#turns out it does a far better job than it did a few years ago!

[lulu2992]

If anyone is interested, I translated the character descriptions :)

Vaas Montenegro

Vaas was born into the tumultuous and poor environment of the Rook Islands where lawlessness and brutality are the norm. A member of the indigenous Rakyat tribe, his youth was shadowed by the harsh realities of the region. Raised without stability or education, he relentlessly refined his survival instincts and his determination as he grew up.

Vaas’ journey led him to a life of crime and power, fueled by a charismatic personality that often explodes with implacable ferocity. He quickly rose through the ranks of the local underworld, establishing his dominance using fear and coercion. His strategic craftiness based on exploitation has made him a formidable force to be reckoned with.

His cruelty and unpredictability are defining traits that inspire both loyalty and terror in those around him. Vaas has extended his influence through intimidation and manipulation, gathering around him an army of cruel pirates in search of easy money. Now alone at the top of the crime pyramid, he is ready to crush anyone who would challenge his authority.

Unaware of the danger, the group of friends did not know they were on Vaas’ land. How dare they march into HIS territory without permission? Their carefree and naive lifestyle is an insult to his way of living where one must fight for survival.

To him, they are unsuspecting prey waiting to be captured. He can therefore make them pay for their carelessness by taking away their freedom. Since he had to adapt to the harshness of the islands to survive, they will have to do it too...

Grant Brody

A former American soldier, Grant is the eldest of the Brody brothers. He always felt a duty to protect his friends and family.

Today more than ever, as they are captive to Vaas’ insanity, he guides them through the perils of the Rook Islands.

Dennis Rogers

Born in Liberia, disillusioned with his life in the United States, Dennis finally feels at home on the Rook Islands.

Deeply connected to the indigenous Rakyat tribe, Dennis helps the team in this unforgiving environment, hoping they can help him in return.

Dr. Alec Earnhardt

Drowning in grief after the loss of his daughter Agnes, Dr. Earnhardt left Oxford and his brilliant career to eventually wash up on the Rook Islands.

The island’s unique flora allows him to create innovative medicinal concoctions, thus helping him cope with the harshness of his current situation.

Willis Huntley

A cunning and enigmatic CIA agent, he operates in the shadows and plots to achieve his goal.

It seems you can count on him. As long as you have common interests...

New Far Cry 3 Board Game featuring Vaas Montenegro titled Far Cry: Escape from Rook Islands (Summer 2024).

[authorhjk1]

A request for Sana's delicious tiddies please!

https://www.instagram.com/p/C0dZRXrvuyU/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

The Roman goddess

Minatozaki Sana X Male Reader

The museum you are strolling through is called Castel Sant' Angelo. It used to be tomb for the Roman Emperor Hadrian and his family. Now, it's a very well known museum in Rome.

You admire the architecture and the sculptures standing around. The ceilings are quite high. All the walls are painted, the gorgeous colors bringing the ancient scenes to life.

You are not only here for fun though. It started around two years ago. Your career as an author. Until December two years ago, you did write, but it was more for yourself. You finally made your breakthrough with your first novel "The Roman eagle", about a lowly born Roman legionary, who rises through the ranks. You never thought this would make you big. And you didn't expect so many people wanting more. You didn't plan on it, but that one book is slowly turning into a series.

The second book came out at the end of last year. "The curse of Neptune". And now, you are working on your third. Since you didn't plan on writing a series, you have started to introduce several main characters with their own life stories.

You are now sitting on your third part. Not having a title yet, you keep wandering around the museum. You have already written quite a few pages, but the new character you want to introduce is hard to picture. It's supposed to be a woman. A woman, who is deceitful and ambitious, not caring about the ones around her. She only married her husband for his status and is now aspiring to climb the ranks. With or with out him.

You enter another room. The ceiling is high as well. The painted scenes show several different parts of day to day life from the Romans and their gods. The center of the room is reserved for a tall, almost life-size statue. Being an expert in history, especially Roman history, you can tell immediately that that's Venus. The goddess of love.

Wanting to have a closer look, you step forward. But your gaze is caught by the woman who is standing between you and the piece of art, her back turned towards you.

Her posture is flawless and you can't help but admire how straight her back looks, due to the white high heels she is wearing. The black skirt is quite long, almost reaching the floor. As you walk past her right, you see that it has a large slit in the front. Her naked leg is more than just captivating.

Glancing at the statue, you've always wondered how Venus would look like, if she was real. It feels like you might be able to paint a picture now.

The woman's white top is highlighting her chest, the fabric stretching over her tits. The turtle neck and the tied back hair make her look elegant and strict. Like a teacher or a rich man's wife.

Standing next to her, you smell her scent. Definitely flowers. Maybe roses? You were never the flower expert. Would Venus smell like this too? Roses are always considered the flowers of love. The idea doesn't seem too far fetched.

You notice that the young woman is standing quite close to the statue, holding a brochure in her hand. Usually, knowing about history isn't really a great turn on for women. But being in a museum, you might give it a try. She does have that classy look. So maybe she could be interested?

"Art and war should always be studied from a healthy distance."

You see her react. Not her face, since you are still standing two steps behind her, but the slight turn of her head. You could swear the corners of her mouth turned upwards, before she turns back towards the statue.

One step. Two steps. Her heels disrupt the silence in the otherwise empty room.

"A lot of people think that Venus and Aphrodite are the same goddess."

You were able to take a quick peek at the brochure she is holding. The people who work here should do a better job.

"But they have quite a couple of differences."

You wait a couple of moments. She doesn't say something or turns around. But she didn't run, which is at least a good start.

"While Aphrodite is the goddess of love, beauty and sex, Venus has to offer more than just that."

You walk behind the young woman, starting to feel comfortable, talking about a topic you are very familiar with.

"She actually started out as the goddess of gardens and vineyards. Before the Romans merged her with her Greek counterpart. And even then, she represents not just lust and sex. But also motherhood. You could say that she is a more loyal woman."

You glance at the woman, whom you are standing next to now. Her left side profile almost makes you stutter. She really must be a goddess.

Knowing that you might never meet someone like her ever again, you decide to shoot your shot. What's the worst that could happen? She could scream and run away. But it's only the two of you anyway.

"Which form is the one you can more easily identify with? The Roman, or the Greek one?"

You stand next to her, your shoulders almost touching. Turning your head towards her you almost whisper.

"Loyal? Or promiscuous?"

A smirk plays around the brunette's lips. She is not running yet.

But to your huge disappointment, she raises her right arm, her hand on the same hight as her chest. You are only distracted for a second, before you see the golden ring on her finger. It's decorated with a huge diamond in the center and a couple of smaller ones all around.

Of course she is married. A woman like her? Come on. You sigh internally. You should've figured.

"Promiscuous."

You were about to turn around as you hear her sweet voice. It takes you a second to realize what she says.

"I think I would be more like Aphrodite."

Is she saying you still have a shot? Even when she just showed you that she is married?

"Tell me more. I'm not sure if I can make a decision yet."

And she wants you to keep talking?

You take a deep breath, not wanting to screw this up.

"Venus has a more elevated status than Aphrodite. Her arguably most famous human son is Aeneas. The man who established Rome. A lot of emperors' wifes identified with Venus."

You see the woman tug a strand of her brown hair behind her ear.

"And you are saying that the Greek form wasn't as important?"

It's the first time she actually looks at you. Her beautiful features make her look way more elegant than from the side. Her lipstick makes her look stricter than she might usually would. You can tell that she is Asian, but not from which country.

"She was important. But not in the same way as Venus. She did have her own celebrations though."

The brunette is now fully turning towards you. It takes a lot of willpower to not look at her chest. It's almost as if she could sense your struggle. She places her hands on her hips, barely leaning forward. It makes her tits look just a little bigger.

"What kind of celebration?"

Her voice has changed. Until now, she spoke quiet. Just like someone should, while visiting a museum. But she is now whispering. Just like you did before. Her captivating gaze makes you stare into her eyes.

"A big part of the celebrations were Aphrodite's priestesses. The Greeks used a suiting form of worship for the goddess of love."

You take a step closer. Your shoe grazes hers. The smell of roses becomes a little stronger.

"They slept with her priestesses. That's how they worshipped her."

The brunette is unable to hold back her chuckle.

"And you are sure you didn't just make that up?"

For a moment her cute side shines through. She looks adorable when she smiles.

"I didn't. You can look it up."

"I don't want to though. I like listening to you."

"Well..."

You are too surprised to give a good answer. And there is not much more to say about the topic anyways.

The brunette seems to have caught up on that.

"What do you think about worshiping her now?"

"What?"

Your surprised face makes her almost moan out. You looked quite confident while hitting on her. The fact that you are getting shy is a turn on for her.

"There aren't many people here. And I think we should do it in front of the statue. You know? To pay our respects."

A million reasons why you shouldn't do this rush through your head. More than enough to say no. And yet, you can't help but catch yourself, leaning forward.

Your lips meet and you can immediately feel her hands wrap around your back. The kiss turns sloppy very fast. Pure lust and want radiate from her lips.

Once she breaks away, you can see that her lipstick is a little smeared. She seems to have recognized the worry in your eyes.

"Don't worry about my husband. Didn't Aphrodite constantly cheat on hers too?"

She got a point there. She did very much so.

Her lips meet yours once again. And this time your hands start to explore her body as well.

You still can't believe you've managed to come this far. She is probably the most beautiful woman you've ever seen. She could be the human form of the goddess.

"How bad do you want my tits?"

The fact that she caught you doesn't even bother you. Your mind too focused on taking in her flawless body.

"Really bad."

Her lips meet your neck, definitely leaving a hickey there.

"Show me."

You start pulling at the white fabric, getting it out of her skirt. Your hands dive underneath as the brunette locks lips with you again.

The smoothness of her skin is intoxicating. Her tight midriff feels well toned and cared for. Your fingertips reach her bra as you continue your quest.

Her hands are not idle either. You feel one of them opening the button of your pants, while the other has taken a fistful of your shirt. It's as if she is pulling you into her. Her hand sneaks into your pants, her fingers searching for the waistband of your underwear.

At the same time, you've finally gotten rid of her bra. It slides down her clothed frame, before it falls to the ground. It's white.

Her tits feel amazing. They are just as smooth as her skin. You start to knead them, still unable to understand how you got here.

She is a goddess. How are you able to stand in some museum, while you play with her tits? A mystery you don't even want to uncover. Some things are better left unknown.

The brunette's hand has found it's way into your boxers by now. Her slim fingers dance along the length of your shaft.

A moan escapes her lips. It's one of the most beautiful sounds you've ever heard. You didn't know that a person could sound so perfect.

"That cock of yours...."

She trails off, slightly biting your lower lip.

"It feels so big."

Her words make you even harder. A normal reaction to a goddess like beauty telling you that you have a big dick. Something you thought you would never ever experience in your life.

Your hands become a little rougher as your animalistic instincts slowly take over. You never felt so uncontrollable before.

Pinching her nipples, you hope for another moan. You get one. She moans into your mouth, closing her hand around your cock.

"I want this in my mouth."

You feel her pulling away. Your hands regretfully leave her tits and her top. But when she starts to kneel down, a wave of pure happiness washes through your body.

An excited tingle rushes through every fiber of your being as you watch her pulling down your pants. Your boxers following quickly after.

A gasp escapes her mouth, when she sees your cock for the first time.

"My husband isn't even half as big."

With a big smile, her face turns into something very cute. She gives your tip a kiss.

"A cock worthy of fucking my tits."

Her words turn you on even more. Her lips slowly wrap around your tip.

It takes her a while to pick up the pace. But once the brunette is there, her blowjob is quick and effective. You remember that you are still in a museum, standing pants down in front of a statue of Venus.

You are not a very religious person. But in that moment, you pray to that goddess, thanking her for this incredible experience.

Your prayer is interrupted by the brunette's slurping sounds. Her wet blowjob has ruined her lipstick completely by now. She looks so hot with your cock in her mouth. She places both her hands flat on your hips, before starting to fuck her face onto your cock.

You can't help but let out a loud groan, your hand automatically wanders to the back of her head. You don't start to dictate the pace. But you feel her head going a little faster.

With a woman like her, it's obvious that you won't last long. Especially if said woman fucks her face with your cock. You feel your orgasm approaching. The familiar tug in your lower regions makes you groan.

The brunette seems to have felt you twitch inside her mouth. She moves away, letting your dick fall out off her lips.

"You have a very delicious cock, you know?"

Not waiting for an answer, she starts to pull up her top. It's bunched up above her breasts. You are finally able to see them now. They seem perfectly shaped. Flawless like the ones of a goddess. Not too small, but not too big either. Just perfect handfuls.

"Try not to cum so fast."

Her wink turns her into something cute for just a moment. Then, her goddess like aura is back.

You feel her soft mounds wrap around you. She presses them together, making your cock disappear between them. As soon as she seems ready, you start to thrust upwards. You see her bite her lip as your tip appears in her cleavage.

Fucking her tits feels amazing. It feels better than anything you've experienced before. There is no comparison at all. Her soft mounds feel like they are made for you. Her warmth makes you feel hot and horny.

Eventually, she starts to stick out her tongue. It touches your tip whenever you thrust upwards. The new wetness on your tip makes you remember that your orgasm is close. It also helps with sliding trough her chest.

You have to hold onto her hair again, unable to stand by yourself.

"Your cock feels so good."

You hear her sigh as she stares down at it.

She suddenly looks up, opening her mouth, while sticking her tongue out. Her spit slowly starts to drip down her tongue. You watch as she drools all over her own cleavage. Her saliva starts to coat your cock. It makes her tits feel even smoother.

The young woman let's out another moan.

"I bet you would feel so good in my pussy."

You close you eyes, imagining yourself inside of her. The thought alone, almost makes you orgasm.

"My husband is so small, I'm practically a virgin."

She continues her talking, knowing what it does to you.

"I've never felt the pleasure of someone just pounding into me. I want to feel it. I want to feel how you rearrange my guts."

You hiss out, unable to silence the pleasure that is building up in your system. Only a little longer. You only want to hold out a little longer.

"I have such a tight pussy. You would love it."

Your grip in her hair strengthens as you approach your climax.

"That's it. Cum on my tits. Make Venus proud."

You glance at the statue for just a second. It feels like the woman on her knees is the real goddess. A beauty, too much for you to handle.

"I'm gonna cum."

You grunt out, unable to hold on any longer.

"That's good, honey. Cum on my tits. Use them like a canvas."

You groan one last time.

"Give me all of it."

You explode in her cleavage. Your cum hits her throat and chin, while some coats her tits. It feels like this is the strongest orgasm you've ever had. More cum than usual leaves your body.

In the end, her tits are covered in your semen, just like she wanted. Some is dripping down her chin. You see that her hands didn't get away without some, either. A few drops of your cum stain the big diamond on her ring. She notices it as well.

You watch in awe as she starts to lick her ring clean, after letting your spent cock leave her tits.

"Wow. That's a great load."

She scoops up some of your cum with her finger.

"And it tastes good, too."

She licks it off, before looking at you.

"What do you say? Right here? Or a hotel room?"

The option to say no doesn't even enter your brain. Still afraid of getting caught, you choose the hotel.

The brunette gets off her knees. You watch her pull her top down and putting the hem back into her skirt. Slowly, your cum starts to leave wet spots on the fabric. You pick up her bra, offering it to her.

"Keep it. Maybe you are lucky and you can complete the set."

With those words still lingering in your mind, she takes your hand, leading you towards the exit.

You've never head a clear picture of Venus or Aphrodite in your mind. Now you do. It's the woman who is holding your hand, her chest covered with your cum.

The fact that she is taking you to a hotel is making you hard again.

With one last glance at the statue, you finally know how to continue your next book.

The third part "The Roman goddess" will certainly become a bestseller.

________

Thank you for the ask. I unfortunately don't have the time to write much more.

The introduction seems a little long to me. Please keep sending short requests guys, I'm trying to shorten the part where I set the scene. With limited success as you can see.

Sana in that outfit definitely deserves a proper story, which I'm unable to write at the moment. I hope you are satisfied with that. I might be able to write the follow up somewhere in the future.

Have a nice day!

[oddinary4bts]

When the End Comes | ch 1 (jjk)

☆summary: Seven years after you've started dating Jungkook, long distance creates a wedge in your relationship. When the only solution seems to be breaking up, you go your separate ways even though love still lives in the two of you. Will you find a way back together, or has the end come for you and Jeon Jungkook?

☆pairing: photographer!Jungkook x lawyer!female reader

☆rating: 18+ (minors DNI, there is mature content in every chapter)

☆genre: breakup!au, slice of life!au, angst with a big A, smut

☆warnings: angst, like. Just angst. Curse words, Jungkook's car, mentions of Jungkook's accident, mention of reader getting kicked out in TFS, explicit content: breast/nipple play, hickey, oral sex (female and male receiving), fingering, hair pulling, jerking off, squirting, praise, pain kink (Jungkook), balls squeezing (lmao), unprotected sex (wrap it before you tap it)

☆word count: 9.4k

☆series masterpost

☆a/n: First chapter is here and it's time to CRY (I apologize in advance for the therapy bills) :') Thank you to @moonleeai for beta-ing this, you are the best <3 and thank you to @jessikahathaway for supporting me with this project, you are amazinnng

☆Read The Forgotten Spaces here, the prequel to When the End Comes! It does not need to be read to understand When the End Comes, but I think it still should be read first to have a better understanding of the characters in general!

☆Add yourself to the taglist here (if you were on the taglist for The Forgotten Spaces, you're already on the taglist for When the End Comes!)

☆☆☆☆☆

But love never leaves a heart, where it found it, found it You found it Someday, I'll fall into you That's where I'll be now when the end comes

When the End Comes, Andrew Belle

☆☆☆☆☆

Wednesday, April 19th 

                The setting sun turns the living room into liquid gold, bathing you in golden warmth that traces your features delicately from where you sit on the couch. Spring is upon you – outside, you can hear birds singing, and the gentle wind of spring carries the smell of melted snow, of wet soil and of early leaves.

You sigh. Your phone has been dead silent all day, as it’s been for weeks now, and the loneliness of it keeps the winter cold close. Always.

Jungkook said he would call. He often says it, often promises he wants to go to sleep with your voice at his ear, since he can’t sleep with you in his arms. Years ago, when he first started his job in Europe, he did, calling you every night when you got home from work and he went to sleep in a European city too far from you.

He usually leaves for a few months at a time. Never more than three, and he usually stays for a month after that before leaving again. He’s been photographing for museums all over Europe, and his latest job at the Louvres in Paris seems to have been keeping him more occupied than the others.

You’d think it’d make sense – the Louvres is the Louvres. But you miss Jungkook. Miss the early years of your relationship, when you spent almost every day together. When he moved in with you in your first apartment, the one he had found for you while you weren’t even dating yet.

A deep ache has settled inside of you this time around. Because, even if he says he’ll try, even if he promised it wouldn’t be like the last time he was away, this time is worse. Far worse. You’ve only spoken to him on the phone once since he left half a month ago, and he texts you sparingly throughout the week.

You never thought there would come a day when your relationship with Jungkook wouldn’t be what it was at the beginning. Hell, the honeymoon phase lasted for almost three years, and then you had another year before he started working overseas. The first months he had spent away had rekindled the flame, passion and desire burning through you the moment you laid your eyes on him again the day he had come back.

But distance is difficult. Distance can tame even the wildest flame, and you’re starting to believe it has tamed the flame between you and Jungkook. You hate it – every night for a week you’ve fallen asleep with a heart so heavy it felt as if you weren’t going to wake up. And every day you’ve woken up feeling even worse, and you don’t know what’s going to help anymore.

You turn your head, catching sight of the frames on the shelves by the window. They too bathe in setting sunlight, shining like the glass is made of gold. From where you’re sitting, you can’t really see the pictures, but you know them by heart.

There are the pictures from his first photo exhibit, when you were still in college. Pictures of you, of him falling in love with you and you falling in love with him. Then there are pictures of that first Christmas, and of the first time you celebrated your birthday with him. Pictures of you, of him holding you, and of his hand in yours. Pictures from when Jiho gave birth to her first child Lisa, and then a picture with you two on a camping trip with Lisa and her younger brother Charles. That trip happened two summers ago, replacing your usual annual visit to a cabin in the woods, the year after the dance crew retired. Because as much as you and your friends loved that cabin in the woods, loved the dance crew, you eventually grew out of it.

There are pictures from Heather and Bridget’s wedding last fall, pictures of your story with Jungkook as it unfolded through the years.

No new pictures have been added since that last picture in the fall, because nothing worth taking pictures of happened since then. Jungkook has been gone most of the time, and when he’s here he’s too tired to do anything, preferring staying in and cuddling on the couch as you watch hours of Netflix without ever speaking.

You see the doom. It’s been coming for you, tightening around you like a scourge. Nothing you’ve been trying to do has helped – not even the nice lingerie pictures you sent him two nights ago. Not even the letter you wrote for him, though he did have flowers delivered to you at the firm.

Your coworker Harrison made fun of you for the flowers, teasing you like he’s taken to teasing you whenever something related to Jungkook happens. Which, as much as you hate admitting, is not much anymore.

Sometimes, when he’s away, you think he’s a ghost in your life. You wish you could turn back time and go back to the night where it all started between you. The July night of years ago, or perhaps the night of the hotel roof in Chicago. You struggle to pinpoint where you’d go back, but you do believe that anything would be better than the now.

You blink away the blurriness in your eyes, taking a deep breath to steady the aching beats of your heart. You glance at your phone – your empty notification screen stares back at you, a reminder that for all he says, he’s stopped trying this time around.

You figure you could call him. Could make the effort, but you’re tired. Tired of trying when it seems like it doesn’t work anymore. And so your aching heart keeps beating in your chest, and you put your phone away to cook dinner when it’s become clear that he won’t call.

And when you go to bed, after having taken the dog out one last time, your phone still lies empty, the picture of you and him that you have as a background taunting you, haunting you until troubled sleep finds you in its hold.

Friday, May 5th

                Jungkook hates himself. Hates how every time he says he’ll call you, he ends up falling asleep. He doesn’t know why; it’s like his heart fights against his body. But tonight, he’s determined to call. He’s been meaning to show you the lights of the Eiffel tower, when the clock strikes midnight, and he promised he will tonight.

You haven’t replied to his text. He’s been feeling you slipping through his fingers for a few weeks. You barely reply when he talks to you anymore, sending one-worded answers most of the time. Maybe that is the reason why he’s been struggling to call – there’s an impending doom lingering around your relationship, and he wants to avoid it for as long as he can.

He’s been replaying your fight earlier last week on repeat since it happened. You, screaming that he said he was going to change, was going to try to call more and make more effort before he went to Paris. Him, telling you that you should be understanding, that he’s doing his best and that most nights he goes to bed before you’ve even finished work. You’d told him sometimes you wished you could hate him, as it’d be easier than loving him from afar. The words struck harder than a physical blow could have, and since then the doom has been clearer in the distance, as if it’s getting closer.

Just thinking about it hurts too much. He can’t wait for his contract with the Louvres to be done. Can’t wait to be home, and to tell you in person just how much he loves you.

He thinks his love has just been growing stronger. Through all the years, it’s just been growing inside of him, making him into a better person with every beat of his heart. The thought brings a smile to his lips, strangely enough, even though there’s still pain in his heart.

He still remembers when you first got Bam. He thinks that day is the one that made his love grow the most, until he thought his heart was going to burst in his chest. It fortunately never did, and he looks at his phone’s background quickly, needing to see you.

There you are, in all your glory. Hair a mess as you hold a tiny puppy in your arm, with your eyes sparkling like they’re holding the light of the universe. Of his universe, and it hasn’t changed. Still, today he knows if he were to see you, you still would hold the light of his universe.

After all, it started a July night seven years ago, and it’s never going to go away.

Thirteen days until he’s going to be home. And he decided to take a longer break this time around – he doesn’t have another contract yet. He’s been approached by the Victoria and Albert museum in London, but he’s told them that he likely won’t be able to go until late October.

They said they’ll be happy to have him whenever his schedule allows.

He’s yet to tell you – it’s a surprise, and he reckons your relationship terribly needs it. And he’s excited, as it means months that he’ll get to spend with you.

He’s going to take some small photography jobs back home until then, and spend the rest of his time with you, whenever you’re not at the firm. He reckons he can always meet you there for lunch – he used to do that when you first got the job at the firm where your father used to work.

Jungkook sighs, and he glances at the time on his phone. It’s almost time to call, and he’s proud he’s been able to stay up, sitting on the balcony of his Airbnb, watching the Eiffel tower in the distance.

The Louvres is paying for the Airbnb, and they really chose one of the best in the city. The view of the tower is beautiful, night and day, the architecture of it satisfying in ways he can barely comprehend. He took pictures of it through the different weathers, and he’s excited to show you when he’ll be back.

Five minutes before the clock strikes midnight, Jungkook lets out a long yawn as he goes to your profile, hitting the Facetime button. He’s told you he would call, up to the very minute, and he doesn’t want to disappoint this time around.

He watches his face on the screen as it rings. It rings and rings, and yet you don’t pick up. Something unsettling grows in his gut, and he pulls at his lip piercing in worry as he calls again when the call claims it failed to connect.

He tries four times more, until the Eiffel tower is sparkling in the distance, and your form still has yet to appear. So he looks up, watches the show and then heads to bed, each of his step feeling heavier than the last.

The next morning, he wakes up to some texts of yours.

[04:21 am] bby <3: sorry, i was out for dinner with friends from work [04:22 am] bby <3: I assume u’re asleep now? [04:41 am] bby <3: good night

For some reason, he can’t bring himself to reply.

Thursday, May 18th

                It’s been raining all week. The world, crying as if it’s coming to an end. It’s unsettling, and you miss the sunrays. Miss the warmth that they carry, because now the world seems void of any.

You’re not looking forward to going home. It’s the first time that the thought of seeing Jungkook is scaring you – you have a feeling the distance between you is more than just physical, and you’re afraid to see him.

Afraid to be faced with the fact that everything changed irreparably.

You’ve slept in his clothes every night of May. It hasn’t made you feel closer to him, has only made you feel like he’s drifting further away, like a piece of wood lost at sea, pulled away by the current. And as much as you long for his return, you fear he’s crossed a threshold now.

You fear you’re not into it anymore.

The thought has made you cry countless times. You never thought you’d get to a moment in life when splitting with Jungkook seemed to be an option. You thought you were made of forever, of an eternity built just for you. You thought he’d always be enough for you, and that you’d always be enough for him too. But when Taehyung and Jo got engaged and said that they’d marry the first weekend of September, you realized that you want that for yourself too.

You want to start growing with your partner, you want them to be around. And Jungkook just isn’t.

You’ve spoken to Jiho about it. A haunting conversation, that you’ve been replaying in your mind constantly since it happened a week and a half ago.

She came over, only to find you cradling the picture of the July night sky, the one Jungkook had given you after his exposition. She sat next to you, tired eyes surveying your profile. When you started crying, she pulled you in a hug, and held you against her chest as you sobbed.

When you calmed down, she ran a soothing hand on your back. She waited for you to patiently find your words, and when you had, they spilled from your mouth, with no dam to stop them anymore.

“I think I’m going to break up with him,” you told her. It had you chasing more tears away, hating the weakness of your heart as it broke in your chest. “I can’t do the distance anymore. I want something like you and Hobi have, like Jo and Taehyung have. I want someone to wake up to every day and… I don’t… I don’t think loving him is enough anymore.”

She offered you a sad smile, her features sober as she nodded once. “Will you regret it?”

A lone tear spilled on your cheek, holding all the answers she needed. You let it roll down your cheek, let it fall in your lap. Jiho nodded once again, understanding, and added, “I’ll be there for you.”

Your decision was made that day. You don’t think you’ll change your mind, but you’re afraid to see him. Afraid to be faced with the reality of it.

The worst part is, you think you already started getting adjusted to living without him. Hell, the distance has been a good training, so you think you’ll be okay after. It’s just the during that scares you, because you know that when he breaks, you break too.

You know how much you broke for him once. You know you’ll break again, know the first days are going to be hell, but you know that in the long term, it’s the right decision.

At least you hope so.

Jungkook texted you that he got home in the middle of the afternoon, and that he was going to take a nap. He said he couldn’t wait to see you, and you’ve had to swallow countless lumps in your throat whenever you’ve thought of the words.

You take a deep steadying breath as your shift ends, leaving you with no choice but to head home. Harrison notices your fallen features, and he offers you a kind smile.

“It’s going to be okay,” he promises.

You want to tell him he’s a liar, but all you do is offer him a tight-lipped smile in return.

*****

                The apartment in soundless when you finally reach home. Outside, the wind plays in the leaves, splashing water against the windows. It makes for a relaxing sound, yet it does nothing to relax you.

You take off your shoes by the door and drop your purse on the small table just a few steps in as Bam comes to greet you. You pet the dog mindlessly, scanning your surroundings to see if Jungkook is coming too, but it seems he fell asleep. You stop by the kitchen, grabbing a glass of water as you survey the world outside the window, hoping it holds any kind of solace. It doesn’t – the world is crying, and you think by the end of the night there’s a high chance you will be crying too.

You sigh, try to swallow around the lump in your throat but it doesn’t work. You choke on a sip of water, and startle when Jungkook asks if you’re okay.

You didn’t hear him sneaking up on you.

You turn around, the sense of impending doom growing tenfold at the thought that he’s going to be right there, in the flesh, when you set your eyes on him. And he is – a sleepy Jungkook is standing in the door of the kitchen, leaning against the frame as he offers you a small, tired smile.

You’re not sure what to do at first, and when he opens up his arms for you you rush towards him, leaving the glass of water on the counter.

His embrace is familiar, warm. If he wasn’t gone for so long, you think it’d be enough to keep you here, forever. You both remain silent, and your heart beats achingly in your chest as you try to hold him closer, as if you can be one.

As if that’ll make him stay.

“Hey,” he says, voice choked with emotion.

You only hold him tighter, and tears burn behind your closed eyelids as you hide your face in his neck. He smells familiar, like home. He smells like the clothes you’ve been wearing in an attempt to gather the courage to break up with him.

You hate yourself deeply, then. You think about the years, and aren’t they enough? Isn’t the love enough?

He grabs your shoulders, delicately, to push you away. And then his hands move to your cheeks, and he’s tilting your head back to press his soft, pink lips against yours. It’s barely just a peck, and it hurts so much you think you’ll die.

“How was work?” he asks when he pulls away, resting his forehead against yours.

You breathe in slowly, and then out, your breath mingling with his in the space between you. “Long,” you answer, because it’s the truth.

“I’ll cook you dinner,” he says.

If he notices you holding your breath as your heart keeps on breaking, he doesn’t say. Instead, he pulls away, leaves you standing by the door as he moves in the room proper. You’re not sure you’ll survive a dinner with him, not when the inevitability of what you’re going to do is looming over you, like a sword of Damocles ready to cut the link between you and him.

“Okay,” you breathe out.

You sit at the table as he fishes ingredients out of the fridge – stuff you clearly didn’t buy. Which means he went grocery shopping, and you just ache so fiercely the air turns to poison in your lungs.

“Do you want to chop the vegetables?” he asks.

You gulp before nodding curtly. “Sure.”

You move closer to him as he puts said vegetables on the counter, and you grab a knife as he hands you a cutting board. It’s familiar, domestic, and it helps lessen the pain somehow. To have this moment, with him, even though your decision is made.

“You’re silent,” Jungkook comments as you finish dicing an onion.

You purse your lips, head hanging low as you reply, “I’m tired, sorry.”

He turns on the stove, placing a pan on top of it. As he’s putting oil in it, he glances at you. You barely notice from the corner of your eyes, but you still can tell he’s trying to figure how to reach you, in the dark place where your mind has gone.

“Something happened?”

No. Nothing happened. Nothing happened when it should have. Was distance really enough to kill your relationship with him?

Needing the conversation to move away from the current subject, you reply, “Not really.” Swallowing around the lump in your throat, you add, “How was Paris?”

“It sucked,” Jungkook is quick to answer. “It was a lot of work and I barely had time to explore the city.”

“Mmh,” you hum, nodding your head.

You freeze as he moves closer, taking the knife out of your hands. He forces you to turn towards him, and he presses a kiss to your forehead.

“I took some pictures of the Eiffel tower for you,” he admits. “It was pretty at night. Made me think of you.”

You shut your eyes tight, and for once you win against the tears that were threatening to spill. “You did?” you let out when your eyelids finally flutter open again. “You can show me over dinner.”

“I’d rather just spend time with you for now,” he says, softly, and you hate that his big, doe eyes feel like heaven. “I… I missed you.”

You think he knows. You both know what’s coming. But you want this last moment with him, so you say, “I missed you too. Way too much.”

“You’ve been sleeping in my clothes,” he teases, but it’s lacking the usual lilt to his voice that makes you roll your eyes playfully.

“Yeah.”

He pulls at his piercing, and you focus on that because his eyes are going to read every little treacherous thought in your head, and you don’t think you’d survive that.

He doesn’t say anything else before he busies himself with putting the onion you diced in the pan. You lean on the counter to watch him cook, handing him the ingredients that you know he’ll need.

You’ve cooked together a thousand times before, and never you would have thought that there’d be a last time. You clench your jaw against the pain, and though you don’t feel hungry, you sit at the kitchen table with him to eat.

You manage to get some food down. Jungkook is an amazing cook, and you’ve always loved his food. It’s something you know you’re likely to miss, when he won’t be around anymore.

Fuck.

After dinner, you do the dishes while Jungkook brings Bam outside, as he usually does when he’s here. He’s back before you’re done, and you focus on finishing to clean the dishes, trying to ignore him.

He’s been silent through the meal, and you’ve avoided the glances he’s sent your way. But when he grabs your wrist, gently, you meet his gaze.

His eyes shine. It takes you a few seconds to register that it’s because tears are welling up in his innocent gaze, and you wish you’d die right on the spot.

“Why is it awkward?” he asks.

You purse your lips and then bite the tip of your tongue, as if it’ll help. “Can we go to bed early?”

You don’t know why you asked that question. You convinced yourself to break up right away, but then again you think you need a last time.

You need a goodbye.

He nods, blinking the tears away. His hand moves until it’s wrapped around yours, and he pulls you to the bathroom. He turns on the shower, but before he’s taken his shirt off you step in front of him, fist closing around a handful of fabric so you can pull him close.

There’s urgency in the kiss, along with yearning. It’s quick, it’s heated and desperate. You wonder if he can taste the goodbye on your tongue – does it taste bitter for him too?

Though he seemed startled from the sudden kiss, he’s quick to kiss you back, to grab your waist and pull you closer, as if that’ll make you stay. And while you kiss your mind runs with the memories – the first time you’d kissed, in that hot tub. The kiss on the hotel roof, the kiss after he’d helped you move in your first apartment.

More than that, it’s a memory from four years ago that resurfaces the most. It takes the centerpiece of the stage of your mind, and you find yourself back in your old apartment, the first one you’d ever had. The day wasn’t a special one – just a random Sunday, one Jungkook convinced you to spend in bed. He’d held you all morning, littering small kisses on the top of your head. At some point, you’d made love, slowly, lazily, as if you had all the time in the world. Halfway through it, Jungkook had stopped, resting his forehead on yours. Against your lips, he’d whispered, “Will you still love me when I’m old and grey and grumpy?”

Back then you’d laughed, before wrapping your arms around his neck to pull him into a kiss. After, you’d replied, “You know I’ll never stop loving you.”

And as you’re kissing him right now, you hope he knows that you’ll never stop loving him.

His tongue swipes at your bottom lip, seeking to deepen the kiss, and you let him in. Taste the dinner in his mouth, like he’s sure to taste it in yours too. It eases the bitterness somehow, and when his large hands move to your ass, you let out a breathy sound.

He swallows it as if it’s the ambrosia of the gods, and then he pushes you back towards the counter next to the sink. The shower runs in the background as he pulls you on the counter, large hands guiding you. You instinctively spread your thighs to allow him to step closer, and then you wrap your legs around him. His hands find your cheeks again, and he kisses you fervently, hungrily, yet his touch remains gentle on your cheeks, thumbs swiping back and forth.

When oxygen becomes needed, both for you and him, he rests his forehead against yours.

“You think we can wait after the shower?” he teases, and this time it has a little bit of the usual bite.

It only hurts, because now you’re not so sure he’s aware of what’s to come. He probably only thought that it was awkward because of the distance – physical. Not because the end is coming. So you let him believe it, agree to take a shower.

You let him wash your hair, a thing he’s taken to doing six years ago whenever you take a shower together. Something about him liking the scent of your shampoo. After that, you let him wash your back, but you can’t bring yourself to do it for him. To your relief, he admits he took a shower before he napped, to wash away the airplane vibes off him. So it mostly goes unnoticed, and then you’re getting out of the shower. You barely have time to dry yourself before he’s pulling you to your room, to your shared bed.

To the bed where you’ve cried yourself to sleep every night since you’ve made your decision.

He sits you on the bed, thumbs swiping on your cheeks gently when he bends down to peck your lips once.

“I’ll be right back,” he says.

You watch him leave, thinking you should find it funny that he’s butt-naked, as you are. Yet you don’t laugh, just put a hand over your aching heart as you wait for him to come back. It hurts even more when he comes back with your heating pad, a tentative smile on his lips.

“I thought this might help,” he says as he walks over to you, offering it to you.

You look at it, not knowing what to do. “Why?”

“Aren’t you…” he trails off, motioning towards you. “I don’t know, you’ve been weird. Thought you might be on your period, or having cramps?”

He’s too sweet. Too caring. Why can’t he be like this when he’s away too?

“Oh,” you let out. “I’m not.”

He looks puzzled, and his eyes drop to the heating pad in his hands. “Oh. Do you…” He gestures with the heating pad, but you shake your head no. He looks disappointed, and he puts it on the dresser before coming to sit next to you.

There’s a moment of silence, and you glance at the TV on the wall. The black screen reflects the grey light from the rainy world outside, and you turn to look out the window next. The rain is still relentless, and the trees outside look greener, darker, though that might be because the sun set behind the clouds, and night is slowly taking over the world.

Being with Jungkook has never been awkward before, and you hate that it is right now. You’d wish for one last moment, for a memory to treasure, but now you think you might have just been selfish.

He glances at you, pulling at his piercing. “Did something happen with your mother?”

He’s trying. So hard. Doesn’t he feel the distance between you and him?

“No,” you reply.

As a matter of fact, you only talk to your mother three times a year now. Without fault, she calls on Christmas and your birthday, and five years ago you’ve started calling on hers too. Other than that, you barely even text.

“Then…” he trails off before shrugging. “Whatever. Do you want to sleep or should we watch something?”

“Can we watch a studio Ghibli movie?”

Jungkook glances at the Totoro plushie, nestled in the pillows at the head of the bed right next to Appa. “My neighbor Totoro?” You nod once. He offers you a smile, nodding his head too. “Sure. As long as I get to hold you.”

You worry at your lip, though you still say, “Yes.”

A minute later you’re nestled in his embrace, and he’s starting the movie on the TV. You barely can focus though, mind zeroing in on his naked skin against yours. You want to ask him to stop with his overseas job, to come home permanently, to build a future with you here, without distance between you and him. You want to tell him you love him so much it hurts, want to tell him the months away from him are killing you.

All you do is watch the movie as if in a daze, and halfway through it, you tilt your head to look up at him. He sees you looking, and his tongue darts to his piercing as he glances down.

Your eyes go to his lips, and you reach to steal a kiss on them. This time, it’s incredibly slow, painfully so, and his arm tightens around you as his breath gets caught up in his throat.

You rest a hand on his cheek, before sliding it to the nape of his neck to keep him as close as you possibly can. He turns his head to deepen the kiss, and you turn the other way as you push your tongue in his mouth. You gently tug at the hair on the back of his neck, appreciating its silky softness.

Committing it to memory. Remembering when it was so long he could tie it back in a small ponytail, remembering when he cut it shorter for the first time. You’d teased him saying that he was a stranger, and you reckon you’d take that stranger back again.

You’d take the sweet innocence of the third year of your relationship again over what it now is.

Once, you thought you’d always want to see the end. To be able to glance back on the past, to swim in the nostalgia of the memories that it holds. Today, as the end comes, you realize you were wrong.

There’s no beauty in the ending.

Jungkook moves until he’s hovering over you, between your legs. You wrap them around his dainty waist, and you pull him inevitably closer as your hands run in his hair, while his hold him up on each side of your face. It takes him a few seconds, but soon he leans on his elbow, and one of his hands lands on the top of your head while the other moves to cup your breast.

He squeezes gently, fingers expertly pinching your nipple the way he knows that you like it. You moan softly, desperately, and he does it harder as his tongue meets yours.

“Fuck, I missed you so much,” he says as he pulls away, and then he’s littering hot kisses on your jaw, and on your neck. He sucks a hickey on the spot that connects your shoulder to your neck, and then laps at it to ease the sting. He’s still pinching your nipple, and though it hurts you just want more.

He doesn’t disappoint. His kisses move lower, until he’s sucking on your other breast, tongue circling your nipple as it hardens in his mouth. He flicks it once, make sure it’s perched nicely on your chest before he moves to the other one, repeating the action.

Your core heats up with need, but even this demonstration of the passion between you and him doesn’t do anything against the ache of your heart. The pain wins, and you shut your eyes tightly in an attempt to focus on the sensations. To focus on him as he moves lower, slowly, pressing wet kisses on your stomach, down to your pelvis, and then on the inside of your thigh as he pushes your leg on his shoulder.

“I want you,” he murmurs between your legs, as if he’s speaking the words directly to your pussy.

“I want you too.”

That much isn’t a lie. You do want him, all of him, even though you’re aware it’s going to be the last time. So you try to disconnect mind and body, and the moment he sucks on your clit you think you succeed.

You lose your hand in the strands of his hair, tugging as his tongue starts a hellish rhythm on your clit, never once faltering as you squirm under the ministrations. When your juice is coating his chin – which you reckon doesn’t take long – he moves lower, dipping his tongue inside of you.

“So sweet,” he praises once he pulls away, just enough for you to feel his lips moving as he speaks.

“Kook…”

The nickname barely crosses the threshold of your lips, yet the grip he has on your waist, where his hands have found a home, tightens. The only indication that somewhere behind his lustful gaze, Jungkook is aching too.

“Baby…” he says back, and then he returns to press figure-eight on your clit, though this time he pushes a finger inside of you.

It curls to hit the right spot inside of you, and he slowly rubs against it, before he decides better and starts to finger you, slowly. Digit moving in and out, keeping that right arch to make you see stars in no time.

When he adds a second finger, you tug on his hair, hard. Mostly by reflex, but when he meets your gaze as you look down at him, you pull harder. His fingers remain deep inside of you as he meets your lips for a heated kiss that tastes like you, and your hand blindly aims for his dick.

He’s rock hard, as he always is when you fuck for the first time after he’s been away. You sigh in satisfaction, thumb collecting precum on his tip that you spread on his dick. Instinctively, he bucks his hips as you start jerking him off, with the tight grip you know he likes, and you make sure to flick your wrist when you go back up.

He grunts against your lips, and his fingers start to move inside of you again. You don’t know when they stopped, but you know that he’s grown impatient now, and he’s unforgiving. When he pushes his thumb against your clit so that he can rub it at the same time, you moan unashamedly loud, another sound that he swallows like a man starved while his lips move against yours.

You time your ministration on his dick to those of his fingers on you, and soon enough a knot forms at the pit of your stomach. It grows impossibly tight impossibly quickly, and when Jungkook moans in your mouth you lose it, the knot uncoiling as your orgasm finds you.

He fucks you with his fingers through the high, through every wave of your orgasm, your legs shaking as he keeps going until you squirt.

“Good girl,” he praises as you cry out his name, your grip on his dick growing tighter. It has to hurt, but obviously Jungkook likes pain, so he only bucks his hips, seeking for friction.

It brings you back to the present, to this bed, and you return to jerking him off as his fingers leave you empty. He brings them to your mouth, makes you lick them clean until he’s satisfied and pulls them away. He kisses you, languidly, and your tongue dance with his as he grunts from a particularly skilled flick of your wrist.

“I want to suck you,” you say in between kisses, and he doesn’t let you do it for a time.

He’s too focused on your mouth, and you reckon you want him to keep going at it. To trap you in this moment with him, so that it may never end.

So that you may never have to break up with him.

“Can I fuck you first?” he asks, bucking his hips once more. “I want to feel your tight pussy swallowing my cock.”

“I want to suck you,” you insist as he’s sucking a new hickey on your neck.

He pulls away, meets your gaze with a lazy smile on his lips. “Well then of course.”

In another world his comment would have made you laugh, but the only thing it does is make you push him until he’s lying on his back and you’re kneeling next to him.

You look down at his dick. It’s just as pretty as you’ve always thought it was, with the brownish base to the tip that’s currently flushed red with arousal. Precum makes it glisten in the dim light from the world outside, and you let a blob of spit fall on it to add some lubrication to your jerking off.

When you feel ready, you bend down to lick a stripe along his dick, from base to top, following the thick vein. He groans, and he puts your hair in a makeshift ponytail so he can watch as you swirl your tongue around his tip.

The taste of his salty precum fills your mouth, and you hum in contentment. You wrap your lips around his tip, sucking hard once before teasing his frenulum with your tongue. Your free hand moves between his legs, and you grab his balls, massaging them gently.

They’re already tight, and you know he’ll come if you suck him for too long. You still can’t resist, and you take him as far as you can, swallowing around him so he can feel your throat constricting on him. It makes him moan out your name, which in turns makes you moan against him.

“Fuck, baby,” he lets out.

You move up until almost just his tip is in your mouth, before going all the way in once more. And then you start bobbing you head up and down in a quicker fashion as you drool on your chin, your spit coating his dick.

You squeeze his balls once, not daring to do it for longer than a few seconds. You don’t want him to come, so you let go soon after, hand moving to his thigh. You find the hard knot of his scar, and you lightly trace it with your fingers, almost instinctively.

Another part of him that you want to commit to memory. His scars – they made him into the person that was right for you. You hate that distance undid it, wish you could turn back time but alas it’s impossible.

So you focus on his dick, moving your hand away from the scars. He doesn’t let you suck him for a lot longer. Soon, he pulls you away by the hair, bringing you to his mouth instead. You kiss him as you climb on top of him, and right as he pushes his tongue in your mouth, you grab his dick to align it with your entrance.

Even though he fingered you before, he still stretches you as you sink on him, and you let out a broken moan as you dig your nails in his shoulder, where your other hand has been holding you up since you climbed on him.

You sink down until he’s fully imbedded inside of you, and then you rest your hands flatly on his chest, feeling the muscles of his pecs under your palms. You meet his gaze, hating how he’s looking at you carefully. For a moment, you both don’t move, taking the other in, and you’re struck with the realization that maybe he does know. Because his eyes are infinitely sad, infinitely pained, but when he blinks you think you might have imagined it.

You’re going crazy. You used to be able to read him like the back of your hand, but it seems the pain in your heart is keeping you from doing so, from picking up the book where you left off. Perhaps because you’ve gone blind, or maybe you forgot how to read altogether.

Jungkook feels like a stranger.

“Baby,” he lets out.

“Jungkook…”

He wets his lips, and then brings you closer. Forces you to bend down until he’s wrapped his arms around your waist. He starts moving, incredibly slow, and says, “I just want you close.”

It hurts too bad, and you hide your face in his neck. He tightens his grip around you, and after that all that can be heard in the room is your heavy breathing, mingling with the sound of the TV.

He feels healing, as much as he’s breaking you. Or you’re breaking yourself, you don’t know anymore. You wish to stop time, to interrupt the chronology of it, until all that’s left is this moment in time.

You know you can’t.

Jungkook doesn’t stop moving for a long time, as you let out breathy sounds against his neck. He’s not grunting anymore – you don’t think you or he are enjoying this, right now.

“I really want to suck your dick,” you murmur against his neck, lips tickling him.

“You’re not into this.”

Of course he’d sense it. You wrap your arms around his neck as he slips out of you, and you refuse to move for a little eternity.

“I’m okay,” you lie.

“Stop saying that you are,” Jungkook answers, and his voice has taken a cold tone. Maybe because he’s freezing – you don’t think he’d purposefully speak to you like that. “I know you aren’t.”

“Kook…”

He says your name, a loving plea that could have changed the ending, if the months hadn’t passed.

“We need to talk,” you breathe against his neck.

You think you hear his heart breaking. Like a car wreck: it’s so loud you don’t think you’ll make it out of the crash. Only, he did get out of it once – you can only hope he’ll get out again.

He runs his hand on your back, loses it in your hair. He’s gentle, infinitely so, tracing your body to remember you by when you’re gone. At least that’s what you think it is.

“Yeah?” he lets out with a small, quivering voice.

A tear spills from your eye, falling onto the soft skin of his neck.

“I can’t do this anymore.”

He holds you tighter, turning his face so that he can press a kiss to the side of your head. It’s a desperate move – it holds the weight of the universe.

“I…”

He never finishes the sentence. His words are lost to him, and you steel yourself for the glimpse you’ll give him. And when you do, you see his eyes shining with unshed tears.

“I can’t do the distance anymore,” you tell him.

He nods once. “I’m staying until November.”

He blurs behind your tears, and they roll down your cheeks freely. You don’t try to dry them, and neither does he.

“But then you’ll go again.”

He doesn’t need to say anything to that, because you both know it to be the truth. His reply is physical: his arms let go of you, falling on the bed on each side of him.

You move to sit next to him, instinctively grabbing a blanket to hide yourself. Jungkook shuts his eyes before pressing the heel of his palms against his eyelids. As if that’ll stop him from crying, from shattering into thousands of little shards that will go by the wind.

The end has come. It’s upon you, it’s right this instant in time. You think you’ll forever hate this moment – will you ever recover?

“It’s just better for both of us,” you say, your voice breaking into a sob on the last words. You wish you could be stronger, but you break too hard for him. “It’s been so hard and… we both don’t try anymore.”

“I’m staying until November,” he repeats. He sounds choked, and when he pushes himself up, allowing you a glimpse of his face again, you see that he too is crying. “Please.”

“Kook…”

“No but…” he stops, laughs a laugh that turns into a sob. “I tried.”

“You didn’t.”

Maybe he did. Maybe to him he did, but it wasn’t what you needed.

“You don’t get to tell me I didn’t,” he says and he scoffs, pain laced with his next words. “When I tried, you were the one that was unavailable.”

Because you were already done then, you realize. It’s a startling realization, and you wish it wasn’t real. But it is, as real as the rain lashing at the window, as the agony in Jungkook’s gaze.

His doe eyes are pained, tormented, and you wish you could ease it. Comfort him, but you’re the source of the torture now.

“Yeah,” is all you manage to say.

He looks at you for a time, holds your crying eyes, and then he loses it, hiding his face in his hands as sobs rock through him. You’re shaking like a leaf where you’re sitting, and you feel like you’re going to be sick.

“I’m sorry,” you choke out.

“We can make it work,” he tries.

You’re shaking your head no, sobs racking through you too, when he glances at you. “We can’t. We tried, Kook. We tried and it didn’t work.”

“It’s the distance,” he says. He dries his cheeks, sniffles hard. “What if I drop the job?”

“It’s your dream,” you remind him. “Don’t.”

“I don’t give a shit about this dream if it means losing you,” he insists.

Your expression is apologetic, and suddenly your eyes clear up. Too much – the clarity in your mind feels dizzying.

“It’s too late.”

The words fall like a meteorite – you think they hit harder than the one that killed the dinosaurs, millions of years ago. They hit him so hard you think they disperse the pieces of his heart to the four corners of the Earth.

You want to be selfish, you want to keep a piece of him for yourself, to remember him by, but you let him go. You have to, if you want to make it out alive.

“Come on,” he pleads. “We’ve been through so much…”

You swallow around the lump in your throat. “I know.”

There’s finality in your voice, and he hears it just as well as you do. You think he’ll fight more – Jungkook never backs down from a challenge – but to your surprise he goes incredibly still.

“Nothing I can do or say will make you stay, huh?”

You shut your eyes. “I’m sorry.”

He goes cold then – like hell. Empty, freezing over, and he steps out of bed to grab some clothes in his luggage that he’s yet to unpack. You watch him, watch the last tears on his cheeks falling as he bends down. No new ones join them – he’s retracted somewhere inside of himself, probably in an attempt to protect himself. You’re not sure he’s aware of the coping mechanism, but you can recognize it.

He was in that same place when you met him again the year after his accident, before you started dating. Once, he told you that you were the one to rescue him from it.

Who will rescue him now?

You start crying again, and you force yourself to get out of bed. To grab some clothes as he’s zipping his luggage after getting dressed.

“Stop,” you tell him. “I already have plans to go stay with Bridget and Heather.”

He stops moving, and then slowly gets up. He glances at the door of the bedroom. Bam is looking through the small gap, and he gently pushes on the door to open it wider.

“What about the dog?” Jungkook asks, sounding so detached you can barely recognize him.

It breaks you even more. You’re selfish – you wish he’d fight more. You wish he’d convince you to stay, but now he looks like he doesn’t even care anymore.

You probably deserve it.

“You can keep him,” you say, as you struggle to put your clothes on, hands trembling so much it makes you lose your fine motricity. “When you-“ A sob breaks the sentence. “When you leave again I can take him in.”

Jungkook nods, and then he glances towards the television. The movie is still playing, yet it’s nearing the end now.

Everything comes to an end.

“Fuck,” Jungkook curses loudly, and he moves to the bed, grabbing the remote so he can turn the TV off. He then looks at the bed. “You’re leaving with those?”

“Jungkook…”

“You’re fucking leaving with them?”

He’s motioning to Totoro and Appa, and you cry some more as you nod. “Okay. Yes. I’ll come back later for the rest.”

“Okay.”

There’s an immense silence then, as you finish putting your clothes on. As you go to the closet, where you’ve already packed a duffel bag with stuff for a week. Jungkook scoffs when he sees it, and it almost makes your legs give out under you.

“You weren’t going to give me a chance, were you?” he asks bitterly, reproachfully.

“My decision was made,” you answer with a small voice. “I just… it’s too hard.”

“Yeah. Whatever.”

You know Jungkook often hurts others when he himself is in pain. It’s something he said he didn’t want to do anymore, a side of him he told you he hates. You’re not surprised to see it come to the surface right now – you don’t think he’s ever gotten his heart broken like this before.

So you’re not surprised when he adds, “We should have broken up when we fought on the phone. Because why was I so fucking stupid to think you still loved me?”

Your heart breaks. It’s been breaking, but now it’s different. Burning, throbbing pain takes over the beating organ, and you struggle to breathe. The air is boiling in your lungs, and it’s so fierce you feel it in every inch of your body.

“I do,” you tell him. “It’s not because I don’t love you…”

He laughs. He bursts out laughing, and it’s a little crazed, a little scary. “Right. Yeah. Tell that to yourself.”

In that instant, you remember when you’d told him you loved him for the first time. At his art exhibit, choked on emotions you thought you’d always know. You don’t know them anymore, but he’s wrong.

You’ll always love him.

“Kook…”

“Will you fucking stop calling me that?” he asks, and he finally meets your gaze again.

“Sorry…”

He sighs loudly, tongue poking at his cheek. “Are you leaving now?”

It’s weird – the way he says it reminds you of your mother when she kicked you out years ago. It reminds you of the early days with Jungkook and you don’t think you can move. You’re stuck in the spot where you’re standing, watching him as he watches you.

When his gaze breaks and he lets out, “Please”, you finally start moving.

First to the bed, to grab Appa and Totoro, and then towards the door.

You push the door open, and Bam wags his tail as you walk out. You’re crying again – you’re not sure you ever stopped – but the sight of the dog makes everything worse. Because it’s not only Jungkook you’re losing, it’s Bam too.

It’s your life. You’re losing everything that matters to you, in an attempt to save yourself. In an attempt to find something better for yourself, something that won’t ache for months at a time like being with Jungkook now does.

“Hey, Bamie,” you say, and you hold the plush toys away as he tries to bite into Appa’s paw. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”

You bend, and you let the dog lap at your cheek, as if he can dry your tears. When he stops to look at you curiously, head tilted to the side, you press a kiss to the top of his head. You can’t move for a time and, as if sensing it, Bam remains entirely still too.

He only moves when you stretch, and it’s to press his body against your legs, as if trying to stop you from leaving. Tears cascade down your face, and you tell him you’re sorry, too. You repeat that you’ll see him soon again, hoping that it’ll help, and then you’re walking around him. Walking towards the door, walking towards the crying world outside.

Jungkook follows behind, silent as ever, hands lost in the pockets of his sweatpants, eyes lost in the void. You put down your stuff by the door, put on a light coat and grab your keys. You store them in your coat pocket, and then head to the door, to put on your shoes.

Every step feels like lead, like death, and you just keep crying. It only stops when you meet Jungkook’s gaze, when you’re ready to leave.

Or as ready as you’ll ever be.

“So that’s it?” he asks.

“That’s it,” you agree, and you wish you didn’t. Wish those weren’t the words you said.

He nods once, looking like he’s burdened with a great fatigue. “Alright.”

You want to scream at him to say more, but he doesn’t. Only stays silent as he looks at you, doe eyes so big. His waterline is wet again, and he’s got red splotches all over his face. He’s fighting the tears this time around and you wish you’d give him a reprieve, wish you’d be able to leave but, once again, you’re rooted in your spot.

Maybe because you still have more to say.

“Thank you for…” You pause, take a deep, shaking breath in. “Thank you for the years. I had a lot of fun with you.”

“Please go.”

You nod once, and then you turn around. It occurs to you that your hands are full, and you look at the doorknob as if it’s foreign. Jungkook must have noticed, because he steps forward, his hand reaching for it.

He stills halfway there, with his arm right next to you. And then you hear him choke on a sob, and you drop what you’re holding to face him, to pull him into a hug.

You don’t know how long you cry, holding onto each other like this. Because the moment you’ve wrapped your arms around his waist, Jungkook wrapped his around your shoulders, and he hid his face in your hair.

You cry and cry, together. The last thing you’ll ever do together, you reckon. You wish it wasn’t the case, wish the ending was still at the end a very long road, but it’s come short tonight and it’s too late to stop now.

You break against him, holding him. He’s shaking in your arms, as much as you’re shaking in his. Both of you trembling leaves in the wake of your end. And then you fall to your demise, carried away by the wind.

You don’t know when you let go of him. Only come to your senses when you’re in bed, sometime between dusk and dawn, away from him.

You’re never going to hold him again.

Teaser | Next

☆☆☆☆☆

Pain. I'm crying again from rereading one last time before posting. Please don't hate me oop- let me know what you think of the fic! Did we like it, even though it hurts? All rights reserved to @/oddinary4bts, 2023. Do not copy, repost or translate.

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[orangelionfurandtaxidermy]

Hi, I have some fur farm questions if you don't mind answering.

I've seen you mention that Sapphire is questionable. Why is that? Is it bc of the bleeding and CHS? If so, is Mansfield's Pearl also questionable to breed? And can CHS or bleeding issues be bred out or are they inherently part of the color?

On that note, do you have information on other color mutations that are linked to health issues?

Lastly, how does one get into fur farming? It seems really expensive to set up and buy all the foxes, and I struggle to find fur farms to follow online bc of how taboo it is let alone finding farms to buy live stock from, especially of rare mutations. Is finding farms to buy from more of a word of mouth + trust thing? And is mentorship of new farmers a thing or is fur farming too competitive for established farmers to want to do that?

Bonus: feel free to talk about your favorite mutations or anything else you wanna share.

Hi!

Yes Sapphires seem to all carry genetic illnesses. Some look to be only mildly affected, I’ve been following a few foxes friends of me carefully bred after they discovered some of their Pearls are Mansfield Pearls. So far the animals look to be doing ok, so it’s surely not a death sentence.

However I fear not all farms will be so careful about their breeding or using unhealthy animals because they want to get that special color. You’ve probably seen or heard about Mouse, the Sapphire fox Save a Fox bought from Northern Fox and Fur (a fur farm) several years ago.

Sadly Mouse did have severe CHS and had to be euthanised. There are very strong suspicions the farm bred “special needs” animals so the rescue could profit from the sob stories. Eventually Save a Fox bought out the whole farm. As of today it’s still about half filled with foxes because they can’t place the animals anywhere. Every rescue is full.

Mansfield Pearl alters the way in which blood behaves, foxes of this color seem very prone to excessive bleeding. I acquired this female Pearl Cross (suspected Mansfield Pearl Cross) “secondhand” a few years ago from the US. From what I see in the picture, it’s not a place I want to support. However this girl had already been culled for killing her whole litter of pups. When my tanner skinned the fox, they found that the bones were super weak and easy to snap. The skin had an unusual amount of bloodvessels and also the gums and teeth were quite funky. I’m still waiting for the cleaned skull.

In red foxes there’s not that many bad mutations luckily. Pale eyed foxes do experience sensitivity to the sun, we’ve seen them squint in direct sunlight. Mixing Whitemark/Ringneck/Platinum/Georgian (Snow) creates a lethal effect in homozygous form. Platinums can be anemic but it does seem to be worse in certain breeding lines than others. There’s probably others I’m forgetting but sadly there’s not much research being done anymore.

Finding a farm to work with is very hard nowadays. I somehow got myself a contact 5-6 years ago and it’s snowballed from there. The number of farms is very low now though, many of my own contacts have decided to stop farming because it’s essentially two full time jobs for the pay of half a job.

At least here in Europe it’s pretty much impossible to start up your own farm unless you have serious cash. No bank will want to provide you a loan because there’s little money to be made in the industry. Mutation foxes are very rare, most of what is produced is mink fur, arctic fox fur (‘bluefox’) and some raccoondog fur. You’ll find some Silver and Gold fox, but even those pelts are currently being sold in bulk at rock bottom prices to overseas buyers.

A picture of a Smokey Platinum pup for those who read this whole thing lol. This is a newer mutation for us, last year we had one male and this pup is one of his. Can you see the differences between this cage vs the one the female Pearl Cross lived in (she could barely turn around)? The cage in the background gives a better view of the size. There is also a nest box attached.

[moonlitstoriess]

The Shadows in the Sunlight- A Helion series

Summary: Helion, the High Lord of the Day Court, is known for his charm, power, and control over light. However, when a mysterious female from a forgotten, shadowy court—a court thought to be destroyed long ago—emerges, everything he thought he knew is challenged.

see masterlist

Helion loved parties, gatherings, balls and whatever else that required him to dress up, dance, drink, flirt and make stupid jokes. Attending them as a guest or the host didn't matter as long as they were fun. But most of all, he loved them because they allowed him to be free of any burdens, worries or ugly thoughts just for a day. For a couple of hours.

"High Lord, which sash would you like? The golden one or the white one with gold details?"

Helion turned his head towards his servant and looked down to the two different colored sashes.

"Gold"

Today was The Unity Ball. It was actually Kallias' idea to create this tradition after the war against Hybern. Every year, one of the courts would host The Unity Ball, bringing together all the other courts and their people in hopes of strengthening ties and improving alliances. It has been three years since the end of the war and so far, three courts have hosted this ball. Winter was first, since it was Kallias' idea after all. Then it was Dawn and just last year, it was Autumn, which honestly was more like a celebration of Beron's death and Eris' ascent to High Lordship.

Now this year, is the Day Court's turn and Helion could only hope that nothing mad ends up happening tonight as it usually does with his parties. With a final few touches to his appearance, Helion took the golden crown and put it on his head, heading out the door with his second-in-command, Maximus, right behind him.

"Who is here so far?"

"All except Spring but that isn't anything new."

Helion chuckled as they went down the grand stairs, "It surely isn't. Tamlin hasn't attended any of our gatherings. Why did we even send an invitation to him?"

Maximus sighed. "Good appearance on our side?"

Helion put his arm on his friends shoulder and laughed as they finally entered the large room filled with all kinds of guests. The moment he entered the room, all eyes turned to Helion as he smiled and headed straight for his throne. Once he got on the dais, he smiled brightly at his guests, and the other high lords with their families, and said,

"This year, I have the honor of hosting The Unity Ball which is why I welcome you all to the Day Court! Where as our saying goes, "Light Everlasting, Truth Unyielding" I hope that tonight, our everlasting light brings you joy as we join one another in friendship and company. To my dear friends, the High Lords, I am very grateful for your attendance in my ball and thank you all for taking the time off your duties to come here. I wish you well and hope you all enjoy the rest of this evening!"

Everyone clapped as Helion gestured for the musicians to begin playing and the servants to begin serving. He sat down on his throne knowing full well that he would get up in two minutes because his patience with just sitting and watching wasn't the best. He needed to interact, dance, drink, and laugh.

See, this was the difference between such formal events and his own unusual parties. There he could go absolutely wild but here, he had to stay formal because...well because he is the high lord of course. And it's not like Helion hates all of these High Lord duties and is some kind of an incompetent ruler. Definitely not. In fact, that is far from the truths. He clearly knows how to rule better than his father ever did because his people are very happy and satisfied. He knows when to be serious and when to let go.

But for some reason, these past few weeks, his past has been getting to him more and more. The monsters that he buried deep somehow managed to slip away and come haunt him. He hasn't been slacking in his job at all, in fact, Helion had buried himself in his duties to distract himself while still keeping the image of a jokester, flirty, and overall a happy male. And at night when he would hold his parties, it was this mask that led to him waking up in a bed with another female or male....or both.

He needed to distract himself more and more. The need to run away from his monsters was getting to him. He had to constantly work, lead a whole nation, party, fuck and stay far away from being alone. If he wasn't alone and instead doing something, keeping his hands and mind at work, his brain would be too busy to overthink anything.

"Uh, Helion? You feeling well?"

Helion was dragged out of his trance by Maximus' voice as he turned his head sideways and looked at his friend, giving him a smile. "Of course I am, Max. Why wouldn't I be?"

His friend just shrugged while looking at him suspiciously. "You have been silently staring at the ground for the past....five minutes. Usually you'd be up and talking with guests in two."

Helion realized his mistake and quickly got up, rolling his shoulders before going down the steps of the dais, saying over his shoulder, "Stop saying nonsense, horseface and go socialize."

His silly words clearly had an affect on Max because he just rolled his eyes with a small smile before heading in the direction of a group of officials.

Helion began chatting, first with Kallias and Thesan, then with Tarquin and Eris, and finally, his favorite, Rhysand. When he approached the high lord, his mate and their court, Helion smiled warmly as he greeted them.

"Ah, my best friend and his beautiful wife."

Rhysand smiled slightly as Feyre giggled while Helion kissed her hand before lightly patting Rhys on the shoulder. "I don't remember us ever being that close, Helion."

Helion just shrugged him off as he greeted Cassian and Nesta, "Oh, we will one day, Rhysie."

Everyone laughed at that, causing Rhysand to shake his head with a sigh. Once he greeted Azriel too, Helion looked at the one guest he had hoped to see the most tonight.....Mor.

She seems to get more and more beautiful and attractive with each time he sees her and the red revealing dress she was wearing tonight clearly wasn't helping. He must have gone silent because Mor chuckled and told him, "Close your mouth or a fly might get in, Heli."

"I am just admiring my beloved."

Azriel scoffed at that as Nesta said, "You two never fail to disgust me when you get together."

Mor just rolled her eyes at the female before smirking. "Well, Helion the idiot is always the one to start so..."

Rhys intercepted before any of them could talk more. "As fun as it is to watch you two strip each other naked with your eyes, I think we should talk of other things, no?"

Helion turned to him, smirked and sling his arm over Rhysand's shoulder before leading him outside, followed by his family. "Of course we can, Rhysie. Didn't know you missed me that much."

Feyre laughed as she said. "You have no idea."

They sat down on one of the large, white seating areas with just as white, sheer curtains hanging above. Helion ordered his servants to bring appetizers and drinks before turning to look at the Inner Circle.

"Well, friends, anything new?"

Cassian laid back on the couch, causing Nesta also to lay back due to his hold on her waist. "If you call me and Nesta creating our own training academy something new then yes."

Nesta playfully hit him on the chest. "We were supposed to tell that together, you idiot."

Everyone chuckled as Helion smiled and clapped his hands. "Well that is some news! Very well done."

But then a thought reached his mind, Helion furrowed his brows and turned to Rhys. "Where is Amren? My tiny little firecraker?"

"You know, if she heard you say that, she would probably slit your throat right on the spot, Helion." Azriel muttered as he took his drink from the table.

Helion smirked. "I would love to see her try, I love feisty ones."

Feyre chuckled "Varian wouldn't be too happy about that either."

Helion's eyes widened in realization. "Is that why he isn't here either? I did think how strange it was that he wasn't stuck to Tarquin's side like he usually was. Wait- are they together? Is that why they both aren't here?"

"Someone had to stay back and guard Velaris. Since for the past three years Mor didn't have time to attend the balls but Amren did, this year she decided to stand back because Mor said she could make it to the ball. As for Varian...well he turned out to be more obsessed with her than he lets us in on. Wherever Amren is, Varian is there too. Right beside her." Feyre said as she leaned into her mates side, putting her head on his shoulder.

Helion nodded his head before looking at Mor beside him, "I see my charm is so irresistible that you just couldn't skip my ball huh?"

Mor rolled her eyes but her lips did twitch upwards as she teased. "Don't get ahead of yourself, Heli. I came here because I had nothing else to do."

Helion smirked. "Sure you didn't, sweetheart." Then he raised his hand with his drink and said, "Now let's drink for...well for me hosting this absolutely fantastic ball!"

He heard Rhys chuckle as they drank a few more times. "Can't believe I will have to see your face and stand your antics next year in my ball."

Helion smiled brightly as he looked at everyone. "Oh yes! Next year is your turn! Oh, high lord, you best believe I will be creating chaos!"

As the night progressed, Helion spent some more time with the Night Court before moving on to socialize with others, trying his best to give everyone attention. After a couple of hours, when the ball was still very much going on, he felt Mor come up beside him near one of the large and tall columns.

"How's it going, high lord?"

He sighed. "Why did no one tell me how hard it would be to have the entire faerie realms in your court? Minus Spring of course because Tamlin is acting like an insolent child."

Mor chuckled and took a sip of her drink as they both eyed the room. "Actually, last I heard, Tamlin was slowly regaining his court back. Apparently he is building better homes for his people and doing something else to bring his own court back. Whatever it is, it seems to be working."

Helion nodded. "Good. He is finally waking up. I should pay him a small visit at some point."

Mor put her hand on his arm, causing him to turn his head sideways to look at her. She smirked back at him saying, "Well, I don't know about the spring court but...we could pay a small visit to a bedroom."

Helion's smirk widened as his eyes hungrily took her in. "You know, I had been waiting to hear that from you all night."

Mor put her drink on a nearby table and grabbed his arm. "Lead the way, high lord."

As they both began weaving their way through the crowds, something caught Helion's eyes from the corner. A small, dark shadow.

It's probably Azriel's. His mind kept telling this to him but something wasn't right. Azriels' shadows were more of a dark black in color but this little thing....it was more of a purple-like. Atleast that's what he saw before it disappeared just as quickly.

As they began climbing up the stairs, Helion suddenly paused. No, his mind was too busy with overthinking that shadow to focus on Mor right now.

"What happened?" Her question made him turn back at her to see a confused face looking back at him.

Helion looked back down the stairs towards where the shadow was and then looked back at Mor. No, he had to know. What is going on? He was too intrigued now.

"I will be back." was all he said before he quickly went down the stairs without waiting for a reply, his mind too busy with finding that little shadow.

Ignoring the guests who tried coming towards him, Helion made his way through the crowds as he followed his inner voice and headed straight towards the garden at the other side of the palace.

The Day court's gardens were far more different than any other gardens. They are suspended on multiple levels, with each terrace floating gracefully in the clouds, connected by shimmering bridges made of sunlight and gold-veined crystal. The terraces themselves are made of pale, luminous stone that seems to glow softly in the daylight, reflecting the sun's rays.

The entire garden is bathed in a warm, golden light that filters through the clouds, casting everything in a soft, almost otherwordly glow. The flora are like any other. They are larger and more vibrant, with petals that shimmer like gold foil. The trees are tall and slender, their leaves a mixture of deep green and gold, sparkling as if dusted with stardust. There are waters within fountains that glow softly with their sheen light and statues made of crystal that captures the light and refracts it in dazzling patterns.

Overall, this place is Helion's pride and joy as he was the one who designed it and brought in all the flora. This is the calmest location in the entire palace and possibly Helion's most favorite for that very reason.

But this time, he was not alone. A mysterious cloaked figure was standing near a fountain, their back turned to him. Helion didn't want to call the guards because he knew that whoever this was, he could deal with them himself. Even a tiny part of him was telling him that he shouldn't attack whoever this is.

As if sensing his presence, the cloaked figure shifted slightly but didn't turn around. Helion took slow steps towards them, keeping his eyes focused on the figure, making sure he or she doesn't pull any tricks on him.

Once he reached them, he tried looking into their face but the hood made it impossible for him to even see their side profile."Do I know you?"

No answer.

Helion warily looked between them and the water before asking, "Uhh, you do not seem like someone I have met-"

"Tell Azriel that they are all dead."

So this mysterious impostor was a she. Her cool, icy and yet smooth tone made Helion feel both drawn and slightly unnerved by her. But it was that sentence that made him pause.

"What? I don't understand. Who is dead? Who are you?"

That is when he saw that small shadow from earlier reappear once again as the female said while suddenly turning and walking away, "I have to find who was behind it. I have to stop it. I will kill them all."

Helion was completely dumbfounded now which is something that he never was. He was always a step ahead of everyone, always aware of everything, always having answers to anything and everything. But this...this was new.

He quickly followed after her as she went deeper into the gardens saying, "What are you talking about? What is happening? Do you need help? Who are you trying to stop?!"

"I don't need any help. I simply came here to lure you in so that you could deliver my message to Azriel."

"Why can't you tell him yourself? Why aren't you in the ball? Where are you even from-"

"You talk too much, high lord. I must go, just let Azriel know of the news."

"Go where?!" and then, as if his mouth moved of its own accord, Helion said the words he wasn't even planning on offering aloud, "I can help you! Whatever it is, do you need help?"

She stopped, her back still turned to him and Helion wanted nothing more than to just rip that dark cloak away so that he could see her face. He could only imagine what she looks like if her voice was this beautiful.

"I don't need any help."

Helion scoffed before taking her shoulder, intending to turn her around but once he did that, the cloak fell down, and there was no one but dark purple shadows under it. The shadows too, soon disappeared, leaving Helion in shock as to what just happened.

************

"Helion! Where were you? It's not really a good look when you leave your own ball for a prolonged time. Couldn't you wait some more before fucking someone in some corner of the palace?!" Maximus hissed at him the second helion entered the large ballroom.

Helion ignored his friend, heading straight for the inner circle. "Not now, Max. We will talk later."

"What-" but Helion just passed by Max, not giving him the time to answer. The moment he saw Rhysand, he quickened his steps as he reached the sitting area where Rhys and his court were. Mor was there, and got up immediately when she saw him.

"Where were you? What happened? Did something go wrong?"

But Helion ignored her words and just glared at Azriel, his clearly serious expression evident on his face because Rhysand immediately got up, asking, "What is it?"

"I saw a shadow earlier."

Helion saw the clear confusion written over everyone's faces, causing him to sigh and cross his arms. "At first, I thought it was one of Azriel's but then something in me told me to follow that shadow. So I found it, in the gardens...and I also found who it belonged to. Shocking information but....it wasn't Azriel."

That caused the shadowsinger to furrow his brows as Feyre quickly asked, "What? Then who was it?"

Helion tore his gaze apart from the winged male and looked at everyone. "Well, I couldn't tell, really. The figure was completely clothed in a black cloak and it's hood was covering her face but she was a female. Could tell by the voice. Anyways, I asked her who is she, what is she doing here and all those things but she didn't answer them. Instead, guess what she said,"

Helion didn't give anyone the time to respond as his eyes collided with Azriel's while saying the words, "Tell Azriel that they are all dead."

For the first time in his life, Helion saw the shadow singers stony expression change as his eyes widened, shock overtaking his features.

"Wait, wait- what?!" Cassian's voice too, was full of disbelief as he got up from the couch, staring at Helion.

Mor quickly looked back at Azriel. "What does that mean, exactly?"

Azriel also got up as his expression turned calculating. "I have no idea. Who- what- I don't understand. Who is dead?!"

They all turned to look back at Helion but he just shrugged, saying, "Well, I don't know either. She said that and then began walking away, saying over and over again that she would find who did this, stop them or kill them. I tried asking more, even offered help but the second I even touched her, the cloak fell down and there was nothing but air under it. How does one even disappear like that?"

Cassian whistled, chuckling. "Now that, is impressive."

"So a shadowy, cloaked, female appears in your garden, tells you to tell Azriel that everyone is dead, then proceeds to mutter to herself about murder and whatever else and then disappears just as mysteriously? I would love to meet her for sure." Nesta said with a small smirk overtaking her face.

Rhysand looked back at Helion, "Do we know how to find her? Where she may be? Whoever she is, whatever she is doing, it seems quite...important. Is she connected to Azriel in some way?"

Azriel shook his head. "We need to go, now. We need to get to work and whoever this is, I need to know what she means."

Feyre voiced her agreement as Rhys nodded and then looked back at Helion. "Let's inform one another if there are any leads on the matter. Get your best researchers on the job."

Helion nodded as he watched them winnow away, wondering all about the mysterious figure.

Who was she? Where was she coming from? What did she even mean?

And most importantly, why did Helion feel so intrigued by her?

Well, it's not often (actually, never) that he gets this interested and intrigued by someone but now, he was definitely curious.

And Helion was for sure not about to let go of whoever she is anytime soon.

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

[winchesterwild78]

A Home and a Heart

Master List

Characters: Jack Durfy x Reader

Warnings: Language, Inappropriate propositions, angst, injury

A/N: Just a quick story, not too long. Maybe two or three chapters. I haven’t seen Buddy Games, but I did Google the character. I know he wasn’t in the movie long, but we can always use our imagination.

This is a work of fiction and does not depict real life or the movie in any way. 

Please do not take my work, reblogs are appreciated.

Minors DNI 18+

The rain drummed against the roof, echoing through the small, cramped house. You sighed, your heart heavy with worry. You had been trying to keep your head above water, but it seemed the problems just kept piling up. The leaky roof, the faulty stove outlet, and the crumbling front steps were more than you could handle.

You were a single mother to a very active 3 year old boy, Tommy. He was the light of your life, but it was also exhausting doing everything alone. Tommy’s father ditched you the minute he found out you were pregnant, and you haven’t heard from him since. 

Your family and best friend have been an amazing support for him and you. When you had to work late at the hospital, they would watch him and help take care of him. 

Being so fiercely independent, you refused to tell them just how bad the repairs needed really were. Your best friend, Abby, knew. She offered to help you, but you refused. She had just had a baby and she and her husband were trying to build their nest egg. You couldn’t take money from them. 

Desperate, you reached out to local handymen for help. The first one showed up in a fancy new truck. He walked around your home and took notes, he went on the roof and when he came down he handed you a quote for $15,000. Your eyes almost popped out of your head. “Well, thank you so much for coming out. I’ll let you know.” He nodded and got in his truck and left. 

The other quotes were any better. None of the companies were willing to set up payments with you. Even though you had a steady job and amazing credit they said they weren’t willing to make arraignments for such a large amount. 

The last two contractors were far worse. You showed Joe in and he walked around. He started to head towards your bedroom, “Um, excuse me, there isn’t anything in there that needs repairing.” He turned and walked over to you, “Oh not yet, darlin’, but I’m sure you can’t pay so we can work something out.” His hand brushed against your breast. 

“ I think you should leave.” “Ah don’t be like that. I know you’re lonely and need more than just your house worked on.” You were fuming, “Leave, NOW!” 

He grabbed his stuff and left. You were starting to feel hopeless. You called Abby, “Hey Abbs. I don’t know what to do. I’ve called every handyman I can find and they are either too high, won’t do a payment plan, or they try to sleep with me. I need to give Tommy a safe place to live. I don’t want to walk away from this house. It’s mine and it’s something I’m proud of having.”

 Abby offered a sympathetic ear, “I know honey. Maybe you can try and call Jack Durfy. He owns Durfy Construction, he can be a bit of an ass, but I know he’s got a kind heart. When John got laid off a few years ago, Jack had him come work for him so he could make some money.” “I didn’t know that. I’ll give him a call, thanks Abbs.” 

Jack owned Durfy Construction, and though he had a reputation for being gruff, you were willing to give him a chance. You called him up and asked him to come by for a consultation. “Mr Durfy, my friend Abby Smith told me to call you. I own a small home and it’s in need of some urgent repairs. I’m going to be honest with you so I’m not wasting your time, I’m a single mom on a fixed income. I’d be willing to set up a payment plan if you were open to it.” “Well, let me come out there and take a look. I’ll let you know.”

The next morning you saw Jack driving down your driveway in his big truck. Tommy was standing at the door, jumping up and down seeing the truck. “Truck, mommy, truck!” You scooped up the toddler, “Yes baby I see it’s a truck. Mr. Durfy is here to see if he can help fix the house. 

Jack walked up the stairs and noticed how broken they were. You greeted him with a warm smile and an extended hand, “Hello Mr Durfy, thank you for coming by. I really appreciate it.” He shook your hand, “Hello Ms Y/L/N, it’s nice to meet you, and who’s this little guy?” He ruffled Tommy’s hair. Your toddler squealed in delight, “I’m Tommy.” “Well, hello Tommy. Want to show me the house buddy?” Tommy nodded excitedly. You smiled softly.

As Jack inspected the house, he discovered even more problems than you had initially realized.

“So Ms, Y/L/N, besides the roof, front steps, and stove outlet, I unfortunately found some other things that need attention as soon as possible. The foundation is cracked by your bedroom, and the main bathroom has a leak into the walls. That’s going to require a complete demolition of the bathroom, so we can dry out the wall and replace everything.” 

Tears pricked your eyes. “Oh wow. I definitely got screwed over when I bought this place. I never should have bought it.” The tears started to fall. You wiped them away quickly, “I’m sorry Mr. Durfy. How much will all of this cost me? 

“Well, first, please call me Jack, and I can do it all for about $5,000.” You sat and looked at him in disbelief, “I’m sorry, what? $5,000? That’s it? Please Mr. Durfy, I mean Jack, please tell me the full price.” 

“That is the full price. I don’t take advantage of people and I own all of my own equipment and have all the material needed for the repairs already. I tell you what, if you’d agree to do something for me I’d be willing to do the repairs at no cost.”

“You know what, I’m tired of men thinking I’d spread my legs for them to get repairs done.” “Whoa! What? Y/N, I’m not asking you to sleep with me. Jesus. What kind of man do you think I am? Shit!” 

Your face turned red with embarrassment, “Jack I’m so sorry. The last guy I had here tried to get me to sleep with him to do the repairs. I am so sorry. I understand if you want to leave.”

“Let me guess, Joe Collins?” “Yes, how did you know?” “The guy is a douchebag. He tries to jack up his rates and then sleeps with women to get them lower.” “That’s disgusting.” “Yeah it really is.”

“So, like I was saying, I work really late at night, sometimes I just sleep in the office trailer. It’s been years since I’ve had a home cooked meal, and I know you can cook. Abby told me. (he smirked) So if you’d be willing to cook some meals for me, I’d be willing to do the repairs for you. Of course I might need Tommy’s assistance with tools and stuff, if that’s okay with you.”

“Wow, that’s really generous of you. I know Tommy would love to help you with tools. I doubt you’d get the right one you needed, but he’d try. Sure, I’ll cook for you. Are you allergic to anything or have any dietary restrictions?”

“Nope, I’m not a pansy. I like meat and eat junk, so I’m good for anything.” “Having allergies and dietary restrictions don’t make you a pansy.” You chuckled. 

A few days later you were woken up by the sound of walking on the roof. You looked over at the clock and it was a little after 6am. You grumbled and grabbed your robe. Walking outside you stepped into the yard, “Um, since when did we agree to you coming at the crack of dawn to start working?” 

Jack looked down at you and chuckled, “Sorry sweetheart, there is rain coming in later and we wanted to get this roof pulled off and the new one laid before it comes in.” 

“Ugh! Fine. Wait, I just needed a repair, not a whole new roof.” Jack looked down at you, “The repair area was just too big. It makes more sense to just do a new roof.” “Okay, well I’ll be in the house trying to sleep. I have a shift in a few hours.” 

“Sweet dreams” Jack chuckled. You lazily waved and climbed up the stairs and went inside. Abby had taken Tommy to her house for the night, so you grabbed your earphones, turned on some white noise and went back to sleep. 

A few hours later your alarm went off and you got out of bed. Hearing the hammering overhead you figured they were already laying the new roof. Dang they work fast. You went to the bathroom and turned on the shower. Waiting for the water to heat up, you went into the kitchen and started your coffee. You made extra for Jack and the guys working with him. 

Jumping in the shower you cleaned yourself and your hair. You finished getting ready for work then went into the kitchen and started cooking something to eat. You figured Jack and the other guys were hungry, so you whipped up something filling for them too. 

You ate quickly and grabbed your cup of coffee. Grabbing your bag you went outside and got Jack’s attention. He climbed down from the roof, “Hey, I hope we were as quiet as we could be.” “Oh I put in my earbuds, I didn’t hear anything but the soothing sounds of the ocean.” Jack chuckled. 

“So I’m heading out to work, I left the front door unlocked for you. I made you guys something to eat and some coffee if you’re hungry. All I ask is you guys stay out of my underwear drawer.” Jack chuckled, “Now where’s the fun in that. You know you learn a lot about someone by the underwear in their drawer.” You looked at Jack unamused. He threw his hands up in defeat, “Sorry, I was just kidding. We don’t go through people’s things. You can trust us. Thanks for cooking, you didn’t have to.” “Yes I did, I thought that was our arrangement.” “Yes, but only for me. I can’t have you spoiling my guys.” 

You smiled and touched his chest. “Don’t worry, I’ll save the good stuff for you.” Your fingers lingered on his chest for a few minutes. His chest was so toned and firm. Your breath quickened. Jack’s heart started pounding, he liked your hand on his chest. 

You cleared your throat, “Well have a good evening, Jack. I’ll see you later.” “Yeah, bye, Y/N, have a good shift, and thanks for the food.” You waved and nodded as you climbed in your car. 

Driving to work all you could think about was Jack. His piercing green eyes, his smile, his bowed legs perfectly hugged by his blue jeans, his toned chest, and his whiskey silky voice. You hadn’t realized your face had flushed or that you were biting your lip until you put your car in park at work. 

You took a deep shaky breath before getting out. This attraction to Jack came out of nowhere. You really need to get it under control since he’ll be working at your house. 

A few hours into your shift you walked into a patient's room to check on them before they were discharged. That’s when you heard a familiar voice coming from the room next door. 

“The nurse will be right with you sir. I’m just the triage nurse.” She walked out of the room and handed you the chart, “This one is a little grumpy. He keeps complaining he doesn’t have time for this shit.” 

You snorted, “Okay, thanks for the heads up.” You looked at the chart and softly gasped. Jack Durfy, Male, 46 years old. 

Of course this happens. You took a deep breath and knocked on the door. “Come in” you heard his gruff voice say. 

As soon as Jack saw you his eys softened. “Well, hey sweetheart.” You smiled and blushed a little, “Jack, what happened?” 

“It was stupid, I got distracted and fell off the roof. I think I broke a rib and I sliced my hand pretty good.” 

“Oh my god, Jack! Okay let me see the hand first.” 

You removed the temporary dressing and looked at his hand. Taking his large, calloused hand in yours sent a shiver through your body and straight between your thighs. Your breath quickened. 

Swallowing hard, “You’re going to need stitches. I’m going to clean the wound and get the sutures on it.” Jack just nodded. 

As you cleaned his wound and stitched him up, he watched you, completely mesmerized by you. The way your fingers brushed over his skin, like a delicate dance, only the two of you were invited to. 

You bit your lip as you worked. Your eyes flicked up to his, God he’s got gorgeous green eyes. And his lips look so plump and soft. 

“Okay, all patched up. X-ray will be here to take you in a few minutes. Hopefully nothing is broken.” Your hand lingered on his for a few moments. “Hey, Y/N, thank you.” He touched your hand as you started to walk away. 

You smiled and nodded. A few minutes later they came to take him away to get his x-rays done. 

You sent Abby a text. 

You: Girl, Jack got injured and he’s here right now. I just finished working on him. 

Abby: Mmm is that what it’s called now. 😝 

You: Girl, stop. 😂 

Abby: He’s single, you’re single, he’s hot, you’re hot. 

You: No I’m not, girl stop. There is no way he’d be interested in me, an frompy, single mom. 

Abby: Don’t sell yourself short. You’re amazing, beautiful and a kick ass mom. Anyone would be lucky to have you. 

You: Thanks, Abbs. Well he’s back from x-ray. Gotta go. Give Tommy a kiss for me. 

Abby: Will do, go give Jack a big kiss, make his boo boos all better. 😘 

You: Yeah right. 🙄 

Your face flushed a little with Abby’s texts. You walked back into his room. “So now we wait for the doctor to read the film and he’ll tell us what to do next. Jack, I can’t believe you fell off the room. You could have been killed. I’m so glad you’re okay.” You touched his shoulder. 

His eyes sparkled under the harsh lights of the ER, “Me too, not sure what happened. I was just distracted and lost my footing. It was stupid.” 

The doctor came in a few minutes later, “Mr Durfy, I don’t see broken ribs, they are however bruised really bad. I’m going to have Ms. Y/L/N to wrap it pretty good for you. Keep it on unless you absolutely need to take it off, like to shower. Do you have someone who can help you wrap it tight again?” 

Jack looked up and was about to say no, but you nodded yes. “Um, yeah I guess I do.” “Great, then I’ll let you get wrapped up and we can discharge you. Ms. Y/L/N, wrap him tight and get him ready to go home.” You nodded, “Yes, sir. Mr. Durfy, I’ll be right back with the wrap and your discharge papers.” Jack nodded and you walked out.

Coming back in with the wrap and his papers you took a deep breath. “Okay, Jack I, um, need you to remove your shirt.” Jack took his shirt off and you let out a soft gasp. He was so toned, and being this close to him made you quiver between your thighs.

“This might hurt a bit, but let me know if it’s unbearable.” Jack nodded and you got to work. “Lift your arms slightly for me.” You started to wrap the bandage around his torso. You noticed goosebumps erupt on his skin as you wrapped his ribs. You leaned around him and your chest was flush with his as you reached around to wrap around his back. 

As you stood back up, you stopped and Jack placed his fingers lightly on your chin. “You’re incredible, you know that?” You blushed, “Thank you.” “I mean it, you are amazing at your job, you’re a kick ass mother, and you’re so beautiful.” 

“Jack, I, um, don’t know what to say.” He smiled softly at you, “You don’t have to say anything, darlin’.” Jack’s fingers brushed against your face, you leaned into his touch, instinctively. 

“What would you do if I told you I wanted to kiss you?” You softly chuckled, “I’d ask if you hit your head when you fell.” “I didn’t, and I’m serious. I’ve wanted to kiss you since the moment I met you.” 

You bit your lip and took a deep breath, “Well, then do it.” You couldn’t believe you told him to kiss you. Your heart was pounding in your chest and you felt like you were going to pass out. 

Jack leaned in closer to you, your lips inches from each other. Your breath hitched. Jack softly pressed his lips to yours and you pressed yours to his. 

The kiss was soft and tender, not rushed or needy. As you two pulled back, his hand held onto your arm for a few minutes. 

“That was so good. I can’t wait to do it again.” He smiled at you. “Me either, Jack.” So he leaned in and placed his lips to yours, this time the kiss was deeper. He put his hand in your hair and pulled you between his legs. His tongue swiped across your lips, asking for entrance. You parted your lips and Jack deepened the kiss more. You moaned into his mouth.

The kiss was incredible, sending chills through your body. When the two of you finally pulled apart, you both smiled at each other. “Well, Mr. Durfy, you should head home to rest. I’ll see you later.” He smiled, “Yeah, I’ll see you after your shift. I need to go finish up some stuff before I call it a day. You shook your head, “Jack, please go home and rest. Whatever it is can wait.” 

Jack got off the table and grabbed his shirt, putting it on, “I’ll think about it.” He placed another soft kiss on your lips and smirked. 

“I’m never going to stop kissing you, I hope you know that.” “Good, because I don’t want you too. I’ll see you later, Jack.” “I’ll see you later, sweetheart.” 

With that, Jack grabbed his things and left the ER. You were left finishing your shift, thinking about the shared kiss and what it will mean for your future. You hoped it meant the beginning of something wonderful, but you were still guarded, and not just for your sake, but for Tommy. Only time will tell for sure.

Part 2….Coming Soon

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[scyllas-revenge]

↻ FLIP FLOP !! Girl you know I HAVE to ask you for Boromir's POV in THAT scene from chapter 32 of Burn Like Cold Iron. Hehe good luck

I should've seen this ask coming 😂 It was fun to get into Boromir's head for this one lol, although I’m not sure I did it justice. When you haven’t written much in a while, it’s hard to tell if a scene turned out ok or not, but this is as good as it’s gonna get for now.

But anyway, here you go! Boromir's rambling perspective of the only one bed scene (most of which is the Massage Incident, poor man).

Boromir gritted his teeth as Beatrice’s slender hand traced down his chest. She shifted next to him on the dilapidated bed frame, leaning closer to wrap the cloth bandages around his shoulder. Swallowing hard, he shut his eyes against her. 

“Is this…” How intimate her voice was, whispered into the crook of his neck. “Does this feel secure, or should I wrap it here again?” Her trembling fingertips brushed over his ribcage, demonstrating. 

“Again.” Boromir’s voice was desperate even to his own ears. “Please."

His sorceress nodded and obeyed, leaning closer than ever. The heat of her breath ghosted over his ear and he spasmed, narrowly stopping himself from grasping her waist and pulling her roughly against him. 

She felt the movement; she could have done little else, near as she was to him. “Does this hurt?” she asked quickly.

“No,” he whispered. “No. Your hands are gentle.” Gentle? Perhaps they were, though they tormented him all the more for it.

All too soon, Beatrice drew back, her work done. Boromir tried to be glad of it. 

“There now,” he blurted, as though he might cool the fire under his skin with a few lighthearted words. “The healers of Minas Tirith could not have done a better job, I should think.” 

Reflexively, he rolled his shoulders back, then winced. He’d half-forgotten his injury in the intimacy of her work, but the sting of physical pain brought him abruptly back to his own body. He repeated the motion mulishly, half-hoping he might banish his discomfort through sheer force of will. If anything, the pain only worsened, and he snarled impatiently.

He had no time for such physical weakness, not when his people had need of him! How long would his body betray him so? 

“It still hurts, doesn’t it?” Beatrice’s eyes were still on him, concern twisting her features. He waved her question away, half-fearing a second attempt to tend to his bandages. But it seemed he had underestimated her once again, for without warning she was kneeling behind him on the threadbare mattress, her hands like fire on his bare shoulders, her intention clear. 

Anticipation, unbearable and all-consuming, seized him. “Beatrice!” he choked. “It is only a slight discomfort, it will pass!” 

But of course she would not be dissuaded—his sorceress cared for her companions far too much, and for propriety not at all. Boromir opened his mouth to argue, but she began to knead his shoulders, her hands deft and warm, and his protests died on his tongue.

“Valar save me,” he breathed, before hanging his head in surrender.

Had anyone ever touched him like this before? One of the healers of Minas Tirith had massaged his sore back once, years ago, after he’d been thrown from his horse and dislocated his shoulder. But it had not felt like this—it had not affected him like this. It had not been Beatrice.

She must have done this before, he thought distantly, a warm haze overtaking his mind, for she knew just how to touch him to smooth away the aches of prolonged travel and the strain of battle. What might it be like, he wondered, to return her favor—to touch her just as she touched him? To hear her sigh and moan as she melted under his hands? He swallowed hard, his imagination determined to torment him. To end each evening occupied thus, though on a bed far grander than this one, and his sorceress clad in a nightgown of silk, rather than her riding dress…a nightgown he might sweep from her shoulder as he massaged her, bowing his head to part his lips against her bare skin…

His limbs trembled—her movements faltered. “Do you want me to stop?” she whispered.

A foolish question, asked far too late. “No.”  Boromir’s voice was helpless, almost soundless. He wanted her to stop, he wanted her to continue, oh, Valar, he wanted—

He took a long breath, then another. He must control himself. He must, for his sake and hers. She was from a faraway world, intent on returning home, an errand he himself had sworn to help her complete. To pursue Beatrice would be to turn her from her homeland, her family, her people—it would be unthinkable. Unforgivable. She must return. 

She must return, and he must remain.

How often had he lectured himself thus in recent days? Yet the words were true as ever.

Perhaps if he pretended Beatrice was an aide in the healing houses, or a medic on the battlefield, nothing more, then he might withstand this. Practical, reasonable; a soldier’s mindset. Yes, he could achieve this.

For a moment, perhaps two, he succeeded. But as her warm fingers pressed just below his shoulder blade, he moaned aloud—moaned as though she were offering him a far different form of pleasure. 

Beatrice froze. Boromir froze as well, mortification warring with his desire, which had heightened anew at her touch. Had she realized at last the effect she was having on him? If so, it did not daunt her, for she continued to massage him, her breath warm on his naked back. And despite himself, he began to slip back into a trance, heady and drunken and warm.

“Do you have any of that medicine for your bruises? The stuff the doctor was using in Edoras?” 

He fumbled for the tin of ointment and pressed it into her hand without thought. But as she slid off the bed to kneel before him and tend to his broken ribs, he sucked in a sharp breath of panic. His desire was threatening to overwhelm him at last, and he feared his body would soon betray him in more ways than one. Her soft hands massaging his stomach and chest, her warm breath tickling his skin, her heavy-lidded gaze glinting in the low firelight…he was but a mortal man, after all, though he would defy even an elf to remain unaffected by his sorceress for long. 

His breaths were coming more quickly, more raggedly, his chest rising and falling like a bellows under Beatrice’s hands as he tried vainly to calm himself. Her thumb lingered over the raised scar just under his ribs, earned by an errant orc blade years ago, and he jolted at the touch. He had never been ashamed of his scars—they were won in service of his people, and he carried each with pride—but he had never imagined that a woman might touch them with such tenderness, such devotion. But perhaps he should not have been surprised, for rarely had he ever met a more compassionate soul than Beatrice. Always she surprised him, overwhelmed him, tormented him—

She stroked the scarred flesh again, and another moan slipped from his lips.

Beatrice’s eyes fixed on him. Valar, Valar, he could now scarcely recall his reasons for holding himself back from her—surely no reason on earth could prevail against the desire darkening her gaze. He stared down at his sorceress in the dim light, his knuckles whitening at his sides, his arousal beginning to strain at his trousers, her lips so torturously close to his own—

He wrenched himself to his feet, stammering he knew not what, and fled the cabin.

What a fool he was. What a damned fool! He tore at his hair, gritting his teeth against the desire still rising within him as he stormed back and forth under the black sky. What had possessed her to touch him so—and what had possessed him to allow it? Beatrice, Beatrice, you will drive me to madness!

Perhaps he was half-mad already, for with a growl of impatience he stormed to the well and doused his face with a splash of frigid water.

The night was cold, the water colder still, and clarity returned to him at last. With his good hand, he pushed his sopping hair from his eyes and took a long breath. There now. He was himself again—or close to it.

Sobered and newly mortified, Boromir reentered the little cabin and dressed himself, before sheepishly wringing his hair dry before the fire. Beatrice lingered at the far end of the cabin, fidgeting with her braid and looking anywhere but at him. 

At last they climbed into the little bed for the night, still determinedly avoiding eye contact. Boromir reclined on his back, trying not to dwell on how close she lay to him. Still, the recent whirlwind of his desire, panic, and shame had given way to sheer exhaustion, and he succumbed to it with relief.

Sleep already overtaking him, he rolled clumsily onto his side, testing his body weight against his injured shoulder. No good. Who knew when he’d be able to put such weight on his right side again? He huffed and rolled the other way—and his breath hitched as he found himself mere inches from Beatrice’s face. She offered him a startled smile, her lips slightly parted, her fingers curling into the blankets between them.

He mumbled an apology for disturbing her, though she waved his words away. Tomorrow, perhaps, he would apologize in earnest for his foolish behavior. Tomorrow, he would have to recall his promise to help her return to her home—starting tomorrow, he would have to keep her at arm's length.

But tonight, Boromir knew he would dream of her.

[boyfhee]

› HOW TO GET BACK WITH YOUR EX : five do's and don'ts

SYNOPSIS · You were all in for a new start; a new city, new apartment, new department and new colleagues— though, not under the best circumstances— you tried to make it through your early thirties while lost between whether to give up or go on, and then you meet Heeseung, who happens to be on the other end of the same street.

WC · 26.2K ( guys pls give this a chance )

GENRE · melodrama, angst, slice of life, romance, exes to ?

WARNINGS · lots of drinking, marriage talks, mentions of failed relationship and breakups; implications of sexual activity, very existential, mentions of suicidal thoughts, blood, lot's of tense changes ( since this transits between past and present a lot ) please read at your own discretion.

NOTE · i know i'm on hiatus but this was almost done and i had a sudden burst of motivation so here we are. my longest fic till date, i'm so proud of how this turned out. experimented a little with my writing style here, overall a fun experience. i hope you all enjoy this as much as i did, happy reading. ps the quote below is actually by john mark green, but let's assume it's written by hee for the sake of this fic. okay, good bye again, see you guys soon :›

playlist : tune in for better experience hehe

“ And if love may be madness, may I never find sanity again, ”

— Lee Heeseung, Red Wine

I.  Regret and Remorse

You don’t think you’ll ever become someone who’d look forward to the working experience that comes with job transfer. In fact, you don’t think you’d ever become someone who’d grow a liking to job transfer in the first place. 

Autumn of 2022 was supposed to be filled with vacation plans and a self-sobriety program in one of the many remote towns of Gangwon, away from the internet and daily complaints of your employer and family members. To put it simply— you’re tired of the life you’ve been living so far. Looking back, when you were a fresh graduate from one of the best universities of Incheon, life seemed to offer more opportunities than it does now. Your goals weren't any different from other people in the same age group as you, which majorly consisted of getting a job that pays well, maintaining financial security, getting into a good relationship, and perhaps visiting a few places on your travel list that you made in your first year of university. The idea of ‘ideal workplace’ leaves your mind the moment you step into the industry. Over time, you’ve realised that there’s no such thing as a job that fits to your liking and pays well, along with a hundred other benefits ranging from covering medical expenses to providing paid leaves. While that may apply to some, most of the crowd isn’t lucky enough to experience the luxuries of their dream job or workplace. Unfortunately, you happen to be just another person of that kind. 

You wake up, it’s the same old Monday morning— and no matter what day it is, it always feels like a Monday morning. You look through your same seven sets of office attires in your closet and pick one for the day; you go to the kitchen and find the same dish you had last night. You heat it up and eat the same for breakfast. Albeit, you find yourself at a cafe downstreet if you’re hoping for a change of scenery. You go to work, review the same old files, look at your same old colleagues and the same old boss who makes your blood boil. You aren’t the most sociable person and prefer to have lunch at the canteen, and coincidently, it’s the same old menu from four days ago. The day proceeds in the same old direction and you arrive at your apartment by six in the evening if your team leader doesn’t make you work overtime. You make dinner, sleep on the same old bed in the same old room with the same old feeling of dissatisfaction stuffing your stomach, and the same old cycle continues. 

Intellectually, there has been no progress— you've read scarcely half a dozen books, haven't made one new, exciting friend, haven't had a starling or unusual thought. Economically, things are no better— same old bills to pay, same old pay that hasn't been increased over years now. You get your paycheck and half of it goes into buying necessities. It's the same old job, same old routine of nine-to-five workdays, the cheese and ham salad for lunch, same dreary ride home. No change, nothing but routine, sameness, monotony— it's as if you're vegetating.

If you could go back in time and meet yourself when you were still a college freshman with high hopes and even higher aspirations, you would tell yourself to stop. Now that you’ve seen how the world works and have experienced the stagnancy of life, you wouldn’t want your young and carefree self to go through the pain of disappointment after encountering it yourself. You would instead tell yourself to switch fields since finance doesn’t seem to have a lot to offer. Instead, you would push your past self to go for liberal arts when you suddenly wanted to switch majors in the second year. Perhaps, in that case, your life would’ve been a tad bit better. 

Well, better than what it is now, at least, because currently, you’re sitting in the living room of your new apartment with a beer can in hand and tons of unpacked boxes around you. You’ve been thinking of unpacking for over an hour now, but every time your eyes land upon another beer, you’re back on the floor, chugging the drink down and regretting your life choices. Things would’ve been better if you had turned in your resignation instead of waiting till the last week of July for your pay; because now it’s August, and you’re in a new city with a new apartment, and the only thing you remember is the way to the nearest seven-eleven store from your apartment. You don’t want to think of this negatively, really, since you’ve been asking for a change, after all; and nothing is better than starting anew in a completely new location. However, you don’t want to work in the sales department when all you’ve ever worked about is finance. You don’t want to go through the pain of getting lost in the streets and chased by some dog, for you’re hitting thirty and you feel your bones cracking. You wanted a new start, however not in this field. A new start, for you, meant going on a vacation, detoxifying your mind off all the stress and tension, picking up a hobby, focusing on self-care— just anything that would help you change your views about life.   

Your silent remorseful session is interrupted by a knock on the door, and you’re certain you heard a doorbell, however you’re not sure if it’s the alcohol playing with your mind or whether someone is actually waiting at your doorstep. Forcing yourself to stand up, you stumble towards the door, the sudden decrease in blood pressure leaves a hint of dizziness as you step forward. Since you’ve just moved in, expecting anyone besides mails and landlord is pointless. While you remember having a friend living in the same city, you never told her your address so it’s unlikely for her to visit you either. You stand before the door, fixing your hair before moving down to the creases on your shirt as you unlock the door with a forced smile; and the time ceases to exist. 

“Hi,” Heeseung mumbles. 

You step aside to let him in, involuntarily— “Hi,” you breathe out before stressing your mind to come up with a reason for letting him inside. Could it be that you’re so lonely that now, you’re treating your ex as just someone you’ve been expecting to see? Maybe not, maybe it’s because you just moved in and despite the notes that you both ended on, it would be disrespectful to shut the door on someone who came with seemingly all good intentions. 

His steps are laced with hesitation. There’s a Château Margaux in his hands as you notice his fingers nervously tighten around the bottle before he turns around, albeit you avoid his gaze actively. “I heard someone moved in so I came to meet,” A pause, and then: “Didn’t know it was you.” 

He puts emphasis on the word as if it’s a bad thing. As if you’re an outsider trying to invade his peaceful life yet again, only to cause mayhem. However, the question is, had you known that Heeseung lives here, would you have moved in? Or, would you continue to live knowing Heeseung is your neighbour and that you would possibly see him for the rest of your life? You don’t know the answer to that one— not sure if you even want to find one, in fact. The last thing you need is to worry about bumping into an ex. You gesture at him to take a seat and to your surprise, he sits on the floor, exactly where you were having your drinking session before he came along. You grab the wine glasses from the kitchen before making your way back to the living room and sitting opposite to him. There’s a heavy tension in the air, one that is suffocating both of you, though you’re sure a major part of it is arising from you. After all, you let him inside as if he was an old friend, one that you were hoping to see, as if he isn’t your ex. 

Heeseung and you got together in your second year of university. You met him through a mutual friend on their birthday when they invited a few people from another department. You didn’t plan to go initially, you had presentations to make, but something inside of you prompted you to give in and had it not been for that day, you would’ve never come across Lee Heeseung in your life. The first time you met him at the bar, Heeseung seemed to be a heavy drinker— droopy eyes, messed up hair, a few things written on the palm of his hands— he didn’t even come across as someone who paid attention during lessons. However, much to your surprise, he excused himself early, sitting outside with a can of cold coffee he got from the vending machine in his hand while reading what seemed like economics notes compiled in pdf format. Perhaps, Heeseung knew he came off as a showoff when you found him chugging down his drink in an attempt to erase whatever effect alcohol could have on him. 

You sat next to him and all of a sudden, he started explaining how he doesn’t usually dip in the middle of gatherings with friends and step out to study. He simply happens to have a test the next day and his friends dragged him along. Simultaneously, you learnt that it was his first time drinking despite and he swore not to drink anything that wasn’t caffeine. It was nice, really; while Heeseung was busy worrying that you might dislike him for being such a show off, you were enjoying your time with him because in the end, you weren’t a big fan of drinking with your friends either. The two of you talked about wasted matters, complained about subjects and teachers, shared social media handles. It was fantastical, almost unreal, because you don’t remember the last time you clicked with someone so quickly. You didn’t have impressive social skills to initiate conversations, which consequently resulted in you being left out most of the time. It didn’t really matter since relationships and all were secondary at that time, for you had a set goal to work towards. You had always believed that people can make friends and fall in love anytime. However, life gives you just once chance to achieve your dreams. Disconnecting from the public didn't have any effect since you got your work done. While your friends wasted their nights at clubs, you spent it studying and completing assignments. You never felt the lack of friends and interactions eating you slowly. The loneliness didn’t hit you until you graduated with hands full of bills to pay and responsibilities to handle. 

After that night, you started seeing Heeseung more than usual. Despite being in different majors and completely different schedules, you saw him at the campus more often than you used to. It was as if he was always there, waiting for you to find him. Despite changing Twitter and Instagram handles, the two of you barely talked. There was no communication except interacting with each others’ posts, leaving a comment every now and then, tagging each other in stories. You would mutter a soft hello every time you’d bump into him and if fate allowed, you’d have a small conversation. There was no progress in your relationship until a few months after your first meeting, at one of the fests hosted by the Art Department. You had no one to visit with and Heeseung wasn’t interested until you came across him in the library, taking down notes of the lectures he had missed. He asked if you wanted to visit the fest, much to your surprise, and that was the first time you had hung out with Heeseung after knowing him for five months. 

“You seem excited for work,” It’s a question that leaves you confused until your eyes land upon the stacks of files and documents lying stray on the kitchen counter. The next thing you notice is that Heeseung’s voice has gotten a lot deeper, possessing all the necessary qualities of a voice a hiring manager would want to hear in interviews. 

“Do I?” You offer a rhetorical response, not knowing exactly what to say. For a brief second, you considered pouring yourself more drink and going off about your lethargic and unfruitful lifestyle. A chuckle falls off your lips as you stir the wine in its glass, feeling the weight shift from left to right before chugging the remaining liquid down. “I hate my job,”

You pour yourself another glass. Heeseung’s fingers flinch watching your hands reach for the bottle but he didn’t dare interrupt your actions. Another second passes in silence, another sip of wine hits your system. You feel fatigue fill your sinuses as you fight off sleep for another hit— another line of thoughts.  

You can go on for days, complaining about your job, despite knowing that looking down on your work and throwing shade on your boss isn’t going to get you anywhere in life. But at the end of the day, you have nothing else to talk about either. While your colleagues spent weekends drinking, going on dates, and watching movies, you worked your ass off to finish off a project and get a promotion; because promotions come with an increase in pay, and the thing you need the most at the moment is money. Even in school and universities, you used to spend your days and nights studying hard because in the end, the employers from big companies always look for candidates from the top universities, students who graduated with high honours and those who have a lot to offer to the market. Graduating from one of the best universities in Korea in your department should’ve helped you get a high paying job with several benefits. You didn’t lack knowledge, nor did you lack the brains to tackle the problems in finance. You graduated on top of your class so your educational qualifications weren’t below the bar either. If it comes down to experience, one can not expect a fresh graduate to have work experience. In the end, you’re left with the lack of information once again, not knowing why your life turned out this way when every step you took ensured success. 

“Then, why don’t you try doing something that you like?” Heeseung suggests, twirling the glass in his hand, unknowingly mirroring your actions. While he thinks he’s doing a good job at keeping the conversation going, Heeseung knows his advice isn’t worth a penny. Imagine telling a full-time employee to quit their job and do what they like! He thinks to himself, almost ready to take his words back, because he can’t even imagine himself doing the same thing for the sake of a better life. 

“You can’t depend on your likes and dislikes to make a living,” You chuckle yet again, voice laced with bitterness. Failure and disappointment were something you never had tasted until now. You remember the dissatisfaction you felt when your mother gave you sliced apples when you told her you were hungry. You refused to eat, but your mother said that when you’re starving, you don’t look for food that suits your taste. You just eat whatever you get; and thinking about it now, you think it applies to practical life as well. Survival in this world isn’t possible if you depend upon your preferences. Humans have the ability to adapt to various situations, and the key to adaptation is working under different circumstances, often that don’t suit your preferences. That is how you secure your position in the world. If things revolved around one’s likes and dislikes, you sure would’ve been a billionaire for you love to stay on your couch all day and dislike capsicums. 

“What about you?” You counter with the same question. “You look even more tired than how you were in university.” Now, your attention is on his dark circles and weary eyes. The Heeseung you remember from university was phenomenal, having an urge to do anything and everything. His eyes searched for opportunities, hands aching to work on something new. His never ending passion and a desire to know more made him an ideal figure for the juniors as well as someone who the seniors used to envy. However, the eyes of the Heeseung sitting in front of you are telling a whole nother story. They’re talking about the good times while his hands look tired from having a lot on his plate with no time for himself. 

“Work load,” Heeseung sighs, eyes fixed on his drink as he continues to twirl it around. Your gaze shifts to the corner of his lips, watching them curl into a faint smile. “Do you remember how we used to spent weekends hunting for part time—”

And then a pause. Your eyes avert to his’, meeting him in the line of contact; they resonate with just two emotions— regret and respect. You fail to decipher the meaning behind his gaze, you lost the ability to do so years ago. He presses his lips into a thin line, pressing his fingers against the glass in an attempt to suppress his emotions before looking away from you. The comforting silence suddenly weighs upon your shoulders with its hands around your neck, suffocating you to the point of breathlessness; and then you ask yourself— what am I doing? The clock strikes seven and it didn’t hit you how quickly the time flowed until everything dawned upon you. Once again, you’re left questioning your whats and whys about life, for after all, you didn’t expect to spend your evening drinking with your ex. You notice splatters of rain against your window pane as they blur the golden glow of the city scape behind. The rain falls louder, the room fills with the sound of clouds rumbling, you take another sip of wine— it takes you back to your days with Heeseung. 

You don’t know if it’s alcohol blurring your paths down the memory lane, but a part of job hunting with Heeseung also included applying for the same part-jobs and competing so see who gets hired. Although, both of you ended up receiving a polite rejection most of the time, it didn’t affect your relationship. Actually, you don’t think anything regarding job interviews or grades affected your relationship with him. It was a good, healthy race, one that allowed both of you to grow as individuals, for yourselves and for each other. There were days when you came home with the news about getting hired, only to know how his application was rejected or he was fired, and vice-versa. You both took your turns comforting each other— it didn’t feel like your life was any different from his. In fact, every second with Heeseung felt as if you both were living the same life. Watching him go through the exact same thing you went through a few weeks ago, or finding yourself in the same situation you found him merely a few nights ago; it was like watching just another version of yourself.  

Seconds catapult before you. Heeseung gets up and makes his way towards the door. No words are shared, the world is spinning too quickly, it gets harder and harder for you to retrace your steps to figure out how you ended up here. His name falls off your lips— it’s not louder than a soft whisper. You don’t know why you stopped him in his tracks. Is it intentional? Is it involuntary? Or is it because you were hoping for something else? You would never know, at least not now. Months expanded into years and the time when you dated Heeseung still feels like yesterday. It’s as if you woke up— there is his face next to you, the sunlight offering a soft golden glow to his eyes as they light up your whole words. His lips meet yours, a smile emerges under the tender kiss, Heeseung tells you he loves you and you couldn’t be happier. The day rolls by, your steps follow him everywhere he goes, breaths mingling into each other in secluded corners of streets, hidden from the world because it’s a love to be harboured in secrecy. Your hands intertwine with his. It’s two souls living as one, two hearts beating in synchrony. The night rolls by and you’re back in his arms, a little closer to heart, deeper into his mind. The moon sighs in admiration, night slips through his feather light touches as he traces every inch of your skin with love. The sun comes up— and suddenly you’re exes. You never had enough time to process his departure from your life, just the way you failed to process his impromptu arrival this evening. Heeseung is in front of you like the way he used to be. However, just like the first time, the universe agreed but the stars never aligned, and Heeseung is leaving once again as you fail to hold onto him one more time.

“Why don’t you resign if you don’t like your job?” Heeseung stops by his door, and you realise the words that leave his mouth are the same ones that people throw at you whenever they hear you complain about your work life.

“I was about to, but was transferred here. Thought I should give it a try before quitting.” While that doesn’t sound like the most convincing reason, it sure is a plausible one. You had been looking for a change— any change— and throwing away the chance to have one while it had been in your hand would be a bad decision, no matter how unfavourable it sounds at the moment.   

“Doesn’t that sound familiar? When I confessed, you said you weren’t sure about your feelings but would give it a try,” There’s a faint smile on his face, albeit you aren’t able to perceive the meaning behind his words. “I’m sure it’ll turn out better,” 

You take a step towards the door before shutting it completely. You don’t know why he said that, nor do you think you’ll ever get the chance to ask him. Perhaps you wouldn’t ask him willingly in the first place. You turn around, leaning against the door as a sigh escapes your lips. Heeseung has his own life, and so, his own views on different things. If he resents you, you’re in no position to try and change that for him. You don’t think you’re in a position to interfere with his life when you decided to walk out of it in the first place.

If regret was his part to play, then remorse was yours. 

II. Don’t be a ‘know it all’ 

Drinking with Heeseung feels like yesterday, when in fact, you haven’t seen him in four days. 

Life is busy, and it’s even busier for someone like Heeseung who works as a chartered accountant if your memories from last evening aren’t defying you. You can’t imagine yourself in that position, not like you want to in the first place. Excel sheets and tons of documents about taxes are all you could think of when you hear anything along the lines of accountancy, which is intolerable to you, given that you’ve majored in finance, ironically. 

A lot of things in your life are contradicting, actually. You don’t like to cook but cooking for close friends is something you’ve always loved. Examples follow, and at one point you realised that your life barely makes sense. Expectations from friends and relatives made you a try hard, so much that anything less than a perfect score made you feel suffocated. People had desires and interest in certain things, but you needed to be good at everything, and saying that it was for yourself would be a lie, because you had to set an example of an ideal person in front of your younger siblings. Your parents were strict to you and it didn’t feel unfair. You were ten when you saw your mother cry because of all the financial burden, but she had to be the perfect mother for her children, so you never saw her complain ever again. Fifteen year old you didn’t have a goal in mind but she knew that there’s a path ahead of her that leads her siblings on the right track, towards a better future, and so she took it— no aims and dreams of herself, just whatever she could’ve done for her brothers. It was hard at first but the formula to success was easy— hardwork and determination, and all you had to do was avoid distractions. Again, the reality didn’t hit you until you met Heeseung. 

It was as if you were both her two sides of the same coin. Persistence flowed in both of your veins, but every time you looked at him, you realised that he enjoyed everything he was doing. Heeseung enjoyed waking up at four, going out for a jog, attending classes, job hunting, staying up till two or simply not sleeping on some nights. Even on the darkest of the days and coldest of the nights, you would see Heeseung looking at you with a warm smile. He always managed to find a reason to smile, or make a situation humorous enough to make others smile as well. You don’t know how he did that, you never had the chance to ask, but you’re certain that even if he told you, you wouldn’t understand. Heeseung’s principles of living were beyond your comprehension— staying up late yet waking up right when dawn breaks, buying books but never really reading them, researching articles on topics that don’t concern your subjects even marginally— but that’s just his curiosity getting the best of him. 

Often, he’d find himself amidst a financial conflict like any other college student, but it never had an impact on his desires, and he used to say, ‘A sale wouldn’t wait for me to pay my bills so that I can buy my favourite shirt with the money left,’ as if his rent was going to pay itself. If someone asks about the biggest difference between him and you, it’s about desires. You suppress yours while Heeseung lives them like it’s the last time he could ever wish for something. You believe in the cause, while Heeseung did in curiosity, and that’s where it creates a line. Though lately, you’ve been hearing other things about him, new things, if you must say. 

The landlord told you about the Heeseung who’s quiet, who doesn’t leave his house until it’s about work, who eats the same menu for days until his system demands something new, who now has been prescribed actual specs because of his family history of hypermetropia. You find yourself smiling about it because back in university, Heeseung used to brag about his perfect vision, and you would say, ‘family health history is no joke. you take that shit down to your grave,’ and now when it has actually happened, you wonder what he has to say. Hearing stories about him made you realise that a lot of things changed, but Heeseung didn’t. Maybe, the situation demands him to live vegetatively, or maybe he’s saving up for a bigger plan. 

“They say you’re a loner,” You had said one time when you bumped into him on the lift. “That you never leave your apartment except for work,” 

Much to Heeseung’s surprise, a lot of things changed after he entered his thirties, the most prominent being his back pain, which may or may not have arisen from the lack of workout and constantly sitting in front of his desk for hours. He would smile at plants or sit by the balcony, watching the city being ever so lively and yet so monotonous. Afternoon naps became mandatory to continue proficiently for the rest of the day and before he realised, Heeseung became the old man of every highschool student’s imagination. Truthfully, he spent his first few months after graduation in his room, amidst sketching pencils and loose sheets. While other fresh graduates hunted for jobs or ways to fill their resume to fit the companies’ requirements, he spent his early months as an unemployed lad who graduated with top honours from one of the best universities in Korea. For the first time in life, he found himself looking at his ceiling and wondering, what’s next. Heeseung, who always had a plan for something despite seeming reckless, was about to step into adulthood with no plans to follow. 

“I guess I’ll be that,”

He was back in your apartment, same wine in his hand, same old complaints. It’s been quite a few weeks since you’ve moved in and Heeseung always finds himself in your living room at noons when he doesn’t sleep, making small talk about topics that usually stir a little interest. You haven’t had the time to go out with your colleagues and make new friends or explore the city, which gives you a perfect excuse to see Heeseung and call it socialising. Not to mention, you’ve been introducing him to your previous workmates as the ‘new friend’ you’ve made in the new place. 

“We both know you’re not that,” You continue, recalling all the reasons why Heeseung isn’t how people around describe him to be. 

“No one is the same after actually getting a life,” He replies while going through his emails, scrolling down with one hand before placing the wine glass by his side and proceeding to type something. “Look at yourself, for example,” 

You don’t know whether it’s a compliment or an insult. Perhaps the latter, albeit the chances of him noticing a good difference in you are low but never zero. Your eyes fix on his fingers, following them as he types something before clearing it all, and then typing all over again while mumbling the exact same words with an expression ranging from confusion to worry. You reconsider his words, he isn’t half wrong. 

Adulthood is climacteric. You think you’re an adult the moment you turn eighteen but in reality, you aren’t one until you’re in a position to make it through life profoundly, and ironically enough, you don’t think most people get a taste of adulthood until they hit their late twenties or enter their thirties. Your mind traces back to what he said— ‘yourself, for example,’ and suddenly, you become conscious of every single thing that has changed about you. You learnt piano but now your fingers don’t flow smoothly over the keys as they used to, given you haven’t played piano in years. You were a part of the science club in highschool and the student council president in your senior year. You wanted to go into aeronautics but seasons changed and one day, you looked in the mirror and saw the version of yourself who was about to graduate with honours in finance. Even after graduation you had a chance to switch fields but you didn’t, or rather, couldn’t. You were hired in the same year, which gave you even more reasons to continue since it would relieve your dad of the financial burden looming on his shoulders. Maybe, that’s what adulthood is supposed to do to you. You find yourself working in a field you have no interest or experience in and by the time you gain experience, you’re too old to grow an interest. 

Statistically, your school life was much better than college and onwards. You had, although little, but knowledge about all the subjects, a desire to know more, time to yield interest and a will to keep going on. To think, almost everyone in high school grows up under the same circumstances. They either have the opportunity or are given one to pursue what they want, taking it or not is up to them. For you, it was the former. You were given the chance to participate in the maths olympiad which you didn’t because of school exams. You were recommended to the best science institute in the country but you dropped out in just two months. Your music teacher offered you a chance to learn music professionally in Vienna but you never reached out to her on that again. You were given multiple chances to live how you wanted to but you simply discarded them and went with what proved to be the easiest way. 

That moment on a comparatively warm august afternoon, sitting next to him with wine, you went all the way back to all the instances and decisions that lead you to where you were right now. 

On the other hand, you shift your attention back to Heeseung, and even though you never got to know about his childhood or parents properly, you certainly knew that the way he experienced both of them was better than yours. Growing up as a single child gave him absolute control of things that he did and did not want. His decisions were not influenced by his parents, which could be classified as some sort of independence in regards to making his own choices from an early age, but neither did he have any siblings to set an example for. All his life, Heeseung has only lived for himself, and it reflects in his personality, if one tries hard enough to notice. While you had to give up one thing or other for your siblings, Heeseung got a taste of everything he wanted. He knows how it feels to not sleep all night but you never had the chance until much later because you were always thought to sleep on time and wake up early, whether or not you had anything to do. There may have been someone guiding him all along but most of the time, his experience gave him a clear insight and freedom to choose what he wants to do. 

To sum it up, you might be more qualified in terms of academics but Heeseung has more experience when it comes to diverse situations, and experience is all employers want these days in their employees. 

“Well, you still are the ideal candidate for marriage,” You chuckle, remembering what the lady told you a few days ago. You notice him marking a few emails before closing the app, picking the wine glass back up once again. It’s not a surprise to see someone like Heeseung being approached with several martial arrangements. He, despite being described as a loner by a few residents in the apartment, is still the guy with whom you would want to marry your daughter off. He works nine-to-five like any other family guy, is disciplined, comes from a good family and education background, and his looks work as cherry on top.  

“All they want is a guy with a stable job and salary,” He spat with a smile, chugging down the drink in his glass all at once. “That’s not who I want to be,” 

“Who do you want to be, Heeseung?” You ask above the silence lingering in the room, just loud enough to pique his interest. His phone screen lights up with a mail, but his eyes never leave your sight, not even for a second. 

People usually wouldn’t recommend talking to your ex, let alone sharing a deep, therapeutic session about life and self-development. If you say you’re starting as friends again, they would say it’s impossible because the bare minimum requirement to classify as a friend— the lack of romantic emotions— has already been violated. Even if you claim to be over Heeseung and treat him as just another one of your exes, you know there are unsaid feelings blooming in the air. You wouldn’t call Heeseung a friend, he never was one, actually. Heeseung was never there when you actually needed a friend but you never noticed his absence as your colleague, or as your boyfriend. Heeseung is terrible at being friends because he confessed to you the day he introduced you as ‘just a friend,’ to his friends. You wouldn’t consider being friends with your ex, yet you don’t think you could be anything more with him either. You started talking to him as a stranger but Heeseung has always been way too familiar to identity as a stranger. Too familiar for a stranger, too strange to be familiar, it’s another one of the things your life could be contradicting about. 

He looks at you, directing your question back to you as if you’re a better candidate to consult. ‘Who do I want to be?’ All your life, you’ve never done something that counts for yourself. Even your perfect sleeping schedule was meant to set an example for your brothers. Your achievements were never yours to begin with. You were good at piano, but that’s because your teacher taught you. You never composed a piece and simply played what has already been played. Even at work, you do what you’ve been told, and not what you want to. There’s no innovation, just flow of ideas from one level to the other, and it keeps being passed down to a level beyond which, it’s no longer fruitful. ‘Who do I want to be?’ You ask yourself over and over again, but it’s a question you don’t know how to approach. Rather, you would like to know, ‘Who am I right now?’

Just like that, October passes amidst wines and visits from Heeseung every other afternoon or evenings on weekends that weren’t swamped with work. For some reasons, workload increases as December approaches with his cold and calloused hands, which could be the reason why you’ve been seeing less of him lately. Occasionally, you would pour two glasses of wine and sit in the living room, but it would end up with you drinking yours in silence while his’ rests untouched. On nights you stay up till twelve or so, you could hear him unlock his doors in a hurry and shut it just as quickly. Maybe, that’s how a busy lifestyle is supposed to be. Consequently, you stopped waiting for him, coming in terms with reality once again. For a brief while, you considered flying back to your hometown and living with your family for a while, but the idea was dismissed as soon as the announcements about promotions emerged in your department. Once again, you found yourself working day and night with eyes set on no one but Heeseung to spend your upcoming Christmas with. 

Usually, you’re someone who prioritises family over work but a promotion is what you need the most at the moment. Time and patience, they say, but you have neither of those. You don’t have time to sit and rethink or start all over again, time to start from scratch, and patience was never one of your positive traits. At times, you would consider resigning and moving to a whole other country but it was too late to do that. You were no longer a stranger to society, you knew how things work and you had to make things work, with no time to try anything new. At thirty-two, no one wants to see you resign and fly to Maldives for a vacation, to live like you have no worries to worry about, not even yourself. See, that’s the pain of growing up. Parents would tell their children that they have their whole life to do what they like and just a few years to study and make something out of themselves, and it’s nothing but a lie. The truth is, you only have time when you’re young and, as you grow up, time starts slipping out of your hand. A kid is expected to be able to walk by the time they’re eighteen months old, or two years at most. Beyond that, it’s a problem and you have to consult a paediatrician, even if you don’t want to. A student is expected to graduate by the time they turn eighteen, people are expected to have a job by twenty-seven, you’re supposed to be in a relationship before thirty and married by thirty-five. As you grow old, the time to do something runs out and by the time you’re seventy or so, you realise you’re too old to do what you want. 

“I actually wanted to go back this time but, mom’s trying to convince me into getting married,” He said when you accidentally bumped into him this morning, signing off a delivery. Heeseung, in college, came off as someone who would be rather interested in marriages, someone who’d commit to a serious relationship in university and end up marrying them. You wanted to ask the reason but chose not to, maybe because you remind yourself that you’re exes and there are boundaries that should be maintained. 

“So, you just don’t want to get married,” It’s supposed to be a question, albeit it comes off as a statement. You lean against your doorframe, watching him carry his parcel inside and placing it next to his couch. Usually, you’d lend him a hand but today, you simply crossed your arms and waited for him to respond. 

“I don’t want to get married right now,” He replies between huffs. “I can barely take care of myself,” There’s a faint bit of fascination in his voice, a smile evident on his face that leaves you wondering if the slight humour was necessary or whether it’s supposed to be a facade for his rather unsatisfactory lifestyle. 

“Well, you are doing much better than me,” You counter with the same fascination, shifting your weight on both your feet equally in hopes to engage in a full fledged conversation instead of a small talk. “Besides, marriage is a two way street. Being the husband doesn’t mean you have to earn and be responsible for the whole family, or being the wife doesn’t mean she has to cook, there are no roles to play. Marriage is just, sharing what you do, good or bad, right or wrong, and helping each other become a better version of ourselves.” A string of silence follows, you notice his chest rise in an attempt to reply, but words never leave his mouth. You wonder if you said something wrong, but part of you knows you didn’t. Marriage is not as horrific and most of the people make it to be. We all need someone to hold onto, someone who you know will be there when the world isn’t— it’s similar to dating, except you’re committing to just one person, which is better than breaking up and living in vain for months before falling for someone and living the whole process all over again.  

“You seem to know a lot,” But Heeseung never replies and shuts the door, and it’s just you and the silence once again. 

You spend the next few weeks locked in your bedroom, in front of your laptop, making a presentation while living off noodles and beer. You sleep schedule has been in shambles, you’ve grown prominent dark circles, living the vicious cycle of working your ass off with little or no sleep to suffice for your constant workload. This is the most productive you’ve been in a while, especially after your transfer. You wouldn’t say your job pleases you and better, but being aware that this project could really end up with you getting a promotion and thus, a salary increase, is enough to keep you going. 

You were back where you had started a few years ago, reading reports and watching your laptop overheat from all the tabs and applications running at once. You knew what you were doing but everything felt so foreign. The excel sheets spread open with the pointer blinking for you to add an input but your fingers no longer dance above the keyboard like they used to in the first few months of your job. You consulted your seniors, talked to your team leader, watched conferences of qualified professors of your field, took notes, but it all led you to the same thing— deleting and rewriting the whole thing, or simply a blank document that would light up your room on  nights you chose not to sleep. You even considered talking to Heeseung at some point but after recalling the way he dismissed you the morning he was receiving the parcel, you choose not to. While most people wouldn’t mind taking ten minutes to offer a word of advice, you simply choose not to involve Heeseung with your personal issues. 

Taking half days from work using it as an excuse to work on your presentation gave you an opportunity to watch Heeseung leave and arrive at his apartment everyday. You’d sit on your balcony with beer, or tea, rarely, and your laptop on your lap, scrolling through emails and numerous files, and around seven every evening, you’d see him step out of the cab that drops him off right in front of the apartment. On mornings, you usually see him walk up to the intersection which you think is to compensate for the lack of exercise in his routine. Often, you find yourself peeking down from your railing to catch a glimpse of him as soon as the minute hand crosses seven twenty. When he doesn’t arrive by eight, you grab another can of beer and take rounds from your door to the balcony with a pacing that increases with every second that passes. One time, he came home at nine and you rushed to open your door before realising that you can’t tell him you’ve been waiting for him for the past two hours. Good thing is that you had your phone and continued on your way to the apartment garden, telling him that you have to make an important call. 

You met him as his ex and now you find yourself dropping everything and waiting for him as if he’s your first priority. That’s when you realised you needed to create a line, but for now, you don’t mind hanging out in the neighbourhood with Heeseung as his friend, according to how he now introduces you to people he knows. 

“You’re telling me you never went out and explored this place?” His mouth was agape, too shocked to say anything. There were days when your antics spilled out relentlessly, but living in a city for over almost four months and not knowing any of the routes besides the one to your workplace has to be the worst one of those. Even back in university, you preferred to spend weekends in your dorms instead of at some club or bar, like your friends did. It would be a stretch if Heeseung said you are a hopeless case because he was no better, but he wasn’t as bad either, in several ways. 

“Hm, well, work gave me a perfect excuse to not go out,” You say with your eyes glued to the data sheet on your phone and it reminds him of the day you saw him studying Economics outside the bar. These are a few of the similarities that Heeseung noticed between him and you, similarities that he likes to see but is too scared to address in words. “Besides, it would be a waste of time and fuel when you can get the exact same things at your doorsteps.” 

“Is that why you never went out in college either?” He asks finally after a long drawn silence, albeit it never hits you since you’ve been too busy going through the documents on your phone. “Hey,”

“Maybe, but that was more because of academic reasons,” A poke on your shoulder manages to draw a response out of you, but it doesn’t take Heeseung to realise that you’re no longer interested in his questions. “Should we get more beer?” 

Heeseung stares at you, wondering if you still want a response because you’re already picking up cans from the shelves and walking towards the counter for billing. Gradually, he realises that you don’t even remember asking him for his input because you’re simply paying the bills and thanking the woman for her service. Instead of a question, your words resonate more like a statement. As if, you are no longer asking for a third-party input, you don’t need it, you’re simply letting them know your next decision, disguising it as an action of. . . kindness? Soliticion? He doesn’t know.

Now that the sun is approaching the horizon, offering a purple hue to the ever so beautiful sky, Heeseung finally comes to terms with what he thinks about you. His mind traces back to the day you told him that he’s not who people make him out to be and for a brief second, he questions the credibility of your words. You claim to know him, but do you know that he has been living by the edge all this time, or that he has been fired thrice before getting a job in the bank he’s working right now, or that he tried to call you after you broke up with him, that he has been diagnosed with some sort of congenital heart condition? You didn’t lie when you said one’s family health history will follow them down to their grave. And just like you, he doesn’t know much about you either. Even though you’ve told him most of the things, ranging from your family to your current situation, Heeseung doesn’t know who you are. There’s an unfamiliar familiarity, or a familiar unfamiliarity, either works, he doesn’t have a better phrase to describe it. To think, while you consider yourself in a position to classify people’s thoughts on Heeseung as right or wrong, he doesn’t even consider himself in a position to pay for your food, and it’s probably because how you’ve been taking slow steps away from him, eyes still glued to your phone while you keep talking to him as if he’s right next to you, when actually, he’s twenty steps behind. The sun that has disappeared, leaving behind a sombre glow over the whole city, taught him something— that no matter how long you’ve known someone, you never know them enough. There are pieces of you that separate you from them, actions that tell you that no two people are mirrors for each other’s soul, for one’s body and mind knows how to differentiate between self and non self, and no one’s a ‘know it all,’ after all. 

“You’ve changed,” He mentions abruptly, and that’s when you finally look up in his direction, soaking in the awareness that Heeseung is no longer standing next to you. 

For some reason, the evening led you to a local restaurant and while you were busy on your phone again, Heeseung took his time reading the menu card. As he took his time ordering the drinks, your attention shifted to the view of busy streets on the other side of the glass window pane. You watched as the high schoolers had the time of their lives next to a vending machine, following the actions of the book store owner as he reopened his shop for the evening. You swear you heard Heeseung call out your name a couple of times, albeit it felt like a fever dream and you didn’t respond. 

Change, as he described you, you wonder what could’ve changed inside you. You don’t think there’s a lot. You still work like a maniac and refuse to go out. Your complaining nature never changed, but you still don’t voice your problems where you should. You still get terrible headaches and take a pill for every little inconvenience. In the end, you don’t think you’re very different from how you were when you met Heeseung. Except that your hard work barely pays off these days, you think you’re still the same, monotonic version of yourself that he fell in love with, the same you that dumped him on the day of graduation ceremony four years ago.

“You said I changed,” By the time your drinks had arrived, you were knee deep in the simulations that could’ve made Heeseung feel like you’ve changed. “In what aspects, if I may ask,” 

“Like, in general,” He replies with a nod. “I can’t point it out but something about you has changed— well, of course, your age aside,” Liar, he thinks. Heeseung, in fact, knows what has changed, but he doesn’t know how to put it in words. Well, I can’t say you’re no longer looking forward to my opinions on something. Because even though you met as neighbours, even though you’re in a restaurant with him, having a meal and sharing bits of your life’s stories with each other, even though Heeseung looks forward to seeing you everyday— he needs to remember that you started as exes. 

You manage to draw a long hum out of you, nodding cautiously as you take his every word into consideration. They don’t offer much insight about what he’s actually thinking, but again, you never know exactly what is going on inside someone’s head. However, you take your chance to try and get something out of him. “A good change or a bad change?” 

“That’s for you to figure out,” He says softly, tying his words with a long, silent pause that follows closely after. He shoots you a cheeky smile before digging in and you take your time examining his features under the yellow lights of the restaurant, noticing the way he cuts his steak, or the way his eyebrows perk up as soon as his phone rings. You watch him turn to his side as he picks up the call, putting hand on his mouth to minimise the sound, though it was loud enough for you to decipher it clearly. 

You read the slight changes in his expression and gradual curve of his lips swifting upwards. Amidst all, your phone rings as well, interrupting the decorum of the restaurant. You pick it up quickly when Heeseung sends you a displeasing look, though you believe it wasn’t intentional. You didn’t check the caller ID but the voice tells you that it’s your team leader and for some reason, you’re expecting something good. Call it a hunch or the change in scenery tonight but something tells you that there must be good news waiting for you in a secluded corner. While you try your best to focus on what is being informed to you from the other side of the line, you’re too busy analysing Heeseung’s grimace that now you’re mirroring the same smile that’s dancing on his face. He glances at you and his smile grows wider, making you do the same in return. You really hope your call isn’t about the presentation due tomorrow because if yes, then you’re going to mess up, for your attention is nowhere near your call. You’re so lost taking note of every single change in Heeseung’s expression that now, everything your team leader is telling you from the other side of the phone is a blur. It’s as if you’re in a crowded room and the only thing you’re able to perceive is him. You’re so busy indulging in his actions that the only thing you’re able to hear clearly from the phone is that you’ve been removed from the project.

‘I know that you’ve been working hard but the Chairman thinks you’re not skilled enough to collaborate with us on this project,’ You start paying attention to the conversation now, letting everything else around dissolve in the yellow glow of the restaurant. ‘To make sure your efforts aren’t wasted, you’re free to give us a brief view on what you had in mind and if we decide to include it, I’ll put in a word or two for you to the Chairman.’ 

‘Promotion,’ he mouths the word with a cheeky smile when your eyes focus back on him before getting back to his phone once again. You don’t put down your phone and pretend to be on a call to avoid hearing about his good news, or share the bad one from your side. You try to respond with the same smile but your lips feel like they’re frozen. No movements— you don’t know what to say, how to smile; numbness is all you could comprehend. For the first time in all the years that you’ve known him, a slight hint of envy intoxicates the air between you and Heeseung. You should be happy for him— you’ve always been. You’ve always been a part of his success despite falling to the rock bottom on your part. On days Heeseung called you to inform you about the awards he received in a particular competition, you’d invite him over for a celebratory drink even if you, yourself, lost terribly. It was a long drawn process of mutual development and self-care. What people thought of as a relationship written in the stars, was a selfish way of ensuring your well being in the most selfless ways ever. You stayed with Heeseung because he was the only person down to hang out with you in your apartment instead of forcing you to go out. You enjoyed his company because he motivated you to do better, to test your potential and go beyond your limits; and somewhere inside, you knew you were worth the same for Heeseung too. Watching him do well, isn’t that what you wanted? You should be happy for him— but you’re not.  

Heeseung excuses him outside the restaurant once his phone starts blowing up with texts and calls, giving you a chance to drop your facade and let the whole situation sink in. You lean back on your chair, phone on the table as its screen lights up with a message from your team leader, informing the team that you’ve decided to step down from the project— which is a lie but you assume it’s been told to save you for further embarrassment. You sniff, a chuckle falls off your lips, there’s no use of it at all, what’s done is done. On the other side of the glass pane, you could see Heeseung talking on his phone with a triumphant smile, making invincible patterns on the pavestone with the tip of his converses. It feels as if he’s shining against the busy streets behind him, as if he’s the centre of attention at the moment. It takes you exactly back to your graduation day— he was just as happy sharing the news about his graduation with his family. You were sitting inside a cafe and watched him talk for what felt like hours. Your heart was full of the same dissatisfaction, but now that you think about it, perhaps it was just jealousy back then too. While Heeseung was born smart, brimming with passion, you had to fight to get what you wanted. And despite being one of the brightest students in his class, Heeseung’s achievements never had a chance next to yours. You stood in the first three ranks of your school, first five all your college life, been recommended to prestigious schools, were given more opportunities, you were better than Heeseung in all the possible ways. 

You watch Heeseung come inside and pick up his fork, only to put it down and get back to typing once again. There’s a smile on his face and it tells you that you’re equally deserving of the happiness he’s experiencing, perhaps even more than him because life was way harder for you than anyone else you’ve known till date. For the first time in years, you think life is unfair to you because even after giving your best in everything, you’re met with nothing but failure and discontent. No matter how hard you try, your efforts never pay off and people start treating you like a pushover, thinking you would do everything they’d say because you need to put up a good image of yourself in your workplace. You walk hand in hand with failure and watch people succeed with their bare minimum effort. You look at him once again and think, why must it always be you who suffers the pain of failure and shame.

Why me, why not him? 

III. Remember why you broke up

By the time winters arrived and marked their peak, you barely got a view of your neighbour. A part of it could be because of his even busier work life that comes in with promotions. You took the weekend off, saying you have an annual health checkup scheduled at the City Hospital, even though it was a white lie and you never had an appointment with your physician to begin with. Those two days felt longer than usual with the four walls of your apartment making you feel suffocated in your own house. You paced around for hours on empty, rearranging things, cleaning rooms, cooking meals, moving furniture— just anything that would make you feel useful. Truthfully, being depressed over a promotion makes you feel even more stupid about yourself. It’s a part of life, something you involuntarily signed up for when you applied for your job and you can’t run away from it no matter how much you try. Being in the workforce comes with disappointment and pleasure, failures and success; it’s not your first time losing but it still feels like the burden of failure is occupying every little space in your room, making it harder and harder for you to breathe. 

You thought things would be better once you get back to work but everything starts caving in when you hear the team leader discuss details about the project. Initially, they would let you in their meeting, offering you a chance to share your ideas to see if they can cultivate anything better but it didn’t last long either. You started learning about their meetings after work from other colleagues and they started leaving you out of their discussions. On some days, you would sit by an empty table in the canteen and go back to every move you made, trying to track down the mistakes you could’ve made for them to push you away. You didn’t expect them to keep you updated on everything since you’re no longer on the project team, but it would’ve been better if they had simply said that you’re not needed anymore instead of watching you run around cluelessly before you caught a hint. Everything would’ve been a lot easier if you didn’t have to drag yourself around to survive and make a living. On days like these, you would imagine Heeseung in his cabin with a complacent smile, laughing with his friends and receiving compliments. You don’t know why but at one point in time, you started picturing yourself in his shoes while idly resting in your apartment. 

Occasionally, you would hear his footsteps outside your door and stop everything you’d be doing to hear him unlock his door and walk in. Having Heeseung with you was slightly better than living alone and drowning in your overbearing thoughts, but you decided to maintain your distance. Heeseung— apart from being your ex— was someone capable of doing something, anything. You’ve known Heeseung for years and the once carefree young adult found a purpose in life. He had goals to achieve, perhaps a to-do list to complete; you didn’t want to disturb his decorum with your lethargic lifestyle. On some days, he would knock on your door and you’d pretend to be asleep. He would stand for a minute longer and knock again, you would focus on the sound of him tapping his shoes until they faded behind his doors. You started with leaving him on seen and stopped reading his texts altogether. For a few days, it felt refreshing— as if he was never a part of your life to begin with— but the loneliness didn’t hit you until he stopped dropping by your door. And you realised— you were never able to get him out of your life properly. After you broke up, you moved away, blocking all means of contact, but met him at a reunion, and something inside of you prompted to get his number, and so you did. Even though you never talked, you found yourself staring at his number with your fingers hovering over his caller ID. 

It took you years, but you think you’re coming to terms with the truth, that you can never get Heeseung out of your life, and it’s not because you can’t, but instead it’s because you don’t want to. Life without Heeseung felt like a maze, but with him it’s as if you’ve found a way, and you would never admit but having him next to you was so much better than living alone with alcohol. 

When his absence overwhelmed you, you would try burying yourself into stuff as a distraction. It started with books, then painting, followed by poetry, before you would slump on your couch again with no motivation to do anything. Job wasn’t any better or busier. People had little expectations from you and you had even less. At times, you would pace in your living room, trying to complete a presentation or prepare an excel sheet. The deja vu caved in when you’d hear Heeseung’s cab stop by the apartment entrance, except you no longer ran to your balcony to catch a glimpse. You no longer sat on the balcony with tea, waiting for him to arrive. As time passed, you stopped paying attention to the sound of him unlocking his door. His footsteps dissolved in the heavy silence, too miscible for you to perceive. Occasionally, you’d find yourself thinking about him in the shower or before bed, but the thought of him never lasted long enough for it to dawn upon you. Before you knew it, Heeseung became just another neighbour you had, another resident living in the fourteen floored apartment.  

One evening, you bumped into a woman who was standing in front of Heeseung’s apartment. You didn’t see her face, for you were standing behind her with grocery bags, but you could picture what she looked like. Your eyes settled upon her chiffon shirt and the way it complimented figure, her stilettos, a handbag from Lana Marks, you couldn’t help but compare yourself to her. The thoughts about her knowing or being related to Heeseung didn’t cross your mind until a few minutes later. She, despite being someone you never met, was the exact image of how your younger self had imagined herself in future. 

“Excuse me, does Lee Heeseung live on this floor? I just want to confirm,” And her voice is just as captivating. You find yourself staring at her face longer than you should, losing the sense of reality because of all the questions hurdling inside your mind. 

Who even are you?

“He does, but he’s at work right now,” You reply with a bitter smile.

Who are you to him?

“I see,” It seems like she’s about to say something, and you’re not up for a small talk with a stranger, or Heeseung’s girlfriend, or his ex-girlfriend, your ex’s other ex girlfriend, whichever fits the scenario better. Actually, you’re not half against the idea of him dating someone else, not like your refusal will mean anything either. Truthfully, the idea never crossed your mind. You spent your days working days and nights to get the degree you’ve been aiming for, apply for jobs, fueling your hunger for having more and more. 

Maybe, that’s why college is supposed to include one of the most youthful years because after all, it is the only time when you’re free from most of the worries. You didn’t have stress about attending classes regularly or having proper notes like you did in highschool, nor did you have to worry about fitting into the workforce and numerous interviews. College, for you, was the time you could see yourself falling in love, and you did, and now that you stand in your marginally empty living room with your gaze reaching up to the farthest of the buildings touching the sky line, you realise that you don’t see yourself falling for someone the way you did for Heeseung. Perhaps that’s why your conscience refused to imagine him with someone else. Maybe because he had such an impact on you that you don’t see yourself with someone else, you sort of hoped that the time he spent with you had half, if not the same, impact on him as well. 

The evening passed by with you sitting in front of your laptop, scrolling through the document your boss sent you the same noon. The beer cans lie stray on the tiles, right next to you as you shiver under your beige cardigan. You’ve been wanting to close the balcony for a while now, except you don’t want to get up from the cushion that has warmed up with you sitting on it for two hours now, especially in this cold weather. You’re not busy, but you’ve been trying to indulge yourself into little work here and there. Even if it’s just moving your furniture from one corner to another, or going through a file that you’ve already reviewed the previous evening, anything that could make you feel less lonely is welcomed. 

These are the moments when you zone out involuntarily, thinking about Heeseung, or more precisely, his work life. You picture him in his cabin with a cup of coffee, skipping lunch because he has files stacking up on his desk. You imagine him amidst his colleagues at a local bar after working hours, having his drink of relief that hits his system with a wave of satisfaction after a long and busy day. You think about him a little too often for someone who’s trying to forget him. Usually, the thoughts are laced with traces of envy. Today, they’re drowning in something between regret and jealousy. You take a sip from the can in your hand, and suddenly, the image of Heeseung with the lady from earlier pops inside your mind. You’re not sure if they dated, or if they are dating, but you do know that they’re more than friends. Perhaps, it’s just a hunch, an intuition that’s terribly wrong and is driving you to insanity because of all the stuff you’re thinking about. You know you should stop but you can’t help but picture them together. 

Now, you’re thinking about their life together as a couple, the stuff they’d do, the things they’d say. You feel like an intruder peeping into their lifestyles, someone who’s uninvited in their story, a third person. You think about them doing everything you and Heeseung did together, but again, neither of you had a lot of things in your hands to begin with. You had your problems, he had his part-time job, a sorry excuse of a college major that both of you found interesting, along with each other’s shoulders to cry on when needed. While your stories started off as any other tale of love with paths decorated with flowers, it was far from how they portrayed love life in universities in the media. In reality, you barely have time for each other and if somehow you do, you know in the back of your head that you’re missing out on other things. College is, actually, just a bunch of things to do with limited time, and the time is running out of your hands while you sit on your bed and contemplate life decisions, crushing over some person from one of your classes, thinking about the bartender from that cafe downstreet, making up for everything you didn’t get to do during highschool. 

You and Heeseung didn’t have a lot of time to offer each other. Texts were shared, he’d face time with you every morning and you’d call him if you couldn’t see him after classes. Hugs shared in hallways reduced to apologies at your shared apartments, you both went from making out in club rooms to barely getting a glimpse of each other on weekdays. Initially, when he would get back after extra classes, you would be at the door, waiting with your arms open. After sometime, you’d be in your room, busy with your work while he would be lost in his own world of things to tend to. At first, Heeseung’s presence made you feel better about yourself but later on, it didn’t matter if he was there or not. It all felt the same, and the worst part, neither of you tried to work on it. Both you and Heeseung started to get used to the lack of each other. 

Your fingers tighten around the can, your mind goes back to thinking about the lady. Maybe, the lack of affinity in your relationship gave Heeseung a reason to give up and move on. Perhaps, she was everything to him that you couldn’t be, maybe she keeps standing at her doorstep to welcome him after he returns from work, that the two of them seek for each other instead of getting used to whatever has been offered by the circumstances. Could be that every kiss meant as a thank you for being in each other’s life instead of a sorry for not being able to see each other for days and more. Maybe, he is happy with her and you have no right to be jealous because in the end, you gave him every reason to try to forget you. 

Another shot of beer down your throat, another can added to the emptied stacks, your senses start fading into nothing when you hear distant clicking of doors, or perhaps it’s the hangover blanketing the sound for you. With the last bits of energy and soberness left in your system, you get up and open your door. 

“Didn’t expect you to remember me after all this time that you’ve been ignoring me,” Heeseung snaps at you playfully, or maybe, with a hidden sense of disappointment. You have the answer to his question if he asks why you suddenly opened the door when he didn’t even ring the doorbell, or why you’re here standing at your doorstep with nothing but a thin cardigan in this chilling weather. You’re just hoping he won't ask you for the reason you refused to see him until now, because you don’t have an answer to that. 

“Someone came, looking for you,” You say, and meanwhile, in the back of your head, you think of reasons why you actually ran to see him the moment he arrived from work. You don’t want to admit it’s because of the woman from earlier today, you don’t think she’s the reason behind the sudden changes in your mannerisms in the first place. “Some lady,”

A pause, you notice realisation seeping through the cracks of his skin. A second passes, and then another, his eyes tell you that he knows who it could be. “Right,” 

And, Heeseung steps inside your apartment as if it’s yours, and you step aside, letting him in, as if he has always belonged there, and it feels as if the walls have started to fade out the moment he takes a seat on the couch, taking a sip from the bear can you offer him with eyes ever so indulged in him, as if he has returned home after months. Heeseung exhales deeply before letting the words fall off his lips. “We dated for a while,” 

You expected that much, judging from her mannerism and the way she took your name. You had expected them to be in a relationship, or had pictured them as exes who are planning to get back together, a luxury you could never afford. Consequently, you bury those thoughts deep inside, taking a seat next to him, and for some reason, you feel breathless in your own house, on your own couch, with your own bear intoxicating your systems. It’s something Heeseung has always done to you; making you feel out of place. 

You want to yell at him. 

Looking at Heeseung, you don’t know what exactly made you fall for him in the first place. For example, say, you can claim that he dislikes drinking out late with friends and is the type to study even during gatherings based on just one incident. You can sit back and claim to be almost, if not just as, similar to him, pointing out the similarities while completely ignoring the differences, crossing them out of your list of reasons why. But considering everything now, Heeseung has always been different, and a better different. He received good grades even after spending empty hours at your apartment, watching you study. You complained about having day long picnics with him, saying the two of you could use that time more efficiently. As a result, there were nights you could cry yourself to sleep because you were unable to look at your relationship from his point of view. You would kiss him but it’s an apology for the upcoming week that you wouldn’t be able to see him, and you would cancel dates just to study another chapter beforehand. Every single second spent next to him reminded you of all the sacrifices he made for you and every thing you did to disregard his efforts. No, you weren’t a bad partner, his timing was wrong, but saying that would be just another excuse to soothe your aching heart. Looking at him now, it takes you back to all the days you’ve spent together in pain and pleasure, between yes and no’s, do’s and don’ts, a choice between leaving and staying for a little bit longer; the memories are bittersweet like your favourite wine, or rather, they resemble a cold autumn breeze that makes you shut your doors and windows, keeping you from enjoying your favourite season. Time spent with him was short, though nice, but thinking of him makes you blue. You said you wouldn’t see him again but you’re still here, next to him, stuck in the past, still young, still making mistakes, still growing, not knowing if you’ll ever learn. 

“So, how was work today?” You ask, partially because you don’t want to think about him and partially because of the slight curiosity you have regarding his work life, about how it feels to do something he likes, something that doesn’t feel like a chore. 

“You’re not going to ask why we broke up?” He questions back. 

“I figured that it’s your private matter,” 

“She said I didn’t love her,” He says it factually, as if it’s something you’re supposed to know. “That I used her to pass time while waiting for someone else,” His words are unclear, insinuating towards something that you dare not assume, but his eyes are telling you that it’s your fault. 

And for once after you broke up with you, you wonder if Heeseung resents you for calling off your relationship. The thought of him hating you has never crossed your mind, be it your pride or habits to avoid taking the blame. You don’t resent him, he can’t either. You loved each other, you got over it, you broke up, that’s life. That’s the flow of the universe, to meet people and leave him to meet someone else and to keep meeting a new person until you find the one you could stay with. If he thinks you’re the reason why he hasn’t been able to move on, then he’s no different from you, for the thought of him dating someone else has been bugging you ever since the two of you had a drink together on the night you moved in. 

To you, love was inordinate. I love you, Heeseung would say, and you’d ask, how much— he wouldn’t find the words to answer you then. You can go on, pretending none of this ever happened, draping sheets over all the memories about everything you and Heeseung were, in the back of your mind, and fall in love with him all over again, living as all the things you could’ve been. You’ve put too much faith in your love for him, knowing that even after spending the sunsets alone, your mornings will always commence in his arms. There’s fear lurking around, you chose to ignore it. So resentment, in your relationship, was a bliss neither of you could have. For every day that you stood him up, Heeseung paid you back multiple folds. Every moment spent in his arms struck you back with arguments that seemed to get bigger, and none of you were ready to work things out. The pain was mutual, you both hurt each other, then why does it seem like only you’re in the wrong? 

“Turns out, I never gave you a congratulatory gift for your promotion. I should be having a bottle of wine if I’m not wrong,” You get up from your couch; a subtle attempt to change the topic and drive the atmosphere in any other direction except the one it was flowing into. 

Silence takes over, you’re in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, he’s on the couch, the sound of water dripping down your kitchen sink hits your ears as you get conscious of the periodic sounds of the clock ticking. Maybe, wine is just an excuse to get away from Heeseung and everything that his presence takes you back to. It feels like university all over again, where you could spend hours in silence next to each other, though this time, you’re apart, but still, under the same roof. The sense of something being terribly wrong looms in the air, but none of you could bring yourselves to say something, because you both need a shoulder to lean on. There are heavy untold words housing the back of your mind, unasked questions that haunt Heeseung in his sleep, suppressed emotions both of you know couldn’t be expressed so easily this time ‘round. 

There’s no wine at your place, but you put water to boil while preparing hangover soups for both of you. His exhausted grimace tells you he needs it, and you need it even more than him. You’re taken back to the days when either of you would have a run down to the nearest convenience store to the university to get beer and then spend the night before the test amidst alcohol and sheer stress weighing your shoulders. You would refuse to waste your time instead of studying but one look at Heeseung and you’d lose your composure. Blurred words about how both of you should be studying for exams would escape your lips between sips from your cans and, Heeseung would simply laugh at your failed efforts to pull yourself together. On days, you think about the possibility of you and him and you could’ve been if time had allowed, wondering if you could’ve made things right by attending the reunion last year instead of making excuses to pass just because Heeseung was going to be there. You consider every single scenario where he and you could’ve been together if time had allowed, and if either of you had taken a step towards making things right, then again, a voice from the back of your mind would tell you to give up. 

You hear Heeseung let out an exaggerated sigh. “I resigned,” 

“What?” And it feels like your lungs have collapsed. “I mean, you’ve been promoted then, why?” You don’t get it. Resigning from a job that had everything to offer seemed too incomprehensible in your knowledge. Had it been you— had it been anyone else— would think the same.

You’ve spent months in despair, searching for a purpose in the way you make money, a reason to keep going on between oceans of failure with pieces of your shattering will staying afloat. You’ve spent nights staying up, working on a presentation and giving it your everything to secure a better position in your department. Not a day has passed when you didn’t feel like you’ve lost the purpose of everything and yet, kept going with the flow of life to see if something good lies at the other end. And Heeseung would say, who cares about the standards of normal people, but recruiting managers don’t look for something out of the ordinary. They’re not looking for someone who would operate things based on whether it fits their sense of satisfaction, someone who would resign after getting a promotion when other employees struggle to get one. You would consider having a long talk about the choices he made and one he should’ve gone with, but instead, you sit in front of him on the cold winter tiles. 

“Promotions can make you feel good for a while, but they can’t satisfy you in the long run,” He says it easily, a little too carelessly for your comfort. “I just want to do something I like,” And once again, you come to the conclusion that these are the reasons why you and Heeseung wouldn’t have made it even if you had tried.

He’s too different. 

Heeseung has nothing to lose, never had to begin with. When you saw yourself for a whole month, doing everything in the same way, he was out enjoying his life. Now that you’ve managed to pull yourself together and learnt to handle your emotions, though not by a long shot, he shows up and tells you that he has resigned from his perfect job, or rather, a job that would’ve been perfect for you, at least. You would’ve been a better employee, you’re efficient, you don’t make decisions impulsively, have excellent qualifications, know how to separate work and private life, how to separate likes and dislikes from needs and necessities. You wouldn’t have resigned because if you did, you would’ve lost your only source of income, your last straw, something that has been keeping you from returning back to your stagnant lifestyle. You would’ve been a much better employee than Heeseung. 

You’ve seen him living like he has no worries. You’ve seen him switch clubs, change hobbies, drop subjects until he settled with something that satisfies him. Heeseung is about kissing his lovers between paintings at an art museum, promising forever, but he’s so quick to change his heart. Heeseung knows what’s important and what’s not a little too much, he knows what he needs and things that have no use for him anymore. Perhaps, it’s a sense of fearlessness that you acquire growing up the way he did, exquisitely happy and desperately carefree. You think it’s just a waste of time and resources for people like Heeseung because they don’t understand the value of certain things just because they’ve received it too easily. You wouldn’t disregard his efforts because you’ve seen him work hard to make ends in university. Even though things were a tad bit easier for him compared to you, you know it was the hardest time he had during university. You admire Heeseung for his consistency and passion, but you despise him for throwing away something you’ve seen people cry for; something that you’ve cried for, over a hundred times. While you may come to respect his choices when you wake up the next day, but right now, you wish that he was in your shoes, living life the way you’ve been living, suffering, struggling, suppressing. 

“People just don’t get by through society with their likes and dislikes,” There’s a touch of envy in your words, you hope it wouldn’t get past him. You grew up doing everything that would result in a secure future instead of something that satisfies you, to put it straight. The managers at interviews don’t look for candidates with most unique or extraordinary likes and hobbies, but rather they’re in search of someone with experience, ironically, and someone who can adapt to different circumstances without diminution of their efficiency. 

And you think, the childhood people have, or the way they grow up, what they go through and the circumstances they lived in, it really shapes their future selves. Growing up in a financially suboptimal family made you believe that money is everything, and people can try convincing you otherwise but their views wouldn’t alter the truth. Even if you wake up and try to think that money isn’t the most important thing, you would learn to believe otherwise the moment you open your empty refrigerator by the end of this month. You didn’t waste time having highschool romances and university love stories. You’ve had your fair share in having crushes and one night stands until you met Heeseung, and thinking about it now, a part of you knows it was a better decision to stay with him instead of hoping you had someone by your side on days when you didn’t feel like yourself. Perhaps, you did use him like a part of your conscience claims. Maybe at the end of day, away from all the concepts of love and lust, that’s what he was to you, a band aid that needed to be replaced before it infects the very wound it was healing. 

“You’re going to regret it,” It’s a breathy confession, a bitter truth. “Decisions made impulsively, they always leave heavy regrets,” You’ve been walking hand in hand with regrets. You’ve made decisions, many of which you thought would offer great results but instead, left with heavy regrets. You know better than giving up on the perfect job in search of something you’d enjoy doing, or walking in another direction knowing it’s the longer way home. Life has given you your fair share of events to think back to whenever you sit back, planning to do something new. Sometimes, you wonder why all of this only happens with you, and as an answer, you think that maybe, you’re the only one who would take life for its lessons and losses and still keep on going as if nothing ever happened. 

“Then, did you ever regret breaking up with me?” You see, Heeseung was never successful in comprehending the whole logic behind love. He was told it’s warm, but he knows love is the loneliest place a person could ever find themself in; he read that it’s kind, but Heeseung has spent nights spilling tears on his pillow, all because of love. It’s self contradicting; love is supposed to make you feel happy, but it stings. It gets under his skin, makes him unsteady, makes him question everything he has ever believed about love. He didn’t see it coming. Truthfully, Heeseung didn’t see you coming into his life. You were a boon and a blessing, the one who made him feel reckless and out of control; the one he is infuriatingly and inexplicably drawn to. Ironically enough, you’re not the one who tucks him in bed, but instead the reason why he cannot sleep at night. So, Heeseung needs to know if his presence made you feel the same way, or if he was really just another passerby in your melancholy. 

His question is the words you’ve been avoiding to notice ever since you called off your relationship with him. It has been hiding in the back of your head, popping up every once in a while when your heart aches for love and when your arms feel emptier than the streets after midnight. And amidst your heavy heart and cold tiles, your hands find their way to his. A faint apology falls off his lips, whispered in your ears. The moon watches you slip his shirt off his shoulders, your lips tracing along his neck while his hands find solace in your curves as if you’re the home they’ve been yearning for; an old spark ignites again, a beginning of something tragic. 

As the night dwells further into the darkness, the two of you are pulled back into the old cycle of healing and hurting, the give and take where both of you would be standing with your hands stained with losses by the time it ends. Your steps are heading towards actions you couldn’t reverse, and the very reason you broke up flashes in front of your eyes, though faded enough to have you ignore it. Guilt trickles through your fingertips, seeping through the cracks of his skin, his eyes gleam of remorse, and the moment your lips meet his’, fate decides to play into the hands of your history once again. 

IV. One step at a time

It didn’t feel right watching Heeseung being so busy even after resigning from his job. You always see him on his laptop, typing or reading something. Morning to evening, from noon to night, you’d see the lights in his apartment switched on, faint rumblings of furniture and numerous phone calls filtering through his walls and entering yours. He was busy, he was planning something huge, and you didn’t like the sound of it. 

You’ve come to a point in life where you can finally accept your pettiness and slash or, your jealousy. Maybe, it’s one of the few emotions you’ve been feeling over the past week, and now, you finally know the reason why. Waking up this morning, you imagined yourself in his shoes once again— without a job, without a secure financial flow, without a purpose or strong sense on what to do next, just as someone in the workforce who’s contributing to nothing. The furthest your imagination took you was to your terrace, you don’t know how you would live through a life like that. 

Some things about Heeseung have never made sense to you. While he might come off as someone who has plans prior to everything, you always see him as someone who lives his life based on a hit and trial concept. He does one thing, and if it doesn’t fit to his liking, he switches to other, and then other, and then he has a never ending cycle in his hands. You weren’t there when he got a job but you know how Heeseung looks when he is passionate about something. The evidence lies all the way back to university, or during the few months that you’ve witnessed him go to work before quitting abruptly. You’ve spent evenings trying to deduce a conclusion as to why he resigned, and every possibility leads you to the answer that it was a decision made in spur of the moment. A part of you thought about asking him for a reason if he ever had one, but you ultimately realised that a person like him doesn’t need a reason to choose something that he likes; no one does, except you. People don’t put a second thought when it comes to choosing what they like and what they don’t. They date their crushes, eat their favourite food, watch their favourite movies, attend concerts of their favourite artists; favourite, it’s a word that tends to solve most of the trivial problems that arise throughout one’s life. Perhaps, that’s another reason why you decided not to ask Heeseung about the night from two days ago. Even though you made the move, the most he can say about complying and giving in to your acts would be because he wanted to do so; no reason, no plans, nothing. 

Maybe, it was your fault. You could’ve taken one step at a time, starting from dinner, then something else— you don’t know what people do to get back with their exes. You’ve never done that, would have never if it wasn’t for Heeseung, because something about him has you gravitating in his direction. That’s why, you sit on his couch, the TV remote in your hands as a random show plays on the screen. Your eyes are rather focused on Heeseung, who sits by the kitchen counter, typing something on his laptop for the past hour. He has been busy with that lately. You pictured unemployment as lying on your bed all day, or pacing around your apartment uselessly, having the days feel longer and watching the time pass because you have nothing better to do. But, Heeseung is way too busy for someone who has recently resigned, he’s even busier than how he used to be. You asked him about it once, and he said it’s something he has been wanting to do for a while now. Heeseung never gave you the context, but you know he is putting his time into writing drafts for his book. 

Occasionally, you anticipate a small talk with him, but with no signs of Heeseung being interested in anything except his drafts, your eyes instead run all over his living room, taking a note of every single detail that exhibits his taste in interior decor that has changed over time. The wine coloured curtains are a little too vibrant to fit his choices of decors and furniture. You remember him planning out the living room layouts with you back in university when you were still together, when life was beautiful and you were impossibly happy. 

You find it amusing how quickly things change. It’s been years but if you’re being honest, it feels like just yesterday, you were accepted in the university you’ve been aiming for, as if just yesterday, you earned the scholarship, and just yesterday, you had met Heeseung. Your heart still picks up a pace at the sight of him.You’ve spent months thinking about the time you spent with him, regretting every move that led you to the decision to break up with him. You’ve had your fingers just centimetres above his caller ID, just impulses away from making a call, seconds away from asking him to get together back again, heartbeats away from giving into your desires. It started with your falling for him first, and you kept falling harder and harder until you realised that you were at the bottom of the pit and it was getting hard to breathe. You spent years trying to make your way up, step by step, and when you were finally by the edge, he came back and pushed you back to where you had started. You would say you hate him but a part of you wants to believe this could lead to something better than how it was last time, because things have started to feel a lot like love, and you’d like to take a chance with your broken fate yet again. 

“Heeseung,” You call once, voice low and quiet like a whisper, one that dissolves between the sound of television. You expect him to hear, but your words fly by his ears as if they’re of little to no importance. “Heeseung,” You say again, this time a little louder, eyes fixed in his direction, watching the seconds pass and waiting for a reply. For a second, you wonder if he’s pretending to not hear you deliberately, but you push yourself to sit up straight, hoping he’d hear you this time. “Hee,” 

And he whips his head in your direction. It was for a brief second, but you could see a hint of surprise in his eyes. You would’ve said you have accomplished something if Heeseung had spared you a little more attention, but his eyes go back to his laptop and before you know it, his fingers start dancing above the keys yet again. 

“What are we?” You ask, half hopeful, half defeated. You don’t know where the question comes from, or why you are even asking it. Your heart isn’t hoping for a happily ever after romance, your mind isn’t looking for a redemption arc. You’re not hoping for a good response, you’ve learnt to keep your expectations low after everything that has unfolded in the past. You’re not hoping, you tell yourself, but your soul knows otherwise. 

A second passes, then another, your mind starts coming up with answers to your own questions. What could you be? To strangers, you’re neighbours; to your friends, you’re exes; to yourselves, it’s a broad question. You could tell your mind that you’re in a friends-with-benefit relationship that has a terrible lack of communication and get away with it, but your heart knows it was supposed to be something wrong. 

“You tell me,” A soft laugh falls off his lips, it makes him sound like he’s lost as well, just like you. You take it as a good enough response but Heeseung stands up from his chair, making way towards his bedroom as if you aren’t even there, as if your question holds no meaning. You would’ve assumed his response meant that even if you both are without labels at the moment, you could be something in the future. Maybe, your actions from two nights ago would’ve lead to something good if he was less busier, but for now, all they do is guide you to the answer to your own question: 

A temporary fix. 

That’s what you both are. It’s exactly how it was back in university, a sense of mutualism with no sense of responsibilities. Things were obligatory, dates were barely a show to the world for your sorry excuse of a relationship. It started off like a fairytale, as if you both were supposed to meet, meant to fall in love, made for each other. In the first few weeks or even months, having Heeseung next to you felt like a blessing. A luxury to come home to someone, to have someone you can vent to about that one professor who kept dismissing your essays, someone who you can talk about your endless project and seminar ideas and they would reply with the same enthusiasm, someone who could make you feel like you’re seeing the world just by staying within the four walls of your messy apartment. Dating Heeseung had you believing in all the romance tropes you’ve ever come across, so much that you forgot that you’ve been living in a painful reality. 

You tried not to ponder over it so much. You went back to work once the weekends passed, back to your old excel sheets and same old job. Occasionally, you would wish he stayed next to you until you finished your work just like he did back while you were still dating, but you knew it was too much to even hope for. You would say, you’re going crazy. Perhaps, you shouldn’t think so much about the one-night-stand sort of thing you had with your ex, your neighbour. You both are adults, one without a job and other without the will to do the job, both brimming with unsaid feelings, tied to loose ends, holding onto unasked questions for answers, troubled by old memories and the future that was about to come. He deserved an explanation, you had an excuse to share. Whatever happened, was bound to happen. 

Sometimes, you wonder if Heeseung thinks about it as much as you do. Memories from that night haunt your mind like spirits, making it hard for you to focus on anything and everything else, yearning to feel his touch one last time. There are evenings when you’d come home in hopes of having a conversation about what would happen to the two of you in near future, but then you’d see his eyes glued to his laptop screen the moment you enter his apartment and you’d realise that it has only been you all along. Watching Heeseung do well even after giving up his job no longer induces anger or jealousy. Instead, a sense of inferiority floods inside of you whenever your eyes fall upon his figure leaning over his laptop, typing relentlessly with a content smile on his face. And the reason, once again, lies in the concepts of too many similarities and even more differences. 

Months ago, when you were still in Incheon, still bound to your old apartment and old lifestyle, there was a point when you had seen yourself at your lowest. You used to drag yourself to work, force yourself to smile, push yourself to make it through everyday. You struggled to do the bare minimum that was necessary to survive. You wouldn’t say your situation was any better than Heeseung only because you still have a job while he doesn’t, because inside the four walls of his apartment, he’s doing better than any other unemployed person out there. He’s doing better than you while you still had your job, while you still had money in your hands to spend on useless things. You spent months pulling yourself through just to make sure you don’t lose your job, and Heeseung resigns from his’ a little too easily. You feared every second that passed because you didn’t know what the future would hold, and if you still had a future, but Heeseung is sitting on his couch and writing as if he has nothing to worry about. You saw yourself for months, doing the same thing, in the same way, and Heeseung is living every minute as if it offers him something amusing. 

Life was always easier for Heeseung, and you wonder if this is the reason why you’re standing by his door with your nails digging into the palm of your hands. Maybe, if this is why you don’t try to strike a conversation and instead, walk out of the door as if you accidentally walked into the wrong apartment and now that you’ve realised your mistake, you would make sure you don’t repeat it and end up in the same place ever again. 

The next few days pass by rather slowly. 

You’ve been trying to keep yourself busy with work. Though it’s a bit hard to focus when everything else is plaguing your mind, things have started to get into place once again. Additionally, you’ve also been busy trying to grow a liking for your job after getting an earful from your boss. The truth is, you don’t exactly hate your work life. Materialistically, it’s perfect— a good environment, impressive benefits, a considerably loaded paycheck— it’s wonderful, but intellectually, you feel you’re at the same place where you started from. You haven’t gotten a new project in a while ( was kicked off the one that kept you motivated ) not a single new thing about work except reviewing documents and passing them on for signatures. One could tell you to quit and look for something you prefer to do, but resigning and pursuing something that you like, unlike Heeseung, is a luxury you never had on your side. 

Before you realised, it had already been a week since what happened between you and Heeseung. You wanted to talk about it, hoped to, but he’s harder to see than the most. You could see him through your kitchen that faces his bedroom. You would see his shadow roaming behind the curtains, a notebook in his hand, or a laptop, rarely. Heeseung likes to scribble his thoughts on a paper before settling with one, it’s something you’ve noticed back in the university when he spent nights working on his projects while you sat still at the corner of your bed. You can still watch him on and on for hours, sitting on his couch and imagining him walking up and down his living room while working on his drafts. 

Watching Heeseung is one thing you will never get tired of. It’s a little discovery on its own. Every step he takes and every move he makes tells you something new, something you hadn’t known before. You remember sitting next to him in libraries late at night and watching him study. It was supposed to be a simple observation, perhaps an intention to catch onto his tricks and tips to study, and suddenly you see him biting his nails as if his pores are dripping with nervousness. It made you feel better knowing that someone like him has his moments where he’s nervous, even scared, maybe more. Watching Heeseung was something you had on your daily checklist because those moments reminded you that he’s not all strange, that there are similarities, and that he also falls weak, just like you. Watching him felt like watching yourself, as if he’s more you than you are. It felt like taking a look into the mirror and realising that whatever souls are made of, yours and his are the same. 

But mirrors for each other's soul has a cost: by the time they part from each other, the individuals have become indistinguishable. Before their merger, they each yearned for the other; as they part, they part from self. Maybe, that’s why leaving him felt like leaving pieces of yourself and meeting him again felt like you could breathe once again. 

You can hate him for all the reasons why he is better than you and for all justifications you could offer to prove otherwise. You can spend hours explaining why life has been unfair to both of you, yet still he gets to have the better end while you always fall back to the start even after all the times you’ve tried. You can go out and tell the world your tales of misery and braveness, how you didn’t give up even after life dragged you beyond what could possibly be the worst, and you can complain your heart out about how Heeseung, despite having everything you could ever ask for, gave up all because it didn’t fit to his liking. You can call him a coward in front of eight billion people and would still find yourself in front of his doorsteps at the end of the day, just like now, because after all, he’s the only person who would welcome you with open arms. 

“Have you ever tried painting?” You ask while taking a look at all the loose sheets lying around on the centre table in his living room. It comes off a surprise when you find that what he has been scribbling behind his beige curtains were sketches of characters of his novel, rough and messy, some drawn seemingly in love while others had patches of pain in their eyes. 

“As a kid, yeah. My parents made me try almost everything out there,” He replies on his way from the kitchen with two coffee mugs in his hands; and amusingly enough, it would be the first time you’d be having coffee with him ever since you moved, because every other conversation was accompanied with alcohol or wine. “But paint brushes aren’t my forte, really,” You take one of the cups, nodding in the process. Your childhood wasn’t any different, despite the financial shortcomings. You remember taking extracurricular classes at least four days a week, all for different fields, art being one of those. You wouldn’t say your painting skills are worth exhibiting, but they are better than his. Maybe, that’s why you briefly consider pointing out his mistakes, telling him that he could try fixing the body proportions to make the figures look more presentable but again, you refrain yourself from doing so. 

Instead, you take your time observing Heeseung, again. 

A sip of coffee hits your system, you sit on the couch, watching him arrange the sheets into one place. Earlier, it seemed as if Heeseung didn’t care about you seeing his living room in such a mess, as if it’s something you’re allowed to see because it’s you. You notice the way he’s holding onto the coffee mug, you’ve always loved how his fingers wrap around its perimeter completely. It’s one of the things about him that you find attractive. He sits on the opposite end of the couch and you’re sent thinking about the last time you both sat like this, having coffee over silent smiles. One second, you’re thinking about all the good times you’ve had and the next, your mind drifts back into the thoughts from a few nights ago. 

The coffee started tasting bitter or maybe, it’s just your thoughts. From thinking about his hands in yours to the smile that used to warm up your evening, nothing seems to cross your mind except the way you felt when his lips captured yours for the first time in years; nothing compares to that, not even close. You thought it’d be fine this time ‘round, people don’t make the same mistakes over and over again. Meeting Heeseung again was like falling back into the hole you’ve been climbing up, but hitting the bottom never hurt. You thought things would work out just fine because you’ve grown up. You’ve learnt things, you know what you did wrong back then and you know exactly what to do to make things right. All these things, they ran an imaginary conversation inside your head where everything went back to normal. There was a point where you couldn’t distinguish between daydreams and reality, and the truth didn’t hit you until you were sitting on the floor of your shower, hyperventilating his name into your hands; and you asked yourself— is it so bad for people to just use one another?  

Because friends with benefits is also a relationship based on convenience, you don’t get why loving someone the same way is deemed toxic or simply unacceptable. If things had worked that way, you wouldn’t have ever ended up on this turn of life. You and Heeseung would kiss but won’t be in love, sleep next to each other but won’t be a couple, share your secrets but won’t be friends. He would be someone you would’ve seeked on evenings you couldn’t stop crying and you would be someone he could hold onto on days that made him feel like he couldn’t go further. Not lovers, but not friends, just something, someone you could use and not feel guilty about, someone who could walk away a hundred times without hurting you, someone you didn’t feel obliged to focus on. You both could’ve been someone who didn’t feel like a chore to each other. If people could just use each other, perhaps, you and Heeseung would have lasted longer. 

Commitments are hard. Loving is hard, because a day comes where you run out of all the reasons to love. You become selfish, starting thinking about the give and receive, the shortfalls, the absence. The part of your lover that you fell for becomes the very reason why you fall out of love. Instead of appreciating the times spent together, you start complaining about all the minutes that went in waste, all the days they weren’t by your side. You take a step away from the commitment you swore upon and then one day, you start walking away before you even realise. So, loving is hard, and it’s even harder to fall in love again when you’ve walked away once and you’re afraid to do it again, not because you don’t want to hurt the person you love, but because you want to save yourself from hurting all over again.

“How are you doing?” You ask above the silence, voice no louder than a whisper. You’re hoping for a conversation none other than about what happened that night. It’s not because you want him to take responsibility because you’re just as responsible for it, perhaps more. You simply hate how you’re the only one still hung over it, you hate how he can go on with his life without worrying about the things he did that have shifted the ground beneath you. 

“Good,” He replies, just as quietly. A pause follows, you feel his eyes on your while yours are still fixed on the mug, fingertips running circles along its rim. “Great,” And, you find another reason for why you’ve been acting lately. The worst part about walking away isn’t the realisation that you have to leave everything that once made you happy, but instead, it’s the hope that follows you everywhere you go. You hope that they’ll run after you, that they’ll stop you and tell you not to leave, that they’ll beg you to say and tell you they need you, but they never do, Heeseung never did. 

You look at him after much consideration, there’s a certain look of inevitability in his eyes. It’s not welcoming but it’s not pushing you away either. It’s like he’s telling you there would be a moment when you would look at him in a certain way, and you both would cross the threshold from friendship into something so much more. Perhaps, it’s just the mood of time or your imagination that has you seeing things, but you feel a certain innuendo in his gaze and the way it traces every patch of your skin, from your eyes to down your hands, threatening to transverse further down below. It could be an innocent play of eyes, a harmless action that doesn’t mean anything more than. . . something. 

It’s how you begin, your mouth against his, and his fingers tracing along the back of your neck. It feels euphoric and equally sinful, the way his lips move in synchrony with yours, fitting like puzzle pieces. Heeseung tugs you closer by your waist, a faint gasp escaping your mouth that dissolves immediately into your breaths mingling together. He’s pushing you back into the couch, your mind plays all the moments with him like a short film, it feels like a warning sign, but you’re far in too deep to pay attention to anything else except him. Every swivel of his head sends you down a spiral of pain and pleasure, you’re somewhere between pushing away and pulling in. You’re so lost, it feels like you’re on an island and Heeseung is the water. If you’re drawing, he’s the oxygen, if you’re falling, he’s gravity— his presence in your life is contradictory. He’s the reason you’re hurting, and the very reason you like every second of it. Heeseung pulls back, a gaze full of love, he whispers a sweet confession. 

“Date me,” he says. You don’t remember responding, and the next time those words flood back inside your mind is two days after the incident, when you’re laying on your living room floor with beer once again. 

You’re counting now, the amount of times you’ve ended up on the floor with beer, thinking about all your past actions and regretting. It kind of sounds funny to think about it, to think an adult can’t pull their life together and resorts to alcohol even at minute inconveniences. His words haunt your mind day and night, in sleep and when you’re awake, in happiness and in sorrow. It seems like you’re back to stage one, where all he ever did was look at you and all you ever could do was think about him for as long as possible. Focusing on work doesn’t help. You tried shifting your furniture from one corner to the other, avoided Heeseung for three days before he was at your door with the electricity bill that was accidentally given to him. Consequently, your alcohol intake has increased again, not that it ever went down, but frequent meetings at work gave you a reason to stay sober. As for now, you’ve been spending each day the same way, vegetatively, ever so stagnant, like water in an infected pond that is born to numerous parasitic diseases. Your refrigerator is getting emptier day by day, you feel too exhausted to buy groceries. Days transform into weeks, Heeseung leaves for Busan for a week. He didn’t tell you. You overheard it from the ladies in the elevator. Now, there’s a closed door in front of you everytime you open the door to your house. A door with letters and envelopes piling up, a plant that is drying up day by day because looking at it, you assume Heeseung had forgotten about it. When the energy to cook leaves your body, you resort to ordering takeouts. Missed calls from work are the only thing preventing your apartment from drowning in silence. When the last of your hope dies, you resign from work. 

You think you’re going crazy, because you get back to the cycles of standing in the balcony around the time Heeseung used to return from work. A part of you knows he doesn’t work anymore, heck, he isn’t even in the city, but you spend most of your day thinking about him. At times, you wonder the point of all this. You wake up, check your phone for any texts from Heeseung or simply anyone. Fifteen minutes pass and you drag yourself out of the bed, eat ramyeon, watch television, sit on the balcony with bear, watch the people come and go, eat ramyeon for lunch again, sleep, ramyeon for dinner— you needed someone else, something that would break you out of this vicious cycle. There are days when your own skin suffocates you, when the image in the mirror doesn’t feel like yourself but rather, a faceless person. You’ve spent hours sitting in the shower and letting the water prune your fingers. You let your tears wet the bed sheets. For some reason, it feels like you’re coming to terms with reality. 

As days pass by without Heeseung, you’re starting to realise your feelings, able to sort out things you want and don’t. You thought your dream was to live an average, normal life. Looking at it now, you don’t think it’s what you wanted, maybe you didn’t have a choice to begin with. You studied in a prestigious university, you had scholarships to support your tuition fee, you had a job that paid you well enough, you had everything any other person your age would desire, you had those things because you wanted to set an example. You lived for your siblings, you lived for your parents, you lived for the expectations that came with your intelligence and skills. Sitting in the bathtub as your mind revisits every decision you’ve ever made in life, not one was for yourself. Or maybe there was— loving Heeseung. 

Perhaps, at the end of the day, you wanted someone who would love you, someone who would watch you be selfish and slowly clap at the back of the theatre because you’re doing a good job, you’re choosing yourself above everyone else. Heeseung was the person, it’s the only thing you’re so sure about in your life. He was like a saviour in the apocalypse. He’d tell you to blather about your insecure mind that kept nagging you regarding all the things you couldn't do and, he’d explicate how exquisitely it told you lies that you believed. You thought you could reciprocate, but every moment spent next to him reminded you of things he was and things you could never be. You were scared he’d notice your insecurities, the voices tell you that you’re only worth abandoning. You guessed it wouldn’t be hard, you just had to hide your feelings, and years later, your decisions prove you wrong once again. You’re struggling to breathe under your skin, your heart desires for him, you’re falling in deep again, and you’re about to pack your bags. That’s how your life has always been, to avoid getting hurt, you hurt the people you love. 

Maybe, you need him after all. Heeseung was one thing you were certain of in your life— still is— but you had your pride ruling your life, and he had stars to reach. 

At some point during Heeseung’s trip, you pick up a paint brush. It’s a sudden decision, an impulsive move. You wake up one morning and your senses crave the smell of oil paints and brushes. You never had a talent for painting, not by a long shot. You attended classes back in middle school but had to drop out because of your family’s financial conditions. You think you’re trying to copy Heeseung. You both have unsaid words in the back of your mind, both need to convey their feelings one way or another. Heeseung picked a pen, you chose a paintbrush. It’s supposed to be therapeutic, you have heard about art therapy. There is no set subject, you draw whatever comes to your mind. Your first piece exhibits your kitchen. There are unwashed dishes, you used yellow to add a light glow except, you used a little too much of the colour. The second one, an apple from your fruit basket. Third, your ceiling— white, blank, empty, you’ve named it ‘My head’s ceiling,’ as lame as it sounds. Your fourth is the cat that roams the neighbourhood on most nights. You don’t know about anatomy, but you sure do see slight improvements with colouring. Your fifth and the last one is Heeseung from the night you met him for the first time after moving in, and then he finally arrives from his trip. 

“Did you miss me?” He asks you when you show up at his doors in a thin cardigan and a bottle of wine in your hands. Weather was never a problem, any place with Heeseung tends to feel warmer. You walk inside, eyes on the loose sheets lying all over his kitchen counter. You wonder how he will react after hearing about your resignation. 

“I missed drinking with you,” You may or may not have a motive behind your words, maybe you wanted to feel him against you once again, maybe the wine ends up being an excuse again, but the night doesn’t flow in that direction. You tell him about your resignation, he finds it funny after the ‘pep-talk’ you gave him when he resigned. You tell him about your newly found interest in art, he tells you to practise since you have plenty of time. His responses are short and specific, not a word more or less from what’s necessary. His eyes make their way to you once in a few minutes and the rest of the time, they’re on his laptop screen. There are so many things you want to talk about, you have so much to share, so much to do. You had plans for tonight, but all he offers you is a short talk. It’s as if you’re not important anymore, as if you’re the third person between him and his drafts, and he’s doing you a favour by not sending you back to your apartment. He’s being distant, it doesn’t surprise you anymore. Half of it is because of his drafts, the other half, his interest. Heeseung is passionate about what he does. Whatever he does, he sacrifices all of him, it’s about catching his interest. You pour yourself another glass, Heeseung asks you a few questions about his work in progress. You realise he’s losing interest in you, little by little. 

You sort of expected yourself to be better after his return, it turns out to be false. You’re still on your living room floor, hands and clothes having stains of reds and blues. You painted the wine bottle from last night. You haven’t got any sleep, the image of Heeseung pops up everytime you close your eyes. It feels like the world is giving you what you had given him long ago— all the pain and insufferable longing, all the reasons that made him believe that he deserved to be abandoned. When you got busy with studies and a job in your last year of university, ignoring Heeseung seemed to be the only way out of your hectic schedules. You had exams, a job to cater too, money was already a problem so you couldn’t afford giving him gifts on all the days they have made for couples. Heeseung used to show up with something new every single day and no matter how pretty it was, a part of you despised him because it made you feel inferior. Leaving Heeseung wasn’t an option, it was your only choice. He was the only thing you had that you could throw away. 

“Can we talk?” Heeseung shows up at your door on a Thursday morning with words that brushed away any traces of sleep in your eyes. It’s eleven, you woke up barely fifteen minutes ago, and you find him at your door; hands empty, no traces of his laptop or notepad. You think you’ve finally become one of his priorities, after all. 

“About what?” 

“Us,” He responded quickly, he came prepared. “I want to talk about us,” And there it is, confrontation knocking at your door. You’ve been waiting for this moment for a while now, for weeks and more, perhaps, and now that it’s in front of you, waiting for you to hold it’s hand and guide it inside, your body freezes under his gaze. It’s a game of push and pull, like a pendulum oscillating between two extremes. You want him to tell someone about you. The thought of you vanishing completely from his world is unbearable. You can’t stand the thought of being a silent tomb in his heart, you don’t want to be an inscription on the first page of his book. You want him to tell the world about you and promise you a forever, but a part of your heart gently reminds you of the impossibility of the kind of love you’re wishing for. It’s not Heeseung who you can’t trust, rather, it’s yourself. You’re scared of your demons. When things get happier, you get anxious because you might ruin it once again. 

“Do you want to come in for coffee?” And here you are again on your couch with mugs and words you’re busy burying inside. The situation feels oddly familiar, your eyes travel to him. There’s a look of dejection in his eyes. 

You join a wellness club a week after, and Heeseung is the first person to know about it. You saw the advertisement when you went to buy fruits two days ago. It didn’t interest you until you walked back home and found yourself in front of your mirror, thinking of what you were and what you’ve become. Your dark circles have grown prominent, your joints ache from the lack of movement. Walks with Heeseung after dinner are the only reason why you wake up everyday and eat your meals. You have your paint brush and wine, you have every reason to not live any longer. If it wasn't for him, you don’t think you would have been breathing at all. You look up the fitness club on Naver, take your time reading through the programmes they’re offering and the pricing. Maybe, this is the change you needed in your life. Not Heeseung, not money, not a job, but some time for yourself. A place to think about yourself and how you are doing, a place to be selfish without being ashamed of it. 

The first few days were nice, you met new people, saw new faces. One new thing in your life, apart from painting. The sessions mainly focus on meditations, you were never the most patient person in the crowd. Some sort of yoga follows before a break, and that is usually the worst part. You would sit on the wooden floor and watch others talk, their laughter and murmurs filling in the hall. It makes you feel like how you used to be in the university— in silence, by yourself. You had conversations with your mind, with your heart. You looked around and saw eyes looking at you. Every second felt like they were talking about you when in reality, the thought of you never crossed their mind. You were no one, despite being popular, it’s ironic, and you hate how the exact same thing started happening in the club. It would have hardly taken you five sessions to give up and get back to your routine of painting, drinking, and sleeping. When Heeseung asked, you excused it as boredom and unsatisfactory. Actually, you have started feeling better ever since Heeseung returned from his impromptu trip. With him next to you most of the day, you feel functional and sane. You feel like you could think again, you decide to get back to cooking your own food instead of ordering take outs or simply sleeping after drinking. You didn’t see the need to attend the wellness classes anymore until a few days before, when they texted about a trip in the groupchat. You tell Heeseung about it, he locks himself in his apartment for the following days to come. 

You don’t know how or why he made that decision. You spend hours everyday thinking about all the probable reasons, only to end up with nothing. After three days of consideration, you land onto the conclusion that you take too much of his time. It makes sense, of course, he’s busy, he’s working, he has a job, even if it’s basically sitting into his room all day and typing. You, on the other hand, don’t have anything. You have your issues that you project onto people, you have problems you try to ignore, you have indecisiveness and can’t decide what you actually want. You spend too much of your time thinking about if onlys and begging God for last chances. Days pass by without him, alcohol becomes your only solace. The voices in your head remind you of the consequences of your actions. They scream about the mistakes you make, laugh at your actions. They recite tales of how you tend to ruin the person you like, how you’re a parasite and Heeseung is a host, and how you feed on his blood to keep yourself alive. You wake up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, you feel like wanting to scratch off your skin. At times, you want to run to Heeseung and profess your love to him, tell him how much you want him, how much you need him. You have always been aware of your feelings, of what you wanted, but deep down, you’re afraid that you might be a worthless person after all. And now, you are the worthless person who is trapped in their own empty life. 

You want to try living your life as a different person. A life where you’re not you, and all the things you have now aren’t yours, good or bad. An alternate reality where Heeseung isn’t someone you meet at your lowest, where he isn’t just a use and throw to you. You want to go to a place where nobody knows you and live as if you have no history at all, you want to know how it feels to live without having people expect something from you. A life where running away isn’t the only thing you’re good at. You haven’t talked to Heeseung in five days and you're already on the way to his apartment from the supermarket after getting some fruits. Perhaps, you just want to live a life where his presence and absence wouldn’t mean so much to you, where it wouldn’t cost you your life and pride. 

When Heeseung opens his door and invites you inside without asking any questions, you realise he has been expecting you anyway. Heeseung gets back to writing, you’re left alone in silence yet again. You envy Heeseung. As a writer, he has an inclination to step inside someone else’s shoes, to get under their skin and see the world through their eyes. It’s a blessing, you think, to be able to live as a thousand different characters and experience a thousand different emotions, to be able to express them so beautifully in words and actions. If you were him, you’d live as a different person everyday, in a skin that makes you feel comfortable. You could be a pianist pretending to be nervous, or a ballerina with her broken shoes. When Heeseung doesn’t say anything for the next few minutes, you pick up an apple from the grocery bag in your hand and enter his kitchen to grab a peeler. It’s an old tradition between you two, to say things with actions instead of words, to hug each other when sad, to offer fruits when you’re in pain, to sit in silence when you are sorry. 

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” You say abruptly, letting words fall off your lips without control. Heeseung’s hands stop in the midst of typing, hovering over his laptop. When the sound of keys stops, the air starts feeling emptier and heavier than ever, sending a wave of shiver down your spine. 

“What?” A soft gasp, a voice of disbelief. “Why didn’t you tell me any time sooner?” 

“Well, I am telling you now,” 

“The night before you’re leaving,” 

“I would’ve told you sooner if you could take a break from whatever you’re writing,” A pause. You look at him, his shifts ghosts your sight and falls upon the apple in your hand. You’re looking at the document displaying on the screen, your eyes fall back on the fruit in your hand just a few seconds later. You wish for Heeseung to be more open with you, to yearn for you the way you do for him, to want so much that every moment without you feels like death’s hands around his throat. Maybe, he already does, maybe he wants to but couldn’t because the fear of you leaving yet again is eating him from inside. You have given him all the reasons to doubt himself and you as well, every reason to think thrice before knocking your door. Writing is an escape, you know he has his own problems, after all, how many times did someone pick and pen or and paint brush when they couldn’t pull the trigger? 

“When will you return?” He asks, a little unsure of the question, if he should even ask you. 

“One month,” And you respond, peeling the apples between your words. “It’s a paid trip from the wellness club I joined, some sort of detox, so I don’t think we’d get to talk much either,” Your thoughts aren’t sane, they’re all over the place, everywhere. It’s hard to walk, harder to crawl, it feels like you’re standing in a deep pit, the way out is in front of you but you don’t know how to reach up there. Calling it a detox sounds stupid, but you know you need it, it’s for you, for him, and for whatever the two of you are becoming. 

“It’s alright,” Liar. “It’s just one month,” 

Before you know it, you’re in his arms and you’re hugging him back. Perhaps, you missed the embrace, the warmth of loving and being loved. “Just one month,”

“I love you,” He smiles against your ear, arms pulling you closer. You’re stepping into happiness for the first time in months, you’re reminded of its previous betrayal. And you realise that the person you’ve been yearning for is the one you should step away from. 

V. Should you get back with your ex?

It’s been five years since Heeseung has heard from you. He has been waiting, but he doesn’t have time to sit back in his apartment while putting everything aside. He has been keeping himself busy with drafts and publishing, lost amidst plots and characters he created, living in a whole another universe as an escape from reality. It all makes him sound crazy, or rather, like someone who has been through severe grief. But, Heeseung has been busy thinking about all the new genres he can try and every single thing that he can include in his writing because no one can stop him, and his imagination means no bounds. After all, Lee Heeseung, after five years of waiting and working, has finally published his most awaited work. 

Heeseung isn’t used to distances. They drift people apart, as they once did the two of you, but he didn’t mind anything when it came to you. You were going to return within a month either way, and thus, he found solace in texts and calls while waiting for the days to pass. You’d send him pictures of the city while he’d forward you an image file of another blank document. For days, you both texted restlessly, between meetings, during meals, while taking a walk, before and after bed, it was as if you had returned all the way back to how your life was in university. On days you couldn’t make time to call him due to your busy schedule, he would leave voice notes regarding every single thing he has been up to. It was a small step towards forgetting the past since neither of you tried to talk about it. It was more of an attempt at ignoring your past mistakes and moving on, taking a mental note to not repeat them again. While the need to talk things out bugged both of you every night, you were just fine with whatever the two of you had at the moment. 

Things had started off good, but the two of you started hearing less of each other. His busy schedule or your lack of internet could be blamed. You really needed some time to yourself and it seemed to be the perfect excuse to not text him first, or even back. Days morphed into weeks, weeks into months, Heeseung was finished with the first draft for his next book. That was for you but Heeseung, again, isn’t used to distances. You would see his texts on the top of your notification bar, holding onto a fragile ray of hope that he’ll hear from you anytime soon. You’d see his missed calls, voice notes, emails, direct messages on social media, even a letter he sent once. You could feel guilt pool inside of you, realising that once again, you’re being the one to draw a line, to create distance and while you promised that they wouldn’t affect you both this time ‘round, you’re the very reason why they keep on increasing. But, Heeseung is good at these things, hoping, holding, waiting; he’s good at sad things. Perhaps, it’s just another thing he has come to learn because of you. 

When you didn’t contact him for another two months, he started reaching out to your friends and family. He called your friends and his friends, his family, even. It was like he was in a forest with a lantern, looking for treasure, and the flame went out. 

He used to think he could go a day without your presence. Without telling you things and hearing your voice back. Then, a day arrived when he found himself struggling to feel your presence but the next was harder. He knew with a sinking feeling it was going to get worse, and it wasn’t going to be okay for a very long time. 

Losing you wasn’t an occasion or an event. It didn’t happen once and instead, happened over and over again. Heeseung loses you every time he picks up your favourite coffee mug, whenever that one song plays on the radio, when he unconsciously scrolls all the down to the bottom of his messaging app, coming across your contact. He loses you every time he thinks of kissing you, holding you, or wanting you. He goes to bed and loses you, when he wishes he could tell you about his day and everything that he has planned for the future; and in the morning, when he wakes up and reaches for the empty space across the sheets— Heeseung begins to lose you all over again. 

“What inspired you to write this book?” And now, he’s sitting at his book launch event, a faint smile on his face, a good of pride gleaming in his eyes. Through the years, Heeseung has released short stories and poems; poems that he wrote while looking out of his window at every flight that flies by, hoping you’d arrive one day, while sitting outside next to your apartment late at night, while drinking your favourite wine knowing you would’ve had the whole bottle to yourself if you were to join him. Heeseung would sit on the cold tiles of his living room and let his mind paint a picture of you. The image of you in his mind is blurry, but he feels every emotion you gave him to this day. 

“A friend, my neighbour,” His smile grows wider, a little more filled with sorrow, yearing oozing through the cracks of his skin. “My ex-girlfriend,” Calling you his ex doesn’t seem right since the two of you never broke up. You need to be in a relationship to break up, and Heeseung and you weren’t anything. 

His first poetry work, ‘Red Wine,’ was written in the first few weeks after you stopped contacting him. Those were some of Heeseung’s worst days of life, days he felt like doing nothing except lying down and staying still until his systems gave up due to the lack of movement. He has written about you drinking red wine on the floor just like you do, and on the other side it’s him, cold and bleeding. You’re looking at him— he pictures you as such, and you continue to sip on your wine, watching him bleed. Is there a possibility of you and I? Heeseung wouldn’t know, for you enjoyed your red wine while his blood pooled around your legs, and you wouldn’t flinch because you wouldn’t know if it’s blood or wine unless you taste it, and you wouldn’t know if he’s hurting for you’re too busy dwelling in your own mind.   

“Did you get back with her? Is that why the book is named ‘How to get back with your ex’?” Heeseung thinks the question is rhetoric. Anyone can tell if he and you are together or not after reading the book. Few seconds pass in silence, it’s not the question he’s running from, but the answer that lies around. Heeseung doesn’t know if there was ever a point when you considered taking him back into your life with labels, just as how it used to be back in university. You waited for him at odd hours but never admitted to missing him. He confessed, you never gave an answer, but you kissed him as if he was a part of you that went missing centuries ago. Your touch bled with yearning, love rolled down your cheeks, and you never accepted your feelings. You’re not his lover, he likes to keep you as his favourite incomplete fish. 

“No, actually, we’re not in touch anymore,” Heeseung isn’t familiar with loss. He doesn't have a lot to offer, not at all. Lee Heeseung, in fact, doesn't have anything to give or lose, his hands are empty. He has a mediocre job that he resigned from over a mediocre reason, and a mediocre life, a mediocre apartment with some mediocre flowers in the mediocre vase a friend gave him as a congratulatory gift on graduation day. He has the same mediocre thoughts and books, tropes and genres, no new thought in a while; Heeseung, actually, has more to accept than to lose. 

To think, he has always been on the receiving end of life. 

The first month was the hardest. He started hearing less of you, and then none. Losing you, it was like experiencing withdrawal symptoms. Heeseung would pace around, hours on empty, looking obsessively at his phone to catch a hint of you, just one text, one missed call, anything. His editor continued to call him, even show up at his place, telling him to write, to do his job, but words don’t flow when you’re not around, and the thought of you pains his heart inexplicably. He knows he’s always talking about second chances, how there is always a second shot at things that slipped out of your hands. The day you cut off all contact with him, Heeseung realised that it was probably his last chance with you. He cried the first time the news of Bus M4107 crash on its way back to Incheon. He ran back to his apartment, avoiding getting hit by a lorry only by a few minutes, vision getting blurry as his mind started coming up with all the worst scenarios possible. Heeseung went through all his contacts, looking for names familiar to the two of you and begged them to try to get in touch with you. He spent hours looking at his phone, his eyes were like a searchlight. How they looked at the sky with such longing, how they always turned towards the door hoping you’d walk in any moment. Heeseung doesn’t care if you’re with him, he doesn’t mind seeing you across the street while pretending to be strangers. He doesn’t mind not being able to hold you. Even after all these years, even when he’s Korea’s bestselling author, even when he has everything he has ever dreamt for, his life has voids that remind him of you, but it’s fine. Things were fine, you left him one Sunday morning with his cup half empty. It was supposed to be just a month, but five years later, Heeseung pads around his apartment following your presence that still lingers around. Outside, the rain is already falling, there are still pieces of you behind every door, he can live just fine. He can live knowing you’re here, in this world with him, amidst the eight billion people. It’s better than accepting the fact that you’ve left him alone, forever. 

Fifth month was a little easier, Heeseung published his first short story. He was doing good, and had work to stop himself from thinking of you. Friends and family kept him busy, book signing events occupied most of his days. You didn’t leave his mind, you just started residing less. He thought of it as a routine— every morning, you’d leave his mind as his schedules began. He pictures you floating over the city, over the busy markets and sublime lakesides. You visit sometime in between, when he’s resting on his bed or enjoying his tea. You walk back in and tell him about everything you’ve seen. You talk about the balloons stuck in the tree, about the girl running behind her school bus, and then you leave again and he sits to write. You walk down the streets through the sunset, the fragrance of sea-food spinning in the air. There’s a couple on their first date, a group of friends taking pictures outside a hotpot restaurant, a wife waiting for her husband, a mother picking up her son, a family going shopping, and then you’d come back right before he’s going to bed. You’d tell Heeseung about them, your voice ringing in his ears. You kiss him goodnight, he goes to sleep, your thoughts are like a lullaby. And the next morning, the cycle repeats again.

Around the twelfth month, Heeseung found himself at his lowest. It had been a year since you left, a year since you disappeared off the face of earth with no trace of you even after investigation. The case was closed, Heeseung felt the ghost of you leaving his mind bit by bit. Your empty apartment had been sold off to a woman in her forties, he didn’t like the idea of someone else occupying the place that had once belonged to you. In his mind, you still live there, and you still spend your days lying on the living room floor with wine. The renovation began soon after, Heeseung found himself standing in the living room of your apartment. With every inch of wall painted, the absence of you caved in on him closer. Every inch of brush stroke on the wall covered the evidence of your existence, painting white over the pieces of you that you left behind the closed doors. It felt like a sign to move on, as if the world was forgetting you and so, Heeseung was supposed to do the same. It boils his blood to this day, his heart aches inexplicably. The universe knows you as someone who disappeared off the face of Earth, it doesn’t know you like Heeseung does. It doesn’t know the impact you have on his life, it’s unaware of the little things you did that changed his view about things. People are moving on, the media forgot about all the people who died in the accident. He doesn’t understand how everyone continued with their lives as if nothing ever happened. Twelfth month was the hardest for Heeseung. Disappearing memories of you from his mind froze his mind, he wanted to die, if it meant he could see you again. 

You see, getting back your ex isn’t always about the romantic feelings you had for each other. You can be friends with your ex, or neighbours, co-workers, and it would still mean you got back with them, because getting back together means putting the past behind and working together to help each other become a better version of themselves. Isn’t that what we do even when we start dating our exes; being better than how you were with them in the past, not repeating the mistakes that drifted you apart in the first place? Heeseung doesn’t mind getting back with you even if you’re a stranger he sees at the supermarket. It’s fine even if you’re someone he sees once a week at the subway. If there is even a little chance that you’re here, Heeseung is okay living with just a glimpse of you. He has waited five years, he will wait for fifty more. 

“Do you still love her?” A journalist raises the question, and Heeseung could ask himself the same thing over and over again, always ending up with the same answer: he doesn’t know. Saying that he does would be an overstatement because Heeseung doesn’t know where his heart lies, and denying it would be a blatant lie. So, instead, he likes to think of you as just someone who came into his life and lost her way out of it. 

Just someone who he met one night by the bar, someone he warmed up to so quickly that every single neuron in his body went off with alarms, alerting him of all the possible consequences about how this would take a tragic turn. It happened like this : he met you, and for some reason, he felt more connected to a stranger than anyone else— closer to you than his closest family. Someone who taught him what loneliness is because before you, Heeseung was used to doing things alone, on his own. Someone who made him rethink every life decision, someone who, he knew, would turn his life upside down, and still he let you do it. You were someone he spent his happiest days crying about and saddest moments reminiscing over. Heeseung gave you love, and in return, you gave him an insight on life, an important lesson, and an answer to all his whys and hows. Your love was soft and tacit with all hands and lips and hearts in tandem. It was like a storm and he was walking into it straight. Heeseung is an explorer, you were a traveller. You both met at the intersection, the lights went red, the world stopped for a brief second. He saw love in your smile, he wishes he could see more of it. But you had a plane to catch and Heeseung, he was already home. 

Dedicated to my ex-girlfriend, the one I didn’t expect to meet after years of trying to move on, one who left and came back as if nothing ever happened and turned my life upside down. I think it was obvious that this was about you anyway. I hope you are happy, wherever you are. I hope you’re still here. Thank you for being someone I could rely upon, for being my muse, for being my one and only love. 

—

Thank you for reading, ‘How to get back with your ex’.

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

Public Enemy: Part One

Pairing: Spencer Reid x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~1.8k

Summary: Someone is terrorizing the public by taking their comfort away from them. You're trying to heal from being in prison, and Spencer helps as much as he can.

Warnings: canon violence, canon language, canon talk of death, methods of kill

Season Five Masterlist

Author’s Note: I do not own anything from Criminal Minds. All credit goes to their respective owners. If there are any warnings that exceed the normal death/kills from the show, I will list them.

x

"Show me a hero, and I will write you a tragedy." - F. Scott Fitzgerald

Tick, tick, tick goes the clock again. All you want to do is throw something at the damn thing.

"I tried. I tried so hard to think about the dream I rewrote. I tried to keep it in my head but it didn't work," you sigh sadly.

"Which dream did you rewrite?" Melissa asks and crosses her legs.

"My boyfriend was kidnapped a few years ago. I was with him and we went to talk to a witness who turned out to be the killer. We split up and he got kidnapped. He was tortured and got addicted to Dilaudid because of it. I rewrote it to make it so we never split up."

"Why did you choose that nightmare to rewrite?"

"It was the less traumatic of them all, I guess."

"Keep it up. I think you're doing a great job. It might not seem like it but you are."

"Thanks," you whisper.

"Is there anything you'd like to talk about?" You open your mouth but nothing comes out. "It's okay, Y/N. This is a safe space. You can talk about anything you want."

"I just..." You look down and pick the lint off your clothes. "I fear I'll never be a good FBI agent again. I fear I'll never be as I was before." You lean forward and rest your elbows on your knees with your head in your hands. "God, I wish I could just go back to before I went to prison."

"What happened last time to make you realize you're much more than this gift of yours?"

You sit up and go back to picking at the lint on your clothes.

"I see death every single day. Yesterday, I went grocery shopping and I saw a dead woman in the cereal aisle. They never leave me alone," you whisper painfully. "One day, I saw a woman get mugged by a man a lot bigger than her. He knifed her, took her purse, and ran away, leaving her to bleed out. It had already happened so I couldn't do anything about it. I saw their energies to help paint a picture of the event. All I could do was stand there and watch it happen. I decided at that moment I wanted to stick up for people who couldn't do it for themselves. I needed to stop letting others' fear control me. I told myself enough is enough. I applied for the police academy that afternoon."

"What makes this different than that?" You look at Melissa with tears in your eyes. "Why do you think you can't tell yourself enough is enough?"

You take five minutes to think of an answer.

"Maybe I've been around death for too long. It knows what to expect from me," you sigh.

"If I had to guess, I think it's because you're afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"Making mistakes. Of letting your friends and family down." You look away from her and let two tears fall down your cheeks. "Of you."

"Yeah, maybe," you shrug.

"Looks like we'll have to pick this up next time. Are you going to be okay?"

"I don't know. Thanks for listening to me."

"Thanks for letting me."

You leave therapy and stand outside the office building for a moment. You let the sun wash over your skin, warming it. Every time you leave therapy, you don't know if you're going to be better. It does help to talk to someone about this but you're not sure if you'll ever be the same as you once were. Your phone rings and you answer it when you see your boyfriend's name.

"Hey, Spence."

"Hey, are you done?"

"Yeah, I'm on my way."

"I love you."

It doesn't matter how much he says it to you, your heart will always flutter.

"I love you. I'll be there in twenty minutes."

You decide to walk to work since it's not far from your therapist's office. The local park isn't crowded with kids yet since it's still early so you enjoy the solitude for as long as you have it. You cut through the park instead of going around it, and you come across a thick blanket of trees in one section of the park. Two people are inside the cluster of trees, struggling. You walk closer and see a man robbing a younger and smaller woman. She has her mouth wide open and screams for help but no noise comes out of her mouth.

This isn't real. This isn't happening in real-time. The man yanks the purse from the woman and ends up stabbing her. She falls to the ground and he runs further into the treeline until he disappears.

Enough is... oh, forget it.

You turn and walk to the BAU with your head down the entire way. Everyone is in the briefing room and you quickly take your seat so JJ can begin.

"This is Captain Paul Collins." She puts his picture on the screen. "He's the third victim in two weeks in Providence, Rhode Island. He just returned home two weeks ago from his fourth tour in Iraq. He's a decorated war hero."

"Was he targeted because he's in the military?" Derek asks.

"No. Just like the first two victims, he was targeted because he was convenient. He was killed at a church during an early service. His neck was cut open and severed at the carotid artery. He bled out in a matter of moments. It happened right in front of his daughter and wife."

"Murder in a church is highly symbolic. Is there a religious agenda involved?" Emily asks.

"The detective on the case, Jake Moreland, ruled that out because of the first two victims. The first victim, Mike O'Donnell, was found under a sink in the men's room at a restaurant."

"What kind of restaurant?"

"It's a local place with white tablecloths and jug wine. The second victim, Karen Lagrassa, was killed at the laundromat. All three had their throats slashed."

"Aside from the MO, the victimology's all over the place. It's like this guy doesn't care who he's kidding, just how. He's doing it in public without compunction for who sees him."

"Do we have a sketch?" Hotch asks.

"All anyone can agree on is that it's a white male between twenty-five and forty."

"Well, that narrows it down to all of Providence," Emily scoffs.

"It's hard to fault the witnesses given how bloody these murders were."

"What bothers me is the cooling off period is getting shorter and shorter, but there are no attempts to hide who he is or what he's doing. I mean, an unsub this bold could be suffering from a major psychotic break."

"I already asked Detective Moreland to pull recent releases on prisons and mental hospitals," JJ says.

"We need to get to Providence ASAP. Whether he's suffering a psychotic break or not, this could be the start of a spree, and anyone is a potential target."

After thirty minutes of gathering what you need, you meet the team at the jet. As soon as the last person is on, the jet takes off toward Rhode Island. You're seated next to Spencer at the table, and he has his left hand resting on your thigh. It doesn't matter how he touches you, his touch makes you feel safe and grounded. It's the only thing keeping you from melting in a puddle of your own tears.

"Why is he using a knife? A gun assures the highest number of fatalities. If all he's interested in is quantity, he could be doing this more efficiently," Emily says.

"He could be training. Spree killers often do dry runs before they start their rampage."

"Most spree killers have lost control by the time they begin. They're always male. If they don't fall into the school shooter category, they're older like forties and fifties, and socially isolated. The stressor is usually the dissolution of their last social outlet."

"George Hennard was inspired by James Huberty. Between the two of them, they shot forty-three people at fast food restaurants," Spencer explains.

"Well, if he's practicing for his mass murder, he's definitely getting bolder and bloodier about it. Right now, the shock and awe of the bloodletting seems to be what he's going for. Soon, that won't be enough."

"Without a specific target victim, we need to concentrate on the crime scenes and see what they tell us. Prentiss, you take the laundromat. I'll have Detective Moreland meet you there."

"I'd like to take a look at the church If you don't mind," Rossi says. "I'd like to take Y/N with me."

"Good. JJ, you and Morgan interview Captain Collins' wife. She got the best look at the unsub. See what she remembers. Reid and I will run point from the police station."

When the plane lands, you and Rossi head to the church where the unsub striked for the third time. Father Kendellen is waiting for you two on the steps outside the church.

"Agent Rossi? Agent Y/N?"

"Yes. You must be Father Kendellen."

"Thank you for coming so quickly."

"It's the least we can do, Father."

"To be honest, I've been struggling to understand all this. It's been trying," Father Kendellen sighs.

"I don't like to see crime tape In front of church doors. I can't imagine how you feel."

"Ash Wednesday is next week. These doors should never be closed to the community."

You look around the area and think where the unsub might strike next. He's already hit a restaurant bathroom, a laundromat, and a church. He's chosen his victims not out of preference but out of favorable circumstances. With each kill, he's growing bolder. He doesn't care who sees him. Next time he strikes, it'll be more public than a church. Hotch no doubt has Penelope working on finding public places that might be his next target.

You and Rossi follow Father Kendellen inside the church and your eyes immediately go to the pew that the unsub killed the military captain in. The wave of energy washes over you, bringing you back to last night. The entire church is filled with people attending the service. Paul and his family are sitting in the way back from having been late to the service. The double doors open behind them and the unsub walks in. He gets a few stares from curious onlookers but they turn back around and continue with the service. The unsub sits down behind Paul and his family, and you pause the scene to approach the unsub.

He's just a black shadow that you hope will show distinctive features you can use to catch him. However, even when you're sitting next to him, he continues to be a black shape. You focus as hard as you can to see something more but you lose confidence in yourself easily. You rest your elbows on your knees and put your head in both hands. This is too difficult. I can't do it. Someone puts a hand on your shoulder and you snap your head up to see you're back in the present with Rossi sitting next to you.

"Don't stress yourself too much."

"Rossi, this used to come so naturally to me. It was easy before. Now it's..."

"When something traumatic happens to someone, the mind is the last thing to heal. Your physical wounds are gone but you need to give your mind some time to heal the emotional ones. You're a good FBI agent even without your abilities. Don't let it get you down. Be patient."

"You're right," you sigh.

x

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[sankta-wraith]

I finally started His Dark Materials! I read the books a few years ago, but lately I’ve been getting back into them, and I’ve been meaning to see the show for quite a while now. I’ve only seen two episodes so far, but here’s my first impressions.

First, the things I liked. The casting is absolutely perfect. Dafne Keene is everything I could have wanted in Lyra and more, Ruth Wilson is exactly how I pictured Mrs. Coulter, and while James MacAvoy wouldn’t have been my first choice for Lord Asriel, he’s done an incredible job. Lyra’s relationship with Mrs. Coulter was one of my favorite parts of the books, and the show did not disappoint. The way Mrs. Coulter views Lyra is constantly changing. Sometimes she treats her like the long lost daughter that she is, sometimes she’s a means to an end, sometimes she’s an extension of Mrs. Coulter herself, and sometimes she’s even an extension of Asriel. Throughout all of it, Mrs. Coulter never seems completely genuine. She’s always playing a role of some kind. The only two times she seems completely honest are on the terrace when she says she’s not sure she could resist jumping (excellent foreshadowing, but really fucking heartbreaking,) and when she accidentally tells Lyra that Lord Asriel is her father. That second scene is probably my favorite so far. I actually think I like it better than the book version; I’ve always thought it was a bit anticlimactic for Lyra to learn the truth about her parents by just being told. The show version on the other hand gives insight to both Lyra and Mrs. Coulter’s characters, and actually lets Lyra be upset that everyone she’s knows has lied to her her whole life. I love that fact that it’s Mrs. Coulter’s resentment towards Asriel is the reason she slips up, because it’s so clear that she’s jealous of his place in Lyra’s life and the way she looks up to him. She hates the fact that Lyra prefers him even though he abandoned her over and over again. I think the more time she spends with Lyra the more she starts to regret giving up the chance to raise and, and that really comes to a head in this scene. It’s so interesting that she still doesn’t tell Lyra that she’s her mother, because at that point she’s bound to find out soon. I think she has so many feelings about Lyra’s birth and the events leading up to it, (shame, regret, anger, maybe even a little resentment towards Lyra herself,) that it’s just easier for her to lie. But even the lie she tells says so much about her. She could’ve just said she didn’t know who Lyra’s mother was, but she specifically says that she “could’ve been anyone.” She implies that Asriel could have fallen for any woman, and it just happened to be her. (I think she’s wrong but that’s a different post.) It’s not quite regret, but it’s in the same ballpark. And when Lyra leaves it’s the first time we ever see Mrs. Coulter genuinely afraid. I think it’s also when she realizes just how much she cares for Lyra. Since she met her, she’s been trying not to get to attached and to convince herself that Lyra is just a tool to gain power and that she doesn’t care about her, but then when Lyra turns to go she realizes how much she means to her. And I think it scares her. She’s starting to love Lyra and she’s terrified of it, because the last time she loved anyone, she ended up with a dead husband, a tarnished reputation, and a shattered heart. That scene of her outside Lyra’s door is so perfect, because we get to watch her lock away all her emotions, including, I think, any love she feels for Lyra. And her behavior does change. She harsher, colder, more distant. She’s trying to stifle any love before it can endanger her. Anyway that was really long, but their relationship has me in a chokehold.

Now the things I didn’t like. Honestly there’s really only two things. The first is Mrs. Coulter’s apparent ability to separate from her dæmon. This wasn’t in the books, and honestly I don’t think it’s necessary. It doesn’t add anything, and I’m not really sure how it’s going to be explained. Going along with that, I hated the fact that they had her hit her own dæmon. I don’t know how many people hav read The Book of Dust, but it’s made pretty clear that hitting your own dæmon is the absolute worst thing you could possible do. It’s the very depths of insanity, and I think Mrs. Coulter is definitely unhinged enough without adding that. The second thing I didn’t like was how they showed Lord Boreal crossing between worlds. In the books, the first time we see another world is when Asriel uses the aurora to open his giant doorway, which is a much more dramatic and suitable introduction to the other worlds. The existence of the subtle knife and its resultant smaller doorways stents revealed until books 2.

Overall, I absolutely love the show, and I thinks it’s doing a very good job with what isn’t always the easiest book to adapt. The scene I’m looking forward to the most (from this season) is probably Marisa and Asriel’s conversation after he opens the doorway, but then I love Masriel.

[amor-immortalem]

Welcome Home

A/N: I’ve been working on this since NB season 2 ended in January :/ I think I’ve finally got it to where I’m happy with it. And just before new lessons drop no less

・・・〆・・・

“Hold on tight!”

The ride back to her own timeline is rough and bumpy. Her landing? Not so great. Arella crash lands into the bushes just beside the House of Lamentation’s front doors. Who would have thought being launched out of a rift in space-time could hurt so much?

‘Things could have been worse, though…’ She thinks to herself as she sits up and climbs out of the now destroyed bush, ‘Where did Solomon-?!’

A soft, pain-filled groan from the direction Arella’d just come from catches her attention and suddenly the human realizes the reason she’s not more hurt save for a few bumps, cuts, and bruises is due to the fact that Solomon took the brunt of their horrific landing.

“Oh my god, did you break that fall?!” Arella scrambles to help her fellow sorcerer out of the wrecked foliage. “You idiot, you may be immortal but you’re not unkillable! Are you okay?”

“Never better!” Solomon’s response is breathless and strained as he holds his arms wrapped around his sides, “It’s only a few broken ribs- nothing a simple healing spell won’t mend.”

“You’re so full of shite your eyes are brown. How badly are you hurt?” She’s not amused by the way the silver-haired man tries to downplay his injuries.

“I think… I punctured a lung too but what kind of teacher would I have been if I let my adorable apprentice receive far worse injuries than I?” he finally admits. “I’ll take care of it as soon as I get my bearings.” and that’s enough for Arella to cast a healing spell or her own.

“Oh, that’s nonsense.” The freckled human grumbles as she shoves her hands in the space between his arms and torso.

“Hear me, spirit of light. In name of the sorcerer Arella, I command you: mend and reverse the damage done to the man in front of me.”

A warm golden glow emanates from her palms as her magic does its job. Solomon’s breathing turns less strained and labored as the glow dissipates, and he lets out a long sigh of relief.

“Thanks for that.” he smiles as he rises from what’s left of the bush, offering his hand to Arella which she takes.

With quick spell, Solomon is able to reverse the damage they caused with their fall and the pair of humans has all of two seconds before they find themselves nearly tackled back into the foliage as a pair of arm crushes them against their owner’s chest.

“Y…You’re back!” Asmo’s voice quivers with unshed tears as he pulls back. “Both of you… do you have any idea how worried I was- how worried the rest of us were?! You idiots! Where’ve you been!?”

“It’s a long story.” Arella smiles as her own tears start to well up in her eyes. “But I’m home… finally.”

・・・〆・・・

Just one simple text calls nearly the rest of the brothers home. There are many questions, many tears shed from the relief at seeing their pact master but one of them is still missing.

“Do we have any idea where Mammon is?” Arella asks as she bounces Cyrus on her hip- she’d been purposely waiting until everyone had arrived before she recounted the events of the last year to the group of demons.

There’s a look of concern splayed across their features that doesn’t sit well with Arella.

“Did… something happen to Mammon while we were gone?” Solomon asks as he sips from the teacup in his hand.

“Once we realized you were missing,” Satan starts, choosing his words to explain the situation carefully, “Mammon went on a rampage looking for you.”

“When he couldn’t find you anywhere here in the Devildom,” Lucifer adds, “he left for the human world in hopes of finding you there. He was going to take Cyrus with him, but I was able to convince him that was a bad idea.”

“That was six months ago,” Beel frowns. “No one’s heard from him since.”

The revelation leaves Arella quiet with concern. Guilt for not acting sooner when it came to reforming her pacts begins to eat at her as she thinks about how sick with worry her favorite demon must be consumed with.

“I’ll go look for him,” she declares boldly, “but first I owe the rest of you an explanation for the past year.”

・・・〆・・・

“It’s clear she’s not in this realm, Mammon.” Milli sits across the table from him as they eat breakfast. “At the rate you’re going, you’ll drive yourself insane over one small human life- not very befitting of such a powerful demon.”

“I know, Mill,” Mammon sighs tiredly as he runs a hand through his shaggy white hair, “I know, but I can’t give up on Arella. She’s out there somewhere, in trouble, and if the situation was reversed, I know she wouldn’t give up on me.”

“For all you know, she could be dead- you said you felt your connection through your pact waning, didn’t you?” The witch frowns as her daughter toddles up to her and climbs into her mother’s lap to snuggle. “I just don’t want to see you come out of this with a broken heart.”

“She’s not dead.” His blue and gold eyes bore holes in the table- refusing to believe in that possibility. “Yeah, it’s true that the strength of our pact was weakened at the start of all this, but in the last few weeks, it’s been gettin’ stronger and stronger. It won’t be much longer now- I can feel it.”

Milli only sighs as she gives her long-time friend a disbelieving look. “At least go home and take a break. I can’t imagine you have many funds left to keep up your little search I’m sure your little one misses you as well.”

The Avatar of Greed nods. Going home would give him time to recoup as well- let him touch base with his brothers and see if they’d managed to find anything more out in his absence.

“You’re right… I am almost out of grimm so I have to go home whether I want to or not. It’s just… I feel horrible goin’ home having made literally no progress. Everyone’s countin’ on me to bring ‘er back.”

“Then they’ll just have to be disappointed- you’re only one demon.” The witch huffs. “You can only do so much especially when you had literally nothing to go on.”

The solemn mood is interrupted abruptly as a bolt of golden light strikes the center of the kitchen floor, startling everyone in the house as Milli’s young daughter starts to cry. When the smoke clears, it reveals Thirteen, who looks more than a little frazzled.

“Thirteen?” The white-haired demon asks.

“No time to explain,” the reaper says as she takes a hold of Mammon’s hand. Before he can even get a word out, they teleport away.

・・・〆・・・

The brothers all sit in silence as Arella recounts the crazy year she’d just had. How she was forced to reestablish their pacts, the way their sins began to control their behaviour, the trip down to Cocytus to save Lucifer, how she’d even got to watch the planning and development of RAD and briefly attend its opening ceremony, and how alien everything all felt in the moment.

Now that she’s listening to herself speak, she realizes how truly terrified she was that she might never return home.

“But who would even do something like that?” Belphegor frowns, “And why take you back to that timeframe specifically?”

“They called themselves ‘Nightbringer’. Arella responds, staring down at her messages- specifically at the unlisted number that sent her the text that started this nonsense- as she allowed her adoptive son to play with her fingers. “I’ve still got no clue as to who they even are, but they seemed to know the eight of us well enough…”

“The father of demons?” Lucifer has a puzzled expression on his face. “What would a being as old as that want with you?”

“I don’t know…” she sighs, “but I’ve got the nagging feeling we’re far from done with them yet…”

・・・〆・・・

“Thirteen what is goin’ on.” Mammon’s lost track of the amount of times he’s nearly tripped over his own two feet as the reaper pulls him along after her.

“It’s Arella.” Her response is blunt. “She’s back. An hour ago, she and that shitty sorcerer just appeared out of nowhere right in front of the House of Lamentation.”

Those words freeze the demon in his tracks. Arella. His human. She was back. Was she safe? Hurt? Where the hell has she been that not even a tracking spell could find her? And why the hell was she with Solomon of all people?

Deciding not to waste any more time, the demon books it for the House of Lamentation leaving Thirteen in his dust. It takes him no time to get home, throwing the door open as he kicks off his boots. When he sees her, his breath catches in his throat.

His presence is given away when Cyrus looks back and excitedly calls for him.

“Mammon…” Arella smiles, her voice sounds so relieved as she crosses the room, wrapping her free arm around his neck.

Mammon returns the embrace, arms winding around his human and son tightly as he buries his face in her hair. He can’t believe it- all that time spent searching in vain only for her to reappear out of nowhere. A sense of happiness, of relief, washes over him in tidal waves.

“Where the hell have you been?” His voice breaks as he tries miserably to hold back his tears. “I was so fucking worried about you.”

“I know I’m sorry.” Arella says as she presses her forehead to his, “We’ll talk about it later, okay?”

Her thumb moves to brush away the falling tears from his cheeks as Mammon nods, opting just to rest his head in the crook of her neck where her scent is strongest instead- it always was grounding for him.

Things are further interrupted when Thirteen finally manages to catch up, barging into the House of Lamentation like she owns the place.

She joins Mammon in crushing Arella with a tight hug- one that never lessens even as she starts laying into Solomon about having disappeared for so long with her favorite human.

・・・〆・・・

Hours later, after everyone has gone to bed for the night, Arella and Mammon are still awake. The demon is restless and tense, body not seeming to know how to relax anymore and it leaves the human in much the same shape.

“Mammon, Love, come here.” Her voice is soft as she holds her arms out for him. “You’ll never get to sleep if you’re up pacing like that all night.”

“Sorry, Treasure.” Mammon sighs as he runs a hand through his hair before complying with her request. “I’m just- I don’t mean to keep ya up.”

“I know you don’t, dear. I just wish I could help you relax more- nothing seems to be working.” She runs her hands through his mop of snowy hair, “Seems like you’re in dire need of a haircut too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you keep it this long.”

“Is it? I hadn’t really noticed…”

“It is…” she hums, “I could probably tie it back in a small ponytail if I really wanted to.”

“Where did you go? I couldn’t find ya, Thirteen couldn’t find ya- We thought you were…”

“The past…” she answers softly, “Back to just a little bit after you all had fallen… I couldn’t let anyone know about my predicament- Solomon told me it might cause problems in the present if anyone were to know. I had to masquerade as a demon for a period of time before Diavolo eventually found me out with his lie detecting ability. It was so… weird and heartbreaking in a way. I knew who you all were, but you didn’t have a clue who I was… I felt like I was reliving my first year as an exchange student…”

Silence falls over them like a weighted blanket as Arella keeps carding her fingers through Mammon’s hair.

“Why didn’t you come back sooner?”

“I wanted to- believe me, I did- but the power of my pacts had diminished to practically nothing- not even my stay commands had as much of a kick to them at that point. I was forced to reforge everything if I wanted to return to this time. It was hard. The hardest part was not being able to seek you out when I needed comfort. I had to keep reminding myself that you weren’t my version of you. That no matter how much it may feel like my version of you, you were a different demon from the one I love.”

By this point, the human had tears tumbling down her cheeks. Over the past year, she’d been compartmentalizing all of her fear and anxiety that came with the prospect of being stuck in the past and she’d never taken the time to actually confront and deal with those emotions. Now that she was home though…

“I just…” a sob quakes her voice, “There were so many nights where I just wanted you to hold me, tell me it would all be okay in the end but…”

Mammon just tightens his hold on her, maneuvering Arella down so she’s on his level as he allows her to cry it out.

The rest of their night is spent wrapped up in their blankets with kisses and cuddles aplenty. The rest of their reunion and all the struggles that may come in its wake can wait for another day. For now, the pair just simply bask in each other’s company, just grateful to have each other once more.

・・・〆・・・

End

[hismercytomyjustice]

I will never financially recover from 600 Strike…

I just…

God it’s so fucking good… T^T

Of course the “NEXT TO MY WIFE” part, but Odysseus showing Poseidon what happens when you finally get exactly what you want…

Look what you’ve turned me into

Look what we’ve become

*incoherent screeching*

The lyrics are just SO GOOD. Like, I am awe of how Jay manages to one up himself over and over again. This song is maybe the most pivotal one as far as Odysseus’s character arc is concerned and he fucking CRUSHED IT.

I AM ADDING A CUT BECAUSE I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS, OKAY?! ( ༎ຶ⌑༎ຶ)

UGH. I will never get enough of this musical, I s2g. Jay does such an amazing job of portraying Odysseus’s emotions and mental state throughout. By the time we get to 600 Strike, it’s fucking heartbreaking. Odysseus has tried SO HARD for SO LONG to be a good person. He never wanted any of this! He never wanted to be ruthless! But over and over and over again he is just doomed by the gods narrative.

UUUGH. It makes No Longer You (probs my fave song of the musical) EVEN BETTER because yeah, “I see a man who gets to make it home alive, but it’s no longer you.”

The gods have forced Odysseus time and time again to be ruthless. He has fought for twenty years to retain some semblance of his innate desire for mercy only to watch it ripped away from him, piece by devastating piece.

I utterly adore the way we see him broken down until the ONLY thing he has left for any chance at happiness or normalcy is making it home to his wife and son.

He starts out this whole journey with the goal of getting himself AND his crew home only to watch them die in increasingly horrific ways because of the impossible situations they keep getting forced into.

I feel like Oddyseus’s first major breakdown happens in The Underworld. That’s where it finally all starts to be too fucking much. Where he hits his limit. Just the “All I hear are screams, every time I dare to close my eyes. I no longer dream, only nightmares of those who've died.”

And then the utterly gut wrenching scene with his mom. ( ༎ຶ⌑༎ຶ)

I feel like up to this point, yeah he’s concerned about what’s going on back at home, but this is the first time he’s straight up confronted with the fact things are changing there and there’s NOTHING he can do about it. His absolute worst fear has come true. He lost someone he loved forever because he couldn’t make it home.

How did she die? Odysseus doesn’t know. She could have died peacefully of old age or been slaughtered. Either way he wasn’t there to comfort her or protect her. She died not knowing if he would ever made it home. Even in death, she’s stuck forever wondering what happened to him and wishing she could see him again.

HE IS RIGHT THERE and she will never know because he was too late.

Like logically he knows time is passing in Ithaca too, but up to this point I feel like Ithaca is more of a concept to him than a reality. His last memories of his home are of his wife and infant son from over a decade ago. Obviously they’ve aged too, but he hasn’t seen the effects of the passage of time on them. He doesn’t know what’s become of them or his country without its king.

It makes so much sense that this is when he finally starts to consider ruthlessness over mercy. Especially after Tiresias implies he will never make it home. Like obvs we know he will and that Tiresias just means he won’t be the same person when he does, but Odysseus doesn’t know that.

Regardless, Tiresias is right. The only way Odysseus will ever make it home is to cut away at everything that makes him who he is. His morality, his desire for mercy, his loyalty to his crew, his friends...

His friends who trust him, only for him to keep leading them to horrific deaths time and time again by clinging to his desire for mercy.

God, and then there’s Mutiny. This whole time Eurylochus has been begging Odysseus to focus on the needs of the few instead of the many, to “cut their losses.” And now Odysseus finally does by sacrificing six men and Eurylochus cannot fucking believe it, even after trying to convince him to do this EXACT same thing back in Puppeteer.

I think Eurylochus ultimately wants Odysseus to keep leading them, even when he doesn’t agree with his decisions, because he doesn’t trust himself to make to put the lives of everyone else first. He relies so much on Odysseus as his moral compass and now that compass has been shattered into a million pieces.

This is not his captain. This IS NOT his friend. This is also the moment Eurylochus realizes Odysseus intends to get home by any means necessary and that fucking terrifies him.

He could always count on Odysseus to keep the safety of the crew first and foremost, to be their pillar of strength in the face of adversity, but now? Now he can’t.

Besides, he’s finally convinced himself that they’ll never make it home, so why should they keep fighting? Why not just try and live out the rest of their lives in peace? Why invite more suffering and pain into their lives?

Then comes Thunder Bringer, where Eurylochus’s biggest fear is realized. Odysseus openly admits he will do whatever it takes to make it home to his wife and son.

At this point, Odysseus is desperately trying to justify all of the horrors and loss they’ve been through. Hundreds of men who trusted him have died because of him. He believes he’s led them astray over and over again.

But if he doesn’t make it home, what was the point of all of this? Does he give up now for the sake of his remaining crew, or does he honor the sacrifice of those they’ve lost by finally making it home? Every single one of them has died in their attempts to get home. How can he sleep at night if he gives up on getting there now? It would mean they all died for absolutely nothing.

And like, it’s a fucked up decision but I think it’s fair to say Odysseus is running on pure PTSD and vibes at this point. He is literally staring ZEUS in the face. Zeus who pretty much made him kill a defenseless child “for the greater good.” Zeus who is asking him to make another impossible choice.

His remaining crew has already admitted they’ve given up on getting home, but Odysseus hasn’t. If no one makes it back, how will the family and friends they’ve left behind ever find closure? They’ll spend the rest of their days living and dead waiting for them to come home like his mother has. They’ll descend into the underworld never knowing what happened to them and hoping against hope that they’ll still see them again.

Hope is such a powerful thing, but it can also be devastating. Isn’t it kinder to let them know what happened than to let them die, trapped warring with grief and hope forever? Because not knowing, while it can give them hope, it’s a false hope at this point. It’s not real.

Isn’t it crueler to leave them scanning the horizon for the rest of their lives, looking for ships that will never come? Isn’t it crueler to force thousands upon thousands of voices to join his mother’s in the underworld?

Isn’t it kinder to give them closure? To let them finally be able to fully grieve?

The least he can do is tell their loved ones what happened to them, isn’t it?

And now, twenty years later, he’s finally within sight of Ithaca. Now he can justify all of his decisions, all of the pain, all of the heartache. He’s can do the one good thing left to him after all these years.

So of course that’s when Poseidon strikes in a final act of devastating cruelty. All because Odysseus blinded rather than outright killed his son. His son who planned to kill and eat him and every single one of his 600 crew members.

It’s simultaneously so cathartic and heartbreaking when Odysseus first brings the trident down on Poseidon. Especially after pleading with him one last time to stop this never ending cycle of violence and pain.

But Poseidon refuses to stop. He’s more concerned about his pride and his reputation than in admitting he’s taken things too far. This so-called god has the nerve to have killed almost every man in his crew and then tell Odysseus he hasn’t suffered enough. He’s already paid for his actions with the blood of hundreds of men. What debt could he possibly have left to pay?

Tbh I would not have blamed Odysseus for torturing Poseidon for the rest of his days. And, if he chose ruthlessness over mercy, that’s what he would have done. Poseidon would’ve gotten exactly what he wanted. Lol, just not like this.

But no. Even in the midst of all of this, of getting to hear this murderer, this god cry out and beg for the mercy he denied him so many times, Odysseus stops. Poseidon finally knows what it’s like to feel helpless and to feel unending pain.

Surprised Pikachu face! He’s not a fan!

Odysseus has pled with the gods to be merciful for over twenty years now. Zeus, Athena, Poseidon, Calypso, Circe… He’s begged them time and time again to see there are other ways than ruthlessness. He managed to get through to Circe, since she alone viscerally understood the pain and loss he’d been through. And now all the rest of them finally understand too.

Athena goes to Zeus on his behalf to convince him and a whole host of other gods to give Odysseus another chance. Calypso lets him leave her island. Zeus realizes the folly of his own pride when he nearly kills his own daughter. Poseidon agrees to call off the storm.

It’s such a fascinating story and I utterly adore Jay’s interpretation of it. Mercy is what ultimately gets Odysseus home, even if he had to be ruthless to get it.

AND AND AND all the callbacks in the songs, the bastardization of moments of joy. The reclamation of moments of horror!!! T^T

JAY WHEN I CATCH YOU.

[o-uncle-newt]

Cabin Pressure Advent Day 27: Zurich Part 2

Okay, now that my face has loosened up from the grin it's been in for the last twenty minutes...

I think that it is important for me to say here that this is my favorite finale of anything ever (obviously in combination with Part 1). In any medium.* It's just so so perfect, emotionally resonant (which I don't need to devote SO much time to because as I noted JF did it perfectly here) and one of the funniest episodes JF ever wrote of anything.

It's also got some absolutely GENIUS plotting and impeccable attention to detail, including such tiny things as having Theresa establish in Part 1 that Martin has told her time and time again about the St Petersburg saga, and therefore she remembers enough about it to contribute when they're planning in Part 2 by pointing out that in St Petersburg Gordon would have been able to take anything small out of the aircraft. It's unnecessary- JF could have given the line to someone else- but the fact that he not only gave it to her but gave us enough information for it to make sense that she said it works so well. And then when there's "stop quickly" "that I can do," and Arthur screeches them to a halt, it's a perfect reminder from last episode about the brake pads, which is such subtle set up for Martin to suggest that they be given in lieu of payment. (Sure, if I were Bruce Fraser I'd be a BIT more suspicious that the guy who offered 14k only showed up with 12, but he's also the kind of guy who likes Arthur's Goofy painting so maybe it's just better all around not to trust his discernment.)

When I first listened to this episode exactly nine years ago, I was a couple of minutes late, and so it wasn't until months later that I first heard the amazing cold open with Tiffy. Which, by the way, is so so funny... I love it so much, it's just perfect as a recap-without-being-too-info-dumpy and as just a peek into Arthur's world. Which is fitting, because I really see this as Arthur's episode. There are very few episodes that feel that way- St Petersburg was KIND OF one, but it ended up being more about how the rest of them jump into action to protect him than him being able to do anything. But here... this is Arthur's moment! He's INCREDIBLY active in this episode, whether solving the ID problem or realizing that Gordon is trying to trick them. He doesn't usually get to be so it's really great

If I had to rank the others in terms of their relevance to the plot after Arthur, it would probably be Douglas, Carolyn, Martin. Douglas is definitely the key one, and I'd argue that without his key role, Martin would be basically irrelevant to the plot here- the episode tries to convince us that Martin might not take the job, but even once he has a real practical way to stay with MJN we kind of know he won't, and have known since Yverdon. But Douglas, as JF noted in Farewell Bear Facts, has to prove he's worthy of being captain and put himself on the line- and he has to be able to serve in a mentorly capacity for Arthur (where it's a bit more paternal, even) and Martin.

On that last note, I used to be a bit annoyed by Douglas telling Martin to take on his shtick, because I was like "Martin is fine just the way he is, imagine if he turns into DOUGLAS"- I still kind of think this way (though of course I'm sure it's more metaphorical than him pretending to be Douglas exactly) but relistening to the whole show, including some of my least favorites, reminds me that Martin could kind of use being someone else... who he used to be was really fucking annoying lol.

As far as Carolyn, I WILL add something about her journey here because JF doesn't mention it in his post. He talks about how her journey is to be more vulnerable to Herc, but I think it goes farther, in a way I've talked about here. The question she finally asks Herc- why does him saying he loves her mean something different now than it did to his previous exes- is her being vulnerable to HIM, but also an expression of an inability to be vulnerable that she'd shown to everyone, not just him. The whole time- til at least late S3, at least- she couldn't trust people, she felt like she needed to rule by fear, and it takes vulnerability for her to accept that eventually she's not the one in total control and people are doing things for her because they care about her and the company as something bigger than her and that it's not totally in her control. Maybe this episode it manifests itself in the question to Herc and being vulnerable to him... but it also manifests itself in her changing the name of the airline. It's OUR Jet Still.

A few smaller notes:

Martin, Douglas and Arthur all saying Yellow Car is my favorite thing ever

I use the phrase "a thousand strawberry lollies and the Princess of Liechtenstein" all the time and it's one of my favorite lines ever

The scene with Douglas-as-Gordon and Martin-as-Douglas is possibly the funniest exchange JF ever wrote (I feel like I say that kind of thing a lot)

And... "I hate flying into the sunset" is such a fantastic line to very-nearly-end on. It's a tie back to Limerick, but it's also an expression of how they literally are ending with a fairy tale ending, flying off into the sunset... which they'd all said wasn't possible in Zurich Part 1! Though Arthur was still right- it wasn't a totally fairytale ending, it was more like The Jungle Book. Martin's not there, he goes off with the girl to the human village. And so it's not a fairytale ending, where everything freezes at an unlikely ending point- it's BETTER. They're all in the best possible places for them, as characters, to continue, even if it's bittersweet, and it's amazing.

I do have to say- doing this every day has been such a joy. I may come back tomorrow to do a final thing but I'm not sure, but in the meantime, thank you for being here and I hope you enjoyed as much as I have!

*It used to be tied with the finale of Detectorists, and I still love the S3 finale, but they then fucked it up by doing that Christmas special last year which was honestly horrendous.

[acertainmoshke]

Happy birthday Moshke!!! What sort of changes have you been making in emerald outpost lately?

Thank you, Frost!! So I haven't worked on it that much yet but this is what I have:

The Universe

Old version: It was set on a city planet (think Coruscant), so far in the future the memory of Earth isn't relevant, and with only humans there.

New version: I decided to make a more realistic and interesting universe. I'm keeping the name and cover, though, so Emerald Outpost is now a big trading post-turned-city they go to and from on jobs. So:

Era: I now know that it is set in approximately the mid-2500's

Human history: interstellar travel happened in 3 waves. (a lot of this was my spouse's idea as we brainstormed today, for which I am so grateful)

First wave: early 2200's. Billionaire's trying to destroy a dying planet. Left to set up homes among the stars and were never heard from again. Some did survive, but their rugged individualism did not serve them well. Also, they were the ones running the cloud services that kept all the records at the time so those were lost and most people don't even know this happened

Dark ages: things got even worse before they got better. War, famine, large swaths of the planet literally uninhabitable. Information was lost with the rich. Technology was lost as people struggled just to survive

Rebuilding: the Earth did not die. People saved it, and each other. As things stabilized, tech came back and space travel was reinvented

Second wave: early 2400's. Countries were abolished around then, but this exploration wave was largely led by what used to be India. They pushed out among the stars, ordinary people looking for what was out there. And they found other civilizations, and largely settled among the societies that already existed. There are a few mostly-human areas, but not in a weird isolationist way, just in a we-can-survive-here way

Third wave: late 2400's and on. Humans are part of the intergalactic community now, though a small part. Most people still spend their lives on Earth, with maybe one big space trip for a honeymoon. On Earth, aliens come regularly for trading but more rarely in non-hub areas. Some people do live their lives on ship-cities, and plenty of humans--though many less than any other group--live on alien worlds, or leave Earth for space jobs

Characters

I'll give you details on alien species later. I haven't come up with enough yet

In the old version, they were spies. The story was fine. But my characters were not made to work within the system, so they're smugglers now. Mostly in the sense that their work is illegal, not like providing weapons to warmongers or anything

Quick rundown:

Minerva: captain of the ship and its pilot. Still human

Esther: also still human. Weapons expert and linguist. Has a 2-year-old daughter, Shira, who lives on the ship with her

Nasir: still Esther's best friend, but no longer human. He is now from the pangolin-like species of alien. Yes, that's a human name, but his family converted to Islam some generations ago. He is the mechanic who keeps the ship running

Jorge: still human. Ship's medic

Val: no longer human. Now comes from an amphibian species who need part time water-breathers to live in space. Also their species has no sex or gender differentiation. They have a preschool kid (who I need to rename because they used to be Luisa). Val is still secretive and shifty for reasons that become clear throughout the story. Oh, they're the way overqualified (with a degree!) software engineer who invented a whole system to help the ship run better

Euyla: no longer human. Now an alien with leathery purple skin, four eyes, and feathers on her arms. The ship's logistics person, which...shouldn't be a real job, but she was desperate and begging. Also she does do well at plotting courses, finding jobs, and keeping records, so it's fine

[sword93]

Okay so I’m thinking about a sort of Rapunzel inspired AU of MLP following Flurry Heart and Cozy Glow.

Basically Chrysalis escapes the stone prison by slowly absorbing love from passerby’s for a few months.

During all the chaos of everyone going on a manhunt for her, realizes that she has no way to fuel herself consistently, she’s running on fumes, and that won’t help her find a way to exact revenge, which with Queen Twilight, Chancellors Luna and Celestia, and a Pony-Creature Parliament in power, Creatures and ponies are now far too well organized to simply divide and conquer.

She does recall though one particular pony who was bursting with love….Flurry Heart. She’d kidnapped her once before with her parents, before Starlight facilitated her defeat.

So Chrysalis did something incredible risky- she needed that battery of love. So she used all of her tricks and kidnapped flurry heart, with no trace of either of them left. She quickly absconded from Equestria towards the furthest shores.

Not much love that way, as it was full of war and greed fueled by oligarchies, but she could find allies and make a plan- all while her new battery daughter kept her well fed.

A few years later, Cozy Glow emerges, having been released on Twilights orders, as Equestria was now secure, there was no need to keep a child imprisoned. Cozy was given a chance to rehabilitate, but she ran off as soon as she could.

Cozy eventually ends up at the farthest shores, in Southward, and turns to crime, as her charms don’t work on these hard, angry, and downtrodden people.

She decides from observation that the best way to get power is money, in this new land, and becomes a notorious thief-for-hire, no better Heist planner around.

She drifts away from her early megalomania tendencies into simply wanting a life where she can control everything for herself, pure independence. (I head-canon she had a bad childhood experience that made her obsessive about being in charge. Now she thinks it’s too much work and effort- she’ll only work for her own sake now.)

Cozy takes on the biggest job of her life- stealing an already long-ago- stolen artifact, with a plan to sell it back to Equestrian Royalty, earn herself a luxurious life style on a little island somewhere. The artifact is a tiny tiara, apparently infused with the magic of the lost Alicorn Princess of the Crystal Kingdom.

This is where Cozy bumps into Flurry, now known as Fleury Hearth, when she hides away in an old tower in a dark forest.

Fleury, meanwhile, dreams of seeing the outside world- she had read in her books before about a wonderful place of ponies like her and her mother.

And in the North of that country, a place where the grass is greener than green, the buildings shine like precious gemstones, protected by love from the harsh snowy conditions.

Her mother told her that Equestria only looks nice, that the other Alicorns are all terrible Tyrants. Fleury told her she wanted to help the poor ponies and take down the Tyrants. So Crystal Bliss had been training her to use magic better.

Her mother is a big time mafia boss and taught Fleury that sometimes you have to do bad things to get good results, but Fleury was too kind hearted to pick up on the family trade.

But lately Crystal has been cagey, making Fleury stay inside more, on edge, and recently they got into an argument. Fleury wanted to help more with Crystal’s plans for Equestrian liberation, but Crystal recently stopped her magic lessons and shut down all talk of her leaving the tower or Southward ever again. (Chrysalis is too paranoid and possessive of Flurry funding out the truth and losing her permanent battery too early.)

Fleury,in possession of the tiny tiara, makes a deal with Cozy, that they would go together up to Equestria so Fleury could see for herself how the ponies are being treated, and bring back information to her mother- that would prove to her she was ready to help! She wasn’t a little filly anymore!

That’s pretty much all I have so far but I just like the idea a lot. Anastasia and Rapunzel vibes and music from there fits well.

[astaldis]

For the June prompt "Yikes"

From "You'd be wise to beware" - Chapter 3: Or the flying drake ...

Published: 2023-05-13; Completed: 2023-05-31; Words: 12,856; Chapters: 6/6

“Yikes," Geralt says, grimacing. "You look worse than I did after I cut my way through that selkimore from the inside some years ago. Everything alright, brother, besides the yuck?”

Cahir nods, spitting on the ground and wiping his face on his sleeve. Which does not really help as there is hardly a yuck-free thread on him. From head to toe he is covered in yellow haemolymph and centipede entrails.

“Remind me to never slice anything’s guts open while I’m standing right in front of them,” he mutters darkly, spitting once again. Is it just the nasty smell of the arthropod blood that makes him want to vomit or did he swallow any of it by accident? In contrast to the saliva it is not poisonous, at least not as far as he knows, but it is thoroughly disgusting.

“On the path getting yourself showered in blood and gore is unavoidable sometimes, the lesser of two evils,” Geralt says with a grin. “You did good, little brother. If you weren’t so totally loathsome at the moment, I'd give you a hug. Good it's only temporary.”

“Melitele’s tits! And I thought I had seen it all!” Jaskier exclaims, having left his hide-out and walked up to his victorious comrades as soon as the monsters seemed dead. “That is - that is truly eww, worse than the sewers, so much, much worse. Good that Yennefer can’t see you like this. Or, heavens forbid, smell you." He grimaces, rolling his eyes at Cahir. "But you’re lucky, my non-Nilfgaardian friend," the bard continues with a wink. "I never travel without a piece of soap and a few nice scents. I’d be willing to share if we can finally have that lakeside picnic now. By the way," he adds, beaming at them, "you Witchers did an amazing job. As I knew you would. Definitely worthy of a ballad. And a little feast."

“Not so fast, Jaskier. There are still a few baby arthropods that need to be taken care of." Geralt looks at his sword meaningfully. The unfortunate little creature skewered to it has stopped squeaking and struggling. Jaskier goes pale. He knows they cannot leave any of them alive, but he does feel bad for the funny little buggers.

"Don't watch, Jask," Geralt says. "And you, Cahir, go wash. I can do it.”

So, while Geralt hunts down the remaining baby monsters and takes terminally care of them, Cahir has a very necessary bath in the lake. The water is crystal clear and refreshingly cool despite the heat of summer. Shoals of small fish flit away and disappear between the reeds when he dives in head first from a rock to get the worst of the disgusting centipede gore off his face and hair. He does not dare swim too far though as the lake looks really deep in the middle and you never know what creatures might lurk at the bottom. The legendary pike with a spike from Jaskier's ballad, for example. The bard is not wrong with the song. It is wise to beware in Posada. If myriapods and giant centipedes can interbreed here, you never know what other beasts can do. And better safe than sorry. So he returns to the shore quickly and starts to clean himself and his clothes as best as possible with the help of Jaskier’s soap. Then he picks up the small glass vial Jaskier conjured up from his belt pouch for him. Normally he is not one to indulge in the use of fragrances, but today an exception is not only in order, but very much needed, Cahir decides. He sniffs at the content of the vial. Apple, cinnamon and lemon blossoms. Could have been a lot worse from what Geralt has told him about Jaskier and his extravagancies. Actually, the scent is quite nice and does help to drive away the lingering, nauseatingly icky memory of the arthropod stench.

Feeling a lot better and decidedly cleaner, albeit very wet without both a towel or dry clothes, Cahir turns around, away from the lake, his hair, shirt and pants dripping with water. Well, it will not take long until the sun has dried everything again. There are still several hours of sunshine ahead. He gazes around. After having watered the horses and set up the picnic table in the shade of an old, expanding tree not far away by the lakeside, Jaskier is sitting against the trunk, a piece of bread in one hand and a sausage in the other, just about to regale himself with his late lunch. Geralt is still searching for monster spawn between the rocks. Have some of the baby monsters run away and hidden in the numerous crevices and cracks there? Perhaps Geralt needs some assistance with the little pests? 

Cahir is just about to walk toward his Witcher friend, when he suddenly hears a strange whooshing in the air. He looks up. And freezes in his tracks. A dark shape is swooping down from the sky, huge, fast and deadly, instantaneously filling him with horror. A Wyvern? A Dragon? Whatever it is, it is stretching out its terrible talons to sink them straight into Geralt's back.

Before Cahir can cry out to warn his friend, though, the Witcher swivels around and slashes at the creature's scaly belly. With his enhanced Witcher perception, he must have sensed the approaching flying monster in time, thank the gods. The beast screeches and veers, then it attacks again. Cahir grabs his sword and darts along the lakeshore to help his comrade. However, it is not necessary. With an elegant, sweeping movement, Geralt slices through the winged creatures long, slender neck. The blow does not sever it entirely, the beast is too big for that, but it is lethal enough. Showering the Witcher with dark red blood, the draconid crashes onto the rocks and breathes its last gurgling breaths.

Geralt stands still for a moment. Then, with a groan, he crumples to the ground ...

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