#Asia's best bars

[rrxnjun]

potential • z. chenle

pairing. zhong chenle x fem! reader genre. rich kids au, childhood friends au, friends with benefits au. angst, fluff, suggestive. word count. 20k (20.079) warnings. alcohol consumption, swearing, mentions of sexual activity, sexual innuendos, a heavy make out session or two, use of lyrics from ariana grande and sarah close and masking them as my own words a/n. why do we call it a rich kid chenle au when he's a rich kid irl. anyways for the fact that this was one of the most spontaneous fics ive ever written it sure did take a lot of time to execute. took a lot of inspo for the lifestyle from the sky castle kdrama so if its not accurate dont @ me bc ive never been rich LMAO

playlist. in my head – ariana grande ; successful – ariana grande ; nonsense – sabrina carpenter ; supermodel – måneskin ; that's what i like – bruno mars

You saw his potential without seeing credentials. And maybe that's the issue.

August 28, 2020 – somewhere in the Bali sea, 1:27 AM

The music is loud. The weather is humid.

Wrapping up the summer before your senior year, dancing around in the bar of the cruise ship in the middle of the ocean, one last stop before your 28-day cruise around Southeast Asia is over, the loud music from the bar rings in your ears as you dance around, a glass of expensive Mendis coconut Brandy swirling in your hold. The taste of the alcohol on your tongue burns, not quite used to the burning sensation in your mouth– this is one of the first times you’re drinking, since your parents were always big on prestige and acting classy. Your parents went to sleep, though– excited to explore Benoa tomorrow, to immerse themselves in nature and explore Bali’s temples and heritage. You, on the other hand, took this as an opportunity to party– accompanied by none other than your parents’ friend’s son, who grew into the position of your childhood best friend solely because his and your family have always been close, choosing to spend vacations together; a relationship that was mostly fueled by the immediate closeness of you two during the summer breaks and ski trips to Swiss Alps every January.

And while you’re no stranger to pearls, charity events in your parents’ mansion in Hong Kong, golf courses in Miami and fashion shows in Milan, growing up in the world of designer bags and prestigious titles, you feel quite stranded in the middle of the sweaty teenagers, all of them with the same social status as you, drinking expensive alcohol and swinging your hips to the EDM music playing through the speakers. It almost feels like this is the first time you’re able to enjoy yourself without anyone’s supervision, screaming at the top of your lungs into Zhong Chenle’s face as he laughs at you on the dance floor, and truth be told, you could care less about the pictures you’re going to take for your Instagram tomorrow, showing everyone just how good you’re doing and how much fun you’re having on your lengthy cruises around the continent, because somehow, even though the bar is clothed in gold and you feel a bit like in The great Gatsby, this feels like the least pressuring part of the whole trip.

“We should go to parties more often!” you scream into Chenle’s ear, taking a sip of your Brandy as you twirl yourself around him, the straps of your sparkly spaghetti-strap tiny top falling off your shoulders in a moment of carelessness, your thoughts somewhere completely else. You may be 19 years old and insanely wealthy, but that still doesn’t mean you are experienced in the art of partying– quite the opposite, actually, having to always seem cultivated and presenting yourself in a way that would suggest that your family is high on prestige and recognition– so to finally be surrounded by people your age, dancing along to the music and jumping up as you all chant the lyrics to Barbie girl by Aqua (how ironic) feels quite ecstatic.

“Like our parents would let us,” Chenle rolls his eyes, lips almost pressed against the shell of your ear as he makes sure to get close enough for you to hear him.

Sighing at his argument– knowing he’s absolutely right, but also hating the fact that he had to ruin your mood by stating it out loud– you shake your head as you down the last bits of your drink, putting the heavy glass onto the tray of a waiter that’s passing by to gather the rest of the empty ones scattered across the shiny tables in the corner of the room. Your brain is starting to get a little fuzzy and you can’t help the giggling escaping out of your throat whenever your eyes meet Chenle’s, the flush on the boy’s cheeks hinting at the fact that he’s not any better at handling his alcohol than you, having just as much experience in heavy drinking and partying as you do. 

You’re only 19 years old and you don’t know a lot about the world. After all, you were brought up in a family that always did everything for you– you never had to move a single finger. You never even had to clean your room, because your parents had people that would come by every morning while you were in school, just so you could arrive home to a tidy place when you were done with your lectures. You went to a private school, so you were always surrounded by people with a status similar to yours. You spoke about your tutoring classes that cost more than groceries for a middle-class family a week, you talked about your trips abroad, and if you had time, you even went shopping with your classmates after school before your driver picked you up and drove you back into the suburbs; your neighborhood guarded by a gate, the asphalt behind it so much smoother than it is in the rest of the town.

You never got to experience partying like this– only gaping with an open mouth when you saw those scenes in the movies you watched on Netflix in your own private movie room. And if you’re being totally honest, you never imagined enjoying such a thing. You never had the experience, so you didn’t really yearn for it, but now that you’re here, surrounded by loud music, experiencing the weird emotional feeling that comes with being in a crowd screaming in joy at the same time first-hand on your own skin, you don’t think you’ll be able to go back to how you were before.

This is not how rich kids party. At least not when their parents are around.

“You’re gonna be hungover tomorrow morning,” Chenle mutters into your ear when your eyes light up at the sight of more alcohol, contemplating on getting another drink, just because. 

“And you’re not?” you tease him, pointing to his glossy eyes and lazy walk, his legs tangling with each other every few seconds from the haze he’s been put in just by having a few drinks. The sight is quite funny– the ever-so composed millionaire son is now a troubled mess in your eyes; one wrong step and he could ruin the image his family has spent years to build up, but it doesn’t seem like either of you care, tripping over your feet and lounging at each other in the middle of the dance floor. 

Feeling like you’re playing a dangerous game, hanging off his neck and swaying your hips to the rhythmic beat, you gape into his blown-out eyes and desperately try to get your brain straight. The more you drank and the more you spent time in Chenle’s close proximity, the less you were able to control your emotions and the weird thoughts in your brain that have been slowly eating up all your notions for quite some time now. Gaping at his plump lips and feeling his palms burning at your hips, his fingers ever-so-slightly hovering above the curve of your ass, you’re finding it hard to concentrate on the music or on the words spilling off his tongue, his voice never shutting up even in the loud bar. You always told him he talks too much, but he doesn’t seem to mind– he seems to actually take much pride in his annoying tendencies, talking your ear off on multiple occasions even when you tell him he should probably stay quiet for at least a minute, so your brain could recharge.

Truth be told, you listen to him most of the time anyway. He always talks and you always listen, rolling your eyes at the snarky parts and giggling at the jokes; so the fact that you suddenly can’t focus and just desperately want him to shut the fuck up must be the effect of all the alcohol you’ve been drinking tonight. 

And your next step might as well be the main consequence of the coconut Brandy as well– because even though you’ve been dreaming of his plump lips on yours for quite some time now, you’ve never actually dared to act up on the desire. But your intention to make him go quiet seems to be working when the train of words stammering out of his mouth is cut off, a surprised noise trailing out of his throat when you kiss him on the dance floor; and to your surprise, he doesn’t seem to mind your weird sign of protest to his endless talking– quite the opposite, really, as he lets you take the lead and taste the mix of alcohol in the Long Island cocktails he’s been drinking the whole night off his tongue, your hands mindlessly trailing up to thread themselves into his hair. 

This is not your first time kissing a boy– you once pecked Song Eunseok on the lips when the two of you sneaked out of class one day in 9th grade– but you never once kissed anyone with such passion and desire before. You’re not sure where you got all the courage from and you’re also not sure where you learned all of this– but it must be working, with how heavily Chenle’s breathing when you finally let go of his lips and he rests his forehead against yours. In no time, he’s chasing you down again, drunk not only on the alcohol now as he tilts his head to get closer, one hand resting on the side of your neck, just a few inches below your jaw, keeping you in place. 

“You should learn how to shut up,” you mumble against his lips, breathing heavy as you break away from him again and open your eyes to meet your gaze with his. The music is still loud in your ears, but you swear you hear a static noise somewhere in your brain, a tingle in your fingertips making you feel like you’re about to have an out-of-body experience. Your drunken brain is not allowing you to ponder about your actions that much, not letting you think and contemplate the fact that you just made out with your childhood best friend on one of the most expensive cruise ships, drinking alcohol you weren’t supposed to spend so much money on, and maybe that’s a good thing– because there’s nothing stopping you in having the time of your life, no overthinking making you doubt your next steps and no feeling of shame or regret making the whole experience bitter as you dance pressed against your companion, letting him press short, yet daring kisses to your lips as time passes.

“I think I’m good,” he snickers, when the music suddenly cuts out, an announcer telling you that the bar closes at 2 AM and that this song is the last for the night.

Sighing in disappointment– because who even knows when the next time you’ll have this opportunity will come– you let Chenle lead you out of the bar, his hand glued around your exposed waist. Your walk is a little loop-sided and you two almost smash into the glass door (doesn’t matter that it’s automatic and it quite literally opened in front of your figures). Soon enough, you’re met with the golden interior of the cruise walls again, the design a little vintage, yet still luxurious, reminding you of the movie Titanic. Tripping over the doorsteps, hands getting caught on the red, velvety curtains hung around, you giggle at every word that comes out of Chenle’s mouth, bodies slowly, but surely getting closer and closer to your suite bedrooms. You’re quite sure your parents could hear you talking outside in the hall, but you choose to not ponder on what they would think of you if they saw you in this state too much, instead making yourself believe that they’re long asleep and won’t be woken up by your voices resonating through the quiet space. 

“So I guess this is where we say goodnight?” you mumble, hanging off Chenle’s neck. His breath smells of the vodka-tequila mix when he hovers over you, bodies off-balance pressed against the cold wall just outside of your bedroom. Flashing you a grin, face looking close to a cheshire cat, he nudges your nose with his, a quiet hum landing to your ear, not heard by anyone.

“Or we could stay up a little longer.”

Squirming under his touch, his lips softly, yet still a little uncoordinatedly landing on yours, you waste no time in unlocking the door to your room– even though you have a bit of trouble with finding the key in your small purse, even surprised you haven’t lost the bag somewhere in the middle of the night– letting your childhood friend in to your space at the suggestion, your clothed bodies falling to the soft cushions of the water bed. 

You’re only 19 and don’t know much about the world when you messily undress yourself under your friend’s eyes, blinded by the glints in his deep chocolate orbs when he looks at you from above and attacks your neck with kisses. And you usually don’t regret much, considering yourself a responsible individual, always rethinking everything and making sure it’s the right choice, but when you look back at this day now, you don’t really know if sleeping with Zhong Chenle on a cruise around Southeast Asia was the brightest idea of yours, considering the mental turmoil it’s gonna cause you on the way.

Well, at least you can say you lost your virginity somewhere in the middle of the Bali sea, and at least that’s something to boost your ego with, am I right…? 

July 12, 2007 – Tokyo DisneySea, 2:21 PM

If anyone asked you for your favorite childhood memory, you wouldn’t have a hard time picking one. Sure, one would think you have too many pleasant memories to choose from, so realistically, you should take more time to pick and weigh the value of each one, contemplating if the trip to Rome was a happier memory than the summer you spent in Los Angeles when you were 10, but you are 100%, completely in tune with the fact that if anyone ever asked you this very question, the words falling off their tongue with interest and enthusiasm, no judgment and no hidden intentions behind their question, you’d have an answer ready with a smile on your face.

You don’t hold much emotion to your past memories. You’ve been on more vacations than you can both count and remember growing up, and so even though you do think the pictures you took in Italy came out good and your skin glistens prettily in the warm sun, even though you do think you experienced a lot of fun while going to the Target for the first time with your nanny– the woman your mum hired just because your parents were too busy with their business meetings the whole time you walked the streets of Los Angeles with the new woman you were supposed to trust with your life at the ripe age of 10– you wouldn’t say any of those memories are as close to your heart as the trip you took to Japan with the Zhong family when you were 6, the summer before attending first grade.

This was the year you and Chenle watched the Pirates of the Caribbean together for the first time, and even though it wasn’t in the initial plan, you two spent hours and hours and hours  of the flight persuading your parents to take you to Tokyo Disneyland, because you heard from his cousin Yizhuo that you could meet Jack Sparrow if you went. While your plan didn’t exactly work and the two of you didn’t get to go to the large theme park– because your parents were busy, mostly traveling because of business and so they didn’t have the time to arrange it, the amount of sulking you two did when you arrived to the rented house in the expensive part of Tokyo to the teenager that was supposed to watch you two for the time being was enough for him to take you two on a short train ride to the twin of the famous theme park– the Tokyo DisneySea. 

The 15-minute train ride you three took to the theme park was your first, and also last time you ever rode such a mean of transport. All you were used to were expensive sports cars and limousines– you never imagined that people took such transport even every single day, at times. You and Chenle were so immersed in the journey that it was hard for your babysitter to get you out of the train, your small, excited bodies almost tripping over your own little feet as the raven-haired boy dragged you through the streets of Maihama station. 

You could see the towers of the park and you could smell the salt from the sea even from a distance. The whole atmosphere felt magical, giggles often erupting out of your throat as Yuta– the boy your parents hired to watch over you for the day– bought a bubble blower from one of the stands and blew out bubbles you two chased around and tried to pop before they got to the ground. There were no expensive cars in sight, no people dressed in suits and designer shoes– well, except from the two of you, but you couldn’t quite grasp the idea of how much your attire cost at that age yet– and you felt truly, insanely happy. The adults that always watched you when your parents went to business meetings were stern and serious, never letting you have much fun, but today was different, and you find yourself wondering why your parents even let you be babysat by a reckless teenager in the first place. He was 16 at the time– 10 years older than the both of you– and when you look back at the day now, you think it was the time pressure that brought your parents into hiring him. You bet they paid him a lot of money, hell, you bet they even lended him a credit card he could use to entertain you two for the whole afternoon, and even though you found him using it a few times, you didn’t think he spent just as much as all your previous babysitters did. 

Not that you knew the value of money back then, after all. Maybe the fact that you couldn’t tell how much money everything was worth back then is what truly made the whole day so carefree and happy for you.

You were children of wealthy Chinese business owners. You always had everything they saw in your eyes– you didn’t even have to say it out loud and it was held up to you on a silver platter. This day, though, you didn’t even have to use that much money– if you truly compare it to other vacations your families have been to– and you can’t help but think it’s ironic how despite this fact, this day is still your favorite childhood memory. 

The Tokyo DisneySea was catered to a more mature audience– even serving alcohol in the premises, a thing no other Disneyland does– but even though you were just 6 and couldn’t drink and there was no Jack Sparrow waiting for you in the streets of the theme park, you and Chenle had a blast. Maybe it was a good decision on Yuta’s part to take you to the DisneySea instead; it catered to your Pirates of the Caribbean needs perfectly despite it not being the initial theme. The ships and wooden coasts and harbors were enough for your imagination to create stories about pirates in your head, the three of you attending various rides and screaming at the top of your lungs together over the course of the afternoon.

“Wanna go to the Tower of Terror?” Yuta asked you, his toothy grin on full display as he dragged you two to the scary ride when you finally got to the American Waterfront. 

The teenager was wearing a black muscle top with L’arc en ciel written on it– you found out only a few years later that it was a japanese rock band– and with his long, black hair falling to his forehead, he looked just like the person that would enjoy scary rides and horror movies. You, however– you weren’t prepared to get scared by green ghosts and eerie music. Not at 6 years old anyways, although you doubt you’d do better on this day.

If there’s one thing you need to know about Zhong Chenle, it’s the fact that he’s a lover of horror. And Korean dramas. But mostly horror– a few years later, when you were both the age Nakamoto Yuta was when he brought you to the Tokyo DisneySea, your friend came to a Halloween party dressed like the clown from IT and managed to jump-scare you every moment he physically got. There was no surprise in the small boy liking the idea of attending the scary ride, and no matter how hard you tried and protested, there was no use in you saying no. Because the two of them wanted to go, and you, quoting Yuta, ‘couldn’t just stay alone outside’, so you were pretty much forced into the darkness of the Tower of Terror, your small body pressed against Chenle and Yuta’s– you refused to sit anywhere but sandwiched between the two in the middle of the cart– shutting your eyes close when the scary music started playing and you could feel the anxiety forming in the pit of your stomach.

You trembled the whole time, panic resting in your beating heart, and somewhere along the way, you found yourself clinging to Chenle’s small hand, squishing it so hard he screamed at you in the dim lightning of the ride. You didn’t let go, though– that’s what he gets for dragging you along– fracturing his bones wasn’t in your concerns, if it made you feel more secure and safe.

The fond memory of the day ends with the moment the scary ride is over and you finally get out of the darkness– with Yuta having to carry your out of terror half-paralyzed body from the cart. To this day, you still don’t have a clear outlook on why this day is your favorite childhood memory, but you think it might be the mix of Chenle’s excited laughter as he scared you every two seconds after the ride, the apologetic hug he enveloped you in after you almost burst to tears the third time, the taste of the sausage Yuta bought you two for dinner, the taxi ride to the rented house you had to take in a rush before your parents got back from their business meeting, and the melodic voice of your best friend when he sang you the opening theme to the Pirates of the Caribbean before you two fell asleep on the same bed in your hotel room.

Either way, despite the terror, you don’t think you’ve ever had this much fun ever again. 

When you peed the bed that night, your parents decided to never hire a teenager to look after the two of you again. From that moment alone, there was less horror, but also less fun.

May 5, 2019 – tennis courts in Jinqiao, Shanghai, 4:17 PM

One would think that growing up with Zhong Chenle would put him into a position of your almost-brother. And while you did agree with the statement on most days– like when he laughed so hard that snot came out of his nose and almost fell into your lunch plate when you were 15, or when he shot you with his paintball gun so hard you had a bruise on your knee for three weeks when you were 17– you think you’re starting to slowly outgrow this phase. 

Zhong Chenle is no longer a brotherly figure to you when you two pick up tennis at the ripe age of 18. 

It wasn’t either of your ideas, of course. Tennis is not a sport a teenager just suddenly picks up one day because they’re interested– at least not when you’re incredibly wealthy and can pretty much afford any other hobby in the entire world. No, it was the idea of Chenle’s mother– because, quoting, ‘the kids barely go out these days, they might as well pick up a sport!’ – and with the copycat tendencies of your dear mum, you were dragged along into it as well. And so now, during the finals season, on top of that, you two have to go play tennis on one of the private tennis courts your families rent for three hours a day every Friday afternoon instead of studying or focusing on getting your stress out of your body doing other, much more enjoyable things.

“You know, you look a little too excited for someone who hates playing tennis,” Renjun– the neighborhood kid (your parents being business partners for quite some time now made you and the short boy become friends somewhere along the way)– states, snickering as he lays on one of the benches on the side, his own tennis racket thrown carelessly on the ground as he watches the two of you running around the court, playing.

“I only do it because I’m bored,” Chenle mutters under his nose, sending the little yellow ball over the net with much force, making you run to the other side of the court. 

“And I only do it because I need to prove to him that he’s not the best at everything he tries,” you add, sending the ball back to your friend. 

“Just say you want to impress him and go,” Yizhuo– Chenle’s cousin from his mother’s side– teases you from the bench, sitting next to Renjun. Her remark doesn’t go unnoticed by you as you send the yellow ball her way after her cousin passes it towards your side of the court again, aiming precisely for her forehead but missing, earning yourself a terrified yelp out of the girl when she scootches closer to the boy next to her.

“That’s totally not what’s going on, but sure,” you roll your eyes at her when she throws the ball back, but you don’t feel interested in continuing the game anymore. Tiredly walking closer to the two sitting at the little shaded bench, wiping the sweat off your forehead, you try hard to not think of the snarky remark that was sent your way. 

Is it really that obvious? Because sure, you’ve always found Zhong Chenle to be your brother figure over the years of growing up– but there’s something about the humid air of the tennis court and his competitiveness that have you eyeing him when he takes a sip from his water bottle or when he adjusts the hairband sitting on his damp forehead. He wears shorts that reveal his calves very nicely, and when you play 2 on 2, you find yourself focusing less and less on the game– earning yourself a frustrated yell from Ning Yizhuo herself as she plays along your side– and more and more on the Gucci tennis shoes adorning his feet as you scan the boy up and down, his figure growing taller and taller each passing day captivating you in a sense you’ve never quite experienced before.

“I can’t believe my mum dragged you all into this shit,” Chenle giggles when he sits next to Renjun on the bench, following you to the shade. There’s only 20 minutes left in the time your parents rented the court for and you figure that you can spend that time recharging your energy instead of playing the boring game. 

“Not me,” Yizhuo says, “she made my mother feel bad about not signing me up for any sports. You know, your mum’s pretty persuasive, especially when it comes to looking good in front of everyone. If it wasn’t for my mum, I wouldn’t be doing this shit,” she complains, shrugging as she adjusts her ponytail that’s always sitting neatly on the crown of her head.

“I love the fact that Renjun here is the least athletic out of all of us, but he is the only one here willingly,” you snicker, earning yourself a chant of amused laughs at the spoken truth. Now, nobody forced Huang Renjun to come play tennis with you every Friday– but the fact that he doesn’t have many friends in the neighborhood was what made him come along, too bored on his own and with nothing to put his attention to. He doesn’t like playing much, but everything’s better than sitting alone at home, am I right?

The three of you gossip about everything and nothing– the new family in the neighborhood, especially, because Renjun saw their son last Sunday and found his outfit absolutely atrocious (“You’d think people with money would at least know how to dress well, but no. That’s not the case with that Wen Junhui guy.”). The time passes by quickly, and when the timer on Chenle’s phone goes off, signaling that the three mandatory hours at the tennis court are finally over, you all stand up and walk over to the gate, shoes dragging along the sandy surface of the ground with much tiredness. At least you’re getting some cardio in…

“Is your driver coming to pick you up?” Chenle asks as you pay goodbye to your friends, both of them getting into expensive cars waiting for them at the parking lot. Turning to him, you hum in agreement, suddenly shy under his gaze. It’s not even summer yet, but the May sun is already harsh on the skin, getting redness to spread along his cheeks, only further sculpting his handsome bone structure you’ve grown so familiar with over the years. 

“What about you?” 

“Told my mum I’ll walk home instead. It’s not like it’s only a 20 minute walk anyway,” he mutters, rolling his eyes at the irony of you having to drive home despite living only a few meters away from him, in the same wealthy neighborhood. You grew up together, in the same mowed lawns, in the same green labyrinths of your families’ villas, in the same high ceilings and golden accents on the interior of your houses. After watching him from the corner of your eye, you start to wonder about what changed between the two of you that made you so weak to him now, that you’re both 18. Did he change? Was it the fact that you were now both adults? You don’t think that’s the case– because even though you were 18, there were no more responsibilities waiting for you than they were the years before. 

“My driver can take you,” you say, kicking the rocks below your feet, “well, unless you want to walk home alone instead,” you add, noting his previous sentence.

You see him take a sip out of his water bottle, shrugging at your suggestion. Chenle’s not a fan of inefficiency, no matter the fact that you can afford anything you could ever want. It’s a quality of him you find quite strange some days, but you don’t ponder on it too much. 

You’ve known each other since you were in diapers. And after replaying all the memories you have with the boy in your head, you think that your 18 year old self isn’t so stupid for falling for him. See– you’ve got to know a lot of men over the course of your life. Many tried to get with you barely before you even grew into an adult, seeing the vision of money and the social status you could give them. Some, on the other hand, never gave you back the attention you were giving them. All relationships you had in your life were blinded by the imaginary price tag you always carried around with yourself, and so everything always stayed surface-level and plain. No wonder you fell for Chenle– no matter how long it took you to get to this part of your friendship– he’s the only one that ever showed you his true self, he’s the only one that ever trusted you enough to go deeper in conversations with you and treated you like a real human being. You know him well and he knows you well; he’s like a book you always find yourself rereading, excited to find that your favorite characters always stayed the same. At the end of the day, you think you were always meant to fall for Chenle.

Standing under the blazing sun, you wait for your driver to get to the tennis courts. You wait for 10 minutes, then 15– and when you get a little too overheated, Chenle offers you his water bottle and mumbles something about being on time. When the time passes 45 minutes after your driver’s supposed arrival, your friend turns to you with a glint in his eye, a grin sitting on his annoyingly handsome face.

“Wanna walk home with me instead?”

And the truth is, you don’t find yourself disagreeing. And you also don’t find yourself hating the walk up the hills of the neighborhood– no matter how tiring it was to your already exhausted limbs– and you don’t find yourself complaining about the lack of AC or the vehicle driving your ass home to your, admittedly, too big of a house. Chenle entertains you with his talks– because he always talks too much for his own good– and when you stop paying attention to him and lose track of where you’re going, he drags you back to the sidewalk by your hand and your fingers stay interlocked when he teases you about the fact that you almost got ran over by a white Cadillac. 

“Listen, there’s this song I think you’ll like,” he hums when you’re 5 minutes away from your house, pulling out his phone out of his back pocket and opening up the Spotify app. He plays you a song by Ariana Grande, singing along to the lyrics of the chorus. His voice goes thin when he tries to mimic the singer’s voice, dragging along the english sentences of ‘it feels so good to be this young and have this fun and be successful, i’m so successful!’, irony seeping from his tone. Your hands are still intertwined as he swings them back and forth and you don’t even really care about the subtle implication of the lyrics he’s singing– because it’s Chenle, and despite being just as wealthy as you, he’s no stranger to calling you a snob. 

When you’re 18 and walking back from your weekly tennis endeavors, you can’t help but feel the fluttering in your heart when your friend twirls you around in your driveway, your white tennis skirt childishly fulfilling your unsaid dreams of becoming a ballerina, before he walks to his house standing on the opposite side of the road. 

You don’t even care that your poor driver got fired by your mother right after she realized he forgot to pick you up from the tennis court as much.

October 17, 2020 – a charity evening, Shanghai, 9:11 PM

Your whole life so far has been guided in the aura of money. When you were little, you didn’t realize it as much– your young, undeveloped brain couldn’t phantom the fact that your annual trips to Italy and summer vacations at yachts and in the Paris DisneyLand weren’t a normal occurrence to everyone. You couldn’t understand the value of money, and you think that maybe, you never truly will. Because you were born fortunate, never having to worry about a single thing, always living in wealth and with gold around your neck. 

The closest you are to understanding just how much money your family truly has is at the charity evenings you are forced to attend. Walking around, mostly bored– because truly, you didn’t have much of an idea just how much money you’re sending to the unfortunate parts of Africa and what the whole thing even has to do with you, when the money wasn’t really yours in the first place– you try to at least look through the flier your family made for the event, reading through the carefully crafted sentences, feeling at least a little sorry for everyone that doesn’t get to live the way you do.

“Isn’t it funny how this is the only way our families can present themselves in a good light?” Chenle mumbles when he reads over your shoulder, a dry chuckle leaving his lips.

Turning around to look at your companion, you furrow your brows at his snarky comment. “What do you mean?”

“Well, we give to charity so people don’t hate us as much,” Chenle shrugs, taking a sip from the champagne poured in a tall glass you’re pretty sure your mother spent hours and hours picking out when renting this place, just so everything could be perfect. 

“It’s just jealousy,” you say as you walk side-by-side with the boy, the expensive fabric of his white button-down hugging his body in all the right places, leaving you light-headed when you let yourself indulge in your thoughts for too long and stare at the curves of his forearms. It’s been a few months since you slept with your childhood friend– and while you must admit that you regretted it a little when you woke up in the morning, with a hangover and sore limbs, you also didn’t regret it as much as to turn the offer down when it was next brought to you. And the next time, and the next… 

“You think?” Chenle asks, and his interest in your answer seems genuine.

“Yeah,” you nod, shrugging to yourself, “we have more money than any of them ever will, so it’s only natural for people to feel jealous and talk spiteful things about us.”

Chenle hums at your answer, licking his lips before he looks you dead in the eye, the smallest glint of irony shining from behind the dark orbs, making you shrink under his gaze. “It’s not like it’s hard work anyway,” Chenle mutters, “if it wasn’t all stolen money, at least the charity work wouldn’t feel as fake.”

You stop in your tracks at the comment, furrowing your brows. “Stolen money?”

The boy next to you snickers at your clueless eyes. It’s no wonder you never really cared about the source of your family’s wealth– you were born to it, so you never had a reason to doubt it. And truth be told, you never really complained either. You don’t think anyone in your place would, really. You just accepted it the way it is, and you never asked any questions. For all you know, your parents are hard working business owners– you bet their money is well deserved for the amount of effort they put in– so to hear that it’s stolen money, from someone who is in a similar position as you, on top of that, you can’t believe your ears.

“I mean, they’re business owners. Let’s not act like both yours and my parents don’t meddle with the taxes at least a bit, sweetheart,” he chuckles, shaking his head in disbelief, “if I were all those people outside of it, I’d hate myself too.”

His words do little to comfort you. They do quite the opposite, really, and even though Zhong Chenle has no proof to show you of the fact that your parents might have at least a bit of dirty money on their hands, you can’t say you don’t trust a word that comes out of his mouth. You start to wonder if you’re that gullible– and who is the one lying straight to your eyes now, if it’s your friend or your parents– and you start to believe that you’d trust everything Chenle tells you, because that’s just the relationship you have with him. He could do anything and you’d follow him to the end of the world. It takes years to build that bond, and so even know, although you have the urge to scream at him for talking such things about the ones that brought you to this world– this perfect, shiny world– you find yourself holding back, the bubble around you bursting in a second, although you spent 19 years of your life living in the fake glory and bejeweled experience. Opening your mouth to ask him more about the matter– to get yourself out of the confusion you’ve been put in with just a few sentences uttered out of his always too-honest mouth, you turn to the boy when a man with a camera approaches the two of you, asking to take a picture of you.

And you comply, because what else are you supposed to do? This is how you’ve been raised. You smile for the pictures, you grin when you find yourself in the magazines, you nod when people recognise your name, you greet people with a polite nod, because you never know when someone wants to make business with your parents and you wouldn’t want to ruin good opportunities for them, would you?

With Chenle’s arm around your waist, your body instinctively leaning into his touch, you smile for yet another picture for the portfolio. Sometimes you feel like a princess– with everything it takes; both the royal responsibilities and the special treatment. More often than not, you find yourself enjoying the spotlight.

“Now they have proof that we were here,” Chenle mumbles into your ear, his lips gently brushing the smooth skin, “wanna get out of here? This party doesn’t look as enjoyable as the last one we went to,” the boy references the time you spent together at the cruise ship, with both the screaming on the dancefloor, and also the aftermath in your room, making heat puddle in your cheeks as you swat his hand away before it gets too low on your back in front of everyone in the room.

“I have to give a speech, but… maybe later?” you look at him, innocently batting your eyelashes at him, when the boy shrugs and takes a step back, downing the last drops of champagne from the expensive looking glass.

“I’ll be waiting back home,” Chenle says, “I bet our parents will stay until this all ends, so we have plenty of time for ourselves when you decide you’re tired of the gala.”

He disappears out of your sight the moment after, putting the empty glass onto a tray of one of the waiters carefully walking across the room, his back escaping out the front door. If you squint hard enough through the glass, you could see him getting into one of the sports cars he got from his parents for his 18th birthday– the vehicle driving off in the hands of his driver for the night, since he just had a glass of alcohol– and leaving you alone in the world of faux and feathers, fulfilling the responsibilities given to you by your mother. And for the first time– not only because you hate giving public speeches– you so desperately want to follow him, getting out before midnight like Cinderella, never attending another one of these evenings ever again. 

You don’t, though. You’re an obedient daughter.

And when you call him up from the entryway a few minutes after midnight, his rough hands welcoming you to his bedroom by undressing the thousand-dollar Tiffany dress you wore to the event– being the aftermath of his previous words or not, you start to think how ironic it is that your attire for the evening cost more than than the monthly rent of the people you were giving to in your speech. 

After a while, your words turn bitter.

March 23, 2020 – South Cape Owners Club, Namhae-gun, Gyeongsangnam-do, South Korea, 1:17 PM

“Did you really have to choose the most boring thing to do for your birthday?” Chenle mutters under his nose when all of your parents stride forward to get another hole in one, beads of sweat appearing on your foreheads as you stand directly under the midday sun. 

“This wasn’t my idea, okay?” Renjun huffs, carrying his golf equipment with him, the silly-looking golf gloves tugged right off his hands when his parents are no longer in sight. “All I wanted was to visit my grandma, but they decided we needed to do something special for my birthday, and when I couldn’t tell them anything I’d like to do, they dragged everyone to play golf.”

“I was thinking more like… clubbing and then crashing at your grandma’s place overnight, but okay…” Yizhuo snickers, watching as all of your parents joyfully talk between themselves, their conversation rarely leaving business matters as they play golf with as much enthusiasm as one can have while focusing on this boring sport. You don’t really know who made this game and why they made it– you can imagine seventy thousand different ways you’d love to spend your afternoon doing instead, more than a half of them supposedly more mundane than the sport itself; but you still know you’d enjoy even sitting down and getting ice cream better than having to pretend you’re interested in, what Chenle called, rich-people-only sport. 

“Maybe I can sneak a bottle up into my room later, but I’m not promising anything,” Renjun shrugs, sighing to himself as he takes out his phone from his back pocket and shakes his head at the sight of the time appearing on his screen. You’ve been at the golf course since 10 AM, and with how interested in the game your parents seem to be, you’re not leaving any time soon either.

Not really engaged in the conversation– because Chenle once told you you complain too much (you truly thought he was the one doing so, but you believe pretty much everything that comes out of the man’s mouth, because he’s mostly right about things) and you think you’ve done your fair share of complaining on your way to the golf course in the first place– you look around, trying to find a thing that could occupy your attention instead. Finding anything fun to do while playing golf may just be the hardest thing to do, but when you notice your companion Chenle missing and his figure appears striding towards your small group in a golf cart, the vehicle going full speed (even the barely 40 km/h looks like it could kill when he seems to not give a single damn about running you over), and suddenly, your mind is occupied enough.

Screeching when the golf cart barely misses your figure, you jump to the side and watch Chenle laugh from the driver’s seat. His malicious instincts barely ever leave his body and the operation of a golf cart is seemingly bringing out the worst in him– thank god he barely drives anymore– and you can’t help but laugh at his little stunt when the cart comes to a sharp halt and he waves you three over with a motion of his hand.

“Hop on, motherfuckers, we have places to be!” he says, all of you following his footsteps and jumping into the small vehicle– you in the passenger seat, next to Chenle, and Renjun and Yizhuo taking the two seats on the back. Once you’re all in, the engine grunts with the speed Chenle’s intending to get to in the weak thing, the atmosphere shifts into one with much more fun and adrenaline– because you know you’re not supposed to ride the carts (not this fast anyway) and when your parents find out, you’re gonna get in a lot of trouble. No, you’re not going to get grounded– you’re not a kid anymore– but the silent treatment and nagging from them about being well-raised and respectable members of society is enough to leave you scared of their anger for the rest of your lives.

“Slow down, I’m gonna fall out!” you scream when Chenle takes a sharp turn, the golf cart almost toppling over on the green grass. 

“I got you, don’t worry,” he notes, one of his hands loosely falling to your thigh to keep you in place, your skin heating up even more from his touch now, enjoying the hold but also fearing the eyes of your friends from the backseat. Your earlier terror is quickly erased with another sharp turn the driver takes– having much more things to worry about now, surviving being one of them– and when he zooms past the group of middle-aged people standing a few meters ahead of you, you already know you’re in big trouble.

Now you’re gonna get scolded for abducting a golf cart. When it wasn’t even your idea in the first place.

Well, that’s something to worry about later.

Chenle drives with the cart all over the golf course, the vehicle providing you enough entertainment for the next few minutes until you get tired of the ride. Looking over at him on your side, gaping a little at the view of your childhood friend driving the cart with only one hand, the other one still securely glazing your thigh, you almost choke out with how attractive the strange sight is to your eyes. Forcing yourself to focus on the road– and thank god, because if you didn’t hold to the side of the cart now, you’d surely fall out despite Chenle’s reassuring words and his hold on your leg– when the man cuts through a small hill in the golf course, the vehicle jumping up and falling back down making you scream in terror mixed with just a bit of excitement.

“Fucking hell, at least warn us before!” Renjun screams from the back, followed by Yizhuo’s amused laughter. You can only imagine Renjun’s almost fallen out, and even though the mental image looks hilarious, you really don’t need him to get hurt today, because he wouldn’t shut up about it for the next 8 working days. And it’s his birthday, after all– you wouldn’t wanna ruin it by having too much fun.

And so, with a last giggle escaping the boy’s throat, Chenle brings the golf cart to a halt, the vehicle stopping far enough from your parents to not get scolded immediately for making so much ruckus at the golf cart, the four of you enjoying the silence, still recovering from the wild ride. Smiling fondly to yourself and gaping at the boy next to you again, you suddenly grow appreciative of him. If it wasn’t for his wild nature, you would still be sulking somewhere on the golf course, pretending to enjoy living your snobby life alongside your parents. You bet even Renjun himself will find this moment captured in his brain as a core birthday memory, and the more you stare at Chenle’s side profile, the more you want to hold his face in your hands and thank him.

“Ew,” you hear Yizhuo’s voice from behind you, bringing you out of your thoughts. Looking back to see what she’s referring to, you watch her gaze landing on Chenle’s hand playing with the flesh on your thigh, heat suddenly rising to your cheeks in being caught in the exact position you feared a little while ago. 

“What–” Chenle snaps his head back at his cousin, while you quickly shrug his palm off your skin, but it’s too late now– you’ve been caught in the act and now you can’t do anything to erase Ning Yizhuo’s memory.

“You know, I thought you two were cousins at first. Like, from your dad’s side, I mean,” Yizhuo sighs, shaking her head in disbelief at the two of you, her comment not doing much to ease the situation either. Chenle seems to be confused at her words, his face scrunching up as he glares at the girl.

“We’re not,” you note, clearing your throat and looking at her with a glare, mentally praying for her to drop the topic.

“Yeah, thank god,” Chenle adds, and you should’ve expected him to make the situation even worse– it’s Zhong Chenle, after all– but his next words shock you and leave you gasping, mentally killing him right here and in this moment, “that would make a lot of things weird.”

“Ew,” Yizhuo repeats, and suddenly, that perks up Renjun’s attention– the boy previously facing the other side of the golf course and not paying you three much care– as he looks around and watches you with confusion in his features.

“What are you talking about?”

“That they are–” the girl takes it upon herself to explain her findings, but she’s quickly cut off by a sound of a middle-aged woman screaming through the place, her small figure striding towards the golf cart.

“Zhong Chenle, what do you think you’re doing?!”

And with that scolding tone, the previous topic is dropped. Thank god.

June 12, 2020 – Zhong Chenle’s room, Shanghai, 11:21 PM

A hand stroking through his hair, smoothing back the bangs and revealing his forehead in the dim blue of the neon light in his room, you lay on your side next to your friend Chenle, a blanket carelessly thrown over your half-naked middles to shield you from the breeze. You hum a song under your breath as you play with his locks, the black disappearing between your fingers like sand, eyes carefully watching his tired expression. 

If you thought hard enough, you could see the little boy you first met at your parent’s conference room when you were 3 materialize in front of your eyes. His cheeks were chubby and he was short, waddling behind you almost a head less than your size, and his voice was thin as he asked you for your name. From that moment on, you knew you were supposed to stick together– and while your parents were the first relative to bring you two together, you didn’t mind always being glued to each other’s hips. 

When you look closer at him now, it’s hard to see that boy in him. Harder than you expected, if you’re being totally honest. Don’t get me wrong, you can still see in his features– even though his cheekbones are more prominent now and his jaw is more chiseled, lips plumper and his figure built more firmly than when he was a little boy– but there’s something about his demeanor that completely changed over time. He seems less enthusiastic, and while one would think that it’s just him growing into being a more laid-back and relaxed person– he’s not a kid anymore, after all– you think there’s something more to it, you just can’t quite put your finger to it. 

Seeing him close his eyes every once in a while, lids falling under the weight of his tiredness and the comfort your gentle strokes through his scalp give him, you feel your heart clench with all the care you’re currently putting into the boy, and all that you’ve been putting into him throughout your growing up. After so many years– after getting so close and intimate with him– you don’t think you’d be able to let the boy go, and just the sheer image of ever losing him or leaving him behind leaves you trembling with anxiety. 

And so, despite being afraid of ruining the calm atmosphere that comes after making love to him, you speak up with a weak voice, contrasting to what you’re logically supposed to feel after getting to know the news this morning– just because you have to know. 

“Lele?” you mumble, hearing him let out a hum, his voice sounding as if he’s half-asleep, but you know he’s listening to you. “What are your plans… after you graduate?” you ask. The day of graduation is coming faster and faster towards you, the years you’ve spent at high school finally fulfilled after all the effort you put in on your finals.

“Dunno,” he replies, eyes barely opened as his arm that’s been previously laid on the mattress in between your two bodies moves to your hip, fingers drumming over the soft skin, “why?”

“Just wondering…” you speak, voice barely louder than a whisper. The boy stays silent– his eyes once again closing on themselves as you continue to play with his hair. One would think he’s fallen asleep, not awake enough to have this conversation, and you would even believe the fact and let the conversation go, thinking you’d find another time to dwell on this topic, but then, as a surprise, his voice startles you from your deep thoughts when he curiously inquires you, the hand on your hip steadying.

“What about you?”

Taking a deep breath in and out, a smile battling to take over your lips, you lick your lips in the heartbeat that comes before your answer. Swallowing your nerves– because even though you should’ve told him the moment you got the news this morning, you’re somehow stressed out about the action of doing so– you open your mouth and finally break the rules to him. 

“I… I got to Yale,” you say, on your toes. The joy and relief you felt this morning when you saw the email appear on your phone screen is daring to creep into the way you speak to Chenle right now, but you’re keeping it in. Not letting yourself scream and shout the accomplishment from the rooftops, you look at the boy, not a change appearing on his face at hearing your announcement. “I got into their business program,” you add anxiously, waiting for him to say something– anything– to your news.

As your friend, he’s supposed to be happy for you, isn’t he? He’s supposed to hug you now and squeeze you and tell you how you’ve done a good job and that he’s proud of you and that he’s cheering you on in your dream. None of it comes, though, as he only hums and nods at your sentences, not even bothering to open his eyes to look at you when you oh so excitedly talk to him about your life goals. 

Something inside of you breaks just the tiniest bit, your mood falling as you anxiously chew on the inside of your cheek.

“Are you not gonna say anything?” you demand, halting your movements through his raven locks, averting your touch and looking at him curiously.

You watch him as he finally opens his eyes and looks at you with an empty look, licking his lips before humming again and asking you in a tone of voice that barely meets interest or excitement. “So you’re gonna be a businesswomen like your mum when you get your degree?” he asks, nodding to himself.

“Yeah,” you answer, clearing your throat. You’re a little confused at his weird stance towards the topic, but you battle out a tight-lipped smile. “I’m hoping for it.”

He hums again, the noise seemingly enough for him to consider it a valid conversation holder, a deadpan: “Good,” leaving his lips after a second, making you furrow your brows in confusion and utter disappointment. This is not the way you imagined the conversation to go– this is not how you wanted it to go at all.

Heaving out a sigh, you tug your arm to yourself, contemplating on speaking up– knowing you’re just gonna make everything worse if you do– but doing so anyway. “That’s all you’re gonna say?”

“I mean, what else is there to say?” 

Looking at him in disbelief, your face scrunching up in various different emotions, all mixing into one– disappointment being the dominant feel, you think, you scoff at him. This is not Zhong Chenle as you know him, and sure, he hasn’t been the most overly-excited, cheerful individual these past few months, but you still think you deserve at least a bit of praise for the achievement of getting into one of the hardest universities to get to in the world, no?

“I don’t know, you could… congratulate me, I guess…? Tell me I did a good job, I dunno… would be nice,” you mutter, snickering once more to prove your irritation with the man.

“Oh,” he says, looking genuinely surprised, taken-aback, even, “well, congrats on the legacy admission, I guess,” he says, nonchalant, as if his words aren’t a dagger to your heart each second that passes, your blood pressure rising as the reality downs on you that he’s being serious and that this is not a sick joke.

“The legacy admission?” you repeat, eyes big and shocked, your whole body moving an inch away from him on the bed without you realizing.

“Yeah,” he shrugs, not a bit caring about breaking you from the inside, the humiliation slowly creeping from the tips of your fingertips to the depths of your soul.

“So you’re saying I went through the whole admission process and put in so much effort only for you to say that I got in because of stupid legacy?” you chirp, gazing at him with sharp eyes, blood boiling from the impact of his words. “What legacy are you even talking about?”

“Don’t act like you’re not a nepo baby,” he snickers, rolling his eyes.

Gasping at his words, baffled at the unexpected reaction, you stand up on the bed and stare at him with sharp eyes. At a loss for words, you stutter a little when you speak up again and utter out the next words, hoping to hit him where it hurts. “Like you’re not?”

“Never said I’m not,” he shrugs, “don’t have a problem with admitting I am.”

“So you’re saying I only got to university because of my parents,” you get out, glossy eyes scanning his peaceful figure, “so you’re saying I’m not smart enough to get into Yale?” 

“That’s not what I said–”

“But you implied.”

“You only hear what you want to hear,” Chenle sighs, as if he was tired of your antics, which only makes you more furious at the whole interaction.

“No, Chenle–” you stutter, his name rolling off your tongue as if it was meant to stop him with hurting you even more for discrediting your efforts, yet, you can’t find any more words to say to him as you stare at this limb body laying on the soft mattress of his king sized bed, shaking your head in disbelief.

Standing up from the bed and scattering around the room for your clothes, ignoring the way putting them on in front of him makes you feel like you’ve been stripped away from all your dignity, you hurriedly come to the door of his bedroom, almost forgetting your phone that you gather on your way out from the messy desk in the right corner of the room. 

“Where are you going?” he asks monotonously, watching you move through the place.

“Home,” you bark out, running your hand through your hair as you walk back to the door, ignoring the hot tears pricking your eyes at the feeling of your whole entire world collapsing in on you when he mourns from the bed.

“Don’t be mad, it’s not like I said anything bad…”

“Goodnight,” you snap, not bothering to look back at him as you escape his house in the middle of the night, running through the street to your house much earlier than you anticipated, wiping at your cheeks with angry palms. 

This is the first time he disappointed you, and you can’t tell if that felt worse, or if it was the excitement slowly and painfully stripping off your bones, making you feel like you’re running around without your flesh, completely see-through for everyone around.

June 27, 2020 – IFC Mall, Shanghai, 4:33 PM

“Do you think this makes my ass look extra hot?” Yizhuo asks, gaze shifting from you to Chenle to Renjun, the four of you currently in one of the designer shops at the mall. Leaning on the wall, arms crossed on your chest and chewing on the inside of your cheek, you shrug, not a word escaping your mouth.

“I’m your cousin, I’m not looking at your ass like that,” Chenle mutters under his nose, sighing as he takes a seat on one of the expensive looking sofas situated in the changing room, resting his head against the neck rest and closing his eyes in what seems to be tiredness or annoyance– either of, or both mixed in, equal parts.

“Oh come on, I need to know!”

“It does look super hot, Yizhuo, now can you–”

“So you are staring at my butt!” Yizhuo excitedly yelps, pointing a sharp finger towards Renjun, a bright grin settling onto her lips when the accused boy stutters, cheeks reddening at her comment.

“You literally asked us to, for fuck’s sake!”

“You could’ve refused, just like Chenle did,” she shrugs, smiling to herself in victory. If anyone was listening to your conversation right now, they would surely have a lot of questions you wouldn’t be able to respond to. Hell, even you’re confused half of the time you hang out with Ning Yizhuo– what the hell is going on in her head?

“He’s your family, of course he refused,” Renjun mutters, shaking his head as he drags a hand through his hair in despair.

“Whatever you say, Renjunie,” she chirps, closing the curtain behind her and changing back into the pants she wore when she got to the store in one swift motion, leaving the boy puzzled with her next words as she walks up to the counter, “I’m only buying those because you think I look super hot in them, just so you know.”

Paying for her things and escaping the store, the rest of you tagging along, you notice the boy aimlessly trying to forget about the whole situation, and his prayers were listened to, after all, since Yizhuo seems to drop the topic after teasing him so much, turning to you instead. Walking alongside with you, leaving the two boys a few steps ahead, she nudges you with her elbow, raising up her brow in question.

“What’s up with you? You haven’t even tried anything on,” she notes, “and we both know you’ve been eyeing that new LV collection, so there must be something bothering you.”

Sighing, hating that the girl knows you so well– that, or you’re being awfully obvious– you roll your eyes in annoyance and try to shrug the topic off. “It’s nothing, I’m fine.”

“Well, that’s obviously a lie. Is it something with Chenle? You two are usually all over each other, so–”

“It’s not about Chenle,” you snap, cutting the poor girl off, “so drop it.”

“Did he say something stupid? I know my cousin, come on. I can slap some sense into him, sweetheart, just let me know–”

“Please let it be,” you insist, tone of voice almost a little too sharp for your own liking, but it seemingly does its job as your friend only shrugs and takes a sip out of the coffee you all bought when getting to the mall, catching up to the men a few steps in front of you, talking about basketball.

“Well, if you need to talk to anyone about it, you know where to find me,” she says, and joins the discourse with her cousin and the boy she’s been teasing for whatever reason for the last few weeks instead, leaving you to trail behind them like a lost puppy, deep in your thoughts.

It’s been a few weeks since you last talked to Chenle. He tried reaching out to you a few times, sending you texts to ask what you’re doing that day to see if you wanna hang out. It seemed that at first, he didn’t really understand that he upset you. After you continued to ignore him even on graduation day, only greeting him and sparing him a few words, he seemed to get the memo as he let you deal with your emotions by yourself instead. You were never given an apology– and truthfully, knowing Chenle, you didn’t even expect to get one in the first place. But still, it’s been bugging you and you couldn’t get his words out of your brain, because you know you can’t do anything about them– if this is the image he has of you, the opinion he created, you don’t think you can talk it out with him in the first place.

“Everything okay back there?” Chenle asks, looking behind at you. His eyes are big and honest, and you find yourself nodding to his caring question. Sparing him a word seems like too much effort right now, and so when he offers you a tight-lipped smile, you don’t have enough energy to reciprocate it.

“Princess Yizhuo here has sore feet, so we are calling it a day. You wanted anything from the mall? I can stay behind with you and go get it,” he continues, his words jabbing into you only reminding you more of the days you spent ignoring him. Realistically, he should be mad at you for it– maybe you even wanted that to happen so he would ignore you instead, giving you the silent treatment, but this is your childhood friend Zhong Chenle we’re talking about. He talks too much in situations where he should shut up instead, and that’s exactly what’s happening in this very moment as well.

“I’m good,” you note, shrugging as you throw the empty coffee cup into one of the bins on your way, your small group now escaping the mall and getting to the parking lot.

Walking towards Chenle’s Zenvo TS1 parked in the corner of the parking lot, you hear the chatter of the group resonating in your ears, not really engaging in the conversation yourself, but choosing to listen to feel included anyway. It’s not their fault that you’re not in the mood, and frankly, you’re glad they even invited you to the outing in the first place. Everything’s better than being left out in your books, even if it means forcing yourself into social interaction. 

“My driver should be here any minute,” Yizhuo smiles, waving at Renjun currently getting into his Porsche Cayenne that he got after you all arrived from his birthday trip to Korea. Watching the boy drive off– while listening to Chenle bitching about his driving (he does have a point though, the poor boy almost crashed into a pole on his way out) – you feel a nudge to your elbow, making you turn to your friend.

“Wanna get back with me, neighbor?” he asks, eyebrows raised in question. 

In any other circumstance, you wouldn’t miss a heartbeat before answering. But now, you ponder on the question for a bit– you got to the mall with Yizhuo, having hanged out with her at her place before– but now that she’s getting a drive home, there was no use in you tagging along with her, since you live quite far from her house. Getting a drive home from Chenle is the most logical solution, after all, and that’s why you find yourself nodding.

Jumping to the passenger’s seat, waving at Yizhuo still waiting for her driver to get there– it should take only about 5 more minutes, with the speed her driver can get to when called– you silently gaze out of the window on your way back, not sparing the boy next to you a glance. He seems to not mind, carefully taking turns and waiting at the stop signs and red lights on his way to your neighborhood, humming along under his breath to the songs on the radio instead to fill the silence. You spend the ride chewing on your cheek, nerves eating you up from inside just at the sheer fact of being in his close proximity again, yet still being so painfully hurt at the feelings he expressed the last time you hung out one-on-one.

His car smoothly gets to the parts of the town that feel more rich– houses growing bigger in size, the gates taller in the sky and the lawns mowed more carefully, with more fancy bushes in the yards and pure-blood dogs running around in front of the gates. After a few minutes, your neighborhood appears in front of your eyes, his car driving past your house and into the Zhong property instead, making you furrow your brows in confusion and annoyance.

“You could’ve just stopped in front of my house so I could get out, you know,” you hum, sighing when he turns the engine off. 

“I was thinking we could hang out over at ours for a sec,” he shrugs, turning his face to you with a hopeful glint in his eye, which you dismiss with an annoyed huff and a roll of your eyes, reaching towards the door handle to get out and walk over to your house instead. 

“Come on, Y/N,” he calls for you, “are you still mad?”

“No,” you snicker, shrugging as you move towards the front gates, his figure quickly catching up to you as he grabs your wrist, halting you in your movements.

“I’m sorry. Let me make it out to you?” he mumbles, looking at you with eyes big and deep like honey, and suddenly, you’re a putty under his touch– just like always, you cave in– as you sigh, following him inside. You don’t miss the victorious pep in his step as he leads you inside, his hand still in contact with your arm, only letting go when you get to his room and he leads you to sit on his bed.

“Wanna play something?” he asks, thrusting a PS5 controller into your hands, not really leaving you much room for disapproval. Grunting and rolling your eyes at him, you watch as he opens up It takes two, your characters running around the split screen trying to figure out the way around.

The silence between the two of you is cruciating, suffocating, even, as neither of you have enough courage to open up the topic again. Tugging at your bottom lip, biting off the dry skin up to the point it bleeds, you sigh and turn to the boy again, putting the controller down. “Is this your way of making it up to me?” you ask.

Cocking his head to you, he shrugs. “I mean, I had a different idea, but that’s up for a discussion…” he mutters, the suggestion of his words making you roll your eyes at him, in disbelief of the fact that he still has the audacity to tease when he knows you’re clearly upset with him.

“Okay, I’m… really sorry, okay?” he says when he registers your mood, sighing to himself and running a hand through his hair. “I kinda fucked up, and I realise that. I didn’t mean to imply that you’re stupid, or anything– come on, I always cheated off you on exams, after all– so, I just- it came off wrong, is what I’m tryna say,” he concludes, looking at you hopefully, his face seemingly in tune with the words coming out of his mouth.

Humming, you shrug, not really knowing what to say. The apology settles a little in you, noting that at least he acknowledged that he fucked up, and so you pick up the controller again and avert your gaze from him. Seeing as his character refuses to move, you look at him from the corner of your eye, raising your brows in question.

“So you forgive me?” he asks, licking his lips in nerves– the action making your eyes travel down to the plump rosiness, involuntarily following his action. His glistening mouth has your gaze wandering around his body, eyes focusing on things you’ve been purposefully ignoring the whole day– the way his forearms show off in his short-sleeved shirt, the way his hair is parted in a way that shows his forehead in the most strangely attractive ways, and also the ever-so casual demeanor of the male. Chuckling to yourself, you shrug, taunting him.

“I dunno,” you mumble, “how can you make it up to me?”

And again, Chenle gets the hint– he’s not stupid, after all. 

Slowly lounging himself towards you, making you drop the controller to his sheets, you close your eyes in expectancy of his touch, already so used to the rhythm of his lips against yours. His hand holds your jaw in place, firm kisses pressed to your yearning mouth, you try to remember the way his touch feels– just in case you have to give it up soon again– a selfish action of your body as you thread your fingers through his hair. 

Lips ghosting over yours, he snickers against them as he speaks. “You taste of blood,” he notes.

“Shut up,” you mutter, taking matters into your own hands as you lock yourself to him again, pressing shaky, hurried kisses to his lips. 

He finds a better place to attach them to, though, as he gently pushes you towards his mattress into a lying position, traveling towards your jaw and your neck. His touch never stays long enough to leave a mark– at least not in places visible for everyone to see, saving you a lot of explaining to your parents and your friends– but the kisses still leave you breathless and yearning for more, hands traveling down his back and humming in pleasure.

“Missed this,” he speaks against your skin, breathless, “so much.”

“Missed my body or me?” you ask, a hint of bitterness on your tongue.

“A bit of both,” he smirks, gently sucking on the skin of your collarbone, leaving you to squirm under the feathery touch. Hands traveling up under your shirt, his fingers trailing across your belly and the curve of your hip, you’re left shivering under the contrast of the heated atmosphere and his stone-cold hands, giggling when he presses an unusually sweet kiss to your cheek in between the more risky ones.

“And which one did you miss more?” you tease, locking eyes with him as he hovers over your body, plopped up by an arm on either side of your head.

His eyes glimmer as he stares you down, cocking his head to the side. “I miss when you didn’t talk,” he says, leaning down again and taking your breath away with a kiss, a displeased grunt meeting his lips as you disapprove of his snarky comment.

In the sheer second where you two break away for air, his hands undress your top, leaving you under him just in your underwear, a position you two have found yourselves in a number of times before. Still, it leaves you shy away under his hungry eyes, only relaxing again when his raven locks tickle the underside of your jaw, lips attaching to every inch of your now exposed body, not afraid of bruising the skin you always keep covered, out of everyone’s eyes. Sometimes, you yearn for him to plant a lovebite to your jaw, to the juncture of your shoulder and your neck, wanting to show them off to everyone and claim the boy as yours– you know you don’t have that power, though, when Zhong Chenle will never be yours and the bruises of desire are always hidden away from everyone, like a dirty little secret; much like what you two have going on in the first place anyway.

“You know,” he mutters against your skin, in between the kisses that have now grown lazier, “I was starting to get a little crazy when you ignored me. That was a first,” he says.

Snickering, hands once again finding their place in his locks, you shrug. “Was the first time you deserved it.”

“Does my opinion really matter to you that much?” he asks, chuckling as he presses another kiss to your skin, to a place a few inches below your collarbone.

“We’ve been friends forever,” you say, “‘course it does.”

“Well, then you should’ve known that as your friend,” he huffs, lips pressed against your skin, “‘m not looking down on you.”

Humming, you let him work his magic as his lazy kisses inch closer to the fabric of your bra, his other hand playing with the fabric of it, twirling the little bow in between your breasts in his fingers as he leans on one of his plopped-up hands, looking at you from the side. 

“Guess I was just more curious about what you wanted to do after school, y’know,” you say, the conversation flowing despite his hands all over you, “before you called me a nepo baby, of course.”

He chuckles at your remark, rolling his eyes at you as his finger trails up your side, your skin growing goosebumps under his touch. “Dunno yet. Why do you care?”

“Wanted to see how far we’re gonna be,” you say, the moment suddenly growing more intimate. The relationship you two have was never inclusive– you two had sex sometimes, sure, but you never once told each other this was more than that. You two were just mere fuck buddies, childhood friends that found sexual attraction in each other somewhere along the way, and while that was enough for you for a while, you found yourself growing anxious of the fact that he was never going to be fully yours. And with the growing anxiety– the smallest remainder of your worries that overtake you in the middle of the night sometimes– your throat closes up on itself when you choke out the next words. “Wanted to see how much time we have left together.”

His hand settles on your hip, his eyes bearing into yours with a newly found heaviness in them. Furrowing his brows, he licks his lips in nerves before speaking up. “Well, I’ll always be your neighbor, so you can find me when you come back. Unless we move, y’know…” he jokes, an airy laugh coming out his lungs that doesn’t meet the expected intention of easing the situation.

You chuckle– but there’s not a hint of lightheartedness in the gesture, quite the opposite, really– as you avert your gaze from him, your head lollying to the side when you try to hide your slowly, but surely growing red eyes. “That’s not what I meant.”

The hand on your hip squeezes the skin under it, his figure now fully hovering over you again, eyes desperately wanting to meet yours. A finger gently pressed to your chin makes you turn your head back forward, his worried gaze bearing into you, and for a moment, you two only stare into each other’s eyes, frozen in time. 

And again, Zhong Chenle isn’t stupid. 

But for a second, he acts like he is. 

“What are you talking about?” he chuckles. “You’re scaring me.”

And when you don’t give him an answer, but instead chew on the inside of your cheek– another place to bleed after you bite down too hard from the nerves crushing you from the inside– he seems to finally get the hint, an airy laugh full of disbelief meeting your ears. Having figured it out, still, he speaks it into existence– as if he needed a confirmation; 8 words tormentingly escaping from between his swollen lips.

“You don’t have feelings for me, do you?”

Sniffling, you shut your eyes close at the question, your silence a clear answer to your childhood friend as he peels himself off you, the feeling of cold air on your exposed skin like a painful slap to reality. You stay like that for some time, mentally counting seconds, each hammer of your heart in your chest like a threat to your existence. Finally, the silence is broken by a determined, yet a little weak sentence coming out of Chenle’s mouth.

“I think you have to leave.” 

Numb, you follow the orders.

July 25, 2020 – Ning Yizhuo’s room, Shanghai, 6:11 PM

“So I was right all along?” Yizhuo snickers, eating from the bowl of almonds she has settled in the free space between her lap and her crossed legs, staring at you with the hydrating sheet mask on her face. You heave out a sigh at her comment, rolling your eyes as you fall back into her soft mattress, shaking your head in disbelief.

“That’s all you got from this conversation?” 

“Almost,” she mumbles, but nudges you with her foot right after, “I’m joking. I was listening, I’m just… shocked that I was actually right and that you were fucking my cousin all along.”

“Yeah, well, that’s not happening anymore, so you don’t have to be disturbed,” you grunt, wondering why you actually told the girl in the first place, regretting the decision perhaps the most right now. Yes, she did bug you for the last few weeks about the reasoning behind your attitude, and the fact that you refused all the invitations to hang out with your friends in fear of seeing Chenle were starting to get a bit suspicious, so you figured you can’t hide it anymore and that Yizhuo was bound to find out either way sooner or later. And still, you think you needed a bit of girl advice too.

“‘m not disturbed,” she mumbles, voice suddenly considerate, “I just- the whole situation is all kinds of weird and fucked up right now.”

“Tell me about it,” you chuckle, the bitter taste on your tongue never leaving despite trying to drown your sorrow down in sweets. “I fucked it up, Yizhuo.”

“Now, that’s just not true,” she sighs, putting the bowl of almonds to her coffee table and laying next to you, reaching for your hand and swinging it around in failed acts of encouragement and affection. “It’s not your fault he freaked out and made it weird.”

“I made it weird!” you mourn, breaking away from her grasp and dragging your hands through your hair in frustration, the feelings bundling in your stomach making you feel like acid is just bound to shoot out of the crevices of your insides, throwing up from the stress and despair. “I’m moving across the world the next month and I won’t see any of you for a long time, since Jun is moving to Korea and you’re gonna work in your parent’s company as well as going to uni here, and instead of spending the last moments of summer break together, I fucked it up and made everything weird and awkward just because I had to fall in love with my childhood best friend. While we’d been fucking. Isn’t that fucking great?” you huff, closing your eyes shut with the tears threatening to fall down your cheeks at your own words falling from between your lips.

“We are spending time together right now, though,” Yizhuo tries to cheer you up, her pout heard in her tone.

“There are millions of different ways you’d love to spend your time with me instead of moping because of your cousin,” you note, sighing, “and I don’t even fucking know what he’s gonna do after summer break, and now, I won’t get to know.”

Yizhuo grows quiet next to you, suggesting the thickening atmosphere. Turning on your side to see your friend with her eyes glued to your figure, you chew on the inside of your cheek. She sighs, preparing herself for the mental tangent she’s gonna bring you on, and reaches over to smooth down your messy hair. 

“You know, Chenle never really liked… this life,” she says, shrugging, “he hates shopping, he hates hearing about investing, he hated traveling so much when you and your family didn’t tag along… At every family reunion, he just hid away in his room and never got out, because he found the whole situation snobby and fake and all those adjectives I’ve never really thought about calling my own relatives. He… he…” she licks her lips, trying to come up with the right words to say, “he sees the world around us with different eyes, and I don’t think he’s happy with it. So don’t- don’t be mad at him for not really… going anywhere with it, okay?” 

Furrowing your brows at her, you shake your head in confusion. This is perhaps the first time you really realized Chenle’s view on things– it’s not like you haven’t heard his annoyed rants about all the prestige and over-the-top lifestyle you all have, but that’s all you thought it was. Annoyance– because at the end of the day, your life is comfortable. You wouldn’t want it any other way. If money moves the world around, you were the one walking through every hallway, all opportunities opened up in front of your eyes; and you don’t think you’d enjoy your life more if you had a bit less money. Chenle, on the other hand, seems to be quite the opposite. His joy is not determined by money, and for the first time in your life, it seems like you’re getting what he’s been talking about your whole life, the words you heard but never truly listened to. It was right in front of you the whole time, but you never saw it, and now that your eyes have been opened, you find it hard to deal with the revelation.

“But what is he going to do?” you gurgle out, confused. 

“I don’t think he knows either,” Yizhuo shrugs, “he’s… figuring out things, I suppose.”

Chuckling, you shut your eyes in despair, thinking for a bit, but still failing to grasp the situation. “I don’t get it. He- he could have everything, but he’s just… throwing everything away? He could move across the world, he could start his own company, he could buy a house or work or study, but he just won’t,” you ramble, “I don’t get it.”

“That’s what I’ve been saying,” Yizhuo shrugs, “but he sees it a different way.”

Laying flat on your back, eyes glued to the ceiling, your friend clears her throat and awkwardly shuffles around her sheets. “And at the end of the day, even though you’ve been friends for forever, I think you’re just in love with the version of him that you’ve created in your head. The version that you’re trying, but cannot fix,” she notes, pausing for a moment before proceeding,  “the only person you can fix is yourself.”

And maybe, Yizhuo’s right. Maybe you fell in love with the Chenle in his sports car, Chenle in the golf cart with his designer clothes on, Chenle on the cruise ship sipping on expensive alcohol. Maybe you fell in love with the version that has the whole world in the palm of his hand, the version of him that goes to Yale with you and rents out a luxurious apartment in the middle of the city, kissing you behind the tall windows, watching over the busy streets– the version in your dreams, the version you wanted to achieve.

But what about the version of him that walked you to your house after tennis class? What about the version of him that cuddled you in his sheets, the version of him that fell asleep soundly when you played with his hair, cradled your fingers through his scalp? What about the version of him that scared you in the dark, because he knew you get creeped out too easily, the version of him that ate cheap sausage with you in Japan, the version of him that studied with you and brought you to your bed when you fell asleep at the table? What about the version of him that cried to Disney movies with you, the version of him that danced with you to the tunes of One Direction in your room when you were sixteen, the version of him that threw rocks on your window in the moonlight the night you turned seventeen, wanting to be the first one to wish you happy birthday before slipping inside of your room in the middle of the night, only to fall asleep seconds later, huddling your sheets?

Did you make that up? Was that not him in the first place?

And maybe, there is a discrepancy between the dream you’ve made up in your head with him, the idea of you two staying together, trying to fix the view he has on the world you two live in, but at the end of the day, none of it was a lie. 

And maybe, Yizhuo’s right; you should change the way you view things to match Chenle’s better, because at the end of the day, maybe you’re the one too blinded by the gold and silver around your neck to see the real issue here.

August 2, 2020 – Lehai Villas, Baicheng, China, 10:15 PM

When you finally see Zhong Chenle after the night he kicked you out of his bedroom, both of you are a mess. 

You’re a mess in the more subtle sense. Your dress is neat, the jewelry on your neck was carefully picked out days before, the heels enveloping your feet are one of the most comfortable ones for you to walk in, since you prepared yourself for being on your feet the whole evening. Your makeup is fixed on your face, earrings dangling off your ears and your purse matches the outfit perfectly; your hair in a fancy updo that you even drove to a hairdresser for, all so that you could look flawless for another one of your parent’s gatherings. Their business partner’s son is turning 21, and while it doesn’t look like that big of a deal, they are celebrating the fact that Mark Lee is now one of the shareholders of their company– and in your world, this is the most moving moment of the child’s life.

You’re a mess in the more subtle sense– you keep looking around, restless, not really paying attention to anything anyone is saying. Aimlessly humming and picking at the skin of your cuticles, you try hard to both catch a glance of your friend, and to also avoid him at all costs. The reality that Zhong Chenle is a mess too hits you only when you finally see him– his tie loose on his neck, a grunt escaping his throat that you can hear from all the way to where you are, his walking a little wobbly and his hair messy as he runs his hand through the sprayed-down locks, his composure disheveled and so obviously out of the place.

And you want to stay away, you really do– to let him deal with his own things by himself, to pretend you weren’t cautiously looking for him all evening– but when he picks up another glass of alcohol from one of the tables and downs it in one go, cheeks getting rosier by the minute, you wonder how far you can let him go until he gets into trouble with his parents; and suddenly, you’re on your feet, just like you expected, dragging your figure closer to the one you’ve been trying to avoid.

“Don’t you think you’ve drunk enough?” you mumble when you appear behind him, his shoulders slouching at the tone of your voice. When he looks around and catches your eyes, he snickers to himself, shrugging, before he makes a face full of disgust at your remark.

“We’re celebrating, aren’t we?” he says, “Mark Lee’s a big man now, taking all the responsibility for a company that’s so great, and he loves the job so much,” he continues, over-exaggerating every word, “and we’re here to celebrate his birthday! Have you… seen the motherfucker anywhere, by the way? Would wanna congratulate him on… the thing…” he trails off, dramatically scratching his head as he speaks the last words.

“Chenle–”

“Right! We are celebrating a guy we don’t even know, or seen the whole evening, but that’s so great, because at least we have all this alcohol–”

“Okay, you’re getting out of here,” you snap, shaking your head at his antics and digging your nails into his forearm, dragging the boy out of the crowded place before he throws a tantrum. With how his voice was getting louder and louder, a few figures turned to watch your exchange, and you can’t imagine the turmoil this will take on him once his parents find out– it’s better to get him out of there before he messes up even more badly.

His feet stumbling on the stairs outside, he mutters something under his breath as you drag his half-limp, half-stubborn body through the enormous land. The gardens are full of fairy lights and adults talking to each other in hushed whispers, laughter erupting out of their put-together figures every now and then, and you take some time before you finally manage to find a silent corner in one of the carefully mowed gardens, Chenle’s complains silencing after a while, admitting his fate.

Carelessly throwing his body towards one of the benches, the lighting dim in the corner, you watch as he takes a seat and looks at you with defeated eyes, the emptiness behind his gaze breaking you on so many levels you didn’t even think you could master; Zhong Chenle is a mess– has been a mess for a while now, and you didn’t notice– you didn’t do anything about it until now.

“What happened to you?!” you yelp out, voice betraying you somewhere towards the end of the sentence, sounding more desperate than you intended. Eyes scanning over his slouching body, you notice him playing with his fingers in his lap, an action of calming himself down that he’s picked up after you slapped his hands every time he tried to bite on his nails growing up, and you take a few steps around the place, running your fingers through your carefully styled hair. 

“Don’t scold me like my mother,” Chenle grunts, rolling his eyes at your composure.

“No, Chenle, because I don’t get it,” you shake your head, looking him dead in the sparkless eyes, “I do not get it.”

When he offers you no explanation, rather just gazing your whole body up and down, eyes half-lidded, you presume he’s a bit out of it– the alcohol truly hitting his system now, making you result in a little tangent of yourself, because you presume everything’s better than his parent’s scolding, and maybe he just needs someone to wake him back to reality. “What happened, Chenle? What the actual fuck is going on lately? You don’t speak to anyone about it, you don’t tell me, out of all people–” a snicker leaves his lips to this, making you huff in frustration, “you don’t tell anyone how you’re feeling, and it’s eating you up from the inside, and believe me when I say, Chenle, it’s pretty damn heartbreaking to watch.”

Looking at him, you’re offered nothing but silence. His cheeks are rosy and puffed up from the alcohol, his frame is small– opposed to the power stance he usually takes– and you don’t think you’re getting a conversation from him any time soon. Ready to give up, you shake your head at him and scoff. “Okay, fine. You don’t have to talk to me, since you have an issue with the fact that I care about you more than I should,” you snap, agreeing to be petty with him, if this was how he was gonna play.

“I don’t talk to any of you, because you wouldn’t understand,” he says, voice almost a bit annoyed, tongue dipped in bitterness. 

“We grew up together, Chenle. Our lives are pretty much the same, why the fuck would you think that I, out of all people, wouldn’t understand?” 

“See, that’s the thing,” Chenle catches you off guard, charming in with an argument barely before you are able to finish the sentence, “our lives are pretty much the same, yet you love it. You fucking love it, all of you do– you love waking up in your little fancy bedrooms, doing great at school because if you don’t, your parents are going to threaten you with disowning you– and what else do you have if not your parents wealth that you coincidentally, also despise at the same time? You go shopping to your favorite mall with your equally wealthy friends, because you’re not allowed to befriend people that are lower class– that would just look fucking embarrassing in front of your parents’ contacts, wouldn’t it? You go to charity events and birthday celebrations of a guy you’ve never seen in your whole life before, just because someone told you to– and don’t you dare tell them you won’t go, because how the fuck are they gonna look all pretty in front of their business partners if their only son doesn’t attend a celebration of someone inheriting a share from their parents’ company– a thing you’re supposed to do as soon as you turn 20, if you don’t attend university they picked out for you instead. You go on fancy holidays and take pictures in front of all the attractions, and it doesn’t even feel special anymore, because you do this every month– and the only time you ever felt alive was when you were drunk and making out with someone that you shouldn’t even think about in that way in the first place, because it’s your parents’ friends’ daughter, and at the end of the day, they would just love the fact that we were together, because that could strengthen the business bond they have– the only reason why they’re friends in the first place, and I’m so fed up, I hate it, I despise it–” he stops to take a breath, his eyes getting glossy,

and suddenly, you’re helpless, you’re falling apart– because the issue is so much bigger than you anticipated and you don’t know how to do anything about it.

“And I don’t fucking feel real, Y/N, I don’t, and I don’t think I ever have, because I just wake up in the mornings and then somewhere along the way, I realise I’m alive and I laugh, because how could all of this be real? How could the money be real? How could anything be real, and– and it’s so confusing, because I should be grateful, but I’m not, because I can’t even fully grasp it,” he breathes, tears now streaking down his cheeks.

It feels like the whole world stopped for a moment; it feels like you are in a movie and someone pressed pause. You stare at him, you blink, and you pray for something to send you strength to deal with this, to tell you what to do or how to comfort him– because this must have felt so alone, and you can’t stand the image of Chenle ever being lonely.

Opening your mouth and closing it, you gasp for air. No words feel suitable for this kind of conversation, and so you just chime towards him– despite all your best assumptions– and hold him. Because at the end of the day, what helps more to ground someone back to earth than human touch?

Pads of your thumbs wipe at the teardrops strolling down his cheeks, every contact with the salty liquid hurting you, cutting through your skin like razor blades– because Chenle never cries, he never feels like something is worth indulging in enough to bring him to tears– and when he catches his trembling bottom lip in his teeth, you break; pulling him towards you and threading your fingers through his hair, the action once lullying him to sleep now used like a broken mantra– please be okay, please relax, please let me hold you until you’re glued back together again.

“I dunno what to do,” he shrugs, his head resting on your stomach, voice burrowing itself into the fabric of your expensive dress, “dunno where to go. ‘Cause Jun’s leaving, and Yizhuo’s gonna be busy with everything, and– and you’re moving across the fucking ocean, and I’m just– I turned everything down, because–” he says, voice breaking, and you shush him with a pat on his back, touch growing more affectionate.

“It’s okay,” you hum, “I got you,” you say; words he once told you at the golf cart, looking after you, or in the hotel room back in Japan when you were 6 and falling asleep, still scared of ghosts appearing in your bedroom– and you believed them, you always did, because Chenle was always there when you needed him– so you only pray he finds comfort in the sincere phrases, because what more is there to offer him?

His breathing grows steadier as you continue to play with his messy hair, his hands gently allowing themselves to wrap around your thighs, your standing figure shelved between his legs, and he laughs to himself, the whole situation kind of ironic to him now. “I don’t even know why I’m crying. ‘m kinda numb, you know, so it doesn’t even really hurt in the first place,” he says, and you wish you found the same humor in it than he did– or at least the bitter sense of soothing yourself with irony– but you can’t. Looking down at his body, latched to you like a lifeline, you wonder how you could ever leave him there alone, to deal with the burden by himself. How could you ever move so far away from him?

“My parents wanted me to go with you,” he starts, the sentence sparking up something inside of you, but he doesn’t pull away and meet your eyes when he continues, foreshadowing a sad ending to your hope, “they said I should study business at Yale as well, that it’s a great opportunity.”

You don’t reply to him, choosing not to push him. After a sigh, he continues. “And I didn’t get in, because, naturally, I was too stupid for it in the first place– no, I was–” he says when you gently slap the back of his head at the comment, “but then they paid the dean and suddenly I was allowed to go. Can you believe that?” he snickers bitterly, shaking his head in disbelief. “Bad mouthed you for a thing I despised in myself, when you were the one that got in fair and square in the first place.”

“‘s okay,” you mumble, compassion dripping off your words.

“And I turned it down, ‘cause I hated the fact that they did that. I was okay with studying the fucking business program, even though I despised it, I was okay with moving across the world, because at least you’d be there, y’know, but I couldn’t bear the fact that they did that to get me in. I think I was too ashamed, too embarrassed, because they had to pay for me to get there, but– I don’t know…” he trails off, and you sigh, shaking your head in disbelief.

“It’s okay to take opportunities that are presented to you, Lele,” you mumble, “I know you hate it, but you can’t change who you’re born to. The best you could do is to not waste all of this,” you say, trying to find a source of light in the deep abyss of his thoughts.

You try hard to solve the problem– to offer him a solution that could work, that could let him forget about the pain for at least a second– to wake him up from whatever deep thinking that got him into this mess. You try hard to solve the problem– but you don’t know how to deal with it. All you know is that you’re trying to pick up the patterns; you’d fit in his skin if you could, you’d crawl in and fix everything– but at the end of the day, as Yizhuo said, the only person you can fix is yourself.

“Bought,” he says, fixing your mistake, “opportunities that were bought for me. I couldn’t do it,” he says.

Huffing, indulging in a spare second of your own pain– a spare second of the despair eating you up from the insides, the helplessness you’ve been feeling ever since you were forcefully kicked out of Zhong Chenle’s life– and you didn’t even tell him you loved him in the first place before he got stuck in the fire of the woods; before you two started acting like it didn’t matter and always ended up in feuds– you mumble a comment, voice barely louder than a whisper, but he can hear it because of the closeness of your bodies in the few stray raindrops that come over you two once the clock strikes midnight.

“We could’ve lived together, you and me,” you say, “us against the whole world,” you comment– a childlike yearning spilling out of your lips, “we could’ve gone to Yale together and you’d figure something out along the way. Maybe– maybe you’d find a purpose if you moved, we could–”

“Y/N,” he shushes you, uttering out your name, finally breaking away from you as he looks up and gazes into the swimming pools of your eyes, shaking his head with a faint smile, “‘s okay. It wouldn’t have fixed anything anyway, it– it wouldn’t have helped.”

“But–”

“You can move, Y/N, but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter, ‘cause you’re taking yourself with you.”

August 20, 2020 – the backyard of your childhood house, Shanghai, 11:11 PM

You were never really that good at science– sure, your parents demanded you get good grades in every subject and your private school put quite the pressure on your education, but even though you always managed to pull satisfactory marks in exams, your understanding of the logistics sometimes lacked; you were much better at humanities or business-related courses, hearing enough at family dinners to find out your way through the lectures and apply the facts into examples from real life.

So, if anyone asked you how many stars there were in the universe, you wouldn’t be too confident in your answer. You wouldn’t know how to apply the Milky Way as your model– since it was said that it has around 100 billion stars alone– and multiply the part by the amount of galaxies in the universe– approximately 2 trillion– to get a number somewhere close to 200 billion trillion, also called 200 sextillion. 

You wouldn’t know how to do any of that, or how to even count this amount without a calculator, so you’d take a more liberal arts approach– literary, even– and say, that on August 20, 2020, at 11:11 sharp in your backyard, gazing on to the deep, dark sky and wishing for a star to fall so you could propose a selfish wish that could change everything, there’s still not more stars there than in Zhong Chenle’s eyes when your gazes meet after your friends leave for the evening, leaving you with your neighbor completely alone.

And it’s strange, seeing him like this– maybe because you didn’t even realize how used to the dull and emotionless Chenle you’ve been all this time– but it warms something inside of your heart as you take a hesitant step towards him, the first one out of the whole evening, and take a seat next to him in the corner of your terrace, sighing to yourself.

“You actually came,” you note, seeing as he turns to you and furrows his eyebrows at you in confusion.

“Should I not have? I mean, by the text you sent me, it seemed like you wanted me here, but if I misread the situation, I can go…” he snickers, teasing you just the slightest as he nudges you to your side.

You hum, shaking your head in disapproval. “No,” you say, “I just… I dunno.”

“Expected me to ignore you?” 

“Kinda,” you admit, snickering.

“Damn,” he giggles, “that’s fair, though. Considering the previous events, and all.”

Rolling your eyes at his composure, finally getting used to the old Chenle– the one that teases you over the smallest things, the one who doesn’t let his emotions show in his face– you watch him as he takes a seat on one of the rattan sofas and you follow him, body slouching next to his, feeling his head gently rest on your shoulder in the mere moment of silence between your two figures.

“Wouldn’t let you leave without seeing you for the last time,” he says, voice quiet and vulnerable, “god knows when I’ll see you again.”

“Chenle–”

“Just because you don’t want to talk about it doesn’t mean it’s not real,” he snickers, already knowing where your words are going– you’re going to try to stop him, tell him you don’t want to think about it right now, on the last evening at your house for the near future. 

“I’d rather not think about that, y’know,” you huff, frustrated. The anxieties of leaving everything behind are clenching on your insides right now, holding you back from moving freely and with enthusiasm, and you wonder– if you knew how this would feel all those months ago– if you knew how terrifying and painful the whole process could be, would you still apply to Yale? Would you still want to go?

“Okay,” he dotes, tone of voice casual, like it��s not a big deal. 

“Okay? Just like that?” you snicker, surprised at how easily he gave the topic up.

“Yeah. Don’t wanna make you sadder.”

Sitting in silence, you realize there’s so many words you’d like to say to him. You’d like to tell him just how much you’re gonna miss him and how you regret ruining the last few months you two had together, and how you’re sorry your feelings scared him to the point where he felt like he had no one to confide in. You’d like to tell him how you built a future with him in your brain, carefully placed him into your reality, only for him to break away from your grasp and go his own way, and how much it hurts, but how you’re always going to support him in whatever he chooses, because you care for him more than your little heart could take. You’d like to tell him how you’re gonna call him every day to check up on him, how you’re gonna send letters and press a secret kiss to each sheet of expensive paper you’ll get downtown, wishing he could feel the essence with the growing distance between you two. You’d like to ask him to visit you often– he’s gonna have more time on his hands, and god knows money’s not the issue. You’d like to selfishly tell him you find it hard to deal with the distance, and how you wish he wouldn’t find somebody else while you’re gone, and how you so dearly hope that somewhere in there, your feelings are silently reciprocated, but hidden away in fear of everything falling apart once again.

But instead, you don’t say anything. You tend to wait for him to speak up first– he’s always had a problem with talking too much in the first place, after all.

And he does– you can still predict his next moves. You know him that well.

“I’m gonna miss you, though,” he sighs, catching you off guard by saying something from the list of your silenced words, “don’t think that I won’t. Or that the way I’ll miss you is different than the way you’re gonna miss me,” he speaks, tone of voice laced in honesty and sincerity, his words heavy with the essence of what he’s never going to say out loud– or so you think.

“In what way?”

“I’m not gonna miss you like a friend misses a friend,” he says, “and I don’t mean the sex,” he snickers, brightening the mood with his comment.

Rolling his eyes at him, you feel him lift his head up from your shoulder, forcing you to look at him and meet his starry eyes again– the damn starry eyes that always make you spill the truth, because god knows you cannot lie to him– and you find yourself scanning his features, the structure of his bones you fear you’re gonna forget when you’re away, so desperately wanting to lock your lips with his for one last time, because when you come back one day, you may not have the right or chance to do so anymore. 

“Why are you looking at me like that?” he asks, not a hint of teasing in his voice.

“You know why, Chenle.”

“Can you say it out loud?” he demands, and you shake your head– maybe it's best if the words are left unsaid. Doesn’t matter if they’re hanging in the air, for everyone to read.

“Why?”

“You know how I feel about you,” you snicker, “don’t make me say it out loud.”

Because even if you told him you loved him, it wouldn’t change anything. It wouldn’t make it all better, it wouldn’t make it all good– no matter how hard you wish that it would. 

“Okay,” he nods, agreeing too fast again– and with that, he smiles, the gesture so soft and sudden, and there you are– you’ve got a caving heart in your open arms, and Chenle takes it, carelessly choking out the hushed confession, “I’m in love with you. If you don’t say it, I’m gonna, because… you deserve to know.”

Heart sinking into your stomach, you watch him, frozen in your place, for a while. Your eyes carefully scan every curve of his face– the curve of his lips, the curve of his cheeks, the hood of his eyes, his brows, the thousand stolen galaxies in his orbs and mouth glistening like honey, inviting you in. Snickering under your breath, you choose to not give in to the temptation.

“You’re only saying that because I’m leaving tomorrow,” you say, shaking your head. 

“Maybe,” he agrees.

And you know that– you know that if you weren’t leaving, he wouldn’t tell you that he loves you. He wouldn’t allow himself to be this vulnerable, he wouldn’t tell you how he feels about you, because he had all this time– all those months and weeks spent with you in his bed, and you know his touches weren’t just shallow desire– and he never once said anything. He didn’t do anything about it, and now that there is nothing more to do about it, nothing that could change the trajectory of either of your lives, he chooses to speak it to the universe; because it doesn’t change anything, it can’t possibly do so– and so he doesn’t have to fear the consequences, he doesn’t have to fear the attachment that comes with such confession.

And for a minute, you think it’s selfish. You think it’s laughable, ironic, even, but you accept it. 

His hand reaches for yours, interlocking your fingers with his when he launches you forward into him, arms gently enveloping your body when your head settles itself to the curve of his shoulder. You stay like this for a while, in his hold again, breathing in his scent and trying to remember it for weeks and months before you’re able to smell it again, letting out a nosy question out of your lips– and truly, you don’t know why you do so, when you know the answer to it already anyway. Maybe you just want to hear it again.

“So… you do have feelings for me too, after all?”

He stays quiet for a while, before he softly laughs into your hair. “Yeah,” he nods, “but it doesn’t matter, ‘cause you’re leaving for Yale tomorrow, aren’t you?”

And he’s right– you are. Thinking for a while, feeling him place a shy peck to the crown of your head– the only kiss you two allow yourselves at this point of time– you come to the conclusion that  even though you love him, care for him like you’ve never cared for another before, you wouldn’t change a thing about your plan– wouldn’t change the trajectory of your whole life, wouldn't stay in Shanghai, wouldn’t drop out of university, wouldn’t stop everything because of him, because in a way, you strangely have it all figured out. 

And he doesn’t.

And you pray that one day, he’ll find the purpose in all the potential he holds in his hands.

[kusogitsune]

The Tametebako or Colloquially "Fuchi's Last Stand" was a no holds bar, money is no object vanity project by an unsupervised faction of Fuchi Asia. The stated goal was to make a completely unmatched bleeding edge piece of tech that could compete with the best static units while being a portable terminal replacement. Aimed at the Newly minted UltraLux CEO Segment, The Tametebako was made from rare and hard to get materials to sell it's exclusive nature; bundled with its innovative hardware and extremely powerful Otohime Assistant Software (Which Fuchi spend 10 years developing). Consequently, The Tametebako Commlink retailed at 50 000 nuyen which many consumers balked at for what was essentially an overpowered phone with an extremely intelligent chatbot. Many reviewers sledged the device for it's inability to install new applications if they weren't from approved sources. These Commlinks are now seeing second life in the collectors and hackers markets with finding the styling and theming of the phone to be charmingly retro and powerful enough to keep up with modern hardware with some QoL mods. Diehard fans report the Otohime software taking on a life of it's own after modding the hardware; her usual calm and dignified demeanor shifts around and changes during the jailbreaking process due to the random voltage pulse needed to defeat the modification lockout chip. This results in a unique iteration of the Soft on each device. SinkaSwim P2.0Net

[leclsrc]

Heyyy, congrats on 2000! ❤️❤️

I have a request for Carlos + [ FIVE CALLS ].

what i feel for you – cs55

genre: fluff, 2k celebration, title from this

send for five times the receiver nearly calls the sender and the one time they do.

You’d told him the night prior about your date, gave him the usual crash course that came with these flings. He made a joke about how you should take advantage of the handsome men in Madrid, even if his heart felt like a giant foot had just smashed it. Because, Carlos reminds himself as he awaits your text again, he’s supposed to be a good friend.

It’s a weird label, friends. It’s a label for a relationship that’s something else entirely. Yeah, he’s your closest friend, but he’s here hoping you don’t pursue a second date. Yeah, you two are best friends, but you sleep in the same bed on cold nights during the season even if there are two in the hotel room.

His phone dings. Went like shit,you text. I’m in a pissy mood :(

Lando would tell him to take the chance while he can, like this is God or whoever giving him a sign to finally try and do it. And Carlos would say no, Lando, we’re just friends even if the younger guy would 100% be right. He swipes on your contact, hovers his thumb over the telephone icon, tries to picture how all this would go. 

You’d sigh, pick up in the middle of the third ring, be all I’m okay, Carlos in an effort to save yourself the sympathy, but he isn’t here for sympathy—he’s here to tell you he likes you. In the stronger way, in that way. What? I like you, he’ll insist. Come to mine and I’ll let you know how much.

Think I’ll go for drinks somewhere first Carlito, don’t wait up. He swipes off your contact, texts back OK, and waits for you all night.

—

When you’re a hotshot in Formula 1, you’re bound to be pushed into the face of a myriad of journalists. 

There’s clicking, flash, rehearsed questions Carlos still answers. They all ask the same shit, you’d think they all belonged to one magazine. But he braves through it anyway, tries to let the answers vary so he doesn’t sound as robotic as they do. But there are a few questions that have stuck to him.

“I imagine racing is the love of your life,” chirped the journalist, who he could barely see behind the shadow of the huge TV camera beside her. “Would you agree?” He’d hummed, gauging the possible answers: there was the easy yes, which would’ve made a good impression on racing fans seeing him in Toro Rosso for the first time; there was the no, which might’ve been a bit too dicey.

“It’s very important to me, but it’s not the love of my life.” Carlos decided finally, laughing.

“Playing coy, I see!” She exclaimed.

But the truth was, Carlos wasn’t “playing coy.” He really didn’t name racing the love of his life—because there’s only one thing that enters his mind when he thinks of the phrase, and he wished to save the phrase for that and that only. Racing is fast, it’s passionate and rapid fire, but that—it’s so different.

He almost tells you about it a few years later, when he’s exhausted from Ferrari media day and the memory replays in his head. You’re in Asia for work right now, so he hopes the call he’s about to place will go through anyway.

He’s smiling, walking to his car, and line is just about to ring when he realizes—how can he tell you the story, if it means admitting you were the answer?

—

Everyone has high tolerance until it comes to tequila. At least Carlos thinks so—the state he’s in is definitely not sober and Lando, across him, is in even worse shape. They’ve drained a whole bottle at this point, laughing back and forth and dancing to the music at the bar.

“I’m only serving tequila at my future wedding,” belches Lando, wearing a pair of sunglasses neither of them owns.

“Amen.” Carlos squints at the thought of marriage, pulls out his phone and finds your name under the Favorites section of his contacts. The cheeky little shit Lando catches on immediately, whistling a high teasing tune to get under Carlos’ skin.

“I say ‘wedding’ once and already you’re off calling her,” he quips. “I better be best man.”

“We’re just friends,” he slurs, smelling Cuervo on his breath. “You know.”

The line rings once, twice—Carlos opens his mouth and says “Hello? Did you know I…”

He passes out before he gets to the rest of it.

—

The drivers make a night’s trip around the city, and they stop at the Trevi Fountain.

“Throw a coin in and you return to Rome,” Charles says factually, like he’s their tour guide or something.

“Does it allow normal wishes?” Carlos, already amused, presses the phone icon near your name to tell you what he’s up to. The spotty signal slows the call. 

“Depends. What are you wishing for?”

“Her.” Lando points at your name on Carlos’ phone.

He hangs up. “A world champion title, actually,” he lies.

—

“Hey Carlito, I’m on my way to the room.”

“With pizza?” Lando hollers into the speakerphone. Carlos laughs and rolls his eyes.

“Yes, obviously,” you say, but your voice is laggy through the phone. You’ve visited them in Italy for the weekend, taking a break from work to meet your best friend again after weeks of being apart. And of course Lando and Carlos sort of came as a package deal these days, so you dealt with him, too.

Carlos takes you off speaker after you say your byes and see-you-soons, pocketing his phone. The Brit doesn’t miss a beat in teasing him. “Dude! Even your voice sounds so down bad, mate.”

“It does not.” Carlos doesn’t even know what down bad means. 

“Low it! You’ve loved this girl for how the fuck long and you’re never going to tell her, will you?”

“How do you tell a friend you love them?” Carlos sighs. “It’s—dios mio, it’s difficult. I’m in love with her but it’s a risk to think she feels the same. And”—Lando opens his mouth to protest—“yeah, yeah I know that’s love, I know that’s the whole point, but I couldn’t live with myself if I lost a friend because of these estupido feelings.”

Two raps sound on the door, and he gets up to let you in. “Okay? So shut up.”

Lando watches his friend swing the door open, and sees you on the other side holding up your phone.

AA Carlito, it says, signifying the call was never hung up. You smile. “The feelings aren’t that estupido.”

[ereardon]

Friends Don't || Chapter 3

Summary: Bob Floyd has been your best friend for almost a decade, ever since he quietly agreed to tutor you in college. The two of you have spent years chasing each other around the globe – Bob as a WSO, you as a travel blogger. You’ve always been the anywhere-but-here girl, and he’s been your rock. But when a surprise diagnosis threatens to crumble your picture-perfect life, you’re on the first flight back to San Diego, desperate to put down roots for the first time. Will Bob finally have it in him to admit that you could be the love of his life? What will he say when he finds out the secret you’ve been skillfully hiding from him? Or worse, what if he doesn’t find out until it’s too late? 

Pairing: Robert “Bob” Floyd x OC [Reid] 

Tropes: Friends to lovers

Warnings: Cursing, angst, alcohol

WC: 2.8K

Series masterlist here; previous chapter here; next chapter here

You met Denver when Bob got stationed at Lemoore. You had still been living in New Orleans, planning your move up to San Francisco, but it was taking a while because the magazine had you doing an Asia tour: Vietnam, Laos, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Nepal. 

On your way back from Tokyo, you stopped in San Francisco to do some apartment hunting, before renting a car and driving down to Lemoore to visit Bob. 

He was still a newer member on the team; everyone but Denver had been there for years. They were a knit family, and he was the odd one out. But at least he had her. 

“You’re going to love her,” Bob said. He was teeming with excitement. Seeing him happy made you happy. You knew that he hadn’t quite fit in at Newport, his station before Lemoore. You knew that he desperately wanted to be part of a team. 

And he had found that with Denver. 

The bar was crowded. And hot. You were wearing a tiny tank top and a pair of denim shorts, not much of a going out outfit but Bob had insisted the two of you go straight to the bar so you could meet his friends. 

Bob weaved through the packed bar, his hand warm in yours, over toward one side of the curved wooden bar. You spotted the familiar khaki outfits that screamed military. Bob raised his free hand excitedly in a wave and you smiled up at him. 

“Hey guys,” he said, and a few of the khaki uniforms turned. Their eyes shamelessly rolled over you, and your hand in Bob’s, jaws going slack. 

“Floyd,” one of them, a classically attractive guy with a broad jawline, said. “Who’s the girl?” 

“Reid,” you said, sticking out one hand, keeping your left firmly in Bob’s. You shook his hand. 

“Harvard,” he said. 

You squinted. Another guy, even more ridiculously handsome, sidled up behind him. “I’m Fritz.”

You nodded. The other two were Omaha and Yale. The callsigns went in one ear and out the other. You were notoriously bad with names. 

And then you heard a small voice, like a delicate bird. “Stop drooling all over her, fuckheads. She’s way too hot for any of you.” 

All eyes turned to the right. A tiny redhead was making her way over to the group, her hands full of beer bottles. She handed one to Omaha and then another to Bob. Finally, her piercing green eyes landed on you and she smiled, holding out the remaining beer bottle. “You must be Sunny.” 

You grinned. “I am. You must be Denver.” 

“Sure hope so, otherwise I’m wearing someone else’s uniform.”

You laughed and took the beer, sipping it carefully. You watched Bob’s face light up as he spoke to the pilot. The casual way she put her hand on his forearm. How easy and light they were together. The way his eyes tracked her across the room. How she always brought him back into the conversation where he might have fallen out of it. 

For the rest of the night you snuck glances at the two of them. And for the first time you saw what Bob looked like when he was in love. 

“Hey.” Fritz approached you from your right, leaning against the wall where you had your butt pressed, staring out across the bar at Bob and Denver. 

“Hi,” you replied, taking a swig from the gin and tonic in your hand. You were tipsy, edging on drunk. 

Fritz followed your gaze. “They’re good together, don’t you think?” 

You nodded. “Yeah, they are. Never seen him like that before.” 

“Like what?” 

“So happy,” you replied. “Carefree.” The two of you watched as Bob laughed at something Denver said, her eyes sparkling as she faced him. 

“He looked pretty damn happy when he told us you were coming,” Fritz said. 

You shook your head. “Nothing like that.” 

Fritz moved slightly closer and you looked up at him with a smile. 

“Live nearby?” you asked. 

He grinned. “In fact, I do.” 

You took his hand, weaving through the crowd toward where Bob was standing near the bar next to Denver and Yale. “Bobby?” you said softly, raising a hand and pressing it to his upper arm. 

He turned around with a smile. “Hey Sunny, where’d you go?” 

You looked up at Fritz. “Just got another drink. I, uh, think we’re gonna head out. Can I call you tomorrow, get a ride back to your place?” 

He frowned. “Are you sure?” 

You felt Fritz’s hand slide into the back pocket of your jeans, fingers gripping the swell of your ass. “Yeah, I’m sure.” 

Bob looked between you and Fritz with narrowed eyes. “Sunny? Gonna ask you one more time, darlin’, are you sure?” 

You nodded then leaned up and kissed his cheek, letting your hand fall from his arm. “See you tomorrow, Bobby.” 

You let Fritz’s hand migrate to your low back, guiding you out of the bar and into the humid California night. You weren’t sure why, but it took everything you had not to turn around and take one last look at Bob before you walked out the door. 

Bob looked up at Denver with angry eyes. 

“I shouldn’t have let her go. She’s been here twelve hours, she has no idea where she is. Fritz is a goddamn stranger to her.”

“Reid can do what she wants, Floyd,” Denver said, leaning her small arm against the bar. “She’s a grown woman. Besides, Fritz is a puppy dog. You don’t have anything to worry about.” 

He shook his head. “I’m going after her.” He put his glass of seltzer down and started to walk toward the door when Denver grabbed him, yanking him back shockingly hard for such a small person. 

“Floyd! Snap out of it man. She isn’t yours.” 

“Yes, she is. She’s my responsibility, don’t you get that? I brought her here.”

Harvard shook his head. “Fuck, man, you’re down bad for her aren’t you?” 

Bob squinted his eyes. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

Harvard laughed. “See, I always thought you had a thing for Denver over here. But apparently you’re just the nerd in love with the hot girl next door. And she ditched you the first chance she got.”

Bob felt like his eyes were going to pop out of his head. He lunged forward, but Denver grabbed his arm. “Come on, let’s get some air, Floyd.” 

He let her yank him out onto the back patio of the bar, anger already starting to pool in his stomach. 

“Is it because of Fritz, or is it because she left with anyone but you?”

Bob shook his head, taking a deep breath. “Please, Denver, just drop it.” 

“No. I won’t drop it. Tell me the truth. What is it about her that has you so wound up, ready to fucking combust?”

Bob sighed. “It’s just been me and Reid for a long time, OK? It’s a hard dynamic to change. That’s all, I promise.”

Her green eyes scanned his face. “You wouldn’t lie to me, would you Robert?” she asked softly, stepping closer. 

Bob raised his eyes to hers. “No, Sarah. I wouldn’t lie to you.” 

She nodded, lips pursed in a tight line. The two of them stood side by side, leaning against the railing of the patio, staring off into the distance in silence.

***

You hadn’t meant for it to happen, but somehow you ended up hosting a pizza night at the house as a way to repay the team for helping to unbox all your stuff that had finally arrived from Brooklyn, along with all of the new items you had purchased that had shown up on the doorstep, much to Bob’s dismay. 

The two of you arrived home one night to no less than twenty boxes from Crate & Barrel on the front porch. Bob turned to you with wide eyes and you gave him a small shrug across the middle console of the car, hopping out to examine the boxes. 

“Sunny,” he said, exasperated. “I said yes to redecorating. But what on Earth? Did you buy the whole store or what?” 

“Hate to break it to you, honey,” you said, opening the door and scooting the nearest box inside. “But your house? Your stuff? It’s depressing.” 

“I’m offended,” he said, following after you with a box in his arms. 

“No you’re not,” you replied. “And if you are, you’ll get over it when you see how much cute shit I got for us.” 

Bob groaned, digging in his pocket. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Calling in backup,” he said, hitting a button and lifting the phone to his ear. “Rooster? Yeah, can you and Hangman and Phoenix come over? Bring Coyote. Reid bought all this stuff and we’re never going to be able to unload it all ourselves.” He paused, nodding. “Yeah, we’ll buy you guys dinner.” 

He clicked off the phone and you laughed, already headed to your room to change into athletic clothing. “Remember that you love me!” you called from down the hall. 

“How could I ever forget?” Bob replied, shaking his head and grabbing a box cutter from the top drawer in the kitchen. 

That was how you found yourself sitting on the floor in the middle of Bob’s kitchen unwrapping a set of Estelle colored wine glasses and handing them to Phoenix, who was carefully placing them in a cabinet. 

In the living room, Rooster and Hangman were fighting over the instructions for the media center that you had ordered, while Bob was chatting with Coyote as he built a coffee table. 

You handed a blue stemless wine glass to Phoenix who took it with a smile. “So, how are you liking San Diego?” 

You shrugged. “It’s alright. I like the beach nearby.” 

“Bob said you’ve lived all over the place.” 

You nodded. “Yeah, I’ve bounced around a lot. I did New Orleans, Seattle, Austin, SF, London, Barcelona. Most recently I was in Greenpoint.” 

Phoenix put one hand on her slim hip. “Can I ask you a question?” 

“Of course.” 

“Why here, then? Sounds like you’ve lived in the best cities in the US, maybe even the world. So why the hell would you want to move to San Diego?” 

You looked out over into the living room. “It’s the only place where I can see him every day.” 

Phoenix raised an eyebrow as you stood up from the floor, dusting off your knees with your hands. “Bradshaw is gonna ask you out. Even got a blessing from Floyd.” 

You turned to her. “Bob said yes?” 

She nodded. “Wasn’t too convincing, but he said Bradshaw was free to do whatever he liked. So just keep an eye out. He’s a good guy, Rooster. You could do worse.” 

You ducked down, opening a new box to reveal a set of ivory plates. “I’m not really looking to date right now.” 

“Anyone, or does that just apply to Rooster?”

“You two gossiping about me?” Bradley appeared in your field of vision, guzzling from a water bottle on the counter. He set it down and wiped his mouth, revealing a wide grin. 

You looked at Phoenix with panic and she cleared her throat. “Was just telling Reid here that you’re a sore loser because Hangman beat you at darts last week.” 

“Fuck, it was one time!” Rooster tossed his hands up and his genuine nature made you laugh. He dropped his hands and smiled. “Listen, Reid, if you’re not busy tomorrow, I’d love to take you to dinner.” 

You hesitated. What you had told Phoenix wasn’t a lie. You moved to San Diego to spend time with Bob. It wasn’t about a new crop of potential suitors. But the way that Bradley was smiling down at you, and the broadness of his shoulders, and the air in the kitchen, all had you nodding. “Sure,” you said softly. “I’d love to.” 

Bradley smiled so wide it threatened to split his face in half. “Great. I’ll pick you up here, say seven thirty?” 

You nodded. The rest of the night was spent unpacking boxes, you and Phoenix largely sequestered to the kitchen. Hangman and Rooster finally stopped yelling at each other long enough to get the black wood and cane media console set up and you watched with a grin as all four men argued about how exactly the tv should be set up. 

At the end of the night, you swept the empty pizza boxes into a trash bag and followed everyone out into the driveway to say goodbye, dumping the trash inside the can near the garage door. 

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” you said lightly to Bradley and he stepped closer, kissing your cheek softly.

“See you tomorrow Reid.” 

He walked away and you heard Jake huff to himself, muttering under his breath, “What does fucking Bradshaw have that I don’t?” 

You smirked to yourself, waving to Phoenix as she got in her truck, before heading back inside. In the kitchen, Bob was wiping down the counter, placing the last beer can in the recycling. 

“Good work tonight,” you said, looking around with your hands crossed over your chest. You still had some boxes to unpack and you were lacking a dining room table, but the living room was practically brand new. 

Bob shook his head. “You didn’t have to do this, Sunny.” 

“Um, I kind of did if I didn’t want to live in a frat basement for a house.” 

“It wasn’t that bad.” “Whatever you need to tell yourself.” You slipped past him, opening the fridge and pulling out a water bottle. “Alright, I’m gonna take a shower and head to bed. Goodnight.” 

You started down the hall when Bob’s voice stopped you. “Are you really going out with Bradley tomorrow?”

You turned. Bob stood in the middle of the hallway, his hands in his pockets. There was an air around him that you couldn’t place. You nodded. “Yeah, I am. Phoenix said you told Bradley it was OK to ask me out.” 

Bob grunted, turning around and heading for the kitchen, breaking down a cardboard box in frustrated silence. 

You followed him back into the kitchen, one hand on your hip. “Bobby? Are you mad? Do you not want me to date your colleague, is that what this is about?” 

“You always do this, Reid,” he said, shaking his head. There was something unnerving about Bob calling you by your first name. It was always Sunny, honey, darlin’, sweetheart. Never Reid. 

“Do what?” 

Bob looked up. “You leave a trail of men everywhere we go, Reid. I get it. You’re the anywhere-but-here girl. But you have to realize that you can’t do that this time. This is my life you’re walking into. You’re meeting my friends, living in my house. You told me you were settling down this time. But you’re still acting like the same Reid as before.” 

“And who exactly is that?” you demanded, crossing your arms over your chest. 

Bob let out a frustrated sigh. “I don’t want to do this right now.” 

“You started this,” you practically shouted. “So fucking end it, Bobby. How am I acting?”

“You’re doing what you always do!” he yelled. “You’re acting like the Reid that fucks any guy that’s halfway decent to you. And then you run away before it can become anything more than a one night stand because you’re fucking terrified of having to stay and owning up to responsibility for the first time in your life. You just steamroll over everyone and everything, have your fun and then you’re gone. And you’ve always been like that. But this time you don’t get to just flit off to Mexico or Sweden or Croatia and send me a little gift basket and act like it never happened. This time you’re fucking with the people in my life, Reid, and it will have consequences. For once can you care about someone other than yourself and look at the situation and realize that what you do impacts me, too?”

The two of you stood, frozen, in the kitchen. The tension in the air was palpable. You could count on one hand the number of fights you and Bob had gotten into over the last nine years. 

This was one of them. 

Your eyes were locked on Bob’s blue ones. You watched as his face fell. As the realization of what he had just said washed over his familiar face. 

“Sunny,” he murmured, stepping closer and you shook your head, backing away. 

“No.” You whispered it, but there was venom laced in the word. “Don’t you dare try and take that back,” you added. “Because you can’t.” 

“Honey, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said it.” 

You whipped around, practically jogging down the hall toward the stairs at the front of the house. 

“Reid!” 

You climbed the stairs, two at a time, and slammed the door to your room, locking it behind you, sliding down against the back of the door onto the ground in a heap. 

You hated fighting with Bob. But this time, what you hated the most was that he was right. 

Tag list: (or turn on notifications for my library @ereardonlibrary)

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@mygyn @storysimp @interstellarloneliness @leafyturtle @deliriousfangirl61  @brookiecookiez0

[didalexiabreakupwitholgayet]

i’m from southeast asia, and i’m not really familiar with the woso scene here, but personally, when someone asks me why i’m a multi club supporter, i just tell them it’s because they’re both in different leagues.

i’m the only one in my family that really watches and pay attention to english and spanish leagues. (with the exception that my brother watches the dutch league mainly)

i don’t see anything wrong with supporting different clubs that are in different leagues. i support arsenal and barcelona, but if they were to play each other, i would support arsenal.

and i’m relatively new to watching football in general. i’ve only started becoming a football fan during the wwc in 2023. i wouldn’t say i’m “jumping on the bandwagon” by supporting arsenal. leah williamson was the first footballer i followed on instagram after the euros. and as for barcelona, i waa gifted a 17/18 messi kit so i thought why not just support barcelona.

i think, in the end, it’s okay to support multiple clubs if they’re in different leagues.

(didn’t mean to rant in your asks. i’m sorry! hope you’re having a great day xx)

yeah, i mean we all have our origin stories of what brought us to football, especially those of us who weren't born into it.

i absolutely cannot wait for champions league qualifying to kick off again. it's truly the best competition out there, bar none!

whoa, whoa, whoa. let's not get crazy here. 😂

like alexia said, i wish mariona well and lots of success, except when she plays us! barça is my #1, ara i sempre.

[simplifiedemotions]

(Don’t) Be My Valentine.

Hermione told herself it wasn’t a big deal. 

They’d been dating for seven years now, and Draco had been giving Hermione Valentine’s gifts for at least the past decade. Surely it didn’t matter if he’d missed one year, and it wasn’t as if he’d made some binding vow either. 

She was being silly.

Still, she couldn’t help thinking about it. The lack. What was different about this year compared to the rest of them?

Each year’s gift had been more ostentatious than the year before: everything from first editions of various books, both Magical and Muggle, to rendezvous to various archeological wonders in different parts of Wizarding Europe and Asia.

She’d always berated him for the expenses, whilst he’d put his arm around her, cast her that annoying self-satisfied wink which caused butterflies to upend themselves in her stomach as he explained how it was almost impossible for him to use up Malfoy money. 

Funny, at first.

Then, Hermione had been cursed. She’d gone on a trip to explore a new type of beast reported sighted on the moors of Ireland, and the poor thing, startled when Hermione had come upon its den, loosed its whip-shaped tongue at her bare skin.

He’d used up over half of the entire Malfoy fortune to save her.

She hadn’t been surprised that he’d been in love with her all those years, but she’d still reveled in the widening of his eyes and the gasp of breath that left him when she’d kissed him only moments after obtaining a clean bill of heath by a senior Medi-witch.

“You saved me.” Spoken against his mouth.

“It was never a question.” Her, pressed against a wall.

“Your funding is also the reason we now have magical antiviral drugs to combat different maledict curses.”

His silver eyes gleamed as he looked down at her. Her heart squeezed. 

“You can save the world, Granger.” His thumbs wiped the tears from her face. “I only want to save you.”

A familiar whiff of scent: parchment and fresh spring water brought Hermione back. She looked up to see Draco walking towards her. She’d been moping by the front of a corridor near the Ministry lifts, and he’d probably came by to fetch her.

“You’re distracted.” He came up to her and wrapped his arms around her waist, his billowing dark navy cloak cocooning her in his warmth. “Have you finally conceded to Lovegood’s Nargles theory?” he teased.

Hermione gave him her best unimpressed look, then placed her hands on his chest. He looked at her strangely.

“Not that I mind exactly, but why are you feeling me up?”

Hermione had indeed started padding his robes: in the inside pockets, underneath the holster where he kept his wand, and even going so far as digging her fingers into the backs of his trousers.

“Granger!” he huffed, pulling her into a darkened corridor. Two bright spots of colour appeared on the high points of his cheekbones. “Though I am not averse to non-work-related activities, I was coming to get you so we could go home.” He stepped closer, giving her a conspiratorial smile. “Unless you had different plans for us?”

Hermione looked up at him. “What?”

“I’m aware my devastating charm can be hard to ignore, but really, Granger, we’re in public!”

“Oh, my god.” Hermione turned and started walking towards the lifts. “I was not trying to jump your bones.”

His long strides meant he easily caught up to her. “You were feeling me up.” A statement.

“I was looking for something!” she said, then froze at his questioning look.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing!” she squeaked, all but damaging the lift bar as she aggressively pulled it up and down so that it would come faster. When that became useless, she started counting the lines on her palm.

With an amused expression on his face, he took her hands and brought them to his lips, kissing her knuckles affectionately. “Don’t tell me you were looking for a Valentine’s-shaped box, Miss Hermione Granger.”

The way his mouth curved around Miss caused a peculiar feeling to start behind her ribcage.

Thankfully, the lifts arrived at that moment, and she ripped her hands away from him and went inside, busying herself with the lift buttons as if this were the first time she’d ever learned about the mechanisms of magical elevators. 

“Granger.”

“I was not looking for a gift,” she huffed.

Long arms slipped around her waist again, and Hermione couldn’t help but nestle back into the warmth of Draco’s chest.

“That’s too bad,” he said, moving her mass of hair over one shoulder and trailing a soft kiss on her bare neck. She shivered. “I have a gift for you, one I specifically wanted to give you tonight. Though I confess I’m rather nervous about giving it to you.”

Hermione’s heart started pounding. “Oh?”

Dexterous hands shifted her blouse, then a soft mouth glided against the sensitive skin of her shoulder. “It’s a gift only you could fit.”

She pressed herself back harder against him, and he groaned.

“Careful,” he commanded, but Hermione wasn’t listening. She reached her hands up behind her until she could grab at his soft hair and pull him down closer.

“Hermione,” he said, tightening his arm around her, his teeth sharp at the thinnest part of her shoulder blade. A thrill shot through her at how ragged he sounded.

Hermione turned until they were face to face, and she used the hand that wasn’t gripping the collar of Draco’s robes to hold his chin and force him to meet her eyes. “Tell me what it is, please.”

His grin was nothing short of improper. 

“First, let’s go home.”

An exhilarated dash to the Floo.

Arms wrapped around one another before the green embers started dying in their fireplace.

A rush to take each other’s clothes off, a trail of evidence leading to the bedroom of their shared flat.

Pleading and cursing; vows and tears.

“Granger.” His mouth was still on her breast, and her skin buzzed with the afterglow of pleasure.

Her fingers trailed over his hair. “Is it Granger still?” 

His smile was bright in the dark.

—

(Don’t be my valentine.)

(Be my wife.)

[beautifulpersonpeach]

I know you always struggle to write about Suga Bpp but I'd really appreciate a review from you for D-day.

Sincerely, a follower who loves the space you make here.

Thank you for focusing on the music in the middle of the madness. I struggle with this a lot, but your posts always help.

Pls review D-day in any way you like or in that way you always do.

***

I'm losing my mind.

This album has put me in a high that hasn't come down since release. Overall, I rate the album a 9/10. I won't really get into the lyrics (Yoongi never minces words), but will tell you why exactly I think Yoongi is insane.

(Tsk... a problem)

We should all thank Yoongi. If I had his address I'd send him flowers and my nudes (me sitting pretty in a bucket of tangerines), for the blessing, the honour, the gift of J-hope Jay spitting the coldest bars of his entire career on HUH?!

His delivery??

Jesus.

Jung Hoseok, the man you fucking are.

There's no Korean rapper in the history of rap who has spit sicker bars, delivered so cold it feels like he just ripped eyeballs clean out their sockets.

(Son couilles est lourde)

HUH?! is the best song on the album

See, up until now, BTS had never done drill. And a part of me was always grateful because even on harmless boom bap beats, they been cutting niggas left and right. But Yoongi went there. On D-DAY, he went there. And Lord is it a revelation. Nobody should be surprised that D-DAY is now the highest selling rap album, in history. Yoongi is the first rapper to sell a million albums in a day in history. Not k-rap, not in Asia, but globally in the history of the genre - that was done by Min Yoongi with Jung Hoseok whipping up guts served cold on a platter.

If you're vegetarian or vegan I'm so sorry but this album is not for you. Because this album, HUH?! in particular, is an exhibit of cadavers split open and Hobi's delivery is of a man who didn't even bother washing his hands after doing what needed to be done. A man who doesn't feel a speck of remorse for the corpses left in his wake. Hobi's flow on HUH?! is psychotic. And think about what it means to have Hobi on a song like this to begin with. Yoongi said he hadn't done the genre before, and he trusted Hobi - who initially learned from Namgi but very quickly developed his own flavour and skills enough to earn the respect of his idol - Yoongi trusted his brother on that track and that alone nearly brings me to tears.

Then Yoongi follows it with Amygdala and I start actually crying.

(This was me on my third listen.)

Amygdala is the standout song on this album

The transition from drill rap to soothing acoustic trap is so beautiful, it alters your mind. It's so seamless. Everything about Amygdala cements Yoongi's genius as a force to be reckoned with among the greats.

(I love them)

When Yoongi showed Jimin this song in SOOP around the time he made it, he said he went through wild mood swings making it. And you hear it in his voice. When he screams so wildly he uses autotune to distort it, almost temper it, for our sakes and to drive home the point. The point being his pain, how overwhelming it was, how he decided to intentionally pull those memories out to process them. And he lets us hear the result. He lets us see the compassion he shows himself in that song.

Y'all...

*

Snooze

Yoongi's writing is the reason I fell in love with him. Just by the way. An Anon asked me this question almost 11 months ago now and I never responded, but Anon if you're reading this now, this is the answer to your ask. Yoongi's writing is what I think cemented him as my bias.

Have you heard/read the lyrics for Snooze yet? I cried when I first heard them. To think Yoongi made this for his brothers, for his juniors, for his fans, for anyone whoever hears it, for himself... that brought me to tears.

Repurposing the lyrics from So Far Away...

(I've been a mess since Friday)

With the context of the tragedy of the last week, I can't help but weep. I really hope these artists get the support they need, I hope the wider k-pop fandom quickly recognizes what is actually at stake here, and I hope you remember to always take care of yourself.

*

Woosung's voice on this track is perfection.

When it comes to vocalists, Yoongi has a type. It's my type as well, vocalists with a voice made for haunting rock anthems. The best examples being Jimin, Taka from ONE OK ROCK, Tyler from Twenty One Pilots, Adora, and now we can add Woosung from The Rose to the list.

The thing that gets me with BTS, is they could drop the pantie dropper album of the century and they'd still have substance to them. You don't get Ryuichi Sakamoto on your album, in his final years no less, if you haven't got a decent bit of substance to you.

Snooze is yet another song on the album that reminds us of the evolution of Agust D. It reminds us of why we're at this point, where we are in the timeline of his growth. It reminds us of why we should join him on the other side.

He doesn't let us languish too long in the feeling though, before moving to SDL - that groovy, sexy number that surprises me with how much I like it every time it comes up in my playlist.

[ I'm starting to ramble so I'll just say Adora on SDL makes me think they should get together.

The track is so good and Adora undeniably is the magic ingredient. And if we're being honest, Adora is his best female feature/adliber. We all know it. I'm just selfish and shameless enough to voice the desire we all have that they should always make music together. ]

*

Haegeum is where he repeats the pattern but we never learn if he's broken the cycle

I'll try to be ultra brief here.

Agust D is born of the anger, hatred, and pain Yoongi feels when looking at the world and at himself. He expresses his struggle with self-loathing, insecurity and greed in Agust D. Haegeum, meaning both to lift a ban, to say what had been suppressed, and a traditional Korean instrument he loves - Haegeum is the resolution before he reaches the acceptance he shows in People Pt 2. We hear Yoongi brutally criticize himself and his society while dissecting the system to get down to the root of what really ails us. K-pop stans have predictably made a ruckus about his lyrics referring to capital. And their criticisms yet again show why few people take k-pop and its fans seriously. Because exactly none, zero, zilch, not a single one of their criticisms are rational once the whole verse is viewed in full.

*

Haegeum is very much a read of himself as it is of anyone else. He confronts the shadow of him that represents those vices, and kills him. But just as it was in Daechwita, we don't know if that shadow will remain dead. Although in Haegeum it's clear Yoongi has grown and whatever shadow that remains is closer to Suga in likeness than Agust D, we don't know if the cycle is permanently broken. And that is how it is for all of us. We have to continue to evolve, to confront more complex versions of our shadows, each time better reconciling who we are to who we want to be, perfecting our characters.

Haegeum is a visual feast, somehow more vivid than Daechwita which is really saying something. It reminds me of Hong Kong neo noir films. It's cool Yoongi wrote the storyboard for the MV himself.

And as I've said before, Yoongi is messy killer. When I said this about him last year I got some of his akgaes in my inbox saying I should stop smearing the man. Lol. If you had any doubt before, after Haegeum it should be crystal clear.

He could murder you with chopsticks and look good doing it. Honestly, only Yoongi can tear down capitalism as well as Karl Marx does, looking 1,000x better.

*

*

In D-Day, SUGA gracefully ends the trilogy of Agust D. Yoongi has told this story of his wrestle with his greed, his anger and hatred, over the last 7 years, and his honesty and graciousness in how he concludes it in D-Day deserves a standing ovation.

I strongly encourage everyone to read Yoongi's Thanks To on the album. I'll post an English translation from Twitter below:

Credit: @/btsbaragi_jk

His sense of humour is one of my favourite things about him.

*

Yoongi has created a masterpiece. He worked so hard and it shows. His vocals on the album alone have elevated D-DAY to one of the best releases this decade. You can hear how much he has grown as an artist to the point I dare say he no longer has any obvious weaknesses. The impeccable production on D-DAY is a given. And to think he finished most of the album in 2020, but chose to wait for the rest of the guys to find their feet, for them all to decide on the timing for Chapter 2, to think he waited that long... sometimes, I wonder if people have a true understanding of the kind of group BTS is. Of the personal sacrifices each of the members in BTS have had to make.

When I see asks about this or that mistreatment complaint for this or that member, sometimes it pisses me off. Cause yeah, it sucks that Jungkook has to (possibly) serve now despite having 5 years more and being at his prime; I too hate that Jimin's sales were explicitly targeted, deleted without precedent, explanation, or accountability; I cannot for the life of me explain what the fuck happened with Jack in the Box's album roll-out, packaging, shipping, etc. But like, every member is making these decisions with their eyes wide open and taking these hits in stride with a team/company they say they trust. If Jimin trusts Bang PD with his career, on what basis could I begin to disagree with him?

Anyway I digress. D-Day is a gift. Pray you survive the live versions lol. And oh, about Yoongi (and the rest of BTS) being insane as I said initially, just listen to HUH?! again.

[kithj]

i thought it would be fun to share what i’m reading for pride :-)

pageboy by elliot page

i have been a lifelong fan of elliot page, one of my first celebrity crushes (alongside anna paquin in xmen) & if you’ve ever watched any of his other work like gaycation or there’s something in the water, you know he is very articulate & deliberate with his words & that definitely translates into his writing as well. i’m about halfway through and really enjoying it, his writing is again very deliberate and snappy, and i like how he reflects on the history of where he grew up and interweaves it with his childhood & present day. one of my favorite passages so far is when he's reminiscing about playing pretend as a boy:

"Those were some of the best times of my life, traveling to another dimension where I was... me. And not just a boy but a man, a man who could fall in love and be loved back. Why do we lose that ability? To create a whole world? A bunk bed was a kingdom, I was a boy."

stone butch blues by leslie feinberg

i’ve read this collection many years ago as a teen/early 20s and it’s actually been really hard for me to reread. i got through the first 3 chapters and had to set it aside because it was really affecting me. maybe because i’m older… anyways, not sure if i’m going to finish this reread since i don’t really think i’m in the right headspace to handle it. however there’s a lot of Leslie Feinberg’s writing available online, i’ve shared some previously and you can find them here :-) sbb is also available for free on hir website, and i do still recommend it, just be aware of the content before you start reading.

honorable mentions follow because i haven't gotten the books in the mail yet 😭

miss major speaks by miss major griffin-gracy

this book just came out this past month, and i'm waiting for my copy to arrive. i'll just share the description here:

Miss Major Griffin-Gracy is a veteran of the infamous Stonewall Riots, a former sex worker, and a transgender elder and activist who has survived Bellevue psychiatric hospital, Attica Prison, the HIV/AIDS crisis and a world that white supremacy has built. She has shared tips with other sex workers in the nascent drag ball scene of the late 1960s, and helped found one of America’s first needle exchange clinics from the back of her van. Miss Major Speaks is both document of her brilliant life–told with intimacy, warmth and an undeniable levity-and a roadmap for the challenges black, brown, queer and trans youth will face on the path to liberation today.

you can donate to miss major's fundly here

the persistent desire: a femme-butch reader edited by joan nestle

i've read some of the essays in this anthology previously, but i have a really hard time reading the scanned pages on my laptop (hurts my head) so i bit the bullet and ordered my own copy from a used bookstore. it was suspiciously cheap compared to where i've seen it elsewhere, so fingers crossed it's the real deal. i'm excited because the shop noted that it had previous wear & potential writing in the margins from the previous owner and i look forward to seeing the thoughts of the person before me :-)

i really like reading older lesbian literature, though it makes me sad sometimes that a lot of the lesbian bar culture no longer exists. i wish i could go back and talk to some of the women and butches that lived through it.

hijab butch blues by lamya h

this is next on my to-read list, i think i might jump over to this one since i've set sbb aside for now. i'll just paste the description again:

When fourteen-year-old Lamya H realizes she has a crush on her teacher—her female teacher—she covers up her attraction, an attraction she can’t yet name, by playing up her roles as overachiever and class clown. Born in South Asia, she moved to the Middle East at a young age and has spent years feeling out of place, like her own desires and dreams don’t matter, and it’s easier to hide in plain sight.

To disappear. But one day in Quran class, she reads a passage about Maryam that changes everything: when Maryam learned that she was pregnant, she insisted no man had touched her. Could Maryam, uninterested in men, be . . . like Lamya?

i'm excited to read this one and get my own copy eventually. a lot of the butch literature i've read has been from white butches (primarily leslie feinberg & ivan coyote) & i look forward to reading a new perspective. kitty tsui is also another butch whose work i really like, she has an essay in the persistent desire and i know that one has made the rounds on tumblr before.

anyways just felt like sharing ! i haven't been able to do anything for pride this year so i'm trying to fill the void a bit with reading a lot of gay/lesbian literature. hope you all are having a safe and happy pride :-)

[dailyniallnews]

The former boyband member Niall Horan on his new album, headlining the Electric Picnic, turning 30 and taking on the world, says Louise Bruton

Sunlight pours in through the large bay windows of the Westbury Hotel and Niall Horan is a little tired. In Ireland for less than 36 hours, he’s fitting in this interview and a surprise appearance for 80 of his biggest Irish fans, all in the build-up to the release of The Show, his third solo album. Once upon a time the five-star hotel would have been mobbed by hyperventilating fans, but today he got in unnoticed.

“If someone had said to me in 2013, ‘Do you want to go for a coffee?’ I’d go, ‘No, you’re joking? That’s nuts.’” Over an Americano, a low-key Horan relives the hysteria of once being in the boyband One Direction. Since the group’s formation on The X Factor in 2010 and their indefinite hiatus announced in 2016, the Mullingar man wasn’t able to walk down the street without people pulling over in their cars to take a gawk, let alone meet pals for coffee. Unsure if he developed a fear of being surrounded, he recalls that he “nearly became a bit of a recluse”.

Going unnoticed doesn’t mean that Horan’s star has faded. With his previous albums reaching the top of the charts in the UK, the US and Ireland, and charming everyone so much as a coach on NBC’s The Voice that he’s back for the next series, he’s on top of his game, but he has learnt how to live under the radar.

“When the band stopped I went travelling in Asia for four months, just staying in shite hotels and hostels and I could do more than I expected,” he says. That trip encouraged him to reconfigure how he moves through the world. Dividing his time between his homes in Co Westmeath, Los Angeles and London, he lives as much of a normal life as he can when he’s off the pop star clock. “In this world you give people a handshake, they take your arm off, so I just keep my private life private,” he says.

In London he travels on the Tube and in Los Angeles he claims that the paparazzi only want his photo if there’s some “other famous fella in the bar”. He doesn’t play the game of going to certain restaurants just to be seen. “It’s a shame, though, because some of the nice places in LA are like that,” he says. “You have to take that risk sometimes to get a bit of grub.”

This September sees two big events that capture the stark difference between his private and professional lives — headlining Electric Picnic and turning 30. In Stradbally he’s looking forward to experiencing “the Irish love again” from the main stage, but it’s his 30th birthday party happening later on in the month that has him jittery.

“This sounds mental, coming from a pop star, but I don’t really like attention,” Horan says, so he’s “splitting the adulation” with his best friend from home. Thousands of fans screaming at him? Grand. His closest friends and family singing Happy Birthday to him? Nerve-racking.

That milestone birthday has him feeling reflective. “At my age you start to think a little bit more,” he says, joking that he’s probably 65 in showbiz years. “I don’t remember overthinking much, or ever, up until the pandemic.”

The first lockdown was the longest he has ever taken off from work. Hunkering down in London and with no pubs to go to, he was “in the best shape” of his life. He also became official with his girlfriend, Amelia Woolley, and took stock of who he is. “The last five years have been more formative than I was expecting,” he says, and it’s no surprise that this maturity syncs up with leaving the bubble of One Direction. “I had to do a lot more growing up than your average 16-year-old.”

With his peers Lewis Capaldi and Selena Gomez releasing documentaries on their struggles with fame, does he wish that he did anything different with his career? “I think if I’d had any way of a dodgy experience, I’d probably say I would change a few things, but I’ve always had a good experience with it,” he says.

“I was well supported. It’s all about the people you have around you, I think. Coming from a small town and wanting to take over the world,” he pauses to punch the air like a rock star, “in my head at the time I was ready, but most 16-year-olds are probably not.”

The Show is a different beast from 2017’s lustful Flicker and 2020’s self-explanatory Heartbreak Weather. For one he’s in love, but more thought has gone into this album. Horan’s newly considered approach to songwriting makes vulnerability look easy. “I’m in a good place in my head,” he says, but he’s hesitant to call this a happy album.

“When you’re happy I feel like that scares some writers,” he says. Bursting into a rendition of Pharrell Williams’s song Happy, he notes that if you’ve historically done cheery songs you have to show the full “umbrella” of happiness. So instead of taking the sunny route, he writes in a relatable way about the work that goes into feeling good and falling in love.

“There are artists out there that get so introspective that you have to pull out a thesaurus to see what they’re talking about,” he says, and that’s why his latest single, Meltdown, works so well. With an anthemic quality built for festivals, the chorus guides people out of a panic attack. “I was big on writing a song about feeling anxious at 180 beats per minute. The song is fast and

I wanted that because that’s what that feeling feels like,” he says, mimicking a shortness of breath. “It has to feel rapid and then the chorus just comes and it slows down.”

It’s apparently based on a few personal scenarios, and he suggests that good communication has always been a skill of his. “I think I’m a good talker,” he says, exaggerating his candidness. “I have no problem telling you how I feel. Do you want to hear it?”

Busy, at peace and taking nothing for granted, Horan’s new material is a true representation of where he is in life. With a busy year ahead with festivals, turning 30 and a freshly announced 2024 world tour, it’s time to stop thinking so much and get on with The Show. Or, as he puts it more directly: “Let’s get out and have a f***ing good time.”

Niall Horan’s album The Show is out on Thu. Tickets for his tour next year are now on sale

[laboitediabolique]

After being a fan for about 12 years now, I finally decided to attend a Perfume show (the times I've been to Japan, Perfume were never playing live, and it is really difficult to get a ticket without a Japanese address or phone number). The group announced their Perfume “COD3 OF P3RFUM3 ZOZ5” Asia Tour 2024 a few months ago and while I was hoping they would play Singapore again as I wanted to visit that country, alas they only announced shows for Hong Kong, Shanghai, Taipei and Bangkok.

In the end it was a toss up between Hong Kong and Thailand, but I had wanted to travel to Hong Kong about a decade ago, which didn't happen for various reasons, so I decided a couple of days there might be nice. I managed to get a hotel literally connected to AsiaWorld-Expo where the concert was being held.

I collected my ticket on early Saturday afternoon on Saturday 8 June from the P.T.A. Booth and hung around until about 5:30pm, an hour before the doors opened. When I got there, a young guy from local fan group Team Perfume Hong Kong gave me a set of the above three stickers and a coloured glove to wear during the final song, My Color, in order to surprise Perfume when they asked the audience to join in.

I am really not used to pop concerts as I am far more into alternative rock, and usually go to smaller venues like pubs or the local university bar on the few occasions I go to live performances. However, while the concert is a stripped down one compared to their Japanese shows, it was still excellent, with a set list made up of their more danceable songs, pretty much in line with the set lists for their other Code of Perfume shows.

I really loved every minute of it. Easily one of the best things I have done in a long while. Perfume were great, the lighting crew, effects / video crew and F.O.H. sound crew as well as all of the other staff involved did a great job too. It all flew by way too quickly and I really wish I had bought tickets for the Bangkok show as well. If they had played all three nights I was in Hong Kong, I would have gone each night. In addition, the fans, both the locals, the Japanese fans who flew in for the concert, as well as others who did the same from other countries like me, were fantastic, well behaved and really enjoyed themselves.

[startrekfangirl2233-writes]

"Not many. Less than 3% to be exact." There was pride in her voice and Bear knew that. She had worked incredibly hard to be taken seriously during training and even now as a member of Seal Team Three, working in the Middle East and Southwest Asia. Her skills were necessary for the survival of her team and herself. Plus putting damn near three years into the US Navy Sniper School made it very clear just how dangerous she was and could be. "Okay...umm...wow. I jus'...wow." Jake was in awe, right here in front of him was a woman who was both badass and hot as hell, and the best part? She didn't back down and made him work for every step. "That's seriously badass. Why haven't I heard about you or any of the others?" "Cause we're usually kept secret. If enemy states know that there are women on the teams, then we have targets on our backs. But I can tell you, because no one will believe you," Bear smirked before continuing, "And yeah, I know it's pretty badass. I worked hard for it. Just like you did for your two kills." And with a wink, she walked off, disappearing into the crowd near the bar, leaving Jake speechless.

What better to start off my 300 follower celebration, than with a moodboard which I've been affectionately calling a love letter to one of the most amazing fics I've had the pleasure of reading?

Yup, you guessed it, this is for the amazing @desert-fern for her birthday and showcases some of my favorite parts of A Gun Amongst Daggers, Fern's recently finished series.

This is my love letter to Jake and his Teddy, who we know and love as Bear. Their relationship is amazing, and I'm not just saying that because I want to be Bear when I grow up!

All the best to you, my lovely Fernie on today, what I hope is the happiest of birthdays! May your day be happy and bright (and not filled with too much homework), and that the next year is just as amazing as you are! All the best, and all of my love,

- XOXO Star

Want to request a Moodboard for me to make? Guidelines are here.

[eastasiansonwesternscreen]

Lionsgate said Monday that its upcoming comedy marking the feature directorial debut of Crazy Rich Asians scribe Adele Lim will be called Joy Ride. The studio also unveiled the first still from the film, which you can view below.

The film due for release June 23 stars Ashley Park (Emily in Paris), Sherry Cola (Good Trouble), Oscar nominee Stephanie Hsu (Everything Everywhere All at Once) and Sabrina Wu as unlikely friends who embark on a once-in-a-lifetime international adventure. When Audrey’s (Park) business trip to Asia goes sideways, she enlists the aid of Lolo (Cola), her irreverent, childhood best friend who also happens to be a hot mess; Kat (Hsu), her college friend-turned-Chinese soap star; and Deadeye (Wu), Lolo’s eccentric cousin. Their no-holds-barred, epic experience becomes a journey of bonding, friendship, belonging and wild debauchery that reveals the universal truth of what it means to know and love who you are.

The film from Point Grey and Red Mysterious Hippo also stars Ronny Chieng (Crazy Rich Asians), Desmond Chiam (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier), Alexander Hodge (Insecure) and Chris Pang (Crazy Rich Asians). The script by Cherry Chevapravatdumrong & Teresa Hsiao was based on a story by Chevapravatdumrong, Hsiao and Lim.

(via Deadline)

[ereardon]

As It Was [Chapter 6][Hangman x Reader]

Summary: When Jake Seresin calls to tell you he’s accepted a permanent position at Top Gun, you’re elated to finally be living in the same city as your best friend. But everything changes when Jake tells you his news — he has a new girlfriend, and he’s serious about her. And while you want to like her, for Jake’s sake, something about her feels wrong. Jake's arrival in San Diego also puts you in the direct path of Bradley “Rooster” Bradshaw, who has set his sights on you despite being Jake’s sworn enemy. Every move Rooster makes, Jake intercepts. What game are these two playing, and why is Jake more concerned about you moving on with Rooster than he is about his own relationship? 

Warnings: Cursing, alcohol, no use of y/n, car accident, death, war, smut, dom Rooster, angst

Pairing: Jake “Hangman” Seresin x Reader 

WC: 5.4K

Series masterlist here

“Three years ago, Bradshaw and I got called to the same mission. A really dangerous one, out in Asia. Can’t tell you more than that. It was a small group, only six of us. We were there for about two months before the mission itself took place. Scoping out the land, making plans and preparations.”

You nodded and tucked your legs up on the plush white couch. Jake rarely spoke to you about his job. He was straight laced, very type A military guy. He went by the book and you respected that. So hearing him talk about work in this kind of detail was new. You watched as his eyes grew detached. He became a different person right in front of you. 

“We tried to blend in with the locals the best we could. We didn’t go out in groups, we didn’t go out in uniform. About a week after we got there, I met someone. Her name was Lana. She was a Spanish expat who worked at a local bar. We started seeing each other pretty regularly, whenever I could sneak off base.”

He paused and looked up at you and you urged him on with your eyes. 

“Lana and I got pretty close. And one night, we were at her bar, making out, when Bradshaw walked in. I pretended like I didn’t know him, that was part of our operative state. Nobody could know we were connected. But I saw him. He sat there and watched us out of the corner of his eye. When we went upstairs to her apartment over the bar, his eyes followed me.”

Where was this story going? 

“A couple days later, there was a fight between some of the guys on the squad. The tension of the mission was really getting to everyone. Bradshaw and I stepped in to break it up. And then suddenly, it was us fighting. He said I was fucking a local to get information and that I was putting the whole mission at risk.”

“And what did you say?” 

He sighed and ran his hand through his hair. “Well, I knew something about him. Something others on the team didn't know.” 

“What was that?” You were scared. 

Jake looked up. “His father was a WSO who died on a mission. His pilot was another guy who was there on the ground with us in Asia.”

“What did you do?” Your voice was cold as ice. 

Jake’s eyes were filled with pain. “I fucked up. I said that I was glad he wasn’t my wingman because he might let me die the way his father did. And that I actually had a family at home who would miss me.” 

You sat back, stunned. Jake rested his head in his hands, bent over on the couch seat. 

“I regretted it the moment I said it,” he whispered. “I really fucking did. I have no idea why I said it.” 

“You are an asshole,” you said quietly, slowly. Jake raised his eyes to your level. 

“But that’s not the end of the story.”

You closed your eyes for a second. “Go on, then.” 

“He punched me. And I fucked deserved it. I know that. He walked away and so did I. I went back to my apartment, changed, and tried to make myself presentable. Then I went to the bar. When I got there, Lana wasn’t there. I thought maybe she just had the night off, but one of the bar backs told me she went upstairs with some guy. I ran up the stairs and stormed inside and saw Bradshaw fucking her, right there on the floor. I ran in and pulled him off of her and he had the fucking gall to smirk at me. I started beating the shit out of him, and he somehow escaped. Put his clothes on and ran out the door.” 

Jake was wringing his hands together in his lap. Watching him relive the scene was difficult, but you held back. Stopped yourself from reaching out to him. Comforting him. 

You needed to know how the story ended. 

“I ran out after him into the street and we started to brawl. We were drawing attention. A lot of attention. Both of us realized it, but we couldn’t tear ourselves apart. Lana ran out and tried to stop us. Finally she managed to put herself between us. She shoved Bradley to the sidewalk and she had me by my collar. And then.” 

He stopped and you looked up. You had never seen Jake look the way he did in that moment. Like he had seen a ghost. “What happened?” you whispered. 

He shook his head, eyes darting side to side. “It happened in a second. One second I had my hands on Bradshaw. The next she was in between us, shoving us apart. And then she had her hands on me.” He touched the front of his own shirt for emphasis. “And then she was gone.” 

“What do you mean gone?” 

His voice cracked. “The car. It came out of nowhere. The way she was lying on the ground,” he shook his head, swallowing hard. “We both knew she was gone.”

You gasped and a hand flew to your mouth. 

Jake continued. “We couldn’t stay there. We couldn’t afford to get caught up in the police investigation. Not when we had our own mission against their government that we were just days away from. So we fled. Went back to the base, got the rest of the team drunk, made sure they remembered the night well enough that it was an alibi for both of us but just drunk enough that they couldn’t account for the time we had been missing. And we never went back to that bar. Just completed the mission and flew home.”

“Jesus Christ,” you whispered. “Jake.”

“I know.” He looked up at you with tears running out of the corner of his eyes. “I think about her every fucking day. It’s my fault. It’s my fucking fault she’s dead.” 

“Stop. It’s not your fault,” you said quietly. “You didn’t push her.” 

“She was there because of me,” he said, breathing hard. “If I hadn’t been such a fucking hot head, I never would have pushed Bradshaw. She never would have gotten involved. If I had never stepped into that bar, she never would have met me. She would have been better off for it.” 

“You can’t think like that!” you said, reaching forward and grabbing his arm that he was bashing against the back of the couch repeatedly. “Stop it! It’s not your fault.” 

He fought your grip and you lunged forward, grabbing him by the upper arms. 

“Jake. Look at me. Fucking look at me.”

He looked up, green eyes flooded with tears, like an algae-filled lake in August. 

“You can’t blame yourself for what happened.”

“Yes, I can,” he said stoically. “And I blame him, too.”

You finally understood. They had both done wrong. They were both in the wrong. But they were also in it together. They brought each other pain without ever having to say a word. “Thank you for telling me.” 

“I know I don’t have to say this, because it’s you. But what I just told you, nobody can ever know. Bradshaw and I, we’ll get fired. We’ll never get in a cockpit again. We’ll probably get extradited back.” 

“I would never tell,” you said. Jake wiped at his eyes. He looked weak. “Come here,” you said, scooting to the edge of the couch and patting your lap. He gave you a small smile before laying down on his side, head coming to rest on your lap. 

You threaded your fingers through his hair, gently, and watched his eyes flutter closed. His breath started to even out. You watched as he reached out and cupped your thigh with his hand, fingers resting gently on your skin. 

“I’m here for you,” you whispered, bending over and kissing the top of his head. “I promise.” 

***

“Abby, he’s burning the potatoes!”

“Oh fuck,” you said, running into the kitchen to see Jake next to a plume of smoke. “What are you doing in here? You know you’re banned from holiday cooking.” 

He smiled at you sheepishly before moving to the side. “I’m trying to help!”

You bumped his hip with yours. “Trying to make us all sick is more like it.” Looking down into the pot you saw that the mashed potatoes had somehow turned black around the edges. One glance told you that it was because the burners were on the highest setting. You flicked the red dial off and gave him a hard stare. “You’re supposed to take them OFF the heat after they’re boiled, dummy. What are you making, potato burnt ends?”

He sighed and shook his head. “OK fine, I fucked up. What do you need me to do?” 

“Start washing and peeling,” you said, scraping the burnt mess into a trash bag. “I’m going to teach you how to make edible mashed potatoes.” 

It was your first Thanksgiving away from home. Your parents had gone to Atlanta to see your sister and her new husband, and you had opted to spend it at Jake’s family’s ranch outside Austin instead. Jake had picked you up from the airport and when you got to his house his sisters had given you tight hugs, his mother had offered you a cookie, his father had carried your bags to Jake’s room. They felt like family in an instant. 

After hours in the kitchen, everyone settled in at the large dining room table, set for seven. Jake, his parents, his two sisters and their grandmother and you. 

“Jake, sweetheart, will you say a prayer?” his grandmother, who he called Meemaw, cooed. 

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, taking your hand in his, as well as his sister’s next to him. “Dear God, thank you for this day. For our family. And this beautiful meal.” He squeezed your hand. “And thank you for bringing Abby here with us. We’re so lucky to have her. Amen.” You opened your eyes and caught Jake’s glance. He slid his arm around the back of your chair and leaned in, kissing your temple. You smiled and started to hand around the dish of green beans. 

Across the table, his mother smiled at him with a knowing look. 

Later, after all the dishes were clean, and all the leftovers were carefully wrapped, you sat outside by the fire with Jake’s sisters Sondra and Annie. The three of you had split a bottle of wine, and you were tipsy. 

“Why is this the first time Jake is bringing you home?” Annie asked, dangling the stemless wine glass she held in her left hand over the edge of the Adirondack chair. 

“I usually go home for the holidays,” you replied. “But they chose my sister this year. I don’t blame them. Not much fun to have Thanksgiving in a crowded Chestnut Hill apartment.” 

She shook her head. “No, I mean why has Jake been hiding you from us for so long!” 

You laughed. “I don’t know, ask him.” 

“He needs someone like you,” Sondra said, taking a sip of wine. They were both younger than you and Jake, but Sondra gave the illusion of someone five years older than she actually was. She had a regalness about her. Every move she made was both deliberate and delicate at the same time, whether it was tying a pair of shoelaces or decorating a cookie with frosting and precise piping. “You’re good for him.” 

“You know we’re not dating, right?” 

Sondra raised her eyebrows. “Yet.”

You simply smiled and took a sip of wine. A gust of wind burst through the woods, making the fire flicker and you shivered. A second later, you felt a warm blanket draping around your shoulders. 

“Here,” Jake said, tucking it around you. “Thought you might get cold.” 

“Thanks.” You looked up to see Sondra staring back with a raised eyebrow. 

“Where are our blankets?” Annie whined. 

Jake laughed. “Inside. In your rooms.”

“Woof, a girl can take a hint,” she said, getting up from the chair and stretching her long legs. “Come on, Sonds, let’s go see if there’s leftover pie in the fridge or if Moby Dick over there ate it all.” 

You laughed as Jake threw her a dirty look. Sondra and Annie grabbed the bottle of wine and their cups, heading back to the house. Jake pulled a wooden chair closer to yours, sunk down and stretched his feet out to the stone sides of the fire pit. 

“You’re going to melt your shoes,” you said. 

He shrugged. “Got more in the house.” 

“So this is home, huh?” You looked out at the expansive yard. The well manicured hedges, the stately house, the sprawling patio and deck system that climbed three stories. 

Jake took a sip of his drink, amber liquid in a rocks glass. “This is home,” he confirmed. 

“Your sisters want to know why you’ve never brought me here before.” 

“I don’t make a point of bringing girls home with me,” he answered. “Gets Ma and Meemaw too excited, and I hate to let them down.” 

“Oh yeah?” you whispered. “So what do they think about me?” 

“Darlin’,” he said, turning to you. “They fucking love you.” 

You blushed and stared into the fire. 

“I’m serious,” he said. “Ma even pulled me aside after clean up and said I was a damn fool if I let you go.” 

“Did you tell them we’re just friends?”

“Yup. That earned me a smack upside the head.” 

You tipped your head back and laughed. “God, I like her.” 

For a few moments, you and Jake stared at the fire. It danced in the breeze. For the first time, you were glad your parents had chosen Jenny over you this Thanksgiving. You found yourself secretly hoping you would get invited back to the Seresin house for Christmas. “I’m glad you’re here,” Jake said softly. “Don’t get to see you much anymore.”

You nodded. “I miss you. All the fucking time.” 

He reached out and grabbed your hand. “Me too.” 

You sat there, hand gripped in Jake’s, for you weren’t sure how long. You didn’t even realize, as comfortable as you were wrapped in the blanket he had slung around your shoulders, that you had fallen asleep. It wasn’t until you felt Jake’s arms sliding underneath you, cool air hitting the back of your thighs and neck, that you realized he had scooped you up out of the chair and into his arms. “Jake,” you murmured. 

“Shh,” he whispered as your head lolled into the space between his neck and shoulder. “It’s OK, I got you. Go back to sleep.”

You let him carry you across the yard, through the doors and the living room, up the grand staircase to his bedroom. Jake set you down carefully on the bed, removing the blanket he had placed on your shoulders and sliding you in under the covers. 

“Goodnight Bubs,” he whispered and you moaned, stretching out your hand. 

“Come back,” you said softly. He approached the bed and you tugged his hand. “Stay.” 

Jake had spent the previous night on the couch in his father’s office, letting you take full reign of his room. “Are you sure?” he asked. You nodded against the pillow, and he let out a breath, unzipping his jacket and kicking off his shoes before sliding into bed next to you. You reached out a hand and pulled his arm over your torso, pulling his fingers to your chest briefly before letting go. Jake settled in, spooning you as you sighed. 

“Missed you,” you whispered drowsily, sleep fogging up the edges of your consciousness. 

Jake slid his hand over your side before snaking over your stomach and tugging you in tighter to his chest. “I miss you all the time, Abs. Every day.” He could feel you giving in to sleep. “Goodnight, darlin’.”

In the morning, you woke up to an empty bed. You vaguely remembered pulling Jake into bed with you. How he had carried you all the way upstairs. How you had forced him to spoon you. You took a shower and got dressed, trying to shake the image out of your mind, padding softly on the stairs landing. 

Jake turned around the minute you entered the kitchen and a blush crept up your chest and onto your face. “Hey,” you muttered, stepping closer and looking around for a coffee mug.

“Hey,” he replied, turning over a piece of bacon on the stove. “Sleep OK?”

You nodded and he pointed to a cabinet where the coffee mugs were and you poured yourself a cup. “Yeah, fine.”

“What’s wrong?” he asked. He was standing at the stove in a pair of sweatpants and a Navy shirt, but he still looked like an Abercrombie model. You hated him for it. 

“Nothing.”

“Abby.” His voice was a warning. 

“I’m embarrassed, OK? I’m so fucking needy with you sometimes, it’s gross.” 

He flicked off the burner, pulled the pan away and deposited the perfectly cooked bacon strips onto a paper towel-lined plate before setting it aside. “Don’t worry about it,” Jake said.

You looked up at him over the coffee mug. “That’s it? Don’t worry about it?”

“It’s sweet!” he replied and you let you a giant sigh, burying your face in your hands. “Abs, come on. It’s me. You can be anything with me, you don’t have to try to hide.” 

You grabbed a piece of bacon and crunched down on it. “That’s the problem, though. We’re too comfortable. I need you too much.”

“How can you need someone too much?” He leaned against the counter, taking a sip of coffee. 

“Even when I’m in a relationship, you’re the first person I run to when things go wrong. I don’t know how to file a tax form, or the dishwasher is making a funny noise or I can’t decide who’s birthday party to skip.” You looked up at him and ran a finger through your wet hair. “I have to need you less. If I ever want to get on with my life.”

Jake nodded. “Whatever you want, I’ll do it.”

You nodded and crossed the kitchen toward him, wrapped your hands around his torso and hugged him tightly. “Next time I call, don’t pick up.”

“Are you serious?”

Jake’s face was pure shock and you couldn’t help but laugh. He slowly realized you were joking, and his hands reached out immediately to pinch your waist. 

“Oh, you little shit,” he whispered as you continued to laugh. 

Finally, he dropped his arms and you smiled up at him. “But actually. I’m going to have to let you go just a little. And if you care about me, you’ll let me.”

He nodded, a crease building in his forehead. “OK. But come back to me when you’re ready.”

***

You had seen Bradley almost every day since he had showed up on your doorway in the middle of the night. 

And Jake, true to his word that he had given to you years ago at Thanksgiving, was trying to let you go when he saw how happy Bradley made you. He bit his tongue when you mentioned Rooster, and you skillfully avoided the topic of Diana entirely. 

Bradley took you surfing and helped you gently get back on the board when you repeatedly fell off. He introduced you to a BLT sandwich shop tucked into the corner of a business building, he sat with you while you graded exams. In turn, you visited him on base, spent nights at the Hard Deck drinking G&Ts with Natasha and smirking at Bradley showing off at the pool table while Jake sulked near the dart board. 

So when you had another late night of grading to do in your office, you weren’t surprised to see your phone light up with a text from Bradley. 

Late night? 

Yeah, you texted back. Seventy first–year exams to mark. Remind me never to do a 101 class again. 

So this means you’re totally occupied? 

What did you have in mind?

You put the phone down, staring as three bubbles appeared and then disappeared and a frown creased your face. What game was he playing?

Then you heard rustling out in the hallway, and light flooding in as the door creaked open. 

“Hey princess,” Bradley said, stepping inside. 

You stood up, greeting him with a kiss. It wasn’t the first time Bradley surprised you late at night in your office, and despite the thick stack of papers on your desk it was a welcome surprise. “Hey there,” you whispered back. 

“How urgent are those?” he asked, pointing to the papers. 

You shook your head. “They can wait.”

“Good.” His voice was low, almost a growl. In a second, he had you pinned against the desk, his hands feverishly on your breasts, lips sucking on your neck beneath your ear. You moaned into him and felt Bradley stiffen. “Who said you could do that?” he asked darkly and you looked up in surprise. 

“What?”

He reached around and grabbed your hair with a fist, yanking you to look him in the eyes. “You get to moan when I say so.”

Your eyes widened and you nodded. “Sorry, Lieutenant.” 

Your words went straight to his cock and you watched as he stiffened against his jeans. You had seen this side of Bradley before. He liked to dominate. He was sweet and kind and caring. And then you entered the bedroom and he was another person. Someone who took. It hadn’t come out the first time you slept together, or the second. But slowly, you understood what he needed. And you didn’t mind. You wanted to give him what he wanted. Because you knew after it all was done, you’d have him back. And he always gave you what you wanted in return. 

“Now take your clothes off.” He stepped back and you slowly started to unbutton your top. Bradley’s eyes raked over you. You pulled the ends out of your pencil skirt and tossed it onto the couch, leaving just a black lace bra. Reaching around, you unzipped the skirt, letting it slide to the floor before kicking it away. Standing in just heels and a bra and panties, you stepped forward. 

“Is this what you wanted, Lieutenant?”

“Lose the underwear and bra. Keep the shoes.” 

You nodded and slid off the panties, unhooked the bra until you were standing naked in the middle of your office. The lights were dim, but there was no guarantee people from outside couldn’t still see in. 

Bradley stepped forward and ran a calloused fingertip from your lip down your neck, across your chest and stomach, down to between your legs. You sucked in a gasp as he took two fingers and opened you up. You wanted so badly to shift forward, press against his hand for friction, but you knew that would get you in trouble. 

He pulled his fingers away and stepped closer until you were only inches apart. “You want me to make you feel good?” he whispered. 

You nodded. 

“Need to hear you say it.” 

“I want you to make me cum.” 

He reached out and pressed both hands to the tops of your shoulders, forcing you down onto your knees on the hardwood floor. “You have to earn it,” he said and you reached up, tugging at his zippered fly, yanking it down along with his pants and boxers. Bradley’s cock sprung out, already hard and leaking, and you wrapped your fingers around the thick base, licking him lightly at the swollen tip. He moaned as you took him into your mouth, a little at a time, bobbing your head up and down his massive length. 

Bradley reached down and threaded his fingers through your hair, helping guide your head. After a moment, you tilted forward, taking him all the way into the back of your throat and he gasped, hitching forward, one hand on the desk, the other still on you. You started to choke, saliva dripping out of the corners of your mouth, obscene gagging sounds filling the quiet room and you were sure they could be heard in the hallway too. 

“Good girl,” he whispered, combing your hair back with his fingers while he fucked into your mouth. You leaned back and watched him tower over you. 

Just when you thought you might actually choke, the heat of his cock in your mouth was almost too much, he pulled out, leaving you gasping for air. Bradley reached down and pulled you to standing, large thumb wiping under your lips. 

“You’re so dirty for me,” he murmured. You nodded and reached out for his shirt, undoing the buttons. Bradley shrugged it off, and kicked his pants and boxers out of the way, along with his shoes, and stepped in closer until your thighs were pressed against the edge of the desk, cutting into your flesh. He ran one hand up and cupped your breast, tweaking the nipple and you groaned, head thrown back. “You like when I tease you, huh?”

“Yes, sir,” you whispered. 

“Good,” he grunted and in a flash he grabbed you, spun you around and walked you ten steps forward until your front was pressed up against the glass window. It was dark outside, one faded streetlamp in the corner throwing a hazy circle of light. You pressed your hands out against the glass as Bradley leaned into your back, his warm chest rising and falling against your skin. You felt his fingers graze over your hips, his cock hard against you. Your breasts were smashed up against the glass. “Spread your legs.” You did as you were told. 

He reached down and plunged into you, not giving you time to adjust before he grabbed your hips with one hand, the other covering yours on the glass as he fucked into you. You screamed, and his hand came up to your mouth to shush you before returning to your hips. 

“Quiet,” he whispered darkly, snapping his hips into yours. “Be a good girl and let me fuck you up against the window. You like knowing that someone could look in and see us, don’t you? See how whiny you are. How fucking desperate you are to cum all over me.” 

You hung your head, pushing back against him and he dropped his hand from the window, putting both hands on your hips and thrusting harder. Moans fell from your mouth in song, strung together along with curses as Bradley groaned behind you. 

“Fuck, Bradley, I’m going to cum,” you moaned and he stilled. “Please, don’t stop.” Your voice was whiny and high pitched. 

One hand slid up your body, wrapped loosely around your throat. “Address me properly and I’ll let you.” 

“Please, Lieutenant,” you whispered and you felt him press into you again, the other hand coming down to your clit, thumb swirling and you started to see stars. “Please, fuck, please let me cum Lieutenant Bradshaw.” 

“Cum,” he growled in your ear and you broke apart, screaming and moaning until he pulled out of you. Your legs were shaky in the stilettos, and Bradley’s arm circled your waist, picking you up and setting you on the desk, your bare back cold against the wood. You looked up at him, cock still hard and dripping, as you recovered from the orgasm coursing through your body. 

“Thank you,” you sighed and he grabbed your legs, yanking them apart and pulling you to the edge of the table until you were almost hanging off. 

“Don’t thank me yet, sweetheart,” he said, lining up at your entrance and sinking into you again. You shuddered at how sensitive it was as he started to pump into you. “Now you have to let me get what I want.” 

“Yes, sir,” you whispered as his fingertips tightened against your thighs. 

He lifted your legs over his shoulders, bending you as he drilled in deeper, hands coming out to grope your breasts. Bradley grunted and you started to feel the familiar build of another orgasm rising inside of you. He lifted his eyes to yours, took in your expression, and grinned. “You like that, professor?” he asked, fucking you particularly deep and you yelped. 

“Yes, Lieutenant.”

“You going to cum all over my cock again?” 

“Please,” you whined. He reached up and grabbed your ankles — you were still wearing the heels — and lifted your ass off of the desk until your back was arched. “Fuck, fuck, Lieutenant!” 

“Let me cum inside of you,” he commanded and you nodded, eyes closed, head turned to the side against the desk in ecstasy. 

“Yes, cum in me, please,” you begged, your high almost cresting, and you felt him speed up, swearing under his breath. 

“Fucking shit,” Bradley groaned, his grip on your ankles becoming unbearable. “Feel so fucking good and tight on my cock. Oh fuck…” he trailed off, and you felt his release inside of you just as you broke apart on him, shuddering as he slid out and placed you back on the desk, dropping your ankles gently. 

Bradley reached over to a Kleenex box, wiping himself off and offering you a few. You cleaned yourself up and sat up on the desk, legs still wide. 

He reached out and pressed a hand to your cheek, leaning in for a kiss. “You did so good for me,” he whispered and you blushed. “Come here.” He opened his arms and you pressed into him. He was warm, but the thin layer of sweat on both of your bodies had you shivering. 

Bradley let you go after a moment, slipping his pants back on and handing you your clothes. You kicked off the shoes and got dressed, sitting back in your office chair and picking up the papers that had fallen to the ground while you fucked on the desk. 

“I really do have a lot of grading to do,” you laughed and he gave a small smile before looking down at his shoes. You tilted your head. “Bradley? What is it?”

He looked up with a pained expression. “We got called up.” Your heart sank. “When?”

“Next week,” he said. 

“For how long?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “Not sure. They didn’t say.” 

“Who is we?” you whispered, already knowing the answer. 

“Me. Bob. Phoenix. Coyote. Payback. Fanboy.” He paused. “And Hangman.”

You rested your hands on your thighs, bending over a bit to get a deeper breath. 

“There’s more,” he said quietly and you looked up. 

“What do you mean?”

Bradley shuffled his feet before looking up at you, his sad chocolatey eyes meeting yours. “It’s dangerous, Abby. Really fucking dangerous.”

You felt like a knife had been plunged into your neck. This was the moment you had dreaded from the second Jake told you he was joining the Navy. It was the news you had always feared would one day come. “How dangerous?”

He shook his head. “No one has ever done anything like this before, babe. They don’t even know if it can be done.” 

A tear slipped out of your eye onto your lap. “What are you saying to me, Bradley?”

“I’m saying we might not come home from this one, sweetheart.” 

Your gaze lifted to meet his. You shook your head in denial. “No.” 

“Abby,” he said, rounding the corner of the desk and kneeling in front of where you sat on the office chair. Bradley took your hands in his. “Baby, look at me.” 

You could barely see him over the flood of tears on your lash line. 

“We don’t leave until Saturday. We still have time.” 

You squeezed his fingers. “No.”

“Honey,” he said and you heard a tremor in his voice. “Please don’t cry.” 

It was too late. You dissolved into tears and Bradley pulled you into his arms, the two of you sitting on the ground of your office, a heap of arms and legs and tears. 

His hands stroked your back as he whispered reassuringly into your ear. You should have been the one comforting him. Telling him it would be OK. 

But all you could do was close your eyes. And in the darkness, you watched as your future began to slip away. 

A/N: I promise we will circle back to the Asia mission in the next chapter! I wanted this chapter to give us some background about the tension between Jake and Bradley, as well as set the scene for the upcoming mission. Also to give a little more dimension to Bradley's character!

Tag list: @hotch-meeeeeuppppp @blue-aconite @abaker74 @vir-tual @justanothermagicalsara @hiddleless @lexhalstead3 @stevieharringtongf @katiebby04 @clairedelarosa-blog @chiffondaydreams @evans-dejong @thechillingadventuresoftayla @hopefulinlove @teenwolf01 @emptyloverofmine @zablife @lgg5989 @tallrock35 @shanimallina87 @kkrenae @maggiedanikka @whateverbagman @marantha @materialgirl01 @percysaidnever @mandylove1000 

[pokemonbiologyirlthetabletop]

Petilil & Lilligant

Petilil (#548)

Conroboherba parvus

General Information: Petilil are a small grass-type Pokémon with leaves that, when eaten in large amounts, cause dizziness, but in smaller amounts they provide a revitalizing effect that helps regain vigor. These leaves grow back fairly quickly.

Petilil average at 1’8 feet tall (0.5 M) and 14.6 pounds (6.6 kg). The deeper the color of their leaves, the healthier the Petilil.

Habitat: Petilil can be found throughout the Asia and Europe, where they love to live near bodies of clean water on land with rich nutritious soil. They especially love flowerbeds and lush forests. However, Petilil are highly sensitive to environmental pollution, and will be one of the first Pokémon to disappear from a habitat when humans pollute it.

Life Cycles: Petilil are born every Spring in litters of dozens, like anywhere from 60 to 90 is a normal clutch size per mother. As one can imagine from litters this big, Petilil are eaten by a lot of things. They are small, fairly harmless grass-types that also taste a bit bitter, and they’re snack-sized to a lot of larger predators, such as Talonflames, Sevipers, Galvantulas, Orangurus, Passimians, other primate Pokémon, and so forth. Around 3% of Petilils will survive to become Lilligants, barring extraordinary circumstances. As an all-female species, Petilils must seek mates from other species, with Ivysaurs often being mates of choice given the high ratio of males, and their own impressive flowers and courtship rituals.

Behavior: Petilil are friendly but (justifiably) quite skittish in nature. They are scared of humans and other large predators as a rule. They live in large flocks/gardens of scores of other Petilil, often their siblings by proximity. In captivity, especially when raised from an egg or bred from domesticated stock by Breeders, Petilil are sociable creatures who need other Pokémon around to be happy. Other grass-types are the best companions to give a Petilil, but don’t let that discourage you from giving your Petilil other friends!

Diet: Sunlight, berries.

Conservation: Vulnerable

Relationship with Humans: Petilils have been eaten by humanity since we left Africa and travelled into the Middle East. They’re small, nutritious, weak, docile, easy to catch, and they breed well in agricultural settings. Even the dizziness that one gets from eating too many of their leaves disappears upon boiling. And, since the Petilils regrow their leaves quickly, there’s little need to kill them, just plucking their leaves does the trick.

Their habitats are under threat all the time from pollution, and since they’re one of the earliest ecosystem indicators available to science, their presence or absence is a huge tell when something is going wrong in an environment. The main thing that stops Petilils from being endangered in spite of this extreme sensitivity to toxins, is their range and presence in human dwellings. Petilils would make for excellent starter Pokémon if it wasn’t for the fact that they evolve into the notoriously finicky Lilligant. But, Petilils are present on the teams of many doctors, herbalists, and chefs who use their revitalizing leaves to enhance foods and medicines. Their presence in the culinary arts and medicine is so prevalent and rooted in ancient traditions, that Petilils are seen as the symbol of herbal medicines and gardens. Many businesses throughout time use a stylized Petilil to represent herbs or herbal medicine, to the point that it is ubiquitous with the trade.

Classification: “Conroboherba” is a combination of “conroboro” which means “strengthen, invigorate” and “herba” which means “herb.”

Lilligant (#549)

Conroboherba elegans ruben ([OG] Lilligant) Conroboherba elegans tripodo ([H] Lilligant)

General Information: Lilligant are tall, elegant Pokémon with gorgeous flowers atop their heads that always bloom most beautifully in the wild. The flower produces a strong, sweet aroma that gives a heartened feeling. (OG) Lilligants average at 3’7 feet tall (1.1 M) and 35.9 pounds (16.3 kg), and (H) Lilligants are 3’11 feet tall (1.2 M) and 42.3 pounds (19.2 kg).

Habitat: Lilligants are found in the forests and mountains of Asia and Europe. (H) Lilligants are exclusively found in the Himalayas, where the cold, rocky mountains gave the Lilligants powerful legs for jumping great distances. While Petilils are common enough, Lilligants are rare in the wild.

Life Cycles: As an all-female species, Lilligants must seek out mates from other species, such as Venusaurs. They will roam forests in bands or by themselves in search of mates, and when a suitable mate has been found the flower on its head will wilt and wither away. When at last they lay eggs, they will guard their eggs enough to keep an eye out for egg-thieves, but once the Petilils hatch then the babies are left to fend for themselves unless there happens to be a Lilligant in the colony. Be aware, that captive Lilligants who have not bloomed their flower for the year are not ready to mate. While Petilils are born in vast numbers and themselves reproduce easily enough, Lilligants are not at risk of death too often and can afford to be picky about when and with whom they reproduce.

Behavior: Lilligants are finicky creatures and not terribly good mothers. While friendly enough, they are hard to please in captivity, and even veteran trainers and first-class gardeners have been known to struggle with coaxing the flower on a Lilligant to bloom. Should their flower bloom and they are then neglected, it will wilt.

Diet: Sunlight and berries.

Conservation: Vulnerable

Like Petilils, Lilligants are finicky ecosystem indicators who flee from polluted habitats and deforested lands. Their populations are spotty and fragmented, but what saves the species from being endangered is the amount of habitat that they cover across Europe and Asia, and their willingness to live in human-controlled habitats like botanical gardens, even if they are finicky to the umpteenth degree. However, the (H) Lilligant of the Himalayas is likely endangered, but it’s hard to say for the sub-species is found at incredibly high altitudes and in remote parts of the world.

Relationship with Humans: Lilligants are one of many symbols of beauty in the human world, often depicted alongside Milotic, Gardevoir, and Lopunny. They are popular amongst celebrities, and even veteran and first-rank gardeners find the needs of Lilligants to be a challenge. The flower of a Lilligant is sometimes cultivated into an incredibly rare and expensive perfume—Pokémon Rights Activists rejoice, the very nature of the flower on a Lilligant means it is treated well and it is happy!

There are parts of the world that worship Lilligants as dancers and beauties of the forest/mountains.

Classification: The species epithets of Lilligant, ruben and tripodo refer to the red flower on the head of (OG) Lilligant and the dancing movements of (H) Lilligant respectively.

Evolution: Lilligants evolve from Petilils with a Sun Stone or appropriate equivalent. The regional form is genetic, so Petilils bred from the (H) lineage will still evolve into (H) Lilligants even outside of the Himalayas.

[discluded]

Man Suang x Song Wat festival

I give BOC a lot of shit, so I feel obligated to give them credit where it's due and when deserved.

Locations:

PLAY art house - A space for art lovers located in an old district of Bangkok where art is alive.

CASA FORMOSA - Taiwan tea house

MESA 312 - Directed by Myriam Rueda, MESA 312 Cultural Lab is multidimensional project which offers graphic design services and visual arts.

F.V - F.V Cafe sells beverages made from Thai ingredients and Thai desserts

ARTEASIA - The cafe of History, Architecture, & Culture

HOR FUN (หอฝัน) - Home cooked fusion concept and bar.

POTONG (OPIUM BAR) - Potong restaurant is a 1 star Michelin, No35th Asia 50 best restaurant and No88 th world best restaurant of 2023.

Choosing and then coordinating with seven different business, including a Michellin star restaurant, for promotion with your movie is no small lift.

This is very impressive on-brand tie in with their movie, a one-of-a-kind experience for people in to Bangkok to experience the release of the film as it promotes Thai culture and soft power.

This is a particularly thoughtful and interesting marketing plan, and I'm sure will drive business to these seven participating companies as well as movie-goers to the cinema. Kudos.

Now if only they could tell us international fans when and how we can see the movie 🥲🥲🥲 please i want to give you my money so bad

[dojae-huh]

you should be hoping sm doesn't pull on DJJ the same crap they pulled on CBX instead of asking why a fan would want them to leave the company. LSM was literally a money launderer.... the good music will follow an idol no matter where they go if they are talented. so you shouldn't be worried if jaedo leaves sm. if you are a fan, you need to be by their side, not sm's. what if sm doesn't pay them too? if sm was scamming CBX out of their money you don't think they are doing to other artists? if i remember correctly LSM was hoarding all the wayv money for himself 😭

I'm not on SM's side, I don't work for them, and I'm not a company stan.

I'm also a freelancer, a person who prefers financial instability to working for a company and following someone else's rules. Never lasted more than a year in an institution.

You, fans who cry your faves need to leave their company this instant, are very naive and detached from reality. Many of you don't even yet pay taxes or feed a family.

Good music doesn't follow nice idols. If it was so, the talented yt singers and indie artists would have showered the world with bangers and got money from their talents. Instead of singing covers in local bars and their tiny yt channels. Somehow it is "factory produced" pop-stars and rappers instead who get famous.

There is no "dating app" for producers. You need to know people, have connections, or be the one everyone sends their demos to. It was hated by the fans Chris Lee who travelled around the globe and collected all those European and American producers. It is SM's money and reputation that makes aspiring Korean producers send them their tracks in hopes of being chosen.

There are very few songwriters among idols. Even fewer idols who can be a manager or a CEO. There are more than 3 hundred idol companies in Korea, and only 5 or 7 are really successful. Even Pledis with self-producing 17, an idol group second only to BTS in popularity, was bought by Hybe (i.e. they had to sell themselves otherwise they couldn't continue).

Look at Jessi. She is very talented, she is good at variety, she knows a lot of people in the industry, she writes her own songs, and she struggles non-stop. She was scummed by one of the people who she hired, an orginiser for her concerts in Europe.

Look at Kang Daniel. He was and stays one of the most popular idols in Korea, he is a phenomenon. He opened his own company, he works like a horse on tv programmes to promote himself. And even his album sales started to go down.

2019: 500,134 copies sold

2020: 603,961 copies sold

2021: 320,114 copies sold

2022: 404,261 copies sold

2023: 171,552 copies sold

Where is Chungha?

I'm not saying it is impossible to become famous on your own, or that staying with one's company is always the best choice. No. It's business. Both sides use each other. Being a part of a big company has its downsides. Being independant or a part of a small company also has its downsides. SM is not strong in acting area, so leaving it as an actor (D.O.) or musical actor (Kyuhyun) makes sense. When it comes to idol music though?

You mentioned CBX.

On June 3, Ten Asia announced that Baekhyun has established his own company called "I&B100" and founded it on June 23 of last year before the issue of renewal contracts with SM was raised. Baekhyun will continue to work "separately and together" with SM through his own label during the contract renewal period. On June 19, SM and the three members announced that both parties had resolved their differences over contract dispute and the members had decided to stay with the agency.

Why the talented and super famous Exo members "resolved" their differences instead of leaving the hateful company? Because they are not stupid. They fought for their rights and improved their terms, but they still need SM's resources, the money that participation in Exo will bring. Baek's company is a production company. He can safely run it, make trial tests, learn the craft. And only later, when everything is running smoothly, when he gained reputation and trust, he can go into real independant sailing.

OK. Doyoung or Jaehyun leaves SM today. Where will they go? JYP? YG? The most famous and successul current soloists are Taeyeon, Baekhyun, Taemin (SM/Kakao), IU (Kakao), BTS guys and PSY. PSY has his own company, but Jessi left him, Hyuna left him, his boy group released only one EP and dissapeared. He is a bad producer and CEO, apparently.

Open their own companies? Doyoung didn't even finish school. He wants to be a CEO one day and he will. However, right now he has neither the capital, neither the fame to pull it off. Everything he gained was through SM. It is not enough to find a good song. You need investors who will pay for your MVs, you need album distributors and streaming platforms, you need PR managers who will look for tv-appearence opportunities and BA deals. You need translators and editors for YT content. Will Doyoung find them all on the street? With tens of years of experience under their belt?

NCT got their own centre. The right way for Doyoung is not to leave SM, but seize this centre, get producing and creative control over it, get all the executives under his thumb.

Different idols suit different companies. Soyeon wouldn't be given the free reign over her group in SM. It's because Cube failed with CLC, they risked it and tried to trust her talent of a producer. G-Dragon wouldn't become G-Dragon in SM either. And 17 became self-producing because Pledis was postponing their debut, didn't have money. On the other hand, Taeyong wouldn't have become Taeyong outside of SM. If Soyeon is a dandelion capable of growing through concrete. He is a capricious rose in need of a glasshouse.

SM is a company built by its artists as much as by the staff behind the scene. The older idols walked for newer idols to run. Taemin had to fight for the right to have more influence on the production side of his albums. Key fought for his vision. Kai invested his own resources. Seulgi and Taeyong? Practically produced their first albums. Shinee, even 127 gave out snacks to their first fans to slowly build a fanbase. Riize sold their single 1mln+ and are on top of brandrep after half a year after the debut.

Compare Hansol and Sungchan. One left. One stayed. Where are they now?