#which was low key disappointing as i'm a gremlin like that

[lasthumaninwales]

Today was the anniversary of me getting my top surgery, which is fucking WILD.

I couldn't find any decent "before" photos that illustrate just how much they took off me, except for an old cosplay photo which is hilarious in it's own way...

That's from like, 2015 or something?

Point is they removed over 3kg of tissue, and now I look like this:

(That cosplay is saving me so much in terms of awkward shirtless mirror selfies I stg)

I yet again want to shout out to my wife @alone-on-takodana for taking care of me during the whole thing. We had to stay in a hotel in London for two weeks, I couldn't lift anything for a good long while, I couldn't drive, and I was sore and grumpy for weeks afterwards, and she was an absolute angel with the patience of a saint about it all.

[barbenheimer-core]

AUDERE EST FACERE !

하나. chanel : part two — 1.7k words

TURN.

The lights in the shop lowered in their intensity, and Ahyeong gasped, drawing in heavy breaths of air as her limbs finally moved of her own accord, bending low to clutch her knees and balance herself when she slightly stumbled.

"Are you okay?" Wangja the Shop Owner asked, concerned about the sudden change in demeanor.

"I,"— Ahyeong found herself at a loss for words, what was happening to her?— "I don't know."

An abnormal lucid dream, she thought, that was what she was experiencing. One in which she was aware of her made-up fantasy world but couldn't control her speech and actions at times.

It was like the dream itself had a script of its own.

Huh. Maybe that was it. She just had to follow the script.

"Umm... I think I should get going," she mumbled, hoping her hunch was right.

Wangja looked a bit disappointed that he couldn't carry on the conversation, but nodded in agreement. The sleek black car outside that he had spotted while coming in was probably her driver waiting on her.

Suho was still coughing on their way out, and upon the two shooting concerned looks at him he merely ignored them, gaining his composure and zooming past them and into the dimly lit night in his mildly flustered state.

As Ahyeong stepped into the cold night air, she saw her family's personal car, finding Driver Kwon sitting in front of the wheel through the tinted windows.

Her family and acquaintances must be the same as before then.

"Well, do come by often," Wangja said, handing her the copy of Shiver that she had been sifting through previously, and when Ahyeong looked at him confusedly, he winked, "as an insurance that you do visit, I'm letting you borrow it. Remember, the shop's policy only lets you borrow items for two weeks. Any more and you'll have to compensate."

The girl tucked the comic under her elbow, amused at his antics as if she'd known him for a long time, and said without thinking, "Does ramyeon work as compensation?"

The shop owner grinned, "Aye, you know me so well. Now go. Your driver is giving me the creeps with his glare."

Ahyeong chuckled at that. Driver Kwon was rather overprotective over the Song siblings and got suspicious of anyone who got within six feet of them, even the people the two kids had explicitly stated were their friends.

Bidding Wangja goodbye, Ahyeong slipped into the leather seats of the car, fastening the seatbelt around herself as was the clearly stated rule by the person in front of her who turned the key as soon as she got in, revving the engine before taking off into the night and to, presumably, her home.

Ahyeong paused at the front door, looking at the front lawn with puzzled eyes.

Why did it look even more extravagant than it was on a usual day?

The flowers were in full bloom despite spring having passed months ago, the garden lights were still switched on, illuminating the finely-trimmed shrubs and foliage, and the cars were displayed out in the open instead of being in the garage.

It was as if someone was trying to make a drawing of a picturesque rich household, perfect in every aspect with next to no flaws in its design.

The mahogany doors opened abruptly, halting her thoughts, and the housemaid, Eunjung, hurriedly ushered her in, putting slippers in front of the girl's feet as she toed her shoes off.

"Why were you out so late? It's past curfew. Thank goodness Mrs. Song hasn't returned from work yet, or you would've been in trouble," she fussed.

Trouble with her mother? That was odd. That never happened because Ahyeong usually informed Eunjung of where she was going, and her mother didn't really mind if she was out past curfew as long as she had alerted someone of coming in late.

"I'll prepare your dinner while you wash up. Do you want to eat at the table or should I bring it to your room upstairs?"

"My room, if it's not too much trouble."

Eunjung waved her hands, dismissing her, and scurried off to the kitchen while Ahyeong headed up the stairs to the West Wing of the house where her bedroom resided.

Contrary to what she thought, her room had not been what she expected.

It was littered with cardboard boxes and suitcases, most of them unpacked and organized but there still being enough to do that the floor looked messy.

Ahyeong remembered her involuntary words back at Prince Comics.

So her family moved to Seoul in this dream?

From where though? She's never lived anywhere else other than this city.

Oh well, too bad. There was no use dwelling on it. Her dream would end as soon as she would go to sleep and wake up anyway.

But her nagging mind urged her to clean her room up, and despite knowing that her efforts may be in vain she obliged, and by the end of the hour, her room looked just as it had been in real life.

Setting her towel by the bathroom rack to dry, Ahyeong sat down in front of her desk in her pajamas, where the maid had spread out a variety of steaming dishes on fine china while she had been tidying up.

Leave it to Eunjung to make mouth-watering food for any time of the day.

Just as she raised her spoon to eat the seaweed soup, her door swung open.

Gilyeong stood by the threshold, racing to her and shoving his phone in her face, a rather horrible picture of a mangled body on its screen.

"What the-" Ahyeong dropped her utensils with a clang, pushing the device away from her face with a disgusted expression and glaring at her brother, who giggled mischievously, "I'm trying to eat, you gremlin. Don't make me lose my appetite."

"It's payback for the time you showed me a clip of a gutted person when I was trying to eat pat-bingsu. Now get a taste of your own medicine, grinch," Gilyeong laughed evilly, shoving his phone into Ahyeong's eyesight as she tried to stop him from ruining her eyes in front of her food.

Even in dreams, her brother was as nasty as they came.

"You evil little-" Ahyeong wrestled the phone out of his hands, making the younger Song frown and whine at her to give it back to him, and got an idea as she glanced at the shelf on top of her desk.

"If you promise to behave yourself this week, I'll let you borrow that," she said, pointing at the Junji Ito comic that Wangja had let her borrow.

Gilyeong looked up, and his eyes glimmered in anticipation as he jumped up to grab it from the shelf.

"Woah, where did you get this from?" He exclaimed as he started to peruse the pages, "It was out of stock in every bookstore I dragged you to."

"I got it from a hippie who starred in a drama," she smirked at her brother's puzzled face , "so, do we have a deal?"

She raised her hands as she said so.

Her brother looked up at her suspiciously, eyes narrowed in contemplation, then nodded briefly, "deal."

He raised his palms, meeting Ahyeong's halfway as they did their Handshake of Temporary Truce.

Yes, they had different handshakes for a whole list of situations.

"But you still have to pay up for your flinches from yesterday and now," he drawled while walking out of her room.

Wait, yesterday?

"What do you mean the flinch from yesterday?"

Gilyeong stopped midway and turned around, confused.

"Don't tell me you've been getting amnesia too. We were at the restaurant yesterday with Mum and Dad's investors, remember?"

With that ominous comment, he stepped out, shutting the door behind him.

Sunlight peeked through the half-open blinds, beaming on Ahyeong's face as she woke up and looked around her room, same as ever.

What a crazy dream.

She remembered it as clear as day.

But it was over and done with, and she was in reality now.

For a moment she pondered how she had gotten into her bed, but then trashed the thought. One of her parents had probably carried her here when she had fallen into a deep sleep in the lobby of the restaurant.

She got up, picking up her phone to look at the day and time.

It was around 8 on a Sunday morning, and Ahyeong yawned, kicking off her blanket to freshen up. She woke up too early for a weekend.

Deciding to explore the city for the day, she changed into a button-up and denim trousers, picking up a set of Doc Martens on her way out for breakfast.

"What's new this mornin', gremlin," she greeted Gilyeong while running down the stairs, who sat by the couch reading something, its cover blocked out of her eyesight.

She slightly tripped on the last two steps and hit her knee on the railing, hissing in pain and lightly hopping towards the dining table.

"Good morning, Eunjung-ssi," Ahyeong smiled through her discomfort at the maid, in complete contrast to the way she greeted her brother, and he scowled at her from his spot but didn't say anything.

Eunjung rolled her eyes in good nature at the sibling's antics, all too used to it, "Good morning to you too."

She set down two servings of rice, soup, and a variety of side dishes for breakfast, and the siblings came to sit at the dining table.

As Ahyeong scooped up a spoonful of rice, she saw Gilyeong putting down his book, finally spotting its cover.

She paused.

"Hey, dongsaeng, how did you get that?" She said as she pointed at the copy of Shiver.

The young Song stopped eating, pointing a fake grin at her.

"From the grinch who got it from a hippie who starred in a drama."

This was not a dream.

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© 2021 Alfia Sheikh, All Rights Reserved

[kaptain-k-pop]

Ahhhhhh I'm sorry to hear that you aren't super confident about some of your midterms! I hope it turns out that they went better than you feel like they did! Sleeping for 2 days is completely valid and I hope your visit with your friend was reenergizing as well!

My 2 exams ended up going okay (well one of them went miraculously well idek how?? And the other one went okay, but yeah, overall not bad I'll gladly except those results!) I am a little bit concerned for the future though, because the first test (the one I somehow miraculously got a 94% on??? Idek how?) was the skeleton, which I kind of already knew a lot of. But the next exam in a couple weeks is over muscles (specifically muscles of the cat). And like 1) I know jack shit about muscles going in so everything is new and 2) at least with bones you can easily see like, this is one bone. I can tell where one bone stops and another begins because they're separate pieces (except like, the skull bones bc they're fused, but still there's usually a suture so you can see where two bones come together) and a lot of them are unique shapes and sizes so you can tell which is which. But like with muscles I have a hard time knowing where one muscle ends and another one begins bc like, everything is all pink and fiber-y. And we're working with cats rn (which is not my favorite thing 😭) and since we have to keep using the same specimens and make them last some of them have been more... carefully handled than others, and it's like. Is this two separate muscles? or just one muscle that got split by the last person using it?? Everything is muscle fibers! Idek which ones belong in a group or if any of them are broken? (also fun story: I'm taking Anatomy bc I needed more credits to fill my schedule and I was like, 'oh Anatomy sounds interesting! I like learning about biological topics, it'll just be kinda cool to know some stuff about the body' but it turns out, this isn't like, a low-key high school intro to Anatomy type class. This is like a real™ college Anatomy course that's meant to be useful for like, people who are pre-med. So like, apparently later in the semester we're gonna be looking at a real cadaver. 🙃 I didn't know that when I signed up for the course. I'm dreading it so much! 🙃🙃🙃) but yeah, tl;dr: I think that the muscle exam will be much more difficult so I am a little concerned about that. (Also I am so sorry for being gross and talking about all that!!! 😭 I just got on a tangent abt Anatomy and couldn't stop bc of my CStFUi*) Other than Anatomy though I do have a lot of, not tests, but projects that I have had to work on/am still in the midst of working on for various other subjects and my life is a little bit on fire. But this is fine. 👌

Yeah I get pretty bad too. I always make sure to have dinner and technically I have gaps in my class schedule every day so I can eat lunch. But I never wake up early enough to go get breakfast and a lot of the time I'll just work right through my lunch break and not make time to actually go eat. So it's pretty much go to classes, go back to my dorm to work on projects and/or study during any gaps between classes (depending on the day), "oh shit it's 6:30 pm, maybe I should have my first meal of the day", supplement diet with snacks and/or energy drinks, keep working/studying most of the night, *maybe* go to bed around 4 am and set a bunch of alarms to wake up around 7 (snoozing each one and probably finally dragging myself out of bed around 9) maybe just pulling an all nighter 🤷 who can really say which will happen? Certainly not me, rinse and repeat. I'm a chaotic unhealthy gremlin. My mom would be so disappointed 😭 Here's to us hopefully managing to get our lives at least a little bit more together in the future?

And I totally agree! I loved that it gave me an excuse to talk to and meet some new people! But now that it's over I'm glad that I'm no longer confined by having to break my messages down into 500 character chunks and how many asks I can send per hour! (she says, writing an entire essay response all in one go. RIP)

And okay but like, there are actual receipts of my downfall on my blog. Because the day I became a Monbebe I made a breakdown post that essentially boiled down to "Well shit, I meant to just stick to just BTS but I guess I have to be multifandom now... Curse you Lee Jooheon!!!" And I added screenshots to chronicle the decent of my downfall. (And I knew that I didn't stan them for very long before I impulse bought a shirt, however I didn't remember exactly how long it was until just out of curiosity I looked up those screenshots. And hon? it's even worse than I thought) according to my photo archive I took those screenshots (shortly after I realized I was gonna have to stan them, bc I knew I was gonna want to make a melodramatic post and I wanted to have the time stamps in for that "this is why I shouldn't be allowed to be on tumblr after 5 am" punchline) a little after 5 am November 22.  And I knew for a fact that the first shirt I bought was from a Black Friday deal remember? Well I looked up what day Black Friday 2018 was... November 23. So from the time I watched my first Monsta X MV to the time I walked into Hot Topic Friday evening for the $10 Tee Black Friday sale, saw that they had a Monsta X shirt, and immediately lost all self control was literally less than 48 hours 😬 I mean buying 3 shirts after a month or so of stanning (when I think I got the other two) wouldn't be that bad. But I feel like <48 hours is a little bit of an insane turn around to drop money on merch 😂 (Plus also I just think it's wild that I bought an MX shirt after stanning for one (1) day and meanwhile I've loved BTS since June and still don't have any wearable items with which to openly display that love on my body 😂 (but that's also bc the only BTS shirt I've seen at HT was like a $40 one from one of the tours which was too expensive and not even very cute but that's just some shade I guess....lol)) Also wow you did get the best set!! What a jackpot! I ended up getting a Jinjin lyric book (yay!), 2 Rocky cards and 2 Sanha cards. Sanha isn't one of my bias wreckers so there is a little part of me that kind of wishes I would have gotten Eunwoo or Bin. But if that's the trade off with fate for me to be lucky enough to get 2 Rocky cards I'll gladly take it! And of course I still do love Sanha and he's still a cutie pie so I'm not really too torn up about it. I guess I'll just have to buy more Astro albums and hope for more diversity in the future 😉 lol

What did I think of Alligator? I think I need medical attention is what I think! They did not come to play! Rapline honestly annihilated me and I'm not really sure what to do about that?? (Also I still have no idea who my MX bias is because all of them are constantly wrecking me and of course this MV continued that tradition of making me feel very attacked every 10 seconds) 😂 I thought it was great. But yeah, as a simple girl just trying to live her life I just wish they would let me rest... Lmao

Haha, that's super valid hon. I go through phases where I'll be really into certain songs for a while and then it shifts. Like I'll have periods where I just listen to Always You and feel all dramatic for a few days. And then before you know it I'm back to bopping to Hide and Seek 😂

That's super cool that you learned some choreos with your friend! Yeah, all the work they put into performances is so impressive to see. And honestly as for the "mostly live" thing I think some people make too much of a big deal out of trying to prove different idols are lip synching. Even if they are, a lot of the time they're doing really exhausting choreography so it's totally understandable for them to want to have that back up so they can still give a good show and not be like, gasping for air (especially at a concert where they're doing multiple intense workouts in a row). It doesn't mean they can't sing if they use a backing track sometimes. Come on people worry about something important! 😂 But yeah, there are a lot of performances where they do sing live and that's just incredibly impressive! (Also! I love musicals too omg!!! This is already going to be way too long, but we should definitely talk about musicals sometime 😊)

Wow that's crazy! She's been keeping that secret for almost 3 years? You mentioned her being scared of being roasted at first and now being in too deep. Is it a situation where she got into kpop first and then when her sister eventually got into it she didn't know how to say "oh yeah I've been secretly listening to kpop for (x amount of time)" and now it's been too long? 😂 I'm curious, lol. But yeah that's exciting that you have an irl friend to talk about Astro with now! I guess I'll just have to keep working on Mickey (my friend's brother) and indoctrinate him into being my kpop friend 😂

It's no problem! You were very busy which is completely understandable! It was great to officially meet you too Vivian! 😊

(Also I'm sorry about writing another essay in response to your essay, we really have dug ourselves into a hole haven't we? 😂 It's up to you how you think we should continue this corespondance. We could copy this into messages and start communicating that way. Or I suppose we could just keep obnoxiously passing this post back and forth and adding to the string of essays (albeit now unburdened by having to worry about character/ask limits or tumblr eating messages) 😂 It's up to you)

I hope you have a great week, and I look forward to your next letter essay hearing from you! (😂 When you get the chance, don't even worry about it, no pressure!)

*Can'tShuttheFuckUp-itis (it's chronic)

(1/14)I am so sorry for taking so long! (I also had to spend a lot of time studying this week bc I had my first exam for my Anatomy Lab on Wednesday... And then we had our first exam for *Lecture* Thursday (which also was the day I had a bunch of powerpoints due for my very intimidating adviser...) and then I had to substitute teach all day Friday (and then I meant to respond sooner but I got so busy 😭) so yeah I completely understand about school getting in the way no worries abt it!)

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