#thermal receipt paper

[digitalmeetel]

[marcusbrisco]

Marcus Todd Brisco: Innovating Sustainability in Marketing with Thermal Receipt Paper

In the dynamic landscape of marketing and sustainability, Marcus Todd Brisco emerges as a visionary advocate for eco-conscious practices. Hailing from the United States, Brisco's journey through the realm of marketing is characterized by a steadfast commitment to creativity, authenticity, and environmental responsibility. With a keen eye for innovative solutions, Brisco champions the use of Thermal receipt paper—a sustainable alternative that not only reduces waste but also aligns with his values of sustainability and ecological stewardship. Through his advocacy, Brisco is reshaping the way we think about marketing materials, paving the way for a more sustainable and environmentally friendly future.

Understanding the Environmental Impact of Receipt Paper

Traditional receipt paper, made from wood pulp coated with a chemical layer, poses significant environmental challenges. The production process involves deforestation, water consumption, and the release of harmful chemicals into the environment. Moreover, the disposal of paper receipts contributes to landfill waste and carbon emissions, further exacerbating the ecological footprint of this ubiquitous marketing material. Marcus Todd Brisco recognizes these environmental concerns and seeks to address them through the adoption of thermal receipt paper—a sustainable alternative that offers numerous benefits for both businesses and the environment.

The Benefits of Thermal Receipt Paper

Thermal receipt paper represents a paradigm shift in marketing materials, offering a range of benefits that make it an attractive choice for environmentally conscious businesses. Unlike traditional paper receipts, thermal paper does not require ink or toner to produce images, relying instead on heat-sensitive coatings that generate text and graphics when exposed to heat. This eliminates the need for ink cartridges, reducing waste and lowering carbon emissions associated with ink production and disposal. Additionally, thermal paper is recyclable and biodegradable, further minimizing its environmental impact compared to traditional paper receipts.

Aligning Marketing Practices with Sustainability

For Marcus Todd Brisco, the adoption of thermal receipt paper is more than just a practical solution—it's a reflection of his values and commitment to sustainability. By incorporating eco-friendly materials into marketing materials, Brisco aligns his marketing practices with his environmental ethos, demonstrating a genuine commitment to reducing waste and preserving natural resources. This alignment not only enhances brand reputation and customer loyalty but also inspires others to follow suit, creating a ripple effect of positive change throughout the industry.

Educating and Empowering Businesses

Central to Brisco's advocacy efforts is the importance of educating and empowering businesses to make informed decisions about their marketing materials. Through workshops, seminars, and online resources, Brisco provides businesses with the knowledge and tools they need to transition to thermal receipt paper and other sustainable alternatives. By highlighting the environmental benefits of thermal paper and sharing best practices for implementation, Brisco empowers businesses to reduce their ecological footprint while simultaneously enhancing their brand image and customer engagement.

Collaboration and Innovation

Brisco's advocacy for thermal receipt paper is rooted in collaboration and innovation, recognizing that addressing environmental challenges requires collective action and creative solutions. By partnering with suppliers, manufacturers, and industry stakeholders, Brisco seeks to drive innovation in the production and distribution of thermal paper, ensuring that businesses have access to high-quality, sustainable materials that meet their marketing needs. Through collaborative research and development efforts, Brisco aims to push the boundaries of what's possible in the realm of eco-friendly marketing materials, driving positive change and inspiring others to join the movement towards sustainability.

A Vision for a Sustainable Future

As Marcus Todd Brisco continues his crusade for thermal receipt paper and other eco-friendly marketing materials, his vision for a sustainable future grows ever more ambitious. He envisions a world where businesses prioritize environmental responsibility and integrate sustainability into every aspect of their operations, from product design to marketing practices. Through his advocacy and leadership, Brisco is not just shaping the present—he is laying the groundwork for a more sustainable and environmentally friendly future for generations to come. In doing so, he exemplifies the transformative power of aligning business practices with environmental values, creating a brighter and more sustainable world for all. Click here

[merchantservices444]

Difference Between Carbonless vs Thermal Receipt Paper

[lottoresult]

Thermal receipt paper

Understanding Thermal Receipt Paper:

Characteristics:

Thermal receipt paper is coated with a heat-sensitive substance that reacts to the thermal print head.

This coating eliminates the need for ink ribbons or toners, ensuring a cleaner and more straightforward printing process.

Advantages of Thermal Receipt Paper:

Speed and Clarity:

Thermal paper is renowned for its rapid printing capabilities, making it an ideal choice for businesses with high transaction volumes.

The prints produced are sharp, clear, and resistant to smudging, ensuring legibility for both customers and business records.

Cost-Efficiency:

Since thermal paper doesn’t require ink or toner, businesses can experience cost savings over time.

Reduced maintenance costs, as there are no ink ribbons to replace or messy spills to clean.

Choosing the Right Thermal Receipt Paper:

Size Considerations:

Thermal paper rolls come in various sizes, including 2 1/4" x 50' and 3 1/8" x 230'.

Select the size that aligns with your point-of-sale (POS) system for optimal performance.

Quality Matters:

Opt for high-quality thermal paper to ensure longevity and resistance to fading over time.

Balance quality with cost to find a suitable option for your business needs.

Best Practices for Thermal Receipt Paper:

Storage Conditions:

Store thermal paper rolls in a cool, dry place away from direct sunlight to prevent discoloration or degradation.

Loading Procedures:

Follow the printer manufacturer's guidelines for proper loading to avoid paper jams and ensure a smooth printing process.

Maintenance Tips:

Regularly clean the thermal print head to maintain print quality and prevent buildup that can lead to issues.

[orlofsky]

my brain: I am not going to cosplay Furfur, I don't feel like tracking down, altering, and distressing a leather trench coat, or wearing it outdoors in con season, and it's probably kind of a high-effort low-payoff costume to spend time on

the rest of my dumb ass: *already buying camera parts*

[overseepos]

The Ultimate Guide to Roll Thermal Paper, Thermal Printer Paper, and Receipt Paper

Introduction

In today’s world, businesses rely on high-quality printing solutions for receipts and labels. At Oversee POS, we understand the importance of using the right paper for smooth transactions. Whether you need roll thermal paper, thermal printer paper, or receipt paper, choosing the right one can make a big difference in your business operations.

What is Roll Thermal Paper

Roll thermal paper is a special type of paper coated with a heat-sensitive layer. When used in a thermal printer, heat activates the coating to create an image. This paper is commonly used in retail stores, restaurants, and businesses that require fast and clear printing. Oversee POS provides high-quality roll thermal paper that ensures crisp and long-lasting prints.

Understanding Thermal Printer Paper

Thermal printer paper is specifically designed for thermal printers. Unlike traditional paper, it does not require ink or toner, making it a cost-effective choice. Businesses prefer thermal printer paper because it reduces maintenance costs and produces smudge-free receipts. At Oversee POS, we offer reliable thermal printer paper that works with most thermal printers in the market.

The Importance of Receipt Paper

Receipt paper is essential for businesses that need to provide proof of purchase. Whether you're running a retail store, restaurant, or any customer-facing business, having durable and high-quality receipt paper ensures a professional experience. Oversee POS offers a variety of receipt paper options to meet your business needs.

Conclusion

Choosing the right paper is essential for smooth business transactions. Whether you need roll thermal paper, thermal printer paper, or receipt paper, Oversee POS has got you covered. Contact us today to get the best thermal printing solutions for your business

[pony-packaging]

Thermal paper and Plain paper is differences are there？

What is thermal paper roll?

Thermal paper rolls are special printing media that react chemically when heated to produce images or text. Thermal paper is mainly used in thermal printers, which do not require the use of ink or ribbon. Common thermal paper applications include receipts, labels, tickets, and fax paper.

What is plain paper?

Ordinary paper is the most common paper in our daily lives and is widely used for writing, printing, painting, etc. Regular paper often requires ink, toner, or other printing supplies to render text and images. There are many types of paper, including printing paper, copy paper, notebook paper, etc.

The main differences between thermal paper rolls and ordinary paper？

Printing Principle

Thermal paper: The thermal paper is heated through the thermal print head, causing the chemical coating on the thermal paper to react to form images or text. Plain paper: Images or text are formed on the surface of the paper through external substances such as ink or toner.

Consumables Requirements

Thermal paper: No ink or ribbon required, lower printing cost, suitable for mass printing or temporary recording. Plain paper: requires ink, toner or ribbon, and the long-term use cost is higher.

Service life

Thermal paper: Due to the characteristics of the chemical coating, the images and text on the thermal paper are easily affected by light, heat and friction, and the storage time is relatively short, usually starting after 1-3 years Blackened, yellowed. Plain paper: Content on plain paper can last for years, even decades, if printed with high-quality ink or toner.

Plication Scenario

Thermal Paper: Mostly used in restaurants, retail stores, banks, casinos, etc. where fast printing and instant viewing are required. Plain paper: widely used in scenarios that require long-term storage and frequent use such as office, study, and file preservation.

Environmental protection and economy

Thermal paper: The printing process is more environmentally friendly (because no ink and toner are required), and Pony Packaging-thermal paper does not contain BPA, and because it uses 100% lint-free paper, it can reduce printer jam waste, Images printed on thermal paper are displayed clearly. Plain paper: Ink and toner are required during the printing process, which consumes more resources, but the paper itself is easier to recover and recycle.

How to choose the appropriate paper?

The choice of paper type mainly depends on the specific use needs and environment.

If you need fast, low-cost printing** and the content is not stored for a long time, such as receipt paper, express delivery slips, thermal labels, etc., Pony Packaging-thermal paper roll is a good choice. If you need to keep documents for a long time**, such as contracts, reports, study materials, etc., ordinary paper is undoubtedly a better choice. With high-quality printing supplies, the content can be guaranteed to be clear and durable.

Conclusion

Thermal paper rolls and ordinary paper have their own advantages and disadvantages. Their differences are mainly reflected in printing principles, consumable requirements, service life, application scenarios, environmental protection and economy. Understanding these differences can help you make smarter choices in different scenarios, improve work efficiency, and save costs.

Whether you are an individual or a business, choosing the right paper can not only meet actual needs, but also save resources and protect the environment to a certain extent. I hope this article can provide you with useful information to help you better understand and use thermal paper rolls and regular paper.

[pandapaperrolls]

How Thermal Paper Rolls Can Be Beneficial for Restaurants?

Thermal paper, also known as audit roll, is a fine paper coated with a substance that changes color when subjected to heat. Thermal paper rolls are a form of specialty paper widely utilized in various sectors to produce instant, high-quality prints without the use of ink or toner. This paper's distinguishing feature is its “sensitivity to heat,” which activates a chemical coating and produces images or text.

This technology has found significant application in various industries, including retail, finance, healthcare, and transportation. It's in thermal printers, especially in low-cost or lightweight equipment like adding machines, cash registers, and credit card terminals.

This article helps you discover how thermal paper rolls benefit Restaurants.

Everyone assumes it must be related to food since it sounds like a restaurant. But hand-to-mouth contact should be avoided when handling receipts, and hands should be thoroughly washed after changing receipt rolls or cleaning machines and before and after eating or preparing food because thermal paper can only be printed on one side and is more chemically dense on the printed side.

What is Thermal Paper?

Thermal paper is a type of fine paper that has been coated with a chemical that changes color when heated. According to the sources, it found that by eliminating the requirement for conventional ink-based methods, NCR Corporation invented thermal paper in the year 1960.

In today’s growing environmental concerns, thermal paper rolls remain a dependable and effective printing solution for various industries. As technology advances, initiatives to develop more sustainable alternatives and increase the eco-friendliness of thermal paper are likely to impact the future of this essential printing medium.

How Thermal Paper Rolls Can Be Important for Restaurants?

Thermal paper is a type of paper that is used in the restaurant business to print receipts. Thermal receipt paper is a very cost-effective way to print restaurant orders. It is commonly used in restaurants to print customer orders and offer customers an item list of what they order at the time of payment. 

The particular surface coating on the paper avoids the requirement for expensive ink cartridges or printer maintenance fees that are necessary with other forms of receipts. This was a brief overview of thermal papers. Thermal paper has various advantages over regular paper, making it indispensable in many restaurants nowadays. Continue reading to learn more about their advantages, especially for the restaurant industry.

Advantages of Using Thermal Paper in Restaurants

While talking about any industry, the advantages of thermal paper are countless. First of all, it is low-cost. The second and most important is that it has an efficient method of printing customer receipts quickly and correctly. Thermal paper is also more durable than ordinary paper because it does not require the use of ink or toner to print. This makes it an excellent alternative for restaurants and cafes that need to keep track of their transactions during high-volume periods.

Thermal receipt paper prints are clear and legible throughout the life cycle due to a unique coating on the top layer that prevents blurring or fading over time. In addition to all of these advantages, thermal sheets have tight, secure rolls that make them prevent dust particles and other impurities. Isn’t it an excellent alternative for businesses that deal with a high volume of customer transactions every day? Thermal paper rolls are very cost-effective as they can be purchased in bulk at low prices.

Explore how restaurants can take advantage of Thermal Paper:

Thermal printing produces clear, smudge-resistant output that ensures print quality and longevity.

Thermal printers are low-maintenance and have fewer components that can fail because there are no ink cartridges or ribbons to replace.

Restaurants do not need to be concerned about the right place to store the rolls, as high-quality thermal paper is compact, lightweight, and does not take up much space.

One of the best advantages is that restaurants may print in several colors on a thermal paper roll for the order, payment receipts, table reservation labels, and so on.

Thermal paper is the most environmentally friendly option to use because it can be recycled after being utilized. 

Even after a long period of printing, thermal papers have longer stability to read and understand.

The Use of Thermal Paper Increases the Speed and Accuracy of Restaurant Operations

You may now come to know that thermal paper is a must-have product in the restaurant industry. So this is the best recommendation for every hospitality industry to use this paper that does not contain ink or toner to print an image, making it faster and less expensive than other standard printing methods. Thermal papers are also more dependable since they do not fade or smudge over time, resulting in crisper, readable images. 

It is true that giving an automatic record of all transactions done throughout the day can assist in decreasing human errors when establishing orders and processing payments. As a result, it improves accuracy, streamlines procedures, and ensures that restaurant and cafe customers receive accurate bills on time, resulting in higher customer satisfaction.

While talking about accurate solutions, thermal papers are also far more eco-friendly than standard printing methods because they do not require ink or toner. As a result, they are an excellent long-term alternative for businesses trying to minimize their carbon footprint.

Overall, thermal paper is a cost-effective and efficient option for restaurant operations that helps the hospitality industry, like cafes, restaurants, hotels, and guest rooms, achieve their efficiency, accuracy, and sustainability all goals at the same time.

Conclusion

As POS systems became more significant in restaurants, more businesses began to upgrade to more modern designs with thermal printers. Customized messaging and complex graphics for customer receipts were quickly added to the POS capabilities, a significant improvement over the traditional block lettering that was possible without the introduction of thermal printers.

At the last, thermal or receipt paper is an excellent choice for firms who print receipts for their customer. It is not only dependable and cost-effective, but it also contributes to environmental protection by removing the need for single-use products. Thermal paper has grown in popularity in the restaurant business as a technique to reduce waste and save money while maintaining quality. Thermal paper is a good solution for businesses of all sizes, whether printing receipts or other documents.

[foone]

why are printers so hated? it's simple:

computers are good at computering. they are not good at the real world.

the biggest problems in computers, the ones that have had to change the most over the time they've existed, are the parts that deal with the real world. The keyboard, the mouse, the screen. every computer needs these, but they involve interacting with the real world. that's a problem. that's why they get replaced so much.

now, printers: printers have some of the most complex real-world interaction. they need to deposit ink on paper in 2 dimensions, and that results in at least three ways it can go on right from the start. (this is why 3D printers are just 2D printers that can go wrong in another whole dimension)

scanners fall into many of the same problems printers have, but fewer people have scanners, and they're not as cost-optimized. But they are nearly as annoying.

This is also why you can make a printer better by cutting down on the number of moving elements: laser printers are better than inkjets, because they only need to move in one dimension, and their ink is a powder, not a liquid. and the best-behaved printers of all are thermal printers: no ink and the head doesn't move. That's why every receipt printer is a thermal printer, because they need that shit to work all the time so they can sell shit. And thermal is the most reliable way to do that.

But yeah, cost-optimization is also a big part of why printers are such finicky unreliable bastards: you don't want to pay much for them. Who is excited for all the printing they're gonna be doing? basically nobody. But people get forced to have a printer because they gotta print something, for school or work or the government or whatever. So they want the cheapest thing that'll work. They're not shopping on features and functionality and design, they want something that costs barely anything, and can fucking PRINT. anything else is an optional bonus.

And here's the thing: there's a fundamental limit of how much you can optimize an inkjet printer, and we got near to it in like the late 90s. Every printer since then has just been a tad smaller, a tad faster, and added some gimmicks like printing from WIFI or bluetooth instead of needing to plug in a cable.

And that's the worst place to be in, for a computer component. The "I don't care how fancy it is, just give me one that works" zone. This is why you can buy a keyboard for 20$ and a mouse for 10$ and they both work plenty fine for 90% of users. They're objectively shit compared to the ones in the 60-150$ range, but do they work? yep. So that's what people get.

Printers fell into that zone long, long ago, when people stopped getting excited about "desktop publishing". So with printers shoved into the "make them as cheap as possible" zone, they have gotten exponentially shittier. Can you cut costs by 5$ a printer by making them jam more often? good. make them only last a couple years to save a buck or two per unit? absolutely. Can you make the printer cost 10$ less and make that back on the proprietary ink cartridges? oh, they've been doing that since Billy Clinton was in office.

It's the same place floppy disks were in in about 2000. CD-burners were not yet cheap enough, USB flash drives didn't exist yet (but were coming), modems weren't fast enough yet to copy stuff over the internet, superfloppies hadn't taken over like some hoped, and memory cards were too expensive and not everyone had a drive for them. So we still needed floppy disks, but at the same time this was a technology that hadn't changed in nearly 20 years. So people were tired of paying out the nose for them... the only solution? cut corners. I have floppy disks from 1984 that read perfectly, but a shrinkwrapped box of disks from 1999 will have over half the disks failed. They cut corners on the material quality, the QA process, the cleaning cloth inside the disk, everything they could. And the disks were shit as a result.

So, printers are in that particular note of the death-spiral where they've reached the point of "no one likes or cares about this technology, but it's still required so it's gone to shit". That's why they are so annoying, so unreliable, so fucking crap.

So, here's the good news:

You can still buy a better printer, and it will work far better. Laser printers still exist, and LED printers work the same way but even cheaper. They're still more expensive than inkjets (especially if you need color), but if you have to print stuff, they're a godsend. Way more reliable.

This is not a stable equilibrium. Printers cannot limp along in this terrible state forever. You know why I brought up floppy disk there? (besides the fact I'm a giant floppy disk nerd) because floppy disks GOT REPLACED. Have you used one this decade? CD-Rs and USB drives and internet sharing came along and ate the lunch of floppy disks, so much so that it's been over a decade since any more have been made. The same will happen to (inkjet) printers, eventually. This kind of clearly-broken situation cannot hold. It'll push people to go paperless, for companies to build cheaper alternatives to take over from the inkjets, or someone will come up with a new, more reliable printer based on some new technology that's now cheap enough to use in printers. Yeah, it sucks right now, but it can't last.

So, in conclusion: Printers suck, but this is both an innate problem caused by them having to deal with so much fucking Real World, and a local minimum of reliability that we're currently stuck in. Eventually we'll get out of this valley on the graph and printers will bother people a lot less.

Random fun facts about printing of the past and their local minimums:

in the hot metal type era, not only would the whole printing process expose you to lead, the most common method of printing text was the linotype, which could go wrong in a very fun way: if the next for a line wasn't properly justified (filling out the whole row), it could "squirt", and lead would escape through gaps in the type matrix. This would result in molten lead squirting out of the machine, possibly onto the operator. Anecdotally, linotype operators would sometimes recognize each other on the street because of the telltale spots on their forearms where they had white splotches where no hair grew, because they got bad lead burns. This type of printing remained in use until the 80s.

Another fun type of now-retired printers are drum printers, a type of line printer. These work something like a typewriter or dot-matrix printer, except the elements extend across the entire width of the paper. So instead of printing a character at time by smacking it into the paper, the whole line got smacked nearly at once. The problem is that if the paper jammed and the printer continued to try to print, that line of the paper would be repeatedly struck at high speed, creating a lot of heat. This worry created the now-infamous Linux error: "lp0 on fire". This was displayed when the error signals from a parallel printer didn't make sense... and it was a real worry. A high speed printer could definitely set the paper on fire, though this was rare.

So... one thing to be grateful about current shitty inkjet printers: they are very unlikely to burn anything, especially you.

(because before they could do that they'd have to work, at least a little, first, and that's very unlikely)

[shelandsorcery]

Thanks for the tip @thecadaver ! @panelperday did indeed do some super cool scroll comics AND got a 3d printed holder made for easy reading!?!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Scott Higginbotham (@panelperday)

Sorry you have to insta to see it, but they havent reshared this in particular to their otherwise art-filled and super inspiring tumblr.

my thermal label printer has successfully printed on continuous rolls of paper, unlocking a whole new world of zine formats!

i can also print a vertically continuous flow of text, but that's a nightmare reading experience at any real length. but maybe a great webtoon print format?

[byler-alarmist]

Do people know most paper receipts are harmful to their health?

I'm going to get up on my soapbox for a minute, but do people realize how pretty much everyone is being overloaded with endocrine disruptors like BPA/BPS on a near-daily basis??

I don't think many people understand that ever since most of the world transitioned to thermal paper receipts (cheaper than ink), almost every receipt you handle from the gas station to the grocery store to the Square terminal printer at the local co-op is coated with Bisphenol-A (BPA) or its chemical cousin Bisphenol-S (BPS).

These chemicals have not only been proven to cause reproductive harm to human and animals, they've also been linked to obesity and attention disorders.

Not sure if your receipt is a thermal receipt? If you scratch it with a coin and it turns dark, it's thermal.

BPA/BPS can enter the skin to a depth such that it is no longer removable by washing hands. When taking hold of a receipt consisting of thermal printing paper for five seconds, roughly 1 μg BPA is transferred to the forefinger and the middle finger. If the skin is dry or greasy, it is about ten times more. 

Think of how many receipts you handle every day. It's even worse for cashiers and tellers, who may handle hundreds in a single shift. It is also a class issue, since many people who work retail and food service are lower-income and will suffer worse health consequences over time from the near-constant exposure.

Not only that, receipts printed with thermal ink are NOT recyclable, as they pollute the rest of the paper products with the chemicals.

People don't know this and recycle them anyway, so when you buy that "green" toilet paper that says "100% recycled"? Yup, you are probably wiping your most sensitive areas with those same chemicals (for this reason, I buy bamboo or sugarcane toilet paper as a sustainable alternative to recycled paper).

This page from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency has some good links if you want to learn more.

As consumers, we need to demand better from our businesses and from our governments. We need regulation of these chemicals yesterday.

If you are a buyer or decision-maker for a business, the link above also contains a shortlist of receipt paper manufacturers that are phenol-free.

If you work at a register, ask customers if they want a receipt. If they don't and you can end the transaction without printing one, don't print one!

As a consumer, fold receipts with the ink on the inside, since that's where the coating is. Some more good tips here.

And whatever you do, DO NOT RECYCLE THERMAL RECEIPTS

[virtualboypsd]

twink consumption ticket (thermal printing on receipt paper)

[obstinaterixatrix]

I accidentally left my phone at my parents' house and then just decided not to go back for it because I didn't feel like it and I could do work on my laptop and honestly I did enjoy my vacation from my phone. except. at the very last second my laptop overheated and died which left me scrambling, and I WAS thankfully able to stay afloat, but that was very scary. I did finally trawl the internet for 'hey what the fuck gives with this overheating stuff' and now I have turbo boost deactivated or whatever, so HOPEFULLY that fixes the problems I've been having for the past few weeks. unless the overheating has already irrevocably damaged parts in this stupid piece of shit, which I would be really angry about. only time will tell.

the only downside from not having my phone is, kk used his thermal printer to print my comic on receipt paper and it is sooooo small and SHOCKINGLY legible, I'm so entranced, I could eat this right now

[whimsimille]

Our Bond Reaper

Minsung x Fem!Reader

Soulmate AU

Words: ~10000

contains mentions of 18+ content, sex, drug use, abuse of substances, nsfw undertone, established relationship (jisung x minho), oral (f and m receiving), piv, mxm, threesome, overstimulation, handjob, dry humping,

a/n: should i continue?

Chapter 2: The Ritual

"Are you... Are you really going to let this happen?" Minho's voice trembled as his feet traced obsessive circles across the empty flower shop parking lot. His fingers, restless like butterflies trapped in a jar, found an old receipt at the bottom of his pocket and began folding it obsessively into increasingly smaller triangles, scratching the thermal paper until it was almost torn.

Looking down, the asphalt was still wet from the morning rain, reflecting the streetlights that would soon turn on, creating small rainbows in the dirty puddles that smelt of oil and urban loneliness.

"Of course I will. What's wrong with that?"

"What's wrong with that?" Minho let out a hysterical laugh, his free hand grabbing and pulling at his dark hair. "Chan-hyung, for heaven's sake— It was a disaster when we both came out as soulmates! Remember the scandal? The headlines? The sasaengs trying to break into the dorm?" He stopped abruptly and spun on his heels to face Chan. "And now you're here dragging me to buy flowers for a ritual that could be completely fake? A ritual he didn't even tell me about?" His voice rose an octave. "Since when do you let Han Jisung get into your head like this? You of all people, hyung! Hell, you literally sacrificed everything so we could stay eight! Gave up everything!"

Chan sighed heavily, his fingers drumming against the car hood in a rhythm that Minho recognized as the chorus of "Haven."

"Minho-yah," he began, his voice hoarse from exhaustion and sleepless nights in the studio, "first: lower your voice; people live here." He nodded toward the buildings around them, where an elderly woman in a floral robe was watching them curiously from the third floor. "Second: your boyfriend is having increasingly worse nightmares. Felix told me he found him sleeping in the bathroom last night, curled up between the toilet and the sink, shaking and mumbling about wars and spirals. Third: even though you're here spewing all this in my face, you were the first to get ready and grab the car keys when I said we needed to talk about the possible 'third' person. Didn't even brush your hair properly," he gestured to the bird's nest that was Minho's hair. "If you really wanted to give up on this ritual, you would have gone home to confront Han about not telling you anything. But here you are, destroying a receipt in your pockets and pretending you're not dying of worry."

"I'm not—"

"Fourth," Chan continued, ignoring the interruption, "I don't care about JYP and his minions. They can come at me with their contracts and threats all they want. I did it once for you all, didn't I? Faced that packed room, signed my own artistic exile sentence." He laughed. "Why not a second time? Binnie and I are already used to meetings in empty cafes at three in the morning and stolen kisses in airport bathrooms."

Minho swallowed hard, his fingers finally tearing the abused receipt into tiny pieces that danced in the wind. "Channie, don't do this. Don't sacrifice yourself again. I already feel guilty enough about the first time."

Chan pushed himself off the car. The smell of old coffee and energy drinks finally enveloping the younger one like an ungiven hug.

"Guilty? Why the hell do you feel guilty? I made a choice. I always knew that one day I'd have to choose between being an idol or..." He vaguely gestured to his own chest, where Minho knew his soulmate mark—a complex pattern of sound waves that matched Changbin's musical notes mark—pulsed under the black t-shirt. "This."

"But you chose us. Chose to hide your relationship with Binnie so we could..."

"So you guys could be together? Yeah, I chose that. We chose that, him and I. Besides, being hidden is fucking great." The blonde's fingers found the pack of Lucky Strike cigarettes in his denim jacket pocket—he'd sworn he'd quit months ago but always came back in times of crisis, like a stubborn ex-lover who refuses to return the apartment keys.

The pack was crushed, probably from playing with it while listening for two hours to Han Jisung venting about Minho's rejection of trimarks and about how he had found a dusty book in the library that contained a ritual that could prove if he and Minho really had a third soul—preferably alive, because dealing with ghosts would be too much even for them.

"And I'd do it again. And again. And again." He took a cigarette from the pack but didn't light it, just twirled it between his fingers like an invisible baton. "Now there's someone out there suffering. Having nightmares, feeling phantom pains. And if I can prevent someone else from going through that..." He shrugged, finally bringing the cigarette to his lips and lighting it with a silver lighter that had the initials CB97 engraved on the side. "Well, fuck JYP Entertainment. Fuck all of them."

As the first puff of smoke rose in slow spirals against the night sky, it danced with the first snowflakes of winter. A flake caught in one of Chan's hairs, and Minho saw it melt instantly against the warmth of his skin.

"Besides," Chan continued, "it's about time I stop pretending I can control everything. That I can protect everyone." He laughed, the sound mixing with the cigarette smoke. "Look at me: trying to micromanage even my members' soulmates. Typical."

"Chan-hyung..." Minho stepped forward, his hands automatically reaching out to... for what? To hug? To hit? To beg? To tear that resigned smile from the face of the man who had sacrificed everything for them? He didn't know himself.

"No." Chan raised a hand, effectively freezing Minho in place. "Don't look at me like that. Just... let's go into this damn flower shop, buy the flowers for the ritual, and hope that this time..." He took a deep drag, smoke escaping through his nostrils, ashes staining his shirt. "That this time everything works out. And maybe... perhaps it's time for more people to be openly happy."

A car zoomed past on the wet street, its headlights creating elongated shadows that danced on the building walls. The elderly woman in the window had disappeared, probably bored with the drama unfolding in the parking lot, but her black cat still watched them with golden, judgmental eyes.

"Fine, but if this goes wrong..."

"If it goes wrong," Chan stubbed out the cigarette against his boot sole with more force than necessary, the smell of burnt rubber mixing with that of snow, "you can punch me. Right in the face. No consequences. Changbin will probably help you, actually. He's been complaining that I need a few slaps to put some sense into this thick head."

"Promise?" Minho raised his pinky.

"Scout's honour." Chan intertwined his finger with Minho's, raising the other three in a mocking salute.

"You were never a scout, hyung." Minho rolled his eyes but didn't let go of Chan's finger.

"Details, details..." Chan smiled, his dimples appearing like small craters in his pale cheeks—too pale, Minho noticed with concern, making a mental note to force him to take vitamin D. However, before he could say anything, Bangchan threw an arm over his shoulders, cold fingers finding the warm skin of the younger's neck. "Now let's go, before I change my mind and go back to the studio to sleep with my man's voice in the background. Binnie recorded three new tracks yesterday and..." He paused, the tips of his ears turning red as he bit his lower lip. "Well, you don't want to know the details."

"Oh God, definitely not." Minho pretended to shiver dramatically. "It's enough that I've caught you guys making out in the equipment closet like teenagers on their first date."

Chan laughed, the sound echoing in the empty parking lot. "It was just once!"

"Three times, hyung. I counted." Minho raised three fingers emphatically. "And the last time you were shirtless and Binnie had glitter on his neck. Glitter, hyung. I still find sparkles on my headphones when I go to record."

And so, under the first snow of winter and the lights of the flower shop sign—purple twinkle lights that tinted their skin with ethereal shadows like actors in a film noir—the two entered the shop. Like a portent, the bell above the door chimed.

"Fine." Minho wiped his sweaty palms on his jeans, and his eyes scanned the shelves filled with flowers, each one more exotic than the last. He was fucking pissed, wanted to leave, but knew Chan wouldn't let him, so fuck it all. "I don't know anything about this ritual. When will it be, what will he do, how will it be, where will it be. What do we need? What if he blows up our apartment? Or worse, what if he summons a demon?"

Chan rolled his eyes, but his lips trembled with a contained smile. He took a crumpled notepad from his back jeans pocket and flipped through the pages until he found the list he was looking for. "According to Hannie, we need purple flowers—preferably lavender or iris—rose quartz crystals, and red candles. My God, there are items written in Latin here! Oh, and coarse salt. Lots of coarse salt. Like, enough to make your blood pressure rise just by looking at it."

"Sounds more like my grandmother's cleansing bath recipe mixed with a beginner cultist's shopping list." The smell of wet earth and fresh flowers was starting to make Minho dizzy, his head spinning as if he'd had too much soju. "And where will this happen? In a cemetery? Because if so, I should warn you that my gothic wardrobe is at the laundry."

"No, you dramatic donkey." Chan flicked Minho's forehead, who groaned theatrically. "At your place. Jisung has already prepared everything, including doing an energy cleansing with sage and removing that horrible One Piece poster you insist on keeping in the living room."

"What do you mean? And our children?" Minho's eyes widened. "Will they witness everything?"

"Felix went to help Jisung with the floor writings and took all four to his dormitory with Seungmin. Soonie was especially happy to sleep in the king-size bed. And before you ask, yes, they have enough food for a week."

"It's today?" Minho's voice cracked on the last syllable. How could his soulmate have planned all this with the other members, and he, the one involved, know nothing about it?

"My God, he really didn't tell you anything!" Chan scoffed as he ran his hands through his bleached hair, making some melted snowflakes drip onto the wooden floor. "Typical Han Jisung, planning a mystical ritual without telling his fucking boyfriend."

Like a shadow materialized from his darkest thoughts, a young attendant approached them with steps so silent they could make Soonie die of envy. Her name tag, attached to a cord decorated with small dried flowers and crystals, identified her as "Yeeun.". She had dirt stains on her moss-green painted nails, a silver ring with an amethyst, and smelled of wet earth, fertilizer, and something sweet that reminded of jasmine incense.

"Can I help you?" Her voice had a musical timbre, like wind chimes on a summer afternoon.

"No."

"Yes, ignore my friend, please. He's kind of pissed at life." Chan quickly intervened, nervously rolling up his denim jacket sleeve until it formed a small crumpled tube at his wrist. "We need lavender. Lots of lavender. And Iris too, if you have any. It's kind of urgent. Like, really urgent. Matter of life and death. Or at least of a relationship."

"For a soulmate ritual?" Yeeun asked casually, as if commenting on the weather or asking for the time. When both stared at her open-mouthed, she smiled and pulled aside the turtleneck of her wool sweater, revealing a crescent moon. "My girlfriend is a witch too. I recognise the signs." She smiled, revealing braces with purple elastics. "Come with me; we have a special bed for these occasions. Chaeyoung insisted we keep a separate stock. Said something about specific energies and moon phases."

As they followed Yeeun through the fragrant corridors of the shop, Minho poked Chan's ribs.

"See? Everyone has a witch soulmate except me. I have a music producer who's obsessed with wars and swords and will probably end up blowing up our apartment trying to do a love ritual or whatever. I can already see the headlines: 'Idol dies in mystical ritual gone wrong; neighbours report smell of lavender and regret.'"

"At least he doesn't try to convince you to record demos at four in the morning," Chan muttered, rubbing where Minho had poked him. "Binnie has this annoying habit of calling me in the middle of the night saying he had a musical epiphany. Last week he wanted me to record a rap about mushrooms and astral travels."

Minho's laughter echoed through the shop, startling a hummingbird that was lazily drinking from a vase of orchids. The tiny bird shot away in a blur of green and blue.

"And did you record it?"

Chan blushed to the roots. "Maybe? The melody was good, okay?"

"You guys are ridiculous," Minho declared, shaking his head. A rose petal fell on his shoulder, and he absently blew it away. "All of you. And I'm even more ridiculous for being here, about to spend my salary on flowers for a possibly fake ritual that my boyfriend found in some dusty book. If this goes wrong, I'll make you eat each of these flowers."

"Ah, but it's not just any book," Yeeun commented over her shoulder while bending down to pick up a particularly beautiful lavender vase. "If it's the same one my Chaeyoung uses, it's an ancient grimoire from a poor soul who was exiled and tried to burn the evidence when she was discovered. It's been passed from witch to witch for generations. The rituals there are legitimate, even if what you're reading isn't the original book. They're copies."

"Oh yeah, cool." Minho drummed his fingers against the nearest shelf. "Then answer me something, please. Do any of these rituals end with my butt where my head should be? A tiger's tooth in my armpit? Death?"

"For fuck's sake, Lee!"

Yeeun tucked a rebellious strand of hair behind her ear, a smile playing at the corners of her mouth. "No, nothing so dramatic. The worst that can happen is a strong headache and maybe some strange visions. Like watching an 80s movie after taking cough syrup."

"Visions? What kind of visions? Because if I start seeing JYP naked, I swear I'll sue everyone."

"Shared memories, mainly." She looks at Chan's notepad that he placed open on a table and starts separating other listed branches. "Sometimes fragments of the past, other times glimpses of the future. Chaeyoung says it's like tuning an old radio—you get some stations clearly; others are just static."

Chan stopped playing with a hanging stone amulet. "And what about the... more permanent side effects?"

Yeeun raised an eyebrow, her astute eyes catching something in Chan's tense expression that Minho couldn't decipher.

"Ah," she said softly. "You're worried about burnt marks."

"Burnt marks?" Minho ran his tongue over his dry lips. "Is that possible? What about Psyche? Isn't that a betrayal to the goddess?"

"Technically yes, to all your questions." Yeeun sighed, shoulders dropping slightly. "Soulmate marks can be burnt, and the bond between the people involved will be broken without the approval of the three sisters of fate, but it's not that simple. The person who wishes to remove the mark would need to contact Psyche, offer her one of their future lives after this one, and only then would the bond be broken and the mark disappear. It's like trading your future for the present, you understand? If you don't complete all the steps, you die and lose the right to reincarnate. And believe me, death is the easiest part of this process. That's why it's illegal, both in our country and worldwide. However, there are rumours in the city that there exists... well, a peculiar person who survived the goddess of souls' wrath and is capable of burning the connection in severe cases. Some call it a gift, others a curse. Personally?" She shrugged, making the flowers in her arms sway. "I think it's more of a haunting than anything else."

"And what about the ritual we're planning to do? One of... reconnection." Chan asked.

"If you wish to perform the attunement ritual, you must understand that the person you're seeking might have ended the bond. There's no certain answer about what might happen in these situations. Some report only hearing buzzing in their ears, like television static; sometimes there's no burnt person at all, and they communicate naturally. Others..." She hesitated. "Others say they hear the burnt person's scream while the mark reforms and the connection is reconstructed. I believe these cases of reconnection are rare; maybe they happen when souls have a very strong connection and channel. But, well," she smiled, a sad and knowing smile, "I don't know much beyond that. Some things are better left in mystery, aren't they?"

"No, miss. I don't need any more mystery in this life. It's enough trying to understand how Han Jisung knows how to wield a sword without ever having practiced fencing in his life."

"In this life, you mean."

Minho swallowed hard, his fingers unconsciously gripping the edge of the shelf until his knuckles turned white. The old wood groaned under his force. "What do you mean, this life?"

Yeeun began wrapping all the branches in different papers to facilitate identification. The sweet and herbaceous aroma intensified with each manipulation of the flowers. "Ancient souls carry memories. Abilities. Sometimes they're just fragments—like knowing exactly how to hold a teacup correctly without ever having learned etiquette or recognizing a song in a language you've never studied." Her eyes met Minho's through the branches. "Other times they're bigger things. Like knowing how to handle a sword."

Chan made a strangled sound, nearly dropping the crystal he was examining. "So you're saying that..."

"That your friend was probably a warrior in a past life? Yes." Yeeun tied everything with a purple ribbon. "And by the way you're looking at me, that explains some things, doesn't it?"

Minho ran his hand over his face. His temples were throbbing. "Great. Perfect. My boyfriend is the reincarnation of a medieval warrior. That explains why he insists on sleeping with that ridiculous sword under his mattress." He paused, frowning. "And it also explains why he cried watching all those documentaries about the Crusades."

"At least he doesn't collect shurikens," Chan muttered.

A melodious sound filled the shop—Yeeun was laughing.

"You really have no idea how special you all are, do you?" She began separating some iris stems, their petals such a deep purple they seemed to absorb light. "Ancient souls gravitate toward each other. It's like... imagine a masquerade ball where everyone is blindfolded. You can't see the faces, but you recognize people by the way they move, by the echo of their footsteps on the floor."

Once again, the hummingbird perched on a nearby orchid, its tiny wings glinting in sapphire and emerald hues. Its bright, bead-sized black eyes examined the environment before darting back to the glass ceiling of the greenhouse, leaving behind only the soft echo of its wings. Some things seemed to exist on a different plane of reality, like that iridescent little bird, transitioning between two worlds.

Exactly like Han Jisung when wielding a sword, his eyes focused on something only he could see, his back straight and chin slightly raised in a posture that screamed years of military training. Sometimes, on the quietest nights, Minho caught him murmuring orders in an ancient language while sleeping.

Exactly like Minho when dancing, his movements carrying an elegance that didn't match someone who grew up in the streets of a small town—it was something more refined, older. Something that made his hands unconsciously search for rings that no longer existed and his feet follow the steps of dances that no one else remembered.

Exactly like callused fingers from so much sewing and a gentle smile that warmed any environment. She who drew on any surface—on market walls, in beach sand, even on the tanned skin of the two men who always followed her like devoted shadows.

Damn! There was no third person; there was no woman between two men! Fuck, this was all Jisung's delusion! Why the hell was he imagining a third soul?

No. No, no, no. It was all nonsense. Schools taught—with colored graphics projected on holographic screens and all that scientific crap certified by the International Academy of Psychic Studies—that soulmates were rare. As rare as a diamond meteor falling in the middle of Times Square. And always, ALWAYS in pairs. It was basic: one plus one equals two. Like a pair of shoes, like the hemispheres of the brain, like fucking DNA with its two intertwined helices. Psyche, the goddess herself—that immortal creature who decided to play puzzle with mortals' souls—had split a single soul into two halves so they would find each other on Earth. Two. Not three. What kind of experimental mathematics was Jisung trying to shove into his head?

Cold sweat ran down his neck like ice snakes, dripping onto his shirt collar while his eyes fixed on a random point on the shelves in front—an amber bottle with what appeared to be salamander eyes floating in formaldehyde—without really seeing.

The chemical reaction that allowed telepathy—documented in thousands of brain scans, studied by crazy scientists in white coats—happened between TWO brains. Neurotransmitters: dopamine and serotonin intertwining in a perfect tango between two minds. The cases were so rare they needed to be registered with specific government agencies, each pair catalogued as if they were specimens of endangered butterflies.

Minho ran his hand through his already disheveled hair, pulling some strands hard enough to make his scalp protest. His fingers trembled slightly—not from fear, he mentally insisted, but from exhaustion. The air in the shop seemed denser now, as if Yeeun's words had materialized an invisible mist that made each breath a conscious effort.

"What if..." he began, his voice coming out hoarser than intended, "what if someone... hypothetically speaking... could hear more than one person? Like, more voices than they should?"

Chan turned so quickly he knocked over a bottle of essence, his agile hands catching it millimeters before it hit the floor. Yeeun, in turn, remained completely still, her hands frozen in the middle of tying a bouquet of lavender. The only movement in her face was the slow blinking of her eyes, like an owl contemplating its prey.

"More voices?" she repeated softly. "Like a... chorus?"

"Not exactly." Minho moved restlessly, his fingers drumming a nervous rhythm against his thigh. "More like... a conversation. Between three people. Sometimes they're just fragments; other times they're entire dialogues. And there's this feeling..." He gestured vaguely with his hands, searching for words to describe something he barely understood, "like there's an empty space. An unoccupied chair at a dinner table."

"There are stories, yes, about souls that were split not into two, but into three parts. Even four. They're rare. So rare that most scholars consider them urban legends or mystical delusions. But... some things are rare precisely because they're too powerful to be common."

Yeeun picked up Chan's notebook that was still open on the counter as she moved through the shop like a silent dance.

"If you want advice, in case the ritual is successful and you find a partner without bonds..." Her eyes met Minho's. "Know that the person will burn from within in the real world. Their body will writhe, scream, beg while the organism reconstitutes itself to receive the bond again and the mind dives into ancient memories."

"And how will we know if..."

"Try to find the frequency," Yeeun interrupted Chan, now separating small crystals that chimed like tiny bells in her hands. "The frequency in which their soul will be immersed, even if you can't see their face or hear their voice clearly, maintain contact. Don't let them get lost in their own memories."

Minho bit his lower lip until he tasted the metallic flavor of blood. "And if they get lost?"

Yeeun stopped her dance through the shop, turning to face him. The cobalt-blue crystal in her hands pulsed when she answered, "Then you dive in together. It's risky, but..." Her eyes, now with a supernatural glow.

Chan swallowed hard. "Is that... is that possible? To dive into someone else's memories?"

"Possible?" Yeeun laughed. "Darling, you already do it every night. The shared dreams aren't just dreams—they're memories leaking through the cracks between realities. The ritual will just... open the floodgates completely. All memories, all lives—everything will surface at once."

The hummingbird returned, its wings creating small whirlwinds in the incense-laden air before landing on Yeeun's shoulder. She stroked its iridescent feathers as she continued: "That's why you need to be prepared to anchor whoever is drowning in their own memories. When the memories start flowing, don't fight against them. Let them come like waves. They're just echoes of the past; they're no longer your reality."

"And if... if we discover something we don't want to know?"

Yeeun's smile was as enigmatic as a sphinx's. The hummingbird on her shoulder tilted its head, as if also waiting for her answer.

"Ah, but you already know, don't you? In the depths of your hearts, in the shadows of your nightmares—you already know. The ritual will merely bring to light what your souls have been trying to tell you for centuries."

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

Everything ready. Finally.

Han let his body sink into the sofa, the soft leather creaking under his weight while every muscle protested against the effort of having dragged furniture for hours. His eyes, heavy as molten lead, scanned the room, cataloguing the items set aside for the ritual—pure black wax candles arranged in a perfect circle, crystals aligned at the cardinal points, empty spaces awaiting the herbs and other items Chan promised to bring.

The sweat stuck to his shirt, and the dense smell of sandalwood incense was already making him slightly dizzy, making the edges of his vision ripple. He needed to take that damned iris bath that the grimoire had specified with such emphasis (three whole pages just about the ideal water temperature, for god's sake), but his limbs felt like concrete, and the damn flowers were still with Chan.

It didn't help that his mind was a whirlwind of worries: the four children he had to leave with Felix (Doongie particularly indignant about the temporary change, that little furry dictator), the exact position of the moon that was rapidly approaching the necessary apex, and especially... especially the expression he would see on Minho's face when he arrived.

He tried, for the tenth time in the last twenty minutes, to reach the older one through the mental channel they shared but found only that characteristic silence—like waves hitting against an invisible wall, the kind of blockade that Minho only erected when he was truly furious. Kind of silence that made his stomach twist into impossible knots to undo.

With a sigh that seemed to come from the depths of his soul, Jisung fished the phone from his pocket, his fingers trembling slightly over the screen before opening the conversation with Chan.

han: hyung, where are you?? the moon's almost at the right point! did you manage to get min out of the dance room? did he agree to go to the flower shop? for the love of all that's holy, tell me he's not planning to kill me. or worse, ignore me forever.

wolf: breathe. just dropped him off at the dorm; he's heading to your place. and stop biting your nails, i can hear it from here.

han: ...alive? like, he's still breathing and everything?

wolf: well... he's SLIGHTLY pissed that you hid your plans and ritual readings. MODERATELY pissed that i took your side and promised to serve as anchor again if needed. CONSIDERABLY pissed about only now understanding this whole soulmate thing that no school bothered to explain properly. and EXTREMELY pissed about not being able to get this triad marks story out of his head.

han: ...so i'm more screwed than an ant at a rodeo.

wolf: not necessarily. i managed to calm him down a bit. i think deep down he wants to help, he's just scared. but han-ah, listen to me: when he gets there, SIT and TALK to him first. don't jump straight into the ritual. he's got his head full of conspiracy theories, needs to vent.

han: but the moon... it'll only be in the right position for like, 3 more hours??

wolf: the moon will be back in the right place next month. you three have waited so long, a few more weeks won't kill anyone. and for god's sake, don't try to solve everything with kissing and sex this time either.

han: hey! when did we...

wolf: last week at the boxing gym? month before last in the kitchen? that time in the elevator that traumatized poor seungmin? the new year's party? the broom closet incident? do you really want me to keep listing? i have a drive file just for this.

wolf: anyway. love you both, you stubborn idiots. good luck! and han? he'll understand. just... give it time.

Jisung stared at his phone until his eyes burnt, until the familiar metallic sound of the elevator cut through the silence, making his breath catch in his throat. The characteristic hum of the motor echoed through the empty corridor—one, two, three floors up. Each second stretched like old gum while his heart hammered against his ribs.

The soft beep of the electronic lock cut through the silence, and Han felt every muscle in his body tense in anticipation.

"Min?"

Through the dark reflection of the turned-off TV, he watched Minho slide into the apartment like night water—silent, fluid, dangerous. Snowflakes melted on his broad shoulders, staining the black shirt that outlined every tense muscle under the thin fabric. A bulky package of flowers and ritual supplies balanced in his arms like a reluctant offering, the crumpled kraft paper whispering secrets of iris and something more pungent, almost metallic.

"Don't even think about opening that mouth." Minho's voice came out controlled—but Han knew that cadence that carried promises of storms to come. While kneeling to untie his shoelaces, his movements were too precise, like a feline preparing to pounce.

"Love, if you'd just let me—"

"I said," Minho raised his eyes, and through the TV reflection, Han saw that particular gleam, like turbulent waves under moonlight, that made his knees weaken. He silently thanked that he was sitting. "That I don't want to hear a single word from your mouth."

"How do you expect to understand if you won't let me explain?" Han felt his own energy responding to Minho's, sparks of frustration igniting under his skin while his fingers dug into the leather of the sofa. "You're being ridiculous."

"Ridiculous?" Minho stood up, eyes meeting Han's through the dark reflection. The succulent pot on the small table trembled when he passed, but didn't fall—Minho never completely lost control; that was the worst part. "Then explain to me, Han Jisung, how it's not ridiculous to discover that my boyfriend spent weeks conspiring behind my back."

Han watched, hypnotised, as Minho hung his soaked coat on a random chair. Water drops dripped from the sleeve, forming a small puddle on the wooden floor.

"Min, I..." Han swallowed hard. "I know I should have told you before, but I was afraid you wouldn't understand. That you..."

"That I wouldn't understand?" Minho's laugh sounded like torn silk. "Ah, now you want me to understand? After days of planning all this insanity? After involving Chan-hyung and the others in this..." His fingers contracted in the air, as if searching for words they couldn't reach.

Desperate, Han extended his consciousness through the bond that united them, seeking that familiar connection—and almost screamed. It was like diving into an arctic ocean, waves of icy fury exploding behind his eyes. His temples throbbed in protest while Minho's anger leaked through his mental defenses like ink spilt in clear water, tinting his own thoughts dark blue and silver.

"You have no idea," Minho murmured, and there was something new in his voice now—a raw vulnerability that made Han's heart twist, "what it's like to discover that your soulmate, the person who should trust you above all else, was hiding something like this. Planning a ritual that could..." His voice failed, and for the first time Han saw beyond the stormy waves—saw the pure, crystalline fear that made Minho's hands tremble while he practically threw the flower package in his direction.

"Min, please." Han tried to stand up, but his legs wouldn't cooperate. "If you'd just listen to me—"

"Listen to what exactly?" Minho ran his fingers across his face in an almost violent gesture, leaving pink trails where his nails met skin. "How you want to play with ancient forces we barely understand? How you want to risk everything we've built because of some dreams?"

Something inside Han's chest twisted painfully as a result of the behavior. His Minho, his safe harbor, who would normally envelop him in warmth and comfort as soon as he crossed that door. Who would bury his nose in his neck and breathe deeply as if Han were pure air after days of suffocating?

"They're not just dreams, and you know that very well!" Han stood up in a sudden movement, and the flower package slipped from his lap. Iris petals scattered across the floor like fallen stars, being crushed under his bare feet as he advanced. "They're memories, Min. Our memories. Why are you so afraid of discovering who we were? Of what we meant to each other in other lives?"

On any other day, any other argument, Minho would already be pushing Jisung against the sofa, his eager fingers leaving trails of fire on his skin, his body moving beautifully while mounting his lap and bouncing. He would beg with that hoarse voice for Han to fill him with his cum completely, to make him think only of jisungjisungjisung while he held him by the throat and buried himself deeper, until the nightmares that haunted them dissolved into pure pleasure.

But not today. Today, Minho backed away as if Jisung's touch burnt, his footsteps echoing down the hallway as he headed to the kitchen.

Jisung hesitated for three heartbeats before following him.

The switch clicked under Minho's fingers, bathing the kitchen in fluorescent light that highlighted the dark circles under his eyes.

"There is no woman drowning in a frozen river. There is no us walking until our knees bled. There is no woman drawing symbols on our skin. There is no woman feeding the poor with blessed bread. There is no-"

"Wait." Jisung interrupted, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion as he watched Minho from the kitchen doorway. The older one moved like a caged predator, his eyes frantically scanning every drawer and cabinet. "Drawing on our skin? Feeding the poor? Love, I never... never dreamed of any of that. Just of her drowning. How can you know so much about her if it's all in my head?"

The sound of glass against glass echoed through the kitchen as Minho searched the cabinet under the sink. His hands trembled imperceptibly as he knocked over two empty bottles. "Where the hell did I put that bottle of Macallan? I'm sure that..."

"Min." Jisung took a step into the kitchen, maintaining the distance he knew Minho needed when he got like this. "What else are you hiding?"

"Ah." A sharp smile cut across Minho's face when his fingers finally found the neck of the bottle they had barely touched in months. He held it up against the light like a macabre trophy, the amber liquid dancing hypnotically. "Fifteen years. What a pathetic waste." His lips curved in disgust as he studied the label. "But necessary, isn't it?"

"Lee Minho."

"No." Minho poured a shot, and the crystal clinked against his teeth in a dissonant note as he downed it all at once. A single drop escaped, tracing a tortuous path down his neck. "Don't use that tone with me. Don't dare use that cheap therapist tone thinking you can fix what you don't even understand."

Jisung watched in silence as Minho poured another shot.

"Why won't your hands stop shaking?"

"Fuck off." Minho slammed the glass—not hard enough to break, of course, but enough to make the amber liquid dance.

Jisung moved. His fingers found Minho's nape, where the muscles formed a map of tension he knew by heart; he pressed there, right where the pain always accumulated after endless nights in the studio, feeling the tendons protest under his palm.

"Let me see your eyes." The words slipped against the damp skin of Minho's nape. "Please. Just... let me see what you're hiding."

When Minho remained motionless, his eyes fixed on the half-empty bottle as if it were a private oracle, Jisung slid his hand forward. His fingers spread across the older one's throat with a familiarity that crossed lifetimes—not a threat, but a collar. An anchor.

"Jisung! No!” Yet, Minho's body betrayed him as it always did, responding to Jisung's touch like a compass finding north. It took just a harsher squeeze and his head fell back in a silent surrender that hurt in its familiarity, exposing the vulnerable line of his throat where Jisung could feel his pulse running like a panicked animal. "Han-ah... I can't... I can't go through this. Not again."

"Breathe with me." Jisung pressed a little more, his fingers finding that specific point that made Minho melt—right where his jugular met his jaw. "Slowly. One-two-three, in. One-two-three, out."

"I..." Minho's fingers closed on Jisung's sweatpants like claws. The fabric protested. "Fuck. Shit. I can't... can't lose you both again. Not like this. Not this time."

Jisung's fingers froze against Minho's throat while his own heart stuttered in his chest. "Again?"

"There was this duty..." Minho's voice sounded distant. "It was... it was sacred, you know? Like..."

When Minho started to lose himself in old memories, Jisung tightened his grip on his throat. "Continue. I'm here."

"It was my responsibility." His shoulders—always so proudly straight—curved inward as if trying to protect himself from a blow Jisung couldn't see. "The people were my responsibility, but there was you... you and her in the temple gardens and..." A violent tremor shook his body. "I lost her that day. Not you, never you, but her..."

"It's okay." Jisung murmured against his nape, his lips brushing the sensitive skin there where sweat was starting to accumulate. "You were amazing. We don't need to do the ritual; we can leave this behind if it means our happiness."

"No!" Minho turned abruptly, and his elbows knocked over two glasses. The sound of it shattering against the floor echoed through the kitchen. "Han-ah, no. I... we need to do it. Now."

"Minho," Jisung held his face between his hands as if holding something too precious to name, his thumbs tracing gentle circles on his cheekbones where the skin was too cold. "You're not in any condition. There's another moon in a few days; we can wait and—"

"I need her now, Han Jisung." Minho's hands found his wrists.

"Shh... breathe."

"Now!" It was the first time Minho truly raised his voice, the word coming out like a contained sob. His knees gave way. He slid down the counter to the floor like a puppet with cut strings, dragging Jisung with him. "Please, please, please..."

"Minho, enough." Jisung knelt in front of him, ignoring the shards digging into his knees. "You're going to take a shower, and when you're calmer, we'll talk about—"

Suddenly, like a dam breaking, Jisung felt the older one finally release the mental connection that united them.

A flood of ancient memories hit him—fragments of past lives mixing like a maddened kaleidoscope. His vision darkened at the edges as images overlapped: Minho and him, pale skin against tanned skin, calm against destruction, duty against war. Candles lit in circles of salt, molten gold chains flowing down their wrists like liquid blood, screams echoing through ancient stone corridors. The smell of incense and death mingled on his tongue as Minho seemed to finally relax, Jisung's love flowing through the mental channel like warm honey, trying to calm the storm of memories.

The flame mark on his left side began to burn as if being branded again, and he could swear he felt the waves tattooed on Minho's abdomen rippling in response, their bodies recognizing each other across centuries.

"We need..." Minho took a deep breath. His fingers involuntarily contracted against the fabric of Jisung's shirt. "We need to take an iris bath first. If... if we're going to do this. Your subconscious is saying this."

Jisung didn't even question how Minho had access to his subconscious. His own thoughts seemed distant, as if observing everything through a veil of murky water.

All he knew now was that they needed to do the ritual. Today.

"Come." He murmured, his voice coming out strangely velvety, as if someone else was speaking through him. He lifted Minho with supernatural strength that made his own muscles protest.

The older one's body trembled against his as they crossed the hallway. The iris flowers lay scattered across the floor like small purple corpses, their broken stems leaving a trail of fragrant sap.

In the bathroom, Jisung undressed Minho with fingers that no longer felt like his own, his knuckles cracking with each undone button. Each movement was guided by muscle memory too old to belong to this life. The warm water fell over them like a ritual blessing, purple petals floating on the surface while steam rose in lazy spirals. Minho sobbed softly, words in ancient Sanskrit flowing from his lips.

"Han-ah..." Minho grabbed his wrist with enough force to leave crescent moon-shaped marks, his teeth chattering from cold despite the hot water.

But Jisung was already floating somewhere between lives, his body moving of its own accord while his consciousness observed through a veil.

"We need..." Minho tried to speak, his voice breaking. A drop of water ran down his tense jawline, hanging for a moment before falling. "The circle... the candles..."

Later, Han guided them back to the living room, now dressed in white robes that seemed to absorb and reflect the moonlight, fabric thin as a spider web against their still damp skin.

Minho's kiss came like an electric shock—their teeth accidentally clashing, the taste of metallic blood mixing with salt—and suddenly Jisung blinked, violently returning to consciousness. He found himself standing in the middle of the circle of candles, all lit by his own hands at some point. The antique silver lighter still burnt against his palm, metal too hot to be natural.

In silence, as if moved by invisible strings pulled by an ancient puppeteer, both let the white robes slide from their bodies, the fabric whispering secrets against their skin as it pooled at their feet.

Minho shuddered when his feet touched the circle of coarse salt, a strangled sound escaping his throat that reminded Jisung of a wounded animal. His fingers contracted involuntarily, joints cracking like dry twigs, as if responding to an invisible electric current.

"Lie down." The words escaped Jisung's lips, his voice unrecognizable even to himself. "Let the salt embrace you, hyung."

"Jisung-ah... What if... what if it goes wrong again? If she... if this time we lose everything? The energy feels different, wilder somehow."

"Look at me," Jisung commanded, his hand finding Minho's chin with surprising steadiness. "This time is different. We are different. We're stronger now, aren't we? Together."

"Together."

They lay face to face in the center of the circle, their bodies forming a perfect mirror image, like twin flames dancing in the darkness. The coarse salt scratched their bare skin, leaving tiny red marks that mapped across their flesh.

"Your heart," Minho whispered, his hand hovering over Jisung's chest. "It's beating so fast. Like hummingbird wings."

Jisung raised his hand, his fingers tracing the contours of Minho's face without actually touching him.

"Do you trust me?" Jisung asked, his breath ghosting over Minho's lips.

"Until the end of time itself."

Always.

"Psyche..." The ancient words began to flow from Jisung's lips like sacred water: "Mother of lost souls, guardian of eternal bonds, keeper of memories that time forgot..."

A violent tremor shook Minho's body, his spine arching off the ground like a drawn bow. His fingers dug into the salt, leaving deep furrows as his nails scraped against the wooden floor beneath. "J-Jisung... it's burning..."

"Shh..." Jisung continued the chant, his voice taking on impossible layers and textures, as if multiple versions of him were speaking at once—past, present, and future converging in a single moment. His hand found Minho's, intertwining their fingers despite the older's trembling.

The air around them began to vibrate with an ancient frequency that made their teeth ache. The candle flames flickered and danced, casting shadows that seemed to have lives of their own on the walls, twisting into shapes that shouldn't exist in this reality. The smell of ozone filled the environment, heavy like before a storm, mixed with something more ancient—the scent of incense and snow.

"Han-ah," Minho gasped, his free hand clutching at his abdomen where the mark of waves rippled beneath his skin. "I can feel her. She's... she's so close..."

Before darkness engulfed Jisung, he last saw Minho's eyes, which were no longer black but instead glowed with an unearthly blue that he recognized from other eras, lives, and rituals. Those eyes held universes of memories, lifetimes of love and loss.

And then, like a door being violently broken down by the fist of Psyque, their consciousness plunged into darkness, the echo of ancient temple bells reverberating in their bones, calling them home to a place they had never been in this life.

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

"Your Highness!"

"Your Highness, are you alright?"

"Prince Minho?" A second voice, softer, almost maternal, joined the chorus of concern. "You seem... distant."

Minho startled violently, his head hitting the golden vessel from which the mute nursemaid, Hyejin, was pouring water over his hair with a dull thud. As the metal reverberated, the young girl retreated, almost spilling the elaborate pitcher.

"Careful, Your Highness! You could have hurt yourself."

For a bizarre moment, he felt as if his hands weren't his own. There were tiny ripples in the perfumed water as his fingers shook against the bathtub's edge, their nails scraping the solid gold, which for some reason reminded him of a much smaller bathtub in a modern room.

"Your Highness looks pale," observed Yerin, the royal healer, while pressing specific points on his shoulders. "Your meridians are disturbed. Perhaps we should call the royal physician?"

"That won't be necessary."

He blinked several times, each movement of his eyelids seeming to drag sand. Similar to a pendulum, his vision shifted between two overlapping realities: the opulent bathtub in his royal quarters and the touch of at least five pairs of hands applying Oriental fragrances to his skin. But why did part of him expect the artificial scent of market soap?

The soulmate mark pulsed below his navel like a second source of life, burning with an intensity that made his entrails twist.

"Yah! Lee Minho!" The voice pierced through the heavy oak door carved with protection symbols, making the chandelier crystals chime. "I know you're in there, you royal idiot! Open this door before I break it down!"

"By all the ancient gods," gasped Sana, the visiting priestess from the eastern temple. "Such insolence! In my temple, such behavior..."

"We should call the royal guard!"

"He is the guard!"

"Oh!"

Ah, yes. Han Jisung was practically breaking down the door, each impact sending waves of energy through the bond that united them. The connection between them pulsed like a freshly opened wound, leaking raw emotions;

"If you don't open this door right now, I swear by Psyche I'll invoke the ancestral portals right here!"

"Minjoo-yah," he called softly to the younger nursemaid, who was kneeling beside the bathtub like a devotee in prayer. His fingers, wrinkled from the perfumed water, found the young woman's cheek in a casual caress. Still, it appeared that her gaze was more interested in exploring the area where his nudity was barely concealed by the purple water.

Minho couldn't blame her—it was no secret in the palace that his beauty was considered a blessing from the gods, though sometimes it felt more like a curse. Black as a night without the moon, his hair fell over his chiseled shoulders, water dripping down his alabaster skin in hypnotic patterns that seemed to both reflect and absorb the candlelight.

"Minho, don't make me break the protection seals!"

"Could you open the door for me, dear?" His lips curved into a smile that made the young maid blush to the roots of her black hair. "And Seulgi-unnie," he called to the older maid, who remained near the window like a silent sentinel and watched with a concern that went beyond the present moment. "Please, prepare more towels. I have a feeling I'm going to need them."

A faint creak of the door opened, and a flushed and panting Jisung, still in his training clothes, emerged. At his waist hung the ceremonial sword, its elaborate scabbard clinking against his thigh with every sudden motion. His black hair was stuck to his forehead with sweat from sword training, and there was a dirt smudge on his cheek that made him look younger, almost like the boy who used to steal peaches from the royal gardens with Minho.

"You..." Jisung began, his dark eyes traveling over Minho's naked body in the bathtub with a familiarity that made the maids avert their eyes, embarrassed. "Missed the war council meeting."

Minho tilted his head back, letting a drop of water run down his neck like a provocative caress. Through the bond, he sent flashes of the previous night—Jisung sneaking in through the secret passage behind the carved wardrobe, their urgent kisses, fingers covering Minho's mouth.

"Ah," Jisung swallowed hard, understanding tinging his cheeks red.

"Ah?"

"I... might have contributed to your delay."

"Oh... you might indeed."

Since childhood, when Jisung, son of the queen's head nursemaid, followed Minho like a shadow through the palace corridors, their lives had intertwined like threads in a forbidden tapestry. Whenever possible, the young prince evaded calligraphy lessons by hiding in the gardens with Jisung, where they stole flowers and made up stories about dragons and warriors.

At sixteen, during the Lantern Festival, their soulmate marks appeared simultaneously—waves for Minho, flames for Jisung. The panic in the queen's eyes was instantaneous; a prince could not have a servant's son as a soulmate. That same night, Jisung was sent for military training, a desperate attempt to maintain appearances. But not even distance could break the bond that united them.

"All of you," Minho waved his hand, "may leave. Captain Han will help me with the rest of my bath."

The maids exchanged hesitant glances. Only Seulgi, who had been his nursemaid since birth, allowed a small knowing smile to play on her lips before bowing and guiding the others out of the chamber.

"You're impossible today," Jisung muttered as soon as the door closed. "The entire council was waiting, including the ambassadors from the southern kingdom."

Minho observed his lover's movements with half-closed eyes, appreciating the way the muscles in his arms rippled under sun-bronzed skin. "And since when do you care about protocols, love?"

"Since there's a war knocking at our door with its drums of death," Jisung growled. "And a marriage—no, a sentence—that you insist on pretending doesn't exist, as if you could erase reality as easily as you extinguish the candles in your room every night." His dark eyes shone with a mixture of anger and fear that made the bond between them vibrate painfully.

"Don't you dare mention that wedding," Minho hissed. His fingers found one of the towels that Seulgi had left, the soft fabric absorbing the water as he wrapped himself in it. "Not today. By all the old and new gods, not today."

"Then when?" Jisung followed him into the main chamber, his training boots leaving damp tracks on the carpet imported from the western kingdom—that same kingdom now burning under Chrysalis's siege. "When their armies cross our borders with their machines? When their war towers spit fire? When they discover the ancient tunnels?"

Minho stopped in front of the ancient wooden wardrobe, his fingers tracing the dragon carvings that decorated the doors—first the head, then the wings with their delicate membranes, then the serpentine tail, in a pattern he had repeated since he was small enough to hide inside it during storms. That same wardrobe, which now hid the hidden passage Jisung used to sneak in each night.

"They found someone. For the ceremony attire."

This caught Minho's attention. His kingdom, Lunaris, cradle of lunar crystals and enchanted forges, had always been better known for its weapons than its textile arts. Every craftsman had become a manufacturer of weapons, every weaver a manufacturer of military uniforms, and every child a potential soldier as a result of the never-ending conflict with Chrysalis. Needles had been exchanged for swords long ago.

"Who?" Minho asked while donning a black silk tunic.

"One of the refugees from the royal kitchen. Y/N," Jisung replied, taking two hesitant steps toward Minho. "They say she crossed the Red Plains alone. The border guards found her nearly dead from thirst."

"From the east?" Minho froze, his fingers stopping over the silver buttons.

The eastern kingdom—formerly known as the Garden of the World—had fallen to Chrysalis three moons ago. Its famous hanging gardens had been transformed into training grounds, and the fountains that once spouted holy water now leaked a dark, viscous liquid that made the earth scream.

"The war isn't just coming, Minho," Jisung approached, his hand finding Minho's soulmate mark through the thin fabric of the tunic. "Chrysalis has already devoured the east. The south," his voice faltered, "the south knelt during the last new moon, preferring enslavement to total annihilation. And the west burns since it refused to surrender the Twilight Crystals."

"And you think marrying the princess of Chrysalis will prevent this?" Minho turned so abruptly that his tunic billowed like black wings. "That exchanging vows with those who corrupt the very essence, who transform our sacred crystals into fuel for their machines, will save our people? That lying in her bed while you..."

"No," Jisung answered, his hand rising to touch Minho's face. "But it will buy time. Time to fortify our defenses, to evacuate the border villages, to hide our own crystals."

"To say goodbye?"

Jisung sighed. "Don't say it like it's final. You know I always find my way back to you."

A sad smile played on Minho's lips. "Like a stray cat that always returns home?"

"Like a soulmate who accepts no other destinies," Jisung corrected. "Come. The seamstress must be waiting, and I," he stepped away while heading to the desk near the window, "pilfered something from the meeting that might improve your mood."

Minho arched an eyebrow, watching Jisung retrieve a wax paper package from behind a stack of official documents. The seductive aroma of fresh bread and melted cheese made his stomach protest loudly, a cruel reminder that he had missed breakfast due to his... nocturnal activities.

"You stole food from the war council meeting?" Minho asked, a genuine smile finally illuminating his face. His fingers found Jisung's when he handed him the still-warm sandwich.

"Actually," Jisung began, adjusting the golden buckle of his military uniform, "I saved this poor sandwich from a terrible death by neglect. No one was really eating—too busy shouting at each other about fortifications and defense lines. General Kim almost spilled a wine jug on Counselor Park."

Minho took a bite of the sandwich, an involuntary moan escaping his lips when the melted cheese touched his tongue. "You are impossible, Han Jisung. Completely impossible."

"Says the prince who missed a crucial meeting because he was too busy taking a petal bath," Jisung teased, his hand finding the small of Minho's back as he guided him out of the room. "And before you say anything, yes, I saw the death glares Counselor Jung was throwing at the door every five minutes."

"He was always too dramatic," Minho muttered, cleaning a crumb from the corner of his mouth with his thumb. "Remember when he nearly fainted because he found Jeongin practicing archery with the guards?"

"Now let's go," Jisung chuckled softly, the sound reverberating through the empty corridor like music, "before the poor seamstress thinks she's been abandoned. And Minho? No matter what happens, remember: some things are stronger than political agreements or wars. Our mark is proof of that."

They walked together through the palace's silent corridors, their steps echoing against the polished marble like a melancholic duet. The afternoon sun entered lazily through the high windows, creating golden patterns on the floor.

"Can you hear?" Minho tilted his head slightly. The king would certainly be in another endless meeting with his counselors—the raised voices leaked from the council chamber. "They seem more agitated than usual. Can you make out what they're discussing?"

"Something about the northern borders," Jisung replied. "The queen must be too busy with wedding preparations with your future mother-in-law to calm the king now. You know how he gets without her around." His eyes met Minho's for a moment before quickly looking away. "And Jeongin? I haven't seen him today."

"Stuck in his lessons with Seungmin," Minho replied, a weak smile playing on his lips as he ran his hand along the ancient tapestry decorating the wall. "Probably trying to convince our dear tutor to let him escape to the lower city again. You know my little brother—always preferred the company of commoners to nobility."

"As if you were any different. Remember that time you disguised yourself as a flower seller just to..."

"Shh," Minho interrupted him, his fingers finding Jisung's lips for a fraction of a second. "The walls have ears, Captain Han." His eyes scanned the empty corridor before his voice dropped to a whisper. "So... Tell me, do you think she's trustworthy? A seamstress from the east, appearing just now... It seems too convenient. Especially considering the rumors about Chrysalis spies infiltrating through trade routes."

Jisung pressed his lips together, his fingers drumming restlessly against his sword hilt. "Chan verified her background personally—three times, actually. But keep your eyes open. Not all spies carry daggers," he hesitated, his voice dropping to a harsh whisper, "some carry needles and thread, as my mother used to say."

From the corner of his eye, Minho observed how Jisung tensed at mentioning his mother.

Through their bond, he felt Jisung's memories float—his mother singing while sewing uniforms for her son, teaching him to use a sword, telling stories about spies and heroes while preparing jasmine tea for the queen. And then, the distant echo of screams, flames consuming the village, his mother pushing children into a secret tunnel while facing a dozen Chrysalis soldiers alone.

Minho discreetly slid closer and his eyes swept the empty corridor before placing a soft kiss on Jisung's temple.

I'm here, my love. I'll always be.

Jisung breathed deeply and his lips curved into a small but genuine smile as he nodded his head.

I know, baby. I'll always know.

In silence, Jisung guided the way through the ornate corridors to the seamstress's room, their fingers occasionally brushing when they were sure no one was watching. His hands, calloused from years of wielding swords and climbing walls, could still make Minho's heart leap like a lovesick teenager. While being escorted, the prince fidgeted with the silver ring that was set on Jisung's ring finger in the shape of a crescent moon.

When they arrived, it was Han who opened the door, his body freezing instantly in the doorway as if struck by a paralysis spell. Minho noticed the immediate change—Jisung's broad shoulders tensed under his uniform, his breath caught, and his lips parted in silent surprise.

"Jisung?" Minho called, his own hand instinctively reaching for the dagger hidden in his boot. "What is it?"

Jisung didn't answer him.

Intrigued, Minho gently pushed him aside, only to perfectly understand his soulmate's reaction. The seamstress—Y/N—had her back to them, hanging various fabrics and drawings on an ornate folding screen. As though Aphrodite herself had sculpted each of her features, the afternoon light streaming in through the high windows cast a golden halo around her, and her precise movements and posture evoked Athena's wisdom.

When she turned, Minho felt his soulmate mark burn as if touched by live embers. Beside him, he heard Jisung stifle an exclamation. Y/N gazed at them with eyes that seemed to contain entire galaxies, deep and ancient as the universe itself.

For a moment, the prince completely forgot how to breathe, his throat closing as if he had swallowed desert sand.

"Your Highness," she made a graceful curtsy, her melodious voice carrying a slight eastern accent that made something inside Minho vibrate in recognition. "Captain Han. I was expecting you."

[lottoresult]

The Efficiency and Clarity of Thermal Receipts: A Game-Changer for Modern Businesses

Thermal receipts are generated using thermal printers that utilize heat-sensitive paper. Unlike traditional printing methods, thermal printers apply heat to the paper, activating the thermal coating and producing sharp, high-resolution prints. This technology eliminates the need for ink or toner, streamlining the printing process significantly.

Benefits of Thermal Receipts:

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Implementing Thermal Receipts in Your Business:

Selecting the Right Thermal Paper: Choose high-quality thermal paper rolls that match the specifications of your thermal printer. Consider factors such as size, thickness, and coating quality to ensure optimal performance and longevity.

Integration with POS Systems: Integrate your thermal printer seamlessly with your Point of Sale (POS) system. Ensure that the printer is compatible with your software to enable smooth communication and accurate receipt generation.

Staff Training: Train your staff to handle thermal printers effectively. Proper loading of paper rolls and routine maintenance ensure uninterrupted printing operations.

[vireserein]

So I just got a thermal printer for Christmas-- A lovely $70 baby with all the shine and unhelpfully written manual of a Chinese knock-off. It took some fiddling, some bad attempts at rolling up the paper, some checking-every-single-review-for-every-brand-selling-this-printer-on-Amazon, the works. . . But I finally got it working. The fun part about this printer is that the paper for it doesn't come in sheets. It comes in rolls, or one big long accordion of paper (kind of like palisade bacteria). Sure, it has a little edge at the end so that you can rip off your homework-sized receipt, but you're not allowed to separate your pages as they print. If you're unlucky, your paper doesn't have perforations. I consider this lucky. I can now print all of my homework-- and all of my favourite fanfiction-- in scrolls. Do you understand my opportunity for mischief? The newfound ability to treat my beloved digital fanworks with reverent respect? My 256-page lab manual is going to be wax-sealed with a little ribbon. I'm about to print out an entire Outer Wilds fanfiction. Hold on y'all.