#there are...so many potential stories here

[noctiva]

whenever I see someone make Tim be really mean to Toby it makes me sad :(

I do not think Tim would hate him at all. Maybe he’d be annoyed by his presence when he first starts to tag along, but it’s just because he’s such a contrasting force. Tim’s used to Brian. They’ve been friends for a long time, they’re similar in age, they’ve gone through a lot together, and they know how to act around one another. Toby just comes in like a freight train. This loud, almost grating presence that demands attention even if he’s not asking for it.

Toby’s immature, petty, overly excitable, messy, and doesn’t think through his actions well. Of course that rubs Tim the wrong way at first. Maybe he snaps at him once or twice. Probably just gives him the silent treatment for a good long while, but hate him? No. On the inside he’s sad for him. Even before he learns about his trauma. Because he’s just so young. He’s young, has so much spirit, and yet he’s here. Dragged through life to become a slave to slender just like the rest of them.

He can barely even look at him when they first meet because it makes his stomach turn. He can barely grow a beard. He’s still hollowing out his baby fat, for fuck’s sake - and he’s here? It’s sickening to think of how much potential and promise got thrown down the drain.

Toby doesn’t open up to him quickly. I’ve said this in older posts but he’s just really not good around older men. It brings up too many flashbacks of his father.

But, eventually he will. Probably not by choice. He wakes up from a terror in the middle of the night screaming with tears streaming down his face. Tim runs in because he thought something genuinely terrible happened - and it did, just a long time ago.

After that, they just kind of stick. Tim gets Toby into smoking, they sit on the porch of the shared cabin together and share a pack of cigs. Tim will tell him stories of how he lived before all of this happened, Toby will listen but stay silent because he’s got no good memories to tell.

Toby will ask Tim about college. What it was like. If it was like the movies. It just makes that pit of dread in Tim’s stomach grow deeper, knowing that he was swiped before he could even attempt to experience it.

Tim constantly harps on him to be careful. Keeps him in his line of sight at all times when they’re on a mission because he knows Toby’s reckless. He knows he pushes himself too hard because he thinks his inability to feel pain makes him near invincible. He’s usually the one to carry Toby home slung over his back.

Tim cares in a gruff, closed off way.

“How bad is it?”

“D-Does it matter? Can’t f-feel it anyway.”

“Oh, fuck off. Show me. You’d have bled out five times over if I didn’t always harp on you.”

It’s always worse than Toby says it is. And it always makes Tim’s head hurt to think about just how detached from his own body Toby seems to be.

[inthelow]

AUGUST — jeon jungkook.

Pairing: fem! reader x idol! jeon jungkook

Summary: A fleeting love, hidden truths, and the ache of wanting someone you were never meant to keep. Jungkook should have known better.

Genre/Warning: fluff, summer love, angst / cursing, cheating, homophobia.

Author’s note: you’re probably gonna hate me for changing a little the “story” of the song but in my mind this was a life-changing idea😭🙏🏼.

Los Angeles was the perfect place to create music. Usually when a world-renowned group like BTS thought of a place to draw inspiration from, they thought of LA. Jungkook was no exception. When he was finally able to find the time to start working on his first solo album, the suggestion to go to the States was not overlooked. Besides being able to meet with producers he loved working with and admired, it was also a good excuse to get out of Korea and forget about all the problems that were going on around his personal life. So, the last week of June and just in time for the beginning of summer, Jungkook packed his bags and together with his team decided to travel to the United States.

Working in a music studio is usually very different everywhere. Although he liked working in America, he really appreciated the quietness they had in Korea when making music, especially when it was just him and his producers in the room. The California studio was totally different, he was surrounded by people. Producers, writers, guitarists, drummers, bass players, other singers, even music critics.

The studio was surrounded by people everywhere you looked. Being the first meeting, of course, everyone wanted to know the main idea of the album so they could work on it. He knew that the first few days would be a bit crowded, as they always were when he worked with BTS, so he was anxious for the next week to come so he could start working with fewer people.

It wasn't a bad feeling, he knew. Although he loved working on his music, working with too many people was sometimes too much for him. Ironic, since all his life he had been surrounded by people everywhere he went. That, when he loved being by himself, was one of the drawbacks of his job. But he knew he could not complain, not when he was doing what he loved, not when he had achieved so much more than he had ever dreamed of. Sometimes though, he just needed to go away and breathe, away of all the movement.

He’d been in the main booth for hours, tweaking the vocal of a track that refused to sound right in his ears, trying not to hate it just because he couldn’t fix it. His head buzzed. His ears rang. He needed a break — just five minutes to stretch his legs, splash water on his face, breathe something that didn’t smell like stale foam. Jungkook had only been in California a week, but he already moved like someone who belonged to the walls of the studio — the soft echo of unfinished tracks trailing behind him, the scent of coffee gone cold in corner mugs, the low thrum of bass bleeding from under closed doors. The air here always smelled like dust, citrus cleaner, and potential. A place where songs might happen. A place where he might finally feel like he was doing something worth remembering.

He just started walking around the studio, without any specific location. Honestly, working alone on his music in the U.S. wasn't turning out to be as exciting as he thought it would be. Maybe because he didn't have his six other colleagues who could shamelessly interrupt those people's conversations in order to get ahead of the process of going straight to the music. He didn't, even though he was one of the biggest stars of the moment, he sometimes felt very shy and small with so many people.

He walked down the hallway lined with faded gig posters and one dying plant, and opened the third door on the right, thinking it was the bathroom.

It wasn’t.

It was a storage room, or maybe just a forgotten one. Empty except for a folding chair, a cracked mini fridge humming uselessly in the corner, and — most notably — a girl sitting cross-legged on the floor, holding a bag of Doritos in one hand and a phone in the other, laughing silently at whatever TikTok had just played.

You looked up like you’d been caught stealing state secrets.

“Shit,” you cursed in english, tucking your phone into your pocket before standing up and bowing slightly. “Hi, nice to meet you. I was in my break, I'll keep working now.”

He almost looked relieved that you spoke Korean, not really having the strength to think in another language. “I’m sorry, I was looking for the bathroom— This is definitely not it.”

“It’s not,” you said, deadpan. “But it could be, if you’re brave.”

He coughed out a laugh before he could stop himself. You didn’t smile, just crunched your chip and watched him like he was the one sitting illegally in a storage closet.

“Do you know where the real bathroom is?.”

“First door in the next hall.” You informed.

It look like you were trying to find a way to get out of the room. He was in the door, and he realized you were probably not supposed to be in a break.

“Thank you.” he nodded, still not moving. “You can still take your break in here, by the way. I'll go.

“It's okay, I just finished.”

“I'm Jungkook.” He bowed.

“I know, nice to meet you.” You bowed the same as you walked past him to leave the little closet.

Before he could say anything else, you were walking away.

Rude.

The funny thing about meeting someone new — someone you don’t expect — is how quickly they become everywhere.

Jungkook didn’t even know your name, but he started noticing you in the following days with the kind of attention he usually reserved for lyrics or vocals he couldn’t shake. You weren’t loud. You weren’t flashy. You dressed like comfort was your only priority and carried yourself like you’d seen everything already and weren’t particularly impressed. But you were always there. Sitting cross-legged on the front step, answering emails or maybe pretending to. Laughing with the producer’s wife in the hallway. Handing out coffees from a tray without asking names, just knowing. Sometimes you’d pop into the booth to drop off a cable, say something vaguely, and vanish.

He used to see you in the night or some mornings during the week so he started to get curious about your job. He was already two weeks there and knew what everyone did for work, except for you. It wasn't like he was looking for a place or moment to talk with you, he was actually very busy with his work but when he saw you alone at night in the reception of the studio, he nodded to you before talking, ready to get that little curiosity out of his mind.

The studio always looked a little stranger at night — quieter, obviously, but also softer, like the walls were less sure of themselves without the hum of music to hold them up. Jungkook liked it that way. No pressure to produce anything. Just existing between takes and fluorescent light. He was walking toward the front desk, his bag strap slung across his back, more out of muscle memory than purpose, when he saw you again— behind the reception counter, reorganizing a stack of crumpled papers with mechanical disinterest, like the pages had personally offended you.

“Good night,” he said, slowing to a stop. “Or… good luck with the paperwork.”

You didn’t look up. “I’m not leaving yet.”

“Oh.”

He stood there, unsure whether that meant he should keep walking or… talking.

You finally raised your eyes. “I mean, you can say good night if it’s your bedtime. I’m just saying I’m not leaving yet.”

“It’s not my bedtime.”

“Good. That would’ve been tragic,” you said, tossing a paper into a drawer like it owed you money. “You looked like the type to stay up and overthink your day until three in the morning.”

He smirked. “Guilty.”

A silence stretched, comfortable in a weird way. You flipped a few more pages, then pushed the stack aside like you’d just given up on it.

“What are you even doing?” Jungkook asked, leaning a little closer over the counter. “You work reception?”

“Technically,” you said, using your pen to spin a binder around like a lazy roulette wheel. “I’m a ��clerk.’ That’s what the sign-in sheet says.”

“Clerk?”

“Yeah. Glamorous, right?” You leaned back in the chair, finally making eye contact. “I open. I close. I try to keep the printers alive and help with stupid things the people need around here. Sometimes I find lost AirPods and hoard them like a raccoon. Classic clerk things.”

He laughed. “You’re really selling it.”

“You’d be surprised how many dreams start this way,” you said, completely deadpan.

James wasn’t sure if you were joking. That was the thing about you — your tone was always hovering in that delicate no-man’s-land between sincerity and satire.

“How’d you get the gig?”

You shrugged. “Nepotism.”

“Fair.”

“My uncle owns the place. Summer job while I’m here. My third year already.”

“You’re from Korea?”

“Busan.”

That surprised him. “No way. Me too.”

You raised an eyebrow. “Huh. Small world. Weirdly American sentence, though.”

“What?”

“‘No way, me too.’ It’s like the universal icebreaker here. That, and pretending you like oat milk.”

He blinked. “Okay, I do like oat milk.” You smiled faintly, as if you’d just proven a point. He cleared his throat. “So you live here now?”

“No,” you said, “I’m here for the summer. Just needed to get away from… Busan, I guess. Studying scenic arts. Theater and stuff.”

“You’re an actress?”

“God, no,” you said quickly. “I mean, maybe. Kind of. I’m a bit of a fraud. But mostly I like lighting. How a mood can shift because someone flipped a switch.”

Jungkook liked that. He filed it away. “And when you go back?”

“Back to pretending I have a five-year plan.”

“Must be nice to have the option.”

You rolled your eyes. “I come from a family that thinks failing is a kind of eccentric art form — as long as you’re doing it from the second floor of a condo in Haeundae.”

Ah.

“So you’re rich,” he said, not unkindly.

“Don’t worry,” you replied. “I’m very ashamed of it.” He smiled. You didn’t. “I’m joking,” you said after a beat, though the way your voice dipped made it unclear who the joke was really for. “Kind of.”

You two went quiet for a moment, your fingers tapping idly on the desk.

“You always talk like that?” Jungkook asked.

“Like what?”

“Like you’re trying to entertain yourself.”

You considered this, then gave a one-shoulder shrug. “No one else seems to be doing it.”

That was the first thing he really liked about you. Not the hair — always down like you were halfway to giving up. Not the sarcasm, though that helped. But this: the way you said things not to be liked, but because they made you laugh. As if the world was a play, and you weren’t waiting for anyone to catch up to your lines.

You stretched a little in the chair, yawned into the back of your hand.

“Anyway,” you said, “you should go overthink your song. Or whatever musicians do at midnight.”

Jungkook lingered a second longer. “Good night. For real this time.”

“Mm.”

He learned your name the next day. And he noticed you again next week.

—

It happened on a Wednesday. The kind of slow, gold-tinted California afternoon where the sun dipped lazy and arrogant across the pavement, too sure of itself to move quickly. Jungkook was leaving the back entrance of the studio, guitar slung over his shoulder, and for once, he wasn’t in his head. He’d stayed late again — not working, not really — mostly just fiddling around with a loop that wouldn’t cooperate. It was past five, just late enough for the shadows to stretch out across the sidewalk like spilled ink. As he stepped into the soft heat of the evening, he caught sight of something to his right — or rather, someone.

You.

You were wheeling a scratched-up mint-green bike down the front steps of the studio, balancing a canvas tote bag over your shoulder and muttering something to yourself while trying to untangle your headphone wire. You looked like you’d biked through a film set — loose hoodie, hair twisted up with a pen, sunglasses already in place like you knew the sun would bow for you. You didn’t see him, or maybe you did and didn’t care. You swung a leg over, kicked off the curb, and coasted down the street like gravity had been waiting for you all day.

Jungkook stood there for a moment too long, watching. There was something in the way you moved — casual, assured, a little chaotic — like you didn’t ask permission to take up space, and wouldn’t apologize for how you used it. He hadn’t expected to see you outside the studio. And he definitely hadn’t expected that the image of you riding a cheap bike with your bag hitting your hip would stay with him like a stuck chorus line.

He saw you again the next day. This time, you were kneeling on the floor under a desk, fixing a tangled mess of cords. Jungkook walked in, coffee in hand, and leaned casually against the counter. You didn’t look up when he walked by — just said, flatly, “It’s not the bathroom either, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

He grinned. “I’m starting to think there is no bathroom.”

You popped your head up. “It’s a myth. Like happiness.”

“I’ve heard of that one,” he said. “Sounds fake.”

You shrugged. “Wouldn’t know. I’m just here for the air conditioning.”

Jungkook smiled. “You know,” he said, “you really blew past the speed limit yesterday.”

You didn’t look up. “That’s because I don’t believe in laws.”

He grinned. “You ride often?”

“Every day. Unless it rains. Or I forget where I put my keys. Or I’m emotionally unwell.” You finally glanced up at him. “Why?”

“I ride too,” he said, trying to sound chill and not like someone whose heart had skipped at the shared hobby. “Used to ride back in Korea. Still do, sometimes.”

“Huh.” You sounded vaguely suspicious. “What kind of bike?”

“Custom. Matte black frame. Pretty fast.”

You squinted. “So you’re one of those.”

“What does that mean?”

“The serious kind. Probably wears gloves and leather outfits.”

He laughed. “I don’t wear gloves.”

“Mmm,” you hummed, unconvinced. Then: “Wanna race?”

Jungkook blinked. “What?”

“A race. You and me. Around the block. Winner gets bragging rights and maybe a free granola bar from the staff kitchen.”

“That’s your prize structure?”

“I’m not made of money,” you said, solemn. “Despite the rumors.”

He hesitated, still smiling. “Actually… speaking of that.”

“What, granola?”

“No—” He shifted slightly, voice quieter now. “Racing. Hanging out. You know, stuff like that… It’s not always easy for me. Because of… who I am.”

You tilted your head, standing up. “You mean the idol world?”

He nodded. “Yeah. The music. The people. The cameras. Rumours. Fans who love me until they don’t. Strangers who think I owe them something personal. It can get… messy. Very fast.”

You didn’t say anything right away. You just blinked at him slowly, like someone trying to make sense of math you didn’t care about. Then, dry as ever:

“Uhm. Yeah, that sounds fucked up.” He let out a laugh, startled. “Seriously,” you added, mouth twitching at the corner. “I’m not emotionally equipped to get involved with your PR disaster. Maybe next summer.”

He laughed harder now, and something about the tension in his chest loosened. He liked your sarcasm. He liked your refusal to tiptoe. There was no awe in your tone, no caution. Just… blunt honesty, soaked in your own amusement.

He sipped his coffee. “You’re mean.”

“Is that bad?.”

“I like it.”

He did. He really, really did.

You straightened up a little, tucking a pen behind your ear. “Anyway, I’m going out with some friends tonight. There’s a street race. Nothing fancy, just a bunch of people who think two wheels make them cooler. You wanna come?”

He hesitated again. His mind flicked through logistics. Risk. Noise. Photos. Hate. Gossip sites.

But then it settled on you — on how you said things like they weren’t invitations, just facts he could follow if he wanted to.

“Yeah,” he said finally. “Okay. I’ll come.”

Your eyes lit up for just a fraction of a second — the smallest smile tucked at the edge of your mouth, like a secret. “Cool.”

“Should I bring anything?”

You leaned forward slightly. “Just don’t wear gloves.”

You were quick with it. He liked you.

—

The parking lot wasn’t a real venue — more like a forgotten slab of concrete tucked behind a shuttered mall. There were cracks in the asphalt where weeds had found their way through, illuminated by the flicker of overhead sodium lights that buzzed like they were trying to whisper secrets. But the energy in the place was magnetic — loud music, low engines purring, clusters of people standing around with plastic cups and too much confidence. The kind of place you didn’t find unless someone texted you a blurry location pin and a “just trust me.”

Jungkook pulled the brim of his cap lower and adjusted the black mask across his face. It wasn’t paranoia — just muscle memory. His bodyguard had offered to come, but Jungkook had said no. Something about this night felt like it needed to be his.

You were already there, leaning against the hood of a car with a bottle of something fizzy in hand. You were laughing — that same dry, sharp laugh that made people look up — with two others. One was a guy Jungkook hadn’t met before, tall with dyed green hair and a Busan accent thicker than his own. The other was a girl with short curls and round glasses, who immediately gave Jungkook the once-over like she was scanning for weak points.

“There he is,” you said, like you’d summoned him. “Right on time.”

“Is there a schedule?” Jungkook asked, walking up with a small wave.

“For cool people,” you replied.

The tall guy nodded. “You’re the singer, right?”

Jungkook tensed slightly. “Maybe.”

The girl snorted. “Don’t worry. We’re not fangirls. We like your earlier group stuff, though.”

Jungkook let out a laugh and shook his head. “Thanks… I think.”

They introduced themselves — Minho, the green-haired guy, apparently someone you had known from high school, and Ara, his cousin, visiting for the summer and unimpressed by most things except the color of the sunset and the physics of drift turns. You all drank something vaguely alcoholic that came in unmarked glass bottles and talked nonsense: favorite summer snacks, how LA drivers were psychopaths, and whether or not aliens would be able to out-sing Jungkook in a karaoke bar.

The race started around ten. It wasn’t official, but everyone moved toward the strip of road like something sacred was about to happen. The two cars lined up, engines snarling, lights low. And when they took off, smoke and sound exploded into the air. Minho whooped loud enough to make heads turn.

You leaned closer to Jungkook, the edge of your arm brushing his. “This is the part where people pretend to know about horsepower.”

He grinned. “So what should I say?”

“Something like: ‘Damn, he really kicked into third gear there.’ Say it low, and nod like you know the pain.”

He tried it. You burst out laughing.

The race was over too fast. Cheers rose, someone passed around more drinks, and a guy with a GoPro insisted on showing everyone the slow-motion replay like it was a World Cup goal.

Eventually, Minho and Ara said goodbye — they had an early morning hike that Ara was determined to do, and Minho was pretending to be excited about.

“Don’t die,” you told them.

“Only emotionally,” Minho called back.

Then it was just Jungkook and you again. The night felt warmer than it was, the pavement still radiating heat, and the stars playing hard to get behind LA’s haze.

“Thanks for letting me crash your plans,” he said, pulling his mask down now that the crowd had thinned.

You stretched your arms over your head. “You weren’t terrible.”

“High praise.”

“You’re welcome.”

You two started walking slowly in the street, trying to leave that place.

“I think,” Jungkook said, glancing sideways, “this is the first time in a long time I’ve been out without my bodyguard.”

You looked at him like he’d said something ridiculous. “Do you feel naked? Or alive?”

He chuckled. “A little of both. Mostly like someone’s gonna notice and yell ‘liar’ at me from a rooftop.”

“That would make this night way more exciting.”

“You say that, but you’d run.”

“I’d film it first.”

He shook his head, laughing. “You’re dangerous.”

You grimaced. “I’m just unemployed with Wi-Fi.”

You two reached the sidewalk near the edge of the lot, and you paused, nodding in the direction of the studio. “My bike’s still at the studio. Left it there earlier ’cause Minho picked me up in his car.”

“Want me to walk you?”

You considered him for a moment. “Want to do something stupid?”

He raised a brow. “Define stupid.”

“Ara left her bike there too,” you said. “I have a second helmet and an empty city. We could chase dumb decisions for a little while.”

Jungkook stared at you, quiet. The streetlight caught the edge of your face — that half-smirk, those eyes that never asked for anything but always said too much.

“You sure?” he asked.

You shrugged. “You said you ride.”

He thought of the studio, his team, the curfews and image management. And then he thought of you — bike keys in one hand, sarcasm in the other — and decided that maybe tonight wasn’t for being reasonable.

He smiled. “Let’s go.”

And so you did.

—

The helmets clicked into place with a soft finality, and then you were off.

The roads weren’t empty, but they felt like they belonged only to you — the soft, hushed kind of night that pressed its palm against your chest and made you feel alive. The air was warm, laced with ocean salt and gasoline. Jungkook followed you — the soft blur of your hoodie fluttering behind you like a loose flag, your bike slipping between cars and curves with the kind of casual recklessness that made it seem like the city opened itself just for you. You two took the route that traced the coast. It was half past midnight by then, and the Pacific lay beside you, humming under the moonlight — black velvet and sharp silver. The tide crept in slow, licking the sand in long sighs. The wind tugged at his sleeves, and every now and then, you would glance back to check if he was keeping up. He always was.

When you finally pulled over near a low stone wall at the edge of a cliff path, he parked beside you and pulled off his helmet, hair a little wild, breathless in a way he hadn’t felt in years.

“Damn,” he said, laughing softly. “You really don’t believe in laws.”

You snorted. “I told you that already.”

You two sat on the wall, letting your feet dangle over the side like kids skipping school. The water below shifted in endless motion, a liquid heartbeat under a sky full of nothing.

“You do this often?” he asked, voice low.

“Sometimes. When I can’t sleep,” you replied. “Or when I want to feel like I’m somewhere else.”

He looked at you. “You don’t like here?”

“I don’t like anywhere when I’m stuck in my head.”

He nodded slowly. “Fair.”

You yawned, a little tired. “So. Singer boy. Why music?”

He exhaled, resting back on his palms. “Because I sucked at math. And I liked the feeling of making noise and having people think it meant something.”

“That’s poetic.”

“I meant it to be pathetic.”

You laughed.

“What about you?” he asked. “Why scenic arts?”

“Because I like pretending I’m someone else,” you said easily. Then: “And because no one in my family gets it.”

“Ah,” he said. “The rebellion route.”

“More like the escape hatch.”

He watched you for a moment. You weren’t trying to impress him. Not one bit. There was something almost infuriating about that — how you leaned into the silence without needing to fill it. Like you were just letting the world be what it was.

“Come on,” you said, sliding off the wall. “You want to see something tragic?”

“Always.”

You walked your bike a few blocks and he followed, pushing his beside yours. You didn’t talk much — the silence was easy now, a soft thread between the two of you. He reached an old, sand-colored building with a cracked stairwell and a tiny red mailbox that had probably belonged to someone’s grandmother. You two went upstairs to the fourth and last floor.

You unlocked the door and gestured him in.

Your apartment was small. Not ugly — actually kind of pretty in the way a song demo is pretty before it’s produced to hell. Mismatched furniture, books piled in corners, a record player sitting on top of a suitcase. The window overlooked the beach, and even now the waves could be heard faintly crashing in rhythm. The walls were a little rusty like the door and it felt like home.

“This is where the rich girl hides from her responsibilities,” you said, tossing your keys onto a chipped ceramic bowl. “My parents pay for it. For the guilty of letting me grow like a bad daughter.”

He stepped in carefully, like it might vanish if he moved too fast. “It’s… kind of perfect.”

You raised an eyebrow. “You expected something more like a penthouse?”

“No,” he said. “I expected it to smell like incense and bad personality.”

“I ran out of incense.”

You poured some wine in two different mugs — one said World’s Okayest Artist, the other had a faded Hello Kitty sticker on it. You handed him the cat. You two sat on the floor instead of the couch. The lamp beside you gave off the kind of light that looked like it had a filter over it — soft, amber, like everything was set in memory already.

He glanced at the books on your shelf. “You read all of Murakami or just enough to win arguments?”

“Just enough to confuse people and win at Tinder bios.”

He laughed.

You two talked — about Busan, about how American bread was too disgusting, about your best friend back home who you missed but didn’t want to text too often. He told you how being famous didn’t really feel like being known, and how most days he wasn’t sure what version of himself people loved anymore.

And then the bottle of wine was almost empty. And you were drinking from it.

Jungkook took a slow sip, the bottle still warm from your hands. “So… what’s your most dramatic flaw?”

You tilted your head, pretended to think. “I self-sabotage with flair. Like, I’ll destroy something good and then critique my own technique.”

He laughed. “You do it with commentary?”

“I like to give feedback.”

He grinned, that slow, surprised kind of grin like he wasn’t used to someone making him laugh so easily. “Okay, that’s impressive.”

You looked at him. “What about you?”

He looked down, then up again. “I take stupid decision when I start liking someone.”

The words hung in the air longer than necessary.

Something shifted. It wasn’t dramatic. Just one of those quiet tilts in gravity. A breath. A longer glance. The kind of silence that makes everything louder.

You blinked. Your expression was unreadable for a beat, then you smirked slightly, like you’d just dared yourself to do something.

“You always say things like that?” you asked. “Or is that a Jungkook special?”

“I don’t always mean them,” he replied.

“Do you mean that one?”

He didn’t answer. Not in words.

You didn’t stop him when he leaned in — slowly, like the ocean pulling in a tide. And you didn’t laugh when his hand brushed the side of your face, hesitant and reverent, like he was touching something fragile, something already slipping between his fingers. Your lips met like they’d been circling the moment all night without admitting it — warm, wine-soft, a little tentative at first. Then deeper. Slower. Your fingers slid into his hair, and he let out a breath against your mouth like he hadn’t realized he was holding it.

The kiss wasn’t rushed. It was lingering, magnetic, the kind that made time bend a little. He pulled you closer — gently, not demanding, just… asking. You answered moving slowly to be on top of him, putting your legs to the sides of his waist, like gravity had finally won.

When you two broke apart, you rested your forehead against his.

“Are you sure?” You whispered, voice low and sweet.

He nodded before grabbing the sides of your face to kiss you. This time harder and decisive. He wanted you.

Outside, the waves kept reaching for the shore like they always did — over and over, as if that alone made it worth it.

The first day of August, you two slept together.

The evening sunlight spilled through the slatted blinds like melted gold, painting long, uneven stripes across the wooden floor of your apartment. It was the kind of lazy, heavy light that made the world feel suspended — like nothing could reach you two there, not time, not reality, not the rest of your lives waiting somewhere beyond the Pacific.

Jungkook sat on the rug, shirtless, the soft cotton of his sweats rolled low on his hips. A battered acoustic guitar — missing one string and held together by stubbornness — rested against his thigh. He strummed it absently, the same three chords over and over, half-tuned, half-invented. His voice, when it hummed softly into the hollow air, was barely audible. Just enough to fill the room. You lay sprawled on the couch, one leg dangling over the edge, a wine bottle on the floor beside you with a cheap coaster you never used. Your hair was in a lazy braid, your face turned toward the last light of day. For a moment, you looked like a painting he’d once seen in a museum in Madrid — the kind where the eyes followed you even when you walked away.

It had been a week of this.

Of soft mornings with your toes pressed into his calves. Of naked afternoons with tangled sheets and movie soundtracks echoing in the background. Of slow-burning evenings like this one — all tension and ease, like a match held just before striking. He didn’t ask what this was. He wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

His phone buzzed once on the table, and he ignored it. Not wanting to talk with that person right now.

Yours rang next — a cheerful little chime that didn’t suit you at all. He looked up and saw the name on the screen, a girl’s name. He didn’t think anything of it. Probably a friend. The kind who sent memes at weird hours or called just to vent about the world.

“Phone,” he said, tossing it gently in your direction.

You caught it without looking.

But something in you stilled.

You sat up fast — not rushed, but different. Like something shifted behind your eyes. You didn’t say anything as you stood, walked toward the bathroom, phone pressed to your ear. The door didn’t shut all the way. Just enough for privacy, just enough to keep him out. Jungkook kept strumming the guitar, but his fingers felt slower now. He played the same loop three times before stopping altogether, leaving it to the side.

You came out about five minutes later. Your face was clean, unreadable. Your braid was now undone, fingers threading through the waves distractedly. You didn’t say anything about the call. Didn’t explain. He didn’t ask. Instead, you stepped around him, barefoot on the rug, and dropped into his lap with a fluid, practiced kind of carelessness that didn’t feel careless at all.

“You want to do something fun?” your asked, your voice low, tight at the edges.

He raised an eyebrow. “I thought we were already doing that.”

“Something stupid fun,” you clarified, voice light but eyes sharper. “Like something you shouldn’t do.”

“Didn’t we do that last week… This Monday, yesterday and minutes ago?” he chuckled.

You didn’t laughed. Just leaned in and kissed his jaw, the corner of his mouth. “I’m serious.”

He studied you for a second. The way your smile didn’t quite reach your eyes. The way your hands were fidgeting with the hem of his sweats — not playful, but restless.

“What happened on that call?” he asked quietly.

You looked at him for half a second too long. Then shrugged. “Nothing. Just someone from home.”

“You okay?”

“I don’t know,” you said, and then smiled again. “But I will be. Once we do something fun.”

He wanted to press. Something told him to. But you were already standing, pulling on a hoodie over your bikini, grabbing your keys.

“You coming or what?” you asked, not turning around.

He got up slowly, grabbing his shirt. “Okay,” he said. “Lead the way.”

Outside, the night was beginning to stretch — warm and blue, a summer hush hanging in the air. The kind of night that felt infinite, right until the moment it ended.

—

After some walking around and drinking some wine in a cheap bar in the corner of the neighbourhood that was opened that late at night, you arrived to the place you wanted.

By the time you reached the beach, the sky was bleeding from deep navy into a soft shade of almost-morning — the kind of indigo that makes everything feel a little surreal. The moon still hung like a witness, pale and tired above, watching as you parked your bike at the edge of the boardwalk and kicked off your shoes. The sand was cold at first — a chill that crept up ankles and calves — but it didn’t stop you and Jungkook. You ran ahead, your hoodie flapping behind you, arms stretched like you were daring the sea to catch you. Jungkook followed, slower, letting the weight of his fame, his choices, his fear of being seen by paparazzis, fall away with every step.

There was no one else. Just the two of you. The world still asleep or drunk or somewhere in between.

You stopped at the shoreline, toes in the foam, eyes turned to the sky.

“Ever wonder if the ocean’s tired of people talking to it like it’s a therapist?” you asked, without looking back.

Jungkook laughed. “Probably. But it’s free and always available. That’s rare.”

You glanced at him, smiled. “Fair.”

He stepped beside you, your shoulders brushing. The breeze tangled his hair. You peeled off your hoodie without ceremony, revealing the black bikini you wore underneath. Then the shorts followed, tossed carelessly into the sand.

“You coming?” you asked, already wading into the water.

“You’re insane.”

“It’s just water,” you grinned, glancing back. “What else is new?”

He hesitated for a second — then pulled off his shirt, then his sweats, and followed you in.

The Pacific was cold. Not biting, not cruel — just enough to shock the breath out of him. You squealed when the waves met your thighs and dove forward like a seal. He waded deeper, laughing, until you two met somewhere in the middle. You splashed him first. He returned the favor. Soon both of you were half-drowning in laughter, soaked through and breathless, the water catching the moonlight like broken glass.

After a while, you and Jungkook stopped. Just floated. Side by side. your legs barely brushing under the surface.

“You ever think this is the best it’s going to be?” he asked quietly, staring up at the darkening sky. “Right now. This… middle-of-nowhere moment that no one else knows about.”

“Sure,” you said. “But then I get hungry and realize I still haven’t found the best sandwich yet. So, hope lives.”

He turned his head to look at you. “You make everything sound both tragic and stupid.”

“It’s a gift,” you replied. “Yours is wannabe brooding poet with sad-boy abs.”

He groaned and dunked you under briefly, sputtering when you resurfaced, punching him weakly in the shoulder. You kissed him then — half-laughing, half-drenched — and it was soft and open and a little salty from the sea. Your mouth tasted like adrenaline and wine and something he was starting to want more than was smart.

When you two stumbled out of the water, soaked and shivering, you dropped down in the sand like your bones had given up. Jungkook laid beside you, arms tucked behind his head, watching the slow arrival of dawn. Your eyes were closed, hair spread like a halo around you, lips slightly parted. You hummed something low and familiar — a melody he couldn’t name but wanted to steal. Your back, still wet, glistened faintly in the early sun.

He wanted to write his name there. Not in ink or scars, but something softer — something that wouldn’t stay, but would be remembered. Instead, he reached for the sand beside you and traced it there — K O O K— in small, crooked letters, drawn just beneath the curve of your spine.

You didn’t see it.

You just hummed.

And he didn’t need you to look. He just needed to feel like he belonged somewhere, even if it was only in that stretch of sand between your shoulders and the rising sun.

Jungkook wasn’t sure when your number became his favorite name to see on his screen, but by now, he was wired to it — like a reflex. When the phone lit up with your contact, he was already smiling. It was late afternoon, the sun dipping lazily below the studio windows. He was leaning against a mixing console in the back room, sipping something fizzy and half-flat from a paper cup when your name buzzed onto his screen.

Y/N.

He picked up on the second ring.

“Hey,” he said, already softening.

“Hey,” you echoed. Your voice was lighter than usual, almost cautious. “What are you doing tomorrow?.”

He hesitated. “Supposed to meet Jimin since he’s in the city. Why?”

There was a pause, a kind of breath between syllables. “Don’t cancel for me.”

He smirked. “Who said I was?”

“I know that tone, babe. That’s your I’m going to pretend I didn’t have plans if you give me a better offer tone.”

He shrugged, though you couldn’t see him. “Alright, you caught me. I’m tragically available now. What’s the better offer?”

“I was just thinking…” You paused again. “We could hang. Maybe do something fun. You seemed like you needed that.”

He felt his chest warm, stupid and pleased. “I always need that.”

“Okay. I’ll call you later.”

But you didn’t.

Evening slid by — first warm, then cool — and the messages stayed unread, the silence stretched longer than it should’ve. At first, he assumed you were running late. Then busy. Then distracted. But by midnight, the open-ended promise of your voice was just a memory replaying too often. And he had canceled his dinner with Jimin for you. He told himself he didn’t care. He’d known you for what — two weeks? That wasn’t enough time to feel disappointed, right?

The next morning he called you, a casual kind of check-in, but his voice betrayed more curiosity than he wanted.

You picked up after two rings.

“Hey,” you said, like nothing had happened.

“You disappeared yesterday.”

“Ah, shit,” you said, voice low and apologetic. “I’m sorry. My uncle called me into the studio and then I had to go to some gallery thing for a friend. It got messy.” He let the silence speak for a second. “You okay?” you asked.

“Yeah. Just… you said you’d call.”

“I know,” you chuckled. “I suck. Where are you?”

“About to head out.”

“I’m at the mall close to the studio,” you said. “Trying to find a gift for my cousin. Or an excuse to not be here.”

He smiled, something settling into place in his chest.

“Okay, meet me behind the mall.”

You laughed. “You’re such a cliché.”

“I’m serious. Ten minutes.”

You didn’t say yes, but he heard you grab your bag through the receiver.

Ten minutes later you found him standing next to your bike, wearing your helmet — which was slightly too small for him — and leaning on one leg like he belonged in some chaotic coming-of-age movie. He was dressed in jeans and an old tee that clung in all the right places. With the visor down, no one would know who he was — just another guy with a smirk and a stolen helmet.

You stared at him for a beat. “Is that my bike?”

“Is that my rider?” he shot back, voice muffled under the helmet.

“You’re absurd,” you muttered, grinning as you approached.

“Get on,” he said.

“You’re not even going to ask nicely?”

He flipped the visor up and raised an eyebrow. “Please, princess, may I have the honor of driving you through the city on your own bike?”

You rolled your eyes, but your smile didn’t falter. “God, you’re lucky you’re hot.”

You two rode — weaving through the back streets of LA, the palm trees flashing by in staccato bursts, wind in your faces, anonymity you shared accomplice. It was freeing, how none of it made sense, and yet all of it felt inevitable.

When he stopped for gas at a grimy station off Sunset. He bought some juice, paid for the gas. You leaned against the handlebar and watched him fill the tank.

“You know,” you said, “this is very Grease, but with more depression and better outfits.”

He laughed. “You’re the only person I’ve met who talks like life is one long indie film.”

“That’s because it is,” you replied, stealing a sip of his drink. “You’re just not watching closely enough.”

He looked at you then — hair tangled, cheeks flushed, the edge of mischief curled around your mouth like a secret. And he realized, with a low thrum of dread and excitement, that he was in trouble. Because two weeks shouldn’t feel like this.

And yet, here he was — riding through cities just to hear you make jokes only you found funny.

The air in your apartment was thick — not just with the heat, but with that slow, humming closeness that came after two bodies stopped pretending they weren’t made for each other. The overhead fan spun in lazy circles, stirring nothing but the weight of summer and skin. The curtains danced just slightly in the sea breeze, casting faint shadows across your bodies lay sprawled on your bed, sheets barely clinging to you two.

Jungkook’s bare chest rose and fell in sync with yours, his fingers tracing thoughtless shapes along your waist. Your leg was thrown over his, your lips trailing faint kisses along the side of his jaw, your hair brushing his shoulder. You hadn’t said much in the past few minutes — that kind of silence had started to become normal between you two, not awkward, not heavy. Just quiet. Laced with something more.

“So,” you murmured eventually, your breath warm against his ear, “your new song. The demo you were humming yesterday. Is it going to be about me?”

He knew what you were doing. Making him cringe, trying to embarrass him and pretend you were offended if he said no. always finding your own amusement.

He chuckled. “Too soon.”

You raised an eyebrow, resting your chin on his chest. “Too soon to write a song about a girl you’ve been practically living with for two weeks straight?”

“I haven’t lived here. I’ve… visited.”

“Visited?” you laughed. “Your new guitar’s on my couch and your boxers are in my laundry.”

He grinned, lazily brushing a strand of hair from your cheek. “You’re very hospitable.”

“Am I?” Your tilted your head. “You’re the one who keeps buying wine and pretending you’re a guest.”

“I like the illusion.”

“I’ll start charging my hospitality.”

“I’ll pay extra.”

You two laughed. And then kissed — not deeply, not desperately, just a soft brushing of mouths, like punctuation on a sentence too long to finish. When you pulled back, you sat up slowly, hair falling over one shoulder. “Be right back,” you said, disappearing into the bathroom. The door clicked shut behind you. Jungkook lay still, staring at the ceiling for a beat. The fan creaked slightly overhead. In the background, the low hum of city life drifted through the windows — cars, laughter, waves.

Then your phone buzzed.

It was on the nightstand beside him. He hadn’t been looking for it — he’d been watching the shadows ripple across the ceiling. But the vibration startled him. A message preview lit up the screen. From the same contact he’d seen days ago. A girl’s name. Not a sister, not a cousin. No hearts, no pet names — just plain, and somehow more intriguing because of it.

“Can we talk? I said I was sorry for what happened…”

He didn’t touch it. Just stared. A single message, sitting on the screen like an open door he wasn’t supposed to look into. His stomach tightened. He felt weird, confused. He looked away immediately when he heard the sink stopped. The moment felt like it had shifted slightly, tilted just a few degrees off balance. When you returned and saw your phone, the smile you gave him didn’t quite reach your eyes. You turned off the screen, and slipped it into your bag.

You moved quietly, slipping back into bed beside him, laying your head against his bare shoulder. He looked down at you, something about the silence digging under his skin.

“You okay?”

“Sure,” you said.

He waited. You didn’t elaborate.

After a moment, you added, “I’m not a good person.”

He blinked. “That’s a weird thing to say after sex.”

You let out a dry laugh, then turned to face him more fully, your head now resting in the crook of his arm. “No, but really. I’ve been thinking about it lately.”

“You didn’t kick a puppy on your way home, did you?”

You smirked, but your eyes were far away. “No, just… I do things without thinking. I take whatever I want, and I don’t really stop to ask if someone else might get hurt because of it.”

“Okay,” he said carefully. “But that’s kind of… human.”

“I think it makes me selfish,” you thought. “Maybe kind of a dick.”

He tilted his head. “You are kind of a dick.”

You let out a soft laugh, your mouth curling. “Thanks.”

“But I’m kind of a dick too,” he added. “I lie all the time. I ghost people. I bail on birthdays. I use my job as an excuse to avoid feelings. I pretend I don’t care about stuff when I do.”

You looked up at him, curious now. “Why?”

He shrugged. “Because caring makes you vulnerable. And vulnerability is bad PR.”

You rolled your eyes, but you were smiling. “That might be the worst reason I’ve ever heard.”

“Doesn’t make it untrue.”

You two were quiet for a moment. The breeze shifted the curtains, the scent of sea salt drifting in.

“Maybe we should try to change that,” Jungkook said suddenly.

You raised an eyebrow. “What, like a personality rebrand?”

“Yeah,” he said. “New us. Better us. Less-dick us.”

“Does that mean I have to stop saying shitty things that no one else laughs at but me?”

He pretended to consider. “Maybe. Or maybe that’s your one charm.”

You poked him in the ribs. “Asshole.”

He caught your hand, gently, pulled it to his chest. “Let’s try,” he said again, more softly this time.

You looked at Jungkook, really looked — the quiet way he was watching you, the hesitation in his voice, like he didn’t want to spook you.

“Okay,” you said. “Let’s try.”

That wanting— the wish of trying, the want of it. It was enough for him.

He kissed you then, slow and warm, his hand tangled in your hair. There was no urgency in it. No firestorm of lust. Just a long, drawn-out breath between you two, like you both were carving out something fragile and new. Like you knew you were walking a tightrope but were choosing, together, not to look down.

And outside, the August heat settled deeper into the night.

The city was quiet at 4am, strange in-between hour when night loses its edge but morning hasn’t yet begun. Your friends had found a street vendor tucked between two neon-lit buildings, the smell of sizzling meat and onions hanging thick in the warm air. A table stood crooked on the pavement, plastic chairs wobbled on the uneven sidewalk, and all of you gathered around it like an offbeat family of the night. Jungkook sat beside you, your knees brushing under the table.

Minho, sharp-tongued and a little too observant, was poking fun at Ara’s taste in movies while Jungkook’s friend, Jung, nodded politely, nursing a cheap beer. Laughter fluttered in and out of the conversation like moths to the glow of the barebulb overhead. For a moment, Jungkook let himself enjoy it—this imperfect little corner of the world where no one cared who he was.

Then—

“Have you talked with Betty?”

The question dropped like a stone in water. Jungkook tensed.

He looked up, mid-bite, instinctively. There was a shift in the air. You didn’t flinch. But there was a pause. Measured. It was Minho who asked it, but his voice was casual, unaware of the fracture he’d just made.

Then you answered, brushing a piece of lint from your sleeve with calculated nonchalance.

“Yeah.”

The name… it rang familiar to Jungkook. Betty. He remembered it—flashing on your screen, unanswered. A quiet thread that had woven itself through the last few days.

Minho didn’t seem to catch the edge in your tone. “She seemed weird when I called her last night.”

You set your chopsticks down, slow. “What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know.” Minho shrugged. “Just… is everything okay between you two?”

“Yes,” you said simply. But the gaze you sent him said more: mind your own business.

Minho didn’t take the hint. “Are you sure? I mean, I know in Busan it can be kinda—”

“Dude,” you snapped, cutting him off with a forced smile, “we’re eating and having a nice time, okay? Later.”

The conversation stumbled for a moment before Ara filled the silence with a joke about how bad the food was. Everyone laughed, too eager to escape the tension. But Jungkook wasn’t laughing. He sat quiet, processing. So Betty wasn’t just a name on a screen. There was a weight to it. A presence. Both Minho and Ara clearly knew her. And the way you had shut down the conversation… that wasn’t nothing.

He waited until you two were back at your apartment. The night had gotten cooler, the sky outside smeared with dark purple and navy. As the last weeks, you two drank wine barefoot in your kitchen, the overhead light a dim yellow hue. You leaned against the counter, glass in hand, as Jungkook spoke.

“Who’s Betty?” he asked, gently.

You looked down at your wine, turning the glass in slow circles. “She’s…” your lips curled into something like a smile, but it was humorless. “Betty.”

Jungkook tilted his head, patient. “Is she your best friend?”

You let out a breath, a sound between a sigh and a chuckle—dry, self-deprecating. “Something like that.”

He watched you closely. “Are you guys having problems? I mean… having friends leave for a while can be hard.”

There was a long pause. Then, softly, you said, “I love her.” The words clung to the air like smoke. Jungkook didn’t move, didn’t breathe. “It’s just…” you added, your voice thinner now, “sometimes it’s hard.”

“To be far away from each other?”

“Being in Korea.” You said quietly

Jungkook blinked. “She doesn’t live there?”

You smiled, and it was a tired kind of thing. Sad, maybe. “That’s why it’s hard.” You stared past him for a second, toward the window, where a sliver of moon was caught in the glass. “Sometimes I wish we were different people,” you said, almost to yourself. “Everything would be easy.”

He opened his mouth, confused. “What do you mean?”

But you pulled yourself out of whatever thought you were lost in, blinking hard as if shaking yourself awake. “Leave me,” you said, brushing it off. “I’m just drunk and talking shit.”

“It seemed kinda deep, what you were saying.”

“It’s not,” you replied quickly, your voice sharper now. “I’m too young, remember?” You laughed—short, almost bitter. “I don’t know anything.”

He wanted to say something, to push, to ask again what you meant, to tell you that you didn’t sound like someone who didn’t know anything. But before he could speak, you leaned in and kissed him. It wasn’t playful or teasing. It was slow, aching, a kind of interruption that asked not to be questioned. His hands found your waist, but even as you two kissed, the name echoed in his mind.

Betty.

Whoever she was, Jungkook didn’t know the whole story. But something told him there was something else he couldn’t understand.

The night air still clung to you as Jungkook pulled the motorcycle to a slow stop in front of your building, the metal of the chain cold against his fingers as he looped it around the wheel. You were already stepping off, brushing the hair from your face as you slipped off the helmet and shook out your long, dark strands. The streetlamp above your flickered once, then steadied, casting a warm halo over your bare shoulders.

“Half of September?” he asked, trying to sound casual, but there was a hesitation there—like he was still doing the math in his head, still hoping he’d misheard you seconds ago.

You nodded, adjusting your jacket as you hopped lightly onto the sidewalk.

“Yep. I’m traveling the second week of that month. Flying back just before classes start.”

He stilled, one hand still on the lock, the other trailing behind you in the air.

“That’s… soon,” he said, finally. It came out softer than he meant it to, almost unsure.

“I know,” you answered, tossing the keys from one hand to the other. “It’s stressing me out, actually. I haven’t opened a textbook in months. The idea of lectures makes me want to dissolve.”

Jungkook laughed a little, then jogged the last few steps to catch up with you. You two started up the narrow concrete staircase toward your apartment, but halfway up, he stopped.

“Hey,” he said, gently pulling your arm so you’d turn to face him. The light from the stairwell window hit his face at an angle, and for a second he looked so earnest it made your chest ache.

“Hum?”

“Will you call?” he asked. He shrugged as if trying to make the question seem smaller than it was. “When you’re back at school. Just to talk or… I don’t know. I’ll be in Seoul by the end of October anyway. But my family’s still there in Busan, and I might visit, so… yeah.”

You paused. Smiled. And then, instead of answering, you leaned forward and kissed him.

It was slow at first, then deeper, a little desperate in the way that summer kisses get when you start counting days backwards instead of forwards. Your mouth tasted like the mint tea you two had earlier, sweet and cold. He smiled against your lips. This was how you were. That kiss that made him forget he had even asked a question in the first place.

“I won’t call,” you said, pulling away just enough to say it with a grin that made it sound like a dare.

Jungkook blinked. “Mean.”

You laughed, your eyes lighting up for a moment, then grabbed his hand and tugged him up the last few stairs. The hallway was dim and smelled faintly of sea salt and rust, your sandals echoing against the tile as you led him toward your apartment door. You didn’t say anything else—just turned and kissed him again, this time harder, your back against the doorframe. It was the kind of kiss that made promises in silence. And broke you in the same breath.

Jungkook didn’t ask anything more. He didn’t press. Not when you were kissing him like that. Not when your fingers curled around the hem of his shirt like you needed to hold onto something. Later, he would realize that was the way you said goodbye—never answering questions, never looking back.

But in that moment, he still lived for the hope of it all.

The lock clicked as you pushed the key into the door, still half-laughing, still kissing him by pecks. Your cheeks pink with heat or the weight of wanting.

The door creaked open.

And then, all at once, your smile fell.

“Mom?”

The hallway light spilled into the apartment, and there she was—your mother, standing by the small kitchen counter, a cup of tea in hand, startled and halfway through tying her hair up. Jungkook froze. He was still holding your hand. You blinked, then took a quick step back, releasing him like you had just remembered gravity. Your mother looked between the two of you— Your flushed face, Jungkook’s shirt halfway untucked, the late hour.

It was awkward, and quiet, and very, very real.

Your mother—dressed impeccably in a tailored suit, every inch the commanding presence. Your eyes flickered with an unmistakable tension, a shadow passing over your usually composed face. Jungkook felt the shift instantly, the air thickening with unspoken expectations. Even as a pop star used to stages and spotlights, this woman intimidated him. He bowed his head slightly, an awkward but sincere gesture of respect. And then, the flicker of your stolen kiss before the door opened—a moment he instantly regretted. Fuck, he thought bitterly. Bad first impression.

“I made dinner,” your mother announced with a sharpness that brooked no argument.

Jungkook glanced at you, who looked caught between surprise and apprehension.

“What are you—?” you started.

“I had some free time. Let’s sit so we can talk,” your mother said, eyes settling on him. Then, softer, “You can stay.”

Jungkook shifted uneasily under your gaze. “Jungkook,” you said, as if to remind him he was a guest, “you probably have a lot of work. You can go—

But he knew better. If he wanted any hope of a future with you, of anything beyond these stolen moments, he needed to stay and try. Swallowing his nerves, he straightened and said, “Sorry for the bad impression. My name is Jeon Jungkook, it’s a pleasure to meet you, and of course I’ll stay. I’ll help serve the plates.”

Your eyes shot him that look—the one he’d seen before: get the fuck out and mind your own business. He ignored it, the sinking feeling in his stomach replaced by stubborn resolve.

The three of you gathered around the small table, the clinking of cutlery filling the heavy silence. Your mother, ever poised, spoke of work with practiced ease, her voice occasionally drifting into sharper tones. Jungkook spoke of his music, his touring, the strange world he inhabited—she nodded at one point, “That’s why you look familiar.” He smiled politely, but caught your subtle frown, the flicker of unease that he couldn’t quite read. To him, he was making a good impression, but clearly, not everyone agreed.

Your mother’s gaze sharpened. “When are you coming home?” she asked casually, but the undercurrent was clear, the challenge laid bare. The atmosphere shifted suddenly, like a storm breaking. “Is this the apartment we’re paying for?” your mother’s voice was cold, biting. “All rusted and badly cared for.”

You bristled. “I like it that way.”

The older didn’t miss a beat. “I don’t think you actually do. You need to take care of things.”

“I do.”

“Are you two dating?”

Your cheeks flamed red. “Mom, not now, okay? Let’s talk—”

Your mother cut you off with a sharp scoff. “Well, at least he’s better than the one before.” The disgust in her voice was palpable. Jungkook sat up straighter, curious and alarmed. What was so bad about the guy before? The woman’s eyes flicked with disdain. “What a bad experience.”

A faint smile hovered on Jungkook’s lips, but it died when he caught your haunted look. You stared at the floor, trembling between breaking and burning with rage. Your eyes darted to your mother, full of silent fury.

“Any man I date would be better for you.”

“And with reason.”

Before the conversation could spiral further, the doorbell rang, slicing through the tension. She stood up to open the door, you rubbed your face with frustration.

As your mother swung open the door, Jungkook kissed your lips in an attempt to soothe the mounting storm within you. But you froze, the shock of seeing Minho—your friend from Busan and, he guessed, a link to another world you kept tightly shut—made you stiffen. Your mother’s expression darkened, disapproval obvious.

“I knew something was happening,” Minho said bluntly.

“It’s not what you think,” you hurried to explain.

“It is,” your mother said, eyes hard. “She’s finally dating someone good. Now go tell your little friend to stop bothering my daughter.”

“Mom, shut up!” you snapped, rushing to Minho’s side. “Please, let me explain.”

“You don’t need to. Believe me,” he said, disgust thick in his voice. “I already knew this was going to happen. I just needed to confirm it.”

Minho turned and left, and you wanted to follow him, but your mother’s iron hand closed the door before you could move. Frustration clenched your chest. Jungkook frowned, confusion blooming into concern. It was happening… what he thought it was happening?.

“Stop that. You knew it was for the best,” your mother said sharply.

“You don’t know what’s best for me!”

“I’m giving you the best!” she snapped back, voice rising. “You know it’s best to get far away from that weird…”

“Stop talking shit about her! If she’s that bad, I’m so much worse…”

“No, you’re not. You’re not…”

“I am! I’m fucking am, Mom!”

“You can’t date someone like that! Do you know what would happen? It’s a disgrace—I can’t have a daughter that…”

“It’s my life.”

“And you’re living it wrong. You don’t like her…”

“I love her!”

Jungkook’s world slowed, heart shattering with every word. Watching the tears streak down your face as you screamed at your mother, the raw pain in your voice—he finally understood. You were in love with her. You were in love with a woman. You were in love with someone else.

“You don’t know what you want! You’re too young,” your mother said, shaking her head with finality. “Don’t make me regret paying for those shitty art studies and this apartment.”

Jungkook’s eyes flicked to you, softening despite the harsh words around them. The truth was undeniable—your mother was a fortress of cruelty, a gatekeeper of judgment. But none of it mattered to him. What mattered was the girl in front of him, breaking apart but still standing.

He stood up. You wiped the tears from your cheeks and looked at him, awareness blooming in your gaze. Like you finally realized he was still there. “Jungkook…”

He took a slow breath, stepping back toward the door. “I should go.”

“Please, let me explain…”

He shook his head, smiling sadly. “You don’t have to. I understand now.” Bowing politely to your mother, he said, “Thank you for the food. It was nice.”

You followed him, voice trembling. “Kook, I didn’t mean—”

He chuckled, dryly. “You did.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I just feel really stupid. I should have known.” He paused, voice breaking. “Good luck with Betty.”

That last word hung between the two of you, heavy and sharp. You seemed to realized your bigger problem— that the real problem wasn’t dealing with Jungkook. It was dealing with her. The one whose name haunted the space between you two.

Jungkook close the door behind him before walking out of the building. His eyes started to get wet as he waited for a moment. Ten seconds. You didn't followed him. And he knew the reason. You weren’t in love with him. You were never his.

In the end of August. Trying to call your girlfriend, you realized you had lost her. Her and Jungkook. You should've know better.

In the end of August, Jungkook walked home with a broken heart and a bottle of wine.

happy pride month to all my bisexuals out there fr

standing by the real values of bisexuals and making her cheat her girl with a man🤚🏻

(i hate that stereotype but i wanted to do this plot so bad)

hope you like it, i know i change the story of the song so much but i had this idea and i had to write it 😭 idc what u have to say i ATE with this one so stfu

i only accept criticism if you say this plot is perfect first thank u

[myra2x8]

it's so refreshing to come here and see I'm not the only one who didn't like season 3 of Squid Game. Did I generally enjoy it? Yes. Do I think it was the worst season? Definitely. And I truly hated the ending. I've tried to tell myself it's just because I loved Gi-hun so much, but it's not it, I actually love sad endings, when they are made well and this just didn't sit with me the way it should have.

To sum it up - I felt like the season was rushing and wasting time on pointless characters and interactions at the same time, too many loose ends to tie quickly, characters acting out of character, Gi-hun x In-ho revelation interaction underwhelming and Gi-hun's sacrifice was very predictible.

I think it could all be sad, heart shattering even, without Gi-hun's sacrifice, if the writers just tried harder, because this just felt like it was the easiest way they could have ended his story. We all know he is kind enough to offer his life to save an innocent life, and making a point to a few billionaires and his situationship wasn't enough of a satisfying reason to sacrifice himself.

(also, I couldn't care less about any USA spin-off. the unused potential will keep me up at night for a long time, i can only pray that the fanfic writers assemble fast)

[mona-risms]

Since my writing is taking much longer than expected (responsibilities putting a hold on it) and I have so many ideas it’s taking a while for my slow as hell word per minute count. I thought I’d give you the outline whether in your head or posted here, u could imagine some of the more original things that I’d be adding.

K-Pop Demon Hunters: Iridescent (Gender Neutral Reader)

Story Planner:

Prologue:

- (Y/N) meeting Rumi for the first time. (After Funeral)

- Rumi's locked herself in her room and (Y/N) just talks with her through the door until she opens up.

- Anthology of moments from the growing up and (Y/N) falling in love.

- Training

- Biking to the coast and getting caught in a freak rainstorm.

- Power cutting out in a snowstorm and huddling for warmth

-

Chapter 1:

- (Y/N) at the beginning with Huntr/x as they're chosen by Celine

- Starts with Celine's monologue.

- (Y/N) at the concert while Huntr/x is on plane. Part of the phone call.

- (Y/N) on couch with Mira and Zoey trying to relax after concert.

- Chases after Rumi when she flees Golden but can't keep up with her and loses her.

- Dinner and talking about Rumi's voice struggles

Chapter 2:

- Doctors office where Doctor SEE'S.

- Doctor sees (Y/N) unrequited love for Rumi.

- Mira, Zoey, and (Y/N) shut him up

- Meeting Saja Boys

- Going to the Gameshow to "Hunt" them.

- (Y/N) stays off stage.

- Chases Saja boys to bath house.

- (Y/N) sees Jinu and Rumi hug while battling.

- Girls start planning to take down Saja boys.

- Rumi starts becoming distant.

- (Y/N) starts worrying

Chapter 3:

- (Y/N) gets uncomfortable when Jinu and Rumi seem to be so close at fan sighing.

- Hurts they're feelings, but tries to be supportive.

- Goes to try and talk to Rumi but she's disappeared (Out with Jinu)

- Tracking Rumi down, seeing tail end of her date (The exchange with the bracelet)

- Practice for Idol awards seeing girls melt down, try to make peace.

- Fight on the Subway, and subsequent arguments

Chapter 4:

- Goes to try and talk to Rumi again.

- Rumi gone again to see Jinu.

- (Y/N) goes to Mira and Zoey with their feelings cause they are struggling.

- (Y/N) and Rumi finally talk.

- Explaining how they’re worried about her.

- If they’ve potentially done something wrong.

- (They haven’t)

- And how Rumi is doing with all the pressure.

- (Y/N) and the girls have a heart to heart.

Chapter 5:

- Idol awards.

- Baby attempted kidnapping.

- Rumi gets revealed as a demon.

- (Y/N) stands between Mira and Zoey ready to attack Rumi

- Mira shouts how (Y/N) is in love with a demon.

- (Y/N) argues how they were never in love with Rumi for what she is, but who she is.

- (Y/N) promises to protect Rumi and sends her to run.

Chapter 6:

- (Y/N) seems to be unaffected by Saja Boys spell.

- Probably because they liberated they're regret by confessing to Rumi while everyone else is doubtful.

- (Y/N) goes home to their apartment.

- Rumi demon shows up asking if they truly love her.

- Super creepy, one yellow eye and patterns glowing in the dark.

- (Y/N) confesses how they always loved her, how her being a demon doesn't change anything.

- (Y/N) talks about how she's still as beautiful as ever even like this.

- (Y/N) talks about some of their favourite memories with Rumi.

- Kisses Rumi on the Cheeks and maybe the forehead, to try and prove their love.

- While not kissing her on the lips to not push over her boundaries cause they aren't together and Rumi hasn't said she felt the same.

- How they're sorry everything came out this way, they never wanted to get in the way of Rumi's golden Honmoon

- This gives Rumi the strength to challenge the Saja Boys.

Chapter 7:

- The concert begins.

- Rumi and (Y/N) show up.

- Song and fight begins

- (Y/N) backing up Rumi all the way.

- (Y/N) helps Rumi block Gwei Me attack.

- Jinu sacrifices himself, telling (Y/N) to take care of Rumi.

- (Y/N) responds Rumi never needed they're help.

- Rumi grabs their hand and interlaces their fingers, saying it's not about a need, it's a want that they're with her.

- (Y/N) tells Jinu he's not as bad as they thought.

- "Jinu hits them with the Han Solo "I know".

- (Y/N) gets offended at getting Han Solo'd

- Hot springs

- (Y/N) watches the girls interact with fans.

- (Y/N) and Rumi talk some more about their relationship.

- Rumi's not ready yet,after everything that's happened, but she's not turned off by the idea of being with (Y/N).

Epilogue:

- Inspired by the concept of the Aquarium date in the Movie.

- Originally just hanging out as friends between Rumi and (Y/N).

- Intended to let any feelings that come to bloom.

- Rumi has been focusing on healing but today she starts noticing the small things (Y/N) can't stop themselves from doing.

- Harmless things but obviously tells that they are into Rumi.

- But today they are doing something to Rumi.

- She's enjoying the attention in a way she hasn't before.

- And she realizes, she's in love.

- She pulls (Y/N) into a kiss immediately.

- Que very public makeout sesh between Idol and Choreographer (scandal)

- Finding somewhere more private to continue.

- (Y/N) kissing and worshipping her and her markings.

- Just constantly praising her.

- Like a damn burst and every loving and caring thing they've thought about her is just spilling out like a burst damn.

- FINALLY RUMI GETTING THE UNCONDITIONAL LOVE SHE DESERVES!!!

- ☀️ 🌙 Anon

Ik it's just the layout but this was such a nice read at night ngl ☹️ I cheered when I read the epilogue actually because FUCK YES!!!!

Honestly though put your responsibilities first. I think it's best to take it slow w smth like this bc if you try to rush through with writing it, it MIGHT not turn out well in the end. So just be sure to break it down. We will be waiting for the end result either way soldier 🫡

I particularly can't wait to see how you write out Rumi's confrontation with the reader, where she looks scary and allat personally, but that's just me bc I used to write that sort of horror with friends in like. Genshin supernatural analog horror rp LMAOAOAOAO so

[johannesviii]

Continuing that pseudo-essay about Book 3 of Infinity Train. This is technically part two, two and a half, of I don't know how many parts yet, but it's too long for a single post.

perpetuating the cycle of abuse (part 0)

on the nature of leadership aka "oh cool, another negative feedback loop" (part 1)

So here's a part I’d like to call

Empathy isn't enough

Ok so before I say anything, to clarify, I’m using "empathy" as a very vague term meaning something like "being able to put yourself in someone else’s shoes without having to really think about it first". Just in case you and I have a slightly different definition, because definitions of it have evolved over time. Specifically, I’m not using it as a synonym of "compassion", which is something different, and I'm not saying that empathy is always correct - what you think is you feeling how others feel can be a false impression, or even projection, but you can't always tell.

So yeah, long story short I’m using it purely, like the song says, to mean "when I look at you, I see me".

That being said: I've sometimes seen people say that Grace was basically easier to save than Simon because she had more empathy than him in the first place. And I disagree. Even if empathy is explicitly one of the core themes of this Book (to the point of having a little musical number dedicated to it!), I think this show (and this Book specifically) has a very neutral view of the concept of empathy, and presents it as something that can be positive, but also negative when used for the wrong purposes. Empathy in itself doesn't make you a good person.

I do agree that Grace is way better at "reading" people than Simon. She has great social skills!

But it's actually a problem. Grace is very good at understanding how other people feel, but most of the time, she uses it to manipulate them. You only have to compare the way she behaves with Jesse and Hazel to realize that not only does she adapt her attitude to the potential recruit's age, but she also identifies the recruit's fears and problems extremely quickly... so she can recruit them more effectively into her cult.

It took her only a couple of minutes to notice that Jesse was kind of a people-pleaser but also trying not to be like that anymore, and she immediately exploited the shit out of it by presenting the Apex as some type of counter-culture thing where he could be whoever he wants to be. She saw Hazel being this lonely child in a dangerous Car and presented the Apex as some kind of kid's club where she could find other kids her age.

Now, it's obvious that she really cares about all these children and, of course, about Hazel. And it's ALSO obvious that she isn't purely doing it out of malice or just for selfish reasons - of course it flatters her ego, and it's about having full control over other people, but she also genuinely thinks she's helping them survive in a scary environment. She’s not faking any of that - but that doesn't make the manipulation any more justified.

We also see her regularly feeling sad for Hazel, and clearly feeling how she feels. She sees herself in that little girl with no friends, lost in a scary place, who wants to be "special and brave". In her tape, Hazel is even sort of used as her reflection, in an echo of a couple of other scenes where Grace uses a triple mirror. But that projection only makes her want to take Hazel away from her adoptive mother Tuba even more, which is a disastrous idea, with the consequences we already know.

Which also means that this empathy she has for Hazel only made Hazel's life worse in the end. She thinks she's doing the right thing, thinks she knows how Hazel feels, but as she realises in the end, she's wrong.

Of course, one could argue that in the end, Grace relating to Hazel like that led to Grace being deprogrammed of a lot of her beliefs, so it has to be good, right? Well, for her, sure, yes. But her personal growth had a LOT of collateral damage. Again, it's kind of a neutral thing.

And sometimes, empathy wasn't enough to actually change things. We briefly see Grace saddened when she realizes that Simon and her have just symbolically excluded Tuba from their group by refusing to draw her Apex mark - perhaps she's remembering how the other girls in the dance group excluded her. It does make her number go down, but she doesn't fundamentally question her plan regarding Tuba at that point. Unfortunately.

It also seems that she sometimes needs to intellectualize a situation before being moved by it, the most blatant case being when she's on that branch with Hazel at Tuba’s funeral, and only starts crying once she's forced herself to make a little speech to please Hazel and make things less awkward. It's when she lists Tuba's qualities that she realizes she can think of Tuba as a person, that she was a person, and that she and her best friend have been killing persons for years. Which is, obviously, a very good thing to become aware of, but it didn't come to her spontaneously. She had to make a conscious effort to realise it. Empathy wasn’t enough.

That was the easy part. Now here's the part where I'm saying that Simon also has this whole "when I look at you I see me" thing going on, and that it ends up being completely useless to stop him from going further down the Spiral™. Actually, it makes everything actively worse.

In Simon's case, it seems that "empathy" manifests itself very selectively; since he divides the world into strictly binary categories (I'll come back to this later in another post, I swear), he reacts very strongly as soon as he recognizes himself in a given situation. The problem is, he sees everything through a distorting prism that takes into account only his own experience and trauma. He sees himself as a victim. So basically, there's people he can identify with, who are (according to him) past or future victims of the denizens of the Train, and there's everyone else. He's projecting.

And yeah, projection is something different than empathy. The problem is, they are very, VERY easy to confuse. We only live in our own heads, and sometimes what we think we perceive is wrong, but it's super hard to notice.

Anyway: when he has a nervous breakdown in front of that fireplace, Simon says that Tuba is to Hazel what the Cat was to him (“she was my Tuba”). He explicitly compares his situation as a child to Hazel's, without realizing that they are frankly two very, very different situations, if only because Tuba would never hurt Hazel.

So yeah, when he kills Tuba, he announces it to Hazel with a big smile, because he's convinced he's done the right thing for her - again, because he's projecting his own trauma onto someone else. As far as he's concerned, he's just killed a Cat proxy. He's just "saved" Hazel, because he's saving himself by proxy. In his distorted view, he's the hero of the story.

Of course he's not doing it just for that reason. He's also sticking to the plan. He's sticking to the same strategy they tried to use on Jesse and Lake, without realising Grace might have changed her mind since then, because they never really communicated about that (or about anything else, actually. These two are really bad at communicating in general). He's being a good little soldier following the rules. But he didn't have to kill Tuba. Grace's exact word was "ditch". He went that extra mile because of projection.

This scene is really disturbing and it's also because it's possibly the darkest application of "when I look at you I see me" in the whole Book. And yeah, of course Hazel is crying right now, and he can see that even if he's an idiot, but he says it himself: he thinks it's because she's just a kid, and she will understand later, for sure. Because he was also a crybaby. Because every denizen is the Cat and every kid is him.

(which, by the way, is also why he's starting to get jealous of Hazel later and convinced that Grace is trying to replace him. She found another lost kid to save. Because, again, every lost kid is himself. Because everything is about his own trauma, and it's everywhere.)

Yet, even imagining for a second that Tuba was dangerous (when he's had proof that she wasn't), he expects Hazel to simply forget about Tuba as soon as she's dead, WHEN HE HIMSELF clearly has very complicated feelings about the Cat, feelings he's still wrestling with years later. Relating to Hazel like he does is technically empathy, and yet it's catastrophically misplaced, and it doesn't help him understand how Hazel actually feels, or even how he feels about the Cat.

I'd even go so far as to say that if the Train hadn't placed the Cat's car in his path, he might not have rekindled his trauma like that, and he might not have had killed Tuba so easily. He is basically doing the same modus operandi than we see in S2 (Grace takes a new recruit somewhere else, Simon deals with their denizen friend), but unlike in S2 where he seemed mostly disinterested and simply told Lake to leave the Car, he seems to be very passionate about it this time.

Note that immediately before killing Tuba, he has this discussion in which Tuba tells him she lost her children before meeting Hazel, and he seems genuinely moved. And then he kills Tuba not even five minutes after that. It doesn't change anything if he had a brief moment of empathy for her - that doesn't make her a person in his eyes. He's already put her in his binary category where all his enemies are, empathy or not. It doesn’t matter. Because, again, every denizen is the Cat and every kid is him.

Which, in my opinion, is way worse than him being completely unable to relate to other people.

And yeah, of course, right to the very end Grace empathizes with Simon, even after all the horrors he puts her through in the final episodes. She can't even help it. And it doesn't change a thing, in the end, because he's already decided that Grace isn't like him anymore. And if she's not like him, if she's not a victim, she's like the Cat. And she has to die, because nothing she says can be trusted. It's like a switch being flipped. You can't reach him with empathy anymore.

Empathy doesn't even save the day in the end, not really. What ends up saving the day is treating other people like people, regardless of how much or how little you can relate to them. People are very different, you're not always going to understand everything that's going on in their head, and sometimes you can't even talk to them or read their expression. Because in that case they're literally origami, but still! Compassion saves the day!

But where the season really goes the extra mile regarding that theme of empathy, in my humble opinion, is that it more or less forces us to empathize with the two main characters, who both start as really bad people. And I'm fascinated every time I see someone else watching the series, realising who the protagonists of Book 3 are going to be, and deciding from the get-go there's no way they can relate to them, and being proven wrong. Because bad people are also people. And I'm also fascinated every time I see someone getting to the part with the flashbacks about Simon in The Origami Car, and saying something like “don't show me that now, I don't want to empathize with that guy anymore”. Because. Hey. Empathy kinda sucks sometimes. It doesn’t always feel great, and you can’t even help it. Sometimes you’re going to do good things because of it, sometimes it's terrible things, sometimes you think something is empathy when it's actually projection, and other times it’s going to cloud your judgement. And sometimes, it's going to make you relate to people you'd rather not find relatable.

And involving the viewer in the argument like that is a really powerful move, I think.

[jejesoso]

Story potential

If you want to write about Hera and Zeus in a situation that doesn't involve his constant cheating, use the pre-Titanomachy period.

Here I go: in some accounts the daughters of Kronos weren't devoured, so the 3 were growing on Mount Orthrys. The first half of the story could be these sisters dealing with a depressed mother and a paranoic father.

They probably don't even know about their brothers since two were devoured shortly after birth while the other was taken away by their grandmother.

And many years go by, until one day Kronos announces that new servants will start working there, one of them is Zeus who's going by the name Alexikakos (it's actually his epithet "averter of evil").

The second part could be Zeus trying to gain the trust of Kronos and the king's daughters without letting them know his plans.

Have fun with it 👍

[greafest]

SQUID GAME S3 SPOILERS/////

Just finished season 3 of Squid Game. Here are my thoughts.

The season was lackluster in a lot of places. Generally, it was alright. It had decent pacing in the beginning, a plot line that continued smoothly, cleanly left off the last part for the viewers, and had a strong theme. Though that's where the problems begin to blossom. I feel Hwang Dong-hyuk was so caught up in making a consistent theme throughout this season that the same messages kept getting repeated. The same point of "humans are greedy," "people will do anything for money or survival," and the point of "corruption is inevitable." It all felt very forced once it happened time and time again, just with different characters.

Daeho and Gihun, for example. Gihun choosing to kill Daeho because of his belief that it was Daeho’s fault, and Daeho believing that it was Gihun’s fault. Both men are corrupted by the aftermath of their actions, all in order to avoid singular blame. The theme of corruption with this storyline became clear and apparent. Though they choose to do it again with MG Coin, and him eventually choosing to sacrifice his own baby if it meant winning. With that, the theme of corruption is strong again. This happens over and over, and it becomes exhausting. It's clear Hwang wanted to make a point using Squid Game— and he was successful, even if the point becomes murky with the addition of Cate Blanchett to, as I'm sure, introduce the American Squid Game sequence to us.

I feel Hwang wanted to drive home the point of the negatives of humanity + its greed so much that he forgot the essential aspects of the story that brought viewers there in the first place: to see Gihun win against the system, to see accountability be had. Especially with Inho’s character. Because of the intense focus on overt themes, he didn't put as much emphasis on the introspective parts of individual characters, their development, and parallels as overtly.

For example, Gihun killing Daeho — we know this is something that goes against Gihun’s character entirely. And we expect him to struggle with that reality—though he doesn't outside of a brief 10 seconds— and the potential for more introspection is lost. A lot of these instances happen, such as Inho and Junho’s storyline and resolution, which we don't really get a firm conclusion to, as all Junho and Inho do is stare at each other before Inho walks off. No asking of questions, no brotherly heart-to-heart, it's just clipped. And the very short confrontation between Inho and Gihun (which felt lacking in more than just dialogue) did the same thing.

There was extreme potential to flesh out all these moments with more character interaction, more development, and a clear character struggle and progression, but it never happens.

And the post-credit scene indeed made me roll my eyes. One of Hwang’s points to the entire premise of Squid Game was to criticize the systems that coerce players to participate in the first place (capitalism). The point falls flat when they shove a scene like that— that is clearly setting us up for some sort of Squid Game saga cash grab— in our faces.

Another thing I'm upset about from both lbh and ljj was the constant statements on how Inho is going to show more humanity this season, and assumingly have moments where he’s framed as this very complex individual struggling with what he's done to some degree. We don't get that at all, but instead get an Inho that is even willing to kill his brother and a newborn baby to keep the games going and as entertaining as possible. It was quite the sudden swing of the pendulum to the extreme.

Now onto Gihun’s death. It made me cry and was a sad ending to his character. I have many issues with it. Mainly, how they executed it. It was clear they had characters doing things for the sake of the story (specifically in episode 6) to speed up the lead to Gihun’s sacrifice. And the whole point of Gihun’s sacrifice was minimal at best because nothing changed. No one faced consequences, no one actively reflected or contemplated— nothing really happened. Inho tries to soften his guilt and end that chapter by visiting Gayeong, but even that falls short with the next scene telling us that yes, he's still a active participant in the system that upholds the games as he chose silence witnessing the recruiter in la. Most things stayed the same except the games in Korea burning down. No true point—even with inho forever affected— was made through Gihun’s death inside the universe. Instead, it was made to the audience who already knows it.

Generally, I expected a bit better. More clear and introspective moments between characters, more focus on the dynamics we were promised would be involved, more dialogue specifically with Gihun, and more progression. This season fell a bit flat, though it was still a very fun experience to watch. I loved witnessing feral momma bear Gihun.

[vox-exe]

I know many people will likely complain about Leggy being back but man after knowing how long Mr. Puzzles has been rotting in prison alone likely thinking she's gone for good, it's just nice to know there's any being out in the world that still cares about him.

Also I can just as easily see Mr. Puzzles summarizing SMG4 is an overly simplified way too right back at him. "I'm SMG4! I do dumb meme stuff and hate ARTISTRY!" or something insulting SMG4's 'stupidest show he's ever seen'. Really now, Mr. Puzzles chose one of the oddest shows to try to make entertaining by HIS standards.

Anyway, the real reason I'm here to think about all of this is I wonder if they would intend to indeed, do something akin to a lobotomy as a sentencing (it'd be a little too easy to dig into his head) or straight up the death penalty. Which I would find to be an interesting chance to delve into how... unhelpful the system actually is. Meggy was hoping Mr. Puzzles would get help, get better, but she might be confronted with well, how little the system actually cares about that.

She genuinely did seem to hope for this, no matter how angry she is, rightfully so at him. Her addressing to Leggy exactly why they shouldn't care is a good scene to have in, a balance between her experiencing any form of understanding vs still struggling to connect that scared child she saw inside with the monster that hurt her and her friends. The fact she doesn't feel she can tell the others 'yes I told Leggy in all honesty I'd talk to him as a lawyer' and let them come to their own conclusions shows just how ridiculous she knows it is. Meggy wanted to move on, but Leggy cannot. Though I do wonder why Meggy thought Leggy was gone for good off to a better place. But perhaps so long as some part of her sees the potential for good in Mr. Puzzles, Leggy will never be truly gone and saying Leggy is gone for good was just denial.

For Meggy, unlike when she was playing cop before, this is someone she helped put in this situation. Understandably so, but there's a responsibility there that even if she shouldn't feel responsible for him, she's the type who would feel it. Who I bet would see his sentence and recognize her part in it, no matter how she feels about him. She still hoped for better for him, which is already kinder than he deserves from her. And if we're going to get more about her family, considering their rejection of her, and the themes of family across the whole cast, there's going to likely be some form of relatability and understanding there, if there isn't already something she recognizes in it deep down. I just hope through whatever happens in the next arc she too can actually move forward from what happened with Mr. Puzzles, because Leggy's existence shows she absolutely has not yet.

I really hope though that what will happen is she'll go to try to see him lawyer style, and then Mr. WPNZ breaks Mr. Puzzles out and any help she had been intending to possibly give to keep her promise to Leggy goes out the damn window. Mr. Puzzles screwing up a chance for what will no doubt be a terrible not at all healthy dynamic seems about on par with his story thus far. Considering how he felt double-crossed at the end of WOTFI 2024, I don't think he's going to be happy to see Meggy, at all. But man would I love to see that interaction.

Seriously though? Mickey Mouse has got to be dead, but the fact they put attempted murder makes me wonder if Mickey was forgotten or never found the body so no one knew he actually murdered Mickey Mouse but they knew he was trying to kill the SMG4 Crew so THAT'S on his record. Mr. Puzzles did have to get the theme park ready and no one commented ever on Mickey's death so it could be Mr. Puzzles is just a bit too good at hiding bodies.

A fruity TV of many talents.

YES YEES YESS!

I saw the thumbnail and I went: Leggy?? And YES!

Leggy misses Puzzles!! The loyalty on this lil friend!

and…

Four, honey, I love you my little sweetheart… but at no point were you gentle with Leggy.

Honestly what were you expecting? Of course she’s scared of you! Why are you making the kicked puppy face about this?

I know you mean well though Four you are adorable ANYWAY

Four’s impression of Puzzles is also amazing

but the fact that this is what Puzzles boils down to in Four’s brain when really Puzzles is defined by loneliness and desperation and fear of failure and a need for control. Like I know Four hasn’t seen all that we have the audience have and we’re probably not supposed to think about this line too much. But I think it’s notable because of how much Four and Puzzles have in common and how much Four has a very black and white view of his adversaries and how often he is oblivious to the feelings of others despite how much he tries. He’s always so

He is full of love and care but has low empathy I know this in my soul.

anyway sorry for making everything about Four it’s just that I love him. Obviously Meggy’s situation is also intriguing and she has a really interesting thing with the way she wants to see the good in everyone and she wants to help, but she’s also got this sense of justice and she often isn’t really sure how to help and I love that for her. The way in WOTFI her response to knowing deep down Puzzles is a scared little child reaching out for help is to go directly into his head with the intention of talking things out only to yell at said scared little child. She’s… not good at being gentle. In her defense she went to college for this and what she learned was… uh

characters who mean well but make it worse <3 love her why is she like this. She thinks she’s the reasonable one but dear god.

And finally that ENDING! IS OUR BELOVED PUZZIE PIE RETURNING TO US?? Or at least receiving a more merciful sentence than solitary confinement forever. Or worse, considering that this universe is still chill with lobotomies, and Meggy’s reaction when checking his sentence.

like… this is the same character who tried to become a cop once and went “okay ❤️ yay❤️” when abuse of power was hand-waved away

If SHE’S disturbed by whatever Puzzles’ sentence is I am very worried.

also his profile is sending me

In his official files that he’s fruity. Sure, why not? That’s great

also “attempted” murder? I feel like killing Micky Mouse is a pretty significant thing that he did. Did Mickey survive? Is that gonna be relevant? Also he’s not charged with kidnapping even though he did that a lot. Your honor he did all of it and even worse stuff but we’re pleading just a silly guy. Take pity on the wretched man he just needs a little TLC.

Mixed feelings though because he really shouldn’t have to be Meggy’s problem.

[gwinver-art]

Oh hey I don't talk about things I like often enough, so, here are some of the characters I like very much :D

Also putting the individual portraits here if you want to click on them, I spent time on these

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

i wanna know more about svsss menopause

They synced their periods together too well. Now they are synced through their perimenopause years.

[styxxsyringe]

hotel manager

[evelynpr]

Might be a hot take as a bkdk and tgck truther here, but I find izuocha endlessly fascinating, beautiful, but also tearfully tragic.

I see their love for each other as something representative of their innocence and naivety when they only knew so little about who they were, and what was to come.

I think the main barrier of their relationship is that its rooted in how they see each other very idealistically, specifically that they're attached to the image of their Best Heroic Selves, and not the deeply selfish, destructive, freaky, and egotistical parts of them. To each other, they need to keep fulfilling that image or else that same person they looked up to would almost die in front of them, and that would be too cruel. Although that hero is still there, that same person they looked up to is not the same now because of...well...everything.

Izuku had barely even talked to girls when he first met her. She was Izuku's first ever real friend (Sorry Kats, everyone and him knows he was terrible), so he saved her in that entrance exam even if it was so dangerous. She gave a new meaning to his derogatory nickname just by being a friend that believed in him. After that, she saved him several more times (Blackwhip and Megaphone are the biggest samples iirc). It makes perfect sense that she is Deku's hero.

Ochako hardly knew what it meant to be a hero when she first got into UA. Just by reaching out to some kid tripping, she made a new friend who would then save her in that exam, then save him again in return. This boy then became someone who was always working so hard to save everyone in trouble, and she realized she wanted to be just like him too. "I want to save people"

But...Deku changes. The weight of One for All is on his shoulders and he needs someone to carry this burden with him. He continues to want to save other people at the expense of himself, still not letting his true selfishness and ego ever show- and it only grows more and more unbearable.

Then...Ochako fell in love with Himiko. Truly, relentlessly, selfishly and devotedly in love with a girl who then dies giving her blood to her- the greatest expression of love Himiko could ever give.

Not that they can't love each other because of this happening (and...so many other things oh god), I'm honestly not sure how to explain it- But them ending up together after losing that innocence and naivety? After Ochako will forever grieve the girl who showed her love in its most beautiful and ugly form? After Izuku changed so fundamentally as a person that the butterflies of a nice girl talking to you doesn't exist anymore? After that simple image of being a hero and being in love has completely changed for them both?

Even so, I believe they still love each other. There is no label I know of that can properly describe them though. They are each other's image of being a hero when it comes to saving people. Aside from Shoto, no one else can grasp the grief of the person you tried to save dying in your hands. They would no doubt try to cope with these losses together, and just try to get better together...but so much has changed. They've changed. The world changed. What are they now? Who are they now?

"What happened...to us?"

[agentc0rn]

Lonely earth-bound monarch figures whose existences and legacies extend past the bounds of time and space.

[blitzbuckz]

✨I SUPPORT THIS BITCH ✨

[sieglinde-freud]

hiii @nyxlunaire !!!! sorry i did attempt to type this all in the replies but im a rambler and got smacked with the character limit because i had so much to say so im making it a post! but just know i never mind!! im so flattered ur interested 😭 also if you want me to untag you lmk, i just wanted to make sure you know that i am responding!! just somewhere else. theyre honestly among my favorite sibling pairings in fire emblem, maybe right behind eirika and ephraim which is kind of crazy bc lucina and inigo are definitely. not canon siblings in any way!! but in my head they are and they make a lot of sense to me! overall i think their relationship is a positive one and a close one. there’s a couple of strains, what with inigo’s relatively lackadaisical attitude being a bit annoying for lucina who was probably raised with more rigor (chrom was still ALIVE), and i can imagine lucina’s headstrong-ness could have bothered inigo. but you know. siblings piss eachother off. it happens. i dont think it happens as much with these two, especially in the bad timeline when they both REALLY needed to lock in to stay alive. to me, what really makes them interesting is everything post coming back in time

so they both come back in time and have wildly different experiences with obviously just landing, but more importantly with chrom and olivia. obviously just because of how gameplay works, inigo WOULD have a closer relationship with olivia, and lucina WOULD have a closer relationship with chrom. those have the intentional parent conversations as opposed to the generic ones with their variable parent but that doesnt change that they happen! and so for starters, with inigo specifically, we all know this one. we all know the infamous inigo pc support in which his dad, chrom in this case, compares inigo to lucina and reprimands him for not taking the fight seriously, falling for inigo’s teehee silly dumbass facade that he puts up and thus, despite the resolution in the A support, theres still a distance and there’s still a strain between them that is less than it was before but still present (this you can tell in how chrom treats future past inigo!!)

so we all know that one, very popular non-canon parent-child relationship blah blah blah. but i think what goes underlooked is lucina’s conversation with olivia (and her mother in general). this makes sense, because this support is truly nothing to write home about. its like, cute. but its generic and not all that interesting aside from the acknowledgment of baby lucina. but what im really interested in is the language lucina uses here and in her future past conversations with olivia and when she reunites with her parents after the henry chapter (12? 13?) and its very interesting if you’re someone who likes to read too much into the text where nothing was intended to be this way (me). i wont go into EVERY detail right now with olivia and lucina bc this is supposed to be about the siblings, but its important to note that lucina… does not know olivia. “her olivia died!” very true, but that came after chrom’s death, and lucina is able to adjust to having chrom back very easily! like its natural! but with olivia, she doesnt know how to talk to her. she doesnt understand her clothes, she doesnt know how to read olivia’s reactions, she doesnt know what to say or do when she meets olivia for the first time, and this isnt a problem that i see resolved in the A support all that well. its not the same kind of distance chrom and inigo have, but it is distance.

back to what you actually asked me, because i do have a point with this! i think that inigo and lucina, whether or not they realize it and whether or not they ever admit it to themselves, are jealous of eachother. what lucina has with chrom is what inigo has always needed growing up—a father figure who he can count on the support and love of. but when he found chrom, any stories and descriptions he knew from lucina break instantly once they talk. he says, “For being such a softie with everyone else, he doesn’t pull any punches with me.” how. interesting. and with lucina, i think it would be insane for her to see inigo, who knew their mother for even less time, immediately fall into step with her. they bond over dancing, shyness, and seem to get on well immediately. lucina didnt get that! when lucina saw her mom for the first time, olivia was crying and lashing out at her dad! resolved almost instantly, of course, but that’s a horrible thing to come back to! and she doesnt dance, she doesn’t understand her mom’s anxiety, she doesn’t get the same advice from olivia that inigo does. why? that question will never be answered. but it bothers her, and when siblings are jealous of eachother in this way, it leads to strain. obviously, it wont ruin their relationship. at the end of the day, theyre siblings who love eachother, and at this point, inigo is one of the only people in the world who can truly understand what lucina has been facing and is one of her strongest supporters. but they’re also young and are relishing in the comfort of having their parents back again as well as the discomfort of experiencing sibling rivalry for the first time. the worst part, though, is that they dont get to fix this.

blah blah blah awakening happens grima dies blah blah blah and then BAM. inigo? gone. hes outtie. disappears without a trace and supposedly without any real heads up, and if there is a heads up, its probably wildly inaccurate about the time hes gonna be gone!! and we all know how laslow feels about leaving (immense guilt and despair and sadness and grief) but what if he left a sister behind? a sister that, despite reassurances, feels out of place with her “parents” and who’s watching the rest of her friends move on and start the rest of her lives? a sister who had always planned to go back to their shithole of a home, but never thought she’d have to do it without her little brother by her side, or at least without a proper goodbye. will he come back? should she wait? will she wait? i dont know. i dont think either of them do know and i think thats the scary the part. when laslow comes home and reunites with the family he’s mourning for years, who he’s shared tales and stories and tidbits of with his daughter, will her auntie lucina be there to meet her too?

in my head, yes she is and they all live happily ever after forever BUT. thats a loose end worth exploring i feel. the grief and loss that follows these two is truly never ending and i feel like once you eternally interconnect them this way, through making them siblings, they get a lot more fun. i definitely have more thinking to do on post-fates them but… if they were strained before. weeell. imagine what being apart for that long without resolving your conflict will do to you. haha.

[herefortheships]

Unrealistic thought, but I think it'd be interesting to see the tables turn and for it to be Lydia totally obsessed with Betelgeuse for BJ3, at some point in the movie. To have her be thinking of him and needing him and probably being angry at herself at first for how much she's into him by the end of act two, and just accepting she wants him badly. As I said, maybe that's unrealistic, but a girl can dream.