#//fucked me up in life whether it be mental machinations; intrusive thoughts or things that actually happened

[revvywevvy]

yknow i've mentioned before that chelly is very capable of being violent and explosive. however the most ever angry i've ever drawn her is mildly upset. plus there was the memey-ish thing with chelly literally begging chip to let her bite maim kill people for him.

i kinda wanna draw chelly completely snapping. chelly getting a little too silly.

[archerofthemists]

Phantom Pains

TW: Blood/severe injury/loss of limb/mentions of suicide

Sparring was a very common pastime at Evernight Castle. If they weren't out on an errand or mission given by Salem, then her followers may as well be keeping sharp in their skills. 

Watts preferred to work in his lab, designing weapons and other useful tools. 

Emerald and Mercury, being the youngest and seen only as Cinder's underlings usually only had one another to spar with. 

Althea, having only recently risen in the ranks, still trained with Tyrian, her former master and now partner. 

Hazel, with his size and strength, typically wouldn't fight against any of his "teammates". 

And then there were the Grimm. Salem kept various breeds of them penned up for the sole purpose of training, but only Hazel and Cinder ever liked to use them for practice. 

However, ever since Salem had promoted Althea to her inner circle, the archer had felt the need to prove she was worthy of keeping the position. She had killed plenty of Grimm in her life, she'd gone to Beacon Academy for the God's Sakes. Killing the Grimm in her village had given her a spot in the damn school to begin with, to give her a chance to become a real huntress. 

Although, ever since she'd fled the school and had been living on her own, isolated and answering to no one, she hadn't had as many opportunities to fight Grimm. She'd had to save her energy, because she never knew when she would eat next, so she just did her best to avoid the damn things completely. 

But now that she had a purpose in her life again, it was time to get her head back in the game. 

Tyrian kept her on her toes plenty when he was still her superior. Surprise attacks right and left, whether he leapt down from the rafters onto her or hid under her bed at night, the man had had her looking over her shoulder constantly. 

Hazel was a behemoth that Althea had to beg to get him to spar with her and she was pretty sure he was holding back when he finally would give in. 

Watts didn't really fight, at least not in a style that was compatible with Althea's, but when he needed to test out a new weapon she was happy to play guinea pig for him. 

Cinder saw herself as "above" the rest of them, being a Maiden and she didn't like sharing her "disciples". 

So Althea began using Grimm for practice. She realized how rusty she was against the creatures, but it was any skill; you never really forget it. She had forgotten just how good she was at it though. But damn it...she never knew when to quit.

Taking on two Beowolves was a little ballsy to do by yourself, but Althea wasn't exactly alone. Hazel and Tyrian had grown accustomed to watching her when she practiced killing Grimm, out of the way and behind the safety of the pillars that supported  a balcony.

Tyrian, because he enjoyed the show and he was a little proud of himself for finding such a treasure as Althea. 

Hazel, because God's, there wasn't anything else to do around the castle at the moment. And plus he couldn't deny, the woman had skill and watching her certainly wasn't boring. He glanced down at his scroll and frowned; her aura was getting far too low, and one Beowolf was still alive and kicking. 

"She needs to stop." He glanced at Tyrian who looked almost mesmerized by his former disciple. "Her aura is almost gone. One of us should step in and finish it."

Tyrian waved the larger man off, not taking his eyes off the archer as she easily dodged the Beowolf's large paw as it swiped at her. "If she can't handle it then she will ask us for our help. Don't insult her abilities, Hazel." 

But Hazel grumbled softly and reached for the dust crystals in his pockets. "You shouldn't overestimate her abilities either just because you've got a crush." 

Tyrian's eyes flashed purple for a moment and his tail twitched. He growled to himself as he watched Rainart stab a couple of crystals into his biceps. "You just hate seeing people enjoy themselves, don't you?" The faunus sighed. 

"No, just when it's you. You're not denying the crush either, I see." Hazel remarked. 

Tyrian locked the man with a seething glare that would have made the average person shrivel up inside, but Hazel just scoffed. "Good, cause no one would believe you if you did deny it." 

He turned and stabbed his arms with the lightning dust, wincing only slightly as it spread through veins. "Althea! You're done, I'm gonna help you!" 

"I've almost got this!" She yelled before firing an ice-dust tipped arrow into the Beowolf's back legs, freezing it in its place. With a running start she used the Beowolf's back as a springboard to leap high into the air above it. 

Her plan was to deliver the killing blow from above - a dagger right through the Grimms eye as she had spent her last arrow immobilizing it. She had just grabbed the hilt, began to twist in the air, when the Beowolf had reared up on its frozen back legs and its jaw came down on Althea, taking her right leg in its teeth before falling back down on all fours, slamming her against the floor with the full force of its body. Her aura broke in an emerald swirl and she went rolling across the chamber floor. 

Most of her that is.

The two huntsmen were frozen in shock for a moment, gold and hazel eyes locked on Althea's motionless and bloodied body. 

Hazel was the first to snap out of it, the gnashing of the Beowolfs teeth as it swallowed the limb it had just torn asunder. It had broken the ice around its back legs loose and was completely free as the giant of a man began to charge it head on. 

When Tyrian began moving towards his fallen partner he didn't even realize it. His legs felt numb and yet they were still carrying him over to her crumpled, discarded body. 

The blood was everywhere, splattered and smeared on the chamber floor in morbid patterns that the faunus usually found pleasure in. 

 

The next thing Tyrian realized, he was running down the halls of Evernight, the dead weight of Althea bleeding out in his arms didn't slow him down in the slightest. 

It didn't completely register in the scorpions brain that he was running to Watts's office until he was bursting through his door. It was just purely instinct. Automatic. Where else would he possibly ever go?

The Doctor was at his desk, bent over some new contraption he was working on like always. His head snapped up at the intrusion, annoyance written on his face until he fully registered the scene standing in his door.

Tyrian covered in blood, cradling Althea's pale form, showing no signs of life. Where her right leg had been, was nothing but a bloody stub. 

"Help." It was the only word that left Tyrian's trembling lips, raspy and desperate. 

"Get her on the table. NOW!" Watts was on his feet, stripping off his jacket and tie as he helped Tyrian carry Althea into the small adjoining room that had been converted into a meager OR. However Arthur hadn't dealt with such a serious trauma in a long time and he'd certainly had more equipment, more help. His mind was racing as he tried to mentally inventory what he had, what he could use to save Althea's life.

"What the fuck happened?" Arthur pulled on a pair of surgical gloves with a loud snap, his emerald eyes surveying the damage.

"She...she was fighting Beowolves and…"

"More than one?!"

"Her aura was low and we thought she could handle it…"

Arthur sighed harshly as he gathered gauze and began to try and stop the bleeding of Althea's remaining leg. "You promised you'd never scare me like this again!" 

Tyrian could do nothing but stand and watch, his whole body beginning to tremble as he watched. He couldn't hear Watts yelling at him over the ringing in his ears.

"Tyrian! Tyrain, God dammit I need an extra set of hands!" Watts felt guilty for a fleeting moment as he tossed the box of latex gloves at the faunus. They bounced off his bloody chest but it did the job in snapping him back to reality. 

It was bloody awful work getting Althea's leg to finally stop bleeding. Once Watts was satisfied with her vitals and felt she was stable, he moved her into the tiny recovery room. Hooked up to various machines that would start screaming if her pressure bottomed out. 

So he gently led Tyrain into the adjoining shower and turned the water on, waiting for it to warm up. They were both covered in Althea's blood and Watts was tempted to just throw his clothes away, burn them maybe. He had plenty of other clothes.

Watts automatically began to help Tyrain out of his stained jumpsuit and harness, and the faunus didn't resist in the least. His body was still gently trembling and Watts hoped that this incident wouldn't scar him too deeply. He didn't know what Salem might do if her best weapon was permanently damaged like this.

In the back of Arthur's mind, he was already planning the schematics of a replacement leg for Althea and oh Gods...someone was going to have to inform Salem about what happened. How would she plan to punish Althea for this? Because she surely would.

"One thing at a time…"

He unbraided Tyrian's hair, finding more sticky dried blood in it as well. Steam was beginning to spill out of the shower so he gently helped Tyrian under the water before Arthur got undressed himself and joined him, knowing that Tyrian was in no state to bathe himself. 

For a good long moment the only sound was the hissing of the shower and Tyrian's occasional sniffle as he pulled himself back together and Watts scrubbed the blood out of his long hair.

"What did you mean earlier?" He finally asked, so softly that Arthur had to take a moment to be sure he had heard him correctly. 

"About what?"

"When you said that she had promised to never scare you like this again, what the fuck did you mean?" Tyrian turned around to face Arthur.

The Doctor was quiet for a long while, staring into Tyrian's golden, begging eyes. There was never any easy or kind way of saying it.

"A few months ago, Althea tried to kill herself." 

He watched his words take time to register completely on Tyrian's face. A choked off whimpering sound escaped his throat. "Why didn't you tell me?" 

"She asked me not to. She didn't know what Salem might do to her if she found out. And now this…" Arthur sighed. "Gods why did she take on two Beowolves at once?" 

" She tried to kill herself…" Tyrian murmurs gently and Arthur could tell that he was on the verge of losing it all over again. 

So Arthur pulled him close against his chest and let him.

Everything was fuzzy. Her head, her vision, even her body felt fuzzy and disconnected. And her leg...God's her leg….

"Don't move too much." Arthur's voice. Althea felt his hand gently stroke her forehead and she tried to make her eyes focus on his face.

"What...hap'n…" 

"You had an...accident." Arthur sighed "Although that word doesn't seem appropriate for what happened...because it wasn't an accident was it?"

"I...I had it…" Her throat felt raw, everything ached except...why couldn't she feel her right leg?

"YOU DIDN'T HAVE ANYTHING." Arthur hadn't yelled at her like that in a long time. Althea was ashamed to admit that she flinched a little. 

"Arthur…" Tyrian's voice.

"You lost your leg, Althea!" She may have heard a quiver in his voice that time. She wasn't totally sure.

"Guess that explains why I can't feel it." Althea couldn't remember a lot about the incident. She'd been twisting in the air one moment and the next she was waking up here. She vaguely remembered Tyrian rushing her through the castle.

"You were careless, reckless and for what? You promised you would never do something like this again." Arthur's voice was a little steadier now as he sat on the edge of the hospital bed.

"I promised I wouldn't hurt myself again." Althea hissed as she hoisted herself up in the bed a little more, her vision clearing enough to see how upset her partners were. 

"And so you've gone and replaced it with reckless endangerment of yourself!" Arthur looked like he hadn't been sleeping. How long had she been unconscious? 

"It wasn't like that." Althea wiped the sleepy gunk from her eyes as she got her bearings.

Tyrian was curled in a small chair by her bed, wrapped in a comforter. He looked just as tired and drained as Arthur. God's, what had she done?

"I should have stepped in sooner." Tyrian sighed. "Hazel, the sentimental giant, warned me. We knew her aura was low and…"

"You just didn't know when to stop." Arthur sighs. "Or you were hoping to get hurt."

"I wasn't trying to get hurt! Damn it!" Althea looked down at the bandaged stubb that had been her right leg and she swallowed the lump building in her throat.

"Don't worry, I'm already designing you a new one." Arthur sighs.

"Don't. I don't deserve it." 

"Well you bloody well can't work for Salem on one leg, can you? And if you can't can't for Salem she'll kill you." Arthur stood up. "Although that's probably exactly what you want."

Althea watched him leave and she rested back in the hospital bed, keeping her tears at bay.

"I'm sorry." She finally murmurs to Tyrain. "I really didn't mean to…"

"I should have stopped you." Tyrian crawled out of the easy chair and up alongside her in the bed. "When your body got slammed into the ground I…" 

"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry I…" yeah keeping the tears at bay wasn't working very well. 

No, Salem had not been happy but she hadn't been nearly as angry as Watts had expected her to be.

Thankfully Hazel had been the one to tell her for the very first time, right after he'd finished off the Beowolf. Although, who the hell knew? She could act so calm and collected before the storm finally hit.

Watts had nearly had a heart attack one night when he'd gone in to bring Althea some dinner and Salem was right there, sitting at the foot of her bed and talking with her. It was an odd sight to say the least: a tall, ancient and immortal being just sitting there in the tiny recovery room. So out of place and somehow so horrifying. 

Apparently Salem had wanted to see how Althea was doing with her own eyes and it hadn't looked like she'd gone had hurt the injured woman in any way.  Perhaps Salem would see the loss of leg as enough punishment and leave it at that.

Tyrian hadn't left Althea's side once, getting her what she needed and Althea had started reading to him a lot to pass the time. Thankfully Salem hadn't sent him away on any missions. Arthur wasn't sure if the faunus would have been able to concentrate if she had.

Recovery was not going to be easy. Arthur had drawn the perfect schematics for a new leg and he had been coming and going from Evernight to trade for some of the parts he would need. 

Althea's phantom pains had started and were becoming almost unbearable. A mirror method had helped, but Arthur hoped that a new leg would do more good. Althea's balance on crutches was horrendous, and her ability to actually walk could be therapeutic in and of itself. 

Finally when he was satisfied with his work on the prosthetic, he showed it to her. Shiney and silver with green accents along the joints and toes and a small "W" engraved on the upper thigh. Watts always left his signature on what he created in one way or another. 

"The good doctor does such wonderful work doesn't he?" Tyrian mused as he looked the new limb over, his own shiney tail clicking behind him. 

Arthur smirked softly, he certainly didn't mind having his ego stroked. 

"I would have had this done sooner if you hadn't lost the leg above the joint." Watts sighs.

"I'll keep that in mind for next time." Althea chuckles dryly. 

"There won't be a next time." Watts says firmly as he prepped the stubb of her leg. "Right?"

Althea smirked down at him and nodded gently. 

"Don't you dare ever scare us like this again. I mean it." 

[flashbackharry]

You need sleep

Prompt 21

21.“You need sleep”

sorry couldnt sleep and ended up yearning. 

Masterlist:

You can request a prompt from this list.

It was game night. There was never really a true schedule to game night. Usually it was whenever everyone had one too many drinks in their system and were down to play some games for too long before someone got particularly heated and then everyone would go to bed. Tonight the living room was filled with snacks and possibly every kind of alcohol you could name. You were at Harry's house, all his band mates were in attendance, and few other people you've met a couple times as well as some new faces.

The game you were all currently playing was charades musical edition. It was your turn and the artist you got out of the hat was Bob Marley, you tried miming smoking a joint and instantly everyone screamed a billion names at you, it was hard when you yourself were a little tipsy having about 13 people who were also drunk yelling incoherent things at you. You were about to give up when you felt your phone vibrating in your pocket.

“No showing us pictures on your phone” Someone yelled from the audience.

You ignored them because your sister was calling you. She never called for no reason. You picked up as you were walking out of the living room to go someplace quieter, paying no mind to the boos that followed.

You took a deep breath and answered.  

“Hello?”

“Moms in the hospital agai- are you at a party right now?” Your sister said, her voice going from grave to vaguely annoyed. That was her alright, ever the queen of passive aggressiveness.

“Yeah, believe it or not my life continues on without you guys, and is she okay?” You said, your heartbeat quickening.

She let out a huff of air before speaking again.

“She escaped the facility she was in and they found her 4 miles away in some run down part of the city, trying to check into a hotel under the name of Audrey Hepburn.” Your stomach clenched a little at the sound of the news.

“They gave her some sedatives but doctors are thinking it's only going to get worse from here. They didn't say that exactly because they're doctors, they kinda have to be optimistic but I could tell from their facial expressions.”

You didn't respond to her. Partly because you didn't know what to say. You took your mom in when things started getting bad 4 years ago, but once she tried setting your apartment on fire in the middle of the night, you realized you couldn't help her to the best of your ability anymore. So you checked her into a mental health facility and made your sister her health care proxy. She's resented you for it ever since, but you couldn't bear making life changing decisions on behalf of your mom, you just couldn't stomach it.

“Hello? Did you even hear a word I just said? God y/n, I don't have to call and keep updating you on her, I can just leave you in the dark but I'm sure you'd actually prefer that.” She said, her tone growing more and more impatient with every second that passed.

“Don’t say that, of course I care, what do you want me to say? I’m sorry?” You pleaded, tears threatened to spill from your eyes now.

“Forget it y/n, go back to your party.” And with that, she hung up.

You felt your insides tighten and suddenly it felt like you couldn’t breathe. You were full on having a breakdown in Harry's back patio. You sat down on the stoop and pulled your knees close to your chest. Trying to remember the breathing exercises you learned in therapy but when that failed you resorted to slowly counting the number of times you exhaled.

You heard the sliding door open and Harry walked over to you and sat down, worry laced his facial features but you could tell he was trying to mask it. He was your best friend after all, whenever either one of you were hurting, it was like a visceral reaction in the other.

“Missed you out there, they got the karaoke machine out.” He said softly. You closed your eyes and he was right, you heard the music playing in the distance, followed by a random off key voice.  

“Is it your mum again?”

Harry was well versed in your family drama. He knew you when you took your mom in, knew the physical and mental toll the role of being her caregiver was. You never got enough sleep when caring for her, always afraid she would do something while you were sleeping, until one night she did. It was Harry who encouraged you to check her in somewhere, pleading with you to do so, he was so worried she would end up being the cause of your death.

After the incident with your apartment happened, Harry took you in. He never formally asked you to move in, it was just understood between the two of you that that was what was happening. He helped you find a therapist, to help with anxiety attacks and insomnia you had. You didn't feel guilty for doing what you had to do, but God did your sister make you feel like the worst person alive.

You filled Harry in on the phone conversation you just had. He listened intently, never interrupting and holding your hand whenever you got to a particularly difficult part to talk about outloud. You didn't know whether it was the alcohol or the exhaustion that usually followed from having an anxiety attack but you wanted nothing more than to go to sleep and forget this all happened.

As if reading your mind, Harry stood up, grabbing your hand and murmured against your ear,

“You need sleep, let's get you into bed.”

Harry walked behind you and led you up the stairs, past the group of people still lingering in the living room.

“Were gonna call it a night but you guys have fun, keep it down a bit though.” Harry said to them. His friends began to woo after him, assuming you were going up stairs to fuck. It was hard to explain to them that you guys weren't a couple, you just had a connection so strong and went beyond the basic labels of “boyfriend” and “girlfriend''. Simply put, you were never gonna love any one more than Harry and the same went for him.

When you got upstairs, you walked into Harry's room instead of yours. He helped you get out of your clothes for the day and into something more comfortable. He dug into his drawers and after some rummaging he found an old band tee for you to wear. You took your jeans off, your bottom half in nothing but your underwear.

He turned around towards you and tugged at the shirt you were wearing and you put your arms up as he lifted it off your shoulders, frizzing your hair in the process. Goosebumps raised on your skin as the room got colder and Harry pulled the oversized long sleeve tee over you quickly, when your head emerged from the hole you both paused as you looked at each other for a moment. A small smile appeared from his lips and you returned it. He wrapped his arms around you, a tight hug, the kind you could feel deep in your bones. He walked you back towards the bed, never breaking the hug until you were both under the covers.

He pressed a kiss into your temple, his arms still wrapped around you. You couldn’t sleep most nights, and when you did, it was never for more than a few hours at a time. But when you slept in the same bed as Harry, you slept through the whole night. Rarely any intrusive thoughts, when you did happen to get them, Harry always reassured you you were safe and softly, he would soothe you back to sleep. You felt the way he cared about you in every crevice of your body, and you were so glad to love and be loved by him.

[wtf-taeyong]

Twenty Five Days / 1 /  Min Yoongi

Word count - 11k Genre - Angst Warnings - Graphic descriptions of mental illness (anxiety), rape tw for a later chapter! I don’t know which yet! I’ll put another warning before that one. Keep yourself safe, love

Part 1 / Part 2 / ??

Someone once told Yoongi that life was kind of strange, sometimes. It works in mysterious ways, or whatever the saying was.

Now that he was thinking about it, maybe that saying was about love.

Either way, life and being alive was fucking weird, and Yoongi still didn’t have a grip on it. He didn’t like it all that much and he hated things that he couldn’t control. He also hated when he made a decision and he was scorned for it; whether that was about choosing to stop living, or deciding to live perhaps too vivaciously for some to comprehend.

“We need a crash cart, now!”

Perhaps he should take up a hobby. Maybe he should learn a new language, throwing himself entirely into his studies and lamenting over the fact that he might make mistakes sometimes. Min Yoongi hated mistakes. Everything needed to be organised, orderly, systematic. Even if he was a beginner, he didn’t like making mistakes. As far as he was concerned, it was a sign of failure.

“One, two, three, clear! One, two, three, clear!”

He felt weird. He felt tingly. He felt rather like he did when he smoked his first cigarette; the fear of being caught by his parents making his fingertips shake, his mouth feel dry. The nicotine that was sucked into his lungs made him feel a thousand times heavier, yet as light as air. The sudden rush of adrenaline making nervous laughter escape him in short bursts out of his control.

He decided then that he didn’t like smoking.

“We have a pulse!”

A sudden wave of irritation exploded over him like a tsunami. Who the hell was shouting down his ear like that? He could hear perfectly fine.

“His breathing is stable…”

Who the fuck was ‘he’?

“Heart rate is normal…”

Who the hell was he…

His eyes were sore every time he blinked, and there was a cloud of anger that was constantly hanging over him like an accessory that he wore remarkably well. The fabric of the hospital gown he had been wearing for far too long was irritating his skin, particularly in the most unsavoury places, and the constant beeping from the machine next to his bed prevented him from having a restful sleep. The two things paired together was enough to make him unpleasant company to even the most resilient people; until, of course, his most treasured annoyance came sauntering through the door with a sunshine smile and a bag swinging in his grip.

“Good evening, Yoongs!” he chirped, setting the bag on the bed that Yoongi had only recently vacated, despite the sun beginning to go down. “How are you?” “Tired and pissed off. Food tastes like shit.” “Well, that’s what you get,” Hoseok said, grinning happily at his friend. “I brought some of your clothes so you can change out of your dress.”

Not bothering to snap at him that it was a hospital gown, for christ’s sake, Yoongi stood up and immediately opened the bag, sliding boxers under the hospital gown and stripping it off.

“Can I go home yet?”

The stitches lining his arms tugged in protest when he stretched his arms above his head to pull his shirt on, and his head swirled uncomfortably when he bent down to yank his jeans up. He didn’t check to see the disappointment in Hoseok’s gaze, choosing instead to ignore it was ever there.

“Depends. Am I going to find you covered in your own blood when I come over tomorrow?” Rolling his eyes, Yoongi sat on the bed again to pull on some socks and shove his feet into the boots that Hoseok had brought him.

“No. It’s too messy. I’ll do it some other way if I really wanted to.” “Yoongi…” “I know, Hoseok.”

There was a brief silence where the two men looked at each other, and Yoongi’s mind was emptier than it had been for a long time. All he thought about was the cars that he could hear through the single pane window that made the room uncomfortably drafty, and the beeping that came from the machines around the ward. Chatter filtered through the door that Hoseok had closed behind him and Yoongi’s brain was numb.

“Don’t do this shit again, dude.” “No promises.” “I’m serious, Yoongi.” “Me, too.”

Hoseok stared at Yoongi, long and hard, and whilst Yoongi might have once crossed his arms uncomfortably and spat some harsh words to get Hoseok to look away, he didn’t this time. There was nothing more to hide from Hoseok.

Yoongi’s brain was numb.

Everything was empty.

Finally, after the second uncomfortable silence, Hoseok sighed.

“I’ll go and get your discharge papers. In the meantime, can you please, for the love of God, stay here?” Yoongi shrugged, and Hoseok left the room shortly after. Yoongi paused for a beat, then stepped forward and wrenched the door open.

Hoseok had taken a right, and Yoongi took a left, footsteps quick and the sounds of his boots meeting the linoleum floor bouncing off the walls.

Yoongi didn’t make eye contact with any of the nurses or staff members that he passed, and he definitely didn’t look at any of the other patients. He didn’t want to see the cold, empty eyes that he saw enough of whenever he looked in the mirror. He didn’t want the reminder of where he was and what he’d done.

Before too long, he found himself at the huge window at the end of the ward that people always seemed to ignore.

Immediately downwards, there was nothing but a half empty car park - Hoseok’s obnoxiously shiny Audi in the middle of it - and Yoongi thought that was the reason nobody bothered to stop and breathe and look out the window anymore. Everything was grey and made of concrete and tarmac and was a painful reminder of how shit the world is, how colourless and soulless everything was.

Thinking that he should head back to his room in case Hoseok started tearing his own hair out, Yoongi whirled around and immediately locked eyes with a girl standing in a doorway of another hospital room.

There was nothing out of the ordinary about her; average face, normal hair, standard hospital issue gown. There was a sickliness to her skin that was evident in his, and bags under her eyes that rivalled his own, so there was no exact reason for him to halt in his tracks and stare at her in the same way that she stared at him.

She wasn’t particularly tall, or short. She wasn’t thin, or fat. She was completely nodescript and she was the kind of person that would sail right under his radar under normal circumstances.

Unfortunately, he had just spent a month in the same room, the same halls with all the same faces; the same vacant expressions, the same cold eyes and hard, flat smiles. His freedom was so close he could reach out and grab it with both hands if he wanted to, but this girl that he had never seen before made him hesitate.

She was smiling at him. She was smiling like he had gathered the sun and presented it to her; like he had hung the stars in her night sky; like he had shown her the way through this god forsaken life that everybody led. She was smiling at him and Yoongi had forgotten how it felt to show such happiness on his face.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Yoongi didn’t know when she had gotten so close to him, too busy staring at the foreign expression on her face, and her sudden noise startled him out of his stupor. “Uh, what?” She nodded towards the window he had just vacated. “Beautiful.”

Yoongi didn’t know what it was about the endless greys that enticed her so much, and usually he wouldn’t bother to find out, but the light - no, the spark - in her eyes drew him in like a moth to a flame. Why was she here? Somebody that radiated warmth didn’t belong in such a loveless place.

“No.” he shook his head. The girl’s lips lifted into yet another smile and Yoongi wondered yet again what she was doing here. “You need to stop looking, and you need to see.” Yoongi didn’t say anything.

What would he have said to that, two years ago? When his brain worked and he didn’t give into the intrusive thoughts of ‘jumping in front of that bus would be so easy.’ When he had a job, and friends, people that cared for him and people that he cared for in return.

He probably would have said something stupid and derogatory.

“Yoongi?!” Hoseok’s frantic and desperate voice echoed down the hallway and Yoongi turned his head slightly, watching his oldest friend grasp at his hair and tug, whirling this way and that to look for his deathly pale and sickly looking friend. Hoseok was the only one that still gave a shit.

“Gotta go,” Yoongi muttered, turning to look at the girl, but finding that she’d already disappeared back into her room. Shrugging, Yoongi made his way down the hallway to his frantic friend whose face morphed into one of anger when he saw him.

“I literally gave you one job, dude! It’s not so hard to keep your feet planted in one place for, like, five minutes!” Yoongi shrugged again and Hoseok sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose and muttering some choice words. “Whatever. Come on, I’m starving. I didn’t eat any dinner before I had to come and get your ungrateful ass.”

Following silently behind Hoseok, Yoongi turned briefly and saw the girl standing by the window.

“So,” Hoseok started, using a napkin to dab his mouth clean and then resting his hands on the table, making his fingers into a steeple. Yoongi sighed, playing with the pasta on his plate with his fork, knowing exactly what was coming. It was the same conversation that had transpired between the two men the last few times Yoongi had done something incredibly stupid and needed to be collected from hospital. “You’re coming to live with me.” “No, Hoseok.” “I wasn’t fucking asking, man.” Yoongi raised his eyes to stare at the man whose lips were pursed and downturned.

“I’m not coming to live with you, Hoseok. That’s final.” “I don’t give a shit what you want, Yoongi, you’re coming to mine and you’re staying there where I can keep a goddamn eye on you-” “I don’t need babysitting!” Yoongi burst, slamming his fork down and glaring hotly at Hoseok. “Don’t act like a fucking child and I won’t feel the need to babysit you!” Hoseok shouted back with as much passion.

Yoongi’s cheeks burned slightly under the stares from the other diners. Hoseok sighed, running a hand through his hair that matched the colour of his absurdly expensive car.

“Look, man, I don’t pretend to get… Whatever the hell it is that you’re going through. I mean, I can’t, you literally tell me jack shit. But for fuck’s sake. I’m your best friend. You’re my best friend. Do you know how shitty it is to wake up every morning and not know whether you will? Its sucks, dude.” Yoongi stared down at the table. “Listen, I won’t force you to do something you really don’t wanna do. If you’re that against coming to live with me, fine, whatever, suit yourself. But please, for my sake, get more help at least? I love you, man, and I’m constantly terrified that I’m never gonna see you again.”

Yoongi’s eyes were burning uncomfortably and he was too scared to look up at Hoseok in case he started crying in public.

That’d be so uncool.

“Okay.” He muttered. “Okay?” Hoseok repeated, almost not daring to believe it. “Okay. I’ll live with you.” “Okay. Okay! Alright! That’s great!” Hoseok was grinning uncontrollably, and then slid Yoongi’s plate closer to the man who still wouldn’t look up at him. “Finish eating, then we’ll swing by your place to grab some of your stuff before going to mine. I’m so excited, it’ll be like our super awesome sleepovers from high school.”

“You’re such a girl, Hoseok.” Yoongi stated, a wry smile curling the corners of his lips up. Maybe it wouldn’t be too bad to live with his best friend. “Hey, I’m just excited to get my best friend back. It’s been too long, dude.” “Yeah,” Yoongi said, throat suddenly feeling uncomfortably thick. “Yeah, it has.”

There was silence as Yoongi finished his dinner and he waited out the front of the restaurant, watching the traffic go by as Hoseok paid the bill. His hands were fiddling with the slightly frayed ends of his sleeves, feeling the hot pressure of imaginary gazes on him, taking in his small and weak form and the scars, new and old, that lined his body, as if they could see through the fabric of his sweater.

His head tilted towards the ground, focused entirely on a crack in the pavement in case he accidentally made eye contact with someone, and he started to shuffle his right foot. What was taking Hoseok so long?

A mother and her young son were approaching where Yoongi was stood and his heart was hammering. What did they think of him? Was he standing weirdly? Was his posture okay? The mother was saying something to her child and Yoongi couldn’t hear what she was saying; what if she was saying to stay away from Yoongi? Was she telling her son that she wanted him to grow up the exact opposite of Yoongi? Were they looking at the frayed edges he was fiddling with and wondering what was so wrong with him that he couldn’t look up?

Did they think he was any less of a person because he couldn’t stand straight and look them in the eye?

His breathing was beginning to spike and he could feel the sweat beginning to bead at his temple; the two people were getting closer and closer and Yoongi could begin to make out individual words. He was going to puke, he knew it. He could feel the bile rising in his oesophagus and he was going to embarrass himself in front of this entire street of people and this kid was gonna remember him for the rest of his life and pray he never turns out as much as a loser as this pathetic man in the street-

“Yoongi?” Hoseok’s voice made him jump, breaking him out of his self induced, panicked reverie. “You good? You look like you’re gonna barf.”

Yoongi swallowed thickly, turning his head to see that the woman and her son had moved past them and were laughing about a film they had just seen together. He took a deep breath, turning to Hoseok and praying the younger man didn’t see how his eyes were suddenly more watery than normal or the amount of moisture that had built up on his temple and upper lip.

“Y-Yeah,” Yoongi stuttered, a pathetic attempt of a smile raising on his lips. “I’m good.” Hoseok didn’t look entirely convinced but knew he wasn’t going to get anything out of the man that looked like he was going to faint at any moment, so decided it would be best to get to his car.

“Alright, we’ll just go by your place real quick. Just pack what you need, like clothes and a toothbrush and shit. I’ll set you up in one of my spare rooms, and you already know where everything is.”

Yoongi hummed to show he was listening as he followed Hoseok to his obnoxious car. Opening the door and sliding into the passenger seat, Hoseok continued chattering away and Yoongi was only half listening, choosing instead to stare out the window.

The weather had been good today, not that Yoongi had been able to enjoy it. Not that he would have even if he could. There had been only a few wispy clouds in the sky, allowing the brilliant blue sky to spread across the entire expanse of empty space, and now there was a perfect sheet of inky blackness above him.

If he didn’t live in Seoul, he’d be able to see the stars.

Yoongi pressed the button to wind the window down, passing his hand and arm out and feeling the way the wind felt passing through his fingers, drying the sweat and making goosebumps erupt over the skin of his arm.

He allowed his hand to float aimlessly through the air, curling and uncurling and reminding himself that, no matter how painful it was, life was somewhat worth living if he stopped to enjoy the tiny moments like these, until Hoseok stopped the car at a red light. He didn’t notice that he’d stopped talking.

“Are you still seeing that therapist? That whatshisface…” Hoseok trailed off, not seeming to be able to remember the easiest name to remember in the world. “Doctor Kim? Yeah, I am.” Hoseok slapped his leg and clicked his fingers, eyes widening dramatically. “That’s it! It was right on the tip of my tongue!” Yoongi rolled his eyes, completely aware that Hoseok had been bullshitting just to get Yoongi to say something. “Anyway, is he not working?” “He is.”

Hoseok turned his head to look at Yoongi, and Yoongi knew exactly what he wanted to ask.

If Doctor Kim was working for Yoongi, then why the fuck did Yoongi try to kill himself? Doctor Kim wasn’t in his head all the time, especially when it was three in the morning and Yoongi had given up again. Doctor Kim wasn’t there to hold Yoongi when he was curled up against the bath, covered in blood and wondering how and when it all went to shit. Doctor Kim wasn’t there unless Yoongi had money to offer, which, honestly, he rarely did.

It was just easier to give in than fight against the current, to allow his thoughts and his urges to spill over him and crush him under the tsunami. Yoongi was tired, and that was all there was to it.

Everytime he told Hoseok exactly that, he just raised an eyebrow and looked away. It wasn’t Yoongi’s fault he didn’t understand, and it wasn’t Hoseok’s either. That was just the way it was.

Shortly after, Hoseok was pulling in front of Yoongi’s apartment and Yoongi stared up at his home with a weary kind of apprehension.

He hadn’t been home for a while and he was sure that the evidence of what he’d done was still there.

“I’ll just,” Hoseok cleared his throat, voice coming out strangely throaty. “Wait here.”

Yoongi turned his head to look at the man. Usually, the excitable man never missed out on chance to barge in on Yoongi’s private life but the way that Hoseok avoided his stare and swallowed thickly made him wonder what was wrong with him.

Maybe he had finally realised what a loser Yoongi was, and he didn’t want to be in his shitty flat he could barely afford.

Hoseok was filthy rich and Yoongi wore jumpers that were fraying at the sleeves. They still had old paint stains from when Yoongi had passion and motivation, no matter how hard he tried to scrub them out.

Shame and embarrassment in front of his friend of nearly twenty years was something Yoongi was not used to, and the redness that coated his neck upwards made him gasp slightly, tugging at his neck to try and ease the heat. Hoseok still wasn’t looking at him and Yoongi wanted to exit the car as quickly as he could as if it would explode at any second.

Fumbling for the handle, Yoongi yanked on it harder than necessary and stumbled out of the car, nearly falling but catching himself at the last minute. Slamming the door shut behind him, Yoongi didn’t look back once for fear that Hoseok was already looking at him, and he carried himself towards the front door.

Digging deep in his back pocket for his key, he almost missed one of his elderly neighbours coming out of the building until they nearly collided, and Yoongi jerked himself to the side to avoid the accident.

“Yoongi!” They said, equally as surprised to see him. Yoongi was still flushed with embarrassment from the stifling car journey and his eyes were wide and glassy as he looked at the man. “Mr Lee, how- how are you?” “I’m very well, my boy, I’m off to the grocery store. Where have you been? Mrs Park tried to deliver you some fruit earlier, but…” “Oh, I’m sorry, Mr Lee, I spent a few days at my friend’s house.”

The lie that slipped from his tongue made his entire body feel heavy. Mr Lee was a kindly man, a widow as far as Yoongi could tell, and he always made sure to be nice to Yoongi. Maybe it was the terrified look in his eyes, or how he would flinch whenever somebody looked directly at him that made the elderly man take pity on him.

“Lovely! I trust you had a good time?” Yoongi started to shake his leg slightly in an attempt to burn some of the nervous energy in his body. He detested being so skittish, knowing that he never used to be like this, but he couldn’t help it. He couldn’t help but feel that everybody he interacted with had some kind of ulterior motive. “I did, yeah,” Yoongi was shuffling his feet now, aware that Hoseok’s eyes were boring into his back and waiting for him to get the fuck inside and grab his stuff already. He liked Mr Lee, but he didn’t want to talk right now. “Actually, he’s waiting just there, I’m getting my stuff and going back to his.”

Yoongi pointed his finger towards Hoseok’s disturbingly expensive car and the sunshine man inside smiled and waved at the elderly man who smiled with as much gusto.

“I’ll let you go then. Have a good day, Yoongi.” The man smiled at him and Yoongi managed a grimace in return, feeling his skin begin to crawl with the sensation of inadequacy.

Mr Lee was a kind man and Yoongi didn’t feel worthy of receiving it.

Yoongi only lived on the second floor so it was a quick jog up the stairs, a surge of discomfort pressing against his brain when he moved too quickly that he ignored, fumbling for his front door key and unlocking it.

The place was exactly how he had left it, right down to the dishes left in the sink and the washing up gloves hanging over the tap. There were still dirty glasses all over the living room, clothes dumped in random places on the floor and draped over furniture.

Yoongi didn’t have any pictures on the walls or resting on any surfaces, and decor was kept to a minimum. He didn’t even change the wallpaper or anything like that when he moved in, keeping everything as it was from the moment he moved in just before university started, fresh out of high school and arriving on a plane from Daegu International.

There was a staleness in the air that meant that the apartment had been left exactly as it was the entire month or so he was in hospital, and he wasn’t sure if he was relieved. It meant that nobody, not even Hoseok, had breached his private sanctuary where he was allowed to feel everything he wanted to without having to explain himself, but it also meant that his bathroom probably looked like a murder scene.

Tentatively closing the door, afraid of disturbing the silence lest some unspoken horror be enraged, Yoongi stepped further into his flat and wondered when it had stopped feeling like a home to him.

He hated how unfamiliar the place felt, despite being surrounded by things that belonged to him and things he had bought. Vaguely, he wondered if it was he that was unfamiliar to these four walls now.

Yoongi found himself in his bedroom, where his essence was the most prominent. His laptop was still turned on and open on his desk, through the screen had long since gone black with inactivity, and his speakers still had the green light to show they were on. Some clothes were sticking out of his wardrobe door and he felt vaguely annoyed at the way that the door wasn’t able to close properly but knowing it was his fault. His bed was still completely unmade from when he had last vacated it, but there was an almost perfectly circular patch of fur in the middle of the emptiness, telling him that the cat that he didn’t own had been here when nobody else had been. That meant the window was open.

He didn’t even particularly like the cat, and he didn’t know whose it was, but he supposed that it was nice to have something that pretended to give a shit about him.

Yoongi sat on the edge of his bed, his muscles tense and his brain still feeling entirely empty. He knew that he had to be collecting some of his stuff, and that Hoseok was waiting outside for him, but Yoongi couldn’t help but just… Sit. And stare. And breathe.

The patch of carpet might have held the meaning of life with the intensity Yoongi stared at it with, and Yoongi was feeling it all.

He felt his heart beating, and the way his lungs inflated when he inhaled. He felt the slight ache in his lower back, an accumulation of the pain caused by the uncomfortable hospital bed and his shitty posture. He felt the slight breeze caress his skin from the open window, and he felt the goosebumps rise over the surface of his arms despite being covered by his hoodie. He felt the constant, dull, throbbing ache of the wounds that lined his arms and a part of him regretted it. He regretted opening up his flesh like his life depended on it - as ironic as that was - and he regretted not calling Hoseok just to talk and get his mind off things that he found didn’t matter when his heart stopped twice and he woke up feeling the weight of the world bearing down on top of him.

He regretted the life he was living, and he regretted the way that he acted, being twenty five years old and having done nothing he wanted to do with his life. He regretted severing ties with his family after he moved away, not fully realising how much he would need them as long as he was alive. He was all on his own with no safety net other than the man waiting downstairs that gave too much to him with no price tag attached, with no darkness swimming behind his eyes.

He regretted walking into the bar that night, the night that ruined everything, and he regretted every single moment since then.

Breathing in, feeling his lungs expand, Yoongi finally stood up and retreated into his wardrobe to yank out an old backpack he hadn’t used since he dropped out of college. He crammed the important things in; underwear, some clothes, his laptop and charger, his headphones and earphones, toiletries and his journal.

With his bag dumped on his bed, Yoongi raked a hand through his hair that desperately needed washing, and he turned towards the bathroom door. He didn’t know whether his blood would still be everywhere, or if Hoseok had scrubbed everything clean like he had in the past. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to face his mistakes or wanted Hoseok to clean such a monumental mistake up.

He didn’t want his best friend to look after him like he was incapable of doing so for himself, but after some self reflection, it was glaringly obvious that he wasn’t able to do so anymore. So, pushing his hand through his hair again and grimacing at the greasiness of it, he inhaled deeply and squared his soldiers, marching towards the closed door of the bathroom as if he was marching into battle.

In a way, he was.

His hand grasped onto the doorknob and he twisted it, pushing the door inwards further and further and further, until the door swung open. He didn’t realise he had screwed his eyes shut until he had to peel them open in order to look at the damage.

There was nothing.

Not a single speck of blood that had been spilt from his veins, not even in the gaps between the floor and the bathtub. Everything had been scrubbed clean to the point that the room didn’t feel as grimy as it usually did, and Yoongi hated it. He hated that it felt clinical to the point he didn’t want to step foot over the threshold in case he trekked mud in behind him. He tentatively stepped in, ensuring his footsteps were as big as possible so he only had to step twice to enter and then exit, toothbrush and shampoo in hand.

Those were deposited into his bag and he zipped it up, having to hold it between his knees to yank the zip across and hold it closed. He was sure that it hadn’t been designed to have so much shoved into it and he prayed the zip would hold. At this point he was certain he would turn to dust if his bag burst open and his things spilled everywhere in public.

He allowed himself to breathe finally, looking around the room that had seen him at his worse countless times. How many hours had he spent in this room, crying and feeling sorry for himself? How many times had he wished to be somewhere else, anywhere else, rather than curled up in a ball on his bed in his shitty apartment that let the draft in no matter how many shirts he bundled up and crammed into the cracks of his window panes?

He had spent a lot of the worst moments of his life in this room, but in a weird way, it was proving to be difficult to leave it all behind. It felt rather like he was leaving a part of himself behind and he wasn’t sure if he had enough left of himself to do that.

By the time he made it out the apartment, jammed his key into the door and locked it for what felt like the last time, Hoseok had fully reclined back in his seat and his eyes were closed.

Yoongi couldn’t bring himself to feel entirely guilty even though he should for taking so long, but he merely opened the passenger door, startling Hoseok out of his attempted nap, and sat down with his bag crammed between his knees.

“You sure took your time, Yoongs,” Hoseok muttered sleepily, yawning widely and adjusting his chair so he was sat straight again. The two of them turned to the side to pull their seatbelts over themselves, and Hoseok stretched slightly as he turned the key in the ignition.

Yoongi was just realising he never learned how to drive. Perhaps that would be the next thing he did.

“Are you sure you’ve got everything? I already know I won’t be bothered enough to drive you back if you realise you’ve forgotten your pajamas or whatever.” “I sleep naked,” Yoongi commented dryly, and Hoseok snorted. “Right, sure you do. You’re too terrified someone would burgle you and catch your naked ass.”

Yoongi would have punched Hoseok in the arm in the past but all he could muster was a breathy laugh. He was right, anyway; the idea of someone catching Yoongi completely naked whilst he slept was earth shatteringly terrifying.

The journey to Hoseok’s house from Yoongi’s was far longer than the journey to Yoongi’s house from the hospital, so Yoongi sank further into the leather seats of his best friend’s car and exhaled slightly, feeling some of the tension leave his shoulders.

Hoseok wouldn’t be able to look at him as long as he was being a responsible driver and Yoongi would use that to fall into a false sense of security that his every action wasn’t being scrutinised and judged.

Was he breathing too loudly?

He wound the window down again despite the chill in the air and Hoseok didn’t comment on it, even when goosebumps rose all over his skin. Yoongi passed his arm back out, resting his hand against the side of the car and feeling the wind blow past his face, leaning it against the door.

He liked going for long drives. He liked not having to think about anything proper, like his next movements or what to say to someone. He liked being able to stop all coherent thought and instead experience what it felt like to be alive in a body with flesh and blood and muscle and sinew.

It was an almost transcendent feeling, realising that he was alive. He was alive.

He was. 

He was, he was, he was.

He didn’t realise when Hoseok pulled into the garage under his apartment building, barely registering the other man’s voice until he rested a hand on his shoulder, startling Yoongi out of his daydreaming and murmuring sleepily that they were home. Yoongi nodded, unbuckling his seatbelt and grabbing onto the handle of his backpack before he opened the car door, carefully sliding out so the door didn’t smash into the side of the SUV Hoseok had parked next to.

“Looks like Jin’s home. He’s been on a business trip in Tokyo, so maybe you’ll get to meet him in the morning,” Hoseok told Yoongi, locking his car and taking the lead over to the elevator. Yoongi nodded, shuffling into the elevator behind Hoseok and instinctively looking away when Hoseok entered the code for his apartment despite knowing it himself. The doors slid shut and Yoongi’s stomach lurched uncomfortably when the elevator started ascending.

Yoongi didn’t know who Jin was and he didn’t want to meet him in the morning. He didn’t usually wake up until the afternoon anyway, so perhaps he would sleep through the opportunity to embarrass himself and Hoseok with his awkward and insufferably anxious behaviour.

Perhaps Jin was a better friend to Hoseok than he was. Maybe Jin knew all about Yoongi from Hoseok, and Yoongi didn’t know a thing about Jin because he was a bad friend.

All the way up to Hoseok’s apartment, Yoongi was worried that he had been told about Jin before but hadn’t been paying attention to Hoseok at all.

The doors slid open and Hoseok stepped out, sliding off his jacket and slinging it over the back of the nearest sofa, his shoes shortly following and being neatly placed under a low dresser where his keys and scarf were deposited.

“Make yourself at home, dude, I’m just gonna go check to see if I’ve missed any calls.”

Yoongi was still stood tentatively in the elevator, gazing around the expansive apartment wearily. It was exactly how he remembered it to be, with the addition of a few little trinkets or pictures on the walls.

It was tastefully furnished, with low leather sofas decorated with cushions and woollen throws to make it homely, the open plan kitchen all marble and stainless steel. Rugs littered the floor in a way that Yoongi thought looked simultaneously haphazard but incredibly becoming, making the stone floors seem a little less cold and uninviting.

Somehow, Hoseok had created a home that felt like a home, that felt like Hoseok, and Yoongi didn’t know how the hell he did it. Yoongi didn’t have a home that felt like anything.

He entered the apartment slowly, clutching the strap of his backpack so tightly that the joints of his fingers protested loudly, flinching slightly when the elevator doors slid shut behind him. The apartment was big and it was incredibly silent, Hoseok having disappeared down one of the hallways off to the side.

He took his shoes off and put them in the same place as Hoseok’s, the contrast between the shiny leather of Hoseok’s shoes and his beaten up converse making his cheeks colour pink again.

He didn’t like it. He didn’t like being Hoseok’s poor friend that was living in poverty, unable to look after himself and being chased by demons that nobody else saw. Bitter resentment flooded through him alongside envy quicker than Yoongi could realise, and he quashed them down, allowing himself to feel sick at his audacity. He couldn’t resent Hoseok for his overwhelming success; he’d earned it and he deserved it. It was Yoongi’s fault for not applying himself to something practical, for chasing a dream he didn’t even know about and abandoning ship halfway there.

Even now, nearly twenty years after meeting for the first time, he was surprised that Hoseok even wanted to continue being friends with him. Anybody that looked at Yoongi could see that he was unwell, with the constant bags under his eyes and the way his cheeks were slightly sunken. He’d lost a lot of weight recently and it was apparent, despite having always been on the skinnier side.

He rubbed a hand up his cheek, feeling how dry his skin was, and then he raked the same hand through his hair again. Remembering his desperate need for a shower, Yoongi shuffled down the same hallway Hoseok had gone down, hearing the man’s voice behind the closed door of his office.

It sounded like he was on the phone and Yoongi absentmindedly wondered if it was important; whether it was a phone call he’d caused Hoseok to miss.

He wished he wasn’t a burden. He wished Hoseok would stop caring about so Yoongi would have no choice but to turn into nothing and disappear.

Yoongi walked into the room he usually slept in when he stayed over, letting the door swing open. This room was carpeted, and the furthest wall from the door was made entirely of glass, giving the room a cityscape view that Yoongi was incredibly fond of. He might not have been able to see the stars from the city but the twinkling lights of the cars below and the buildings opposite brought him a sense of peace he couldn’t seem to find anywhere else within a fifty mile radius.

He dropped his bag on the double bed, noticing a phone charger of Yoongi’s on the bedside table that he’d thought he’d lost the last time he had been here. Smiling faintly that Hoseok had decided to keep it instead of throwing it away, Yoongi wondered what it was about this tiny possession of his that made him feel so warm inside.

Maybe it was because it made the room feel slightly more his rather than merely one of Hoseok’s guest rooms, despite having nothing else in the room that belonged to him.

He exhaled heavily, cringing that it disturbed the peace in the room, and slumped down onto the bed next to his bag. It was completely silent in the apartment, being too high up to hear much of the traffic except for the occasional honk of a horn and Yoongi hated it. He didn’t like that the only thing he could hear were his own thoughts, usually finding something that he could focus on and memorise so he could hide from things that came from within himself.

It’d have to be Hoseok’s voice this time, lightly filtering into Yoongi’s room through the opened bedroom door. He couldn’t make out his words but Yoongi knew that it was an important phone call, judging by the slightly stern tone of voice that Hoseok was using. Yoongi called it his ‘business voice’ and Hoseok never used it to Yoongi but Yoongi was incredibly familiar with it. Countless times he had been present when he got a phone call that couldn’t be ignored.

Hoseok was the CEO of a company that exported educational resources. Yoongi didn’t understand why someone with so much rhythm in their steps and passion for dancing would want to enter such a field, but he supposed that Hoseok was good at this too. He was young for a CEO and he couldn’t have been more proud of his best friend for making it in such a competitive and fucked up world.

He wished his best friend was proud of him too.

Yoongi’s hands instinctively went up to his hair again and remembered that he still needed to shower. He had showered at the hospital of course, but he hated it. The water pressure wasn’t quite right and Yoongi couldn’t relax, the ludicrous idea that someone would burst in making his muscles tense and ready to sprint away at all times, the absence of a lock making his heart ready to jump ship. Of the fight or flight response, Yoongi was definitely the latter.

His en suite bathroom had a lock but he was well aware of Hoseok’s bizarre ignorance of personal space and privacy. Perhaps it would be best to shower now quickly, and pray that the phone call took all of Hoseok’s time up.

He yanked some clean clothes from his bag, padding into the bathroom that was the size of half of his flat, and locked the door securely. He tested it several times by pulling on the door and ensuring that the wood didn’t give, and once he was comfortable he tugged off his hoodie and unbuckled his belt.

Yoongi didn’t like looking at his reflection. He hated the sight of the bags under his eyes, and the absence of any kind of light. He didn’t like the state of his skin, or the limpness of his hair, or the way that his skin clung to his bones. The wounds that lined his arms were just a painful reminder that he was a failure; he couldn’t even manage to end his own life.

He decided then that he didn’t like his reflection because it was a painful reminder that he was real, that he was alive, and Yoongi was terrified of that.

Turning the knob so the shower went as cold as it would go, Yoongi tugged his jeans off and dumped them on the floor. He was sure they were clean enough, but he’d still wash them once Hoseok had gone to bed. He wouldn’t do it when he was awake and roaming around the place, because then Yoongi would be forced to interact with him and he was too tired to do that.

He braced himself to hit the cold water and goosebumps erupted all over his body when it did. He stayed where he was though, letting the cold water cascade over him and drench his hair.

That’s where he stayed until his fingers pruned, and he finally found the motivation to put globs of shampoo and rub it into his hair, massaging his scalp with his fingers. Then he bent his head forward and screwed his eyes shut as he let his hair soak under the water again. His muscles were beginning to ache slightly in the cold water so he shut it off, stepping carefully out of the shower and grabbing a towel from the rail.

It was almost impossibly thick, and fluffier than Yoongi remembered them being. Vaguely he wondered if Hoseok had changed his brand of towels, or if he was washing them with a different product. Then he wondered why he was dwelling on such an insignificant thing.

He scrubbed himself dry and yanked on a tshirt and jeans, raising the towel to his wet hair and furiously rubbing that all over his head so the water wouldn’t drip all over himself. When he entered his temporary bedroom, he all but threw himself onto his bed. Hoseok was still on the phone, his voice sounding progressively more stressed, and Yoongi wondered whether he would mind if he threw his clothes in the washing machine.

Heaving himself up, he grabbed his recently discarded clothes and pulled his door open slowly, poking his head out and looking down the hallway. The door to Hoseok’s study was still firmly closed, his voice becoming louder as he removed a barrier between them, and the light was pouring beneath the door.

Yoongi shuffled down the hallway and through the living room, into the utility room that was next to the kitchen. He remembered when Hoseok had first moved into this apartment nearly six years ago and how he had marvelled that he had a whole separate room just for doing his laundry and for a separate freezer.

“This is so bourgeoisie, Hobi,” Yoongi had said. “Look at this! This is the size of my bedroom.” “Forgive me for living in comfort.” Hoseok had said from the kitchen where he was unpacking his absurd amount of silverware into different drawers. “You are not forgiven. I have to go down three flights of stairs to use the washing machine in my building, when I can be bothered.” “At least you’re getting exercise. I’ll be losing my shape and become a blob in my penthouse as soon as I retire.” “That’s the most obnoxious thing you’ve ever said.” Yoongi left the utility room, shoving Hoseok’s shoulder and scoffing. “Besides, when will that even be? In seventy years?” “If I work until I’m ninety, I’ll end up killing myself.”

The slam of the washing machine door broke Yoongi out of his reverie, and a wry smile curled his lips. The irony was almost funny. Hoseok had ended up working so hard that he could live comfortably with no further effort until he was ninety and yet, Yoongi was the one trying his hardest to fulfill Hoseok’s poorly made promise.

He straightened up, pressing his hands against the dull throb of his lower back. Maybe he should take up some kind of hobby like yoga instead, something that would benefit his body rather than his useless brain. Maybe he would fell less shit if he was physically fit and healthy - not that he really knew what that felt like. There was a time in high school where he played basketball religiously, but those days were long behind him.

Maybe he would try to pick that back up again, when he had the energy and the motivation. He’d forgotten what it felt like to be good at something.

Entering the kitchen, he noticed that Hoseok still hadn’t left his study but his voice was no longer floating down the hallway towards him. Perhaps he was organising some files, or whatever it was that businessmen did. Yoongi had never even seen the inside of Hoseok’s office, the door always shut tight whenever he visited. 

Yoongi wondered when it was that he became so removed from Hoseok’s life. 

He’d been leaning against the kitchen bench for not even ten minutes when the elevator doors that were Hoseok’s front door slid open and his entire presence froze. He stopped breathing when he heard footsteps approaching, and a figure he had never seen before in his entire life came round the corner, pausing when he spotted Yoongi.

Either this was the richest, best looking burglar in the world or Hoseok had a roommate he didn’t tell Yoongi about.

He was going to puke.

“Oh, uh... Are you here to rob the place?” The man asked and Yoongi blanched. 

He was casually leaning against the kitchen bench and this man thought he was going to rob Hoseok. His hair was wet. He wasn’t even wearing any socks.  The man was still standing there, staring at Yoongi with huge brown eyes and Yoongi felt the beginnings of a blush colour his neck and cheeks. 

“Well?” The main stepped forwards. “Can you not speak, or something?” A rush of anger streaked through Yoongi, and his mouth was opening before he could stop himself. “Do I look like I’m here to rob Hoseok, you fucking idiot?” The man’s mouth opened slightly in shock. “I haven’t even got any shoes on, you gorgon, did you think I would remove them to be polite before I ransacked the fucking place? Jesus.”

The man was coming closer and too late Yoongi was slightly afraid he was going to punch him. The man looked built, standing much taller than Yoongi and his biceps bulging through the thin material of his tshirt as he crossed his arms. 

Yoongi could feel all of his muscles tensing, ready to sprint away if he needed to. He was all too used to being intimidated due to his smaller stature, and he was well experienced in having to flee or face having his teeth smashed out. His sudden anger was turning his ears red.

“How do you know Hoseok?” “None of your fucking business, dick-” “That’s my best friend!” Hoseok’s voice chirped happily, coming out of the study and into the kitchen area. He seemed oblivious to the tension in the room, but Yoongi saw his eyes dart over Yoongi’s entire form and the concern make creases form between his brows. “Jungkook, this is Min Yoongi. Yoongi, this is Jeon Jungkook.” “Charmed.” Jungkook said, the muscles of his biceps flexing even more. 

Yoongi rolled his eyes.

“Anyway, what are you here for, Kook? Not to terrorise Yoongi, surely.” Hoseok’s voice was dry, swerving around Yoongi to open the fridge. “Not much food for you to stuff yourself on, sorry kid.” Jungkook’s cheeks flushed at the diminutive term, and he finally tore his gaze from Yoongi’s form.

“Oh, right, yeah. I’m here to return your old textbooks,” Jungkook slung a backpack Yoongi hadn’t noticed he had on his shoulders round his front, unzipping it and bringing out some economics textbooks Yoongi recognised from his university days with Hoseok. “They were a lot of help actually, thanks man. Saved me a tonne of money.” “No problem, kiddo. Just leave ‘em on the side and I’ll get around to putting them away some time this week.”

Jungkook dropped them on the bench, zipping his bag back up and slinging the other strap back up onto his shoulder. 

“Did you have to come in so late?” Hoseok asked, and Yoongi sighed very gently. Knowing this stranger wasn’t going to leave for some time, Yoongi slid out of the kitchen and made his way down the hallway and into his room, leaving his bedroom door ajar as he threw himself onto his bed.

Annoyingly, the sound of their voices travelled into his room and he was too lazy to get up again and slam his door shut to be petty. 

He didn’t like Jungkook. He looked at Yoongi like he knew all of secrets and his eyes lingered on the bandages wrapped around his arms with nothing but pity in his eyes. He might have been blessed with the height and enough money for a gym membership, but Yoongi didn’t like him at all.

Economics. Who actually studied that, other than Hoseok?

He scoffed, and buried his face further into his pillow. He still was able to hear everything they were saying, but he didn’t listen properly until he heard his name. His head perked up. 

“Is he really your best friend?” “Who, Yoongi? Yeah, why?” “I don’t know, he’s just so... Angry. And you’re so happy.” Jungkook was saying. “He’s not, really.” “Hoseok, he’s like an angry cat.” “And he’s older than you, so show some respect.” “But-” “I’m not discussing him. He’s having a shit time and I don’t want to talk about that over tea with a kid.” There was a pause. “You don’t know him, dude.” “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

Deep in Yoongi’s chest, a little bud of affection for Hoseok bloomed. He slowly buried his face back into his pillow and inhaled the smell of freshly washed linen.  Perhaps Yoongi had judged Hoseok too harshly earlier, when he thought that Hoseok was ashamed of him. Hoseok seemingly had no problem declaring their friendship in front of people Yoongi didn’t know, and then would defend him when he didn’t even know Yoongi was listening.

Yoongi was a shit friend, and he’d try his best to make it up to Hoseok. Even if it took him the rest of his life. 

Yoongi was just about to fall asleep when he heard the loud beeping of the washing machine and remembered his clothes, and then not long after that he heard Jungkook’s loud exit and his promise to visit Hoseok soon. Silently whispering a prayer that Jungkook would visit when Yoongi wasn’t there, he pulled the door of his bedroom the rest of the way open and nearly lost his life when Hoseok was already standing there, his fist raised to knock on the door.

“Jesus, Hobi.” Yoongi breathed, hand instinctively raising to rest over his heart. “I didn’t hear you.” “Right, sorry, I was just...” Hoseok looked uncharacteristically awkward and Yoongi shuffled his feet slightly. “How long has it been since you’ve called me, Hobi, dude?” “You asked me to stop when you became a bigshot CEO.” Yoongi reminded him dryly, shuffling past him and heading towards the utility room. “Oh. Right. Yeah, of course.” Hoseok was being strangely uncomfortable and Yoongi wondered whether Jungkook’s words had sunk into his brain. Was he also wondering why Yoongi was his best friend when Hoseok was the kind of person who could make the Queen of England his closest confidant?

Yoongi didn’t want to press him, lest he end up regretting it. But, as if Hoseok had heard his thought and decided to rebel, he opened up without needing to be coaxed.

“I actually have... A gift for you. I mean, if you want it. It’s cool if you don’t.” Yoongi stopped. “A gift?” “Yeah, it’s, uh... Yeah, a gift. A present. For you.” “Hoseok...” “If you don’t want it, it’s fine! Totally fine.” Hoseok coughed awkwardly. “Honestly, this was a bad idea, I can take it back, no biggie-” “What is it?”

A little bit of excitement curled in his stomach happily. He always told Hoseok that he hated receiving gifts, never knowing how to respond to them, but Hoseok always gave the best presents. All of his birthdays and Christmases had been made infinitely better just by Hoseok. A bright smile split across Hoseok’s face at Yoongi’s willingness to find out what he had gotten for him, and he was holding up a single finger, almost tripping over his own feet in his rush to disappear into his bedroom.

“Wait right here! I’ll be right back! Just wait!” “Where else am I going to go, Hobi?” Yoongi called after him, finding his own excitement was beginning to climb at the sight of Hoseok’s jubilance. It wasn’t anyway near his birthday, or even Christmas, but something about Hoseok’s hesitance to give him something made him feel slightly guilty. Was Yoongi really that difficult to give something to?

“Right, okay. I didn’t wrap this,” In his hands was a box, wrapped neatly in dark blue wrapping paper. “The woman at the shop did. Which I thought was odd, y’know? There’s no holiday soon. But she asked and you know what a disaster I am with wrapping gifts and sellotape. That’s why you do all my wrapping for me. Anyway, it’s cute, right? Open it!” The box was thrust into his hands, and Yoongi stared down at it.

He didn’t know what emotion it was that he was feeling, but he was concerned that he was going to start crying openly. It was a gift. For him. He was overwhelmed already.

“Thank you, Hobi.” Yoongi looked up at his most precious friend, finding that he didn’t have to force the smile that was on his face. “You haven’t opened it yet, dumbass,” Hoseok said, laughing and taking a seat on the back of the sofa. “But you’re welcome!”

Yoongi almost didn’t want to open it and ruin the nice wrapping paper, but under Hoseok’s command, he slid his thumb under a fold in the paper and pulled gently, resting the box on the kitchen island so he didn’t accidentally drop it and ruin everything. 

“C’mon, oh my God, you’re being so slow.” Hoseok was whining, his legs bouncing up and down with excited energy. “This isn’t some terrible trick, right? You’re acting suspiciously happy.” Yoongi paused in his unwrapping and narrowed his eyes at Hoseok, who pouted dramatically.  “All these years of friendship and you still think so little of me. I’m telling my Mom.” “Not Mrs Jung, please, anybody but her,” Yoongi entertained Hoseok with his fake panic. Truthfully, while Hoseok had inherited his sunshine disposition from his mother, there was a side of Mrs Jung that terrified Yoongi to this day. 

He’d only seen it when he’d persuaded Hoseok into some nefarious business that children were into back then. He was certain he’d never survive her wrath.

He tore the wrapping paper, too impatient to try and preserve it, and the air left his lungs in one swoop. 

Hoseok had bought him a camera.

A good camera, too. A high end DSLR, the kind that Yoongi had only ever fantasised about owning but never had.  Hoseok had bought him one.

“I know how much you wanted one a few years ago, and I don’t know if you still do, but I was shopping the other week with Taehyung before he went gallivanting around the globe - you know Taehyung, right? - and saw it. I had to, dude. Just for that look on your face.”

His tears were warm on his face, and he couldn’t lift his head to look at Hoseok.

He wondered if it ever got tiring, having a heart of gold? Yoongi could try all his life and he wouldn’t be as genuinely wonderful as Hoseok. How did he get so lucky to even meet Hobi, let alone become his best friend? The Gods were smiling at Yoongi that day so many years ago.

Hoseok’s arm wrapped around Yoongi’s shoulders, bringing him into his body, and Yoongi was too choked up to say anything.

“You like it, then?” “Dude.” It was all Yoongi could manage, and it came out cracked and broken. He just couldn’t stop looking down at the camera - his camera. This meant more to him than he could ever verbalise to Hoseok, but thankfully he seemed to understand as his hug got tighter and Yoongi returned it with one arm. “You’re welcome, Yoongi. You’re welcome.”

Three weeks had passed, and Yoongi had taken his bandages off, his scars fading to an angry looking pink. He spent most of his time lying on his bed, fiddling around with his camera and taking pictures out of the window or in the immediate vicinity around Hoseok’s apartment building, or he stayed in his bedroom and gradually mixed and composed more tracks that he’d been neglecting. If he was lucky, he’d be able to sell a track or two to some entertainment company and he’d be able to pay Hoseok back for his kindness.

Jungkook hadn’t returned for his promised visit, and Hoseok hadn’t brought him up. He had met Jin though, about four days after Yoongi had started to live in Hoseok’s penthouse. 

It was around noon on a Sunday that Jin came into Hoseok’s apartment and Yoongi wondered just how many people knew the code to get in and whether that was a security problem. Nevertheless, Jin treated Yoongi with nothing but kindness from the moment they met which made Yoongi warm up to him remarkably quickly. He swore it had nothing to do with Jin’s surprising culinary prowess, as much as Hoseok joked that it was. 

Yoongi was growing bored, however. He didn’t really do anything outside the apartment and he was sure that it was beginning to send him stir crazy. He knew it wasn’t good for him, but he couldn’t build enough motivation to do anything.

It was more than he thought he’d be able to manage just by waking up on the right side of twelve in the afternoon, and he even managed to shower every day. Before his latest hospital stay, Yoongi hadn’t been able to manage that.

Perhaps he would try and get a job. That would force him up and out of bed earlier, the incentive of money being too good to really miss out on. 

It was a Monday when the solution hit him in the face. Literally.

Regrettably, it was the chin of a man he hadn’t had the fortune of meeting before then, as much as Hoseok had insisted he had before. 

With golden skin and a boxy smile, the man barrelled into Yoongi as he was coming out of his room, eyes bleary and hair sticking up everywhere. 

“Oh, I’m so sorry!” he cried, his baritone voice going up three pitches. Yoongi was clutching into his nose that had gone sailing into the man’s chin. “It’s fine.” Yoongi grumbled, the familiar flush erupting over his cheeks. How embarrassing. It was only then that he caught a glimpse of what he was wearing, and all semblance of politeness went flying out the window. “Is that- Are you wearing a silk robe?”

The stranger looked down at his outfit as if he didn’t know what he was wearing, but it was all Yoongi could focus on suddenly.  Wrapped around Taehyung’s body, with the top hanging open and revealing the smooth golden skin of his chest, was a red silk robe with intricate patterns and, not for the first time, Yoongi wondered what kind of company Hoseok kept when he was busy being stuck in his head.

“I am! I got it from Shanghai, I’ve just come home from my trip!” He smiled brightly at Yoongi. “Your trip?” “Yep! I travelled the world with my boyfriend,” he said, smoothing a hand down his robe. “I just came upstairs to give Hoseok his gift, but I don’t think he’s home.” “No, he’s at work,” Yoongi said, not feeling as tightly wound as he usually did when he met one of Hoseok’s seemingly endless amount of friends. “’Upstairs’? Do you live in this building too?” “I do, I live four floors down. I’m really sorry, I didn’t know Hoseok had a roommate or I would have gotten you a gift, too... Wait, what did you say your name was?”

Yoongi quite liked this man, despite not knowing who he was. He was extremely affable, and he knew why he was friends with Hoseok. People like that would bounce off each other wonderfully. Not like that Jeon kid.

“I didn’t.” Yoongi gave him a little smile, which was returned with the brightness of a thousand suns. “I’m Min Yoongi, Hoseok’s best friend and roommate.” “Oh, I’ve heard of you! Hoseok talks about you a lot. My name is Kim Taehyung!” They shook hands quickly, Taehyung’s huge hand engulfing Yoongi’s entirely. A bell of recognition tolled in the distance and Yoongi squinted slightly. “Oh, I’ve heard of you, too. Hoseok mentioned you the other week, and that you’d gone gallivanting across the globe.” “That’s me! I got home about three hours, and all I’ve done is have a bath before I came up here.”

Yoongi smiled vaguely as Taehyung turned and led the way into the living area. He was tall, Yoongi noticed. Perhaps he was a model, or something of the sort. He was too beautiful to be anything else.

“When Hoseok comes home, can you tell him I came by? I don’t want to leave it, I want to be there when he opens it so I can see his face,” Taehyung said. “I should go home now, or Jimin will be wondering where I’ve gone.” Yoongi nodded wordlessly and Taehyung headed towards the elevator. “It was really good to meet you, Min Yoongi! I’ll tell you all about my travels when we meet again!”

With that, the doors slid shut and Taehyung was hidden from sight, and it was like Yoongi was being filled with helium. A spark of an idea lit in his brain and he was going to do his best to nurture that flame, coax it until it was a roaring fire.

He leapt over the sofa and burst back into his bedroom, more awake that he had been in months. Furiously slamming his fingers onto the keyboard of his laptop to wake it up, he clicked his tongue impatiently as he waited for the screen to light up. When he did, his fingers skittered across the keys as he typed in what he wanted into the search engine. 

Some typing and courage building later, Yoongi had bought a plane ticket.

Stumbling around his room and experiencing a vague sense of deja vu, he thought to the time he sluggishly walked around his bedroom of his shitty apartment and packed his stuff. Currently he was working himself into a frenzy, bringing his phone to his ear and calling for a taxi as he crammed some clothes into a gym bag he found at the bottom of Hoseok’s wardrobe. Next thing he did was carefully slide his laptop and charger, a notebook, a few pens and his precious camera - in a separate camera bag, of course, he wasn’t a savage - into his trusty backpack.

Not even twenty minutes later he was getting a text saying his taxi had arrived, and Yoongi ventured into the kitchen to scribble a quick note for Hoseok onto a scrap piece of paper he tore out of a notebook from a kitchen drawer. Then he paused at the entrance of the apartment, shoving his feet into some boots that he’d only recently bought for himself, then turned around to face the empty apartment.

He hoped that Hoseok wouldn’t be angry with him, but he was always trying to encourage Yoongi to do something spontaneous; to do something that made him feel alive. 

For the first time in what felt like forever, he was. His heart was beating and adrenaline was coursing through his veins.

God, he felt so alive.

The elevator doors slid shut.

Hobi,

Taehyung stopped by. Go and visit him, he has a present for you.

I’m taking a leaf out of his book, and I’ve gone travelling.

Don’t touch my fucking stuff.

Yoongs :)

P.S I’ll come home when I’m ready to. I’ll be alright.

Part 1 / Part 2 / ??

[da-can-draw-stuff]

You seem to have your own version/interpretation of Goro since you write for him a lot. Can you explain what it is?

Wow, I didn’t think I would get this question, but let’s go! I’ve been working on this since the game was released in Japan.

Let me preface this: A lot of the art I’ve drawn shows him

pretty happy and adjusted. That happens through the years (but I can’t pinpoint an exact moment) since it’s gradual , but it’s also fun to draw. It’s a lot less difficult to draw than him by himself angsting and clutching his head the whole time tbh (how often can I draw him wallowing?).

A lot of my interpretation isn’t that far from material that has been released since, I believe.

I’ve heard my interpretation called human, romantic and possible.

And my writing was visceral and raw emotion. And that’s really what I think it is: human--folly and all.

...Also, sorry about the long reading but I can’t think of a way to sum it up without cutting things out. Sorry, mobile users!

Overall, he feels like a work in progress in that he’s trying to figure out things for himself as he goes. His cunning doesn’t mean that he's completely sure of himself, after all, he isn’t deemed an adult yet by Shido, among others.

He’s never really had choices for himself in his childhood, so when he comes to live on his own, it’s so many choices. Yabadabadoo (I don’t like to call his real name unless I gotta) monopolizes on that, seemingly lining up his goal of having a player with Goro’s goal of pursuing his own revenge. It’s callous since he has at least some inkling of an idea that this is a dangerous path and that his goal will ultimately end up in toppling the government.

This is where Ayana comes in—a stubborn question to that previous statement.

Well that’s fine. The system failed him. He’s about 14ish at this point. This is what he thinks he wants. This is something he can foresee in his (currently) blank slate of a future.

He’s actually a bit awkward outside of his celebrity personality. This kind of lines up with the OA app S.Link.  He prefers to have a few close friends, and keep mostly to himself without having been pried into—which lines up with the translation of his taste in romantic partners (I can’t remember what the magazine or blog was, but he wanted someone who knows how to keep their distance). And he has a love-hate relationship with stardom: he loves it at first, getting ‘affection’ from it, but eventually he starts to detest it for the intrusiveness on his life. Not to mention: obsession, hypocrisy, artificiality and superficiality.

As a result, he doesn’t trust most of the stardom personnel he meets. He’s always aware, but always pleasant.

Sometimes scathing with a smile. He only deals with them as he must, but he’s always known this dirty side of business. This is how he views most of his jobs’ interactions: necessity. And he knows that his good looks, charm and mannerisms will get him far.

Surprisingly–he’s also impulsive sometimes, and searching for his own answers. He thinks he could have it all–the life he envied of others, being seen by the public, vengeance on a man who gave no shits about his consequences. And so, he’s meticulous; he keeps an eye on the lines and tries to ensure they don’t intersect. So because of that, it takes a huge mental toll on him the more and more pressure that puts on him. I write that lightly, but he definitely suffers trying to keep it all together. And by P5, he realizes he can’t have it all together and not have them be intersecting. He’s used to being what others ask of him and then abandoned.

He’s not adverse, but he isn’t so open to the change she elicits in him. And it’s slow, but sure. They ask themselves what they want from this, how they see themselves, how they see each other. He comes to truly love her. He tries to learn from the positive influences he does have, whether or not he realizes it. (Hell, he appreciates that her older family friends treat him well and offer him advice on normal topics sometimes.)

As a result of time and perseverance, he feels very comfortable around her and gets to explore a self he didn’t have the freedom to before. Playful, sometimes a bit childish, but welcome to share his thoughts without betrayal. So Ayana knows some of his more cynical thoughts and encouraged him to get professional help at some point. He trusts her a lot by the P5 year, considering she still remains by his side and the one time he accidentally unleashed all his insecurities about being used/abandoned at her.

And he is very soft where she’s involved.Talking about her shows an obvious soft spot and more sincerity, but he definitely hates when people try to be nosy/manipulate/kiss up to him. He treasures their everything together, he is protective of that normalcy and he will not be kind if you try to encroach on that for your own use. He recognizes that she has her own choices that he cannot machinate or save her from, i.e. she’s actually a Phantom Thief. Goro also realizes that she needs her own closure, without his help. Doesn’t stop him from keeping an eye out for her safety, naturally.

He really does love her with all his heart, and he never imagined that it would come this far, so he’s eager to keep it safe. He’s come to taste the simpler pleasures of life that we might take for granted. And that’s why his trying to get her uninvolved with the plans is so urgent to him, selfish and yet unselfish.

But that doesn’t change the fact that he still has his own goals he wants to accomplish. Ultimately, his desire for vengeance is still one of the things he clings to. He really wanted to be good for her, but as Shido’s plans and the Thieves change, he finds he can’t have it all, after all. His lives are all connected and he’s struggling to keep them separated. But now…he can’t even pull them apart! It’s agonizing for him when he realizes how badly he screwed up and panicky when he tries to rig it. A diffuse-one-of-the-bombs situation.

So he does own up to the fact he fucked up his own life. Heck, if he’s already locked into being a pawn, what can he do now that there’s no exit button without severe consequence? Yaba has convinced him that his path will always end with Shido.

In the future, he’s definitely more well-adjusted.

It’s a balance between Robin Hood and Loki. He’s not acting for anyone’s sake anymore, and he’s not going to go out of his way to be more or less cynical or showy either. So it’s definitely more genuine. You’ll definitely get a mix of his Palace battle facial expressions in there. He’s not happy with his past, but he’s grateful for the chance to start anew in a simpler life and to be able to earn that second chance. He is honestly happy no longer having to always wear a customer service smile. That said, there’s definitely bouts of depression, anxiety and guilt that keeps him up at night, but hey, he did finally get professional help.

[hygienekim]

I’ve been thinking of this for a while and I need to let it out.

One guy on facebook claimed guns are not the issue, but mental illness is. That guns don’t kill, it’s the user’s fault, and society’s stigmatization of mental illness and difficulty in access to resources to help these mental illnesses were the issue. He suggests that mental evaluation by the government be mandatory. 

Hold up. What the fuck?

First of all, let me tackle the claim about mental illness and violent tendencies. There are some mental disorders that may invoke intrusive thoughts or violent tendencies. However this is not always the case, and the great portion of people with mental disorders do not exhibit that. I have seen non-diagnosed people commit more violence than people who have been diagnosed. Somehow it always seems like people use the “oh they committed mass murder because of mental illnesses” line to only white males. When was the last time anyone talked about the mental disorder of a non-white male terrorist? I thought so. 

Also which mental disorders in particular are you referring to? Because by generalizing mental disorders and connecting them all to violent tendencies, YOU ARE ALSO STIGMATIZING PEOPLE WITH MENTAL DISORDERS. 

It is true that currently many societies often look down upon people who have mental disorders and do not provide easy access to mental health care. And that would be unhealthy for those who do exhibit violent tendencies with their mental disorder since with inappropriate coping they may end up injuring themselves or others. 

However, regardless to mental health access and stigmatization, you DO NOT give access of life threatening equipment to ANYONE who is a liability. You don’t give a child who is inexperienced with cooking a large butcher knife, and you don’t let an unskilled office worker to operate a chainsaw or CNC machine. 

If we want to talk about violent tendencies, we can refer to both people who are diagnosed AND UN-DIAGNOSED to mental disorder. And if we really want to talk about whether or not someone has a mental disorder, everyone has something to some extent. It’s a matter of how we categorize it, and to what severity. 

Also one more thing about the mental disorder topic, if people are mandated to mental evaluations at a government level, there will be so much discrimination. How do you even categorize people? Just based on some numerical quantitative system? As if that’s the most accurate way to identify and deal with mental disorders? What the hell? So what, if someone has a high rating of a certain disorder, they’ll be subjected to certain treatment? Mental health is just like physical health, and just like whether a person decides to go through treatment or not, as long as it doesn’t affect the health of others they have the freedom to choose to do whatever they want to do with their body.  

Alright. Enough of mental disorders. I’m still fucking bitter that this person who clearly has no clue about mental disorder decided to blame it on that. Check your fucking privilege. 

Going back to an example above, a knife’s purpose is to cut and cook. A CNC machine’s purpose is to carve. Both can cause injury if used with the non-intended purpose; you can stab someone with a knife, and you can push someone under a running CNC machine and....yeesh I won’t go there. 

A gun’s purpose is to seriously injure or kill. Like. Literally. It wasn’t created for any other purpose. 

Guns kill. Gun supporters will say “it’s the user’s fault, everything with a user can be used for ill intent”. But how do we define “ill” intent? Some group can murder another, saying it was for their own safety. And they’ll be justified. 

I think this boils down to a matter of morality. 

Let me talk strictly from my beliefs, because I really can’t shove opinions into someone’s face. 

Life is the utmost right of human beings. With no life, you don’t exist. Without it, you’re the same piece of meat packaged and sold at the butchers. Liberty and pursuit of happiness are also necessary to LIVE life, not just survive. 

Everything else that isn’t necessary to guarantee life is secondary. 

Guns, to me, are extremely unnecessary in the list of rights. They’re more of a freedom to me. There are so many other tools you can use for protection. You can get creative. 

Sure, the USA is a Land of Freedom [insert bald eagle screeching], and people think it’s a god given right to do anything as they please, as long as laws don’t restrict them. 

HOWEVER the moment you take away someone’s most basic right of life, you should not be able to wield that that secondary freedom anymore. 

I find it incredibly funny that the US gets all angry about other countries possessing weapons of mass destruction when the citizens themselves are wielding weapons of mass destruction. If you can kill 58 people and injure 400 within 30 minutes, how is that not a weapon of mass destruction? What do you even qualify as “mass destruction”? A life is a life, not a number.  

(Ok also the politician who says the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun, HOLY SHIT do you see how idiotic it is? So someone shoots a gun in some densely populated area, and every gun-owner pulls out their gun and in terror, tries to locate and shoot the original “bad guy”, but in chaos everyone shoots and so many more die. Do you think this is some Hollywood shit where the shooter is located immediately?) 

I have heard there is a great majority of the US territory, mostly the areas that are not densely populated, where law enforcement isn’t able to arrive quickly enough There are some areas in America that don’t feel safe without guns. Law enforcement doesn’t arrive fast enough, and they do feel it is necessary to arm themselves in case of a chainsaw murderer or bear or whatever is out there in the American wild. To that, either increase police dispatchers, or offer different non-lethal defense weapons. If the inhabitants of those areas are to keep guns, they should be downgraded to ensure non-fatal injuries, and there should be strict regulations to ensure the safety of others, and no one can just willy-nilly shoot easily. 

I’ve come from countries where guns are absolutely not a necessity to someone’s protection. (I strongly believe if Koreans were permitted to have guns, more than half of the population would be dead due to short, hot tempered people and the toxic hierarchical society). The scales of physical crime and violence is much less than that caused by guns in US, and all-in-all I think the reasonable solution to deaths caused by guns is to either abolish guns totally, or create high restrictions to gun ownership. 

Even one life is enough. How many more people need to die until action is taken? 

[hellosaltysaladcollectionstuff]

LARB presents an excerpt from Geert Lovink’s latest book, Sad by Design: On Platform Nihilism, which was released this month by Pluto Press.

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“Solitary tears are not wasted.” — René Char

“I dreamt about autocorrect last night.” — Darcie Wilder

“The personal is impersonal.”  — Mark Fisher

Try and dream, if you can, of a mourning app. The mobile has come dangerously close to our psychic bone, to the point where the two can no longer be separated. If only my phone could gently weep. McLuhan’s “extensions of man” has imploded right into the exhausted self. Social media and the psyche have fused, turning daily life into a “social reality” that — much like artificial and virtual reality — is overtaking our perception of the world and its inhabitants. Social reality is a corporate hybrid between handheld media and the psychic structure of the user. It’s a distributed form of social ranking that can no longer be reduced to the interests of state and corporate platforms. As online subjects, we too are implicit, far too deeply involved. Likes and followers define your social status. But what happens when nothing can motivate you anymore, when all the self-optimization techniques fail and you begin to carefully avoid these forms of emotional analytics? Compared to others your ranking is low — and this makes you sad.

Omnipresent social media places a claim on our elapsed time, our fractured lives. We’re all sad in our very own way. As there are no lulls or quiet moments anymore, the result is fatigue, depletion, and loss of energy. We’re becoming obsessed with waiting. How long have you been forgotten by your love ones? Time, meticulously measured on every app, tells us right to our face. Chronos hurts. Should I post something to attract attention and show I’m still here? Nobody likes me anymore. As the random messages keep relentlessly piling in, there’s no way to halt them, to take a moment and think it all through.

Delacroix once declared that every day which is not noted is like a day that does not exist. Diary writing used to fulfil that task. Elements of early blog culture tried to update the diary form for the online realm, but that moment has now passed. Unlike the blog entries of the Web 2.0 era, social media have surpassed the summary stage of the diary in a desperate attempt to keep up with real-time regime. Instagram Stories, for example, bring back the nostalgia of an unfolding chain of events — and then disappear at the end of the day, like a revenge act, a satire of ancient sentiments gone by. Storage will make the pain permanent. Better forget about it and move on.

In the online context, sadness appears as a short moment of indecisiveness, a flash that opens up the possibility of a reflection. The frequently used “sad” label is a vehicle, a strange attractor to enter the liquid mess called social media. Sadness is a container. Each and every situation can potentially be qualified as sad. Through this mild form of suffering we enter the blues of being in the world. When something’s sad, things around it become gray. You trust the machine because you feel you’re in control of it. You want to go from zero to hero. But then your propped-up ego implodes and the failure of self-esteem becomes apparent again.

The price of self-control in an age of instant gratification is high. We long to revolt against the restless zombie inside us, but we don’t know how. Our psychic armor is thin and eroded from within, open to behavioral modifications. Sadness arises at the point when we’re exhausted by the online world. After yet another app session in which we failed to make a date, purchased a ticket, and did a quick round of videos, the post-dopamine mood hits us hard. The sheer busyness and self-importance of the world makes you feel joyless. After a dive into the network, we’re drained and feel socially awkward. The swiping finger is tired, and we have to stop.

Sadness has neighboring feelings we can check out. There is the sense of worthlessness, blankness, joylessness, the fear of accelerating boredom, the feeling of nothingness, plain self-hatred while trying to get off drug dependency, those lapses of self-esteem, the laying low in the mornings, those moments of being overtaken by a sense of dread and alienation, up to your neck in crippling anxiety, there is the self-violence, panic attacks, and deep despondency before we cycle all the way back to reoccurring despair. We can go into the deep emotional territory of the Russian toska. Or we can think of online sadness as part of that moment of cosmic loneliness Camus imagined after God created the earth. I wish that every chat were never ending. But what do you do when your inability to respond takes over? You’re heartbroken and delete the session. After yet another stretch of compulsory engagement with those cruel Likes, silly comments, empty text messages, detached emails, and vacuous selfies, you feel empty and indifferent. You hover for a moment, vaguely unsatisfied. You want to stay calm, yet start to lose your edge, disgusted by your own Facebook Memories. But what’s this message that just came in? Strange. Did he respond?

Evidence that sadness today is designed is overwhelming. Take the social reality of WhatsApp. The gray and blue tick marks alongside each message in the app may seem a trivial detail, but let’s not ignore the mass anxiety it’s causing. Forget being ignored. Forget pretending you didn’t read a friend’s text. Some thought that this feature already existed, but in fact two gray tick marks signify only that a message was sent and received — not read. Even if you know what the double tick syndrome is about, it still incites jealousy, anxiety, and suspicion. It may be possible that ignorance is bliss, that by intentionally not knowing whether the person has seen or received the message, your relationship will improve. The bare-all nature of social media causes rifts between lovers who would rather not have this information. But in the information age, this does not bode well with the social pressure to be “on social,” as the Italians call it.

We should be careful to distinguish sadness from anomalies such as suicide, depression, and burnout. Everything and everyone can be called sad, but not everyone is depressed. Much like boredom, sadness is not a medical condition (though never say never because everything can be turned into one). No matter how brief and mild, sadness is the default mental state of the online billions. Its original intensity gets dissipated. It seeps out, becoming a general atmosphere, a chronic background condition. Occasionally — for a brief moment — we feel the loss. A seething rage emerges. After checking for the 10th time what someone said on Instagram, the pain of the social makes us feel miserable, and we put the phone away. Am I suffering from the phantom vibration syndrome? Wouldn’t it be nice if we were offline? Why’s life so tragic? He blocked me. At night, you read through the thread again. Do we need to quit again, to go cold turkey again? Others are supposed to move us, to arouse us, and yet we don’t feel anything anymore. The heart is frozen.

Social media anxiety has found its literary expressions, even if these take decidedly different forms than the despair on display in Franz Kafka’s letters to Felice Bauer. The willingness to publicly perform your own mental health is now a viable strategy in our attention economy. Take L.A. writer Melissa Broder, whose So Sad Today “twitterature” benefited from her previous literary activities as a poet. Broder is the contemporary expert in matters of apathy, sorrow, and uselessness. During one afternoon she can feel compulsive about cheesecakes, show her true self as an online exhibitionist, be lonely out in public, babble and then cry, go on about her short attention span, hate everything, and desire “to fuck up life.” In between taking care of her sick husband and the obligatory meeting with Santa Monica socialites, there are always more “insatiable spiritual holes” to be filled. The more we intensify events, the sadder we are once they’re over. The moment we leave, the urge for the next experiential high arises. As phone and life can no longer be separated, neither can we distinguish between real and virtual, fact or fiction, data or poetry. Broder’s polyamorous lifestyle is an integral part of the precarious condition. Instead of empathy, the cold despair invites us to see the larger picture of a society in permanent anxiety. If anything, Broder embodies Slavoj Žižek’s courage of hopelessness: “Forget the light at the end of the tunnel — it’s actually the headlight of a train about to hit us.”

Once the excitement has worn off, we seek distance, searching for mental detachment. The wish for “anti-experience” arises, as Mark Greif has described it. The reduction of feeling is an essential part of what he calls “the anaesthetic ideology.” If experience is the “habit of creating isolated moments within raw occurrence in order to save and recount them,” the desire to anaesthetize experience is a kind of immune response against “the stimulations of another modern novelty, the total aesthetic environment.”

Most of the time your eyes are glued to a screen, as if it’s now or never. As Gloria Estefan summarized the FOMO condition: “The sad truth is that opportunity doesn’t knock twice.” Then, you stand up and walk away from the intrusions. The fear of missing out backfires, the social battery is empty and you put the phone aside. This is the moment sadness arises. It’s all been too much, the intake has been pulverized and you shut down for a moment, poisoning him with your unanswered messages. According to Greif, “the hallmark of the conversion to anti-experience is a lowered threshold for eventfulness.” A Facebook event is the one you’re interested in, but do not attend. We observe others around us, yet are no longer part of the conversation: “They are nature’s creatures, in the full grace of modernity. The sad truth is that you still want to live in their world. It just somehow seems this world has changed to exile you.” You leave the online arena; you need to rest. This is an inverse movement from the constant quest for experience. That is, until we turn our heads away, grab the phone, swipe, and text back. God only knows what I’d be without the app.

Anxieties that go untreated build up to a breaking point. Yet unlike burnout, sadness is a continuous state of mind. Sadness pops up the second events start to fade away — and now you’re down in the rabbit hole once more. The perpetual now can no longer be captured and leaves us isolated, a scattered set of online subjects. What happens when the soul is caught in the permanent present? Is this what Franco Berardi calls the “slow cancellation of the future”? By scrolling, swiping, and flipping, we hungry ghosts try to fill the existential emptiness, frantically searching for a determining sign — and failing. When the phone hurts and you cry together, that’s technological sadness. “I miss your voice. Call, don’t text.”

We overcome sadness not through happiness, but rather, as Andrew Culp insisted, through a hatred of this world. Sadness occurs in situations where the stagnant “becoming” has turned into a blatant lie. We suffer, and there’s no form of absurdism that can offer an escape. Public access to a 21st-century version of Dadaism has been blocked. The absence of surrealism hurts. What could our social fantasies look like? Are legal constructs such as creative commons and cooperatives all we can come up with? It seems we’re trapped in smoothness, skimming a surface littered with impressions and notifications. The collective imaginary is on hold. What’s worse, this banality itself is seamless, offering no indicators of its dangers and distortions. As a result, we’ve become subdued. Has the possibility of myth become technologically impossible? Instead of creatively externalizing our inner shipwrecks, we project our need for strangeness on humanized robots. The digital is neither new nor old, but — to use Culp’s phrase — it will become cataclysmic when smooth services fall apart into tragic ruins. Faced with the limited possibilities of the individual domain, we cannot positively identify with the tragic manifestation of the collective being called social media. We can neither return to mysticism nor to positivism. The naïve act of communication is lost — and this is why we cry.

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Geert Lovink is a media theorist and internet critic and the author of Zero Comments, Networks Without a Cause, Social Media Abyss, and Sad by Design: On Platform Nihilism. He founded the Institute of Network Cultures at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences and teaches at the European Graduate School. He stopped using Facebook in 2010.

The post This Is Why We Cry: From “Sad by Design: On Platform Nihilism” appeared first on Los Angeles Review of Books.

from Los Angeles Review of Books http://bit.ly/2YAr2Re