#Life Lessons from D&D

[thedreamingteainn]

The Battle of the Broom: Resolving Disputes Over Shared Living Spaces

Ella here, the humble owner of The Dreaming Tea Inn. It seems you’ve found another of my ramblings — a bit of musings from this corner of the inn where I watch over the comings and goings of travelers and adventurers alike. There’s a curious sort of magic in running an inn, I think watching friendships spark, disputes arise, and the delicate dance of shared living unfold. Lately, a particular…

[lilacrespite]

halle bailey. she/her. ciswoman.  ›spotted  at  the  met  steps  ,  nevaeh  ivy  james  ,  most  likely  listening  to  in  a  sentimental  mood  by  ella  fitzgerald  with  their  airpods  pro  .  the  twenty  three  year  old  gained  quite  a  reputation  ,  known  to  be  reclusive  yet  spontaneous  to  anyone  who  knows  them  .  you'll  easily  spot  them  when  you  hear  about  the  shadow  from  the  refrigerator  light  in  the  kitchen  late  at  night,  dirt  underneath  fingernails  from  picking  vegetables  in  the  garden,  the  kind  of  warmth  that  only  comes  from  a  hot  stove  or  warming  oven  followed  by  burning  cinnamon  and  vanilla  candles  .  latest  nepoupdates  article  talks  about  the  youngest  james’  sister  abandoning  her  solo  career  after  suffering  from  panic  attacks  on  stage  (  true  )  ,  but  i  guess  any  reputation  is  good  reputation  . 

━━━━━━━━━  💟  B  A  S  I  C  S :

full name: nevaeh ivy james

nickname(s): ivy, vaeh

age: twenty - three .

ethnicity: african american .

gender: cis woman .

pronouns: she / her .

orientation: biromantic / bisexual .

occupation: ( retired ) musician / food journalist & content creator .

language(s) spoken: only fluent in english but learns phrases and basic verb conjugations when traveling so that they can interact with those native to the country she’s visiting   .

━━━━━━━━━  💟  P  E  R  S  O  N  A  I  L  I  T  Y  :

absolutely hates being perceived . it’s funny because she’s the walking personification of anxiety but is still incredibly spontaneous, but that’s mainly because her decision comes from her anxiety . she believes the drastic measures she’s taking are the only way she can get away from the problems she’s making up in her mind which isn’t the case at all but it’s been working for her so far so no complaints . she’s very guarded, doesn’t like talking about her, doesn’t like sharing, would much rather sit in silence but will also happily listen to you talk about yourself if it means she doesn’t have to talk about what her favorite things are . she’s constantly scared of saying/doing the wrong thing or anything that goes against the norm . a chronic people pleaser until she gets it wrong then she just completely avoids the situation/person, puts as much distance between it/them as she can . like will book a flight to another country kind of distance if running away to her apartment isn’t enough . she’s very nice when she’s not in her own head though .

━━━━━━━━━  💟  B  A  C  K  G  R  O  U  N  D  : tw panic attacks, tw anxiety attacks .

along with their incredibly talented sister, gemma, nevaeh lived a comfortable life surrounded by the music industry’s most brilliant musical minds. unlike gemma, however, nevaeh never quite took to the musicality. she could carry a tune and always made sure to take her vocal lessons and writing sessions seriously as to appease both her parents and her sister, but where gemma threw herself into every aspect of the record label to better herself as an artist, nevaeh only did what was expected her and nothing more. while gemma taught herself varying instruments, nevaeh took up crocheting, gardening, and cooking. activities that took her away from the screens that were piled high with comments about which sister was better or how the girls will live up to the legacy their parents left behind.

for awhile nevaeh thought she loved music just as much as her sister did, but that had never been the case. she just loved being with her sister and didn’t want to disappoint her parents. promoting, shooting, and performing was easier whenever gemma was around because of how supportive and reassuring she always was. she didn’t focus on the things nevaeh was doing wrong but rather the ways she could amp up what she had working for her, at least that’s how it felt to nevaeh. it also helped that gemma was a lot more outgoing than nevaeh had ever been, she could easily take the lead on hard questions in interviews and ensure the crowd was having a great time without much help from nevaeh. she found she enjoyed watching gemma on stage just as much as the audience clearly enjoyed it. nevaeh would hit her notes, and hit her marks, never fall out of step, but the star quality always belonged to gemma and nevaeh was happy to be no more than a supporting act.

whenever gemma decided to release the solo tracks she worked on, however, her parents expected nevaeh to do the same. they believed that it’s simply what she would want to do considering the legacy their label had to uphold. after performing for years alongside gemma, nevaeh thought she could do it. at the very least, she really wanted to to make her parents proud. but with a change in sound and no gemma beside her all eyes were on her and only her. the pressure to not only perform but perform well was overwhelming. she was having anxiety attacks before interviews and panic attacks on stage and telling no one. it got to the point where she was locking herself in bathrooms or disappearing for days on end in order to avoid music video shoots, interviews, and promotional performances for singles.

her actions were putting a very sour taste in the mouths of her parents but the knowing that she was disappointing them only made her stay away even more. eventually, she decided to up and leave the country to get away from it all effectively putting an indefinite halt to any projects solo or not. she knew her parents thought it to be a punishment, but nevaeh couldn’t be more relieved. she deleted all of her socials, only responded to messages and calls from her sister, and spent months on end backpacking in europe, touring asia, and contemplating moving to latin america. 

half way through her travels she started a new account geared towards showing off the native cuisine she found along the way. complete with interviews with the cooks and their loyal customers on the dishes and what they loved so much about them. it was meant to be an anonymous account but soon nevaeh didn’t feel like her pictures and typed up captions were enough to capture the love she had for the places, people, and food like she wanted it to and soon moved to video content.

upon returning to new york, her relationship with her parents remained rocky with nevaeh trying to warm her way back into their hearts but she knows it’ll take more than some home cooked meals and baked goods to do so. she continues with her food related content, bringing attention to family owned restaurants or places that are hard to find but worth of the hype (think similar to keith lee content). she also makes a lot of recipe videos as she tries to recreate her favorite dishes from abroad and making some alterations to fit a wider palette.

━━━━━━━━━  💟  H  E  A  D  C  A  N  O  N  S  :

has a whole little garden she tends to everyday. it’s full of fruits, vegetables, and herbs. some flowers but that’s mainly for plating aesthetics and not so much bouquet making but she does love having fresh flowers on the kitchen counter so it does help for that as well.

as mentioned earlier, she does crochet. loves it so much. like where other people will bring a book or their switch or something to keep them entertained while they’re waiting, she’ll bring a crochet project and probably finish one or two in the time because she’s incredibly fast.

cooks A LOT always makes too much on purpose because she likes to volunteer for meals on wheels/soup kitchens but instead of delivering something pre purchased, she likes to give them home cooked meals. has actually befriended a few of the elderly people she usually delivers too and so she takes personal requests and sometimes cooks in their home as well.

gemmas number one fan fr will always break her usual feed of content to post her sisters latest project or accomplishment, she’s very proud.

does not address or comment on any of the posts about her music career. will actually take the time to go through each individual comment to remove it.

honestly spends too much time reading comments from strangers about herself and spiraling about them. no matter how many she deletes it sticks with her and she ends up feeling bad and turning to cook a five course meal to relieve the stress at 2 in the morning. she knows she needs some healthy coping mechanisms, she’s working on it.

━━━━━━━━━  💟 W A N T E D C O N N E C T I O N S : 

I know this is the first time ive done this thats so crazy LMAOO BUT I ONLY HAVE LIKE THREE OKAY ANYWAY Firstly, i think it could be really fun if there was someone she was constantly dumping her latest creations/recreations on. Like she’s popping up at all hours of the day with a ton of groceries or an already made dish to get them to try bc she knows they’ll be honest with her. Preferably someone who is gentle with them bc this will probably be the only person she can take criticism from well yknow without the spiraling happening LMAOO 

Also think it could be painful (aka fun) if she had someone she was with before she tried the solo career thing and then along with the solo career effectively abandoned them too womp womp like if you cried

AND THEN TO FOLLOW THAT someone she had a whirlwind romance with while she was away abroad. Like maybe they were away in relation to their career or also just getting away to get away and they met up and it was one of the first times she found herself truly having FUN and they had a blast could have ended on great you go your way i go mine terms or could have been another situation of a hint of conflict and nevaeh bolting in response we can plot that out !!!!

Lastly i really want her to have a roommate. I think shes too anxiety ridden to live alone, like she cant be left alone with her own thoughts for too long she needs someone to bother at all times so a roommate OR MULTIPLE ROOMMATES !!! would be lovely thank you <3

[moonlitfirefly]

Like a great star shining in the heavens may your transition continue to light the way in a spectacular radiant prism of hope for all the ages, eternally. ✝️✨🤍✨🕉

“So perhaps,” the Dalai Lama said, “according to your religious tradition, we may meet in heaven in the presence of God. You as a good Christian practitioner, you go first.” The Archbishop now chuckled heartily and the room seemed to breathe again. “You may help me and bring us together.” We laughed imagining the Archbishop bargaining with St. Peter at the pearly gates trying get special admission for the Dalai Lama.

“But from the Buddhist viewpoint,” the Dalai Lama continued, “once in a life, you develop some sort of special close connection, then that sort of impact will carry life after life. That’s Buddhist viewpoint. So maybe even then. But now, I’m looking forward to another occasion to see you again—somewhere that only God knows.”

https://www.lionsroar.com/the-dalai-lama-and-desmond-tutu-the-best-of-spiritual-friends/amp/

“THE WORLD LOST A GREAT MAN TODAY.

The sun seems dimmer without Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

But his fierce embrace of justice-Of love and laughter-Kindness-Ubuntu

Live on in all of us as wisdom shared. Arch said he was a, ‘prisoner of hope.’ He lived that hope.

And modeled it for others.

He was short in stature but a giant in life… he helped bring down South Africa’s government. His moral might

took on many of the world’s most pernicious problems.

He also helped small organizations around the world fight for justice.

Archbishop Tutu even helped us fight modern day slavery as an international board member for Voices4Freedom.

Even when he was very ill

Archbishop Tutu joined his dear friend the Dalai Lama on a last mission to help us all live with more joy.

Especially in troubled times.

It has been one of the great gifts  of my life to work with an astonishing team on Arch and the Dalai Lama’s film - Mission JOY.

One time when Arch was sick he was sure that he was going to God - but - he said apparently God didn’t want him just yet.

Today She changed her mind.

Condolences to his family who shared Archbishop Tutu so generously with the world. Thank-you.

He will be missed but his light, lessons and laughter will always call us back to truth, to ourselves.” Source:

https://www.facebook.com/663673213/posts/10159057541628214/?d=n

[sassyduckqueen]

Miraculous: Rise of Anatis 47

So I may have fallen in love with the whole Luka playing violin thing so I'm working it into this. I've always had the intention of him playing more then just guitar so it was kind of a natural progression in this story. Also I got to work in some dad!jagged into this :D And this chapter officially marks the beginning of Alya's Redemption. Anyway, I hope you like this chapter. The next two chapters will be linked chapters so that should be fun to do :D

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Chapter Forty-Seven: Reflekdoll

"Miraculous Ladybugs!" Anatis shouted as he threw the shoe up into the air. It burst into the cure and swept across the city, fixing all the problems that this akuma had caused including restoring the Eiffel Tower. Anatis let out a small sigh as he watched it. It seemed like a lot of the akumas had it in for the tower. He frowned and shook the thought from his head before jumping up and landing on one of the rooftops with Lady Noir following him.

 "Hey, you ok?" She asked, making him look at her before he gave her a smile.

 "I'm ok," He replied, making her raise an eyebrow. "I was just on my way to something really important when the akuma attacked but I'm fine so sorry for worrying you,"

 "Hmm... if you say so," She grinned before giving him a serious look. "But you know you can talk to me if you need to right?"

 "Hmm, it's not like you to be so serious, Kitten," He teased, making her pout a little. He chuckled at her expression before giving her a soft smile. "Don't worry about me,"

 "Hey, I'm allowed to worry about you," She gasped, making him smile before she glanced to the side. "Been Anatis isn't the same as been Lady Noir. You're the one who has to capture the akuma and restore things while I get to be the cunning, ultra charming Lady Noir. I have it easy,"

 She glanced down as she spoke, causing Anatis to frown a little before he placed his hand on her hair and gently ruffled her hair again, making her look up. He smiled down at her with a gentle look in his eye.

 "I like the cunning, ultra charming Lady Noir," He smiled, making her blush a little. "She keeps me going and helps me have fun. Without her, Anatis wouldn't be here,"

 "Annie," She gasped before hugging him. He chuckled and hugged back. "I like Anatis too. He might have to be the responsible one but I think he has quite the sense of humor,"

 "Thank you," He muttered as she rests her head against his chest, purring a little. He smiled and gently rested his head on top of hers but then both of their miraculous beeped, causing them to jump back from each other. "Ah, I gotta get going! See you next time, Kitten,"

 "Y-Yeah! Right! Bye!" She gasped, blushing before using her baton to launch herself off the rooftop as Anatis waved to her and then threw his yoyo and jumped swung down to the alley where he left his bike. He landed on the ground, just as his transformation dropped. He caught Tikki in his hands as she let out a little sigh before placing her in the basket of the bike where a bag of cookies were. She dived into them and began to eat one as he put on his helmet and got back on his bike. He pushed off the wall and began to cycle. He rode out of the alleyway and headed to the Grand Paris hotel as fast as he could. He pulled up at the bike area outside the hotel and locked up his bike before taking off his helmet and placing it in the basket. He took a breathe before opening his hoodie, allowing Tikki to fly into his pocket. 

 "You ok?" She asked in a quiet voice.

 "Just nervous," He mumbled, smoothing his hoodie a little. "Well, it's time to face the music... literally. Wish me luck,"

 "You can do this," Tikki grinned, giving him a thumbs up. He smiled and gently stroked her head with his finger before taking a breathe and heading into the hotel. He walked up to the desk, causing the woman to look up with a bored expression. "Um hi... I'm here to see Jagged Stone..."

 "Right," She mumbled, looking back at her computer. Luka sighed a little.

 "Uh he's expecting me and told me that his agent Penny would inform the desk that I'd becoming by," He continued, making her look at him with his belief. "Um if you don't believe me, just phone his room and ask him. Tell him Luka is here to see him,"

 "Fine," She replied, rolling her eyes and picking up a phone, dialing a number. Luka tapped his fingers as she spoke on the phone before going bright red and stammering out an apology. She hung up and looked up at him. "Uh sorry about that. Gotta be careful right? Anyway, Ms Rolling has confirmed that you are telling the truth. They're in Suite 36 on the 4th Floor,"

 "Thank you," He smiled before walking over to the lift and press the recall button. The doors opened and he stepped in before pressing the floor he needed. He leaned against the wall as he rode it up before it came to a stop. It pinged and he stepped out before heading to the suite. He stopped outside, frowning a little as he heard some shouting before he took a deep breathe and knocked. A few seconds later, Penny opened the door, allowing the shouting to become louder. She also was talking to someone on the phone and holding a clipboard. He really hoped she wasn't too stressed out. "Um,"

 "Ah, Luka, there you are," She smiled, ushering him and closing the door before walking towards where the shouting was coming from. "Uh huh, that would be great,"

 "Is this a bad time?" Luka asked as he followed her into deeper into the room. He stopped and rose an eyebrow as he saw Jagged on the bed, throwing footballs at a man he recognized as Bob Roth, owner of Roth Records. 

 "Listen, Jagged-" Bob started but Jagged threw another ball at him as Fang hissed.

"No, you listen! I will not sell out and change my look!" Jagged gasped. "I'm a genuine rocker and- Luka!"

 He jumped down from the bed and pushed by Bob, making the man frown as he looked at Luka with a raised eyebrow. Jagged ignored him and lead Luka away from him, asking him how Anarka was doing and what he had been up to. Luka explained that he was working on a new song with Rose. 

 "Jagged, we ar- ah!" Bob gasped as Fang growled at him.

 "Penny, show Mr Roth out will ya?" Jagged ordered, getting a nod of Penny who gestured to the door. Bob glared at her but moved when Fang growled at him. Luka frowned a little and looked back at Jagged. "Oh, don't worry about him. He's just grumpy that I won't work with that rapper, XY,"

 "Oh," Luka nodded, frowning a little. He had heard XY's music and wasn't impressed. There was no feeling or soul to it. "I'm not too keen on XY,"

 "Me neither," Jagged grinned, grabbing his guitar and flopping on the sofa, strumming at it a little. "How's Marinette doing?"

 "She's good," Luka smiled, playing with his hands. He looked down and gestured to the jacket he was wearing. It was the one she had given him on the music festival. "She made this jacket for me,"

 "I thought so," Jagged grinned, making Luka smile a little before he gestured to his guitar. "Want to jam?"

 "S-Sure," Luka nodded, a little nervous. Jagged put his guitar down and jumped up, walking over to a door and opening it. He gestured to Luka to join him, causing him to move over.

 "One of the reasons why I go for this room is because it has a walk in wardrobe," He explained, turning on the light and revealing the wardrobe but it was like an extra room. It was roughly the size of a medium bathroom and had a number of Jagged's stage outfits but it also had a huge amount of guitars and other stringed instruments. "Perfect place for my collection if you ask me,"

 "Whoa," Luka muttered as he walked in. He had only ever seen this many instruments in a shop. "You owe all of these?"

 "Yup. Got a few special additions too," He replied, gesturing to a Fender Stratocaster. "This belonged to Jimi Hendrix,"

 "Seriously?" Luka gasped, glancing at it. He could practically feel the soul of the guitarist in it. Jagged grinned and nodded. "So cool,"

 "Right?" Jagged grinned, grabbing another guitar and plugging it into an amp. "I figured we could jam together if you want,"

 "Ye-yeah, I'd like that..." Luka asked as Jagged began to play and nodded. "Thanks,"

 "No need to thank me, Kid. If anything I should be thanking you for giving me a chance," He grinned, moving his fingers against the board before he stopped. "I know I wasn't around for most of your life and I know it hasn't been easy for you but I want to make up for that and get to know you,"

 "That... means a lot," Luka muttered, glancing to the side a little. He felt Tikki press her paw against his chest to remind him that he wasn't alone before he took a deep breathe. "I want to get to know you as well,"

 "I'm glad," Jagged smiled as Luka glanced over before he noticed a violin. He walked over to it and picked it up. "The violin huh? Can you play?"

 "It's been a while..." Luka admitted, looking down a little. It was one of the few things he didn't like to share about himself but he didn't just learn to play guitar when he was younger. He actually took up violin as well but it was one of the reasons why a number of kids disliked him. He remembered feeling happy when he played it because the lessons were after school so it meant he didn't have to go home straight away and he was good at it. Sure, he hated school but at that point, he hated Issac more so it made sense to stay at school more. The school he attended didn't offer guitar lessons but that's why he took up violin. He would play guitar at home, mostly when Issac wasn't in but would play violin at school twice a week. However, a lot of kids laughed at him for it and called him a geek and other mean words. He didn't think it was geeky but it was just another reason for a number of the kids to bully him. After a while, he stopped mentioning that he played it but still attended the lessons. Of course, things changed when Issac left. For one thing, they moved and Luka didn't want to go back to school, especially since he hated it and Issac was gone. He also stopped attending the violin lessons after that and never mentioned it to anyone but he played for a good number of years. He traced his fingers over the strings, wondering if he could still play. He always found that playing an instrument was like riding a bike. He never truly forgot how to play. He picked it up and tucked it under his chin before grabbing the bow. He took a deep breathe and began to play. It didn't sound great at first and his movements were stiff but soon he began to feel more relax as he remembered how to play and the music followed suit. It smoothed out and the notes turned from weak and distorted to crisp and clear as he moved his fingers against the board. He came to a stop and smiled a little before jumping as Jagged clapped. He forgot he was there.

 "Not bad, kid," He grinned, walking over. "You can keep that one if you like,"

 "Really?" Luka asked, looking at him with surprise. Jagged grinned and ruffled his hair as he nodded. "Thanks!"

 "No problem, Kid," Jagged grinned. "Hey, why do you play that while I play the guitar?"

 "Sure,"

 ~Later that Night~

 "So how did it go with Jagged?" Marinette asked as Luka sat in front of his computer. He promised that he would tell her all about it. He glanced up and smiled a little. "Ooh, you look happy,"

 "I am," He admitted, smiling. "We played some songs together and caught up. He even gave me a violin,"

 "A violin?" She questioned before her eyes went wide. "Wait, you play?"

 "O-oh yeah..." He mumbled, going a little pink as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I do,"

 "And you never told me?!" She gasped, pretending to feel betrayed as she threw her hand against her forehead but it made him smile a little. "But seriously? That is amazing! You'll have to play for me at some point... I mean if you want to that is..."

 "Y-Yeah, if you want to listen," He mumbled, blushing as much as she was. "Um... Oh, Jagged told me to tell you to get a website..."

 "Urg... again?" She groaned, making him raise an eyebrow. "Oh, Jagged's been trying to get me to set up a website so he can commission more work and share it with his friends,"

 "But that's great," Luka gasped, making her smile before she sighed. "Isn't it?"

 "It would be... if I had models! If I set up a website, I need to show case my work and I can't just take photos of it without a model. My work is meant to be wore, Luka but I can't afford a model! I could ask Adrien but then his father will hunt me down! He'll blacklist me and I'll never get to be a fashion designer!" She groaned, throwing her head in her arms as he chuckled a little. She looked up a little and gave him a playful glare. "Don't giggle at me, Mister,"

 "I'm sorry," He smirked a little before making a thoughtful look. "Why don't you get some of your other friends to model? Like Alya or Rose... Or you could go for Juleka? She's always wanted to be a model,"

 "You think she would do it?" She asked, making him nod. "Really?"

 "Sure, I'll encourage her to," He smiled, making her grin. "If you want, I can about it to her soon,"

 "Yes!" She gasped, making him smile. "Juleka is so pretty. She'd be perfect,"

 "I'm glad you think so," He replied before yawning. Marinette giggled a little. "Sorry, I'm just tired,"

 "Well, you spend a whole half a day with Jagged," She grinned. "I'm honestly surprised you're still awake given how energetic he is and how much attention he likes,"

 "Yeah, he's very energetic," He admitted before yawning again. "Sorry, Melody, I think I'm gonna go to bed,"

 "No worries," She smiled before blowing him a kiss, causing him to blush. "Sleep well, Lu,"

 "N-night, Melody," He mumbled, still blushing. Even as she sighed off. He got up and changed into his PJs before crawling into his bed as Tikki settled on his pillow. "She blew a kiss at me..."

 "Yeah," Tikki smiled, yawning. "Night, Luka,"

 "Oh... night, Tikki,"

 ~A Few Days Later~

 Luka hummed as he played his guitar. Juleka had asked him to sit in with her so he could tell her what he thought about her hairstyle. She wanted to change it up but she wasn't sure how or if she had the confidence to pull it off. He glanced up and noticed her, lifting her fringe up and down. Without realizing, he began to play, matching the tempo to her action. When she lifted her fringe and smiled, he played a high note and when she let go of it and frowned, he played a low note. Finally, she frowned and look down, causing him to stop playing and look up at her.

 "Don't you want to be a model anymore?" He asked, glancing at her. 

 "Y-Yeah..." She mumbled, looking down at her hands. "But no one's ever gonna pick me,"

 He strummed his guitar as his mind flicked back to the talk he had with Marinette about Juleka modelling for her website. He knew Juleka wanted to suggest it to Marinette and Marinette wanted to ask Juleka but neither of them had done so yet. He smiled a little as it appeared to the perfect chance to bring them together. 

 "Have you tried to talking to Marinette about your idea?" He asked, making her frown a look down a little. "She wants you to model for her website you know,"

 "I don't want to bother her with that..." She mumbled, glancing down. "Besides, why would she want me?"

 "You're really pretty, Jewel," He replied, using his nickname for her before he got up and walked over to her. "I know Marinette would love to have you as her model,"

 He smiled as he pulled back her fringe, revealing her eyes.

 "You've gotta follow your dreams in life. Don't let them pass you by," He explained as he picked up her hairclip and fixed it into her fringe, causing her to look up as he did. "You were made for this,"

 He gently pressed a kiss onto her hair, causing her to smile before pulling away and putting his guitar away. He grabbed his bag and put it on before opening his hoodie for Tikki to fly into. Once she was settled, he left his room and poked his head into Juleka's. She was just grabbing her back as well.

 "Ready?" He asked, making her look at him.

 "Yeah," She mumbled, holding onto her bag's strap. Luka gather her a soft smile before the two of them left the boat and headed to school. They didn't talk on the walk there but it wasn't uncomfortable either. As soon as they came to the school, Juleka took a deep breathe and the two of them walked in with the other students that were returning from lunch. They still had a bit of time before lessons officially started again but as soon as they walked in, Aurora rushed over to Luka. 

 "Hey," She smiled, making him smile back before looking at Juleka. "Oh wow, Juleka. You look so pretty with your hair like that,"

 "T-Thanks,"

 "No worries," She smiled before turning back to Luka. "Anyway, I thought I should let you know that Mrs Mendeleiev called in sick so we have a free afternoon,"

 "Wicked. Thanks for letting em know," He smiled before turning to Juleka. "That means your last lesson will be free right?"

 "Y-Yeah," She nodded, glancing over at Marinette and the rest of them. She took another deep breathe, causing Luka to give her a grin and a thumbs up before the two of them walked over to Marinette and the rest of their friends.

 "Since Mrs Mendeleiev isn't in today, what should we do? We'll be out an hour early," Marinette asked with the other girls nodding and think. Alya pushed her glasses up and grinned.

 "We should use the extra time to make those videos and photos for Marinette's so to be website!" Alya suggested, getting the girls to agree with her. "Remember I ask you guys to think about modelling some of Marinette's designs?"

 Juleka took a deep breathe and glanced back at Luka, who gave her an encouraging smile and a thumbs up. She smiled back at him before walking forwards, getting the rest of the girls' attentions.

 "Um... I-I'd like to do it..." She mumbled, making the girls gasp. She blushed as they stared at her before agreeing that she should be the model and looked very pretty with her hair clipped back. She glanced back at Luka, who gave her another thumbs up and smiled before he headed to the art room.

 "Ok! Let's get that lesson done then we can head back to mine," Marinette grinned before pulling a thinking face. Alya rose an eyebrow as Rose continued to shower Juleka with compliments. "We're gonna need a technical direction who has experience with modeling,"

 "Oh?" Alya asked as Marinette walked over to Adrien and asked him. He explained that he would probably have to go home straight away until Marinette pointed out that he would in fact be ok to do so as his father wouldn't actually know any different since that's not when school is actually suppose to finish. With that in mind, he agreed before heading to the lesson. Marinette walked over to Alya, who rose an eyebrow. "Girl, since when were you able to talk to Adrien normally?"

 "Since I decided to move on," She replied, shocking her friend. "Adrien is great but he's just my friend and he's with Kagami,"

 "And you're ok with that?" She asked as they walked to the art room for their lesson. Marinette smiled and nodded as they walked inside. She smiled as soon as she saw Luka sat in the back, doing his own thing. Of course, he would be in here since he had a free afternoon since Mrs Mendeleiev was his main teacher. He knew the art teacher wouldn't mind him just working in the back as long as he didn't disturb any of the other students. He was sat with his headphones on, reading something. Marinette smiled softly as she noticed it was a book on playing violin. Alya, however, noticed her line of sight. "Hey, why don't we have both of the Couffaines in on the shoot? Luka could help with the music or something,"

 "Huh?" She asked before glancing at Luka and back at Alya. Her eyes widen at her friend's expression, which was the one she always got when she was about to make a plan. "Don't even think about it! It's one thing hanging out with him but if he's in my room, I won't be able to concentrate and-"

 "No, you won't. You'll be in your element," She grinned, placing her hand on her shoulder. "It's the perfect chance for you to get closer to him,"

 Before Marinette could even argue, Alya turned on her heel and began to walk towards Luka, who was humming a little as he read.

 "Alya! No!" Marinette gasped, getting up to follow her but she could, Rose grabbed her and pulled her out to discuss what they should do as Lila send a glare in her direction. Not that anyone else noticed. Marinette bit her lip and looked back as Alya reached him and tapped his arm. Luka jumped a little and took out his earphones. 

 "Oh, hey Alya," He smiled, surprised that she was talking to him. "Am I disturbing you with my humming?"

 "Oh, no," Alya grinned, resting her hand on her hip. "I was wondering if you could help us with Marinette's fashion shoot,"

 "Me? Um I don't actually know anything about photo shoots" He mumbled, going a bit pink. "B-Besides, I don't want to overstep anyone-"

 "Well, I was thinking you could provide a little music to set an atmosphere and help Juleka relax," She pointed out, making him think a little. She had a point. If Juleka had a panic attack, he would be able to calm her down and make sure she was ok. "And Marinette would love it if you were there too,"

 "Well... I don't have anything else going on..." He mumbled, getting a grin of Alya but before he could say anything, she rushed back over to Marinette and the other girls, telling them that he would help them with the music side of it. Juleka glanced over at him and gave him a small but grateful smile before returning back to the rest of the girls.

 (***)

 Marinette let out a deep breathe as she opened her jewel box and took out a couple of rings out as Adrien directed Alix to get some more light on Juleka. Luka was sat by her computer and was in charge of the music. Of course, he felt as awkward as Marinette did but naturally, Alya didn't seem to pick up on that. Instead, she began filming and moved over to Marinette.

 "Psss," She hissed, getting her attention. Marinette looked over at her. "This is totally your chance to ask him to the movies,"

 "Alya, I want to focus on the shoot," She hissed back, causing Alya to roll her eyes and focus on filming the rest of the group. Juleka was dressed in a stripped top that was navy blue and white with a red beret and blue jeans. She had a green orb necklace on with matching bracelets. Alya smiled as she looked at her before moving around the room to Luka. He waved at the camera a little, causing Marinette to laugh a little when she saw him do that. He grinned back at her. Alya smiled at the two of them. She really hoped an opportunity turned up to allow her to get the two of them alone. They would make such a cute couple after all, especially since she decided to move on from Adrien. Speaking of him, he was talking to Marinette about the jewelry. It was weird to see Marinette not freak out and stumble over her words. "So these are the rings I've got?"

 "This one," Adrien replied, plucking one of them out of her hand. "It will compliment the outfit really well,"

 "That's what I was thinking," She smiled as Alya filmed them before she turned back to film Juleka.

 "How about a little smile for the camera, Juleka?" She asked, making the girl jump like a deer caught in headlights. She looked down and began to mumble to herself, causing Marinette to frown and Alya to pause the camera. Luka instantly jumped up and moved over to her, getting her to sit down and take a few deep breathes. Marinette carefully walked over.

 "Is something wrong?" She asked, wanting to help her. "You know it's really cool for you to agree to be my model but you don't have to if you're not comfortable with it,"

 "Decide fast," Alya snapped, looking at her phone and ignoring the glare that both Luka and Adrien sent her. "We have less then an hour before Adrien has to leave,"

 "That's ok, Alya," Adrien smiled, trying to defuse the situation. "Um... Luka could take over as technical director when I have to go and we can also arrange another shoot when I'm next free. Right, Luka?"

 "I don't mind doing that," He replied, gently rubbing Juleka's back to try and help her calm down. She was still panicking and breathing heavily. Luka frowned a little as he knew she wouldn't calm down any time soon. "We might have to do it another day though,"

 "That's ok," Marinette smiled. "I can stand in for her for now and when she feels better, we can try again. Does that sound ok, Juleka?"

 "I w-want to-" She mumbled, trying not to cry. She felt so bad that she was feeling panicked. Luka gently rubbed her arm again, giving her a smile. Marinette gently knelt down in front of her.

 "It's ok, Juleka," She smiled, gently taking the girl's hand. "We'll do a couple of photos with me in the outfit and then we can switch back to you. That gives you a chance to relax ok? Besides, I should model them myself for a couple of photos with them been my designs,"

 Juleka nodded, feeling a bit reassured as having a second model would take a lot of pressure on her plus Marinette was right. They were her designs so she should definitely get a chance to model them. Alya smiled in agreement before eyeing up Marinette and Luka as an idea came into her mind. This was too good of an opportunity to pass by.

 "Of course!" Alya suddenly shouted, surprising everyone before she jumped over and held up her hands like a frame, focusing on both Marinette and Luka. "The coolest thing about your designs is that they work with both guys and girls,"

 "Alya," Marinette gasped in a warning voice. 

 "A guy," She declared, moving her hands over to Luka a little bit before moving them back to Marinette. "A girl... same suit! What do you think, Luka? You in?"

 "Um... I'm not much of a model, Alya and this is meant to be Juleka's thing, not mine," He pointed out but naturally, Alya completely ignored him.

 "It will be fine! We'll do a duel shoot and then do a single suit with Juleka!" She grinned before grabbing the hat off Juleka's head and shoving it in Marinette's hand, ignoring her as she went to protest. "Juleka, give Marinette your suit,"

 Juleka let out a sigh but got up and moved behind the changing curtain. She got changed back into her normal outfit and handed the suit to Marinette as the rest of the girls set up another changing curtain. Alya shoved another outfit and accessories into Luka's arms and pushed him behind the curtain before he could argue as Marinette took the suit.

 "Are you ok with this?" She asked, frowning as Juleka nodded. "Really?"

 "It's fine, Marinette," She mumbled, playing her hands. "It will only be for a couple of photos right? Besides, it's better this way,"

 "Well... ok but we'll switch back as soon as you feel ready ok?" Marinette smiled, making Juleka give her a soft smile before she sat down with Rose. Marinette glanced back at her, still feeling a bit uneasy with the whole thing but before she could say anything again, Alya rushed over to her and began to push her towards the changing curtain.

 "Just brought you some extra time to ask him out," She gasped quietly, causing Marinette to go bright red as Alya pushed her behind it. Marinette went to say something again but Alya smirked. "You're welcome. Now get changed,"

 She moved away, causing Marinette to gasp before she sighed and took off her bag. It was only for a few photos and until Juleka felt better. It would be fine. Or at least she hoped it would be. She began to get changed into the outfit and put on the accessories. She put on the earrings before picking up the rings. She slipped them on her fingers until she came to the last one. It was meant for her ring finger on her right hand but her miraculous was on there. She bit her lip and glanced at the ring, moving to take it off.

 "I hope you're kidding," Plagg suddenly gasped, poking out of her purse. She silently hushed him as she took her miraculous off and slid the other ring on.

 "It won't be for long, Plagg," She whispered, passing him the miraculous. "Besides, you'll be near by,"

 Plagg gave her a look of disbelief before sighing and going back into the bag. Meanwhile behind the other changing curtain, Luka was facing a similar situation. He had changed fully into the outfit and put on the rest of the jewelry but then he noticed the earrings. He picked them up and frowned as he touched his miraculous with his other hand. Tikki poked her head as he took out his earrings.

 "Don't do that, Luka," She whispered, causing him to look over at her.

 "It won't be for long, Tikki. Just for a couple of photos," He replied quietly, putting them in and gently passing the earrings to Tikki. "Besides, you can keep them safe for me,"

 She frowned but took them anyway. Luka gave her a soft smile before gently petting her head as Alya called for them to come out. He took a deep breathe and stepped out, smiling awkwardly as he did. Marinette stepped out at the same time and gasped a little as she saw him. He looked great but a little shy, making her want to fangirl over how adorable he was. He pushed his hair to the side and looked around nervously. 

 "D-Do I look alright?" He asked, making most of the girls coo as Adrien walked over and smiled.

 "It looks great, Luka but let me just..." He muttered, adjust his beret a little before stepping back and looking at him before he grinned. "Perfect. He looks great, doesn't he Marinette?"

 "Yeah..." She muttered, dreamily before shaking her head. "Ok! Let's do a couple of photos then we can change back and it can be Juleka's go. Sounds good?"

 "Y-Yeah," Luka muttered, nodding but neither of them noticed Alya's scheming expression. If the two them only did a couple of shoots then Marinette won't get a chance to ask Luka to the movies and she couldn't let that happen. As Marinette's self proclaimed best friend, it was her duty to get Marinette with the boy of her dreams. Sure, she thought it would be Adrien but he clearly thought she wasn't good enough for him and settled for Kagami but Luka is still in the picture and while she didn't like the idea of pushing Juleka out of the way, she considered it a necessary evil. She also believed that Juleka would understand when she saw how happy her brother was when he landed a date with Marinette. She grinned as Adrien ordered more light around the two of them. Luka was looking a little bit redder then usual.

 "Hey, Luka, are you ok?" She asked, making him blink and look over at her.

 "Oh yeah," He nodded, gulping a little. "Uh... just a bit warm I guess..."

 "I have a fan somewhere," Marinette suggested but Alya interrupted again.

 "Ok!" She declared, hitting her palm with her hand before turning to the other girls. "Change of plan! We're gonna take the shoot outside!"

 "What?!" Both Marinette and Luka gasped as the other girls cheered but before they could argue, Mylene and Alix grabbed Luka and dragged him downstairs as Adrien followed. Marinette frowned deeply.

 "Alya, what the hell?" She gasped, crossing her arms as Alya grinned at her. "I said we would only do a couple of photos and then switch with Juleka. How are we suppose to do that now?"

 "Girl, it's just so Luka can cool down," She grinned, moving over to her. "Besides, you haven't asked him yet and Juleka will be fine with it. We'll find a place for her to change and do her shoot outside too! Besides, we've only got 30 minutes let before Adrien has to go!!"

 "Alya, you ca- whoa!" Marinette gasped as Alya grabbed her hand and dragged her downstairs, pulling her outside. She rushed over to the Gorilla's car and pushed Marinette inside before telling her that she was gonna grab some things for the shoot. The other girls helped put the equipment in the boot, including Luka's hoodie and Marinette's purse, that they would be using in the car as well then pilled in, unintentionally stopping both Luka and Marinette from getting out. Alya got in last and closed the door, making both of them frown. "Alya, where's Juleka?"

 "She decided to stay back," She replied, making both Luka and Marinette frown. Rose glanced over at them with a confused look.

 "I should check on her," Luka mumbled, trying to move but Alya shook her head.

 "She'll be fine," She replied, making him frown. "We do these shoots and come right back! Now to the Eiffel Tower!"

 "What?! Alya, that's too far!" Marinette gasped but once again, Alya ignored her and leaned in.

 "The Eiffel Tower is super romantic as are the Tuileries Gardens," She whispered, ignoring how uncomfortable they both looked. "You can ask him on a break,"

 "But Juleka-" Marinette gasped as the car began to drive but Alya grinned.

 "She'll be fine and will totally understand when she sees how happy Luka will be," She grinned before giving her a thumbs up. Marinette frowned, feeling very uneasy about the whole thing but right now, she couldn't get out of the car. She glanced over at Luka and saw he looked just as unhappy, making her frown even more. This was not how she wanted this to go at all. Sure, she would love to spend time with Luka but not at the expensive of his sister and not in such a pressured environment. She decided as soon as the car stopped, she would go and get the metro back to the bakery. Luka glanced over at her and she tilted her head to the window, hoping he would get what she meant. He rose an eyebrow before nodding as the car came to a stop. As soon as it did, everyone piled out and began to head to the gardens, apart from Luka and Marinette. The two of them both walked towards the boot of the car, to grab his hoodie and her purse but before they could, Alya suddenly appeared and grabbed Marinette around the arm as Mylene grabbed Luka.

 "No escaping you two!" She grinned, pulling them away from it. "I get that you're nervous but you'll be fine!"

 "I'm not nervous," Marinette gasped, trying to pull away from Alya but the girl had a surprising amount of strength. As did Mylene, causing Luka frowned as he tried to pull away from her.

 "We just want to check on Juleka," He protested, making Mylene frown and loosen her grip a little but Alya shook her head.

 "She'll be fine!" She grinned, making him frown. "Besides, she was freaking out and she'll understand! Now stand there! Adrien, pose them! I'll take the photo!"

 "Alya!" Marinette gasped as Adrien walked over. He frowned a little.

 "Is everything alright?" He asked, frowning.

 "We want to go check on Juleka but Alya won't- What is that?" Marinette asked as they felt the ground shake. Luka glanced up before gasping. He instantly moved his arm in front of Marinette in and protective manner as they saw a giant doll like creature that resembled Reflekta. Alya and the other girls gasped and ran off, causing the doll to look in the direction. 

 "Don't leave, my friends!" The unmistakable voice of Juleka echoed, making Luka gasp but it sounded harsh and angry. "You're the very people I've been looking for! I have something very special for your video!"

 A beam of light suddenly shot out of the doll's mouth, causing Luka, Marinette and Adrien to dive out of the way. Luka rushed to hide behind a wall before swiping his ears.

 "Tikki! Spots on!" He declared, expecting to change but gasped when nothing happened. He had taken off the miraculous. "Damn it,"

 He glanced over to the car from behind the wall and frowned a little. He would have get past Reflekta and her Reflekdoll but it did seem to be more focused on finding Alya. He frowned as he saw Rose step out.

 "Juleka! I'm sorry!" She gasped, getting the doll's attention on her. "I should have stayed with you!!"

 "Juleka is no more! I am Reflekta!" She declared, making him frown. "Everyone forgets about Juleka anyway!"

 She went to fire a beam at Rose but Luka ran off his spot and pushed out of the way before picking her up and running to another wall. He placed Rose behind it and ducked down himself.

 "Stay down, Rose," He gasped as he looked over the wall. Once again, Reflekta had gone back to attacking people, turning anyone she saw into clones of herself. Seeing his chance, he jumped up and ran as fast as he could towards the car as Reflekdoll attacked everyone. He slid behind it, gasping as he saw Marinette behind it. "Marinette, hide in the car,"

 "What about you?" She asked before glancing as a shadow formed over them. She gulped as Reflekdoll stared down at them.

 "Marinette," She growled, making the girl gulp. "You stole my limelight! I was suppose to the star of the film!"

 "Juleka, I'm sorry! I didn't realize Alya would do that and me and Luka were trying to head back to the bakery to check on you!" She gasped as the doll stilled. "I really only intended to do a couple of photos while you calmed down! I swear!"

 "It doesn't change that you didn't let me explain!" She growled before firing a beam at Marinette as Luka tried to get into the boot. "Perhaps you'll understand me better now that you're in my shoes!"

 The doll turned to Luka and grabbed the car.

 "And my rockstar brother! I thought you understood and cared about me!" She growled, throwing the car. "You're suppose to be my older brother but you stole my limelight too!"

 "Juleka, I'm sorry," He gasped, backing away from her. "I should have been more firm and said no to Alya,"

 "Oh, don't worry, Brother of mine. I have something very special for Alya but first, I think you need to know what it's like to be me!" She growled, firing a beam at him. He covered his arms over his face as it hit him but it did no good. Reflekta laughed a little. "That should teach you too but now to deal with the real villain of the day! Alya!! Where are you?!"

 She turned and jumped away to look for Alya. Luka let out a sigh and got up but almost fell as he lost balance. Marinette jumped and helped him.

 "Are you ok?" She asked, making him nod.

 "I should have know this would happen," He sighed, shaking his head.

 "At least, we only got transformed," She mumbled, making him frown. "I'm concerned about the special thing she has for Alya,"

 "Me too but my phone is in the car. If I can get it, I can contact Anatis," He replied, making her nod as other people ran off, scared out of their minds. He went to take a step forward but wobbled, making Marinette frown but she saw a chance.

 "You wait here," She gasped, making him frown. "I'll go grab your phone and get it to you,"

 "Alright," He nodded, figuring he could keep an eye out for Tikki if she did. Marinette nodded and rushed off, making him raise an eyebrow. "How do girls walk in heels?"

 ~Meanwhile~

 Tikki and Plagg screamed as they felt the car spin around before feeling it bounce, causing the boot to break open and everything to spill out. They let out a little sigh before flying up to see what was going on. Tikki gasped as she saw the sentimonster attacking people.

 "Oh no! This is terrible, Plagg!" She gasped, glancing at him as he looked the carnage. "How are we gonna be able to find our owners? Everyone looks the exactly same,"

 "We have to find the miraculouses first!" He declared, making her look at him before he dived down to the rest of the stuff. Tikki followed and began to look for the earrings as he looked for the ring. He flew under a yellow scarf and glanced around as Tikki gasped.

 "Paris is doomed without Anatis and Lady Noir!" She gasped, clearly panicked as he noticed the ring. 

 "Got it!" He gasped, grabbing it before holding it up and glancing at her. He floated over to her. "Stay focused, Sugarcube. Everything will be alright!"

 He gave her a quick smile before flying off to find Lady Noir. He flew towards the Eiffel Tower as Reflekdoll waddled farther into the gardens. He frowned as he saw and came to a stop at a statue of a horse. Plenty of people were running away from here so he hoped that Lady Noir would be among them.

 "Lady Noir! Lady Noir!" He called out, frowning. "Lady Noir!"

 A clone sat on a nearby bench frowned and got up, looking up at him. Plagg smiled a little and floated over, hoping that it was Marinette as they looked at him in confusion.

 "Plagg?" Luka asked, causing Plagg to gasp. 

 "You're not-" He burped green bubbles, making Luka frown. It wasn't who he was looking for but he guessed Luka must be waiting for Tikki. "Why didn't you go to the car?"

 "I can't walk in these heels," Luka admitted, frowning before he looked at him. "Anyway, what are you doing here? Has Lady Noir lost her miraculous? Is Tikki near by?"

 "It's a long story, Luka," He gasped, making Luka frown as he glanced to where the car was and then over to Reflekdoll. He frowned before grabbing the ring of him. "What are you doing?"

 "Using your miraculous," He replied, putting it on. It turned into silver and a little larger then Marinette's version. "We haven't got time to find Tikki or Lady Noir. We need to deal with them now,"

 "Are you sure?" Plagg asked, making Luka nod before he held out his fist.

 "Plagg! Claws out!" He declared, causing Plagg to get sucked into the ring. He put his hand in the air as it charged up with energy before crossing his hands together, creating his mask as they passed each other. He then swiped his hands over his hair, creating cat ears before throwing out his arm as the green energy created his new suit. He spun round as a fake tail manifested. He gripped the energy as he spun back round and did a shake movement with his hands, creating a cropped leather jacket out of it and completing his new transformation. He glanced over his hands, taking in the claws that were on them before looking up and blowing his fringe a little. It had grown longer then his usual length and he could see green on it instead of his usual blue or red. He glanced down, looking at his suit as well. It was a simple suit and black in color but like Lady Noir, he had green detail on it. Most around the edge of his gloves, boots and jacket. Unlike her, he had a simple black belt around his hips that also doubled up as a tail. He also had a little paw print zipper on his collar. Satisfied with his new form, he took out of his baton and pressed the button, opening it up before reading over the user manual. He had a rough idea on how to use it but he wanted to be certain. Happy that he knew what he was doing, he glanced over to where Reflekdoll was. Narrowing his eyes, he ran towards it, taking out the baton and extending it before he slammed it into the sentimonster, making it stumble into the Eiffel tower before he jumped down and ran towards Rose and Alya. Alya naturally looked excited and was filming but Rose looked upset as if she was about to cry. Knowing Rose, she probably was. "You two need to get to safety,"

 "Are you a new hero?" Alya asked, trying to shove the camera in his face. "Has Lady Noir been retired? Does Anatis know?"

 "No, she hasn't been retired, Alya," He growled before spinning around and using his baton to block Reflekdoll's beam. "Get out of here! Reflekta's target is you!"

 "Me?!" Alya gasped, surprised. "What did I do?!"

 "Oh, I don't know!" He growled, annoyed. "How about push her out of the film you were doing and ignoring her when she was clearly upset?! Kwami, it's one thing to ignore your friends' clear un-comfortableness but you completely blanked Juleka but why am I surprised?! You always tend to ignore things when they don't work the way you want them to!"

 "Hey! What's that suppose to mean, new boy?!" Alya gasped, making him growl as he blocked another attack.

 "I'm not new! I just usually wear spots and you know exactly what I'm talking about, Miss Cesaire!" He growled before charging at Reflekdoll, causing the beam to follow him as Rose and Alya blinked in surprise before they clicked to what he meant.

 "He's Anatis!" Rose gasped, making Alya blink and look at him. "But why is he the cat today?"

 "No idea but is Juleka really after me?" Alya asked, frowning. She was so sure Juleka wouldn't mind but if she didn't, why did she turn back to Reflekta? And now she thought about it, Marinette and Luka did look uncomfortable and wanted to check on her but she didn't let them. She frowned deeply as she thought. She was just trying to get them together. What was wrong with that?

 ~Back at the Car~

 "Yes!" Tikki gasped as she found the earrings. She picked them up, smiling as they recharged but she hid as one of the Reflekta clones came over. They knelt down, looking around as Tikki hid behind the wheel.

 "Plagg!" The clone gasped, looking around. "Plagg!"

 Tikki realized that it was Marinette, clearly looking for her kwami but she decided to go looking for Luka instead. They would definitely need a lucky charm and hopefully she'll bump back into Plagg on her way there. She could then tell him where Marinette was. She floated over the Eiffel tower but stopped when she saw Reflekdoll attacking something. She stopped and looked over before noticing a new hero or at least she thought it was a new hero for a second but then she realized it was a black cat hero but male. Her eyes widen in surprise as she watched him block Reflekdoll's attack with the baton.

 "Luka!" She gasped before turning back around. He would need help and she knew exactly who to go to. She flew back over to the car and saw Marinette was still there.

 "Plagg!" She called out, now standing up and looking around. Tikki took a deep breathe and flew over."Plagg!!"

 "You are Lady Noir, correct?" She asked, causing Marinette to look to before she nodded.

 "Y-Yeah," She nodded, looking worried. "I've lost Plagg! What if he's hurt?! Oh god! I'm a terrible hero! Wait... why aren't you with Annie?! Is he ok?!"

 "Anatis is fine, Lady Noir," She reassured, making Marinette let out a little sigh. "But there's been a little mix up with the miraculous,"

 "Mix up?" Marinette asked as Tikki turned around and nodded towards the Eiffel Tower. Though Marinette couldn't see exactly what was going on, it was clear there was a battle, meaning Anatis must already be on the scene but if Tikki was here then... Her eyes widen as it clicked. "Plagg is with Anatis?!"

 "Yes, I think he must have come across him first," Tikki admitted, noticing Marinette let out another sigh of relief.

 "He's safe... they're both safe..." She gasped, holding her hand over her heart before she looked over at the cute little bug. "You must be Tikki then,"

 "Yep. Pleased to meet you," She smiled, making Marinette coo a little at how adorable she was before she gently took the earrings from her and fixed them into her own ears. They turned in simple black stuns. "Do you know the transformation words?"

 "Of course and your special ability is the lucky charm which is used to defeat the villain and cast the cure. Ready?" She asked, making Tikki nod before she swiped the earrings. "Tikki! Spots on!! Ah!!"

 Tikki got sucked into the earrings, charging them up as Marinette threw up her head. She brought her hands up and swiped them over her eyes, creating her mask and removing the Reflekta look before throwing out her left arm as the magical energy traveled across her arm, creating her new suit. She span around as it spreaded across her body, creating the rest of her suit. The yoyo manifested next before the pink energy spreaded across her hips, creating a belt and finishing off the transformation. She glanced at her hands and moved them to her hair. She was use to having a super long plait but it didn't appear in this form. She gasped a little as she touched her hair. It seemed that she had a longer version of her pigtails. She glanced down at her suit, taking it in. It was kind of similar to Anatis' own outfit but yet different. She had black thigh high boots with a red strip on the top of them and a red spot on the top of her foot. Her rib cage and part of her legs were covered in black as were most of her arms but she had gloves that hooked onto her middle finger on her lower arms. Like the rest of her suit, they were red with black spots. On her shoulders were two shoulder guards. Like her boots, they were black with a red dot and a red strip. Her belt was very different from Anatis. Where his was plain black, hers had the ladybug print that framed with black. She also had a belt buckle that was the ladybug symbol. The yoyo was hooked onto the belt. She took it off the belt and opened it up, going straight to the user manual. She read through it before nodding to herself. 

 "Alright, time to help Annie," She mumbled to herself before throwing the yoyo and pulling herself up. She let out a scream as she did. It was one thing to be in Anatis' arms while he did this but she was not use to actually using the yoyo herself. She landed on the ground and let out a sigh before noticing Anatis running and dodging Reflekdoll's beam. She ran and jumped into the battle, landing next to Anatis. Reflekdoll fired a beam at her but she used the yoyo as a shield and blocked.

 "I see you found Tikki," He stated as they jumped back.

 "And I see you found Plagg," She replied, throwing the yoyo and using it to make Reflekdoll stumble. "So you get to play the easy part today,"

 "Hmm, I'm not so sure it will be easy," He replied, slamming his baton in the doll before jumping out of the way again. "We're taking two opponents with each other's powers. Stay focus, Ladybug. This isn't going to be easy,"

 "Don't worry, Mr Whiskers, I got this," She grinned as the two of them jumped onto a wall. Reflekta suddenly said yes to Hawkmoth before firing a beam at them. Anatis blocked it with his baton as Ladybug glanced at it. "Hmm two opponents... well, we know one is a normal akuma but that doll has gotta be an amok. Right, kitty?"

 "Good eye, bug girl," He replied as they jumped back down. "Feel free to call me Chat Malice by the way,"

 "Chat Malice? I like it," She asked as they ran towards the doll and ran up her. Chat took out the baton and slammed it into the side as Ladybug kicked it into the head at the same time, causing the doll to stumble back. They landed back on the ground as Reflekdoll got back up. "So we need to find where the amok and the akuma is hiding and break it,"

 "Can you manage or do you want to turn back?" Chat asked as he deflected a beam from the doll. 

 "I can manage," Ladybug confirmed before frowning a little. "But we need a plan,"

 "Head to the tower," He ordered, getting a nod of her before they both ran towards it. "Her akuma might be in the same place as the last time we fought her but we'll have to check it to be sure,"

 "But we can't get near her as long as she's got that doll," Ladybug replied, jumping up and climbing to the top of the tower. Chat followed her, easily scaling the building. They both jumped and flipped, landing on the tower. Reflekta tried to aim Reflekdoll's beam at them but they were shielded from it. Chat walked over to her and frowned as he leaned down glancing down. She leaned down next to him. "So we need a plan..."

 "We need to get rid of the doll," He muttered, frowning. "As long as she's inside it, she has the advantage,"

 "But if we take the advantage away from her, we can defeat her," Ladybug replied, getting a nod of him. "Ok so last time we used a camera..."

 "True but she's a lot more powerful this time and a flash won't blind her," He muttered, making Ladybug frown before he glanced over to her. "I think now would be a good time for a charm,"

 "Huh?" She asked before realizing what he meant. He smirked at her reaction as she took out the yoyo and threw up in the air. "Lucky charm!"

 A round mirror appeared out of thin air and fell down, causing her to catch it. 

 "Huh? What am I meant to do with this?" She asked, confused as he held back a laugh.

 "Welcome to my world," He smirked as she looked around. "Anything?"

 "I'm not seeing anything," She gasped as the tower shook. The two of them looked over and saw Reflekdoll climbing up the tower. Reflekta looked out of it's eyes and tried to fire her own beam at them. Ladybug used the mirror to send a beam back, annoying Reflekta and causing her to fire at them with Reflekdoll. The two of them jumped back as Chat frowned. "Ok, we need a better plan then this,"

 "Agreed," He replied as Reflekdoll climbed up. He blocked the beam as he turned to Ladybug. "Get to safety then try and look around for a solution while I distract them,"

 "Alright," She nodded, jumping away as he ran to the other side, calling for Reflekta to follow him. Ladybug frowned as she glanced around. Nothing was lighting up but at least, Reflekdoll was focused on Chat.

 "Missed me!" He shouted, diving out of the way of a beam. Reflekdoll fired another beam at him but he blocked it with his baton before grinning at the doll. "Missed me again!"

 "Stay still, you mangy cat!" Reflekta growled, firing another beam at him. He blocked it again with his baton while making a witty remark. Ladybug smirked at it but Reflekta didn't find it very funny. "Shut up! You're not funny!"

 "Oh but I am!" He grinned, jumping down and holding out his baton in a battle pose. "I'm the cunning and ultra funny Chat Malice! Watch and learn!"

 He threw up his hand.

 "Cataclysm!" He shouted, summoning the dark energy before running at Reflekdoll, dodging her beam as he did. He jumped up and slammed his hand on her, causing a number of cracks to go through it as it fell from the tower. Ladybug jumped down and landed next to him but it started to shake and it's eyes began to rapidly open and close.

 "What's happening?" Reflekta gasped from inside as Ladybug frowned.

 "Is that normal?" She asked, looking at him. "I've never cataclysmed a sentimonster before,"

 "I don't think it is," Chat replied. "But Reflekta no longer has her advantage- whoa!"

 He jumped with Ladybug as the sentimonster jumped up and began to fire it's beam everywhere and anywhere.

 "It's like a bee string on a bull," Ladybug gasped, glancing at him as he frowned. "It riled it up without actually wounding it,"

 The two of them jumped out of the way and landed on top of a wall again as Reflekdoll moved around. Chat frowned as he glanced over.

 "We need to clear this up quickly,"

 "And we still don't know where the amok is," Ladybug pointed out, making him nod.

 "No, Reflekdoll! Stop!" Reflekta cried out, making him frown deeply and reminding him that his sister was trapped inside. "She-bug! Cat boy! Help me!!"

 He took a deep breathe, knowing that loosing his cool would not help anyone and took out his baton, turning to Ladybug.

 "Let's focus on getting Reflekta out of there first then we'll deal with Reflekdoll," He suggested, getting a nod of her. He shot her a smile before the two of them jumped and towards the Sentimonster. He threw his baton, trapping in one of it's eyes and keeping it open. The two of them landed on the edge and grabbed onto his baton. Ladybug threw her yoyo and wrapped it around Reflekta's wrist, pulling her over to them. Ladybug grabbed her and jumped on top of Reflekdoll's head as Chat grabbed his baton and joined them. He picked up Reflekta and jumped down, causing her to hold onto his shoulders as Ladybug followed, using her yoyo. The three of them hid behind a wall as Reflekdoll went on a rampage. Reflekta slipped out of Chat's arms and stepped back.

 "These costumes look ridiculous on you," She gasped, smirking at them before pointing her hand at them. "I'm gonna redo your wardrobe!"

 "You could be at least a little bit grateful!" Ladybug gasped, throwing her yoyo. It smashed into the bracelet, breaking it and causing Reflekta to fall down as the akuma escaped. "Besides, I think we look pretty good,"

 "Don't forget the akuma," Chat grinned, pointing to it. 

 "I've always wanted to do this," Ladybug gasped as she took out the yoyo. She slid her finger down the middle of her yoyo, causing it to open. "No more evil doing for you, little akuma,"

 She span the yoyo around and threw it towards the butterfly. 

 "Time to de-evilize!" She declared, catching the butterfly in the yoyo and pulling it back to herself, catching it. "Got ya!"

 She grinned before pressing down on the yoyo and opening it, allowing a pure white butterfly to escape.

 "Bye, bye, little butterfly," She smiled, watching the butterfly flying off as Reflekta turned back into Juleka but Chat suddenly pulled her out of the way, causing a beam to go pass them and turn Juleka back into her akuma self. "Um... we'll be able to fix that right?"

 "Yeah but let's defeat Reflekdoll first," Chat replied as Reflekdoll randomly fired her beam. He took out his baton and charged at her as Ladybug looked around. Still, nothing was lighting up like it should. She glanced at the mirror and let out a sigh.

 " It's not easy been a super ladybug," She muttered as Chat dodged Reflekdoll's beam. "How do you do it, Kitty? This is a lot tougher then it looks!"

 "I just do what I've always done and work with what I have!" He yelled back, dodging Reflekdoll's hand as she tried to squash him. He landed on her arm and ran up it before going across her torso and over her shoulder. "But I have to admit! I like wearing your suit! It's a lot lighter on the shoulders!"

 He jumped off and extended his baton, whacking it into the back of Reflekdoll's head, causing her to clench her fists and getting angrier before firing her beam, even more. Chat jumped out of the way and grabbed Ladybug before diving behind a chimney as Reflekdoll fired a beam at everything and anything. Ladybug sighed as she glanced at the mirror.

 "I... I can't do this..." She gasped, making him look at her. "I have no idea what to do,"

 "Hey, you've got this, bug girl," He reassured, placing a hand on her shoulder. "Let's review what we know,"

 "Reflekdoll is on a rampage," She pointed out, making him nod.

 "But Reflekta was able to control her before," He muttered, thinking before Ladybug clicked her fingers.

 "You're right! She was controlling her from inside her eye! We need to get inside there to find the object containing the amok," She gasped, causing him to smile before she looked over the chimney. Chat glanced over as well as Ladybug glanced at Reflekdoll in her luck vision. Reflekdoll was firing her beam at everything, causing her to turn around. Ladybug gasped as her luck vision highlighted a panel on the back of her head. She glanced down at the mirror in her hand and was surprised when it lit up, followed by Chat as well. "I have a plan,"

 "Let's hear it," He replied, making her nod.

 "See that panel on the back of her head?" She asked as he nodded. "That's how we get in. I'm gonna use the mirror as a coin to open it. Think you can trip her up?"

 "Leave it to me, mi'lady," He grinned, jumping up and heading down to the street level. He extended his baton and placed it in Reflekdoll's path, causing her to trip up. Ladybug wrapped her yoyo around her, keeping her trapped before the two of them jumped over and landed on her head. Ladybug placed the coin into the slot on the panel and turned it around, unscrewing it. Chat grabbed it and pulled it aside before the two of them looked inside. "Look! The stick shift is a hairclip!"

 "I bet that's where the amok is!" Ladybug gasped as he extended his baton and used it to break it, freeing the feather. Ladybug took out her yoyo and caught the feather in it before releasing the now white feather. They jumped down as the sentimonster disappeared before Chat handed her the mirror, making her smile as she took it and tossed it up in the air. "Miraculous Ladybug!"

 It burst into the magic swamp, fixing all the damage that had been done. Ladybug gasped as she looked up in the air, watching it go. She jumped a little as Chat walked over to her and gently nudged her arm as he grinned at her. She grinned back, enjoying the moment but the day wasn't over yet. A now restored Juleka moved over to them, looking down which alarmed the two heroes.

 "Juleka," Chat muttered in a soft voice as he walked over to her. She looked up at him but gave him a confused look as she glanced over at Ladybug. "Oh... there was a mix up..."

 "Anatis?" She asked, making him chuckle as he rubbed the back of his neck. "I'm so sorry... I just... oh god! What if I hurt Luka and Marinette?!"

 "I'm sure your friends and brother are fine," Ladybug replied, walking over to her. Juleka nodded, looking reassured but then Alya jumped out of her hiding place, along with Rose. Rose rushed over to Juleka and fused over, repeatedly saying sorry but Alya didn't even look at her. Instead, she rushed over to the heroes with her phone. "Why am I not surprised to see you here, Miss Cesaire?"

 "Hmm, well she was Reflekta's main target," Chat hissed, glaring at her and making Ladybug frown. "Isn't that right, Alya?"

 "Well, um... I mean she was after Marinette and Luka as well! Besides, they stole her limelight!" Alya gasped, making both heroes frown. Ladybug went to say something but to both of their surprises, Juleka spoke up.

 "Because you didn't listen to them or me," She growled, causing Alya to look at her in surprise. "I may be quiet but I'm not dumb. Luka didn't originally even want to pose and Marinette was only going to do a couple of photos while I calmed down but you... you just had to butt your nose in again! It was your idea to pressure my brother to pose with Marinette, knowing that he wouldn't say no because he wanted to help her! It was your idea to go outside! You even told me that Marinette didn't want me to pose!"

 "I was-"

 "You say what?!" Chat growled, surprising Alya as Ladybug glared at her. He pinched his nose and shook his head as Juleka frowned.

 "That's what caused me to be akumatized..." She mumbled, looking down. "She told me that Marinette only invited me so Luka would come by and model for her. She said that Marinette didn't think I should be a model but... that wasn't true, was it Alya?"

 "I.. well... Ok so she did want you to model but it would have gone against my plan ok?!" She gasped, crossing her arms. "I thought you'd understand but clearly you don't care about your brother or Marinette's happiness,"

 "I do!" Juleka growled, stepping forward but Chat placed his hand on her shoulder, getting a look of her before she nodded and stepped back as he stepped forward.

 "Miss Cesaire, you don't get to decide that or push people out of the picture just because they don't work with your ideas," He stated, shaking his head. "Your actions-"

 "I was just trying to-"

 "I am not done talking!" He shouted suddenly, making her jump. She forgot how scary he could be but he looked much more scarier in the black cat suit then as Anatis. In fact, his eyes were glowing and she could see fangs in his mouth. "And I don't care what you were trying to do! I don't care if you claim to be a good friend and were trying to make your friends happy!"

 "I am a good friend!" Alya argued, crossing her arms.

 "No! You're not!" He shouted, shocking her. "In fact, you're an awful friend and quite frankly an awful person! What kind of 'friend' pushes someone out and tells them a bunch of lies?! What kind of person posts something that they know the subjects don't want posted?! You pressure your friend to confess her feelings, not caring if she actually wants to and then call her a coward for freaking out and not been able to! You are nothing more then a two faced gossip who has a warped sense of justice and is willing to do anything for the 'views' even if that means posting lies or making up stories! Not to mention you're a hypocrite! Yes, I know full well that you bitch about certain people behind their backs! You don't respect anyone including me or Lady Noir! I had to shout at you, just to get you to back off my identity! And this isn't the first akuma you've caused or did you hope that I would forget about Reverser and Puppeteer?!"

 "They weren't my fault..."

 "Weren't your fault?!" He gasped, sliding his hand through his hair. "For Kwami's sake, Alya, what is wrong with you?! You tore up Mr Anciel's story and called him a liar and a fake! And you refused to listen to your friend then abandoned the girl she was looking after! Anything could have happened so how do you not see what you've done?!"

 "All I've done is try and help people! The world deserves to know who you are and-"

 "You don't get to decide that!" He growled, making her gulp. "But I can see I won't get through to you so you know what? I give up! I am done trying to show you the error of your ways! You won't listen to me because you're too bullheaded to even realize that you are a problem! I mean what kind of person on purpose makes someone think that their friend doesn't care about them in a city that has a super-villain who feeds of negative emotion and turns people in villains?! And it's not like this is something that is new! Oh, no, I know you didn't believe your friend when she was framed, I know you didn't bother sticking up for your friends when they were been bullied and on top of all of this, you still think that a liar is a good person! A liar who has possibly willing taken an akuma and who has made people's life a living hell but hey, she can't be that bad because she claims to know me and Lady Noir. Well, here's a scope for you, Miss Tabloid! I don't know her and never have! Oh and while I'm here, I love cats, I don't go round meeting random civilians, I came up with the name Anatis, I'm not dating Lady Noir, if I'm gonna tell anyone my identity, it certainly won't be to you and my best friend is Lady Noir, not Miss Rossi or Miss Bourgeois! Speaking of her, you helped her almost become an akuma!"

 "Chloe isn't a nice person!"

 "Well, she's doing a lot better then you are!" He growled back, making her blink as tears filled up her eyes. He pinched his nose as he let out a sigh before looking up at her. "Do you think I want to talk to you like this? Cause I don't! I don't want to have to shout anyone like this but you won't listen otherwise so I'm doing the same thing I did with Chloe. You need to take a good look at yourself and do something about your bad habits because you are creating akumas and hurting people who you should care about! You need to work on what’s right from what’s wrong and have a real good look at your life! Because if you don't, your future is going to be a dark and lonely one! Your friends will walk away from you and leave you! Do you understand what is at risk here?! Your blog, your friendships and your reputation! Everything! All of it is at risk because you keep making the wrong choices and people aren't always gonna give you a second chance! They won't even think you're worthy of one!"

 For the first time, Alya didn't argue but look down as tears filled up her eyes. Chat sighed and touched his ears when his ring beeped. Ladybug looked at him and nodded before he turned back to Alya.

 "You need to change before it's too late," He replied before turning on his heel and running off with Ladybug, leaving Alya with a lot of food for thought. The two of them jumped onto the rooftops and ran as fast as they could across them. Ladybug turned to Chat as they did.

 "You really ripped into her," She mumbled, making him frown.

 "I'm sorry," He replied as they jumped to another roof. "I just couldn't hold it back anymore,"

 "It's ok," She nodded, making him nod. "I think she needed to hear it,"

 "So I wasn't too much?" He asked, looking at her. Ladybug smiled and shook his head before the two of them went their separate ways. He jumped down and ran into a nearby alleyway as the ring beeped rapidly. He stopped and leaned against the wall. "Claws in,"

 His transformation dropped and he caught Plagg before he took out a cookie and allowed him to bite into it. Plagg floated up as Luka took off the ring and handed it to him.

 "Bye, Plagg," He smiled as the kwami took the ring. He was still reeling from the whole thing but it's not like it was Plagg's fault. "That was really awesome,"

 "You made a great cat, Luka," Plagg grinned, making him smile shyly. "See ya,"

 With that, he flew off. Meanwhile, Ladybug was doing the same thing. She found an alleyway and leaned against the wall.

 "Spots off," She whispered, turning into Marinette. She caught her and took out a chuck of cheese. Tikki took a bite and floated up as Marinette took off the earrings and handed them to her. "It was really nice to finally meet you, Tikki,"

 "You too, Marinette," She grinned, taking the earrings. "You did a wonderful job as Ladybug,"

 "Thank you," She smiled shyly. "See you soon, Tikki,"

 "Goodbye, Marinette," She smiled, flying off. Marinette smiled a little before she noticed something small and black flying towards her. She gasped as she realized it was Plagg and opened her arms for him. He flew towards her and smiled as she hugged him before she took the ring and put it back on her finger, restoring to it's usual look. She hugged him again and gave him a chuck of cheese.

 "I promise I've never take off my miraculous again," She smiled as he swallowed it whole. "I may have made a good ladybug but I never realized just how tough Anatis has it,"

 "Kid has it real tough but he does good," Plagg grinned. "Let's head back to the others,"

 "Right," She nodded, running off to find her friends.

 ~Back to Luka~

 After Plagg flew away, Luka let out a sigh before noticing something flying towards him. As it got closer, he saw it was Tikki. He opened his arms hugged her when she flew close enough before he cupped her in his hands.

 "I thought I had lost you, Tikki," He gasped as she hugged his cheek, making him laugh before he took the earrings and put them back in. "I'm so glad to have you back. I've never take my miraculous off again, I swear,"

 "I'm glad to be back, Luka," She grinned as he took out a cookie and gave it to her. "Lady Noir made a good ladybug though,"

 "She did, didn't she?" He smiled before frowning a little. She nodded and hid in his pocket before he ran off and headed to where everyone should be. He got there and walked over to the group of girls and Adrien. Juleka was refusing to look at Alya.

 "Look, I'm sorry ok!" She gasped as Juleka frowned deeply and shook her head. "I really thought you'd understand..."

 "You just don't get it, do you?" Juleka asked, looking at her with a sad expression. "You lied to me and made me think my friends and brother didn't care about me!"

 "I was just trying to help Marinette!" Alya gasped, making Luka frown but before he could stay anything, Marinette ran over.

 "Girls!" She gasped, waving at them before turning to Juleka. "I'm so sorry, Juleka. I should have realized how important this shoot was to you. Do you want to give it another try?"

 "Sure but Marinette... I owe you an apology too," She mumbled, playing with her hands. "I thought you didn't want me to model because... Alya... she told me you only invited me so Luka could come and that you wanted him to model... not me... and I stupidly believed her..."

 "Oh, Juleka," Marinette gasped, hugging her. "That's not true at all. I want you to model and if Luka wants to model, I don't mind working something in for him but I would never push you out of the way. You're beautiful and amazing and I honestly can't think of anyone else who would be able to pull off my designs the way you do,"

 "Thank you, Marinette," Juleka mumbled, seeing Luka. She gave him a smile as Marinette look behind her and smiled shyly. "You know I'd love to model with my brother... if you want to, Luka..."

 "I'm good with that if you are, Juleka," He smiled softly before walking over to her. Marinette let out a sigh and turned to Alya, who looked sour. 

 "Alya... I don't understand why you would tell that to Juleka..." She mumbled, frowning.

 "Because that way she wouldn't infer with the plan!" She gasped, pointing towards the siblings before moving closer to Marinette. "Since you decided to move on from Adrien, I thought you'd decided to go with Luka and well, I figured you could get closer to him and ask him to the movies. I did it for you,"

 "Well, I never asked you too," She gasped, surprising Alya. "In fact, I told you not to interfere but once again, you didn't listen to me,"

 "You would never con-"

 "So what?!" Marinette gasped, surprising Alya before she walked up to her and poked her in the chest. "I'll do it in my own time when I'm ready! Not when you are or when someone else tells me too but when I am ready!"

 "But-"

 "No buts, Alya!" She gasped, pinching her nose before shaking her head. Alya had a certain look on her face. She was going to make another excuse and Marinette just couldn't do it anymore. "I can't do this,"

 "Can't do what?" Alya asked, confused.

 "This!" She gasped, gesturing between them. "I'm done, Alya! I can't be friends with someone who doesn't realize what they have done is wrong. I've given you chance after chance to change and be a better person but you aren't even trying and I'm sorry, Alya but I won't be friends with someone who thinks it ok to hurt others. I'll be willing to give you a second chance but you have to show me that you want to be better and want to change but if you don't then our friendship is over,"

 "Marinette, aren't you been a little bit dramatic?" Alya asked, frowning before glancing around. "Girls, you see-"

 "Marinette is right," Adrien stated, surprising her. "Hurting people isn't cool, Alya and I won't be friends with someone like that either,"

 "Same here," Juleka piped as the other girls nodded. Alya blinked, tears filling her eyes as she looked them. All of them had disappointed expressions and looked hurt or betrayed. She stepped back and blinked at them as Chat Malice's words echoed in her mind.

 Change before it's too late...

 Could she? Or was it already too late?

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

Next Chapter: Here

[storytelling-101]

Character Development – Part C

Seeing how I myself struggled over the years to find some reference in terms of character sheets, I decided to share my personal one with all of you. This character sheet is of course not the ultimate guide you'd never find anywhere else and I suppose that some people may want to add or remove some parts. However, in general, I think of this as pretty much complete. I will also give a short commentary on various points. Because what I struggled with most in the beginning was being clueless about what to write for each point.

We will start with General Information and I will post the others one by one after this.

General Information

Name The given name of your character.

Surname Your character's last name.

Nickname And abbreviation or another name somebody gave them (aside from their proper name).

Birth Name Did your character get married or was adopted and received a different last name? Did they apply for a name change at some point in their life? If so, what was their intial last name and/or given name? This info goes here!

Nationality The country/kingdom/empire/etc. your character comes from. This is not necessarily where they live now!

Gender In here fits any info about gender, be it male/female or agender/non-binary/etc. This will also be the spot where you can fill in the genders for (maybe) non-human characters or fictional genders like in the popular alpha/beta/omega universe.

Age This is, of course, where you put in how old your character is. If they pretend to be older/younger you can put the real age i.e. in brackets.

Birth Date The day, month and year your character was born. This can also be some made up dates like 63th of Quanko in the year 2410.

Birth Place Not the exact spot but the village/town/city that they were born in.

Astrological Sign This can either be western signs like libra/cancer/etc., eastern signs like rabbit/tiger/etc. or astrological signs you thought of yourself.

Childhood Home Where did they live as a child/until they left home? How long did they live there? What did it look like?

Current Residence Opposing the childhood home is the current residence: The place your character lives when your story starts. This can be a street (if they didn't leave the town/city), a different city or even a different country. Give this as many details as you need!

Home Description What does the character's home look like? Is it a one-room apartment? Or maybe a house? How is it furnished (modern/vintage/rococo-style/...)?

Neighbors Does your character have neighbors? What are their names, ages and occupations?

Occupation This is where you describe your character's job; in detail if you need. What do they do? Do they like their job? Is it satisfying? Will they keep their job until they retire?

Finances Don't confuse this with income. This point illustrates all kinds of source of income from different places (salary/child support/earnings from rental properties/...). How much can they spend in a month/year according to those earnings?

Income This point concentrates purely on the size of salary from the character's main job. So, how much do they earn in a month/year?

Skills This differs greatly from the point abilities. Skills are things a character acquire after repeated learning. So, if they train martial arts/archery/calligraphy/..., the character will probably master that skill after some time.

Abilities In contrast to skills, abilities don't necessarily need to be learned. They are more likely dormant or active capacities that the character was born with. This can be things like dexterity/courage/quickness/cleverness/etc.

Sexuality As with gender, this can, of course, be heterosexual/homosexual and everything in between or something completely different.

Distinctive tics or mannerisms This will come up with the physical information again, but the ones for this point are things that can be recognized pretty quickly. Possible mannerisms could be a character who never let's anyone touch their bag. Or maybe someone who always tucks a pen behind their ear.

Current Hobbies A pretty simple point: What do they do in their free time? What do they enjoy even though they might not be able to do it very often?

Dominant Hand Although this seems a bit random, this point is especially interesting for mystery writers. This also isn't limited to the hand they write with but also other things like opening a bottle/throwing a ball/holding a knife or fork/etc.

Handwriting Rather self-explanatory. What does their handwriting look like? Is it sloppy/neat/careful/curvy/block letters/etc.? Can they write at all?

Catchphrase Not exactly necessary for every story, but what is the phrase your character would say most often throughout your story? This is often used in anime (i.e. Prince of Tennis or Sailor Moon).

Favorite Foods & Drinks Your character's favorites are more or less endlessly expandable. Favorite foods and drinks are usually what's of most interest for your story, but you can expand it with favorite colors/weather/day of the month/clothing/season/etc.

Favorite Saying This shouldn't be confused with the catchphrase. The favorite saying is more likely a quote of someone famous or someone close to them according to which they live.

Appointments Appointments covers everything that your character attends on a regular basis. This can be long-term treatment, voluntary work, lessons, etc.

I hope this will be of help to some of you. We'll see each other again when we cover the physical information!

[wedreamedlove]

Xu Mo - Character Study

Preserving this from Reddit. But the comments are always interesting, so I’m dropping the link here.

This post will include content up to Chapter 18. Plus some calls, dates, and ASMR in the CN server. I always quote from JP and CN (because I have major issues with Elex’s translation).

Also, this is an extremely long post. Last I checked it was about 7,500 words so get comfortable if you’re going to read this LOL.

BASICS

First, I don't think I'd be wrong in saying Xu Mo's character is the most polarizing out of the four men and I believe this is due in large part to cultural differences and how the localization handled that. Putting aside my constant harping about subtleties being dropped, I was enlightened by @sharinluna about an aspect I didn't consider, which is Xu Mo's "social class".

Face, social status, rank, and hierarchy are - and still is - very important in Chinese culture. Easy examples people can relate to are respecting elders and the prestige of being a doctor, banker, lawyer, etc. But I can't stress enough the reverence that is given to these "high" social statuses. How this applies to Xu Mo is that he comes from a lineage of literati that would place him as someone in an upper class status, in addition to his own achievements.

Xu Mo was born from a scholarly family. His parents were highly talented and leading researchers.

In the eyes of the public, Xu Mo is a young and remarkable neurologist and a guest professor at Lianyu University. He is serious and persistent towards his scientific research, which is how he's obtained extraordinary achievements. At 26 years old, he has already obtained achievements that most people wouldn't get in a lifetime. There is no other word better to describe him than "genius".

[CN Profile Translation]

The English definition of literati leads you to intellectuals, but this doesn't carry the weight and history of how literati, or basically scholar-officials, were people appointed by the emperor to carry out day-to-day duties and to help govern the country. I guess the equivalent would be a noble who carries out noblesse oblige. Cultured people with scholarly achievements were very respected in historical China and also acted as role models for the common people.

So, going back to Xu Mo, because we're in modern times and he doesn't have an overtly obvious title (to those not in his field of work) he just comes off as a gentle, unassuming, humble, scholar with an air of sophistication and professionalism from his background. Think of a noble, without any airs.

This is reflected in his polite and modest speech (I will be bringing an updated post on this over to Tumblr to go into more detail about modal particles; the important thing is that Xu Mo NEVER smirks unless he's Ares and even that could just be a cold smile). Not to mention all the descriptions about his elegance and refinement. Heck, he even has a Chinese tea ceremony set in his room, including the tools to make tea [CN "In His World" Event].

Xu Mo's classiness, for a lack of a better word, also emphasizes the purposeful contrast of seeing him do common, mundane things. Like watching cartoons to understand humans better [CN Profile]. It's like how Li Zeyan, with his more understandable poshness from his riches, would be contrasted with mundane things. But, if we were looking for another analogy, Xu Mo would be old elegance and Li Zeyan would be nouveau elegance.

Anyway, Xu Mo also has another trait given to him that's a classic in female-oriented Chinese media and that's being a "black belly; 腹黑". For those who are more familiar with Japanese, it's basically the same word as "haraguro; 腹黒".

Black bellies are people who act nice and unassuming on the outside, but they're sly and manipulative (and at times cruel) on the inside or in secret to other people.

Essentially, they're two-faced but while English has a negative connotation with this word it's normal and accepted in Asia (likely because of the concept of face). The majority of male leads in Chinese novels are all black bellies. BTW, the origin of the word comes from how you only notice their black belly after you're eaten up by them LOL.

So, how this works in female-oriented media is... well, there's many combinations. For example, they can be nice to everyone, including the heroine, but secretly vicious against those who hurt the heroine. Or they're nice in public, but show their sly cunning to the heroine. Mix it however you want! They also like to tease the heroine in all sorts of ways, like leading them into verbal traps to see them flustered.

There's some crossover with black bellies being abusive, cruel, or yandere towards their heroine, but it's not necessary for black bellies to be like that. Just think of these as being Venn diagram circles with overlap [example of a sweet black belly is Xiao Nai from the Chinese drama LoveO2O, also a novel].

Returning to the main topic, you can easily see how this applies to Xu Mo. He's nice and elegant... except for when he's not. It's how he can have this gentle and refined air, but then turn around and be a massive flirt and tease with the heroine (flashing his black belly). Then he goes and turns completely black when he's Ares LOL.

Now, after giving background on Xu Mo's character archetype, let's move onto my other sections.

MAN OF JUXTAPOSITIONS

I wanted to call this section "man of contradictions" at first, but then I thought that might mislead people. Basically, this is all about how Xu Mo is a man of dualities.

[Main Story 13-22] The scarred man describes Ares as being the only person who can be trusted in BS, and yet Ares doesn't hesitate to go against Hades and incapacitate him. I'd argue that this places a wrench in BS' operations, so there goes being the most trustworthy person in BS (although, granted, BS sounds like they're a writhing mess of people with their own thoughts and ideas about how it should be run).

Xu Mo is a gentle teacher to MC, patient and taking the time to explain concepts she doesn't understand or provide novel ideas to her; however, he also gives her the worst betrayal and you can almost call this the harshest of lessons.

For all his image of being an intellectual scholar, as I've mentioned in the previous section, Xu Mo is surprisingly "physical". [CN Archery Date] shows that he's ripped and knows a taxing sport like archery, and in [Main Story 16-22] he straight up kills the goons with ice shards (even if it's in a mental arena).

[Main Story 8-23 & 9] bombards you with light and shadow descriptions. Actually, this imagery follows Xu Mo everywhere but it's most prominent in these chapters. He's always standing at the intersection of light and shadow, or light shines down on one of his sides but casts the other in shadow.

[Main Story 9-14] I will be forever salty for Elex dropping the ball here, but Xu Mo's eyes are described to contain a sense of humanness and life. Then, in [Main Story 12-22] he is described to have an expression lacking any emotion and human warmth. Human descriptions contrasted with inhuman descriptions.

Mm, you just have to love delicious juxtapositions and how it emphasizes his duality of being both Xu Mo and Ares. Two sides of the same coin.

Once again, I didn't want to call these contradictions because I don't believe one of these negates the other. It's like how we code switch in different scenarios. You can be a nice person, but vicious when your bottom line is crossed.

These sides of Xu Mo don't overturn the core of his character or his through line: loving the MC, ruthlessly ambitious for the sake of his goals, and naturally gentle (shown in the way he treats animals and people not in the way of his goal).

But, if you do insist on seeing one side of these as lies, then Xu Mo once said:

"Besides, lies have just as much power as the truth. The true nature of things can be indirectly reflected in the world of lies [...] It is because these lies exist, that one can get closer to the truth."

[Main Story 12 Call: Truth and Fiction]

REVERSING "GOOD" IMAGERY

I haven't been quiet at all about how much I love the evocative imagery Xu Mo gets, but an interesting thing I've noticed is how "positive" imagery is twisted into "negative" imagery when it comes to him. It's brilliant.

[Main Story 13-8] MC leaves the building, after interviewing the elevator Evolver man with Xu Mo, and dazzling light shines down on her, yet she can't feel the slightest bit of warmth. This chapter literally sets up Xu Mo's reveal as Ares through positive imagery turned negative. Not to mention warmth disappears into coldness.

In [Midnight Date] there's a rope with thorns tightening around Xu Mo's heart. In [True Love Date] there is a delicate rope tightening around his heart. I will eat my shoe if this isn't a reference to the red string of fate that binds him and MC together. But, as you can see, it's causing him all the suffering in the world.

[Main Story 13-19] Iridescent, the pen, was given to MC and she ends up using it to threaten her own life. Not only is it Xu Mo's symbol of love (more on this later) but pens aren't supposed to be violent weapons. There's the saying that pens are mightier than the sword, because pens write down ideas that are supposed to convince people peacefully. So, a symbol of something non-physical and literary is now a physical weapon of violence and force.

[Main Story 8-23] Xu Mo tucks MC's hands back under the blanket when she's in the hospital, but MC describes a "cold sensation" touching her before she sees that it's his hands. So, Xu Mo has bad circulation or low temperature. Normally, in otome games, the men are supposed to have warm hands (encourages feelings of security, safety, etc.).

[Main Story 9-18] also talks about how Xu Mo's fingertips are freezing, but this is probably more because of the context of the scene.

To be honest, I'm iffy on the last two points about cold hands because it's a common description I see in Chinese novels, where the male lead is described with a cool temperature or cool breath. So, it sort of sounds like it can be a positive descriptor? Of course, there's also male leads who run hot to show how passionate they are LOL.

Or maybe cool descriptions are used to emphasize a character's rationality but when things get hot and heavy they start to burn in temperature and it's supposed to make you go "OOH! HE'S LOSING CONTROL!" or something.

In any case, Xu Mo being of cold temperature is a distinct thing because Gavin is generally described with warm temperatures (because he's a hotblooded military man). The only time I can recall Gavin having a cool description given to him is the tip of his nose in his birthday date, but come on the nose is the extremity of extremities!

Lastly, Xu Mo also needs a special mention for this point:

[Main Story 16-22] The opposite happens here with imagery reversion. Death, normally a frightening concept, is flipped to be a good thing. To escape Xu Mo's dream you need to die. Dying is another way to live.

SYMBOLISM

First, I think it's interesting to note that despite Xu Mo being a "villainous" character and having all this light and shadow imagery (metaphor for his inner conflict), he's ultimately described with light. He has spatial and solidifying light (?) powers that manifest as white light rather than dark shadows.

It's also cute that he shows his two sides with his WHITE lab coat or his BLACK trench coat.

Second, water is pretty much THE imagery to go to for enlightened, virtuous, and refined people. Heck, Lao Tzu in Tao Te Ching, a fundamental text for philosophical and religious Taoism, connects water with 7 virtues:

Dwelling with the right location: water goes to the lowest point, thus a humble person should emulate this. Arrogant people always try to go to the top.

Feeling with great depth: truly virtuous people are like deep pools of water. You can't see everything about them at first, but as you get to know them it's like discovering a treasure and this should encourage you to cultivate depth in yourself too.

Giving with great kindness: rivers flow across the land nourishing everything in its way; once it's done its work it moves on without waiting for praise or recognition. This is the virtue of unconditional kindness.

Speaking with great integrity: water, when calm and undisturbed, reflects its surroundings perfectly and so should people reflect the truth with the same degree of accuracy.

Governing with great administration: water benefits everyone equally, because water doesn't pass judgment on anyone. Give everyone the same level of basic courtesy.

Handling with great capability: water has great versatility and nothing can block its way; it can flow to the left, right, under, over, etc. It's also not limited to just its regular form and can be steam or ice.

Moving with great timing: summer rains never fall in winter, and winter rains never fall in summer. Water demonstrates there is a time for everything and that everything can occur in its own time.

Remember how I said scholar-officials in historical China are basically like role models and nobles who help govern the people under the emperor with noblesse oblige? This is why scholar characters go hand in hand with water imagery, because it's supposed to emphasize their virtuousness.

So, because Xu Mo is a scholar-type character, the same goes for him. He has SO MUCH water imagery going on for him, and it carries the above weight behind it. I've probably missed some, but here's a list of the ones I can recall:

[Main Story 9-11] MC falls asleep on the bus and, as Xu Mo watches her, the emotions in his eyes are like swelling ocean tides at night.

[Main Story 9-14] MC's dream about Xu Mo has her falling into an ocean.

[Main Story 9-22] MC ends up in Xu Mo's memories about the accident that killed his parents and it's raining.

[Main Story 11-6] Xu Mo brings MC Chinese bellflowers and MC feels that they're fragile, as if the petals are thin ice that'll break if she touches them.

[Main Story 13-4] Xu Mo's voice is like the morning fog evaporating in the sunlight.

[Main Story 13-8] During their talk about MC wanting to continue her investigation, calm waves drift in Xu Mo's dark eyes.

[Main Story 13-19] This is tangentially related to Xu Mo because these descriptions apply to the MC, but it happens after the Ares reveal. She feels like she got pushed into an ice cave, she feels like she's drifting in an ocean, and when she thinks about Xu Mo her memories overwhelm her like a flood and she feels like she's going to drown.

[Main Story 16-16] Xu Mo gets to kill Hades' goons with a copied ice ability. The writers didn't have to give the goons an ice ability; they could have had metal powers, or fire powers, but nope it was water-related.

[The Promised Date] Xu Mo's eyes are like ocean tides at night. When he's abroad he experiences heart pains and finds his shirt drenched and stuck to his back, giving him the illusion that he's drowning.

Third, Xu Mo also has a lot of flower language going for him. Technically, the other guys have flowers and plants associated with them too (for example, Gavin with white lilies and gingko leaves), but I think Xu Mo gets more LOL.

[Main Story 9-14] Red spider lilies appear in MC's dream about Xu Mo. These mean sad memories, mutual longing, separation, graceful purity, beauty of death, endless love, a precursor to death, and a call to the netherworld. The sadness and mutual longing is because the flowers and leaves of spider lilies can never touch; meanwhile, their relation to death is because they bloom punctually around the autumn equinox when people sweep graves.

[Main Story 11-6] Xu Mo gives the MC Chinese bellflowers, which bloomed out of season, when she's at the hospital. These mean eternal love, sincerity, yearning, or hopeless love. The reason for this double meaning is because Chinese bellflowers represent happiness, but only some people can seize their happiness while others miss it, are unable to grasp it, or are unable to keep it.

[Blossom Event] Xu Mo gifts a gardenia to MC, which is called Garda. In Chinese, gardenias mean tenacious, eternal love, waiting for you for a lifetime, and our love.

[Blossom Date] Xu Mo and MC go look at peach blossoms together. Not only do they quote a poem all about a bride serving her clan, groom's clan, and her groom (including having abundant fruit if you know what I mean), peach blossoms themselves mean being a captive of love.

[Under the Mistletoe SSR] Mistletoe, duh. Normally, I'd look at Chinese flower language but they're clearly using the common meaning of mistletoe: love and enduring love to those who kiss under it. Plus, if you refuse a kiss beneath it then you'll get bad luck LOL.

[CN Promise You a Lifetime SSR] Xu Mo's wedding card has wisteria in the background. In China, it means intoxicating love, dependence, born for love and dying for love, obsessed with you, the happiest moment, and indulging in love.

[Golden Days SSR] Xu Mo's flower card, but I can't find a consensus on what the flowers are. Some people think its oleander but they only bloom in summer and fall when the card is about being in the springtime. Oleanders mean a curse and to watch out for danger though.

I personally think they're apple blossoms (blooms early spring and summer) and they mean "trap". Apple blossoms are so beautiful people want to eat them, but their body is poisonous. People represented by this flower look loyal and honest on the outside, but they're sharp and have a thorny tongue. Those who get too close risk being stabbed and only smart people will find their viciousness interesting LOL.

Come on, it's totally not a coincidence that all of Xu Mo's flower symbolism is just a neon sign about how in love he is with the MC. Eternal love is repeated like a billion times. The only odd one out is his flower card, but it still suits his character:

Under his elegant and gentle face, there hides an inexplicable dark side which is the most deadliest poison.

[CN Profile Translation]

Lastly, Xu Mo has a fox as his animal representative. Foxes are pretty much universally associated with being tricksters, masters of illusions, and cunning. It's amusing because, in Asian folklore, they also like to transform into beauties and seduce people to consume them. Sometimes, the nine-tailed fox is associated with auspiciousness though!

[Official CN Animal Figures] Xu Mo is a fox, Gavin is a dog, Victor is a cat, and Kiro is a bear.

[CN Dream Flower SSR] Xu Mo's West Moon card shows him as a fox demon and scholar.

[Main Story 9-14] Xu Mo quotes the fox's line from "The Little Prince" and MC imagines seeing a fox bounding through the wheat fields too.

I think people can see why foxes are so fitting for Xu Mo but I also want to add that, despite me going on about how virtuous scholars are, in order for scholars to survive the swamp of politics in court, these scholar-officials needed to be extremely sly and cunning and it's actually a good thing to be a "wily fox".

In fact, in Chinese novels, usually the honest and genuine characters are... not the main characters and they reach a tragic end or, if they are main characters, they have to be protected by other cunning leads because good-natured people cannot survive in a mortal world filled with greedy people and their materialistic desires. Laughs hollowly at how all my honest military men biases die horrible deaths or get ruined because of this blunt personality.

Hey, check it out, with Xu Mo's historical Qixi card, [CN Vermilion Lip SSR], and his West Moon card, there's two explicit references to how he's the scholar character.

STORIES OF YOU AND ME

Now, Xu Mo brings up three major stories throughout the game in various places.

First, there's "The Little Mermaid":

[The Little Mermaid ASMR] I was on the fence as to whether Xu Mo relates himself to the Prince or the Little Mermaid, but now I think he's the Little Mermaid. He's different from humans but longs for them and wants an eternal soul.

[Overseas Date] Here we learn that Xu Mo can't yet understand the Little Mermaid's selfless, brave, and devoted love (sorry, but you're way too insatiable, my dear) however he finds himself understanding her last choice. That he can continue loving someone despite the pain they bring him (the Little Mermaid's pain every time she uses her legs).

It's, uh, pretty somber that the version Xu Mo has in his head is the Andersen one where the Little Mermaid dies. He also ends the story there and doesn't add the part where she turns into a daughter of air and still has a chance to get a soul after 300 years to go to the Kingdom of God.

Second, there's "The Little Prince" and its a damn good reference. So, this book is actually MC's favorite book and it's about a little prince who raises a rose on his planet, B612, and falls in love with the rose. But he catches the rose in a lie and gets hurt and, even though they reconcile, he leaves the planet to go on a journey.

On the Little Prince's journey he meets all sorts of people with obsessions and learns life lessons through them, but the most important one he learns is how to love his rose. He crashes down to earth though and meets the person he tells his story to (thus creating this story), but before the Little Prince can return to his planet he gets bitten by a poisonous snake and that's it. The narrator likes to think the Little Prince made it back to his planet and rose though.

In [Sound of Silence SSR Call: The Little Prince] Xu Mo mentions how The Little Prince is MC's favorite book. He also compares MC directly to being the Little Prince and how she's growing like the Little Prince through her experiences. I have a crack theory that MLQC's story could actually mirror this somewhat, especially about MC learning the meaning of love and how that'll save the world LOL.

In [Sound of Silence SSR Call: Beautiful Moonlight] there's another mention to the Little Prince where Xu Mo asks if she can find B612, the Little Prince's home planet. They both hope the Little Prince made it back home.

In [Main Story 9-14], like I mentioned above, Xu Mo quotes the fox's line and it goes: "The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat".

However, let me explain the context and show the full quote. So, the Little Prince meets a fox in his journey and the fox tells the Little Prince to tame him to "establish ties":

"Just that," said the fox. "To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world. To you, I shall be unique in all the world..."

[...]

"My life is very monotonous," the fox said. "I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow. And then look: you see the grain-fields down yonder? I do not eat bread. Wheat is of no use to me. The wheat fields have nothing to say to me. And that is sad. But you have hair that is the color of gold. Think how wonderful that will be when you have tamed me! The grain, which is also golden, will bring me back the thought of you. And I shall love to listen to the wind in the wheat."

The Little Prince agrees and tames the fox. But when he has to leave the planet:

"Ah," said the fox, "I shall cry."

"It is your own fault," said the little prince. "I never wished you any sort of harm; but you wanted me to tame you..."

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"But now you are going to cry!" said the little prince.

"Yes, that is so," said the fox.

"Then it has done you no good at all!"

"It has done me good," said the fox, "because of the color of the wheat fields." And then he added: "Go and look again at the roses. You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."

[...]

"Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."

"What is essential is invisible to the eye," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

"It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."

"It is the time I have wasted for my rose--" said the little prince, so that he would be sure to remember.

"Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."

"I am responsible for my rose," the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember.

Isn't this conversation good? I remember reading the Little Prince a long time ago and found it super sad, and now that I'm re-visiting this story again thanks to Xu Mo... well, I understand it better but it's still melancholic LOL.

But, anyway, if we replace the Little Prince with MC and the fox with Xu Mo, this conversation is really interesting. See, the fox is indelibly marked by the Little Prince (like Xu Mo by the MC) and they have made this unique connection between them that will hurt both of them when it comes to the end.

However, this pain doesn't mean their experiences wasn't worth it and that it didn't mean anything. Like the fox says, now he has these memories of the Little Prince that makes life worth living. The fox, before he met the Little Prince, found his life boring and monotonous, but now things are given meaning when they didn't have it before.

On a totally random note, in [CN "In His World" Event] people have taken pictures of Xu Mo's shelves and now we can get an idea of his reading material. It ranges from literary classics (Ayn Rand, Oscar Wilde, Vladimir Nabokov, Charlotte Brontë, and lots of Chinese authors), to research papers (Genome-wide Polygenic Burden of Rare Deleterious Variants in Sudden Unexpected Death in Epilepsy), to things like encyclopedias on flowers, etc.

It'd probably take you years to get through his reading materials LOL. The other guys also have books in their rooms, but I don't remember them clearly. I do know that Gavin has sci-fi books though! Totally not biased. But, I'm sorry, I don't really like reading sci-fi...

Third and last, the most referenced story throughout the game is probably the one Xu Mo made, "The Artist and the Butterfly". I feel like most of us know it by now, but I'll do a translation for those who haven't had the pleasure of getting [Drowning in Love SSR] and its two calls [Artist and Butterfly] and [The Only Color] and because Elex's version is riddled with errors.

Once upon a time, in a secluded castle, there lived an artist. The artist's paintings only had two colors: black and white. It wasn't because the artist loved these two colors, but because in his eyes there were only these two colors in the world.

The artist believed the world to be depressing, so all the other colors were meaningless. But, one day, a butterfly flew in front of him and the artist saw with shock that on the butterfly's wings were all sorts of beautiful colors he had never seen before. The fluttering of its wings made the colors even more lively and charming, and so the artist painted it for the entire day, never tiring.

But the sensitive artist was also afraid the butterfly would one day grow tired of being beside him, and so he thought about catching the butterfly and putting it in a glass jar. Like this, the butterfly would never be able to leave him.

Then, we move onto the conversation portion in [The Only Color]:

Xu Mo: What do you think of this story?

MC: Um... you can't laugh at me when I say this.

Xu Mo: I promise I won't.

MC: I feel like the artist is very relatable.

Xu Mo: ... Relatable?

MC: Mhm, although I don't understand his actions, I can see that he's really stifled and sad. Now, can you tell me what happens after?

Xu Mo: Actually, this is what happens after. Or rather, this story doesn't have an end.

MC: Huh?

Xu Mo: Are you disappointed?

MC: So, not every story has an ending...

Xu Mo: The artist continues to try and catch the butterfly, and even I don't know whether he caught it or not. If I see him again, I'll ask him for you.

MC: Turns out this is a real story?

Xu Mo: Yes.

MC: If you're able to meet that artist, you have to tell him this for me. That he actually doesn't love the butterfly, does he?

Xu Mo: Why do you not think the artist loves the butterfly? If you love someone, aren't you supposed to move heaven and earth to bind them to your side?

MC: But this is too selfish.

Xu Mo: Hah, yes, even I find it selfish. But if he doesn't do that, the artist will likely lose the butterfly. And then his life will be like how it was before; the whole world would just be black and white.

MC: If he really loves the butterfly, then he wouldn't want to see them suffer. Maybe I'm too simple, but for me genuine love is simply loving that person, as an individual, and I wouldn't need a relationship with them. I'd just want them to be happy.

Xu Mo: If you were this butterfly, and there was someone who wanted to confine you to their side so they could keep you together with them forever... would you be willing?

MC: No... I don't think I'd be willing.

Xu Mo: Indeed... exactly what I thought you would say...

MC: Xu Mo... I want to ask you...

Xu Mo: Mm?

MC: Is this story about you?

Xu Mo: I couldn't be the artist, and I definitely couldn't be the butterfly. But if I really did encounter the one and only color in my life, then I certainly wouldn't let them go.

MC: Why?

Xu Mo: Why?... I don't know why either... You don't need to dig to the bottom of everything.

MC: Xu Mo, I'm a bit sleepy all of a sudden...

Xu Mo: Sleep then. Don't be afraid, even if you have nightmares, I'll be here for you.

Gods, I'm going to be endlessly salty over Elex's butchering of these calls, but whatever. WHATEVER.

This is LITERALLY the story of Xu Mo and MC's relationship. And, with this, we are shuffled immediately into my next section.

COLORING EACH OTHER

In [New Light Date] Xu Mo asks "Can you teach me love?" and in [Main Story 5-6] he also asks "Then, will you change me? If we get along together."

The answer is a resounding YES. MC has changed him indelibly, like the tamed fox, and there is only one unique her in his world; he's left the same mark on her, making him the only unique Xu Mo in her world.

(Not to mention in his [CN 2nd Anniversary VIP message] to the players Xu Mo literally says "It's as if under your guidance I've learned how to love".)

In [Firefly Date] Xu Mo talks about how the lights of the fireflies are a danger sign to other creatures (because fireflies eat everything during their larvae form). Then in [Rainfall Date] he thinks the exact same words, that the colors he's seeing emerge into his world because of the MC are a DANGER SIGN but he cannot bring himself to care.

It is not metaphorical in [Rainfall Date]. He's colorblind!

The "Mo (墨)" in Xu Mo's name (许墨) was once his mother's favorite word. This word represents pen and ink, a literary family, and the black and white world in his eyes.

His world is black and white and only by your side can he see colors.

[CN Profile Translation]

Then in [Afternoon Date] there is this exchange:

MC: What do I look like in your eyes?

Xu Mo: ... Colored.

MC: Huh?

Xu Mo: In my eyes... you're full of colors.

So, now that we know MC literally brings color into his life, I'm going to bring back his pen, Iridescent, that he gives MC [Main Story 13-10]. It's a symbol of his love because there's a line that comes from a movie called "Flipped". The Chinese name for the movie "Flipped" is the same as the Chinese name of Xu Mo's [Lovestruck SSR].

“Some of us get dipped in flat, some in satin, some in gloss... [...] But every once in a while, you find someone who's iridescent, and when you do, nothing will ever compare.”

Iridescent is how he sees MC. She literally brought the colors of a rainbow into his black and white world [Rainfall Date].

Now, when we think about his line in "The Artist and the Butterfly" we get... MAJOR ANGST. Because, contrary to his words about not letting the only color in his world go, he lets the MC go again and again and again:

He doesn't catch MC in [Main Story 13].

He saves MC from Hades in [Main Story 16] and then takes advantage of the dream erasing her memories, so she'll have no ties to him or BS (until the next time they meet on the field again, I guess).

Heck, to take this further, in [Memory Palace: The Night Before] Xu Mo traces his previously wounded eye and thinks about how he can barely remember MC's colors and he's going to lose it completely when they meet at the news conference. Then in [Main Story 16-22] MC sees his past all in black and white.

Xu Mo has given up on keeping her colors in his world...

On a side note, I also think he's giving up vividness in his world. In [Rainfall Date] it's implied that the cheerier MC is the brighter her colors are and, I assume, the colors in Xu Mo's world?

There's an intriguing fact in his [CN Profile Translation] too where it says "His sense of taste isn't too sensitive, but it's not completely absent either." What if that fades too when MC isn't around?

Papergames has also mentioned that Xu Mo has glasses he wears to help him see colors (so he can drive safely LOL) but we don't actually see him wear them much except for when he's doing scientific stuff. Perhaps this is a sign about how little he cares about seeing colors in his world if he can't see them naturally (MC-induced colors).

But, hold on, this is a section about how Xu Mo has equally changed MC (it's just, perhaps, more tragic and more obvious with Xu Mo because he only has MC, the sole color in his life, while she has three other guys just lost a friend, mentor, and love interest).

In [Blossom Date] there's an exchange where MC tells Xu Mo that, like how he's told her to take her time growing in front of him [Main Story 9-2], she wants him to take his time going through life. She's echoing his words (and teaching) and, in response, Xu Mo's eyes darken and he thinks about how he's "staining her purity in his colors".

In [CN Archery Date] Xu Mo teaches MC how to handle and shoot a bow and they end up having a mini competition where they both hit bull's eye and get a draw. He's given her one of skills (and a piece of him) again.

Xu Mo continuously gives MC things that he has never given anyone else:

In [Snowy Night Date] he reveals his actual birthday date to MC.

In [Hot Spring Date] Xu Mo reveals that he's never celebrated his birthdays like this, until now with her. Because they probably reminded him of his parents' accident.

In [CN Nightmare's End ASMR] Xu Mo barely remembers his childhood memories (or his real name RIP), and yet he doesn't hesitate to share these memories with MC.

Tangentially related, but I want to throw in here how Xu Mo and MC are described sometimes as having eyes only for each other. I'm sure there's more mentions, but I can only remember these two:

[Main Story 13-8] "Xu Mo didn't respond. He stared at me with a complicated look and I was the only one reflected in his eyes."

[True Love Date] "The girl, with her clear black eyes opened wide, stared at him. The one who was reflected in those eyes was him alone."

My romantic and poetic explanation here is that, because they have pieces of themselves in each other, they're drawn together like magnets!

RUNNING ON PARALLEL TRACKS

In addition to coloring each other with pieces of themselves, MC and Xu Mo are also quite synchronized. He still leaves her confused at times with his intellect, but she can give back pretty good. I will continue to quietly blame Elex for unflattering descriptions of the MC, especially after that call up there, WTF.

For example, [Blossom Date] has Xu Mo quoting a classic poem "Tao Yao" with stanzas 1+2, and MC follows with stanzas 5+6, only for Xu Mo to flirt with stanzas 11+12 (thanks to @love-p for this translation):

1 桃之夭夭 Fresh is the peach tree,

2 灼灼其華 vibrant does it bloom.

[...]

5 桃之夭夭 Fresh is the peach tree,

6 有蕡其実 abundant its fruit.

[...]

11 之子于帰 The betrothed comes home,

12 宜其家人 she serves the clan well.

Then, while Xu Mo doesn't say this unprompted, in [Main Story 13-15] he connects the writing on the wall to 1 Corinthians 13:12. "For now we see through a glass, darkly..."

Then in [Main Story 16-12] MC quotes 1 Corinthians 13:2 at him: "If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing."

However, despite being able to follow up with each other like this, [Firefly Date] shows how Xu Mo and MC have philosophies that differ on a fundamental level, and this ultimately puts them on opposing sides.

Xu Mo believes in mistaken Darwinism, the strong survive and the weak perish, and he also upholds a strict utilitarian view about using people's lives for the greater good of humanity.

The progress of science is often accompanied by many failed experiments, and towards those failed experiments Xu Mo will feel regret. But at the same time he believes that it is a kind of honor to contribute to a better future for humankind.

[CN Profile Translation]

MC believes in helping people out, not just leaving them out to struggle on their own, and she respects and believes in the innate dignity of human life and choice.

We see in [Main Story 16-9] that Xu Mo and MC have another debate about their philosophies and it ends without a victor, again, but also them realizing that both of them wouldn't sacrifice the person they love (consolation prize LOL).

There's also an amazing moment in [Main story 16-12] where MC quotes something Xu Mo told her in [Main Story 13-17]: "Only those who have felt pain and despair can reach the truth of this world. So, even if you feel pain, there's no need to give up on what you want to do. Even if that source of light were to disappear, it would immediately regain its light."

It hurts because, what was a motivational speech for MC, is now used against Xu Mo. It further resolves MC about her principles, but the way she throws his words at him to hurt him like that... yikes. To the both of them, honestly, since Xu Mo wasn't playing nice at all there in assuming her hesitance about answering meant she would sacrifice her loved ones.

Anyway, we see that this understanding and knowing (coloring) of each other lets them hurt each other just as bad. I mentioned in a previous post about the [CN Archery Date] that it's interesting to see their relationship as a metaphorical draw. They take and give to each other, constantly, throughout the story and it shows that they're equals. Running to some place, but not being on the same track. We can only hope they're heading to the same place and that they won't branch off and go further and further away from each other (but he's a love interest, so it should be?? okay??).

On a side note, Xu Mo quotes "Graveyard by the Sea" in [Firefly Date] (I've linked an amazing English translation that comes with an analysis of the original French version).

TL;DR is that the poet realizes timelessness does not exist and that, because his mortality is ever looming, he must go out and accept the challenge of life (carpe diem!) because immortality might not lie beyond the grave. You only get this one chance in life and the future is uncertain, so do everything you can to achieve what you want to do.

This is actually another good reference to Xu Mo's ruthless ambition and why in [Blossom Date] MC wants him to rest and take his time moving forward slowly, much like how he tells her to take her time growing with him.

Uh, I realize I may have taken you guys off guard by suddenly bringing up ruthless ambition again but:

[Blossom Date Translation] Xu Mo reveals how much he worked his ass off when he was younger.

Xu Mo: Yes, I skipped grades.

Xu Mo said that casually, without any pride, as if it were someone else's business. But I was deeply impressed.

MC: You spent all your high school years studying?

Xu Mo: At that time, yes.

MC: Why?

Xu Mo: Silly, there aren't that many why's. It's the same as how you were when you were taking your entrance exams, there were things I needed to do.

[Main Story 13-22] "Ares had a smile cold enough to send chills through someone. The blood that flowed to his mouth made him stand out even more bewitchingly, like a flower. He raised his head and ambition roiled in eyes that were deeper and darker than twilight."

[2nd PV] Xu Mo has a line in Chinese that goes "我贪得无厌　想要你的全部" which I believe English translated as "I am insatiable, I want all of you" which is... um, sure. I mean it works! Perhaps it doesn't fully convey how it's like endless greed, the desire and want for more, never being satisfied, and always hungering. That is what insatiable means, but I don't think the word is used commonly enough for people to click onto all of that.

CONCLUSION

LORD, this is massive. Not including this conclusion, whoever has read down to this point has cleared around 7,500 words, so congratulations.

Anyway, obviously, this post isn't supposed to be all "this is the one and only true interpretation of Xu Mo's character" but I wanted to provide some background from a native (?) context that might have been overlooked, because I don't think scholar archetypes are as common in English and Japanese media (the second culture people are probably most familiar with if they're playing otome games?).

Like how you can point out "ah yes, the tsundere, the yandere, the megane, etc." in Japanese media, the scholar archetype is someone you could spot at a glance from a line up of Chinese characters. If I had to choose a similar type they're probably like megane characters... except their EQ and IQ are both high, so they're not cold, logical robots.

Coming back to a summary of all my points, Xu Mo is a complicated scholar archetype and the game also enjoys spicing this concept up with things that contrast sharply against it (the sexuality from his fox characteristics). He's gentle, refined, and knowledgeable, but also has a black belly that shows when he flirts and verbally traps the MC to fluster her (not to mention all his manipulations behind the scenes).

Every scene he appears in seems to say one thing, but show another, and his references make me want to cry when I end up digging too deep in them. Meanwhile, the silence between the lines of his scenes, words, and actions, scream so loudly with evocative and symbolic imagery.

Feel free to dislike him, but I don't think it can be denied that he's a very intricately written character, and that's what all the fun is about liking him and deciphering his raison d'être.

As an aside, I will acknowledge that I've skipped over other references that I couldn't fit into this post but there were things like the [Roman Holiday] movie he and MC watched in [Main Story 5-6] and the song he sings in [True Love Date], "When I Fall in Love", and its relation to [Sleepless in Seattle], perhaps? But @sharinluna has good posts on these already. I haven't watched any of these, so I won't bother to reveal my ignorance on them LOL.

Lastly, I just want to leave everyone with these two lines from Xu Mo, because it draws such a beautiful circle:

So, in his [2nd PV] he says "我贪得无厌" which I mentioned above was something like "I'm insatiably greedy".

Then, there's a call where he says "谢谢你、成全我的贪心，希望你可以相信，无论是过去，还是未来，能让我倾尽所有想要独占的，只有你一人" which translates to "Thank you, for fulfilling my greed. I hope you can believe that, regardless of whether it's in the past or future, the person who's made me want to exhaust all methods to monopolize them has only ever been you."

Such a beautiful full circle, right? You can imagine him saying this at the end of the game or at a wedding, right? EXCEPT IT CAME FROM A KFC COLLABORATION CALL. YES. KFC. I'm crying and I feel like my soul took a hit. It doesn't count... it doesn't count as canon material does it... I mean, he's not talking about the chicken, because this is in response to a confession you get to write as the player, BUT STILL. LOL.

(I secretly laugh at how English would handle that, since they gave him the "I am insatiable" line. "Thank you for satiating me"? HAHA).

Nah, perhaps the true circle is him asking in [New Light Date] if MC can teach him love and then telling us that we've taught him in love in the [2nd Anniversary VIP Message].

[mhdiaries]

Wave 3 Toralei Stripe Diary

July. Two. Five.

Ooh they’re telling math jokes now...

Q: What do you get if you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter?

A: Pumpkin Pi!

The math geeks I’m stuck on this bus with think that this is funny. So funny in fact, that the harpy sitting in front of me shoots milk out of her nose when she hears the punch line. I don’t think it’s funny at all. I’d rather be listening to the music I have stored on my iCoffin but two hours into our five-hour ride home my iCoffin gave up the ghost. It should have lasted the whole trip and then some except that one of my math camp roomies “accidentally” unplugged my iCoffin charger last night when she plugged in her fright light. I don’t even know why a ghost needs a fright light. What? Was she afraid she would trip over something and go “bump in the night?” I realized what happened when we woke up this morning but we had to leave first thing so I didn’t have time to put a full charge on it. At least I got enough battery life to block out the two hours dedicated to the singing of “X Number Bottles of Ghoul Juice on the Wall.” To add to the misery the seats on this bus only have room for two monsters and Meowlody and Purrsephone are of course sitting together which left me stuck in a seat next to a troll named Teala who had never been away from her bridge for more than a day until she came to math camp.She cried herself to sleep every night. Not that any other monster but me noticed but then again I notice everything. I also noticed Teala wasn’t laughing at any of the math jokes either. In fact she seemed to be more miserable than I was. Well now, here I was thinking she was missing her bridge but if that were the case why didn’t she seem excited about going home? “Dish,” I said. She turned and looked at me for a moment and then stared back ahead. “Okay - suit yourself then,” I said and then tried to curl up in the seat to take a cat nap which I had almost accomplished when she said; “My boy-fiend broke up with me...by text...the first night of math camp.” She still wasn’t looking at me but she wasn’t crying either. “He was my first real boyfriend and...and I don’t know why I’m telling you ‘cause you don’t seem to care about any monster besides yourself and you’ll probably figure out a way to use this to make me even more miserable.” I didn’t show it, but that really hurt. Just because I enjoy the chaos that a good practical joke brings doesn’t mean that I’m intentionally cruel does it? I don’t think it does and besides; where’s the fun of kicking some monster when they’re already down? It’s a lot more fun to see the surprise on a monster’s face when they think they’ve got it all together and you can “help them” see that they don’t. So I said, “Guess you better tell me the whole story then so I can do a thorough job.” That actually brought a ghost of a smile to her face. Teala told me that her ex boy-fiend was applying to colleges and that he decided he needed to keep his “options open” in case he might meet his “intellectual equal” at school. At first I didn’t believe he actually wrote that and then she showed me the text. “Does he really think he’s that smart,” I asked. She kind of shrugged and said, “He’s scary smart but not as good at math as I am, especially withy differential equations.” She told me he really wanted to get into this one school because his favorite mad scientist taught there. I’d never heard of the school but I knew who the mad scientist was because Mr. Hack made use watch a bunch of his videos in class. The videos were deadly boring but the mad scientist had this odd accent and strange speech pattern. I used to mimic his voice in class to make Mr. Hack jump. I’d wait until Mr. Hack’s back was turned and then scream, “Huhhacckkk - theeese stuuudannts reeelease youuu wuh-ill ah-yuat wa-unce!” It cost me several days in detention and a trip to Headless Headmistress Bloodgood’s office the last time I mimicked the mad scientist but even Mr. Hack admitted he couldn’t tell the difference between the scientist’s voice and my imitation of it. We talked about a few more things and then Teala finally fell asleep. I was able to finally fall asleep as well but not before having to hear another math joke followed by an explosion of milk from the seat in front of me.

July. Two. Eight.

I went to MH today to pick up some pictures I left in the FearBook office. When I was done I went up to the belfry. It’s a good place to keep an eye on things without other eyes watching you. It’s also a good place to take a nap. Usually the hunchback who rings the bells...the bells...works up there but he was on summer vacation in France or somewhere so I had the place to myself; until Spectra came floating through that is. She thinks that she’s very stealthy but it’s almost impossible to sneak up on me and I heard the rattle of her chains long before she actually appeared. I pretended to be asleep for a moment then with my eyes still closed I said, “What do you want Spectra?” “Oh, hello Toralei. Did you hear the news?” Most monsters don’t trust anything they hear from Spectra. I know better. There’s always an element of truth in her “news”. You just need to know how to listen. Here’s an example; Spectra told me she heard that Nefera is moving back to town and will be taking over for Ms. Kindergruber in Home Ick. Not only that but Ms. Kindergruber is also going to quit teaching to become a roadie for her favorite rock and roll band. Now as much fun as it is to imagine Ms. K. climbing stacks of amps while wearing a sleeveless leather vest, bandana and steel toed boots it’s not going to happen. Although when compared to the thought of Nefera actually “lowering herself” to teach, it’s practically a done deal Ms K will be hitting the road. I’m pretty sure out of that confusing jumble of information the one true fact is that Nefera is moving back to town and probably sooner rather than later...now there’s a monster who enjoys kicking some body when it’s down.

July. Three. Zero.

Got an email today from Teala, the troll girl I sat with on the ride home from math camp. Apparently her ex boy-fiend told her that he got a call from the mad scientist he wanted to study under. The scientist told her ex that his test scores indicated a “skuhh-ill weeeakness in diffuhh-wrenntial eeeequay-shunns” and that her ex should find some monster that was intellectually superior and “geeet sah-ummm tuutorr-ing”. Her ex was certain it was the professor since “no monster could fake that voice.” He also apologized to Teala for being an arrogant jerk and asked if she would tutor him in differential equations. Teala told him that she would have to check her schedule. Sometimes it is just purrrecious the way things work out for the beast.

August. One. Three.

I bought a ball of dragon thread today for Sweet Fangs. It’s just about the only material that’s strong enough to survive more than one play session with her. I don’t know what I’m going to do when Sweet Fangs gets bigger because I’m probably going to need the whole dragon and I’m not sure mom and dad are gong to be good with that.

August. Two. Five.

M&P came over today. They’re like my sisters and I can’t imagine how boring unlife would be without them. We do just about everything together and some monsters even think we’re related but we’re not. Not that it matters since we don’t really care what other monsters think anyway. We are who we are and any monster or monsters that want to try and herd us better get ready for a long miserable day. Today we weren’t worried about being herded, today was a brainstorm session. Our mission, repay Cleo de Nile and her minions for not only ruining our perfectly planned graduation prank but also for taking away part of our valuable summer vacation by “arranging” our trip to math camp. Knowing that it was Cleo who got the better of us is almost as irritating as being wet or having my fur stroked the wrong way. I can’t believe that I actually helped her when she first wanted to be a part of the Fear Squad. Cleo didn’t even know how to do a cartwheel, much less a round off. So I took her under my claw and taught her everything I knew and since I’d been doing gymnastics from the time I was a kitten I knew a lot. I finally got Cleo to the point where she started to “get it” and instead of being a liability she started contributing. I figured that for all my hard work and leadership Nefera would make me the Fear Squad captain when she graduated. Only she didn’t - she passed it onto Cleo. I can still remember what Nefera said to me when I confronted her about it. “I didn’t want Cleo to succeed - I wanted her to be humiliated but since you helped her, you get to deal with the consequences.” Then Cleo acted as if she deserved to be the captain and that she automatically knew everything there was to know about leading the Fear Squad. She should have showed some humility and stepped aside. She didn’t so now it’s up to me to teach her some new lessons and I can’t wait for class to be back in session.  

August. Three. One.

There’s a meteor shower tonight, which will give us the purrrfect opportunity to practice the three D’s. Divert. Design. Demure. First I divert attention away from myself - although tonight the meteor shower should do that for me, next I design a “surprise” for my intended victim student and then after the unexpected happens I demure - “Oh my, what happened here?” More later...

Ended up scraping the three D’s tonight, mostly because the meteor shower diverted me. I was supposed to meet M&P at this coffee shop down close to the beach - it’s the only time I go to the beach since sand + water + fur = unhappy werecat - but they were late so I grabbed a catnipuccino and waited. The owner turned down the lights of the shop so it was almost dark and then the sky was falling. The ghouls showed up just as somewhere down the beach a monster started playing guitar and I said, “Just because we’ve got nine lives doesn’t mean we need to rush through this one.” And we didn’t. 

[elleroodles]

hello el :] i was wondering if you have any advice for someone wanting to start playing guitar with no prior experience!!

man oh man this is SO exciting!!! i love that you asked me this!!! i have so many thoughts!!! i hope i make sense!!! if you have any questions about anything at all do not hesitate to reach out!!! i’m!!!!

1) the guitar itself! (+ other equipment!)

so i started on what was quite literally a grocery store brand guitar my dad got when he was in his 20’s, and if you want to take up guitar as anything more than a fun little thing to dabble in every so often (which is completely fine!) then you might want to start saving up for a trusty brand.

i can’t remember the name of my first guitar since it was a hand me down, but you can literally get them for like. $25 on amazon. i’m going into this assuming you mean acoustic, i’m not entirely sure what the price points are for electric. fender’s the big name brand, but i vastly prefer guild. i love the wood and the sound, and some people at my music studio have said they work realllll good with amps. there’s also several different sizes other than the standard, which is very nice for my tiny little body

the reason i’d invest in a guitar early on if you’re looking into music for the long-term is because they’re super durable if you take good care of them. my guild will probably last me into my thirties, and maybe even longer than that. my dad’s old guitar that i started on obviously did last a long time, but it did Not sound very good. it’s also worth noting that i started learning music with a cheap uke and definitely don’t regret it, this isn’t to say that you Need an expensive instrument to play music, it’s just definitely something to consider if you’re looking for playing in the long term

other stuff i’d advise spending money on is a capo and tuner!! a capo is used to change the pitch of songs and can make playing easier if you need to transpose a song, i wish i got one earlier than i did. it opens up so many more songs!! having a physical tuner is moreso for convenience, phone ones work just fine, but i once lost my phone at a music festival and was Very thankful for my tuner. plus they can help you find the right notes if you’re fretting or singing!! the brand i use is snark

oh and picks!! i don’t really use picks all that often unless i’m live because they mostly serve to make strumming louder, but it’s really up to personal preference. i find fingerpicking harder w a pick but it’s something you gotta mess around with and see what works for you!! picks are incredibly easy to lose, so i’d buy cheap and plentiful packs. i like the nylon jim dunlop .46 mm ones, but picks are really something that varies from guitarist to guitarist

now for the FUN PART

2) actually learning lol

befriend ultimate guitar and never lose it. i would live and die for ultimate guitar, it is probably the best way to teach yourself guitar. there’s chords and strumming patterns you can actually play, and the community’s truly wonderful. there’s a premium option, but i’ve been using the free version for years now and i’d marry it if given the option.

after you’ve signed the marriage license to ultimate guitar, make a playlist!! at first i’d just put any old song you want on it, and then launch into the easy tabs on ultimate guitar (which i’ll just refer to as ug from now on). ug has a playlist system which i’d also ulitize! i’d recommend some guitar songs i started out with, but the best advice my music teacher has ever given me is that if you play music you’re not passionate about, you’ll lose interest so quickly. i have never taken a formal guitar class in my life, and i honestly would say i’m a better player because of that (though i did come from a few years of uke, so i had a pretty good grasp on fretting/strumming). find a song you love that’s easy and learn it!

before launching straight into songs, you probably want to learn some chords. the most common chords in western music are c, g, f, d, a, and e, so i’d nail those down as well as am (a minor) and em (e minor). if you’d like a lesson in music theory and chord structures, i’d be more than happy to help. same goes for strumming patterns, ug is great for listening to and learning strumming patterns but i also like listening to songs and just trying to figure out the strumming pattern. this may sound a bit like bragging and i apologize, but guitar came very naturally to me because i have a good ear for music, so i never really had a whole lot of those beginning struggles. that sounded really arrogant shdgsg but what i’m trying to get at is that i’m probably not the best person to go to if you can’t figure out the rhythm of a song because my brain just does it for me shdgdg

misc stuff:

tuning: standard tuning is eadgbe, another one i like is cgdgbe (a good chunk of wilbur’s songs are in this tuning 🙄🙄🙄🙄). i personally Hate retuning and try to avoid it at all costs so i’d recommend getting comfy with it

more string stuff: strings go out of tune really easily!! especially on new guitars!! it’s super duper important to keep your guitar in tune when you’re a beginner so your ear gets that muscle memory with sound (ie being able to hear an a7 as an a7 and not an out of tune a7)

little bit of vocab:

dim: diminished

m: minor

b: flat

maj: major

don’t be afraid of chords that are all wonky like fdim7!! they’re not scary!! most are very pretty!! but definitely get good at your basic before moving on the trickier stuff

barre chords: UGHHHHH most songs have a pesky little f in them which is a barre chord (a chord where you gotta stick your fretting hand over multiple strings). another scary thing i’d very much recommend getting used to!

oh god i feel like i’ve missed so much, like i said, i had a very unorthodox learning experience so i might make a part 2 to this sometime soon when i get my thoughts in a better order and some sleep but for now i’m so excited that you’re looking to learn guitar!! it’s so fun!! ty for reachin out and if you have any more questions don’t even hesitate to ask, i’d love to help :))))

[mlovesstories]

Shake It Off Part 5

Summary: YN and Jared both have a hard time. Jensen doesn’t help. 

Warnings: multiple panic attacks, cussing

Words: 2400

AN- Thanks to @breereadsthings!!

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Masterlist of Masterlists

“Good morning,” Danneel smiled. “It’s nice to meet you, although the circumstances are strange…”

“I’m way too hungover. You’re talking so loud.” YN wiped her hand down her face as she entered the kitchen.

“There’s breakfast on the table for you.”

“You didn’t have to do that,” she turned and walked toward the large table.

“You’re hungry, I’m sure.”  

“Thanks.” 

YN asked where Jensen was. Danneel explained that he was sleeping in. He almost never did, but she got the kids off to school while he rested.

“This must all be a lot.  I’m sorry for ruining your lives,” YN sighed. “I didn’t know. I won’t do anything with the stuff that has come to light. He didn’t know. It’s not his fault or my fault, or-“ she rambled.

“YN.” Danneel waited until YN stopped talking.”We know that, honey. You are welcome here, just please don’t be hungover in front of the kids.” Danneel smiled as she joined the younger female for breakfast with her own plate of food. “It’s a lot for all of us. Jensen was in shock. If he would have known-“

“I know,” YN nodded. “He’s responsible.”

“Hey, YN,” Jensen slowly walked through the doorframe of the kitchen.

“Whatever,” she groaned.  “I didn’t ask you to save me last night, Jensen. If you are going to try and teach me life lessons after intervening when I didn’t expect you to, I’m leaving. I didn’t ask you to freaking drive to Dallas and get me.  You don’t get to pull the dad card,” she gritted her teeth.

“I love you is all,” Jensen said simply.

“Gah, Jensen. You don't know me. And you treated me like crap.”

“I know, and I’m so sorry.  You’ll understand if you have kids. And I’m so proud of you. You’ve handled yourself so well through this crazy ride.”

“Yeah, obviously,” she rolled her eyes.

“Are you missing work today?”  Jensen changed the subject, realizing he wasn’t getting anywhere.

“Yeah, but I do graphics and have my own schedule.  It’s fine.”

“Okay, good.  I can drive you home.  I’m on break for two weeks.  I don’t mind.”

“I can get an Uber-”

“Sit in a car with a stranger for four hours?  No,”  Jensen rebutted.  

“Can you stay?  At least for a few days?  We have some extra clothes.” Danneel asked excitedly.  

“It’s awkward.  And I’m not exactly his biggest fan.  No offense.  I don’t want to be an inconvenience either.  And you guys don’t even know me.”

“You’re so sweet and you’ve helped so many people since you met the boys.  Please? I’m sure the kids would love to meet you.  I’ll pick them up at about four today,” the oldest woman asked.  

YN thought for a moment.  

“Okay, fine,” YN softly smiled. As soon as she agreed to stay, her phone went off. “Stop calling me, Mom,” YN groaned.  

“Answer, it’s okay,” Jensen told her.

“She LIED to me, Jensen.”

“I know.  But you understand why, don’t you?”

“She could have told me.  I just wanted a few answers.  I cried for days as a kid not knowing who my dad was.  SHE KNEW.” YN’s phone continued to ring.  She turned the sound off.  “I’ll freaking move to Timbuktu. She is nothing to me anymore.”

“No, you’ll stay in Dallas.  You’re thinking with your emotions, not with your head.  There’s a difference.  Let’s change the subject.  Dee and I were going to walk the farmer’s market today before we get the kids.  You wanna go?”

“Sure, why not?”  YN huffed.  

“I think Gen and Jare are coming too,” Danneel said.  

“It will be good to see them.  I’ve never met Gen in person befor-” Her eyes lit up.

Their door creaked.

“Jackles!” Jared’s voice boomed.  

“In here!” Jensen called.

Gen and Jared soon entered the kitchen.

“I didn’t know you would be here!” Gen gasped. “It’s so good to meet you!”  The woman engulfed YN in a hug.

“Hi, YN!” Jared stopped when he saw her. “You look a little messed up.  What happened?”

“She got drunk so I had to save her ass,” Jensen joked.

“You drove to Dallas? In the middle of the night?” Gen scolded.

“She lives alone, what was I supposed to do?” Jensen shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, glad you’re safe.  You feeling it today?” Jared smiled.

“Feeling better now that I have food in me.  Thanks for the breakfast, Danneel.”

“Of course.  Us girls need to get ready.  We can do that while the boys watch some TV.”

“Don’t be too long!”  Jensen laughed as the ladies walked up the stairs.

______

“I don’t want to talk to you, Mom.  Stop bothering me.” YN hung up quickly as she and the Padackles walked the farmer’s market.  

“Call her back.”  Jensen said lowly.

“Not right now, I am enjoying the fact that you are not being an ass,” YN gritted her teeth.

“Whatever, kid,” Jensen smiled. “Just- treat her okay.  It must be a lot for her too.”

“Why aren’t you angry?  She kept a secret for a quarter of a century.”

“Well, I am, but I have you in my life now.  Maybe I’ll talk to her in the future, but I wouldn’t really know what to say.  I’m sad she kept me from you, but I’m happy you’re open to a relationship with me.”

“That’s- that’s very calm of you,” she responded as they stopped at a booth full of strawberries.  

“Here, these are the best.  Try this,” Danneel handed YN a piece of red fruit.  

“Oh my gosh.  It’s so good,” YN agreed with a grin.  

“We can make strawberry ice cream with these.  Okay, let’s keep going,”  Danneel prompted.  

————-

“Hi!” JJ sat next to YN on the bed while the younger ones tried to join them without luck, too short to climb onto the bed.  YN sat up from her afternoon nap.  

“Hi,” YN responded groggily. “What’s your name?” The oldest one rubbed her eyes.  

“I’m JJ!  You’re YN!  You’re pretty,” the little girl said matter-of-factly.  

“Well, thanks.  So are you!”

“Can you play with us?”

“JJ! I told you not to-” Jensen came into the room.  “Sorry, YN.  I told them to leave you alone.  Come on, guys.  Let her wake up a bit.  I’ll get you a snack.”

As they all exited, YN stood up and straightened out her clothes.  

“Twenty-five missed calls? Stop it, Mom,” she mumbled to herself.

YN walked into the living room where everyone greeted her.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” Jared smiled from the couch as he sat next to Gen.  Jensen grinned across from the couple.  

“Where did the kiddos go?” YN looked around expectantly.

“Backyard with Danneel,” Jensen answered.  “You can meet them when they come back in.  Come sit down,” he patted the area of couch next to him.  

The four caught up and reviewed the day.  They talked about their favorite parts of their adventure and how YN had never been to a farmer’s market.  She soon changed the subject.

YN asked how Jared had been doing.  He explained that adult coloring books kept him calm over the previous week.  YN saw a few colored pencils on the side table next to him.  YN smiled in relief as she saw he was more relaxed than their previous interactions.  

“Thank you for all of your help.  I mean it.  I can’t do it without you.  I’ve been in a lot of situations, but this through me for a loop,” Jared showed his gratitude.  “Thanks for telling me about what you went through too-”

“They don’t know,’ YN cut in.  At the realization that her stroke secret was about to be exposed, she started breathing quickly.   “It’s still hard to talk about.  Don’t tell-” she stopped abruptly. Shaking, she stayed quiet.  

Everyone was silent while she tried to recover, but it wasn’t working.  Jared tried to keep her calm, but his presence intensified her panic.  

“Jared, back up,” Gen said.  He stepped away.  His wife approached YN.  “It’s okay, girlie.  Can I scratch your back?” She noticed YN pulling her knees to her chest.  YN nodded. “Move over, Jensen.”

Gen sat next to her, squishing Jensen into the corner of the couch.  They didn’t notice that Jared reacted to YN.  He also started heaving.  Jared grabbed a pillow and clutched it to his chest.  

“Oh, no.” Jensen whispered.  Gen turned to see her husband curl into himself with a faraway look on his face.  “They’re feeding off of each other.  I’ll get him out of here.  You keep her calm.”  Since Jared had not quite gotten to the same stress level as YN, Jensen guided the taller TV brother to a movie room where he put him on the couch.  “Relax.  She’s okay.”

“I didn’t mean to trigger her.  I didn’t realize she didn’t want other people to know.  I broke her trust.  How will she forgive-” Jared rushed the words out of his mouth.  

“Jared.”

“What?”

“Stop thinking and breathe. In and out, come on, buddy.”

After a half hour of calmingtechniques both parties had mellowed.  Jared walked in to apologize to YN but found her asleep against Gen on the couch.  

“It’s my fault,” Jared said.  

“Stop it.  Sit down.  No blaming, you know the rules about that.  Get,” Jensen pushed him toward the opposite couch.  Jared froze instead of landing on the couch.  He started hyperventilating.  “Not again,” Jensen whispered.  “Let’s just take you home, bug guy.  Let’s go,” Jensen took Jared’s arm.

“I want- to say- to say I’m sorry,” Jared turned back to YN and Gen on the couch.  

“You can. Later.  She’s sleeping.  Come on, dude.”  Jensen walked ahead of him and opened the front door.  Jared slowly followed him out.  “You got her?” Jensen stuck his head back through the doorway.

“Yep.  Take care of my guy,” Gen whispered back.

______

Jared woke up in his room noting the darkness outside.  What had happened that afternoon came rushing at him.  He rustled in the sheets, reaching for anything to soothe himself.  Hearing noise over the monitor he had placed in Jared’s room a few hours previous, Jensen walked into the large master bedroom.  

“You okay?”

“I think so,” Jared calmed, coming down from his anxious state.  “I need to say I’m sorry.  Is she still at your house?”

“You aren’t going anywhere near her right now.” Jensen said lowly. “You feed off of each other.  Until you both chill, you’re staying here.  She’s still a little amped even after her nap. Say you’re sorry later.”

“I’ll send her a text,” he reached for his phone.

Jensen walked with large steps toward Jared and took the phone out of his hand.  

“No.  She’s still not calm.  Gen said she can’t relax.  If you do this, Gen will have to calm her down again.”

“What about all the kids? I completely forgot about them.  Danneel and all-”

“All six are in bed.  It’s after ten,” Jensen backed away with the phone in his hand.  “Go back to bed.  I’m giving this to Gen.  She’ll be home soon.  I’ll take YN for now.  Good night, bud,” Jensen left the room without waiting for a response from his friend.  

“I’m so sorry!”  YN wailed as quietly as possible.  “It’s my fault he got upset,” she tried to calm herself down.  

“No, it isn’t.  Please know that, sweetie,  You can’t keep going like this.  You’ll be up all night.  When you come down, you’ll crash hard,” Jensen walked in to Gen and Danneel trying to assuage the situation.  

“He’s asleep,” Jensen whispered to the ladies in the room.

“Good.  He should get some sleep after what I did to him,” YN hiccupped.

“Stop it, YN.  Clear the room.  Everyone else to bed,” Danneel said sharply.  

“Dee?” Jensen questioned his wife.  

“Go.  Good night, Gen,” Danneel ushered the woman out.

As Gen left, Jensen asked Danneel, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Her mom betrayed her, and you’re the bad guy whether she admits it or not.  Get out of here so that she can calm down.”

“How do you know that?”

“Go. Now,” Danneel gave no explanation and looked to YN whose panic was increasing as she sat alone on the couch. “Get a stuffed animal and a blanket and bring it back to me.”

“What in the world, Dee?”

“Just do it,” she groaned.  

Danneel sat down next to YN again.  

“Here,” Jensen quietly handed her a teddy bear and a soft blanket.  He exited quickly.  

“YN,” Danneel whispered.  “Take this.” YN turned over to see what Danneel had in her hand.  “I saw a picture of you on instagram as a kid with something like this.  Maybe these will help.  Not the same as you had, but hopefully close enough.”

YN accepted the items and held them close.  Calming down, she told Danneel that the blanket smelled like Jensen.  

“A lot of stuff does,” Danneel laughed.  “His cologne lingers.”

Feeling the softness of the stuffed animal and the blanket made her relax.  

“I’m not a baby,” YN tried to push them off as she realized what had happened.

“Keep ‘em for now.  No one is here and no one knows.  If it helps, use them.  No making fun.  Promise.” She saw YN’s body relax and her eyes slowly close.  

________

YN woke up to Jensen looking at her.

“What?”

“What are you? Five?  Nice teddy bear,” he snorted.

“Shut up, Jensen.  I don’t need you to demean me too.”

“Big baby,” he rolled his eyes at her.

“Why was I not good enough? You should have fought for me, Jensen.”

“For you?  You hug stuffed animals and baby blankets, kid.  Thanks but no thanks,” Jensen laughed sarcastically.

“Why?”

“Ha!  Your mom was a slut.  I mean, come on, YN.  She had a kid with a guy she barely knew.  That’s me, by the way.  She was known as the bicycle of the school, you know that?”

“Asshole!  If that’s really how you feel, I’ll just leave!”

“Go ahead, small stuff.  I don’t want a grown kid who is a wimp.”

“Fine!” YN threw the blanket and stuffed animal at his head. He laughed at her last attempt to interact.

“Bye, YN!” Jensen waved as she flew out the door. 

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[adabassist]

NOT EXACTLY THE SUMMER OF ‘69, BUT I WAS NEVER AS COOL AS BRYAN ADAMS ANYWAY

Recently someone asked me how I ended up a bass player. I forget what I told them, but it was short, sweet, and long on understatement. The real answer is a lot more complicated.

My earliest memory is from before I was 2 (yep, 2 - believe it or don’t), sitting at the 70-year-old upright piano we got for free from a garage sale down the street, pounding on the low keys, because they made this GLORIOUSLY ENORMOUS SOUND… To this day, I cannot recall ever hearing an upright piano where the notes were as big sounding, although I’m sure my small ears had a skewed sensory experience compared to later years.

We (I have an older sister and brother) would play a musical piano game called “Thunderstorm”, where we would try to recreate the thunder (lower 1/3 of the keyboard), lightning (middle 1/3), and rain (higher 1/3) associated with a big storm (our parents were thrilled). I remember trying to pound on the higher keys in desperation, wondering why they lacked a powerful sound no matter how hard I hit them. I began to see the notes played in terms of size, with the lowest notes “appearing” to be largest in my mind’s eye.

Before long, I could hear how certain notes sounded good together - just octaves and fifths at first, then other “hip” intervals like a minor 7th (though I had no name for that interval in my head - I just liked the sound). I even wrote a song called “Dun” somewhere along the line, played with the index finger on each hand; left hand stayed on G (same pitch as a G string on a bass), and right hand moved between D, E, and F. “Dun” got its name because I played it so often that my siblings would mock me by singing that song back to me: “DUN DUN DU-DUN DUN DU-DU-DU-DUN DUN….”

You could say that my fate was sealed.

I would regularly sit down at the piano and play whatever my heart desired. Back then I had never taken piano lessons, and had no idea how to read or even what was “proper” to be played on a piano. I just figured stuff out when I felt like it, and otherwise just had fun learning the sonic relationships between the keys. But I thought I was pretty good anyway. I even used to make “tickets” for the family (markers, scissors, and construction paper) and make them “attend my concerts” from time to time. Let’s just say I wasn’t a big hit.

I auditioned for the school talent show in 1st grade, figuring I was a shoo-in, regardless of what my family thought (lousy philistines). I got through to the 2nd audition, and upon completion, the music teacher said, “That’s not what you played for the first audition. Can you play that song?” I said no, because everything I play is all off the top of my head. I didn’t make the talent show, and I remember thinking how “rinky-dink” the songs were by the people who did get to perform…

Somewhere along the line, I learned the names of the notes, and even found out that I could do a neat trick: if my sister played a note on the piano, I could name it - every time. I was so good at it that she was sure I was cheating or peeking, so I was marched into the next room to continue the game. This of course changed nothing; I had discovered that I could simply name the notes upon hearing them. I didn’t know what perfect pitch was, but I had it. When my cousin - well-recognized at his school for being a talented violinist - came to visit, and couldn’t do the same trick as I could, he got more than a little annoyed. But that’s the nature of perfect pitch; you can develop it to a degree, but largely, you either got it or you don’t.

I was about nine when I found a harmonica in a box in our garage, brand-new, no idea what it was doing there. I began to play with it and discovered that the same scale I played on the piano was also recognizable on a harmonica! I had never played another instrument before, and I was enthralled. After a while I got the idea that I could play the harmonica and the piano at the same time, so I went into the living room with the harmonica and sat down at the piano. Blew a C chord on the harp, and played a C note on the piano.

YUCK. That sounded AWFUL.

I couldn’t understand it - the harmonica was clearly marked “C” (this might be what gave me the idea to try them together). But the “C” on the harmonica didn’t sound good at ALL with the “C” on the piano.

Turns out the piano was tuned exactly one half-step flat. Possibly because it had spent most of its life in the salty air near the San Francisco Bay, and the soundboard had rotted just enough that it couldn’t keep strings at tension or pitch anymore. Tuning it so it at least played in tune with itself was a logical decision.

But it forever skewed my sense of what a “C” actually sounded like in my head. To this day, I refer to my condition as “IMPERFECT pitch”.

I did figure out that if I played a Db scale on the piano, it worked well with the harmonica, but it was too difficult to wrap my brain and hands around all of that when the piano was ten feet from the front door, and comings and goings were a constant distraction. So the harmonica went the way of the bread machine you got as a gift sometime around the turn of the 21st century: stashed away in a box, likely never again to see the light of day.

Not long after that, my mother asked me if I’d like to take piano lessons. Just out of the blue. I don’t even remember why she asked, or how she knew the person I was to take lessons from, but I thought it was a brilliant idea! A little structure, a little edification, learning to read and play actual songs instead of the meandering stuff I already knew how to do. Great! I’m sure I was one of the very few kids in my town who was excited about piano lessons. But I enjoyed them, and there’s no doubt they helped me many years down the road, as any professional musician who took piano lessons as a kid can attest to.

One day I was visiting a friend, who had been gifted an old nylon string guitar. He didn’t play it, keep it in tune, or want much of anything to do with it, really. I started messing around with it, and I realized that the frets were the same 1/2 steps I played on the piano! As long as I accounted for the “black keys” by jumping 2 frets instead of 1, I could play a major scale on any single string, no matter how it was tuned or not-tuned. It didn’t matter that I didn’t know how to tune a guitar; just seeing the relationship between frets and 1/2 steps was enough to make me see notes in a whole new light.

When I was trusted enough to ride my bike downtown (about 3.5 miles from home on roads with sketchy bike lanes), I began renting instruments for a month at a time to see if I could make them sound good. Woodwinds, mostly - clarinet, flute, alto sax. There was that same major scale, easy to play in one key, difficult to figure out in others, plus the weird keys weren’t logical - if I wanted a note to be sharp or flat, I had to press some random key that seemingly had nothing to do with the order of notes. It made no sense to me, I had no idea what I was doing, and at the end of the month, I traded it in for another instrument. This cycle of “lather, rinse, repeat” went on for several months until one day when my brother arrived home with a bass, a guitar, and a big amp.

The sound coming out of his bedroom was INCREDIBLE. Warm yet exciting, like a smoldering fire with a little bit more residual energy than is safe. I was totally enthralled - here was an instrument that I could see made sense already, sounded fabulous, and vaguely reminded me of the lowest notes on the upright piano. I said, “THAT’S what I wanna play!” But my mom said NO - she was not going to have her sons fighting over the same instrument, especially because we already fought over everything else. My brother chose bass first; I got to play the guitar instead.

Playing guitar was pretty cool, actually - it was a cheap japanese red Flying V knockoff, difficult to wield, barely stayed in tune, but it was COOL. A little distortion, a little reverb (only used sparingly because I hated hearing my mistakes echo), and I had a good time. I had my little practice area in the basement next to my brother’s bedroom, and I played an awful lot. But to be honest, it always felt a little… weak. Like trying to throw a cotton ball. Yes, you could get angry and loud, but there was something missing. And every so often, I’d get the urge to sneak into my brother’s room and play his new bass (the first was apparently just a rental) when he wasn’t around. And every so often, I’d get caught, and I’d get “scared straight” for a month or two (my brother was built like a Sherman tank, and I looked more like Chunk with long hair). But the urge would always return, and the cycle would repeat itself. Until one fateful day…

I was in 8th grade, and I took the bus to school. My brother went to the high school half a mile away, so he was always home first. So when I walked in the front door, I could hear his bass booming through the ductwork like always, and like always, that made me want to play my guitar. So, like always, I dumped my school bag, full of assignments that would be ignored until morning like always, by the door and headed for the basement.

I never noticed that the bass notes stopped at some point; all I remember is descending the short staircase that led to the lower level, making a sharp U-turn as I prepared to go down into the basement, and jumping back out of the way because A BASS was flying through the air, up the stairs, right at me. I was fast enough to avoid it, and it hit the floor HARD in front of me. I immediately peeked around the door jamb down the stairs, and saw my brother stomping towards his bedroom door.

So I called down: “Hey - do you want this bass anymore?”

My brother hollered “NOOOOOOO!” and slammed his bedroom door behind him.

I looked back at the bass, and thought, Great!  So I grabbed it and ran downstairs, plugged it into my guitar amp (quietly, I knew better), and for the first time in recorded history, played a bass in my house with something tantamount to permission.

And it was GLORIOUS. Bottom end! Like the piano upstairs, but BIGGER! Notes made sense, I could find my way around because I’d played guitar, and the stuff I’d been trying to play on those other instruments - piano, guitar, clarinet, sax, flute, recorder, even the harmonica - was much better suited for the electric bass, and I finally GOT that. Here was the sound I’d heard in my head for 10 years married to the notes I wanted to play for 10 years, and my fingers were causing it to happen.

And somewhere in that 23-minute span, I remember feeling - not hearing, feeling - a Voice in my head, and it spoke to me with absolute clarity: you remember this moment, because this is what you’re going to do with the rest of your life.

I say 23 minutes because I always got home at 3:20, it took about 2 minutes to shed my coat and bag and head downstairs, and my practice area clock said 3:45 when my brother tore open his door and came around the corner, snarling, “GIMME MY BASS BACK.” And so I did. But the wheels had been set in motion; 23 minutes of bass playing versus years of piano, guitar, and everything else… there was no contest.

So I talked things over with my mom (and mentioned in passing what my brother had done with his beautiful new bass), and that Christmas there was a wonderful new Ibanez Roadstar II bass and a Fender Bassman 20 amp. Within a week I had nickel-sized blisters on 7 different fingertips, and that wasn’t enough to get me to slow down. They started calling me Froggy Fingers when I went back to school after Christmas break. I didn’t care. I finally had to take a scissors to my blisters because callouses were forming over the top of them, the swelling wouldn’t go down, they didn’t hurt at all, and I could barely pick things up because my fingertips were so deformed. But away I went on the bass, spending 6-7 hours every night playing in my corner of the basement (and watching my already piss-poor grades get even worse - I graduated with an academic GPA of 1.6).

This was my solace; this was my everything. All the other things that had gone wrong or were currently going wrong in my life mattered a lot less once I had a bass to play. Maybe that’s why I played so much. There wasn’t much else going on for me to be excited about at that time in my life, and playing music - playing a BASS - gave me an outlet for my passion, my frustration, my energy, my creativity, and created a drive to improve and be really good at something for a change. And I knew it was going to happen because It Made Sense. It still does. Nearly 4 decades later, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

[reinterlacing]

I went a combined total of seven years and three relationships without ever losing containment like that. And a lot of friendships (or "friendships") too, but for the sake of consideration I'll narrow the scope to just people I was bonded to romantically in some way.

I've thought some things very much like what I said this week - and in one notable case that's been eating me alive for a year and a half, I still very much do think things like that, even though I know most of them are wrong - but in all cases, I grabbed hold of that shit, wrestled it down, and dragged it back where it came from so I could sit with it until I could keep a civil tongue, and then until it was eventually integrated, every single time, even when things were falling apart in the worst way. And when I couldn't keep a civil tongue I kept my mouth shut.

I think it says a number of things that I lost control in this specific context.

Most of what it says are things that I wish weren't true, like the implications behind the fact that I'm clearly still so primed to be reactive by the aforementioned case, after so many months have gone by. Or that in general I'm primed to be reactive about situations like this by all the people across four decades of life who I thought gave a fuck about me, but who really did not - in the way I wanted - or in some few cases not at all.

Some of what it says are neutral observations which can be summed up as "Well asshole, looks like you've finally learned your lesson about taking breaks from meditation. Let's hope."

But one thing it says... well, one might be brutally hopeful in a perfectly on-brand bittersweet way.

What I mean is, there's no way this would have been anything beyond a bloodless Notice of Termination style f.u. & goodbye followed by eternal silence... except for the fact that since I was twelve years old I've been instinctually seeking people who not only share my core values but are passionate about them, and by about one week ago, had juuuuuuuust barely barely cracked open the door to believing that maybe I'd found one.

So it goes. 🤷‍♂️ I hope my shitty karma is done ripening in this particular instance, but I will need to accept what comes regardless.

[tikkisaram]

John Keats — Intentionally Boring?

There are many poets out there whose work can only be characterised as bad.1 There are others whose poems do not even afford the amusement of comically poor writing — poets who force us to label them boring. This latter situation — arising from a vice of incompetence, one too marked to be excused but not drastic enough to create hilarity — is seemingly the more unfortunate for the reader, as it can induce no feeling other than that of lethargy.

And yet reading the poems of John Keats forces us to reexamine our position — for the vast majority of his famous compositions can only be considered boring. But how can a poet of his stature write dull and plainly uninteresting verse? How can the opening lines of his odes, instead of inviting and inciting us to read on, usher us on our way to sleepland?

It is not as if he were simply a boring person. He died at the age of twenty-five, having published his first poem at the age of twenty — a remarkably short and thus busy poetic career. His quarter of a century on earth was one full of tragedy — the deaths of his father, mother and brother; his own fatal illness — as well as joy and contentment — his relationship with Fanny Brawne; his many lively friendships; his time in "the pleasantest Town"2 of Winchester. He also proved his ability to write consistently engaging verse with the humorous trifles he included in his letters — poems such as The Devon Maid, Women, Wine, and Snuff and A Song about Myself.

Since it is inconceivable for his poems to represent accidental failures in writing interesting verse, we are left with only one conclusion: that Keats was intentionally boring.

Though this idea solves the issue at hand, it begs an answer to the question: why? What reason could Keats have to choose to write boredom-inducing poems? Because, ultimately, what good is a boring poem?

Queer poet and essayist Joseph Brodsky comes to the rescue to help answer these questions. He tells us that "boredom speaks the language of time, and it is to teach you the most valuable lesson in your life ... – the lesson of your utter insignificance. It is valuable to you, as well as to those you are to rub shoulders with. 'You are finite', time tells you in a voice of boredom, 'and whatever you do is, from my point of view, futile.'"3 And that futile finity is exactly what Keats describes when he writes about melancholy:

She dwells with Beauty – Beauty that must die; And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh, Turning to Poison while the bee-mouth sips: 4

Keats employs boredom as a poetic technique because he knows that it can offer us insights into the nature of life. He does what Brodsky tells us we should: "When hit by boredom, go for it. Let yourself be crushed by it; submerge, hit bottom. In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is, the sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface."3

Boredom teaches us the uncomfortable truth about the insignificance of our fleeting existence, one which we perhaps would rather not think about. But instead of seeking beauty in the material world; instead of writing pretty, forgettable poems about the pretty flowers that will soon wilt away, Keats realises that there is nothing more beautiful than wisdom:

'Beauty is truth, truth beauty,' – that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. 5

Thus, Keats's seemingly dull verse serves to reveal a beauty that transcends all worldly pleasures.

Keats writes boring poems also as a testament to his awareness of his own insignificance. Instead of engaging in self-indulgent virtuosity, he decides to distance himself and his poems from his subjects – playing himself down to maximise poetic efficiency. The necessity of modesty in a poet was part of his philosophy of composition, which he describes in a letter to his friend J. H. Reynolds: "Poetry should be great & unobtrusive, a thing which enters into one's soul, and does not startle it or amaze it with itself but with its subject. – How beautiful are the retired flowers! how would they lose their beauty were they to throng into the highway crying out, 'admire me I am a violet! dote upon me I am a primrose!'"6 This shift of focus from the poem to its subject is apparent in the opening lines of his Ode to a Grecian Urn:

Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness, Thou foster-child of silence and slow time, Sylvan historian, who canst thus express A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:

Keats's genius lies in his innovative deliberate use of boredom as a poetic technique. In an act of great modesty, he writes restrained poems which force us to think; which impart their ideas by making us experience them. Most of all, Keats teaches us this – whenever a poem is boring, we should ask ourselves the question: what for?

Not to point fingers, but Eiléan Ní Chuilleanáin comes to mind. ↩︎

Tomalin, Claire (ed.). "Poems of John Keats." Penguin Classics. 2009. pp. xiv. ↩︎

Brodsky, Joseph. "In Praise of Boredom." On Grief and Reason. pp. 104-113 ↩︎ ↩︎

Ode to Melancholy, III. ↩︎

Ode on a Grecian Urn, V. ↩︎

Letter to J. H. Reynolds, 3 February 1818. "Poems of John Keats." pp. 96. ↩︎

[gwentoryfics]

Hot for Teacher, Part 2.

REPOSTED FROM MY ORIGINAL BLOG, GWENTORY.

Genre | College Student x College Professor Smut AU

Pairing | Hongseok x Reader x Hyunggu (Kino)

Words | 12k

Summary | You never realized how much one drunken night could color the rest of your college experience until you discover that the handsome stranger from your cousin’s wedding is also the new professor at your university.

Warnings | Swearing. Needlessly sexist and traditional parents. Plenty of angst to go around. Explicit smut. Fingering. Oral (female receiving). Playlist includes songs with explicit lyrics.

Parts | 1 • 2 • 3 • 4 • 5 • 6 • More Coming Soon AO3 | 1 • 2

Playlist | Spotify • Youtube

Note | Merry Christmas/Happy Holidays, my little peaches! Thank you for all of your kind words regarding this series, and thank you for your patience as I worked to put this together. Lots of life changes happened in the last few months, including moving to another state and adopting a pup (who is yet to be housebroken). I’ve been very busy, but I’m thrilled to finally update! Oh, and pro tip: I will only ever post fics & asks on this blog, so please feel free to turn on notifications to make sure you don’t miss Part 3!

On Monday night, you get to R&B Ensemble rehearsal ten minutes early to make sure you have time to warm up a bit on your own. A handful of students are already in the room, and you spot Kino chatting with a girl, whom you assume to be another vocalist. He waves as you walk by, and you wave back. Boy, he's got cheekbones for days.

Tucked back by the keyboard is the bassist with his long limbs and brooding aura, a face that is somewhat familiar to you - you can't quite place it, though. He has a sharp jawline and mussed up hair, a leather jacket thrown over the back of his chair. He fiddles with his amp before plucking out a funky bass groove, completely in his own world.

You walk in his direction, heading for the keyboard and shooting out a simple greeting as you take your seat. "Hey."

He glances up, nodding once in response before returning his attention to his instrument. He must not be much of a talker, which is fine by you. You flip on the keyboard and begin cycling through scales and modes to get your fingers warm, sure to keep the volume low so as not to disturb your new bandmates. As you move onto some arpeggiated jazz chords, you notice a tall, loud presence burst in through the door.

"Ayyyyy!" Wooseok Jung calls out, startling the poor girl that had entered right in front of him. He drops his headphones so they hang around his neck, and he chucks his drumsticks right past you, where one hits the sound-proofed wall and the other bounces off the bassist's chest with a dull thud.

"Damn it, Wooseok, you piece of shit." The bassist hurls the stick right back at him, and Wooseok catches it effortlessly.

"My man, Yuto. I didn't know you were in on this." Wooseok traipses over to your corner of the room, goofy grin on his face. He holds a fist out for you to pound. "Hey girl, what's up."

"Hey, good to see you." You bump fists. You had a class with Wooseok last year - first level aural skills - and although you wouldn't exactly call him a friend, it seems you both remember each other.

"Have a good summer?" He asks you as he takes a seat at the drum kit, sticks spinning between his fingers. You may never know how he fits all of that leg behind the drums.

You nod. "I worked all summer at the record store in my hometown, and that was a blast. Did a couple gigs at some open mics, too. You?"

"Ah, nice!" Wooseok clicks the sticks against the rim of the snare drum. Come to think of it, you haven't realized until today that he's a drummer. It makes sense, though, considering the fact that he was always tapping rhythms on the desk in your previous class. "I was up here taking summer classes. I tell you what, music theory is not my friend. I can't read clefs for shit. Give me the most intricate rhythms you can find and I can handle that, no problem. But give me a set of pitches and a marimba and I'm lost. I don't know how you do it."

You laugh with a short shrug, dramatically tossing your hair over your shoulder. "Just my natural talent, I guess."

A grin splits across Wooseok's face, cute and genuine. "Well aren't you a lucky little duck." The warmth of his smile makes you blush, and you have to look away from him.

He’s right, though; you definitely got lucky with your musical skills. Your parents started you in piano lessons at a young age, so you started reading music right around the same time you started reading words. It's second nature to you now.

A thought occurs to you, and you meet his eyes again. "You know, I could help you with theory if you want."

"Really?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Dude, you would be a lifesaver. That would be awesome." Wooseok breathes a sigh of relief. "And in exchange, I can… teach you about drumming or something, I don’t know. I’ll owe you. Whatever you want."

Sounds fair to you. You give him a sharp nod. "Deal."

"Deal," he agrees, shooting you another brief smile before turning to Yuto. “Yo, Yuto. Throw down a line. Let’s jam.”

"Throw down a line?" Yuto immediately questions Wooseok's choice of words, eyeing the drummer critically.

"Yeah, a bass line. Hit me with it."

"Who talks like that?" Yuto mumbles the question rhetorically and starts plucking out a groove. Once his rhythm and tempo is established, Wooseok comes in with a simple drumbeat to keep it moving.

You don't know much about bass, but you know the pitch of the strings and you understand that each fret marks a half step (thank you, music theory). It takes you a minute, but you’re able to determine that he's in the key of D. You start plunking out some chords until you fall into the pocket of the groove, finally finding the correct chord progression.

"What key?" A girl on the other side of the room asks, slipping the strap of her electric guitar over her shoulder.

You start calling out chord names as you work through the progression until it seems she's got the hang of it, and then you improvise, letting your fingers follow the melodies in your head.

This is it. This is your absolute most favorite thing in the whole world. Surrounding yourself in music, collaborating and creating, expressing your spirit through the piano- er, keyboard. Riding the waves of jazz and soul and R&B gives joy to your life in a way that nothing else can. This feeling is what you live for.

Mid-jam, the teacher comes strolling in, and she grooves the whole way from the door to the front of the room, looking absolutely elated at the impromptu music you’ve all created. Wooseok calls out a five, six, seven, and... to signal everyone to stop at the end of the phrase, and the teacher claps a little too enthusiastically.

"Oh. My goodness." She beams. "I think this is going to be a fabulous semester."

After rehearsal, you catch up to Kino as he tucks his sheet music into his backpack. The long hair on top of his head falls in his eyes, but it could never hide those cheekbones.

"I had no idea you could sing like that. That Bruno song is perfect for you!" You stand next to him, and he looks up from his seat with a wide smile. You mean every word; his voice absolutely blew you away. He especially stands out in the group because he's the only male vocalist this semester, but there's something special about the quality of his voice that gives you goosebumps when he sings.

"Thank you! I'm really excited about it. I love Bruno Mars." He grins, glowing. "And what about you? It's like the keys are part of your soul. You're really freaking good, you know that?"

"Thank you, Hyunggu." You emphasize his birth name, which the teacher had brought to your attention during roll call.

Kino rolls his eyes, smile suddenly gone from his lips. "I don't like that name."

"Sorry," you laugh quietly. "Why Kino, then? If you don't mind me asking."

"I picked it for myself. It's like... a stage name." He stands, gathering his things. "I kind of wanted a fresh start for college, so I'm reinventing myself, I guess."

"I can respect that." As the two of you head for the door, you turn back over your shoulder and call out to the friendly giant to confirm the plans you had made. "Wooseok, see you Thursday, yeah?"

The tall drummer points his sticks at you, shooting another charming smile your way. "Thursday."

When you're out of the room, Kino asks, "Are you friends with him?"

"Not exactly? I'm going to tutor him in music theory."

Kino hums quietly. "He seems like a handful."

"He does, doesn't he," you laugh. "We'll see how it goes."

The two of you wave goodnight to the security guard in the lobby of the music building before heading out into the illuminated city. A slow smile touches your lips as you look around.

Moving here for university has been one of the biggest adventures of your life. Up until you began school last year, you had never spent much time in such a large city. It’s clear to you now that this is where you’re meant to be; the city energizes you, awakens your senses, and opens up creative doorways you never realized existed. You’ve never felt so true to yourself, so connected to your surroundings.

Everything here had been so perfect until Professor Yang showed up. You feel your smile fade. If he taught at literally any other university, it would be no problem at all. You could look back fondly on your night together instead of labeling it The Biggest Mistake Of Your Life.

There’s really no point in getting worked up about it, though. Maybe it won’t be a big deal after all. Maybe you’ll talk to him tomorrow, just like Minseo wants you to, and it’ll all be fine. Or you could just ignore each other the whole semester - that might work. You’ll just silently drool over him from your spot at the back of the classroom, trying not to be distracted by the naked memory of him while you take notes. If only he hadn’t been your professor…

If you had crossed paths again under any other circumstances, you would undoubtedly chase down the chance to sleep with him again. Although you are skeptical of your ability to seduce him while sober, you want nothing more than to relive that night with him over and over. Hell, you might even go on a proper date with him, if he asked you.

The thought makes your cheeks burn. You’ve got it bad.

In the end, it’s all just a fantasy. You’ll never sleep with him again, you’ll never go on a date. He’s your professor, and you are his student. Even if you weren’t taking his class, it would be inappropriate to be involved in any sort of romantic capacity. There’s no way that you can be together, and that’s that.

You hate that you actually feel sad about it.

“Whoa!” Kino’s hand grabs your elbow, yanking you back onto the sidewalk as you start to cross the street, too distracted to notice the oncoming traffic. “Be careful!”

You’re snapped back into the present, watching as a taxi flies by. It would have easily taken you out if you had continued walking. You really need to stop thinking about Professor Yang before you get yourself hurt.

“Are you alright?” Kino’s voice is tight with concern as he holds onto your arm.

You force your smile. “Yeah, sorry. I was just in my head about some things. I promise I’m not usually so distracted while walking.”

His hand lingers on your arm for a moment as he scans your face, and the corner of his mouth lifts as he lets you go. “I sure hope you’re not or you’re going to be in trouble without me around.”

The light changes, and you both safely step into the crosswalk. “But you know, if I got hit by a car, I could probably sue for enough money to cover my student loans,” you joke.

“Only if the driver is at fault,” Kino is quick to correct you. “If you’re the one that causes the accident, you can’t get any money from it. But nice try.”

“Damn. There’s never an easy solution.”

“Truth.” He chuckles. “Maybe we should have gone to business school or medical school to get a degree that would actually give us financial security.”

With a groan, you roll your eyes. That sentiment is all too familiar. “You sound like my parents.”

“Mine, too.” Kino sighed. “They wanted me to be a doctor. Yours?”

“Secretary to a CEO. What kind of sexist bullshit is that?” You frown. “My family is very traditional in the sense that they believe men should be in charge, whether it’s in business or in the family. Women are just there to assist.”

“Wow. That’s unbelievable.” Kino turns to you as you wait to cross another street. “I mean, you don’t seem like you would want to be a CEO, considering your obvious passion for music, but I think you’re definitely capable if you worked for it.”

His sincere encouragement brings a genuine smile to your face. “Thanks, Kino. That really means a lot to me.”

“You’re welcome.” His cheekbones pop out as he grins. “I’m sure your parents will come around eventually.”

“I guess we’ll just have to wait and see. I mean, the whole secretary thing was already an improvement from their original wish for me.”

“Which was…?”

“Farmer’s wife.”

“What?” Kino burst into laughter. “That’s impossible to imagine.”

“Well I grew up on a farm, so it’s not that big of a stretch.”

“Really?”

You nod, safely crossing the street as the light changes. “Yeah. I’m from a really small town a few hours south of here. My family runs a wheat farm. My mom taught me how to cook and sew and everything, as if we were living in the nineteen-fifties. They didn’t even want me to get a degree at first because they thought it was unnecessary.”

“So how did you end up here?”

“I begged and pleaded until they finally caved. I asked for a chance to pursue something I really love. This is my one shot, so I really have to give it my all. I don’t think they’ll give me another chance. If I screw this up, they’ll probably try to marry me off to the neighbor boy or something.”

“We can’t have that.” Kino’s sweet smile radiates as he looks over at you. “I’m rooting for you, _____.”

Your chest fills with warmth. You’re so thankful to have made friends at school that are supportive of your dreams, and you’re glad to find that same support in Kino. “And I for you.”

Together, you veer off to the left, away from the glittering skyline of the city. You ask, “So where are you from? Is your family nearby?”

“Very near, actually.” He gestures vaguely south. “I grew up on the south side.”

"Ah." You hide your frown, but your curt response gives you away. You've heard all kinds of rotten things about the gang-related violence of the south side, and you can't imagine someone like Kino surviving in that kind of environment.

"It's not as terrible and dangerous as you probably think. It's got a bad reputation, but it's not all rotten."

You just nod. "So, wait, do you still live there? Aren't you headed the wrong way?"

With a shake of his head, he replies, "No, I'm living on campus, at Plymouth. Part of my whole fresh start, you know? Had to get out of the house and experience living on my own for a while."

Plymouth is across the street from your own dorm. "I'm at Turner!"

“We’re basically neighbors,” Kino comments.

As your buildings start to come into view, you realize how close they actually are. And how your room actually has a very direct view of Plymouth.

“Please tell me you don’t live on the east side of the building.”

“I do, actually. Why?”

You laugh. “I’m going to have to start closing my blinds whenever I get dressed.”

His eyes grow wide. “Have you been giving my whole dorm a peep show for the last week?”

“Maybe?” You cover your face with your hands as you continue to laugh, embarrassed. This summer’s sexual awakening may have persuaded you to live a bit more adventurously… Is Kino blushing?

“Don’t worry, I never noticed.” He spoke softly. “So don’t feel uncomfortable.”

“Okay,” you murmur with a quiet chuckle, surprised that you’re not terribly concerned with what he may or may not have seen so far. You turn the corner, headed for the entrance to Turner Hall, and Kino keeps up with you.

"Oh, hey, I was wondering..." He starts, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket. "Since we're in a lot of classes together this semester, maybe we could swap phone numbers? You know, in case either of us wants help with homework, or is going to miss class or something."

"Good idea!" You agree, pulling up in front of the building's entrance. You fish your own phone from your backpack and bring up the 'New Contact' screen before swapping phones with him. Once you've traded numbers, you pocket your phone. "Well, city boy, I'm gonna head inside now. I'll see you later?"

He nods, waving as he backs away. "See you, farm girl."

You watch as he crosses the street, heading for Plymouth. Something about him makes you feel at ease, and you have a feeling you'll end up spending quite a bit of time getting to know him this semester. With all of the classes you share, you're going to see him nearly every day of the week, and he seems pretty eager to be your friend. You wouldn't mind that.

Turning to head inside, you fish your room key out of your wallet, swiping it at the security desk as you pass by. As you call the elevator, a familiar dark figure appears in your peripheral.

You turn to greet him as the elevator door opens. "Hey, Yuto."

He nods silently, and you both file into the elevator.

"I didn't realize we live in the same building."  You press floor nine and wait for him to make his selection, but he doesn't budge. "...Or the same floor?"

"Small world," he murmurs quietly, seemingly unfazed.

An uncomfortably awkward silence fills the small elevator, and you absentmindedly toy with the strap of your backpack as you search for something to talk about. "Are you excited about our set list?"

He shrugs so minutely you hardly even notice. "We've got some good music."

It doesn't really seem like he wants to talk to you, and you're not one to push him into a conversation, even though it's painfully awkward. You just hum quietly and let it be.

The door glides open, and you both head left down the hallway. He stops at the door directly across the hall from yours. Without a word, he disappears into his room.

How neighborly.

"Minseo, I'm freaking out." You paced in the small hotel room you had both chipped in on, just a floor above your destination for the night. "Am I seriously going to do this?"

"Relax, would you?" She sat calmly atop the queen sized bed, watching as you almost lost your balance from turning too quickly. "It's not like this is your first time."

"But it's my first time with a random guy. Can I even do that?" You froze in place. "Am I even allowed to do that?"

"_____! Of course you're allowed! You're an adult!" Minseo sprung up from the bed and grabbed you by the shoulders. "There is nothing wrong with you going downstairs and sleeping with a man you just met. If that's something you want to do, then I fully support it. You should let yourself have some fun."

You let out a small, frustrated whine. "I want to. Sweet baby Jesus, I want to."

Her hands moved up to cup your face. "Okay. You're gonna be fine."

Nodding, you exhaled slowly. "I'm an adult. I can do this."

"Yes! That's the spirit." She patted your cheeks before turning you around and walking you towards the bathroom. "Now go jump in the shower."

"Shower?"

"You don't want to show up all sweaty, do you?"

"Am I sweaty?"

"Go freshen up." She pushed you into the small bathroom. "But don't get your hair wet. Just make sure you're clean down there."

Your eyes widened and you realized she was right - it wasn't a bad idea to shower for the sake of below-the-belt cleanliness. "Okay."

"Good girl. Try not to fall over in there." Minseo encouraged you as she shut the door.

Five minutes and one off-key ‘I Wanna Dance With Somebody’ shower concert later, you emerged from the bathroom a new woman. You felt as fresh as you smelled, and the steam from the shower had helped clear your mind a bit - but not everything was perfect.

Wrapped in a towel, you held your dress and underwear in your hand, and a pout crept onto your face. "Minseooooooo."

"What's wrong, dear?"

"I'm clean, but my clothes aren't."

She pried her eyes from the television, which was playing some trashy reality show, and she gestured for you to come towards her. "Let me see the dress." You handed it to her and she looked it over, sniffing it here and there. "I mean, it's not like dry-cleaners fresh, but it doesn't reek. There's not much you can do about that anyway, since we obviously didn't pack a change of clothes."

You pursed your lips. "I guess you're right."

"Nix the underwear, though."

"What?" Your cheeks flamed. "No underwear?"

"You heard me." She plucked the panties from your hand and tossed them over her shoulder into the corner of the room. "You'll feel gross putting dirty underwear on after you've showered, right? And besides, he'll think it's super hot that you're commando."

"Or he'll think I'm a slut. What if he likes nice girls that enjoy wearing underwear? Hm?"

"Honey, he wouldn't have invited you to his room if he wanted a nice girl who likes underwear." Minseo took your hand affectionately. "It’s okay to be slutty."

You furrowed your brow at her for a moment before a sly smile touched your lips and you let out a small giggle. "Am I turning into a slut?"

"Only if you want to, dear."

"I might want to. I might want to be a slut for Hongseok." You burst into a ball of laughter, absolutely giddy.

"Alright." Minseo laughed too, handing you back your dress. "Put this back on and get ready to slut it up."

By the time you and Shinhye enter the science building on Tuesday morning, you've almost entirely rid yourself of the dread gurgling low in your gut at the thought of seeing him. You tell yourself that it's just another class, he's just another teacher, and you will survive this. Sipping at the coffee Shinhye insisted on stopping for, you do your best to keep a level head.

Minseo’s advice rings in your ears. Tell him that you’re not going to say anything about what happened. Tell him that you want him to treat you normally. That’s what you want, right?

When you had called her last week, she had easily convinced you that talking to him about the whole situation would be a good idea. But now that the day of confrontation has arrived, you’re simply too chicken to even consider saying a word. Besides, you weren't entirely sure how coherently you'd be able to talk to him while sober, given the fact that you still swoon a little every time you look at him.

When you step into the classroom, you hardly glance in Professor Yang's direction. He's seated at the desk, typing away on his laptop. You focus on your seat at the back of the room, preparing for another few hours of being ignored, but before you can make it too far you hear him call your name.

"_____."

The sound sends a delicious ripple through your limbs, and you turn your head at a sloth's pace, afraid to make eye contact. He casually waves you over to his desk, as if it's no big deal that he just acknowledged you and that he wants you to come over so you can presumably talk one on one.

Shinhye continues on to her seat after giving you a curious look, and you turn back, making your way over to Professor Yang. He's fixated on his computer as you walk over, but he glances up at you ever so briefly when you reach his desk.

His voice is low as he acknowledges you. "Stop by my office after class. I think we need to talk."

A lump fills your throat and you're unable to speak. You really aren’t able to avoid it after all.

He peeks up at you again, probably curious because of your lack of verbal response, so you nod. He picks up a stack of papers and hands them to you. "Please pass these out to your classmates."

You take the packets - it's today's lab paperwork. He gestures to the rest of the class as if to say well, go on then, and you frown. You don't expect him to be friendly with you, but frankly he's coming across kind of rude and bossy, and that doesn't sit well with you. Begrudgingly, you do as he asks and distribute the packets.

When you return to your seat, Shinhye is quick to ask, "What was that about?"

"He just wanted help passing stuff out." Not totally a lie.

"I didn't realize you were such a teacher's pet," she teases.

"I'm not a teacher's pet. He asked me, so what could I do? It's not like I begged him to let me help."

"Whoa, relax. It's just a joke." Shinhye chuckled, adjusting the circular frames that rest on her nose. "It's not like you to be so uptight."

You take a deep breath, getting your head on straight. You need to be normal around Shinhye. With a plastered on smirk, you tease back. "That's your job, right?"

Shinhye purses her lips, but you can see the smile in her eyes. You laugh.

"Aw, come on, I love youuuuu."

"Yeah, yeah," she brushes off your affections, pushing you away when you lean in to coo over her. "Love you, too."

You smile. You may have to keep her in the dark, but her friendship will surely be one of the only things that can keep you sane through the rest of the semester.

It took a solid five minutes of pacing in front of his hotel room door before you finally worked up the courage to knock. Your stomach twisted in knots as you rapped your knuckles against the wood, checking for the thousandth time that the little door number definitely said 417.

You were really doing it. You were really getting ready to probably sleep with someone you just met. You had never done anything like that before, but it was about time you grew up and had a sense of adventure, right?

Any semblance of confidence you had slowly started to fade as you realized the door was not opening. Had you waited too long to come over? Was he already asleep? Were you at the wrong room altogether? Had he intentionally given you the wrong number? Why would he do that?

You tried knocking once more, but still no one answered. Disappointment swelled in your chest, tugging at your heart - you were surprised by how much you cared. He was just some guy, anyway. But it hurt to think that you may have just been rejected. After all, the fear of rejection had kept you from approaching him in the first place.

After another minute of waiting, you decided that you needed to move on. He wasn't going to answer the door. You headed for the stairwell, resigning yourself to a night with Minseo instead.

As you reached for the door to the stairs, the elevator next to you opened and a loud group of people spilled out. You assumed they were all coming up from the wedding, judging by their attire. And to your delight, one of the last people off the elevator was exactly the gorgeous man you had been waiting for.

You met Hongseok's eyes, a slow smile stretching across your lips. Perhaps not all hope for the night was lost.

He slid his hands into his pockets with a coy smile, his tux jacket draped over his arm. "Going somewhere?"

"I thought you gave me a phony room number," you confessed, tongue lazily forming the words. Wow, you definitely drank more than you should have.

"I would have to be crazy to do that to you." His gaze traveled down your figure, lingering on the hand that gripped the door handle. "Still want to come over?"

Nodding, you tried your best to contain your nervousness and look cool as you released the handle, letting the door close quietly.

He cocked his head in the direction of his room, a relaxed smirk on his lips. "Let's go, then."

You followed him back to room 417, and he opened the door, stepping aside to let you in first. Despite the wave of nervousness that washed over you, you felt ready. Eager, even. You let your hand casually brush against his leg as you slip into the room, desperate to touch him again.

His hand darted out to capture yours - rough skin but a gentle touch. Your feet froze and you turned back to meet his piercing gaze, your heart suddenly pounding in your chest as the door closed behind him.

What should you do? How did hook-ups usually work? Chat first and then work your way up to the main event, or just dive in head first? You were clueless. You knew that you wanted to rip that damn shirt off of him, to press yourself against him and get lost in the feel of his skin. But you didn't want to be too forward and make things uncomfortable.

Taking his time, Hongseok approached you slowly, smoothing your hair and lifting your chin with his knuckle, fingers still wrapped around your wrist. Heat blossomed in your core as you looked up at him, thinking he might just go for it and kiss you. Maybe he was as impatient as you felt. Maybe he needed to have you, too.

He leaned in, but he didn't aim for your lips. He targeted your ear, murmuring softly and tickling you with his breath. "You're cute."

Warmth spread rapidly across your cheeks and you quietly stuttered, "Th-thank you."

But it was just a tease, hardly even a taste of how it felt to be close to him. He backed away, pulling you a bit deeper into the room before releasing your hand. "Mind if I play some music?"

You shook your head carefully, resisting the urge to take his hand back. "Not at all."

As he fished out his cell phone and plugged it into the speakers that sat on the desk, you looked around the room and took a seat at the edge of the bed. It wasn't a particularly fancy hotel, so the room was pretty basic. Just a standard queen size hotel bed, a dresser, TV, and a nightstand on either side of the bed - pretty much identical to the room you and Minseo reserved upstairs. An open gym bag sat on the floor, which you assumed he was using for his overnight stay.

"You said you like Marvin Gaye, right?" He typed into his phone, smiling to himself.

His song selection started playing, and you immediately recognized the first few notes as the opening to ‘Let's Get It On’. You couldn't help but laugh because of the cheesy song choice, hoping that he wasn't seriously trying to set the mood with that one. "Really? 'Let's Get It On'?"

He laughed at your critical reaction, sweet eyes crinkling at the corners. "Too forward?"

"You think?" You kicked your legs, too short to reach the floor from where you sat. "Try again."

"I'll admit, my knowledge of old school R&B is not what it should be. I'm more of an old rock fan." He scrolled through his phone in search of a better song choice.

You jumped up from the bed and strolled over to him, accidentally bumping against his arm as you plucked the phone from his hands. He felt warm and he smelled delicious, so you didn't make an effort to move away. Your brain was too fuzzy to care about personal space.

"Let me play you something. If you want sexy music, I know sexy music," you drawled, searching for the specific track that you had in mind. Hongseok slid his hands into his pockets, letting you do as you pleased. He didn't back away either, so you assumed he didn't mind the close proximity.

Finally, you found the song despite the many typos in your search: 'Tell Me Something Good' by Rufus, featuring Chaka Khan. You played it, and your hips instinctively started rolling when the funk guitar started. "Usually people think of R&B as being the sexiest music, but funk is highly overlooked and underrated."

When the vocals came in, you held his phone up to your mouth like a microphone and sang along, backing away from him to roll your body and put on a show. It briefly crossed your mind that you would never normally act that way. That was exactly the type of idiocy you were trying to avoid by dodging Hongseok earlier in the night. But at the end of the day you loved yourself some karaoke when you were drunk. You couldn't help but sing along, even if you sounded terrible.

"Hey!" Hongseok called after you with a chuckle, reaching for his phone as you danced away from him. He successfully grabbed it from you, preventing you from disconnecting it from the aux cord.

Never mind the lack of microphone; it just freed up your hands to run down your body, over your curves as you sang. "You refuse to put anything before your pride / What I got will knock all your pride aside..."

He watched you intently, a slight smirk on his lips. Maybe you didn't look as ridiculous as you thought you did. Or maybe he was just drunk enough to be into it.

You reached for his tie, pulling him towards you as you kept singing. "Tell me something good / Tell me that you love me, yeah..."

"But I hardly know you," he remarked, hands finding your hips.

With a fluttering of your eyelashes, you responded teasingly, "Oh, you don't believe in love at first sight?"

"I do," he smiled down at you, thumbs digging into your hips. "But only because I saw the way you looked at me and I knew you had fallen head over heels."

"Cocky piece of shit," you laughed, throwing your arms over Hongseok's shoulders as you danced together. "The thing is, though, you're not exactly wrong. I mean, you got me to show up here, which would have been impossible for anyone else."

"And I didn't even have to try. Look at you," Hongseok scanned your face, and you knew you must have looked like a girl in love. He was beautiful and you couldn't help your adoration. "You're in deep."

You let out a dramatic sigh. "What ever shall we do? I'm a lost cause."

"You may not be the only one."

There was something unbearably warm in his eyes as he said it, and it made your pulse race. He obviously didn't mean it; he's no more in love with you than you are with him. It was impossible that either one of you felt love for the other. It could only be blamed on lust, an inexplicable attraction between the two of you that left you weak in the knees with craving. But even so, it was fun to play pretend.

His breath gently rippled across your face. "You know, I was actually surprised to see you when I got off the elevator."

"Really?”

"It just seemed like you might talk yourself out of it."

"Well, I did. That's why I was at the stairwell," you admitted with a laugh.

Hongseok’s hands wandered over your ribs and across your back as he pulled you in closer. "Because you didn't want to see me?"

"Because you weren't there." You felt your cheeks growing warm, but you forced yourself to hold his gaze. "I was disappointed because I thought I wouldn't get to, you know, see you tonight. But I wanted to. Want to," you corrected yourself. "I do."

"I promise," he murmured, lips curling into a mischievous smile, "you won't regret it."

After class, you make an excuse to Shinhye about how you need to visit with an advisor in the building so that she would leave without you. She is completely unassuming as she accepts your excuse, and you feel a pang of guilt for lying to her. You'll make it up to her soon; you promise that much to yourself.

You easily locate Professor Yang's office, and you're surprised that you feel the familiar nervous butterflies in your stomach as you knock on the wooden door. It's so similar to the night you spent with him, even though now you're meeting under completely different circumstances.

But just like that night, the door doesn't open, and you have to wait for him to show. You lean against the wall, trying to steady your breathing and calm your racing heart. There's nothing for you to even be antsy about; you're just anxious about what he'll have to say. He'll probably just tell you exactly what you want to tell him - that you should both pretend nothing happened, and carry on as usual. Fingers crossed that you'll both be on the same page and there won't be much discussion.

As you stand there waiting, you start to ponder other possibilities. Surely he's not going to make some sort of proposition? What if he wants to sleep with you again, but this time with the risk of getting caught? He did ask you to meet him in his very private office… maybe he didn’t intend to talk at all.

He’d unlock the door and let you inside, casual as could be. But as soon as the door would shut, he’d grab you by the hand and throw you back against it, trapping you between the wood and his heat. His lips would crash into yours as if he has hungered for you since that night, his hands rushing to feel the skin that hides beneath your clothes. You’d wrap a leg around his hip, desperate to feel the friction of his bulge against your core.

You’d beg him to take you then and there: against the door, on his desk, down on the floor. As long as you could have him again, that’s all that would matter.

The thought of it makes your heart race and your mouth dry up, but you squash the fantasy before you can convince yourself that it’s a good idea. As exciting as it may be to think about, you know better this time. You're not going to sleep with him again. And if he has any sense, he'll stay the hell away from you.

Professor Yang eventually appears in the hallway, and you stand up a little straighter, hyper-aware of every inch of space between the two of you. He looked great, of course, with his collared shirt that had a single button undone at his throat and his hair swept up to the side. But you will not sleep with him.

He barely even greets you before unlocking the door and heading in first. You follow him, and he instructs you to close the door behind you. He doesn’t turn to you, doesn’t grab you or kiss you. That’s a good thing. That’s for the best.

You take a seat across from him at his desk. His office is small and scarcely decorated, with only an acoustic guitar propped up in the corner of the room. The deep mahogany finish is gorgeous, and you wonder if it’s an instrument that Professor Yang made by hand.

He relaxes back into his chair, hand covering his mouth as he looks at you. And he really looks at you, long and hard, as though he's trying to peer deep into your heart. It's incredibly nerve-wracking to be looked at in such a scrutinizing way, especially considering that he's hardly even glanced at you until now.

"What are the odds..." He mumbles quietly.

You realize that he still hasn't quite accepted the situation the two of you are in, and that makes you feel a little less alone. "I had no idea this would happen."

A line forms between his eyebrows, hand falling from his mouth. "You want me to believe that?"

You give him a similarly cynical look. "Excuse me?"

He sits up, anger evident in his piercing gaze. "You must have known! So why did you do it? Because you thought I'd give you a better grade this semester? That I'd be easier on you?"

Taken aback by his accusations, your jaw drops. "What? That's ridiculous! I would never-"

"Please, don't try to act all innocent. I can see right through it."

"I didn't know! How could-"

"Come on. You don't recognize me from any of last year's convocations? You had to have been there to hear me introduce my class."

Who the hell does this guy think he is? To sit there and accuse you of something so... so slimy and then refuse to hear you out! You won't stand for it, even if his commanding tone does send a shock of tingling adrenaline straight to your core.

He may still be the most attractive man you've ever seen, and you may still be feeling flustered by being in the same room as him... but regardless of those things, you can't let him walk all over you like this. He could do whatever he wanted to you at the hotel, but not here. This is real life, not a one night stand.

Every ounce of shyness within you disintegrates as you grit your teeth, preparing to defend yourself. "I am not that kind of girl. I am an intelligent and hard-working student, and I would never do something so disgusting.”

He starts to say something, and you rise to your feet, not yet finished. “Don't interrupt me again. I never saw you at last year’s convocations because I had to miss almost all of them for personal reasons. Those absences were all approved by the music office, if you feel so inclined to verify with them. And I don't know what on Earth makes you think this is all something that I set up - if you'll remember, I very clearly did my best to avoid you at the wedding. You were the one that approached me, not the other way around. Don't get that skewed. This is all your doing."

Professor Yang doesn't look too eager to ease up. "You were playing hard to get."

"I was trying to keep my sanity!" You lean over his desk, infuriated by the argument. "I couldn't think straight around you, you're so fucking attractive, Jesus Christ."

You cringe when you realize you've lost your filter. You did not mean to say that- not out loud, not to him.

He just sits there, quietly watching you with that same empty expression you've seen from him all week. He clenches his fist tightly around a pen, and you feel yourself deflate the longer he looks at you. But you don't sit down, telling yourself to stay strong and stand your ground.

Eventually he speaks up, and his voice is even as he says, "I think it would be best for you to drop my class."

"No."

"I urge you to reconsider."

"Absolutely not." You feel a surge of pride in yourself for standing up to him. "This is not how you do your job, Professor. You don't get to bully me out of your class just because you don't want me there. I signed up for your class and I intend to see it through to the end. And if you treat me unfairly, I will report you."

"You won't," he answers calmly, coolly challenging you.

He's right, it's an empty threat. But you stick to it. "Yes, I will."

Professor Yang sighs exasperatedly. "You won't, because if you report me for unfair treatment, then we'll both be placed under a microscope. Someone will find out about what happened between us this summer, and we'll both get in trouble. I'll lose my job and you'll be expelled."

You'll be expelled? That's news to you. The reality of the situation hits you like a punch to the gut. You can't afford to lose your status as a student here; your parents would never forgive you. They already aren't too happy about the fact that you're pursuing a degree in music. If you screw yourself over by getting expelled, that’s the end of the line for you.

He continues. "So don't think that you can blackmail me into boosting your grade or giving you special treatment, because I'm not the only one that will face severe consequences. Get that idea out of your head right now. You can't threaten me like that. Oh, and don't even think that I'll boost your grade in exchange for sexual favors. That is not going to work on me."

Your jaw drops. "Oh my God, are you even listening to me? Who do you think I am? Seriously! I'm not going to try to sleep with you for extra credit. I'm an honest student."

"I'm only covering our bases to let you know what is unacceptable." He picks at the stem of the pen’s cap, lifting it with his thumb and releasing so that it clicks in a steady rhythm that is nothing short of irritating.

“Well this could go both ways, couldn’t it?” You cross your arms over your chest. "What's going to stop you from pursuing me? What's going to keep you from lowering my grade if I refuse your advances?"

"What even makes you think I would pursue you?" He says it like he wants his words to hurt you, as if he's trying to make you feel that you're not worthy of his attention. But it's pointless; his actions have already proven otherwise.

You are so gorgeous that I might actually believe in love at first sight.

He had said that to you. It was a baseless, drunken confession, but the fact remains that he has been attracted to you once and he could be attracted to you still.

Let's be drunk and in love, then.

You had said all sorts of embarrassing things to each other, and your cheeks burn as you remember. You shift your weight, scanning his face as you force yourself to respond. "It wouldn't be the first time. And from what I remember, you enjoyed yourself an awful lot that night."

It's a long, quiet moment. You can practically see that night replaying in his mind, seductive images of you flashing in his eyes. It doesn't make you uncomfortable to know he's probably remembering every curve of your naked body; it boosts your confidence that he's been momentarily flustered by the memory of you.

The pen in his death grip falls to his desk, and he folds his hands in his lap, looking haggard. "If you choose to stay in the class, I promise that I will treat you fairly and I will not make any advances towards you. I promise that you will finish the class with an unbiased grade. However, I think you should seriously consider dropping the class, for both your sanity and mine."

For both your sanity and mine.

You can't quite tell what he means by that. Does he expect you'll continue to be at each others' throats for the rest of the semester? Or on the contrary, is he saying it might be difficult to refuse the temptation of each other if you're forced into the same classroom once a week?

Regardless of the truth behind his words, you're unwilling to budge on the matter. You calmly return to your seat, collecting your thoughts. "All due respect, but I really don't want to drop. I have a very genuine interest in your class, and I've been looking forward to it since I signed up. I don't want to sacrifice my education because of this."

"Then I will remind you that you have another two weeks to withdraw if you change your mind, and I won't bring it up again."

You both fall quiet, and you hate the feeling of regret bubbling in your stomach. You shouldn't have slept with him. You knew it was a bad idea but you went and did it anyway. And what makes it even worse is that now one of the best nights of your life is colored with regret. You want to remember that feeling of being so alive without immediately hating yourself for your poor decision making skills.

He pulls you out of your puddle of self-loathing as he asks, "Have you told anybody about this?"

You shake your head, but realize immediately that you're wrong. "Actually, my cousin knows. The one at the wedding that sort of instigated this whole thing."

"Expected. But you haven't said anything to anyone about the current situation?"

You take a deep breath. "I called that same cousin a few days ago. She knows you're my professor and everything. I just had to say something, I was going crazy."

"Is she a student here too?"

"No, she's not."

"Okay. You can't tell anyone else though, understood?"

You frown, a crease forming between your brows. "I won't, jeez. You're acting like you're the only one that has something to lose. I'm not out to get you. I'm scared, too."

He rubs his temple. "I'm sorry. I just want to make sure we're protecting ourselves."

Your ears perk up at the word sorry. So he is capable of apologizing! "An apology for earlier would be nice, too," you grumble.

"For what, exactly?"

You frown. "For falsely accusing me of setting this up."

"I don’t know for sure that those accusations are false."

"You're kidding." Your blood boils. You had no idea that you've spent all this time fawning over such a prick. "Why don't you believe me?"

"That doesn't really matter, does it? What matters is that it doesn't happen again. Understood?" He easily evades your question, raising his eyebrows inquisitively.

"Rest assured, you are safe from my relentless pursuit." You roll your eyes, voice dripping with sarcasm, and you grab your bag, ready to leave. There’s nothing else that can be done here. "I'll do my best not to unintentionally seduce you, you poor helpless thing."

"You don't have to be childish."

"You don't have to be a dick, but here we are." You resist the urge to kick his desk. You can't remember the last time you felt so frustrated. You stare each other down until you finally break away from him, turning to head for the door. Clearly he's not going to apologize, so there's no point to sticking around any longer.

"Wait, _____. One more thing."

You hate the way your whole body electrifies at the sound of your name. Screw him and the way his perfect mouth forms the damned syllables.

"I hate to ask, and maybe I don't even want to know... but how old are you?"

Frowning, you answer. "Nineteen. Turning twenty in like, two months."

"Nineteen?!"

You grip the door handle and look over your shoulder at him. "Yeah, nineteen."

"Oh my God, you're a baby." He drags his hands down his face. "Nineteen? Really?"

You ignore his baby comment; making a fuss over it would only prove his point. "How old did you think I was?"

"At least twenty-two or twenty-three. I mean, Christ, you were drinking at the wedding. I didn't realize you were underage."

"Don't say that I'm underage, that makes it sound like you screwed a teenager."

"Well technically I did. Nineteen. God dammit, shit..."

You crinkle your nose, realizing that you never really considered the age gap between the two of you. "And how old are you?"

"I'm twenty-six."

Seven years. He's seven years older than you. That's kind of a lot. "Like... just turned twenty-six?"

He nods, speechless for once, like his voice just gave up. So, closer to six-ish years. That's not... awful...

"For what it's worth, I didn't realize that I was screwing a senior citizen so-"

"Don't." He cuts you off, raising his hand in warning. "Don't do that. Don't start getting sassy, don't start joking around with me. Just don't."

Another sassy remark is readied at the tip of your tongue, but you hold back when you notice that he almost looks pained. Why does he look pained?

You let it go and turn the knob, yanking the door open. "I'll see you next week, then."

He nods, unwilling to meet your eyes, and you close the door behind you.

You stomp the whole way down State Street to the music building, steam shooting from your ears after your 'meeting' with Professor Yang.

Curse him and his stupid asshat attitude. Screw him for being devilishly handsome and for being the world's biggest dick. How could you have slept with someone like him? How could you let yourself get into this mess?

You get to the main office on the third floor, and the reception desk is regrettably empty. You peek around for a student worker, but there is no one to be found. Even the doors to the professors’ offices are closed, implying that they are away or otherwise unavailable.

Huffing, you grab a pen from the cup on the reception desk and scribble a message onto the notepad sitting there. You explain in perhaps too-colorful language that you are in desperate need of photocopies of your approved excuse cards from last spring’s convocations, and you leave your cell phone number so that you can be contacted when said photocopies are available.

The anger that clouds the corners of your vision starts to dissipate as you tuck the note under the computer mouse for the student worker to find later. You're frustrated by everything Professor Yang has said to you, and you're frustrated by the fact that even what you believe to be an easy fix is not instantaneously possible. If you can just get the damned excuse cards to him, then he would have to believe you when you say you're clueless. Right? He'd probably never admit it, but you just need to know that he knows that you're telling the truth. You can't stand being called a liar.

You pull the cell phone out of your backpack as you trudge towards the stairs. What you really need right now is to hang out with someone and distract yourself from the bullshit with Professor Dickface. You want to call Shinhye, but you know that she'll be on her way to her next class shortly. And then you think of Kino, whose phone number you snagged after rehearsal yesterday. Maybe you should see what he's up to.

You call him, only momentarily thinking it might be weird to call instead of texting. But before you have a chance to second guess, he picks up.

"Farm girl! Hi." You can barely hear him over the rush of wind, but the nickname makes you smile.

"Hey. You busy?"

"Not exactly. Why?"

"I just need to get my mind off of something and I was wondering if you might want to hang out."

"Sure! Where are you?"

"Music building. You?"

"On my way there, actually. I was going to snag a practice room to start working on some stuff for R&B ensemble. Do you want to practice with me?"

You smile, releasing a careful sigh. "Yeah, let's do that."

As you step down the last stretch of stairs, you see Kino coming through the revolving door, his hair a mess from the wind. He spots you and waves, ending the call and pocketing his phone. He meets you at the stairwell. "Hey."

"Hey." You point upstairs. "Shall we?"

Together, you head back up and wind down a hallway to find an empty practice room. Thankfully you snag one with a baby grand instead of one of the dinky upright pianos.

"So, something's bothering you?" Kino inquires, dropping his backpack onto a chair and rifling through it in search of his music.

"Yeah, but I don't really want to talk about it, if that's alright." Well, it's not that you don't want to talk about it, it's just that you can't. Well, shouldn't. Won't.

"I hear you loud and clear. We'll just make some music, and if that doesn't help you feel better, we'll go get milkshakes or something. Milkshakes make everything better." He raises his eyebrows at you as he sets his music on a stand.

You nod, sliding onto the piano bench. "That sounds great. Maybe we should get milkshakes regardless."

"Honestly, I am one-hundred percent down for a milkshake. Have you been to the ice cream shop down on Thirteenth?" He groans when you shake your head. "Okay, then it's a done deal. We have to go."

"I will not refuse." You smile, feeling lighter already.

You rehearse together for nearly an hour, and you let the music completely occupy your mind. You don’t think about Professor Douche-Cock; you don’t think about the way he infuriates you and you certainly don’t think about your still overwhelming attraction to him. For that hour, your mind and soul can breathe.

"What's on your mind?" Hongseok's voice flowed over you, a gentle creek warmed by the hot summer sun.

Humming quietly, your eyes fluttered shut and you inhaled deeply, taking in the sweet, fresh scent of him, his cologne mingling with the alcohol on his breath. "You."

"Me?"

The two of you had long since lost track of the music, swaying lazily and dancing way too close. You felt so absorbed in the grip of his hands and the solidness of his body under those damn clothes and you could no longer think straight. You needed to touch his skin, to feel his lips. His face was mere inches from yours - far too much of a temptation.

"You, your lips, your hands, your..." You trailed off with a sly grin. "I'm thinking about everything you're hiding under your tux."

"What a coincidence," he murmured, his fingertips dragging over your exposed back. "I can't stop imagining how you'll look when your dress is finally on the floor."

Your heart raced. He finally admitted to what had been implied all night - that he wanted you naked, that he would get you naked. Of course, that had been your plan all along, but hearing him verbalize it made you quiver with excitement. You needed him... you were desperate.

"When are you going to kiss me?" You couldn't stop the words before they spilled from you of their own volition. But regardless of the unwarranted sentiments, you felt a bold smile form on your lips.

Hongseok chuckled, amused. He pulled you in tighter, the tip of his nose brushing yours as he leaned in. "Wouldn't it be too easy if I just gave you what you wanted?"

"I really don't care." You touched your forehead to his, challenging him. You knew he wanted to. He had to.

His shallow breath fanned over your face as he cupped your cheek. “Neither do I."

A rush of adrenaline burst through your veins as Hongseok closed the gap, finally pressing his lips to yours. Each kiss laced with passionate desire, he held nothing back as he kissed you once, twice, a thousand times over. Your hands traveled up into his soft hair as your lips crashed into his, and he securely grabbed your waist, tugging you towards the bed.

Hongseok sat on the edge of the mattress and you eagerly climbed up onto his lap, straddling him and sighing softly when you felt his hardening length between your legs. You could tell that he had a lot to offer.

He grabbed your wrists and redirected your hands to his tie, and your mouths never separated as you worked to slide the material out from his collar. You quickly moved onto the buttons of his vest and shirt, and he reached around you to tug at the zipper of your dress, both of you completely consumed with the overwhelming need to press skin against skin. You only pulled away when you finally ripped open his shirt, wanting just a moment to take in the sight of him.

He was extremely muscular, as you had expected, and it was almost intimidating how utterly perfect his torso was. You ran your fingers over his rippled abdomen, entranced by the dips and peaks of each muscle. His skin was hot to the touch, and it sent a delicious shock through you.

"How..." You started a question, but you didn't really know where it was going. With a gorgeous face and perfect body, Hongseok was simply too good to be true. You were awestruck, your hands coming to rest on the solid curve of his pecs.

"You haven't even seen the best part yet." He rocked his hips ever so slightly, reminding you that there was even more left to reveal.

"You're so cocky," you giggled, shrugging off the straps of your dress as he peeled the fabric away. You might have been more shy about stripping if you had been sober, but your wine-induced haze made you more than ready to be rid of the damn dress.

"I think you'll find I have good reason to be." His eyes flashed and he pressed another long kiss against your lips. He tasted of bourbon and promiscuity, and you wanted all of it. You were drunk on him. All you wanted was to kiss him for all of eternity.

Hongseok's rough fingers ran along the bare skin of your sides as he pulled your dress down around your waist. With your dress half off, you felt wildly exposed, but in the best possible way. His lips separated from yours so that he could get a look at you the way you had with him.

As his eyes scanned down from your face to your chest, you couldn't help the slight blush that came to your cheeks. It was embarrassing to be looked at that way, but it was also thrilling to watch him drink you in.

"You are absolutely gorgeous. Have I told you that yet?" His eyes met yours, a sweet smile touching his lips despite the darkness of his blown-out pupils.

"Don't think you've mentioned it," you murmured, barely able to get the words out before he crashed into your lips, his hot tongue pressing past the seam. You gladly accepted it, yanking his shirt off of his shoulders and pressing yourself harder against him. His strong arms wrapped around you completely, trapping you in his heat as your tongues wrestled. The kiss was sloppy and messy, but you were too distracted by wanting him to care.

As Hongseok continued kissing you, his hand slipped between your bodies in search of your breast, carefully massaging it and running his calloused thumb over your nipple until it stood up for him. He twisted the sensitive bud between his fingers, drawing a pleasured gasp from you. You had never considered yourself to be especially sensitive to physical touch - not any more than the next person, anyway - but Hongseok threw all of your senses into overdrive, driving you wild with the simplest of touches.

You ground your pelvis against his desperately, and his lips trailed along the skin just under your jaw as he worked his way down to your breast. You arched your back to give him better access, shuddering when his teeth grazed over your neck and collarbone. How could you feel so good already?

Hongseok's mouth latched onto your breast, and he sloppily lapped at your nipple while pinching the one still in his hand. It made the room spin; you were so lightheaded with pleasure you could hardly stand it. Panting heavily, you dug your fingers into his impressively muscular back, cursing yourself for keeping your fingernails so short. He seemed like the kind of guy who might like getting scratched up.

You continued rocking your hips as his mouth moved to your other breast and his hand traced up your thigh, sneaking under the skirt of your dress. Every inch of skin he traversed felt like a mile, taking far too long to reach the juncture of your thigh and your hip. You grinned wickedly as he felt for the strap of your nonexistent underwear, his tongue even pausing its ministrations as he realized that you were, in fact, completely bare beneath your dress.

With a soft groan, he slipped his other hand under your dress, fingers splayed across the round curve of your ass. He released your nipple from his mouth and his fox eyes flashed as he focused in on your face. "You are full of surprises."

"All good, I hope." Your chest tightened as you smiled at him, and your drunk self dared to think you might be falling in love.

"Only the best," he murmured lowly before capturing your mouth in another passionate kiss, his lips embracing yours as he gave your ass a squeeze. You rocked your hips fervidly, desperate to feel some sort of relief, and he caught you off guard when he lifted you, his forearms sliding under your thighs for support. Surprised, you laughed against his mouth and held tightly onto his shoulders. Jesus, he was strong.

Hongseok stood with you in his arms, turning around so he could lay you down on the bed. His lips stayed on yours the whole way down. He hovered over you, propping himself up with one arm, his other hand running over your thigh. His callouses scratched your skin and you purred at the sensation. You wanted those hands all over you.

His knuckles tracked along your inner thigh until his fingers discovered your folds, and you felt him smirk against your lips. You were dripping just from kissing him, and you were sure he approved. Softly, he traced your folds with the pad of his finger and his thumb teased the area around your clit.

You whimpered, squirming with anticipation as he circled your sex. He was such a tease, taking his time and slowly unraveling you. And it was working; you were falling to pieces and he had hardly even touched you.

Hongseok pressed a single finger past your entrance and his mouth moved south to your neck, giving you space to moan. He nibbled at the base of your throat before sliding his tongue up the length of it. "I want to taste you," he murmured into your neck, a quiet growl in his voice.

His simple words made you clench around his finger; you would love that more than anything. Breathy, you said, "Yes, please, do whatever you want." You completely gave yourself up to him, a bundle of nervous energy electrifying your gut. Anything he wanted to do to you, you would gladly receive.

Without hesitation, Hongseok kneeled between your legs, and a chill ran through you at the absence of his heat. He looked beautiful with hair tousled from your fingers and his lips pink from your kiss. How on Earth had you ever gotten so lucky?

His eyes scanned over your body as his finger slid out of you, his hands urging your skirt further up your hips before refocusing his attention on your clit. You gasped as he made contact, your legs jerking at the jolt of pleasure.

A smirk fell on his lips as he toyed with your most sensitive spot. “You are so hot, oh my God…”

You weren’t really sure if you should respond - or if you were even capable of responding - but Hongseok’s lips were suddenly on your folds and your mind went completely blank. His tongue prodded at your entrance before working its way up to your clit, and when he started sucking you swore you were blinded with pleasure.

You fought the immediate tension that coursed through you, not wanting to get wound up too quickly and end it too soon. This was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and you were convinced you’d never again find someone as gorgeous and fucking amazing at oral as Hongseok. You had to enjoy it.

Hongseok massaged your folds as he continued eating you out, and you couldn’t help but pinch your nipples, amplifying the ripples he sent throughout your body, careful not to take it too far. You whined as you twisted them and he lapped at your clitoris, his finger sliding inside of you once more. You were filled with sensation, and nothing could have been more perfect.

“That’s… aa-aahhh… ohh…” You tried desperately to encourage him, but words were difficult to come by. But he must have understood; he kept up with that same tongue pattern, stroking two fingers carefully against your walls. Sooner than anticipated, he brought you right to the edge. “Hong… Hongseok, yes… plea-oh…”

He didn’t change his pace, didn’t change pressure. He just continued in exactly the same manner until you broke, a series of short, squeak-like moans coming from you as an incredibly powerful orgasm washed over you. He pressed a flat tongue against your clit as you climaxed; you felt so full and warm and beautiful.

When your pulse was no longer racing he released you, and you hummed quietly. You eyed him as he stood, his chin and chest wet with your arousal and his erection straining against his pants: an absolute Adonis if you’d ever seen one.

You were speechless, grinning up at him like a fool. Everything felt so good. How could a human make you feel that way? He might have actually been a god.

Hongseok helped you sit up, and lifted the dress up over your head so you were fully in the nude. Wiping at his chin, he smirked and then reached for his belt buckle. “I hope you’re not too tired. After all, we’re just getting started.”

Post Script | Thank you for reading! Part 3 will be posted Saturday at 8pm.

Update | Read Part 3 here!

All Rights Reserved © gwentory. No translations, reposting, and/or modifying of the material is allowed without my direct permission.

THIS IS REPOSTED FROM MY ORIGINAL BLOG, GWENTORY. All future content (including HFT Part 4 and onwards) will only be posted on GWENTORYFICS. Thank you!

[bravocompany63]

Survival: Freelance

I thought I'd share some tips on playing the Survival: Freelance playlist. I (braddadocio/PSN) am not that great at PvP, but I was able to reach Legend rank this week and have learned some lessons in the process.

Remember that it's freelance, but you are still on a team. Stay near at least one of them and try to team-shoot. This can also surprise the other team... if you are close to a teammate, it's hard for them to distinguish between one and two people by looking at the radar.

Give your sniper(s) safe angles. If your team has a sniper, try to scout a little ahead of them to give them room and range to work.

Suros Regime is no joke. Learn to spin up (even pre-firing into a wall) for the higher-damage bottom half of the mag. I'll often pre-fire into a room near a corner where I see red ahead of me and the guy will just walk right into the spray.

Always have an exit route ready, and take it if you feel your life is at risk. If you've done some damage, that's good enough; maybe your teammate will finish the kill, but at least you saved your own life.

Stick to one class/sub-class that's working for you to gain depth of experience. You can focus on a different class/sub-class next season or non-competitive play.

Don't vary weapons too much. I mostly stuck to Suros/Mindbenders (talking about season 10 here, where auto-rifles are strong). Every now and then, I'd try something else if a match wasn't working well, but always went back to the default loadout for a new match.

Know who the team leader is. The first round of a match is always interesting, and you can usually tell if your team has a leader or not. Sometimes it's you! If it isn't, and your third is struggling, maybe shadow them to safeguard them while the leader player takes care of themselves. If you are at the bottom of roster on kills, play for your life first, and team-shoot with the guy at the top of the roster.

Try to keep the surprise element at all times. If your opponent doesn't know where you are, then you are at an advantage. But, once you shoot your weapon or throw a grenade, you're sure to be on their radar, so unless you're about to get a pick or in a situation where you are three fighting one or two, retreat and approach from a different place. I find a lot of success from getting one kill, then immediately retreating and getting cover to angle for the next attack. It's rare to get 2-3 kills all from one spot, unless you're using a super or a power weapon, so don't outstay your welcome.

Be mindful of lives remaining. For Survival, this is key for both your team and the opposing team. If the round timer runs out and the lives counter isn't equal for both sides, the round is given to the side with the most remaining lives ("Life Advantage" rule). A team can be taken off guard by this; I see it happen often in 2v3 games. If your team is up by 2+ lives and there's only a minute remaining, you're better off playing passively for that last minute since the pressure is on the opposing team to bridge the gap. But if the other team has a life advantage, press for eliminating it before the timer gets you.

Don't get outnumbered. If you're flanking and on your own, wait for an opportunity to get a pick, and ideally only engage with a single player. Team shots can take you out quickly.

Keep mental notes on player positions. This is difficult, but important. Use your radar to help if you don't have visuals on the enemy (and your team is clearly indicated on the radar, or the HUD). You're tracking where 2+ players are and where the single player is. If you can position yourself to take out the single player (ideally with a team mate), your odds are better than taking on two players by yourself. Whenever you find yourself outnumbered, retreat to safety and engage from another position.

Listen for kill audio cues. Enemy kills are crucial to Survival progress. Taking out a player makes it easier to push forward and clean up. One kill can become two or three very quickly. But this goes both ways. If a team mate falls, and you were their backup, better to retreat and seek another team mate than to engage further.

Don't play too passively. If your team mates are being aggressive, you probably should too. They are putting themselves at risk, and moreso if you aren't there to help decrease that risk. Don't spend half the round crouch-walking to position yourself if your team's life counter is draining.

Wait for team mates. If you are killed and respawn, don't rush back into another fight until you have company. So many times I play with blueberries that do this: they die and respawn, then I die and respawn shortly after. Instead of them waiting for me, they rush off to die again. If two or more on your team die, just take a breath and regroup before rushing back into battle.

Keep a log of your progress. I kept weekly and daily progress notes. For a given day of play, I'd track each match result in terms of win/loss and points gained/lost. At the end of the day, I'd summarize those in terms of total games played, total games won, total games lost, and number of Glory points gained or lost. It was helpful to review and see my progress. You can also use this log to monitor how many points you can "gamble" by playing another match. If you've had good progress and met a goal you have for that day (also a good practice), then maybe it'd be better to stop and not risk losing points. If you haven't met your goal, then you can keep going unless you're feeling burnt out. Your progress log can help you make those decisions.

Review your mistakes. If you lose a game, take some time to think about how you could have played better. What did the other team do that made them more effective? Try to focus on how you could have turned it in to a win versus blaming the other players you were matched with. You can also save the video and review it. At the very least, this bit of reflection gives you time to cool before you try another match.

Review your best moments. Some games will be amazing-- you'll make all the right moves. Save those videos and post them to YouTube or Twitch. Share them with your clan. It's encouraging to re-watch those shining moments, especially after a losing streak.

Keep your momentum going. If you've been working on rank score, be sure to play the minimum 3 games per week to not decline in score (at least, once you reach Mythic, rank can decay). And you'll get a bit of extra Glory rank (until you hit Mythic) at reset for your trouble.

And here's a few "don'ts":

Don't leave a match. Even if you are losing 0-3, don't ever leave a match. Even if someone else has left your team, don't leave. (I have actually won a match or two where it became a 2v3 game, and the other player and I were at an avantage because the player that left was draining our life pool so quickly and so we had more lives to spare after they left.)

Don't ever suicide intentionally. I've been in a couple of games where the skill gap between teams was enough that it caused someone on the losing side to think: "well, we aren't going to win, so I might as well make this loss go faster" and they started jumping off the map as much as they could. That is horrible, and there should be temporary ban penalties applied to players who throw a match like that.

Don't die with your super. Do your best to use your super before you can't at all. Personally, I let this happen too often since I run bubble Titan and tend to save the bubble for a capture flag situation, but when you're at round 3 and the enemy has no lives left, it's time to go on offense.

I don't consider myself better than average for PvP... my survival K/D is 0.95 or something, which is decent but not amazing. But with some smarts, you can still play well and get your match win rate high enough to keep your progress going. You can find some of my survival videos on my Crucible playlist on YouTube. It's been a fun season and I'm looking forward to doing it again in season 11!

Good luck!

[hayjeon]

Snow and Ice 01 [m] (ft. Jungkook)

→ friendswithbenefits!au with Snowboarder!JK and figure skater!reader during the Olympicssss!

→ 11.1k | part 2 (coming soon!)  

A/n: I know that winter olympics is exclusive to winter sports and vice versa with summer, but let’s ignore that for the sake of the fic ;) (ie. mentions of gymnasts) 

also this was meant to be a oneshot, but after getting somewhere around 18k...i decided to split into 2 parts! sorry, but hope you guys enjoy what I already have! :D not heavily edited sry but enjoyoyyyyoyyoy

“How fucking hard is it for the boys to seriously not sound like a bunch of monkeys at 3am in the damn morning?!” You grouch, stomping out of the restroom to Irene. 

She’s already dressed in her gym outfit, and tying her shoes. “God, I know,” she rolls her eyes. “I think they’ve made a bet or something to see who can make it the longest after bottomless drinking.” Stretching, she groans, “They were up even up til 5am I think, after you fell asleep.” 

You roll your eyes, slipping off your robe and pulling on a tight spandex pair of leggings and sports bra. You grab your water bottle and join your teammate as you walk down the hall of the rooming area and into the gym. “It would be nice for once to try and get a normal week of life before the games start. By the way, are we doing cardio today?” 

Irene nods, tying her hair up high. “Start off with 60 minutes running and then help me stretch? We’ll go practice on the rink later after lunch.” 

You nod and throw the towel on the handle as you step up onto a machine. It’s 6am, but already, dozens of other athletes are busy at work, pressing the weight machines and cardio machines to life. You can see that the gymnastics girls are taking up most of the easy weights, and the hockey players fiddling with the heavier weights. Seokjin, one of the guys from your university’s snowboarding team, walks up to you with a smile, starting up the running machine next to yours, and matching your brisk walk. 

“Good morning,” he grins, “How are you feeling?” 

You roll your eyes, cracking your neck. “God, Jin, I wanted to kill the guys on the fourth floor. Literally, they’re the loudest herd of chimpanzees when they’re drunk.” 

Seokjin laughs, upping his speed. “They made a bet to see who could drink the longest from the keg. It was interesting to watch but my coach would’ve killed me if she were here and saw me sleeping anytime past 1am. And even though our coaches can’t be here in the lodgings,” he shudders, taking a swig from his bottle, “I’d rather not find out what she’ll do to me if she ever knew the truth.” 

You laugh, increasing your speed and matching his long strides with quick ones of your own. “Good thinking, you’re smart.” 

He grins at you and the both of you ease into your daily routines. 

Everyday is like this, even when you’re not in the Olympic village. This is your second Olympics, and your second time representing your country for women’s figure skating. Being said, getting here meant that every day was a routine, just like today’s, monkey boys living a floor above you or not. 

Wake up at 5am, and cardio for an hour, stretch for 30, practice jumps on mats for 30, and then actually skating for another 2 hours, before returning to stretch out the sore muscles, and then finally getting to eat your first meal, which was probably a salad, chicken breast, and maybe a fruit smoothie if your morning cardio was more productive than usual. Then it was a bit of rest and loosening the muscles with a warm bath, and then back with weight training and more skating until it was night, and the lactic acid buildup was making your muscles all shaky and unsteady. Rinse, repeat. 

It’s easy to throw popcorn at your tv screen and sneer, “Idiots,” when a representative of the country makes a mistake during the games. Somehow, everyone sitting at home in front of their televisions, munching on their bottomless fried chicken and coke became masters at whatever sport they were watching this time of year. But becoming an olympian meant that this was your life: training, practicing, and winning. 

You amp up the speed on the machine into a full sprint as you think of the way you only got a silver medal the last time you competed. The bratty Jennie Kim had won the gold, and managed to shove it in your face every single time you two saw each other. She was here too, you could practically smell the hatred and the evil emanating off her skin whenever you were in a 50 mile radius of her. 

You sigh as your music lets you drift off into a place, a place where you don’t have to think about how sweaty and tired you are already. The music that you chose this year for your routine was classy, and so was the show that you prepared. 

It took months of training, and was also the reason you had to go so hard on cardio this year: there were four triple-axels, triple toe-loops you had to master during the routine, and that didn’t even include the two triple salchows towards the end of the routine. None other than Kim Yuna had attempted and succeeded at doing a routine like that completely without failing. 

All while looking like a complete goddess. 

Beethoven’s 9th symphony was a fairy-like, dainty work of art, with swells of the orchestra booming in the background to create an ominous feeling to it. To master this routine, you’d had to also go through hours of acting classes, to get “in touch with your deepest emotions,” like your coach Minho had convinced you. 

Your mother had gotten her hands on the most gorgeous outfit, a turquoise, shimmering deep blue-green that make your skin glitter and shine and complimented your eyes and matched incredibly well with the silver accents and accessories embroidered onto the dress. 

You don’t really remember how you got here. It just started as an innocent day at the rink, where you’d convinced your mother to let you do something more interesting than learning the piano or the violin, and she’d let you choose between gymnastics and figure skating. You were mesmerized by the pretty outfits as a little girl, so she’d taken you for lessons. 

And then the lessons slowly became rehearsals for the junior figure skating team, and then your coach labeled you as team captain, and then you were being sent off to do shows all around the country. You were then competing and winning gold medals as fast as ever, and at the ripe young age of 17, you were crowned as the next Female Figure Skating Olympian to join your country’s team, to train and compete in the next winter olympics. 

That was how you were thrust into this world of competing and working yourself to the bone at age 18. It just...sort of happened, and at one point in your little 18 year old life you did have a moment to turn around and survey how the hell you got here in the first place. But, it was too late, and you were way too invested, switching out hours of studying or playing video games or with dolls for training on the ice in your childhood to back out now. 

Your workout comes to an end and you’re already sweating bullets and chugging down buckets of water by the end. Irene finishes a couple of seconds before you do and waits for you as you cool down and step off. You both take a couple more minutes to towel off and cool before you step into the mirror room, and begin to stretch. You place your ankle on top of the poles for steadiness and begin stretching your upper body, cooling down in the air conditioned room. 

“Well if it isn’t y/n?” A voice sounds in the entrance of the stretching room and all the heads in the room turn to see who it is. 

You don’t even have to look to know who it is. 

He cockily wipes his face with a towel and throws it over his shoulder, spraying a steady stream of water from his bottle into his mouth as he saunters over to where you’re stretching. You roll your eyes and ignore him, switching sides and propping your other leg up 90 degrees as you curve your torso towards it with your hand stretched towards your toes. 

He walks up to you and in the mirror, you can see the other girls in the room whispering and giggling at the presence of the handsome Olympian. 

Jeon Jungkook. Age 22. Also his second time competing in the Olympics. Gold medalist if we’re talking about olympics, but all time World Champion in the Men’s Snowboarding medium and Guiness World Record holder for highest score last year, beating out previous record holders and his own best scores with the recent win. Endorses like a thousand snowboarding and athletic brands like Northface and Tim Burton. Also the owner of his own resort on the side. He was a celebrity within the Olympians, and also voted one of the hottest Olympians ever. 

“Looking good,” he rakes his eyes up and down your body, grinning sleazily. “How long has it been, 3 years? 4 years?” 

You huff as you take down your leg from the pole. “If you could ever for once figure out how to do math, you’d know that it’s been 4 years since the last olympics, Jeon Jungkook.” 

He smirks when you finally respond to him, walking over to lean against the pole as you sit down and begin stretching your hamstrings. “Congrats on your win during the World Championships, I watched and cheered for you during it.” 

You roll your eyes. “Are you here to make fun of my silver medal too? I have enough knowing grins from Jennie Kim to last me a lifetime.” You switch legs, leaning forward and pressing your knees against your chest. 

He laughs, “Hell no, I would never dare to make fun of the ice queen.” 

Straightening up, you narrow your eyes at him. He’s been calling you that since you can remember. “Get lost, Jungkook. Go do your weights or whatever.” You resume stretching, extending one leg far behind you as you sit comfortable in a split. 

He stands, watching you from above. “Suit yourself. Know I’ll be back though.” 

He walks cockily back, lifting the edge of his shirt to wipe at the sweat on his brow, which is completely stupid because he has a towel. It’s so obvious he does it to get a ruse out of the other gymnasts and skaters stretching in the room, which it does. 

Irene inches up to you and joins you in your stretches. 

“Don’t ask,” you groan and switch sides. 

She shrugs, laughing at you in the mirror. “Wasn’t gonna. That exchange spoke for itself. He definitely has the hots for you.” 

You roll your eyes and groan as you get up, and Irene joins you to help you stand and lift your leg up as high as she can reach, way up over your head. “Uh,” you cringe at the stiffness of your thigh muscles, “He does that to everyone. Seriously. I’ve seen him even give some of the referees sleazy looks. It’s just in his blood.” 

She whistles as you switch legs. “Well whatever his blood’s doing, I bet it’s working real hard.” 

“Ew!” You exclaim and laugh, letting her switch sides with you as you help her with her standing splits. “Never!” 

She laughs, finishing her other side. “Alright grumpy, let’s go get you some breakfast before you rip my head off and get even more hangry.” 

_____________________________________________________________________

You both get washed up and changed before heading over to the Dining Hall. It’s basically another stadium, with the lower levels transformed into a buffet style area and tables and chairs all looped together like high school all over again. 

Hoseok, one of the male figure skaters, joins your table and Seokjin appears a couple minutes after, his plate piled high with all the food he could find at the buffet. 

Hoseok cringes at the sight, “Jeez, dude, how many calories even is that thing?” 

You and Irene peer over to see a buttload of eggs, rice, noodles, meats, and salad piled onto his tray. The both of you sigh at the sight, watching dreamily as Seokjin shoves the food endlessly into his mouth. It was your own personal mukbang broadcast. 

“Uhhh two-touszhndf-mpmph” Seokjin mutters, and Hoseok glares again, cringing at the food that flies out of Seokjin’s mouth. 

“Two thousand?” You balk, resting your chin in your hand as you push a cherry tomato around on your plate with your fork. “Did you increase it since last time?” 

Seokjin nods, washing his huge mouthful down with a swig of orange juice. “I don’t know what it is about this weather, but I’m starving.” 

Irene sighs, setting down her cup. “God, I just wanna eat a big heaping bowl of french fries and a oozy, greasy cheeseburger right about now.” Hoseok nods in forlorn agreement and you nod too, pouting at the sad dressing-less salad in front of you. 

Seokjin talks again, food flying, “They have some! Over there! Can’t you sneak one? Our coaches aren’t even here.” 

Irene doesn’t even bother looking. She shakes her head. “No, it’ll affect our jumps. Really. Even the slightest bit of change in our weight will throw our center of gravity off. Plus, have you seen our outfits? They’re tight as fuck.” 

You nod, sighing as you swallow the last piece of cabbage. “Mine’s so tight I have to wear a stick-on bra instead of having it padded, like normal.” 

Hoseok cringes, “Hell ya, mine’s so tight I have to clench my ass cheeks everytime I do a sitting spin, or else the spandex gets too tight and gives me the absolute worst wedgie.” 

Seokjin rolls his eyes. “Guys, shut up. You know who has the worst, tightest outfits? The swim team.” 

The three of you stop talking, and burst in laughter as Seokjin rolls his eyes. You imagine the swim team in their tiny little speedos, junk squeezed tight and asses practically fighting to get out. You snort, “HAHA, don’t those guys ever like accidentally moon someone or like slip out of those things? I feel like they’re so small on their hips, it’ll fit around me.” You giggle, and Irene joins you, laughing at Seokjin’s disgusted expression. 

He’s about to respond when a voice interrupts. “Talking about the swim team’s speedos?” 

You all turn to see Park Jimin, captain of the Men’s Ice Hockey team turn up with a few of his teammates to your table. He sets his tray down next to yours, and laughs when Irene nods. 

Seokjin resumes, “Okay they’re not that tight, like I won’t lose any sperm because of it. They’re just...snug.” 

Irene cackles. “How do you even know?! You’re a snowboarder!” 

He shrugs, chewing thoughtfully. “Sometimes when you’re boarding you need a little extra waterproof protection.” 

The entire table explodes into laughter and disgust, and you join in, finally feeling a weight lifted off your shoulders. 

“Man, this makes me remember how it was in camp all those years ago, doesn’t it?” Jimin adds, and you guys all reminisce to the high school days, where athletes would attend a “athlete-morale” camp over the summer every year, which was just a sorry excuse for job-less coaches to shove down inspiring speeches and “team-building” activities down your helpless throats. 

A lot of you separate into your own conversations, launching into giggles and yells of memories you all shared together. That’s how you knew so many of the Olympians here. Even though you all had different schedules and different sports and areas of interest, somehow most of you had gathered at this camp every summer without fail. And every summer, the lot of you would suffer and bitch and complain together about how stupid and useless the lessons and activities were, and plot ways to escape your cabins at night to sneak away and do some drinking or exploring. Given, you drove your camp leaders crazy. They’d never seen a group of athletes like you guys, they said as they warily sent you home after a week of sleepless nights. 

Jimin nudges you. “How have you been?” 

You grin, turning to him, “Good, you?” 

“Same as ever,” he grins, smiling the sweet smile where his eyes would crinkle. 

“Actually you look a little different, you lost a lot of your baby fat.” You reach over and pinch his cheeks, and he frowns at you humorously as you laugh. “I remember we used to call you acorn because your face was so round.” 

He groans, “Seriously, I never forgave Yoongi hyung for coming up with that name.” 

You laugh, sipping your coffee. “I hear you and your team won silver in nationals, congratulations.” 

He sighs, “Thanks, y/n, but you know in our world, only the gold is worth congratulating for.” 

You nod, “I know how that feels.” Shrugging, he agrees with you, sending you a sad forlorn apologetic smile. He probably heard down the grapevine that you’d gotten silver.

“But at least this year, you’re gonna win gold right?” 

You shrug, picking at your cup. “I don’t know...the routine is really hard and I’m still jet lagged and not feeling my best. I’m getting nervous, and that anxiety was exactly why I stumbled a bit during my routine last year and lost the gold to Jennie.” 

“Ah Jennie,” he recalls, “Pretty, but sort of a bitch.” He shrugs, and Irene cuts in. “Sort of? Nope, she’s such a bitch.” 

The two conversations between yours and Jimin’s and Irene’s with Hoseok and Seokjin merge as Irene rolls her eyes. “Oh my god, it was ridiculous. Jennie’s routine wasn’t half as great as y/n’s but there was a slight stumble, which wasn’t even a stumble, and Jennie won. Which is ridiculous because Jennie actually tripped and had to leave out a spin on one of her turns to make sure she didn’t actually fall.” 

Hoseok tips his head. “Y/n, you stumbled?” 

Before you can even answer, Irene does it for you. “It was literally just a slight stumble, at most she switched her blade and landed with a bit more spark than usual.” 

You shrug, nodding at Irene to thank her for explaining it. You’d had to explain it way too many times now. “Whatever, it’s past now, and there’s not much I can do about it. We’re both here now, so it’s just important that I stay focused.” 

Seokjin nods. “Don’t worry, y/n. You’ll win. I’m sure of it.” 

Hoseok snorts, “How?” 

Seokjin makes a funny face, “Didn’t ya’ll know that I’m a genius and got voted the #1 most handsome face of the Olympians? If anyone knows things like that, it’s me.” He says, and everyone chuckles at it. Same ol’ Seokjin. 

“Speaking of which, here comes #1 most “daddy” Olympian.” Hoseok comments, glancing at the entrance of the dining hall. By instinct, you turn with Irene in your chair to see Jeon Jungkook sauntering in with the rest of his snowboarding team. 

The guys are gorgeous, with languid body movements, but strong bulky builds underneath all their protective waterproof jackets. Their jaws were chiseled and their looked rugged in that hot way. Jaebum, the one on Jungkook’s left was Irene’s favorite for a while, and was handsome and charming enough to even appear on a couple of variety shows and drama cameos. The snowboarders were actual celebrities back home.

You roll your eyes and turn back as quickly as possible, but not before Jungkook’s gaze settles on yours with a smirk. “I don’t even understand how that vote was even cast.” You grumble, sipping your coffee. “Seriously, out of all the other athletes, Jungkook? Gross.” 

Jimin laughs. “Well, who do you think would have been #1 then?” 

You groan, cringing. “To be honest, you or Seokjin.” 

All of you laugh as Seokjin pumps his fist, “Yes!” He cries out, food flying out of his mouth again, to Hoseok’s horror. “I knew it. Y/n think’s I’m hotter than Jeon Jungkook!” 

“Shut up!” you hiss, laughing as you try to get him to sit down, but it’s too late. At the sound of his name, Jeon Jungkook is drawn to your table like a fly to a light and grins as he walks over. “Incoming,” Irene hisses as she smiles up fakely at Jungkook. 

“I heard my name, are you guys talking about me?” He drawls, grinning as he perches a hand on the back of your chair. You ignore him and eat your yogurt. 

Jimin laughs, lifting a hand to shake hands with Jungkook. “’Sup dude, it’s been a while. Lookin’ good.” He smiles and you watch in disgust as Jungkook laughs, tainting Jimin’s innocent and beautiful presence with an entire bucketful of gross cocky frat-boy confidence. 

“I’ve been cutting a little bit, trying to not bulk too much these days,” Jungkook shrugs, flexing his arm a little to the delight of the gymnasts a few tables over. “I started getting a little less air once I started bulking up. But you’re lookin’ better bro, you guys training a lot?” 

Jimin nods, clapping the teammate next to him on a shoulder lightheartedly. He grins his charming smile again, his eyes crinkling on the sides. “Yeah, our couch has been pushing us real hard these days, but it’s been working. We’re all at our best weights of the season, and feeling real good for the upcoming games.” He smiles at you, glancing sadly at your poor little salad. “Y/n, you must be having a hard time recently too, right? Coach has us on a strict diet, but yours is probably stricter, isn’t it?”

You sigh, pushing around your cold chicken breast around on the plate for both guys to see. “I eat less than a thousand calories per day, all divided into six tiny meals. Helps keep off the weight so that I can jump higher. I can’t remember the last time I had an all-you-can-eat korean barbeque dinner. Maybe it was when I was in elementary school? Legit over a decade ago.” You shake your head as you picture the cold piece of meat as a sizzling hunk of delicious pork. 

It doesn’t help. 

Jungkook laughs, inviting himself to take the empty seat next to yours, his arm draped over the back. “Well, I for one, think you have an amazing body.” He winks at you and you pretend to gag as everyone chuckles at the table. 

“Gross!” you exclaim, pointing your fork menacingly at him. “Don’t you have some other girls to flirt with besides me? I’ve had enough fratboy for a day.” 

He grins, hand splaying across your back, warm against your skin. “Trust me, y/n, you’ll never have enough of me.” He winks and bids everyone a dumb cocky drawled “Later guys,” and walks off with his boy band team. 

Hoseok grins at you, “Was I high off my painkillers for a second or did Jeon Jungkook actually flirt with you and basically imply that he wanted to bang?” 

You choke on a piece of lettuce as everyone around the table nods, Irene and Seokjin chiming in with a simultaneous, “Totally.” Before turning to eachother with wide eyes and high-fiving. 

“Gross!” You exclaim again for the second time that morning, washing it down with a swig of water. “Me with Jeon Jungkook? I feel my ovaries shriveling up at the thought of sleeping with that frat-boy pig.” Jimin just watches you carefully.

Hoseok shrugs, “I bet if you sleep with him, it won’t just be your ovaries shriveling up. I hear he’s great in bed.” 

“Ugh! God Hoseok! Can you like not?” You cringe, and he laughs. 

“I can’t help it! He’s cute!! If he swung this way, I’d jump on that even before he could even know he was gay.” 

Everyone laughs and shakes their head at Hoseok’s blunt gayness, and you just grin uncomfortably as you turn back to your salad. You look up to see Jimin just watching you with a shy smile as he continues eating without a word. 

After breakfast, it was time to stretch a little more and actually start skating. You say bye to the rest of the crew and make your way to the gym again with Irene. You cringe, massaging your shoulder as you walk over. 

“Fuck,” you mutter, kneading the sore muscles. “My shoulder is all messed up...” 

Irene turns with a worried expression. “Oh shoot, I knew that not sleeping with a neck pillow would mess with your trap muscles. Did you bring your muscle cream with you?” 

Rummaging through your pack, you frown, “No...shit it really hurts though.” 

She pushes you towards the dorms. “Go and get it before we get on the rink, Coach’ll kill you if she finds out you didn’t treat it before getting on the ice. You know how she is. One little painful thing and she’ll go crazy on you and make sure you get it treated and ban you from the ice until it’s better.” 

You nod, biting your lip. “Don’t wait up for me!” You jog in the direction of the dorms. 

It’s a bit chilly, but the cardio helps a little as you make your way up the lavish road towards the towering buildings. The olympic villages...were always nice on the outside, but pretty dumb on the inside. 

Athletes were organized into country teams and shoved into tiny little apartments by gender, provided with college dormitory-style like rooms with two or three beds shoved into them with skinny little closets for your coats and stuff. You sigh as the dorm doors open to a rush of cold air, and scan your nametag before jogging over to the elevator, staring at your phone and logging your breakfast calories. 

The elevator opens and you nonchalantly walk inside, but right before the doors close, a hand comes in and slams the door crevice, forcing the doors to open automatically. You frown at the noise and look up to see who it is, and your jaw drops as you see Jungkook smirking at you as he steps in the elevator. You roll your eyes and drop your neck back to your phone as your typing fingers become a little harsher at the screen of your phone.

He grins at you, “Whatcha doin’?” 

“Trying to have some alone time,” you grumble, rolling your eyes at nothing in particular. He grins and somehow in his brain interprets it as an invitation to move closer and peer at your phone screen. “Sexting?” 

“No, god Jungkook,” you yelp, twisting the screen away from him, “You’re still super gross.” 

He laughs as the doors open and he trails after you. “This isn’t even your floor.” You grumble, walking down the hall towards your room anyway. 

“This isn’t even my building, but you knew that already.” He shrugs, grinning at you. He knew you too well, and he knew that too. God, you just wanted to strangle him in that pretty little neck of his. You unlock your door and he hovers, watching you rummage around your room for the bright blue container of your muscle cream.

“So, you have a thing with the hockey player?” He leans against your door, eyeing you with a cocky smirk.

You huff and drop your duffel, giving up on finding the muscle cream you were positive you packed. Hands on your hips, you face him with a glare.

“Just because I exchanged a couple of words with Jimin doesn’t mean I’m dating him, Jungkook. I’m not like you, fucking the first thing he sees.”

He hisses between his teeth, throwing his head back as he chuckles. “Oooo that burned. Straight from the ice princess. You really chose your sport didn’t ya? Double meaning and all.”

Glaring, you roll your eyes and turn back to digging through the drawers. “Why the hell are you here? I need to apply my muscle cream.”

Grinning, he produces a condom packet from his pocket. “Guess what? These are Olympic grade. I would hate to waste them when they’re giving ‘em away so freely.” Shrugging, he gestures between the both of you. “We can see if they work as well as they’re supposed to?”

When you don’t reply, he grins again, letting the door shut behind him and lock as he saunters over to you.

“So whaddyou say, for old times sake?” 

You groan, whirling around and facing him head on with a glare. 

“Jungkook,” you grit, “we slept together twice. Four years ago. There is no old time’s sake.” You wave your arms dramatically. 

He laughs, leaning back comfortably on your bed, and you groan. “Yeah it was four years ago, but equally as good. I mean,” he wonders, flipping the condom around in his fingers, “who knew that the goody little ice princess was actually such a freak in bed?” 

You finally find the annoying little blue container and spin at him with hands on your hips. “Stop talking about that night. It never happened, okay? No one can know.” You twist open the container and unzip your jacket to reveal your sports bra and turn away from Jungkook to apply it. 

He watches you struggle to reach the spot near your shoulder blade. “Need help?” 

You glare at him over your shoulder. “No.” 

He shrugs, “Your legs are flexible, but you know your arms not flexible enough to reach it and everyone’s out for training now. I’ll do it, no funny business.” He stands, and you glare at him but let him draw nearer as he takes the container from you. 

“Turn around,” he says gently, and begins to slather on the cream into your shoulder and neck, rubbing it in so that the stickiness is absorbed completely into your skin. You wince as he rubs too hard and he apologizes, setting the container down and concentrating on not rubbing too hard. 

“It wasn’t only four, you know,” he mutters, and you pause, frowning. “What?” 

“We slept together twice four years ago during the games, but we also slept together a couple more times after that. Just not at the games.” He stops rubbing, and you jerk your jacket onto your shoulder again, standing up from the bed with a glare as you pack your backpack. 

“Dont,” you warn, teeth gritted, “talk about that in front of anyone, ever. It could jeopardize our careers. Do you understand?! A few drunken nights together doesn’t mean anything! No matter how hot you think you are!” You storm off, jamming your shoes on and stomping outside. 

The only thing you hear before the door slams shut is his cocky voice calling out, “So you think I’m hot?!” 

Turn, Triple toe loop, land, Bielmann spin, stop, smile, turn again blade change.

You chant the routines in your head as you glide over the ice with the music. Although there were still 2 weeks left ahead of your actual performance, it was still crucial that you skated your program more than 10 times a day so that it was completely muscle memory by the time you stepped onto Olympic ice. 

Your teammates watch carefully from the sidelines with your coach, who’s carefully scrutinizing your every move. You finish with a flourish, chest heaving as the swell of music ends. 

Irene claps happily and Hoseok also joins her, cheering your name as you crumble over, hands on your knees as you heave with the effort of skating heavily for so long. Your coach steps onto the ice, patting your back as you put on your skate guards and take a seat. 

“Good job Y/N,” she nods, stepping aside to let other skaters take to the ice. “Why don’t you go home today and stretch a little? You’re looking a little stiff.” 

You nod, and on the corner of your eye, you see Jennie Kim step onto the ice. “Sure thing, coach, but let me stay behind and watch this one.” Coach Kim follows your gaze and softens. “Y/N,” she urges, “I don’t know if it’ll help you to watch her program.” 

“It’s fine!” You reassure her with a smile and join Hoseok and Irene on the benches as the music begins. 

Jennie was a phenomenal skater, everyone agreed. She was beautiful and thin and charming and knew exactly how to flirt on the ice. What you lacked in with performance skills, she excelled in with expressions and smiles, and what she lacked in technical jumps and clean cut programs, she excelled in making it look even more effortless and flirting with the audience enough to grant standing ovations and performing with a lot of emotion. 

As the three of you watch her run through her program, she completes jumps and spins that you never expected her to be able to complete. “How the hell did she learn to do the triple lutz triple toe loop combo?! I thought last show she had to cut it out of her program because she couldn’t land it properly!” You hiss, and Irene shrugs, her jaw hanging open too. “I don’t know...” she says lowly, watching Jennie glide over the ice as if she were weightless. “That...that’s impossible to do within what...six weeks? Even Rose couldn’t do it like that.” 

Hoseok gasps, “Oh my god, she faked that she couldn’t do it so she’d lower your expectations.” 

You frown and watch her finish her routine, one she stops and gets claps from other people also watching from the stands. Your coach pats you on the shoulder. “Although her routine is a lot more complex than we thought it would be, if you execute ours perfectly, you’re bound to get a hell of a lot more points than she can. Your training is gonna pay off, don’t worry about it.” 

Chewing on your lip, you nod, crossing your arms and worriedly walking out of the rink. 

Your steps are heavy as you head towards the gym. Jennie and you had once been peers, two young girls who began skating together for fun and ended up enjoying it and being actually good at it. But then, somehow, somewhere within all the competition, you both had stopped doing eachother’s makeup and hair between performances, and instead had resorted to smirks and jeers as you challenged eachother. 

Your gold medal or championship trophies matched the number of ones she had, and the both of you were neck to neck during every single match you could ever think of since you both became teenagers. 

This was probably going to be your final or second to last Olympics, and then you would end up doing promotions for companies or becoming a trainer for the rest of your life. If you wanted to live comfortably, you would have to skate like your life depended on it, and Jennie did too. Whatever medals the both of you won today would go down in history and determine the next years to come. If you didn’t win that gold medal this year, you were determined to just retire before it became even more embarrassing. 

The gym is full, with the sun high up in the air at 2pm. You can see a group of hockey players fiddling with the weights alongside the swimmers who were working the machines. The gymnasts and the female swimmers were already stretching in the padded room, and the running machines full of all types of athletes. Immediately, when you enter, the white shirt stretched over Jungkook’s back muscles is the first thing you see. 

Ignoring the clenching feeling of anxiety in your gut, you head over to the stretching area to begin cooling off. 

Feet out, leg as high up as you can, you coax yourself, mimicking what your coach would be telling you as of now. You can feel the stiffness, all the way back to your calves and the muscle cream from yesterday wasn’t helping all that much. Facing the mirror, you balance a hand on the beam and lean forward, lifting your leg up high far above your head as you balance on one foot, preparing for one of your spins. 

Through the mirror, you see him come in, his head swiveling as he surveys the myriad of other girls stretching and then smiling wide as he jogs over to you, throwing his sweaty towel around his neck. Gross. 

“So,” he says, leaning against the bar with a greasy smile. “Did you think about what I said?” 

You roll your eyes and continue stretching. “How many times did I tell you that there’s absolutely nothing to talk about?” 

“How many times after that night did you even have sex at all?” He scoffs, moving around to face you when you turn to switch sides.

“Did you like, even go out after that?” He prods, watching you stretch through the mirror. He wipes his sweat with the small hand towel, spraying some water from his bottle into his mouth and shaking out his sweaty bangs.

You switch legs, making another face when it strains a little. He notices, “oh, uh, do you need some help with that?”

You finally acknowledge him after twenty minutes of ignoring him. He was persistent, you had to give him that. Rolling your eyes you nod, “Do you remember how?”

“No,” he scoffs, but steps forward anyway, cradling your ankle in his larger hands. He’s hot, the cool temperature of the stretching area doing nothing to cool off his skin. He steps forward so the both of you are almost a hand width apart and places your ankle daintily on his broad shoulder. He then steps even closer, supporting your lower back with his hands and slowly pressing in to help stretch the calves and hamstrings.

You wimper a little because he’s almost an entire head and a half taller than your petite size and the leg on his shoulder is pressed almost to your chest. Squeezing your eyes shut you breathe in and out, the both of your bodies rocking slightly to accommodate the inflation of your lungs into your chest.

You can feel the heat emanating off his chest as he stands there looking down at you with the hardness of his body pressed up against the back of your thigh. It’s hard to not let your mind wander at that, flashbacks of drunken irresponsible high school days when you’d go to bed with him fucking you from behind and wake up to him kissing between your legs. And then you’d finish off with a nice hot bath and some good food. Back when you had no responsibilities, no worries, and no burdens on your shoulders.

The moment causes your mind to go a little hazy and in the fleeting few seconds of feeling vulnerable and the flood of hormones at the familIr feeling of his body against yours you whisper, “I haven’t” in response to his questions before. It’s too quiet to be heard over the high quality air conditioner whirring almost silently in the corner, but nonetheless his proximity lets him hear the two words.

He doesn’t say anything though, and lets your leg down from his shoulder and helps you get the other one onto his right shoulder. Rinse and repeat. But just as you open your mouth to say something more, a hand on the small of your back smooths over the curve of your hip and up your thigh and over to your ankle. Holding it delicately there, his hand grips it wth a firm and warm grasp, as he angles his head down to meet your questioning gaze.

“Me neither.” He whispers, and steps forward to press himself tightly against you. Your back presses against the bar and your hands flutter up from it to grip his forearms. You distinctly feel his hardness pressed against your belly. 

“Seriously? Don’t lie to me Jeon Jungkook. The last time we slept together was months ago.”

“I’m serious!” You give him a glare. 

“Do you…?” He trails off, and begins blinking like he does when he gets nervous.

The question lingers heavily over the hum of the running machines and air purifiers lining the training area.

His hands release your ankle and sets it gingerly on the ground, and he steps back, the warmth of his body and his chest and his hands and his breath leaving you all at once. You stumble a little back, your back resting on the bar.

Space, he was giving you space to decide.

You sigh, flexing your hands that are beginning to sweat. Your performance wasn’t for another two weeks. What did you have to lose?

Thinking about the way Jennie glided over that triple-toe-triple-lutz combination with no effort at all made you rage all the way inside, insides glowing hot from the annoyance of being fooled by her again. What was just one night of sex going to do? Your coach told you to relax and make sure you weren’t too stressed out and anxious...this...this was just an interesting way of doing it. What she didn’t know wouldn’t kill her.

“Fine,” you huff, stepping forward, gathering your things and heading out, as he jogs after you with a surprised look. “But on one condition, Jeon Jungkook. You cannot tell anyone. Are we clear?” 

He smirks, running a hand through his hair. “Clear as ice.” 

“Fuck,” you wimper as the the door slams shut behind you and Jungkook crowds your personal space. He’s breathing heavily, yanking harshly at your jacket zipper until it falls to the ground and your sports bra is all you’re wearing on top. He unzips that too and lets it fall to the ground, kissing you senselessly, lips moving against yours and drawing out your breaths and moans. 

“God I missed this,” he breathes, grabbing your waist and hoisting you up. Wrapping your legs around his waist you tongue at his neck as he sets you on his bed and strips off his jacket. “Did you miss me too?” He smirks as he sucks on your nipple crewdly and you moan in response, hips bucking up into his. 

“No--oh my god” you keen when he yanks down your legging and rubs at you through your underwear. Your hand flies down to grip his wrist, eyes squeezing shut at the sensation. “Oh-- fuck, please don’t stop.” 

He just chuckles and yanks your underwear band aside to reveal your dripping core, sliding his fingers in you with no obstruction at all. “Oh shit, Y/N, you’re so fucking wet,” he grumbles, nipping at your breast as you mewl and twist under the onslaught of sensations. 

“Take your pants off,” you breathe, panting harshly as he kneels up to peel his shirt off, revealing white milky skin, textured with taught lines and lean muscle. You help him untie the strings on his sweatpants, nimble fingers working desperately at the waistband until Jungkook gets impatient and just yanks it down his hips along with his boxers. 

While he grabs a condom, you yank off your panties, pushing him to sit up against the headboard of the bed. You straddle him, throwing a thigh over his hips and resting your hands on his shoulders for leverage. 

Were his shoulders always this broad? 

You shake away the thought as he grips himself and guides himself to your center, rubbing his sensitive tip against your wetness and smearing it around to make it more comfortable. You busy yourself with sucking a hickey against his collarbone, licking and biting until the clean flesh becomes red and inflamed and shiny with your spit. 

“Ready?” He breathes out, pupils blown out as he pants up at you. You nod and lower yourself on him slowly, and Jungkook moves his hand from gripping himself to settle and help you guide your hips down onto him. The both of you moan when you bottom out, panting and gripping each other desperately. When the stretch isn’t so bad, you rock your hips slowly back and forth, not yet bouncing up and down on him yet. 

The movement stimulates your clit against his pelvis and you moan, throwing your head back and looping your arms around his neck as you continue to swivel your hips on him. Jungkook sits there, eyes heavy lidded as he watches you with a slight smile on his lips. His hand raises to curl your hair over your shoulder, his hand following and resting on your neck as he leans down to kiss against your neck, tongue laving heavily, hot and wet against your skin as  you cling to him. 

He’s marking you too, focusing on the area right where your jawline meets your ear and nibbling against it, teeth scraping against the sensitive skin, making you moan. “Jungkook,” you whine, and he seems to understand what you’re asking for when his hand settles on your hips again and he begins to guide you up and down his length. 

The extra stimulation gets him going and he cringes. “Fuck, Y/N,” he grits his teeth and his hairline begins to dot with sweat at the effort. “I...I’m gonna cum s-soon.” 

“Already?” You gasp, opening your eyes to ask him. He nods, biting his lip as he groans, his jaw falling open. “I-it’s been a r-really long t-time. And you feel s-so fucking good. Hngh.” He groans as you squeeze around him in response to his praise. 

“Okay,” you breathe, “Just wait for me, hold on.” You reach down and rub your clit in wide circles, gathering the wetness from where you and Jungkook meet, and pressing into your clit with the pads of your fingers. Jungkook just buries his face into your neck, panting harshly against your collarbone as you continue to swivel your hips, moaning and rubbing like your life depended on it. 

With the feeling of Jungkooks lips on your nipples and his hands roaming your body, and his dick reaching parts of you that your fingers can’t even think of stimulating, and along with the 7-month-long hiatus from sex with him, you find yourself reaching the edge fairly quickly. 

“O-oh shit, Jungkook,” you whisper, letting him take over in rubbing circles on your clit, “I-I’m gonna---” You bite down on his shoulder, dampening the moans that tumble out of your mouth as you topple over the edge. At the sensation, Jungkook cums almost simultaenously as he finally lets himself go, and his moans spur you on as you quake over him and both your hips stutter at the overwhelming rush of pleasure. 

You pant and tremble as the sensations run through your entire body, your eyes rolling back as you moan and mewl and say whatever the fuck is coming out of your mouth right now at the feelings. But apparently it’s not completely and utterly horseshit that you’re muttering right now because Jungkook rocks up into you, riding out his own high and groaning your name loudly as his orgasm subsides. 

He laughs a little when he finishes, and the action makes him move a bit inside of you and you cringe, muttering a “ew you’re so sticky,” as you climb off of him. He stands after you, following you into the shower and flushing down the condom. Grinning and leaning against the doorway, he watches you climb into the shower and hose down your body. 

“How the hell were you hooked up with your own room? And bathroom?” You mutter, using the body wash there to clean off all the sweat. 

When he doesn’t respond, you turn, but a hand snakes around your waist. “Let me,” he murmurs, grabbing the soap from you and running along your back, his warm hands scratching over your skin. You let your head fall back at the sensation as he focuses a little too much on your breasts, swirling over the nipple with circular motions and gentle hands. “Again?” 

“Let’s save water,” he grins and you let him. 

You don’t save any water that day. It was 44 minutes too long. 

“Let’s go get some food,” Jungkook whines, as you both finish, collapsing on the bed with panting breathes as you come down from your high. His hands cradle your waist as you take a moment to gather yourself before you prop yourself up. 

“Huh?” You wrinkle your nose down at him, propping your arms on his chest. 

He laughs, sitting up and grabbing his shirt. “You said you were hungrier earlier. And we barely ate today, after gymming in the morning. I’m starving,” he whines, pouting at you and  you laugh, rolling off of his bed to grab your clothes. 

“I can’t,” you whine, pouting at your belly and poking the skin there. “If coach finds out I’m eating anything other than the diet we’re limited to, she’ll kill me.” 

He rolls his eyes, shrugging on a hoodie. “Oh god,” he groans, pulling on his baggy pants with easy. “You’re literally skinnier than some models that I’ve slept with.” 

You glare at him when he mentions the models and he laughs guiltily. “Sorry,” he grins, “But it’s true. You can afford to eat whatever you like. C’mon, just one meal won’t hurt.” 

You sigh, pulling on your leggings and a clean pair of underwear. Somehow...you ended up having a stash of underwear hidden deep within Jungkook’s drawers. 

“Fine,” you grumble, but the grin on your face says otherwise. It’d been ages since you ate anything other than the planned dietary foods prepared for you by your coach and  parents. This...this time wouldn’t be too bad. No one would notice. 

“Where’s my phone?” You grumble, digging through the bedsheets and your bag as you search for it. 

Jungkook shrugs, shaking out his hair. “I’ll meet you outside, gonna pee before we go.” 

You shrug him off and he leaves, and you finally find the device and slip it into your pocket. You also grab Jungkook’s really baggy hoodie and pull it over your thin workout spandex long sleeve and leggings, relishing in the way his smell floods your senses as the warm and soft fabric tumbles down your body all the way to your mid-thigh. Grinning, you turn to open the door, calling out, “Jungkook I--” 

Standing down the hall, with a packet of yogurt hanging from his lips and eyes as wide as yours, is Seokjin. His hand lingers on his doorknob, and he balks at you as you stand in Jungkook’s single room, in his clothes, and takes one glance at the messy room full of your stuff and mussed up bedsheets, and connects the dots immediately. 

“Seokjin...” you breathe, eyes darting to the main entrance. 

“What the fuck?” He sputters, pulling out the plastic packet from his mouth and stomping up to you. “You’re the girl that Jungkook’s been fucking?”

You bite your lip, trying to rack up any excuse, but you come up blank. “Oh my god, Seokjin, you can’t tell anyone! Not even Irene, if coach finds out she’ll kill me---” 

He whisper-yells at you. “Have you even met our coach? He’ll rip our balls off one by one if he knew Jungkook was slacking off in any way.” 

“Also,” he adds, frowning, “How dare you?! I thought you said he was gross.” 

You grin sheepishly. “It just happened...the stress and all, and there’s a lot of time in 3 weeks for 24 hours...” 

He shakes his head trying to get the image of you out of his head. “God,” he hisses, “I’ve been trying to set the two of you up for years! And all you two did was give me shit for it. Little did I know you two were already getting it on,” he glances behind him, to the vicinity of his room, whipping back around to you furiously. “And right next to my room?!” 

You sigh, gripping his arm. “C’mon Seokjin I know you won’t tell, but I need you to say it out loud. Please, promise me you won’t tell.” 

He sighs, groaning at you before relenting. “Alright, fine. But only because you gave me really yummy vitamins next week and medicine for my constipation.” 

You grin, reaching up to hug him. When he leaves for his room, Jungkook finally emerges from the restroom, grinning. “Whatcha two talkin’ about?” He grins, cocking his chin at Seokjin’s door. 

You march up to him, punching him hard. He doubles over, winded. “What the fuck Jungkook?!” you hiss, “I thought you said no one’s home before 3!” 

He winces, groaning and clutching his stomach. “Jeez woman,” he croaks, “Who the fuck taught you how to punch?” 

You smirk, “Get up. I’m hungry now.” He grins as he leads you to the front door. He reaches down and pulls the hood of his sweater up and around your head, bunching it low over your eyes. “Good,” he comments, doing the same to his own. “We can’t get caught sneaking out. I know of a way.” He winks and leads you down the elevator and towards the edge of the campus. 

“Where?” You hiss, jogging after him. 

He grins at you, pulling you alongside him with a warm hand that curls around yours. “Just trust me.” He walks straight for where the trash deposits are, and you wrinkle your nose at the smell of rotting food and boxes of cardboard strewn messily in the garage. But in the corner, you can clearly see a door marked with a red EXIT sign. 

“That’s the only one that doesn’t lock, all around campus,” he explains, slowly and gently opening it and glancing around to make sure the coast is clear before jogging out with you. “The others have cameras or guards, but this one I guess was forgotten with all the other construction that was going on.” 

You hmm in agreement and relish in the way Jungkook’s hand feels against yours. It’s a lot bigger, and his long fingers curl all the way to the middle of your palm, where his thumb strokes gently and warmly against your smooth skin. Feeling the way your hand is freezing cold, he pockets both your hands in his jacket pockets, nesting both your hands in the warm comforts of his down jacket. 

After a bit of walking, you make it to a decently crowded pedestrian area where he leads you to a corner of the street, where a tiny snack shop sits. Your mouth waters at the sight of a couple people inside, drinking hot soups and chowing down on instant ddukbokki’s and kimbap’s and ramen bowls that made your stomach churn with anticipation. 

“Oh my god,” you whisper, as Jungkook grins at you and leads you up to the stands, taking a seat in the corner. He still doesn’t let go, letting your intertwined hands rest on the plastic foldable table. “How did you find this place?” you whisper, after he orders a heaping pile of food for the both of you. 

“It’s a secret passed down through the snowboarding team for generations,” he winks, grinning when the cook brings over a steaming pile of rice cakes and korean pancakes and kimbap for you both to start on. You use the skewer to grab a piece and pop it into your mouth, humming and grinning at the wonderful taste of spicy and sweet that bursts within your mouth. Moaning at the sensation, you skewer a few more pieces into your mouth, chewing thoughtfully as he explains. 

“The hyungs would sneak out every chance we get. Our coach is a little...stiff and strict, but he lets us do this sort of in an apology for how strict he usually is.” 

You nod, chewing and washing it down with a sip of hot soup. “And does he come with you?” 

Jungkook shakes his head, using his free hand to grab a kimbap and chew on it. “Nope, he lets us have our thing. It’s like a tradition. I think this year, the team plans to come back here at least a few more times before we have to go back.” 

You grin, happily finishing up the plate of rice cakes. Staring at the empty bottom in horror you gulp. “Oh shit, when did I finish this whole thing?” You frown, trying to count the calories in your head. “Fuck, I’m screwed.” Dropping your skewer, you feel tears of shame brimming in your eyes.

Jungkook just frowns and shakes his head. He calls out for another order and you protest, but he just retorts, “Even the people with the best bodies let themselves have cheat days for goodness sake. You need this, Y/N. Don’t just de-stress with sex, rejuvenate with some food too.” 

You melt under his worried words and grin, sheepishly nodding when he hands you a new skewer. 

“Thanks Jungkook,” you whisper, taking another sip of the delicious ramen. “I love this place.” 

He grins, his hand curling around yours tighter. 

Once the both of you finish eating, he takes you around a bit more to explore, and then the both of you stumble back into his dorm. 

“Oh my god,” He mumbles into your neck as you unbuckle his jeans and slip a hand down his boxers. “Your hands are freezing,” he grits, licking and kissing at your neck as you pump him tightly in your fist. 

You giggle, letting him undo the zipper of your jacket and slide your jumper off of your torso. His hands fall heavily on your breasts, cradling them and letting their weight fall into his palms as he presses you into his warm bed. “Yours too,” you pant, the end of your declaration hitching up into a moan as he moves his mouth down to suck harshly at your nipple before tenderly running his warm tongue over it. 

“Let me warm you up,” he moans, and you remove your hand from his pants as he gets busy getting rid of yours. Once completely off and your leggings and panties thrown haphazardly over his shoulder, he hikes your thighs up over his shoulders and licks a warm stripe up your slit. 

Your head falls back onto the pillows, abs tensing as Jungkook gets to work, his warm mouth and tongue laving all over your lips and slit, maneuvering in patterns that make you twist and turn like putty under his hands. Your own hands are gripping at his forearms crossed over your belly, anchoring you to the bed, nails digging into his cold skin and scratching at the nape of his neck where you hold the strands of his hair tightly. 

“F-fuck,” you moan, hips jostling against his arms, “I-I can’t...Jungkook, just put it in...” you beg, core clenching as he boldly pushes you right up against the point of tipping over. But no matter how good you taste and how beautiful you sound and look right now, Jungkook also agrees that the best way to watch you cum is when you’re writhing underneath him. 

“Fine,” he mutters, rolling his eyes at you. 

So he licks one last cheeky stripe up against your clit, the rough pad of his tongue stimulating you enough to make you jump before he gets up, carding off his shirt and pants as he climbs up your body and meets you in the middle with a sloppy kiss. 

He hastily puts on the condom and slides into you with no intrusion, settling his warm weight on yours, chest against yours and hips gently rocking into your core. You moan and clutch at him desperately, throwing your arms around his neck and curling your legs around him like a vice. 

Jungkook lets out a strangled moan of your name, stuttering, “Sh-shit, don’t clench, y-you’re so fucking tight,” he grits, and when you see the way his jaw tenses in the effort to not cum too fast, you can’t help but lean up and nip teasingly at his ear and scrape your teeth against the sharp jawline. 

“C’mon,” you whisper, whining as he begins rutting into you faster, “Hurry,” you moan, and Jungkook leans up, detaching from your neck to sit up a bit better and piston his hips into you, angling himself just enough so the tip of his cock slides and taps right against the spot that has your toes curling and your eyes rolling into the back of your skull. You moan and pant and whine like an animal in heat as Jungkook wipes the sweat off his brow, and gets this steely look on his face as he drives home. 

The both of you finish, eachother’s names on the tip of your tongues and moans as you huskily whine and pant, bodies trembling with the overexertion of so much sex and the overwhelming pleasure of both your climaxes. 

Jungkook collapses on you, breathing heavily, and you let him stay there, kissing small innocent, apologetic kisses into the soft flesh of your chest as he comes down from his high. 

You begin giggling, as he does so, cringing a bit from the oversensitivity of the orgasm and laughing at the tickling feeling of his lips smoothing so softly over your skin. 

“One more time?” He asks, and he instantly feels the way your breath hitches and shudders at the suggestion. 

You smirk down at him, bringing him in for a kiss. 

“Of course,” you whisper against his lips, smiling as he grins and meets you halfway again. 

You didn’t go home at all that night. 

tbd! 

[mhdiaries]

Diary of Toralei Stripe

Better have nine lives if I catch you reading my diary. 

July. Two. Five.

Ooh they’re telling math jokes now...

Q: What do you get if you divide the circumference of a jack-o-lantern by its diameter?

A: Pumpkin Pi!

The math geeks I’m stuck on this bus with think that this is funny. So funny in fact, that the harpy sitting in front of me shoots milk out of her nose when she hears the punch line. I don’t think it’s funny at all. I’d rather be listening to the music I have stored on my iCoffin but two hours into our five-hour ride home my iCoffin gave up the ghost. It should have lasted the whole trip and then some except that one of my math camp roomies “accidentally” unplugged my iCoffin charger last night when she plugged in her fright light. I don’t even know why a ghost needs a fright light. What? Was she afraid she would trip over something and go “bump in the night?” I realized what happened when we woke up this morning but we had to leave first thing so I didn’t have time to put a full charge on it. At least I got enough battery life to block out the two hours dedicated to the singing of “X Number Bottles of Ghoul Juice on the Wall.” To add to the misery the seats on this bus only have room for two monsters and Meowlody and Purrsephone are of course sitting together which left me stuck in a seat next to a troll named Teala who had never been away from her bridge for more than a day until she came to math camp.She cried herself to sleep every night. Not that any other monster but me noticed but then again I notice everything. I also noticed Teala wasn’t laughing at any of the math jokes either. In fact she seemed to be more miserable than I was. Well now, here I was thinking she was missing her bridge but if that were the case why didn’t she seem excited about going home? “Dish,” I said. She turned and looked at me for a moment and then stared back ahead. “Okay - suit yourself then,” I said and then tried to curl up in the seat to take a cat nap which I had almost accomplished when she said; “My boy-fiend broke up with me...by text...the first night of math camp.” She still wasn’t looking at me but she wasn’t crying either. “He was my first real boyfriend and...and I don’t know why I’m telling you ‘cause you don’t seem to care about any monster besides yourself and you’ll probably figure out a way to use this to make me even more miserable.” I didn’t show it, but that really hurt. Just because I enjoy the chaos that a good practical joke brings doesn’t mean that I’m intentionally cruel does it? I don’t think it does and besides; where’s the fun of kicking some monster when they’re already down? It’s a lot more fun to see the surprise on a monster’s face when they think they’ve got it all together and you can “help them” see that they don’t. So I said, “Guess you better tell me the whole story then so I can do a thorough job.” That actually brought a ghost of a smile to her face. Teala told me that her ex boy-fiend was applying to colleges and that he decided he needed to keep his “options open” in case he might meet his “intellectual equal” at school. At first I didn’t believe he actually wrote that and then she showed me the text. “Does he really think he’s that smart,” I asked. She kind of shrugged and said, “He’s scary smart but not as good at math as I am, especially withy differential equations.” She told me he really wanted to get into this one school because his favorite mad scientist taught there. I’d never heard of the school but I knew who the mad scientist was because Mr. Hack made use watch a bunch of his videos in class. The videos were deadly boring but the mad scientist had this odd accent and strange speech pattern. I used to mimic his voice in class to make Mr. Hack jump. I’d wait until Mr. Hack’s back was turned and then scream, “Huhhacckkk - theeese stuuudannts reeelease youuu wuh-ill ah-yuat wa-unce!” It cost me several days in detention and a trip to Headless Headmistress Bloodgood’s office the last time I mimicked the mad scientist but even Mr. Hack admitted he couldn’t tell the difference between the scientist’s voice and my imitation of it. We talked about a few more things and then Teala finally fell asleep. I was able to finally fall asleep as well but not before having to hear another math joke followed by an explosion of milk from the seat in front of me.

July. Two. Eight.

I went to MH today to pick up some pictures I left in the FearBook office. When I was done I went up to the belfry. It’s a good place to keep an eye on things without other eyes watching you. It’s also a good place to take a nap. Usually the hunchback who rings the bells...the bells...works up there but he was on summer vacation in France or somewhere so I had the place to myself; until Spectra came floating through that is. She thinks that she’s very stealthy but it’s almost impossible to sneak up on me and I heard the rattle of her chains long before she actually appeared. I pretended to be asleep for a moment then with my eyes still closed I said, “What do you want Spectra?” “Oh, hello Toralei. Did you hear the news?” Most monsters don’t trust anything they hear from Spectra. I know better. There’s always an element of truth in her “news”. You just need to know how to listen. Here’s an example; Spectra told me she heard that Nefera is moving back to town and will be taking over for Ms. Kindergruber in Home Ick. Not only that but Ms. Kindergruber is also going to quit teaching to become a roadie for her favorite rock and roll band. Now as much fun as it is to imagine Ms. K. climbing stacks of amps while wearing a sleeveless leather vest, bandana and steel toed boots it’s not going to happen. Although when compared to the thought of Nefera actually “lowering herself” to teach, it’s practically a done deal Ms K will be hitting the road. I’m pretty sure out of that confusing jumble of information the one true fact is that Nefera is moving back to town and probably sooner rather than later...now there’s a monster who enjoys kicking some body when it’s down.

July. Three. Zero.

Got an email today from Teala, the troll girl I sat with on the ride home from math camp. Apparently her ex boy-fiend told her that he got a call from the mad scientist he wanted to study under. The scientist told her ex that his test scores indicated a “skuhh-ill weeeakness in diffuhh-wrenntial eeeequay-shunns” and that her ex should find some monster that was intellectually superior and “geeet sah-ummm tuutorr-ing”. Her ex was certain it was the professor since “no monster could fake that voice.” He also apologized to Teala for being an arrogant jerk and asked if she would tutor him in differential equations. Teala told him that she would have to check her schedule. Sometimes it is just purrrecious the way things work out for the beast.

August. One. Three.

I bought a ball of dragon thread today for Sweet Fangs. It’s just about the only material that’s strong enough to survive more than one play session with her. I don’t know what I’m going to do when Sweet Fangs gets bigger because I’m probably going to need the whole dragon and I’m not sure mom and dad are going to be good with that.

August. Two. Five.

M&P came over today. They’re like my sisters and I can’t imagine how boring unlife would be without them. We do just about everything together and some monsters even think we’re related but we’re not. Not that it matters since we don’t really care what other monsters think anyway. We are who we are and any monster or monsters that want to try and herd us better get ready for a long miserable day. Today we weren’t worried about being herded, today was a brainstorm session. Our mission, repay Cleo de Nile and her minions for not only ruining our perfectly planned graduation prank but also for taking away part of our valuable summer vacation by “arranging” our trip to math camp. Knowing that it was Cleo who got the better of us is almost as irritating as being wet or having my fur stroked the wrong way. I can’t believe that I actually helped her when she first wanted to be a part of the Fear Squad. Cleo didn’t even know how to do a cartwheel, much less a round off. So I took her under my claw and taught her everything I knew and since I’d been doing gymnastics from the time I was a kitten I knew a lot. I finally got Cleo to the point where she started to “get it” and instead of being a liability she started contributing. I figured that for all my hard work and leadership Nefera would make me the Fear Squad captain when she graduated. Only she didn’t - she passed it onto Cleo. I can still remember what Nefera said to me when I confronted her about it. “I didn’t want Cleo to succeed - I wanted her to be humiliated but since you helped her, you get to deal with the consequences.” Then Cleo acted as if she deserved to be the captain and that she automatically knew everything there was to know about leading the Fear Squad. She should have showed some humility and stepped aside. She didn’t so now it’s up to me to teach her some new lessons and I can’t wait for class to be back in session.  

August. Three. One.

There’s a meteor shower tonight, which will give us the purrrfect opportunity to practice the three D’s. Divert. Design. Demure. First I divert attention away from myself - although tonight the meteor shower should do that for me, next I design a “surprise” for my intended victim student and then after the unexpected happens I demure - “Oh my, what happened here?” More later...

Ended up scraping the three D’s tonight, mostly because the meteor shower diverted me. I was supposed to meet M&P at this coffee shop down close to the beach - it’s the only time I go to the beach since sand + water + fur = unhappy werecat - but they were late so I grabbed a catnipuccino and waited. The owner turned down the lights of the shop so it was almost dark and then the sky was falling. The ghouls showed up just as somewhere down the beach a monster started playing guitar and I said, “Just because we’ve got nine lives doesn’t mean we need to rush through this one.” And we didn’t.