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northernindigenousbeautyhailey · 3 years ago

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TAMRA JEWEL KEEPNESS.

FEW CHILDREN IN CANADA JUST VANISH. Fewer still stay gone for longer than a couple of days. Some are found alive, others are hurt or killed, but rarely does a child simply disappear. The RCMP’s National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains database lists 147 missing children, in a country of more than 35 million people. Of the sixty children under the age of twelve, a quarter are thought to have been abducted by their parents. A large portion of the others were lost to apparent accidents or misadventure, falling through ice or swept away in the pull of wild rivers, their bodies never recovered. The database shows twenty-four children in the past sixty years who have inexplicably disappeared. Because there are so few, we know them. In Edmonton, there is Tania Murrell, six when she vanished while walking home from school for lunch in January 1983. In Toronto, Nicole Morin, eight when she disappeared from a condominium building in July 1985. Michael Dunahee was four years old when he went missing from a playground in Victoria in 1991. In Regina, there is only Tamra Keepness.

THE LAST TIME anyone saw Tamra, she was five years old, with bobbed black hair and soft, round cheeks. In one picture, she wears a T-shirt dotted with flowers, standing against the colourful collage of a classroom wall. Her smile is broad and open, her eyes lively. She was so smart that her mother called her “my little Einstein,” so feisty that when a little boy pushed her once, Tamra shoved him right back, and harder. She liked playing Mario Kart on Nintendo and climbing her favourite tree, down the block from her house.

July 6, 2004, was the first time Sergeant Ron Weir would hear Tamra’s name. He was getting ready to leave on vacation that day when he got an urgent call back to the police station. Weir was a veteran cop with the Regina Police Service and head of emergency services, which included search and rescue. In a meeting, officers from the major crimes unit laid out what they knew: sometime between the night of Monday, July 5, and the morning of Tuesday, July 6, a five-year-old girl had gone missing from her home in central Regina.

Weir had been a police officer for twenty years. He knew that kids often went missing and turned up safe a short time later. Sixty-five percent of missing children and teens are located within the first day, and almost 90 percent within the first week. But Weir also knew that Tamra was too young to get far as a runaway. Patrol officers had already checked the neighbourhood to make sure Tamra hadn’t wandered away or ended up at the house of a playmate or relative, as was often the case with missing children. They’d found nothing. Even in the early hours of the investigation, Weir suspected this case would be different.

TAMRA LIVED with her mother, stepfather, and five siblings at 1834 Ottawa Street, a shabby brown-and-white two-storey with a windowed porch at the front. The house stood between 11th and 12th avenues, just east of downtown Regina. The neighbourhood was a mix of long-time elderly residents, young families drawn by low prices for heritage houses, and ramshackle homes where residents struggled with poverty and addiction. The area was sometimes known as the “low stroll,” a place where women and girls sold their bodies for drugs or booze and men drove around looking to buy them, circling the neighbourhood in trucks and station wagons. Many of the women and girls who lived or worked in the area were First Nations, like Tamra. Long before calls for a federal inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women would dominate the political conversation, women were going missing from those streets. It was from that same area that nineteen-year-old Annette Kelly Peigan disappeared in 1983, followed by eighteen-year-old Patsy Favel in 1984 and Joyce Tillotson in 1993. Two years later, two young white men picked up a woman named Pamela George, sexually assaulted her, and beat her to death.

The last public development came in November 2014, when a Reddit user posted to the website a scrawled map with the words: “Location of Tamra Keepness, check the wells.”

Tamra’s house was less than a block from the Oskana Centre, a halfway house for federal parolees, and not far from the Salvation Army’s Waterston House, a residence and shelter inhabited by former inmates and men struggling with drugs, alcohol, and psychiatric issues. Residents of both facilities had been responsible for serious attacks in the past. Just four months earlier, convicted violent sex offender Randy Burgmann had lured a woman into his room at Waterston House with alcohol, before violently sexually assaulting her and leaving her beside a dumpster to die. The Oskana Centre had previously been home to both serial rapist Larry Deckert and Billy John Francis Whitedeer, who began committing violent sexual offences on children when he was ten years old. A few blocks farther was the Ehrle Hotel, one of the worst bars in town, from which patrons spilled soggy and staggering onto the sidewalk, and which appeared regularly in police reports and court testimony.

Police also had serious questions about what was happening at 1834 Ottawa Street. There was a broken window and blood spatter in the porch. Social Services had been involved with the family since not long after the oldest child was born in 1993, and there had been more than fifty reports made to crisis workers, most often about Tamra’s mother’s use of alcohol and drugs, and neglect of the children. Her mother’s boyfriend had a history of violence and domestic assault. In most cases, investigators knew, children are hurt by people closest to them.

POLICE STARTED with a thorough search of the area immediately around the home, then cast their efforts outward in an expanding grid. As the sun rose on the morning of July 7, 2004, the search effort intensified. First, there were ten officers, then twenty, then more. Some officers accompanied trained volunteer search teams; others questioned family members and potential witnesses, going door-to-door gathering leads or chasing down tips. The RCMP training academy provided cadets, and members of the public soon began arriving on their own to help.

Police set up a command-centre bus in the parking lot of a nearby church, from which Weir co-ordinated the search. Though it was an urban environment, the terrain posed serious challenges. The area was filled with overgrown yards, empty houses, piles of garbage. Tamra weighed forty pounds, and stood three foot five. There were so many places a child could hide or get trapped or be held, where a child’s body could be concealed or dumped. Searchers in orange vests worked in grids, knocking on doors, inspecting junked cars and crumbling garages, peering under discarded mattresses and piles of wood, looking down manholes. Police stopped garbage pickups, checking all the bins in the neighbourhood, the trash putrid and reeking in the summer heat. Some bins had already been emptied, so plans were made to search the dump as well.

And what if she had been taken farther? Not far away were industrial areas, large abandoned lots and buildings, Wascana Creek, and beyond that, the vast Prairie. With a thirteen-hour head start, someone in a vehicle could have had Tamra in Vancouver before she was reported missing.

When they were not speaking to police, members of Tamra’s family waited anxiously on the fringes, watching the searchers, eyeing the growing assembly of reporters and news crews holding out microphones and pointing camera lenses. “It’s not like her to go off by herself,” said Tamra’s father, Troy Keepness, sitting on the front steps of his ex-wife’s house, his voice tight with worry. “We’re trying to do our best to get her back.”

Weir worked in the command-centre bus, surrounded by maps and whiteboards. A scribe logged every aspect of the search in real time, recording ideas and progress. No one wanted to break, not for food or rest. Everyone knew the situation grew more serious with every passing hour. As the heat of the day gave way to evening, Weir stood outside and looked up. A strong wind had come in, and storm clouds were spreading, darkening the Prairie sky.

The next day, police strung crime-scene tape around Tamra’s house and the one next door, drawing it through the back alley and across six garages, long slashes of yellow dividing the street. Officers guarded the perimeter while forensic investigators went in and out of the house in boots and masks. “While we don’t have any direct evidence that Tamra has come to any harm, we also don’t know where she is,” police spokeswoman Elizabeth Popowich told reporters. “And if, in fact, this comes to a point where we determine that she’s come to some harm and it’s because of a criminal act, this location could potentially be the scene of some evidence.”

THERE WERE three adults in the house that evening: the children’s mother, Lorena Keepness; her boyfriend, Dean McArthur; and a family friend named Russell Sheepskin, who had been staying with the family. All three had come and gone during the night, and investigators were starting to question their movements. There were no signs of forced entry to the house, and there were gaps, inconsistencies in their timelines that didn’t make sense to investigators.

The story the three told publicly, compiled from various interviews, was that Lorena and McArthur got into an argument while watching a movie on Monday evening, and McArthur and Sheepskin left the house around 8:30 p.m. to go drinking. The men returned briefly to drop off a bottle of formula for the baby, then left again. Lorena went out around 11 p.m, kissing Tamra goodbye before she went. The oldest child in the house was ten-year-old Summer, the youngest was Lorena and McArthur’s nine-month-old baby. Lorena returned briefly to check on the children and then left again around midnight. At about 3 a.m., Sheepskin returned home drunk and saw Tamra sleeping on the couch. Not long after, McArthur got back to the house and assaulted Sheepskin on the porch, punching him through a window and then stomping on his head. (Both men later said the fight had nothing to do with Tamra.) Sheepskin walked alone to the hospital to get stitches, and McArthur went to stay at his aunt’s house a few blocks away. Though it should have been a short walk, he said he got lost and kept passing out as he walked there. He didn’t arrive for at least two hours, until 5 or 5:30 a.m. Meanwhile, Lorena got home around 3:15 or 3:30 a.m., climbed in through a window, and passed out on the couch. She said that she got up to undo the latch on the door for her mother around 8 or 9 a.m. and that the two eldest children, Summer and Rayne, left on their own in the morning to attend a summer day-camp. Lorena didn’t realize Tamra wasn’t there until about three hours later, when the five-year-old didn’t come downstairs. At 12:16 p.m., a family member called the police and told them Tamra was missing.

Rayne, who was eight, said he had gone to bed squeezed into the space between the wall and mattresses piled on the floor in an upstairs bedroom. He told his mother he felt Tamra get up at some point, the slight movement of a child’s weight. All he could remember was that it was light outside.

FRIDAY WAS hot again and wet from the previous night’s rain. An odour of decay hung in the air around Ottawa Street. Tamra had been gone three full days and become national news. Her picture seemed to be everywhere, hanging on street poles and store windows. In news stories, she became “missing five-year-old Tamra Keepness,” but more often she was just Tamra, as if we knew her. The front page of the Regina Leader-Post spoke directly to her, asking, “Tamra, Where Did You Go?”

Tips flooded in to police. On the street, there were rumours that Tamra had been seen at a dollar store with an older woman. Business owners in the neighbourhood said detectives had been looking for a middle-aged white man named Roch or Rocky, but police wouldn’t confirm whether that was related to the search. Lorena and McArthur said they gave police the names of five people they thought could be suspects, including a man who had befriended Tamra and later been discovered to be a pedophile. For a while, there was even a theory that Tamra had never existed at all, that she had been a scam to get extra money from Social Services. (Hospital records proved that was not the case.)

Searchers were coming from around the province to volunteer, streaming into the city from towns and First Nations communities, motivated by the faces of their own children or grandchildren to help in whatever way they could. “I’ve got a boy, and he’s twenty-one,” said Jerry Scott, one of the volunteers who joined the search. “And if he left, I’d go nuts, too.” Around the city, people organized vigils and barbecues, brought water and snacks for the searchers, wrapped ribbons around trees to show their support. Some left teddy bears and angels on the steps of Tamra’s house. Days of intensive searches had turned up lots of items that seemed as though they could be connected—clothing, a child’s shoe—but none of it belonged to Tamra. “I’m starting to go on different conclusions, like maybe someone took her, I don’t know,” Troy Keepness said. “I just hope nobody would hurt my daughter.”

WHEN Tamra had been gone a week, police announced they were suspending the ground searches. At a press conference, Regina police chief Cal Johnston announced a $25,000 reward for information and vowed, “We will find Tamra.” Police questioned sex offenders living in the area and obtained surveillance tapes from convenience stores, bars, gas stations, and the Greyhound bus depot nearby. Johnston confirmed that “criminal interference with Tamra is a distinct possibility” and drew attention back to Tamra’s house and family. “There were comings and goings from the house that night that remain not fully explained to our satisfaction, and we continue to ask those questions,” he told reporters. He would not elaborate.

Tamra’s family was growing increasingly angry at the police, and the strain of the situation was starting to show. Lorena told reporters she’d signed consent forms for police to search her house and had given her DNA, but still she felt as if they were focusing too much on her family and not enough on trying to find Tamra. She was angry that police hadn’t closed the highways out of the city and that there was no Amber Alert because police said it didn’t meet the criteria. “I’m fed up,” she told reporters. “They are wasting time. This is my little girl we’re talking about.”

The family was growing frustrated with the media, too. Lorena’s mother yelled obscenities at reporters one day, and on another, members of the family nearly came to blows with a TV reporter doing a live update from the front lawn. They had been watching the news inside the house when they heard the reporter imply what many in the city were already wondering: If not someone in that house, then who?

On July 19, two weeks after Tamra had been reported missing, police charged McArthur with assaulting Sheepskin the night Tamra disappeared. McArthur told reporters he had been interrogated for twenty hours, not about the assault, but about Tamra and about what had gone on inside the house that night. “It was always the same questions, and they were assuming that I knew the answers to those questions, but I didn’t know the answers, and I still don’t know the answers,” he said. “I would never hurt a hair on that little girl’s head.”

Two days later, Tamra’s brothers and sisters were removed from the home by child-protection officers. Tamra’s twin sister wore messy pigtails and clutched a colouring book and a yellow blanket as two women led the children away down the front steps of the house. Neither government officials nor police would say whether the children’s seizure was related to Tamra’s disappearance. When the children were gone, police searched the house again.

One night late that summer, Tamra’s father, Troy, showed up at the house with a baseball bat and confronted her stepfather, McArthur. Troy was charged with assault, though McArthur later said police “got things misunderstood.” “Everybody’s looking for answers,” he said. “We more or less talked.”

LORENA KEEPNESS was fourteen years old when she ran away from her home on the White Bear First Nation, 200 kilometres southeast of Regina. She had been in residential school for about three months, but that wasn’t what did it. For her, it was the same ugly stuff at home. She found her way to Regina. When her mom tried to take her home, Lorena wouldn’t go. She lived on the streets instead.

She had her daughter Summer Wind when she was twenty, her son Rayne Dance not long after. It was after the ultrasound for her third baby that she walked home in a daze and told her husband, Troy, “We’re having twins.” She kept repeating it until it sunk in, and then they just stood together in the kitchen and laughed. Her mother said “Way to go!” but Lorena told her, “They came from God. Not like I planted those in me.”

The babies were born on September 1, 1998. Fraternal twin girls, each weighing more than six pounds, carried almost right to term and curved around one another like pieces of a puzzle. Lorena and Troy split up when the twins were little, and after that, the girls stayed sometimes with their mother, sometimes with their father or with other relatives. Lorena and Troy each struggled with substance abuse, and their lives were sometimes too troubled and unstable to have the children with them. At five, Tamra was bold and courageous, and protective of her twin sister. Once, Lorena heard a soft knock in the middle of the night and opened the door to find the twins standing there. The children had left their father’s house and walked four blocks back to Lorena’s in the middle of the night, Tamra leading her sister by the hand as they found their way through the dark. REGINA POLICE received more than a thousand tips in the first six weeks after Tamra’s disappearance. At one point, a Volkswagen van that had been stolen the night Tamra disappeared was found burned outside the city. A jail guard told police she and a former inmate had stolen it, picked up Tamra, and then dumped the child’s body in a ravine on the Muscowpetung First Nation. Ron Weir led a week-long search on Muscowpetung, draining multiple beaver dams with compressor pumps, while searchers slogged through water up to their hips. The jail guard later confessed she had made up the story. She was charged with mischief and wrote a letter apologizing to the police. In court, her lawyer said she had been trying to get her abusive boyfriend locked up again.

Returning from medical leave to the police department in the fall of 2004, superintendent Troy Hagen could feel how Tamra’s disappearance was weighing on his colleagues. Hagen noticed it in everyone he spoke to, from the police chief down, whether they were involved with the case or not. Sergeant Rod Buckingham, one of the lead investigators, was among those who felt the growing frustration. “It’s a mystery,” he would say. “And I don’t like mysteries.”

Officers had spoken with more than 6,000 people by then, but there had been no arrests, and leads were drying up. Shortly after, a special task force was struck to re-examine the case, to see whether anything had been missed. The name of the project was iskwesis ayishowak e mamayahi, a Cree term meaning “little girl bring people together.”

TWELVE YEARS LATER, Lorena Keepness spends her days doing odd jobs and picking bottles, trading them in at the depot for cash. She is forty-three and lives with her eldest son in a rundown shack of a house on Victoria Avenue, a fifteen-minute walk from Ottawa Street. Lorena’s children were never permanently returned to her custody after the disappearance, and the three babies she had after that were all taken by Social Services, too. Tamra’s twin sister is seventeen now. Lorena says she is an athlete, smart and beautiful. Lorena lost her family pictures when someone threw all her stuff in the garbage a few years ago. The only photos she has of Tamra now are the ones on missing-child posters.

Tamra’s twin and her older sister, Summer, don’t want to be interviewed. Neither does Tamra’s father, Troy. McArthur couldn’t be reached. Lorena needs a six-pack of Black Ice beer to talk. She doesn’t really want to be interviewed either. She has never liked reporters or their questions, and it hurts to talk about that time. “But part of me wants to,” she says, as her face crumples. “Part of me needs to share what the fuck happened. Someone stole my child.”

Lorena has heard many theories about what happened to her daughter. Some believe Tamra wandered away and was abducted by a driver cruising the area or that she got lost, then crawled in somewhere so small she has never been found. Other theories focus on the adults in the house that night. Some officers will say off-the-record that they think Tamra is in the dump but that they just couldn’t find her in the mountains of debris. Many in the city believe that Lorena and McArthur sold or traded Tamra to pay off a cocaine debt. Lorena has heard that one the most. One night, she was at a bar and heard some women talking, loud enough so she could hear. “Yeah, she sold her kid for dope. She has a whole bunch of babies. She has kids just to sell them for drugs.” Her friend told her not to listen, but Lorena couldn’t ignore it. She swore at the women, promised she would get them for even thinking she could do that to her child. They met at the same bar again the next day, and that time they fought, a tangle of hair and fists. One of them had a knife and slashed her twice on the back of her arm. More scars to wear for life. It wasn’t the only time. One night, she was attacked in Moose Jaw. Not long ago, a woman shouted “Baby killer!” at her across the street.

Lorena and Dean McArthur are still together, on and off—“more on than off,” she says. Police tried hard to turn them against each other, but she always believed him in the end. He may be all kinds of things, she says, but he’s not a baby killer. “If I thought he did something to my daughter, I would have killed him myself,” she says. “I think the police were just so sure. They figured, ‘These guys are a bunch of nobodies. She did her own child.’ They already had their conclusions drawn before they even tried to look for anything.”

The suggestion she could have had something to do with her daughter’s disappearance still pushes Lorena to the point of violence. You can see her eyes flash, her muscles tighten at the question. But she holds back— it’s not worth going to jail. She’s had enough of the police, has grown used to the accusations. In the past twelve years, she’s repeated her story publicly many times, and it has never really changed.

REGINA POLICE have never released full details about the investigation into Tamra’s disappearance, on the grounds that it remains an open case that they still hope to solve. In an interview, Troy Hagen, now Regina’s police chief, would not speak about any working theories or confirm any specifics of the investigation, including whether one of the people questioned about Tamra’s disappearance had failed a polygraph test. Instead, Hagen echoed what police have said since the beginning: That there remain important unanswered questions about the comings and goings from the house on Ottawa Street that night. That they will continue to investigate every tip. That they won’t stop looking for Tamra until they find her. He pointed to cases in the United States where children have been gone for years, sometimes decades, and then been found alive. In Canada, twelve-year-old Abby Drover was held in an underground bunker in Port Moody, British Columbia, for six months after being abducted by her neighbour in 1976. There was an intensive search of her community—including by her abductor—but she had been only feet away from her house the entire time. She was found alive. It seems impossible, but it happens. “I refuse to lose hope,” Hagen says.

The years since Tamra’s disappearance have exposed the epidemic of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada. Suspected serial killers are facing charges in the Prairies, but there has been no public indication that Tamra’s disappearance may be connected to any of those cases. Hagen said police have also explored a possible connection with thirteen-year-old Courtney Struble, who disappeared from Estevan, a city 200 kilometres from Regina, four days after Tamra was last seen. Investigators initially believed that Struble was a runaway, and she had been gone for seven years before RCMP announced that her case had become a homicide investigation. No one has ever been charged, and her remains have never been located. Hagen says it’s strange to have two unsolved missing-children cases linked so closely in time and geographic proximity. He says the possibility of a connection was “very much” explored by police, but there doesn’t appear to be a correlation. The police investigation into Tamra’s disappearance is one of the largest and costliest in Regina’s history, but Hagen says it has never been about the money. If there were more leads or work for investigators, the police chief says he would reconvene the task force “in a heartbeat.” But the flood of tips has slowed. The reward for information that leads to finding her, now $50,000, sits unclaimed. The last public development came in November 2014, when a Reddit user with the name MySecretIsOut posted a scrawled map with the words: “Location of Tamra Keepness, check the wells.” The person later wrote that the map belonged to their grandmother and had come from a great-aunt who had visited an inmate in Alberta. “We, like many others, haven’t forgotten about you, Tamra, and continue to search and hope you are found,” the person posted. Police searched twenty-one wells around Muscowpetung but found nothing.

Sheepskin died on January 1, 2009, “with his family by his side,” according to his obituary. Many of the police officers who worked on Tamra’s case have retired or moved from the department to other jobs. Hagen says he thinks of Tamra whenever he is walking through the forest, not looking for her but always half expecting to see her there. Sometimes he looks at people he passes on the street, examining their faces and imagining what Tamra might look like now.

THROUGH THE YEARS, Lorena has developed her own theories about what happened to her daughter. These days, she mainly wonders about a drifter who used to stay with them, a woman Lorena knew from when she was a girl. A woman who sometimes told people she was pregnant even though she wasn’t, who Lorena knew by one name but whose medical documents said something else. The woman was around so much that Lorena’s children called her Big Auntie. Big Auntie had been staying at the house before Tamra disappeared, but left after she and Lorena had a falling out. Lorena says it took a long time to realize Big Auntie wasn’t coming around any more. When she did, she put word out on the streets, but no one there had seen her either. Big Auntie didn’t even show up for her own sister’s funeral in Regina a few years back. Lorena says she told the police about Big Auntie many times, but doesn’t know whether they ever found her, or whether they even looked. “She’s just gone now,” Lorena says. “Same time as my child.” Maybe it’s something. Or maybe Big Auntie is missing, too.

When I ask Lorena whether she thinks Tamra will ever be found, she struggles for an answer. “I don’t know,” she says. “But can I tell you about a dream I had?” There are two, both so vivid it’s as if they were real. In one, Tamra is inside a big house in a city Lorena has never seen. There are silk clothes draped around, and broad windows, and Tamra is upstairs, sitting on the edge of a bathtub putting on stockings. She is grown, with dark, shiny hair like her mother’s but cut straight all around. In the other dream, Tamra is still a little girl, running into her mother’s arms. “There you are!” Lorena says. “There you are!” She picks up her child and holds her, until Tamra wriggles free and is lost again.

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shini--chan · 4 years ago

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a part 2 on,"Allies with a small country s/o with rare gems and species"well can you do it again,but this time the s/o shows the world why their gems and species are so rare.There all magical.With that being said, they go into straight magical girl mode.Like no shit before the boys can get their or attack,the s/o is already destroying-No demolishing the enemy.And when their done they shine this independent aure that says,"I my be small but I can still kick ass!"Turns out they don't need the boys

Sorry (not sorry) if this you imagined something different, I’m just not into writing somebody just swooping in and reaping a Sailor Moon-style victory. I guess I can’t help but imagine just how complex the situation would actually be.

Yandere Hetalia

Firstly, if you have magical gems and metals, then you can bet your life that there is more of that distributed across the world. You would just happen to have the most or the other countries exhausted all their resources. Even if said magical ores came via asteroid, it would have to be a very large one so that you would have that many resources. And larger asteroids tend to either be chipped away upon entry in the earth’s atmosphere, or splinter upon impact so that they cover a larger are.

Secondly, you would only manage to keep it under the wraps if you were isolationist for all your life and didn’t have any trading partners, which in this case you do. Because ally = trading partner in most cases.

Thirdly, the invader would very likely know about the magical properties and have prepared for them. You beating them back so easily would have just been to deceive you. Or they didn’t know it at first but now they would since you gave them such a wonderful demonstration.

Yandere America

He would emerge at the scene, clapping his hands as if this were just a good Hollywood Blockbuster while letting out a low whistle at all the havoc you created. Once he would reach you, he’d be greet you with a goofy grin all while he congratulated you for your victory and rambled about you being so awesome.

Oh, America would be laying it very thick with the sweet talk, so much so that you wouldn’t notice the calculative grin in your eyes.

Did you really think he wouldn’t know? Did you really think he wouldn’t have concluded that something was off due to the strange energy levels your trade goods emit the first time you sold some of those ores and gems to him? Do you really think he is that stupid?

Oh right, you do. Alfred has become terrific at playing dumb after all.

Nevertheless, bask in your glory as long as you can, it is not as if the whole world knows of your magical abilities due to the television crew that he certainly didn’t bring with him. Besides, Alfred is very keen to find out how you’ll react when you have your own weapons turned against you. Bet you wouldn’t be so chipper then.

Yandere Canada

This would be the point where he would take his glasses off and massage his temples as if that could relief himself of the stress headache that was impending. Not because you reduced his chances of obtaining you, quite the opposite since you would have even enhanced them. No, in his mind he would already be imagining all the paperwork and negotiations that would succeed this.

Just how could you be so tactless? While demolishing the enemy you obliterated half of yourself. Using such powers on enemy territory would have been all fine and dandy. But here on your own turf you inflicted so much damage on yourself.

And this would mean a lot of negotiations with anxious neighbours, dealing with the immediate fallout of your thoughtless actions, whole new regulations on your products whereas before he would have gotten, they without any hassle and for a fair price. Not to mention all the new laws that the UNO would impress upon you.

You thought you didn’t need him? Wrong! You would need him even more than if this was just ordinary warfare. And just because you can’t think your own shit through you clearly need his guidance and protection. Of course, he would ensure that all the pieces would fall in his favour so that you would be dependent on him – forever.

Yandere China

Yao would be completely unimpressed and would encounter you with a stoic expression as he nonchalantly lighted himself a cigarette with one of the many fires littering the battlefield. Calmly he would congratulate you, remarking on how he had only expected such grand displays of power from you and would say that you really are an eyecatcher.

Unknowest to you, he would actually be insulting you.

Anybody with common sense would know better to teach their art of war to their enemy and show all their tricks to their allies, something you just did. Additionally, you put your one trump card on full display and now you would have no more aces up his sleeve. Not that it was a secret to begin with.

You’re forgetting that during his long life, China would have seen almost everything the world has to offer, so magic would be nothing new to him. Indeed, he’d probably know far, far more about your own capabilities than you.

Magic would require a healthy and capable person to wield it, so what would you do if a strong, potent poison would severely weaken you? You should go to Yao then; he would protect you and take you in.

With your powers, you would represent a potential threat and Chinas reactions to such matters would either be total annihilation or total assimilation.

Yandere England

Arthur would sneer at just how crass you were. You had to flaunt all your powers, in the process being an even bigger show-off than his darling son.

One quick glance in his telescope would tell him that the invader was regrouping for a secondary assault along with a few new toys that would negate your powers. Just how easy are you tricked? Although, he would humour you and let you prance about.

Foolish little child, you won only half the battle.

When the enemy would reappear and you would confidently brag about how you would be able to take care of this yourself, he would let you and watch as despair would overtake you.

Because you’re a stupid little grasshopper that doesn’t have a clue about tactics and strategy, and whose go-to plan would be hit-it-until-it-dies, you would fail miserably. Completely dependant on your magic, you wouldn’t know what to do if it didn’t work suddenly, nor would you consider even trying new moves. Not to mentioned you wouldn’t have even thought about conserving your energy and would have blasted it all away during the first wave of attack.

England wouldn’t storm to your aid if he saw you losing in this scenario. He would make you beg for his help instead. Then he would sweep in total victory and then he would subdue you in your vulnerable state with a subtle magic trick of his own.

Yandere France

Your lack of tact would make him shriek and in a very bad, ear-drum bursting way as well, He would count down your mistakes in a persuasive and tactful way, successfully making you feel as incompetent as you actually would be. You would realise that you actually just made things worse for yourself.

It would take a while for France to calm down and even then, he would still hole you with questions that would guilt-trip you.

Why didn’t you go after them and crush them completely? They would be regrouping now to conduct an even better assault. Where you even thinking about the repercussions that your actions would have? No, you didn’t. Did you even consider that you were hurting yourself more than you were hurting the enemy? No, again! Why didn’t you try a more subtle way of using your magic? If you would say it was easier that way, then Francis would smack you.

You’d be dependant on him to help you with the aftermath and he wouldn’t let you have any say in those matters. You would have already proved yourself to be less than competent, after all.

Yandere Russia

If anything, be would be intrigued. Like America, he would already know either through scientific analysis of your trade goods or spying or both. Russia would have already had his own brands of magic back in the day, but it would have been so long since he saw somebody else display it.

Of course, he would have tried his own hand on the magic that your ores and precious stones generate, always careful, always cautious.

With your unrestricted use of it and lack caution, you would become his experimental guinea pig. Ivan would constantly prod you with questions, prompting you to try new thing. Through that, he would learn the limits of your power and the breaking points in your own character.

He would look forward to see your expression when you would realise that you had choked on your own hubris, when he would have you in his grasp due to a subtle attack that would be akin to a knife in your back.

After all, it would be your own fault if you remained narrow-minded and didn’t expect him to know and didn’t except an indirect attack. Russia would just be there to exploit your idiocy and use it for his own ends

#yandere hetalia #yandere allies #yandere america #yandere china #yandere england #yandere canada #yandere russia #yandere france #yandere hetalia x reader #yandere x reader #x reader

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medicifm · 4 years ago

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* not me actually writing an intro the night before like i always mean to 😳 hennyway hey biddies , i'm chloe , im in the snowy part of pst , & i use she / her pns . i’ve been . . . . . . . scouring the tags for an rp like this so im so excited to bring this newish muse of mine here ! im here to do the honours of introducing my himbo - on - the outside , manipulative - shit - on - the - inside . . . oscar 🤡

( twenty three , cis man , he / him ) ✉ ― hey babes , have you met OSCAR MEDICI ? they’re working here as THE HEAD CHEF AT LORENZO’S , a few villas down from where you’re staying . you might hear them singing ALRIGHTY APHRODITE BY PEACH PIT playing from their villa , it’s their favourite song . yes , they hear that they look like JACK GILINSKY a lot , actually - it’s really uncanny . their friends back home in SYDNEY , AUSTRALIA say that if they were on a tv show , their trope would be THE WOLF IN SHEEP’S CLOTHING , how funny is that ? ✎ chloe , 22 , she/her , pst

𝐢 .

pinterest | wanted plots |

𝐢𝐢 .

name : oscar gabriel medici

age : twenty three

dob / sign : december 4th , 1997 / sagittarius sun , leo moon , libra rising

pob : sydney , australia

gender / pronouns : cis man & he / him / his

career : head chef at lorenzo’s , full - time heathen , professional disappointment for mothers everywhere .

drinking / drugs / smoking : yes / more often than he’d admit / never .

religion : jewish background , currently non - practicing .

physical : jack gilinsky fc , dark brown / black longish curls ( reference ) , dark brown eyes , canon jack g’s tattoos , no piercings , 6′2″ , 175 lbs , lean but strong . tattoos a la canon!jack , pearly white smile that he may . . . or may not . . . use crest 3D white strips weekly to maintain . lots of burns & scars from kitchen mishaps on his hands & arms .

traits : hard - working , flighty , intelligent , hedonistic , charismatic , intense , volatile ,

other : speaks weird french ( aussie accent tings ) , tans easily but wears sunscreen nonetheless , works hard parties harder , can’t read a lick of french but spends a lot of his free time with a coffee & a new paperback , has a bit of an internal vendetta against rich people ( for no real reason , he just doesn’t like most of them ) , has ins with a bunch the local farmers & visits them weekly , pretends he isn’t lowkey addicted to nicotine administered via a puff bar , liquor of preference is tequila or red wine , drives a lil vespa around town for the gag of it ( loves seeing it haphazardly parked amongst a bunch of luxury cars ) ,

character inspo : jess mariano ( gilmore girls ) , gordon ramsey 🤡 , patrick verona ( 10 things i hate about you ) , ferris bueller ( ferris bueller’s day off ) , han solo ( star wars ) .

𝐢𝐢𝐢 .

oscar’s arrival was as unwanted to his parents as could be : a father whose tendencies leaned towards alcoholism & abusing whoever was in arms reach , a mother whose life was more or less spent at the nursing home she worked as a nurse at , evading home . he became a self - inflicted loner , preferring to do literally the exact opposite of what was expected or wanted from him . he had a few friends he ran with , but watching them all go off & study or prepare for university solidified in oscar’s mind that the non - traditional route was for him . growing up by the water , oscar always felt more drawn to skip school & head to the beach than he did obeying his parents wishes .

one of his solaces was his grandfather , gabriel , who owned an italian restaurant in a beach town north of sydney . whenever the weather was bad & oscar felt like ditching class , he’d head over to his nono’s restaurant where his ass would be put to work as soon as he set eyes on the restaurant . it was tough work , but challenging in a way that fanned the flames in oscar’s heart , rather than dimming them . by the time he was a teenager he was working in the restaurant everyday after school , an agreement between him & his grandfather framed on the back wall that stated that as long as oscar kept from flunking out , he was allowed to spend as little or as much time in the kitchen as he pleased .

his absolute defiance of anything traditional & following the rules made him unpopular with adults , but lowkey cool with the girls . by the time he was sixteen , he was losing his focus on the restaurant & his grades & spending more & more time chasing after girls . his nono tried to get oscar to come back & focus , but as always , anything he’s asked to do quickly becomes the thing he’s running from the most .

tw : death , cancer . around his eighteenth birthday , his grandfather suddenly fell ill with a rare form of cancer that took his life six weeks after diagnosis , which rocked oscar’s world . he felt overwhelming guilt that he hadn’t spent more time with his grandfather , which manifested itself as oscar dropping out of school a year shy of graduation to commit himself fully to perfecting his grandfather’s techniques , learning all of his recipes ( read : pouring over dozens of handwritten cookbooks ) in some failed attempt to get back some time with him . oscar hadn’t been close with his parents in years , more or less seeing them as wardens of a prison he wanted nothing to do with . his grandfather’s will left him the deed to the restaurant , with an ask that oscar would promise to act on whatever he felt called towards , rather than doing what others expected of him . to be candid , this whole situation crushed him .

eventually , he decided he’d had enough of the stifling community he’d grown up in . he sold the restaurant to one of the regulars , a wealthy man who he’d come to acknowledge as somewhat of an uncle ; a safe pair of hands who would treat his grandfather’s legacy with as much passion & respect as oscar himself would . so he packed a bag , texted his mom that he was going traveling , & got on a flight that evening . he traveled all around - first through central america , then through europe , throughout asia & africa , & spent a few months driving a van across the continental united states & canada for fun .

eventually , he started getting low - ish on money , & decided to settle in one of his favourite places he’d visited : southern france . he arrived in early 2018 , taking on whatever menial tasks he could while learning french until he got a position as a line cook in an italian restaurant . a few years later , he’s made his way up to filling the head chef position , an honour he takes with pride . he’s implemented many of his own recipes while using flavours he’s learned from his travels , with ingredients straight from local farmers . he’s earned the restaurant a two michelin star rating , & is constantly striving for more to get that last star ( both for his own ego as well as a secret debt to his grandfather ) .

𝐢𝐯 .

ok but that vid where gordon puts two pieces of bread on someone’s head & calls them an idiot sandwich ? that’s oscar . intense as fuck in the kitchen , & best nobody catch an attitude about it bc he will not hesitate to hand them their ass on a silver platter .

another gordon reference : you know how he’s the spawn of satan with adults , but the sweetest , most helpul guy with children ? that’s oscar with his staff vs people he wants something from . whether its to sleep with them ( usually his first instinct to be fair ) , their money or clout , or to get into some wild adventure some random resort staff wouldn’t dream of getting into , he can turn on the charm whenever needed .

can go from absolutely demoralizing someone in the kitchen to stepping out into the lounge to schmooze with his friends or cougars who leave phat tips in 0.2 seconds . the speed at which his mood can completely 180 is one of the seven world wonders ( last i checked ) .

his love language is absolutely acts of service . catch him actually falling in love once in a blue moon & making it his mission to cook her extravagant meals everyday .

the wolf in sheep’s clothing label epitomizes his nice , helpful , charismatic exterior , while ulterior motives & disdain for those who grew up with more money than he did lurk beneath the surface .

he can be MEAN when someone fucks him over or pushes him farther than he wants - isn’t afraid to go for the low blows or send someone home with an identity crisis if it protects himself .

lowkey alcoholic but he’s not ready for that conversation yet . he sees it more as perks of the location & atmosphere he’s found himself in .

also lowkey falls in love HARD , like this man is a closeted romantic but self - sabotages all potential relationships before they can get to that point out of fear he’ll be unable to live life of his own volition ( takes a flaky philophobic sagittarius to know a flaky philophobic sagittarius 🤡 ) . has probably only had a few real relationships besides flings bc he’s afraid .

𝐯 .

check out my wanted plots tag listed here , as well as my pinterest wanted plots board here . here are some other suggestions hehe :

best friend / ride or die : someone who knows about his past , keeps him grounded when he’s lk spiraling & wants to drop everything & flee to some far flung corner of the earth .

actual relationship : it was fast - burn with deep feelings ( not them thinking they’re soulmates after dating for a month . . . pete & ariana type beat ) but completely unrealistic . they have their own life , he’s pretty much tied to the restaurant , not to mention his lack of sharing anything about his childhood / life back home . they loved & cared for each other , but crashed & burned fairly quickly because of how idealistic it was . they can either be on bad or good terms now .

hateship with sexual tension 😈

summer flings !!

fake boyfriend : he shows up on her arm to her family’s events where she’s expected to have a partner . it’s not a real relationship , but her parents don’t need to know that . he plays the part & satisfies her parents beyond the bare minimum , & in return she invites him to parties , takes him out on her family’s yacht , etc etc . we luv some symbiosis

i can always use more fwbs hehehe

squad : a group of people who do everything together , have a chaotic group chat , have nicknames for one another , are utd on each other’s sex lives , party all night then show up to brunch hungover together .

cat & mouse : someone he’s pursuing who isn’t quite giving in , & vice versa . maybe it’s been going on a few years , everytime they’re in st tropez they have this weird lil flirtationship thing goin on until she leaves , they forget about one another , then pick it right back up when she returns .

confidant : preferably someone from a working class background who understands his plight of being a worker amongst people who expect to be waited on .

enemies : they don’t like his attitude , & he doesn’t like them in return . lots of eye rolls , shit talking , & tension between their mutual friends .

we’re sleeping together but we shouldn’t be but that’s half the fun : for whatever reason they became friends , starting hooking up despite it not being a good idea ( read : he’s exes with one of her friends , her parents want her focused on career , they’re part of the same friend group , etc ) . . . but now they can’t stop . lots of stolen glances across rooms , squeezing past one another in a crowded club just close enough for a quick touch to the back , quietly leaving one another’s places the morning after & playing dumb to anyone who asks .

#villasintro #eeeek im hyped !!

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the-real-tc · 4 years ago

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Fic UPDATE! Wide River to Cross: Chapter 23

A.N.: This chapter took way longer to churn out than I expected, and there will be another update very shortly. We're moved into Episode 713 territory now, so you know that means things are getting even closer to where they are supposed to be. Enjoy!

Chapter 23: Chance Encounter

The drive back from Moose Jaw on Tuesday was its usual eight-hour, mind-numbing slog for Tim Fleming. Shane and Miranda seemed to be doing fine without him, though something in his gut warned Tim there was something going on neither of them wished to speak of in his presence. The visit started off on a positive note. Shane excitedly asked about Pal before politely moving on to inquiring about his half-sisters. By the actual Thanksgiving Monday, Tim knew he was wearing out his welcome, as if Miranda could not wait to be rid of him. Yes, it was true they had called it quits, but there was a distant air about her that Tim could not put his finger on. When he mentioned he would like to come out in a month for the Remembrance Day holiday, he was met with a non-committal sort of answer, but not an outright "no". Shane's sullen resentment over the absence of a father-figure in his life was still brewing beneath the surface. Tim recognized the signs; he just had no idea what to do about it, especially since Miranda was apparently hedging about the next time he could visit his son. How was he supposed to be a father to Shane if he was not even permitted to see him on a regular basis?

By the time Tim reached Hudson, he was exhausted both physically and emotionally. He had half a mind to drop in at Heartland and stick around long enough to invite himself to dinner, but he was not in the mood to hear Jack complain about the sheep again, which he was sure to do. Instead, Tim pulled into the local McDonald's Drive-thru and ordered something he knew he would barely taste, but would otherwise tide him over until the next day. On Wednesday morning, Tim regretfully realised he was completely out of supplies and would need to head into town for groceries.

He was still contemplating what to do about convincing Miranda to allow him to visit again in a month's time while grabbing some steaks from a refrigerated shelf in the Deli section. Maybe the boy could come out to Heartland instead, Tim pondered. After all, Shane was still obviously interested in riding Pal. Amy and Lou would be happy to see their half-brother, of course. Tim also had a feeling Shane and Georgie would get along just fine, if given the chance.

What would he think about Tricia? Tim suddenly wondered as he mechanically loaded his groceries into his truck before starting the drive back to Big River.

What would Tricia think about Shane?

When is the right time to tell her about my "illegitimate" son?

Are we serious enough for that yet?

Those thoughts quickly fled as Tim did a double-take at the unexpected sight of an oddly familiar auburn-haired woman. She stood at the bank of green community mailboxes on the side of the rural road, unaware of his scrutiny. The presence of her nearby silver-grey Porsche SUV confirmed it: the usually blonde Lisa Stillman had returned to Hudson. Tim pulled his truck to a stop—he simply had to get the low-down on this. Lisa was the last person he expected to see here, especially after Lou bought back her share of the Dude Ranch so many months ago. Jack's continued silence on Lisa's whereabouts and the status of their relationship compelled Tim to approach. After all, Lisa was godmother to his granddaughter Katie. It would be impolite to drive past her without a word, he reasoned.

"Hey, Lisa!" he called when he was within earshot.

Her shoulders jerked slightly, causing Tim to feel slightly guilty for startling her when he caught the stunned expression on her face. She recovered in time to respond, though somewhat hesitantly. "Oh. Hi, Tim!" she called back with forced brightness. Her smile, too, was forced.

"Wow, I didn't expect to see you back in town," Tim said as he neared. "How ya been? How was France?"

"Busy. I've been really busy," she replied hastily, closing her mailbox door and snapping the lock shut before stuffing her envelopes into a side pocket. "Um, France was fine. Sorry I can't stay and chat. I just got back from dropping off my sister at the airport, and I've still got lots to do today. As a matter of fact, I have an appointment with someone in less than half an hour."

"Your sister was visiting?" Tim echoed. "Huh. That's nice. Don't think I've ever met her. The appointment wouldn't happen to be with Jack would it?"

Lisa's spirits sank at the mention of the man she loved but was avoiding. She wondered if Tim did it on purpose—honing right in on a person's vulnerable spot and then exposing it.

"Uh, no. No, I'm not meeting Jack," Lisa's voice faltered.

"Then who are you meeting?" Tim pressed.

Lisa felt cornered now. Knowing the news would eventually get out, anyway, she decided to be straight with the man. "A real estate agent," she answered testily. "I've put Fairfield on the market."

Tim's face betrayed mild surprise. Wow, he thought. She really is making that move to France permanent. "You're selling Fairfield. Whoa. Does Jack know about this?"

Lisa exhaled. "Jack knows I love France," she eventually responded as she averted her glance. "I tried to share that part of my life with him, but it didn't work. He hates France, and there's no changing that fact. It's best I make a clean break. For now, he doesn't even know I'm in Hudson, and I'd like to keep it that way, please. So don't tell him you saw me, okay?"

Despite not quite receiving a straight answer to his question, Tim nevertheless made a zipping motion across his lips. "O-kay."

"You promise you will not tell him I'm here?" Lisa said, eyeing him now with skepticism.

"I promise I will not tell Jack you're here, Lisa," Tim proclaimed, raising his hand in a Scout salute.

"Good. Thank you," she said, making her move back to the Porsche. "Now, I really have to go. Take care, Tim. 'Bye."

"Yeah, 'bye," Tim said, absently securing his hat on his head.

Without bothering to look back at him, Lisa raised a hand in a farewell gesture as she climbed into the driver's seat.

Tim called out: "But you are gonna tell him eventually, right?"

The motor roaring to life drowned out the question, causing Tim to frown. Aw, man. Something's gotta be done about those two before it's too late, he thought. I just need to figure out what.

Lisa pulled away from the mailboxes in a daze. Now that Tim had seen her, it was only a matter of time before Jack found out she was in Hudson. Of all the people I had to run into, why did it have to be Tim Fleming?! she fretted. And once Jack does find out, what will I do? Guess I'll have to cross that bridge when I get to it.

The real estate agent warned Lisa from the outset her asking-price was high, given the current slump in the market. While she knew this, it was a tactic she hoped to use to her advantage. It was intended to weed out a bulk of potential buyers who would only waste her time. Genuinely interested buyers would be savvy enough to try to negotiate a lower selling price they would both be comfortable with. Lisa was ready to play that game. Besides, if someone did agree to the initial price, the agent stood to make a fantastic commission.

There would be no way to hide the signs or the real estate listing, of course, so even if she never laid eyes on Jack, he would eventually find out about the sale. She was plagued with feelings of guilt. Was it really fair to avoid him? How difficult would it be to make a quick call to say: "Hi, I've returned to Hudson to sell the old place. Thanks for the good times we had; I'm moving to France for good."

Very difficult indeed.

Those thoughts were quickly dismissed when Lisa reached Fairfield and business concerns once again consumed her mental energies. Among those concerns was the sale of Cinders, a horse for which Lisa felt an uncommon fondness due to his resemblance to her long-ago cherished Silver. Riding Cinders out to Lookout Point every morning was part of her daily routine when in Hudson, so she was reluctant to part with the animal. I have Indigo back in Toulon for my morning ride, Lisa thought practically, knowing one fewer horse to transport to France could be good for cost-saving in the long run.

A buyer from Montana was interested; Lisa was awaiting the finalization of that sale before booking transport. Three other horses would be going to buyers in Alberta; two to British Columbia, and one to Saskatchewan. That left several other horses that might eventually need to be auctioned, including the pregnant Rhapsody. The broodmare's pregnancy and the subsequent weaning process once the foal arrived meant travel any time soon would be ill-advised, so having her remain in Canada to be sold made sense.

The clone of Fairfield Flyer—when it arrived—was still a question mark. Dan seemed overly confident it would help them make their mark once they launched their breeding business overseas. Lisa was more cautious and hesitant about the whole idea; in time, maybe she would feel differently about the situation, as her sister Rachel had predicted.

And I'm still quite angry Dan did it, Lisa realised, almost feeling her blood pressure rising just thinking about the whole mess. Why am I even still in business with him? The answer she always arrived at whenever she pondered that question was that they still made good business partners, despite their failed marriage. This time, though, Lisa wondered whether business success in partnership with Dan was a good enough reason.

I have spent more than half my life doing this, Lisa said to herself. I've achieved a lot in that time. I would like to think I have made my father proud of the 'Fairfield' name. That alone should be worth it, right? And it's like I told Rachel: the money I've earned has made it possible to realise a lot of dreams, do things I wanted to do, and see the world. But at the end of the day, I go home to an empty house. What dreams am I chasing now? I always dreamed of retiring to France. And then Jack came into my life.

Lisa reflected fondly on that day at Heartland when she encountered Jack at the Open House barbecue. Amy had just awed the crowd by showing off her work with Promise, and with the way she had risen to Val Stanton's seemingly impossible, impromptu challenge to fix the hundred-thousand-dollar horse that refused to jump.

"You're doing a really good job with her, Jack," Lisa recalled telling him. What she didn't tell him was that she had inquired discreetly about his fifteen-year-old granddaughter after being impressed by her during their first meeting at Fairfield. Since Nick Harwell had sung Amy's praises regarding her work with Star, Lisa called him up. She hoped to find out a little more about this Amy Fleming, daughter of the late Marion Fleming. She had a vague recollection hearing about Marion and Heartland since returning to Hudson from the 'States. Even so, she had at least known of the existence of 'Heartland Ranch' in the same sort of familiar way Hudsonites would know of the existence of any other ranch in the area.

"I read in the Hudson Times about Marion Fleming's passing and how Amy's grandfather is a rodeo legend," Lisa had told Nick during their conversation. "What else should I know about this family?"

"Yes, Jack Bartlett is pretty well-known for his rodeo days. And Marion... Marion was something else," Nick had stated. "And I really think Amy has the gift, too. What did you think of her?"

"It's too early to tell," Lisa had replied honestly, "but I like her spunk. I had my reservations about Promise going under the care of a fifteen-year-old, but she won some points with me. She set me straight when she told me her mother didn't 'whisper' to horses; she listened to them."

Nick had chuckled. "Whatever you want to call it, Marion sure worked magic with horses, and Amy can, too. You just have to sit back and let the magic happen."

"How is Heartland Ranch doing?" Lisa then inquired. "Are they going to be okay without Marion working with troubled horses? That was their main source of income, wasn't it?"

"I'm not sure," Nick replied with a sigh. "Jack does have a herd of cattle, but it's small. His adult granddaughter Lou is back in town from New York to help, but who knows how long she plans to stay... And Jack's wife, Lyndy, died a few years ago. I heard through the grapevine Amy and Lou's dad is a rodeo legend too, but he's also a total deadbeat. So now Jack has got to raise Amy by himself. It's not going to be easy for them. I do believe Amy has her mother's gift, but she's still so young to be taking on the 'family business', if you know what I mean. Jack has his work cut out for him."

"Yes, I guess he does," Lisa had remarked thoughtfully, imagining an elderly man all of a sudden saddled with a responsibility he did not anticipate in the wake of his daughter's tragic death.

To see Jack Bartlett in the flesh was a revelation. The man was nowhere near the 'elderly' grandfather Lisa had envisioned after speaking with Nick. He was tall, fit, and grizzled with irregular features, yet handsome in an unconventional way she found attractive. She would almost have guessed he was Amy's father had she not known any better. So this was the man who was taking care of his teenaged granddaughter. This was the man who had clearly taken the responsibility very seriously, and was succeeding at the task despite the burden of loss and heartbreak. This man, a salt-of-the-earth type, exuding quiet confidence and strength—this man she simply had to get to know better.

He was the first man in a very long time Lisa felt the urge to flirt with; the first man she felt comfortable sending out signals she wanted to know him on a deeper level. Their first real conversation was brief. She paid him a compliment about the burgers he was grilling up, then added she thought he was doing a great job with Amy. She mentioned her own situation with taking on her nephew following his parents' divorce. As they parted company that evening, she brushed her shoulder against his after his offer to help with Ben, hoping the message was received.

Bringing up those old memories of the weeks and months that followed the Open House was bittersweet. Back then, it was Immediately clear to Lisa that Jack was nothing remotely resembling a social butterfly. He was never at any of the parties she attended, nor was he known to folks in her Hudson social circles. She would have to ferret out what his interests were and meet him at that level if she wanted to get closer to him. Lisa would be forever grateful to Maggie for suggesting Amy have a look at the traumatized Gallant Prince, as it provided more opportunities to visit Heartland—and to see Jack.

And then I asked him to accompany me to that auction... and his truck broke down.

It was a deviation in her plan she had not expected, but rolled with it by suggesting they eat right then instead of after the sale. They discussed nothing of consequence during that interlude while they ate turkey-and-swiss sandwiches, but Lisa enjoyed every minute of it.

"Aren't you something?" Jack had asked, clearly not expecting anything like this when she told him she made coffee for him; that she had planned a picnic treat from the very beginning.

The early fall weather was pleasant, a soft breeze fluttering through the leaves of the trees that surrounded them. She seldom had a chance to pause like this, sitting in the company of just one other person, undisturbed by the rest of the world. He complimented her on the coffee, subtly making her realise he had strong opinions about the beverage. Time slipped away much too quickly. After a particularly long stretch of silence between them after the last of the coffee had been drunk, Jack finally spoke up: "Well, I guess I should probably see if that old truck of mine is ready to start. Can't have you missing that auction, can we?"

Reluctantly, they tidied up and trekked back to the stalled vehicle. It started without complaint, bearing them safely to High River for the auction. Lisa mentally skipped over the part when they encountered Dan, knowing what she knew now about how he had the temerity to tell Jack she was still his wife. Lisa remembered her acute disappointment upon discovering Jack had abandoned her there without a word. Something about that scenario did not sit right with her, as she was quite certain he had enjoyed their picnic.

Perhaps another woman might have dismissed him for that perceived slight, Lisa reasoned, but I knew I couldn't let him go that easily. Fortunately, a good friend she ran into at the close of the auction was willing to give her a lift to Heartland so she could retrieve her Porsche. At the time, she was tempted to knock on Jack's door to demand an explanation, but something told her that would be the wrong move. Let this thing play out, she remembered thinking. Let him come to you when he's ready.

And the explanation did come out, confirming for Lisa she made the right choice by not blowing the situation out of proportion, though she had every right to be upset. Handling it with a dose of humour had de-escalated what could have been a very uncomfortable situation. After all, Dan had just sourly peeled out of Heartland, having been told off by Jack, and after being rebuffed by Lisa.

"Well, since men keep driving away on me, would you mind driving me home in your truck, please?" she remembered asking with a smile and a good-natured chuckle. Of course Jack had not minded one bit. She had noticed the look of gradual, earnest relief on his face once he realised she was not married to Dan any longer; that she had not been playing with his emotions or leading him on.

"Jack, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding with my EX-husband," she said contritely during that ride back to Fairfield. "He had no right to do that, and I want to make it very clear I—"

And he had broken in gently then, telling her she had no need to apologize; that he was the one that needed to do the apologizing for abandoning her at the auction.

"Hmm," she had said playfully. "I suppose you have a plan in mind about how you're going to make it up to me?"

"Well, as a matter of fact... I was wondering..."

After a few seconds of tense silence, he had asked if he could have the pleasure of her company at his private cabin in a few weeks' time. She could tell it took some effort on his part to ask the question, but she readily accepted his invitation to try a little fly fishing, despite the lateness of the season, as he told her.

"I would love to, Jack," she had replied, grinning from ear to ear, thinking this reconciliation had gone miles better than she hoped.

Maggie had helped her pick out all the requisite equipment after she realised she would actually need hip waders and rods for the date. Expensive hobby, she remembered thinking when her friend rang up all the purchases at the cash register.

"I'd better catch something, huh?" she had ruefully asked.

"I think you already did," Maggie had quipped.

At the time, the meaning of those words had not been lost on Lisa. Now, after all the time since those early days when they were still practically strangers, Lisa wondered if he was still on the line, or if Jack had pulled loose. Severed from her life, he would be pulled away from her shore, lost to the currents of the passing world.

Despite never using the equipment again since that first date, Lisa had never availed herself of Maggie's promise of a refund.

I always hoped we would go fishing together again, Lisa mused. Why is it we never did? Maybe it's high time I got rid of all that stuff; I certainly won't be doing much fly fishing in France.

Lisa shook her head slightly, knowing she had to cease thinking about such matters and concentrate instead on getting her Fairfield business in order. As if on cue, her office line rang, its call display revealing a Montana area code.

Looks like I have an answer about Cinders, she rightly guessed.

"Lisa, hi! It's Wayne Mosley. I'll make this call short and sweet: We have a deal on your horse. I can have the funds wired to you today."

"That's great, Wayne," Lisa replied, squelching the sentiment that unexpectedly sprang up at the thought she was really going to be parting with the animal for good. "I can get transport booked for Cinders as early as Sunday."

"Perfect. Thanks, Lisa."

"You're welcome. Glad we were able to work something out."

"It's always a pleasure doing business with you. Take care. 'Bye."

"Likewise, Wayne. 'Bye."

Lightning almost as bright as day flashed, visible even through Lisa's closed eyelids. That alone might have been enough to awaken her, but the following crash of ear-splitting thunder made it impossible to remain in the land of dreams.

Lisa rolled over in bed, gradually becoming aware of the fact of the storm raging outside. When she cracked open an eye to check the time on the bedside digital clock, she could barely make out a blank display screen.

Have we lost power? she wondered groggily. Another flash of lightning briefly illuminated the bedroom. Her ears picked up on the wind-driven rains beating against the windowpanes. A quick glance outside confirmed Hudson had indeed lost power. Seconds later, the Fairfield generators kicked in, bringing to life the security lights outside. The numbers on the clock now blinked '12:00' a.m. in a rhythmic pattern, its green glow a slight irritant.

With a sigh, Lisa let her head fall back onto one of the many the pillows scattered about the mattress. Installing those generators had come at some expense, but she was grateful for them now and in times past when an outage occurred. She listened to the sounds of the storm, unable to fall back asleep quite yet. Some of the horses in the stables would be restless, and she wondered if Rhapsody was okay, given her expectant state.

Harry and the rest of the hands are going to be dealing with a few grumpy, skittish equines in the morning, she thought as she finally sat up to re-set the time on the clock after consulting her iPhone.

The lightning flashes were less frequent now; the answering thunder a distant rumble. The storm was either moving on or its intensity petering out.

Oh, no. Things are going to be a mess out there tomorrow, this new thought entered her mind, as it dawned on her the power loss was probably caused by downed tree branches. The trees around Fairfield were never spared damage in such instances in the past. The real estate agent would expect the property to be in pristine condition if there were going to be any showings.

Better call the landscaping company first thing... It was the last thought she remembered thinking before drifting off again.

Clean-up the morning after the storm that knocked out power at Heartland occupied a fair chunk of the Bartlett-Fleming-Morris family's time. Branches lay haphazardly about the yard. Piles of scattered leaves and twigs littered the ground, blown off by the earlier violent winds.

Tim pulled up in his truck uncharacteristically early to lend a hand, though he certainly had ulterior motives. Lisa made me promise not to tell Jack she was back in town. She didn't make me promise not to tell anyone else, though... He approached Amy, hoping to determine if Jack was wise to the situation of Lisa's return to Hudson.

"Guess who I saw in town yesterday?" he asked his daughter, unable to keep a lid on the information bubbling up to the surface.

The surprise that registered on Amy's face told him everything: Poor Jack was clueless.

Lisa's backside smarted. That's going to leave a bruise, she thought ruefully as she checked herself over for any other potential injuries after being unceremoniously dumped to the damp ground by Cinders. But no, every other part of her body seemed just fine. No broken bones or sprains, thank God. That's the last thing I would need right now just as I'm trying to get things sorted out at Fairfield. Now where has that horse trotted off to, and what the heck happened?

Lisa's brow creased as she recalled a sudden uncomfortable, intense buzzing sensation right before being tossed from the saddle. Her eyes sought and quickly spotted something that confirmed a dim suspicion: a downed tree tangled up with the line from an electrical fence erected around the slough Cinders had stepped into.

So that's what that shock was, Lisa realised.

"Cinders!" she called, hoping the sound of her voice would bring the horse back. It was usually an exercise in futility; Cinders was not trained to come when beckoned as a pet dog might. A careful inspection of the sod around her revealed hoof prints.

I hope that horse hasn't gone too far, Lisa thought in irritation. In truth, she was more annoyed at herself for not noticing the downed line. Fortunately, she spotted the dappled grey horse not too far away, pulling at some vegetation.

"Hey, you," Lisa softly chided as she approached him with deliberate caution. "What was that all about? Did you get spooked by that silly electric fence?"

Cinders seemed to bristle slightly when she neared, but he did not refuse when she took hold of his bridle. "Let's go home, huh?" she said, placing her right foot into the stirrup to mount up. With a squeeze of her calves, Lisa cued the horse to begin the return the way they came. Ahead, she could see the muddy banks of the slough along with the energizer and tangle of electrical wiring and branches.

Everything about the ride seemed normal until they were a few feet away from the water. Cinders stiffened as soon as he sighted the pond, stopping dead in his tracks. He balked when Lisa urged him on again; a snort of terror issued from his nostrils before he reared up in protest.

"Whoa, whoa!" Lisa called out, barely avoiding another fall as she regained her balance. "What's the matter with you?"

Without being commanded to do so, the horse backed away, giving his head a few contrary shakes.

"Come on, Cinders," Lisa coaxed, applying more pressure to his sides with her legs. She clicked her tongue loudly twice. The horse eventually got the idea, and he sidestepped the muddy bank, pacing off to the right, giving the slough a wide berth.

"Thank you for seeing me on such short notice, Scott," Lisa said.

"You've always been one of my best clients, Lisa," Scott commented warmly. "Happy to be of service. I was surprised to hear from you, to be honest; I haven't had a call from Fairfield in months."

"I know," she said vaguely, "being in France and all meant I wasn't as hands-on here as I have been in the past."

At that moment, Ty ambled in to the holding area. If he was surprised to see her there, he hid the emotion well. "Hi, Lisa," he said casually, as if this were any other normal visit.

"Hello, Ty," she answered back with a wan smile. Kicking herself mentally, she now knew she should have counted on the possibility Ty would be on duty at the clinic today. Oh, shoot. First Tim; now Ty. It's going to be impossible to keep my being in Hudson from Jack.

"I noticed the 'For Sale' signs up at Fairfield," Scott continued. "Don't tell me you're thinking of leaving us for good?"

Lisa bobbed her head, still wary of Ty's presence. "Yeah, I've had a good run here," she replied. "I'm looking at a new opportunity in Avignon."

With that short answer, both Scott and Ty understood she was not going to say anything more on the topic.

"So what's going on with this guy?" Scott asked, looking now at the horse. "You said something about an electrical fence?"

"Uh, yes," Lisa spoke up, re-organizing her thoughts to focus on the reason for her hasty appointment. "Meet Cinders."

The horse's level of agitation had come down since the earlier ride, but Lisa caught subtle cues that told a different story, making it clear to her Cinders was not over the sudden electrical shock they had experienced at the slough. She explained the whole episode while Scott examined the animal, inviting Ty to do the same as a learning exercise.

Presently, Scott declared: "In my medical opinion, there's nothing wrong with him physically, Lisa."

"That's good," Lisa said in relief. She rubbed Cinders' forehead. "It's just that he now absolutely refuses to go near water, Scott. The shock was pretty intense. Even I felt it right before I ended up on my butt. I'm afraid he thinks he's going to get zapped every time he steps into a puddle."

"I wish there was a magic pill I could give him to cure aquaphobia," Scott said with a smirk.

"Yeah, I know," Lisa sighed. "I just sold him yesterday to a guy in Montana. He's being shipped out on Sunday. I can't sell a 'defective' product."

"Want me to ask Amy if she can take the case?" Ty interjected, sympathetic to her situation.

Lisa contemplated. Involving Amy came with a risk. If Jack found out... She was grateful Ty had not asked any prying questions, seemingly aware the topic of her reappearance was verboten, but his suggestion was her best chance at fixing the problem.

"Okay," she eventually replied. "But could you—could you please tell her to keep it confidential...? Jack doesn't know I'm back, and I mean to keep it that way."

Ty nodded at her with understanding; Scott looked at her quizzically, but wisely held his tongue.

"Thanks," she said, blowing out a breath. "I hope she can figure him out before Sunday. But then again, she's always come through for me in the past. Go ahead, Ty. He's all yours."

"I'll get Cinders trailered out to Heartland right away," Ty said, taking hold of the lead rope.

Once Ty was safely on the way back to Heartland, Lisa carried on with some additional errands. As she drove, she came to the conclusion she was simply prolonging the inevitable. Even though I've sworn Scott, Ty and Tim to secrecy, walls have ears. Jack's going to know I'm here before the day is done, guaranteed.

Jack's sleep had been restive and uneasy. Katie's fright over the storm in addition to her irritability at missing Lou had not made for a peaceful night. Pete had sheepishly apologized for the toddler's cries, but the older man sympathized. He had been through those same parenting woes when Marion had been a baby, though he had admittedly missed months at a time of her growing up due to being on the rodeo circuit.

As Jack drove out to the town Yard Waste and Recycle Centre to deposit their dead branches and leaf sweepings, he wondered what his grandson-in-law was going to do if Katie continued to regress in her potty-training regimen. Clearly, these new parents had not counted on a lengthy separation between child and mother during this crucial time. Pete was doing his best, but it seemed not to be enough at this time.

He was still pondering this problem on his return trip to Heartland, slowly coming to the realisation there might not be any easy solutions. He was so engrossed in this mental exercise he had a double-take when he spotted a woman he thought he recognized on the side of the road.

Lisa?! he thought in a daze. It can't be.

But his eyes were not deceiving him. This was no case of mistaken identity as in times past when he thought he saw her in town. This was his old flame, quietly checking her mail like any other person. Only she was not any other person. She was the one who somehow managed to slip through his fingers. A subtle heat burned in his chest as he brought the truck to a slow roll before setting the brake.

Lisa is back. What is she doing here? Why is she back? Lisa is here.

Jack very nearly stumbled over his two feet on his approach. He could tell she heard his footsteps though he was trying to be stealthy.

"Hi, Lisa," he uttered, unsure of what to say now that he had been presented with this unexpected opportunity to talk with her.

She looked up almost guiltily at him.

Busted, Lisa thought. Here I am, trying to avoid Jack this whole time, and he has to spot me getting the mail. How silly is that?

Yet, her heart swelled at the sight of this cowboy, dressed as usual in his boots, jeans, plaid-patterned shirt, coat and hat. He looks healthy. I'm so glad. And now that she had seen him, every word she had once hoped to speak to him fled from her mind, leaving her tongue-tied. Her first instinct was to bolt from the scene rather than try to explain why she had not told him she was in Hudson. That same reticence seemed to be reflected in Jack's eyes; this unplanned encounter thoroughly throwing them both into an state of confusion.

They both mouthed meaningless words to each other, clumsily working through some semblance of a conversation that lasted less than a minute. Twin coals that once burned as one had turned stone cold, the former lovers behaving more like passing acquaintances. Absent from this meeting was any sense of excitement or jubilation; no crushing embrace or feverish kiss.

Jack's heart sank perceptibly when Lisa admitted she had been back for maybe a week—and that she was selling Fairfield.

"Well, I guess that was always the plan, wasn't it?" he spoke with an air of indifference, despite the chill brought on by the revelation. Yes, you always said you wanted to retire to France, Lisa. I never figured it would be so soon; and not without telling me, first.

Rather than prolong the sheer awkwardness of the encounter, Lisa excused herself, claiming—truthfully—she had a busy schedule to keep.

"'Bye'," she said, before turning to climb into the SUV.

"'Bye'," Jack managed to articulate, a lump forming in his throat watching her hasty retreat.

No "See you later" or "Let's catch up soon", and certainly not anything close to "I'm ready to make up".

Jack looked on a second or two while Lisa drove away, struck by the memory of another similar departure over a year prior, the one that had come as a sort of coda to their "break". Attempts had been made back then to repair that break; circumstances had not been in their favour.

"Not goodbye," he had corrected her at the time, a sad smile creasing his face. He remembered being heartsick at the prospect of suffering another lengthy separation from her, especially when their relationship was still so fractured.

"'til next time," she had repeated, her eyes misting, almost as if she sensed it could very well be the last time they ever saw each other.

The fact it almost was the last time they ever saw each other was not lost on Jack. His brush with death brought her rushing back. Now, he considered something new: Would she ever have come back if I had not had the heart attack? She did write that letter... But no. Just as swiftly as she had arrived, she had left him.

And now she's driving away again. For a fleeting moment he entertained the notion of chasing her down. No, that would be foolish, Jack thought, idly scratching the side of his face. She gave no indication she was happy to see me; let it go. That whole meeting went over like a lead balloon. Dejected, he paced back to his truck, trying to stem the flood of old memories of happier times with Lisa.

We're driving off in opposite directions. I'm going to Heartland, and she's going to Fairfield. She's selling Fairfield. I must have missed the realtor's signs, somehow. Jack knew how he had missed them, however, as he had taken to deliberately avoiding looking at Lisa's property any time his course took him along the stretch of road bordering it.

He could not help but remember the first time he had seen Fairfield up close. I was driving Lisa back after I told off that jerk of an ex-husband of hers. I was so happy that she still wanted to talk to me after leaving her stranded at the auction. She's so forgiving. Why did she give me a second chance? She accepted my apology so easily. I thought I had blown it.

His brain had been spinning at top speed throughout that drive, reaching for some way of asking her out on an honest-to-goodness date, but could think of no simple way to bring up the subject. Thank goodness she had provided an opening when she playfully asked if he had a plan in mind about how he was going to make it up to her. He had always felt comfortable and relaxed at his cabin, so before he even knew what he was saying, he asked if she was free to go fly fishing with him in a few weeks.

"Well, as a matter of fact... I do have something in mind about how to make it up to you..."

And she said "yes" so quickly, I almost couldn't believe my ears. What was I thinking asking a woman like Lisa out to a ratty old fishing cabin for a date?

Presently, Jack pulled back into Heartland. The sun was starting to go down, splashing golden rays across the open fields, highlighting the tops of the trees. He noticed Amy and Georgie in the jumping pen; the former taking a new horse around the course over what looked like empty liverpools. Heart and feet heavy, he dragged himself onto the porch and sank heavily into the bench, mind still full of that first date with her.

"To whatever it is," she had toasted them, a spark of warmth bursting in those blue eyes he already loved so dearly.

Whatever it was, Jack now thought with a doleful shake of his head. She didn't even tell me she was back in Hudson. After all we've been through, she didn't see it fit to tell me she was selling Fairfield. I deserved that much at least, didn't I?

But the more he tried to take umbrage at Lisa's lack of communication this time around, the more he was convicted of his own behaviour the last time they were together. She doesn't want anything to do with me after that falling out we had over that ridiculous hospital bed. The spark in her eyes was gone today. I never thought those eyes could look so cold... And sad.

It tormented him to know he was the proximate cause of that sadness and cold, impersonal reception.

Of all the dumb luck. I can't believe after all that avoidance, I had to run into Jack at the mailboxes. Lisa replayed that disappointing encounter, analysing each careless word spoken, wondering what she might have done differently. I honestly have no idea how to interpret how that went down back there, she thought. I don't know how to read that expression on Jack's face. Was he happy to see me? He didn't sound like it. And he certainly didn't sound surprised when I told him I was selling my place. What did I expect, anyway? That he would break down and beg me to stay? Oh, no. That's not Jack Bartlett's style. In fact, I have no idea at all what he was thinking. It's like we were almost strangers by the way we talked.

Lisa pulled onto the access road to Fairfield, flashing by the 'For Sale' sign. Her heart throbbed after concluding that might very well have been the last time she ever saw Jack. What a sour note to end things on, she mused bitterly. What a wasted opportunity.

Business concerns soon took over once again as she was obliged to inspect the clean-up job done by the landscaping company. Everything looked ship-shape; Fairfield would be more than ready for prospective buyers the realtor wished to bring for a viewing.

Out of nowhere, a distant memory of Val Stanton's mocking voice surfaced. "So, you'll be living at Fairfield, then?"

Lisa paused in her tracks, swept up in the residual irritation of that long-ago exchange. "Jack did hit the jackpot, didn't he?" Val had teased, though she seemed to know she was poking at one of Lisa's private insecurities. "I'm sure you'll have an ironclad pre-nup."

Val's thinly veiled antagonism stirred up feelings of resentment now. Jack and Lisa's hasty engagement was over just as quickly as it had begun, all because they truly had not seriously considered how their lives would come together in a practical sense. Oh, we had the romantic side figured out, Lisa acknowledged, but now even that's gone. No engagement, no marriage. We'll never be together at Fairfield now, and we certainly won't ever have France. Our relationship is officially road-kill, and I'll bet Val the Vulture is still lurking around, just waiting for an opportunity to pounce.

Next Chapter: Chapter 24: Things I’ve Been Meaning to Tell You

#Heartland #Heartland fanfiction #My Fanfiction #wide river to cross #Chapter 23 #Chance Encounter #Jack Bartlett #Lisa Stillman #JISA #Tim Fleming #Amy Fleming #Ty Borden #Scott Cardinal #Val Stanton #Maggie Duval #Nick Harwell #Fairfield Stables #Cinders

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yourkeeperoftherunners · 5 years ago

Text

Roommate?

Summary: AU You buy a condo/townhouse from a young couple without picking up on their awkwardness about the quirks of their place. Over time you get the feeling that someone is present, but you can’t see them. Their presence is surprising but oddly comforting when you’re all by yourself in a city you’re starting to become familiar with. It’s only when you’re trying to excuse yourself from an awkward “date” that you finally see your ghostly “roommate” face to face.

Rating: PG-13 (Language, Mention of ghosts, Mention of jealousy, Mention of death, Mention of violence, Light Intimacy)

Characters: Ghost!Hyunjin/Sam (Stray Kids) x Older Female Reader, Han/Peter, Seungmin, plus mention of other Stray Kids members and Itzy members.

Notes: This is an AU scenario – I own nothing. It is partly inspired by a true ghost story of a spirit that haunted an inn turned apartment complex in Los Angeles in the 1970s that was known for comforting women like a lover would. In this story, Hyunjin speaks fluent English and in his backstory, he went by his English name Sam when he was alive. (Which is his real English name when he used to live in Las Vegas as a young boy.) He is slightly aged up to 21-22 in this story. Han goes by his English name Peter in this story. Reader is 1-2 years older than the characters and has moved in from another town.

Happy Birthday Hyunjin!

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“Please feel free to look around.”

You absently twirled the flyer in your hands as you wandered from room to room, taking in the space. It seemed to be a pretty well-kept place – spacious for a single occupant with the option to host a guest in a small guest room, decent kitchen with upgrades, close proximity to your new job, and best of all, it was under your budget. But you had to wonder what the catch was with this place.

The condominium was in a pricey neighborhood where newer establishments were charging closer to $600,000+ for brand new condos. In addition, the space you were looking at had a balcony looking out over the city. You thought this would demand a higher asking price, but apparently the couple showing it thought about asking less.

Once you returned to the entrance, you smiled at the couple before glancing out at the double doors leading to the balcony.

“What are your thoughts?” the woman asked.

You snapped your head toward her and you nodded, saying that it looked like a great place to call home. You turned to face them and asked why it was priced low for the area.

The man smiled faintly and gestured to the construction going on outside the window. “Well you used to have a money view of the stadium, but with the new buildings going up, that’s gone,” he explained. “Plus a lot of people said with there being one bathroom for two bedrooms, it does decrease the value sightly.”

“Are you the first owners?” you asked as you stepped closer to the couple.

The woman spoke up, confirming they were, but the building used to be an apartment complex where tenants rented the spaces out. “I think it was owned by the university at one point,” she explained. “But when they got approved to build another dormitory on the school campus, they were eager to sell the building to a condominium developer. We were one of the first residents to buy a place here.”

“They didn’t keep the bones of the place from what I’ve heard,” the man added. “But they said it was old – the apartments were built in the 1960s and it wasn’t up to code.”

You nodded to show you understood. A slight nagging feeling at the back of your mind told you that maybe there was more to this story than they were saying, but you decided not to press them further. The flyer was tucked into your purse and you thanked them before departing.

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“Honey that’s wonderful news!” Mom exclaimed.

You smiled as you shifted the phone to your other ear. Despite the odd sensation you got from the couple that day, you decided after shopping around for condos or townhouses that theirs was the best option for your budget and it was the closest to work. You put an offer in and they accepted, which meant you could finally get out of the hotel you were put up in by your company.

The movers were scheduled to arrive in two days and you were to get the keys to your new home later tonight.

“Yes! I’m excited,” you told her. “My realtor said they were quick to move on the paperwork to close the deal and I should be able to move in on Wednesday.”

“Sounds like everything is falling into place,” she said. “Work going okay? You like your new team?”

“Everyone’s great so far! They took me to lunch on my first day and even decorated my cube,” you said.

“Good! Well call me once you’re in your new place. Definitely want to see pictures.”

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“You really didn’t have to help me,” you told the intern as she followed you up the stairs.

She shook her head and insisted that it was the least she could do to help you settle in.

“I really do appreciate it Lia,” you told her. She started about a month before you did as the year long intern in Communications and Marketing. Despite being a bit younger than you, she was sharp and many were amazed by her proficiency in three languages. Sometimes you overheard her speaking in French to one customer, then switching to another line to answer someone in Korean.

“I mean, I didn’t have anyone here to help me when I came,” she admitted. She looked around the hallway and commented that when she put the address in for your complex, she was surprised since it looked familiar to her.

“Actually I thought this was a dorm building,” she corrected herself. “My friend Yeji went to university in the area and she was assigned to a dorm on this street.”

You paused and looked back at Lia. “Apparently this used to be the university dorm, but they sold the land to a developer to become a condominium complex after the school got permission to build a new dorm closer to campus.”

Lia’s lips formed a small o shape and she nodded, hoisting her box higher. “Bummer, I guess I’ll have to share with Yeji that her old dorm is gone. She invited me over once and I couldn’t go because I had finals in Canada. But I heard our friend Yena accidentally spilled nail polish on the carpet and they spent all weekend trying to get it out. She said the school was strict about dorm damage and would issue fines.”

“Oh boy,” you murmured, trying to picture two panicky girls trying to get the vibrant color off the carpet. You put your box down and fished out the keys to your new place. The key went into the lock and you turned it, the other hand opening the door.

“Oh wow, this is nice! If you don’t mind me asking, how much did you pay for this place?” Lia asked as she stepped inside and put her box down.

You retrieved yours and carried it to the counter in the kitchen, placing it down carefully. You shoved your keys back into your pocket and shared the final price you paid for the condo, making Lia’s eyes widen in shock.

“I was surprised too,” you confessed. “They said they lost their view of the stadium due to the construction and there’s only one bathroom for two bedrooms. That’s why it’s so cheap.”

Lia nodded as she walked back to the door and pointed in the direction of the elevators to the garage. “I’ll go get more boxes. May I have your keys?”

You tossed over your car keys and she caught them, promising to return as soon as possible. You turned attention back to the two you carried in, frowning when you saw one was open.

You walked over to it and peered inside, noting that everything was still wrapped in bubble wrap or packing paper. The only thing out of place was the fact that the box flaps were no longer secured down and tucked inside one another.

Lia was carrying this one when she came in, you recalled. Maybe she started to unpack it before deciding to get more boxes instead...

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“I don’t think I opened your box,” Lia said, frowning as she tried to recall her actions.

You waved it away as nothing, telling her maybe you hadn’t tucked the flaps in as securely as the other boxes. She relaxed her shoulders and picked up some noodles with her chopsticks, carefully placing them in her mouth. You focused on enjoying your meal, dismissing the incident as nothing to worry about. The important part was getting all of the boxes into your place and making a clear path for the movers to get your furniture installed in the various rooms.

Because the movers wouldn’t come until tomorrow, you knew it would be another night in the hotel. The only rooms you could unpack would be the bathroom and the kitchen, one of which you planned to tackle before calling it a night.

Once the check came, you placed your card down before Lia could grab hers. She frowned slightly and you explained that it was a small thank you for taking her entire afternoon to help you.

“Thank you, I’m glad I could help,” she replied. “So are you going to camp out there tonight? Or go back to the hotel?”

“I’m gonna try to get the kitchen unpacked, then I’ll sleep one more night in the hotel,” you explained. “First, let me drop you off though.”

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You flicked on the lights in your new place and scanned the kitchen, trying to decide which box to start with. Your eyes fell on the one that was partially opened and you walked over, slowly lifting things out and unwrapping them from the packing paper and bubble wrap. Cabinet doors were opened and you began placing plates, bowls, and glasses in each one.

As you emptied boxes, you paused and grabbed your box cutter, using it to cut away the tape at the bottom, so you could flatten the box. You began to prop them up by the front door, making a note to take them down to the recycling area. Your eyes started to feel a bit heavy and you covered your mouth, stifling a yawn.

One hand reached for your phone and you checked the time. 21:39 PM. No wonder you were tired. You blinked a few times before surveying what was left in the kitchen. The only items left that you hadn’t come across yet were the utensils and cooking pots. Part of you wanted to finish what you started, but the rational side of you was saying that you should get some sleep, as tomorrow was going to be another long day.

Tomorrow, you told yourself as you turned toward the island, looking for your keys. You reached a hand out and frowned when you couldn’t find them on the counter. Odd...

You shook your head and decided to check every cabinet and drawer that you put stuff away in. Maybe in your daze you accidentally put them there. Yes, that had to be it.

You huffed when you came up empty and shook your head. Your hands patted your pockets to check for them, only to feel your phone and wallet. Your eyes drifted to one drawer you hadn’t checked yet and it was likely going to become your utensil drawer once you unpacked the box.

You slowly opened the drawer and breathed a sigh of relief, finding them in the front of the drawer, on top of a long, white legal envelope.

How did they...?

Clearly you were more tired than you thought. You didn’t recall opening this drawer, otherwise you would have noticed the envelope as well. But perhaps this was a sign you should call it a night. You retrieved your keys from the drawer and plucked the envelope out as well. Maybe you’d check it out tomorrow after you had sleep and caffeine in your system.

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“Here?”

“Actually, can you center it?” you asked the movers, pointing to the exact place you wanted them to put your couch.

The guys nodded and carefully hoisted it higher, shuffling to the left and looking over at you for approval. You flashed them a thumbs-up and they put it down.

“We just need to unload your dresser and bed, then we’ll need your signature,” one of them said.

“Sounds good,” you replied. You watched as they excused themselves and got back to work on unpacking boxes.

This morning you finished the kitchen and now you were in the middle of unpacking the living room. The floor rug was unrolled and placed a few feet from the edge of the couch. You placed a lamp on one side table, reaching over to plug it into the outlet.

“Coming through with the bed!” one of the movers announced.

You straightened up in time and stepped back to give them more room.

“Back there, please center the bed too,” you instructed them. “The wall facing the door.” You waited until they passed you, then followed behind to watch them put the bed where you wanted it.

It took a little bit of adjusting, but eventually it was set in the perfect place and the dresser came up soon after. You scribbled signatures on the paperwork, acknowledging that you received all of your belongings and that it was delivered with little to no damage.

“Welcome home,” one of the movers commented, pocketing the pen.

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“It’s coming along,” you said to your mom, showing her the space via video call. You sank down on the couch and tucked a strand of hair behind your ear.

“Sleeping here tonight?”

You nodded and explained you unpacked your bedding. Your eyes drifted to the front door as you remembered that your dryer was going to be ready in a few minutes.

“I’m gonna grab my bedding, put it on my bed, then grab a bite to eat,” you told her.

“Use the emergency credit card – a little welcoming treat from me and Dad,” she insisted. “I wish I could dine with you in person, but this will do for now. Pick whatever you want.”

You thanked her with a smile and bid her goodbye. The phone was tucked into your back pocket and you set off for the laundry room to retrieve your bedding.

Everything was pulled from the dryer and folded quickly, piled neatly on top of each other for easier handling. You walked back to your place and tried to make your bed neatly. You propped your pillows up against the headboard and folded down the top part of your quilt a couple of inches.

Once you finished, you grabbed your phone and turned off the lights, patting your pocket for your keys and wallet. Your eyes looked to Yelp on your phone as you looked up nearby restaurants to check out.

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

“Y/N?”

You turned your head when you heard your name, Lia walking toward you with another girl in tow. She waved, then introduced the other girl as her friend Yeji.

Yeji glanced at Lia and asked if you were the girl who moved into the condominium that took over her old college dorm. Lia nodded and Yeji turned back to you, extending a hand to shake.

“Yeah I was telling her about your place,” Lia explained. “It’s changed a lot since Yeji last lived there.”

“I probably wouldn’t recognize it,” Yeji confessed. “It was okay when I was at school. Lighting was weird and old and sometimes the door hinges squeaked on cold days, but it was all good. Some of us used to have parties in the lounges when the RAs were out or asleep.”

“Oh I saw some large rooms on my floor – I wondered what those used to be!” you exclaimed. “They’re now vending machine rooms for drinks, snacks, and electronics. Did you have a lot of friends living on your floor?”

Yeji crossed her arms over her chest as she tried to recall her neighbors back in school. Lia looked thoughtful and she raised a brow as she turned to face her friend.

“Hang on, didn’t someone from your family also go to that school?” she asked.

Yeji froze and you watched as she tried to keep a neutral expression. She shot a look at Lia and then flashed you an apologetic smile. She cast a quick glance at her phone and stammered that she needed go.

“Early meeting tomorrow for my workplace,” she claimed. “It was so nice meeting you, Y/N-unni!” She grabbed Lia by the arm and began dragging her away, the latter flashing you a confused look before bidding you goodbye.

“Here is your meal Miss,” the waiter announced. “Anything I can get you?”

You shook your head and focused your attention on your plate. Well, the recent interaction was bizarre. Yeji didn’t seem thrilled to talk about the person at her school that was related to her and she seemed upset that Lia brought it up in the first place.

Maybe this person worked at the university and embarrassed her like a parent would a child? you wondered. Or perhaps the pair could have had a nasty spat and she was trying to forget about it? Whatever it was, you didn’t feel a need to pry – it was her business after all.

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

You unlocked your door and turned the lights on. Once the deadbolt was thrown, you walked to the fridge and put your leftovers away on the top shelf.

You went through your normal nighttime routine, removing makeup and getting dressed for bed. You yawned as you put your toothbrush in the holder, a free hand turning off the bathroom light.

Your other hand rubbed your eyes as you shuffled into your bedroom and turned on a light. You moved your hand away as you noticed that your quilt and flat sheet were folded back on a diagonal, ready for you to climb into bed.

Didn’t I make my bed before I left? you thought as you slowly approached it. You glanced back toward the direction of the front door and remembered you locked the deadbolt and knob before leaving for dinner tonight. None of the windows were open or had been opened since you moved in.

Stop overthinking it, you scolded yourself. Maybe you thought you left the quilt one way then left it like this.

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

Over the next few weeks, you buckled down at work, trying to do your best and prove to your boss that she made a wise decision hiring you. Often you came in early and left late, getting home when it was dark out and often nibbling at some snacks or light food, then falling asleep immediately.

Lia didn’t bring up Yeji’s behavior during this time and you rarely saw her, guessing that your boss was keeping her busy as well. Sometimes you hardly got up for lunch, opting to eat at your desk to keep working.

“I’m not inspired!” your boss sighed during a meeting. She put down the pitches everyone had passed out at the start and looked around the table. “Honestly, this is what I get after several weeks?”

She turned and placed your pamphlet in front of you. “There’s a glimmer of an idea there Y/N, but you got bogged down in the packaging. I need you to clean this up and redo your pitch by Friday.” She turned and addressed each of your co-workers one-by-one, telling everyone what they needed to correct. As soon as she was done with each person, your co-workers stood up and excused themselves to work on the revisions.

When your boss got to Lia, the intern lowered her gaze and listened quietly, nodding to show she understood. She seemed to be getting the harshest critique, as she was supposed to pitch a big idea as her final assignment before the internship was over.

You walked slowly to your desk and groaned, messing your hair up as you sank into your seat. You heard the meeting room door open and saw Lia emerge, trying to hold back tears. Part of you wanted to check on her, see if she was okay, but then you saw your boss exit the meeting room. Time to fix the issues.

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

You bit your lip as you propped your head up with your hand, blinking to give your eyes a break from the computer screen. Most of your co-workers had called it quits a few hours ago, but it was just you and Lia left in the building. She hadn’t made much noise, other than a lot of scratching of a pen across a piece of paper. You on the other hand had typed up your revised talking points and were researching competitor companies to see if any of them had done what you were planning.

“Y/N?” Lia asked from her desk. “Is that you?”

You stopped working and answered that you were still there. She took a deep breath and you heard her chair rolling back.

She walked around the other offices and paused at the entrance to your cube.

“Have you eaten dinner yet?” she asked.

You shook your head and checked the clock on your computer. 20:47 PM. Geez, why was she still here? Why were you still here?

“Lia you should head home and try to get some sleep,” you suggested. “I know all of us are upset, but trying to push out an idea when we’re stuck isn’t good. I’m starting to realize that I’m hitting a brick wall by staying here.”

She nodded and clasped her hands together. “Do you like sushi? I know a late night place near here we can go.”

You grabbed your purse and logged off your computer. She perked up slightly and hurried to get her things too.

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

Dinner seemed to calm both of you down. You discussed your original pitches and how you could fix them to meet your boss’s expectations. Lia relaxed over the course of the meal and she apologized to you about Yeji’s behavior.

“Don’t worry about it – she has a right to not talk about that part of college,” you said, waving it away as nothing.

“Oh the person wasn’t the problem,” Lia began, “it was actually her cousin on her father’s side. He went to the same school, but they studied different majors. She said he was about to graduate, but he passed away unexpectedly.”

You froze and almost dropped your chopsticks at this bit of news. No wonder the young woman tensed up at the mention of someone else from her family attending school with her – losing someone in her family during an important time had to be hard.

“Were they close?”

Lia waved her hand side to side and explained that they were civil, but not super close. Because they were the same age, his death left her shaken.

“Dying in your twenties is too soon,” she concluded. “I didn’t know the circumstances until she told me. But she wanted me to tell you that you weren’t the reason for her sudden mood drop! It’s just...thinking about him is too–”

“Too soon,” you finished. “I understand.”

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

The drive home was quiet and you couldn’t stop thinking about Yeji’s situation. Sure you didn’t know her super well or the young man who was her cousin, but it was a very sad situation for everyone involved. To die unexpectedly in your twenties was shocking and felt wrong. While you didn’t know the exact reason for his passing, you hoped it was peaceful.

You moved slowly as you got ready for bed and slipped under the covers. Today was draining, physically and emotionally. Disappointing your boss, seeing Lia get chewed out, learning about Yeji’s late cousin...

You sniffled, but couldn’t bring yourself to cry after the events that transpired. You closed your eyes and sucked in a sharp breath of air, trying to calm yourself so you could catch a few hours of sleep before waking up again. But your mind was going a million miles an hour, thinking about tomorrow, fixing your pitch...

A few seconds passed and you felt a warm sensation wrapping around your body, almost like someone was giving you a hug from behind. You knew the doors were locked and you hadn’t invited anyone over. Instead of feeling scared or alarmed, you felt at ease for some reason.

You began breathing normally through your nose and allowed yourself to drift off to sleep. Perhaps this was your body’s unique way of telling you that you needed the rest now – pretending some warm presence was helping you fall asleep.

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

“Here’s your mail and packages Miss Y/N,” Seungmin announced as he stopped by with his cart.

You accepted the packages and a small pile of letters, thanking him with a smile. Everything was placed on your desk and you turned back to face him.

“How’s your week going so far?”

He shrugged and nodded over at the cart, which wasn’t as full as usual. “Quiet day,” he confessed. “But I know once I’m done delivering stuff here, my boss is gonna send me home and I’m gonna have to listen to my annoying roommate whine about being single.”

You shot him a sympathetic look and reached for a letter to open while you continued chatting. “Sorry to hear that. He does know that there’s no rule saying he has to be paired up right now, right?”

Seungmin rolled his eyes and shoved his hands in his pockets. He leaned slightly against the cart and looked around to make sure no one was looking for him. “He’s jealous because our old friend proposed to his sweetheart and she said yes, then one of our old roommates moved in with his new girlfriend, and now our neighbor is seeing some guy that looks like a fairy.”

You winced and put down the letter. “So the world’s bombarding him left and right, huh?”

“Yeah I guess you can say that,” Seungmin sighed. “Don’t get me wrong – he’s nice and he pays the bills on time, but don’t hang around him when he’s mopey and looking for love.”

You nodded to show you understood. Unlike you, Seungmin worked for the building mail room and often got sent home at various times, depending on when he was done passing out or picking up packages and mail. Your eyes wandered to a rolled canvas that you meant to ship back to your printer and you had an idea.

“Well actually, I might have one or two things for you today,” you mused. “I need to ship this back to the printer – it’s their only proof they have and they need it back by Friday. Also, I was wondering if you could check the tracking/status on a package for me? It says it’s coming soon but I kind of need–”

“Say no more,” Seungmin cut you off, a grin spreading across his face. “Let me take care of the deliveries here, then I’ll check that package for you. I’ll also get the pricing for your canvas. Do you know how much it weighs? Dimensions?”

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

Once he finished the regular mail delivery, Seungmin headed back down to check both things for you. His boss allowed him to stay longer so he could assist with your requests. In between waiting for the FedEx guy to arrive and checking pricing options for your canvas, he got a message from his roommate, asking when he’d be home.

Peter

I can pick u up. Sent 14:29 PM

Seungmin

It’s fine. I gotta stay longer – had some special delivery requests. Sent 14:31 PM

I’ll take the bus or walk. Sent 14:31 PM

Peter

Nah I’ll come over. Tell me when okay? Sent 14:32 PM

“My roommate Sir,” Seungmin sighed when his boss noticed him replying to the messages in his phone. “He’s my ride home. Told him I’m working later today.”

“Nice roommate,” his boss commented.

Seungmin hid a wince as he glanced at the security footage for the front of the building, spotting the FedEx guy entering the lobby. He buzzed the guy in and stuck his head out of the mail room.

The FedEx guy unloaded several parcels and prompted Seungmin for a signature, claiming they were received. He scrawled a quick, electronic signature and thanked the guy before carefully lifting the parcels and putting them on his cart.

He paused by the computer where he had scribbled down pricing for the canvas options before he made his way upstairs. He noticed everyone else was leaving your office and he excused himself, maneuvering around the other employees.

“One special delivery for Miss Y/N,” Seungmin announced.

You turned in your seat and beamed as you took the package from him. He produced a scrap of paper with the quotes for the canvas and you peered at his writing, trying to decide the best option.

“How about the courier? Am I too late?” you asked.

“Nah I can call him and have him come here in a few minutes,” he reassured you. “Thank you Y/N, you saved me.”

“You helped a lot,” you remarked. “I’m about to leave, can I come hang out with you until the courier shows up?”

He nodded and took your canvas. “I’ll put it in a poster tube and get the label ready. You take your time okay?”

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

“Well you got a few more hours away from him,” you teased Seungmin as you walked out of the building.

Seungmin sighed with a shake of his head as a free hand removed his cell phone from his pocket. He shot you a look before taking the call.

“I’m leaving now. No I’ll take the bus. No man it’s fine!” Seungmin groaned. “Oh okay fine. I’m out front. Bye.”

“He’s picking you up?”

“Yeah, but I told him I wanted to take the bus or walk,” Seungmin said. “He’s a student like me, but he does an internship with a radio station. Normally he does it a few weeknights and the weekends, but they thought he had midterms this week.” He turned to face you and flashed you a sympathetic smile. “If I were you, I’d probably leave before he sees you – he might start trying to use cheesy pick-up lines on you once he gets a good look at you.”

“I’m probably too old for him,” you reassured him. “I don’t mind waiting with you Seung, it’s the least I can do for you after you helped me with my stuff.”

The young man sighed as he craned his neck, spotting a black car turning into the drop off area for your building. He raised a hand toward the driver and glanced over his shoulder at you.

“See you tomorrow,” he said.

You nodded and turned to head to the employee parking structure where your car was. You thought you heard Seungmin arguing with the driver, but you focused on getting to your car so you could get home right away.

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

The weekend was uneventful, with you doing a bit more decorating of your new space and chatting with your parents to let them know how things were going. Once the new week started, you focused on work again.

You heard the mail cart roll down the row and you heard a familiar voice greet you. You turned in your seat and accepted the mail from Seungmin, who had a nervous look on his face.

“Hey Seung, something wrong?” you asked.

He grimaced and slightly moved his head side to side. “I know you walked fast last week when you waited with me,” he began, “but I’m afraid Peter saw you and now he’s asking me if you’re single. I already told him that you’re older than him, but that didn’t work. I’m sorry Y/N noona.”

You shrugged and put the mail on a free section of your desk. “Why are you apologizing? It’s not your fault – you don’t have control over him.”

Seungmin leaned against the cart and murmured that he knew that. He bit his lip and asked if he needed to make up some kind of excuse for you to get his roommate to drop the subject of possibly asking you out.

“I mean, I can tell him you’re not into younger guys or something,” he offered. “Look, I said he’s not a bad guy, but I think he’s trying too hard–”

“I mean, how bad is he?” you cut off.

“He’s chatty but not misogynistic,” Seungmin said. “I know some of his dates felt he was too hyper for them and they said, he’s nice, but he’s like the Energizer Bunny and it was too much to handle. Or they felt he was a bit immature. He never went far after the date – trust me, he’s not that kind of guy to put out, unless you say something.”

You leaned back in your chair and swiveled left to right slightly. Ever since you arrived here, you struggled to make friends or even find time to date. Your mom had asked if you met anyone interesting yet, which made you change the subject quickly. Part of it was due to work and you made excuses saying you were still settling into your new place.

“Um, what does he look like?”

Seungmin raised a brow at your question and you prompted him to show you a picture of his roommate. The young man pulled out his phone and unlocked it, before clicking on the Instagram app and scrolling to his roommate’s page. He flicked through the posts, then paused when he found one that he liked.

“I get why girls find him attractive,” Seungmin stated as he showed you his phone. “And by the way, that’s his skin – no filters or makeup. Yeah, I’ve been trying to figure out his skincare routine for a while, but no luck.”

You leaned forward to look at the image of the young man sporting a sharp pinstripe suit while leaning against the window sill. His light colored hair was styled back, his gaze focused to the right.

Seungmin was right, his roommate was handsome. But you detected a slight twinkle in his eye based on this photo, which made you think that he was probably more lighthearted and fun than shown. You nodded and leaned back in your chair as Seungmin put his phone away.

“I mean...how would he be if we met for coffee or dessert only?” you offered. “I’m not talking a serious date, more like an icebreaker, sorta?”

“Wait, seriously? Y/N don’t force yourself to consider a date with him if you’re not that interested,” the young man said.

You shrugged and confessed that you wanted to get out and meet more people.

“I mean, not to friendzone him right off the bat,” you began, “but I haven’t had time to meet more people, aside from my co-workers up here and you. You um, mind giving me his number?”

One of your co-workers stuck her head out of her cubicle and asked about her mail. Seungmin apologized to her and reassured her that he was on his way to her cube. Satisfied with his response, your co-worker went back inside and the young man took this as a sign that he needed to get back to work.

Seungmin straightened up and moved to the front of his cart. He took the brake off and paused before continuing his route. “Tell you what, I’ll let him know that you might be free to do something lowkey. I can introduce you over text and you guys can take it from there.”

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

Eventually you exchanged messages with Peter and decided to meet up at a trendy dessert cafe that opened near your complex. You made sure to get out of work on time and headed back to your place to freshen up.

You placed your keys on the kitchen counter closest to the door, then made a beeline for the bathroom to brush your teeth and touch up your makeup. Instead of changing clothes, you felt your current ensemble of a t-shirt tucked into the waistband of your high-waisted skirt was perfect. You swapped out your heels for flats and dug around for a casual jacket to replace your blazer.

Peter

Hi noona! Did you want me to pick you up? Sent 18:41 PM

Y/N

Hey Peter, no I’ll meet you there. It’s really close and I’d love to walk over. Sent 18:42 PM

You draped the jacket over one arm and put your phone into a smaller purse, along with your wallet and ID. As you headed for the door, you frowned when you saw the counter by the door empty. You froze, looking around for the keys, while your brain tried to remember exactly where you put them.

You closed your eyes and took a deep breath. Slowly, you opened your eyes again and decided to check everywhere in the kitchen. They weren’t on a counter and you didn’t see them on a hook by the door, which held your rain and winter coats. You knelt down to check if you dropped them on the floor somewhere, sighing when you couldn’t find them.

I know I didn’t open a drawer, you thought, deciding to backtrack to the bathroom and your room to check again. Both places came up empty and you sighed, emerging from your bedroom to try the kitchen one more time.

As you approached the kitchen, your eyes widened when you saw your keys on the counter, along with the envelope from the previous owners, which you kept forgetting to open. Your hand reached out, then retracted from the keys. What was going on? A few moments ago you couldn’t find them, and here they were, right where you thought you placed them. Except, you didn’t remember leaving the envelope out.

Shakily, you picked up your keys and slowly lifted the envelope from the counter. It had your name on the front and you flipped it around to lift the flap up.

Inside was a typed letter from the previous owners, printed front and back. Your eyes skimmed the contents, which primarily congratulated you for buying their old place, rules about guests and parking, utilities covered by the complex, etc.

Before you could flip it over to read the other side, your phone buzzed and you dug around in your bag for it.

“Hey Y/N noona, I hope Peter doesn’t drive you insane,” Seungmin said. “He left a few minutes ago – said you were gonna meet him there.”

“Oh um, yeah, I’m on my way,” you confirmed. “Hey, if you get a quiet night in, that’s all that matters. Hope you can enjoy it while it lasts.”

“Be gentle if you have to let him down,” Seungmin warned. “I know you won’t be a bitch, but he can be a bit fragile after a failed date.”

“This is technically a meet-up, not a date in a way,” you admitted, cradling the phone between your shoulder and ear. “He didn’t dress to the nines, did he?”

“Oh no, I told him you were going to be coming from work,” Seungmin reassured you. “I’ll let you go – don’t wanna keep you.”

You thanked him before hanging up and putting the letter down on the counter. You could finish reading it later – right now, you didn’t want to keep Peter waiting.

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

“Y/N noona?”

You looked up from your phone to see the young man from the picture, this time dressed in a blue button-down shirt tucked into a neat pair of black jeans. As your eyes met, his shy expression melted away to a brilliant smile.

You extended both hands to shake his and he took them, giving them a firm shake.

“It’s nice to meet Seungmin’s roommate,” you replied.

Peter nodded and took the seat opposite you. He gestured to the menu and asked if you had ordered yet. You shook your head and explained that you were waiting for him to arrive.

“Ah you’re too sweet noona, you didn’t have to!” he protested. He picked up his menu and looked it over, biting his lip as he tried to make a quick decision. He peered over the top of the menu and asked if you were okay with cheesecake.

You shot him a quick smile and declined, explaining you had your eye on a berry tart. “But we can order different things,” you insisted. “After all, this is meant to be more of a lowkey meet-up.”

Peter bit his lip behind his menu and nodded, trying to hide his disappointment. He looked around for a waiter and froze when he saw who it was.

“Felix?”

“Oh hey!” the young man greeted as he came over. “You live with Seungmin, right?”

Peter nodded and he put his menu down. He looked at you as he asked if you were ready to order and you agreed, turning to look at the waiter.

“Felix, right?” you asked.

The waiter nodded and produced a pen and order pad. “What may I get for you?”

You pointed out the berry tart and thanked him as you passed over your menu. Peter held out his menu and ordered the cheesecake sampler, before asking if you wanted to order drinks.

“Oh I’m cool with water,” you confirmed.

“Oh um, okay then! Same here,” Peter replied. “Thanks Felix.”

The waiter excused himself and went off to key in your orders. Peter jabbed a thumb behind him and explained that he knew him through a neighbor.

“There’s this guy who lives on our floor by the elevator and he started dating Felix,” Peter explained.

“So he’s the fairy?”

“Huh?”

“Oh, Seung joked that your neighbor started seeing a fairy-like guy,” you explained.

“Hah, oh yeah, he sorta does have fairy visuals,” Peter remarked. “Funny thing is, this guy who lives in our building, he looks like the epitome of darkness and hardcore stuff. So to see him with Felix, it’s kinda –”

“A TV trope?” you offered.

Peter nodded and you fell silent as Felix returned with water glasses. Both of you thanked him and the young waiter informed you that your desserts were coming out shortly.

“Not to rush you, but are you paying together or separate?” Felix asked as he clasped his hands together.

You opened your mouth to say separate, but Peter beat you to it, saying it was one bill. Felix nodded and excused himself to check on your desserts.

“We can split if you want,” you spoke up. “I brought money.”

Peter shook his head and flashed you a smile. “No I’m not making noona pay on our date.”

Didn’t Seungmin tell him this wasn’t one? you thought, the smile still frozen on your face. Well, maybe it was a slip...

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

“You didn’t have to,” you said.

Peter shrugged his shoulders and replied it was no big deal. He pushed his hands into his pockets as he walked beside you.

The desserts were good and Peter was pretty nice. But his roommate wasn’t kidding when he described him as a chatterbug. You almost wondered how that guy got a moment to breathe with all of the questions he fired at you, all while taking brief breaks to try the five different cheesecakes he got in the sampler. At one point he tried to persuade you to try one of his, which had strawberry in it, but you declined, explaining you weren’t a big fan of the dessert. He seemed crestfallen at this revelation, but eventually bounced back and asked what you did like to eat.

By the time the bill came, you tried to put down your share of the tab, but he shot you a look as he tugged it closer to him. You gave up and thanked him, planning to walk home and take it easy the rest of the night. But he insisted on walking you home.

You had to give him credit for being a gentleman and making sure you got home safely, but honestly, you were ready to curl up in bed and be a bit anti-social. Seungmin was right – his roommate was sweet, but a bit too energetic for you to handle. Once you reached the gate that blocked out non-residents from entering without a key, you turned and thanked Peter.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to walk you to your door?” he asked with a slightly concerned look.

You waved it away as nothing and explained your place was secure past this point. One hand slotted the key into the gate’s lock and you turned it, pulling it toward you. You stepped through and glanced back briefly at Peter.

“Hey it was nice meeting you,” you told him. “Next time, how about you, me, and Seung hang out and get coffee. On me, by the way.”

“Oh um, ye-yeah! Yeah that’s cool,” he said. He tilted his head and murmured, “I um, I ruined it, didn’t I?”

“Sorry?” you asked as you backtracked, holding the gate open slightly.

“The date?” he said.

“Peter...I’ll be honest, I thought Seungmin told you it wasn’t really a date,” you confessed. “See, I wanted to meet new people and I thought it would be cool to meet Seungmin’s roommate. I’m sorry there was miscommunication.”

Peter blushed and rubbed the back of his neck. “Ah he did tell me it wasn’t a big deal,” he replied, ��but I’ll admit I was a little hopeful. I don’t wanna seem desperate, but I like the idea of being with someone and showing them I care, you know?”

“I get that,” you said. “I had a good time tonight and I would like to meet up again as friends, if that’s okay. Right now, I’m not in a good space to date, if you get me.”

He nodded and raised a hand to say goodbye. “If the coffee hangout still stands, I’d like that. I think Seungmin would like that too. Thanks again.”

You bid him good night before slipping through the gate and heading to the elevator leading to your floor. You quietly congratulated yourself for handling the situation well, as the young man seemed to understand where you were coming from and realized that a friendship was possible. Once the elevator reached your floor, you stepped off and made a beeline for your door.

You immediately took your flats off at the door and arranged them under your coat hooks. One hand reached up to place the keys on the empty hook over your head and you felt a warm presence touch your hand, taking your keys from you to put on the hook. You slowly averted your gaze from your flats, spotting a second pair of feet beside you. Gradually, your eyes traveled from the black boots, the long legs, the broad shoulders, and the angular jaw of a young man in his twenties.

You took a step back in shock as you watched the young man place your keys on the hook and you blinked a few times to make sure you weren’t imagining things. At first glance, his face reminded you of Yeji’s, but you noticed his brows were fuller and he had a small beauty mark under one of his eyes. Then you remembered Yeji’s cousin who died before graduation. Could this be...?

“Are you...?” you whispered.

“The guy who died here? Sam Hwang?” he offered.

You raised a brow in confusion. Sam? “Um, Yeji never told me your name.”

Now it was his turn to look confused. “You know my cousin?”

“Um kind of?” you confessed. “My friend introduced us. She only revealed she lost a cousin who went to the same school, but that’s it. No offense...but what is your birth name? You don’t look like a Sam to me.”

His eyes closed, giving him a cute eye smile as he laughed lightly. “Hyunjin. Jin or Jinnie is fine with me.”

You straightened up and stared at the young man. He had a faint glow around him and you suddenly remembered some of the odd things that took place: the box being opened, keys misplaced, bed turned down, and the warm hug after your rough night.

“You were behind all of those things, weren’t you?” you asked in a soft voice. “Was this your dorm room?”

He nodded and glanced over at your kitchen, gesturing to the area where you placed your bar stools. “How about we sit and talk?”

You agreed as you walked around him, eyes barely leaving him as you took a seat. The letter from the previous owners was within reach and you moved it closer, remembering the other side you forgot to read.

Hyunjin took a seat beside you and watched as you skimmed through the second side of the letter. He propped an elbow on the counter and rested his chin in his hand. “No they didn’t see me, but sometimes I played a few light jokes on them,” he spoke up. “They were pretty nice. Kind of got nervous when they left, but then you moved in and you seemed like a good person.”

You tore your eyes from the letter and put it down on the counter, turning to look at your ghostly companion. You struggled to find the words to ask the question you had been wondering for a while, but wondered if that seemed rude. Almost as if he could read your mind, Hyunjin reached over and rested a hand on top of yours.

“It was a misunderstanding,” he said in a soft voice. “A friend of mine left a party with a frat president’s ex and the guy thought it was me. He came over looking for his girlfriend and pushed me around. I hit my head pretty hard and, well, things got fuzzy and I remember blacking out. Eventually I realized I didn’t make it and...”

“Please tell me he got jail for what he did to you,” you whispered.

Hyunjin shrugged and explained that he never knew what happened to the frat president. “I felt like I couldn’t leave and eventually the school sold the building. What you heard about wanting the dorm on campus is only part of the truth – they didn’t want to advertise a dormitory where a student was killed.”

You swallowed hard as the news sunk in and you stared down at your hands. It was a lot to process at once and you closed your eyes before taking a deep breath. Hyunjin watched you and gently rubbed his thumb on top of your hand.

“I’m so sorry Hyunjin,” you said after a moment.

“You don’t have to apologize,” he said. He cast a glance at the door and allowed a faint smirk to cross his lips. “So, that date didn’t go so well, huh?”

You snapped your head up and glanced at him in confusion. He snorted and explained that he heard you speaking to someone on the phone about a date tonight.

“Care to explain why you keep hiding my keys?” you asked with a teasing smile.

Hyunjin blinked and looked away, suddenly looking bashful. “Well...wait, I asked you first!”

“Were you jealous?” you teased.

“Ah...maybe. Fine, yes,” he huffed. “I thought noona seemed nice and I started to enjoy your company. Originally I hid your keys for fun, just to see if you could figure out that I was here. But then when you talked about seeing someone else, I sort of felt...I don’t know? Sad? Jealous?”

“I wasn’t going to bring him home,” you reassured the ghost. “Also, it wasn’t a date. The guy seemed interesting and I wanted to meet him after hearing so much about him from his roommate.”

Hyunjin tilted his head and asked if you planned to see the guy again. You raised a brow at him and replied that it would only be as friends.

“Relax Hyunjin, no boy’s coming home with me for a long time,” you promised. “Actually, speaking of which, I really wanna go change and curl up in bed.” You moved to get off your stool and Hyunjin slowly rose from his.

“Do you want space tonight?” he asked. “I’m sorry about that one time. You seemed down and I wanted to make sure you were all right and getting enough sleep.”

You turned to face him and flashed him a soft smile. “No, don’t apologize. I didn’t know I needed someone to comfort me until you did. Thank you.” You glanced over at your bedroom, then back at the ghost. “You mind cuddling tonight?”

#Stray Kids Hyunjin #Hwang Hyunjin #Hwang Hyunjin AU #Skz Hyunjin #Happy Birthday Hyunjin #Hwang Hyunjin Day #Itzy Yeji #Itzy Lia #Lee Felix #Kim Seungmin #Han Jisung #yourkeeperoftherunners original #number 2933

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thedisneychef · 2 years ago

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Experience the Rich Flavor of Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup at Le Cellier

If you're a fan of hearty and comforting soups, then you won't want to miss the Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup at Le Cellier. This delicious soup has become a fan favorite at the Canada Pavilion in Epcot's World Showcase. The soup is made with a blend of rich and savory flavors, including cheddar cheese, bacon, beer, and a hint of spice, making it a perfect dish to warm you up on a chilly day. The soup is served with a pretzel roll, which is perfect for dipping and soaking up all of the delicious flavors. Whether you're a fan of Canadian cuisine or simply looking for a delicious and satisfying soup to enjoy, the Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup at Le Cellier is definitely worth a try. The restaurant itself offers a cozy and inviting atmosphere, perfect for enjoying a leisurely meal with family and friends. So, if you're planning a visit to Walt Disney World Resort, be sure to add the Canada Pavilion and their Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup to your list of must-try dining experiences. More Delicious Recipes You Will Love: - How to Make Chef Mickey’s Breakfast Pizza: A Delicious Recipe - Canton Beef – Nine Dragons - Rose and Crown’s Creamy Chicken and Leek Pie Recipe When it came to cheese week, believe it or not, I actually wasn’t going to include this recipe. Let’s be honest, it seems like an overly obvious choice, and it seems like everybody already has the recipe. But the more I thought about it, the more I really felt like I had to include it. It is, after all, Disney’s most requested recipe. It’s also the dish that introduced the idea of signature dishes and recipes at Disney… It’s so overwhelmingly popular that it’s survived numerous menu changes, and while the recipe has changed over the years, at its core, it remains the same. Besides which, this soup is mind-blowingly awesome, as to be expected in any recipe where the primary ingredients are cheese, beer, and bacon. Just one taste and I’m back at EPCOT. The tricky thing about this recipe is that, while it’s easy to make, it’s hard to find all of the exact ingredients used at Le Cellier. Moosehead Beer and Nueske’s center cut bacon are both Canadian and, even though I live about one tank of gas away from Canada, finding these brands is tricky, at best. Substituting the bacon is easy enough… Stick with center cut bacon, preferably just straight bacon, not low sodium, maple cured, thick cut, etc etc. The beer, however, is a trickier prospect as it has the potential to change the taste of the whole dish. I’ve used beers like Guniness or local favorites, pale ales, all with a lot of success. This last time, however, I used the only thing I could find (and just happened to be Canadian) that was sold outside of a six pack… Labatt Blue. I have to say, I was disappointed as I wanted something a little more fun, authentic, closer to Moosehead, and less “commercial,” but honestly, using this gave me the best batch of soup I’ve ever made. I really recommend it. As for the cheese, until recently Le Cellier has been using Canadian Black Diamond white cheddar. If that can’t be found, any medium/mild white cheddar cheese will work just as well. Now, about the recipe itself… When the soup was first introduced to the menu, it included very simple, core ingredients. Cheese, beer, bacon, flour, and milk, along with seasonings. As time has marched on, the recipe has changed to include more traditional soup base ingredients such as celery, onions, and carrots. I honestly prefer the original recipe, which is essentially the same, just leaving out the extra veges, extra butter, and reducing the flour to about 1/3 cup. Don’t be afraid to make a double batch… It reheats beautifully, only gets more delicious as it “ages,” and with a splash of milk and/or beer, it comes back to life. And if you’re a bacon lover like I am, there’s certainly no law against using the whole pound of bacon instead of the half pound… Conclusion In conclusion, the Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup at Le Cellier is a delicious and satisfying dish that is not to be missed. This hearty soup combines a blend of rich and savory flavors, including cheddar cheese, bacon, beer, and a hint of spice, making it a perfect dish to warm you up on a chilly day. The soup is served with a pretzel roll, which is perfect for dipping and soaking up all of the delicious flavors. Whether you're a fan of Canadian cuisine or simply looking for a delicious and comforting soup to enjoy, the Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup at Le Cellier is definitely worth a try. The restaurant itself offers a cozy and inviting atmosphere, making it a perfect spot to enjoy a leisurely meal with family and friends. With its delicious blend of flavors and comforting qualities, the Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup at Le Cellier is sure to become a favorite among soup lovers. So, if you're planning a visit to Walt Disney World Resort, be sure to add the Canada Pavilion and their Canadian Cheddar Cheese Soup to your list of must-try dining experiences. In addition to the delicious food and recipes, Disney World is also known for its unique dining experiences, such as character dining and themed restaurants. Whether you want to have breakfast with Mickey Mouse, dine in a replica of a sci-fi drive-in theater at Hollywood Studios, or enjoy a meal with an ocean view at the Coral Reef Restaurant in Epcot, there's something for everyone. And with the help of Recipes Today and the How to Make category, you can even recreate some of these magical dining experiences in your own home. So why not start planning your next Disney-inspired meal or dining experience today? Read the full article

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abeervinumspirits · 4 years ago

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Beer Let's Taste it For a While

Beer, hearing the definition of mind directly strikes the spectacle of a beer bar by which people are holding glasses full of beer and the memory foam will be taken from their glasses. Beer isn't just a fresh term as time immemorial, world's most widely eaten and probably the earliest of most alcoholic beverages. Beer could be the 3rd most widely used beverage after coffee and tea. Broadly speaking beer is flavoured with the accession of jumps which adds a sour taste to beer and acts as a preservative. Besides hops a few fruits and herbs will also be useful for flavouring the beer. Literature from the times implies there is a Code of Hammurabi that has been worried about the legislation of Birre Online and beer parlours as well as also the Hymn to Ninkasi had been a prayer into Mesopotamian goddess of beer serving the functions of prayer in addition to recalling the recipe of beer groundwork. Currently, brewing market is a multinational firm providing employment to tens of thousands of an individual in the kind of small bars to large regional breweries.

There are just two classes of beer. The alcohol content of beer is approximately 4 percent to 6 percent alcohol by volume (abv) that may possibly be some times less than one% abv to 20 percent in rare scenarios. Beer creates part of civilization of beer drinking states and can be also shown to be connected to the festivals in addition to along with games. Back in China around 7000 B C beer has been prepared from rice malting. Any material containing vitamin including the sugars and also the starch usually brings fermentation and also this put down the base of beer production across the environment. The creation of bread and beer had generally caused the progression of human culture in addition to technology however this simple fact is contended closely by scientists.

Beer has been dispersed throughout Europe by the Celtic and Germanic tribes across 3000 BC ago and in the point, people do not call beer. Beer produced ahead of the Industrial revolution has been on national scale but now beer production is now an international company and in accordance with a record on 2006 approximately 133 billion gallons of beer has been sold annually that costs billions of dollars. The practice of earning beer is known as brewing. An edifice dedicated solely in making beer is popularly known as brewery even though beer can prepare yourself in domiciles too as known from the early literature. A business producing beer is also known as being a beer corporation. Beer produced on national scale is traditionally known as home brewing irrespective of fact how it's prepared. Beer production is closely under the foibles of the federal government of the nation and the manufacturers need to deposit the taxation and also meet the essential documents so as to conduct a brewery successfully.

The most important intention of brewing would be really to convert starch to carbonated liquid called wort and after with this wort is changed to alcoholic drink called beer that's fermented with the action of yeast. The very first step into making beer would be mashing at which the starch origin (malted barley) is mixed with warm water at a mash tun. Mashing procedure is complete is 1 2 hours and in that period that the starch becomes changed to sugars and also becomes more pleasant in taste. This candy liquid currently named wort is drained off shape that the sausage. The grains have been washed and also this measure is identified as sparging. Sparging helps the machine to acquire around fermentable liquid out of the grains as possible. The procedure for filtering grain out of the wort and sparged water can be characterized as wort separation. The standard procedure for wort separation is known as lautering at which the grain itself behaves as filter moderate. Modern breweries utilize filter frames for this particular measure. Even the sparge got from third and second jog comprises weaker wort and so weaker beer. Brewing with a few running’s is known as patrigyle brewing.

The sweet wort got by the sparged water is currently kept from the pot and boiled for only 1 hour. Boiling hastens the water of this wort however, also the sugars as well as other components remain therefore and also this allows efficient usage of starch sources. Additionally, it inactivates the enzymes after the mashing procedure. Hops are added because of flavor, bitterness and odor. Hops can be inserted a lot more than 1 time. If the jumps are boiled for a more period afterward your bitterness of beer increases and also the flavor and the odor material of beer decreases. After draining the hopped wort is permitted to cool and it is currently ready for yeast activity. During fermentation the hopped wort becomes beer and also this measure usually takes a week depending on the sort of yeast and also the potency of beer. When fermentation has ended the yeast albicans leaving the obvious beer. Sometimes fermentation is performed in just two steps, secondary and primary. Once beer is generated through primary fermentation it's moved to some other vessel and also it is allowed to undergo secondary fermentation to get many stages. Secondary fermentation is usually used when beer demands long duration storage before packing or increased clarity. If beer has fermented it's moved to casks for cask ale or from aluminum cans or kegs or ribbons determined by the varieties.

Besides malted barley additional origins of starch could be used just like the rice or corn and also the expression adjunct can be employed since they function as a less expensive replacement for scarcely. Grain bill may be your entire sum of starch origin within the beer manufacturing process. The significant makeup of beer stems from water. Water of unique places has different mineral components therefore that the beer prepared from other regions shares strange flavor and amount. Water from Dublin is hard therefore that it really is most appropriate to its creation of stout, Pilzen contains soft water therefore famed for its creation of light lager. Water out of Burton is fuller of gypsum therefore is suitable for your creation of light ale. On occasion the brewers add gypsum into the water to the creation of light ale which procedure is referred to as Brutalisation.

The starch origin of beer will be the crucial source that gives you the material to become fermented also is accountable for its potency and flavor of beer. Most widespread starch origin utilized for beer groundwork could be your malted grain. Malting procedure creates enzymes that are in charge of the conversion of carbohydrates into fermentable sugar levels. Various colours of malts have decided from precisely the exact same grain by permitting the grain to blossom at several temperatures and times. Dark malts produce black beers. Vast majority of beers consumed malted barley because starch origin because its own fibrous husk isn't just vital from the sparging approach but in addition comprises amylase, a digestive enzyme which converts starch to fermentable sugar levels. From recent years brewers have produced fermented beer in the malted sorghum particularly for all those who cannot eat up gluten-rich beer originated from malted barley, wheat, rice and corn.

The leading elements of flavouring of beer will be the jumps that derive from the jump vine. Hops are in fact the blossoms of jump blossom that become flavouring agents in addition to preservative. Besides naturally-occurring specific berries and herbs will also be used as flavouring agents. Hops add flowery, herbal and citrus aromas and tastes to beer. Hops have an antibiotic effect and permit the employment of diminished quantity of microorganisms and also have a preservative activity. The microorganism in charge of the cessation of beer would be that the yeast. Yeast converts the sugars got by malted grains in to alcohols and co2 and so turns wort to beer. Additionally, it provides flavor and character to beer. A few brewers additionally add clarifying agents to beer since they precipitate out from their beer together side the protein solids and also are observed in traces only in the final product. These representatives create beer clean and fine rather than the muddy signature because that obtained from wheat at the olden days. Commonly-used clarifying agents have been isinglass got the swim bladders of plants, Irish moss from sea weed.

There are various types of beer seen all around the globe however, the essential theories of these groundwork are shared among different nations. Brewers from Canada, USA and Australia are really so much motivated by the European manner of beer groundwork they have developed their very own native varieties of beer. Besides different forms beer can be classified into two main types dependant on the form of brewing that affects yeast activity throughout cessation. Beers can be lagers brewed in elevated temperatures and synthetically accessible ales brewed in low temperatures. Ales could possibly be further split to light ale, dark or brown ale and stout. Beers are ostensibly classified on the grounds of yeast activity employed in fermentation. Beers which necessitate fast-acting hot trembling leaving residual sugars have been classified as ales while beers utilizing slow behaving cold fermentation at which the yeast removes the majority of the sugars have been lagers.

Limbic is many different beers that's prepared in Belgium using wild yeast as opposed to the cultivated one. A number of the types of yeast employed in making Lambic are maybe not the breeds of Cerevisiae therefore they really exude various tastes and aroma to beer. Lactobacillus is essentially accountable for its sour taste of limbic at which it produces acids. Stout and porter are black beers ready using roasted malt or roasted wheat and barley by dense yeast. The definition of Porter was useful for the very first time in 17-21 to spell out some dark coloured beer found in the river and streets porters of all London. This beer has been down the road got famous by the label stout.

Still another variety is wheat that is considerably obtained by using wheat. however, in addition, it comprises certain percentage of malted wheat too. They're normally very best fermented and also the flavour of all wheat beers varies greatly in line with this style where they're brewed. Ales have decided by hot skin with brewer's yeast which clumps and increases to the top in order that they have been known as high fermenting beers and require higher temperatures and also make fermented quickly in contrast with lagers. The most suitable temperature for undertaking cessation of ales will be 15-24°C. Inside this temperature range yeast produces suitable esters and tastes together side odor services and products leading to a beer using sour touch such as this of lemon, banana, pineapple, plum along with also others. Hops were introduced to England from the 15 th century and following the accession of hops in brewing the definition of beer had been used. The expression Real Ale was chased by Campaign for Real Ale (CAMRA) from 1973 for its beer brewed using conventional ingredients and naturally-occurring using co2.

The trendy beers of European source are known as lagers. The light lagers would be probably the most popularly eaten beers throughout the planet. The term lager has its source by a German note lager so to save as the brewers used to save the beers into cool cellars and caves throughout summer months plus so they detected that fermentation process lasted in the beers that were stored and this also led in better caliber of beers. The yeast used for cessation of lagers is greatly busy at lower temperatures plus it includes primary pruning in the temperature selection of 7-12°C after which the very long secondary fermentation in 0-4°C. Subsequent to the secondary fermentation has ended lagers eventually become evident. Cooler temperature additionally inhibits odd production of esters and other compounds leading to production of a yummy lager beer. With the addition of yeast breeds modern lagers prepare yourself in quite a brief time span say from 1 3 weeks.

Malt is accountable for this specific colouration of beer. The frequent shade of beers is light amber that's fundamentally created by using light malts. Coke was useful for the very first time in 1642 for roasting the malt however that this measure was banned in 1703 however, the definition of pale ale was created. Concerning volume and sale the vast majority of the beers are all derived from the balmy lagers brewed in 1842 in the town of Pilsen within the present-day Czech Republic. The light lager absorbed at today scenario is very light in shade passed through carbonation with all alcoholic strength of approximately 5 percent just. Dark beers are usually brewed by light malt or even lager base malt and certain percentage of dark malt to accomplish a desirable colour. Caramel, roasted unmated barley can be also employed for achieving a more desired colour of beer.

The alcoholic strength of beer ranges from greater than 3 percent by volume (abv) to approximately 14 percent (abv) even though this potency might be further increased around 20 percent (abv) by usage of smoke yeast and 60 percent (abv) by frost cessation procedure. Alcohol in beers stems from the sugars which lacked throughout the fermentation procedure. The number of fermentable sugars in wort and the stress of yeast used to the cessation of wort are liable for its alcoholic material from the obtained beer. Alcohol can be produced as a by-product of yeast and can be toxic to yeast. Low temperatures and too-little fermentation reduce the experience of yeast and in order that the alcoholic content of beer that is final. The alcoholic content of beers has significantly escalation in the past couple of years of 20thcentury and also a Dutch brewery has produced the most powerful beer using alcoholic content of 60 percent (abv).

The brewing industry is a multinational business in today's world plus it works in cooperation with regional in addition to federal breweries. Micro-brewery is a contemporary brewery which produces a restricted quantity of beer annually around 15,000 barrels. Ale by the pressurized keg has become the most common way of dispensing beers at the pubs. A metallic keg is generally used that can be filled with beer and pressurized by employing co2. After a cask arrives at a bar it's kept vertically in a framework called stillage that's intended to take it in 90° and allowed to cool at the basement temperature before being exploited and vented.

Beers are essentially eliminated away from the yeasts until they experience packaging from cans and bottles. Bottle conditioned beers nevertheless retain a yeast that's left unattended therefore beers need to be pumped lightly. Many beers are generally sold in cans all around the globe. People today beverage directly from cans or simply by massaging in to the glass. Cans protect beer by pressing light and there's little of no probability of leakage. Cosmetic containers can be also utilised for packaging. Warmer temperature demonstrates flavour of beer and also trendy beers tend to be more refreshing. Most moms want to eat up light lagers chilled while royal stouts are often preferred in the room temperature.

Beers are served in cans, glasses, eyeglasses etc. Beer is poured into a mode from the drinking glasses and introduction of beer container releases carbon dioxide since it's opened.

Many societal activities are proven to be related to smoking such as handmade cards, bar games etc. Beer is popularly consumed all around the world at a sizable percentage in contrast with this wine that your 2nd most commonly consumed drink. The major active key part of beer is alcohol in addition affects general health. Moderate use of beer lessens the probability of coronary arrest and cognitive reduction. Long term impacts of alcohol boost the chance of liver damage. The brewer's yeast applied for the cessation of beer is also a rich supply of minerals such as potassium, magnesium, phosphorus, vitamin and Vitamin B and so, beer is occasionally known as berry. As per a report conducted by Japanese boffins at 2005 low-fat drinkers possess antifungal properties that were strong. Non-alcoholic beers decrease the danger of cardio vascular diseases. But over-consumption of any such thing is uncontrollable therefore beers need to be absorbed at a limitation.

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linssikeittomies · 4 years ago

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I Won’t Be Your Donkeyskin - A Banana Fish WIP

So about a 100 years ago I was talking with my friend @freakyfeline about fairytale AUs and we were laughing about how Yue Lung would be just the bitchiest princess. I originally imagined a Donkeyskin story with a Banana Fish spin, but it ended up being a Donkeyskin-inspired Canon Divergence - Yue Lung runs from his family and ends up hiding with Sing’s family, disguised as a girl. This is the only finished scene I ever wrote for it, and I quite like it.

Yue Lung thought back to the cashier’s words. Everyone’s heard by now. The prettiest hair I’ve ever seen. Boys will be fighting over you in a few years. He toyed with a strand, deep in irritated thought. Staying this close to the clan’s area of influence was a lot riskier than he liked, but it was the best he could manage for now. Biting his lip, he cursed that he hadn’t known how important identification documents were in the outside world. Who would’ve thought he couldn’t be a real person without some piece of paper?

Fussing with a strand of hair, he tried to weigh his options – ideally he would find a place on the other side of the country, even abroad. Canada, at least, but preferably Asia, maybe Mongolia – not Hong Kong, where the Lees were a considerable presence. But he had no money, and he could only get so far walking. And it was still cold enough to freeze to death in the night without even getting out of New York City first. Stealing would solve a part of that problem, but where could he find enough money? Pickpocketing might net him some loose change and maybe a few phones he’d need to sell for cheap, saving up that way would take too much time, and he was likely he’d get caught sooner rather than later anyway, since he had zero practice. The house was a no-go as well, Mrs. Sun didn’t keep a lot of money in the house, partly because they didn’t have much to save to begin with, and Yue Lung wasn’t rotten enough to steal from his saviors anyway. Maybe if they were filthy rich, and their finances wouldn’t be affected by a few thousand dollars going missing, but it still wouldn’t leave a good taste in his mouth.There was always the option of finding work, but who would hire a 11-year-old, who apparently didn’t exist because he had no ID? He could hardly ask Mrs. Sun money for helping around the house. He didn’t know how to do anything, except grow plants. He could have maybe sold medicinal herbs and such, had he a place to grow them and the knowledge how to use them – his education hadn’t yet included much but the most basic poisons. He also had a lot to learn about acupuncture, too. What else was there? If he couldn’t steal, and he couldn’t work, what else was left? Twisting and twirling the strand, twitching his foot, gnawing his teeth, there had to be something he could do! Just anything to run, or keep hiding, think! Think! Considering how much Mrs. Sun was gossiping about her newest “daughter” it was safe to assume Yue Lung’s brothers would soon hear about this mysterious girl who suddenly appeared out of nowhere, running from an abusive family, who just so happened to bear the name of the former patriarch’s deceased concubine! Fuck, what a fucking idiot a person can be! Using his mom’s name! Yue Lung might not have been able to do anything about Mrs. Sun’s benign airheadedness but he should’ve known better than be self-sabotaging dumbass! Okay, okay, what’s done is done, what he needed now was damage control. So, to keep running Yue Lung needed money, and he couldn’t get it yet. Which left hiding. Mrs. Sun was his saftest bet for now, and however talkative she might have been, Yue Lung was dependent on her goodwill and criticizing her would hardly endear Yue Lung to her. It had to be accepted that Dai Yu would be a known face around town, though it would be nice if it would attract less attention. Wasn’t there something he could do about that? He couldn’t change his face, apart from scarring it, and that would only make him more noticeable. It would take several years before he could grow a moustache or a beard, and with his genes it was likely to be a bust anyway. Unless he wanted to make a beard toupee out of his hair, and what would look more natural on a preteen than a hairbeard? One that was tangled to death from nervous fiddling. The strand around his fingers was getting knotted to the point of needing scissors to be solved. Wasn’t there anything Yue Lung could do to stay hidden? The strand twirled, frayed and split. ...The hair had to go. It was too noticeable. Having it shorter wouldn’t stop anyone from recognizing him, but it would cut the number of looks thrown his way. That was the key – stay low, stay humble, stay dull. Under any circumstances, do not attract unnecessary attention. Have average looks, have average manners, have average intelligence, be an all-around average girl and soon enough no one would care if you live or die! Blend in well enough and you might as well not exist. Mrs. Sun trimmed her own and her children’s hair, Yue Lung had seen the hair scissors in the bathroom. They were kept in a sleeve that looked homemade, and at least a decade old. One could only hope the scissors themselves were newer than that, or at least kept sharp – no such luck. Most things in the household were long past their glory days, full of holes or chips and dull as a cloudy day or a newborn’s teeth. The unsteady shhhk of the dull scissors trying to cut through a thin strand and Yue Lung’s frustrated grunts must have been what eventually caught Mrs. Sun’s curiosity. “Heavens! Dear girl, what on Earth are you doing?” Yue Lung thought the answer should have been clear as day, but he answered anyway. Mrs. Sun shook her head in disbelief and affectionate frustration. But, since the damage had been done, she demanded to even out the cut. “Aiya girl, you should have to come me in the first place!” she nagged as she snipped. “I would have cut it. I don’t understand why you would want to, your hair is so beautiful, Dai Yu.” Feeling that Mrs. Sun wouldn’t quit until Yue Lung gave some excuse to his haircut, he decided to play on a bit of admiration. He had found that often a transparent flattery would fall flat and have the opposite effect desired, and it was better to be less direct about the approach. It tended to work best with a bashful admission. “I wanted it to be like yours”, he mumbled quietly, affecting an embarrassed tone. It worked exactly how he had wished it to – Mrs. Sun cooed at him, calling him a silly girl but leaving it at that. Once she was content with Yue Lung’s new haircut, she called her sons to take a look. Yue Lung twirled around, supposedly pleased and proud. Yen Tai just said it looked fine and left like the moody teenager he was, but Soo Ling stayed quiet and thoughtful. Yue Lung thought he might have caught the longing look he had thrown at the long strands abandoned on the floor. He was weirdly silent for a few seconds, before saying “Dai Yu looks nicer with short hair.” Some kind of dam broke inside Yue Lung. He looked at the arm-long strands strewn about, curling around each other in embraces soon to be broken to clean up the remains of a burial. Dignity shed, thrown aside to further the selfish ends of another. A once treasured possession turned to trash. “How could you say that?” said Yue Lung, throat constricting, and his voice wasn’t any easier to mask than the tears falling to the floor. With a sharp inhale he tried to mask as anger, fully in vain, he broke down with a sorry mewl. “Aiya, it’s okay, it’s okay! It really looks nice on you!” Mrs. Sun tried to comfort. “Dai Yu, it’s alright. You look so pretty with your new hair! It makes you look so much softer!” Soo Ling ran to the kitchen and came back a little while later with a few almond cookies in hand. He offered them to Yue Lung, while Mrs. Sun still petted his back and muttered Aiya, poor girl, and I knew you would regret it. “Dai Yu, don’t cry. It’s just hair.” Just hair? Of course a boy would think it was just hair. He jerked at the look Yue Lung threw at him, like it had physically stung him. The Dai Yu he knew was distant and stiff, even cold, but always reserved, so he wasn’t prepared for the concentrated vitriol pouring out of the girl. He hesitated little before wisely fleeing from the girl. All this was hidden from Mrs. Sun, who unknowingly dried the tears of a beast and privately chided her son for being so rude to a crying girl. “Dai Yu, why don’t we gather up this hair and braid it. You can keep it safe until your hair grows back.” Silently, exhausted, Yue Lung nodded slowly. “I’ll do it myself. I’m sure you had something else to do before I disturbed you.” “Oh, it’s no trouble. Go find some pretty ribbon in the –“ “Please let me do it alone.” Mrs. Sun finally understood he needed a moment alone and left to find the ribbon herself. Yue Lung quietly, slowly, gathered the strands together. His neck itched. The short hairs from the last clean-ups had stuck to the skin. The ends of the dead tail of hair were uneven. It was an ugly thing, gathered up from the floor, not bundled together before being cut off. A dead keepsake, a far cry from the real thing, and the pain of it was more pressing than the dear memory. He would give it a proper burial. This one thing would escape the legacy of Lee Hong Lung and gain back some of its dignity in death.

I couldn’t find Sing’s mother’s name, so I decided to call her Sun Ci-Hui. Also I’m currently watching a k-drama called Rookie Historian Goo Hae-Ryung, and the prince is one of my favorite characters ever because he’s so sweet and innocent, and right after finishing an episode I go write calculating bitches like Yue Lung and Ivan:D What can I say, I like variety.

#btw all the characters in rookie historian are impossibly beautiful #and the main character is awesome #go watch it #banana fish #fan fiction #yut-lung lee #sing soo ling #wip scene #WIPtale

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