#Card Capital bros

[starburstsobsessions]

Weird Random CFV characters HCs part like 4

Aichi: Doesn’t know how to play Pokémon or yugioh or magic tg and frankly is too scared to ask (me too just abt)

Kai: that beyblade kid. Brought one everywhere for awhile. Launched them down the stairs. Keeps it for life. (You can’t get rid of childhood beyblades)

Misaki: plays Wizard 101 in 2022. Yeah it’s still around and still fun

Kamui: goes “I thought you were X nationality” when you tell him your sexuality

Miwa: met Kai from playing Beyblade. Yeah

Ren: he’s kinda more obsessed with movie villains than he should be. Is it pining or admiration? No one knows

Asaka: feeds Kyou Yahagi who lives in the al4 dumpster every now and then. Like how you feed the neighborhood cat. Like every now and then just. Leaving out some snacks and water.

Tetsu: calls animal control on Kyou Yahagi living in the al4 dumpsters

Kyou: he has a 4 bed 3 bath 2000 sq ft living space. In the AL4 dumpsters. It looks like an HGTV flip. Only him and his team mates know

Kourin: owns every final fantasy game to date. Don’t ask

Naoki: he got them air pods. he found them on the ground

Shingo: He was on a game show once and that’s why his head is so big. It was really lame but he doesn’t think so

Ibuki: Ate a little too much dirt when he was a kid. I cannot explain or even begin to elaborate

Suiko: didn’t eat any dirt as a kid. Dude

Rekka: is banned from 3 countries

[beardedhandstoadshark]

AI art is bad:

It's trained with millions of artist's drawings without their consent and on top of that it's used for profit. There’s even AI art NFTs 🤮

They‘re the same people. Ai and nft bros, that is. Always have been. Same pathetic attempts at justifying themselves, too. And general gleefullness in exploiting people who actually do something with their lives. (Drawslaves, isn’t that a cute word?)

No to mention the whole thing getting funded by giant corporations (Those oh-so-holy open source generators aren’t as "community“-driven as they pretend to be =) )

Gonna be fun when they realize they won’t be able to sell these images anymore either because they overflowed the market like they did nfts. The jobs are still irreversibly fucked, but at least there’s that I guess.

[devilishdelights]

going to risk going on etsy to see what they have

[wannaeatramyeon]

The Crew Heads with Reader: Board Games

G/N. Silly. 4 small scenes. (Jake Kim, Eli Jang, Johan Seong, Samuel Seo)

Bro Code | Dinner | Shopping | Television | Gacha | Board Games | Suits

"What the fuck?" Samuel glares at Johan who returns it with equal hostility.

"It's a word." Johan spits, arms crossed and defiant.

"Use it in a sentence."

"I'm going to kilp you."

"Johan will kilp you," Jake chimes in.

"Samuel will be kilped by Johan," Eli adds.

"Almost," you say, "But Johan I don't think that's a word-"

"3 to 2, overruled!" Jake grins, totting up the points from the Scrabble board. "Ok so that's triple word score too for God Dog. Fuck... he's in the lead."

.

.

"I just said you can't play a +2 on top of a +2 card!" Jake moans, looking at the stack of cards in the middle.

"Says who?" Johan asks, because that rule is stupid

"It sounds like bullshit but-," Eli scrolls on his phone, looking for a source. "Uno officially. The cards can't stack."

You lean over his shoulder, read the rule with your own eyes but disregard it anyway. "The fuck do they know."

"5 to 0, draw your cards asshole." Samuel leans back, smug when Jake add another 6 cards to his hand.

.

.

"You're cheating!" You screech as Jake freezes like a deer caught in headlights.

"No I didn't!" He holds up both hands in surrender. He absolutely did not cheat.

"You grabbed an extra 100 won, I saw you!"

"I didn't!" Jake protests his innocence.

"I saw him too," Eli says as Johan and Samuel both nod vigorously.

"What, owning most of the properties on the board isn't enough for you?" You say, jabbing a finger in Jake's chest. "And now you're cheating?!"

"But I didn't-"

"I don't want to play anymore!" You throw your cash in the air, standing up and stepping over the Monopoly board as the rest of the guys follow suit.

"But... I didn't." Jake mutters, looking at the mess of cash around him.

Ok. So he didn't cheat. In fact, you know for certain that everyone else did. It's just expected with a game like Monopoly. No-one becomes rich fairly with capitalism.

Poor Jake however, did play fair and square, ended up lucky with the community chest and chance cards which led to him owning the majority of the properties.

All of you, getting more pissed off by the minute but not wanting to admit defeat, slithered your way out of it by accusing Jake and throwing him to the wolves.

You promise to make it up to him, somehow. But you are not losing at Monopoly.

.

.

"Are you blind?" Johan growls when Samuel's hand comes down on the 9 that landed on top of the 6.

"Fuck off," he mutters, retreating and putting his own card down - an 8.

"I think Snap might not be for Samuel," Eli grins, placing a King face up, as Jake agrees that Math isn't Sammy's strong suit.

"Easy mistake," you shrug, rising to his defence. You have definitely done something similar many times. Not with these guys though.

You've never played Snap, that simple card game, with them. For good reason-

"Snap!" Jake shouts, hand slamming down after he places another King on top of Eli's.

The table legs creak, then with a sickening crash, collapses under the force of his power. The four crew heads and you are left sitting around a mess of splintered wood, spilled drinks and ruined cards.

"Oops."

Samuel rolls his eyes. "Well done, moron."

-And that's why you don't play Snap.

[itgirlgyu]

would this txt guy punch me if i ask him to?

context: toothache. warning: gaslighting. violence.

✷ yeonjun!

no!

honestly i think he's too much pussy to punch.

he'd be there like, with sweat running down his forehead.

his fist shaking, and his voice trembling.

if we pay even more attention to his cowardice, we could hear his teeth chattering and his chin wobbling.

his wussy behavior would put me off

instead we just visit the dentist on his debit card

he can't be more thankful for that even though now he's in debt because of it.

✷ soobin!

he's been waiting for a chance honestly.

"soobin could you punch me bro i hav—"

"aight square up."

he's taken the right position to land the perfect punch.

he's hunched back and has been pulling his wrist back while supporting it with his other hand.

and in that moment he looks like he's actually taking his vengeance instead of helping you

there's a literal twinkle in his eyes.

that's not the soobin we know.

i fear for my life so i will be fleeing that scene

and ending my friendship.

✷ beomgyu!

he might.

some gaslighting and emotional blackmailing needed tho.

he's like, "no how could i?"

while removing his rings and freeing the tension in his wrist, getting ready to hit the mark.

might shed tears as he measures the distance and the amount of force he might need to excert.

enlightenment hits like this man would actually end up caving my jaw in

so i refuse with a flower in my hands as peace treaty 🌹

he agrees and we both hapilly live together while planning an extensive plan to get shit done on someone else's bill.

✷ taehyun!

straight up refuses without even listening to the reasoning.

refuses even more vehemently after listening to the reasoning.

like he too is a hater of capitalism but apparently refusing to going to the dentist is something only an imbecile would do

sure taehyun that doesn't sound like hypocrisy at all 🙄

might start lecturing on dental hygiene and then gives an array of things to help the ache

okay but i would literally bite my own tongue to stop myself from making even a bit of sound in front of him

bc you make one sound and he's looks like he'd grab your hair and drag you to the dentist.

✷huening kai.

yeah lmao he wouldn't.

although he'd empathise

but that's all he would do.

does a lil "oh poor you" everytime he comes in and then back to going whatever he had been doing.

might ask after a day or two like oh how's your toothache?

probably uses this chance and make a gift list with whole mouth wash, and pain killer and all that basket for christmas.

doesn't eat anything sweet in front of you bc he thinks it's rude.

oh my poor hyuka ily

but a true blue idgaf king.

i do not apologise for shit posting. ⋆

COPYRIGHTS RESERVED TO ITGIRLGYU 23'. FEEDBACKS AND REBLOGS ARE APPRECIATED! PERM' TAGLIST: @impureperhaps @full-sunnies @ox1-lovesick @jisungsdaydreamer @wonioml @1921choi @forever-in-the-sky @beoms-sugar @gyuletters

[cr-ok]

contains some spoilers for the ARG

Bill Ci. My Brainrot Guy.

Bill ���︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill List Overview & Entry Syntax

a little disorganized

yell at me if I’m missing codes or if something is wrongly categorized

do not worry about spaces/some punctuation marks (",", ".", "-", "+", "&", "@", parenthesis, quotation marks, and slashes)

i. e. "THEYLLSEE"/"THEYLL SEE"/"THEY'LL SEE" all work & have the same output

site does not accept entries with "?"

all characters are capitalized automatically

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill You All are Wonderful People

Busy_Abroad370 CranberrySoft8335 DCode Dog_core fishy--friend FRAMER_FRAMER Hacker88774770 Global-Pepper-5823 marzinstarz moonwytte mothford ohnoimonfire RiotingSpectre themoonweaversden themysteryofgravityfalls thisisnotawebsitedotcom-com wolsalwastaken

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Where to Click

book button below the screen dagger dial below the screen “McGucket Labs” above the screen gold tooth on skeleton jar link below the prism

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Relevant to The Book of Bill

BOYFRIEND/LONELY/LOVE/MARRY ME/ROMANCE/SOULMATE/TRUE LOVE CRYPTOGRAM CODEX DESTRUCTION IS A FORM OF CREATION SCARY/SPOOKS/SPOOKY/SPOOKEMUPS T. J. ECKLEBURG

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Bill, Past & Present

BABY/BABY BILL/DADDY/LALALA/LALALALALA/MOMMY DIVORCE/BREAKUP/ROCK BOTTOM EUCLID/SCALENE/SCRIMBLES EUCLYDIA FAMILY MATTERS FORGET THE PAST IRREGULAR JUST FIT IN RUBBER HOSE

it ends, eventually

SEVEN EYES TANTRUM THERAPRISM VALLIS CINERIS WELL WELL WELL BEING

three outputs

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Stanford, Past & Present

AD ASTRA PER ASPERA DOES GOD EXIST/FACE OF GOD/FRILLIAM/GOD/HELP ME/IS GOD REAL/IS RELIGION REAL/REVEAL GOD/REVEAL GOD TO ME/SAVE ME/SHOW ME GOD/WHAT DOES GOD LOOK LIKE/WHAT IS GOD/WHO IS GOD EVEN HIS LIES ARE LIES I’M STILL ON YOUR MIND/ON YOUR MIND OROBOROUS SORRY

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Riddles

answers in book

RIDDLE

NO/YES

MOUNTAIN DON'T

LYRE LIAR

HAROLD'S RAMBLINGS

UNION MADE

29121239168518

GREBLEY HEMBERDRECK

A RAT/RAT

3466554

TINSEL SNAKE

TORTURE MENTALLY

XGQRTHX

333 SUNDAPPLE LANE, COZY CREEK, IL, 60714-94611

CAESAR, ATBASH, & VIGENERE/MULTILEVEL MARK

EMMALINE BUTTERNUBBINS/BUTTERNUBBINS

DISPENSE MY ANSWER

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Zodiac

DIPPER

enter five times

FORD/SIXER/STANFORD/STANFORD PINES GIDEON

two outputs

GRUNKLE STAN/STAN/STANLEY/STANLEY PINES/STAN PINES

enter eight times

MASON MABEL - enter thirteen times FIDDLEFORD/FIDDLEFORD HADRON MCGUCKET/FIDDLEFORD MCGUCKET/MCGUCKET PACIFICA PLATINUM PAZ ROBBIE SOOS WENDY

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Bill Addressing the User

BAAAA/SAY BAAAA BLACK SHEEP BOO BERRY DESTRUCTION IS A FORM OF CREATION NAITSUAF

use the button and the knob

UNREALITY

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Canon to Universe

ALGEBRA/GEOMETRY/GREECE/GREEK/SHAPE/SHAPES/MATH/PLATO/PYTHAGORUS/TRIGONOMETRY BABBA/DISCO GIRL BLENDIN/BLENDIN BLENJAMIN BLANDIN/BLENDIN BLANDIN BLIND EYE CLONE/PAPER JAM/PAPER JAM DIPPER/TYRONE DUCKTECTIVE FORDTRAMARINE HECTORING HOTXOLOTL JUST BLENDIN KINGS OF NEW JERSEY KOOK KUBRICK L IS REAL 2401 LOVE YA BRO PINES PORTAL REALITY R34LITY SEVERAL TIMES/SEV'RAL TIMES SUCK IT, MERLIN

use Cipher Font B

WEIRDMAGEDDON YOU'RE INSANE

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Directly from "Gravity Falls"

AM I BLANCHIN' BYE GOLD DEER TEETH FILBRICK

Stans's father's name

FIXINIT1 DUCHESS APPROVES/THE DUCHESS APPROVES HOLOGRAM REALITY UNIVERSE/THE UNIVERSE

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Unsure of the Canonicity

ANALOG HORROR/CREEPYPASTA/HORROR/URBAN LEGEND/URBAN LEGENDS BURNED INSIDE BURNSIDE CARD/MY CARD

two outputs

CURSED CURSE WITTEBANE HEY NERD LIES OCCURREMUSITERUM OWL TROWEL PAPER IS BOOKSKIN SHAVE YOUR GRANDMA

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Ciphertology

CIPHERTOLOGY

two outputs

DIONARAP GOODNIGHT SALLY STOD EHT TCENNOC TOURIST TRAP WHICH RELIGION IS RIGHT YOU CAN'T KILL AN IDEA

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Easter Eggs

ALEX/ALEX HIRSCH/ALEXANDER ROBERT HIRSCH/HIRSCH ANSWER ASSHOLE/BITCH/CUM/CUNT/DICK/FUCK/FUCK YOU/GANG BANG/GLORY HOLE/JIZZ/MILF/PUSSY/SEX/SHIT/TITS/SLUT/TED CRUZ/WHORE BOOK OF BILL/THE BOOK OF BILL CHIP/DORITO/NACHO

jumpscare warning

CRYPTO/DOGE/ELON/FORTNITE/GYATT/NFT/RIZZ/SKIBIDI DEATH DISNEY/DISNEYLAND/EPCOT/MICKEY/MICKEY MOUSE/WALT DISNEY EASTER EGG FUCK YOU ALEX/FUCK ALEX HIRSCH GUN/THE GUN HISTORY

four outputs

HOW DO I DIE? HOW WILL I DIE? I SEE/THEY’LL SEE/THEY’LL ALL SEE IS HELL REAL? IS THERE AN AFTERLIFE/WHAT HAPPENS AFTER I DIE/WHAT HAPPENS AFTER WE DIE/WHAT HAPPENS AFTER YOU DIE/WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DIE/WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DIE LIFE MEOW/MEOW WOW MONSTER MORALITY NOT A PHASE NOTHING PEAK PINATA OH YES THEY BOTH ONE-EYED KING QUESTION SCREEN SCIENTOLOGY SEASON 3 SEASON 2 SEASON 1 SKELETON SOMETHING TELL ME HOW I'LL DIE TITANS BLOOD TRIANGLE

two outputs.

I'm convinced one is a typo

VIRUS WHO ARE YOU

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Reference to the Show

ABUELITA AXOLOTL BILL/BILL CIPHER/CIPHER/LLIB/LLIB REHPIC/REHPIC

three outputs

BLANCHIN/BLANCHING CARYN

Stans's mother's name

CIA/FBI/NSA CRAY CRAY CRAZ/XYLER DIPPY FRESH GIFFANY

enter this six times

GLASS SHARD BEACH GLOBNAR GRAVITY FALLS JOURNAL 1 JOURNAL 2 JOURNAL 3 MYSTERY MYSTERY SHACK TAD STRANGE TOBY DETERMINED WADDLES

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Cameos

CONSPIRACY GAME THEORY/HELP ME MATPAT/HELP US MATPAT/MATPAT/THAT’S JUST A/THEORY WEIRD

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill Does Not Work; I'm in Shambles

ASS BILL IS SANS BLIND IVAN DRAKE FIDDLEFORD H. MCGUCKET/HADRON FINGERS IN HIS ASS HENCHMAINIACS LEBAM LIGMA LUCIFER MERMANDO OVERLOOK/OVERLOOK HOTEL PLEASE SATAN SEXYMAN SEVRAL TIMEZ SIGMA THEY WILL ALL SEE TOOT TOOT MCBUMBERSNAZZLE TWINK JULY 4/7-4-1921

Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill ⚠︎ 𓁺 ⚠︎ Bill I Have Been Mislead/Fuck You, Internet

BRAINROT BUBBLE

eye in the jar element ID

CUSSES FOURTRAMARINE

spelling error

GOD BUBBLE MCSUCKIT OK KO REPHIC

spelling error

SMALL STILL ON YOUR MIND

incorrectly-remembered

[that-one-xachster]

Megumi x Childhood Bestie!Reader Hcs

I've seen too many of these and needed to write a few heh ive actually never written hcs before so this is my first time 😅 kinda a slow burn?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

so first of all you were tsumiki's bestie because I haven't seen a hc like that yet (PLEASE I NEEDA SEE ONE OF THESE-)

and we'll also make fushi's mom besties with your mom

so now you two are besties since you were in diapers

and you were a very grabby baby and Fushiguro's hair is as wild as carpaccios from mashle-

(sorry not sorry)

so you'd just grab at his hair and pull it all the time which would annoy the hell out of him

which would then somehow end up in you two fighting

AS BABIES

and then your mother's would have to calm you down

and after the whole toji and mother fushiguro went bye bye your mom took in megumi and tsumiki

so now timeskip you're both 6 years old and just walking together from who knows where

and if you thought you grew out of these grabby tendencies no you're either grabbing his hair or his sleeve

yes it still annoys the hell out of him but you do it for shits and giggles

and then on this fine day you just happen to run into the gojo satoru

LMAO MY AUTOCORRECT ALMOST CAPITALIZED HIS NAME

anyway this guy is making his ever so iconic face like 'bro reminds me of his dad-'

anyway gojo doesn't know who you are so you're just standing there awkwardly behind megumi while you're now gripping his backpack

and you're just glaring at gojo for no reason at all for sure just thinking 'who the hell is this weird ahh man with hair like he's in his 70s tryna kidnap megumi 🤨🤨'

and ofc megumi pulls the 'what about my sister' card

and after the whole negotiation with megumi he turns to you and is like 'you can come along too ig'

and ofc you watch megumi so you pull the 'what about my parents' card

gojo's like 😀

anyway you somehow end up going to school with megumi and tsumiki and first day kindergarten no surprise you guys are the new kids

everyone I mean EVERYONE loves tsumiki ofc

a partial reason is because of you and megumi glaring at the people who you think are looking at her a lil funny

like sir ma'am CHILD how dare you

anyway you have a pretty peaceful elementary school

you do pick fights with megumi though

...and a whole lotta other people

you stopped in middle school but looks like megumi picked it up instead because yk he beat up a hefty amount of people

you stanned him for that

also hyping him up from the back

"YEAHH MEGUMI BEAT THEIR ASS"

"shut up."

"no."

".."

"anyway YOU GO MEGUMI BEAT EM UP-"

"sHUT-"

so that was pretty eventful but tsumiki did not approve which caused you to sulk next to megumi

but then yk she went to the cliff and shit went down real fast

tsumiki got cursed, you entered your depressed angsty teenager era, and megumi became emo. more so than he was before

"oh my god its worse than they thought- they made him EMO-"

^ thats megumi now but we all like pretty emo bois so

wItH tHeIr bLaCk hAiR aNd gReEn oRbS-

too bad megumi has blue eyes

>>>>>>

see this is why asians don't have blue eyes we'd be too powerful

anyway back to this you two finish middle school all swandy dandy but a lil depressed

oh and I don't think I mentioned you two got into a fight bc of tsumiki's sickness

like-

megumi: you're closer to tsumiki bc you two are girls why didn't you stop her from pulling random crap whatever she did to make her sick

you: BITCH you blaming ME? you wanna go?

yeah basically you two got into a stupid argument but oh well its fine bc gojo forced you two to talk again and yay you're talking again

and now first year into jujutsu tech you and megumi are the only students so you're still poking and grabbing him all the time

you did it less in middle school

I think we know why

like you're in the car going to a mission- his hairs being tugged

got off the car and walking his sleeve being tugged

everthing

literally everthing

my bros grown immune to it though so he doesn't really mind

he kinda likes it now but will never admit it

so let's say before you got ranked up and all your arm almost got blown off by a curse

needless to say tsumiki's accident really hit him hard so this hit him harder and when I say he got angry he got ANGRY ASF DUDE

like he freakin obliterated the damn curse

he also made it pretty painful

if you even can

and let his demon dogs casually eat it up

and you're just there like 👏👁️👄👁️

"it's not that deep bro-"

"yes it is"

gojo was very proud though

and now you're with him stalking itadori and you're like

woah

*1 braincell working*

itadori = fast

fast = speed

I am speed

ITADORI = LIGHTNING MCQUEEN

kachow

and when you finally confront your stalkee with megumi and itadori's like

"uh I'm mourning rn"

you're just

"thats great and all dude I totally feel you but you're gonna be mourning even more if we don't get our asses to your school"

you did not want to host multiple funerals

so you all speed ran to his school

and whoopsie doosies you're with megumi and itadori makes an entrance like the main character he is

and when my bro eats that finger

and gojo pops up

he throws the kikufuku at megumi

but its okay hope you have a good day imma send you bout 850-

LMAO SORRY

you steal the kikufuku from megumi and eat one as if its popcorn

well you're watching gojo and sukuna fight rn

and you accidentally admit out loud that sukuna's hot

and then megumi low-key side eyes you

BUT THEN HE STARTS FULL ON GLARING AT SUKUNA

bc how dare he some random goofy ahh old mf misongnyistic tatooed dude just steal your attention so casually

he's full on disgusted when he's face to face with sukuna

yes you notice this

you're like

"ooh did somebody get a crush on a thousand year old curse-"

"wtf no get some help"

its the opposite lmao but you don't know that

so then itadori turns back to normal gojo goes boop and he goes to sleep

and now you're here sitting next to megumi, eating Gojo's kikufuku and having the time of your life

holy this is so long imma do a part 2

fun fact my autocorrect always changes sukuna into skunk 🦨

smelly sukuna

[2sgf]

Solstice ☀️ Sol ☀️ Sunny

he/him ⭐ they/them ⭐ she/her

28 years old ; tme two-spirit first nations wo/man

@mermen is my moonlight 🌙

★ minors do not follow or interact thank you

☆ white supremacists, transmisogynists, sex bioessentiallists, TERFs, and anyone who follow these kinds of beliefs will be blocked

★ if you notice i've interacted with anyone who follows the above ideology or they have interacted with me, please let me know! i might have not noticed

☆ feel free to dm me any donation posts or anything else you need boosted. i will do my best to boost it during the day.

★ i always read abouts, carrds, rentrys, & pinned posts! i might forget to like posts after, or might unlike them after some time to keep my likes clean

☆ i try to keep others' blacklists in mind but if i forgot to tag something, feel free to send me an ask or a message! i will do my best to remember but the dissociation might fuck with me so if it's something important but niche you need tagged, i might need multiple reminders so just unfollow if you're worried about it...

★ disabled, neurodivergent polyfrag system

☆ remade on july 18th 2024

art blog: @solsunbeam

more about under the cut! ^^ not necessary to read

☀ my socio-political beliefs: land back, pro palestine, anti-colonization, harm reductionist, anti-canada and anti-usa, anti capitalism, defund & dismantle the police, prison abolitionist, anti child family services, pro family reunification, better funding for social services, pro universal healthcare (including mental health resources, optometry, AND dentistry), antipsychiatry, pro universal basic income, decriminalize drugs, sex bioessentialism is rooted in white supremacy, and may all the catholic churches burn down thank you

☼ i don't 'debate' any of the above with anon asks. if you want more info on why i hold these beliefs, you can ask me privately via message. though, i may block you if your vibes are bad. if you deeply disagree with the above, then i rather you block me than try to convince me otherwise. i'll save us both the time and just block you.

��� in general i block whenever i feel i need to

☼ i occasionally post about the above, but this blog will also contain a mish-mash of my interests, personal posts, fashion pictures, nature pics, and like.... idk whatever ✌🏽

☀ mutuals this is your sign to ASK FOR MY DISCORD! come. enter my dms. let me send you pictures of my cats.

☼ interests: poetry, art, films, fashion, video games, animation, plants, comics, child welfare, trauma recovery, disability rights, tarot, witchcraft, the occult, linguistics, lolita fashion, and all kinds of other stuff

☀ video games: kingdom hearts, fire emblem, legend of zelda, animal crossing, final fantasy, supergiant's hades, minecraft, mario bros, pokemon (mostly gens 1-5), sonic the hedgehog, undertale, deltarune, // anime/manga: witch hat atelier, dungeon meshi, sailor moon, revolutionary girl utena, yugioh duel monsters, card captor sakura, madoka magica, hunter x hunter, ghibli movies, and other stuff lol

☼ alters may or might not tag their posts as [alter name].txt feel free to refer to them as their name! but we all respond to the collective name as well <3

☀ my final message...... peas and lov on planet erth....... goodnight

[anarchywoofwoof]

you know what has been extremely cathartic? expressing to my therapist that i literally do not feel like i was engineered to work five days a week for the next 30 years and the response being "yeah bro that's completely reasonable"

i feel sometimes as if i hit the lottery with my therapist. one of the cornerstone moments where i said to myself "yeah this person will probably understand me" is when she e-mailed me (twice) to notify me that "due to Capitalism" she would need to charge me an additional 90 cents for my debit card transactions.

the last therapist i had told me that i had a motivation issue btw. said i needed to make my bed every morning and insisted he could "fix" me. anyway so the point of this is that: the first therapist may not be compatible. the second therapist may not be compatible. the third therapist may be an anti-capitalist sex-positive lgbtq+ individual who says shit like "maybe you're just realizing that the puritanical values that were instilled in you growing up aren't what they were made out to be."

and it'll change you.

[messenger-of-stupidity]

Redacted Incorrect Quotes

Redacted Masterlist

~~~

Baabe: seductively takes off glasses Wow, you're… blurry.

~~~

Angel: If I see a bug, I simply leave the room elegantly and require someone else do something about it. Angel: If no one fulfills my wish, I simply never go back in there.

~~~

David: If karma doesn't hit you, I fucking will.

~~~

Baabe: Quitting! It's like trying, but easier.

~~~

Angel: My favorite outdoor activity is going back inside.

~~~

Asher: Hello, McDonald's, I would like to purchase 130 chicken nuggets. Prepare yourselves.

~~~

Sweetheart: To everyone who has treated me poorly; I am sexier than you.

~~~

Angel: If we were in prison you guys would be like my bitches.

~~~

Angel, on the phone: So no head? Angel: Throws phone and breaks skateboard

~~~

at the supermarket Angel: All right, the last item on the list is "virgin oil." Angel: Angel: Wow. Imagine being an item and still being called a virgin. David: Please stop

~~~

David: Plants are basically the ideal friends. They are quiet, friendly, and easy to please. All they need is a little water and fresh earth, and they are perfectly happy to lie there all day in the sun. And they don’t make increasingly awful life choices, or hide their relationships. They have never, as far as I know, fucked a bee.

~~~

Sweetheart: Life keeps fucking me and I can't remember the safeword.

~~~

David: The next time I open up to someone, it'll be my autopsy.

~~~

Baabe, looking at a dead phone: How do we bring this thing back to life? Magic? Live sacrifice? I know a guy in town-

~~~

Asher is ordering a cake over the phone Shop Employee: …and what would you like your cake to say? Asher, covering the phone to look at the others: Do we want a talking cake?

~~~

Sweetheart: I am literally evil incarnate. Sweetheart: I’m not actually, I just enjoy being evil. Sweetheart: Which I think actually makes it even more evil because I’m making a conscious effort.

~~~

Milo: In case you haven’t noticed, I’m weird. I’m a weirdo. I don’t “fit in” and I don’t WANT to fit in. Have you ever seen me without this stupid hat on? That’s weird.

~~~

David: The path to inner peace begins with four words… not my fucking problem.

~~~

Angel: The waiter at Olive Garden has been grating my cheese for 6 hours now, waiting for me to say when. Customers are screaming. Three people have died. Angel: I will not yield.

~~~

Sweetheart: I don’t need to touch grass, I need the fall of capitalism.

~~~

David: What doesn't kill me better start running, because now I'm fucking pissed.

~~~

Baabe: I'm yet to properly begin my history notes BUT!!!! I got 100 Baabe-percent on a quiz about european countries so who's the REAL winner here.

~~~

Darlin: I’m the sexiest bitch in this therapy waiting room.

~~~

Milo: trying to buy a Father's Day card at Hallmark Milo: Excuse me, do you have any that just say "You are my dad?" Associate: Well, I- Milo: How about "You banged my mom?" Associate: No… Milo: You know what, I'll just get a blank one. Milo: writes You are a father. This is a day. Here is a card.

~~~

Darlin: It's not like I try to blow things up, exactly. It just sort of happens. You've got to admit though, fire is fascinating.

~~~

Baabe: My dad has a spiked collar. Baabe: *dog

~~~

Asher: I know what a prism is! It's where you put bad people.

~~~

Angel: Two bros! Angel: Chillin' in a hot tub! Angel: Zero feet apart 'cause we're GAY AS FUCK!

[trolagygirl2022]

Helloo, can you pull some cards for lisa and frederic? Some fans said they are soulmate and got engaged but i get different and weird enegy from them.

Lisa: 2 of Wands, 10 of Pentacles, The Moon, 7 of Wands, The Chariot.

Lisa's energy seems quite anxious and it's like she's rushing something. In short she's hiding something from Frederic. Either she isn't' opening up or her intentions are not clear. I think Lisa want to capitalize of Frederic, his family and expand in foreign lands. She may want to get him to do something? I can't pinpoint it but it seems quite urgent.

Frederic: The Lovers, 6 of Swords rev, 6 of Cups, 4 of Cups, The Hanged Man, 4 of Pentacles, 6 of Pentacles, Knight of Swords, 8 of Wands.

I don't like his energy either, I know it's surprising but I'm getting fetishizing vibes from this pile. Like he may have a type of fetish for her. I'm getting a lot of "cute" and "spicy" here and it's kinda grossing me out. He gives me the ick. He thinks of her as a child at times, you guys know "passport bros"? Yeah that's what I'm getting a lot here. It's like "I wouldn't date an asian but you're so exotic and cute yadayadayada". I think he is using her to boost his social media presence. Even though he's rich af I had no idea he existed until this whole thing with Lisa. I do feel he may have romantic feelings for her but it's kinda twisted, ugh he's gross.

[a-gay-cat]

Really sucks that capitalism continues to find new technologies unbeneficial to society that suck up increasingly absurd amounts of power. If current humans could build a Dyson sphere, tech bros would find a way to drain the sun with graphics cards.

[fictional-crushes-unite]

Cheater, Cheater

Keys x reader! Based off an idea by @loliakeoghan23​

Before the story of Free Guy begins, reports of a hacker stealing user codes pile up to the extent that Antwan enlists Keys to track the culprit down or risk losing his job

TW: Cursing, sexual themes, actual crime

The furious clacking of the keyboard’s tiles echoed around the room as Y/n’s eyes fixated on the screen, finger whirring as she fired repeatedly at the digital avatars.

The Harlequin-style character shot in accordance with each click, sending the surrounding players to the ground.

“You’re pretty good at this,” the chat crackled to life through her headphones as the player count dropped. Y/n rolled her eyes at the condescending tone and flicked down her mic. “I’m no expert,” she replied coquettishly in a sugary voice. “Just playing for fun.”

Clearly it was the right move, as the guy seemed to gain more confidence from her answer. “Your boyfriend help you rack up all those levels, babe? Pretty high score for someone who’s using it for rec.”

Jeez, that was predictable, Y/n smirked, used to the ‘smooth’ lines of Free City’s most frequent players. Judging by his skin and gamer tag, this dude was either some geeky teenager or a thirty-year old who was still dependant on his mother.

Pulling up a sidebar, she started implementing lines of code into the program, mining through the available data as her opponent kept obliviously blabbering on. “I’m just saying, there are hardly any gamer girls that get this far. And the ones who do are like, threes at best.”

Y/n grimaced, stalling long enough for the information to transfer before discreetly moving her character into the enemy’s line of fire, yet not enough so it looked purposeful. 

The gun sound effect mixed with the guy’s triumphant exclamation brought her back to the game, where a heavily decorated YOU LOSE floated over the image of her opponent’s avatar dancing idiotically.  

“Sorry, baby, tough luck,” he crowed, more focused on collecting the onscreen rewards to realise his entire financial information log had been compromised. “We could do this again sometime, I could give you some pointers?” he added hopefully.

“Thanks, but no,” Y/n sighed, double checking the info transfer before exiting the match. The game disappeared into it’s small window, revealing the clear numbers of every purchase ever made with his account. 

Sliding her headphones down around her neck, she started scrolling down each date and timestamp until she got to the core signup information. Free City’s account creator was sketchy from the beginning, with little to no credit security, yet every player needed bank information to join. It was like they were ASKING to get hacked.

“You spend a surprising amount of money on video games for someone with no income, Mr...Brandon,” Y/n mused aloud as she copied each code down and encrypted them. “What would your mother say if she knew you linked her debit card onto your account as well?”

“I really hope you learn your lesson from this, honey” she tsked, 

_____________________________________________

“Keys, Keylime, K with a capital E, what is up, man?” Antwan called from behind his desk. 

Keys hesitated awkwardly as the doors slid closed. “Um. Hi. I heard you wanted to talk about something?”

Antwan hopped up, his jacket swishing as he made his way around the table. “Well, I was just thinking about you, bro! I wanted to see how you were doing, ask how’s the wife, you know,” he shrugged. 

“I’m not married?” Keys protested weakly as Antwan wrapped his arm around his shoulder. His boss nodded, clearly not interested. 

“Right, right, that’s cool. So I had a little question I wanted to run by you, being the smart little nerd you are.” 

He opened his mouth to respond, before Antwan kept on talking. 

“I was talking to my dudes in Account Security, that boring stuff, yeah? And usually those meetings are a total snooze. But this week, they had some new stuff to blab about. You got any complaints about bank info being whisked away?”

Keys frowned. “Yeah, uh, we got like four this week. But I checked through the player data base and there’s no record of any breakthroughs.”

“Hmm. See, that’s the fun thing. I know that there’s a hacker, with a cute setup in a dingy basement somewhere, and they’re smart.”

Antwan tapped the side of his head. “But I, my geeky little man, am smarter. Which is why I’m assigning you to finding our fun little thief.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Keys closed his eyes, trying to process what he was saying. “You want me to find a hacker, who could be literally anywhere in the world? Don’t you have a security team for this kinda thing?”

“Aw, bro, those guys are pathetic. Besides, you’re more than capable. Think of it like a mystery, Detective Hair Gel, assigned to you from the King himself.”

“You’re kidding.” Keys deadpanned.

Antwan smiled, pulling Keys along with him to the large windows at the back of the room. “Look out there, bro,” he said seriously, gesturing to the city beneath them. “There are people out there in danger, losing their hard earned money to this secret villain. Don’t you feel the urge to defend your fellow dudes?” he asked seriously. 

He turned to stare at Keys, a momentous look on his face. “This mission, if you so choose to accept it, will make you a hero.” Suddenly his whole expression changed. “Besides, if you don’t, I’ll have you fired.”

“Antwan, what-” 

“Nice talk, man,” Antwan said nonchalantly, shooing him out. “Good luck on catching the hacker!”

“-but I’m not-” Keys started, before the door slammed in his face. “-going to catch the-damn it.”

_____________________________________________

Keys collapsed into his chair, sending it spinning in lazy circles around his cubicle. 

Mouser looked up from his own desk, a scrutinising look on his face. “What happened in there, man? You left and came back looking like you haven’t slept in weeks.”

Keys groaned in response. Tilting his head back to the ceiling to avoid Mouser’s inquisitive gaze. “Antwan’s making me track down this prick who’s stealing user codes.”

 “Oh, man, that’s awful.” Mouser chuckled. 

“Tell me about it,” Keys griped. “My job is riding on tracking down some deadbeat loser.”

Mouser shook his head. “A genius deadbeat loser. I’ve gone through some of the user complaints, and there’s like, nothing there.”

Keys sat up. “So what, I can’t track this guy,” he put down a finger for each point. “We have no idea how he’s managing to get in the accounts,” Another finger. “And finally, my career is on the line if I can’t figure this out.”

He shrugged, exasperated. “I’m screwed.”

“Man, you can do this,” Mouser argued, leaning on the divider between the desks. “Use the MIT smarts.” 

Keys glared at him.

“I’m serious! This dude is pretty good at taking advantage of idiots, right? So act like an idiot and pull a full whamo on him”

“So what, you want me to just parade around in hopes that this one specific hacker decides to hack me?”

Mouser shrugged. “Sure. Catch a fly with your web of smarts, I guess.”

“Thanks, man,” Keys sighed. 

_____________________________________________

Y/n hummed along to the music playing on her speakers, nodding her head to the beat as she swiped through the Free City menus.

“-and the haters’ gonna hate hate hate,” she sang along quietly, clicking on her avatar. The pixelated figure appeared on screen, along with the customisation menu. Scrolling down, she settled on a lower grade cutesy costume, and selected the Online Play option. 

Y/n leaned forward in anticipation, fingers resting lightly on the keyboard. As the dial up appeared on the screen, she paused her music and lowered her headphones over her ears. 

When the game finally kicked in, she immediately noticed the classic “I’m-an-angsty-teenage-boy” combo, and sighed in disappointment. Easy marks, with next to no security whatsoever. Sad.

She barely had to do anything, letting the appearance of her character do most of the work as the players shot and fired in accordance. 

As she entered in the code, her phone rang, loudly blaring from beside her. “Shit!” she muttered, scrambling to shut it down, quickly entering the last line of numbers before quickly exiting the lobby. 

Pressing the button on the screen, she exhaled, letting some of the tension roll off her. Putting the phone on silent, Y/n pulled her headphones back on and reentered the game.

_____________________________________________

From across the city, Keys sat forward, startled by a security error in the mainframe. A small mistake, only a couple letters misspelled, gave him a pinpoint of someone entering through a backdoor. 

“Bingo,” he grinned, typing in the error location. 

His avatar appeared onscreen, in his default customisation, as he entered the lobby address into the game bar. 

He inhaled deeply as the screen displayed the loading symbol, plugging in his earphones and focusing on the screen.

_____________________________________________

mister-mk86 has joined the lobby

The words popped up at the top of the screen, momentarily distracting Y/n from the current menus in her inventory.

She scanned over the player bio, looking for any irregularities that could equal a bot or scammer. Coming up with nothing, she exited the profile and focused on the game.

new message from mistermk86

Y/n groaned. Predictable, really. The lobby had gone down to significantly less players, all newbies or bots at this point. She clicked on the message.

Hey

“Wow. How eloquent.” Y/n scoffed, pulling up her keyboard. 

_____________________________________________

Keys stared at his screen, watching the typing indicators in the message board.

rebelfan is typing...

Hi there 

He smirked, quickly typing a response.

_____________________________________________

mistermk86 private match?

She rolled her eyes, but clicked on the invitation.

The icon over her character appeared, showing the game type and weapons menu. Navigating it easily, she selected her defaults and began playing.

Part 2----> Coming soon

[lily-blue]

13 reasons why | reason no.8: they support aspiring artists

☆ characters: music producer!jihoon & singer!you (Jihye - ‘94 liner) ☆ genre: coffee shop au, coworkers au ☆ summary: you are struggling to make your dreams come until one day you cross paths with jihoon who not only sees your potential, but falls in love with your music and then, with you ☆ words: 11,9k ☆ massive thank you: to @dat-town ♥ for always taking your time to support me, my writing and my dreams ☆ taglist: @soobin-chois​

➼ chapter index

You didn’t hate your job. However, you wouldn’t have said that you were particularly content with it, either. Sure, with years of work experience at the same company, you had managed to get yourself a team leader position that paid enough to live a comfortable life in the capital city, but the workload had started to slowly burn you out during the last couple of months and you didn’t like how you were always too tired for your hobbies. You missed working on lyrics and recording your own songs a whole lot.

A part of you had been hopeful that with the end of the holiday season, things would be a bit less hectic again, but it was already late January and you still hadn’t had a week when you hadn’t had to stay overtime three or four days out of five. The only reasons why you could have left the office before seven this once was your little brother’s birthday and the fact that you had your brother-sister cinema date in your work calendar since November.

Taking a step forward, you lifted the back of your hand in front of your mouth to hide your yawn, then took a glance at the screen of your phone, checking the time. You had around one hour to get yourself a black coffee to not fall asleep ten minutes into the movie and arrive at the cinema where Jiung had promised to wait for you with the tickets and snacks despite your protest that you should have been the one who paid for everything. He had made awful good arguments for his age. If he had waited for you just so you could have used your card, you would have missed the trailers of the upcoming movies. And you both loved making future cinema plans on the spot, while you were sipping on your coke.

When the person in front of you bid her goodbye to the barista and left the line with a tray of delicious pastries, you took another step forward and greeted the guy with a polite smile.

‘I would like to have an espresso and an avocado-chicken sandwich to go, please,’ you said, deliberately disregarding the fact that you would have a huge basket of sweet popcorn to eat in an hour. You needed something more filling for dinner that you had skipped on purpose to make up for your early departure. You were also too old to live off on snacks.

While the barista was preparing your order, you watched him swing from one of the coffee machines to the food display, then back to your drink and listened to him as he was singing along with the radio. His voice was surprisingly stable and not just that, he managed to hit all those high notes Taeyeon executed flawlessly in the original ballad, which made you wonder whether he had been taught professionally or learned on his own just like you.

‘You know, this place could use a live singer. Open mic nights are pretty popular nowadays, but they’re still relatively rare, so the competition isn’t that cut-throat,’ you suggested with a hint of a smile, the musician in you feeling some sort of connection with the guy although you hadn’t paid attention to his name tag when you had ordered. ‘You have a beautiful voice,’ you added as you belatedly realised that you should have looked for your wallet if you hadn’t wanted to hold up the line for too long.

‘Thanks,’ the barista said, his sudden shyness merging with his voice, his tone a pitch higher than before. It was adorable, but you obviously didn’t voice it out loud. ‘I’ll make sure to mention your idea to Seungcheol hyung,’ he added while he placed your paper cup in front of you on the counter along with a brown paper bag.

You fished a few bills out of your wallet, then shoved the change back into it quickly before you grabbed your order, bid your goodbye and let the next customer ask for a medium sized caramel macchiato.

You didn’t stay much longer, only until you threw your wallet and your sandwich into your bag and made sure you had an empty hand to open the double door with. You might have had to take the subway to the cinema, but you couldn’t have been sure you would be able to get on the first one and you didn’t want to make your brother wait. He deserved the world and more for being your biggest supporter and the best baby brother you could have wished for.

Arriving on time, making his only wish come true and spending the rest of your day with him were the least you could have done. (You also couldn’t have waited to see his face when he opened his present and put his hands on the designer backpack you had gotten for him from Milan.)

Late January and early February for your team was all about Valentine’s Day. You had to find not one, but a dozen of different ways to include the holiday in your seasonal advertisements without being too cliche or liberal, without coming off as cringe and pushy. It was draining, because love in itself was somewhat banal in your opinion and there weren’t many sides of it that hadn’t been overused by artists all around the world, but what needed to be done was needed to be done, therefore, you tried your best to add a bit of uniqueness to every idea that come up during your brainstorming sessions.

With your decayed creativity, it didn’t get easier to work on your mixtape, but you had some promising snippets you could send to independent producers and entertainment companies, so you wouldn’t have said you were short on feedback you could anticipate. It usually took them a week or so to respond to your email, however, you had already encountered agencies that had turned your demos down within a day or reached out to you after a month, which meant you preferred checking your personal email once in every hour. Just to be sure you didn’t miss out on a good opportunity because of your slow reply.

At the familiar ping of your notification, you shifted your gaze from the line your brother was standing in to your phone and took it in your hands with a semi-excited, semi-anxious heart. You didn’t want to get your hopes up, but it was a Saturday afternoon. You would have liked to think that people who were working on the weekend didn’t spend their time on sending out rejection emails, but seeked out talents they couldn’t afford to lose.

‘Is it from YG?’ Jiung’s question came from in front of you, the fact that he was already back with your orders genuinely taking you aback.

How long have you been staring at your screen without opening their email? It felt like you had barely unlocked your phone.

‘Yeah…’ you mumbled, willing yourself to touch the envelope icon in the left bottom corner, then the first incoming email above many that you hadn’t had the energy to delete yet. You should have really taken your time to unsubscribe from all those mass emails you received on a daily basis but never bothered to read. It was easier to just ignore them. 

The polite rejection was in the first sentence after the greeting, but you pretended to read the whole letter to steal yourself a couple of moments to contain your disappointment. You didn’t want to look disheartened in front of Jiung, because you had noticed that sometimes he talked and acted like the older sibling and you wanted to be someone he could have relied on and turned to instead of another person he had to lend his shoulder to cry on.

‘They don’t need it,’ you spoke up with a pseudo-unbothered tone, then put your phone back on the table and reached out for the tomato-mozzarella-ham sandwich you had asked for. 

‘That company is a sinking ship anyway. They wouldn’t recognize good music even if it was shoved into their face,’ your little brother scoffed, coaxing a genuine chuckle out of you with the disapproving grimaces he made. He was clearly over exaggerating; YG was one of the big three for a reason even if their idols were managed poorly. Still, you were grateful for his lighthearted words and painfully biassed opinion.

Lacking a response that could have brushed Jiung’s worries away without sounding insincere, you decided to take a big bite from your food without adding any further comments to the topic. You prayed that your brother would take the hint like he usually did, but his emotional intelligence had either left the building or he deliberately ignored your silent request to move on from your newest failure.

Knowing him, it was most probably a mixture of both: he saw right through you and wanted to make sure you wouldn’t have given up on your dreams because of another brick wall.

‘Hey, if they don’t need it, it’s their loss,’ he claimed and at that moment, you envied him for his faith in you. Not that you were about to throw in the towel for real, but there were days when it felt harder to run after the cart that didn’t want to take you.

‘I know. I wasn’t too hopeful about them anyway,’ you claimed with an enervated shrug as you lifted your sandwich in front of your mouth and took a big bite from the heavenly food. You concealed your bitterness with your exaggerated reaction to the perfect combination of flavours, though, you weren’t lying. Comforting lost souls with your music and working on new snippets in your own studio had been your dream since high school. You had started to send your demos to entertainment agencies during your freshman year in university when you had realised your voice cracked in front of a real audience. The years behind your back had taught you not to be too hopeful.

Even when the initial reaction was positive about your songs. Nothing was set in stone until one had a contract in their hands and sometimes, not even then.

Munching on another bite while playing with the spoon in your black coffee, you were about to ask Jiung about your parents and how your father had taken the news that instead of going to the same university everyone in your family had attended, your brother wanted to study animation at Bang Arts Academy, when the furrow between his eyebrows made you alert and you changed your priorities.

‘What’s…’

‘Sis… have you seen this?’ Jiung’s stunned question cut off your worried one, successfully confusing you with the lack of details or pointers in the inquiry. You lowered your half-eaten sandwich and let your lower arms touch the edge of the table as you leaned forwards, trying to see what he was so focused on.

It was one of the leaflets the employees in Coffee Carat had put on every table; the one they advertised their first open mic night with. You had already seen the A3 sized version of it on the entrance, not to mention that Wonwoo also sent the draft versions to you after one of your visits because for some reason his boss wanted you to have one vote, too, besides all those people who could have had a say in the final design.

‘Yeah, their manager pulled me aside two weeks ago and asked me whether I wanted credit for the idea. I said it wasn’t necessary, but he even gave me a month’s worth of free coffee coupons, so I rolled with it,’ you said with an amused chuckle, not deeming it necessary to tell your baby brother how the coffee shop’s giant baker had walked over to you when you had given your business card to Wonwoo and torn it into pieces while he had enlightened you that his friend had already had a girlfriend.

Like you would have ever hit on someone in the catering industry - or put up with their lame attempts to charm you - while they were on the clock. Some of these people earned more tips a week than their actual monthly salary. They flirted for a living. And while you didn’t judge them for it, you looked for something more serious.

‘Cool! Do you plan to sign up for their first open mic night?’ Your little brother asked, his dark, chocolate brown eyes shining with the same excitement you often saw in them when he was talking about fashion and his favourite webtoons.

You took a sip from your coffee and made a face.

‘No, not really,’ you mumbled, suddenly unable to look at Jiung’s face as you were afraid you disappointed him with your answer. It wasn’t that you wouldn’t have liked to sing in front of people. It was more like you couldn’t.

‘Come on! Why not?’ He pressed and you genuinely weren’t sure whether he was pretending to be unaware of your boundaries or he was about to lecture you that most things were only impossible because you made them to be.

You decided to not give him enough time for the latter and instead of taking another bite from your sandwich, you leaned your back against your chair and raised a brow in annoyance. You obviously loved your brother too much to be angry with him when he acted like this, but his laid back and optimistic personality could piss you off in no time when you had to spell the obvious out to him to make him stop.

‘Because this coffee shop is actually pretty popular. There will be people,’ you made a point, going as far as shifting your gaze from one table to another in the customer area for emphasis. 

‘That’s even better!’ 

‘Tell that to my anxiety,’ you retorted sharply with a scoff, disbelief more dominant in your actions than anger.

‘But what if it could actually he–’

‘Can we talk about something else? Please,’ you pleaded and your pouty lips and puppy eyes seemed to do the trick. Because the next moment your brother bit into his mouth and put the leaflet back into its place.

Jiung shot a sheepish smile in your way and scratched his nape like a child who got caught red-handed while stealing candies from a cookie jar. It reminded you of those months when he had actually had the tendency to stuff himself with sweet snacks before dinner and your frustration was no more.

During the rest of those hours you spent in Coffee Carat, you did ask him about your father’s reaction to his future plans, but you dismissed that topic as well when his answer implied that he hadn’t taken it well. You knew your mother would have moved out as well if your old man had thrown Jiung out of home for real, so you weren’t worried. Still, you made a mental note to give your father a call and talk this matter through with him before your brother had taken it into his head that he would have paid for his tuition on his own. You wanted him, you needed him to stay a child for a bit longer. He could have obviously worked part-time during school breaks like he had done last summer and this winter, but you weren’t willing to let him work beside the academy.

In this matter, your opinion was final. So even if you had failed to talk some sense into your dad, you would have found a way to support him financially. He could have whined about it as much as he wanted, it was no question at all.

You couldn’t have pinpointed which one of the following had convinced you in the end that singing up for the open mic night was a good idea: Jiung’s pleading emojis and encouraging messages whenever the topic had come up in your conversations (and he had always found a way to hint at the event even when you had been talking about cooking), the curt reply in which the representative of IST Entertainment had advised you that you should have tried for their upcoming audition, or the degrading comments under your latest cover on your Youtube channel that had called you fake.

Well aware that you rarely acted on impulse, it was most probably the result of them all. You might have gotten up on the wrong side of the bed that day, too, getting easily irritated by the comments people had made at work. Anyhow, what had been done had been done and your name was about to be called by the emcee in any second.

‘Okay, guys! Let’s give a round of applause to Kim Dahee,’ Boo Seungkwan encouraged the crowd to cheer for the brunette and his bubbly personality would have made you smile under almost any other circumstances. If only you hadn’t felt like throwing up.

You tried to focus on the girl’s song that might have been a bit amateur in the context of beats and composition, but had lovely lyrics. However, once she got to the refrain for the second time, your chest got heavy and your heart was about to explode inside your ribcage.

You didn’t think much. You rushed towards the hallway in the back that led to the restrooms, then locked yourself in the women’s once you were sure the tiny room was completely empty. You put your hands on the marble countertop and shifted a big part of your body weight onto them, relieved to be alone. 

The space obviously wasn’t sound proof. You could hear the blond emcee calling your name, but you willed yourself to shut him out along with the disappointed and confused noises of the audience. You tried to calm yourself with the usual, textbook-like methods: you counted to ten, twenty, then fifty, but it barely helped. You also washed your face and neck with cold water, but that did more harm to your grey tee than good to your nerves. Therefore, after two attempts at different breathing exercises, you decided to focus on what made you feel the best in life: music.

As you were humming the same song you had sent to those entertainment agencies that were constantly rejecting you during the past couple of days, you could feel the tension leaving your stiff muscles and you were finally able to breathe. Singing in front of so many people might have been one of your biggest fears, but enjoying the melodies you created was what made you keep chasing your dreams.

It could have taken mere minutes or half an hour, you weren’t sure. All you were aware of was that impatient knock on the restroom’s door that pulled you back to reality and urged you to leave the room before the person on the other side called for the employees’ help. The last thing you needed was Wonwoo coming to your rescue when you weren’t stuck and reassuring you that you could have still gone on stage after the last participant.

‘I’m sorry,’ you mumbled under your nose, avoiding eye contact while you bowed to the older woman with your palms pressed together. You hoped your voice was loud enough for her to hear, but quiet enough to ignore easily.

Not exactly keen to stay until the end of the open mic night and having no other reason to be at the coffee shop, you were about to keep your head down and sneak out of the building when someone cleared their throat on your right and took advantage of your reflexes to gain your attention. You snapped your head towards the black haired boy before you realised and his sharp gaze sucked your soul out of your body as soon as your eyes met.

He made you feel uneasy: like you were a mere child up to no good and he was about to scold you for every harmless crime you had ever committed in your life.

‘What’s the name of that song? I’ve never heard that one before,’ the boy asked and the blood ran cold in your veins upon hearing his question. With furrowed eyebrows, you took in how he had his back leaned against the wall and for the first time since you had noticed him, you couldn’t have helped but wondered: was he waiting for his turn to use the men’s restroom or he was waiting for you.

‘What?’ You gaped at him, internally scolding yourself for exaggerating your surprise when you could have just told him you couldn’t recall either the artist or the name of the song. ‘I… I don’t know. I don’t remember,’ you tried to save the situation, although a part of you was convinced that you only made it worse.

The silence that followed your statement was heavy. It made you fidgety, because you didn’t know whether he would call you out on your blatant lie or cut you some slack instead, saving you from the urge to lie into his face again, this time, in more detail.

‘I see. Are you perhaps one of the participants?’ The boy asked, approaching the matter from another direction. You didn’t understand why he was so pressed about your song, but you had gotten enough rejection letters in the past weeks. You might have always been down for the good old constructive criticism from a fellow musician, but you didn’t want him, a layman, to talk poorly of your skills once he had figured out that it was your own creation.

‘No!’ You retorted a bit too loudly, earning a side eye from the old woman who just left the women’s restroom and passed you by. Coming to your senses and realising how ridiculous you were acting, you straightened your back and cleared your throat. You even fixed your hair with your fingers before you rephrased your answer in a calmer tone. ‘I mean… No, I’m not.’

This boy had no power over you! He was just a stranger. Someone you would most probably never see again, let alone talk with.

‘What a shame!’ He exclaimed with an almost pout that you couldn’t have helped but found cute despite your better judgement.

Your cheeks turned ruby when you realised you weren’t just zoning out, but staring at his thin lips for literally no reason and for shamelessly too long.

‘Here! In case you suddenly remember,’ he took a step closer to you and held his business card out for you until you took it. ‘It could use a few more modifications, but it has potential,’ he added with an encouraging smile before he bid his goodbye and left the corridor.

Instead of following him with your eyes until he disappeared, you were staring at the business card he had given you and his name that was more than just familiar. As a wanna-be singer, songwriter and producer, you were obviously up to date with the cream of the industry you oh so desperately wanted to be a part of. However, you had never seen any footage of Woozi in spite of those two dozen awards his songs had received since his debut under Pledis Ent. No one had.

He looked nothing you had imagined him to be based on those songs he had written about dreams, bittersweet love, and yearning for something better. If he had really been Woozi. But that was a “you” problem, and a fact you should have accepted on your own.

Taking a deeper breath, you shoved the business card in your pocket and fixed your clothes. On the count of three, you power walked to your table and grabbed your purse. You might have been tempted to finish your black coffee even though it had gotten cold, but you didn’t want to take risks. Thus, you left the crowded building immediately: without explanations or goodbyes.

On your way to the metro station, you told yourself they didn’t need you to call the open mic night a success and that you could have always apologised to Wonwoo via text for not feeling well enough to go on stage. You had a feeling that he would have understood.

Needless to say, you were sceptical about the black haired boy and his real intentions with the song you had written. Because no matter how much respect you had towards Woozi as a musician, you couldn’t figure out why he - of all people - would have seen so much potential in your work. Not to mention that a defensive part of you still questioned his identity. It was hard to picture the industry’s young prodigy at an amateur open mic night, looking for talents. Maybe, if it hadn’t been the first event at Coffee Carat, your gut feeling wouldn’t have pulled walls around your heart at the thought of being discovered by one of your idols, but it just felt too good to be true. Something that would have happened with your annoying cousin or your neighbour who always greeted you cheerfully in the elevator, but never with you.

No wonder it took you two weeks to write to the boy about the song that you had suddenly remembered without attaching the file to your email. But at least he didn’t seem to mind your caution based on his reply, his professionalism helping you ease yourself into the thought of meeting him again. He even let you choose the location and while it would have made sense to talk about your song in his studio, you picked the same coffee shop you had first met since you had already known a few of the baristas there by their name. They could have been your safety-net if something had gone horribly.

While you were waiting for your usual black coffee in front of the counter, you made a poor attempt at fixing your dishevelled hair. However, despite doing your best, you still felt like a mess when Sooryeon slid the porcelain towards you and sent an encouraging smile in your direction as though she knew you were worried about the worst first impression one could have made at an important meeting.

In your case, another horrible first impression since you had already lied in the boy’s face the first time.

‘I started to think you wouldn’t come,’ you heard the boy say in a neutral, almost eerie tone that made you gulp as you took a seat on the chair next to him instead of the one across from him.

‘I’m sorry. I needed to take a small detour. Check on a venue for work,’ you explained curtly, hoping that he wouldn’t ask for more details although you would have told him everything if that could have lightened the mood. It wasn’t that he gave you side eyes for arriving half an hour late, but you felt bad for doing so anyway.

To your surprise, he didn’t call you out on the fact that it was a Saturday afternoon. Whether it was because he didn’t care or believed you, you couldn’t be sure. Anyhow, you decided to focus on how he was still at the shop and intertwined your fingers around your cup to avoid fidgeting with the handle. The porcelain was pleasantly warm against your skin.

‘Did you bring the audio file? I’d like to listen to the whole song first,’ he asked and you let go of your coffee quickly, so that you could have fished your laptop out of your bag.

‘Of course!’

You placed the device in front of the boy in an angle that allowed you to see the screen, then typed in your pin code and opened the folder in which you kept your songs - including both the finished and unfinished snippets. You had never realised before how ridiculous the funny titles of the latter were until you were suddenly super aware that Woozi could see them. Still, despite feeling his judgemental gaze burning holes in your skull, when you glanced up at the boy, he was staring at your laptop, waiting for you to open the file with endless patience.

Thus, this was exactly what you did next.

You had a couple of scenarios in your head about what could happen after he took his headset off and turned his attention to you again. He could have turned you down politely and said he had been talking about a different song and it was all a misunderstanding. He could also have been straightforward and claimed it sounded better in his memories. You were fairly prepared for the worst of the worst, but his first question, nevertheless, managed to take you aback.

‘Where do you work?’ He asked, his eyes telling you that he was serious despite the comedy in his words. Shouldn’t he have asked you about the story behind the lyrics or what had given you inspiration to write about the happiness in heartbreaks?

Shouldn’t you have talked about music?

‘Uhm…’ you started, a bit confused. You hold onto your drink with tooth and nail to resist the urge to scratch your nape out of uneasiness. ‘I work for a multinational company. I’m the leader of their marketing team,’ you answered, once again, not going into too much detail on your own.

‘What about your free time?’ He threw yet another irrelevant question at you before he lifted his coffee in front of his lips and took a few gulps from it, keeping his piercing gaze on you.

In theory, you were well aware that you weren’t obliged to answer or tell him the truth. You could have easily and rightfully said your personal life wasn’t his business and asked him to not waste your time if he had hated the song, but reality in a conservative country often went against these kinds of ideas.

If he had indeed been Woozi, he was not only a man, but also your senior. You shouldn’t have offended him deliberately when he was here for you.

‘I’m either with my little brother, do some house chores or work on my music,’ you admitted, hoping you didn’t sound too plain or lame. Obviously, you had friends. And you were kind of up to date with their lives even beside your inhuman working hours. It was just… you always told yourself it was an inevitable part of adulthood that the three of you could meet up for dinner only once a month. There was nothing wrong with preferring texts over friendly dates until you were genuinely concerned about them.

You must have furrowed your brows or puffed out your cheeks while you were lost in your thoughts because the next thing you realised was Woozi trying and failing to hide his smile while he was watching you.

Bashful, you tore your gaze away and chose to analyse the cup you had gotten your drink in, how it was pristine on the outside and how you could make out a few light-brown lines close to its edges where your coffee touched it on the inside. Undoubtedly, you were acting ridiculous.

‘I mean, how much free time do you have on a usual week?’ Woozi asked and you shrugged without looking at him. You couldn’t have said you had a lot, but it could have been worse. If you had learned anything after moving out from your parents’ house it was how things could always get worse.

Having a job that you didn’t despise, a job that paid you enough to lead a comfortable life in the capital city was in itself a privilege. Even if it drained you and killed your creative energy sometimes.

‘It depends on the season. But honestly, not much,’ you admitted, although you made sure your voice wasn’t too blue. You didn’t want him to pity you or worse! To think you were just another sad girl in the line, dreaming about making it big in the music industry. ‘But today was an emergency! It’s rare that I need to work on the weekend,’ you added quickly as an afterthought when it hit you how your actions might have made your statement worse than it was.

‘Good,’ the boy said, confusing you with his almost relieved tone. He acted like it mattered to him. Like the lack of your free weekends and nights had any affect on his life when you were still calling him on his stage name in your head. When had you jumped to the part when you had become his concern? You hadn’t even realised you had been going in that direction.

Not sure how you were supposed to react, you opted for sitting in silence and waiting for him to take the first step, but instead of literally anything you could have come up with in your head such as him having a friend who was in the same shoes as you, he did none. Instead, he finished his black coffee in one go and leaned his back against his chair, observing you with his arms linked in front of his chest.

You wondered whether he was about to tell you your song was mediocre at best.

‘Would you like to work with me? I’m talking about a one-month trial as an intern who does more than bringing me my black coffee every morning,’ he specified before you could have asked, his words registering in your mind a bit slower than you would have been proud of. ‘It won’t be easy. You will definitely need to learn to be more confident, more adamant while staying humble and open for suggestions,’ Woozi claimed, and while what he was offering you was quite literally your dream job, your first instinct was to tell him all those reasons that made you unqualified for the internship.

For example, your current job.

‘I… I don’t have tim–’

‘It’s enough if you come by only on the weekends. You can also leave around eight or nine on Sundays so you could sleep enough before your full-time job. How does that sound?’ He drove a hard bargain like he really wanted you to jump on the opportunity despite the voice in your head that kept reminding you that some dreams were meant to remain just that: a dream. You were already closer to thirty than twenty. Weren’t you too old for believing in miracles? (Or to try yourself out in an industry where some people became sunbaes before graduating high school?)

A part of you was afraid that living your dream would ruin it for you forever, the picture you had of the musician life in your head. But it was also something you had wanted to explore with your whole being. You would have regretted turning down this internship even if giving it a try had left a bittersweet taste in your mouth afterwards.

‘I’ll do it!’ You exclaimed before your worries could have caught up to your determination and forced you to accept that you were a marketing team leader, not a singer. You could have been both and whatever you wanted to be. It wasn’t too late for you.

You might have been high on the moment, you probably were, but if anyone had asked you, you would have sworn Woozi’s smile was proud before he said:

‘Then, see you tomorrow,’ and got up from his chair.

You wanted to ask him about the specifics: the exact time when you should have shown up at his studio, the things you should have brought with you, what you should have told at the reception. You wanted to know whether the company knew about his offer or it had been a split second decision because he had liked your song that much. If it had been the latter, what would happen if his bosses didn’t need you?

However, your million questions obviously needed to wait because by the time you untangled your messy thoughts, the boy was out of the door and you were sitting by the table on your own. If he had bid his goodbye to you or anyone else in the building, you hadn’t noticed. You barely registered that Sooryeon walked up to your table and gave you a slice of chocolate pie to congratulate you on surviving your meeting with Jihoon.

Oh. She called him by his birth name. Could it have been that he had come to the open mic night because he had known someone from the shop? Then, it hadn’t been pure coincidence, nor had he been looking for raw gems in his free time when he had found you.

‘Thank you, Sooryeon-ah,’ you mumbled under your nose a bit belatedly, but the girl didn’t seem to mind your absentmindedness. She walked back behind the counter where Wonwoo was explaining something to another barista by the cash register, then patted her coworkers’ shoulders and entered the staff only area that was hidden behind a pair of curtains.

You didn’t stay much longer. You finished your extra dessert and your black coffee then said hi to Wonwoo and left. The odd feeling that your alarm could have woken you in any minute stayed with you through the day, but you didn’t mind it, not really. It kept you on your toes, not letting you get your hopes up too high.

Because the more you expected or secretly wished for, the bigger your disappointment could be when these expectations didn’t match with your reality. And you didn’t intend to start this new chapter of your life with a bitter heart.

In the next three and a half weeks, you had pinched your arm each and every time you had entered Woozi’s studio. And you did it again, when two days before your internship ended, he slid a pile of papers in front of you during your short albeit well-deserved lunch break.

‘What’s this?’ You asked with a raised brow, right after you had swallowed down a huge bite of your jjajangmyeon. You usually opted for less messy food when you ate this close to the equipment, but tonight you were both too lazy to go as far as the canteen on the second floor.

You looked up at Jihoon in confusion who took a sip from his coke before he pointed at the stack with his index finger.

‘A full-time producer assistant contract,’ he said, encouraging you with a nod to look through the papers. ‘You know my drafts aren’t this neat,’ he added with an amused chuckle while you slowly slid your gaze back to the pile and placed your chopsticks carefully atop of your bowl.

‘Are you serious right now? Do they really want me to stay?’ You asked, disbelief loud and clear in your voice. You made sure to wipe your hands clean with a tissue from your tote bag before you touched the contract, but even then, with the evidence in front of you, it was hard to comprehend. 

‘Why not? You’re talented, diligent and a quick learner,’ Jihoon argued between two small bites, his mouth full with lukewarm black bean noodles. ‘Not to mention, we’re a good team. What else would they need?’

It was clearly a rhetorical question, hence you pressed your lips into a thin line and hovered over the first page of your new contract silently. You were aware that Jihoon was right. You were more than just good together. Your team work had been spot on from the beginning as you were precise and reliable that gave the producer a reason to rely on you when he felt like his schedule was all over the place, blocking his creative flow. You had composed five new songs - songs that were accepted by your higher ups - in the past three weeks and you had a good feeling about finishing the sixth for Minhyun sunbaenim’s solo album in the next 24 hours.

However, you weren’t delusional. You knew the monster part of these projects were done by Jihoon. He was the one who stayed at his studio to work on them when you needed to leave and catch up on some sleep before your full time job. You merely helped him with your ideas and beginner enthusiasm, criticising him professionally and cheering on him when he felt he was running in circles fruitlessly.

‘Shut up!’ You grumped under your nose and pinched your lower arm one more time, making Jihoon scoff with affection because of the ridiculous sight. You were acting ridiculous again. Especially when finishing the first paragraph of the contract, your first thought was that you couldn’t have met the criteria. How were you supposed to take on so many administrative tasks and help Jihoon with the songs when you worked forty to fifty hours a week at another company? ‘Even if I quit my job now, I’ll still need to work there for another month,’ you explained, your sour expression more disappointed than you intended to showcase.

‘Just look at page four,’ the boy mumbled with a full mouth, encouraging you to do as he said and you did.

Scanning through the fourth page, your lips parted in bewilderment when your eyes fell on the second paragraph. There, it was stated black and white that the company would give you another month of paid internship at the beginning with the slight difference that instead of a fixed amount of hours - now you worked twenty hours a week -, this time you would need to work as many hours as Jihoon required you to.

Your smile was small albeit grateful. You had no doubt about it that it was Jihoon’s doing as he was pretty up to date with your schedule at the marketing team, so that he could have had you around when he knew you weren’t too exhausted to form complex sentences or bear with his occasional mood swing without crying. He had told you on your first day that he couldn’t comfort crying people and that you shouldn’t have taken it to your heart if he had left you alone as soon as you showed the first signs, because it was simply his way to give you more space to put yourself together without him awkwardly staring at you from a distance.

Needless to say, the boy hadn’t seen you cry so far. However, you were pretty certain it was because of his warning, his willingness to let you sleep enough, and your determination to prove to everyone you could handle the industry. 

You took your sweet time reading through the details, but Jihoon didn’t seem to mind your speed even though initially you had given yourselves a twenty-minute lunch break so that you could have had time for recording a demo, too, once you finished the current ballad. Instead of reminding you of your plans like he would have usually done, this time he finished his noodles in silence, threw away the trash and walked back to you with his notebook and a pen, jotting down what most probably were new lyrics and song ideas.

You were about to sign your name at the bottom of the last page when Jihoon chose to break the silence.

‘You don’t look too happy, though,’ he stated, a clear observation, and you wondered whether he had known you so well already or your face was just that bad at concealing your thoughts.

Frankly speaking, under the anxiety-filled layers, you were beyond happy. You were joyful, you were over the moon, you were every bright adjective in the dictionary. You just couldn’t have helped but being reminded of your original ideas of your future as a delusional teenager now that you got so close to living that dream.

‘I am happy,’ you claimed and signed the papers before you slid the pile back towards Jihoon on the coffee table you used for eating. He raised a brow at your curt answer and you sighed in defeat. You reached out for your cold jjajangmyeon and took a bite from it to steal yourself a couple of seconds before you would have elaborated.

Jihoon didn’t rush you, but you could feel his attention on you even when he did everything in his power to keep his eyes on his notebook.

‘I’m happy. Working with you… it’s an amazing opportunity I’m grateful for,’ you started to make sure the boy didn’t misunderstand you. You had loved every minute of your internship under his direct guidance even when it had been disheartening to retake the same two lines over and over again. ‘It’s just…’ You took another bite from your soggy lunch. ‘I still can’t sing live in front of a living, breathing audience. I’ve always thought that once I sign with a label, I’ll do it as a singer and not as a producer,’ you admitted, the words heavy on the tip of your tongue. You felt so stupid, so shameless and ungrateful.

Jihoon’s calculative eyes didn’t leave you. He tilted his head sideways, let his shoulders fall a bit forwards, then let out an amused scoff.

‘That’s it?’ He asked, his reaction irking you because of the palpable relief in his voice. As though now that he knew the reason for the change in your mood, he deemed it unworthy of his worries.

A rational part of you was aware that your dream was none of his business, hence his tone should have been understandable, but people had never meant to be rational, especially about things that were dear to their heart. Thus, you rolled your eyes, annoyed but kind of polite, then took another bite from your lunch.

You expected the conversation to be over with this and maybe a reminder that he was your boss - although Jihoon had not once used his title against you in or outside of his studio -, but what you got was a soft smile and another offer that made it hard to believe you were awake.

‘I can help you with that,’ the boy claimed, unbothered and confident while he kept his brown eyes on you.

‘You make it sound like you could fix all of my problems in a week,’ you stated slowly as one of your eyebrows slid a tad bit upwards. It wasn’t that you hadn’t tried every damn trick you had found on the internet. You had sung with a mask on your face just for your voice to crack after the first verse; you had tried singing with your back to the audience, but your hands had been shaking so much, you had dropped your mic. Your case wasn’t as easy as he thought.

‘Only your stage fright,’ he retorted. ‘And I might need a month or two.’

‘A month or two?’ You echoed with disbelief, but Jihoon just nodded. He didn’t elaborate. At least, not as much as you wanted him to.

‘Come to the coffee shop on Tuesday after work,’ he said before he pointed at the half-empty bowl in your hands. ‘And speed up! We don’t have all the time in the world,’ he reminded you that you still had a song to finish, which immediately set your priorities straight.

Instead of calling him out on his overconfidence or pestering him about the details of his plan, you finished the rest of your noodles silently, then tidied up the area around the coffee table and got back to work.

You two stayed until 11:30PM that Saturday, but the familiar tiredness in your bones was so worth it, you thought, when listening to the last take of the demo, you noted that you once again succeeded at creating something beautiful that could have brought comfort to people.

(This was the part of your new job that you had failed to find in any other profession.)

After the first night you had stayed at Coffee Carat after closing time with Jihoon and a few of the staff members, you had had serious doubts whether you would have ever been able to sing in front of people.

Three weeks, seven failed and two semi-successful attempts later, your confidence level was stagnant at your newest low, but you still kept coming back because what else could you have done? These people had already seen you losing your balance in the middle of a song when you had tried to shut them out and closed your eyes. It could hardly have gotten worse.

‘He’s making me nervous,’ you admitted when Jihoon walked up to you with a glass of warm honeyed herbal tea that might have tasted like cough medicine, but always helped you feel a bit more in control while it warmed up your vocal cords.

‘Who? Minghao?’ The boy asked when he stole a glance at the customer area from above his shoulder, his sharp gaze loitering over his friends who were chatting by the tables that were closest to the counter and the corner where you were about to perform one of your ballads. ‘That’s just his face. He’s built like that,’ he insisted with a nonchalant shrug, his attention back on you and your stiff posture.

You took a sip from your drink and frowned.

‘Last time I dropped my coffee on the floor and Wonwoo asked him to take care of the mess. I’m pretty sure he hates staying here longer because of me,’ you complained in a small voice while your fingertips were drumming a familiar melody on the outer side of your mug. The porcelain was pleasantly warm against your palms, but the mere memory of the boy’s grumpy face from Monday kept you on the edge. You were old enough to understand that being loved by everyone in life was an impossible concept, but he was Jihoon’s friend. For some reason, getting on his bad side didn’t sit well with you.

‘No one is forced to stay longer because of you,’ the boy said in a neutral voice for which you gave him a sceptical look. You honestly doubted all of them stayed at the shop willingly each and every time when you couldn’t have finished one song during the past three weeks. ‘They are not! He’s here because his girlfriend wants to support you and he doesn’t want her to get in trouble on her way home,’ Jihoon explained and you shifted your gaze from his face to the girl who was sitting next to Minghao. Sooryeon was stuffing her face with a leftover croissant while she was chuckling at someone that the owner’s fiancée was explaining to her with big hand gestures.

‘So it’s because of me,’ you concluded. Because at the end of the day, it was still on you that these people were at the coffee shop. You needed them so that you could practise in front of a real audience.

‘Since when are you so whiny?’ Jihoon asked, the furrow between his brows showing only a slight annoyance and a lot more confusion.

You pressed your lips together, into a firm, pale line.

Since when were you this self-conscious? Your behaviour must have had something to do with your frequent appointments for embarrassing yourself in front of the same employees who served you black coffee five times a week. But breaking this down to the boy aloud might have sounded ungrateful considering how much Jihoon had done for you in his free time, so you chose to keep your mouth shut and answered with a small albeit apologetic smile.

‘You will be fine. I brought you blindfolds.’ He squeezed your shoulder, then pulled a grey textile out of his hoodie’s pocket.

You narrowed your eyes as you let your gaze linger on the silk-looking stripe. Honestly, you weren’t sure it would stay up in case he planned to secure it with a knot at the back of your head, but instead of making a comment on that, you decided to pull his attention on a more crucial fact: your awful sense of balance while nervous.

‘Thanks. I hope you brought pillows, too, before I faint again and crack my head open,’ you said with a playful edge to your words and a light nudge, earning an eye roll from Jihoon that seemed as amused as annoyed.

‘It’s super thin. You’ll see everyone, just not as clearly as before, so their faces won’t distract you,’ he informed you and waited until you finished your drink, so that he could have placed it on the counter behind you.

Jihoon’s hands were working gently when he tied the blindfold around your head and you had to give it to him, his idea felt a lot less problematic than you had previously thought when you took a look around the shop. Just like he had promised, you could make out shapes and a bit of depth, too, through the thin material. You saw his friends, Hoyeon’s hand gestures and Mingyu’s lame attempt at stuffing a piece of something into his best friend’s mouth. Yet, their facial expressions didn’t make you overly self-conscious anymore since they were too blurry for you to put your hands on their assumed feelings and thoughts.

After a deep breath, you took your worn guitar in your hands and walked in the middle of the stage without tripping and causing another accident. This achievement in itself gave a little boost to your confidence. You could do it!

It was Seokmin who announced you to your audience and it would have been a lie to say that your heart wasn’t pulsing frantically in your throat when the buzzing of the coffee shop came to a sudden silence. However, being blind to the guys’ reaction helped. Your fingertips might have slid on the strings a few times when they weren’t supposed to and your voice might have cracked in the middle of the last bridge, but you successfully finished the song without major mistakes. And most importantly: you did get to the end of the ballad.

It was a baby step that every fibre in your body celebrated with the small albeit proud smile in the corner of your mouth. However, what was an achievement in itself in your dictionary was the opportunity to thrive for more in Jihoon’s.

You knew him. You had been working with him for over a month by then, but it still took you off guard when instead of congratulating you like the others did, he asked you to sing another song right away. And a third one when you managed to perform the second one with only two tiny mistakes on your guitar.

‘Good job!’ Jihoon exclaimed, clapping calmly while you reached for the blindfold and took it off with a bright smile. His acknowledgement meant a lot more to you than he thought; he had been your idol once and now, he was your mentor.

High on adrenaline and the feeling of finally moving forwards, you rushed up to the blacked haired boy and wrapped your hands around him. You were rocking back and forth due to your excitement and didn’t let go of him even when his characteristic, musky scent reminded you of how close you were standing.

You had never stood this close before.

Contemplating whether you should have apologised immediately, making everything more awkward in front of his friends, or just pulled away like it was no big deal, your eyes widened at the realisation that you could feel the light weight of Jihoon’s palm on your back. He was patting you a little clumsily, but it was precious: his attempt to reassure you it was alright.

You pulled away after a couple of seconds, flustered, but happy.

‘I’m… thank you,’ you mumbled, unsure how the rose tint of the boy’s cheeks made you feel. You were too used to his snarky remarks and affectionate eye rolls to comprehend the slight change in his attitude. Not that you weren’t aware it was your fault. You had just jumped on him in front of everyone, of course, he was affected. You could have only hoped his obvious discomfort would have disappeared quickly.

‘Yeah, no big deal. It’s not like I cured your stage fright already,’ he brushed your gratitude off with a nonchalant-looking shrug, and you let out a lighthearted scoff due to the familiarity of his tone. He seemed fine. A tad bit flushed, but fine, which put your heart at ease. The last thing you needed was things getting awkward between the two of you now that you also had a signed contract with Pledis.

‘True. But you still have time,’ you reminded him of his confident claim about how he would help you sing in front of a living, breathing audience in a month or two; the promise more possible than it had sounded to you weeks ago.

The last thing you heard before Sooryeon, Seokmin and Mingyu showered you with their congratulations was the click of Jihoon’s tongue. You got a “nice job” cupcake from the tall baker and a bone-crushing hug from Seokmin before the only other girl in your small group pulled you aside and asked you about how you were feeling and what did you think, when would you have been able to attend their open mic night.

The more people gathered around you, the more overwhelming the experience got, but it was also very comforting to know that they were so excited for you. It made you believe that they really hadn’t been forced to stay after their shift in the past few weeks.

It was Jihoon who reminded you that tomorrow was a Wednesday, hence you shouldn’t have stayed for too long if you hadn’t wanted to feel exhausted during your 9AM meeting. And he was right. No matter how much you enjoyed talking about your music, you got easily irritated when you were sleep deprived and you still needed to cook something quick but delicious for your lunch break. It was better if you bid your goodbye.

Which you did not long after, bowing and waving on your way towards the exit, grateful for Jihoon’s offer to give you a ride back to your place. It proved that the impulsive hug that had turned both of your cheeks’ rose coloured had done nothing to stir the waters in your relationship.

You weren’t sure what had made you see Jihoon in a new light in the end when everything had felt normal after he had dropped you off on Tuesday. However, let it be because of how you were suddenly incapable of not noticing the light tint of his cheeks when he was looking directly in your eyes or due to his support, you couldn’t have denied that it felt different to be around him after that night.

Anyhow, it wasn’t like you could have asked your immediate boss whether he had felt just as confused and excited around you as you did around him. You had just signed with the label and you still had a bit of time from your offboarding period at your previous workplace. Both a negative and an affirmative answer could have messed up the path that led towards your dreams. You couldn’t have afforded to develop feelings for him (or confront him about them now that you were more than possibly screwed).

Taking a deeper breath, you gave yourself a couple of seconds before you opened Jihoon’s studio with your card, then took a seat beside him by his table where the two of you had been working on a hopeful love song before you had excused yourself to the restroom. It was for a new artist, a female soloist with the most beautiful, raspy voice you had ever heard and you were determined to fit the lyrics to her uniqueness despite the cliché concept the management had chosen for her debut.

You looked at the notebook in front of the boy and let out a pleased hum when you saw the progress he had made while you had been away. A complete verse in five minutes? He wasn’t called a prodigy for no reason.

‘You make it look like we were playing around all morning,’ you joked, earning a soft chuckle from him with your comment even though he kept his focus on the scribbled page. You both knew it wasn’t true. You had already had a vague idea for the melody and a theme you intended to build the lyrics around.

‘Always a sweet talker at work,’ he teased and jotted down a few promising one-liners that you could have used in the last verse before he read through what you had so far and changed a couple of words here and there, so that the flow of the lyrics would have been smoother or more poetic.

He always did this; never a hundred percent satisfied with his own work even when you two had already decided that the last version was good enough.

‘No, but seriously. What gave you so much inspiration all of a sudden?’ You asked when you stole another blunt glance at the notebook and leaned close enough to the boy for Jihoon to be hyper aware of the lack of distance between your bodies.

That, or his timing to lean his back against his chair and simultaneously get further from you in the process was very unlucky.

‘Dunno,’ Jihoon said and you furrowed your brows when he cleared his throat and slid the notebook closer to you on the table. This way, his notes were right in front of you, so you could look at the current page while you were sitting comfortably in your own chair. ‘Check the new verse, I’ll bring us something to drink,’ he announced before he stood up and turned his back to you.

You watched him walking towards the door with bewildered eyes, but shook your confusion off fairly quickly. Thus, you were able to find your voice before he closed the door on you.

‘Strawberry coke?’ You asked, forcing him to look at you from above his shoulder just so he could give you a displeased glare. His nose scrunch was more adorable than intimidating, but you wouldn’t have broken this down to him for the world.

‘I’ll see,’ he retorted with a visible frown, but without lecturing you on how every flavoured version was a disgrace to the original taste of coke. ‘Check the new verse!’

You saluted with a cheeky grin on your face, then turned back to the notebook right away; the echo of the quiet collision of the door and its frame filling your senses as you hovered above the last page.

Reading the new lyrics, you couldn’t have helped but wonder what had made Jihoon feel the way he had felt when he had come up with these exact lines. What had made him yearn for something or someone so intensely, his similes grabbed your heart and squeezed it dry over and over as you jumped from line to line?

These questions stayed with you even after the boy came back with your drink and asked for your opinion. They were in the back of your mind while you were working on the rest of the ballad, after you had bid your goodbye to Jihoon at 10PM, while you were waiting in line for your takeout at your favourite diner, and under the shower head as you were getting ready for bed.

You fell asleep thinking of that particular verse the black haired boy had finished on his own and wondering whether you were delusional for assuming: maybe, it had been your absence that had made him come up with those lines.

You were talking on the phone with your brother, throwing questions at him about his senior year in high school and those bonbons he had received on White Day, when you heard your name echoing off the walls close to Jihoon’s studio. Your steps came to an immediate halt.

‘Jiung-ah? I need to go, I’ll talk to you later,’ you murmured into the speaker, suddenly super anxious about being noticed although a rational part of you tried to convince you that hiding behind a wall wasn’t necessary or a good idea.

‘Noona, are you oka–’

‘I’m fine, it’s just a work emergency. Love you,’ you cut him off in a hurried manner, giving him just enough explanation to not call you back before you hung up the phone and shoved the device into your pocket.

‘Why won’t you introduce me to her? Everyone else has already met her, it’s unfair!’ The boy, who was standing in front of Jihoon, asked, his pouty lips emphasising his distress. As you were watching the interaction, you couldn’t decide whether he was that good at acting or he was genuinely hurt by being left out, but his puppy eyes tugged on your heart nonetheless.

‘They met her because they work at the coffee shop. Don’t start!’ Jihoon sighed and took a step sideways. However, the other boy copied his movements without missing a beat.

‘Tsk, so now people need to work at Cheol hyung’s to be introduced to your girlfriend? I am your best friend!’ The kicked puppy boy claimed and you needed to cover your mouth with your hand to not let out a giggle because of his dramatics. You would have never guessed that Jihoon of all people had such a hyperactive best friend, but the more you saw, the easier it became to understand why their friendship worked.

Sometimes opposites did attract.

‘She’s not my girlfriend,’ Jihoon hissed and only when his words got to you did you realise what they were bickering about. A not-girlfriend girlfriend. Oh.

Your nails scratched the surface of the wall when you leaned closer to the duo, desperate to hide your body, but eager to steal a glance at the black haired boy’s face. You wanted to know whether he really meant it. Was he sad that he wasn’t in a relationship with this girl? Was he unbothered by the topic and annoyed only because his friend was pushing it?

‘But I’m your best friend and…’

‘Debatable,’ Jihoon scoffed and you didn’t even have to see his face this time to know he rolled his eyes.

While you were busy pondering how perfectly the boy’s crush fitted every scenario you had come up with since you had read his yearning lyrics for Rayun’s solo debut, Jihoon pushed his best friend out of the way and took a couple of confident strides towards his studio. He was almost in front of the familiar, midnight blue door when the puppy boy raised his voice and shouted after him.

‘You got her a contract and wrote songs about her!’ He said, kicking the air out of your lungs with his boldness and the implication his words carried in themselves. You closed your eyes for a second to gather your thoughts, then leaned your forehead against the wall.

Jihoon had gotten a contract for you. And you had definitely heard your name before you had hung up the phone on your little brother. 

The puppy boy’s claim was followed by eerie silence. It was heavy and sticky. Instead of embracing you with warmth and comfort, it stuck to everyone and made you anxious. You obviously didn’t think anyone at Pledis would have been willing to offer you a full-time job if you hadn’t had potential, but it was your opinion. Jihoon’s friend should have known better than to say something so controversial in the company’s hallway where anyone could have heard and misunderstood them.

‘Fine, I did. So what?’ Jihoon retorted, visibly irritated. However, in a twisted way, the boy’s admission made you really happy. Because it meant he liked you, too.

Giddy, you were so hung up on the revelation, you didn’t notice the person who walked up to you and tried to gain your attention by waving her hand in front of your face after you had unintentionally ignored her calling your name.

The yelp that escaped your mouth was a lot louder than it should have been. And you weren’t particularly proud of the way you jumped backwards, either, but that was embarrassing for a completely different reason.

Because one uncertain look at the boys made it as clear as day: they both knew you had heard them. The sharp difference between their reactions lay in one small albeit significant detail: unlike Jihoon, his friend had no idea who you were.

You sucked in your lower lip to not make things worse with your cheap excuses. Even though you would have most probably made the same decision if you could have turned back time, you were aware that eavesdropping was morally wrong.

‘Can we… can we talk?’

It was Jihoon who broke the awkward silence and you nodded wordlessly before you bowed to Mina and Jihoon’s best friend with an embarrassed smile on your way to Jihoon’s studio. 

When the door closed shut behind your back, you considered apologising immediately. Yet, just as you parted your lips, Jihoon cut you off with his hesitant words.

‘Look, I…’ he started and the panicked glint in his eyes closed up your throat. It made you feel that if you hadn’t been straightforward enough, if you had let him overthink the situation, he would have denied everything you might have heard and you didn’t want that.

So you took a deep breath and a step closer to him to make him focus on you instead of the walls and his equipment he was suddenly so interested in.

‘I know we’re coworkers, but… would you like to go on a date with me?’ You asked and you genuinely couldn’t believe you had just done that.

Based on the boy’s wide eyes, he had a hard time believing his own ears as well.

It was nerve-wracking: waiting for him to process your question and say something, but then he shot a beautiful, grateful smile in your direction and your heart found peace even before he said:

‘Yeah. I’d like that. Very much, actually.’

Feeling like a happy mess, you were about to hug him for the first time since that Tuesday night at the coffee shop, but before you could have wrapped your arms around him, Jihoon’s best friend made his presence known with an annoying(ly adorable), whine-like noise.

‘Psst! Does this mean you can finally introduce me to your girlfriend?’ He asked from behind the door, only his head and his fingers visible in the position he clung onto the moving object to be able to peek inside the room.

Although you tried, you couldn’t contain your chuckles when Jihoon took a deep breath and launched himself at his friend. You watched them from a safe distance, seriously taken aback by the black haired boy’s vigour and determination to push the taller guy on the floor. You had never seen this side of him before, but you found it oddly charming.

At the end, Jihoon did introduce you to Soonyoung who stayed at the studio for half an hour, entertaining you with ridiculous stories about his best friend and the guys from Coffee Carat. He kept referring to you as Jihoon’s girlfriend and while it was obviously too early to claim yourself that title (you hadn’t even dated yet), the fact that the black haired boy didn’t correct him made you feel hopeful.

It felt like an unsaid promise that he wanted this thing between you two to work just as much as you did.

➼ next reason

[xxdumbblondexx]

--- Additional Learning Support ---

11 - bro almost uprooted everything

Masterlist --- Next --- Previous

“For today’s session, I have designed three topics for each of you from one of your corresponding Lessons. You have today to revise and perfect your knowledge about them as, over the next week, you will need to present them for twenty minutes. Each of you has one debate card, listed on the white board behind me.”

Over Albedo’s shoulder was possibly the cleanest whiteboard you had ever seen. Not even a smudge but his hand writing was almost unreadable

“I want the rest of you to take a look inside these topics and provide a debate back. Whoever makes the best argument gets to decide the next session's meal. These will be presented Monday.” Albedo explained and you partially spited ever agreeing to look after Klee again.

But without the energy to argue, you looked to the board behind him. There you saw a title written next to your name.

Did the Churches involvement in medical procedures affect the progression of modern day medicine. (History)

“Which side are you going to take for that?” Heizou asked from his potion beside you. From being the first to take your seat, he proudly took the seat beside you although there were plenty others available.

“That it did.” You replied shortly, pulling up a powerpoint on your phone.

While it loaded, you flicked your eyes to the three cards that lied in front of you. The first was the debate card.

The second was 'Explain how the position of elements on the periodic table effect their stability, e.g electromagnetic configuration, atomic radiation, extra.' Applied science.

The last was 'Explain how the media’s perception of crime affects society.' Sociology.

“Ah, I know about that topic. Want me to help you?” He leaned in closer, purposely looking over your shoulder.

“Can I cut out your tongue and wear it as a necklace?” You retorted, feeling your eyebrows go taught.

In the moment of silence you looked up to check the white board for everyone else.

Aether had ; Does the movement toward Reusable energy benefit the environment. (Applied science)

Which you thought would be difficult since Science is less of a debate and more of facts. However there was always the point that these are all theories and it is impossible to prove what we cannot perceive.

Xiao had ; Should electro currency be equal to physical currency. (IT)

You had no idea about IT so it barely really bothered you.

Kazuha had ; In An Inspector Calls, who is at fault for the death of Eva Smith. (English Literature)

You watched it once or twice and had enough of a jist of it to create an argument. But the underlying fact was that an Inspector Calls was created as a social call out to capitalism and you were sure he’d pick that side.

Scaramouche had ; Is Sociology a science. (Sociology)

You were sure to create the best debate possible to piss him off. Sociology was named a social science which pretty much separated it from true sciences such as physics or biology. But you would make sure to pick at every fault in his debate.

Finally, Heizou had ; Should individuals of different gender identities be placed in prisons based on their biological sex. (Criminology and Law)

You had no idea about Criminology and law but you knew that as soon as you got out of there, you would be on the phone to Yanfei to get the lowdown on all of it. It was your job— no, your purpose —to piss Heizou off as much as he had been doing to you.

Thinking about Heizou, you thought that comment would shut him up but then he continued with,

“Are you saying you want my tongue on your neck?”

It shot through you like boiling water and before you could even think, you shouted,

“Albedo!” Who suddenly shot up from his seat and suggested in a less shroud voice,

“Why don't we swap seats.” And you couldn’t agree more

“Ok once was weird, this is full blown stalker-ish.” You found yourself saying as you walked home. 

Once again, Scaramouche was there, following your footsteps. You expected him to speed past you as he had tried to do the time before. But this time he didn't. This time he was creeping behind you. 

“Not my fault. Childe said he wanted me to walk you home.” 

Childe did what?!

Ok, so sometimes your brother could be over protective. Deliberately scare away a person who was into you. Torment some girls who were being bitchy towards you. Follow you around, scowling at everyone because he claimed something you were wearing was inappropriate.  But this…was a new level. 

Honestly you thought he was relieved that he no longer would have to ferry you around. He seemed to be at least. Clearly you had forgotten his own-given duties of being your older brother. 

“You could have said that instead of creepily following me.” You answered as he came to walk beside you. 

“Sounds like too much effort.” He let out a hot sigh that evaporated into steam as he stretched his arms behind his head. 

“You excited for the debate on monday?” You tried to make small talk because otherwise you knew this walk would be hell. 

“Nope. Not with you and that Heizou guy in my ass.” Which was true. You might have spent too long looking at ways to make him and Heizou regret ever annoying and too little looking at your own topics. 

“Did you revise much?” 

“A little. That prick pretty much chose a unit of sociology. There’s so much of it and Interpretivism can eat my ass.” 

Another weakness you were sure to note.

“Yeah. Those dudes pretty much just hopped on the individualism train and took a nap.” 

“Twats. ‘An individual has their own choices and beliefs’. What the fuck does that have to do with anything about science? I just enjoy the idea that ‘true’ science theories are only true until they are disproven. Sociology, you can say what you want about feminists and marxist but their points still stand.” 

“They're resilient. Even though Marx spoke about the ‘working class revolution’ over a hundred years ago and it still hasn't happened.” 

“Funny thing is though, I bet Karl Marx wouldn't have created Marxism if he didn't fall through the capitalist ladder.” 

With that, you laughed, spitting out a 

“Prick,” in the process.

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

Hiyaaa,

Tbh, the only a levels/betecs i took were Sociology, applied science and health and social care so for the rest of them i'm literally trying to remember what i was taught in high school. For IT, i have no clue. I literally just played cool maths during the lessons. And i never took criminology. So i tried to take from what my friend did in uni.

Also, if you haven't noticed, im going to try and change from guy to guy to give a profile of what they will be like during the next part, (when a guys finally chosen)

I've still got a bit to write till then, and I've still pretty much gotta finish Xiao's (which is coming up next) Kazuha and Aethers. Like little taster chapters.

Anyway, thanks for reading x

[leshyleaf]

about the bpbc au stuff I have a few guesses. Stuff about the sentient bullet patterns I think is the Gaster Blasters. And maybe about cloning papyrus somehow?? With one of the first posts showing 2 of them, or maybe that big amalgamate esc gaster blaster thing is a shape shifter of some sort. Or Gaster is the weird blaster beast somehow. You were talking about Frisk wanting to save one last monster do, that probably ties into things. The birthday card might be an inciting incident to the blaster beast. I think in one of the drawings the blaster was behind papyrus? Another thing that may tie into the card, as it is a card from papyrus. Frisk knows about the blasters, so they might have done a aborted/full geno run in the past, or the bros might have told them about it.

Just spilling my thoughts here! Sorry for bad capitalization and if I sound bored or dismissive, I don’t like big capital words or punctuation. I am invested in your story!

aaaahhhhh!!! Dude I wish the title has such a cool and creative link-in to the story, but no, it’s just a stupid pun based on like…the premise of the au and one single panel 😭😭 I’m so bad at naming things bwahaha.

You’re right about one thing (that I didn’t expect anyone to guess atp so kudos hehe) frisk’s first out of two runs was an aborted genocide run.

They actually lose themself quite a bit towards the end as chara fully takes over, which is why their nightmares involving,,,him are so vague and maybe even possibly warped a bit from actual reality.

(In this au the genocide run goes…differently)

Chara had a hand in aborting the run; they don’t like senseless violence to that degree. Also, they don’t talk to frisk that much anymore so there isn’t that much in the way for an explanation for frisk atm.