#I dropped a shelving unit on myself

[dark-elf-writes]

First impression: sweet, wholesome person, much ✨gender✨

Current impression: parkouring racoon I desperately want to wrap in bubble wrap and feed all the treats too. 👹GENDER IS A THREAT I INTEND TO FOLLOW THROUGH ON👹

Also blonde, I know you probably aren't but you are inextricably associated now with a trio of feral blonds with buckets of ADHD (Mic, Naruto and Link) so congrats sovereign you are now blonde in my head.

I… don’t think I’ve ever been called wholesome in my life like I was the kid that was reading massive novels at like seven and biting people so I’ve always been kinda feral.

Me trying to escape all the bubbles people want to put me in.

My gender has been a threat even when I was a tiny baby gay still in the closet who thought it was totally normal that the sight of my own chest made me mad uncomfy and turned those uncomfy feelings into screaming at transphobes at 2 AM at a birthday party. <- true story very wild.

ABAT - assigned blond at tumblr. Currently I’m in my blue hair and pronouns era but enough has faded that it’s kinda blonde in spots? Not a natural blond tho no matter how much it would make my mom thrilled that one of her children finally looked like her.

[acowardinmordor]

You Left Me - You Miss Me - Six

Sup, I finally wrote the next part. Mostly because of someone trying to find it via the fic finder blog, which gave me a big ol spike in anxiety about the lack of update.

Part One .... Part Four - Part Five

---

“Rob, no.”

“Don’t you tell me ‘no,’ Steven Dingus Harrington!”

“You can’t drive to Hawkins and kill the guy.”

“Oh yes I can! I'll take your bat with me!”

“Babe, you still don’t know how to drive, and I have work in the morning so I can’t take you.” 

“I’ll figure it out on the way!”

She wouldn’t. She wasn't going to drive to Hawkins. She would definitely, absolutely, one hundred percent kill Munson if she had the chance and Steve didn’t talk her out of it, but Robin wasn’t going to leave him alone when he’d had a breakdown an hour earlier. She wouldn’t let him sleep alone for the next few days, and she would go to work with him in the morning, and she’d probably skip her Stats class so she could stick by him after work too. 

It took Robin about thirty seconds to realize something had happened. 

That was the gap between her opening the car door, and Steve speaking. All he said was “hey, Robs” and she cut off her ramble about chlorofluorocarbons. The same way he could tell by the sound of her stirring soup, or which color eye shadow she wore, she knew immediately something had happened. 

She touched his arm.

And he had a breakdown in the college parking lot. 

Steve updated the tag on the side of the box and put it back on the shelf. He was,technically, working. Robin was ranting and using a tie-dye shirt as a prop. 

“You don’t need to crash our car trying to go kill a guy I’m not even mad at.”

“Ugh,” she flapped the shirt at him and slouched against the edge of the shelving unit. “Why not? Why are you not mad at him? How? I’m mad at him! He took the kids away from you! They’re annoying little shitheads but you loved them and he jus---”

“Rob,” he interrupted softly. He couldn’t get into that side of it right now. 

“Sorry. Sorry. But you’re not this nice, Stevie. You’re wonderfully bitchy and petty and it’s one of my favorite things about you, and I don’t get this. He sucks! This was super shitty! Why aren’t you mad at him for being an asshole?”

“It’s not his fault.”

“He said it was his fault!”

Eddie blamed himself, and maybe it was his fault, but it didn’t matter. Not in comparison.

“Are you going to inventory anything tonight, or is this just going to be me?”

“No! And why are you working?”

Because if he stopped, if he let himself turn his full attention towards it, he was going to fall apart again, and stupid as it was, checking inventory used up just enough of his focus that he couldn’t drown. Steve flicked through the stack of size smalls, and wrote it down on the list. “Uh, because we’re at work?”

“We both work tomorrow tonight and there is no way that Mary or Nick have ever looked at the stock sheets in their life, they aren’t going to look tomorrow either. No one will know.”

“I’ll know.” He glanced up to make eye contact for a second, and she caved with a groan. 

“If you were anyone but my soulmate, buddy…” She folded the shirt terribly, shoved it into the gap between the cardboard and the other shirts, and finally closed the box. 

Letting the silence settle gave Steve a minute to breathe, and reset himself without the rising tension. She knew that, and waited until, unspoken, she knew he was ready to keep going. 

“Steve.”

“I am mad, Robs. I am. You know that it’s.. At the kids, and at Hopper, and at myself for agreeing to this stupid idea, but I’m not mad at him.” 

“Why does he get special treatment?”

Hearing how that sounded, he tried again, “No, uh. I’m mad at him, but, like, the same way you get mad when the grandma in the crosswalk is going really slow and then drops something and goes back, and you end up stuck waiting again even though you should have made it through the light before. Yeah, it sucks, but it’s not like grandma was doing it specifically to fuck with you. She’s just, you know, shopping or whatever. 

“It wasn’t like there was a friendship there that he betrayed. He did something for his own life and it was sorta sucky, and it sucks for me, but he feels really shitty about it, so I don’t think he meant for them to, you know, vanish.”

Robin thumbed down the stack of Levis, whispering the count as she went. Three more sizes got counted before she responded. 

“You carried him out of there. You saved his life.”

Steve hummed absently. “He wasn’t bleeding that bad. His trash lid kept most of them off. I panicked when I saw blood and picked him up.”

“And that doesn’t make you friends?”

“It’s not like I only saved him because it was him. Not like I stopped and thought about whether I should get the bleeding guy to the hospital. Lifeguard, remember?” 

The other half of the thought, he bit back. He’d had nightmares about Billy after Starcourt. Dreams where he could have saved him, and didn’t. Where he could have saved Max from having to see that, having to recover from that. He saw Eddie bleeding, he saw one of his kids screaming, and there wasn’t a thought in his head. Just the need not to let it happen again. Not again. Not Dustin too. 

He kept his eyes on the inventory form so she didn’t see that part. 

“Still think it should have mattered more. Life saving creates friendships.”

“He was unconscious. I know you don’t know much about how guys act with each other, but generally both dudes are awake when they become friends.”

She snorted at his weak joke, throwing her pencil at him. It wasn’t anywhere near her. 

“New record, champ,  that one wasn’t even close enough for me to pretend to dodge it.”

“Ugh, I hate you.”

“Love you too, Robs.”

He got through a full set of kids dress shirts in peace, counted and listed. Then he pulled down the crate of kid’s dresses, next on the list to check. 

The whole can of worms would tear open when, if, when Eddie showed up with something from the kids. There was no version of that day that wouldn’t end with him falling apart. If he skimmed them, if he burned them, if he read them, if he wrote back, if he refused to take them at all, it didn’t matter. He was going to fall to pieces. 

If they wrote and it was real, if it was petty, if it was anger, if it was grief, if it was gloating he was gone, if it was begging him to come back, if it was proof that it was always fake, always a temporary placeholder until they found someone they actually like. The imminent breakdown was going to be bad no matter what. 

Like those safety videos in school about seat belts. 

Like knowing the car crash was coming, knowing it couldn’t be stopped, and knowing that nothing he did was going to make it any easier to bear. Slow motion, watching a car come -- a beat up old van come towards him. No time to put on a seat belt, no way to brace for it, just accept that it was going to happen and hope you survived.  

Robin cleared her throat to get his attention, and Steve blinked back to himself. 

“Did, uh, did you say something?”

Robin watched him for a minute. He let her this time. It was easier to let her see what he was feeling than try to turn it into words, and he needed her to let it go for now.. 

“I’m going to skip my bio lecture on Friday afternoon.”

“Birdie, you don’t--” 

“You are going to call in sick at the skate rink. We are going to make snickerdoodles and brownies and the cracker bark thing, and order pizza, and we’re going to make ourselves sick eating too much, and we’re going to watch some random movie on mute and make up our own story and dialogue. Got it?”

“Got it,” he smiled.

And it wasn’t going to make it all better. Eating two pounds of butter in a day wasn’t going to make it easier when Eddie showed up, but it was like hitting pause on that video. Car crash was still coming, but he could look away for a while. 

***

Steve clung to the pass shelf from the kitchen as the expected car crash hit him on Monday. John, always eager for the chance to throw someone out of the diner, looked over Steve’s shoulder. It was a nice moment. A nice little thought before he had to face what he’d agreed to. If he asked, John would throw Eddie out. Literally. Nice image, but not the one he got to see.

Instead, he declined the offer, and grabbed the plates. 

“Gimme a minute,” he mumbled to Eddie, heading to the sweet elderly couple celebrating the birth of their second granddaughter with a leisurely breakfast. If he spent an extra minute talking to them, complimenting the polaroid of what seemed to be some kind of mashed potato swaddled in white and pink, it was to get a good tip, not because he was stalling. 

Eddie hadn’t moved when he got back. He was a step back from the counter, stiff, holding a paper grocery bag under one arm, eyes trained on the ugly teal of the stool’s seat.

“Well?” Steve asked bitchily, “Did you bring milk and eggs and bread, honey?”

He put it on the counter, clutching the folded top hard, like he was making sure it stayed shut. 

Like it was full of spiders or something. Mutual sentiment.

Steve grabbed it, tossing it onto the shelf where they kept personal belongings and the leftovers they’d called dibs on. He hadn’t expected Eddie Munson to be up to Franklin at eight am on a Monday. Eddie wasn’t a morning person. Steve thought he’d have a few more hours to brace. Now he had to deal with customers while that bag burned a hole in the back of his head. 

Luckily, Rebecca was serious when she said he could get mean with guests if he wanted to. Today wasn’t a want. It was going to be a necessity. 

Eddie was still standing there. 

“You can tell them I got it, or whatever,” he tried to dismiss him.

Something that looked like the tortured remains of a smile flickered on Eddie’s face. He gave up after a second and nodded too many times. “Thanks. Thank you. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, right?”

It took a minute for Steve to catch up to the question. 

“I haven’t said I’m going to answer them. Or open them. Or keep them.”

Eddie was quiet for a minute, still not looking up, and Steve’s Travel-Size-Robin was vibrating with the need to make him so they could guess what the hell he was thinking. 

“Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday mornings?” he repeated. 

“Yeah. Sure, yeah,” Steve gave up. 

Eddie left, and Steve did the entire day’s front of house prep before Susan got in, trying to keep his head away from that damn bag. 

***

Steve didn’t open it. 

He fell asleep in Robin’s bed, grateful he didn’t have other work that evening, and doubly grateful when she made him eat some crackers and drink some water before they passed out for the night. 

If he was waiting for the impact the day before, seeing Eddie again the next day was so unexpected that the crash whooshed past him without an impact. He didn’t sit down, and he looked a little rough, probably from driving to Franklin in the early morning twice in two days. 

“Do you have…?”

“No? No,” Steve boggled at him, “How could I have anything for you to even -- No. Man, no.” 

Eddie nodded. 

Eddie left. 

***

Steve stared at the bag instead of taking a nap before their shift in the stockroom. Didn’t open it, that was way, way beyond him, but he did manage to look directly at it, and it was only a few saltines, but he did successfully eat. 

Robin, angel, light of his life, soulmate and perfect person got in the car after class, handed him a kinda gross protein bar that she stole from an athlete in her class who she didn’t like, and made him eat it. 

She didn’t make him talk about the bag shaped elephant in their apartment, and she spent the entire shift explaining the way Ann Carson’s translations of Greek plays had totally shifted how people read them, making them more accessible, and how the push to do the same with Shakespeare was incredible. 

When he went to crawl into his own bed that night, she grumbled, brought her favorite pillow, and climbed in after him. 

***

Eddie walked in at quarter to seven, right after three four tops seated.

“No.”

“Okay. Yeah.” Eddie looked small, probably because he was speaking at a normal volume, sounding like a normal human, which ran opposite to how Eddie was in Hawkins. He also looked like crap. 

“Why are you here, dude? You hate mornings. You don’t have to leave that early, I work until one.”

Eddie scrunched his face, but didn’t answer that. 

“No?” he asked instead.

Someone at table six shouted ‘waiter!’ 

“I’ll bring your coffee in a damn minute!” Steve yelled back, half turning with the carafe in his hand.

“Steve?”

“Look, I don’t have anything for you. Nothing. You don’t need to waste your time. I haven’t opened it.”

“There’s more than one -- oh,” Eddie scrubbed over his face. “Okay. Yeah. Okay. Do-- Are you going to? Open it.”

Thinking about opening it made him want to run away to Canada. 

Thinking about never knowing made him want to puke. 

Whatever weird face Steve made was something Eddie could translate. He only raised his head for a moment, just long enough to look. But then he covered his face with both hands, taking a deep breath that shuddered on the exhale. 

“See you Monday,” he said as a goodbye.

“Where’s my coffee?” the same guy yelled. Steve didn’t have the energy to deal with customers and whatever the fuck was going on with Eddie’s early morning emotional mess. 

“Wait a second,” he complained to both of them at once. Steve grabbed one of the big mugs, the ones they used for the expensive hot chocolate, filled it with coffee, and set the pour jar of sugar next to it. He looked from Eddie to the cup, pointedly. “Don’t crash. Bring the cup back with you.”

The asshole yelled for him again, and Steve turned on the terrifyingly polite smile that Robin had helped him hone. Then he deployed it on the asshole at table six. 

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

We are headed towards Steddie, on a path that will, hopefully, not feel like I brushed off all this to get there. However. Wow, they're hurting right now. You can't have Eddie's pov yet, it would spoil things, but. just. trust me. ow.

Still don't do tag lists. Once I know how many parts it'll be, this will go to Ao3, promise.

[apprenticestanheight]

Halloween- Adam Stanheight x gn! reader

ALLLL RIGHT!! It is officially Halloween and I, as a lover of Halloween, needed to celebrate it. Could I have gone down a spooky route? yes, yes I could've indeed. Did I choose to go down one that involves getting high and slow dancing instead? Yes, yes I did indeed.

My requests also close soon but they'll probably reopen around the middle of next month--I might have a holiday event in the works, I have no idea yet but either way holiday themed reqs are encouraged and accepted around just about any holiday lol

Fic type- this is super fluffy!

Warnings- there are mentions of weed in the context of an edible that Adam and the reader split, mentions of the bathroom trap (all of my fics that weren't requested are post-bathroom trap because it's how I delude myself into believing Adam survived lol) and scott tibbs is a bad friend (it's only mentioned, but he calls the traumatic event known as the bathroom trap 'metal' when he visits adam because, while I haven't watched the scott tibbs doc, given that I've read the wiki it feels like something scott would do)

For Adam, Halloween had pretty much stopped being a huge deal when he stopped trick-or-treating with the coming of high school. From then on, November first was his ticket--all of the Halloween candy was marked down so that it could be rid from the shelves and allow for the Christmas stock to come in.

Adam would take some of the money he got from being a PI and blow it on variety packs so that he had something more than microwaveable popcorn to snack on whenever he chose to sit down and watch a movie, and also because most of it was pretty delicious and he'd be lying if he said he didn't have a slight sweet tooth in October.

Halloween had never really been special. Even after the bathroom trap, his first Halloween after the experience and after a solid week spent in the hospitals recovery unit, it still wasn't.

Well--that was, of course, until you showed up at his apartment with a grin, a bottle of american whiskey, some food for when you inevitably got the munchies and an edible for the two of you to split.

The two of you split the edible and took it while sitting on the couch, your ear against Adams chest to hear the way that his heart kept on beating and his arm around your shoulders, hand idly moving through your hair in a manner that was almost enough to make you tired.

Adam felt it when the edible hit and it was clear you did, too. It always made you both relaxed--Adam liked it after the trap not for the act of getting high but because it soothed his anxieties. Such made him crack the joke that he liked it for it's medicinal purposes from time to time, but Adam wasn't thinking about how chilled out he was, or even about the fact that it had been a few weeks since the bathroom trap and he'd turned out okay-ish in the aftermath.

No, he was thinking about you. And, as you typically did, you were thinking about him.

You'd been Adams rock almost as long as Scott had, and even then he'd stopped talking to Scott after he'd left the hospital--he'd visited twice and both times, instead of acknowledging the sensitivity of the situation, told Adam that it was 'metal' that he'd survived his trap--but you'd stuck around.

Your relationship had been the classic childhood friends to lovers--met in the second grade, started dating the year before Adam dropped out of high school, and there you were at twenty-six, together for a solid eleven years and, before Adams trap, at the point where Adam was boxing up his stuff to move into your place while debating proposing.

He grin as you adjust yourself, meeting your gaze as you grin back at him.

"Hi," he greets.

"I love you," you blurt with a laugh. "I mean--yeah. I do. It's not just the weed, I promise."

Adam laughs a little, pressing a peck to your lips. "I wanna dance," he said. "Not--not a jig. Never a jig or anything very fast--nothing too speedy. Just wanna slow dance, you know?"

You press your nose against his, one hand sliding up his chest to cup the back of his head.

"There's no music," you say. "We can't dance if there's no music, Adam."

"Oh, but we can," Adam stands, offers you his hand. "I happen to have a walkman from our high school days with a cheesy mixtape I made you, and I also have one that's just the songs we used to slow dance to before dear old dad kicked me out. We're high, and we're going to dance because this is the only time we'll have to do so before we get the munchies and blow through the snacks you bought within an hour."

You laugh a little, sighing to yourself as Adam leaves you standing in the middle of his living room while he sprints to his room.

Two minutes pass, and he returns, Walkman and a pair of wired earbuds in hand.

He puts in a tape, pockets the walkman and offers you one of the earbuds with a crooked, handsome smile.

"May I have this dance?"

"I fell in love with an idiot," you accept the earbud, though, taking Adams hand and intwining your fingers as you do. "No regrets, though."

"You'd be a fool to have regrets, my darling," Adam says, putting on a tone of grandeur. "I am the best of the best in my apartment that is more likely than not infested by roaches, and with a job that barely lets me afford groceries unless I buy them from cheap corner stores and shop the bargains in the produce aisle of every Aldi in Jersey."

You laugh, and Adams arm goes around your waist while one of yours finds his shoulder. You drop his hand, letting yourself wrap him in a hug as the two of you begin to sway.

Silence befalls the two of you. It's the kind of silence you both appreciate, the kind wherein there is no awkwardness, only comfort. You love him, and he loves you, and realistically in that moment, that is the only thing that matters to either of you.

Adams eyes fall closed, and he hugs you just a bit tighter. You respond by doing the same, and your dance becomes less of a dance--it's more or less just two people hugging now, swaying along to the sound of the music that thrums through the Walkman and into their ears.

"I love you, Y/N," he whispers. "I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, but falling in love with you hasn't been one of them. Thank you for letting me do that."

You laugh slightly. Adam fights the urge to kiss you while he basks in how it sounds.

"I love you too," you respond. "Loving you is the best thing I have ever done, Adam. No regrets."

Adam laughs that time, pulling away enough to press a kiss to your forehead.

It is Adam Stanheights first Halloween post bathroom trap, and he starts to think, for the first time since he was fifteen, that Halloween is not a day to be spent at home, watching bad horror movies from the 70s. Maybe it's a day to get high with the love of his life, slow dance for a few songs, and then help you eat your way through the snacks you've brought along once the munchies kick in.

Either way--however Halloween is meant to be spent, Adam likes that he gets to spend it with you.

[ragingstillness]

Hardware Stores and the Horror Genre

Ok I think I’ve mentioned a bunch of times that I work in a hardware store and I’m obviously a writer, it’s in my description. But I am here today to advocate for the use of hardware stores as horror settings. No, not, let’s go to the hardware store to buy some weapons or make some traps, a hardware store itself as the whole setting, the story never leaves the hardware store. Because dude, a hardware store is such peak horror setting and y’all don’t even know! (What I’m about to describe applies mainly to my store but also hardware stores in general above a certain size)

A hardware store has:

Axes

Chainsaws

Circular saws

Table saws

Band saws

Knives

Blowtorches

Lighters

Matches

Long wooden handles

Glass

Massive pliers

Lawnmower blades

Duct tape

Power tools

Hammers

Shears

And tons of other conventional weaponry. But ya know what a hardware store also has? Improvised weaponry!

Super glue

Grills

Keycrafters

Charcoal

Firewood

Heavy metal clamps

Paint cans

Carabiners

Rope

Tent stakes

Transparent wire

PVC tubing

Sandpaper

Plastic sheeting

Fertilizer

Clay pots

Cast iron pans

Shower heads

Faucets

Plungers

Meat tenderizers

Acetone

Paint stripper

Construction adhesive

Liquid cement

Sandbags

Blacktop

Cutting boards

Wood chunks

Window screens

Drop cloths

Motor oil

Lubricant

Headphones

Work lights

Ear plugs

Welding glasses

Bags of dirt

Soda

Lawn chairs

Shovels

Rakes

Earth augers

Bike racks

You can do anything with these! The possibilities are endless and it’s totally reasonable to have all of this in one store!

Not to mention the amazing settings that could be used:

Tight, high shelving units

Tables for hiding and flipping

Warehouse/storage areas

Specialist desks

Ladders

Electrical rooms

Hard floors

Flammable areas

Skinny aisles

Heavy machinery areas

Forklift storage

Climbable walls and shelves

Like it’s both a claustrophobic and open space, you could do so much with like a slasher, a torture game, a revenge flic, a final girl movie, a thriller, anything! I am definitely going to write something about this myself but I also encourage more people to do so. Put more horror in hardware stores! Thank you for listening to my rant.

[ladybugmeat]

3.

The first of the preceding images is a collage of the Franco Manca floor-plan and a Paul-Henri Chombart de Lauwe style plotting of my movements within the span of a week. The plotting displays a whirring triangular circuit between front desk, bar, and kitchen porter. I have taken aesthetic properties from Wyndham Lewis’ BLAST: War Number in order to convey the narrow and mechanical quality of my traversing. With no deviations, only iterations, my activity stands in stark contrast to the whimsical premise of the Dérive. The hand of the Vorticist opposes sentimentality. The serrated edges of the woodcut are designed with sheer violence. Lewis desires to convey an exact quiddity of the modern world. The Vorticist does not pursue simulacra, only aggressive substantiality.

To some degree, the restaurant emulates battle. The serving hatch defines two separate spheres: Front of house and Back of house. The two parties are kept in a state of near conflict. When carrying the collage to photograph at an upstairs window, the pieces reconfigured to form alternative compositions. The two latter images depict the collage’s resultant organisations. Without manipulating the shapes myself, the collage reverted to a vortex.

20:07

PROVOCATION PIZZA : BIN BAG BANALITY

FORMULARY IN THE SPIRIT OF IVAN CHTCHEGLOV

Mierle Laderman Ukeles: Sanitation Celebrations: Grand Finale of the First NYC Art Parade, Part I: The Social Mirror, 1983, garbage collection truck.

I tie the bags, carry them out into the rain, and drop them at the curb. ‘Presented with the alternative of love or a garbage disposal unit, young people of all countries have chosen the garbage disposal unit.’ Whilst maintenance is a fundamental fixture of Capitalism, it is a facet carefully concealed. This heaped street-side installation only appears at night - only at closed-doors.

One Autumn night when the collection truck didn’t show and foxes chewed through the bin bags, the morning’s passersby were enraged. They stopped at the curb, looked down into the spilled contents of chewed crusts and beer bottles, and went online to write their martyred diatribes. Faced with the messy by-product of consumerism, the people responded with pointed fingers. They recognised their reflection in Franco Manca’s glass front but not in the littered gutter.

If a new pizzeria were to be formulated, one might forefront and hijack the establishment’s hidden maintenance and service work. In Chtcheglov’s sardonic tone, I might announce the appointment of a new management team. Staff would no longer serve under the elusive figure of Franco but instead the transparent moniker Frankie - Manky Frankie. Inside the restaurant, entropy would reign supreme. Fungi would grow in thick shelves from the walls but also the tables, stairs, and utensils. Bouts of watercress, spinach, and peas would grow in deep-set, water-logged motes running along each wall.

The menu would solely list produce cultivated and foraged within the restaurant. Neighbourhood rodents must be caught and carved if a customer has a preference for meat. A single septic tank and a simple hydroponic system would keep all nature in balance. The menu would move with the seasons. In winter, the interior’s crop might entirely perish. This would reintroduce the acumen of the hunter-gatherer, a ‘forgotten desire’. Everybody pitches in, society thrives. Customers would no longer sit down to their private dinnertime spectacles but would engage in a situation of invigorating, albeit nauseous, uncertainty.  

Artist Zeger Reyers engages in a near identical form of Situationism. With a desire to humanise the domestic sphere, Rayers planted mycelium within everyday objects. The mushrooms were then prepared and served during the exhibition finissage. Through consuming from the furniture, the objects were reestablished as secondary - as tools and accessories. The furniture became wood, glue, and damp again - No longer confined to the trappings of a feminine realm.

[therosecrest]

Milk's frozen solid again this morning, so quite by chance it's another milkshake moccha. When I pulled out the carton of milk, I dropped it and it went THUMP.

So last night, I dreamt of being in a death game. A battle royale, that is. Myself, my sister, and others were taken to this mansion, where were we proceeded through a number of "levels" (in a literal sense as well), finally arriving in the basement, a very large archive. Before arriving here, I don't know here, but I was killed once and the dream reset.

So, we all sprinted down seperate paths, searching for a weapon. I came across a duffel bag and stopped my sister. I climbed a shelving unit to almost ceiling height, where it was dark. My sister joined me. I found arrows inside, but no bow. I didn't see her again after that.

Of this group, two were secretly members of the family running the game. Their family had done for generations. One of them, the sister, found no less than a goddamn minigun. I think she first gunned down someone else. And then I came turning round a corner into the face of her. I think the bow might have been on the other side of her. I tried in desperation to charge past, but of course I was utterly shredded. It's not very pleasant to watch yourself shot to hell, you know.

However, I didn't come back this time. I was still dreaming, but had enough awareness to anticipate this without being able to express the thought conciously. Instead, the brother appeared. He manipulated the sister to lower her guard, stroking her face as he fatally stabbed her with the small knife in his other hand. I got the impression their relationship was abnormal. Moments later, he had a shotgun, but for the time being he stood quietly with her.

Edging towards the pair behind her was Brendan Fraser, circa 2000. Or rather, a character "played" by Fraser, as it were. The brother noticed him, of course. Trembling, Fraser pulled off his leather jacket, and held it aside, tucking into the wall. Think of a matador waving his red flag. He repeated under his breath "Just one. Just take one", pleading for his jacket to at least absorb enough for him to take the shot and close in to his effective range.

It was then that another character appeared. An older man, "played" by Mark Williams. He said something, and jumped in front of Fraser, taking the brother's gunshot in his place. Before he could fire his second shot, the brother faltered. In that instant, Fraser had thrown his weapon, a poison dart. I woke here instead of reviving. More's the shame. It's chilly outside of bed these days. Maybe I will turn the heating on soon.

[thedaveandkimmershow]

Our weekend was primarily a logistics weekend. As in yes. We successfully moved out of the apartment on time but we are not fully moved in.

So yeah. Our living room's still pretty much a staging area for stuff that doesn't have a place to be yet. Mostly boxes and crates of my stuff, actually. Hard drives and books and a billion source videotapes from long ago summer camps.

We also still have that storage unit into which I unloaded a van's worth of stuff one day so I could drive back down to the apartment to load another van's worth of stuff.

We have an idea of what's in there, of course. But we don't really know. Not until we dive in there.

The upshot is that there are some things that've gone missing. Oh... they're somewhere among a number of different suspected locations. We just don't have everything where we intend for it to be.

Speaking of which, while we're trying to organize, we're also trying to divest and we're on the lookout to replace some of what we own with anything better suited to how we're now using the house. So OfferUp, CraigsList, and Facebook Marketplace are part of our daily routine as are trips to Habitat for Humanity, Value Village, and a number of GoodWills.

There are a lot of moving parts, is my point. And there's more motion in our days than usual.

With that in mind (and for awhile now) Kimmer uses a blank page notebook into which she sketches the furniture we're donating, the kind of furniture we're looking for and, on occasion, the kind of furniture needing to be built if custom made's the only way to go.

It's really a quite clever way to keep track of, you know, everything we're trying to accomplish.

On Saturday, we scored a blue framed glass cabinet for Kimmer's office from a fellow OfferUp user. Up to that point, she had one of our long hanging cabinets temped in there where it kept the office door from fully opening. At some point Kimmer'll paint over the blue with a combination of blue and green to better match the work she did on her grandfather's antique hutch.

Later that the day, we swung by our storage unit to pick up a couple almost black, dark brown single shelf hanging bookcases with vertical separators for my office. It's kind of a big deal for me... actually, it resolves a bottleneck in my own moving process because these bookcases are where I'm storing the most essential reference books I own. So once I get those shelves squared away, the rest of my organizing should follow easily.

That's what I'm telling myself, anyway. 😉

Those book cases, by the way, were as inconveniently placed in our storage unit as it was possible to be. Alllllllll the way in the back corner under other stuff. Which led to an impromptu reorganizing of the entire space fueled by Kimmer's Tetris-ing mastery.

Then today, Sunday, was kind of a repeat with drop offs at Value Village and GoodWill and a friend's house. That drop off at Value Village, by the way, included a quick walkthrough of the store that revealed yet another need, another piece of furniture sketched in Kimmer's notebook.

Now, just me looking at what she found at Value Village... I'm mystified. It's a desk. And we don't need a desk. We do need night stands, however, and if Kimmer were to slice out the section of table between the desk drawers...

Night stands is what you're pretty much left with. Pretty vintage-y looking ones, too.

So that happened. For about eight bucks. 😊

And so on.

Definitely definitely definitely we're making progress. We've gotta better idea on the night stands/headboard challenge that's been tripping us up last week. Everything's too much behind us. Kimmer's office is getting there with the new glass cabinet and the bed she made to look like a couch. There's more about the room that just belongs. My office is a little behind but still looks great. It's just all the books I've gotta place and some of what I already placed that is it isn't in need of donating.

The family room is basically done. The kitchen seems pretty done. At least there's nothing to obviously indicate that either room is not. The dining room is still basically storage. The living room is also basically storage although less so, especially since I cleared out a couple more crates of my stuff.

The weekend wasn't all logistics, thankfully. I got in an evening at The Rustic Cork in Lake Stevens where Linzy performed. Kimmer was home getting more charting done 'n done. Sunday we got to hang out a little with our friends Ben and Hilary and their kids for a lovely and fun break in all our moving and organizing. We had home-made pizzas crafted to perfection both days. And we got in a coupla episodes of Madame Secretary because we can't keep watching all eight episodes of The Diplomat season 1. Well, we can. But we've gone through season 1 three times in a row now. So we should at least try to watch something new.

😁

[lifeanddreamsandhopes]

My first year in japan as a mext student

Hi, I’m rina, I’m a 4th year university student and I came here with me, so  this video is gonna be 1st year experience here in japan. So let’s start off with a brief introduction of the scholarship. So, Mext scholarship is a scholarship provided by japanese governement to various countries including where I’m from too. 

there are a few categories and the one I got is specialized training college, which I get to study for 3 years, 1st year in japanese school and the next 2 years in the specialized training college. I don`t know how to explain this category exactly what it is but I think it`s for those who wants to study a 4 year university course in just 2 years and you can start working right after that two years. so you know, less money in education and gaining money faster. that’s how they see it in japan. and the reason why I chose it, because it has the easiest exams out of all the categories that they have. and I have a plan of making a separate video for my time in specilaized training college so I`ll talk more in details there. 

so for the japanese language school for this category, you are either selected to study in osaka or tokyo. there are only two choices and the year that I passed, there were 4 other people that were in the same category with me, but all of them somehow got selected to study in osaka, and it was only me by myself who is selected to study in tokyo. 

before coming here, the plane ticket was bought for us in advanced and we normally come to japan on april 1st, 2nd or 3rd, my ticket was on the 2nd. so I left my home country’s airport and arrived here at narita airport around 11am. and I came here on the same plane with the other categories’s students. so it was only me from specialized training here in tokyo and the others are from college and reseach. So at first I thought there are going to be people from the government or some sort waiting for me, to take me from the airport to the dormitory, but there were two of them, just waiting there, but they didn’t really do much, they saw me and just handed me a bus ticket, and back then I had no idea what to do so I just went to the bus and just rode it. I didn’t really care, I didn’t really know where I was sent to. and then I was dropped off in shinjuku station which back then, I didn’t even know of and I was so confused like why did they do that? I had no wifi, I didn’t know any japanese, I didn’t know what to do, people there seem also to ignore me. I had to wait for 3 hours until someone actually handed me their phone to call the school and someone came to take us to the dormitory, it was a bit traumatising so for those of you coming here without any jaoanese, I recommend you get in touch with someone here and ask them to guide you on your first day, at least. 

at around 2pm, I finally got to the dormitory, it was small, like way smaller than my room back home, I couldn’t even open my luggage in there like it was that small . the room size, from what I remember is 1.5 meter by 3 meter. I barely could stretch my arm, we have a bed, a small desk and shelves above our bed, compare to what i had back home, it was like a rat hole. and also we have a roommate, it’s like the 2 of the same room, connected by a small kitchen and a bath unit. so in japan, when you say bath unit, it’s like this. (insert photo). it was very tiny. 

but as in the contract that we signed, we had stay at the provided dorm and we can not really move anywhere else until we graduate from japanese language school. tbecause we live in the city, we get allowances 120 000 yen a month, but we spent on rent 55000 yen, wifi, we have to do our own contracts, 3600 yen a month, electricty, gas and water bill combined: 6000 yen a month, 2000 yen on telephone, 7000 yen on transportation from dorm to school. on my rough calculation: I had around 45000 yen a month for food and other expenses. you can changed that to your own country’s currency. it seemed a lot to me back then but everything here in tokyo is also very expensive,  I barely saved any money.

in the first week there was nothing much to do, besides going out to buy things for our daily lives like kitchen utensils, and hygiene products and just all the daily stuff which is not provided. also we went to register our names at the city hall and make a bank account with the national bank so the government can transfer our allowance to us. 

also about dorm life, we were living with two dorm caretakers, an old japanese couple, let’s just say I didn’t really get along well with them. they were very strict, they separated men’s floors and women’s floors, idk why they did that as I see that it was very unnecessary. And because of the hardship of living there, we kinda started bonding with each other, we always had parties in my room, just drinking and talking and it’s been about 4 years now, our friendship are still strong. 

and moving on to my first year here: so at first, we had to take exams to see what level we should be put in in japanese class. I was put into high beginner class because I could know how to read some hiragana and katakana. our class was from 9 am to 3pm with an hour in between for lunch break. and my classmates were a mix of students from different countries, but half of them are chinese, taiwanese, and koreans. the lessons’ styles there and pacing for me personally, was so much fun, because from what I heard from students who are in osaka, they have to study math too, but we didn’t have to so that was a relief.  the school was a part of a bigger university, the best ranking fashion school in japan, I got to see a lot of people expressing themselves differently and it was really refreshing.

and we started school in april so in december, we were required to take JLPT exam and I think my japanese back then improved from N5 to N3, but the first JLPT exam that I took was N2 and I failed. which I tried again the next year and I passed, so you know, never give up.

so even before coming to japan, your specilized training school is already decided for you, but still, you have to take the entrance exam, and luckily the school that I was going to was understanding towards me, they just let me do a short interview and I passed and a few of my friends actually failed their first entrance exam and they had to do it one more time, but all of them passed so there are no worries about that. the teachers there actually helped me a lot with how to write documents and also practicing interview. as we know in japan, some of the schools are hard to get in. 

and also the fun part in that first year, our language school also prepared a few trip for us, one was to go to disneyland, which they provided full paid ticket, which was around 8000 yen and another one, was a 3-day trip to Nagano prefecture, a mountain side resort with really amazing view. going to Disneyland was amazing because it was my first time, I’ve always wanted to go there and I enjoyed it so much that I got to see all the Disney princesses, plus being there with my classmates was just perfect. 

at the end of our year there, which was february, we had to move out from the dorm and find our own apartments or the next place to stay, and it was crazy expensive. in the course of 12 months being here, I had to save up for that, which was 200 000 yen, I mean there are some of my friends who could find cheaper places but my area was pretty expensive so yeah, during my first year here, I had to do a lot of part time job too to save up for that. 

so to conclude my first year in japan, even though there were so many things that I was not used to, and the struggles of living in that terrible dormitory, I still had a lot of fun at school and made such amazing friends.  I can say that that was the most fun I had here in japan. I wouldn’t trade that experience for anything and for those of you who are planning to come here, you will experience different thing from me but I’m sure you willalso  enjoy it. and I’m going to say bye now and see you in the next video. 

[notallwonder]

Doing a quick rewatch of 16x04 as I wait for Ep 5 to drop.

Observations:

+ oh there is a title card! It appears right before the Garcia/Alvez tech lair scene. Has this been happening the whole time and it just didn't register with me? Lol

+ even though I've specifically watched the "But will Mom?" part approximately 39 times, still makes me giggle. Thank u Paget, and whoever wrote it! It's funny, it reinforces that Emily views Rossi as her friend/peer rather than subordinate, love it.

+ god JJ looks so good. Just incredible. How does she do it. Thank u to all and sundry for camera lingering on her lovely face.

+ the cv dazzle makeup thing is a cool detail, a creepy usage for it. See also: dazzle painted ships - older tech usage (WWII and prior i think) of this technique.

+ (unrelated) I watched Home Alone today for the first time in ages and that movie rocks. So good.

+ y'all i have ADHD and there were Christmas ads

+ i like this Tyler actor.

+ but what I really like is Emily Prentiss. Do you think we'll ever get to see inside her house/condo again? I recently rewatched CM 13x04 (I think), the one where Andrew comes over for their date(s). Emily has some cool art that I have had no luck identifying through a cursory google search. A nice large painting of swimmers at the beach/ocean, a print or painting reading "solo un silencio" with like...torso-less legs? Other stuff I couldn't identify, photographs I couldn't make out. Also... In her BAU Unit Chief office she has a steering wheel on her shelves -??? What's that about I wonder.

+ i forgot i was watching this episode lol

+ I do so hope they give us some of Emily's non-work life. I'm utterly biased, I wanna see more of my fav. But I also don't want her character to continue to be relegated to that restricted admin role, as though that's all she lives for, y'know?

+ I do like that little moment where Emily took the time to specifically praise Penelope for her idea. (And how that landed for Penelope!)

+ So is Garcia like full time just back with the FBI? Did she take a leave from her job running SOAR? Just curious.

+ I'm sorry, I just can't imagine myself ever wanting to install "security" cameras *inside* my home. Do not want.

+ It's so silly they've named big bad Sicarius. After years of lecturing locals not to elevate a killer by calling them a fancy name. Then Rossi asks this kid about "Sicarius" as though he's supposed to have any clue who the fuck that is? Sloppy sloppy y'all. I get the need to have some kind of distinguishing name for the guy, since "the unsub" won't cut it. But something boring like Unsub Zero makes more sense to me.

+ I appreciate that JJ's kids have made no appearances so far. It does feel a bit odd to have them absent in these home life scenes, but as a viewer I suspect either they or their parents had no desire for them to be involved, good for them.

Okay back to the new ep! I'm excited.

[bridgemt]

Bridge’s Chi-Town Journal: #1 - Barriers

(As part of my growth and journey, I am choosing to start journaling more! Each day I’m gonna try and blog or journal about life. Hope you enjoy. :))

My bones ache. My joints swell. I lay on my air mattress, curled up and exhausted when it hits me.

I am home. My new home, that is. A garden unit in Chicago.

After a long day of moving including anxious parents, long hours of driving; damaged shelving, and rain I lay on my bed as I realize the new reality I am living.

Chicago used to be a fantasy for me. After visiting in 2016 for a Yellowcard concert, I always found myself drawn to the city. It felt natural and right walking around with my ex. Something about this city pulled me in and I wanted more:

The problem of course being multilayered. A long term relationship with an emotionally manipulative man I convinced myself I loved with my heart and soul. A back breaking career working on two different college campuses. And of course fear of the unknown. Moving to Chicago would’ve been reckless… I knew nobody there. It’d be selfish… what about my family back home? What about my partner? He wanted to move back to his home city in the long term.

One by one, these barriers dropped.

My ex? Broken up after finally waking up and seeing that it wasn’t what I wanted or needed anymore. Albeit ending messy and with both of us making questionable decisions.

My family? I grew to show them I could be distant but still loving and caring.

My job? Well, I landed a fully remote gig that paid better.

So here I am. Ending 2022 in a city I had dreamed of and somehow made a reality for myself.

My bones ache but with pride of seeing a dream through. My joints swell but i feel the bravery of what I’m trying. I curl up with my lucky charm - an Aipom plush from Pokémon as I wonder and think about what my next steps are. And while I am afraid… I am also excited. And I dare to dream of what comes next.

[lucifer-is-a-bag-of-dicks]

sometimes I think of my cousins and how they've travelled overseas and done all these exciting and adventurous things and I feel like I've been wasting my life staying home and not going anywhere

but I eventually realised that I've already done a lot of exciting and interesting things without spending money or travelling abroad, even if they're just little things, they're still experiences, and I have so many of them

like the time I was playing my ukulele on an empty bus, and then a group of teenagers got on, recognised the song I was playing, and got all excited and started singing along to it

last year I spent a month in a mental health unit, I met a lot of interesting and wonderful people, including a guy who gave me a completely edited version of Judge Dredd that cut out a lot of the comic relief moments that he felt ruined the movie, to this day that is still the only version of that movie I've ever watched (he did a very good job)

I taught myself to cheep like a chick after volunteering to house our baby chickens in my bedroom overnight to make sure they stayed safe and warm, they would cheep at me and I'd cheep back, eventually my family couldn't tell which of us were cheeping

before I started working in aged care, I volunteered in a dementia unit just talking to and doing activities with the residents, I played dominos with a man who survived Auschwitz, he couldn't remember a lot of his life, but he would always show me the numbers on his arm and tell me exactly how many years he spent fighting in the war, how many years he spent in Auschwitz, and how after he was released, as soon as he was fit to fight again he rejoined the army

I travelled for most of a day to attend the wedding of friends I had met in person only once at a convention, I had very little money at the time and stayed in the cheapest pub hotel imaginable, it was disgusting, I slept on the very edge of the bed with my jacket over the pillow, it was worth it to see them again

when travelling home from a convention me and my friends ended up on the same train home as some other convention goers and we turned the section we were sitting in into a mess of memes and pop-culture references, we sand songs, made a ton of noise and had a lot of fun, I'm still friends with some of them and we always try to meet up at cons now

my mum and aunt appeared on tv advocating for lifts at our local train station that has absolutely no accessibility for the disabled, the video they took of a legless man dragging himself backwards up the stairs as his friend carried his wheelchair went viral, I did letterbox drops and helped out at BBQ fundraisers for the cause, the government has finally relented and are beginning the plans to have them installed

I joined an accapella group once and discovered I was a baritone, I learned how to mount a unicycle but I can't ride one, I learned sign language when I was having non-verbal episodes, and I forgot it all when they stopped and I no longer needed it, I marched in a float at mardi gras, literally everyone I know contacts me when they need a bird identified, I took burlesque classes, I made posters for a local band promotion

and now I have a volunteer job in a thrift store that funds a suicide callback service that I have actually used, I have failed at every job in my life so far but in this one I singlehandedly manage the entire dvd and video tape section, every single disc on our shelves was checked and cleaned by me and me alone, and the ones that were on the shelves from before I started working there were removed and rechecked, I reshelved everything and sorted it all by genre, by my manager's orders nobody else is even allowed to touch the dvd section, and when anyone does the other staff will rat them out to me because they know how much pride I take in my work and how important it is to me, and that I do a fucking good job, the first time ever I've had a job I'm good at and proud of

you don't have to have money and go to exotic places to have an interesting and fulfilled life, I wouldn't trade any of this for an expensive trip abroad

what interesting life experiences have you had? what weird skills have you learned? what kind of strange people have you talked to? give me your stories

[herefm]

🌟 Here Spotlight: Alabaster Pizzo🌟

A space for (almost) limitless creativity, Here lets you create rooms \ that let you fully express yourselves. But sometimes, we need a little inspiration. Welcome to Here Spotlight, a series of interviews with some of our favorite artists and creatives out in the world.

Hi Alabaster, could you tell us a bit about yourself? Where are you in the world and what does your day to day look like?

Hi Here, I live in Los Angeles. Depending on what or where I’m working, I might work from home one day on drawings and comics, or go to my workshop where I make things out of concrete and recycled plastic, tile, and wood.

How did you get into drawing and making art!

I’ve always done it. My parents have comics I made when I was 3, before I could even write (I dictated and my Dad did the lettering).

Tell us a little bit about the room template that you made! What inspired it?

My house and my plants! I have about 200 plants in my apartment. Also, I love cinderblocks. I use them to make shelving or as plant pedestals a lot.

What are some of the projects that you were super excited to work on so far?

Ahhh, I always have like 6 or 7 projects I’m working on. I’m trying to develop a painting practice; like the drawings I do but way bigger. I have a work space that is not my house for the first time ever so I’m exploring bigger, messier work, which is so fun. In 2021 I serialized a 60 page comic on instagram, posting 2 pages every other day, and that was really exciting, reading people’s feedback as the comic was made.

Who are some of your favorite artists on the internet right now?

Because I’ve been teaching myself how to recycle plastic into art, I’m excited to have made internet-friends with cooltrashnet and funky_alchemy who are making innovative work out of similar materials and processes.

What are some of the things you would tell your younger self? Are there anything that you would like to know earlier in your life as an artist?

Actually nothing! Looking back, I think I’ve learned and grown and evolved in ways I’m proud of and also feel like they've taken the right amount of time. If I could redo my 20s, I’d take myself dancing more. I was too shy to do that alone until my 30s.

What are some of the anxieties that you have around being an artist and being online?

Being very visible online opens me up to a lot of stressful situations. I used to enjoy interacting with anyone who wanted to message me but I’ve had to turn those features off, which is unfortunate. I want people to enjoy and relate to my work but I try to stay completely away from pandering. It can be really easy to let that seep into your work, and then you are making work you know will get shared instead of work that is meaningful to you. Most of the paid work I get is from people seeing my art on social media, so this is difficult to avoid. I wind up having to sacrifice money for integrity, and the United States is a very harsh place in which to make this choice. But most online spaces are free, so the barrier for entry to start making and posting art and interacting with other artists is low.

What takes the most of your time in your day to day?

I spend way too much time poking and prodding at my plants when I should be working

What are you some of the things that you are working on that you’re excited about right now?

I’ve taken a small break from comics to explore material art but I think I’m going to return to comics soon.

Are there anything that you are looking forward to for the coming year?

Just hoping for a time when going out and being around other people feels safe again, it won’t be this year. Maybe next year

What’s a song that you listen to almost everyday lately?

I don’t know about every day haha, but the song I dropped into my room template is Inspector Norse by Todd Terje, and is an enduring favorite of mine. If you like dance music, you can check out my Spotify playlists, search for my name :)

[wrienne]

My Cheating, Amnesic Fiancé

Chapter 11: Another Threat

“W-what?”

You stared at the tiny sliver of gold balancing between Yoongi’s fingers. You couldn’t believe what was happening. How the heck had Jungkook’s ring gotten into his possession?

“It was a simple question.” He stopped you before you could reply. “And don’t try to lie to me. I can see through shit like that.”

“How did you find out?” you asked as your grip tightened around the handle of the duffel bag and the computer bag. “Did he tell you?”

“Not exactly,” he answered. “I overheard an argument he had with his parents some time ago, talking about wanting to cancel ‘the marriage’. Although I wasn’t sure who he was supposed to marry against his will…” Yoongi looked pointedly at your currently naked finger. “I saw the ring on your finger yesterday. It makes too much sense considering your strange relationship and the time of the accident for all to be a mere coincidence. So tell me: when were you telling us about you and Jungkook’s engagement?”

“Where did you get that?” you asked instead, pointing at the band. “Did you steal it from him?”

“I would never steal,” he said sharply, reacting for the first time since you had met him. “I was in charge of washing our clothes once when I discovered it in his pocket. It was before he had met Park Yi-Jae, so don’t try to give me that explanation.”

You swallowed your words. You didn’t know what to say.

“Does she know?”

You shook your head.

“Did you know about her?”

You felt your jaw clench instinctively in anger. Yoongi raised a brow. “You didn’t. Huh. So that’s the private subject you couldn’t disclose and what you and Jungkook fought about yesterday.”

“Move aside,” you demanded as you tried to assume a neutral expression. You couldn’t believe he was reading through you as easily as that. “I have to get back to Jungkook.”

“Not yet,” he told you. “You haven’t answered my questions.”

“You have no right to any of the answers,” you said coolly. “And you have to promise me that you won’t tell anyone.”

“Do you know why he stayed with you?”

“No,” you said instantly. “There’s not a minute that goes by without me asking myself: Why would that bastard decide to deceive both of our parents and me? Why remain engaged to me when he loves another girl?” You narrowed your eyes. “Why ask? Isn’t this an obvious frame of mind?”

“Who am I to presume what you might or might not consider,” he said simply, then took a step closer to you. He lowered his voice. “Now, the rest of them might believe your tear-jerker, but I think it’s shit. There is something you want from Jungkook, isn’t it? That’s why you’re helping him.”

“No,” you began, “as I just explained--”

“People aren’t like that,” interrupted Yoongi. He wore an expressionless guise, and even his eyes and tone were inscrutable. “They don’t help someone purely at the goodness of their hearts and childhood cotton clouds. As for the reason why Jungkook chose to stay with you even when he has a girlfriend…” He snorted. “Are you really so naive you cannot see the blatant answer?”

You inhaled sharply but didn’t respond. You were doing your best not to drop the duffel bag and the computer and just swing at him.

Min Yoongi’s gaze hardened. “It’s for your name and money, Einstein.”

“Never,” you said venomously. “Do you really have so little trust in your own group member? In Jungkook? Don’t you know at least how proud he is? He would never stoop to that level.”

“Perhaps not. But he doesn’t really have a say in the marriage, does he? Think (Y/N), you attend a SKY university, so you ought to have at least some brain capacity. Who else would be able to have access to your family vault?”

“His parents,” you realized breathlessly. “His father, to be more exact.”

You couldn’t deny the truth of his words. Jungkook’s father had never been good with money and was far too fond of the bottle for someone who often ran into major economic predicaments. But why would your parents allow it to happen? What would they gain from you marrying Jungkook?

And perhaps the most important question: How and what did Min Yoongi know about Jungkook’s parents? Jungkook wasn’t the personal, talkative type. He wouldn’t have shared such delicate details of his upbringing with anyone. Right?

“Solved the mystery, did we?” He brushed some invisible dirt off his shoulders. “You can thank me after you’ve answered the rest of my questions.”

“Get out of my way.” You had too many thoughts fuddling your mind to be polite or try to be diplomatic. “I will scream if you don’t.”

Yoongi held your eyes for a moment before he tsked in annoyance and allowed you to step past. You were practically running out of the room, and only barely caught the last of a sarcastic: “--nice evening.”

Jimin stood in the kitchen washing dishes together with Taehyung, while Namjoon and Hoseok sat at the table reading off the master list. Seokjin was nowhere to be seen, and you guessed he probably was in one of the bathrooms. Music played in the background, only slightly louder than the sound of running water and the clinking and clanking of pots, plates and cutlery. It was like stepping into a whole different world compared to the unfriendly tension you had experienced with Yoongi.

Hoseok had lighted up when he spotted you, but his eyes rounded when he saw your face. Fortunately, you managed to speak first.

“I really need to get to the hospital,” you said, hoping you didn’t sound half as furious as you were.

“Here’s the list,” said Namjoon hesitantly, since he also saw your expression.

“Thanks. And thank you again for the food.”

You took the paper and folded it into your back pocket. Jimin’s initial smile fell when he met your gaze, though Taehyung simply furrowed his brows in confusion and glanced toward the room you frankly had escaped.

“I’ll leave now,” you said hurriedly before anyone could comment on your obviously upsetting conversation with Yoongi. “Goodbye.”

Their united farewell followed you as you ambled down the hallway. You did your best not to look behind you, but you felt his dark, knowing eyes drilling into your back.

This wasn’t the last you had seen of Min Yoongi.

You were putting on your shoes when a door almost swung into your face. It was becoming a bad habit, but as you skittered out of the way, you couldn’t help but yelp in surprise. Stepping out of the bathroom was Seokjin, who strangely wore a jacket and gave you a curious look.

“I figured I could help carry down the stuff,” he told you, then pointed at a few canvas bags slumped against the shelves. “Those are Jungkook’s favorite shoes. You should probably take them with you as well, if only because he bought all himself.”

You and Seokjin stood in the descending elevator when you texted Jong-Yeol to come and pick you up. But as the two of you waddled out of the building carrying Jungkook’s belongings - Seokjin having offered to carry significantly more, an offer which you gracefully refused - you found that Jong-Yeol was already directly outside.

“Thank you for the help,” you said after Seokjin and Jong-Yeol had filled up the trunk. “I didn’t realize how much I had stolen from Namjoon until I tried lifting the bag up, and by then, all of his clothes were buried underneath Jungkook’s.”

“Typical,” said Seokjin with a laugh. “It’s really no effort, though.”

“Still, thanks,” you said as you opened the car door. “Let’s buy some takeaway first,” you told Jong-Yeol. “Jungkook’s probably starving.”

Jong-Yeol hurried around the side of the car to get into the driving seat. “Chinese?”

“Hmm, no. Fried chicken.”

“Before you leave, (Y/N)...”

Halfway into the car, you stopped and glanced over your shoulder. “Yeah?”

“Take care of Jeon Jungkook on behalf of all six members,” said Seokjin solemnly, his gaze trailing the ground. “And feel free to contact us whenever you need help or whatever. I’ll message Sejin-manager and tell him he should give you our numbers at the hospital.”

“He’s already given me all of your numbers,” you said with a smile. “I can send my KakaoTalk ID to you later tonight if you want, since it’s cheaper that way.”

Kim Seokjin smiled, too. “That would be convenient. Bye, (Y/N).”

He helped you with the car door, and then you were off. As much as you still boiled inside due to Min Yoongi and the situation he both had established and stirred up, you knew you couldn’t show distress in the face of Jungkook. He needed you strong, dependable, now more than ever.

Besides, it wasn’t as if you could ask him about the reason and dynamic of the engagement on his part. He was amnesic.

And perhaps that was for the better.

It was a fifteen-minute drive to the nearest fried chicken shop due to traffic. It took another fifteen for you to get to Asan Medical Center, which on the other hand was fortunate considering the number of cars filling the streets. You managed to get your emotions under control, even though the question kept brewing in the back of your mind.

What was the reason your parents wanted you to marry Jungkook so direly?

After checking the time on your phone and saying bye to Jong-Yeol, you jogged through the hospital toward Jungkook’s room. In your purse were a pair of fresh jeans and a t-shirt you had picked out at random from the duffel bag, and in your left hand, you held the chicken that was surprisingly yet warm. You knew he was the combination of brave, proud and stupid to never go back on his words. And since he so foolishly had proclaimed that he wouldn’t let himself be fed, you had decided upon fried chicken, which didn’t really need cutlery of any sort.

You were a bit anxious, not knowing what state he could possibly be in, but as you opened the door to his room and spotted him in his bed, surrounded by Kim Sejin, a woman in doctor’s robe and--

Park Yi-Jae. She was sitting quietly in a chair pulled up next to Jungkook’s bed, watching him. Her eyes narrowed when you burst through the door.

“(Y/N)! Finally!”

Jungkook blatantly pointed at you. “She’s the one,” he told the doctor eagerly. “I cannot remember anyone but her."

You noticed Yi-Jae and Sejin cringe, though both out of different reasons. Sejin looked hurt, while Yi-Jae stared pleadingly at Jungkook. He ignored both.

He only saw you.

You tried not to flush with embarrassment as the female doctor scrutinized you from head to toe. She was in her mid-thirties, short and had cut her black hair to shoulder-length, though it was loosely tied just above her neck currently. The doctor readjusted her glasses then held up a blue plastic clipboard slightly.

“Then perhaps you might be more helpful handling him,” she said. Her voice reminded you a bit of your mother’s, sharp and quick, though lower and more pleasant to the ears.

“We’ll leave (Y/N) to it, then. Come,” said Sejin and carefully touched Yi-Jae’s shoulder when she didn’t respond.

“No, I can’t leave him,” she protested, her tone trembling. “Not again. Only a terrible person would leave his or her beloved when they’re in a state such as this. I will rise above anything he might say, because the fact is, he simply doesn’t know better. And maybe I can help, too.”

Yi-Jae reached out and curled her fingers around Jungkook’s. His focus shifted slowly from you to her as she spoke.

“Do you really not feel or remember anything?” she asked him, the desperation making her voice hoarse. You could see tears lining her eyes and almost had to look away. It was too raw, too painful. “It’s me, Jungkook. My name is Park Yi-Jae. We met last year on a music show and you told me on our first date that you had never seen anyone more beautiful than I in your whole life. You have made me laugh every day on KakaoTalk since and we always made time to video chat whenever we were apart. The first time I told you I loved you was on Christmas Eve when you sang that little tune for me while we were out walking late at night. I told you last week I could imagine spending the rest of my life with you. You simply cannot have forgotten all of this, Jungkook, my honey.”

For a long moment, it was quiet in the room. You watched the tears roll down Park Yi-Jae’s slightly rosy cheeks and couldn’t help but think that she was one of the prettiest girls you had ever seen. Even while crying, she was prettier than you thought it fair for anyone to be.

Briefly, you thought Jungkook might have remembered something, that the almost ludicrous way of restoring his memories worked and had started just then and there - through reminding him of his love for Yi-Jae. While talking, she had leaned so close to him they could almost kiss. His brown, familiar large eyes were holding hers, silently observing, and he didn’t move away. But then, and in a tone you prior to then had only ever heard him use with you, Jungkook replied without twitching even an eyebrow.

“Don’t touch me.”

[starlight-starwrites]

Dave being hired to be a bodyguard for a high profile diplomat and she has a huge crush but can't risk it. And so they have to have a secret affair 😁

In the Future

note: we’ve got ourselves a spicy kiss, fellas. an unexpected 2.3k.

“Dave, please, I can’t deal with this right now.”

“Then when can you? Because you’ve been avoiding me all day.”

You have to laugh. “Avoiding you? You have been with me the entire freaking day. I have been busy. You think I can just disappear for a while? I have a job to do, and so do you, so do it.”

You try to walk past him, wishing you could just disappear from everyone if just for a moment, but he catches your arm.

“Hey,” his voice is softer now, his attempt at calming you down, pleading with you for your attention like he always does. It works. Every time, unfortunately, and you’re reminded again at why exactly he’s been clinging a little tighter to you today.

You don’t want to think about it now. But it’s the last day you’ll be here in Belgium. You’ve met with the representatives already, finished sending emails that may just go ignored to administrators within the European Union. Your bags have been packed, your private flight back to DC is scheduled to be on time. All that’s left is to actually get to the airport and...part ways with your security detail.

You look up and finally meet his eyes. You can see the hint of sadness, the look of concern, but he’s being stern with you. The same way he was stern when you met, when he probably saved your life. The same stern look he gave you when he told you that you were more than just an entertaining fling, that you were not just some fantasy to act out.

It’s annoying really, how you listen to him so easily. You hadn’t been sure if it was just a fantasy for you, to fall in love with your bodyguard. It may have started that way, but you know its more than that now. Even still, your time here is up, and you promised Dave a conversation.

You glance both ways down the hall before you tug on his arm. “In here,” you say, pulling him into an unlocked maintenance closet. It’s big enough for the two of you to stand without touching each other, giving you enough space to breathe easier.

His brown eyes look you up and down, his forehead creasing. In the closed room, he doesn’t feel the need to hide sorrow in his gaze.

“Last night you said we’d talk.”

“I know.”

“Your flight is in three hours.”

You look away from him, stare at the door instead. “I know.”

He looks to the side too, putting his hands in his pockets and glancing over the shelving unit in the back. “If you want to end this here then just tell me--”

“Dave, no. Stop. That’s not why I’m...” You don’t know what you’re doing. It had started as nothing more than heat of the moment, giving into a mutual attraction and maybe a childish infatuation on your part. It’s been three weeks now here with him, not even a month, but day in, day out he’s been at your side. Every morning, every meeting, every meal. And then every night.

You didn’t want to think how it would end. But here the two of you stand, moments away from when you’ll separate with no idea when you may see him again.

“You said you would be staying here right? What am I supposed to do?” You ask it quietly, almost a whisper. Anyone could hear from outside the door you think, even if the real reason you can’t speak up is standing in front of you, refusing to look at you.

Without him staring you down, you take the chance to really look at him. His hair is neatly combed, the black suit and tie fitting him well, even if at this angle you can see the outline of his gun. His shoulders are tense, and you watch the pout of his lips when he looks down at his shoes.

“You told me you loved me.” He speaks just as quietly as you. Your heart drops at the statement.

It’s true, you had said it. But standing here now with him, you can’t tell if you regret it. He never responded when you blurted it out, still lying in bed. He had kissed your head softly, but that was it. No return of the sentiment, no discussion. You had hoped after that maybe it would just be forgotten, that you could move past it to save yourself from any embarrassment. It seems that at the end of things, you would have no such luck.

“I did,” you respond. Your throat constricts. “I shouldn’t have said it. I wasn’t thinking--”

“Did you mean it?” It’s his turn to interrupt you. He looks up at you finally, and you don’t know what he’s thinking. He wants to know. His eyes dart between yours, searching for the truth, and as scared as you are, there’s something in them that puts you at ease enough to answer.

“Yes. I did mean it.” You leave it at that. It’s the honest answer, and maybe you are foolish for falling so quickly, but what would life be if you didn’t love easily? It’s better than not loving at all. Either he feels the same, or he doesn’t. And that will be that.

He lets out a sigh at your words, whether one of disappointment or relief you don’t know. He pulls his hands from his pockets as though he’s going to reach for you before they fall back down. You don’t know how to say goodbye to him. It’s an uncomfortable situation. He still has to drive you to your flight. See you off in front of everyone.

You step forward and try to speak. “Dave...” your voice is barely even a whisper.

Before you can say anything more, he’s moving in to meet you, large hands grasping your shoulders and holding you chest to chest with him. Your hands unclasped to settle at his waist as you look at him.

His mouth opens and closes as he tries to find the words to answer you, and you prepare yourself to be disappointed.

“I can’t say it back to you.”

Being prepared doesn’t make it any better. You duck your head so you don’t have to look at him, so he doesn’t have to see the heartbreak on your face, but he ducks his head down to follow your gaze.

“Hey, hey. Look at me.” You look at up him briefly, allowing him to say his peace even if you hate what is running through your mind right now. “I’m not ready to say it back to you, but I want to be able to.” His hand comes to tilt your head up so he can look you in the eye. “In the future. But I need to know you want that too.”

You tell the man you love him, that you mean it, and he still needs to know you want to see him again?

“Dave, I would put you on that plane myself if I could. You have to know that.” You take his hand from your face and hold it between you. “I know you have an assignment, I can’t interfere with that.”

“Then tell me you’ll wait for me.”

You laugh at that. Wait for him? Suddenly you feel like two teenagers, so out of control of your futures. The fact you both are hiding in a closet isn’t lost on you.

With a squeeze of his hand, you answer him. “Yeah, alright, I can--”

He leans forward to capture your lips with his. His hand moves from your shoulder to drift down the expanse of your back, and your eyes close as you melt into his body. You release his hand to reach for his hair, fingers curling to tug at the short strands. His mouth opens over yours as he pants at the action, and you take the opportunity to slip in your tongue.

You can feel his smile at the action, and his hands come to grab right under your ass, making you lift up in surprise. You gasp as he starts pushing you backwards, his mouth still moving desperately against yours. He guides you back, and you cling to him, holding your body flush to his. He doesn’t stop the kiss for anything, not when you almost stumble back, or when your hand flails out to grasp at anything, or when your movements knock over broom to bang against the door.

He finally gets you against the wall, trapping you with his body and greedily taking control of the kiss. His tongue traces your bottom lip before diving into your mouth, making you moan and push yourself into him. One of his hands slips under your pencil skirt, grabbing the bare flesh of your thigh and slowly creeping upwards.

You sigh at the sensation, breaking away for a breath to bump his nose with yours. His eyes never open as you blink slowly, and then he’s going for your mouth again, pressing his lips to yours fiercely before pulling away to do it again. His other hand palms your breast over your shirt before coming up to cup your jaw, guiding your movements as you kiss him. His lips slow against yours, coaxing your lips open and his tongue darts in briefly before he tilts his head and pulls one of your lips with his.

“Dav--”

He covers your mouth with his to silence you. He moves against you languidly, drawing out each drag and pull of your lips. You try to memorize the feel of his plush lips on yours, the taste of him. It’s a gentle kiss, and it breaks only for him to come back to press against your lips again. And again. The hand under your skirt holds your thigh, his thumb brushing over the juncture of your hip and thigh. It feels good, distracting, but you want to enjoy it. He pulls back for a moment, looking at you with half-lidded eyes.

Whatever you were going to say you don’t remember, and you already miss the taste of him. He must feel the same, and his head dips again to kiss you. Your hands cradle his head, hold him close, your thumbs stroking his cheek bone. This kiss is much different than the passion of the first, or the careful affection of the second. This one he just holds you close, taking in the feel of your body fitting to his, the touch of your fingers, the taste of your lips, the beat of your heart.

You try to forget that you’re leaving him. That even with a promise, maybe you won’t see him again. You try to hold on to what he asked of you. Hold on to the fact that he wanted a moment ‘in the future.’ You try to tame the love in your heart into something that cherishes this moment with him, that wishes him well and prays that he will be safe. You don’t want to leave with thoughts controlled by greed, wishing he was with you.

It’s not a goodbye you remind yourself. It’s an until we meet again.

His lips leave yours with a quiet smack, his nose pressed to your cheek to breathe you in. He whispers your name, and you like the hoarse way it sounds. Your eyes flutter open, gaze drifting from his eyes to his lips and back up again.

“Dave,” you start again. Only this time, it’s not him who interrupts you.

“The car just arrived, and we have the bags in transit. Does anyone have eyes on the minister?”

The crackle from the comm breaks the both of you from the moment, reminding you again you have somewhere you need to be.

Dave’s face morphs from the soft bliss you shared to one of frustration. He takes a deep breath before reaching to answer the call.

“I have eyes on the minister. She’s...finishing up a last minute call.”

You appreciate his ability to think on his feet. Your hand still caresses the side of his face, the other holding to the lapel of his jacket. Throughout the interaction, Dave never pulls his eyes from yours.

“Copy that. We should be on the road in fifteen.”

Dave’s hand comes to the piece at his ear again. “I copy.”

You know you should be fixing your appearance. Ensuring all your items have been gathered. Checking your tablets for updates. But you can’t stop looking into the warm gaze he gives you.

“We should go,” you finally whisper. He just nods. He takes his hand from under your skirt to rest at your hip, and you pull closer to his warm touch.

Together, the two of you walk to the door, never taking your hands from each other. He says your name again softly, and if you had been any more distracted you would have missed it. You stop and stand with him for a moment, before you’re both pulling each other in for one last kiss.

It’s short. Much too short to be any sort of satisfying, but it’s all you can afford at the moment. There are people waiting and jobs to be done.

“Until we see each other again, Mr. York,” you say with a sad smile.

He returns it, holding a hand to your face for a moment before opening the door. “In the future, Minister.”

.

tagging: @perropascal @ficsilike-reblogged @yespolkadotkitty (message me if you would like to be added/removed from my everything tag list!)

[dulce-pjm]

Hi! Could I request a Jin or namjoon arranged marriage! au with “One more kiss.” Thank you!!

of course!! let’s do it ;) took some creative liberties since i got multiple arranged marriage requests, hope that’s okay!! it's rather angsty

namjoon with au #1 - arranged marriage!au and prompt #6 - “One more kiss.”

make your own request here using these prompts!

rainy day promise

namjoon x reader! ft. bestie!hoseok

word count: 2.4k (i’m honestly so proud of myself for not making this a borderline oneshot)

genre: fluff, angst, arranged marriage!au, (very very slight) historical!au and wartime!au

summary: when namjoon’s away, all you can do is worry. 

The rain has always made you sleepy. 

It reminds you of quiet nights by the fire, curled against his chest as he reads to you. It makes you feel him kissing your temple softly and whispering “Good night, love,” when he sees your eyes flutter closed and your breaths become heavier. The rain and his memory are too comforting, too tempting to resist drifting off into dreamland. 

“You alright, Y/N?” The question has you jolting in your seat, eyes flying from the drops cascading down the window to the man next to you, a warm smile gracing his sharp features. 

The meal in front of you has long gone tasteless and your date has noticed, picking up at how you’ve gone from merely playing with your food to not touching it altogether. 

“‘M fine,” you murmur, shoveling a few potatoes into your mouth despite the nausea rising in your stomach. Your eyes go wide when he grabs your wine glass, taking no time at all to fill it. 

“You’ll be better if you drink a little.” You feign glare at him but his smile remains stern. 

“I’m really alright, Hoseok.” You take a swig of the wine anyhow, letting the drink warm your cheeks and sting at the back of your throat. 

“You’re worried about him, aren’t you?” You don’t answer, suddenly finding your untouched peas very interesting. He’d be picking them off your plate if he was here. Hoseok places a gentle hand on top of yours. “Y/N, there’s no sense in getting all worked up. He’ll be okay, always is.”

There’s a clang on the opposite side of the table when your uncle’s silverware hits the table. 

“What are you two talking about over there?” You briefly cringe, summoning a sheepish smile you’ve worked to perfect over the years. 

You both brush it off. Hoseok, ever personable, is able to change the subject before you can blink, chatting with your aunt about some upcoming play he’s directing. 

Hoseok is wealthy, like his father and grandfather before him. He’s kind and funny and better with people than you’ve ever been. He could provide you with a comfortable life, away from the war. That’s why your aunt and uncle chose him for you, why they orchestrated this arrangement underneath your nose. 

You hadn’t rejected him, not exactly. You’ve never been in any position to reject the courtship or engagement. But both you and Hoseok know your heart lies elsewhere. 

Your aunt grabs your hand, but her gaze lies on the man to your left. “I mean, really, Kim Seokjin! When word gets out, there’ll be rioting on the streets just to get into the show, I’m sure of it.” Hoseok laughs awkwardly, giving you sparing glances to keep track of your worrying mind. 

“I was just as surprised as you when he auditioned. It’s been an honor to work with him. I actually hope to—”

The dining hall door slams open. You whip your head towards the door along with the rest of the guests. The messenger is drenched, looking haggard with disheveled hair and rain still dripping down her face. 

“I— I’m sorry, sir—” Her teeth are chattering. “The merchants returned. There was—”

“Slow down, Hana,” your aunt says, always maternal. “It’s alright. Take your time.” She nods, taking a deep breath as a puddle of rainwater forms around her feet. 

“There was an injury. The carriage flipped while they were passing through the valley, because of all this rain.”

You’re on feet before you can think twice, heavy dining chair scraping against the hardwood as you push it backward. Hoseok shoots you a warning look that you don’t catch. 

“Excuse me,” you mutter. “I’m not feeling well.”

Hoseok stands with you, placing a hand on your shoulder. “I’ll escort you.” 

Your uncle shakes his head, scolding, “No, stay with us, Hoseok. It wouldn’t be proper.” You could laugh. Neither of you has ever been particularly proper with each other. 

You bid your aunt and uncle goodnight, ignoring a concerned stare from Hoseok. As soon as you’re out of sight, you dash towards the basement, towards the closet you always meet him in when he returns. You pray you’ll see him there and not surrounded by medics. 

The closet is placed discreetly, the door hidden by old barrels and shelves, bare walls and damp floors making this corner of this house largely unused and untouched. 

You knock thrice on the door, pause, and knock a fourth time. When the door doesn’t open, you repeat the code. 

No answer. Your heart drops into stomach as you stumble backwards, breathing spiraling out of control. 

“Hey, love.” A soft hand lands on the small of your back and you gasp, spinning to face him. He’s all smiles, lips stretched into his dimpled cheeks as he resists the urge to kiss you right here. “Miss me?”

You throw your arms around his middle, pressing your face into his chest as he digs his nose into your hair. 

You know how self-conscious he is about his intimidating aura. His sharp glances and sharper words often have most of the staff avoiding him like the plague, but to you, he’s all soft embraces and blushing cheeks. 

--

“How was the trip?” The two of you are perched on worn stools that wobble when you lean too far one way, arms wrapped around each other to keep them from moving too much. Your head is pressed against his shoulder while he traces patterns on the back of your hand that's resting on his thigh. 

“It was... amazing. Honestly.” 

“I’m glad.” And you are. But you can’t help but always worry. These trips are dangerous and take much too long. When war and battle beckon at your door, every day without him in your sight is another day of anxiety.

Namjoon is a servant of your uncle’s house. He’s a cartographer, having studied at the same university as Hoseok and yourself, earning admission through his merit alone. The first times you saw him, he was bent over old maps and worn books, the weak candlelight illuminating the texts in front of him and his face poorly. Under the ruse of taking nighttime strolls, you’d found yourself sneaking peeks at him more often, smiling softly at the dark tufts of hair he’d run his fingers through until it stood up on his head. 

You remember when Hoseok introduced you to him officially, tired of hearing you gush about him, and the three of you became a unit, joint at the hip wherever you went. 

You hadn’t realized how good those days were, not when you had them. When you and Namjoon were giggly and sweet and bashful and it took Hoseok fighting tooth and nail for either of you to confess your true feelings. He’d been delighted when you finally gave up on hiding it, nearly shrieking in joy when he saw Namjoon sneak a peck on your cheek in the corner stairwell.

Those days were golden and joyful, full of laughs and long nights doing schoolwork and attending fancy university parties only to sneak away with half the buffet. 

The days were good. Until they weren’t. 

Until your uncle and aunt and Hoseok’s parents informed you of their longstanding agreement: that the two of you be married. 

It’d been nothing but an absolute shock, but the both of you knew better than to say no, knew better than to risk their wrath. Hoseok would have been fine, though his parents certainly would have been unhappy. But if you rejected your uncle's wishes, an orphan with nothing but gratitude for their kindness in taking care of you, you couldn't be too sure they wouldn’t just relieve you of your position here, sending you to the streets. And you and Namjoon had neither the means nor the connections to fend for yourselves in the city, not in times like these.

When Hoseok got on one knee the next week in your dining room with Namjoon watching from the corner, newly hired by your uncle at your own suggestion, you said yes. Neither of you wanted it, but Namjoon insisted Hoseok go through with it, too caught up in his worry for your safety to think of himself.

It'd been difficult keeping the ruse, especially once your university days were over and there were much fewer places tucked away from your aunt and uncle's eyes and ears. It'd have been much more difficult without Hoseok, but he's always been the charmer out of you three, easily diverting attention and prying eyes when need be.

"I actually got you something."

Your eyes light up in surprise as you shift to face him. "You did? But you said—"

"I lied," he replies with a small smirk. "We always planned to stop by a few cities. I just wanted to see your face when I surprised you."

You giggle softly, lightly slapping at his arm. "You still lied.”

“For a good cause,” he jokes, pecking at your cheek before drawing a small box from his pocket. His cheeks flush slightly as he hands it to you. It reminds you of those first times you spoke to him, when you were both sputtering messes that could barely hold eye contact for longer than a moment. 

It’s small but heavy in your hands, the size somewhat indicative of its contents. It fits just so in your palm, and when you open it, tears spring into your eyes at the small ring nestled into the velvet cushion. It isn’t shiny or decorated with diamonds or worth half your university tuition like the ring Hoseok gave you. It’s humble and wooden, deep brown and adorned with intricately carved with roses and other patterns you don’t recognize. Your thumb runs over the grooves almost instinctively, as if trying to memorize the feeling as quickly as possible. You can almost see his face when he spotted it in some market or shop, see that lit up expression on his features when it reminds him of you. 

“Oh, Namjoon...” You swipe at your eyes quickly, but when you meet his gaze, there’s already a few stray tears cascading down his face. 

“I’m sorry,” he blurts as you smile, lifting your hand to cup his face, thumb brushing away the tears on his cheeks. “I know it’s not much. But I thought you might like it. It’s discreet, so I figured you could wear it around, if you wanted to.”

You chuckle softly and wonder what you’d done to deserve him. “It’s perfect.” You remove Hoseok’s engagement ring from your finger and quickly replace it with Namjoon’s. You already know you’ll be running your fingers over it again often, treating it like a tether to him when he isn’t here. It won’t sit on your ring finger, of course, but for now, you leave it there, admiring its simplicity. 

Namjoon takes a deep breath, pulling your hands into his. “I know everything’s uncertain right now. And I know that might not change for a while.” He runs his thumb across the ring, looking at it intently before lifting your whole hand and kissing it gently, plush lips ever soft against your skin. “But this is a promise. That one day I’ll sweep you off your feet and we won’t look back.”

You laugh loudly this time, maybe a bit too loudly, but you don’t care. “If I don’t sweep you off your feet first.”

He doesn’t ask the question hanging in the air, but your response is enough of an answer as you pull him in for a kiss by the back of his neck. You can taste the saltwater from both of your tears, the moment both incredibly joyful and bittersweet.

When you pull away, he tucks a strand of hair behind your ear while you run a thumb over his dimples, all affections. 

“It’s late,” he murmurs. “We should go.”

You sigh, hand dropping from his face. You wish you could drag him to your room, sweet talk him into playing with your hair or reading with you for a while, but you know he’s right. 

You rise with a nod, feet dragging behind you as you make for the closet door, listening outside for a moment on the off chance that someone’s up late and nearby. Namjoon stays in his seat, always leaving after you to decrease suspicion and allow you to get to bed first. When no sound meets you other than faint thunder, you crack open the door, stepping outside. 

But just as you start to close it behind you, Namjoon grabs the edge of the door with his hand, sticking his face out to meet your startled gaze. 

“Wait.”

“Is something wrong?” You search his face with concern, wondering if you should have said more earlier, if you’d hurt him somehow. 

“No, no.” He shakes his head fervently with a smile. “No, that’s not it.”

You furrow your brows at his antics, though you’ve always loved seeing his more silly side. “Then what do you want, Mister Kim?”

His eyes glint with mischief. “One more kiss, Mrs. Kim.” Your cheeks are flushed, but laugh as you grab his shoulders, pulling him close to you as you let him press his velvety lips onto yours, savoring the feeling until he’s with you again. 

“Love you,” you murmur, peppering a few more kisses on his chin and cheeks for good measure. 

“I love you too,” he whispers. “So much.” He starts to shut the door, but pauses, lips down turned slightly in a frown. “Oh— don’t forget to move the ring to a different finger.”

You nod. “I won’t.” It’s bittersweet as the door closes, a reminder that the bubble you two have created yourself only goes so far, that this isn’t quite as real as you want it to be. 

Namjoon saves the longer, more elegant speech and proposal for a future date, like its own unspoken promise. One day social status and money and survival won’t stop you. One day you’ll both be coming home from long days to love each other unabashedly, to embrace without fear or time constraints. 

You smile to yourself as the rain patters outside, your feet echoing behind you as you creep back to your room. 

You wish Namjoon were with you as you climb under the sheets, feeling a bit cold without him here. 

Yes, the rainfall makes you sleepy but as your head fills with thoughts of Namjoon and his promise, you grin stupidly to yourself, thinking you probably won’t get too much rest tonight. 

[elpublico]

5 & 18 for book asks!

where do you buy books?

betterworldbooks my best friend betterworldbooks..... used online bookstore with (as far as i can tell) no affiliations with amazon, they sell used donated and library books and use old library shelving units, they help fund global literacy organizations... they have a lot of stuff and it's always shipped promptly ive never had a problem w them. i also shop local and indie id drop the name but im not doxxing myself lol.

do you like historical books? which time period?

idk if this is asking if i like historical fiction or just books written in the not-present so i will answer both lol. i dont read much historical fiction now but i do love it and i read so much historical fiction as a kid. those dear america diaries and the princess counterparts and american girl novelizations and time warp trio if that counts 😭 and i do also read books written in the past i mostly stick to late 19th thru 20th century and idk if i've mentioned this on here but i love modernism modernism is my best friend so i read lots of modernist poetry i love modernism my close good friend modernism