#this year they’re just ending classes and most work expedients 2 hours early

[sheisbeautyweareworldass]

this gotta be one of the most cultural tone-deaf things i’ve ever read - specially coming from a gringa who who has lived in brazil for a decade

first of, the “sending the kids home earlier” isn’t about the staff watching the matches, it’s about everyone. world cup culture in brazil is huge - yes, even after 2014. it’s about meeting your friends and family, going to bars, someone else’s house or any public space and watching the match together. it’s, as it’s in most latinoamerican countries, about the community. sending kids home to watch the game isn’t about the school staff taking half a day off, it’s about the staff being able to feel the football atmosphere at home, with their families. it’s about doing the same for kids - going home earlier so they can be with their siblings, parents and grandparents (most of who will else be home earlier) and enjoy the next 2 hours or so together. it’s about bonding and community and it’s quite depressing a journalist can’t see that.

second, this woman is british… anyone from a place that puts everything on hold for a fucking coffin should be forbidden to talk about other countries’ days off.

third: vai embora então 👩‍❤️‍💋‍👩

[ubemango]

commission 2: bestie!jk and the case of the Stupid Bag (amongst other things)

(+ and even more convolutedly, a rich&spoiled!oc/humble!jk besties au) 

I wanna say that the ending is as abrupt as it is because conversations between best friends just Go Places but really. just. This whole drabble really just Went Places SPWWPSHSWPGPW.......thank you to Fina @angelguk for helping me out, and a biiiiiig big thank u to my friend for commissioning me this piece. Ur the best, happy Super Super Super Late Birthday!!!!!!!!!!! 🥰🥰🥰💖💖💖💖💖 

The streetlights hurt to look at. It’s too early for your eyes to process, and you’re a second from nodding off for the third time when Jeongguk nudges you up.

“Stop sleeping.”

You yawn. “I’m not the one driving.”

It’s not even his car. You would’ve been happy picking him and letting him drive, but then he would’ve been mad if you didn’t let him pay gas. “If you sleep then I’ll sleep too.”

“No you won’t,” you grumble. “It’s your fault for wanting to see the sunrise.”

“You said you wanted to do it on your birthday!” He complains. It’s good that you’re cloaked with the dark: he can’t see the sheepish downturn of your mouth, because he’s not wrong. You genuinely did want to see the sunrise today, but getting past that stage of Actually Waking Up was really difficult to do. You sit still with the muddled fog of bad sleep. “We’re not even that far from the mountain.”

You can’t deny the looming mass of rock that sits jagged on the horizon. The outline of the steps you’ll be climbing soon are shrouded in the peak of dawn—hardly visible, especially with the way your vision blurs. “All the more reason for me to nap.”

Even if it is for two minutes. Jeongguk doesn’t argue when you slump in on yourself, succumbing to that inevitable wave of pre-sunlight fatigue.

The car door slams you awake. In the two seconds it takes you to reorient your brain,  Jeongguk’s got your door open.

“Up and at ‘em, princess. Sun’s peeking and we’re wasting the minutes.”

You feel him reach over to unbuckle your seatbelt. “I can’t.”

“We’re hiking whether you like it or not,” he sneers. “I’ve been waiting so long for nice nature shots since you got me this camera. Now—“

“—Ugh!”

He’s got a tight fist on your arm, hauling you out from the comfortable heat of the car. It’s just as cold as you anticipated. Jeongguk doesn’t cower from the punch you land on his chest. 

“I’m so tired,” you say, reaching over the console for your bag, threatening an ache in the middle of your back. “And my back hurts.”

He ignores you, rounding the rear to grab whatever he’d stuffed there before he came to pick you up. (There’s a text with a four AM time stamp in your phone that reads Which penthouse am I coming to again?) “Gucci must be so heavy on your poor back,” you hear him snicker.

“It’s small and it makes me look dainty,” you hiss. “Like my shoes.”

“Your Destructors?”

You frown, meeting him where he rummages. “They’re called Disruptors!”

“They’ll never make up for your alien toes,” Jeongguk argues. 

“I’m not standing here for you to berate me. Ha! Wrong berate. You’re here to cele-berate me—ow.”

He gives you a pointed look. Probably for that awful joke, and by your standards wasn’t even that bad; it was pretty witty considering your GPA this year reflected absolutely no sense of critical thinking. 

No matter, because he doesn’t even apologize for nearly whacking you with his massive-for-no-reason military bag.

“She’s so big,” you point out. 

It really is, woven tight with extremely dense fibre: like some sort of green, rectangular boulder with way too many pockets for the camera equipment and whatever else Jeongguk’s got stuffed in there. His shoulders sag with the weight of it all, and he closes the back door shut. 

“That’s what she said,” he comments. He trudges off before you can hit him again for his own poor choice of humour, the beep of the car cutting through your sputtering.

“But like—“ you speed-walk to his side—(you don’t even know how he got to the fifth step that quickly, but then again you’re literally on the brink of brain dead)— “I didn’t even bring that much.”

“It’s fine, it’s just camera stuff, other stuff. You wanna see something?”

“Sure.”

“You see this?” He sticks a finger in the pocket and traces the circumference. “An inner layer of thermodynamic shit. Keeps things hot. Like if you ever take me to a country with those vending machine coffee cups. You can’t do that because you don’t have this bag.”

You frown at the hostility. It’s an ugly bag, but you’re too tired to fight. “So like—to Japan.”

Jeongguk huffs up the steps. “Sure.”

“Then let’s go.” The lamp post at this level flickers off with a quiet zap. You can see the sun starting to bleed out past the stars. “I can use the plane this weekend, we can go—“

Before you can catch yourself, Jeongguk says your name in polite warning. “I don’t need that pretty stuff.”

You keep your stride, cheeks burning hot. Jeongguk’s nice like that. It’s what you appreciate most about him: pushing you past those boundaries of discomfort you’ve been taught never to cross because if you didn’t like something, you stayed pliant for everyone’s best interest.

Jeongguk’s not pliant, though. He’s assertive with that nice humbleness you’ve never known. Adolescence was a different time, when he’d gotten into your private academy out of his sheer brain power alone. No amount of daddy-manufactured money could get you or your classmates his smarts, and they hadn’t appreciated the poor, newbie boy-genius stealing their guaranteed (or: paid for) placements in the work place beyond. But you’d taken an immediate liking to that shy student cowering in the back—though he still had all the answers to the homework questions if he was inclined to answer.

The very first time you’d tried to offer him a ride home in your helicopter, he’d been livid.

“You can’t��think about the environmental impact! The fuel extracted for such a short trip! Do you know how many villages have been destroyed by Gildan for the sake of extraction?!”

(You hadn’t. But he’d told you, and proceeded to take the bus home like he was so used to doing.)

“You don’t need it,” you sigh. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize,” Jeongguk shrugs. “I mean—it’s what you know. And I don’t blame you. But you know how much pollutants come out of private jets—it just…wouldn’t kill you to demote to, like, first class.”

It’s funny, how much you’ve had conversations like these. The instinct to help him out, his kind rejections. Because you’ve learned now that issues aren’t solved with the expediency you’re given. Jeongguk doesn’t get to have that. And now that you’re in college, you’ve noticed that things really haven’t changed: Jeongguk’s gone astronomical amounts of ahead in terms of course level, and you’re just trying to keep up with the bare minimum credits. You’d feel bad for yourself but having the back-up of money in the form of inheritance really keeps you afloat from the pity.

“This is making me tired,” you complain. You’re pretty sure you’re way past the halfway mark of this mountain, but even you’re starting to feel antsy about missing those first few seconds of the sun waking up. 

“We’re almost there. I can see the outpost from here.”

Jeongguk points to a wooden structure maybe sixty steps from where you’re approaching: built high over the scattered buildings an hour’s drive away, the flutter of an awakening city. Pretty industry made only for your viewing pleasure, because when you get up there, you won’t be looking at the home of scary corporate; the home you’re used to seeing, with your dad running a good third of that district. 

It’ll just be the glass the sun will reflect on. The place so far away you don’t have to think about briefcases and dry-clean only suits.

It’s what you came here for—it’s been easy falling in that trap of indecisiveness. Not wanting what your future is set to be, because right now, the path to your economics degree is tenuous at best. 

So you take the diverging route. And you’re finally at the outpost, out of breath. “The sun’s coming up,” you threaten. Jeongguk hurries up the steps as much as his bag allows, and when you reach the top, the fog in your head dissipates right into the wide skyline.

“Sometimes I want the whole world,” you announce.

Jeongguk settles his arms on the ledge, contemplating the rising sun. “You could get it if you tried.”

Maybe he should just say if you asked, but you know he’s too polite to do so. 

“I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“It’s okay not to,” he commends.

“But you’re so smart. And—you know what you’re doing. But I’m here taking Economics 101 for the second time and I don’t wanna end up in a law office anyway because my dad will get me there just like the rest of our classmates and you’re gonna be doing good things because you’re a great person who’s like, really socially aware, and I can’t do good things because I’m a bad and stupid person with a private jet.”

Jeongguk lets you deflate by yourself, ignoring your spiel for a second to drop that Ugly Bag on the ground. You hear him dig for something; the click of a knob, then a quick snap.

“Look at the sun,” is all he says.

It’s very small. And suddenly it’s not, expanding into bursts of light you aren’t ready for. Not because it hurts to look at but that sudden wave of silence settles fast. A feeling of finality—the beginning that always, always comes back, because new days are inevitable. “The sun is very big,” you sigh. 

Jeongguk hums in agreement, takes another picture. “You’re not bad or stupid. Sure you don’t like economics and you hate school, like, in general. But that’s not your fault, just like owning that jet isn’t your fault. I think you forget some things.”

You pick at your manicure. You’re not so tired anymore. “Like what?”

“Like you’re the only person who talked to me the first week of school,” he goes on. “You offered me a ride home even though I was perfectly capable of taking the bus. You bought my parents groceries when you noticed I wasn’t eating lunch, and you told Seungkwan that you’d stick a wet finger in his ear if he didn’t stop making fun of me for having ugly shoes.”

You laugh. “Seungkwan had big ears and thought he had valid opinions.”

“Anyway—” Jeongguk snorts too—“I’m just saying. I know I—I know I talk a lot about… you doing bad things. Like with the whole plane thing.”

In other words: he’s not here to baby you. He never has. The world you've grown up in has never been kind to him or his parents, and he doesn’t have to keep you in check but he’ll do it for your sake—his, too. “You’re just being a good friend.”

“Yeah but that doesn’t mean you’re a bad person,” he says. “It’s good that you’re owning up to those things. Like how you told your dad to veto the health benefit cuts that were under discussion.”

You freeze. You didn’t know he knew that. “How—“

“Who else would get the head of a whole corporate chain under their thumb in one night if not for a really stubborn daughter, who somehow managed to get him to veto a policy I complained about over text the morning I read it in the news?”

Point taken. The guy loves reading his news. Jeongguk lifts the camera once more, but this time points it to your face. “Ew—no!”

“Smile!”

“I’m ugly,” you pout.

“You’re not. Look.” He settles into your side again, into the growing life of the city you don’t love anymore. “Your life—you have… privileges. And you’re learning that you can do good things that your dad isn’t. I’m proud of you.”

“…Really?”

“I mean you have to start somewhere. And I’m really starting to think you didn’t just come to see the sunrise because you thought it’d be a cool thing for me to take pictures of on your birthday,” Jeongguk admits.

You nod. He’s too smart for you sometimes. “I… I kinda wanna switch majors.”

“To?”

“Something other than economics,” you reveal.

Jeongguk squints with apprehension. “Is this because I called your dad my favourite class enemy the other day because I—I’m so sorry. I know he’s your dad but—“

“It’s okay! He’s nice to me but not. To other people,” you fidget. Jeongguk sighs with relief. “But… yeah. You make me want to learn about that stuff. Because you’re right, I have the privilege. And I know have it and I just don’t wanna sound dumb and say wrong things because it’s so easy for me to and I hate that and I wanna—wanna learn and actually do good things. You know?”

Jeongguk nods. “I’m proud of you,” he says again. “Really. You’re doing good. Happy birthday.”

“Thank you.” 

He lets the heavy camera dangle around his neck. Lets the conversation drift into something more easy because he’s just as tired as you are. “So I know you’ve been thinking about how ugly my bag is.”

“It’s charming,” you divert. The sun is well past the horizon at this point, and invigoration has come in the form of wanting to go the fuck back to the car.

“You’re a liar. Look! There’s even this hole you can put a tube through for when you want to pack those bags of water, and more thermodynamic shit in this pocket—“

“I don’t care about thermodynamics!”