t deny it now: 

You found someone that clicked.

There was static sparking in the air when Namjoon led you from the foyer into the living room. Every breath was charged, even the one that caught in your chest when you saw the full extent of his collection.

“I feel like I’m walking barefoot through the Met,” You hummed, eyes flitting from portrait to portrait. Traditional, contemporary, modern — all of it chosen thoughtfully and displayed the same way. “What’s it like to live in it?”

He paused and you paused with him. He looked shy for the first time all night. “Like I’m not alone with my thoughts, if that makes sense?”

Perfect sense.

“You’re not coming home to an empty apartment if you’ve got a piece of Yoo Youngkuk’s mind on the walls.” You gestured with your free hand  to a painting hanging to your right. It filled the otherwise neutral space with bright blues, greens, and yellows. “Gotta have some enrichment in the enclosure, or the fishbowl we live and work in will drive us crazy.”

When you glanced back at Namjoon — who was silent and completely still — he looked as if your words had punched him in the chest. Not like he was in pain, but as if the wind had been knocked right out of him. He was silent, though his mouth was slightly parted, and he blinked slowly back at you. You didn’t know what that look in his eyes meant, but it was a far cry from the lust in them before you started rambling.

Now, you had to worry about whether you’d offended him somehow. Fuck. You’d done it again, piggy-backed off someone’s statement to add the two cents no one asked for. Have you ever kept a single thought to yourself? 

You quickly pointed to a different painting.

This one, unlike the abstract pieces you’d examined so far, was earth tones in oil paints. Sitting in the center was a young woman in white, staring down at her bare feet as if one of them had stepped on something sharp.

“What’s her story?” You asked.

Namjoon cleared his throat to reactivate the vocal cords you’d seemingly paralyzed earlier. “That’s Eurydice on her wedding day. She married Orpheus, if his name rings any bells.”

It doesn’t.

“She got bit by a snake on her wedding night, which is — uhh, admittedly not ideal.” Namjoon visibly struggled to hide his smirk when you snorted in response. He continued, “She died, which is even worse, but Orpheus went to the underworld to save her.”

“Did he?”

Namjoon grimaced. “Orpheus was not great with rules.”

“Did Orpheus leave his own reception to chase a woman?” You teased with a raise of your eyebrow.

You watched his eyes darken in real time. Viper quick, he tugged at the hand he never let go of and led you right back to him. To keep yourself from colliding fully with his chest, your free palm flattened against it. His pulse raced at your touch, but you couldn’t pay attention to anything other than the searing warmth radiating off of him.

“I suppose he did.” He leaned down, nose tip nearly bumping yours. “There’s an important distinction here, though.”

Namjoon’s hand left yours, lifted up to rest with his fingers under your jaw and his thumb above it. You were sure that your shallow, useless breaths were fanning over his chin, given how close in proximity his mouth was to yours. His breath hit your lips and left them tingling.

The best you could do was whisper, “And what would that be, Namjoon?”

“Orpheus went home empty-handed.”

You didn’t mean to growl in response the way you did, but he’d awakened something feral in you, and there was no turning back. No caging it in. Just your hands gripping tight to his shirt, pulling him down to kiss you the way you wished he had hours ago. That was primal, too. All teeth and tongue with his fingers threading through your hair, and —

And he laughed. 

His shoulders shook just enough for you to notice. It was the quickened exhale of breath through his nose that gave him away, more than anything else.

“Is something funny?” You questioned him when you pulled back breathless. His eyes were crinkled, swimming with mirth. 

Tease. 

You and your now-unoccupied lips changed targets, dipping down to assault the exposed underside of his jaw. Mumbling against his skin, you urged, “Share with the class.”

He opened his mouth, and for a moment, he seemed to be on the brink of answering. Whatever words he might have found were lost again in an instant when your teeth nipped playfully where his neck met his shoulder.

“All those blackberries you ate — oh, fuck.” Namjoon groaned, even more so when your tongue flicked over the faint indents you’d left behind.

After leaving an opened-mouth kiss on his collarbone, you looked up at him from under a curtain of lashes. His head was thrown back, but he sensed your stare; half-lidded eyes fluttered down at you, transfixed. It was a look you felt everywhere, downright pulsing as it shot straight to your core.

You weren’t ready for the hands in your hair to migrate, and that fact was made abundantly clear by the tiny gasp he stole from you in the process. He reveled in it; the corner of his mouth twitched triumphantly upwards. His left hand resettled on your hip while the knuckles of his right hand brushed over the space just below your belly button.

Namjoon must’ve known he had you spellbound because his smirk was full-fledged when he pinched the fabric of your dress between his fingers. Gently, he tugged what he’d claimed, causing the hem to flutter against the tops of your thighs. You were left damn near liquified. More puddle than person, dripping dizzy under such a torturously soft touch.

He didn’t know you were kerosene until he struck the match.

“If your kiss tastes like blackberries...” He trailed off, head tilting to the side. His right hand dropped further. It hovered, red hot, just millimeters away from your core. “How sweet is the rest of you?”

You erupted in flames when his fingertips finally made contact with your clothed cunt. Clenching your desperate thighs together did nothing to extinguish the blaze, nor did the arousal that slicked the innermost parts of them. Swallowing down the whimper building in your chest, you did your best to keep cool. 

Eyebrow arched, you whispered, “Asking questions won’t get you answers, Namjoon. You’ll have to find out for yourself.”

The intention might’ve been to wind up in his bedroom at the opposite end of his apartment, but the execution was short-sighted. The farthest your lip-locked staggering got you was the adjoining, open kitchen — more specifically, the kitchen island. The chilled, marble countertop forced a hiss out through your teeth when the undersides of your legs settled on it. With Namjoon’s hands scorching the tops of your bare thighs, though, you were far from frozen.

Fingers raking through his hair, you let him kiss you stupid — until you couldn’t remember how it felt not to. Whiskey-laced and wanting, you licked into his mouth with a stifled whimper and came to two irrefutable conclusions. They spun pirouettes in your brain as his fingernails scratched up your thighs and under the hem of your dress.

Kim Namjoon was made to be kissed.

Up, up, up, his hands moved slowly until you felt his index fingers hook over the waistband of your underwear. He didn’t have to ask for your help; automatically and eagerly, you dropped your hands until your palms flattened against the countertop and lifted your hips. Down your thighs, off your ankles, tossed carelessly over his shoulder, gone — accomplished with his bottom lip kept as a souvenir between your teeth.

Kim Namjoon tastes like blackberries, too.

He was panting when he finally broke away. Large hands slid under your knees and pulled you forward. Now sitting at the very edge of the counter with Namjoon’s body between your thighs, you could feel him throbbing behind too-tight jeans. You were seconds away from reaching out to touch him, but he was the quicker draw.

The tip of his middle finger slid through your folds, wading through the slick that had pooled there. He moved slowly from the button of your clit to your entrance. That teasing filled your head with static and the silence with obscenity: you cursing under your breath as your forehead dropped to rest against his shoulder; you gushing, though he’d barely begun to touch you.

“All for me?” He hummed. Namjoon’s eyes were locked on your face, as if he was collecting mental snapshots of the fucked-out expression he’d put there. “Sweet thing.”

His lips connected with the underside of your jaw in the exact moment his digit finally slipped inside of you. You were sure he felt the way your mouth fell open, even if neither of you heard your breath catching in your throat. It didn’t take much effort on his part to coax it out of you, though; just a few slow pumps, and then you were whimpering near his ear.

You had to rely on your arm around his neck to keep you tethered. If you let go, you weren’t sure where you’d end up — floating off to join Neowise in its orbit, or crashing down into a heap at Namjoon’s feet. But then he added his ring finger, and you clung to him so tightly that you might’ve wound up in his rib cage instead.

“Oh, s-shit,” you keened as his fingers curled upwards. He’d found his target and attacked it slowly, forcing you to walk towards your orgasm rather than sprint — the way you needed to. The way you were willing to beg for. “Namjoon, please. I n—”

You felt the curve of his smirk against your skin. Before you could finish asking, he murmured low in your ear, “Say less, beautiful.”

The kiss he placed on your temple was the last thing you remember before his increased pace lit the fuse waiting deep in your abdomen. His thumb pressed against your clit, winding quick spirals, and he didn’t let up until he blew your mind sky-high.

When the smoke cleared and your pieces fell back into place, you had to blink to get the stars out of your eyes. “You should’ve warned me,” you panted. Namjoon was puzzled, which only made you beam. “You didn’t strike me as the dexterous type.”

The feigned shock on his face didn’t stick for long; it was quickly replaced by a shit-eating grin that made you tingle for an entirely different reason.

“These hands are good for two things, and two things only.”

You snorted, flexed an expectant eyebrow. “Breaking shot glasses, and…?”

Namjoon shook his head. His fingers were still shining with your orgasm when he brought them to his lips. It was ridiculous how he could still look pensive with you dripping down to his knuckles.

“Making you cum, first and foremost,” he corrected you matter-of-factly, like it was an undeniable truth dictated in one of the many books you’d seen littered around his apartment — and really, it should’ve been. 

He took those glistening fingers into his mouth to clean you off of him; you couldn’t look away from his tongue as it ran down their length. You swallowed hard when he did. Then, he released them with a lewd pop that made you clench around nothing. “And making you cum again.”

You rolled your eyes, as if you weren’t still irreparably charmed by him. Namjoon bit back a grin, like he didn’t already know.

“My hypothesis may be confirmed, by the way,” he mused.

The magnetism you’d felt earlier brought him back to you again. His arms snaked around your waist so easily that you had to remind yourself — over and over — that they were strangers to you, not a home. That this was adrenaline; this was infatuation; this was one night.

You hummed in response, “Is it?”

It felt like home when Namjoon kissed you, softness laced with eagerness. Or like wax pooling on an envelope, the deed now signed and sealed.

“I’ll have to re-run the experiment, of course. Scientific method and all that.” He waved his hand, as if this was obvious. Yours landed a playful swat on his bicep that only deepened the dimple at the corner of his smile. He kissed you again and you let him. Lips still flush to yours, he mumbled, “Your pussy may be even sweeter.”

2020/7/19; 01:04

You should’ve been exhausted. Your social battery — and your physical battery — should’ve been depleted. You, an introvert and a homebody, should’ve been halfway to sleep in your own bed by now, in your own clothes. 

When you left your apartment all those hours ago, you were already prepared to hibernate for twice as long as you’d spent on the outside. That was the way it always worked. A plan you never deviated from; one you never wanted to. But you’d been firmly rooted in the moment — every moment — since you arrived at that party, and you hadn’t spent a second since wishing you were elsewhere.

Your voice cut through the music flowing from the speakers built into his bedroom walls. “I’m not buying it, that’s all I’m saying.”

You twirled at the center of the rug and watched the fabric of Namjoon’s loaned t-shirt attempt to keep up with you. It hung over your frame like a potato sack, leaving a comforting weight as the excess material spilled over your shoulders and landed halfway down your thighs. 

Funnily enough, it fit like the dress it’d replaced.

Pausing to swallow down the last sip of the soju you’d been splitting, you gestured towards him with the empty bottle. From where he sat on his bed, Namjoon raised his hands defensively. That sheepish smile admitted that he knew your offense was justified.

“You’re a musician who is fluent in English. You’re also a human being living in a society,” you huffed. “There is simply no way that you don’t know the words to this song.”

He had to cover his face with his hands to muffle his laughter. Even before he hid behind his palms, you could see the way his mirth made his eyes swim. They sparkled even more in that moment than they had in the thousand other times he’d looked at you throughout the night. Once again, you tried to convince yourself that it was due to the rose-colored glasses you couldn’t seem to shake off. 

A trick of the light.

You were doing it again, and you knew it — conflating relief and hope; confusing the temporary sense of belonging somewhere with the ability to stay anywhere. You weren’t looking for this, weren’t looking for him, because you knew exactly what you couldn’t have. But you also knew that your heart was racing in your chest, and its rhythm was starting to sound more and more like, “maybe, maybe, maybe.”

Apparently, you’d been staring. Looking at Namjoon for too long made your knees wobble more than your sore muscles did, so you had to avert your eyes when you snapped back to reality. Brushing off that odd flutter in your chest, you brought the empty bottle back to your lips, tilted your head back, and belted out the lyrics you knew he knew.

“Oh, wake me! I'm shaking.” 

You took your clumsy choreography to the next level with an exaggerated shiver. Namjoon watched through the cracks between his fingers, unable to ignore the person coming unzipped mere meters away. Undeterred, you threw the back of your hand up to rest against your forehead.

 “Wish I had you near me now.” Then, you wiggled your hips in time with the ad-lib. It was barely audible underneath the chuckling from the audience. “Uh-huh.” 

His hands dropped to his lap as yours shot straight up into the air, where you held them. The expression on his face was indecipherable when he gazed back at you. Whatever it meant, it was quickly morphing maybe into something more hopeful and — terrifyingly — committal.

“Said there's no mistaking —”

Namjoon said it on an exhale, weightless and without any effort. It sounded natural tumbling out of his mouth and into the space between you. It sounded a lot like: 

“I think I love you.”

Without missing a beat, you reeled your arms back down and set the soju bottle onto a nearby dresser. Head tilted to the side, you crossed your arms and smirked. “How sure are you? Enough to wager on it?”

He didn’t seem at all surprised by the way you bought in immediately. You wondered if you truly expected him to be. After all, you weren’t, even if a reasonably well-adjusted person should have been. Perhaps, you thought, you weren’t one of those.

Namjoon’s response came just as easily as his first admission, a perfect volley. “At least seventy-nine percent sure.” You couldn’t see the way you lit up, but you’d have liked to imagine that it matched the way he did. Quicker still, he added, “And yes, I would. All in.”

There’s that magnetic pull again. 

You skipped back to where he was waiting on the bed and crawled over the mattress to settle in front of him. Up close, you could see the sakura tint to his cheeks; it blended perfectly with the faint freckles dusting over the heights of his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose. You’re beautiful, you thought, and it’s no wonder that the sun found you worth kissing.

Something about his proximity to you made you bold; you didn’t fight it. You simply smirked, “Then let’s make a deal, Joonie.”

Intrigued, he raised his eyebrows but didn’t interrupt. 

“Two years,” you hummed as you tilted your head to the side. Then, with a thoughtful finger tapping at your chin, you elaborated, “If in two years’ time you realize that you were right — and you’re one-hundred percent sure — you’ll win a prize.”

Namjoon nodded firmly. He put his hand out to shake on it, but you sat up on your knees. His gaze followed, leaving him to stare up at you as your fingers slid through his hair. You kissed him to finalize the contract, like all true devils do. 

“Deal,” he murmured against your lips.

It scared you, just a little, how melting into him already felt like a routine. Like you’d done several times already that night, you spilled into his lap with your knees on either side of his thighs. Namjoon’s arms accepted you immediately; they enveloped you, kept you anchored against his chest.

This time, it was you who laughed. 

Namjoon nudged your cheek with the tip of his nose. “What was that about sharing with the class?”

“I just — I’m not normally like this, you know? Completely unable to keep my hands to myself,” you snickered. “Can’t stop touching you.”

To emphasize your point, you removed your right hand from its place at the nape of his neck. Once your fingers were no longer woven through his hair, your fingertips traced light, languid lines, starting at his collarbone. Your eyes followed as your ministrations led you over the slope of his left pectoral muscle, down the bare warmth of his chest. 

“So, don’t.”

When your eyes flicked back up to Namjoon’s face, you got the impression that he hadn’t stopped staring at yours. Right hand trailing further down, you maintained that eye contact and watched his pupils blow when you reached the bulge in his boxer briefs. Experimentally, the pad of your index finger whispered along the length of his cock; you relished the subtle twitch you received in response.

“Is this where you want me to touch you?” You asked.

He was throbbing under your touch, growing hard once again, as if you hadn’t been at this for hours already. That didn’t stop you from driving him further wild. More breath than words, you teased, “Or here?”

With a light hand, you flattened your palm to encompass him more fully and squeezed, prompting him to curse.

“Fuck.” 

Namjoon’s eyelashes fluttered, but he seemed entirely unwilling to let them close. Desperate brown eyes pleaded with you, sending heat straight to your core. 

“Need you, pretty thing. Hand, mouth — doesn’t matter, just fuck me.”

Your fingers slipped away from the base until they resettled at the crown. Even without looking, you could feel the spot where his leaking tip had soaked through the fabric. He groaned when your fingers pulled away, though he stopped in his tracks when he realized where they were headed. 

Namjoon shuddered when your hand dipped under the waistband of his briefs and picked up exactly where you’d left off.

“How do you want it, Namjoon?”

As you stroked him, you pressed your lips to his. Slow, hungry, like you’d die before you’d get the opportunity again. 

To the best of his ability, Namjoon rolled his hips forward with each pass of your fist. And when you redirected that teasing pressure to his balls, he downright jolted, let loose some deep sound from the bottom of his chest. The sound hardly had time to dissipate before you felt the hem of your shirt lifting above your hips. 

Breaking the kiss just long enough to pull it over your head, it was gone in an instant, landing somewhere unseen off the edge of the bed. Ridding him of his briefs was a more concentrated effort. You pushed up on your knees so he could shimmy them down far enough for you to discard them entirely.

“How are your legs, pretty girl?” His palms warmed the tops of your thighs as he massaged his way from your kneecaps towards your hips. 

Dipping his head down, Namjoon nipped affectionately at your earlobe and earned a squeak from you. His low chuckle vibrated through you. He was quick to redirect himself, though the teasing didn’t end at his teeth. 

“You seem to like being bossy, but I can take over if you’re tired.”

You feigned a scowl. “Are you baiting me?” 

The wicked grin on his face answered for him, but it was quickly replaced with wide-eyed surprise when you pressed your hands against his chest and pinned him back against the pillows.

He shrugged, eyes still sparkling with mischief. “Not my fault if you take it, sweets.”

“Never would I ever have assumed that Kim Namjoon is a pillow princess.” 

You pointed accusingly at him with one hand while the other slid into the space between you to line yourself up with his cock. 

Impish grin still locked and loaded, he leaned up on his elbows until your extended finger was centimeters from his face. He kissed the tip of it chastely between his words, like his own tip wasn’t dripping with you, seconds away from obscenity.

“Hook — line —”

You dropped down on his length, and it shut him up immediately. 

Though Namjoon was certifiably, world-endingly thick, you’d acclimated well enough to the stretch of him in your time together so far. He didn’t seem prepared for you to take him to the hilt in one fell swoop, if the way his head crashed back against the pillows could be taken as a hint.

With a swirl of your hips, you grinded down into his lap. Coquettishly, you finished where he left off. “Sinker?”

“Christ,” Namjoon groaned. He squeezed his eyes shut, then followed up immediately with a sheepish laugh. “Feel like I can’t even watch you do this. You’re too fucking good — never gonna make it out of here alive.”

Pride bloomed in your chest at the compliment, even though he was prophesying his own downfall between your spread legs. 

You imagined he could feel it for himself: you weren’t any more likely to survive. Not full of him, with your slick spilling down his cock as you bounced. Definitely not with the sick sounds of your ass colliding with his pelvis, squelching with every thrust. 

There was something blooming below your navel, but this time, it wasn’t pride. A tingling heat coiled tight, desperate to snap again. You needed it, but the burn in your thighs was stronger by far.

“Joonie,” you whimpered, incapable of caring about how pathetic you knew you sounded. Your head, previously thrown back, drooped forward to find him and his flushed cheeks fighting to maintain composure.

God, he looked as fucked out as you felt. 

Namjoon focused on you immediately, attentively, and your heart leapt of its own accord. He curled his finger and beckoned you to lean forward. 

“Come here, pretty girl,” he sighed.

Less gracefully than you would’ve liked, you all but crashed into him, sweat-slicked chest to chest. Arms wrapped around you like they were made for that very purpose.

Anchored.

Dangling from the last, frayed thread of your resolve, you were damn near speaking in tongues. Namjoon pushed up onto his heels and buried himself in you — over and over and over — at a punishing pace, hellbent on unraveling both of you at once.  

Your moan was halfway to a sob. All the words you knew had been knocked loose some time ago, leaving only his name and please. They rattled around your skull, alternating as they spilled out of your mouth.

“Say less, baby,” he panted.

There was a kiss pressed to your forehead, and then there were stars bursting behind your screwed-shut lids.

2020/11/2; 07:22

Namjoon sat across from you at his kitchen island with a mug of coffee in one hand and a book he’d forgotten the name of in the other. He’d started it over an hour ago, though the two turned pages might indicate otherwise. Instead, he’d spent his time attempting to read whatever scrunched-up, pensive expression you had written all over your face.

You hadn’t said much since the two of you sat down, just pushed your sliced fruit around your plate with chopsticks that had yet to pass your lips. Every now and then, you’d hummed in response to the random thoughts Namjoon relayed out loud. Ultimately, whenever you’d realized he said something at all, your eyes widened; and you’d blinked your way out of whatever daydream you’d gotten lost in.

He loved that about you, your internal wanderlust. Even if he didn’t always know where your train of thought was headed initially, he’d board it with you regardless, find out on the way.

Eventually, you plucked a blackberry off your plate and popped it into your mouth. Your eyes were still glued to your laptop when you started to chew. Then, he suspected that the tartness of it truly hit your tastebuds. The lightbulb switched on and you were back, beaming across the countertop, warming him like a UV lamp.

“Hi,” you peeped.

Namjoon loved that about you, too. Infinite hellos sprinkled throughout his day at random; feeling like you missed him whenever you looked away, and that you found it necessary to greet him when he finally stepped back into frame. 

He lit up, too. “Hi. Where’d you go just now?”

You swallowed. Whether it was exclusively the fruit or anxiety, too, he didn’t know. That is, until you claimed your bottom lip between your teeth and mumbled, “Got a weird email from the Overlord.”

The sip of coffee Namjoon had taken while he waited for your answer was a bad idea. He sputtered, nearly spitting it out onto that book he couldn’t care about. The would-be spit-take made your brows raise on your once-crinkled forehead; your amusement was palpable, even if you did him the courtesy of not laughing in his reddening face.

“If Bang finds out you call him that, he’s gonna want it on the nameplate outside his office,” Namjoon coughed. Clearing his throat, he bumped his fist against his chest to shake loose any coffee that might be lingering near his airway. “Weirder email than usual?”

You nodded, then you waved him over to you. It was an odd thing to be grateful for, but he was glad you didn’t just turn your laptop around and scoot it towards him to read. You always took any opportunity for closeness.

When he crossed around the island to you, Namjoon threaded his arms around your waist and ducked down to rest his head on your shoulder. The second he laid eyes on your screen, he was paralyzed. You had so many browser tabs open that none had enough space to display what they contained.

Is this what the inside of your brain looks like?

“Jagi,” he started, breathing in deep to keep from laughing with his entire chest. 

It was bubbling there beneath the surface, he could feel it. Begging for composure, Namjoon buried his face in your hair. Vanilla and honey. Instantly calm, perfectly prepared to nudge you further. “How — how did you even find your inbox?” 

Just to fuck with you, he pressed his fingertips against that secret spot on the right side of your rib cage. It was the one place on your body he’d been able to confirm was ticklish.

Eventually, maybe, he’d learn his lesson. Today was not that day.

You squealed, thrashed wildly in his hold until your elbow wound up on the right side of his rib cage. It was hard enough to make your point, but way too gentle to hurt. Still, Namjoon had to capitalize on it. He sucked in a gasping breath and stood bolt upright to clutch his chest like he’d been shot.

With you watching wide-eyed, he staggered backwards — away from you, away from the kitchen — until the back of his knees hit the sofa in the adjoining living room.

At some point, Namjoon would have to shoot up a thank you to the God of Entertainment. Somebody had clearly been looking out for him when open-concept apartments came into existence. His slapstick would’ve been so underwhelming if there were doorways involved.

Flopping backwards, his limbs splayed out across the backrest and cushions. Whatever parts of him didn’t fit spilled over the edge and dangled above the floor. He froze that way, playing dead with his tongue jutting out of the side of his mouth.

Waiting, waiting, waiting…

“Hope you watered the plants before you died, Joonie,” you called out. You sounded distant, like you hadn’t gotten up from your stool. “If you left it up to me, they’ll be dead soon, too.”

Joonie.

God, the way his heart still fluttered at that. Coming from you, that nickname didn’t sound stupid, or inspire him to choose violence. It wasn’t patronizing, wasn’t followed by some shit-eating grin. It was soft. Made him soft.

Jooniejooniejoonie.

“Actually, for all you know, I’ve got a tab open somewhere with an article on how to keep plants alive.”

Namjoon heard the faint scrape of the stool as you pushed it away from the counter. Then, the soft pad of your slippers coming his way. The hints were lost once you hit the plush living room rug, and so were you — until he felt your knees slotting on either side of his legs.

You settled down on top of him with your cheek pressed to his chest and your hair tickling his nose. Bravely, he didn’t sneeze.

Hand slipping down to the small of your back, he rubbed spirals into the space between the hem of your sweatshirt and the waistband of your sleep shorts. He hummed, “What’s on your mind?”

For more than a few moments, you were so quiet — so still — that Namjoon had to wonder whether his ministrations had put you straight to sleep. If that was the case, he’d keep going, blow off his to-do list for as long as he could just to keep you like this.

This. 

Neither of you had settled on precisely what this was. 

For nearly four months, this something was one of few constants in his life. Yours, too. It wasn’t a secret that needed keeping, but whatever this was felt too important to share. It belonged to the two of you, not anyone else — with the sole exception being Yoongi, who would’ve noticed the massive, tectonic shift whether or not he’d been the one to kick it off. Everyone else, though? Non-factors, as far as Namjoon could tell.

Until —

“Label’s expanding overseas.” It came out muffled, either because your cheek was smushed against his sternum, or because you really had fallen asleep in the pause. You continued, slightly clearer, “Putting a flagship sub-label in Los Angeles to crowbar their way into the American market.”

Namjoon wasn’t surprised, not really. Si-Hyuk had been daydreaming about this leap for as long as Namjoon knew him. It was only a matter of time before he got his little contractual ducks in a row. If anything, Namjoon was surprised that it took him this long to do it — what, with American money and American awards on the table.

But he knew you, knew that you didn’t give much of a shit about executive decisions, so long as they didn’t get in the way of your decisions.

That was precisely why he knew you were bringing this up for a reason.

“The hard launch is at the end of the month, so Bang is hoping to sign some of us over in the meantime. He’s trying to boost the curb appeal, I guess.”

You sighed and Namjoon felt the rush of air leave your lungs.

Namjoon nodded carefully to avoid knocking the top of your head with his chin. He sighed, too. “To water the plants.”

You didn’t say the quiet part out loud, but he could sense your brain working overtime; damn near hear your train of thought as it picked up speed. He half-expected to feel heat seep from your head to his chest while all your synapses fired off at once. 

The warmth came from your eyes instead. You shifted so that your chin rested in the space between his pectoral muscles; and as soon as your gaze settled on his face, the crease between your eyebrows relaxed. Your pupils dilated, too, blown wide enough for him to notice the shift.

So, that’s what love looks like. 

Not merely a neurochemical reaction or some grand, Hallmark-style gesture. Love looked like you, looking at him, while a wave of patent relief smoothed out the worry digging trenches in your features. And if he had to describe how it felt, well… The only word that came to mind was home.

“Is he asking or telling?” 

Part of him wondered; the other part knew there usually wasn’t much of a difference between the two. 

Even more quietly than before, you responded, “Asking — like, actually asking.” 

The wrinkle in the center of your eyebrows reappeared, informing him immediately that you were split between the answer you wanted to give and the one you felt you should. Namjoon wouldn’t dare to make that call for you — to press down on either side of the scale — so he leaned forward and kissed you in the middle, right on top of that conflicted little crease.

“Joonie,” you started in a tone split three ways. Shy, sad, and sparked with a sense of hope that made you wary.

Bang Si-Hyuk wasn’t alone in his daydream. You brought it up considerably less than he did, but Namjoon sensed that this was because you didn’t want your motives to be speculatively linked with the prospect of profit. That would be the furthest thing from the truth. 

For you, it was about your craft — Namjoon felt comfortable calling it that —  and the million ways you could improve it with new collaborators, new ideas, new experiences.

For Namjoon, it was about you; and hoping that when you dove into life head-first, you never touched the bottom. Wanting everything you wanted to fall straight into your hands like confetti. And, if he could remain just a little bit selfish, he wanted to stick around and watch you catch them all. 

If you wanted him, too, the rest of it would fall into place, one way or another. It’d have to, because Namjoon was struggling to remember how his days passed at all without you laughing through them. Maybe he’d have to reacclimate to sleeping without your knee pressed into his back, but he was confident that he could. 

He could wait for you until this detour was over. 

He would wait for you.

Without needing to think twice about it, Namjoon kissed your forehead and smiled with his lips still pressed to your skin. It was routine, as easy as breathing when he said, “Say less.”

You both stayed there on that couch for a while, though he couldn’t guess how long. Simultaneously minutes and months, but somehow — confusingly — it didn’t feel like the clock was moving at all. He could’ve easily believed that the universe has pressed pause on the moment, but you peeped and he had proof to the contrary:

“I’d be there by Thanksgiving.” 

The realization clearly made you a little bit giddy. If your tiny gasp hadn’t given you away, your pulse would have. Namjoon could feel that hummingbird heartbeat against his own rib cage, and — shit, did that fondness squeeze his heart with a vice grip

You sat up, wild-eyed and urgent. “Is pumpkin pie just for colonizers, or are they obligated to share it?”

Fuck, he loved you.

“Joonie, this is serious.” You pouted and it was all he could do to bite back a grin. “I’ve always wanted to try it.”

He nudged your cheek with the tip of his nose and smirked, “Just do what they do.”

“Steal it?” You snorted, devolving into a fit of giggles when he began to pepper kisses down your cheek, then along your jawline.

Eighteen in total, one for every stroke.

Saranghae.

Namjoon hummed in agreement, “Steal it.”

2021/6/19; 04:11

Most people — normal people — were in bed at four o’clock in the morning. You were not most people, though situations like this were becoming more and more normal to you. Unfortunately, you’d been forced to learn that normal and easy weren’t interchangeable. If they were, you’d have gotten used to taking the red-eye by now. 

This was your third late-night flight. Not at all coincidentally, this was your third trip home since you left it for Los Angeles. You’d spent seventy-eight hours in the air, making this trip; flown more than 57,480 kilometers in less than a year.

Seven months, technically, but who’s counting?

The elapsed time seemed to run in dog years, though the calendar maintained that only seven months had passed. At the rate they slipped through your fingers, it felt like seven years of trying your best to take advantage of every break in your schedule. Flinging yourself across a black sky on a semi-regular basis, even if you’d just gotten off a tour of your own. Praying that the odd hours and lack of layovers meant your thirteen-hour trip didn’t steal a second more than was absolutely necessary.

Time, you’d learned, was a luxury you failed to properly budget for. Unable to do much else, you accepted whatever scraps you could afford. Make them worth it, you’d demand of yourself each time you landed at Incheon. Every time, your excuse would follow: I’m trying, I swear, but I’m so tired.

Instead of a bed, you were slumped in Namjoon’s passenger seat, clutching the small bouquet he’d brought you in a hand too exhausted to register the brush of soft, white petals. You’d never lose track of his fingers interlocked with yours, though. His touch was inimitable, and the warmth of it stuck with you long after it was gone.

“Pretty,” you mumbled, gaze zeroed in on the flowers. You lifted your right arm to bring them in for closer inspection. It was futile, mostly, given how bleary your eyes were. You guessed, “Baby’s breath?”

This airport ritual of his combined two of your favorite things: the careful consideration he made in choosing flowers that conveyed messages, and the dimple that appeared on his cheek when you guessed correctly. Gifting you an additional prize, Namjoon raised your clasped hands off the center console. Without taking his eyes off the road for too long, he flashed a sleepy grin at you and kissed your knuckles.

Fuck, you loved him.

He turned onto the expressway, let your hands drift back down between you, and yawned. Automatically, you yawned, too. 

As he drove, Namjoon’s sleep-drenched brain did its best to ask about all the updates you might’ve acquired since your last phone conversation. He asked about the extended play you were writing, the weird leak in your apartment, and the only friend you’d truly made in the time you’d lived there.

“What’s their name again?” He asked, visibly embarrassed that he’d forgotten. “Jisoo?”

With a chuckle, you corrected him, “Jinseo.”

He echoed you firmly under his breath, clearly determined to commit it to memory this time. Word association was apparently part of that process, you realized. Your heart fluttered wildly when Namjoon proceeded to state the first thing that came to mind about her, proving that he did listen when you talked.

“Jinseo’s the attorney who tried to slide into Yoongi’s Instagram DMs,” Namjoon stated, as if he were being quizzed. “He never looks at them. She’s been checking for three weeks to see if he’s even opened it.”

The way he recited this fact made it sound like he’d learned it from a book, rather than overhearing your friend’s complaints directly while he spoke to you on the phone. Still, he glanced at you for confirmation that he was correct. You nodded, proud.

Then, you provided the update he’d been seeking: “For the record, he still hasn’t.” 

You mustered enough energy to laugh along with him, but neither of you was awake enough to keep the conversation going. At least, you hoped that was the case. The alternative — that you’d run out of things to talk about — was worse. It was all you could think about, and now silence crept into the lulls, sitting heavy.

Namjoon was the first to speak again, after a long pause: “It’s lunchtime back home, isn’t it?”

It was an innocent question — a caring one, checking in on you — but it struck like a sucker punch, nonetheless. There might come a day that association didn’t sting, but you knew intrinsically that this wasn’t it.

Los Angeles wasn’t home, even though you’d lived there for the better part of a year. Seoul wasn’t home, either. You had no real roots in either location, continuously jumping back and forth between the two. Namjoon was home, though he was beginning to feel temporary, too.

“It’s so early for you, Joon.” You squeezed his hand. “We can go back to bed, and grab food later. I’m not hungry yet, anyway.”

A lie, but a well-intentioned one. You hoped your stomach kept quiet, kept your secret.

Though he wasn’t looking in your direction, there was a flicker of sadness in his eyes that you couldn’t have missed if you tried. You were sure it matched yours whenever the sixteen-hour time difference made you miss his calls. His schedule lately had made them fewer and farther between.

“I’m sorry,” Namjoon sighed. 

He meant it, and he emphasized as much with a reciprocal squeeze of your hand. It stung, knowing that he was apologizing for all of it, up to and including this moment; and that neither of you was at fault for any of it.

“We’ll be back in sync in no time. I’ll —”

You cut him off with a whisper and your best attempt at a smile, “Pssssst.”

Thankfully, Namjoon was stopped at the only red light that still separated the two of you from his parking garage. Otherwise, the way his alarmed eyes flitted in your direction may have had consequences.

“Say less,” you mimicked, like any of this felt the way it did before. He beamed, but his grin left just as quickly as it appeared. 

Namjoon looked away when the light changed, unaware that your face fell before you could catch it. Something that insignificant shouldn’t have had the power to make you that sad; but it did, and you didn’t know what to do with that fact.

The rest of the ride continued in silence. If Namjoon also felt like that silence was suffocating, there were no hints about it in his expression or his posture.

Does this feel easy to you? Am I the one making it hard?

He had to let go of your hand to park in his assigned space, and he forgot to reach for it again when he finished. You knew it wasn’t intentional, but that didn’t make it hurt less. Didn’t make the tears biting at the corners of your eyes any less embarrassing.

For two people as jet-lagged and otherwise exhausted as you were, it didn’t take long to drag yourselves from his car to his apartment. It took even less time for Namjoon to begin shuffling off towards the bedroom. Halfway there, he realized you weren’t still close behind. 

“Where —?” He turned his head to search for you before he turned his body fully. Ultimately, he found you hovering near the kitchen island. The relief in locating you was quickly diluted with concern. “You okay?”

Are we? Is this?

“I think I left my phone in the car.” You patted down the pockets of both your joggers and your jacket, brows furrowed. Then, you picked up the keys he’d just set down on the counter top. “Gonna run down and look for it.”

Too tired to be steady, Namjoon swayed slightly where he stood. You couldn’t help yourself. That magnetic pull tugged you over to him, pushed you up onto your toes, and demanded that you kiss him until that confused frown curved upwards. 

For a moment, you smiled, too.

“Go back to bed,” you whispered, leaving a kiss at his temple. You hadn’t meant to speak so softly. Your voice was caught wherever your breath was, and they refused to cooperate. “I’ll join you in a minute.”

He nodded, accepting a proper kiss before his bedroom-bound shuffling continued. Out of sight, you heard the thump of his lead limbs collapse back into his mattress. You felt it in your chest, which was tightening by the second.

You turned for the door, ready to run, only to stop dead in your tracks. Just ahead of you, tending to a snake bite, was Eurydice. The sight of her portrait hanging on the wall threatened to rip out the sob you’d worked to keep buried. She was all you could think about when you slipped out the door, and stumbled down the hall.

Maybe Eurydice would’ve lived if she’d never met Orpheus.

Shoulders shaking by the time you reached the stairwell, you shoved your hand into your pocket as you crumpled downward onto the concrete steps. You pulled out your phone and gripped it tight, like closing your fists around it could keep you together, too.

With the extent of your tears, you couldn’t make heads or tails of that bright, white screen. You did what you could, though, like you always did. Warbled voice bouncing off the walls around you, you found a loophole and slipped through it. 

“Hey, Siri —” 

The swirling grey, red, blue, and green at the bottom of your screen looked more like a life-preserver than anything else. Automatically, you pleaded, “Call Yoongi.”

It was a fifty-fifty chance, calling him at this hour.

He’d either be awake because he never went to sleep in the first place, or he’d have just drifted off. Either way, you were already sorry for bothering him. When he picked up on the first ring, that was the very first thing you said to him. 

Immediately, his tone shifted from the grogginess of his initial greeting. Now, he sounded worried. You wondered if you’d woken him up, but you didn’t ask.

“Hey — whoa, whoa, whoa — what’s wrong? Your plane didn’t crash, did it?”

He wasn’t trying to be funny and you didn’t mean to laugh, but you did. Sort of. It was some odd, gasping sound that felt wrong as it came out of your mouth.

“I’m fine,” you kept repeating, as if you could manifest the outcome. “I’m fine. I just — I need someone to tell me if I’m crazy, or just doing this whole thing wrong —”

“Doing what wrong?” Yoongi cut you off. “It doesn’t sound like you’re breathing properly, if that’s what you mean. Can you take a deep breath? Count to five on the inhale and on the exhale.”

You did what he said. It helped with what it was meant to, but hyperventilation had been the least of your concerns.

“Sit on the floor if you aren’t already. If you can, lean your back against a wall and flatten your palms on the ground, okay? That’ll help you feel anchored.”

Halfway compliant, you slumped against the metal railing next to you. You threaded your left arm over the lower of the two rungs and held on tight. Part of you wanted to laugh at this, too. It wasn’t much different than the safety bar on a rollercoaster; the way your stomach dropped was identical.

“I can come get you if you tell me where you are,” Yoongi continued. “That twenty-four-hour place has lamb skewers now. We can eat, and you can tell me what’s wrong.”

You didn’t know where to start. All of it, you thought, it’s all wrong.

The answer you blurted out was, “I love him.”

“I know, kid,” Yoongi sighed, and it sounded like an apology. He didn’t need any further explanation. “I know you do.”

Your voice broke when you continued, splintering painfully in your throat. It wasn’t a question you had any conscious intention to ask. It was simply shrapnel flying out of your mouth: 

“Is loving someone supposed to hurt this much?”

2021/11/13; 14:36

Your fourth trip home felt different than the rest. There was something in the air that you couldn’t quite put a finger on. Whatever it was, it’d kept your stomach in knots from the time you left your apartment until you wandered through customs in Incheon. 

It’d only gotten worse when you finally reached the sidewalk outside the airport. Your first instinct had been to cry, though not for the reason you usually did; you’d swallowed that urge with a hastily taken sip of boba. Just like he had for your three previous homecomings, Namjoon was waiting for you, flowers in hand. 

Flower, singular.

Of the two of you, he was the one with encyclopedic knowledge of floriography. Regardless, you knew enough to understand what that lone, white tulip said. It was an apology; and by now, you were well acquainted with those. Even still, you hadn’t gotten any better about accepting them because he still hadn’t done a single thing to be sorry for.

Sorry.

That word had slowly mutated into a punctuation mark over the last year. It’d wormed its way into every sentence, whether or not it had any business being there.

Hi, sorry, I was in the studio when you called. I love you, sorry. I miss you, sorry. I’m so proud of you, sorry, I wish I could have been there.

You heard it even when neither of you spoke, felt it in every bit of quiet. It sat between you on the drive from the airport to that restaurant you used to like — the one by the lake. It filled your unoccupied hands on the walk in from the parking lot, rested like a centerpiece in the middle of your table.

Neither of you ate much. You wished you’d had some semblance of an appetite, if only to fill the pit growing in your stomach. To distract from the way Namjoon’s eyes went glassy whenever he looked at you, or to keep your bottom lip from trembling.

Silent and sorry, the two of you watched the wind force waves; which, in turn, forced anchored row boats to collide with the dock.

Anchored.

There was that word again.

It’d been sitting untouched in the backlog of your vocabulary for longer than you’d care to admit. You knew its dictionary definition, of course, but it’d never been a word you’d ascribe to yourself. Leading up to last November, it wasn’t a feeling you’d knowingly craved, either. If you were honest, you might have hated it and its synonyms, too. 

Rooted. Tethered. 

They were on the tip of your tongue now, finally yours to taste. It was a bitter pill to swallow, realizing that your resistance to them had always been a coping mechanism. Your amygdala trying to intervene.

Until you met Namjoon, stability had been unfamiliar and elusive. It’d outrun you for so long, there’d only been one conclusion left for you to leap to: You didn’t deserve to catch it.

But you did catch it. You found him, opened yourself up to believing that you were the kind of person who got to have roots. For a year, you tried so hard to nurture them, loved the beautiful thing you’d grown in spite of yourself. 

You earned them, so why couldn't you keep them?

Namjoon noticed your breathing pick up. He knew you well enough to see precisely what direction your brain was spiraling in; and that you needed a gear shift. So, he hummed, “Been thinking about changing up my hair.”

“Oh?”

It certainly caught you off-guard, but you figured that was the point. You weren’t sure if you should have — or why you felt you couldn’t — but you reached up to run your fingers through it. Longer than last time, lighter.

“I’m not sure if the blonde has ever actually suited me,” he laughed. “What do you think? And, seriously, give it to me straight.”

You nibbled on your lower lip as you studied him. No matter how many times you stared at his face, you uncovered some new, favorite feature. Today, it was his irises, warmer than you remembered them being. Namjoon became more beautiful the less you saw him, as awful as that thought felt.

“I do like the blonde,” you mused. His cheeks blushed, just barely, but it squeezed your heart to know that was still a reaction you could pull from him. “But I think it would be nice to see Kim Namjoon as he exists naturally, you know? I haven’t met him yet.”

He smiled — genuinely, with his eyes and all his teeth — and it ached. 

“I’ll make a note of that,” he promised with a laugh. Then, he gestured to your largely untouched plate “D’you want a box for that before we go?”

“No, thank you.” You shook your head. It slipped out before you could stop it. “Sorry, I guess I wasn’t as hungry as I thought.”

The corner of his mouth lifted again, less happily than the last time. You knew as soon as you saw it that his half-smile was an apology, too.

2021/11/25; 19:59

Over the last week, Jinseo Kang had spent more time in your apartment than in her own. The spare key you’d given her at the start of your friendship was intended for emergencies, and while this wasn’t what either of you had in mind back then, that was the only word she could use to describe the state of you now.

In twelve months of knowing you, she’d gathered enough trivia about you to fill a memoir. Of the facts she’d collected, two came to mind immediately whenever Jinseo thought of you. The first was that you were a workaholic to a borderline clinical degree; so resistant to rest that the mere thought of being unproductive gave you hives. The second was that, despite the cursed hours you kept, you were never not in contact with Min Yoongi.

Since you’d flown back from Seoul, you’d done neither. 

Jinseo didn’t have to ask to know what happened; you didn’t need to say a word. In fact, you hadn’t — not that she’d heard — since you touched down at LAX, two days ahead of schedule. The only reason Jinseo even knew to pick you up was a direct reply on Instagram that didn’t look a thing like she’d hoped. Worse, the only way she’d been able to recognize you in her passenger seat was by the signature, mint green headphones clenched tightly in your hands.

Immediately, she’d noted the absence of your smile. That was a seismic shift, in and of itself. As was the case with those pastel headphones, that smile of yours wasn’t something you’d ever be caught dead without. Part of you never got off that plane, she’d thought then. Looking at you now, crumpled on your couch, Jinseo knew better. A piece of you was missing long before you boarded that return flight in the first place.

From your kitchen, she glanced over at the heap of blankets, though she didn’t know why she bothered. You hadn’t moved, hadn’t done much of anything since you shuffled out of bed at two o’clock in the afternoon. Still, she had to check for proof of life. Proof that you were still there, somewhere, even buried.

Illuminated by the television screen and underscored by A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, there was movement. Half-hidden by a pile of knitted throws, she spotted the top of your head. Like it did every other time she saw the tangled bun sitting crooked there, her heart sank. I know you’re in there. I’ll find you, I promise.

In the absence of an instruction manual, she’d have to make one. This was a crash course — what to do when love dies in slow motion — and Jinseo was flying by the seat of her fucking pants. Maybe she didn’t know how to pull you out of this pitfall you were trapped in, but she could hold your hand and refuse to let it go.

So, that’s precisely what she did.

Before making her way to you, Jinseo grabbed the dish she’d been preparing off the counter. Spare fork in hand, she rounded the kitchen island and made a beeline for you. You didn’t react when she reached you, unless you counted the way you hugged your knees a little tighter to your chest. Jinseo certainly didn’t; she would’ve sat directly on your feet if you hadn’t cleared the space.

This close to you, she could see the way your jaw was still clenched. Going on eight days now, it was impressive, in some sick way, that the unrelenting pressure hadn’t left you with a mouth full of dust. See? She wanted to grab your knee and shake it, make sure you heard it loud and clear: Look what you can survive!

She didn’t, though. Jinseo simply held out the plate in her hands and stared at you expectantly until you sensed her gaze on you. Red-rimmed and glassy, your eyes lifted to meet her face and she was not going to cry at the sight of you. Nope. Swallowing thickly, she glanced pointedly at the plate, then back up to you. 

You were unfazed, barely conceding a blink. You didn’t even look down.

Please, sweet bean. Please eat something.

She tried again, nudging your knee with hers. “Happy Thanksgiving.”

For whatever reason, that holiday greeting was the only thing to reach you in a week. Finally, you looked down.

Jinseo hadn’t finalized her expectations prior to this moment, but the short list had included an eye roll, a groan, something. Even if you didn’t reciprocate, she would’ve been grateful for a response of any kind. Her list hadn’t included you bursting into tears over a piece of pumpkin pie, but that’s exactly what she got.

Charlie Brown can go fuck himself. There’s no such thing as good grief.

It was a reflex, dropping that plate onto the coffee table like it’d bit her. With her hands now free, she grabbed your shaking shoulders and pulled your limp body towards her until you all but collapsed in her lap. Even then, she squeezed you tighter.

I will not let you shatter. I will not let you slip away.

The two of you stayed there, just like that, for however long it took you to let go of the tears you’d stockpiled for eight straight days. And when you were finally quiet — finally still — Jinseo thought for sure that you’d finally fallen asleep.

“I think I hate him.”

Your voice was weak from lack of use; so much so that Jinseo could barely register that you’d spoken at all. Once she did, she didn’t know where to start.

Quietly, she asked, “Namjoon?”

With your head in her lap, Jinseo felt it shake. Again, you surprised her.

“Yoongi,” you whispered. God, you sound so broken. “I can’t stop thinking about it, and I know it makes me a bad person, but I’m so fucking angry at him. I went to that party because he begged me to. I wouldn’t have — I wasn’t looking for him.” 

Your voice cracked. “I wasn’t looking for him, for anyone. I’ve lost everything, and I don’t know what to do now. I’m so angry that it hurts.”

“That’s grief, sweet bean,” she corrected you gently. You sniffled, glanced up at her from the corner of your eye. “Not anger. Grief is just love with nowhere left to go.”

At this, you sat up more fully than you had in eight days, albeit looking more hollow than you ever had. Face tear-stained and bottom lip quivering, you croaked, “I don’t know what to do with it all.”

“Call Yoongi,” Jinseo hummed as she squeezed your knee. “If you need a place to put all that love you have left, then write one.”

2022/7/7; 00:00

Namjoon couldn’t remember the last time he had a day go the way it was supposed to; and frankly, he was getting sick of his own shit.

That morning had started off fine. 

Scratch that. 

It started off as well as he could possibly expect it to, waking up in an empty bed with no kneecap pressed into his spine. He drank coffee at his kitchen island, alone, and ignored the blackberries he’d unwittingly scooped onto his plate with the rest of his fruit. Dumped them in the trash before he lost his mind over a berry. Read half a book and remembered none of it. 

All things considered, Namjoon was doing just fine.

Unfortunately, things started going off the rails somewhere around sundown. He and Yoongi had wrapped up the last track on Namjoon’s upcoming release; and for once, Yoongi agreed to leave his studio. Agog and aghast, Namjoon dragged his favorite recluse to every sordid bar in that pocket of the city. As he piloted his tailspin, Namjoon repeated one thought, over and over:

Any dive he stumbled into was better than an empty apartment.

As he spiraled, he drank enough to blur the image of you, which was plastered on every television and burned inside his brain — but not too much. Namjoon learned a long time ago that he couldn’t sleep if he went to bed alone, so he made a habit of not doing that. After all, he didn’t have to like himself; he just needed to live with himself.

Whatever her name was, Namjoon only fucked her because she looked like you.

Her presence on your side of the bed might’ve summoned you because, when he finally checked his phone, your name was tied to a missed call. Better — or worse, he hadn’t decided — there was also a voicemail. The thought alone left him dangling precariously between wanting to cry and needing to vomit. Phone in hand, he staggered toward the bathroom before he’d made his choice.

Closing the door behind him, Namjoon leaned back against the wood. Everything was spinning, though none of it could be attributed to the whiskey he’d had several hours prior. This was all you.

You and that gravitational well he couldn’t ever seem to leave, trapped at his furthest point from you and growing colder all the time. Darker, too.

Aphelion, he remembered with a humorless laugh, not sure if or when it’ll ever be like this again.

Fuck!

Namjoon startled himself when he slammed his hands down on the counter, less due to the involuntary action and more due to the fear of breaking his phone. In a panic, he glanced down. It was perhaps the one thing left that he hadn’t shattered.

Typing in the code to his voicemail felt like disarming a bomb, given how urgently his fingers moved. He needed it, whatever it was that you deemed important enough to say to him. Needed you, but this was the closest thing he had, and that was fine.

“Hey, Joonie. It’s me — well, that much is probably obvious, I guess? Uhh — Anyway, Yoongi mentioned that you finished cutting the album today. I just —”  

Namjoon’s racing heart stopped dead in its tracks. You’d paused for so long that he feared the recording stopped there. Thankfully, you started up again, taking his pulse along with you.

“I just wanted to say, congratulations. You’re — I’m sure it’s incredible,” you sighed, “I hope you’re proud, and I hope you’re doing well.”

He was neither of those things. It’d been months, and it still hurt to breathe whenever he thought about you. He thought about you all the time, asleep or awake, no matter what — or who — he attempted to distract himself with. No matter how much of himself he lost track of in the process.

You were all he wanted, all he wants, all he’d ever want.

Namjoon caught his reflection in the bathroom mirror. Purposefully avoiding his own eye contact, he looked up, just above his crumpled brow. That bleached blonde hair still didn’t suit him, now even less so than when he asked for your opinion that day by the lake. He made a note of what you’d said, just like he'd told you then. It’d been sitting inside his medicine cabinet since the day after his whole fucking world exploded. 

Jaw clenched, he broke the magnetic seal between the mirrored door and that bottle of black dye.

likes are always appreciated, but it's feedback that means the most — whether that's in a comment below, PM, reblog, tags, etc. tysm for reading ✨

tagging: @borahae-k @i-purple-buff-bunni @pamzn @myimaginationsrunningwild @nonbinary-demonbrat @jihopesjoint @cyanide-mustard @xjoonchildx @bbyorchid @persphonesorchid @quarter-life-crisis2 @zelchena @withluvjm @firesighgirl @whatthefsposts @iadelicacy @chimmisbae @cowboylikeyoongi @sailoryooons @axialitae @ugh-yoongi @minholykingofkorea @kookstempo @gimmethatagustd @Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhintothevoid @yoongiphoria

want to be on my permanent bts taglist? sign up here.