#this life is unbearable but even the bad memories have their own gifts attached to em

[frankenstheythem]

getting a bunch of old clothes and books and shit out my closet so i can take them to the thrift store knowing very well ill get 20 moneys max bc material stuff will forever haunt me and i cant dettach myself from the stories they wanna tell me

[jjkpls]

the wishlist (m) - 2

“Since when do we buy each other sextoys?”

> genre : light angst, fluff

> pairing : jeon jungkook x reader (f)

> words : 5k

> content/warnings : back at it again w/ the bff2l; one sided love, lot of pining; sextoys talk; explicit language; ambiguous infidelity; chaotic oc; clueless koo

previous - next

It all starts with the first box and the vague memory of a warm touch on your face.

When you wake up that morning, groggy from exhaustion and the sensation of having spent the night waking up, again and again, you sense something. You struggle to point out if you’ve dreamt or if it really happened, but there’s the lingering of a warm hand's trace, cupping your cheek, soothing the stress lines on your forehead, and softly brushing your hair back from your face. You can’t tell if it’s happened but it left a lovely sensation both on your skin and heart. 

You get up and out of bed, slowly stroll to your living room with a lazy hand raising to your head, meaning to scratch at the snake nest you expect to be sitting on it. Instead, your fingers are met with a rather neat braid you definitely didn’t go to sleep with as you were too fucking done with this day to even try and deal with your tight bun -the very bun that elongated your time to fall asleep by at least a good half an hour. The same fingers that caressed your face took care of your hair and you know exactly to whom they belong. 

Of course, giddiness ensues and the mildly serious feeling of mortification -you despise the idea of not knowing in what state he found you, in what state of ugly, of dishevelled, of smelly. There’s no room for embarrassment in this friendship, not this kind anyway, fortunately or not, he’s seen you at your worst (at a time when you didn’t care much if he did or not) so it counters, always a bit, the shame.

He hasn't left your side yet, has he? And he’s exposing himself to this face of yours, so why should you feel bad about it? He sneaks into your apartment at night just to brush your face and bring the covers up to your chin, tuck you nicely in as if he’s your mom or something, so why should you care. He doesn’t seem to mind. He never seems to mind. He’s the best of friends. The best of all the people you know and the best of your friends. 

And of course, naturally fitting this role, you’d find the morning of Christmas, a mysterious box you’ve never seen before sitting on your coffee table. 

The girls, your friends, have presents for you, you know they do, but yesterday you were working and couldn’t see them, therefore, the little celebration was reported and you didn’t expect, you wouldn’t expect them to come at night or early in the morning to bring you your gifts. It can wait (so they decided). 

But Jungkook is sweet like no one else is. 

And he came to wish you a merry Christmas even if you were too tired to wish him back and he left a present for you. 

There’s not a name attached to it but it’s obvious it comes from him. There’s just a post-it he stole from your desk, with a Merry Christmas written on it, the lines of the letters, round and neat, you’d recognize from any other lettering and a bunny with teeth as big as the eyes smiling at you, drawn next to it. 

The box is so pretty, you feel an actual pressure thinking about opening it, as if there is a certain way, a proper way, to go about it. 

And apparently, there is. You go wash your face and rinse your mouth, prepare yourself one of your good teas, tear the curtain wide open and slowly, almost ceremoniously, take a seat on the ground, right in front of it.

The box is neat. You don’t know what’s inside, probably a perfume or some kit for the bath you’d assume, but you already know that whatever is inside, even if it’s not of your liking -which is impossible, it comes from Jungkook-, will be balanced out by the appearance of this perfectly elegant, tasteful box that you’ll use again to stock anything, maybe your face masks, maybe nothing -it’ll just sit, looking good on a shelf. 

It’s a pastel blue, with a black rose drawn on top of it, the icon to a brand you absolutely don’t recognize. With fingers trembling with excitement you drag the box to yourself, it’s mildly heavy, for some reasons, it gives you a little rush of anxiety. There’s just a tiny black ribbon holding the box firmly closed. A tiny pull on it and it slips open. 

Slowly you lift the lid, a grin already plastered on your face, hurting your cheeks. You expect a blinding magical light to come out of it, with the sound of bells ringing near your ears and sense to suddenly knock into you as you’d understand what wondrous present is in front of you.

But none of it comes. There's just a thing hidden inside a black satin bag.

It’s not a perfume nor a bath kit and you’re confused.

A bit scared.

Honestly, maybe a little shameful part of you has guessed it. But the louder yet weaker rest of you can’t see it. It would be too... ludicrous. And wouldn’t make sense, would it? You’ve never actually seen any in real life so how would you know what the packaging would look like and how would you come to this conclusion now? And how, why, how would he, Jeon Jungkook, come about to offer you this?

Doesn’t make any sense. 

But somehow, when you pick up the courage to open the little bag and drag the object out of it, you hardly even gasp in surprise when you discover a dildo. You just let it drop to the table, thumping loudly the fake wood. 

Why did you guess it to be that and why did he get you this shit?

Scorching red seize your face and your whole being.

You are infuriated.

How dares he? You are mortified.  How dares he?

What does this fucking mean? 

A joke?

Is it a joke?

If it a joke then what’s the fucking point? It’s not fucking funny. It’s weird as hell and you can’t believe he came in the middle of the night, pretending to be Santa to leave you a fucking kidding present as if your miserable life needed that. 

And if it’s not then what the actual fuck? Does he think you’re that desperate? Does he have really no notion of boundaries?

Conveniently your phone lays centimetres away from the offending thing, you don’t even need to get up to grab it and therefore, you start looking furiously for his name in your recent call list. After only two rings as if he was just expecting your call, his bright hello reaches your ear. 

“What the actual fuck, Jeon?” He must hear the madness in your voice, both the anger and the hysteria. There’s a pause during which he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t make a sound and you even check your screen to make sure he hasn’t hung up on you. 

“That’s- not- the reaction I expected.” He sounds sheepish. Mumbled words, lisped syllables, long pauses. 

“What did you expect?” You yell a bit, you can just picture him, dragging the phone out of earshot and winding, the same way you do when your mom who doesn’t get the concept of telephone screams in it each time she calls you. The realization hits you, that in your quiet little apartment, in this (for once) quiet morning, you are screeching like a banshee. You quiet down instantly, some of the anger soothed down by embarrassment. “Are you insane?” You whisper in his ear and comically, he starts whispering too, with the same alterations to his usually bright and open tone. 

“M’not. I just- you said that’s what you wanted so I got it for you.”

Now he’s making stuff up and blaming this insanity on you and that serves to raise a bit more the bar of anger -along with the loudness of your voice, “When have I ever said that I wanted a-“ You choke on your own saliva once your brain realizes that you’re supposed to say the word, out loud, to him. In an angry whisper, as if someone, your mother, for example, could be listening “fucking dildo!” You blush furiously at that and it’s ridiculous. Probably the reason why you didn’t own one in the first place and maybe shouldn’t yet. Because you’re a grown-ass woman of a quarter of a century, living alone and admittedly independent and responsible for your own existence, but you can’t even say the word “dildo” out loud to this asshole of a friend who apparently, and that’s new news, doesn’t have an issue talking about sex and everything related to it with you. 

“Y-you said-“ There’s a pregnant pause. You can’t know for sure since you’re not seeing him if he’s faking it or not but he sounds confused as hell. Like he genuinely doesn’t understand what’s wrong. Moron. “You said you wanted sex but not a boyfriend so I thought- it’s pretty much- it’s exactly what it is. Why are you so mad?”

The question in itself serves to drag you a little further over the edge. So much so, it clogs your brain with anguish and leaves you unable to give him an answer.

When he’s starting to talk again, maybe ask again his question, you just hung up, slamming your phone down on the carpet. 

You hear it vibrate to life twice before it shuts down completely. Good. At least he knows you well enough, still, to assume rightfully so that you won’t pick up his calls anymore. Not today.

You just have the time to pack the dildo back in its bag and inside its box, throw away your tea that tastes unbearably bitter and maniacally scrub your face in an attempt to get rid of the red patches that don’t want to fucking leave before the telling high beeps of your front door’s digital lock alert you. Your face is soaking in cold water, another attempt to cool it, your face and your troubled mind.

You mean to ignore him. Dipping your head further in the filled up sink, closing your eyes tight shut hoping somehow it’ll help you push aside the calls of your name better.

For a few seconds, it works. You can’t hear him anymore. You wonder if the furious pleas you were chanting in your head could have been loud enough to make the sound of the door slamming behind him as he would have left, completely quiet.

He’s such a try-hard. You hung up on him because he’s saying batshit crazy things and his first reflex is to barge in your house again. You really need to change your lock and not tell him. You can do that. You’re an adult and you have the right to your own fucking place. It’s not a fucking benevolent stay in, for fuck's sake. 

The cold water really seems to work. You feel better, light-headed, coming down after the earlier hysteria. And knowing that he’s left and won’t pursue this mess any further, for now, surely helps a lot. 

Except it doesn’t last for, as soon as your face leaves the water, your hands reaching clumsily for a towel that falls magically in them, one wipe at your eyes and your worst nightmare is standing right in front of you. 

“Fucking- Jungkook!” Burying your face back in the towel, drying your face as much as possible, maybe even trying for a second to suffocate yourself, you wish vainly that when you’ll take it off he would have disappeared.

He is still here though. Watching with dark eyes and a straight severe line replacing the cute button he owns for a mouth, he looks awfully serious for a guy that’s never really serious. Your towel ends up centimetres away from his face, he catches it right before it touches him. You hoped it would blind and confuse him momentarily, long enough for you to escape but of course, this guy would never miss a shot, even a surprise one. 

“Why are you like this?” He asks when you try and push him from the ribs, out of the door frame. You hate that you think about it. About his chest being so hard and warm and his fucking smell of sweat that you’d recognize amongst any others (pretty easily as any other makes you gag and this one, probably because you’re a primary animal guided by hormones, leaves you dizzy and wanting). He doesn’t budge until he decides to, mercilessly stepping aside to let you through. Because you’re an idiot, you don’t think and head for the living room and it’s only once you’re there, very aware of his steps following you, that the devilish object of your discord is right fucking there, obnoxiously sitting on the middle of your coffee table. You groan and squeeze your eyes tight.

What meditation technique, an extra effective one, could you use right now before you definitely lose it and throw yourself out the window?

Before you find one, you end up clinging to the opposite wall, forehead pressed to it, back to him, in a vain attempt to suppress yourself from the situation. You might look a little insane or at best, somehow on edge, but who cares at this point?

“Jungkook, if I don’t pick up your call, do you think I want to see your face?” 

“But why though?” His tone is still harsher than usual. You notice it and you notice you don’t hate it either. What a little bitch you are. If you like his usual self, with the bright smile, soft words, boisterous laugh, dainty manners, you can’t deny that this rougher version of him, genuinely pissed off as you’ve never seen him, tickles your fancy. You’re fucked. “Seriously these days you- you’re such-“

“I’m what?” You bark, swirling on your feet, expression distorted by an offence he hasn’t even made yet. You completed the sentence he’s never finished with terrible words that you’ve never heard him use talking about anyone: bitch, hysterical, cunt. 

“You’re trying to pick a fight with me all the fucking time, I don’t get it!”

Now you feel terrible. You’re still bothered by the raw edges of his tone, it’s literally sending electric shocks to your lower tummy. But his eyebrows have dropped and his fiery dark eyes have turned shiny and sad, your heart hurts in your bosom.

Ugh.

You’re such a bitch. 

“I’m sorry. I know I’m insufferable. I’m on my period. Sorry.” You send a mental apology to womanhood. You're just an idiot lacking imagination. 

Jungkook frowns, his eyebrows dancing in all kind of ways, before they settle for an, unfortunately for you, attractive finale, one straight down, one tilt up. He stares at you, dubious. 

“For three weeks. You’ve been on your period for three weeks.”

The first thing you take notes of is the fact that he dated it way shorter than you would have. Honestly, you found yourself becoming a weirdo with inappropriate feelings that reindeer you into an asshole for at least a month and a half. Before that, it was extremely tamed, totally under control. You’d just notice his handsome face and cute smiles and nice smell, thinking “oh yeah that’s right. He’s kinda attractive. How funny I never really noticed.” And slowly it progressed to not being able to handle him touching you without having something close to a panic attack.

The second thing you note is that he doesn’t believe you. His stare is insistent, turns a bit dark as he lingers, studying your own eyes with judgment in his. He’s frowning even more, looks down at the floor and sighs so deep, heartbreakingly so. He looks hurt that you’re lying and don’t want to share what's really been up with you. If only you could be a better liar. 

“It happens sometimes, all women are diff-“ 

He just sat down on your sofa, eyes fixed on the blue box. Before you can finish your sentence, he sends you a glare that awfully looks like a threat. You shut up. He doesn’t believe you anyway. He knows you and your periods (sort of) way too well. He knows you’re in pain the first day, you’re a bit tender on the following ones and he takes it upon himself to be gentler and not try to play WWE with you on those but you don’t turn into a mean dragon. This much he knows for sure. 

There’s something he’s seeking for within the box. He’s grabbed it, holds it now in between his fingertips, piercing virtual holes into it. It’s probably the answer he didn’t find in your eyes. 

It makes you flush furiously. Seeing his pretty hands with his long fingers touching it. Here’s the reason, he would have caught it on your cheeks if he wasn’t so busy looking for it elsewhere. 

“I really thought that- you’d like it.” He sounds so saddened. You’re caught off guard. Again. So this present wasn’t meant to be a joke. It is a genuine one. It makes sense that he’s hurt then. You’re shitting all over his gift but how could you not? How could he believe that you could just accept that for a random gift? Slowly he makes the top of the box slide up, pout sucked in in concentration, dimple out. Your heart seems to stop at that. He’s not going to take it out, is he?

He can’t take it in his hands.

You’ll die if he takes it in his hands. 

Fortunately, he just opens the box, looks at the satin bag, looks at it with a pained expression as if he feels bad for the thing, then closes it back. 

“The woman at the shop said that it’s one of the best ones, for starters.” He sulks like a child. Bottom lip all plumped out, shiny eyes under curved eyebrows.

Jungkook looks up at you, ultimate sad puppy look on.

“She said the size and the texture were perfect if you’ve never used one before. It wouldn’t be too... what was that again?” He asks aloud as if you’d know. And you’re mortified. On behalf of him. The concept that he’s not embarrassed right now and that he went to an actual shop, browsed through the shelves and asked an actual saleswoman for help is absolutely insane. Unbelievable if it were not for the sincerity he’s dipped in. “And I picked blue because I know you like this colour. It matches your planner, doesn’t it?” He adds as if he’s not sure when obviously he knows.

It is surprisingly very close in shade. And so what? He expected you to love it so much, take fucking aesthetic pictures with it and your planner sitting on your fake marble desktop, next to Diego the succulent? What an idiot. And for how fucking long did he talk to that woman?

Silence hangs heavy between you. You watch as he scowls some more, mumbles under his breath while staring with despair at the box.

Slowly, resolute to be the better friend you have not successfully been these past weeks (months), you leave your protecting wall. Taking a seat on the carpet, on the opposite side of the table, you do your best to ignore the blue patch invading the bottom of your vision and try to give him the softest expression you can come up with at this moment. 

“Why are you so butthurt?”

His curiously perfect round eyes raise in a swift motion, pouty lips agape in a silent little gasp. 

“Sorry.” You apologize before he even gets to respond because, maybe, you could try harder to be good and nice to him. 

“Because it’s a present.” He starts at a very slow pace. He pauses between words like he’s addressing a dim, dim brain. And he might be honestly. But he’s one to talk. How can he not see an issue? “That I’ve looked for and bought for you. That’s why I’m butthurt, what do you mean?” 

“But- since when are we buying each other-“ You need to grow up. There’s no one else but him hearing you and since your last conversation about it, when he too was embarrassed, he’s able to say it just fine apparently. Still, you whisper the following, “sex toys?”

“Since you turned twenty-five and said you were interested in it.” His right-hand raises from the box to start flapping the air and you know it means bad news. He’s upset. When he needs his hands to further accompany his speech, it means he’s a bit too taken by the conversation. And in this case, you don’t feel like it’s a good idea for him to be. “When you were fourteen and into Legos, I bought you a set of Legos.”

Hardly makes sense. 

“You’re just going to pretend it’s a random present?”

“It’s not random. I put thought into it.” His eyes are digging up intensively in your own. It might be desperation that leads you to remain still, allow him to look. Hopefully, he won’t dig deep enough to find stuff he shouldn’t. “Why do you hate it? I thought- I don’t know- you’re a- flourished single woman and-“

Flourished? Really? The words don’t come out of your mouth but he reads them on your face and an adorable smile cracks open the mask of gravity.

“Jungkook.” You owe him an effort. Maybe you should look into why it requires an act of inhuman courage for you to admit your shame. It might be because if he were anyone else, you’d be embarrassed by the present for five seconds because clearly, you’re still half of a fucking child but soon enough, you’d probably be enchanted by the thing. Who doesn’t need a good sex toy? You definitely do. You thought about getting one for a long while but never got to it for some reasons and here’s one offered to you (in a very pretty shade of baby blue).

The thing is you don’t think about anyone sexually except for him (and his friend Jimin, once in a while, just by curiosity because the guy is a very sexual being). If you don’t even consider them in this light, you don’t have to think about them using it, do you? But he’s all you think about, unfortunately. And you’re friends. And it feels like one step closer to your fantasy while simultaneously one step closer to betrayal. And he certainly is not offering you this wishing for you to keep close in mind the fact that this is his. His present. He knows about it. Maybe can think of you using it and liking it without any further implications. Because obviously, it’s not like that for him. “It's awkward. How can you not see that.”

“Is it? What is?”

“First of all, we don’t- we- don’t even talk about... it. And suddenly you’re buying me- this?”

“Yeah, I realized that too!” It’s too much enthusiasm. Eyes too big and hands not leaving the air. You can already guess his next sentence. It’s probably going to be a terrible suggestion. “I talk about sex all the time with the guys,” Your eyebrows jump to your hairline at that. You’re not even that surprised but the formulation could probably be fixed. “and you talk about it with your girls, right? But we’ve known each other the longest and we never talk about it. Isn’t it fucked up?”

“I wouldn’t say ‘fucked up’-”

“Well, I would. I am.”

“Don’t you- don’t you see that you’re a boy and coincidentally you can easily talk about it with the guys who happen to be boys and I am a girl, right? And I-“ Who would have thought? It took you fifteen years to finally be giving him the beginning of the talk about the birds and the bees. You would have given it to him sooner if you’d have known how far behind he’s been. 

“But what if I need girl advice-“

“I’m sure Jimin knows a whole lot about girls, Jeon.”

“From a girl point of view. Real girl advice.”

“Jungkook-“

“If I ask what the G spot exactly feels like, what-“

“Jungkook!” 

He’s amused, the fucker. He’s not as clueless as he sounds. But the crooked grin on his face is too telling. He might just be messing with you. Usually, when he’s just playing he wouldn’t insist so much, he wouldn’t take the conversation this far so surely, there are some genuine intentions. However, he's still having way too much fun.

With his frowned nose, and squinting shiny orbs and stupid bunny teeth. 

“You’re just embarrassed, aren’t you?” You might have terribly loud red streaks painting your cheeks that you try naively to cover with your hands. He can see it all and silently, he nods his head, looking like he’s reached the final touch of his experiment. “How? What happened to the teenage girl who spent her nights writing dirty stories about Harry Styles?”

Horror.

How the fuck-

“How the fuck do you know about that?”

“You showed me!” He defends, hands high above in the air like a soccer player claiming innocence. “You did! You don’t remember?” No, you don’t. But you can tell he’s not lying. Apparently, young you was quite the fearless bitch.

What happened indeed? 

Years happened. A growing sense of self-preservation along with them. Undesired feelings for an idiot with a bunny smile. An inappropriate sense of shame along with those. 

“Anyway. So it’s a bribe for girl advice?” You ask, chin pointing to the box. Jungkook looks down on it, drums his fingertips lightly on the top before he looks up, beaming. 

“Sort of.” Shrugging, he adds with a shifty eye that telltales a certain vulnerable sincerity. “I just wish for us to be able to share everything. Be comfortable like before.”

“Before what?” He stares for a long time, mouth shut. He then blinks the moment away and for the first time, you might believe ever, Jungkook looks like he might have a secret too. 

“Just before. Back in the days, I mean.” He simply explains. His attention is back on the stupid box. He’s staring at the rose on top of it. Fingers playing with the corner of it. 

“Back in your old days.”

“You’re older than me. So you really don’t want it?” Here he comes again with the sad puppy face. Why would it be breaking his dumb little heart to refuse a dildo from him? What kind of insane parallel universe is this? “Is it like a 'men are fine but little Jeon Jungkookie still has cooties so I can’t accept his present, it’s gross'?” 

“Something like that.”

“Oh.” Defeated, he sighs. Another one of those soul-harming sighs. “Fine. I’ll get it refunded and you’ll buy yourself something else with the money then.” 

Is he really going to make you do that?

As if the question is even to be raised. He can make you do anything. 

“No, Guk, sorry. It’s fine. Sorry.” You start, hands clasping over the box you drag your side of the table. The only way you can do it is if you don’t actively think about what’s inside. “I’ll keep it. Sorry.”

“So you kind of want it?” He is grinning from one ear to the other. You can feel him giddy and excited, kind of jumpy on his seat and really, you don’t see any difference with the excitement he portrays each time he gets you any kind of presents and you tell him that you like it. 

“I won’t use it.” It’s almost a threat. Eyes squinted in severe slits, index finger millimetres away from poking his eye. “It’s a gift so I won’t make you get a refund, that’s rude but- I won’t use it.” After a second of seemingly deep reflection, he breaks out in his loud, annoying boyish laughter. Eyes watery at the corners and hands clapping like a stupid seal. “I’m serious!”

“Sure.” He’s still cackling, the idiot. “But you should. The lady said it’s a best seller too.” 

“Great. I don’t care.” 

He has his eyebrows high, a twitch in his wide grin, and the amused black orbs. He doesn’t believe you one bit. “Course, you don’t.”

The idea that he sincerely expects you to use it might drive your delusional brain for a loop. He just wants to be the best gift-giver, the best Santa, and wants you to make good use of whatever he's got you. But how can he not consider that you could not use something like that, to pleasure yourself, when it’s directly related to him, your best friend? It’s weird as hell. It can’t be just weird to you. 

Unfortunately, there’s no one you can come up with the question to have them agree with you. You already know what the girls will say. They’re even worse than you when it comes to Jeon Jungkook and your ambiguous (on your side solely) friendship. They’ll say the ship is sailed and start buying themselves bridesmaid matching dresses.

They don’t understand. It’s not like they’ve grown up with someone like him. Someone rather simple, authentic and kind, so much so, so much more than most people, that it turns him complicated because so different from other humans you can meet. There’s nothing to be read in between the lines with him. It’s always lovingly honest, blatant, generous.

He doesn’t mean anything else behind the gift besides a “have a good one!”. 

And you didn’t mean anything else but the truth when you said you wouldn’t use it. 

At the moment, anyway, you meant it.

A/N: hoping it makes sense and is not too raw, edited it at midnight TT; may i manifest a sugar daddy that would pay me to stay home and write fanfiction for you guys all day :). i really hope you like it, and hope also that you can handle the secondhand embarrassement because even i struggled. let me know what you think of the series so far, sending everyone reading this an infinite amount of virtual kisses and hugs, take care of yourself, love yourself and others a lot, BYEE.

tag list: @moon-asia​ @btstrasht​ @jkbangtan7​ @taehugger​ @kaepjjangiya​ @daggerbeneathmygown​ @cuteipat​  @jinsalpaca​

PLEASE ASK TO BE TAGGED IN THE COMMENT FOR THE NEXT CHAPTER! TY <3

[lankoshine]

Star Wars. Far away galaxy forever Khaetskaya Elena Vladimirovna

My preface: I've wanted to post this for a long time. This text literally expresses my attitude to what is happening with my favorite character Anakin Skywalker, and confirms my doubts about the "wisdom" of the Jedi Order (they are not fools, but they are not wise men either). Wisdom should include all aspects and all-round thinking, but at times it "stagnates", "ossifies" and turns into a rotting swamp, in which the light that it should carry is drowning. And as a result, enlightenment turns into extinction and darkness.

Further words of the author:

Jedi: "the era of stagnation"

“The main content of the second trilogy, that is, the prequel, was the story of how Anakin crossed over to the dark side of the Force and how the entire Templar was destroyed ... That is, excuse the reservation: not the Templars, of course. Jedi. All Jedi were destroyed. Except for a few - Obi Wan Kenobi and Teacher Yoda. The first film, The Phantom Menace, portrayed Anakin as a boy; the next two - "The Clone Wars" and "Revenge of the Sith" - a handsome young man.

Anakin's childhood was not that unbearably difficult or completely bleak, but it could have been better. His mother Shmi and he himself (father, by the way, is unknown) were in slavery from the dealer of spare parts Watto, on the familiar "hole of the universe" - the planet Tatooine. Since Anakin from an early age was distinguished by diverse talents (for repairing equipment, for programming), the owner encouraged his studies, and the boy was busy with creativity: he would assemble a racing car from the trash, then he would build a robot and program artificial intelligence for it.

So, by the way, the boy Anakin created, again, the well-known droid C-3PO. Talkative, cowardly, endowed with useless good manners, the bore C-3PO, whom we fell in love with as Luke Skywalker's "funny magic assistant", it turns out that it was once designed by his father. (But then this droid's memory was erased, so he started the "original" trilogy from scratch.)

Naturally, such an outstanding embodiment of the Force as the boy Anakin could not remain unnoticed for long, and soon he was discovered by the Jedi Qui-Gon Jinn, who immediately recognized the Young Anakin as the Chosen One. According to ancient prophecy, the Chosen One must restore balance to the Force (by exterminating the Dark Ones). In any case, the Jedi were obliged to take possession of this promising child.

By and large, it was the Light Jedi who brought Anakin the first real grief. It was they who separated him from his mother when they took him from Tatooine for the sake of a "great future" which, for Anakin himself, remained an empty phrase. The reason why the powerful (and, undoubtedly, not in need of funds) light and noble knights left the boy's mother in slavery and inflicted severe moral and psychological trauma on him remains unknown. You can find some kind of "rational" explanations, for example: a real Jedi must free himself from all earthly attachments - but this does not change the essence of the matter. Which of the nine-year-old Anakin is a "real Jedi"? And why should he suddenly free himself from attachment to his mother? After all, this is the most natural and, in general, the most positive of all emotions - love for mom!

Jedi ideology, presented in different ways from the screen, is constantly bursting at the seams. You can, for example, remember how Obi Wan Kenobi, in the form of a Force ghost, appears to Luke in Return of the Jedi: "You must stop Darth Vader." Luke, a mentally healthy and sensible young man, answers quite logically: "I cannot kill my own father." Then the luminous ghost of Obi Wan sighs and says, “Then everything is lost. You were our last hope."  What happens? That the Jedi were urging Luke to commit an unnatural act - parricide? And they did it right from the focus of the Power! If the earthly, living Obi Wan spoke so, it would be possible to write off such speeches for the usual human ability to make mistakes, to be delusional. But Obi Wan is already a ghost of the Force, so he cannot be wrong. Why is he pushing Luke to the brink of a psychological and moral abyss? Maybe this is the last test? Provocation? Harsh - and risky, especially when Luke remains "the last hope" ...

The Jedi's behavior towards Anakin Skywalker looks much more brutal and far more risky. No matter what they argued, remaining within the framework of naked theorizing, in practice the picture looked monstrous: in fact, they raised a man with their own hands, for whom it was the most natural choice to kill all the Jedi.

Moreover, the viewer, on common sense, comes to the conclusion that Anakin, in general, if he was not completely right, then, in any case, was not greatly mistaken when he chose the Dark Side.

Let's try to trace the path that led Anakin to the dark side.

... Qui-Gon took the boy with him to the planet Coruscant (where the capital of the Galactic Republic was located) and demanded permission from the Jedi Council to teach the Chosen One in all the intricacies of Jedism. By the way, the Jedi Council is very pompous meeting in the spectacular Jedi Temple on the same Coruscant. This temple plays an important role in the history of Anakin and consists of five giant spiers. The largest spire, in the center, serves as a sacred place for contemplation. The other four are the High Council, the Primordial Knowledge Council, the Reconciliation Council, and the Reassignment Council. (This structure alone can judge how complicated, even bureaucratic, everything was arranged in the Jedi world ... somehow not in Zen, to be honest!)

So, the Council did not give permission to train the boy Anakin. There is nothing to spoil the child! First, Anakin is too old to start training. The boy is already at a conscious age, he has significant life experience. It will be difficult to brainwash such a guy. Secondly, Anakin experiences negative emotions - fear and anger. Which is not surprising given his past. (The fact that the attitude of the Jedi to Anakin's life circumstances was the reason for the increase in fear and anger is not taken into account.) Quite conveniently, there was an occasion to regale Anakin (and the audience) with the maxim: “Fear is the way to the dark side. Fear breeds anger; anger breeds hatred; hatred is the key to suffering. I feel a strong fear in you, ��says the wise Master Yoda to Anakin during the Jedi Council.

Yoda is right in essence: fear is the father of many troubles and vices. But how soulless and out of place it all is!

Eventually, the dying Qui-Gon will instruct Obi Wan to train Anakin. Here the Council, albeit reluctantly, agrees. Why?

The most logical thing would be to assume that the Council, though slowly, came to the conclusion: it is much more dangerous to leave such a gifted boy unattended at all than to start his training, despite the "strong fear" and other "shortcomings."

At first glance, the choice of a mentor looks somewhat artificial. Obi Wan Kenobi was considered a very average Jedi, so Anakin kept saving his life along the way. The behavior of Obi Wan himself regularly looks completely reckless (if not "stupid"), and the young student had to "clean up" after the teacher. Although it is postulated that they were friends, Obi Wan constantly nags Anakin and actually humiliates him. Then Anakin, and for the umpteenth time, has to pull the "mentor" out of the next pit.

So was Qui-Gon Jinn wrong about Obi Wan Kenobi? Why did he choose such a weak teacher for such a dangerous young man?

According to one suggestion, Obi Wan was just pretending. But in fact ... Secretly ... Carefully hiding from everyone, he was a mighty Jedi. He just successfully pretended to be a weakling. But then why? Where is the logic?

Or maybe the Jedi reasoned like this: since we could not get rid of the inconvenient Anakin, we will give him a frankly bad mentor so that he does not reach the Jedi heights?

But here - in general, it does not even lurk, but lies on the surface - there is a great danger: surpassing the teacher, the student begins to wise up on his own and in the end it is not known what he will think of (which, in fact, happened). No, a strong student needs a strong teacher, and the Jedi could not help but understand this (otherwise how did they even manage to exist for so long).

It seems to us that the answer is simple: and there was simply no one better.

The Jedi in the prequel are reminiscent of the Politburo of the mature stagnation era. A formal approach, indifference to a particular living being, a complete lack of flexibility, undercover intrigues ... Yoda - and he looks ossified in his great wisdom. Humanity will come to the old Taoist much later, when the Jedi are exterminated. Presumably, then Obi Wan will cover his famous ability not to condemn anyone (you see, he had enough time, living as a hermit on Tatooine, to think over everything that happened and analyze his own behavior first of all).

The Jedi actually used Anakin. And this is very insulting: to understand that you were taken advantage of by those whom you idolized, considered the focus of the Power of Light.

By the way, Obi Wan Kenobi had a flaw with the Jedi Code: Anakin did not understand many of the provisions. And then Chancellor Palpatine appears, who begins to secretly, but consistently and intelligently cultivate the seeds of Darkness in Anakin's soul ...

* * *

So, one of the most important factors in Anakin's transition to the dark side was the lack of trust in mentors. And in this, Anakin was right: such mentors do not deserve any trust. Virtually every prominent member of the Jedi Council had a purpose of their own, and Anakin did not like being a puppet of someone else's interests at all.

One of the most important reasons for Anakin's fall is his forbidden love for Padma Amidala.

It is obvious to Palpatine (as to any sane creature) that one who has loved ones is extremely vulnerable. Therefore, noticing Anakin's attraction to Padmé, Palpatine arranges so that Obi Wan and his student receive a responsible task - to be the beauty's personal guard. And then Palpatine could just relax and wait, allowing events to develop naturally.

The Jedi Council further aided Palpatine's plan by recalling Obi Wan for another assignment. So in the end, a handsome young Anakin, not fully trained, subject to all sorts of passions and weaknesses (the Council is well aware of all this, but for some reason no one, not even Yoda, attaches much importance to this), is left alone with a young beautiful girl ... Of course, this girl is formerly a queen, and now a senator, and Anakin is previously a slave of some dealer in spare parts on a seedy planet, and now a Jedi-dropout and a bodyguard ... But when and who was it stopping?

However, yes. After all, the Jedi explained to the young Skywalker that passionate feelings are absolutely unacceptable. Was there an explanatory conversation? Was! What's more?

Only the "era of stagnation" in the Jedi world can explain such thoughtlessness. Here, what is called the “formal attitude” to the personality, its individual characteristics, and its fate worked in full measure.

Didn't it occur to any of the Jedi that it was more than enough to tell the young boy about the "harmful passions"? In order to achieve true dispassion - not the ability to control oneself after a sleepless night spent in hot fantasies, but real dispassion, when a young girl evokes nothing but warm, brotherly or paternal feelings - years of spiritual exercise are needed. And even then there are breakdowns, because all people are human and nothing human is alien to them.

And then for some reason everyone decided that it was enough for a guy overwhelmed by passions to say: "Don't look at the beautiful Padmé, she is not for you, and in general your destiny is celibacy, because that's how it is for us, the Jedi," and that's it, the job is ready , he will obey. What arrogance!

... But we remember that arrogance is one of the greatest vices in the interpretation of "late Ben", "officer and gentleman" performed by Guinness. The true wisdom of Alec Guinness gave us the answers to all our questions twenty years ago ...

However, let us follow how the Jedi themselves dug their own grave.

Anakin's feeling is passionate; his love is earthly, he longs to possess a girl. In theory, such feelings are a direct route to the dark side. In theory. In fact, they represent a completely natural stage in the emotional and physical development of a young person. Demanding that the young man behave like an eight-hundred-year old man, the Jedi actually expected the impossible from him: that he should distort, mutilate his nature. He, in their opinion, should not improve himself, not investigate and subordinate himself to reason, but simply break.

Anakin had the will to disobey. And in his attraction to Padmé, he is absolutely right.

And then the detonator of Anakin's first earthly affection is triggered: in a dream he sees that his mother is in danger. The Jedi were of no help to Shmi Skywalker. They simply took away from her the only living being that she held dear. Well, yes, she later got married, but how can you forget your son, being apart from him? Of course, she was sad and not completely happy.

And then - the raid of the sand people (the very same Tatooine natives, whom we saw in the "original" trilogy, in "A New Hope"), who captured Shmi as prey. This is what caused Anakin's disturbing dreams - he did not cut ties with his mother. The young man already knows: it is useless to ask the Jedi for help in such an "empty" case as rescuing some kind of Shmi Skywalker on the distant planet Tatooine. Serious adults have more important things to do. Therefore, Anakin simply takes the matter of saving mom into his own hands and flies to Tatooine. True, the Council sends him some orders after him, but this is about mom! And Anakin sends the Council to hell.

Mom still has time to die in the arms of her beloved son. And then Anakin is overcome with hatred. Undoubtedly, this hatred affected everyone who treated his mother so cruelly. Including the Jedi Council. But only sand people were at hand for revenge. And, not remembering himself from grief and rage, Anakin exterminated the entire tribe, including the elderly and children.

It was here that Master Yoda felt the "great outrage of the Force." Mostly caused not by the death of a minor barbarian tribe, but by the rage of a young Skywalker. It's time to actually draw at least some conclusions ...

And Anakin completely lost faith in the Light side. What intriguers they are, liars and mumblers! They didn’t really teach anything, they jerked them with discontent, tortured them with senseless (unrealizable) demands, they forbade saving my mother, they forbade me to love Padme, they forbade me to be a normal person at all - but what in return? Never mind! The sacred right to be a brainless tool in the hands of politicians who do not even consider it necessary to explain something to him.

Then another episode takes place, which can be considered the most important step of Anakin on the path to Darkness. To some extent, the Light Ones are again responsible for this step. We are talking about the operation to free the captured Chancellor Palpatine (then he had not yet revealed his true face - for some reason, even the wise Yoda did not know about anything and did not feel any "disturbances of the Force").

The intrigue was complex, but overall it looked like Chancellor Palpatine was captured by rebels - separatists. Their leader, Count Dooku, seriously wounded Obi Wan Kenobi, after which Anakin had to join the battle, who defeated the count. And then Palpatine gives the order: to decapitate the unarmed, defeated enemy - "he is too dangerous to be left alive!" (recalls, by the way, the requirement of the ghost of old Ben: to destroy Darth Vader).

Anakin, however, freezes in some doubts: somehow not chivalrously ... The enemy is defeated, he surrendered, he is wounded and unarmed ... But Palpatine is the chancellor, Palpatine insists, and Anakin obeys.

Why did Anakin obey an inhuman order that seemed wrong to him? And why on other occasions did he violate the wrong orders of the Council?

Because Anakin didn't trust the Jedi at all. And he did not have a clear idea which orders were correct and which were not, so the young man was forced to be guided by one single criterion: his own opinion. If it was about mom, then the advice is not a decree to him: in any case, mom needs to be saved. When it comes to Padmé, the Council is also not a decree: he loves Padmé. But if we are talking about Count Dooku, who is not related to Anakin at all ... here a hesitant young man who does not have clear moral criteria may obey the order. After all, in the end, he was trained: the Council is always right, obey the orders of your elders!

But the Council, as it turned out, was almost never right ...

* * *

Anakin was still with the Jedi — perhaps by momentum, but most likely — because of Padmé. Anakin eventually entered into a secret marriage with her (witnessed by two droids, our old friends R2-D2 and C-3PO).

Meanwhile, the Council is giving Anakin another reason to part with the Light Side. For starters, the young man is publicly humiliated by refusing to be promoted to the rank of Jedi Master. Moreover, he is ordered to spy on his patron, Palpatine. And this is simply low.

And then Anakin had another ominous dream: as if Padmé had died. He remembered well how the affair ended when he had a similar vision of his mother. Therefore, Anakin is terrified.

He is still trying to find some way out of the situation, remaining on the Light side. It seems that the Jedi temple contains some information that could save Padmé. But access to this part of the archive for him - as for the uninitiated - is closed. And the Jedi refused to raise the young Skywalker to the rank of Jedi, despite the high patronage of Chancellor Palpatine.

Finally, Anakin turns to the wisest of all - to Master Yoda: prophetic visions persistently tell him about the imminent death of a loved one ... what to do, what to do?

In response, Master Yoda burst out with a priceless sermon:

“Death is a natural part of life,” he said in his inimitable florid style. - Rejoice for your loved ones, who have transformed into Power. Do not mourn for them and do not grieve for them. After all, attachment leads to jealousy, and a shadow of greed leads to jealousy. You must let go of everything that you are so afraid of losing. Fear of loss can lead to the Dark Side. "

Oh, how wonderful - for eight hundred years! But it is definitely not feasible when you are barely twenty and the woman you love is facing death. (Subsequently, Yoda tried to advise something similar to Luke, but he stopped in time: it did not work with father, and will not work with his son.)

... And Chancellor Palpatine is right there: he promises to save Padmé if Anakin goes to the dark side. The dark side, according to Palpatine, has the power to conquer death.

By and large, there is nothing holding Anakin on the Light Side anymore. And he becomes a supporter of Palpatine - all, "with giblets."

And then finally the truth is revealed to him: Chancellor Palpatine is the very Sith Lord Darth Sidious, whom the Jedi hunted for a long time and without success.

Once again, Anakin’s moral precariousness is evident, and nothing has convinced him that the Jedi Council can be trusted. Discipline required the Sith Lord to be “turned in”. And Anakin reports his discovery to one of the masters, Windu. And he once again demonstrates distrust of Anakin: they say, you wait for me in the Jedi temple, and I will grab a couple of faithful knights and go and figure it out myself. Maybe this was the last straw. Either way, Anakin changed his mind.

Palpatine promised to help rescue Padmé; Palpatine was the only one who treated him with respect and support all this time. Therefore, Anakin at the last moment intervened in the duel between Master Windu and Palpatine and with a sudden blow cut off the Master's hand with a sword. After that, Darth Sidious easily destroys Windu. The choice is made, the die is cast, the Rubicon is crossed. From now on, Anakin finally goes to the dark side and receives a Sith name - Darth Vader.

* * *

It is instructive to compare how Palpatine / Darth Sidious / The Emperor lures Anakin Skywalker to his place and how unsuccessfully he tries to repeat this act with Luke Skywalker.

In the case of Anakin, the entire Jedi order is on the side of the dark side: it was the Jedi who, in their arrogance, finally shattered the moral foundations of a very dangerous young man. In the case of Luke, on the contrary, on the side of the Light side - even as if Darth Vader himself. After all, it was Darth Vader who clearly explained to Luke what an unsightly future awaits him: loneliness, universal hatred and selfless service to the nasty evil old man who, as if on purpose, gets into an important conversation between father and son, shouting: “Oh yes! I can feel the hate flowing through your veins, my disciple! " - although in fact, the Emperor in Luke does not cause anything but irritation in this scene. Palpatine is not just not listened to - he is a hindrance, a buzzing fly.

The success could not be repeated. Why?

It is speculated that because Anakin was vulnerable because of Padmé Amidala. Luke didn't have such a passionate affection.

But love, even passionate, cannot in itself be the cause of the fall. Many additional factors are required.

Everything was pushing Anakin to fall.

And everything kept Luke from falling.

The Jedi paid a terrible price for understanding, but those who remained were able to correct the mistake.

Anakin was unlucky in that sense. Nothing - neither the state nor the knightly order - can exist for a long time in a state of stagnation. At some point, there is an explosion, a revolution. In this case, Anakin - Darth Vader served as a weapon of revolution: he begins the systematic extermination of the Jedi.

Obi Wan and Yoda survived, as we know. In the final battle between his former mentor and former apprentice, Obi Wan managed to cripple Anakin and throw him into the boiling lava. Not bad for a mentor who has failed his mentorship.

"Obi Wan killed your father" - remember? Oh yes, Obi Wan, Master Yoda and all the wise Jedi Council - they all somehow killed "the good man Anakin Skywalker." All of them, with lies, manipulation, arrogance, intrigue, mistrust, insults, inattention, a formal approach to a very gifted and very young person - they all pushed him to the Dark Side.

And when this, quite naturally, happened - they tried to destroy it physically.

However, Darth Vader did not die: burned and barely alive, he was saved by Darth Sidious. Now Darth Vader has to live in a special spacesuit, equipped with a special life support system, and breathe through a mask: inhale - exhale.

Well well. It's time to remember the "prophecy": that the young Skywalker is destined to "restore the balance of the Force." In fact, such prophecies are very insidious: those who know them do their best to ensure that something sinister does not come true - and usually achieve the exact opposite result.

The prophecy said that the chosen youth would restore the balance of the Force ... by destroying the Sith. It is somehow illogical: what kind of "balance" can there be when the Dark Ones are destroyed? This is not a "balance" of the Force, but simply the triumph of Light. If you think about what happened, the Council itself brought Anakin to the point that he ... really restored the balance: on each side there were two left (Obi Wan and Yoda - Light Ones, Darth Sidious and Darth Vader - Dark Ones). What they wanted to get - they got it. “Maybe we misinterpreted the prophecy,” the wise Master Yoda dropped meaningfully on this matter ...”

I apologize for the crooked translation, mainly the translator helped, but the essence seems to be conveyed. After reading it, I stopped believing even more in the "Light Jedi", and indeed in everything that is openly declared as "bringing good and light." In Star Wars, only Luke, little Anakin and Padmé were true goodness and light. And when someone starts talking about what the Jedi Council is the wisest and the kindest, and Obi-Wan is the very embodiment of kindness and fluffiness, then think about what they will do to you if you are not pleasing to them. They will not even lift a finger to somehow save or sort out your problem, and will you be immured in disgusting armor, equipped with prostheses, while morally and physically crippled. Them easy to say that you yourself chose to be bad, instead of trying with your wisdom and experience to understand what drives you. Wisdom should cover all aspects, and not be one-sided and divide the world into black and white. "Only the Sith make everything to the absolute" remember? Oh god! How many times have Jedi done the same thing? Or does it not count? In short, pleasant reading and may the force be with you, my fair ones.

https://biography.wikireading.ru/1240

[raendown]

The next follower milestone gift fic is for @azuzel23, prompt word quisling.

Pairing: KakashiYamato Word count: 1159 Rated: M Summary: Kakashi kicks a random patch of dead body. “The Hokage will want to know what this quisling told us.”

Follow the link or read it under the cut!

KO-FI and commission info in the header!

I Can’t Lose It All If My All Is You

Maybe Yamato is a dreamer. Maybe he’s never really liked wearing the codename Yamato at all, too attached in a way he’d been trained not to be to a name he chose for himself a dozen years ago with Kakashi by his side. Or maybe he’s just really fucking tired of all the ways his life has changed. It might have been time for him to retire a long time ago and he would, really truly he would have, if it weren’t for the weight of Hokage after Hokage giving their orders without ever stopping to question if he wants to follow. He does anyway because it's all he knows. 

Well, that’s not entirely true. He knows the hot lines of Kakashi at his back and the soul-deep knowledge that if one moves they move together. They’ve always fit like that, right from the very start. Sometimes in the moments between sleep and waking he loses himself to the idea that they’ve always been like this until dreams fall away and he remembers, laughing, that they’d tried to kill each other the day they met. It always feels like a bad dream. Kakashi never seems to want to talk about it and so they don’t, leaving the past in subtle quips about long hair and choosing their own paths. If Yamato knows anything he knows Kakashi. 

Knows the hard set of his jaw standing over a comrade they both thought they could trust. 

“Why did you do it?” Kakashi asks, the tone of his voice almost conversational but for the undercurrent of rage and grief and pain. Yamato wonders if the rest of the world can hear it as loud as he can. 

“You don’t know what it’s like,” the man shrieks. There’s no name in Yamato’s head. He betrayed them, he doesn’t deserve a name or a memory or anything else, and so he is just ‘the man’. “You don’t know! I watched them all die in front of me and where was Konoha? The mighty shinobi who were meant to protect my family?”

“I’ve read your file, I know your story.”

They both have and it isn't a happy story. It isn’t a new one, either. Happiness can be a strength and a weakness both and families, Yamato has observed, are almost always the biggest source of happiness. So easy to tear down for exactly this purpose. The man on his knees is twisted beyond recognition in his memories of loss. 

“Konoha should have protected my family!”

“Is that why you let them in?” 

Closing his eyes won’t make this all go away but oh how Yamato wants to believe it could. Their village fallen, the ruins of a generations old dream left smoking in the aftermath, and why? Because one small family made the choice to live beyond their walls when they should have known help would be too far away when they called? Sometimes he forgets that others have always had the luxury of making choices because it always just feels so ridiculous when they make the wrong ones. Yamato hasn’t been given many choices in life but of the few he knows with a rock steady certainty that he’s chosen right. 

He’s chosen Kakashi every time. 

Now in this moment he chooses the least sharpened kunai in his holster, holding it out to the man who carved a place in his heart the very first day Yamato realized he even had one. When Kakashi chooses to saw his way through tendon and muscle, a slow and messy way to do it, Yamato doesn’t say much. Doesn’t look away. He’s the one who offered Kakashi a choice and he’s not really of the opinion that this is the wrong one. Pain for pain has always been the shinobi way, a cycle of vengeance that can’t stop, won’t stop, none of them even want to stop. Blood over blood in so many layers they can’t see the ledger they’re staining anymore. It takes a long time for the screaming to stop and Kakashi’s movement never falters but the forest is empty around them so Yamato watches with the sort of detachment that makes him feel like he doesn’t belong on this earth. Maybe never really existed. 

A warm hand on his wrist brings him back in to himself. Kakashi has always had a way of grounding him. 

“For everything he cost us that felt a little...anticlimactic.” 

“What, you want me to go back and kidnap someone else for you to kill?” Yamato offers and hopes in the same breath that it won’t be taken. He breathes in relief at the shake of Kakashi’s head. 

“No point. Not really. We need to get back to the rest of the survivors, let them know everything this- this-” Kakashi kicks a random patch of dead body. “The Hokage will want to know what this quisling told us.”

Yamato hums. “Naruto probably won’t like that you already killed him.”

“Maa, we’ll say he tripped and fell on my knife or something.” 

It’s a shitty situation, an unbearable loss, a weight so heavy in being lifted that it threatens to pull him down to his knees with every breath, and yet still Yamato finds it in himself to laugh. The corner of himself that belongs only to Kakashi is somehow, despite everything, so much brighter than every other broken and shattered piece. Yamato clings to it like a lifeline. 

“Do you think we can take it all back?” he asks. Doesn’t elaborate because he knows Kakashi will understand what he’s asking. Konoha has fallen; can it rise again? The silence stretches until he wonders if he even spoke out loud but eventually Kakashi turns to look at him and the fire is there in his eyes. The same burn that Yamato has wanted to reach out and touch since he was a child redefining what loyalty meant to him. 

“I don’t know that I care,” Kakashi tells him. “You’re here. That matters more to me.”

“Oh.”

There’s a body on the forest floor and everything they’ve fought their whole lives to protect lies in the hands of another now; he thinks maybe he shouldn’t find the smile on Kakashi’s face so comforting but he does. He forgets the rest of the world for just one more moment to get lost in the shift of that damnable mask. It’s only when Kakashi lets go of his wrist that Yamato realizes he was still holding it but he doesn’t have time to process the loss before those fingers, dirty and tacky with the blood of a traitor, are tracing circles over his temple. 

“What about you?” he asks. “Do you want it all back?”

“I just want you,” Yamato breathes and the raw honesty of it feels like recrafting loyalty for a second time.

Kakashi kisses him and Yamato thinks that if his world is ending this moment is worth it all. 

[hydrospanners]

every doubt we had

"the force flows through all things. it surrounds us and penetrates us; it binds the galaxy together."

it's been years since he last saw his wife, but when doc starts experiencing strange sensations and having odd dreams, he knows it's the force bringing them together somehow. but trapped on ossus with no communications and no way out, seeing her again may bring as much pain as it does joy. SWTOR. Established F!Jedi Knight x Doc. Angst. Hurt/Comfort. 2400 words. AO3.

written as a gift for @hoiist featuring her knight, viios.

At first, he thinks it’s a cramp. Doc wakes from sleep with a clenched jaw, an echo of pain shooting up his thigh, and thinks maybe he needs to lay off the energy pudding for a while.

When it happens again, he figures it’s time to accept he’s not as young as he used to be. He figures he might need to work more muscles than the ones he’s building for the extremely athletic sex he hopes to have with his wife again some day soon.

Time waits for no man, he figures, so he makes changes. He eats whole foods, straight from the pilgrims’ fields, and he stretches with the Junior Jedi at dawn. He cuts back on the caf, drinks more water. He spends some quality time with his bunk. And after a few weeks, he thinks the problem is solved. He might not be immune to the effects of age, but he won’t be crippled by them either.

Then it happens again.

It happens again and it’s worse than before, liquid fire pouring through his veins that leaves him gasping for breath when he jerks awake. Awake, but blinking up at a ceiling that isn’t his, hearing the low murmur of voices he doesn’t recognize, with the feel of sheets softer than anything the Jedi have against his skin. Awake, but somewhere else. Somewhere different.

Someone different?

Doc drops back into his quiet, scratchy reality with no warning, and he barely has time to grab the bin before the wretching starts.

It goes on for a long time. Over and over and over until his muscles ache and his vision blurs and his throat’s scraped raw from the acid. Until he’s collapsed on the floor of his bunk, sweating and exhausted with nothing left to heave and echoes of a burning pain still pulsing through his leg.

He pings Nadia from the floor, too tired to get up. He might not know much about the Force, but he recognizes these symptoms, knows them like the back of his own hand, and he knows they don’t belong to him.

He must really look like shit because Nadia doesn’t tease him at all when she shows up at his door, clutching her robe against the cold and blinking sleep from her eyes.

Stars, but he hopes Force visions don’t go both ways. He hopes she didn’t see him like that, hopes the first glimpse she’s had of him in five years wasn’t sweaty and pallid with hair stuck to his forehead and bile crusting on his lips.

He tries not to think about how she has bigger problems right now than the relative sex appeal of her errant husband.

“I saw her,” he croaks, his throat raw and burning. “Vii. I saw her.”

Nadia does him the kindness of not looking at him with pity. It’s why he called her. She’s not going to give him that look the other Jedi sometimes do, the one that says he’s an object lesson in the dangers of attachments. She’s not going to doubt his sanity because of his heart. She just gets him a wet rag and a glass of water and asks for every detail of what he saw.

He tells her. All of it, every color and every sound, every agonizing sensation. He tells her everything he experienced and every worry it awoke in him. He tells her about Vii’s cybernetics, about the poison and the failures, about what he thinks it all means.

Nadia doesn’t have any answers; Jedi rarely do.

Doc figures he won’t need their answers if he can get them from Vii herself. If he can get to wherever she is. But no amount of pleading or threatening will move the Jedi to open communications. They won’t let him leave, either. They can’t risk the safety of the whole colony because he had a bad dream.

He’s trapped. Helpless. Vii needs him and all he can do is wait for her to reach out. Wait for her to sneak into his dreams and share her pain with him again.

He sleeps as often as he can. He gives up caf and energy pudding and every other stimulant that’s ever helped him get through the day. He meditates with the Jedi and when that isn’t enough, he medicates too. He sleeps more than he’s awake, always thinking of Vii, always waiting.

Days pass, then weeks.

Nadia starts looking at him with the same knowing pity as the rest of them, her eyes flicking from his too-long hair to the beard covering his jaw. To the streaks of grey at his temples and the bags under his eyes. No one who sleeps so much should look so tired, but here he is.

And none of it matters.

There are no more cramps. No phantom pains, no voices he doesn’t recognize. No dreams. Nothing.

It’s just him and the weight of all his knowledge, all his skill that feels so fucking meaningless when he can’t use it to help her.

“If she isn’t reaching out to you,” Nadia tries to tell him, “it could just mean she isn’t suffering anymore. It could mean she’s fine.”

There’s another way her suffering could have ended, but Nadia doesn’t mention that.

“She wouldn’t want you to tear yourself apart like this,” she says. “Take care of yourself, Doc. Think of the good times.”

He does.

It hurts, like the way too-sweet food stings your teeth. It hurts, but it feels good too. It feels like relief, like warmth and sunshine and happiness he hasn’t felt in years.

They used to be so happy.

On the beach that day, one of the few perfect days in his life, no one had ever been happier than they were. Sand on their shoulders and salt in their hair--Doc closes his eyes and he can almost feel the heat of the sun warming his skin, can almost hear the crashing waves.

He opens his eyes and he can see it, can see everything just like he’s back there, like he’s living the moment all over again. Vii’s legs draped over his, ice cream cones in both their hands, the galaxy’s problems a million lightyears away. She looks just like he remembers, hair loose and tangling in the breeze, that ridiculous pineapple shirt falling off her shoulders. They bought a matching pair, but even the smallest size swallowed her. He made that hideous thing look good, but Vii--

Vii makes it almost unbearably sexy. Almost unbearably cute, too. It’s so unfair how she can be both at the same time. It’s more than a man can take.

He watches as her tongue slides along the curve of her ice cream, as the top scoop starts to slip from its perch. He watches her face, savoring every moment as she realizes what’s happening, as her expression pinches in utter betrayal, as the ice cream plummets right into the--

Into--

--her hand?

Doc blinks.

Vii smiles at the half-eaten scoop of ice cream melting in her sandy palm. “Not getting away from me this time.”

“Vii?”

She looks up at him and her smile melts into shock. “Doc?”

She reaches for him without thinking, her hand still full of ice cream when she rests it against his cheek. He can feel the cold of it just like it was real, like all of this is real and not just some distant dream. Like this isn’t just a memory warped by longing and sedatives.

He leans into her cold, sticky fingers. “Vii,” he sighs.

She’s looking up at him with her eye wide and her mouth gaping open, her perfect, plush lips rounded in a way that’s just begging to be kissed.

So he kisses them. Gently. Tenderly. His lips on hers, all sweet pressure and soft caress. All delicacy and longing.

Vii sighs his name into his mouth and he can taste the sweetness on her breath, feel the heat of it on his tongue. He shivers, his mouth opening for her as she pulls him closer. Closer and closer, their noses crushed between them, breathing as one, moving together, touching, tasting…

He’s never tasted anything better than Vii, salt on her lips and sugar on her tongue.

Her kiss isn’t as delicate. It’s hungry and urgent, all nipping teeth and gasping breaths and long strokes of tongue. She’s devouring him, desperate in a way he rarely sees her, her hands all over him, sticky and gritty where they drag across his jaw and through his hair, where they slide down his throat and his chest, where they dig into his shoulders and his arms.

She kisses him until he’s dizzy, until he’s breathless and burning, hard for her though she’s barely even touched him.

Vii’s fingers cup his jaw, drawing his forehead down to rest against hers as she brushes her nose alongside his, shallow breaths mingling in the narrow space between them.

Doc doesn’t realize he’s crying until she kisses the tears from his cheeks.

“I’m here,” she whispers. “I love you. I’m here.”

His thoughts are so hazy, swallowed up with lust and longing and love, but there was something he needed to ask. Something important. Something--

“Your leg.”

He looks down, his throat closing up as her leg changes before his eyes, as warm, supple flesh melts into unyielding durasteel. “Gorgeous,” he chokes. “Gorgeous, your--”

Her thumb brushes the tears from his cheeks as she shushes him. It’s absurd that she’s trying to comfort him when it’s her leg, when it’s her pain, but--

“I wasn’t there.”

“It’s okay,” she whispers back. “I’m okay.”

But Vii’s never been good at lying, and she didn’t marry a fool. “If you were okay, you wouldn’t be here,” he says. “Gorgeous--” He gasps as phantom pain pulses in his hip, and Vii gasps with him, sagging against his chest, her hands clutching at his shoulders. It burns and it aches, stronger with every beat of her heart.

“Vii. Look at me, Beautiful.” She does. Her eye is glistening with tears, the color draining from her skin as she trembles, gasping shallow little breaths of air. He doesn’t need her to describe what she’s feeling because he can feel the echo of it, but he needs her to know what it is. He needs her to hear him, to tell whatever dipshit slapped this thing on her--”Your body is rejecting the implant, Vii. Something’s wrong and they need to--”

“I know,” she gasps, not quite looking him in the eye. “We waited too long and it’s not taking. I know.”

His heart clenches.

“I’ll be fine,” she insists, but the tremor in her voice does not reassure him.

“Tell me where you are, Gorgeous,” he pleads. “Let me fix this.”

“I can’t--” She winces, her lips pinching together. “I can’t think. I can’t remember.” Then another lance of pain strikes, and all she can do is bury her head in his chest, her fingers clutching at his shoulders tight enough to bruise.

He holds her. One hand on her back, gently stroking the places where hard metal meets soft skin, the other in her hair, fingers on her scalp, kneading and rubbing. He feels hot tears against his skin and presses kisses to the top of her head. It’s all he can do. All he can give her with so many lightyears between them.

“I’ve got you,” he murmurs. “It’s okay. I’m here.”

She trembles and she gasps and he keeps holding her, keeps whispering soothing nothings as the pain comes in waves like the water that laps at his feet. He doesn’t know how long they stay like that, doesn’t know if the rules of time work the same here as they do in the waking world. But he holds her and she clings to him and eventually, the pain passes.

Eventually, Vii slumps boneless against him, drawing in a long, shuddering breath, and there is nothing but the two of them and the memory they share, nothing but melted ice cream and the ocean and the sand and the sun.

“I just wanted to see you,” she whispers, once she has caught her breath. “Everything hurt and I just wanted to feel--”

“Happy?” Doc finishes for her. He smiles despite himself, despite everything, and he can feel her smiling too.

She presses a sweet kiss to his chest and looks up at him, her face so full of longing he almost can’t stand to look at it. “Did you think of this too?” She asks.

He nods. “It was a good day.”

“The best.”

He wants to kiss her again, to run his hands and his tongue all over her body, to give her as much pleasure as she’s had pain, but there’s clouds starting to cover the sun and he knows, somehow, that their time is running out.

“We’ll have good days again,” Vii says. And this time she isn’t lying. This time she isn’t just trying to take away his pain.

This is a promise.

“We’ll have good days again,” he says.

And Vii kisses him. Sudden and hard, her lips pressing hard enough to bruise, her eyes screwed shut. His eyes are still open, surprised, when the clouds move in front of the sun and--

Darkness.

Darkness and quiet, a sliver of moonlight coming through the window of his bunk, his sheets scratchy and hot against his skin.

Doc sits up in bed, throws back his quilt and swings his feet to the floor. He rubs the sleep and crusted tears from his eyes, the wisp of a dream dancing at the edges of his mind. Something about the ocean…

He limps to the fresher, his leg aching again, and curses the Jedi for trapping him here, for not having answers and not letting him find his own. He flicks on the light and stares at himself in the mirror, not recognizing the man who stares back. Not recognizing the swollen lips or the bloodshot eyes or the purple bruises blooming on his shoulders. He touches his fingers to his cheek, to the tacky, blue something that’s stuck to his beard, that he can’t remember being there when he fell asleep. It smells sweet, and against his better judgment, he licks it from his fingers.

It tastes like ice cream.

[mojoflower]

Underappreciated Sterek Fics Rec List

These are fics that all have less than 200 bookmarks, and I feel that they need more.

♥ The Demon Barber of Maple Avenue by heyshalina, marshmallowfluff  M.  14k.  When Stiles woke up on a Friday with his hair far too long for his own comfort, he decided he needed a haircut. He was not expecting the whole situation to end with Derek finally succumbing to their mutual sexual tension.Or the ghouls. He especially wasn't expecting to be eaten by ghouls.Basically, Stiles doesn't know anything super useful that's not supernatural-related. He has excellent butt-dialing skills, though, so that's a plus.

So funny.  "Yeah, I know," he said decisively, trying to look like he'd been perfectly aware that sitting down at the barber shop was a thing you could do. He took a step sideways towards the nearest chair. Natalie looked back down at her computer. He took another step. Then another. Then he turned and walked confidently towards the chair. He had just started lowering himself into it when Natalie called to him. "Stiles, we're ready for you now!" He jumped up from his half-crouched over position and his bangs fell back into his eyes. He flicked his hair out of his face with a jerk of his head, and felt sort of like Justin Bieber, before the guy cut off his hair because people said he looked like a lesbian. In a moment of fear, Stiles glanced across the room at his reflection in one of the mirrors. Did he look like a lesbian? He didn't want to look like a lesbian. Not that lesbians were bad or anything. But lesbians were only attracted to women, technically. He didn't want that kind of label applied to him.

Control by Badwolf36 M.  12k.   After (and their lives are always defined by “after.” “After” Derek’s family burned. “After” Scott got bit. “After” Gerard and the Kanima and the Alpha Pack and the Darach) the Nogitsune is pulled from him, Stiles becomes obsessed with control.

Sweeter, more heart-wrenching and innocent than you'd think.  So good.

The Time Stiles Totally Knew What He Was Doing by otatop G.  1k.  Stiles aggressively woos himself. // Derek is there too.

This is so. FUNNY.

♥ Eagle Lake by saltandbyrne E.  29k.   It was supposed to be an easy summer job. But everything at this camp is a little odd, and that Hale boy from the hardware store? Definitely too good to be true. Everyone seems to have secrets, and sometimes the truth is stranger than anything Stiles can imagine.

Lovingly earns every hot, throbbing inch of its E rating, seamlessly and hilariously interspersed with bits like this:

Or maybe he's actually going to eat Stiles, because seriously, since when do handsome strangers just show up at boys' camps in the middle of nowhere with any plans other than serial killing? Stiles is going to get serial-killed, and all he can do is look up at his future cannibal axe-murderer and gape.

A fear-boner is definitely a real thing, because Stiles is sporting one so big that the awkward police can probably see it from space. In a lifetime of inexplicable boners, Stiles is pretty sure that his “I'm about to get cut into little pieces by a gorgeous psycho” woody is the least 'plicable.

Good Touch by ksalterego M.  6k.  Derek notices that Stiles doesn't have a pack, so Stiles doesn't get pack hugs. Stiles clearly wants pack hugs. Also, Stiles smells far too much like Scott, far too often. // Derek decides to do something about it all.

So, I have a THING for fics featuring a touch-starved Stiles.  Really sweet... Stiles needs hugs so badly.

Keep The Earth Below My Feet by plume_bob M.  12k.  There's history to be found in the box of his mom's old memories, but history is problematic when Stiles thinks Derek might be the only one who knows the story. And, as usual, relying on Derek is an exercise in emotional juggling that Stiles is just not equipped to handle.

So fucking gorgeous, I can't even.  The author's turn of phrase is beautiful:

“Are you fishing for me to tell you you're funny?” Derek asks slyly, like Stiles is a book he can open at any page and immediately follow.

and

“I'm not made of wet paper towels, Derek,” Stiles tells him, harder than he'd imagined it'd come out with him feeling like—well, wet paper towels. Sorta. Wet paper towels laying on an exposed electrical wire. “You're not gonna break me.”

Omg, Derek is doing his tattoo, and they're practically having sex AS HE INKS HIM, and it's really unbearably hot.

The Owl by 8611 M.  8k.  The owl keeps his forest, and everything inside of it, safe. Even a pack of wolves.

Oh my god, such a gorgeous and vivid fairy tale.  Stiles is perfect as Owl, just watching.  The end is a little sad, in the way that fairy tales can be, but don't let that stop you, because the beauty... is lovely.

Into the Woods by KrisEleven  T.  10k.  “Well, yeah, I’m following someone," Stiles explained. Eyebrows raised as Derek's judging increased. “Not in a creepy way! It’s my best friend and his girlfriend.” One side of his stupid mouth rose in a wry smile. “Not like – they’re lost!” // Now Derek didn’t look amused at all. He looked back at the paper, no doubt noting that they had planned to have returned almost 48 hours ago. “You have to report that.” // “Oh, yeah, I didn’t think of that,” Stiles snarked. “Of course I reported it. I called the ranger station yesterday.” // “And they told you to stay out of the forest while they conducted a search.” It wasn’t a question. // “Well, okay, maybe that was said, but –” // “You’re an idiot,” he told Stiles, rolling his eyes.

Or, When Scott and Kira get lost on a romantic hike in The Siskiyou Wilderness, Stiles enlists the help of Mountain Man Derek Hale to find them and ends up on a completely unexpected romantic hike of his own.

He pulled items at random as he recognized them and thought of situations in which they could possibly be necessary. He put back the second can of bear mace after some deliberation. If that many bears attacked him, he would be dealing with some deeper issues.  Lol.

How to please your house spirit by Lesatha  M.  14k.  Derek startled awake in the middle of the night. For a split second he didn’t know why, then as he felt a strange weight on his chest, he raised his head and looked down. And stayed speechless. // There was a tiny creature, barely the size of Derek’s whole hand, sitting on him. It had a human shape, from what Derek could see. // It looked furious.

ohmygod this is infinitely adorable, Stiles is a (murderous, multitasking, shapeshifting) little shit (so is Peter) and Derek is utterly wrapped around his (occasionally) tiny finger.

♥ In Which Stiles Finds He Much Prefers When Interesting Things Happen to Somebody Else by Zoom Zoom (PaperLillyWebs)   T.  21k.  “Finish what you start,” the skull rasps at him, making him jump. When he looks up, the skull is just as still as before.Loosely based on Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wayne Jones.

What a fun story!  Stiles the apprentice is every bit of adorable, his Master Hale is a shadowy, mean kind of figure, and something's going on where none of the ends match up.  The story borrows the Howl's Moving Castle world, but that's all, none of the plot or characters.  I love it.

Attach me to your world by artisan447  E.  27k.  Turns out Stiles is magic. He's as surprised about that as anyone.

Sweet, sexy and intense:  everything you want a surprise bonding fledgling magic fic to be.

♥ Fasten You to Me by nubianamy  E.  21k.   The day gravity stopped working, Stiles was jogging through the park.

This story is so awesome, and surreal and frightening and sweet.  Stiles is jogging in the park when suddenly reality departs... and all the people go falling into the sky.  He straps himself to a root, manages to catch Derek, and then they spend the next three days together as the world disappears into a dense fog.  They get to talk a lot, of course, and more than talk (and wow, Stiles has had a crush on him since he was a little kid!).  But every once in a while, Stiles goes cold, and there are no words in his mouth, only a song, and everything recedes, and that's when Derek gets really scared and starts singing Beatles songs in his dreadful off-tune voice, trying to combat Stiles' song, trying to bring him back.

I fucking love this story.

A Hundred Echoes by hunters_retreat  E.  28k.   In the wake of life altering events, the Beacon Hills pack is trying to settle into some semblance of normal.  After the nogitsune, all Stiles wants is to be able to breathe easy and know that his friends are safe.  When Stiles begins to dream of his friends though, they turn out to be something extraordinary.  Stiles is a spirit walker.  The dreams leave him empathic and unable to control himself, but salvation comes in the unlikely form of Derek Hale.  Stiles just needs to know two things.  What is stirring in the woods of Beacon Hills to cause the entire pack to dream of horrific things? And can Derek help him learn to center himself and control his empathy before it’s too late?

In which Stiles is an empath and a dreamwalker, unbeknownst to himself.  He can be hurt in dreams, but his empathy is so out of control that no one can touch him but Derek.

"I'm not leaving without you, Derek," Stiles told him.  He held his hand out for Derek to take but it wasn't like Scott's dreams, or Isaac's.  This was Derek and even in his dreams there was a circle of mountain ash between him and the people he could ask for help.

"Stiles, please go," Derek's voice lost its command as he pleaded with Stiles.  "I'll survive.  I'll heal as soon as I wake up. You won't."

♥ Prickly Thorn, but Sweetly Worn by khasael  T.  15k.   An unhelpful witch gives Stiles a gift he doesn't want. It's hard to say whether Derek is pleased by this or not... although not for the usual reasons.

Oh, joy.  Derek-the-hedgehog is utterly cute, and Stiles basically monologues for most of the chapters, and it's precious.

Massage Therapy by reillyblack  M.  11k.   Stiles wins the big lottery prize at the police departments annual fundraiser -- five at-home massages with the best masseuse in town. Which, ok, awesome, except... one problem: "the best masseuse in town" turns out to be the ridiculously hot, grumpy, man of his dreams and Stiles can NOT figure out how to hit on him during their sessions together without making him feel like a prostitute.

Very quick, and awkward and sweet.  I'd love for it to be twice as long and twice as explicit, but I'll take what I can get ;-)

[247krp]

— Rejoice, little lambs! We have recovered our own Im Yoona, spotted prancing about in the Southwest Side. I remember seeing her with The Empire back in high school, but I’m not here to spill yesterday’s tea. So straight to the rundown: can you say rational and courageous? Apparently now she spends time as an actress at Bermuda Entertainment and a medical student, and keeps skeletons buried at Geumsang Apartment Complex, A303. But those won’t stay hidden for long, if you and I have any say on it. Welcome back, Femme Fatale; we missed you so.

TW: mentions of eating disorders

In case you don’t remember the devil’s name, here’s to refresh your memory:

im yoona is the idea of perfection, of being better, of being the girl every mother actually wanted, of being super in shape, and totally confident and witty and complete with stunning grades and eyeliner game so strong. her waist is the size of one of your thighs even though you’ve probably been eating healthy since you can ever remember, her grades are always few points higher and she always have like a million more friends to rely on and boys flock to her like she is their dream only to get their poor heart broken and she always make it all look just so goddamn easy.

it’s like her existences screams “anything you can do, i can do it better” and maybe some people in cheongnam not even surprised when she is naturally gifted in everything that people had to work for.

but you know, the truth is people who seem perfect are usually just faking it, they’re the ones who feel the most out of place, they’re the one who have to hide their darkness and beauty is such a terrible, terrible lie. and yoona is the biggest liar of them all. all she knows is that she always hiding who she is, and at home she closes the door and curl in bed and can’t stop herself from crying. she painstakingly perfecting her grades, cutting meals in half then half again then eating absolutely nothing to keep herself stay in shape her mother picture her to be. she keep on apologizing for not being perfect enough for her mother, she swear to god that she is trying. because the thing is  she is not going to magically get better in everything she wanted just because she shoot her a few motivational words or plain complaining. her mother do not understand what it’s like to  feel like she isn’t really one person, more like a thousand facets of shattered glass, like a mirror that just reflects what other people want to see.

you see, she is not the epitome of perfection, she is just kind of terribly, horribly broken inside.

Nevermind the memory lane though, the present is always the ripest fruit:

you see, what scares her the most is that she could eventually learn to like and agree on what her mother told her to, what her mother told her about the world. that something will go wrong eventually. it’s a scary world after all. in which turn out, she does like it, her mother really is know best for her. so there is not much or significant changed on her except that she is more matured, more independent – you could say that she is also a bit solid, rectangular and cold in a way it is hard to describe – like she knows that if she get attached to things, if she actually give a shit, there’s a chance that she might lose it and she doesn’t want to see everything she have burnt – and no, she is not apathetic, she is just trying to keep her composure, trying to keep everything in balance and in its place. the yoona right now is more into on what happened in reality, instead of thinking about the what if–she is sick and tired of hoping for things, because in the past it isn’t worked. the empire, they were once part of your life but since then they were nothing but a mere annoyance, a sore thumb that lingers in her memories. but thanks to them, yoona soar higher than she ever be, and they ever imagine.

and hey, mama is right. mama knows best. this is a big bad world, it is a scary world out there. who need them in your life when you have yourself and all the support you have.

But we are nothing if not open books – my job is to ensure you get to the best pages:

i. you were im yoona and they told you that you were one of the prettiest one back in high school, the one boys would stop and stare but you didn’t seem to notice; or more like you didn’t want to notice. you were the girl who always neatly seated in bench with your hands intertwined with your lap. and to many people, you had become a restless adventure and they couldn’t help themselves but venture it. nothing caught their attention more than the way your hair bounced in the sun, a mass of dark curls frame your “doll-like” face, the way your features are both exotic and surreal, the way your fair skins are so flawless not a single pimple in sight, the way your cheeks turned a faint pink when hewas around or when in class you were always left behind so you could teach some of your classmates to solve a simple equation.

ii. they told you that they loved how your teeth shown and a fit of giggles erupted from you when you saw them making a little mistake on the equation when they were too busy noticing you. they told you that while the teacher would always make the boys and girls pair up for a group project while everyone groaned but they would secretly grinned. they told you how they love the idea that they will ended up being a pair for the project and how the two of you fit so ‘perfectly’ together.

iii. they told you that even your name was perfect: “yoona”, they would sounded it out and they adored the way it rolled off their tongue, and how you were everything they aspired. you was everything they weren’t. you were perfect beyond point whole, you were brought out of love, not a mistake that your dad was a businessman, a successful one, and how he would buy you things you never asked for and showered you with love and how you yearned for that. and they told you on how your mom just as beautiful as you were. and no wonder you got your first role as an actress in high school – the thing you always wanted the most.

you were im yoona, and ever since then you’ve shine more brighter than you ever be. but you never really expected that all that love you’ve been received  turned to hate. your close friends despised you, they told you that you were  oh-so-perfect. almost too perfect it made their heart ache. you were everything they can never be. you had everything they would never have. beauty, brain, attitude, wealth, family, a boyfriend who also love her in every way possible. they told you that it was not fair. they have to work hard for it and she always got everything according to plan.

iv. ( but they did not know that you were on the edge of throwing yourself off the cliff, were on the edge to drown yourself on the deep blue sea, were on the edge to cut yourself off from the world for good because they DID NOT know that you were already died inside because of those expectation that came from her mother and now from literally everyone.

and no one will ever guess the unbearable pain in your chest because her mother was right. it was a big scary world out there. you had always pictured you and all your group of friends; the empire, including the love of your life, kwon jiyong, genuine smiles and heart healing laughter. however, weak smiles and heart breaking sobs shook you and were in your current chapter.

“see? i told you that they’re not people you should be hanging with.”

but still, they were her friends. one she always cherish and love. you wondered on how things goes wrong. what did she do wrong? )

v. you are im yoona. a doctor-to-be. south korea’s beloved actress and beauty standard. nothing can reach your position as for now. you are on the top of the throne just like your mother wanted you to be. but what’s with the sad face and tired sigh you’ve been doing?

[chasingeast]

Day 10- Part II- Dig Deeper- 5:00 P.M.

Dear Me, 

I think to myself as I reread all of his posts and my own what could have happened differently if this words flowed out of me at a different point in time. These are all the same words that I have always had for him since the first time we separated. That was back in junior year in college. These are the same words 8 years later that I am still pouring out of my heart. Why is it taking so long to learn a lesson? Why couldn’t a lesson be learned prior to the test or during the test? Why after each and every single one. 

After a lot of thought, and when I say a lot I mean after years of reflecting and also in the last several hours, I think I have the same problem as him. We both felt like we had a love so great that it shaped the way we perceived others and shaped what we demanded of others when in reality we both just wanted each other, but for some reason could not each time. He modeled every interest after what we had. He pushed on criteria from the memories we created. I did the same. For each person that I met I always looked to see if they could top how gentlemanly, how sweet, how dedicated, how crafty, how humorous, how fun, how physically intune, how internally intune to me; unfortunately, when you’re looking for traits in others to mirror someone else chances are that they will always fail. You cannot recreate someone no matter how badly you want to. You can never find the same person. You can find all the traits and characteristics you might hope for but you will never find that same exact person and you can’t expect them to be the same exact person either. 

R came so close to topping him. He had the gift of older age which meant more life experiences. I may not have had beautiful letters written but he had forgiveness and kindness unlike Baby. He had money and resources which meant we could do more and go farther. He was bold and a risk taker and so I fell hard. He was as close to being Baby without actually being Baby. I asked him one time how he would feel if either of us were friends with an ex. I wanted with Baby what he had with me, the friendship I never wanted to lose. R said he would break up with me. I didn’t want to risk losing him for the thought of Baby who from what I knew was no different than he was when he broke up with me. So I never responded to Baby’s message or package. I noticed someone sitting outside but it didn’t even cross my mind that it would be him. I don’t know when he left that bench, but I was in my car that night crying for what felt like ages. As I read everything I wanted to hear but heard too late, at the wrong time. I saw things that he put in there because he was thinking of me but I wasted his efforts by throwing it all out. Letter, package, snacks and all. I did not want to turn around to a past that almost killed me. I had no more energy for him because I was just starting fresh and I wanted a clean slate. R only got me flowers when we argued. I ended up disliking flowers so much. I wished that he would have gotten me something simple, something a little more creative. Maybe that’s where the comparisons started. I did like R for taking me on adventures. We went on many at the beginning. It was crazy, it was fun and it was plentiful. Baby and I were poor college students barely scraping more than minimum wage. Everything was difficult and it was hard to do anything. Every little thing counted. I should have been taking this as a lesson of life that it didn’t have to always be like this. But I didn’t see it that way at the time. I saw it as Baby and I being people that could not provide for each other so I needed to find a better future. I was greedy. R bought me anything and everything I wanted, if I asked, and oftentimes I did not so he would get it for me anyway. He was reckless with money, decision making, and his life in general. Maybe that was also why I liked him so much. He was just so different. It was great at first, but when harder decisions needed to be made, so he flopped. R was too busy building his life, again from switching jobs to getting more money and building a future that I wondered who he was building this future for. He always said it was for us, but if it was for us, why were we always the ones being sacrificed? Why was I always the last priority? Why was I becoming more and more forgotten? I wasn’t worth spending for? Everything I did was criticized. Nothing I did was good enough anymore. Maybe it was because at the time I hit a wall. I was told I would not be returning to my position and I would need to look elsewhere. I lost hope and was struggling. I had to start over again and cried through every interview and application that I put in but was never even looked at. I was tired. I was scared. I was dying. So I ran from him and I ran back to Baby because he always knew what to do. 

So I ran to Baby and he helped me and I used him. I didn’t think it was at the time, but afterwards and now in present day I do believe that I did in fact use him. I didn’t mean to. It just ended up happening. He was always my support system. He was the first new best friend I had ever made since grade school. He knew everything. He was so kind and patient with me. And I think back and I was so selfish. I may have loved him at a point in time. I may have loved him again. But at this moment in time, I was selfish. I was terrible and I regret that. We were different. We had a different kind of experience of love now that we were older, now that we had more wisdom, now that we had more finances, sort of. I barely had a job and was often looking for a new one every 3 months. I was in between with my weekend school, tutoring jobs, babysitting, and just about anything I could find. I was overwhelmed by looking for work, going to grad school, working as a maternity leave position and just running around endlessly. It was a difficult time. I put myself in a difficult position. I should not have clung to Baby. I should not have depended on him so much. Did I appreciate him for it? Yes. Did I feel so incredibly grateful? Yes. Was I entirely selfish? Yes. I did not motivate him. I was not a partner to him. I did not support him. I was selfish and made everything about me. I ranted about my ex to him. I complained about everything and yet he just took it. I didn’t take the time to appreciate how he had grown and how he matured. I was just a selfish, wicked person. I am so sorry Baby. You were never supposed to feel this type of pain from me or because of me. I never wanted it to happen, but it did. I wish I could have done things differently for you. I wish I could have given you a better world because you deserved it. I knew of your  pain. I knew of the regret you had from the things you did. I knew it and though I felt bad for you, I enjoyed knowing it made you closer to me. It made me evil. I was evil. I’m sorry. I just wanted you for myself. And you were. We experienced more things. You became more open to trying different things. Doing things in a different type of style. You let me plan things for a change! You were becoming open to my suggestions. You were still very stubborn and arrogant, but that was also something that was just part of you. And I loved you for you. Things were going so well, but I forgot that I was very different. I could become the girl you once knew just like how you could not go back and be the boy you once knew. We started taking advantage of each other and did not appreciate each other for the new people we became. I wish I could deny it, but I am at fault and I feel miserable about it. I still do. I should not have hurt the one person who meant the most to me at many points in my life. Who still means a lot in my life. But I did. And just like how I hoped R would have read these posts or hope that someone will cry for my story, now I hope that Baby will read them and see what I am going through. But I don’t deserve to cry and be empathized with. You cannot pull the same mistake twice and expect to come out unscathed. We were both desperate people and because of who we were at the time we met up again, we were doomed before we even began. 

Then there was D, the person I guess like many others I had left hanging with an excuse because I was starting to see R at the time. I may have been interested or bored enough to speak to him. It was fun for a period of time, but he caught me off guard. He messaged me out of the blue and made the connection of who I was and how we were introduced. I started to become interested in him because he was silly. Silly like in an awkward way. He would reach out to me more and more frequently and I knew from past experience that could be signs of interest. He was strange but it was different. It was unique. Sometimes it was a little more awkward and unbearable but most of the time it was a great distraction from my distraught of looking for work constantly. We had no similarities aside from drawing. He had this cool board game that he made called lagomorpha. I was so honored when he brought it over to show it to me. It was so exciting! I kept thinking to myself that maybe, just maybe he really liked me, so I pushed further and used my physical charms to try to woo him. I should have known not to do this. It never works to have too much physical contact before emotional contact is established. It was rushed, it didn’t give me all that much pleasure, but enough to be a distraction. It got harder when he moved away to Louisiana. Although we still spoke to each other daily, it became less and less. There wasn’t an emotional attachment so I don’t know what I expected from this. I wanted more but he didn’t want to offer more, couldn’t offer more. I wrote a letter to Baby at this time to give him back his things, but then I cut off D shortly after because I couldn’t deal with it anymore.  

I started spending time with different friends which was a pleasant distraction. That’s when I met T. He was one of their friends. He was fun and childish. Goofy and playful. He worked with steel and loved outdoor activities. Skateboarding being his favorite. Still very different but had his own ways of showing affection. He told me he was interested. I was too. But we didn’t have a long enough period of affection. It just happened too soon and too fast. What should have been panned out in over a span of at least weeks if not months was sped into a week. I should not have fooled myself to think that it could have been anything more than just physical because of what I wanted. I wanted something that would last but I never gave it the time to grow and then I did what I always did. I started to lose interest in my own passions because I would consume theirs. I became too clingy and sooner than later he ghosted me. I was angry, I gave out more than I received afterwards but there was nothing more I could do. It was hopeless and once more I was torn down again and again. I didn’t look for D or T. They just happened to show up. They were my meet-cute moments. I had started to become bitter of meet-cute. 

I stopped for a few months but as the new year rolled in, I tried again. There were two people I was in between. E was so fun to talk to and S was bland but I wanted to meet them. S was amazing in person and really tugged at my heartstrings. E was not so much, came off too childish and we never spoke again. S was my attempt at trying something different. I would be more independent this time. I would be the one to take charge and initiate. So that’s what I did. We hit it off and before we knew it we were dating and going out. We dated for nearly 2 years. We were getting pretty close to it. It was the longest relationship I had been in since Baby which barely lasted for 6 months. I don’t think I could have called the others relationships but more like courtships. We enjoyed hiking together and spending time outdoors. He was stubborn and arrogant and angry at times. (Remind you of anyone?) He was sensitive but kind to me. He wasn’t the best at manners or at being the most thoughtful or the best communicator, but he was mine. I got to learn about his family. I got to know of his past. He always had a knack for taking pictures, which was great! That was very new to me. R took a lot of pictures as well, but S took so many. It was to the point that I stopped taking pictures. Which, though it didn’t seem like a problem and still isn’t, was something that I gave up on. I think back and and know that I shouldn’t have, but I did. He brought me to his favorite historical places and baseball games. I had fun. I was becoming more comfortable. We had our differences, but we worked through them. There were times when I had to be a bigger shoulder and often times that was the role I took. I kept taking it. It was tiring at times but I pulled through. You were new to many things. You didn’t know a lot. It was your first relationship as an adult. You had to learn the ropes from the bottom up. It exhausted you because of how much you didn’t know and how much I had to compensate for it, but it was nice to see some progress. It was why I stayed for as long as I did. I enjoyed your hobbies. I loved the new things we would do. There were many things that did not satisfy me and what did not, I found elsewhere to make me happy. I relied on myself, which I think is important to still be independent while in a relationship. Far too many times do you hear of people afraid to do something or refuse to do something because their partner didn’t want to and they feared being alone. I am glad that I was not that person. S however, I could not always say the same. He didn’t stop doing his own thing, he just didn’t really have much of his own thing aside from baseball and video games. Which was fine. Then he moved away which was hard at first, but I supported it so long as it was to chase his dream. I didn’t put too much thought into it at the time of how our future might look if he stayed up there. He loved it. I was nervous because I wanted my life here, in a place I didn’t want to live in. I hardly got to see him aside from maybe twice a month or sometimes less. We would video chat daily but that made things worse. We would hardly be paying attention to each other. Honestly, it probably would have been more beneficial if we just spoke every now and again and had more meaningful conversations. I remember telling him this but we didn’t do anything about it. IT was fun to visit when I did to explore the towns. I loved the chicken wing spot. I loved a lot of things. I loved him. Unfortunately good things don’t always last just because we want them to. He was trying to get a teaching position but would also find only maternity leave positions. I know how hard it is. I was in his shoes tossing and turning and fearing when I would see my next paycheck. If anyone would see the effort I was putting in and trust in my attempts. So I knew I had to be patient and I was. I don’t think I ever saw fault in him for not getting a tenure track position. I felt for him. I felt bad. I consoled him and encouraged him. And he of his own accord pushed and propelled himself forward. But we always had our issues. He was so inexperienced. Which isn’t a problem for me unless it affects the way he treats me and my family, which it did. He was not as gentle with his words. He was not very thoughtful and though he never meant anything out of harm, he wouldn’t think and so as a result his intentions would be misinterpreted or conveyed as recklessness. He never got it. No matter how many times I would bring it up. S just didn’t understand. As I’ve been writing, my heart has been hurting, but that was the point of this entry. To dig deeper. I don’t think I could ever admit this to him but as much as I felt happy with myself for being confident and determined, I wasn’t all that attracted to him. I was interested in the fact that he listed he was both a teacher and a hiker, little did I know that he was hardly of either. He certainly had the dedication needed as a teacher, but would channel all of his energy towards the wrong things and as a result waste his time. I had a lot of hope in him and wished that he could find more success. I often wondered while we were together if he never found the success he was looking for because he never properly channeled his strengths. He often wasted time and did not proactively work on various parts that would have made him a better educator and a stronger individual. He had to realize it on his own what it should look like and how it should be like. In the end I was caught and suffocated. I spent an extra year trying to see if there would be more or a way that I could overlook certain things and I could not. I kept playing my old tricks of thinking of previous exs and trying to compare and he just kept falling short. At least with Baby he had that internal connection. With R we also had a different connection. With S, I felt like I had to make due each time and I just became more and more tired and resentful until one day I just couldn’t do it anymore. I wanted no more and I felt so guilty when I felt relieved afterwards. That stuck with me. I don’t know if he’s doing well or not. He hasn’t unfriended me. He still posts once in a while. I wished that he would reach out to me, but now it would be pointless. At least with S we shared my new outdoor hobbies. So even though he struggled with them, he persisted to an extent. I would love to bring Baby on some of these adventures. I think he would love to see the views. I would just have to pick the right type of activity. 

And now here I am again, thinking about myself and what I’ve done and how my love life was all still short lived over the span of 11 years. Dating is exhausting. Mentally, physically, and financially. I don’t think I would ever take back any of my experiences. If anything I would have liked to change some of my actions. Maybe not invest too much too soon or not to be afraid or to stand taller. But I think I needed them to get to where I am now. 

I had become very adventurous since Baby and I separated. I had gone on 2 vacations by myself. Both to California in memory of us. The first was from LA to San Diego. The second was to Palm Desert. Both times were amazing and eye opening. Never had I ever thought I would have gone on my own trips. Sad for me to say now that it had already been 2 years ago. Two years have passed since the last time I went somewhere on my own. That same year I also went on my first solo backpacking trip. It was crazy, it was out of this world. I loved them all! I needed them to know I would survive out in the world on my own. The only thing though, I was lonely. Often times I would check instagram or facebook often to see who followed my stories. I would constantly post and be online rather than fully being in the moment for the moment. I spent so much time trying to prove I was having a good time. I have no doubt that I did enjoy the trip, but maybe I would have enjoyed it more with the right company. On both of those trips   I met others that I shared contact information with. Unfortunately we are no longer in communication, but I hope to see them again one day. Or at least continue breathing and remembering the stories and times I shared with them and all people I’ve met along the way. 

But here we are now years later and I am once more in my room, sitting on my bed, writing about how my heart aches. I wonder if a little adventure would solve it. Maybe that’s all I need to cure my heart ache. If that were the case, it should be relatively manageable. I have a trip to Florida coming up in April and a potential trip to Canada coming up in June/July. I had a fleeting thought to visit Beebee in Australia this summer, but am not sure if that’s really something I want or can afford this year. I hope to squeeze in some camping/ backpacking trips in the meantime. I would love to drive up to Buffalo at some point this year to enjoy what I wasn’t able to with S. I would love to take the next leap and move out. I want to try new hobbies. I want to be fit and look my best. I want to secure my future. I want to find love. I want to find inner peace and calmness. Above all, I want to lift these shackles that have been weighing me down for years to breathe the fresh air. If Baby is what I want, then I will need to work hard to find him, if we are still on the same timeline at that point in time. In the meantime, I also need to let him go so that he can grow and I too can grow. If I hold on as tightly as I am, I would be falling backwards and never learning from any of my past mistakes. That doesn’t mean I can’t be with him, though I’m sure that’s how many people I care about want me to feel, but I cannot cling on to what we once were. Baby did that when we got together and it destroyed him. We must learn from all mistakes so that we do not repeat them. We must learn from others so that more can be spared. If I want to love Baby fully and without any harm or malice, I must loosen my grip, I must back away, I must at least leave the door ajar so that it is not wide open. Only then, in a few months from now, if I still feel this burning desire. If I still and with thought can make compromises and sacrifices for him, then I can consider what a life could be like if two people who once loved each other, meet again as two brand new individuals.