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johannestevans · 1 year ago

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So you finished Our Flag Means Death…

What show do you want to obsess over now?

Also read on Medium / / Read on Patreon.

So, Our Flag Means Death, unexpected workplace romcom chock-a-block with anachronistic 18th century fun, piracy on the high seas, gay and trans and otherwise genderweird and queer characters, not to mention neurodivergent and disabled ones, is over for at least another year. You’re aching for something of a similar flavour to fill the gap — especially if, like many of us, the finale has left you disappointed and eager to watch a show with a bit more care for its queer audiences.

Want recs?

After finishing Our Flag Means Death, I’m in the mood for…

Ed cradling Stede’s face in S1 of Our Flag Means Death. Via IMDb.

… more (relatively) light-hearted queer comedy!

The most obvious example I can start with is, of course, What We Do In The Shadows. While its fifth season was weak, its sixth season was in my opinion its best ever — a spin-off of the Taika Waititi-directed (and starring) mockumentary film of the same name, WWDITS is a fun-filled, ridiculous and deeply silly show starring a variety of incompetent and bumbling and blood-thirsty vampires and their various friends, enemies, and companions. It’s constantly and continuously queer, with the majority of the cast of characters being openly bisexual, and one of them being gay and having an emotive coming-out arc with his family.

Nandor (Kayvan Novak) and Guillermo de la Cruz (Harvey Guillén) in WWDITS. Via IDMb.

WWDITS follows the adventures of Guillermo de la Cruz, fat and gay and badass and so fucking pretty, the familiar to a vampire named Nandor the Relentless, a big himbo ex-warrior plagued by insecurity and ready to enter in power struggles with anybody from a fellow warrior to a household appliance, and the rest of Nandor’s household — Laszlo Cravensworth (once an English aristocrat, still a dandy, charming, slutty, and well-spoken — and often tinkering with experiments or DIY), Nadja of Antipaxos (once an impoverished member of a Mediterranean village, dramatic, intelligent, sharp-witted, and wry — and often getting involved in various misadventures), and Colin Robinson (an “emotional vampire” who feeds by boring those about him, dull, mundane, and painfully cringe at all times in the best of ways). As a mockumentary, its tone is silly and light-hearted, but it’s not without its emotional stakes, and there’s so many references to other pop culture vampires.

The BBC’s sitcom, Ghosts, is a great sitcom to go for if you’re in the mood for more of a neurodivergent found family vibe, with sumptuous costumes and a complex and intriguing cast who have a lot of wonderful moments with each other. The show follows Alison and Mike, who inherit a manor house and find when they start to refurbish it that it’s full to the brim with silly, ridiculous, and unrelentingly friendly — not to mention antagonistic — ghosts. Ghosts, like Our Flag Means Death claimed to be prior to its S2 finale, is a tremendously loving and kind show — it spends a lot of its time building up flawed characters and encouraging them to change and grow, giving you time as a viewer to love them.

See any familiar faces? Many of the Ghosts cast also appear in Horrible Histories. Via IMDb.

The show is not as continuously or constantly queer as WWDITS, but it does have elements of queerness dotted around the main cast, particularly in the character of the Captain, the ghost of a WW1 soldier who was never deployed abroad, but spent his time in service yearning for the intimate company of a fellow soldier.

Brendan Scannell and Zoe Levin in Bonding. Via IMDb.

Want something a little weirder, a little kookier? Crave a bit more of the BDSM flavouring around Our Flag, more whips, more leather, more latex, more kink? You might like to try Bonding — this show features a woman who begins moonlighting as a dominatrix and then employs her gay BFF as her assistant. It suffers from the tendency shows like this have to sideline Pete a bit as the gay BFF, with some of his characterisation being squandered to prop up the less interesting protagonist, but it’s really funny and honestly super heartfelt.

And if you want really weird, really kooky, and unabashedly and delightfully and wonderfully queer, there is always The Gay and Wondrous Life of Caleb Gallo, which is a gorgeously funny and loving gay comedy that you can watch online!

Apart from those above, you might like to try Special (a sitcom exploring the romantic and sexual misadventures of a deeply selfish and flawed character a la Stede Bonnet, this one a young gay man with cerebral palsy), Schitt’s Creek (a sitcom about a posh family falling on hard times and featuring several queer characters, particularly the bisexual David Rose, played by Dan Levy), and Grace and Frankie (a show about two ageing women who are best friends, and whose husbands leave them to start a romance with one another).

… more of the stunning cast!

You’ve watched Our Flag Means Death and you’re craving more of the spectacular and incredibly skilled cast.

If you want more of Nathan Foad (Lucius Spriggs) particularly, you’re in luck — last year, Foad wrote and served as executive producer on a show loosely inspired by his early life as a weird boy growing up gay in Nottinghamshire, Newark, Newark. It’s very silly, funny, full to the brim with love, and also deeply silly and willing to get in touch with the cringe side of life. It’s only three episodes, but starring the unparalleled Morgana Robinson as the harried mother of Leslie, the closeted-but-not sixteen-year-old who is trying desperately to lead the tragic gay life he’s seen on TV, it really makes the most of that limited runtime, and it’s so fucking good. Nathan Foad even has a cameo in it as a freaky and overfamiliar employee at the bowling alley.

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He has a cameo in another great show, too — Bloods is an incredible sitcom about two NHS paramedics working in an ambulance together. It’s rapid-paced, it’s messy, it’s horrible and hilarious, and it stars Jane Horrocks as Wendy across from Our Flag’s Samson Kayo (Oluwande) as Maleek. The two are chalk and cheese in the front seat of their ambulance together, and Kayo is so incredible in the lead role balancing Maleek’s own desire to appear as cool and tough whilst also being vulnerable and having his own insecurities, especially because Wendy challenges him on so many points. Wendy is great as well, the two an exercise in contrasts, but Kayo and Horrocks are spectacular among an equally spectacular cast — you get to see so many different dynamics at the depot and in other settings, amongst other NHS staff, and the show is non-stop with the punches and the punchlines. If you really enjoy how well-balanced and how fitting the soundtrack to Our Flag is, you’ll love the music and its pacing in Bloods. Foad’s cameo in this is as Wendy’s neurotic and kind of a fuck-up son, and he’s so messy.

If you want more of Joel Fry (Frenchie), he stars in the first few seasons of Plebs — this is a goofy comedy set in Ancient Rome, and it’s not dissimilar to The Inbetweeners in its tone and content. Some of the jokes are funny, sometimes. I don’t recommend it because it really gives Joel Fry his full acting chops — but he’s hot and he’s funny and he’s cute in this, and even if you’re not super passionate about the show, if you like Frenchie, you probably will like Stylax too.

Joel Fry and Con O’Neill (Izzy Hands) also both play characters in season 2 of Ordinary Lies, which is an anthology series, so you don’t need to watch season 1. The premise of the show each season is that the narrative jumps between characters in a workplace and explores the ramifications of the small lies they tell themselves and each other. While O’Neill’s role is a more typical set of lies that concerns adultery (or not), Fry’s involves vigilanteism and attempts at superheroism, and the plot is quite fun. This show is obviously a drama, and is tragically heterosexual on many points, but for all that, has its good and intriguing elements too.

But what about Con O’Neill doing what he’s good at — playing wet, pathetic men? Very wet, very pathetic men? In Happy Valley, O’Neill plays a gloriously wet and pathetic man named Neil Ackroyd, who enters into a relationship with the protagonist, Catherine Cawood’s, sister, Clare. Clare is an alcoholic in recovery, as is Neil, and they have a really sweet and mutually supportive relationship — Neil’s particularly gorgeous in the most recent series, where he really dotes on Catherine’s grandson, Ryan, and he and Clare play a great duo. Neil is introduced in the beginning of season 2.

The premise of the series is that Catherine Cawood, a police officer in Yorkshire, is attempting to solve crimes while at the same time her grandson, Ryan, is curious about and desires to make contact with his father, whom he has never met. Ryan’s mother was raped by his father and died by suicide after Ryan’s birth, whereon Catherine raised him alongside her sister. Happy Valley is a cop show, and Catherine Cawood is really funny as a character. She’s a deeply conservative and cruel, reactionary woman who constantly engages in police brutality whilst trampling over people’s rights — she believes that people are born evil and bad, effectively, and while she often talks about the effects poverty have on people’s outlooks, lifestyles, and actions, she can’t quite make that connection with her beliefs. As a cop show, it’s really interesting because it’s very pro-cop and tries to be on Catherine’s side for much of her crueller actions, but at the same time is so starkly blunt about the awful shit she does that it doesn’t exactly make you put faith in cops no matter the intent. Clare Cawood, and then Neil, are naturally far more critical of Catherine’s perspective.

But if you really loved Izzy at his best in S2, if you love Izzy full of love whilst also being precise and cold and calculated in the defence of his family, if you love him beautiful and wonderful and unabashedly queer, you’ll undoubtedly adore Val, who appears in Uncle as the transfem and gorgeous dad of Gwen. Uncle isn’t a great TV show, it’s an example of one of those shows where they give a deeply dull cishet white dude who feels insecure a show where he sort of masturbates about how much he sucks and how he’s unlovable, but really, isn’t it on the people around him to love him anyway?

But Val is great. She’s so much fun, she’s funny and sharp and full of quips, she’s flirtatious, she’s hot, and she has some tremendous gender stuff going on as well as some gorgeous costuming throughout. If you like Uncle’s humour, watch all the episodes — if you don’t, just skip everything that doesn’t have Val in it. Val is where the good stuff is.

Or don’t watch it at all, and just watch this scene pack on YouTube:

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Taika Waititi appears far more in great movies than he does TV shows, although he’s also one of the producers on Reservation Dogs, which is excellent — it’s a native-led and starring comedy series, and it rocks. Most of the time when Waititi does TV, it’s in cameos.

Apart from the cameo he makes in the What We Do In The Shadows TV show, I mentioned in the sitcom section, Taika Waititi also appears in the Flight of the Conchords TV series, starring the band members of the band of the same name. Rhys Darby also appears in every episode as Jemaine and Bret’s fictional manager, Murray Hewitt, and Murray is such a fun, bizarre character — and with a wholly different facial hair situation than you might have imagined for him before.

Wholly different facial hair. Via IMDb.

… more sailors!

Pickings are slim for a good pirate show, or indeed, any good show with nautical flavours to it — scenes at sea are high budget and hard to shoot, and as was evident with much of Our Flag Means Death’s second season at the hands of HBO Max, many studios do not want to proffer the budget for such things.

Let’s start with the best of recommendations — a show that’s unapologetically queer, anti-imperialist, anti-establishment, and full to the absolute brim with pirates, historical and fictional. Interested in Mary Read, Anne Bonny, Calico Jack, Benjamin Hornigold, Israel Hands, or of course, the inimitable Edward ‘Blackbeard’ Teach, real historical pirates who are portrayed and played with in the course of Our Flag Means Death, and want to see a very different take on them? Enjoy lesbians constantly scheming to kill each other, torture each other, and generally make one another miserable (sexual)? Read Treasure Island, perhaps, and ever wonder what came before?

Not-Yet-Captain Flint (Toby Stephens) and Thomas Hamilton (Rupert Penry-Jones) in Black Sails. Via IMDb.

Black Sails has all of the above and more — while it is very queer and anti-establishment, I will say that it’s far more similar in tone to Game of Thrones than to OFMD. The comedy bits are hilarious in part because the stakes are so high, but Black Sails is firmly a drama, and a gritty, violent one at that. It lacks the escapism present in OFMD — there is constant and continuous sexual violence, brutal gore and brutality, racism, classism, deep misogyny and homophobia from the society around the characters. The characters on offer are varied and complex, flawed, and interesting, but your mileage may vary with how much you vibe with them.

Making use of some of Starz’ old set pieces for Black Sails, including some of their ships, the new One Piece live-action reboot — an adaptation of the anime of the same name (itself an adaptation of the manga) — is a fast-paced, fantastical, and colourful new release. If what you loved about Our Flag was its playful relationship with real-life piracy and chronistic details, its flexibility with “reality” and its eagerness to play around with tropes and expectations, with its creation of found family through a ragtag and varied mix of individuals. What it isn’t, unfortunately, is textually or explicitly queer, let alone as unabashedly queer as Our Flag and Black Sails are respectively.

HMS Terror and HMS Erebus sailing through the surface ice in The Terror. Via IMDb.

If you’d rather have queer sailors at any cost than having ones that aren’t explicitly queer, there is, of course, season 1 of The Terror. Based off of Dan Simmons’ magical horror reimagining of the real events of the lost ships in the Arctic, the HMS Terror and HMS Erebus, the first season of this anthology horror series is itself a deeply anti-imperial story following the events of two British ships that become stranded on the ice whilst attempting to discover the North-West Passage, and in so doing poison themselves and the land and people around them. Stuck in place in a cold and unfamiliar environment that does not have sufficient resources to sustain them — and in any case, an environment and resources that as invaders of, they do not know how to live in relationship with — they are hunted by an Inuit spirit, a representation of and manifestation of the imbalance they’ve caused by their mere presence.

The Terror has a few more explicitly gay dynamics in the book than in the TV show, but the show does feature an unstable, cannibalistic bastard of a man whose favourite hobbies are identity theft, violence, and emotional manipulation — and he’s gay. Representation win!

As you might imagine from that description, The Terror is not a cheerful, happy show — it’s deeply violence and very at home with hopelessness, but has some fascinating exploration of British imperialism, whiteness, class dynamics, queer men on ships, and chilling horror.

And it’s not a TV show, but I would be remiss if I did not mention and recommend Taika Waititi’s favourite romance movie — Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003, dir. Peter Weir). Based off of Patrick O’Brien’s long-running Aubreyad, starting with Master and Commander, this film is about Captain Jack Aubrey and his duet partner and best friend (wink wink) Stephen Maturin, the ship’s surgeon. It’s a gorgeous film and while of course not explicit, it’s pretty fucking gay — although unlike the other pieces I’ve mentioned, as Napoleonic-era fanfiction about British navymen, it’s not nearly as critical of British imperialism as one might like, with the majority of the criticism coming from Maturin, and might leave a poor taste in the mouth compared to pieces more critical of the British imperial evil.

… more queer period dramas and historical shows!

Anne Lister (Suranne Jones) contemplating her hat and gloves. Via IMDb.

Let’s start with a historical drama — Gentleman Jack, starring Suranne Jones, is set in the early 1800s and is an biographical look at the life of the cryptic diarist and all around delightfully butch lesbian dirtbag, Anne Lister. Apart from the obviously intriguing concept, the show has some sumptuous costuming and set designs, and there are so many different characters and dynamics throughout. I’m always a sucker for an epistolary piece, and as it’s based off of Lister’s diaries, this show has a lot of epistle work throughout.

If you’re a sucker for lesbians in period dramas, though, you might just like Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries — the eponymous Phryne Fisher is not the lesbian in question. She’s a flapper and private detective in 1920s Melbourne, complete with a little golden gun, and is very hetero — but her best friend, a doctor named Mac (short Elizabeth MacMillan), is gay, and she’s so much fun. Where Phryne is really high-energy and excitable, constantly jumping from idea to idea, Mac is a lot chiller and more smooth, and she’s so suave and so much fun. Miss Fisher is a fun show — alas, a cop show, but it’s a lot more light-hearted, and it does a lot of playful stuff with the period and particularly with costuming details and things like cars, weapons, and various inventions.

Getting dressed and leaving the boytoy still abed. Via IMDb.

If you’re open to a miniseries that’s a lot dirtier and nastier than much of the above, have I got the recommendation for you: A Very English Scandal. Starring a relatively innocent and easily manipulated Ben Whishaw across from the deliciously greasy and depraved Hugh Grant, this is a dramatisation of the Thorpe Affair — a political scandal in the UK in the late 1970s — and it’s so fun and so sexy. If whilst watching Our Flag you’ve been giggling and kicking your feet whenever the more fucked up shit goes on in intimate ways, you will almost certainly delight in this one.

… more of… something. Surprise me!

You might have heard of NBC’s Hannibal, which is a gay take on the dynamic between Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham, but the same creator, Bryan Fuller, also did Pushing Daisies, which is a gorgeous 2-season show that was cancelled long before it ought have been. It explores intimacy at a necessary distance, and has some wonderful queer themes throughout, and stars Lee Pace.

The new TV adaptation of Anne Rice’s books, Interview with the Vampire, is glorious — it’s openly and unabashedly gay, it’s so full to the brim with depth, and unlike other shows I can mention, it really doesn’t try to shy away from the cruelty of abuses in intimate relationships, or try to shift the blame for abuse entirely onto the back of the victim in a last-minute attempt to foster more sympathy for the abuser. Interview goes so deep into the loneliness and isolation of being separated from society’s mores and expectations, of how that isolation leaves you at much more risk of leverage and abuse by intimate partners, of the brittleness of found family under heavy pressure, and alongside all of that, like…

It’s a vampire show! It’s sexy! It’s full of blood and horror and misery and grief — the grief of being alive when you should be dead, and at the same time, being halfway dead when you seem to be alive. It’s funny and it’s dark and it’s just full to the brim with poetry, has some honestly gorgeous dialogue, and on top of all that, it’s well-paced, beautifully costumed, and tremendously shot and scored. Watch!

Looking for queer movies, as well as TV shows? I have a big rec list of gay movies here:

#musings #our flag means death #i'm gonna write about how shit the ofmd finale was and what a pisstake it was in the week #but in the meantime here #have this #watch a better fuckin show #Youtube

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dial1-800-peachykeen · 3 months ago

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Chapters: 4/15 Fandom: Amphibia (Cartoon) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death Relationships: Anne Boonchuy & Sasha Waybright & Marcy Wu, Anne Boonchuy & Marcy Wu, Anne Boonchuy & Sasha Waybright, Sasha Waybright & Marcy Wu, Anne Boonchuy & Hopadiah "Hop Pop" Plantar & Polly Plantar & Sprig Plantar, Anne Boonchuy & Anne Boonchuy's Parents, Sasha Waybright & Sasha Waybright's Parents, Marcy Wu & Marcy Wu's Parents, Grime & Sasha Waybright Characters: Anne Boonchuy, Sasha Waybright, Marcy Wu, Grime (Amphibia), Olivia (Amphibia), Yunan (Amphibia), Andrias (Amphibia), Hopadiah "Hop Pop" Plantar, Sprig Plantar, Polly Plantar, Ivy Sundew, Felicia Sundew, Anne Boonchuy's Parents, Sasha Waybright's Parents, Marcy Wu's Parents Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Period-Typical Sexism, specifically leaning towards an Edwardian period, Action/Adventure, Suspense, friendship & betrayal, Fluff and Angst, Blood and Violence Summary:

With the new age revolution at the forefront of country the whispers of a vigilante has the nation's attention. With the new revolution at the forefront Marcy Wu is presented with an opportunity of a lifetime, her fill to her cravings at her fingertips. With the new age revolution at the forefront Anne Boonchuy sees disillusioned hope where the roots of dismay has planted itself. With the new age revolution at the forefront, Lady Sasha Waybright starts a game she is privilege to win but ultimately a pawn nonetheless.

With the new age revolution at the forefront of the country change is inevitable, a bad omen and miracle byproduct.

#we're back baby #amphibia #frog show #allie.writes #father tell me tag #flop era #anne boonchuy #sasha waybright #marcy wu #amphibia fanfic

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lily-blue · 1 year ago

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Paying the price

☆ characters: patriot!jiung & revolutioner!you ☆ genre: dystopian au, the devil judge au, angst ☆ warnings: graphic description of damaged corpses, mention of blood and violence, vomiting, major character’s death, spoilers ☆ summary: jiung believes in the system, that it has the people’s best interest; you believe that the system is rotten to the core and the people of South Korea need to be enlightened about the truth - as it always is, you two learn it the hard way which one of you is right ☆ words: 15,3k ☆ massive thank you: to @dat-town ♥ for proofreading this monster (i still can’t believe i accidentally made intak older than jiung 🙃) ☆ also: happy name day to the one and only @restlessmaknae 💕 it actually made me feel nostalgic when i started to search up these guys for this story, it reminded me of that one yeonjun fic i wrote for you, the one that made me stan txt. i’m not quite there yet with these boys, but who knows, maybe one day. thank you for coming back to my life and showing me new groups and new things this year, too. i wish you nothing but happiness! 💕 ☆ a/n: this story is written for @restlessmaknae’s (dis)harmony collab; you can check out the masterlist with the other stories » here

Despite the country’s shortcomings: the apparent corruption that was planted in its core from the education system through the media to the judicial and political apparatuses, you loved your home. You loved living in a neighbourhood where the grocery store ahjussi gave you an extra cluster of grapes whenever you looked tired at the end of a rough day and the ahjumma from the corner Chinese restaurant knew your order by heart, hence spared you from the headache of making yet another decision when all you craved was a big bowl of warm lotus root soup. You loved knowing the youngsters in your building by their name and the feeling of having half a dozen sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts despite losing your family at an unfairly young age and spending too many lonely years in a government-funded orphanage.

God, you even loved the opportunities higher education was constantly giving you regardless of a handful of your teachers who openly expressed their political views in class when it went against your university’s policies. So why couldn’t you have sat through your Korean History II. lecture with a neutral face like everyone else did? Why did it make your blood boil when looking at Choi Jiung’s slides you realised that he was about to praise your country’s leaders, too, like the three other students before him had already done during their own presentations? Why couldn’t you have shut up and swallow down your opinion when it was time for the audience’s questions?

Easy. Because despite your love for your country and the people around you, it was corrupt to the core and as law students, all of you should have refrained from turning a blind eye to the exponentially growing amount of power abuse that happened in your home. It didn’t matter that half of your classes brainwashed you to bend under pressure.

‘What about those innocent citizens who lost their homes because of the evacuation? There is no clear data available about the rehousing of those families. Were they ever compensated?’ You threw your provocative questions at the blond boy, voice firm and merciless as your words echoed off the pristine walls in the small classroom.

The moment Choi Jiung’s gaze fell on you, you knew he was pissed, although he did a great job concealing his feelings. It was just… you had known the guy ever since you had moved to your current one-bedroom flat right after you had been kicked out of the orphanage. You could read him like he was an open book.

‘While the rate of unemployment increased during the pandemic, the statistics show that the rate of homelessness stayed stagnant. Is that not clear data?’ The blond boy asked back and you could hear your professor’s pleased humming from the first row as you were sitting in the second one, almost right behind Mr. Kim.

You linked your fingers and let your arms fall on your desk while you leaned forwards with a straight back. You didn’t break eye contact.

‘Reports from that period state that due to the pandemic, there were less ongoing projects in the construction industry, which means there couldn’t have been emergency constructions due to rehousing. Where did those families go?’ You pushed, shutting out the murmurs from your side and behind your back. You were already used to the whispering, the wary look in your classmates’ eyes whenever you expressed your opinion.

Unlike what they said, you weren’t obsessed with the spotlight nor did you have a childish crush on Choi Jiung. You picked fights with him because he was an unpleasant part of your friend group, but a part nonetheless, and you believed that Shota wouldn’t have tolerated his presence in your lives if he had been a lost case.

You challenged Jiung repeatedly to help him see the errors in his own beliefs.

‘Less ongoing projects don’t equal to no ongoing project. It only means there were fewer than before the pandemic,’ Jiung stated, voice cold despite the fire in his eyes. ‘Those few projects could have been, or included, the emergency constructions in the countryside,’ he said, your nails digging into the back of your hands because of your frustration as you were listening.

‘Hundreds of thousands of people—’

‘I think that’s enough. We still have one more presentation to sit through and discuss before this seminar ends,’ your professor rose from his seat, exchanging positions with the blond student. If looks could have killed, neither him nor Mr. Kim would have survived your rage. How dared this old, soggy snob cut you off when you were clearly making a point?

You had to bite into your cheeks from the inside to not curse him out, but your opinion must have been written all over your face because before the next student could have started her presentation, the history professor looked at you and shook his head as though he was deeply disappointed when clearly, he was annoyed.

‘It’s my last warning, miss,’ the man stated and you were genuinely surprised that he hadn’t memorised your name by now. After all, it wasn’t your first class with him and you had never been a silent participant. ‘If you keep disturbing the peaceful learning environment, I will need to send you out of my class and mark this lesson as a missed lesson next to your name in the roster,’ he informed you, although it was more like a threat.

Okay, maybe he did know your name. He just didn’t bother to address you respectfully.

You pressed your lips into a firm line, contemplating whether getting into a useless fight with your professor would have been worth it, but ended up biting into your cheek from the inside once again instead of reciting your rights as a student of this institute. It didn’t matter what rights a piece of paper gave you in your country when your opinion differed from what was accepted and encouraged by those above you - expected and demanded if you didn’t feel like sugarcoating the truth.

Consequently, you fully intended to stay put until the end of the class because it was still too early into the semester to waste one of the three lessons you were allowed to miss in each seminar, but as soon as Kang Yohan’s face was staring back at you from the next presenter’s slides, you knew you wouldn’t be able to keep your mouth shut. Thus, you did both yourself and the class a favour when you shoved your laptop into your backpack and walked out of the classroom without a word.

The sound of your steps echoed off the walls of the semi-abandoned hallways, but the relative silence didn’t bother you, nor did the glances you got from those who saw you walking out of a classroom before the official end of the period. Confident, you headed towards the library on the first floor with your chin high and your facial expression unbothered.

It wasn’t the first time you chose your beliefs (and your pride) instead of letting a professor humiliate you in front of a whole class, after all.

You were doing some research for another class, sipping on your iced coffee despite the late hour, reading through statistics about crime rates and the judicial system, when Shota took a seat by the table you had been occupying since your last class for the day. You narrowed your eyes as you let your gaze loiter over his dishevelled figure, but said nothing before you turned back to your laptop. Being neighbours with the guy, you whole-heartedly believed that some things considering him was better left unasked. That way, you weren’t an accomplice.

‘Are you still looking for a way to get inside that institute?’ He asked while he reached out for your drink and took a casual sip of the bitter beverage like it was his.

You tore your gaze from the screen and leaned your back against your chair without making the slightest attempt at getting your drink back from the younger. Instead, you linked your arms in front of your chest and observed his face with caution. The yellowish bruise under his left eye and the cut on his cheek promised nothing good, but you knew Shota meant danger mostly for himself and rarely for the people around him.

‘The Dream House Medical Center?’ You asked just to confirm that you were thinking of the same building and all he gave you was a nod and a lopsided smile. ‘Yeah, I do, actually.’

Even though you still had a whole year before you should have started on your masters thesis, you already had a pretty firm idea of what you would have liked to write about: Kang Yohan, the misjudged judge who had died nearly a decade ago in the explosion of the courtroom where the infamous live court show had been broadcasted. That day, South Korea had lost not only the president and the first lady of the country, but five other powerful and rich people as well, all seven of them corrupt to the core yet labelled as victims of a self-assured psychopath. It boiled your blood whenever you thought of them, how in today’s history books, they were the casualty of an anti-national act conducted in an attempt to overthrow the administration.

Your fists were trembling as your nails sank into the soft flesh of your palms. You swore, you would clear the judge’s name one day in the future and make everyone see those lies that they were constantly fed by the government. Your thesis paper, the detailed research none of your professors would be able to oppose, would be the first step down the road.

But to be able to start marching, you had to get inside the Dream House Medical Center.

‘Any suggestions?’ You asked when the silence got too loud, not breaking eye contact even when you could feel the first tear drops forming in the corner of your eyes. Making a deal with Shota was never easy, the boy did nothing for free, not even for his closest friends, but he wouldn’t have brought up the topic just to tease you. He had something to offer and you knew when to be patient.

‘I got my hands on some interesting intel, so I can get us in and out without any of the guards noticing,’ he informed you, lazily sipping on your drink as though he hadn’t just knocked you off your feet with his statement. You were trying to find a way inside that building for months by then, because while it was supposed to be an abandoned institute - it was a part of a failed charity project after all - it was unreasonably heavily guarded.

Taking a deeper breath to ground yourself, you put your elbows on the table in front of your laptop and leaned forwards.

‘Name your price,’ you demanded quietly, earning a genuine smile from the boy.

‘Help me with the university interview. I need dirt on your professors and those you don’t have classes with,’ Shota negotiated and honestly, the only reason you were able to swallow down the laugh that was scratching your throat was the fact that you needed his help. If you could have afforded him getting sulky, you would have ruffled his messy hair and pinched his cheeks before you told him you would have helped him anyway.

He was clearly doing you a favour for free while pretending that he was a businessman who made no exceptions. It made you wonder whether he had gotten beaten up when he had tried to find information on the Dream House for you or the two things were completely irrelevant. A selfish part of you that didn’t want to deal with the guilt wished it was the latter, but deep down you knew Shota wouldn’t have held back something so huge just to share it with you at the perfect moment.

You had both learned early on in your lives that perfect moments were created; they didn’t just come to those who were patiently waiting.

‘Want it written down or is it enough if I tell you everything I know?’ You asked with a small tilt of your head, playing along and taking on a more serious tone. Meanwhile, you glanced down at your laptop and pulled up a blank document on your screen. The chances that none of your professors would have been present at Shota’s interview was high, so you wanted to make sure you had info on those who might have been possible candidates. For that, you needed to prepare a long list with every professor from the Business Faculty on it and ask around in the KU group chats you weren’t a part of yet.

‘Written down,’ Shota said and you acknowledged his choice with a low hum and a nod as you pulled up your university’s website and copied the names of the listed professors to your document. You also made a second list that contained the names of students you personally knew and would have vouched for, hence could have sought out for help.

‘Consider it being done,’ you preened, scanning through your lists one more time before you closed the tab and saved a couple of important websites regarding your assignment for your class as bookmarks. You made sure your laptop was turned off properly before you shoved it into your bag. ‘About the Dream House…’ you started, trying to sound as nonchalant as you could despite the light buzzing in your veins. ‘When are we going?’

‘Where are you going?’ Choi Jiung’s voice cut off your impromptu discussion before it could have started and you sighed, disappointed that you had let your excitement get the best of you when you should have seen the interruption coming. After all, Jiung was well aware that you preferred studying on campus over writing your papers in your own flat. He also knew that Shota liked tagging along when you had classes after six, because it meant that chances you would stay at the nearby coffee shop until closing time was high and he hated when you walked home on your own so late at night. Thus, when Jiung was looking for his friend, all he needed to do was checking the spots you frequented at.

‘None of your business, Choi,’ you grumbled while you leaned back against your chair and linked your arms in front of your chest.

Frustrated, you rolled your eyes when Jiung put a cup of perfectly untouched iced coffee on the table in front of you, but reached out for the drink when you saw Shota eyeing it like he was seconds away from stealing that, too.

The silence that fell on your table wasn’t new. It was a recurring phenomenon in your friends group whenever Jiung and you were joined by a less talkative person - so basically anyone other than Keeho or Intak. And while at first it had made you anxious, because you had felt as though you should have been able to initiate or at least keep up a pleasant conversation with people you considered close friends, by now you knew silence was absolutely fine as well. In fact! It was rather nice to enjoy the tranquillity around people who accepted you the way you were: stubborn, strong-willed and curt when you had nothing important to say.

‘What got your panties in a twist this time?’ Shota’s snarky question shook you out of your thoughts, his dark eyes fixed on nothing in particular making you wonder whether he was talking to you or the blond boy on his other side.

You opened your mouth for an equally sarcastic answer when Jiung let out a loud huff and cut you off with his own mocking reply.

‘What else? She tried to sabotage my presentation. Again,’ he accused and you rolled your eyes without giving too much thought to the action. All three of you knew damn well that you would have never stooped so low; your morals simply wouldn’t have let you play dirty much to Shota’s disappointment. The younger had tried to make you see numerous times that the world wasn’t fair to those who played by the rules, but you stood your ground each and every time. You wanted to become an exceptional judge just like Kang Yohan and his mentee, Kim Gaon. You were determined to lead by example as well - with the right example!

‘Oh, grow up, Choi Jiung, would you? My questions were spot on,’ you retorted, slim fingers turning white around your drink.

Looking around, you had to remind yourself that just because it was late, the coffee shop still had a fair amount of customers, thus you should have kept your voice low to not disturb their peace. Still, resisting the urge to call the blond boy out on his bullshit, as he wouldn’t have contributed to your daily caffeine intake if he had been indeed pissed, was challenging. He got under your skin way too easily.

‘No. You were once again pressing your false narrative,’ Jiung tried to correct you, talking to you in a condescending way that made you feel like a child. If looks could have killed, he would have been dead even before his gaze landed on you. ‘One day, these types of questions will cost you a lot more than a missed class.’

You gulped down the coffee in your mouth along with the non-existent bile that somehow did scratch your throat.

‘Is that a threat?’ You spat, unaware of the sadness in Jiung’s eyes as you were hyper fixated on the possible implication behind his words. It made you see red, grip tight around your cup and nails digging into the plastic with so much force, Shota had to take the coffee out of your hand and put it on the table before it could have overflowed.

‘Friendly advice,’ Jiung corrected you once again and it was only due to the years of practice the orphanage had given you that you hadn’t screamed it into his face that you didn’t consider him as a friend. Not like you did Keeho and Theo and sure as hell not like you did Shota. The sole reason you let him be a part of your life despite his questionable political beliefs was your respect for the others.

With a resigned sigh, Jiung turned his gaze away and shook his head as though he couldn’t have taken your stubbornness any longer. Well, you didn’t ask him to.

‘I’m done for today,’ you stated, leaving the half-finished drink on the table as you grabbed your bag and slid your gaze to the younger. ‘Shota?’

The boy stood up from his seat immediately and reached out for the abandoned beverage, his smile content as he took a big sip from the iced coffee. He patted Jiung’s shoulder twice in gratitude, then squeezed it lightly for good measure.

You turned away, refusing to feel guilty for putting an abrupt end to the conversation. It was a long day, getting into a heated argument about the government with Jiung for the second time that day was the last thing you needed. Especially at a public place that you loved and where you were a regular.

‘See you tomorrow, hyung,’ Shota bid his goodbye while you sealed your lips and gave Jiung a half-assed bow because it was a habit drilled into your DNA. It was a fundamental part of your culture: you bowed to people at every single encounter, at every goodbye and sometimes in between when the situation required it. You didn’t have to respect someone to follow the most basic rules of etiquette in their company.

If Jiung had said anything to your best friend before the younger boy followed you towards the exit, you hadn’t heard him, but you did sneak a peek at him sitting casually by your table before you closed the door shut.

Not that you would have admitted it to anyone.

Your palms were sweaty while you were waiting with Shota for what you supposed was some sort of sign that you could finally enter the building without getting arrested for trespassing. Admittedly, you had never felt more nervous in your entire life: your current actions going against your moral code while simultaneously aiding your fight against the propaganda that your whole nation was fed with on a daily basis. You needed evidence, desperately so, but the thought of breaking into the Dream House Medical Center freaked you out more and more as the crucial moment came closer and closer to your present.

Only a couple hundreds of metres from the abandoned institute, it felt too real. You weren’t sure you were ready and started to question whether you were made for the job.

It shouldn’t have surprised you that at one point your feet started drumming a clumsy rhythm on their own accord, but your lips still parted slightly when you felt a warm hand on your knee, over your ripped jeans. Staring at Shota’s hand, you lifted your head to look at his face and shot a tight-lipped smile at him as a sign of gratitude for his silent support. You could do this. It had been your idea from the beginning. You were doing the right thing.

So why did the proverb ‘the end justifies the means’ sound like a cheap excuse of a criminal?

‘Nervous, kiddo?’ A familiar voice pulled you out of the self-doubting spiral of thoughts and you turned towards the newcomers with panic in your eyes. Not counting the two of you, no one should have known about your plan. So why were two of your friends staring at you like they were simultaneously doubting your sanity and admiring you for your guts?

You looked around to check your surroundings in search of the others, then let your gaze fall back on Keeho and Jiung when you realised it was only them.

‘What are you guys doing here?’ You whisper-shouted, unable to decide how you felt about their presence. For 1) since it was your research, you felt like you were responsible for the safety of everyone who got involved in the fieldwork and looking after Shota in itself was already a bit emotionally overwhelming for you under the current circumstances. 2) Because of the very same reason, you were relieved that there would be more pairs of eyes during the investigation that could watch out for the potential danger.

Still, a part of you felt more people meant a bigger risk. It didn’t help that you were already fidgety due to your growing guilt that pressed down on your chest.

‘Supervising,’ Keeho explained, his tone lowkey condescending like he couldn’t believe he needed to spell it out to you. Like it was natural that he was there even though he shouldn’t have known about the trespassing to begin with. ‘Obviously, I won’t just let Shota break into a guarded institute on his own,’ he added, coaxing a displeased scoff out of you with his complete disregard for your presence and capabilities.

You wanted to remind the boy that you were only two weeks younger than him and that you would have made sure Shota didn’t get in trouble even if it had meant endangering your own life, but in the end you swallowed back your remarks. Mostly, because you believed it would have been unwise to start a fight so close to the main gates. Also, because your muscles were non-existent in comparison with the older boy’s. Realistically speaking, he had more potential than you when it came to protecting your friends.

‘What about you?’ You turned towards Jiung, one of your slim brows raised with challenge. For some reason, you doubted he had come with Keeho to help you in any way. If anything, he might have tagged along to give you another unasked, friendly advice.

‘I came to see your face when you realise you’ve been wrong all this time,’ he claimed with a shrug, not putting too much effort into protecting your feelings. Although, had he ever? The thought that he found true joy in your failures left a bitter taste in your mouth.

The retort that he had come in vain had already been on the tip of your tongue when Shota nudged you with his shoulder and pointed at the entrance once he gained your attention.

‘It’s time,’ he said. You gulped before you acknowledged his statement with a nod.

Considering how many walls you had bumped into while you had been trying to find a way inside the building in the legal way, how unhelpful every single one of the government agents had been and how many armed guards you had seen around the building in the last hour, you had assumed that walking inside the medical centre would be challenging despite your best friend’s intel. Blame it on those old school action movies Intak loved so much, but you were convinced that you would be in a race against time, that you would need to run and jump and use your non-existent muscles to get through some hidden back door.

Walking up to the front door with confident strides and opening the huge lock with a key was oddly anticlimactic. You had to pinch your arm to make sure you weren’t dreaming.

‘How the hell did you put your hands on that thing?’ Keeho asked, stealing the words out of your mouth.

Shota closed the double door behind your backs like he had just gotten home, then turned on his flashlight similar to the one in your pocket. You mimicked him and turned on yours, too.

‘I asked for a copy? Don’t you know acting suspicious is what makes people aware you’re up to something?’ He asked, not really expecting an answer based on the way he turned his back on your small group and started to walk down the hallway. ‘It’s all about confidence.’

You put your hand on Keeho’s shoulder and squeezed it lightly as a reminder that you didn’t have time for further interrogation nor was it the most suitable place for a parental scolding, then followed your best friend until you reached the first intersection. There, you waited for the others to catch up with you and you decided to split up. You didn’t have all the time in the world after all, only two hours until the next error in the system of the graveyard shift.

‘I’ll check the basement,’ you volunteered and shook your head dismissively when you saw Jiung open his mouth from the corner of your eyes. ‘Keeho’s babysitting, there are too many floors for just two groups,’ you said, slowly turning towards the blond boy with your entire body.

‘Who said I was about to follow you?’ He retorted with a huff and took the flashlight out of Keeho’s hand as he turned on his heels and marched up the stairs. You kept your eyes on his back until he disappeared, then shot a tight-lipped smile in the others’ direction before you made them promise to take pictures of anything suspicious or interesting-looking.

You hoped Jiung would do the same as well even though he hadn’t waited around for your reminder. You had faith in Shota and his dubious network, you really did, but you genuinely doubted you would have had another chance like this in the near future if you had failed to gather enough evidence due to your slipshod job.

On your way to the basement, you kept your mind occupied with random songs from the last decade they still played on the radio just so it wouldn’t have turned on you and made you see things in the darkness that weren’t there. Your imagination might not have been too wild, but being alone in a building where you assumed poor people had been killed for how much their organs were worth was scary. You didn’t believe in ghosts and other supernatural creatures, but you wouldn’t have blamed their souls for sticking around, angry, if they had existed.

The dust in the air was heavy and it stuck to your skin uncomfortably as you checked each and every door that opened from the hallway underground. Most of the rooms were unlocked, the surgical equipment inside of them outdated and untouched. A part of you - the same part that was convinced of Kang Yohan’s innocence - was eager to see them as evidence of human experiments, but the rational side of you was aware that things like these were normal at a medical facility. If you had shown photos of these to anyone, they would have focused on the fact that you shouldn’t have been in the building.

You gulped, growing frustrated, as you checked the time on your phone and walked up to the next door. You still had some time.

Admittedly, you knew you could have spent an entire day in the building and still felt like you needed more to do a thorough research, but beggars couldn’t have been choosers. Thus, you locked your panicking thoughts in the back of your mind and opened the drawers in the next room that looked more like an abandoned office than a medical room.

‘Come on!’ You groaned when you found the third drawer in a row empty, getting on your knees without much thinking to force the last one open as well. At first glance, it didn’t seem like you should have had a key to open it, so you hoped it was only stuck, preferably due to the weight of the papers inside of it.

Two of your nails broke in the process and your fingertips were burning, but eventually you managed to open the lowest drawer, its content plenty and full of names you weren’t familiar with. However, you did recognise one: Heo Joongse. He had been one of the “victims” of the explosion that had killed Kang Yohan. He had been the former president of South Korea.

Hands shaking nervously, you started to take pictures of the documents, but because of the lack of proper lighting, they turned out to be unreadable. Therefore you shoved them under your sweatshirt on a whim.

‘Noona! Noona, it’s time to go!’ You heard your best friend calling for you and you stilled, contemplating whether you should have pretended that you hadn’t heard him and checked one more room or let him know where you were. He must have calculated with finding you, he knew how you got when you… ‘Noona, we have to get out of here!’

You closed your eyes and let out a displeased sigh. You should have met them upstairs, close to the front door. If Shota was in the basement, it meant you hardly had any minute to waste. Even if the digital numbers in the upper right corner of your phone’s screen said otherwise.

‘I’m coming!’ You shouted on your way to the hallway, giving a resigned look to the rest of the basement, to all those closed doors you hadn’t had a chance to open, then ran towards Shota’s voice. It came from the stairs that led to the ground floor.

The question of what had happened that you needed to leave twenty minutes sooner was on the tip of your tongue, but you didn’t have a chance to say it aloud. The moment you opened your mouth, your best friend grabbed your wrist and pulled you in the opposite direction from the main entrance, confusion making you uncharacteristically obedient and unresponsive.

You didn’t question him when he shoved you inside a dirty restroom, nor did you ask a single thing when Keeho emerged from one of the toilet cubicles. You simply let the older boy take the lead and help with your balance when you stepped on top of a half-broken plastic toilet lid that was supposed to support your weight and made you tall enough to reach the edge of the open window on the tiled wall.

‘You really think I can…’ pull myself up; you wanted to ask, but before you could have finished your question, someone grabbed your arms from the outside and got you out of the building with one swift movement.

With a scream stuck in the back of your throat, you looked down at Jiung with slightly parted lips and gulped nervously when your gaze fell on your palm atop of his chest. You swore, you could feel his heart beating like crazy under your palm, your own mimicking the rhythm and pushing enough blood to your neck and cheeks to turn them ruby red.

‘Get up! We’re running out of time.’ It was Shota whose voice pulled you back to the present, but you were sure, even without stealing a glance at the boy on your right, that it was Keeho who pulled you off Jiung and pulled you towards the iron fences.

You stumbled in the dark, unaware of when you had lost your flashlight and whether the guys had turned theirs off on purpose. By the time your friends deemed that you were far enough from the facility, your lungs were screaming for a break and every breath felt like you were inhaling pieces of broken glass.

‘What the hell happened?’ You demanded, even though it seemed you were the only one who thought your frustration and anger were justified.

‘That your stupid obsession almost got us in trouble, that’s what happened,’ Jiung screamed at your face, a few drops of saliva landing on your burning cheek due to your close proximity. You balled up your fists, your knuckles turning white from how hard you clenched them.

‘Shota said it was safe! And I don’t remember asking you to join us,’ you retorted as calmly as you could manage with the growing annoyance you were feeling.

Sure, you knew trespassing had been a gamble, that you had been going against everything you believed in just to prove a point, but you had done nothing inside that damned building that could have put everyone in danger. Whatever had happened it hadn’t been on you, you refused to believe it.

‘It was the USB. We found a bunch of them in one of the offices, but one of them was still plugged into a smashed PC, so I pulled it out,’ Shota confessed at the same time Keeho said:

‘I think I broke a lock I shouldn’t have.’

You closed your eyes, heaving. Honestly, the second option sounded more possible, but you felt like stating the obvious or calling Jiung out on his freaking tendency to put the blame on you would have done more harm than good. The atmosphere was already tense, making it worse while you were still relatively close to the crime scene would have been stupid.

‘It’s okay, it doesn’t matter,’ you concluded because crying over spilled milk would have been just as idiotic. You had gotten in and out without encountering any of the guards, no one had known your faces, your identities were safe. You might have felt bitter about leaving so soon, but at the end of the day, you were all unharmed and that was what mattered.

You straightened your back and opened your eyes.

‘Let’s go home,’ you exclaimed and shot a genuine smile in Shota’s direction to soothe the guilt that was written all over his face.

When Jiung bumped into your shoulder on purpose, you gritted your teeth, but followed him towards the main road. You decided not to ask him whether he had found anything useful as you were sure he wouldn’t have told you even if he had done, and pointed at your tummy with a mischievous wink when Shota did the same with his pockets where he hid the old USB sticks.

You might not have been able to check everything you had wanted, but your mission hadn’t been a complete failure, after all. And that… that sure as hell made you feel like you had accomplished something.

A couple of days later, you were in the university library, working on your assignment on the live court show’s effects on the judicial system and the shift of responsibility the DIKE app had contributed to when citizens had been given the power to decide the defendants were guilty or not guilty, when Choi Jiung walked up to your table and shut down your laptop with a fixed combination of keys. To say you were furious would have been an understatement. You were livid.

‘Do you want to die? The hell is wrong with you?’ You spat, pushing yourself into a standing position in an attempt to look more intimidating despite still being significantly shorter than the boy. It didn’t matter. Anger could take people farther than one would have thought.

Instead of answering your question with words, Jiung threw a small pile of papers on your desk. You looked down at it with narrowed eyes before you took it in your hand. There was no need for you to scan through the provocatively phrased paragraphs. Just by looking at the header, you knew it was your thesis abstract.

‘Where did you get this?’ You asked, trying not to wrinkle the document in case it was indeed the original copy that you had put on your professor’s table in the teachers’ office after your last class.

‘Do you want to die?’ He threw the question back at you, his tone just as angry as yours even though the flames in his eyes burned with a different colour. He seemed a lot more serious rather than borderline panicking. His reaction closed up your throat, but you kept your chin high to prove a point. ‘I’m serious! You can’t be this stupid, can you?’

You took a shallow breath, then another one and another one for good measure before you crouched down for your bag and shoved your laptop inside of it.

‘You saw that place. They’re guarding it for a reason. Even if you really didn’t find anything on the first floor…’ You took another breath to calm yourself. You still had time before your next class, so you could put the abstract back on your professor’s desk like Jiung had never put his hands on it.

‘You can’t become a judge with this mindset. It’s anti-nationalist,’ he pressed, stopping you with his fingers hanging around your wrist like a chain. You shook it off, his rough touch, and turned around to look him in the eyes.

‘I’m ashamed of you. People like you should never be allowed to become a judge in the first place,’ you said, quiet enough to not draw anyone’s attention, but loud enough to hurt.

You meant it: every word. Those people who deliberately turned a blind eye on the flaws in the stories the system tried to feed you with, on the government’s wrongdoings just because it was easier, shouldn’t have been given power to decide who deserved a severe punishment for breaking the law and who acted upon self-preservation.

The two of you kept eye contact for longer than it was necessary, therefore you were about to turn your back on Jiung when you got a text via kakao. With furrowed eyebrows, you fished the device out of your pocket and checked the incoming messages.

shota 😤: “don’t come home!” shota 😤: “i’m serious” shota 😤: “stay with the hyungs”

The urgency in his double texts made you feel alarmed, so you sent a quick message to both Shota and Keeho, then threw your phone into your bag and rushed out of the library.

There was no way you would let your best friend deal with whatever trouble he was in on his own when you had a good guess where he was and it was clearly too big for him to handle it alone.

Jiung tried not to think too much into it when you didn’t show up at class the day after you had stormed out of the library. He really tried not to panic when he couldn’t see you at any of your favourite places around campus, although he was familiar with your schedule and habits: when you preferred the university library over the coffee shop, which classes you would have never skipped for the world and how many papers you had to submit before the upcoming midterms.

It wasn’t unusual that you didn’t pick up the phone to him, so he didn’t even bother after the first futile attempt, aware of the line he had crossed when he had taken your thesis abstract that he shouldn’t have even read, but when even Soul refused to read his messages, he knew something was off. The boy would have never ignored his hyungs just because he might have taken your side. At least, he had never done so before and god, the younger sided with you almost all the time.

Lacking any better idea, Jiung dialled Keeho’s number, letting out a relieved breath when the older picked up the phone after the second ring.

‘Have you heard from Soul? His bestie hasn’t shown up at uni since last week,’ he started without beating around the bush, too frustrated (and worried) to prolong the conversation. He wanted to know that you were both okay and his worst nightmare hadn’t come true despite your stubbornness.

Had you gotten in trouble with the authorities because of your big mouth? Who had you been texting to before you had turned your back on him?

‘Not since last week. He said he would be out of town for a couple of days,’ Keeho answered. ‘Same for the firecracker. She texted that she’s worried about Shota, but then she claimed everything was fine, so I didn’t ask,’ he explained, not going into too much detail about why he hadn’t pushed when he was so overprotective of the babies of their group. Jiung knew the older boy was balancing two jobs to provide for not only himself, but Jongseob, too. Life was tough ever since the youngest had run away from home.

If you had told Keeho things were okay, Jiung understood why he had chosen to believe you and stay at his workplace or steal himself an hour of extra sleep.

‘Did he say where he was going?’ Jiung asked, wondering whether he was overreacting or the nagging voice inside of his head was right about you. Even if he doubted you considered him as a friend, he would have liked to believe that he knew the core of your personality. There was no way you would have deliberately ditched your studies when you had worked so hard to get accepted on scholarship.

‘No,’ came the answer after a momentary break, silence filled with pangs of distress. ‘Why?’

‘I’m not sure, but I have a bad feeling about this. I’ll go and check their place,’ Jiung said, checking his timetable and deciding against showing up at his last class as it wasn’t a seminar and most importantly, it wasn’t a lecture he was sharing with you.

‘Now?’

‘Now,’ he nodded out of habit as he threw the strap of his messenger bag over his head and put on his cap.

‘I’ll be there in an hour. Wait for me!’ Keeho asked and Jiung let out a loud, affirmative hum before he hung up the phone.

The blond boy didn’t waste any time. He called a cab with his kakao app and asked the driver to drive as fast as he could once he got inside the car. He promised to double the fare if the old man got to your place in under an hour (which would have been an achievement in itself in the afternoon traffic).

‘We have arrived, mister,’ the taxi driver announced and Jiung indeed paid plenty before he jumped out of the car and rushed upstairs. He had only ever been to your place once, when it had been your birthday in freshman year of uni and Soul had organised you a surprise party with your favourite strawberry cake and a second-hand laptop for your studies. Jiung couldn’t remember anymore what he had bought for you. Had he even bought you anything?

He shook his head. That wasn’t important at that moment. Making sure you were alright and simply avoiding him was.

The first alarming sign was how easy it was to get inside your flat: all Jiung needed to do was push down the handle and the door was open. He didn’t need a key, a keycard or a passcode. His heart sank into his stomach when he crossed the threshold.

Jiung needed to bite into his lips to not make the mistake most people made on tv whenever they found themselves in a similar situation. Because as ridiculous as it sounded, his first instinct was to call for your name and announce his arrival, which would have been stupid. What if someone was here? He really shouldn’t have done that.

So he didn’t. Instead, he took off his shoes and checked every room as silently as possible until he made sure he was alone. Then, he started to go through your stuff systematically: skimming your mails, searching through your drawers and desk, rummaging your bathroom while simultaneously trying to not invade your privacy and finding clues about where you had been and what had happened. He was in the middle of looking for hidden compartments in your walls when Keeho arrived.

‘Is anyone here?’ The older boy asked, coaxing an unamused scoff out of Jiung with his loud question. Of course, he was acting like every idiot in a horror movie who was about to die.

‘Bedroom,’ Jiung grumbled, keeping his focus on the task in hand. He vaguely remembered Soul bragging about the coolest compartments he had installed in both of your flats, so that you could have hid your cash there and never gotten robbed. They had to be big enough to store a handful of stolen USB sticks. If only he could have known for sure there was nothing on them that would want dangerous people to make you disappear.

‘What happened here?’ Keeho asked, clearly taken aback by the state of your room.

Jiung didn’t bother to look around. He knew damn well the disaster he had left behind when he had started to get more and more frustrated, too impatient to put everything back to its place when they hadn’t given him the answers he was looking for.

‘The kimbap in her fridge went wrong days ago. She wouldn’t have left it there if she’d had a choice,’ the blond boy stated and it was ridiculous really, how sure he was in certain things when it came to you. But he just knew. He had caught you eating food you didn’t enjoy just because you had already paid for it or it had been for free. Even if you had been in a hurry, you wouldn’t have left it there to rot.

‘You sound pretty paranoid. And worried,’ Keeho commented, but walked up to your bedside table without much questioning and moved it aside. Then, he knocked on the beige wall a few times, gaining Jiung’s attention when suddenly, the thud gave a different sound.

Jiung crawled towards the bed on his hands and knees, reaching for the content of the hidden compartment once his friend opened it with ease that showed he knew exactly what he was doing. In small stacks, there were a couple of 5000 and 10000 won bills, less in total than the amount of Jiung’s allowance had gotten regularly in middle school.

Jiung’s throat closed up when his eyes fell on the custom-made keychain he had forgotten a long time ago, the one he had given you for your birthday and the one that sat on top of a pile of dirty papers. He took it into his hand and shoved it into his pocket before he skimmed the documents. On each page, they had the Dream House’s stamp on their upper left corners, which meant you might have found these in the facility’s basement.

Damnit! You had never mentioned you had found something that night, let alone something that looked like trouble.

‘What do they say?’ Keeho’s question came from Jiung’s right, your worn bed cracking under the older boy’s weight.

‘At first glance? That they are lucky if they’re in the countryside,’ the younger answered, his heart rate picking up because of the dreadful pictures his brain was throwing at him about you and Soul behind bars, the two of you in separate interrogation rooms, powerful people trying to break you to turn against each other.

Jiung looked around in search of his backpack, then stood up and lifted it off the floor, so that he could shove the documents between two books he had been supposed to take back to the university library. They didn’t matter anymore. You and Soul did.

‘Where are you going?’ Keeho asked, and while Jiung had a concrete destination in mind, he was contemplating whether he should have told the other the whole truth. Keeho hadn’t seen the late president’s name on the documents yet and while Jiung would have also needed more time to figure out what you had gotten yourself into exactly, he had a vague idea. He didn’t want to put his friend in more danger in case he was right.

On the other hand, he was aware how important Soul was to Keeho. Obviously, the older boy cared about each one of his close friends, even people he deemed honest and kind, but Soul was like a brother to him. If Jiung had been in his shoes, he would have resented whoever kept secrets this serious from him.

‘I’ll ask Jiseong if he heard anything,’ he settled for the truth, albeit giving a curt answer. He would cross that bridge when he got there. For the time being, he didn’t want to complicate things even more. Not to mention that his step-brother would have scolded him and might have outright refused to tell him any details if he had shown up at his office with someone who had nothing to do with their family or their social circle.

After meeting you, Jiung had started to question whether he was able to read other people as well as his family expected him to, but recognizing the fine mixture of doubt, hurt and worry in Keeho’s eyes was too easy.

‘You will call me,’ the words came out pseudo-commanding, like the boy knew no objection, but Jiung noticed the pinch of uncertainty that made Keeho’s voice crack by the end, turning the statement into a semi-question. He didn’t call him out on his lack of faith in his character, mostly because Jiung himself was unsure of numerous things, too, regarding the situation.

Therefore, he settled for a nod instead of a verbal promise and left the building. The papers in his backpack felt heavy, like rocks that were trying to pull him underwater, but nothing could have compared to the weight of the abandoned keychain in his pocket that you, for some reason, had kept at the same place you kept your treasures.

After a failed attempt at the District Court, Jiung decided to wait for his step-brother at his home office, which was basically a separate room on the second floor in their house, between their parents’ offices and across from his own study room. Aware of the importance of respect and good manners even when one wasn’t out in public, he knocked on the mahogany door and counted to three, seven, ten, before he entered.

Since the boy’s plan was to ask a few questions from his hyung about the Dream House Medical Centre and whether there had been any attempts at breaking into the abandoned building in the last couple of years - the more general his curiosity appeared to be, the safer for you and Soul -, he decided to jot down every aspect he needed to touch upon and tried to make the inquiries sound as academic and neutral as possible while he was waiting. A written list could have helped him make it look like he was working on an assignment of some sort.

Taking a seat by the massive desk in the left corner of the room, Jiung pulled out the upper drawer, looking for a piece of paper. He knew it was a little old-fashioned, that he could have taken notes on his phone as well, but there was something about a piece of blank paper that stimulated his brain. Thoughts and ideas came easier when he could feel the material against the mounts of his palm and the weight of the pen in his hand.

Jiung didn’t intend to pry. Why would he have? He had been raised to trust his family above everyone and everything and put his faith in the system blindly as his relatives had important roles in it for generations. However, it was undeniable that it was your thesis abstract staring back at him from the top of a smaller pile of papers in Jiseong’s drawer. Jiung needed to take it into his hands.

He didn’t have to read through the lines to make sure the paragraphs had been written by you. Even though your name was crossed out with a black marker, he knew it was yours. He had read your abstract before. God! He had told you it would have gotten you in trouble. He had just never assumed that his hyung would have also been involved in this mess somehow.

Desperate to not jump to false conclusions, Jiung put the document back into the drawer and closed it carefully. He leaned the back of his head against the chair and closed his eyes, trying to even his breathing. He couldn’t have allowed himself to act suspicious or else his brother would have kicked him out of his office before he could have uttered a single word.

‘What are you doing here?’ Jiseong’s thunderous voice filled the room, pulling the blond boy out of his messy thoughts. Jiung snapped his head in his brother’s direction, resisting the urge to gulp down the nervous knot in his throat or put on a fake smile.

‘Homework,’ he explained with his fidgety fingers clenched into fists and hidden under the desk. He needed to stop thinking about your abstract in the drawer and how it could have gotten there for not only his own sake, but yours and Soul’s as well. He had never been a man of emotions, he couldn’t have allowed to become one in such a delicate situation. ‘I mean, I need some answers I couldn’t find on the internet, nor in any of the books in the uni library,’ he added when his answer met with silence, putting effort into relaxing his tense muscles.

‘I see,’ Jiseong muttered, not taking his hawk eyes off his younger brother while he walked closer to the desk and along with it, to Jiung. The young man’s arms were crossed in front of his chest; his tailored suit devoid of any wrinkles. ‘Ask away then.’

Jiung wished he had had more time to prepare himself for this conversation. Sure, the boy had wanted to get over with the interrogation as soon as possible when he had decided to seek his hyung out right after he had left your flat, but that had been before he had found your thesis abstract. With this new discovery, he felt unprepared.

‘It’s common knowledge that the Dream House has been abandoned since judge Kang Yohan tried to use it to overthrow the government,’ he started with a well-known statement to steal himself a couple of more seconds. He usually used this method during presentations because talking about things he was certain about did wonders to his jittery nerves, but this time, the academic tone had no positive effect. The lingering uncertainty poisoned his confidence. ‘It’s heavily guarded, though. Why?’

‘Use your brain, Jiung-ah. Why do you think it needs to be guarded up to this day?’ The man asked in a chastising tone. It reminded Jiung of school breaks in the countryside that they had spent with their grandparents. It reminded Jiung of summer days when he had falsely thought he could have acted his age without unpleasant consequences.

He frowned, but gave a serious thought to the question and answered with his chin held high.

‘So people wouldn’t break in,’ he chose, because even before breaking into the Dream House and rummaging through the first floor, he had doubted there had been something or someone kept in there that could have escaped. Which could have only meant that the government wanted to keep people from entering.

‘And?’

Jiung furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, wondering whether his brother knew he had been there, inside the medical centre, when you had put your hands on those documents. Was there a specific answer Jiseong was expecting from him? Or should he have played it safe and pretended he didn’t know about the late president’s involvement in something that had gotten you in so much trouble, you and Soul had disappeared off the face of Earth?

‘There are people in our country who believe Kang Yohan was some sort of saint who wanted to protect the powerless from corruption even though he couldn’t have cared less about the poor and unprivileged,’ the young judge stated, destroying the remaining distance between himself and his brother. Jiseong put his palms on his desk and leaned closer to Jiung with a predatory glint in his hazel eyes. Like he was staring at a pitiful prey instead of someone he had to treasure and protect. ‘It’s guarded, so those with anti-nationalist ideas wouldn’t turn it into their own sacred place,’ he said, forcing the younger to hold his breath and listen. ‘They would crowd it. It would give them a place with meaning for gatherings and suddenly, their preaching would gain more credibility.’

At that moment, as he was staring at his step-brother, the blond boy couldn’t help but think of you and your reaction whenever he had said something to defend the system. He wondered whether he had sounded just as biassed and inimical to you as Jiseong did to him while he was talking about faceless people and their hypothetical actions when they hadn’t committed said crime yet.

He wondered whether the fact that he added that harmless “yet” at the end of the sentence in his head meant he was indeed the same.

‘Has anyone ever broken into that building?’ Jiung asked partly to cut the tension that grew with the silence, partly to check the credibility of his hyung’s words.

Jiseong took his hands off the desk and straightened his back. He shot a small smile in Jiung’s way and shook his head.

‘Never. Like you said, it’s heavily guarded. You have nothing to be worried about,’ he said, slowly loosing his necktie, piercing gaze poking holes into the skin between the younger’s eyes. ‘Any other questions?’

There were. Jiung had plenty of questions starting with why was your abstract in his drawer, what had they done to you and Soul, whether you two had been the first ones who had been dealt with this drastically or there were others, people who had no connection to people like Jiung who came from an influential family. However, putting these thoughts in words would have done more harm than good and Jiung wasn’t an idiot. He might have doubted Jiseong would have been able to make him disappear or it was really him who had been behind all of this, but Jiung knew he wasn’t untouchable.

‘No, nothing. Thanks,’ so he said and stood up from the chair as casually as he could manage before he bent down and picked up his backpack from the floor. He bowed to his brother like he always did when he was greeting his family members or saying goodbye to them, then straightened his back and waited to be dismissed, showing respect to his elder as he had been taught.

‘Go, wash up! It’s almost dinner time,’ Jiseong said and patted his brother’s shoulder once, twice, three times, before he turned his back on Jiung.

The younger didn’t hesitate to leave the room afterwards.

The thing was, whether his step-brother knew that Jiung had broken into the Dream House with you and the boys or not, Jiseong had lied to him. He also had your thesis abstract, the very same document Jiung had given back to you the day he had last seen you, which was more than a little concerning. Therefore, despite his own beliefs, Jiung needed to figure out what was going on and how deep his hyung was in the mess you had also gotten yourself and Soul into.

He needed to know you two were okay. The sooner, the better.

If anyone had caught the boy sneaking into his brother’s home office instead of attending his classes, Jiung would have been cursed out, then dragged into his room and locked up for several weeks. He knew because he had been driven to school and back home for a whole month in high school when his father had found out that he had drunk a beer with his friend in public despite being underaged. They had done it at a park where they had thought no one had been paying any mind to them, but they had been dead wrong as his then-friend’s mother had sent one of her secretaries to keep an eye on her son and they had gotten caught before they could have decided whether they had wanted to open the second can. The tension at home after that had been so messed up, Jiung hadn’t dared to break any rules for years.

That was, until he had met you.

Rummaging through Jiseong’s drawers turned out to be fruitless. Other than stationeries and a bunch of files about ongoing cases at the court, there was nothing to put his hands on, which was weird. Why wasn’t your paper in the upper drawer anymore?

Kneeling on the floor, Jiung leaned his forehead against the edge of the desk and closed his eyes. Looking through his hyung’s things was one thing. Should he have really logged into his computer, too? That sounded too extreme, but then again. The boy had already trespassed on government property just to keep an eye on you and make sure you were fine. He could have always claimed he needed Jiseong’s laptop for whatever excuse his mind would have provided at the time of need.

Letting out a troubled sigh, Jiung could hear your last words to him ringing in his ears. If he had decided to turn a blind eye on the weird happenings now, he would have turned into what you had hated the most in people like him. People with the proper background to make a real difference, but no desire to change what was wrong. He might have refused to believe you had been right about everything, nor did he think he was a bad person just because his values and beliefs were different from yours, but he couldn’t have lied to himself. Something about the Dream House project was fishy.

So Jiung sat on the chair and turned on the computer before he could have lost his courage. He checked every folder and every file systematically, then opened Jiseong’s email services and read through his mails, too. The more he saw, the less suspicious his brother appeared to be and the more guilty he felt, but it was too late to turn back. So he kept reading, until he did find something.

It was a forwarded email Jiseong had never replied to or if he had done so, he had already deleted the evidence. The original letter was a report on the break-in to the medical centre; the person claimed there had been three or four suspects, but no gender, approximate age or physical features had been stated. The first response was about the punishment of the guards who had been working that night; the second one was an ID number; the third said: it’s done. Collateral damage: one person.

Jiung’s hands were trembling slightly when in the last email attached to the conversation there was a follow-up report from his uncle. It had been sent at five in the morning, mere hours ago, and it said they were ready for shipping.

‘What the…’ he murmured under his nose, finding it hard to process that these people might have been talking about you.

Jiung deleted the search history and closed the browser. He turned off the computer and took a moment to think. Should he have visited his uncle’s researcher centre on his own or should he have told Keeho about these emails like he knew the older boy wanted him to? Should he have tried to figure out what was going on in the legal way or gone behind his uncle’s back, too, lacking spare time to waste? What had they meant by shipping anyway?

Before he left the office, Jiung took a quick look at the interior from above his shoulder, then stepped out to the hallway and fished his phone out of his pocket. He called Keeho and when it went to voicemail, he sent the older boy a cryptic text about how he needed him as soon as possible.

A rational part of Jiung was aware he needed backup, but he wouldn’t have waited hours just to hear back from his friend.

Luckily, Keeho had reached out to Jiung within an hour, hence the two boys could meet up at the 7-Eleven across from the research centre around three. If Jiung wanted to be honest, it was the worst time either of them could have picked: it wasn’t close to lunch break nor did it align with anything else that could have drawn the attention from them, but he didn’t want to wait until closing time. He wanted to check every room on every floor as soon as possible in case, for some reason, you and Soul were in there.

The more he thought about it, the more this place seemed like the perfect cover-up and this thought drove him up the wall.

‘Sorry we’re late,’ a familiar voice demanded attention, followed by a loud, screeching sound as the intruder pulled out the metal chair and sat next to Jiung. Intak’s smile was too wide for the older boy’s liking, but at least it didn’t look genuine. The visible distress that blended into his friend’s cheery facial expression made Jiung feel less paranoid even though he would have gladly accepted that he was overreacting and let the guys make fun of him if that had meant you and Soul were chilling somewhere in the countryside.

‘Why are you here in the first place?’ Jiung asked, his gaze sliding from Intak to Theo who also took a seat by the table in the meantime.

‘Duh. Cause I’m the best thief you know and you’re about to break into the enemy’s lair in broad daylight?’ Intak’s question was dripping with sarcasm, his cold tone making it sound more like a statement. Jiung bit back a nasty comment about how Soul would exceed him in no time with his connections all across the city because thinking of the younger came hand in hand with thinking of you and he couldn’t have that.

Jiung put his elbows on the table and intertwined his fingers. He raised a brow as he looked at Theo, the silent question why he was there hanging in the air.

At first, Theo’s response was no more than a shrug, but as the tension became palpable, he let out a defeated sigh. It was clear, he didn’t think he needed to explain himself, especially because both Soul and you were a part of their friends group.

‘Someone’ll need to stand guard.’ It wasn’t something Jiung could argue with even though he would have liked to believe that even if they had gotten caught, his connection to the head of the institute could have gotten them out of trouble. The thing was, he couldn’t say it for sure anymore and this uncertainty and his sudden lack of trust in his own blood were stressing him out. If the boy’s thoughts hadn’t returned to your disappearance every two minutes, he might have already broken down due to the revelations he had needed to face in the last twenty-four hours.

‘Cool. Now, let’s order something and talk about the plan,’ Intak proposed, earning a judging side-eye from Jiung and a frown from Keeho when he pushed his chair back, making more space for himself to be able to stand up and walk up to the counter. ‘What? You chose a café for this group meeting. It’s pretty suspicious if we don’t order anything,’ he put his weight on his palms, leaning closer to the boys over the table.

Jiung let out a scoff.

‘I’ll have one small iced cappuccino,’ Keeho broke the growing silence before he changed his mind. ‘You know what? I’m coming with you. We’ll be back in a minute.’

Instead of following his friends with his eyes, Jiung’s gaze stuck on the massive building on the other side of the road. He couldn’t not feel like in a matter of mere hours, the life he had been living would cease to exist for good. Whether because his own uncle and step-brother were parts of a mafia-like system he had been blind to all this time or because he had chosen to betray them when he had decided to paint them as the enemy, it didn’t matter. Their bond that had been built on trust would break beyond repair once Jiung broke into the research centre. It might have already done so when he had read through his hyung’s emails.

‘You won’t turn on us, will you?’ Theo’s question pulled the blond boy back to the present, his sharp eyes cutting deep into his being. He didn’t blame his friend, though, even if the assumption that he would have left them behind to save himself was offensive.

His pride could take this much.

‘I want to get them back,’ Jiung said firmly, hoping that the sincerity in his voice would be enough and Theo didn’t expect him to come up with a whole monologue about how he was ready to go against his own family and burn Seoul down to the ground to find you. Because honestly, he wasn’t ready for any of those. He wasn’t ready to face the elephant in the room.

‘And that’s what we’ll do,’ Keeho patted the blond boy’s shoulder, taking a seat next to Theo while Intak sat back on the empty metal chair on Jiung’s side. He slid a small cup of black coffee towards the younger and took a sip from his mint choco frappé.

‘Which part of the building we want to infiltrate first?’ Intak asked and Jiung also let out an amused laugh when he saw the other boy fishing out a worn laptop from his backpack. Neat, serious and responsible weren’t adjectives Jiung would have ever used to describe his hyung, but he sure took this job seriously. It was actually pretty impressive.

‘The sixth floor and the basement. You need a special keycard to get to both or the elevator won’t start,’ Jiung said, going into more details about the security system although his knowledge was very limited. He had been in the research centre only twice and both times he had been left with his father’s secretary in the canteen while his father and uncle had been talking about business.

The soft clatter of the keyboard filled the air and embraced Jiung with its normality; he took a sip from his coffee and let the warmth spread in his body. He might have hated the thought of his friends getting in trouble because of his fixation on your sudden disappearance, but a selfish part of him found solace in their presence. He wasn’t alone.

‘Okay guys, we’ll do it this way,’ Intak spoke up after a couple of mumbled swear words and a delighted hum that reverberated through all of them. He pushed the laptop further from himself so that everyone could take a look at the screen, then pointed at the live footage of one of the security cameras inside the building. ‘Based on their social media posts and public appearances, these two researchers are the easiest to lead on. Out of the two, this one here, Dr. Kim Ryeowook is the one who possesses one of the six magic cards to the elevator.’

‘You figured these all out, skimming through a few Facebook posts?’ Jiung raised a brow and it was actually Theo who shook his head first, reaching out to the laptop and clicking on the tab next to the one everyone was staring at.

‘Actually, it’s a text analysis software we still need to work on with Beomgyu for one of our classes. Once it’s finished, it’ll help people make decisions, like solving complex problems for them, based on the imported information,’ he explained, slapping Intak’s hands away so that he could check the accuracy of the information.

‘Oh, okay! That’s cool,’ Jiung nodded to himself, letting the guy overwrite what he needed to overwrite before he confirmed the prediction.

Dr. Kim Ryeowook. The man was currently walking down the hallway on the second floor. If they were lucky, they could snatch his keycard and sneak it back into his coat’s oversized pocket before his shift ended around six.

Jiung’s heart was about to explode when the elevator’s doors closed behind their back and he caught sight of the sterile interior of the sixth floor. As they were running low on time, he was only with Keeho while Intak searched through the basement, his humming deafening even from the other side of the call that kept them connected.

‘Could you please focus? Look for papers, anything about shipping can be important,’ Jiung scolded his friend while they walked down the eerie hallways that led from the elevator to the laboratories. Although they were both dressed in the white coats of the researchers’ uniform, the boy couldn’t have said he felt disguised enough. In fact! He felt as though they were both sticking out like sore thumbs. They were walking too slowly, the caution in their steps almost alarming.

‘I don’t know about you, guys, but I don’t think they’re storing papers in here,’ Intak’s voice sounded almost pained before his words got replaced by a very forced, very loud coughing fit. Jiung furrowed his eyebrows and exchanged a glance with Keeho.

‘What are yo—’

‘Fuck! Is this a freaking liver?’ Intak asked in terror, his question tugging on Jiung’s insides forcefully, making him nauseas. Because while it was a known fact that the employees at his uncle’s research centre were looking for ways to cure incurable diseases, Jiung would have never thought their vaccines and experimental medicines were tested on human organs. Sure, it must have been less cruel than testing them on living, breathing people, but the method still sent an unpleasant shiver down his spine.

Looking at Keeho and listening to Intak’s uneven breathing, his friends had to be of the same opinion.

‘Guys, some of the organs have the same set of numbers…’ Intak didn’t have to finish the sentence, it was obvious what that meant. Yet, he still forced the words out. ‘I think they belonged to the same person. Livers, kidneys, hearts. The list is endless,’ he said.

Jiung hadn’t realised he was shaking until Keeho wrapped his fingers around his wrist and stopped the uncontrollable trembling of his left arm.

‘Don’t touch anything. Take pictures if you can, but stay alert,’ Keeho instructed, then pulled Jiung forwards.

The two picked up their pace and walked down the hallway with purpose in each one of their steps. When they reached the first door on the left side, Jiung reached for the handle with his sweater paw covering his hand, then pushed it down so that they could enter.

Inside, there were two dozens of hospital beds, unconscious people tied to the meal structure of the furniture, high-tech machines monitoring their vitals. It shouldn’t have been as scary as it felt with the eerie silence filling the atmosphere.

‘Do you thin—’

Jiung didn’t let Keeho finish his question. He had to stay focused; if the older boy had asked him whether you and Soul were in one of these rooms, in one of these beds, his thoughts would have tried to come up with an answer and ended up being all over the place.

‘I’ll check the beds on the left,’ the blond boy volunteered, simultaneously praying that you weren’t one of these people and that you were here so he could get you out of here.

Jiung’s movements were frantic by the time he got to the last patient - victim? - at the end of the row without being able to touch you. He snapped his head towards Keeho who was taking pictures of the sick, fighting his frustrated tears, in hope of good news.

Neither of you was in the room. Or in the next one, or in the third.

‘I found him! Jiung, quick!’ Keeho exclaimed, his hands already working on detaching the machine from Soul’s fragile body. Jiung could taste bile in his mouth when he saw the bloody dressing around the pale boy’s torso. He couldn’t see the wound and he had never been particularly good at Biology, but he had a faint idea that the red line across the textile was somewhere around his friend’s right kidney.

‘Hy-hyung,’ Soul mumbled weakly, his half-lidded eyes barely open and his lips a mixture of lilac and blue as his head fell on Keeho’s shoulder. It took everything in Jiung to not throw his million questions at him about you and his family members like a spoiled child.

‘It’s okay. We’ll get you out of here. You’re safe now,’ the older boy whispered against the boy’s temple, then looked around, searching for something. Jiung couldn’t stop thinking of… ‘That wheelchair! Jiung-ah, we need to put Shota into that wheelchair.’

The urgency in Keeho’s voice pulled Jiung back to the present and he rushed to the other side of the room to get one of the wheelchairs for Soul. Keeho was right, there was no way they could have sneaked their friend out of the research centre when he was in a half-unconscious state. A patient in a wheelchair might have been a tad less suspicious than a lax body hanging from their shoulder. Though, a voice in the back of his mind said neither was a common sight in the building.

Jiung’s entire body tensed up when Intak dropped the phone on the other side of the call. The younger’s curses and his desperate ‘No, no, no!’ froze his blood even though Intak’s voice was barely above a whisper due to the sudden distance between him and the electronic device.

Contemplating whether he should have helped Keeho with Soul or pleaded Intak to give them an explanation of what was going on in the basement, Jiung let out a frustrated sigh while he was keeping the wheelchair in place.

‘Intak! Intak! What’s wrong?’ Jiung tried to gain the boy’s attention, but it wasn’t working. So they exchanged a worried glance with Keeho and came up with a plan: they checked the last room on the sixth floor, then the older got Soul out of the building while Jiung went down the basement to collect their friend (and whatever he might have found or encountered with).

Jiung hoped it wasn’t one of the security guards who had caught him red-handed, but if it had been, he was Intak’s best chance to get out of trouble. And that was the least he could do for his friend as without him, they might have never gotten to Soul.

The thought that he might have been facing his uncle’s rage at any moment should have been more terrifying. Jiung had no doubt about it that under different circumstances, mere weeks ago, he would have shitted his pants from the presumption that he had messed up so bad, the old man needed to be involved in the situation. But as he was running in search of his friend, passing by shelves full of glass containers and what not, he feared whatever triggered Intak’s uncharacteristic reaction the most.

It didn’t take long for Jiung to find the room with the open door. On the contrary, it became pretty easy once he got within hearing range, because Intak’s painful wailing echoed off the walls and surrounded him on the empty corridor.

Trying to regulate his nerves, the first thing Jiung noticed when he crossed the threshold was how the room was slightly colder than the rest of the basement he had raced through. Then, the sour and irritating smell of vomit and formaldehyde.

‘Intak.’ Jiung crouched down in front of the younger boy, cupping his face with his own, trembling hands, so that the boy could take notice of his presence. He had never been particularly good at comforting others, but he had seen Keeho do it to the boys enough times to have a vague idea about what he should have done.

Jiung pulled his friend’s snotty and tear-stained face against his chest and patted his blade bones gently, for a calming rhythm. Meanwhile, he looked around the room with his chin resting on top of Intak’s head, trying to figure out what could have happened.

‘She… she’s… no-hoh,’ Intak cried out desperately as he grabbed Jiung’s arm and held onto him stronger, body shaking from the threat of another pile of bile-filled vomit. Jiung looked down at the boy and closed his eyes. Should he have reminded him that they had to leave the basement soon? Should he have asked for answers?

Keeho would have rocked him back and forth until he calmed down, but Jiung was afraid they didn’t have enough time.

‘Intak, we need to leave. The keycard, we…’ The rest of the words stuck in Jiung’s throat when Intak pushed him away aggressively, shaking his head and screaming frantically as though the blond boy said something unforgivable.

‘We, no! We have to… we need to! No!’ He protested, crawling backwards on his hands and feet until his head crashed against an open compartment in the wall. With bold, palm-sized characters, there was a number written on it: 0327.

Now that Jiung paid more attention to the odd-looking doors on the right side of the room, his anxiety started to pick up. He pushed himself into a standing position and walked past Intak, trying to take a better look at the inside of the compartment. It must have been the younger who had opened it, which could mean that whatever was in there had triggered his hysterical reaction.

Jiung’s brows were knitted together in confusion when he felt a hand on his ankle. He looked down at his friend, who was shaking his head, mouthing his objections so quietly, the blond boy didn’t hear a word.

He turned back towards the compartment and pulled it entirely open. The piece of white clothing that was hiding the thing underneath was as big as a comforter. Although it brought no warmth or comfort when removing it, Jiung’s gaze fell on a pile of chewed out skin. There were no bones, no organs inside the violated corpse, only damaged skin and a head with more stitches, indicating that he couldn’t have found the brain inside of the skull, either.

Jiung fell on his knees when he recognized the ghost of your features on the corpse’s face. He coughed up bile and that little food he had in his stomach before the first tears rolled down his cheeks. He felt sick.

Neither of the boys could have told how long they were cursing and crying in that room with your corpse mere centimetres from them, but at one point Intak’s ringtone overpowered their sobs and pulled them out of their heads. Although Intak was closer, it was Jiung who reached out for the abandoned device and received the call, his voice hoarse and weak that did barely a thing to alarm the caller on the other side.

‘What the hell guys! You have to get out of there! Dr. Kim is already looking for his keycard, they are on their way to the sixth floor and I’m pretty sure the basement will be the next,’ Keeho said, panic and worry evident in each one of his words.

Jiung looked at Intak, then shifted his gaze to the open compartment. A part of him knew that there was no way they could have taken your remains without throwing up at each corner on the way out, that letting the others see you like this, especially Soul, would have traumatised them for life. He was also aware that as stubborn as you were - had been -, you would have wanted him to pull himself together and get the hell out of there before those who had done this to you would have done the same with the people you cared - had cared - about.

But it was so freaking hard to leave you there or to get up from the floor.

‘Are you listening to me? Please, guys, come out! Whatever there is, it’s not worth it, please, guys, please!’ Keeho was pleading, forcing Jiung’s limbs to move.

‘We’re on our way, hyung. Stop worrying so much,’ he forced out the sassy reply to ease the older’s nerves before he hung up the call and shoved the phone into his pocket.

Considering that cleaning up their vomit wasn’t an option, Jiung didn’t bother with checking the room for potential evidence they could have left behind. On the other hand, he put the textile back on your corpse and made sure the compartment you were laying in was closed before he opened another one and took pictures of another damaged body. He didn’t have the heart to do the same to yours.

Dragging Intak out of the basement was time-consuming and by the time they reached the elevator, Jiung’s muscles were screaming for a break, but he pushed himself until they were out of the building. The boy knew that their initial plan had been to sneak the keycard back into Dr. Kim’s pocket or at least leave it at the reception desk as though someone had found it accidentally at one point of the day, but with the mess they had left in the morgue room, these kinds of details had lost their importance.

Instead, they crossed the street to get to the coffee shop’s parking lot at a speed that didn’t draw too much attention, then got in Theo’s old car and refused to talk about what they had found in the basement until they got somewhere safe in the outskirts of Seoul.

The shocking news of your death lingered around the boys like smoke: sickening, ugly, bad. They couldn’t get rid of it and it threatened their health, especially Soul’s who refused to eat or drink anything for days despite his weak state until Keeho aggressively shoved some plain porridge down his throat.

Intak and Jiung weren’t that much better. Jiung just knew you would have lectured him for his self-harming behaviour if you had seen him skip his meals, so he forced himself to chew and gulp without the slightest care for the taste of the dishes Keeho put on the table. They could have been the saltiest, most disgusting soups and porridges of his life, the boy wouldn’t have noticed.

Although they didn’t know whom they could trust, the boys agreed on one thing: they needed to show the country, if not the world, the real faces of those monsters who led their nation since the first wave of the pandemic. They had to make people see how terrible they were, so horrible, inhuman things like this could have never happened again.

The problem was that even when they tried to upload the pictures they had taken on the web, they got taken down almost immediately. Then, after two weeks of futile attempts at sharing the evidence with the citizens of South Korea, the news was filled with the same lie on every damned channel: a group of young people committing terrorist acts against the country.

Honestly, Jiung knew that he had burnt down all the bridges when he had chosen his friends and the truth over his family, but seeing his ID picture next to those photos that the people in power had chosen to put on display in the media was numbing. He felt too many emotions at once to distinguish any of them properly. He couldn’t even say he was angry: the word itself did no justice to the thunderstorm inside his chest.

‘We can’t give up now,’ Soul said and Jiung tore his gaze from the screen of his tablet to look at the younger. He still looked so fragile, but as he balled up his fists and opened his mouth for Keeho to feed him some soup, he finally had some colour to his cheeks.

‘We won’t,’ Jiung promised and for the first time in weeks, the silence that followed his statement didn’t drain him. If anything, this newfound determination gave them all another reason to find a way to stop this madness.

Not even twelve hours after their faces were plastered all over the capital city, a girl called Elijah reached out to Jongseob, claiming that she and her uncle had seen the photos Jiung had taken of the damaged corpse before they had gotten taken down and that they wanted to help them fight against the system. It was freaking suspicious and at first, they decided to ignore it altogether. However, when Soul pointed out that Jongseob hadn’t been at the Dream House with them, nor had he joined them when they had broken into the research centre, they talked through their options one more time.

And they decided to follow the instructions of this faceless person towards a place that was promised to be safe for them in two groups just in case it was a trap.

Jiung, Soul and Keeho were the first ones to leave the city. They took Theo’s car, saying one of them would come back for the rest of them if things were really safe, then followed the GPS signals given to them real time by this Elijah girl who hacked into its system.

‘What do you think we will find when we get there?’ Keeho asked from behind the driver’s seat, his voice low on purpose to not wake up Soul who had fallen asleep in the backseat.

Jiung shrugged.

‘Dunno. Two more hours and we’ll find out,’ he stated, looking out the window, taking in the scenery. The countryside looked so peaceful and slow from the inside of the car, but he knew it was only the illusion of obliviousness. He refused to believe that there was any place in this country that hadn’t been corrupted by the government. He knew that the outside world was just as rotten as his life was without the rose-tinted glasses he had been wearing all these years.

Shaking his head, the boy tried not to think about the last conversation he had had with you. Still, he wished he had listened to what you had been saying. He wished he had stopped you when you had turned your back on him and walked away, visibly wary. You had given him so many chances to understand. Yet, here he was, figuring out too late:

History was made by monsters dressed as saints.

the end.

#disharmonycollab #jiung x reader #jiung x you #p1harmony scenarios #p1harmony x reader #p1harmony x you #p1harmony #p1harmony collab #p1harmony angst #ssbyme

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harper-collins · 7 months ago

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[Scarian - Desert Duo] The Love and Hardship of Living - I Hear a Symphony

Rated: Teen and Up Audiences Warnings: Major Character Death (not really, he's fine, it's just 3rd life) Fandom(s): Hermitcraft SMP, 3rd Life/Double Life Categories: M/M Relationship: Grian / Scar Characters: Grian, Scar, Mumbo mentioned Additional Tags: Timeline of their time together, Angst, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Grian is Not Okay, Protective Scar, Cactus Ring, Grian's fishing obsession, this compiles from the beginning of Hermitcraft S6 to Recent Hermitcraft S10, Slow Burn, A lot of this is taken from the canon of slightly fanon moments and slowly degrades into my own writing, I mean its all my own writing and I've rewritten a lot of stuff, but I mean there are canon moments that have been rewritten and fun ideas that I thought were canon or wanted to include in this fic. Summary: Grian always thought something was interesting about Scar. Scar had always liked Grian. Will they ever go through and get to know each other properly? What would happen?

Grian and Scar's relationship from HC S6 through the life series (at least two anyway) and up to HC S10. SONG FIC Warning that this fic is like 11k words.

I used to hear a simple song.

Joining Hermitcraft had been interesting to start, Grian had quietly told himself. Meeting many new people and being near his best friend. He and Mumbo hadn’t been on a server regularly before, so it was a nice change of pace for the feathered individual. Finding new ways to annoy people and getting to know the people around him had been quite fun so far.

Yet, not everyone could be there for the launch of season six. He’d been told they would meet soon, leaving Grian almost anxious. He wasn’t someone who craved the acceptance of others by far. He was usually okay with not knowing others. After all, he didn’t know the majority of the hermits personally. He just knew their faces, so it confused him that he seemed to want the late-comer’s attention so much.

Even when he’d finally joined the server, he was so busy trying to make up for his late arrival that the thought of going over to see a new hermit had utterly escaped his mind, and Grian was far too nervous to see him himself, especially with how stressed he’d sounded over the group chat for the server. Mumbo merely laughed at him and told him to see Mr. Goodtimes, but it didn’t feel that simple.

Maybe he’d meet the other sometime? Perhaps he'd see him at the shopping district and have a pleasant conversation with the other? Probably while he was building his pickle shop? After the thought had occurred to the other, however, he began actively avoiding the shopping district, letting his nerves get the better of him. It wasn’t too late, of course! He just needed to push himself. Why did this seem like such a difficult task?

That was until you came along.

Meeting Scar had been an experience. The other was clumsy, very interesting, and quite loud. It had taken Grian a little bit of time to adjust, but soon enough, he was enjoying the company of the other. They didn’t meet often—the feathery male was sticking close to Mumbo after all—but that didn’t stop the two from meeting occasionally, especially while they were shopping in the shopping district.

When the war came around, they weren’t actively against one another. No, Scar hadn’t joined team STAR; he was ConCorp… So technically, they weren’t against each other… Yet, Grian couldn’t help but feel a little disappointed that the male hadn’t joined him in the Prank War. It was silly fun, even if it did look like it was being taken seriously sometimes.

Scar just seemed like this remarkable individual that Grian wanted to know more about, wanted to understand and see on a more regular basis… Yet, he didn’t make any effort. He was too nervous. He didn’t know him! Why would Scar want to get to know him? He was just your crazy feathered pranker. People both tolerated and despised him. It was how he was! Grian couldn’t fathom sometimes why Mumbo still stuck around despite everything.

Still… Something about GoodTimeWithScar seemed captivating…

Now, in its place, is something new.

He felt pretty excited when he realised Scar’s base was close to his starter base at the beginning of season seven. The other was living in what would be a snail, but it wasn’t quite finished yet. Grian could practically feel the excitement coursing through his veins as he set his starter base up, knowing how many pranks he could pull on the other without it looking too weird. They were neighbours, after all.

When he found the zombie spawner near their bases, he knew how to introduce Scar to how it would be this season, with the two being so close. It may have taken hours and lots of lost sleep, but he couldn’t have been prouder for such a pleasing prank when it was finally finished. With the zombies set up to come from the jungle bushes, it would take some time for Scar to find the bubble elevator bringing them up.

Grian watched from the bushes as they began to slowly appear, causing Scar to get attacked by them in the middle of his building. The feathered hermit began to chuckle before quickly putting his hand over his mouth. He wanted to watch Scar figure it out alone, not catch him in the act! It took the other half an hour before he began looking for the source of the zombies, and he knew exactly who was at fault when he found the source.

“Grian!” He called, knowing the other would be near. He couldn’t help but giggle as he finally made his entrance. He tried to act like he’d heard the call from his base, but he knew Scar wouldn’t believe him no matter how much of a show he’d put on. When he arrived, he noticed that the other was quite the mess, his items everywhere from his repeated deaths as he struggled to go against the several zombies that had found themselves chasing Scar.

“Well, well, what’s happened here?” He asked, faking innocence. However, Scar didn’t seem to care for the play he was putting on as he began to get attacked once more. “Kill them, please! Just kill them,” he pleaded, close to death for the third time in the last few minutes. Grian quickly took his sword out and killed the rest of them, letting Scar promptly grab all his items as he huffed in a high-pitched voice, trying to calm himself down from the attack.

Grian began to feel concerned as the other caught his breath. “Are you alright, Scar?” He asked, getting a little closer to the other. The Elf merely looked in his direction with a smile on his face. He was sweating and stressed from the situation but could already see the prank was supposed to be a harmless joke. The avian could already feel the relief pouring through his body as he helped the other calm himself down and grab all of his items before safely storing them away.

After that, the two stayed around one another for a while, with Grian ensuring the other was perfectly fine and that he hadn’t lost any items through the whole debacle. They had settled on Scar’s makeshift couch, which was secretly just a couple of chests tightly packed together with some carpet over them to make it a little comfortable. They were mostly silent as Scar recounted the footage he’d been trying to record.

“You know,” Scar suddenly spoke softly, turning to Grian as he put his communicator in his pocket. “I was expecting something like this, but not quite a zombie spawner!” He joked, smiling at the other. Grian awkwardly laughed back, feeling quite guilty for what he’d done, even if the relief that his friend was all right was still fresh in his mind. “Well, as I said, I’ll make it into an XP farm now that the prank’s over,” he affirmed to the other, nodding as if confirming that this wouldn’t be a problem anymore.

Scar smirked at the other. “Never thought this pretty bird would ever feel sorry for a prank! Brighten up, G! No harm’s been done! I can confirm that all items on my person have been retrieved without them de-spawning,” Scar spoke, his bright and positive attitude practically engulfing Grian as his cheeks reddened. He ignored the little comment and tried to feel glad that no harm had occurred.

“Alright, alright. Just let me know if you need anything. All right?” He asked, observing the other as he stood up, preparing to leave. Scar beamed, looking at him with the happiest expression Grian had seen in a while. “Of course, G! You’re welcome anytime,” he said, waving at the other. The avian smiled back before turning and leaving; they were still on foot.

I hear it when I look at you.

Grian enjoyed making a little bit of war on the server, and despite last time, he thoroughly enjoyed the Mycelium War even more than anything else he’d done before. Maybe it was the fact that there was such a visible difference between the grass and the mycelium, but it didn’t feel like just that, not when Scar, one of his best friends, was on the other side of this silly war.

The two had grown quite close whilst living close to one another, and then the whole Mumbo for Mayor campaign that Grian had started and Scar going for himself had caused quite a bit of commotion on the server. It didn't feel right with the Shopping District going green, not to Grian either way. Yet, having Scar missing in his antics felt a little odd. Yes, he was on the other side of things, but he wouldn’t get his company being on the opposite side.

Even during the mayoral campaign, he went over and regularly hung out with his good friends and did some pranks with and against one another. Now, the only time he saw Scar was when he was working as Mayor at the Shopping District, and the only time he went near the other’s base was when he was stealing doors— No, he meant looking around to embrace its beauty. The enchanted area that the Elf had made sometimes overnight was magnificent, and Grian felt his lungs empty each time he saw it and looked around at the details.

Being Motherspore meant he had even less time for home-base things, though the Mycelium Resistance was also growing in size, and it was taking up most of his time and restocking the barge. In this instance, Grian saw a fellow hermit coming around to buy a few things from his shop. While restocking, he ignored the other’s presence for the moment—not many hermits tended to interact much while they saw him adding more things to the barge.

Only when he heard someone clear their throat behind him did he turn to look towards the individual, who turned out to be Mr GoodTimeWithScar. He forgot to breathe as he took in the Mayor, and his outfit paired with his sly smirk. He could see the other was trying to speak to him. His mouth was moving, but after not seeing Scar for two weeks, the sudden appearance just short-circuited his brain.

When he realized he’d been looking without talking for too long, he briefly noticed Scar’s face turned from excitement to concern. Grian wanted out of the situation quickly after having messed up like that. Unfortunately, he wouldn’t get away that easily, no matter how hard he tried.

“G? Are you alright?” he asked, stepping back from the other. The smaller felt himself breathe shakily after stopping himself for quite a while. “Y-yeah, I’m fine! I should probably get going, Resistance stuff and all—” he mumbled, diverting his eyes from the green eyes that were staring back at him. He tried to move away, completely forgetting about his current task at the barge, when Scar grabbed his arm softly.

“I didn’t want you to just walk away, G; we haven’t seen each other for a while! I just wanted to know if we could come to an agreement. You know, finally decide that grass is better—”

“Scar, Mycelium has always been here. It lives here, Grass doesn’t—”

“But Grass is so much better!” he whined, returning to the groove of their playful arguments. Grian couldn’t help but roll his eyes at the statement. “No, Scar, until you submit to the mycelium resistance, I won’t be stopping,” he snarked back, his tone colder than it had meant. Scar let go of the other, more to the pure shock of how aggressive the other seemingly was.

“I’m sorry— I didn’t mean—”

“It’s alright, G. Is it getting a bit intense for you?” he asked, frowning at the other. We could call it off or take a break! We aren’t being serious after all—” Scar stopped, sighing. Watching his friend was making him feel a little uncomfortable. He looked spooked and apologetic, emotions that didn’t look right on the avian’s features.

“No, it’s fine. I'm just sorry for snapping at you,” he mumbled, looking back at the open shulker box filled with sand to put on the shelves. “You don’t have to apologise, as long as you’re doing alright, that’s what matters,” the other replied, smiling at Grian. He couldn’t help but smile back at his good friend. He awkwardly shuffled back to the shulker box in question and began getting more sand out of the box.

“How are you doing anyway? Is everything alright with you?” he asked, glancing briefly at Scar, who was observing him. “Oh, I’m fine! Just so many mayor things to do! Who knew that there was so much to do? Sometimes I do think Mumbo would’ve been better at this than me,” he grinned, trying to appeal to the other’s previous campaign that had unfortunately lost.

“Nah, despite what’s going on at the moment, I do think you’ve done brilliantly being a Mayor Scar; I’m glad you won,” he said, smiling at the other. Scar’s smile and heart softened at his friend's admission, and he laughed a little. “Oh, well, that’s very nice of you, G! Whenever I see Mumbo, I’ll bet to tell him that myself,” he said, giggling a little more.

Grian just shrugged as he watched Scar, studying his friend’s beautiful—err, lovely-looking face with its mayor additions. “I’m sure he won’t mind; I’m the one who set it up in the first place!” he replied, giving the other a grin, too. It felt good to talk to him again, even if they were still on opposing sides. Something about Scar set his heart going a million miles a minute.

He was perfect.

With simple songs, I wanted more.

A new series of sorts was upon them, and Scar couldn’t be more excited. He was nervous; it was tough, with only three lives before you were out. Still, he was determined to make it through as long as possible, sticking close to his friends. He just hadn’t teamed with anyone in particular yet. They were all sticking close together, especially since it was a new experience. Hardcore was a thing, just not on the Hermitcraft server, nor on the other servers other old friends seemed to be in before they’d been moved here.

It had all happened so suddenly, with Grian barely warning them out of nowhere before they’d been brought over. He hadn’t given context on how he knew either, making the other extremely suspicious. He’d also left alone but returned now that they were all around a small village. It was relatively light and the whole group was in a circle, par from Grian. He’d been dipping around the village occasionally but not genuinely paying attention to any conversation.

Scar noticed that the avian was moving to his left, coming in and out of his view before he heard a slight sizzling noise behind him. Before he could realise what was about to happen, he’d already died, leaving him in his yellow life. He respawned in one of the village beds and started breathing heavily, his heart beating far too fast for the death that had just occurred. There was a commotion outside, but he felt more hurt; everything had happened so fast, and he didn’t feel like trying to speak to the smaller one that had just killed him.

When he finally managed to get out of bed, he saw tons of people staring at the creeper hole, some shouting at Grian. He looked panicked, the moment that the messy blonde’s eyes latched onto his own, he moved away from everyone in favour of going towards him with one of the more guiltiest looks Scar had ever seen on his best friend.

“I am SO sorry Scar, I’ll do anything to make it up to you, I genuinely didn’t think it would kill you,” he said apologetically, the others quietening down at such an offer. Some were still arguing, but hearing someone make such a sincere and deadly offer during a death game… Well, Grian had balls, that’s for sure. Scar didn’t know how to feel. A part of him wanted Grian to throw himself off a cliff just so they were both yellow lives, but that was a tiny part of him.

The other, the entrepreneur, saw potential, deviousness, and a best friend willing to make amends. Scar thought about it whilst the others watched them in silence. “I’ll give my life,” Grian quietly murmured, just so the two of them could hear. This was beginning to get interesting. “Oh?” Scar replied, urging the other to go on and try to give the offer to its fullest. He wanted to know.

“My entire green life, I’ll follow you, do what you ask; it’s all I can do to repay you unless you have another idea,” Grian said, his voice confident now, although it had soured at the end. Some of the players behind them gasped whilst Scar raised his eyebrows. “Deal,” he said, putting his hand out. Grian took it and shook quietly, the two staring at one another quietly.

From there, it didn’t take the two of them much longer to leave the small band in the village in favour of finding their land to live in. They’d taken the Llama there and began wandering around the small perimeter they would temporarily call home outside Hermitcraft. They would do it together, as best friends.

“TRAITOR!!” The scream rang high in his ears as he felt the sword plunge into his side. Bdubs had just been killed, and Grian was angry. Why wouldn’t he be angry? He’d been betrayed, betrayed by Scar. “Traitor Scar!” he shouted again to emphasize his point, but he was quieter this time. He was getting ready to swing again in the water but feeling more hesitant now that it was just the two of them together. Alone in the world, with everyone dead.

Scar watched his partner’s facial expression, one of hesitance but hurt, one that he’d made. Scar watched Grian quietly for a moment, taking him in. He’d been so helpful and loving this entire season. Sure, he may have gotten in the way of some deals he’d made with other people, but he’d helped Scar the whole way, keeping him alive despite his first death being at his hands. Scar loved how they’d gotten so close during this death game, and although he didn’t want it to end, he knew he’d already gone too far, been too bloodthirsty, just like the male was in front of him now.

“You can kill me,” he said, his voice set and firm. He hadn’t meant to blurt it out, but every word was accurate. If he had to die in this death game, he wanted it to be by the man he’d gotten the closest to, the person whom he’d shared everything with, including the bed on some nights when it had been too cold for both of them to be separate.

“What? No,” Grian replied, confused. What was he thinking? Didn’t he just want to kill him just moments ago? Maybe it had been the willingness to give his life for the other that had stopped his thirst for blood so quickly… Scar couldn’t be sure. “For everything you did to me to keep me alive this long… You may slay me and take the enchanter,” he said, bowing his head down and crouching in front of Grian in the water.

It was uncomfortable. Everything was wet. There was something everywhere, whether it was Bdubs’ blood, his own or the water. It felt disgusting, and it didn’t feel right at all to get so deep in the water, to submit to the one who’d been submitting to him for so long, but there was one big part of Scar that felt so loved that trusted Grian more than he could have ever trusted anyone. It was finally time for Grian to take back his independence.

“No, I can’t,” Grian replied, his heart breaking as he stepped back, going deeper into the waters. “No, I literally can’t, I can’t do it,” he continued, bringing Scar his head up as he watched Grian. He looked as though he was grieving for Scar despite him standing right in front of him. He’d been so close to killing the other in anger. Why was this so different? Scar would never think badly for Grian killing him, especially after all they’d been through together.

The two got out of the water, trying to rid themselves of what they could that was wet beyond belief; this was the end anyway; they didn’t need everything on their person. Grian moved away for a moment, going completely silent. Scar left him to his own devices, thinking the other wanted some space after a terrible amount of bloodshed all around the server.

He sighed, turning back to Scar. “No, these spectators want a fight,” he murmured, glancing nervously at Scar. The brunette-haired male didn’t know what the other was talking about, but he took it in stride as if he knew fully what the other meant. “No, no, no, no, we got this! We have a friendship, don’t let them break—”

“They want blood, they want blood,” Grian replied, his voice scared and nervous.

Scar sighed, sorting out his tools as he used the crafting table as a desk. “Okay, can we at least do the duel if we have to at Pizza’s grave?” He asked, keeping his eyes away from Grian. The other was being pushy over what these spectators wanted, even after they declared they wouldn’t hurt one another; it was getting unnerving.

“All right, let’s get—”

“Get in the boat!” Scar barked, getting tense. The other got in quickly.

“Alright, this is the last bro moment we have—why are we in a boat in a pond?!” he shouted, feeling bamboozled by his best friend. Scar glanced over at him with a quizzical expression, not having figured it out just yet. “What?” He replied.

“Step into the ring,” he boomed, having just put the new cactus next to Pizza’s grave. It was a ring. Most of the cacti only had one instead of the typical three as they’d just been put down, but as long as they didn’t jump around, it would be plenty to keep them in a boxing ring-like situation. He’d already gotten rid of everything apart from the last bit of cacti; he was only waiting on Grian, who confirmed to Scar he was getting rid of everything as he emptied the rest of his pockets.

Grian stepped in, getting to the other side of the ring, and the two stared at each other for a long moment as Scar sealed them in, quietly watching one another with bated breath. They gave one another a moment before they went in… Grian spoke first.

“Scar… I don’t feel good about this,” he admitted, staring the other down. Scar nodded, feeling a little nervous about this entire ordeal himself. The ‘spectators’ had ordered them to sheath their armour and use their fists against one another, which was bound to leave one another bloody, no matter who won. It made the hairs on Scar’s back stand up just at the thought of something so degrading.

“No matter what happens, we can call this a double victory, right?” He said softly, keeping still as he watched Scar fiddle around a little with his fingers. The brunette nodded vigorously, moving around in his little area. “Yes! We’re good, we’re good,” he confirmed, trying to inwardly hype himself up for something he didn’t want to do. He didn’t want to hurt Grian; it was why he had allowed himself to be killed by Grian in the water; he’d waited for the other to use his sword and cut him down…

Did they have to do this?

“Let’s let the ghosts count us in then,” Grian replied, moving around as he prepared for the fight. Scar had no idea who the ghosts were, probably the ghosts of his past friends, the ones who’d been slain, whom he’d killed. He couldn’t hear them, though, giving Grian a slight edge. Scar remembered to close the ring as he turned around, ignoring the inward counting the other was doing.

When he realised what was happening, the other was urging him to begin, approaching him at a terrifying pace. From there, it was a mess; punches were thrown left and right, up and down, with some thrown with a jump to add more weight. Scar’s head, sides, stomach and body hurt, but a small part of him couldn’t be happier. He inwardly wanted Grian to win the game, he’d been so good after all, so loyal. He couldn’t have asked for anyone else to kill him and pledge their life for him on their first day.

Scar was throwing punches, too, but they weren’t as strong, and he kept getting stuck by the cacti. He watched Grian’s expression. He was remorseful, he was hurting, and he didn’t want to do this, but there were no other options; they both knew that… Even if Scar didn’t quite understand why. They gradually and somehow moved out of the ring, moving towards Pizza’s grave; he was close to death now; he could feel it. He hadn’t been punching or hurting the other enough to have him anywhere close to death.

“I’m so sorry,” Scar blurted, his heavy breathing making the statement gaspy. There were so many other emotions, so much hurt, pain, love, and trust filling his heart, soul, and body, but there wasn’t enough time, not when the punches kept coming, and he kept trying to throw them. “I’m sorry too,” Grian blurted back, far less breathless than Scar himself. He had a sad expression covering his face, but the brunette couldn’t help but feel it was the prettiest thing he’d ever seen.

He repeated his apologies as they got closer and closer to Pizza’s grave until suddenly, nothing was beneath his feet. As he began to panic, he shouted, “No!” Out before he felt the final punch from his best friend, killing him in midair before he could hit the floor. It went dark, and the moment was over. His burning passion ceased, and his body replenished as he was sent home.

Yet, no matter how far Scar would get from the moment, away from the Cactus Ring, he knew secretly, he’d never, ever leave it.

Perfection is so quick to bore.

“Get away, Scar, get away from me,” he shouted angrily at the other, shaking from the pain and anguish he’d experienced less than an hour ago. Scar stood his ground, refusing to leave, but he didn’t come closer to granting his wishes. “We said, didn’t we? It was a double victory. We did it, Grian—” he told the other, trying to comfort him.

“No, no, you don’t get it! I used my fists against you, killed you in cold blood… You didn’t even try!” he shouted back at the brunette. Scar felt a little taken aback by Grian’s attitude but understood. He was seeing it in his mind. He was seeing the pain. It might’ve been different for Scar, whose memory had faded from death to Hermitcraft, but for Grian, it had been all too much.

“It’s okay! G, no matter what, I forgive you, okay? You had to do it. Those spectator ma jigs told you to, didn’t they?” He assured, taking a step closer. Grian was tearing up, and my god, Scar just wanted to hold him close and keep him tight until the other was okay. He knew the mental scars would be there for far too long, maybe never leave… But he wanted to take care of the other and assure him he was okay.

“But I still—” He broke himself off, trying to hold in a sob as he desperately tried to curl in on himself, his feathers puffing up as he tried to hide. Scar ran over, taking Grian in his arms and hugging him tightly, quietly whispering comforting words. The dirty blonde was quick to latch on, sobbing into his shoulder as the two quietly digested the obscenities the other server had brought them.

How close they were to one another, but how hurt they’d been from such an experience. Scar doubted they’d be the same again.

You are more beautiful by far.

“Scar?” Grian shouted, nearing the Swaggon with speed. Scar quickly whisked himself to the door and opened it, seeing the dirty blonde at the door. He was so irrevocably different this season. They’d only been together a handful of times since they’d moved into Boatem with everyone, but Scar felt he couldn’t keep his eyes away from the avian every time.

His face was so full of colour, his emotions full of energy and positivity, his wings so beautiful and delicate. It caught the other off-guard every time, but he tried to take it in his stride. After all, he couldn’t just admit to the other he liked him. Once he realised that the other was waving his hand in front of his face, he couldn’t help but blush as he finally paid attention.

“Earth to Scar! God, what’s gotten into you lately?” He asked, laughing a little as he smiled at the terraformer. “Sorry, G! Miles away,” he laughed awkwardly as he let the other in. Grian walked into his home and began to look around, almost like a child curiously going on a new walk and wanting to look at every nook and cranny around.

“It’s fine, Scar. I want to make sure you’re alright… I love your build; it’s so beautiful…” he muttered, admiring the interior despite its work-in-progress. Beautiful like you… Scar found himself thinking. With a smile, he quickly shook his head and joined Grian on his adventure through the Swaggon.

“I’m glad you like it. It's a shame it’s not closer to you!” He replied, snickering and giving a classical grin to the avian. Grian could only huff and turn away at the comment. “It’s not like I can walk to your base without going through a portal or using my wings…” He began listing, making it sound a little ridiculous that the brunette still didn’t find it close enough.

Scar huffed, crossing his arms. “Well, if you think it’s that easy, maybe I should move away!” He replied, shaking his head for effect. Grian could only giggle as he turned back to look at his friend. “Don’t be silly, Scar; I like having you close! Anyway, you can’t leave Boatem now; we’re a team; we will all be working together, staying close,” he explained, watching the other’s expression closely.

Sounds like a dream… “As long as you don’t blow anything up, it’ll be fine,” he chuckled, going into a shulker box nearby to look for food. Do you want any tea, pies, or cookies?” he asked, trying to be polite. “Oh, I’m fine. I just wanted to check up on the build and you, but you seem to be doing just fine,” he replied with a grin.

Realistically, Scar knew the other had just come over to procrastinate on something he had to do on his build. However, having a smaller base to make this season (as the other had proclaimed) should help alleviate just how much procrastination he was due to do this season. He was looking forward to it. He ignored his brain’s inward monologue in favour of staring at Grian’s pretty face—or something like that.

“Alright, well, you know you’re always welcome here, G!” he replied, grinning at the other. Grian only smiled back at the other, enjoying his company a little more before he had to leave.

Our flaws are who we really are.

“Annnd finally! We got it in Grian! After all that time, the creeper is finally in,” Scar cheered, pleased that after so long, they’d finally been able to do it, finally been able to sort out the creeper and put it in Grian’s menagerie. “Thank goodness, I was beginning to think it would take all day,” he sighed appreciatively, getting close to the glass cage. It was surprising that a layer this thin would stop a creeper from blowing up someone, but he was glad for it nonetheless.

Then Grian remembered something. “Oh, Scar, did we name it?” He asked, turning to the brunette in question. He laughed nervously before looking at his inventory, clearly seeing the name tag. He was silent for a long moment, enough for Grian to know exactly what his friend had done. “Scar! We’ll need to break into that and put it on now,” he whined, looking nervous.

The brunette turned to look at his friend, who seemed quite nervous. They’d already blown a charged creeper or two, so getting another in a building named to ensure it didn’t despawn was going to be a task… But it was ultimately Scar’s fault. It was his business, and he had to ensure everything was right with the other’s order, even if he wouldn’t do this for anyone else.

“I’ll do it, not to worry!” He said, grabbing the name tag and getting close to the glass to open it up. “Oh hey hey, dude, is it such a smart idea? I don’t mind doing it—” Grian tried to protest, foreseeing what Scar was about to do, but it was far too late because by the time the dirty blonde was cutting himself off, Scar had already opened the glass and he was trying to get the creeper to come closer for the name tag.

“Come here, Boo… That’s it…” He quietly baby-spoke to the creeper. As soon as it was close enough, he name-tagged the creeper and celebrated, but it was too late. Instead of closing the small window, the celebration gave ‘Boo’ enough time to blow up, destroying the bottom floor of the menagerie and Scar along with it.

He woke with a start at the bed not too far from the disaster, and he heard Grian panic as he went over to see the collateral damage to his little shop. Scar felt his stomach churn. He’d been so sure he could fix the issue for him. Now he needed to fix the shop before they could get another creeper… He’d have to make this right, somehow.

Scar had been away from the Swaggon for a few days to gather resources. This wasn’t unusual by far; it helped him calm down and relax occasionally, especially if things back at the base were getting too much for the hermit. He was not expecting the mess that would be there when he returned.

When Scar closed the door and went up a level, he quickly realised he couldn’t go further into the Swaggon. He frowned, using his elytra, which were still strapped onto his back, to get up and inspect the damage. It wasn’t anything significant; a minor fix would have sorted the issue out just fine, but the ladder was broken and one of the more essential parts of the whole Swaggon.

When he came to inspect the area, he noticed a little note had been left via a sign in the middle of the area, which he quickly saw was one from Grian. Scar had trouble reading the sign; he tended to struggle to read many things, but this was more due to the context of the words than the words themselves.

“Creepers can climb ladders?” He asked himself quietly, shaking his head. Well, at least he knew Grian had been looking for him, even if it was only because of the mess left behind. “Better go and check on G later… He’d probably be quite nervous,” Scar muttered further to himself, taking the sign down as he pondered on what used to be there and what he could do to fix the small hole that a creeper had made.

It took Scar twenty minutes at most to fix the little issue before things were back to normal, and he could continue as he was before. He would have to check on Grian later, though. He strangely got scared or nervous when issues with Scar happened. He knew about third life… Scar mentally shuddered at the reminder, but he’d always done it, even before the death game they’d had.

Scar began to unload his items from his trip, trying to shrug it off as a friend being concerned for another friend. There was no point in overthinking now.

I used to hear a simple song.

It was always Scar. For some reason, the Watchers always wanted him and Scar to be paired. At least, it seemed that way. Even though he’d screamed when he’d found out he and Scar were soulmates, the rush of panic had been all that had pushed him. He was just thankful that the other had no idea. He’d been able to finally come to terms with his emotions by the time it was necessary for Scar to figure it out, and the other had been thrilled for the most part.

He’d been more preoccupied by the Jelly Panda’s, but the other had been delighted when he’d found out. He’d said, “If we are the final two again, we won’t have to kill each other!” And other such lines, but the past was all he could think about. It was fine being with Scar on Hermitcraft; it wasn’t as though anything was indeed on the line, but it felt like making bonds on the life series made things all the more realistic in a hurtful way.

The day he’d beaten Scar in the Cactus Ring was when he lost a part of himself and never wanted to do it again. Scar was far too precious. He should never be put anywhere near death. So that is what he’d do this season, just as he’d done before. Ensure they stay alive and avoid getting close to Scar.

It worked at first. Scar would get confused about their time in separate beds on cold nights. Other times, he'd push him away when Scar wanted to do something that Grian would consider intimate or close. However, whenever he was in danger, he’d step in to avoid the other getting hurt, to the point that Scar had barely touched a sword during the season.

Then he began to see BigB. At first, he makes a silly joke to try to take the edge off of constantly being on guard and cautious around Scar and their relationship. It escalated far too quickly, however, as he began to go there more often to take the edge off of his anxiety. It got to the point that he knew Scar was suspicious, but he didn’t want to admit weakness to his soulmate.

He knew he’d have to face his actions at some point. He just hadn’t realised it would be so soon. After a few hours of ‘disappearing’, he returned to see BigB and Scar waiting at the entrance. He looked unhappy and a little distressed. It raised his anxiety right back to where it had been before he’d even left, making the past few hours almost meaningless.

“Where have you been, G? I thought you said you’d go see the ranchers, but I went over to check up on them, and they said they hadn’t seen you all day! You can’t be lying to me, G… We’re soulmates…” He said, his voice breaking a little as he watched him with a hurt expression. Grian turned away, disliking the look on his face. It broke his heart to see him so upset. Yet, he knew it was all his fault.

“I-I’m sorry,” He stammered, avoiding eye contact as he began to play with a bit of his red jumper. Scar was just too precious. He couldn’t get hurt. He couldn’t know… He had to get out of this… Somehow. “Don’t you dare; I know that look from anywhere, G, and I don’t want to hear lies,” Scar spat, taking a step closer, a step too close in Grian’s opinion.

He felt the other breathing against his hair before a rough hand clutched his jaw and gently brought the other’s head up so the two could look one another in their eyes. They were close, closer than Grian had ever remembered them. Suddenly, he felt his body hot, his cheeks lighting up with red as he watched Scar’s upset and tightly constricted face watch him. He was trying to decipher what was happening in the other’s mind, but it was only filled with Scar.

He momentarily forgot to breathe, but the other had used his soft words to keep him taking slow, deep breaths. He must’ve thought Grian was having a panic attack to react so gently with him. The dirty blonde tried to look away, but Scar’s hand was firm and unwilling to move. He was trapped, stuck in a consequence of his actions. Of course, he should’ve seen this coming; he had, in a way… Just not in such a close situation.

“I’m sorry,” he quietly repeated, staring into Scar’s eyes and seeing sorrow staring back at him. Scar didn’t try to reply to him this time. The male had set out the rules of this conversation, and he held his thoughts, unable to make words of them. How could he tell Scar about his insecurities? His worries, him going off to see BigB to alleviate the stress in the only way he’d learnt how: running away from his problems.

The silence between them left Grian awkwardly, trying to fill it with something. He just didn’t want to admit it just yet. “I-I just, it’s difficult, okay? That doesn’t mean I don’t care about you because I do—” he cut himself off, groaning at his stupidity as he watched Scar’s eyebrow quirk in amusement. Of course, of course, Scar would find this amusing. It wasn’t as if he was still holding Grian’s face, and they were mere centimetres apart. Of course, that wouldn’t be mind-melting to the other male.

“I’ve been going over to see BigB, just to relax over with him, nothing else,” he blurted, avoiding the other’s eyes as much as possible. The two were silent for a long moment, with Scar’s breath hitting the entire him before he finally sighed. “It’s not that I don’t want you to see your friends, but why would you hide it from me, G?” he quietly complained, trying to keep the whine out of his tone. It worked, mostly.

“I would rather not hurt you, that’s all,” Grian finalised, shaking his way out of the other’s grip. The brunette didn’t try to get close again; he looked genuinely hurt by the other’s behaviour. “Has this all been about—”

“Don’t mention it,” Grian stated coldly, turning away from the other, and Scar knew he’d hit the bullseye. He quietly moved to stand next to the avian, not quite looking at him and not making the other stare at him either. The best of both worlds from Scar’s perspective. It had comforted Grian a little, too; not having to look the other in the eye made things a lot easier on himself.

“We’re together this time; it’s either us or nothing,” Scar quietly spoke, glancing at the other nervously. He flinched but tried not to make a big deal, although the brunette had seemed to notice somewhat. “We might not even make it to the end. G, will you throw this because you’re scared of a repeat?” Scar asked, his face clearly showing a look of disappointment. A feeling of guilt began to bubble up in the other’s chest, but he wouldn’t let it slide.

“You’re far too precious, Scar; I’m not letting you get hurt just because we decided to get close again. I hurt you last time, and I don’t want to repeat that same mistake,” he snapped, avoiding the other’s eye contact. Scar laughed a little at the irony of what the other had said. “ Hurting me? Grian, you’re already doing that by staying away from me! We do things as a team. That’s what this season is supposed to be about… You actively pushing me away is only hurting the both of us,” Scar pleaded, feeling upset as he watched the other’s face morph into one of guilt.

“I…” Grian tried at that moment to find a way out of the situation, an excuse to tell that would further go with the idea that he’d been subjecting himself throughout the entire season…

But it was empty. His brain was empty of ideas.

That’s what broke the dam. As he began to tear up, Scar took notice almost instantly and moved to comfort the other, bringing him in a hug. Grian latched onto him with an urgent need as the waterworks properly began, and he continued to sob loudly into Scar’s shirt. The only change that bringing Scar close made was that his sobs were muffled, and he had someone else to lean on.

He’d been hopelessly lying to himself this entire time, wishing that there was some way to avoid the same pain and hurt that he’d previously been subjected to. Maybe, if he listened to his partner, the rest of this series would be enjoyable. All he had to do was let go.

That was until you came along.

Grian was majestic to Scar. The way he flew made trouble for many people around him, and the way he built was so beautiful. He almost wanted to live there, be by his side, and love—errr. Maybe his thoughts were getting away with him a little there. The point was that Scar adored Grian, and seeing him in such pain felt inhumane.

Mumbo had left to go on holiday, which initially felt like a bit of a hiatus but now felt a little more permanent than many people on the server, especially Grian, liked to admit. Their moustached friend had given him special permission to do what he wanted with the vault and its contents (however minor they were). Still, it was obvious to Scar that Grian would never be capable of doing such a thing, especially with how much he treasured its small contents.

The whole area was almost biblical to the other, even where a new version of Grumbot was somewhat under Mumbo’s base, away from his builds on the ground. Watching the other constantly pour over the cave, the rift, and the machinery almost made Scar feel sick. It was a sad obsession, and he knew the other wouldn’t normally do anything like this.

More often than not, the scarred male found himself dragging Grian out there for some self-care while avoiding making any progress on his base. It was one of the places that Scar had become most accustomed to during this season, and it was also starting to become concerning. He also left his wings on more often than not these days. Grian may have the natural wings of an avian, but his Elytra was not made for 24/7 usage.

Scar’s efforts were appreciated. However, Grian had made that very clear, especially with how he had previously been quite combative with coming out of the dreary cave, where now he would follow the other’s directions rather than fight. The other would sometimes even follow Scar throughout Scarland for more company. It partially felt like he was babysitting the other, but he didn’t mind.

He wouldn’t ever say that he enjoyed the other being clingy, even if it was a little evident. Grian may not have picked up on it yet, but clearly, the others had. He’d been teased quite a bit about how he’d take care of the other, including being teased that the two were together in a relationship, but he’d only deny them and never mention any of it to his already hurting friend.

He continued to explain why he shouldn’t tell the other when he got a ping from his communicator. It briefly took him out of his element, and he realized he’d been outwardly ranting to a piece of Scarland he’d been making. He shuffled to bring it out and sat down to read everything. There was no doubt that he’d missed a few pieces of conversation.

He quickly read through the main chat from all the hermits, but nothing was too attractive for him before he realised he’d been whispered by no one other than Grian himself. ‘Can I come over? Movie night, maybe?’ he asked, raising Scar’s eyebrows. He knew what suggesting a movie night would become, which only concerned him. Grian never brought up those fearing Star Wars talk, but it seemed they were a little more interested today.

He shrugged, telling himself he’d mentally check on Grian when he arrived. ‘Sure! When are you thinking?’ he quickly replied, ignoring the further message the dirty blonde had sent to ask Scar whether he was awake. He got a very quick reply, which indicated to the other that he’d been waiting for Scar to reply and watching the conversation.

‘I’ll be coming over now. If you’re busy, I don’t mind just watching you for a little,’ he explained over messages. Scar shut the communicator off quickly, knowing there would be no point in replying when the other was already coming over. He was in a part of the park that was a little more difficult to find than being out in the open. This meant that although Scar had heard him enter the park, Grian wouldn’t see him for several minutes.

The brunette took the opportunity to finish his build a little early, complete the small part he’d been working on, and move swiftly into Grian’s vision, where the avian came up to him reasonably quickly.

“Scar! I’ve been looking for you everywhere!” he whined, speeding into the other’s personal space. The other only laughed as he watched Grian with an adoring look. " I just had to finish something; you are doing okay, G?” he asked, inspecting his friend with too much precision. Maybe he’d just gotten good at doing it so recently, but it was almost scary how he could pick up the small details of Grian’s well-being from his looks.

In all fairness to him, it looked as though he’d showered not long after messaging him. His hair was mostly dry now, but there were still little bits that were damp in his hair, which was nice to know. The other took care of himself minimally to the point Scar had once had to drag him into the bathroom and lock the door until the other had showered and dressed himself in new clothing that wasn’t his dirty ones.

It had been unpleasant for all involved, but they’d made the most of it. Returning to the present, he noticed that the other smelled like a mixture of fresh scents, and his wings were pretty much preened. The brunette was pleased to see the other in such good condition without his help. His smile got a little wider than before when he listened to him.

“Yeah, feeling a little better today, but I just wanted to see if I could treat Mr Goodtimes to a movie night of his choice! You’ve been doing so much for me lately that I thought you’d enjoy doing what you want a little more,” he replied shyly, giving him a big smile. Scar beamed at the other, feeling extremely pleased with the other’s thoughtfulness.

This may not be quite the turning point that Scar would hope that lasts long-term, but it was something that the other would cherish for a long, long time.

You took my broken melody.

“So I was wondering,” Grian warily started, watching the other as he went through the training course he’d made in Scarland. “Hmm?” The other replied, trying to concentrate as he kept hitting the targets. “I was wondering if Hotguy had a sidekick,” he blurted, looking away from the other. The question made Scar turn around and stop, staring at him with an empty expression as he processed the words.

“You’re asking if I have a sidekick?” he asked to confirm, looking a little confused with the other. Grian nodded a little, shifting uncomfortably with the other’s eyes on him. “…I don’t. Why do you ask?” he questioned, looking suspicious. Grian felt a little self-conscious as he had the other’s eyes on him.

He promised himself it would be fine; he’d spent a lot of time practising and making his outfit… All he needed to do was tell the other. “I was just wondering if that position was available?” he asked, keenly aware of Scar staring at him with a look of curiosity and pure joy. “Yes! Yes!! Oh my god, G! That sounds wonderful!… You’re talking about yourself, right?” He asked, realising he’d assumed without questioning the other.

Grian chuckled a little to play off his nerves whilst he nodded. “Yup, advocating for myself,” he warily replied, his hands itching to place down the shulker box with his outfit. “Oooh, ooh! What’s your name going to be?” He asked, using his Elytra to float down and stand beside Grian. The dirty blonde smirked, pleased that he seemed to be so excited.

“Well, since you’re Hotguy, I thought I’d be Cuteguy! Y’know, because I’m so cute?” He suggested, faking an excited grin to the other as he felt the anxiety create a pit in his stomach. Scar whistled, winking at him. “That is a perfect name Grian, I wholly agree, you are such a cutie that it feels like it’s the only name that fits,” he replied quickly, as if he’d been preparing the line for years.

The words made Grian blush a little. He turned away a little to try and avoid Scar seeing him light up like a Christmas tree. “W-well, I’ll be needing an outfit for this—” he tried, trying to prevent the redness of his cheeks as a topic of conversation. Yet, the suggested topic had only made Scar gasp as he excitedly began to think of ideas.

“Oh, I’ll make one for you right now, Grian! Oh how cute you’ll be in the outfit I’ll make you, oh we can do so much super stuff together! Hotguy-ing and Cuteguy-ing anyone we see! We’ll be an amazing duo,” He began to chatter, not allowing Grian time to speak as he moved towards one of the back areas of Scarland to make an outfit.

The other shook his head fondly. He may have an outfit, but perhaps Scar’s would be made more out of love and far more worth his time. Before he followed the other, he took out the shulker box and took out the black outfit, mixed with red and orange lines. It looked a little similar to Hotguy’s outfit, but he shook his head, binning it in some fire before closing the shulker box, taking it, and putting it back in his inventory.

He shortly followed after Scar, wondering what kind of ideas he had for his first proper outfit.

And now I hear a symphony.

It was… Concerning, to say the least. To say Scar wasn’t worried for his friend would be an understatement. The whole shebang to do with Mumbo had grown to extreme levels, so Scar had stopped seeing the other as much. Even though there had been good moments, such as everything with Cuteguy (which did still happen on occasion, just not nearly as much as Scar liked), there were still bad moments, this being one of those moments.

Grian had been hanging around him less overall recently. Usually, they’d have movie nights, or the other would follow him to avoid working on his base, but now it was as if he’d disappeared. He knew that sometimes he didn’t leave his abode, but it was growing more than concerning now.

Scar decided to go see him. The other wasn’t replying to his messages on the communicator, so he had to stage an intervention in person. It was the only way around it. He brought his Elytra back on and moved toward Grian’s home. Thankfully, it wasn’t too far away, but there was a reasonable distance.

Once he got to the front, he immediately noticed that the door was open and that the house was empty, at least in the area visible from the door. Scar hesitantly went into the house and looked around; he saw nothing. There was no sign of Grian being there, at least in the last few hours. It made Scar nervous, but he knew he’d find the other.

After checking the house, he checked the rest of the base, including the storage area, the small farms, and even Mumbo’s base. He discovered only one place he hadn’t checked: the hole where Grumbot lived. Hesitantly, he went inside and briefly looked at the closed rift before turning around and checking the rest of the area.

He almost left before finding a small crevice he’d never realised existed. He moved past the rock around and found a small, dimly lit room. The dirty blonde was there, around a circle of candles and under a drawing… What that Mumbo’s face? He quietly sneaked in to not alert the other; he noticed the other sniffling, and his heart quietly broke.

“Grian?” he quietly asked, looking at the other with heavy concern. The avian swiftly turned to look at Scar, his face tight and wet with tears. His cheeks were red, and his eyes were puffy. He looked like a mess, his hands covered with a black substance, probably the chalk he’d used for the floor of the small area and its Mumbo Summoning circle.

“S-scar?” He whispered, his voice breaking as he stared at the other in shock. The other nodded, trying to stay quiet in case that set the other off. It seemed that Grian stood up shakily without much thought, his legs not supporting him as much as they should’ve as he ran towards Scar, hugging him tightly. Scar clutched and held him close, giving Grian the exact thing he needed: compassion and comfort.

It took Grian a while to calm down after that. From all the crying and struggling to breathe as he desperately tried to calm down as Scar told him it was okay to cry, it took at least half an hour to have Grian back on the floor, sitting next to Scar as they stared at the Mumbo summoning circle that Grian had made when he was desperate.

When he’d stopped clinging, Scar had got them both to retreat for the floor in the worry that Grian would’ve toppled over at the slightest movement; he seemed strangely weak. Now that things had calmed down, however, Grian was silent, avoiding any semblance of a conversation.

“I’m glad I caught you. I was worried about you… I’m not sure what you were doing, but it seemed like you needed the hug,” Scar mumbled, trying to talk to the other but seemingly talking to himself as Grian mostly spaced out next to him. It was unnerving, but he understood it was the other’s way of comprehending the events and what had happened.

“Why… Why do you look after me, Scar?” the dirty blonde asked, looking miserably up to him. The other hesitated; he didn’t want to admit his true feelings to the other. As well as being friends, he loved the other; that was why he cared about Grian so much. He was just so beautiful, so funny, idiotic, and explosive… But Scar loved every part of it.

“You’re my best friend,” Scar simply replied. It wasn’t quite a lie, but it wasn’t the truth. It comforted the brunette a little that he’d said some semblance of reality. Grian didn’t look as if he’d believed it, though. “No, come on, that excuse wore out the moment you let me sleep in your bed three times in one week; we both know that’s not the only reason you’ve stayed. Do you think you’ll get something from keeping me around? Did Mumbo ask you to make sure I didn’t hur—”

“He did not ask such a thing, and honestly, I’m a bit hurt that you seem to think that,” Scar interrupted, looking like a hurt animal with a slightly blanched face. Grian threw his arms up in frustration. “Well, what is it then? Because I sure as hell have no clue,” he scathingly replied, crossing his arms. Scar gulped, looking away as his cheeks began to redden. He supposed he’d have to say it.

Well, Scar inwardly reasoned, he didn’t have to. He could keep trying to fool the other into thinking that he just wanted the other to be okay and that they were best friends. Although it was true, it didn’t feel right to have that as the simple excuse for his behaviour. He gulped. For it all to end at this moment felt odd, but he knew it was better to do it now or never.

“I love you… I don’t mean in the way of ‘oh, you’re my friend, and I love you and wouldn’t want you to be hurt, no no, no, my dear sir, I mean, I love you. I want to kiss you the type of love, and I’d love to keep you close and hold you kind of love,” Scar admitted, playing with his hands shyly as he kept his eyes away from the other’s face. It was silent, and it was making Scar squirm.

“I m-mean, if all that makes you feel uncorf- uncomp— weird, then I can go, but I just want you to be okay, and we can just ignore all this if—”

Scar’s chin was quickly taken hold of, and his lips were shoved against Grian’s. They were kissing, but the whole ordeal was messy. Being a little shocked at first, Scar couldn’t take in what was happening until it was too late and Grian had already moved back, his face looking so cute and puffy, a mess, but Scar’s mess.

With enough confidence, Scar goes in for the next kiss, capturing the other’s lips as he softly and simply kisses him, holding the other securely as they get comfortable against one another. It wasn’t heated nor messy; it was just them, their lips, and their silent confession. They love one another, always and forever.

Moving away almost felt like a crime to Scar. Still, he knew they’d both have to have proper breaths of air eventually, especially Grian, who’d had trouble breathing not longer than ten minutes ago. Once separate, Grian watched the other for a long moment before giving a small smile at him. It wasn’t a big smile; the other was still mentally recovering and had dry tear marks on his cheeks, but it was a smile nonetheless.

“I love you, Mr GoodtimeswithScar,” Grian whispered, watching the other with a look of fondness that he’d only been a handful of times before. A smile pulled at his lips as he lifted his hand to stroke the other’s cheek. “I love you too, Grian,” he whispered back.

And now I hear a symphony.

Scar was getting impatient. Grian could tell. It was a little amusing to him, but he couldn’t help but feel the love from the other as he kept close to him, supporting him through the trouble he’d had with the sea recently. Was it the sea? It felt more like a deep river… Alas, the water, with its fishing rewards, wasn’t treating him well.

Being Grian’s partner, Scar swore off mending himself until Grian also got the mending book from pure fishing. It was heartwarming that the other would do something both sacrificial and painful. It reminded Grian of the bond the two had made together through the love, the pain and the difficult times.

They hadn’t decided to live together just yet, with Grian being at the dock and slowly making progress on his own house whilst Scar became a zoo keeper in a train for the tenth season of Hermitcraft. The two were living life, and it was peaceful, other than Grian’s continuous shouts of anguish.

Speaking of anguish, the dirty blonde felt a tug at the line. Scratching his new beard, he began to pull in, and Scar began to whistle, letting go of Grian’s side to focus on the catch. With little pushback, he managed to bring whatever he’d fished up easily. It was a book. He held his breath as he took it off the line.

He opened the page, showing that the book was just another Depth Strider rendition. Grian angrily groaned and threw it toward his not-mending book chest. Scar made a noise of sympathy for him before gently tapping on the wood, letting Grian grumpily sit back down. Scar got close to him and began to cuddle up as Grian put another line out and held it, hoping he’d catch another book soon.

“It’s alright, G. We’ll get you that book one of these days,” he softly murmured, taking the avian’s hand as he tried to comfort the other. “Yeah, yeah, we’ll just find it next week, like we said last week, that we’d find it this week,” Grian angrily mumbled, stroking the back of Scar’s hand to comfort the other and himself.

Scar lightly laughed. “Yeah, something like that. We’ll get through this together,” he replied, giving a slight smirk to the other, who wasn’t paying attention to his face. “You make it sound like someone’s died,” Grian muttered, keeping a tight watch on the line and where it lay in the water. The other gave a light chuckle.

“Your hope and dreams have died, haven’t they?” He asked, his grin widening as he watched the other move away from him and look amused and fakely hurt. “Scar! You rude git,” he replied, snorting as he shook his head and got comfortable beside him again. Scar hummed back, relaxing next to the other until he got another tug on that damned fishing line.

#timeline of their time together #angst #fluff #hurt/comfort #grian is not okay #protective gtwscar #cactus ring #3rd life #grians fishing obsession #timeline from HC S6 to HC S10 #slow burn #grian #gtwscar #mentioned mumbo jumbo #i hope everyone enjoys!!

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