#Chinese Law Firm

[theclnlawfirm]

At CLN Law Firm, we provide experienced and reliable Chinese lawyers to handle all types of legal matters. With a team of experienced Chinese lawyers, we are your trusted legal partner for all your legal needs.

[nasreenalissalaw]

Saudi Arabian Labor Laws are constantly evolving to the best there is. Such a journey is essential for the continuous growth of our Nation. Misunderstandings of employment law can pose challenging complexities to the employer in Saudi Arabia. As an expatriate, the continuous trends and developments of the Labor Law can confuse you in absence of a local guide.

[reasonsforhope]

"In China, a landscape architect is reimagining cities across the vast country by working with nature to combat flooding through the ‘sponge city’ concept.

Through his architecture firm Turenscape, Yu has created hundreds of projects in dozens of cities using native plants, dirt, and clever planning to absorb excess rainwater and channel it away from densely populated areas.

Flooding, especially in the two Chinese heartlands of the commercial south and the agricultural north, is becoming increasingly common, but Yu says that concrete and pipe solutions can only go so far. They’re inflexible, expensive, and require constant maintenance. According to a 2021 World Bank report, 641 of China’s 654 largest cities face regular flooding.

“There’s a misconception that if we can build a flood wall higher and higher, or if we build the dams higher and stronger, we can protect a city from flooding,” Yu told CNN in a video call. “(We think) we can control the water… that is a mistake.”

Pictured: The Benjakitti Forest Park in Bangkok

Yu has been called the “Chinese Olmstead” referring to Frederick Law Olmstead, the designer of NYC’s Central Park. He grew up in a little farming village of 500 people in Zhejiang Province, where 36 weirs channel the waters of a creek across terraced rice paddies.

Once a year, carp would migrate upstream and Yu always looked forward to seeing them leap over the weirs.

This synthesis of man and nature is something that Turenscape projects encapsulate. These include The Nanchang Fish Tail Park, in China’s Jiangxi province, Red Ribbon Park in Qinghuandao, Hebei province, the Sanya Mangrove Park in China’s island province of Hainan, and almost a thousand others. In all cases, Yu utilizes native plants that don’t need any care to develop extremely spongey ground that absorbs excess rainfall.

Pictured: The Dong’an Wetland Park, another Turescape project in Sanya.

He often builds sponge projects on top of polluted or abandoned areas, giving his work an aspect of reclamation. The Nanchang Fish Tail Park for example was built across a 124-acre polluted former fish farm and coal ash dump site. Small islands with dawn redwoods and two types of cypress attract local wildlife to the metropolis of 6 million people.

Sanya Mangrove Park was built over an old concrete sea wall, a barren fish farm, and a nearby brownfield site to create a ‘living’ sea wall.

One hectare (2.47 acres) of Turenscape sponge land can naturally clean 800 tons of polluted water to the point that it is safe enough to swim in, and as a result, many of the sponge projects have become extremely popular with locals.

One of the reasons Yu likes these ideas over grand infrastructure projects is that they are flexible and can be deployed as needed to specific areas, creating a web of rain sponges. If a large drainage, dam, seawall, or canal is built in the wrong place, it represents a huge waste of time and money.

Pictured: A walkway leads visitors through the Nanchang Fish Tail Park.

The sponge city projects in Wuhan created by Turenscape and others cost in total around half a billion dollars less than proposed concrete ideas. Now there are over 300 sponge projects in Wuhan, including urban gardens, parks, and green spaces, all of which divert water into artificial lakes and ponds or capture it in soil which is then released more slowly into the sewer system.

Last year, The Cultural Landscape Foundation awarded Yu the $100,000 Oberlander Prize for elevating the role of design in the process of creating nature-based solutions for the public’s enjoyment and benefit."

-via Good News Network, August 15, 2024

[mariacallous]

lol philadelphia inquirer bodying nyt

https://www.inquirer.com/opinion/editorials/first-presidential-debate-joe-biden-donald-trump-withdraw-20240629.html

President Joe Biden’s debate performance was a disaster. His disjointed responses and dazed look sparked calls for him to drop out of the presidential race.

But lost in the hand wringing was Donald Trump’s usual bombastic litany of lies, hyperbole, bigotry, ignorance, and fear mongering. His performance demonstrated once again that he is a danger to democracy and unfit for office.

In fact, the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.

Trump, 78, has been on the political stage for eight years marked by chaos, corruption, and incivility. Why go back to that?

To build himself up, Trump constantly tears the country down. There is no shining city on the hill. It’s just mourning in America.

Throughout the debate, Trump repeatedly said we are a “failing” country. He called the United States a “third world nation.” He said, “we’re living in hell” and “very close to World War III.”

“People are dying all over the place,” Trump said, later adding “we’re literally an uncivilized country now.”

Trump told more than 30 lies during the debate to go with the more than 30,000 mistruths told during his four years as president. He dodged the CNN moderators’ questions, took no responsibility for his actions, and blamed others, mainly Biden, for everything that is wrong in the world.

Trump’s response to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection he fueled was farcical. He said a “relatively small number of people” went to the Capitol and many were “ushered in by the police.”

After scheming to overturn the 2020 election, Trump refused to say if he would accept the results of the 2024 election. Unless, of course, he wins.

The debate served as a reminder of what another four years of Trump would look like. More lies, grievance, narcissism, and hate. Supporters say they like Trump because he says whatever he thinks. But he mainly spews raw sewage.

Trump attacks the military. He denigrates the Justice Department and judges. He belittles the FBI and the CIA. He picks fights with allies and cozies up to dictators.

Trump is an unserious carnival barker running for the most serious job in the world. During his last term, Trump served himself and not the American people.

Trump spent chunks of time watching TV, tweeting, and hanging out at his country clubs. Over his four-year term, Trump played roughly 261 rounds of golf.

As president, Trump didn’t read the daily intelligence briefs. He continued to use his personal cell phone, allowing Chinese spies to listen to his calls. During one Oval Office meeting, Trump shared highly classified intelligence with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador.

Trump’s term did plenty of damage and had few accomplishments. The much-hyped wall didn’t get built. Infrastructure week was a recurring joke. Giant tax cuts made the rich richer, while fueling massive deficits for others to pay for years. His support for coal, oil drilling and withdrawal from the Paris Agreement worsened the growing impact of climate change.

Trump stacked the judiciary with extreme judges consisting mainly of white males, including a number who the American Bar Association rated as not qualified. A record number of cabinet officials were fired or left the office. The West Wing was in constant chaos and infighting.

Many Trump appointees exited under a cloud of corruption, grifting and ethical scandals. Trump’s children made millions off the White House. His dilettante son-in-law got $2 billion from the Saudi government for his fledgling investment firm even though he never managed money before.

Trump’s mismanagement of the pandemic resulted in tens of thousands of needless deaths. He boasts about stacking the Supreme Court with extreme right-wingers who are stripping away individual rights, upending legal precedents, and making the country less safe. If elected, Trump may add to the court’s conservative majority.

Of course, there were the unprecedented two impeachments. Now, Trump is a convicted felon who is staring at three more criminal indictments. He is running for president to stay out of prison.

If anything, Trump doesn’t deserve to be on the presidential debate stage. Why even give him a platform?

Trump allegedly stole classified information and tried to overturn an election. His plans for a second term are worse than the last one. We cannot be serious about letting such a crooked clown back in the White House.

Yes, Biden had a horrible night. He’s 81 and not as sharp as he used to be. But Biden on his worst day remains lightyears better than Trump on his best.

Biden must show that he is up to the job. This much is clear: He has a substantive record of real accomplishments, fighting the pandemic, combating climate change, investing in infrastructure, and supporting working families and the most vulnerable.

Biden has surrounded himself with experienced people who take public service seriously. He has passed major bipartisan legislation despite a dysfunctional Republican House majority.

Biden believes in the best of America. He has rebuilt relationships with allies around the world and stood up to foes like Russia and China.

There was only one person at the debate who does not deserve to be running for president. The sooner Trump exits the stage, the better off the country will be.

[robertreich]

The Silent Revolution in American Economics

I don't think you're expecting what I'm about to say, because I have never seen anything like this in fifty years in politics.

For decades I've been sounding an alarm about how our economy has become increasingly rigged for the rich. I've watched it get worse under both Republicans and Democrats, but what President Biden has done in his first term gives me hope I haven't felt in years. It’s a complete sea change.

Here are three key areas where Biden is fundamentally reshaping our economy to make it better for working people.

#1 Trade and industrial policy

Biden is breaking with decades of reliance on free-trade deals and free-market philosophies. He’s instead focusing on domestic policies designed to revive American manufacturing and fortify our own supply chains.

Take three of his signature pieces of legislation so far — the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS Act, and his infrastructure package. This flood of government investment has brought about a new wave in American manufacturing.

Unlike Trump, who just levied tariffs on Chinese imports and used it as a campaign slogan, Biden is actually investing in America’s manufacturing capacity so we don’t have to rely on China in the first place.

He’s turning the tide against deals made by previous administrations, both Democratic and Republican, that helped Wall Street but ended up costing American jobs and lowering American wages.

#2 Monopoly power

Biden is the first president in living memory to take on big monopolies.

Giant firms have come to dominate almost every industry. Four beef packers now control over 80 percent of the market, domestic air travel is dominated by four airlines, and most Americans have no real choice of internet providers.

In a monopolized economy, corporate profits rise, consumers pay higher prices, and workers’ wages shrink.

But under the Biden, the Federal Trade Commission and the Antitrust Division of the Justice Department have become the most aggressive monopoly fighters in more than a half century. They’re going after Amazon and Google, Ticketmaster and Live Nation, JetBlue and Spirit, and a wide range of other giant corporations.  

#3 Labor

Biden is also the most pro-union president I’ve ever seen.

A big reason for the surge in workers organizing and striking for higher wages is the pro-labor course Biden is charting.

The Reagan years blew in a typhoon of union busting across America. Corporations routinely sunk unions and fired workers who attempted to form them. They offshored production or moved to so-called “right-to-work” states that enacted laws making it hard to form unions.

Even though Democratic presidents promised labor law reforms that would strengthen unions, they didn’t follow through. But under Joe Biden, organized labor has received a vital lifeboat. Unionizing has been protected and encouraged. Biden is even the first sitting president to walk a picket line.

Biden’s National Labor Relations Board is stemming the tide of unfair labor practices, requiring companies to bargain with their employees, speeding the period between union petitions and elections, and making it harder to fire workers for organizing.

Americans have every reason to be outraged at how decades of policies that prioritized corporations over people have thrown our economy off-keel.

But these three waves of change — a worker-centered trade and industrial policy, strong anti-monopoly enforcement, and moves to strengthen labor unions — are navigating towards a more equitable economy.

It’s a sea change that’s long overdue.

[hungwy]

the Redditor who claimed The Chinese are dumb at geopolitics "because Mao killed off all the smart people so the only ones left are culturally and genetically stupid" (not an actual quote just a summary [yes he believes in intelligence-based eugenics]) is a senior associate at a law firm who loves wrestling, says "reeee", calls Japan incomparable to other nations in its greatness, and posts on r/wallstreetbets. Also seemingly a halo lore scholar

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Union pensions are funding private equity attacks on workers

On October 7–8, I'm in Milan to keynote Wired Nextfest.

If end-stage capitalism has a motto, it's this: "Stop hitting yourself." The great failure of "voting with your wallet" is that you're casting ballots in a one party system (The Capitalism Party), and the people with the thickest wallets get the most votes.

During the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese state would bill the families of executed dissidents for the ammunition used to execute their loved ones:

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-true-the-Chinese-government-makes-the-families-of-executed-people-pay-for-the-cost-of-bullets

In end-stage capitalism, the dollars we spend to feed ourselves are used to capture the food supply and corrupt our political process:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/04/dont-let-your-meat-loaf/#meaty-beaty-big-and-bouncy

And the dollars we save for retirement are flushed into the stock market casino, a game that is rigged against us, where we are always the suckers at the table:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/25/derechos-humanos/#are-there-no-poorhouses

Everywhere and always, we are financing our own destruction. It's quite a Mr Gotcha moment:

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

Now, anything that can't go on forever will eventually stop. We are living through a broad, multi-front counter-revolution to Reaganomics and neoliberal Democratic Party sellouts. The FTC and DOJ Antitrust Division are dragging Big Tech and Big Meat and Big Publishing into court. We're seeing bans on noncompete clauses, and high-profile government enforcers are publicly pledging never to work for corporate law-firms when they quit public service:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/09/nein-nein/#everything-is-miscellaneous

And of course, there's the reinvigoration of the labor movement! Hot Labor Summer is now Perpetual Labor September, with 75,000 Kaiser workers walking out alongside the UAW, SAG-AFTRA and 2,350 other groups of workers picketing, striking or protesting:

https://striketracker.ilr.cornell.edu/

But capitalism still gets a lick in. Union pension plans are some of the most important investors in private equity funds. Your union pension dollars are probably funding the union-busting, child-labor-employing, civilization-destroying Gordon Gecko LARPers who are also evicting you from the rental they bought and turned into a slum, and will then murder you in a hospice that they bought and turned into a slaughterhouse:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/04/26/death-panels/#what-the-heck-is-going-on-with-CMS

Writing for The American Prospect, Rachel Phua rounds up the past, present and future of union pension funds backing private equity monsters:

https://prospect.org/labor/2023-10-04-workers-funding-misery-private-equity-pension-funds/

Private equity and hedge funds have destroyed 1.3 million US jobs:

https://united4respect.org/press-release/people-who-work-at-walmart-sears-amazon-formerly-toys-r-us-more-join-forces-together-as-united-for-respect-2-2-2-2-5-3/

They buy companies and then illegally staff them with children:

https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20230217-1

They lobby against the minimum wage:

https://pestakeholder.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Insire-Brands-memo-on-15-wage.pdf

They illegally retaliate against workers seeking to unionize their jobsite:

https://www.hoteldive.com/news/dc-hotel-workers-enlist-us-representatives-to-fight-sofitel-union-busting/650396/

And they couldn't do it without union pension funds. Public service union pensions have invested $650 million with PE funds. In 2001, the share of public union pensions invested in PE was 3.5%; today, it's 13%:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B0vv26VEFmwtfw5ur6dSDMY8NftvZKij/

Giant public union funds like CalPERS are planning massive increases in their contributions to PE:

https://www.calpers.ca.gov/page/newsroom/calpers-news/2023/calpers-preliminary-investment-return-fiscal-year-2022-23

This results in some ghastly and ironic situations. Aramark used funds from a custodian's union to bid against that union's members for contracts, in an attempt to break the union and force the workers to take a paycut to $11/hour:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-11-20/pension-fund-gains-mean-worker-pain-as-aramark-cuts-pay

Blackstone's investors include the California State Teachers Retirement System (CalSTRS). The PE ghouls who sucked Toys R Us dry were funded by Texas teachers.

Then there's KKR, one of the most rapacious predators of the PE world. Half of the investors in KKR's Global Infrastructure Investors IV fund are public sector pension funds. Those workers' money were spent to buy up Refresco (Arizona Iced Tea, Tropicana juices, etc), a transaction that immediately precipitated a huge spike in on-the-job accidents as KKR cut safety and increased tempo:

https://www.osha.gov/ords/imis/establishment.inspection_detail?id=1675674.015

Petsmart is the poster-child for PE predation. The company uses TRAPs ("TrainingRepaymentAgreementProvision") clauses to recreate indentured servitude, forcing workers to pay thousands of dollars to quit their jobs:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/04/its-a-trap/#a-little-on-the-nose

Why would a Petsmart employee want to quit? Petsmart's PE owner is BC Partners, and under BC's management, workers have been forced to work impossible hours while overseeing cruel animal abuse, including starving sick animals to death rather than euthanizing them, and then being made to sneak them into dumpsters on the way home from work so Petsmart doesn't have to pay for cremation. 24 of BC Partners' backers are public pension funds, including CalSTRS and the NYC Employees' Retirement System:

https://prospect.org/culture/books/2023-06-02-days-of-plunder-morgenson-rosner-ballou-review/

PE buyouts are immediately followed by layoffs. One in five PE acquisitions goes bankrupt. Unions should not be investing in PE. But the managers of these funds defend the practice, saying they "facilitate dialog" with the PE bosses on workers' behalf.

This isn't total nonsense. Once upon a time, public pension fund managers put pressure on investees to force them to divest from Apartheid South Africa and tobacco companies. Even today, public pensions have successfully applied leverage to get fund managers to drop Russian investments after the invasion of Ukraine. And public pensions pulled out of the private prison sector, tanking the valuation of some of the largest players.

But there's no evidence that this leverage is being applied to pensions' PE billions. It's not like PE is a great deal for these pensions. PE funds don't reliably outperform the market, especially after PE bosses' sky-high fees are clawed back:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3623820

Pension funds could match or beat their PE returns by sticking the money in a low-load Vanguard index tracker. What's more, PE is getting worse, pioneering new scams like inflating the value of companies after they buy and strip-mine them, even though there's no reason to think anyone would buy these hollow companies at the price that the PE companies assign to them for bookkeeping purposes:

https://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/2bstqfcskz9o72ospzlds/opinion/why-does-private-equity-get-to-play-make-believe-with-prices

To inject a little verisimilitude into this obvious fantasy, PE companies sell their portfolio companies to themselves at inflated prices, in a patently fraudulent shell-game:

https://www.ft.com/content/646d00f4-af5d-4267-a436-54fb3bc1697b

What's more, PE funds aren't just bad bosses, they're also bad landlords. PE-backed funds have scooped up an appreciable fraction of America's housing stock, transforming good rentals into slums:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/01/27/extraordinary-popular-delusions/#wall-street-slumlords

PE is really pioneering a literal cradle-to-grave immiseration strategy. First, they gouge you on your kids' birth:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/27/crossing-a-line/#zero-fucks-given

Then, they slash your wages and steal from your paycheck:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3465723

Then, they evict you from your home:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/06/05/vulture-capitalism/#distressed-assets

And then they murder you as part of a scam they're running on Medicare:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/05/any-metric-becomes-a-target/#hca

As the labor movement flexes its muscle, it needs to break this connection. Workers should not be paying for the bullet that their bosses put through their skulls.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/05/mr-gotcha/#no-ethical-consumption-under-capitalism

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

[lilydoeswrite]

guys should i have this as a side project apart from the merciless siren let me know lol (this is related to my only other pjo work)

The stories of the Greek gods, yeah, they’re real. 

If you’re reading this right now thinking this sentence is all one big joke, good for you, continue reading as you please. In fact, I envy you if you’re able to think this is all fiction.

If you’re reading this because you’re starting to believe that the myths you were told as a kid are real, or you’re experiencing experiences science can’t quite explain, my advice is to close this book right now.

If you ever see yourself or relate to anything in these pages and feel something weird stirring inside– stop immediately. Because, as soon as you realise you’re one of us– and chances are, you probably are, they can sense it as well. And they’ll come for you. 

You’re doing this at your own risk. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

My name is Laila Lim.

I’m twelve years old and until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at College La Victoire in Romandie, Switzerland; the french speaking part. I’m originally from Surrey, England, although my mother is Chinese and Thai.

Why am I in boarding school?

I’m not sure. 

Sometimes I think it’s because my mother found me too troublesome and chose to ship me off. But, regardless, I had a good time there. I’m good at sports, music and academics– not to brag, but you can call me an all-rounder. But at the same time I guess you could say I’m a troubled kid.

I could start at any point of time in my short life but things only really started to go south last July when I visited New York City for the first time. 

I know– it sounds exciting. Most of my trips overseas with my mother are and this would be my first time heading to the States, so I had expectations.

My mother is in her late thirties– thirty-six, to be exact. She has long black hair and brown eyes. When she was younger, she was a model, that’s how beautiful she is, although now she is a CEO of some big law firm with the biggest obsession over Greek mythology. My father? I have no idea. But I do know that he’s the reason I have blue eyes. That is really the only trait I inherited from him. 

Well, back to the trip. Everyone has heard of New York City. ‘New York or nowhere’ as some say. I was really looking forward to this trip because first, it would be my first time in the States and it’d be in New York City out of all places. Second, it’s close to where my mother had met my father.

She doesn’t talk about him a lot but I know she met him in the outskirts of New York. 

Anyways, it wasn’t until I stepped into New York that the hallucinations I’d get from time to time really worsened. And I mean it was really bad. I kept seeing strange things, strange creatures that looked scarily close to the pictures in the books my mother used to read to me. I tried my best to enjoy my trip, I really did, but the hallucinations just kept getting worse and worse. 

I still had a good time, though. My mother had to meet up with all her supermodel and celebrity friends and, must I say, the presents they give are extravagant. I’m talking designer bags and fancy jewellery. I knew they were rich but man, I didn’t expect getting things like those, although I’m not complaining. I’m guessing my mother must’ve sent my ‘super unrealistic wish list for your super duper child’ slideshow because everything I had been given was on that wish list. 

Anyway, back to New York City. 

We spent most of our time shopping and sightseeing. If you exclude my hallucinations, the trip was going absolutely fine. In fact, I was having a lot of fun. That was until we visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek stuff; as I said, my mother is huge on ancient Greece and its mythologies.

I guessed some school was having their field trip there because there were a bunch of kids my age as well, which I have to be honest, really scared me. This one girl kept giving me judgemental looks for whatever reason, but I couldn’t care less to be honest. Why is this important? Because when one of the teachers had brought this kid in to, what I assume, scold him, she started making this weird growling noise. 

At this point of time, I was alone looking at one of the other statues as they must have not noticed me but I certainly did notice them.

‘You’ve been giving us problems, honey,” she said in her weird voice.

‘Yes, ma’am,” the boy my age says.

‘Did you really think you would get away with it?’ She says. 

‘I’ll – I’ll try harder ma’am.’

Now, this is the part where it gets weird because it felt as though thunder shook the building,

‘We are not fools, Percy Jackson. It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain.’

I know eavesdropping is wrong but, look, I couldn’t help it. First, what kind of name is Percy? Like Percy Pig? The pig mascot for Marks and Spencers? Second, confess, pain? Find out what? Look, I knew stuff in New York City would be different, but I didn’t think it’d be that different.

‘Well?’ she demands.

‘Ma’am, I don’t…’ the boy says

‘Your time is up,’ the woman hissed. Then, you’re not going to believe what happened because it’s the weirdest thing in the world. I was scared, even hiding behind the statue I was originally looking at. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons and I could tell that her eyes were glowing.

At first I thought I was seeing things, that it was all a big hallucination, but based on the reaction from the other boy, he was seeing them as well. 

Her jacket melted into these large wings and she didn’t look one bit human. She had bat wings and claws and yellow fangs.

And just when I thought things couldn’t get any weirder, well, they did.

This man in a wheelchair tossed a pen to the boy right before the monster woman thing lunged at him. Then, the next thing I see is that the pen had turned into this bronze sword.

‘Die, honey!’ she snarls, flying straight at him.

I’m as still as a statue watching what is going on. Because what is going on?

The boy swings the sword at her and then it passes through her body and a loud hissing sound was made before the woman exploded into yellow powder and seemed to vaporise on the spot, leaving nothing but the weird smell of sulphur you would only typically get in the science labs of my school as a dying screech fills the air.

Then, the boy spots me. ‘Did you see that?

‘Yeah?’ I nod, looking at him strangely as I wonder how on earth he had managed to spot me before he went back outside.

Then, my mother returns and I tell her all about it and she looks at me as if I’m saying some foreign language.

‘Whatever,’ she brushes it off. ‘I’ll book an appointment with Dr Clark when we get back, alright?’

I nod. My hallucinations must be getting worse.

[nejjcollectsbooks]

Some classic Asian literature I own:

Monkey: The Journey to the West by Wu Ch'eng-en, translated by Arthur Waley. The Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong, translated by Martin Palmer. Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa, translated by Jay Rubin.

Monkey: The Journey to the West summary:

Written in the sixteenth century, Monkey is a retelling of a famous Chinese Legend. A heroic epic, it chronicles the adventures of Prince Tripitaka, a young buddhist priest, travelling with his three quirky (non-human) disciples; Pigsy, Sandy and Monkey. It's a story with a typical adventure plot line where the gang sets off on a quest, and along the way will face many supernatural foes, it is very much along the lines of Homer or the Illiad.

Some lovely quotes from Monkey:

“Monkey now produced his staff and the two of them did their best to kill each other, like the affectionate in-laws they were.” “But a single strand does not make a thread nor can one hand clap.” “Why did you go towards the monster when he wanted to eat you up instead of running away? Now he's swallowed you. Today you're still a monk, but tomorrow you'll be a turd.” “With passions stilled and one’s nature firm, all destinies are in harmony; When the full moon of contemplation is reached you will be pure.” “After following it for nearly two miles he came across two she-monsters drawing water from a well. How did he know that they were monsters? Each of them had on her head an extremely unfashionable hair-style held up by bamboo slivers that stood one foot two or three inches high.”

I made another two similar posts, one for The Romance of the Three Kingdoms and one for Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories.

[generallemarc]

So, I recently saw a new CriticalDrinker video about how major gaming studios are actively making female characters uglier out of some collective dea delusion that anything else is "non-inclusive", and honestly? I wrote it off. I assumed that it was him combining a couple big instances of this(Lara Croft was the big one, and I know Tifa in FF7 Remake got something like it as well) with the masses of dumb shit on twitter and assuming that meant this was a wider trend when in fact that's not enough to suppose a connection. Literally the day afterwards I see this, which if you don't know was a stealth-drop update to Pokemon Go that basically ruined the characters. Assuming the account shown in this video isn't some sort of deepfake troll, there apparently really are dea groups out there pushing for this exact thing just like Drinker said. It does suck that this had to happen to a Nintendo series when Nintendo has been one of the relatively few big developers who haven't gone in for the culture war cash grab attempts, but I'd say this still isn't the biggest issue with Pokemon and third-party devs, given that their MOBA is made by a Chinese firm that's legally required under their home country's law to give the Party your data at any time for any reason.

[batmansymbol]

hello, my sweet sweet tumblr friends. i have a new book out one month from saturday. here we are together, the book and i:

this one was fun. i wrote it with my sister! when we were young, we were cutthroat competitive. she (older) would forbid me from reading the books on her shelves, and i (gremlin) would booby-trap her room, so you decide which of us committed the greater sin. now we have a blast.

our names are pronounced REE-uh-nock and SHEE-fra, and our book was pitched as THE PARENT TRAP meets THE VANISHING HALF. it releases August 15th, 2023. logline is "Two half-Chinese half-siblings collide for the first time at a summer art camp, not knowing they're related—and begin to understand who they are as artists, as brother and sister, and as Asian-Americans."

it's a book about summer camp hijinks, about passing, about what we long for and where we belong. it also says "Robinson & Robinson" on the spine, which makes us sound like an accidental injury law firm. sweet.

of all the books with my name on it, this one is probably the "book club"-iest. if you like coming-of-age novels or stories about the AAPI diaspora, you might like this one :)

you can preorder a signed copy from my local indie here, or non-signed copies from Bookshop.org, Barnes and Noble, or Amazon. i really cannot stress enough how much every single preorder helps, as i am what the industry calls "a midlist author," also known as "an obscure author who has difficulty placing projects with publishers because of sales figures lmao." (this is not to whinge. the majority of working authors exist in this financially & existentially precarious position)

alternatively, i would be totally thrilled if you reblogged this post, or mentioned the book to any teachers, librarians, bookstore workers, or other readers in your life :)

happy summer everybody—may it be the lazy river of your dreams. xoxoxo

[princepotatosack]

What If Choices' Race-customizable LIs Had Surnames Reflective Of Their Ethnicity?: An Experiment Just For Fun (Part 2/3)

Info in Part 1

Part 3

HOT COUTURE

Marco Diallo

This face option is described in the asset files as "Black". I did a cursory research and learned that there is a significant Black Italian community of immigrants from Cameroon, so that's my headcanon for him and his family. I chose the Fulani surname Diallo because it starts with a Di like Di Vincenzo.

Marco Diệp

This face option is described in the asset files as "Asian". The most significant Asian Italian community is Chinese Italians, but I didn't find a Chinese surname starting with the sound Di that sounded right to me. So I went with the Vietnamese Diệp.

HOT SHOT

Casey Jamil

These face options are described in the asset files as "Middle Eastern". The Arabic surname Jamil was a spelling match for Jameson, and this spelling appears to be common in Syria and Iraq. So if they had this surname they could be Syrian or Iraqi.

IMMORTAL DESIRES

Cassius Han / Cassandra Han

These face options are described in the asset files as "Asian". The Japanese surname Harada is a spelling match for Harlow but I already used Harada for the LI of Guarded. Also, I keep seeing people comparing the masc face to this one Kpop singer, I forget who, so it gave me the headcanon that these faces are Korean. The Korean surname Han seemed like a pretty solid match for Harlow, and it's also a Chinese surname too so they could be Chinese with this surname. Also I know fem Cas's full name is canonically Cassie but like many others on this internet website I am a Cassandra Harlow truther because I think it sounds better.

Gabriel Almánzar / Gabriela Almánzar

These face options are described in the asset files as "Latinx". Couldn't find any Spanish or Portuguese language surnames that start with "Ad" so I went with a Spanish surname that starts with "A" and retains the "A-al-ar" sounds from Adalhard.

LAWS OF ATTRACTION

Gabe Ryu

This face option is described in the asset files as "Asian". Almost went with the Korean surname Rhee but I already chose it for TPS LI and also I think the Korean surname Ryu looks cooler on a law firm plaque. lol

MS. MATCH

Jack Mansour / Jacqueline Mansour

These face options are described in the asset files as "Arabic". Mansour was a close Arabic-language sound match to Monroe. This spelling seems to be common across all of North Africa and the Middle East. So I guess they could be from any of those places with that surname.

MY TWO FIRST LOVES

Noah Higuchi

This face option is descrbed in the asset files as "Asian". Another LI with a surname starting with "Har" which can correspond with the Japanese surname Harada but I already used that and also "Noah Harada" has too many open "A" sounds in a row for my liking. So I just chose a cool sounding Japanese name starting with the letter H because this face option looks Japanese to me.

Ava Lozano

This face option is described in the asset files as "Hispanic". Lozano was the closest Spanish-language surname I could find to Lawrence. The Spanish form of the first name Lawrence is Lorenzo, but it doesn't appear to be used as a surname like Lawrence is in English-speaking countries.

Mason Jiménez

This face option is described in the asset files as "Hispanic". Couldn't find Spanish-language surnames that start with the same sound as Jennings. If my memory is correct I don't think Spanish has that sound? Jiménez has a lot of the same letters though so? That should work?

THE NANNY AFFAIR

Sam Delgado / Samantha Delgado

These face options are described in the asset files as "Hispanic". I considered the Spanish surname de la Torre because it retained the D-L-T-O sounds from Dalton but I thought Delgado sounded cooler……?

THE PHANTOM AGENT

Karan Gill / Sameera Gill

These face options are described in the files as "Indian". I considered the surnames Giri (broadly Indian, common in Nepal I think?) and Ghauri (common in Pakistan as far as I can tell?) for sound matches for Gray but Gill (Punjabi) sounded cooler. Also there was nothing necessarily wrong with the names Callum and Samara other than I don't like them. So I assigned them new Indian names…….

Part 1

Part 3

[mariacallous]

The end of TikTok has begun. As the dust settles from a week of shockingly fast legislative action by the US Congress, it’s clear that TikTok next year will look much different from the TikTok we’re using today.

When President Joe Biden signed a $95 billion dollar foreign aid package on Wednesday, it brought to life a nightmare that has haunted TikTok for more than four years. If TikTok’s Chinese owner, ByteDance, refuses to divest its stakes in the company, the United States will ban the app nationwide. The signing started the clock, giving TikTok 270 days to find a new owner. (As The Washington Post’s Cristiano Lima-Strong noted, TikTok’s time will run out the day before Inauguration Day 2025.)

There are a few ways this could all shake out. An American company or private equity fund could buy TikTok and its powerful recommendation algorithm. Or, a buyer might have to accept just the bones of the platform without that algorithmic muscle; The Information reported on Thursday that ByteDance has already started gaming out what a sale without the algorithm would look like. Or, perhaps no buyer can be found and TikTok goes poof.

Unless TikTok or a horde of its users were to somehow win a lawsuit challenging the law signed this week—a lawsuit the company has already said it plans to file—all the potential outcomes lead to an app that is dramatically different.

If a US tech company were to, miraculously, buy out the app and algorithm from ByteDance, it’ll likely integrate the app into its own products and services. But I doubt we’ll ever see a “TikTok by Meta.” Meta and other tech giants have come under intense antitrust scrutiny in recent years. If any company with a big social platform were to gobble up one of its top competitors, that would set off alarms at the Department of Justice or Federal Trade Commission.

Microsoft has suggested that it has an interest in buying TikTok, and it might be one of the app’s only viable choices for a buyer. Microsoft’s biggest subsidiary otherwise is, well, LinkedIn—and can we even call LinkedIn a TikTok rival with a straight face?

Separately, if, say, a private equity firm like Blackstone were to purchase TikTok without its much-envied algorithm, rebuilding the heart of the app could be difficult. A company without a deep bench of algorithmic wizards on hand likely wouldn’t have the expertise to quickly reengineer a feed-based social media platform from scratch. If they tried, I doubt the results would be pretty.

And if there’s no new owner? Well, I guess we’re left with YouTube Shorts and Instagram Reels. TikTok’s popularity in the US forced Google and Meta to invest in vertical video, but those platforms mostly cater to the younger “Skibidi Toilet” generation. They wouldn’t easily fill a TikTok-shaped gap on the US internet.

Still, the law passed this week may not stand for much longer. In a statement calling it unconstitutional, TikTok seemed confident that the law could be overturned. “We believe the facts and the law are clearly on our side, and we will ultimately prevail,” a TikTok spokesperson said on Wednesday. The company used a similar argument last year to win an injunction blocking a ban passed in Montana.

Regardless of how this lawsuit plays out, TikTok will be different. The question is just what kind of “different” that will be.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Finally a sensible, logical, reasonable, unhysterical commentary from a prominent newspaper, the Philadelphia Inquirer:

The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.

[Take THAT New York Times.....]

+

President Joe Biden’s debate performance was a disaster. His disjointed responses and dazed look sparked calls for him to drop out of the presidential race.

But lost in the hand wringing was Donald Trump’s usual bombastic litany of lies, hyperbole, bigotry, ignorance, and fear mongering. His performance demonstrated once again that he is a danger to democracy and unfit for office.

In fact, the debate about the debate is misplaced. The only person who should withdraw from the race is Trump.

Trump, 78, has been on the political stage for eight years marked by chaos, corruption, and incivility. Why go back to that?

To build himself up, Trump constantly tears the country down. There is no shining city on the hill. It’s just mourning in America.

Throughout the debate, Trump repeatedly said we are a “failing” country. He called the United States a “third world nation.” He said, “we’re living in hell” and “very close to World War III.”

“People are dying all over the place,” Trump said, later adding “we’re literally an uncivilized country now.”

Trump told more than 30 lies during the debate to go with the more than 30,000 mistruths told during his four years as president. He dodged the CNN moderators’ questions, took no responsibility for his actions, and blamed others, mainly Biden, for everything that is wrong in the world.

Trump’s response to the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection he fueled was farcical. He said a “relatively small number of people” went to the Capitol and many were “ushered in by the police.”

After scheming to overturn the 2020 election, Trump refused to say if he would accept the results of the 2024 election. Unless, of course, he wins.

The debate served as a reminder of what another four years of Trump would look like. More lies, grievance, narcissism, and hate. Supporters say they like Trump because he says whatever he thinks. But he mainly spews raw sewage.

Trump attacks the military. He denigrates the Justice Department and judges. He belittles the FBI and the CIA. He picks fights with allies and cozies up to dictators.

Trump is an unserious carnival barker running for the most serious job in the world. During his last term, Trump served himself and not the American people.

Trump spent chunks of time watching TV, tweeting, and hanging out at his country clubs. Over his four-year term, Trump played roughly 261 rounds of golf.

As president, Trump didn’t read the daily intelligence briefs. He continued to use his personal cell phone, allowing Chinese spies to listen to his calls. During one Oval Office meeting, Trump shared highly classified intelligence with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador.

Trump’s term did plenty of damage and had few accomplishments. The much-hyped wall didn’t get built. Infrastructure week was a recurring joke. Giant tax cuts made the rich richer, while fueling massive deficits for others to pay for years. His support for coal, oil drilling and withdrawal from the Paris Agreement worsened the growing impact of climate change.

Trump stacked the judiciary with extreme judges consisting mainly of white males, including a number who the American Bar Association rated as not qualified. A record number of cabinet officials were fired or left the office. The West Wing was in constant chaos and infighting.

Many Trump appointees exited under a cloud of corruption, grifting and ethical scandals. Trump’s children made millions off the White House. His dilettante son-in-law got $2 billion from the Saudi government for his fledgling investment firm even though he never managed money before.

Trump’s mismanagement of the pandemic resulted in tens of thousands of needless deaths. He boasts about stacking the Supreme Court with extreme right-wingers who are stripping away individual rights, upending legal precedents, and making the country less safe. If elected, Trump may add to the court’s conservative majority.

Of course, there were the unprecedented two impeachments. Now, Trump is a convicted felon who is staring at three more criminal indictments. He is running for president to stay out of prison.

If anything, Trump doesn’t deserve to be on the presidential debate stage. Why even give him a platform?

Trump allegedly stole classified information and tried to overturn an election. His plans for a second term are worse than the last one. We cannot be serious about letting such a crooked clown back in the White House.

If anything, Trump doesn’t deserve to be on the presidential debate stage. Why even give him a platform?

Yes, Biden had a horrible night. He’s 81 and not as sharp as he used to be. But Biden on his worst day remains lightyears better than Trump on his best.

Biden must show that he is up to the job. This much is clear: He has a substantive record of real accomplishments, fighting the pandemic, combating climate change, investing in infrastructure, and supporting working families and the most vulnerable.

Biden has surrounded himself with experienced people who take public service seriously. He has passed major bipartisan legislation despite a dysfunctional Republican House majority.

Biden believes in the best of America. He has rebuilt relationships with allies around the world and stood up to foes like Russia and China.

There was only one person at the debate who does not deserve to be running for president. The sooner Trump exits the stage, the better off the country will be.

[lily-blue]

Paying the price

☆ characters: patriot!jiung & revolutioner!you ☆ genre: dystopian au, the devil judge au, angst ☆ warnings: graphic description of damaged corpses, mention of blood and violence, vomiting, major character’s death, spoilers ☆ summary: jiung believes in the system, that it has the people’s best interest; you believe that the system is rotten to the core and the people of South Korea need to be enlightened about the truth - as it always is, you two learn it the hard way which one of you is right ☆ words: 15,3k ☆ massive thank you: to @dat-town ♥ for proofreading this monster (i still can’t believe i accidentally made intak older than jiung 🙃) ☆ also: happy name day to the one and only @restlessmaknae​ 💕 it actually made me feel nostalgic when i started to search up these guys for this story, it reminded me of that one yeonjun fic i wrote for you, the one that made me stan txt. i’m not quite there yet with these boys, but who knows, maybe one day. thank you for coming back to my life and showing me new groups and new things this year, too. i wish you nothing but happiness! 💕 ☆ a/n: this story is written for @restlessmaknae’s (dis)harmony collab; you can check out the masterlist with the other stories » here

Despite the country’s shortcomings: the apparent corruption that was planted in its core from the education system through the media to the judicial and political apparatuses, you loved your home. You loved living in a neighbourhood where the grocery store ahjussi gave you an extra cluster of grapes whenever you looked tired at the end of a rough day and the ahjumma from the corner Chinese restaurant knew your order by heart, hence spared you from the headache of making yet another decision when all you craved was a big bowl of warm lotus root soup. You loved knowing the youngsters in your building by their name and the feeling of having half a dozen sisters and brothers, uncles and aunts despite losing your family at an unfairly young age and spending too many lonely years in a government-funded orphanage.

God, you even loved the opportunities higher education was constantly giving you regardless of a handful of your teachers who openly expressed their political views in class when it went against your university’s policies. So why couldn’t you have sat through your Korean History II. lecture with a neutral face like everyone else did? Why did it make your blood boil when looking at Choi Jiung’s slides you realised that he was about to praise your country’s leaders, too, like the three other students before him had already done during their own presentations? Why couldn’t you have shut up and swallow down your opinion when it was time for the audience’s questions?

Easy. Because despite your love for your country and the people around you, it was corrupt to the core and as law students, all of you should have refrained from turning a blind eye to the exponentially growing amount of power abuse that happened in your home. It didn’t matter that half of your classes brainwashed you to bend under pressure.

‘What about those innocent citizens who lost their homes because of the evacuation? There is no clear data available about the rehousing of those families. Were they ever compensated?’ You threw your provocative questions at the blond boy, voice firm and merciless as your words echoed off the pristine walls in the small classroom.

The moment Choi Jiung’s gaze fell on you, you knew he was pissed, although he did a great job concealing his feelings. It was just… you had known the guy ever since you had moved to your current one-bedroom flat right after you had been kicked out of the orphanage. You could read him like he was an open book.

‘While the rate of unemployment increased during the pandemic, the statistics show that the rate of homelessness stayed stagnant. Is that not clear data?’ The blond boy asked back and you could hear your professor’s pleased humming from the first row as you were sitting in the second one, almost right behind Mr. Kim.

You linked your fingers and let your arms fall on your desk while you leaned forwards with a straight back. You didn’t break eye contact.

‘Reports from that period state that due to the pandemic, there were less ongoing projects in the construction industry, which means there couldn’t have been emergency constructions due to rehousing. Where did those families go?’ You pushed, shutting out the murmurs from your side and behind your back. You were already used to the whispering, the wary look in your classmates’ eyes whenever you expressed your opinion.

Unlike what they said, you weren’t obsessed with the spotlight nor did you have a childish crush on Choi Jiung. You picked fights with him because he was an unpleasant part of your friend group, but a part nonetheless, and you believed that Shota wouldn’t have tolerated his presence in your lives if he had been a lost case.

You challenged Jiung repeatedly to help him see the errors in his own beliefs.

‘Less ongoing projects don’t equal to no ongoing project. It only means there were fewer than before the pandemic,’ Jiung stated, voice cold despite the fire in his eyes. ‘Those few projects could have been, or included, the emergency constructions in the countryside,’ he said, your nails digging into the back of your hands because of your frustration as you were listening.

‘Hundreds of thousands of people—’

‘I think that’s enough. We still have one more presentation to sit through and discuss before this seminar ends,’ your professor rose from his seat, exchanging positions with the blond student. If looks could have killed, neither him nor Mr. Kim would have survived your rage. How dared this old, soggy snob cut you off when you were clearly making a point?

You had to bite into your cheeks from the inside to not curse him out, but your opinion must have been written all over your face because before the next student could have started her presentation, the history professor looked at you and shook his head as though he was deeply disappointed when clearly, he was annoyed.

‘It’s my last warning, miss,’ the man stated and you were genuinely surprised that he hadn’t memorised your name by now. After all, it wasn’t your first class with him and you had never been a silent participant. ‘If you keep disturbing the peaceful learning environment, I will need to send you out of my class and mark this lesson as a missed lesson next to your name in the roster,’ he informed you, although it was more like a threat.

Okay, maybe he did know your name. He just didn’t bother to address you respectfully.

You pressed your lips into a firm line, contemplating whether getting into a useless fight with your professor would have been worth it, but ended up biting into your cheek from the inside once again instead of reciting your rights as a student of this institute. It didn’t matter what rights a piece of paper gave you in your country when your opinion differed from what was accepted and encouraged by those above you - expected and demanded if you didn’t feel like sugarcoating the truth.

Consequently, you fully intended to stay put until the end of the class because it was still too early into the semester to waste one of the three lessons you were allowed to miss in each seminar, but as soon as Kang Yohan’s face was staring back at you from the next presenter’s slides, you knew you wouldn’t be able to keep your mouth shut. Thus, you did both yourself and the class a favour when you shoved your laptop into your backpack and walked out of the classroom without a word.

The sound of your steps echoed off the walls of the semi-abandoned hallways, but the relative silence didn’t bother you, nor did the glances you got from those who saw you walking out of a classroom before the official end of the period. Confident, you headed towards the library on the first floor with your chin high and your facial expression unbothered.

It wasn’t the first time you chose your beliefs (and your pride) instead of letting a professor humiliate you in front of a whole class, after all.

You were doing some research for another class, sipping on your iced coffee despite the late hour, reading through statistics about crime rates and the judicial system, when Shota took a seat by the table you had been occupying since your last class for the day. You narrowed your eyes as you let your gaze loiter over his dishevelled figure, but said nothing before you turned back to your laptop. Being neighbours with the guy, you whole-heartedly believed that some things considering him was better left unasked. That way, you weren’t an accomplice.

‘Are you still looking for a way to get inside that institute?’ He asked while he reached out for your drink and took a casual sip of the bitter beverage like it was his.

You tore your gaze from the screen and leaned your back against your chair without making the slightest attempt at getting your drink back from the younger. Instead, you linked your arms in front of your chest and observed his face with caution. The yellowish bruise under his left eye and the cut on his cheek promised nothing good, but you knew Shota meant danger mostly for himself and rarely for the people around him.

‘The Dream House Medical Center?’ You asked just to confirm that you were thinking of the same building and all he gave you was a nod and a lopsided smile. ‘Yeah, I do, actually.’

Even though you still had a whole year before you should have started on your masters thesis, you already had a pretty firm idea of what you would have liked to write about: Kang Yohan, the misjudged judge who had died nearly a decade ago in the explosion of the courtroom where the infamous live court show had been broadcasted. That day, South Korea had lost not only the president and the first lady of the country, but five other powerful and rich people as well, all seven of them corrupt to the core yet labelled as victims of a self-assured psychopath. It boiled your blood whenever you thought of them, how in today’s history books, they were the casualty of an anti-national act conducted in an attempt to overthrow the administration.

Your fists were trembling as your nails sank into the soft flesh of your palms. You swore, you would clear the judge’s name one day in the future and make everyone see those lies that they were constantly fed by the government. Your thesis paper, the detailed research none of your professors would be able to oppose, would be the first step down the road.

But to be able to start marching, you had to get inside the Dream House Medical Center.

‘Any suggestions?’ You asked when the silence got too loud, not breaking eye contact even when you could feel the first tear drops forming in the corner of your eyes. Making a deal with Shota was never easy, the boy did nothing for free, not even for his closest friends, but he wouldn’t have brought up the topic just to tease you. He had something to offer and you knew when to be patient.

‘I got my hands on some interesting intel, so I can get us in and out without any of the guards noticing,’ he informed you, lazily sipping on your drink as though he hadn’t just knocked you off your feet with his statement. You were trying to find a way inside that building for months by then, because while it was supposed to be an abandoned institute - it was a part of a failed charity project after all - it was unreasonably heavily guarded.

Taking a deeper breath to ground yourself, you put your elbows on the table in front of your laptop and leaned forwards.

‘Name your price,’ you demanded quietly, earning a genuine smile from the boy.

‘Help me with the university interview. I need dirt on your professors and those you don’t have classes with,’ Shota negotiated and honestly, the only reason you were able to swallow down the laugh that was scratching your throat was the fact that you needed his help. If you could have afforded him getting sulky, you would have ruffled his messy hair and pinched his cheeks before you told him you would have helped him anyway.

He was clearly doing you a favour for free while pretending that he was a businessman who made no exceptions. It made you wonder whether he had gotten beaten up when he had tried to find information on the Dream House for you or the two things were completely irrelevant. A selfish part of you that didn’t want to deal with the guilt wished it was the latter, but deep down you knew Shota wouldn’t have held back something so huge just to share it with you at the perfect moment.

You had both learned early on in your lives that perfect moments were created; they didn’t just come to those who were patiently waiting.

‘Want it written down or is it enough if I tell you everything I know?’ You asked with a small tilt of your head, playing along and taking on a more serious tone. Meanwhile, you glanced down at your laptop and pulled up a blank document on your screen. The chances that none of your professors would have been present at Shota’s interview was high, so you wanted to make sure you had info on those who might have been possible candidates. For that, you needed to prepare a long list with every professor from the Business Faculty on it and ask around in the KU group chats you weren’t a part of yet.

‘Written down,’ Shota said and you acknowledged his choice with a low hum and a nod as you pulled up your university’s website and copied the names of the listed professors to your document. You also made a second list that contained the names of students you personally knew and would have vouched for, hence could have sought out for help.

‘Consider it being done,’ you preened, scanning through your lists one more time before you closed the tab and saved a couple of important websites regarding your assignment for your class as bookmarks. You made sure your laptop was turned off properly before you shoved it into your bag. ‘About the Dream House…’ you started, trying to sound as nonchalant as you could despite the light buzzing in your veins. ‘When are we going?’

‘Where are you going?’ Choi Jiung’s voice cut off your impromptu discussion before it could have started and you sighed, disappointed that you had let your excitement get the best of you when you should have seen the interruption coming. After all, Jiung was well aware that you preferred studying on campus over writing your papers in your own flat. He also knew that Shota liked tagging along when you had classes after six, because it meant that chances you would stay at the nearby coffee shop until closing time was high and he hated when you walked home on your own so late at night. Thus, when Jiung was looking for his friend, all he needed to do was checking the spots you frequented at.

‘None of your business, Choi,’ you grumbled while you leaned back against your chair and linked your arms in front of your chest.

Frustrated, you rolled your eyes when Jiung put a cup of perfectly untouched iced coffee on the table in front of you, but reached out for the drink when you saw Shota eyeing it like he was seconds away from stealing that, too.

The silence that fell on your table wasn’t new. It was a recurring phenomenon in your friends group whenever Jiung and you were joined by a less talkative person - so basically anyone other than Keeho or Intak. And while at first it had made you anxious, because you had felt as though you should have been able to initiate or at least keep up a pleasant conversation with people you considered close friends, by now you knew silence was absolutely fine as well. In fact! It was rather nice to enjoy the tranquillity around people who accepted you the way you were: stubborn, strong-willed and curt when you had nothing important to say.

‘What got your panties in a twist this time?’ Shota’s snarky question shook you out of your thoughts, his dark eyes fixed on nothing in particular making you wonder whether he was talking to you or the blond boy on his other side.

You opened your mouth for an equally sarcastic answer when Jiung let out a loud huff and cut you off with his own mocking reply.

‘What else? She tried to sabotage my presentation. Again,’ he accused and you rolled your eyes without giving too much thought to the action. All three of you knew damn well that you would have never stooped so low; your morals simply wouldn’t have let you play dirty much to Shota’s disappointment. The younger had tried to make you see numerous times that the world wasn’t fair to those who played by the rules, but you stood your ground each and every time. You wanted to become an exceptional judge just like Kang Yohan and his mentee, Kim Gaon. You were determined to lead by example as well - with the right example!

‘Oh, grow up, Choi Jiung, would you? My questions were spot on,’ you retorted, slim fingers turning white around your drink.

Looking around, you had to remind yourself that just because it was late, the coffee shop still had a fair amount of customers, thus you should have kept your voice low to not disturb their peace. Still, resisting the urge to call the blond boy out on his bullshit, as he wouldn’t have contributed to your daily caffeine intake if he had been indeed pissed, was challenging. He got under your skin way too easily.

‘No. You were once again pressing your false narrative,’ Jiung tried to correct you, talking to you in a condescending way that made you feel like a child. If looks could have killed, he would have been dead even before his gaze landed on you. ‘One day, these types of questions will cost you a lot more than a missed class.’

You gulped down the coffee in your mouth along with the non-existent bile that somehow did scratch your throat.

‘Is that a threat?’ You spat, unaware of the sadness in Jiung’s eyes as you were hyper fixated on the possible implication behind his words. It made you see red, grip tight around your cup and nails digging into the plastic with so much force, Shota had to take the coffee out of your hand and put it on the table before it could have overflowed.

‘Friendly advice,’ Jiung corrected you once again and it was only due to the years of practice the orphanage had given you that you hadn’t screamed it into his face that you didn’t consider him as a friend. Not like you did Keeho and Theo and sure as hell not like you did Shota. The sole reason you let him be a part of your life despite his questionable political beliefs was your respect for the others.

With a resigned sigh, Jiung turned his gaze away and shook his head as though he couldn’t have taken your stubbornness any longer. Well, you didn’t ask him to.

‘I’m done for today,’ you stated, leaving the half-finished drink on the table as you grabbed your bag and slid your gaze to the younger. ‘Shota?’

The boy stood up from his seat immediately and reached out for the abandoned beverage, his smile content as he took a big sip from the iced coffee. He patted Jiung’s shoulder twice in gratitude, then squeezed it lightly for good measure.

You turned away, refusing to feel guilty for putting an abrupt end to the conversation. It was a long day, getting into a heated argument about the government with Jiung for the second time that day was the last thing you needed. Especially at a public place that you loved and where you were a regular.

‘See you tomorrow, hyung,’ Shota bid his goodbye while you sealed your lips and gave Jiung a half-assed bow because it was a habit drilled into your DNA. It was a fundamental part of your culture: you bowed to people at every single encounter, at every goodbye and sometimes in between when the situation required it. You didn’t have to respect someone to follow the most basic rules of etiquette in their company.

If Jiung had said anything to your best friend before the younger boy followed you towards the exit, you hadn’t heard him, but you did sneak a peek at him sitting casually by your table before you closed the door shut.

Not that you would have admitted it to anyone.

Your palms were sweaty while you were waiting with Shota for what you supposed was some sort of sign that you could finally enter the building without getting arrested for trespassing. Admittedly, you had never felt more nervous in your entire life: your current actions going against your moral code while simultaneously aiding your fight against the propaganda that your whole nation was fed with on a daily basis. You needed evidence, desperately so, but the thought of breaking into the Dream House Medical Center freaked you out more and more as the crucial moment came closer and closer to your present.

Only a couple hundreds of metres from the abandoned institute, it felt too real. You weren’t sure you were ready and started to question whether you were made for the job.

It shouldn’t have surprised you that at one point your feet started drumming a clumsy rhythm on their own accord, but your lips still parted slightly when you felt a warm hand on your knee, over your ripped jeans. Staring at Shota’s hand, you lifted your head to look at his face and shot a tight-lipped smile at him as a sign of gratitude for his silent support. You could do this. It had been your idea from the beginning. You were doing the right thing.

So why did the proverb ‘the end justifies the means’ sound like a cheap excuse of a criminal?

‘Nervous, kiddo?’ A familiar voice pulled you out of the self-doubting spiral of thoughts and you turned towards the newcomers with panic in your eyes. Not counting the two of you, no one should have known about your plan. So why were two of your friends staring at you like they were simultaneously doubting your sanity and admiring you for your guts?

You looked around to check your surroundings in search of the others, then let your gaze fall back on Keeho and Jiung when you realised it was only them. 

‘What are you guys doing here?’ You whisper-shouted, unable to decide how you felt about their presence. For 1) since it was your research, you felt like you were responsible for the safety of everyone who got involved in the fieldwork and looking after Shota in itself was already a bit emotionally overwhelming for you under the current circumstances. 2) Because of the very same reason, you were relieved that there would be more pairs of eyes during the investigation that could watch out for the potential danger.

Still, a part of you felt more people meant a bigger risk. It didn’t help that you were already fidgety due to your growing guilt that pressed down on your chest.

‘Supervising,’ Keeho explained, his tone lowkey condescending like he couldn’t believe he needed to spell it out to you. Like it was natural that he was there even though he shouldn’t have known about the trespassing to begin with. ‘Obviously, I won’t just let Shota break into a guarded institute on his own,’ he added, coaxing a displeased scoff out of you with his complete disregard for your presence and capabilities.

You wanted to remind the boy that you were only two weeks younger than him and that you would have made sure Shota didn’t get in trouble even if it had meant endangering your own life, but in the end you swallowed back your remarks. Mostly, because you believed it would have been unwise to start a fight so close to the main gates. Also, because your muscles were non-existent in comparison with the older boy’s. Realistically speaking, he had more potential than you when it came to protecting your friends.

‘What about you?’ You turned towards Jiung, one of your slim brows raised with challenge. For some reason, you doubted he had come with Keeho to help you in any way. If anything, he might have tagged along to give you another unasked, friendly advice.

‘I came to see your face when you realise you’ve been wrong all this time,’ he claimed with a shrug, not putting too much effort into protecting your feelings. Although, had he ever? The thought that he found true joy in your failures left a bitter taste in your mouth.

The retort that he had come in vain had already been on the tip of your tongue when Shota nudged you with his shoulder and pointed at the entrance once he gained your attention.

‘It’s time,’ he said. You gulped before you acknowledged his statement with a nod.

Considering how many walls you had bumped into while you had been trying to find a way inside the building in the legal way, how unhelpful every single one of the government agents had been and how many armed guards you had seen around the building in the last hour, you had assumed that walking inside the medical centre would be challenging despite your best friend’s intel. Blame it on those old school action movies Intak loved so much, but you were convinced that you would be in a race against time, that you would need to run and jump and use your non-existent muscles to get through some hidden back door.

Walking up to the front door with confident strides and opening the huge lock with a key was oddly anticlimactic. You had to pinch your arm to make sure you weren’t dreaming.

‘How the hell did you put your hands on that thing?’ Keeho asked, stealing the words out of your mouth.

Shota closed the double door behind your backs like he had just gotten home, then turned on his flashlight similar to the one in your pocket. You mimicked him and turned on yours, too.

‘I asked for a copy? Don’t you know acting suspicious is what makes people aware you’re up to something?’ He asked, not really expecting an answer based on the way he turned his back on your small group and started to walk down the hallway. ‘It’s all about confidence.’

You put your hand on Keeho’s shoulder and squeezed it lightly as a reminder that you didn’t have time for further interrogation nor was it the most suitable place for a parental scolding, then followed your best friend until you reached the first intersection. There, you waited for the others to catch up with you and you decided to split up. You didn’t have all the time in the world after all, only two hours until the next error in the system of the graveyard shift.

‘I’ll check the basement,’ you volunteered and shook your head dismissively when you saw Jiung open his mouth from the corner of your eyes. ‘Keeho’s babysitting, there are too many floors for just two groups,’ you said, slowly turning towards the blond boy with your entire body.

‘Who said I was about to follow you?’ He retorted with a huff and took the flashlight out of Keeho’s hand as he turned on his heels and marched up the stairs. You kept your eyes on his back until he disappeared, then shot a tight-lipped smile in the others’ direction before you made them promise to take pictures of anything suspicious or interesting-looking.

You hoped Jiung would do the same as well even though he hadn’t waited around for your reminder. You had faith in Shota and his dubious network, you really did, but you genuinely doubted you would have had another chance like this in the near future if you had failed to gather enough evidence due to your slipshod job.

On your way to the basement, you kept your mind occupied with random songs from the last decade they still played on the radio just so it wouldn’t have turned on you and made you see things in the darkness that weren’t there. Your imagination might not have been too wild, but being alone in a building where you assumed poor people had been killed for how much their organs were worth was scary. You didn’t believe in ghosts and other supernatural creatures, but you wouldn’t have blamed their souls for sticking around, angry, if they had existed.

The dust in the air was heavy and it stuck to your skin uncomfortably as you checked each and every door that opened from the hallway underground. Most of the rooms were unlocked, the surgical equipment inside of them outdated and untouched. A part of you - the same part that was convinced of Kang Yohan’s innocence - was eager to see them as evidence of human experiments, but the rational side of you was aware that things like these were normal at a medical facility. If you had shown photos of these to anyone, they would have focused on the fact that you shouldn’t have been in the building.

You gulped, growing frustrated, as you checked the time on your phone and walked up to the next door. You still had some time.

Admittedly, you knew you could have spent an entire day in the building and still felt like you needed more to do a thorough research, but beggars couldn’t have been choosers. Thus, you locked your panicking thoughts in the back of your mind and opened the drawers in the next room that looked more like an abandoned office than a medical room.

‘Come on!’ You groaned when you found the third drawer in a row empty, getting on your knees without much thinking to force the last one open as well. At first glance, it didn’t seem like you should have had a key to open it, so you hoped it was only stuck, preferably due to the weight of the papers inside of it.

Two of your nails broke in the process and your fingertips were burning, but eventually you managed to open the lowest drawer, its content plenty and full of names you weren’t familiar with. However, you did recognise one: Heo Joongse. He had been one of the “victims” of the explosion that had killed Kang Yohan. He had been the former president of South Korea.

Hands shaking nervously, you started to take pictures of the documents, but because of the lack of proper lighting, they turned out to be unreadable. Therefore you shoved them under your sweatshirt on a whim.

‘Noona! Noona, it’s time to go!’ You heard your best friend calling for you and you stilled, contemplating whether you should have pretended that you hadn’t heard him and checked one more room or let him know where you were. He must have calculated with finding you, he knew how you got when you… ‘Noona, we have to get out of here!’

You closed your eyes and let out a displeased sigh. You should have met them upstairs, close to the front door. If Shota was in the basement, it meant you hardly had any minute to waste. Even if the digital numbers in the upper right corner of your phone’s screen said otherwise.

‘I’m coming!’ You shouted on your way to the hallway, giving a resigned look to the rest of the basement, to all those closed doors you hadn’t had a chance to open, then ran towards Shota’s voice. It came from the stairs that led to the ground floor.

The question of what had happened that you needed to leave twenty minutes sooner was on the tip of your tongue, but you didn’t have a chance to say it aloud. The moment you opened your mouth, your best friend grabbed your wrist and pulled you in the opposite direction from the main entrance, confusion making you uncharacteristically obedient and unresponsive.

You didn’t question him when he shoved you inside a dirty restroom, nor did you ask a single thing when Keeho emerged from one of the toilet cubicles. You simply let the older boy take the lead and help with your balance when you stepped on top of a half-broken plastic toilet lid that was supposed to support your weight and made you tall enough to reach the edge of the open window on the tiled wall.

‘You really think I can…’ pull myself up; you wanted to ask, but before you could have finished your question, someone grabbed your arms from the outside and got you out of the building with one swift movement.

With a scream stuck in the back of your throat, you looked down at Jiung with slightly parted lips and gulped nervously when your gaze fell on your palm atop of his chest. You swore, you could feel his heart beating like crazy under your palm, your own mimicking the rhythm and pushing enough blood to your neck and cheeks to turn them ruby red.

‘Get up! We’re running out of time.’ It was Shota whose voice pulled you back to the present, but you were sure, even without stealing a glance at the boy on your right, that it was Keeho who pulled you off Jiung and pulled you towards the iron fences.

You stumbled in the dark, unaware of when you had lost your flashlight and whether the guys had turned theirs off on purpose. By the time your friends deemed that you were far enough from the facility, your lungs were screaming for a break and every breath felt like you were inhaling pieces of broken glass.

‘What the hell happened?’ You demanded, even though it seemed you were the only one who thought your frustration and anger were justified.

‘That your stupid obsession almost got us in trouble, that’s what happened,’ Jiung screamed at your face, a few drops of saliva landing on your burning cheek due to your close proximity. You balled up your fists, your knuckles turning white from how hard you clenched them.

‘Shota said it was safe! And I don’t remember asking you to join us,’ you retorted as calmly as you could manage with the growing annoyance you were feeling.

Sure, you knew trespassing had been a gamble, that you had been going against everything you believed in just to prove a point, but you had done nothing inside that damned building that could have put everyone in danger. Whatever had happened it hadn’t been on you, you refused to believe it.

‘It was the USB. We found a bunch of them in one of the offices, but one of them was still plugged into a smashed PC, so I pulled it out,’ Shota confessed at the same time Keeho said:

‘I think I broke a lock I shouldn’t have.’

You closed your eyes, heaving. Honestly, the second option sounded more possible, but you felt like stating the obvious or calling Jiung out on his freaking tendency to put the blame on you would have done more harm than good. The atmosphere was already tense, making it worse while you were still relatively close to the crime scene would have been stupid.

‘It’s okay, it doesn’t matter,’ you concluded because crying over spilled milk would have been just as idiotic. You had gotten in and out without encountering any of the guards, no one had known your faces, your identities were safe. You might have felt bitter about leaving so soon, but at the end of the day, you were all unharmed and that was what mattered.

You straightened your back and opened your eyes.

‘Let’s go home,’ you exclaimed and shot a genuine smile in Shota’s direction to soothe the guilt that was written all over his face.

When Jiung bumped into your shoulder on purpose, you gritted your teeth, but followed him towards the main road. You decided not to ask him whether he had found anything useful as you were sure he wouldn’t have told you even if he had done, and pointed at your tummy with a mischievous wink when Shota did the same with his pockets where he hid the old USB sticks.

You might not have been able to check everything you had wanted, but your mission hadn’t been a complete failure, after all. And that… that sure as hell made you feel like you had accomplished something.

A couple of days later, you were in the university library, working on your assignment on the live court show’s effects on the judicial system and the shift of responsibility the DIKE app had contributed to when citizens had been given the power to decide the defendants were guilty or not guilty, when Choi Jiung walked up to your table and shut down your laptop with a fixed combination of keys. To say you were furious would have been an understatement. You were livid.

‘Do you want to die? The hell is wrong with you?’ You spat, pushing yourself into a standing position in an attempt to look more intimidating despite still being significantly shorter than the boy. It didn’t matter. Anger could take people farther than one would have thought.

Instead of answering your question with words, Jiung threw a small pile of papers on your desk. You looked down at it with narrowed eyes before you took it in your hand. There was no need for you to scan through the provocatively phrased paragraphs. Just by looking at the header, you knew it was your thesis abstract.

‘Where did you get this?’ You asked, trying not to wrinkle the document in case it was indeed the original copy that you had put on your professor’s table in the teachers’ office after your last class.

‘Do you want to die?’ He threw the question back at you, his tone just as angry as yours even though the flames in his eyes burned with a different colour. He seemed a lot more serious rather than borderline panicking. His reaction closed up your throat, but you kept your chin high to prove a point. ‘I’m serious! You can’t be this stupid, can you?’

You took a shallow breath, then another one and another one for good measure before you crouched down for your bag and shoved your laptop inside of it.

‘You saw that place. They’re guarding it for a reason. Even if you really didn’t find anything on the first floor…’ You took another breath to calm yourself. You still had time before your next class, so you could put the abstract back on your professor’s desk like Jiung had never put his hands on it.

‘You can’t become a judge with this mindset. It’s anti-nationalist,’ he pressed, stopping you with his fingers hanging around your wrist like a chain. You shook it off, his rough touch, and turned around to look him in the eyes.

‘I’m ashamed of you. People like you should never be allowed to become a judge in the first place,’ you said, quiet enough to not draw anyone’s attention, but loud enough to hurt.

You meant it: every word. Those people who deliberately turned a blind eye on the flaws in the stories the system tried to feed you with, on the government’s wrongdoings just because it was easier, shouldn’t have been given power to decide who deserved a severe punishment for breaking the law and who acted upon self-preservation. 

The two of you kept eye contact for longer than it was necessary, therefore you were about to turn your back on Jiung when you got a text via kakao. With furrowed eyebrows, you fished the device out of your pocket and checked the incoming messages.

shota 😤: “don’t come home!” shota 😤: “i’m serious” shota 😤: “stay with the hyungs”

The urgency in his double texts made you feel alarmed, so you sent a quick message to both Shota and Keeho, then threw your phone into your bag and rushed out of the library.

There was no way you would let your best friend deal with whatever trouble he was in on his own when you had a good guess where he was and it was clearly too big for him to handle it alone.

Jiung tried not to think too much into it when you didn’t show up at class the day after you had stormed out of the library. He really tried not to panic when he couldn’t see you at any of your favourite places around campus, although he was familiar with your schedule and habits: when you preferred the university library over the coffee shop, which classes you would have never skipped for the world and how many papers you had to submit before the upcoming midterms.

It wasn’t unusual that you didn’t pick up the phone to him, so he didn’t even bother after the first futile attempt, aware of the line he had crossed when he had taken your thesis abstract that he shouldn’t have even read, but when even Soul refused to read his messages, he knew something was off. The boy would have never ignored his hyungs just because he might have taken your side. At least, he had never done so before and god, the younger sided with you almost all the time.

Lacking any better idea, Jiung dialled Keeho’s number, letting out a relieved breath when the older picked up the phone after the second ring.

‘Have you heard from Soul? His bestie hasn’t shown up at uni since last week,’ he started without beating around the bush, too frustrated (and worried) to prolong the conversation. He wanted to know that you were both okay and his worst nightmare hadn’t come true despite your stubbornness.

Had you gotten in trouble with the authorities because of your big mouth? Who had you been texting to before you had turned your back on him?

‘Not since last week. He said he would be out of town for a couple of days,’ Keeho answered. ‘Same for the firecracker. She texted that she’s worried about Shota, but then she claimed everything was fine, so I didn’t ask,’ he explained, not going into too much detail about why he hadn’t pushed when he was so overprotective of the babies of their group. Jiung knew the older boy was balancing two jobs to provide for not only himself, but Jongseob, too. Life was tough ever since the youngest had run away from home.

If you had told Keeho things were okay, Jiung understood why he had chosen to believe you and stay at his workplace or steal himself an hour of extra sleep.

‘Did he say where he was going?’ Jiung asked, wondering whether he was overreacting or the nagging voice inside of his head was right about you. Even if he doubted you considered him as a friend, he would have liked to believe that he knew the core of your personality. There was no way you would have deliberately ditched your studies when you had worked so hard to get accepted on scholarship.

‘No,’ came the answer after a momentary break, silence filled with pangs of distress. ‘Why?’

‘I’m not sure, but I have a bad feeling about this. I’ll go and check their place,’ Jiung said, checking his timetable and deciding against showing up at his last class as it wasn’t a seminar and most importantly, it wasn’t a lecture he was sharing with you.

‘Now?’

‘Now,’ he nodded out of habit as he threw the strap of his messenger bag over his head and put on his cap.

‘I’ll be there in an hour. Wait for me!’ Keeho asked and Jiung let out a loud, affirmative hum before he hung up the phone.

The blond boy didn’t waste any time. He called a cab with his kakao app and asked the driver to drive as fast as he could once he got inside the car. He promised to double the fare if the old man got to your place in under an hour (which would have been an achievement in itself in the afternoon traffic).

‘We have arrived, mister,’ the taxi driver announced and Jiung indeed paid plenty before he jumped out of the car and rushed upstairs. He had only ever been to your place once, when it had been your birthday in freshman year of uni and Soul had organised you a surprise party with your favourite strawberry cake and a second-hand laptop for your studies. Jiung couldn’t remember anymore what he had bought for you. Had he even bought you anything? 

He shook his head. That wasn’t important at that moment. Making sure you were alright and simply avoiding him was.

The first alarming sign was how easy it was to get inside your flat: all Jiung needed to do was push down the handle and the door was open. He didn’t need a key, a keycard or a passcode. His heart sank into his stomach when he crossed the threshold.

Jiung needed to bite into his lips to not make the mistake most people made on tv whenever they found themselves in a similar situation. Because as ridiculous as it sounded, his first instinct was to call for your name and announce his arrival, which would have been stupid. What if someone was here? He really shouldn’t have done that.

So he didn’t. Instead, he took off his shoes and checked every room as silently as possible until he made sure he was alone. Then, he started to go through your stuff systematically: skimming your mails, searching through your drawers and desk, rummaging your bathroom while simultaneously trying to not invade your privacy and finding clues about where you had been and what had happened. He was in the middle of looking for hidden compartments in your walls when Keeho arrived.

‘Is anyone here?’ The older boy asked, coaxing an unamused scoff out of Jiung with his loud question. Of course, he was acting like every idiot in a horror movie who was about to die.

‘Bedroom,’ Jiung grumbled, keeping his focus on the task in hand. He vaguely remembered Soul bragging about the coolest compartments he had installed in both of your flats, so that you could have hid your cash there and never gotten robbed. They had to be big enough to store a handful of stolen USB sticks. If only he could have known for sure there was nothing on them that would want dangerous people to make you disappear.

‘What happened here?’ Keeho asked, clearly taken aback by the state of your room.

Jiung didn’t bother to look around. He knew damn well the disaster he had left behind when he had started to get more and more frustrated, too impatient to put everything back to its place when they hadn’t given him the answers he was looking for.

‘The kimbap in her fridge went wrong days ago. She wouldn’t have left it there if she’d had a choice,’ the blond boy stated and it was ridiculous really, how sure he was in certain things when it came to you. But he just knew. He had caught you eating food you didn’t enjoy just because you had already paid for it or it had been for free. Even if you had been in a hurry, you wouldn’t have left it there to rot.

‘You sound pretty paranoid. And worried,’ Keeho commented, but walked up to your bedside table without much questioning and moved it aside. Then, he knocked on the beige wall a few times, gaining Jiung’s attention when suddenly, the thud gave a different sound.

Jiung crawled towards the bed on his hands and knees, reaching for the content of the hidden compartment once his friend opened it with ease that showed he knew exactly what he was doing. In small stacks, there were a couple of 5000 and 10000 won bills, less in total than the amount of Jiung’s allowance had gotten regularly in middle school.

Jiung’s throat closed up when his eyes fell on the custom-made keychain he had forgotten a long time ago, the one he had given you for your birthday and the one that sat on top of a pile of dirty papers. He took it into his hand and shoved it into his pocket before he skimmed the documents. On each page, they had the Dream House’s stamp on their upper left corners, which meant you might have found these in the facility’s basement.

Damnit! You had never mentioned you had found something that night, let alone something that looked like trouble.

‘What do they say?’ Keeho’s question came from Jiung’s right, your worn bed cracking under the older boy’s weight. 

‘At first glance? That they are lucky if they’re in the countryside,’ the younger answered, his heart rate picking up because of the dreadful pictures his brain was throwing at him about you and Soul behind bars, the two of you in separate interrogation rooms, powerful people trying to break you to turn against each other.

Jiung looked around in search of his backpack, then stood up and lifted it off the floor, so that he could shove the documents between two books he had been supposed to take back to the university library. They didn’t matter anymore. You and Soul did.

‘Where are you going?’ Keeho asked, and while Jiung had a concrete destination in mind, he was contemplating whether he should have told the other the whole truth. Keeho hadn’t seen the late president’s name on the documents yet and while Jiung would have also needed more time to figure out what you had gotten yourself into exactly, he had a vague idea. He didn’t want to put his friend in more danger in case he was right.

On the other hand, he was aware how important Soul was to Keeho. Obviously, the older boy cared about each one of his close friends, even people he deemed honest and kind, but Soul was like a brother to him. If Jiung had been in his shoes, he would have resented whoever kept secrets this serious from him.

‘I’ll ask Jiseong if he heard anything,’ he settled for the truth, albeit giving a curt answer. He would cross that bridge when he got there. For the time being, he didn’t want to complicate things even more. Not to mention that his step-brother would have scolded him and might have outright refused to tell him any details if he had shown up at his office with someone who had nothing to do with their family or their social circle.

After meeting you, Jiung had started to question whether he was able to read other people as well as his family expected him to, but recognizing the fine mixture of doubt, hurt and worry in Keeho’s eyes was too easy.

‘You will call me,’ the words came out pseudo-commanding, like the boy knew no objection, but Jiung noticed the pinch of uncertainty that made Keeho’s voice crack by the end, turning the statement into a semi-question. He didn’t call him out on his lack of faith in his character, mostly because Jiung himself was unsure of numerous things, too, regarding the situation.

Therefore, he settled for a nod instead of a verbal promise and left the building. The papers in his backpack felt heavy, like rocks that were trying to pull him underwater, but nothing could have compared to the weight of the abandoned keychain in his pocket that you, for some reason, had kept at the same place you kept your treasures.

After a failed attempt at the District Court, Jiung decided to wait for his step-brother at his home office, which was basically a separate room on the second floor in their house, between their parents’ offices and across from his own study room. Aware of the importance of respect and good manners even when one wasn’t out in public, he knocked on the mahogany door and counted to three, seven, ten, before he entered.

Since the boy’s plan was to ask a few questions from his hyung about the Dream House Medical Centre and whether there had been any attempts at breaking into the abandoned building in the last couple of years - the more general his curiosity appeared to be, the safer for you and Soul -, he decided to jot down every aspect he needed to touch upon and tried to make the inquiries sound as academic and neutral as possible while he was waiting. A written list could have helped him make it look like he was working on an assignment of some sort.

Taking a seat by the massive desk in the left corner of the room, Jiung pulled out the upper drawer, looking for a piece of paper. He knew it was a little old-fashioned, that he could have taken notes on his phone as well, but there was something about a piece of blank paper that stimulated his brain. Thoughts and ideas came easier when he could feel the material against the mounts of his palm and the weight of the pen in his hand.

Jiung didn’t intend to pry. Why would he have? He had been raised to trust his family above everyone and everything and put his faith in the system blindly as his relatives had important roles in it for generations. However, it was undeniable that it was your thesis abstract staring back at him from the top of a smaller pile of papers in Jiseong’s drawer. Jiung needed to take it into his hands.

He didn’t have to read through the lines to make sure the paragraphs had been written by you. Even though your name was crossed out with a black marker, he knew it was yours. He had read your abstract before. God! He had told you it would have gotten you in trouble. He had just never assumed that his hyung would have also been involved in this mess somehow.

Desperate to not jump to false conclusions, Jiung put the document back into the drawer and closed it carefully. He leaned the back of his head against the chair and closed his eyes, trying to even his breathing. He couldn’t have allowed himself to act suspicious or else his brother would have kicked him out of his office before he could have uttered a single word.

‘What are you doing here?’ Jiseong’s thunderous voice filled the room, pulling the blond boy out of his messy thoughts. Jiung snapped his head in his brother’s direction, resisting the urge to gulp down the nervous knot in his throat or put on a fake smile.

‘Homework,’ he explained with his fidgety fingers clenched into fists and hidden under the desk. He needed to stop thinking about your abstract in the drawer and how it could have gotten there for not only his own sake, but yours and Soul’s as well. He had never been a man of emotions, he couldn’t have allowed to become one in such a delicate situation. ‘I mean, I need some answers I couldn’t find on the internet, nor in any of the books in the uni library,’ he added when his answer met with silence, putting effort into relaxing his tense muscles.

‘I see,’ Jiseong muttered, not taking his hawk eyes off his younger brother while he walked closer to the desk and along with it, to Jiung. The young man’s arms were crossed in front of his chest; his tailored suit devoid of any wrinkles. ‘Ask away then.’

Jiung wished he had had more time to prepare himself for this conversation. Sure, the boy had wanted to get over with the interrogation as soon as possible when he had decided to seek his hyung out right after he had left your flat, but that had been before he had found your thesis abstract. With this new discovery, he felt unprepared.

‘It’s common knowledge that the Dream House has been abandoned since judge Kang Yohan tried to use it to overthrow the government,’ he started with a well-known statement to steal himself a couple of more seconds. He usually used this method during presentations because talking about things he was certain about did wonders to his jittery nerves, but this time, the academic tone had no positive effect. The lingering uncertainty poisoned his confidence. ‘It’s heavily guarded, though. Why?’

‘Use your brain, Jiung-ah. Why do you think it needs to be guarded up to this day?’ The man asked in a chastising tone. It reminded Jiung of school breaks in the countryside that they had spent with their grandparents. It reminded Jiung of summer days when he had falsely thought he could have acted his age without unpleasant consequences.

He frowned, but gave a serious thought to the question and answered with his chin held high.

‘So people wouldn’t break in,’ he chose, because even before breaking into the Dream House and rummaging through the first floor, he had doubted there had been something or someone kept in there that could have escaped. Which could have only meant that the government wanted to keep people from entering.

‘And?’

Jiung furrowed his eyebrows in confusion, wondering whether his brother knew he had been there, inside the medical centre, when you had put your hands on those documents. Was there a specific answer Jiseong was expecting from him? Or should he have played it safe and pretended he didn’t know about the late president’s involvement in something that had gotten you in so much trouble, you and Soul had disappeared off the face of Earth?

‘There are people in our country who believe Kang Yohan was some sort of saint who wanted to protect the powerless from corruption even though he couldn’t have cared less about the poor and unprivileged,’ the young judge stated, destroying the remaining distance between himself and his brother. Jiseong put his palms on his desk and leaned closer to Jiung with a predatory glint in his hazel eyes. Like he was staring at a pitiful prey instead of someone he had to treasure and protect. ‘It’s guarded, so those with anti-nationalist ideas wouldn’t turn it into their own sacred place,’ he said, forcing the younger to hold his breath and listen. ‘They would crowd it. It would give them a place with meaning for gatherings and suddenly, their preaching would gain more credibility.’

At that moment, as he was staring at his step-brother, the blond boy couldn’t help but think of you and your reaction whenever he had said something to defend the system. He wondered whether he had sounded just as biassed and inimical to you as Jiseong did to him while he was talking about faceless people and their hypothetical actions when they hadn’t committed said crime yet.

He wondered whether the fact that he added that harmless “yet” at the end of the sentence in his head meant he was indeed the same.

‘Has anyone ever broken into that building?’ Jiung asked partly to cut the tension that grew with the silence, partly to check the credibility of his hyung’s words.

Jiseong took his hands off the desk and straightened his back. He shot a small smile in Jiung’s way and shook his head.

‘Never. Like you said, it’s heavily guarded. You have nothing to be worried about,’ he said, slowly loosing his necktie, piercing gaze poking holes into the skin between the younger’s eyes. ‘Any other questions?’

There were. Jiung had plenty of questions starting with why was your abstract in his drawer, what had they done to you and Soul, whether you two had been the first ones who had been dealt with this drastically or there were others, people who had no connection to people like Jiung who came from an influential family. However, putting these thoughts in words would have done more harm than good and Jiung wasn’t an idiot. He might have doubted Jiseong would have been able to make him disappear or it was really him who had been behind all of this, but Jiung knew he wasn’t untouchable.

‘No, nothing. Thanks,’ so he said and stood up from the chair as casually as he could manage before he bent down and picked up his backpack from the floor. He bowed to his brother like he always did when he was greeting his family members or saying goodbye to them, then straightened his back and waited to be dismissed, showing respect to his elder as he had been taught.

‘Go, wash up! It’s almost dinner time,’ Jiseong said and patted his brother’s shoulder once, twice, three times, before he turned his back on Jiung.

The younger didn’t hesitate to leave the room afterwards.

The thing was, whether his step-brother knew that Jiung had broken into the Dream House with you and the boys or not, Jiseong had lied to him. He also had your thesis abstract, the very same document Jiung had given back to you the day he had last seen you, which was more than a little concerning. Therefore, despite his own beliefs, Jiung needed to figure out what was going on and how deep his hyung was in the mess you had also gotten yourself and Soul into.

He needed to know you two were okay. The sooner, the better.

If anyone had caught the boy sneaking into his brother’s home office instead of attending his classes, Jiung would have been cursed out, then dragged into his room and locked up for several weeks. He knew because he had been driven to school and back home for a whole month in high school when his father had found out that he had drunk a beer with his friend in public despite being underaged. They had done it at a park where they had thought no one had been paying any mind to them, but they had been dead wrong as his then-friend’s mother had sent one of her secretaries to keep an eye on her son and they had gotten caught before they could have decided whether they had wanted to open the second can. The tension at home after that had been so messed up, Jiung hadn’t dared to break any rules for years.

That was, until he had met you.

Rummaging through Jiseong’s drawers turned out to be fruitless. Other than stationeries and a bunch of files about ongoing cases at the court, there was nothing to put his hands on, which was weird. Why wasn’t your paper in the upper drawer anymore?

Kneeling on the floor, Jiung leaned his forehead against the edge of the desk and closed his eyes. Looking through his hyung’s things was one thing. Should he have really logged into his computer, too? That sounded too extreme, but then again. The boy had already trespassed on government property just to keep an eye on you and make sure you were fine. He could have always claimed he needed Jiseong’s laptop for whatever excuse his mind would have provided at the time of need.

Letting out a troubled sigh, Jiung could hear your last words to him ringing in his ears. If he had decided to turn a blind eye on the weird happenings now, he would have turned into what you had hated the most in people like him. People with the proper background to make a real difference, but no desire to change what was wrong. He might have refused to believe you had been right about everything, nor did he think he was a bad person just because his values and beliefs were different from yours, but he couldn’t have lied to himself. Something about the Dream House project was fishy.

So Jiung sat on the chair and turned on the computer before he could have lost his courage. He checked every folder and every file systematically, then opened Jiseong’s email services and read through his mails, too. The more he saw, the less suspicious his brother appeared to be and the more guilty he felt, but it was too late to turn back. So he kept reading, until he did find something.

It was a forwarded email Jiseong had never replied to or if he had done so, he had already deleted the evidence. The original letter was a report on the break-in to the medical centre; the person claimed there had been three or four suspects, but no gender, approximate age or physical features had been stated. The first response was about the punishment of the guards who had been working that night; the second one was an ID number; the third said: it’s done. Collateral damage: one person.

Jiung’s hands were trembling slightly when in the last email attached to the conversation there was a follow-up report from his uncle. It had been sent at five in the morning, mere hours ago, and it said they were ready for shipping.

‘What the…’ he murmured under his nose, finding it hard to process that these people might have been talking about you.

Jiung deleted the search history and closed the browser. He turned off the computer and took a moment to think. Should he have visited his uncle’s researcher centre on his own or should he have told Keeho about these emails like he knew the older boy wanted him to? Should he have tried to figure out what was going on in the legal way or gone behind his uncle’s back, too, lacking spare time to waste? What had they meant by shipping anyway?

Before he left the office, Jiung took a quick look at the interior from above his shoulder, then stepped out to the hallway and fished his phone out of his pocket. He called Keeho and when it went to voicemail, he sent the older boy a cryptic text about how he needed him as soon as possible.

A rational part of Jiung was aware he needed backup, but he wouldn’t have waited hours just to hear back from his friend.

Luckily, Keeho had reached out to Jiung within an hour, hence the two boys could meet up at the 7-Eleven across from the research centre around three. If Jiung wanted to be honest, it was the worst time either of them could have picked: it wasn’t close to lunch break nor did it align with anything else that could have drawn the attention from them, but he didn’t want to wait until closing time. He wanted to check every room on every floor as soon as possible in case, for some reason, you and Soul were in there.

The more he thought about it, the more this place seemed like the perfect cover-up and this thought drove him up the wall.

‘Sorry we’re late,’ a familiar voice demanded attention, followed by a loud, screeching sound as the intruder pulled out the metal chair and sat next to Jiung. Intak’s smile was too wide for the older boy’s liking, but at least it didn’t look genuine. The visible distress that blended into his friend’s cheery facial expression made Jiung feel less paranoid even though he would have gladly accepted that he was overreacting and let the guys make fun of him if that had meant you and Soul were chilling somewhere in the countryside.

‘Why are you here in the first place?’ Jiung asked, his gaze sliding from Intak to Theo who also took a seat by the table in the meantime.

‘Duh. Cause I’m the best thief you know and you’re about to break into the enemy’s lair in broad daylight?’ Intak’s question was dripping with sarcasm, his cold tone making it sound more like a statement. Jiung bit back a nasty comment about how Soul would exceed him in no time with his connections all across the city because thinking of the younger came hand in hand with thinking of you and he couldn’t have that.

Jiung put his elbows on the table and intertwined his fingers. He raised a brow as he looked at Theo, the silent question why he was there hanging in the air.

At first, Theo’s response was no more than a shrug, but as the tension became palpable, he let out a defeated sigh. It was clear, he didn’t think he needed to explain himself, especially because both Soul and you were a part of their friends group.

‘Someone’ll need to stand guard.’ It wasn’t something Jiung could argue with even though he would have liked to believe that even if they had gotten caught, his connection to the head of the institute could have gotten them out of trouble. The thing was, he couldn’t say it for sure anymore and this uncertainty and his sudden lack of trust in his own blood were stressing him out. If the boy’s thoughts hadn’t returned to your disappearance every two minutes, he might have already broken down due to the revelations he had needed to face in the last twenty-four hours.

‘Cool. Now, let’s order something and talk about the plan,’ Intak proposed, earning a judging side-eye from Jiung and a frown from Keeho when he pushed his chair back, making more space for himself to be able to stand up and walk up to the counter. ‘What? You chose a café for this group meeting. It’s pretty suspicious if we don’t order anything,’ he put his weight on his palms, leaning closer to the boys over the table.

Jiung let out a scoff.

‘I’ll have one small iced cappuccino,’ Keeho broke the growing silence before he changed his mind. ‘You know what? I’m coming with you. We’ll be back in a minute.’

Instead of following his friends with his eyes, Jiung’s gaze stuck on the massive building on the other side of the road. He couldn’t not feel like in a matter of mere hours, the life he had been living would cease to exist for good. Whether because his own uncle and step-brother were parts of a mafia-like system he had been blind to all this time or because he had chosen to betray them when he had decided to paint them as the enemy, it didn’t matter. Their bond that had been built on trust would break beyond repair once Jiung broke into the research centre. It might have already done so when he had read through his hyung’s emails.

‘You won’t turn on us, will you?’ Theo’s question pulled the blond boy back to the present, his sharp eyes cutting deep into his being. He didn’t blame his friend, though, even if the assumption that he would have left them behind to save himself was offensive.

His pride could take this much.

‘I want to get them back,’ Jiung said firmly, hoping that the sincerity in his voice would be enough and Theo didn’t expect him to come up with a whole monologue about how he was ready to go against his own family and burn Seoul down to the ground to find you. Because honestly, he wasn’t ready for any of those. He wasn’t ready to face the elephant in the room.

‘And that’s what we’ll do,’ Keeho patted the blond boy’s shoulder, taking a seat next to Theo while Intak sat back on the empty metal chair on Jiung’s side. He slid a small cup of black coffee towards the younger and took a sip from his mint choco frappé.

‘Which part of the building we want to infiltrate first?’ Intak asked and Jiung also let out an amused laugh when he saw the other boy fishing out a worn laptop from his backpack. Neat, serious and responsible weren’t adjectives Jiung would have ever used to describe his hyung, but he sure took this job seriously. It was actually pretty impressive.

‘The sixth floor and the basement. You need a special keycard to get to both or the elevator won’t start,’ Jiung said, going into more details about the security system although his knowledge was very limited. He had been in the research centre only twice and both times he had been left with his father’s secretary in the canteen while his father and uncle had been talking about business.

The soft clatter of the keyboard filled the air and embraced Jiung with its normality; he took a sip from his coffee and let the warmth spread in his body. He might have hated the thought of his friends getting in trouble because of his fixation on your sudden disappearance, but a selfish part of him found solace in their presence. He wasn’t alone.

‘Okay guys, we’ll do it this way,’ Intak spoke up after a couple of mumbled swear words and a delighted hum that reverberated through all of them. He pushed the laptop further from himself so that everyone could take a look at the screen, then pointed at the live footage of one of the security cameras inside the building. ‘Based on their social media posts and public appearances, these two researchers are the easiest to lead on. Out of the two, this one here, Dr. Kim Ryeowook is the one who possesses one of the six magic cards to the elevator.’

‘You figured these all out, skimming through a few Facebook posts?’ Jiung raised a brow and it was actually Theo who shook his head first, reaching out to the laptop and clicking on the tab next to the one everyone was staring at.

‘Actually, it’s a text analysis software we still need to work on with Beomgyu for one of our classes. Once it’s finished, it’ll help people make decisions, like solving complex problems for them, based on the imported information,’ he explained, slapping Intak’s hands away so that he could check the accuracy of the information.

‘Oh, okay! That’s cool,’ Jiung nodded to himself, letting the guy overwrite what he needed to overwrite before he confirmed the prediction.

Dr. Kim Ryeowook. The man was currently walking down the hallway on the second floor. If they were lucky, they could snatch his keycard and sneak it back into his coat’s oversized pocket before his shift ended around six.

Jiung’s heart was about to explode when the elevator’s doors closed behind their back and he caught sight of the sterile interior of the sixth floor. As they were running low on time, he was only with Keeho while Intak searched through the basement, his humming deafening even from the other side of the call that kept them connected.

‘Could you please focus? Look for papers, anything about shipping can be important,’ Jiung scolded his friend while they walked down the eerie hallways that led from the elevator to the laboratories. Although they were both dressed in the white coats of the researchers’ uniform, the boy couldn’t have said he felt disguised enough. In fact! He felt as though they were both sticking out like sore thumbs. They were walking too slowly, the caution in their steps almost alarming.

‘I don’t know about you, guys, but I don’t think they’re storing papers in here,’ Intak’s voice sounded almost pained before his words got replaced by a very forced, very loud coughing fit. Jiung furrowed his eyebrows and exchanged a glance with Keeho.

‘What are yo—’

‘Fuck! Is this a freaking liver?’ Intak asked in terror, his question tugging on Jiung’s insides forcefully, making him nauseas. Because while it was a known fact that the employees at his uncle’s research centre were looking for ways to cure incurable diseases, Jiung would have never thought their vaccines and experimental medicines were tested on human organs. Sure, it must have been less cruel than testing them on living, breathing people, but the method still sent an unpleasant shiver down his spine.

Looking at Keeho and listening to Intak’s uneven breathing, his friends had to be of the same opinion.

‘Guys, some of the organs have the same set of numbers…’ Intak didn’t have to finish the sentence, it was obvious what that meant. Yet, he still forced the words out. ‘I think they belonged to the same person. Livers, kidneys, hearts. The list is endless,’ he said.

Jiung hadn’t realised he was shaking until Keeho wrapped his fingers around his wrist and stopped the uncontrollable trembling of his left arm.

‘Don’t touch anything. Take pictures if you can, but stay alert,’ Keeho instructed, then pulled Jiung forwards.

The two picked up their pace and walked down the hallway with purpose in each one of their steps. When they reached the first door on the left side, Jiung reached for the handle with his sweater paw covering his hand, then pushed it down so that they could enter.

Inside, there were two dozens of hospital beds, unconscious people tied to the meal structure of the furniture, high-tech machines monitoring their vitals. It shouldn’t have been as scary as it felt with the eerie silence filling the atmosphere.

‘Do you thin—’

Jiung didn’t let Keeho finish his question. He had to stay focused; if the older boy had asked him whether you and Soul were in one of these rooms, in one of these beds, his thoughts would have tried to come up with an answer and ended up being all over the place.

‘I’ll check the beds on the left,’ the blond boy volunteered, simultaneously praying that you weren’t one of these people and that you were here so he could get you out of here.

Jiung’s movements were frantic by the time he got to the last patient - victim? - at the end of the row without being able to touch you. He snapped his head towards Keeho who was taking pictures of the sick, fighting his frustrated tears, in hope of good news.

Neither of you was in the room. Or in the next one, or in the third.

‘I found him! Jiung, quick!’ Keeho exclaimed, his hands already working on detaching the machine from Soul’s fragile body. Jiung could taste bile in his mouth when he saw the bloody dressing around the pale boy’s torso. He couldn’t see the wound and he had never been particularly good at Biology, but he had a faint idea that the red line across the textile was somewhere around his friend’s right kidney.  

‘Hy-hyung,’ Soul mumbled weakly, his half-lidded eyes barely open and his lips a mixture of lilac and blue as his head fell on Keeho’s shoulder. It took everything in Jiung to not throw his million questions at him about you and his family members like a spoiled child.

‘It’s okay. We’ll get you out of here. You’re safe now,’ the older boy whispered against the boy’s temple, then looked around, searching for something. Jiung couldn’t stop thinking of… ‘That wheelchair! Jiung-ah, we need to put Shota into that wheelchair.’

The urgency in Keeho’s voice pulled Jiung back to the present and he rushed to the other side of the room to get one of the wheelchairs for Soul. Keeho was right, there was no way they could have sneaked their friend out of the research centre when he was in a half-unconscious state. A patient in a wheelchair might have been a tad less suspicious than a lax body hanging from their shoulder. Though, a voice in the back of his mind said neither was a common sight in the building.

Jiung’s entire body tensed up when Intak dropped the phone on the other side of the call. The younger’s curses and his desperate ‘No, no, no!’ froze his blood even though Intak’s voice was barely above a whisper due to the sudden distance between him and the electronic device.

Contemplating whether he should have helped Keeho with Soul or pleaded Intak to give them an explanation of what was going on in the basement, Jiung let out a frustrated sigh while he was keeping the wheelchair in place.

‘Intak! Intak! What’s wrong?’ Jiung tried to gain the boy’s attention, but it wasn’t working. So they exchanged a worried glance with Keeho and came up with a plan: they checked the last room on the sixth floor, then the older got Soul out of the building while Jiung went down the basement to collect their friend (and whatever he might have found or encountered with).

Jiung hoped it wasn’t one of the security guards who had caught him red-handed, but if it had been, he was Intak’s best chance to get out of trouble. And that was the least he could do for his friend as without him, they might have never gotten to Soul.

The thought that he might have been facing his uncle’s rage at any moment should have been more terrifying. Jiung had no doubt about it that under different circumstances, mere weeks ago, he would have shitted his pants from the presumption that he had messed up so bad, the old man needed to be involved in the situation. But as he was running in search of his friend, passing by shelves full of glass containers and what not, he feared whatever triggered Intak’s uncharacteristic reaction the most.

It didn’t take long for Jiung to find the room with the open door. On the contrary, it became pretty easy once he got within hearing range, because Intak’s painful wailing echoed off the walls and surrounded him on the empty corridor.

Trying to regulate his nerves, the first thing Jiung noticed when he crossed the threshold was how the room was slightly colder than the rest of the basement he had raced through. Then, the sour and irritating smell of vomit and formaldehyde.

‘Intak.’ Jiung crouched down in front of the younger boy, cupping his face with his own, trembling hands, so that the boy could take notice of his presence. He had never been particularly good at comforting others, but he had seen Keeho do it to the boys enough times to have a vague idea about what he should have done.

Jiung pulled his friend’s snotty and tear-stained face against his chest and patted his blade bones gently, for a calming rhythm. Meanwhile, he looked around the room with his chin resting on top of Intak’s head, trying to figure out what could have happened.

‘She… she’s… no-hoh,’ Intak cried out desperately as he grabbed Jiung’s arm and held onto him stronger, body shaking from the threat of another pile of bile-filled vomit. Jiung looked down at the boy and closed his eyes. Should he have reminded him that they had to leave the basement soon? Should he have asked for answers?

Keeho would have rocked him back and forth until he calmed down, but Jiung was afraid they didn’t have enough time.

‘Intak, we need to leave. The keycard, we…’ The rest of the words stuck in Jiung’s throat when Intak pushed him away aggressively, shaking his head and screaming frantically as though the blond boy said something unforgivable.

‘We, no! We have to… we need to! No!’ He protested, crawling backwards on his hands and feet until his head crashed against an open compartment in the wall. With bold, palm-sized characters, there was a number written on it: 0327.

Now that Jiung paid more attention to the odd-looking doors on the right side of the room, his anxiety started to pick up. He pushed himself into a standing position and walked past Intak, trying to take a better look at the inside of the compartment. It must have been the younger who had opened it, which could mean that whatever was in there had triggered his hysterical reaction.

Jiung’s brows were knitted together in confusion when he felt a hand on his ankle. He looked down at his friend, who was shaking his head, mouthing his objections so quietly, the blond boy didn’t hear a word.

He turned back towards the compartment and pulled it entirely open. The piece of white clothing that was hiding the thing underneath was as big as a comforter. Although it brought no warmth or comfort when removing it, Jiung’s gaze fell on a pile of chewed out skin. There were no bones, no organs inside the violated corpse, only damaged skin and a head with more stitches, indicating that he couldn’t have found the brain inside of the skull, either.

Jiung fell on his knees when he recognized the ghost of your features on the corpse’s face. He coughed up bile and that little food he had in his stomach before the first tears rolled down his cheeks. He felt sick.

Neither of the boys could have told how long they were cursing and crying in that room with your corpse mere centimetres from them, but at one point Intak’s ringtone overpowered their sobs and pulled them out of their heads. Although Intak was closer, it was Jiung who reached out for the abandoned device and received the call, his voice hoarse and weak that did barely a thing to alarm the caller on the other side.

‘What the hell guys! You have to get out of there! Dr. Kim is already looking for his keycard, they are on their way to the sixth floor and I’m pretty sure the basement will be the next,’ Keeho said, panic and worry evident in each one of his words.

Jiung looked at Intak, then shifted his gaze to the open compartment. A part of him knew that there was no way they could have taken your remains without throwing up at each corner on the way out, that letting the others see you like this, especially Soul, would have traumatised them for life. He was also aware that as stubborn as you were - had been -, you would have wanted him to pull himself together and get the hell out of there before those who had done this to you would have done the same with the people you cared - had cared - about.

But it was so freaking hard to leave you there or to get up from the floor.

‘Are you listening to me? Please, guys, come out! Whatever there is, it’s not worth it, please, guys, please!’ Keeho was pleading, forcing Jiung’s limbs to move.

‘We’re on our way, hyung. Stop worrying so much,’ he forced out the sassy reply to ease the older’s nerves before he hung up the call and shoved the phone into his pocket.

Considering that cleaning up their vomit wasn’t an option, Jiung didn’t bother with checking the room for potential evidence they could have left behind. On the other hand, he put the textile back on your corpse and made sure the compartment you were laying in was closed before he opened another one and took pictures of another damaged body. He didn’t have the heart to do the same to yours.

Dragging Intak out of the basement was time-consuming and by the time they reached the elevator, Jiung’s muscles were screaming for a break, but he pushed himself until they were out of the building. The boy knew that their initial plan had been to sneak the keycard back into Dr. Kim’s pocket or at least leave it at the reception desk as though someone had found it accidentally at one point of the day, but with the mess they had left in the morgue room, these kinds of details had lost their importance.

Instead, they crossed the street to get to the coffee shop’s parking lot at a speed that didn’t draw too much attention, then got in Theo’s old car and refused to talk about what they had found in the basement until they got somewhere safe in the outskirts of Seoul.

The shocking news of your death lingered around the boys like smoke: sickening, ugly, bad. They couldn’t get rid of it and it threatened their health, especially Soul’s who refused to eat or drink anything for days despite his weak state until Keeho aggressively shoved some plain porridge down his throat.

Intak and Jiung weren’t that much better. Jiung just knew you would have lectured him for his self-harming behaviour if you had seen him skip his meals, so he forced himself to chew and gulp without the slightest care for the taste of the dishes Keeho put on the table. They could have been the saltiest, most disgusting soups and porridges of his life, the boy wouldn’t have noticed.

Although they didn’t know whom they could trust, the boys agreed on one thing: they needed to show the country, if not the world, the real faces of those monsters who led their nation since the first wave of the pandemic. They had to make people see how terrible they were, so horrible, inhuman things like this could have never happened again. 

The problem was that even when they tried to upload the pictures they had taken on the web, they got taken down almost immediately. Then, after two weeks of futile attempts at sharing the evidence with the citizens of South Korea, the news was filled with the same lie on every damned channel: a group of young people committing terrorist acts against the country.

Honestly, Jiung knew that he had burnt down all the bridges when he had chosen his friends and the truth over his family, but seeing his ID picture next to those photos that the people in power had chosen to put on display in the media was numbing. He felt too many emotions at once to distinguish any of them properly. He couldn’t even say he was angry: the word itself did no justice to the thunderstorm inside his chest.

‘We can’t give up now,’ Soul said and Jiung tore his gaze from the screen of his tablet to look at the younger. He still looked so fragile, but as he balled up his fists and opened his mouth for Keeho to feed him some soup, he finally had some colour to his cheeks.

‘We won’t,’ Jiung promised and for the first time in weeks, the silence that followed his statement didn’t drain him. If anything, this newfound determination gave them all another reason to find a way to stop this madness.

Not even twelve hours after their faces were plastered all over the capital city, a girl called Elijah reached out to Jongseob, claiming that she and her uncle had seen the photos Jiung had taken of the damaged corpse before they had gotten taken down and that they wanted to help them fight against the system. It was freaking suspicious and at first, they decided to ignore it altogether. However, when Soul pointed out that Jongseob hadn’t been at the Dream House with them, nor had he joined them when they had broken into the research centre, they talked through their options one more time.

And they decided to follow the instructions of this faceless person towards a place that was promised to be safe for them in two groups just in case it was a trap.

Jiung, Soul and Keeho were the first ones to leave the city. They took Theo’s car, saying one of them would come back for the rest of them if things were really safe, then followed the GPS signals given to them real time by this Elijah girl who hacked into its system.

‘What do you think we will find when we get there?’ Keeho asked from behind the driver’s seat, his voice low on purpose to not wake up Soul who had fallen asleep in the backseat.

Jiung shrugged.

‘Dunno. Two more hours and we’ll find out,’ he stated, looking out the window, taking in the scenery. The countryside looked so peaceful and slow from the inside of the car, but he knew it was only the illusion of obliviousness. He refused to believe that there was any place in this country that hadn’t been corrupted by the government. He knew that the outside world was just as rotten as his life was without the rose-tinted glasses he had been wearing all these years.

Shaking his head, the boy tried not to think about the last conversation he had had with you. Still, he wished he had listened to what you had been saying. He wished he had stopped you when you had turned your back on him and walked away, visibly wary. You had given him so many chances to understand. Yet, here he was, figuring out too late:

History was made by monsters dressed as saints.

the end.

[rauthschild]

Communist History Of V. P. Kamala Harris

 This is a really revealing history of of this nation's Vice President and presidential candidate. It is a long article but is necessary because it is so very important for you to know. This editorial is by Major General Higginbotham U.S. Marines (Ret)

This timely editorial that exposes the hidden background of Kamala Harris is from the Combat Veterans for Congress Political Action Committee. It is posted here with permission of the author. CVFC PAC supports the election of US military combat veterans to the US Senate and House of Representatives.

The editorial begins:

Kamala Harris' father was an avowed Marxist professor in the Economics Department at Stanford University in Palo Alto, CA. Both of Harris' parents were active in the Berkeley based Afro-American Association; Fidel Castro and Che Guevara were the heroes of the Afro-American Association. The group's leader, Donald Warden (aka Khalid al-Mansour), mentored two young Afro-American Association members, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale; they created the Maoist inspired Black Panther Party which gained strong support from Communist China; the Black Panther Party served as the model for creation of the Black Lives Matter Marxist organization Khalid al-Mansour subsequently went on to arrange financing and facilitated for Barack Hussein Obama to be accepted as a student to matriculate at Harvard Law School.

Following her graduation from college, Harris returned to California and subsequently became the mistress of the 60-year-old married Speaker of the California Assembly, Willie Brown, Jr. Brown's political campaigns were supported and funded by Dr. Carlton Goodlett, the owner of The Sun Reporter and several other pro-Communist newspapers. Brown was elected as Mayor of San Francisco, and strongly endorsed Harris' Marxist political philosophy; he guided Harris' political rise in California politics, leading to her election as California's Attorney General. Willie Brown, Jr. is a well-known long-time Communist sympathizer.

Willie Brown, Jr. was initially elected to public office with substantial help of the Communist Party USA. Today, Willie Brown is widely regarded as one of the Chinese Communist Party's best friends in the San Francisco Bay Area. While serving as San Francisco District Attorney, Kamala Harris mentored a young San Francisco Radical Maoist activist, Lateefah Simon, who was a member of the STORM Revolutionary Movement; Simon currently chairs the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) Board. Simon has always been close friends with the founder of Black Lives Matter Marxist Domestic Terrorists, Alicia Garza, as well as STORM member and avowed Communist, Van Jones. Harris has been openly and aggressively supporting Black Lives Matter Marxists; Kamala Harris is still closely associated with Maoist Lateefah Simon and Marxist Alicia Garza.

 Kamala Harris's sister Maya Harris was a student activist at Stanford University. She was a closely associated with Steve Phillips, one of the leading Marxist-Leninists on campus and a long-time affiliate with the League of Revolutionary Struggle, a pro-Chinese Communist group. Phillips came out of the Left, and in college he studied Marx, Mao, and Lenin, and maintained close associations with fellow Communists. Phillips married into the multi billion dollar Sandler family of the Golden West Savings and Loan Fortune. He funded many leftist political campaigns, and the voter registration drives in the Southern and South Western states in order to help his friend, Barack Hussein Obama, defeat Hillary Clinton.

Phillips has been a major financial sponsor for Kamala Harris's political campaigns for various California elective offices. Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff works for the law firm DLA Piper, which "boasts nearly 30 years of experience in Communist China with over 140 lawyers dedicated to its 'Communist China investment Services' branch. He was just appointed to Professor at Yale to school future lawyers in the fine points of Communism. When she was elected to the US Senate,Kamala Harris appointed a Pro-Communist Senate Chief of Staff, Karine Jean-Pierre. Jean-Pierre was active with the New York-based Haiti Support Network. The organization worked closely with the pro-Communist China/Communist North Korea Workers World Party and supported Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the far-left Communist former president of Haiti and the radical Lavalas movement.

Fortunately for Harris, but potentially disastrous for the Republic, elected office holders are not subject to the security clearance process. If the FBI did a Background Investigation on Kamala Harris, she never would have passed, because of her 40-year close ties with Marxists, Communists, Maoists, and Communist China. Harris would never have been approved for acceptance to any of the 5 Military Service Academies, been appointed to a U.S. Government Sub-Cabinet position, or would have been approved to fill a sensitive position for a high security defense contractor. Yet, since Joe Biden was elected, Harris could be a heartbeat away from being President. The U.S. constitutional Republic is being threatened by the People's Republic of Communist China (PPC) externally, and by their very active espionage operations within the United States. The People's Republic of Communist China (PPC), with 1.4 billion people, is governed by the 90 million member Chinese Communist Party (CCP), that has been working with Russia to destroy the U.S. Constitutional Republic for over 70 years.

 If the American voters read the background information (in Trevor Loudon's article) on Kamala Harris, they would never support her election as Vice President of the United States. Joe Biden is suffering from the early onset of dementia and will continue to decline in cerebral awareness; he will never be able to fill out a four-year term of office. Since Biden was elected, the Socialists, Marxists, and Communist who control Kamala Harris, are planning to enact provisions of the 25th Amendment, in order to remove Joe Biden from office, so Harris can become the first Communist President of the United States. Since Biden was elected, because Biden would not be up to it,

Kamala Harris would lead the effort to appoint very dangerous anti-American Leftist, Communist, Socialists, and Marxists to fill highly sensitive positions in the Washington Deep State Bureaucracy. She would fill all appointive positions in the US Intelligence Agencies, in the Department of Homeland Security, in the Department of Defense, in The Justice Department, the Department of State, the FBI, the CIA, most cabinet positions, the National Security Council, and in the White House Staff. American voters must alert their fellow Americans that Kamala Harris is a very serious National Security threat to the very survival of the US Constitutional Republic; she has been a fellow traveler of Marxists, Communists, Maoists, Socialists, Progressives, and Chinese Communists for over 35 years.

President Trump had much more background information on Kamala Harris than we presented here, and he was correct, when he accused Kamala Harris of being a Communist subverter.

Geoffrey B. Higginbotham Major General, USMC (Ret).

Ernest Rauthschild's Response

Further, Geoffrey B. Higginbotham is standing in front of the foreign corporate British Territorial United States and Vatican Municipal United States BANNER; and not our Autochthonous Preamble Posterity General Government Flag enacted by the General Congress Assembled July 14th, 1777.

None of the "presidents of the United States" in my lifetime have been elected either in accord with Art. 2, Section 1 or Amendment 12 of the United States Constitution. There is no Constitutional provision that allows the Winners of the partisan conventions, who somehow become a candidate the Electoral College Select from, to choose or pick the candidate for Vice' President.

Since Congress has never declared war during Higginbotham tenure and lifetime, his resume is merely that of a foreign corporate Indentured 13th and 14th Amendment White Negro Slave in a foreign corporate Mercenary uniform.