#SECS/GEM capability

[sewer-swan]

Odd to me to characterize Marxism as this incredible core thing absent from social science. I'm going to wade heroically into intellectual territory a bit beyond me here, but iirc Erik Olin Wright's neo-Marxist analysis reached pretty similar conclusions to the neo-Weberian Goldthorpe Schema that became the NS-SEC, the accepted standard for class analysis in the UK. But more than this, social science is like, incredibly broad. Marxism has a tremendous amount to offer, I love Russel's money model of disability, I love Marxist critique of how capitalism feeds on unpaid labour created by misogyny, etc.

But it's not really been this hidden gem to me, I got taught Marxism from day one, it's the first example of a conflict theory I ever got taught, and one of my social stratification assignments was to explain class stratification in the UK via both Marxist and Weberian theory. Just class stratification, mind you, because if you do other kinds of stratification Weber is gonna inevitably win with ideas like opportunity-hoarding which capably explain things like white labour movements betraying black workers.

I may have simply been taught in a biased way or fallen victim to the raw amount of effort made to avoid Marxist conclusions! But I hadn't thought of Marxism as a silver bullet like that.

[einnosyssecsgem]

Is Your OEM-Provided SECS/GEM System Falling Short in Terms of Performance or Reliability?

In the fast-paced world of semiconductor manufacturing, seamless communication between equipment and control systems is vital for achieving high operational efficiency. SECS/GEM—the Semiconductor Equipment Communication Standard and Generic Equipment Model—is the cornerstone protocol enabling this level of communication. However, many Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM)-provided SECS/GEM systems fail to deliver the performance and reliability manufacturers demand. If your current SECS/GEM system isn’t meeting expectations, it may be time to reevaluate your approach.

The Critical Role of SECS/GEM Systems

SECS/GEM serves as the backbone of equipment-to-host communication, ensuring that machines interact effectively with Manufacturing Execution Systems (MES). From automating routine processes to monitoring equipment health, SECS/GEM protocols are integral to semiconductor operations. A robust SECS/GEM

communication protocol should provide:

Real-time data exchange for actionable insights.

Seamless GEM300 compliance for advanced automation.

Reliable and efficient equipment monitoring and control.

However, many OEM-provided SECS/GEM solutions are generic by design, which can lead to limitations in customization, scalability, and performance. These limitations often manifest as delayed responses, unreliable data transfers, and restricted flexibility in adapting to specific operational needs.

Common Shortcomings of OEM SECS/GEM Systems

Limited Customization: Most OEM SECS/GEM systems are designed for general use rather than tailored for your specific manufacturing environment. This lack of customization can result in a mismatch between the system’s capabilities and your operational requirements.

Performance Issues: Generic SECS/GEM software often struggles with handling large data loads or maintaining consistent communication during peak operations. These issues can lead to unexpected downtime or operational inefficiencies.

Integration Challenges: OEM systems may lack the flexibility required for seamless SECS/GEM integration with your existing MES. This can hinder the flow of information across your manufacturing ecosystem, reducing overall productivity.

Lack of Advanced Features: Features such as predictive maintenance and comprehensive analytics—increasingly important in modern semiconductor manufacturing—are often absent or underdeveloped in OEM-provided SECS/GEM communication protocols.

Overcoming SECS/GEM System Limitations

To address these shortcomings, manufacturers can explore third-party SECS/GEM interface solutions that are specifically designed to enhance communication and operational efficiency. These systems are built with flexibility, scalability, and reliability in mind, providing an edge over standard OEM options.

Key Advantages of Upgrading Your SECS/GEM System:

Enhanced Performance: Custom SECS/GEM software solutions can handle higher data loads and deliver faster response times, ensuring reliable communication even under demanding conditions.

Greater Flexibility: Advanced SECS/GEM communication systems allow for greater customization to suit specific manufacturing needs.

Seamless GEM300 Compliance: Upgraded systems ensure adherence to GEM300 standards, facilitating advanced process automation and interoperability.

Improved Integration: Robust SECS/GEM integration capabilities simplify the connection between equipment and MES, enabling smoother operations.

Advanced Analytics: Modern SECS/GEM communication protocols often come with built-in tools for real-time data analysis and predictive maintenance, offering deeper insights into equipment performance.

Real-World Example: Transforming Operations with Upgraded SECS/GEM Systems

Consider a semiconductor manufacturer struggling with frequent communication breakdowns and operational delays due to an underperforming OEM-provided SECS/GEM system.

By deploying a custom third-party SECS/GEM communication protocol, they were able to:

Reduce downtime by 40% through reliable real-time data exchange.

Achieve seamless SECS/GEM integration with their MES, streamlining workflows.

Leverage predictive maintenance to prevent equipment failures, improving uptime.

Ensure GEM300 compliance for advanced automation capabilities.

The result? Higher operational efficiency, lower maintenance costs, and improved production yields.

If your OEM-provided SECS/GEM system is falling short in terms of performance or reliability, it’s time to explore advanced solutions. Investing in a robust SECS/GEM communication protocol tailored to your needs can significantly enhance your manufacturing capabilities. From seamless SECS/GEM integration and GEM300 compliance to predictive maintenance and real-time analytics, modern SECS/GEM systems are designed to meet the demands of today’s semiconductor industry.

Don’t let an outdated system hold you back. Upgrade your SECS/GEM interface today and unlock new levels of productivity and efficiency in your operations.

For more information on advanced SECS/GEM solutions, contact our team of experts. Let us help you achieve unparalleled performance and reliability in your manufacturing processes.

[crossed-worlds]

Repair Update

"Holy Gaia! This machine's capable of everything medical wise! From vaccinations to amputations he's practically a walking hospital! I'm seeing syringes in his thumbs, self sanitizing claws that work just as finely as any surgical blade, dual tanks for oxygen and anesthesia...and that's scratching the surface! But uh....I doubt he could handle more than one person at a time."

"....Wait a sec. Since we have to remove the engine from the design entirely. What if...we took that concept of Metal Sonic....and went all the way? Make it so he CAN handle mass emergencies on his own. Well....if he has enough supplies that is."

"Huh, you might have something there. We could redistribute the power so the Overdrive function is part of everything he can do. He'd be...the first Metal Sonic to go all the way to being a flawless copy by all outward appearances. There's just one problem...."

"....I know... it'd be easier if his gemstone was complete. But my emerald radar wouldn't work for this world. And it's probably at the bottom of the ocean and out of range anyway. We'll have to work with the broken gem as it is..."

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

The Best of Chess Checker Cadet Soul 1984 Soul / R&B / Soul-Jazz

Folks, you'd think by now that people would've done more than enough appreciating of a hugely important and successful label like Chicago's Chess Records, but it's simply not true. Chess may have themselves been a blues juggernaut, and they may have also played a deeply integral role in the early development of rock & roll with fixtures like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley too, but the vast majority of their soul wing flew very under the radar, outside of Fontella Bass' terrific classic, "Rescue Me," a song that people time and time again have mistaken for being an Aretha Franklin tune anyway, so much so, that in 1992, it was actually repurposed as "Deliver Me" for a very goofy Pizza Hut ad that starred none other than Aretha herself 😵‍💫.

(Tell me you wouldn't want one of those Jeeps, though 👀.)

Now, I'm not entirely sure why Chess' soul output didn't end up garnering the reputation that it deserved, but I'm willing to posit that an already crowded field that was largely dominated by the likes of Motown, Stax/Volt, and Atlantic was the main culprit. Truth be told, there was *a lot* of soul music being made all throughout the 60s, and it really wasn't possible to accommodate it all with proper radio rotation and promotion, which is how we eventually ended up with the term 'soul gem' in our music collecting lexicon, in order to recognize brilliant tunes from the genre's past that had unfortunately and unjustifiably gone mostly unnoticed.

And you don't need to burrow very deep into this album at all in order to understand the level of quality soul music that Chess and its Checker and Cadet subsidiaries were capable of making, because the first couple tunes on this thing are absolute sticks of dynamite, both of which were made possible by one of the label's own versatile producers, Billy Davis. Here, we get the instant one-two punch of Billy Stewart's powerful top-ten Billboard hit cover of the Porgy & Bess jazz standard, "Summertime," which sees Stewart effervescently doing some highly impressive scatting with a backing band that packs a big sound; and that's then followed by The Radiants' "Hold On," but the version here is not the one that would only get to #68 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 1968. Instead, it's an incredible, underheard outtake that seems to be superior, but only currently has 34 plays on YouTube! Why Chess originally chose to not go with this version of the song is a little puzzling to me, but at least it's on this album here. An uptempo and dancy bop with orchestral strings, electric guitar lashes, and sweet group harmonies that back the scratch-passionate lead of Mitchell Bullock. What a late 60s soul gem 🤩.

And to get back to Fontella Bass for a quick sec, it's actually a bit bittersweet for her to appear on this album three separate times, because after "Rescue Me" got to #4 on the Hot 100 in 1965, she was effectively blacklisted by the industry for demanding fair pay for her work. See, not only had she sung "Rescue Me," but she had also co-written it too, and she had to fight tooth and nail to finally get the writing credit for it—a record that'd been Chess' first million-seller in around a decade since Chuck Berry. Bass' royalty check without that writing credit was a relative pittance, and by the time this issue had been resolved, the potential for her to mount a long and successful career had passed her by 😔. So while a defining golden oldie like "Rescue Me" is certainly obligatory on a Chess soul retrospective like this, seeing anything more from Bass here comes as something of a surprise, because you'd think that the label wouldn't want to pay her any more mind than they absolutely had to 🤷‍♂️.

Anyway, a lot of people seem to have never realized it, but in addition to their massive contributions to both blues and rock & roll, Chess' soul division spent the better part of the 60s pumping out some great music too. And this 1984 LP here, while still curiously missing *some* pretty big hits—where's Etta James' "Tell Mama"?— undoubtedly proves it 👍.

Highlights:

Billy Stewart - "Summertime" Radiants - "Hold On" Fontella Bass - "Recovery" Mitty Collier - "I Had a Talk With My Man" Fontella Bass - "Rescue Me" Radiants - "Voice Your Choice" Jackie Ross - "Selfish One" Dells - "Wear It On Your Face"

[lark-gainesville]

Cool Amenities

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Gainesville, FL, is situated in north-central Florida and is known for its lush, green landscape and diverse ecosystems. The area is primarily flat, with beautiful rolling hills and numerous lakes, making it perfect for outdoor enthusiasts. The city is surrounded by natural parks, like Paynes Prairie Preserve State Park, which offers trails for hiking and birdwatching. Gainesville also has a unique charm, with neighborhoods that blend urban and rural vibes, giving you easy access to both city life and nature. Plus, being near major highways means you can easily explore other parts of Florida. With its warm climate and abundant sunshine, Gainesville is a great spot for those who love to enjoy the outdoors year-round.

Depot Park in Gainesville, FL

Depot Park in Gainesville, FL, is a fantastic spot to unwind and enjoy the outdoors. This 13-acre urban oasis features beautiful walking trails, expansive lawns perfect for picnicking, and a fun playground for the kids. You can take a leisurely stroll under the shade of tall trees or kick back with friends while enjoying a meal from one of the nearby food trucks. The park also hosts a variety of community events throughout the year, so there’s always something happening. Plus, it's dog-friendly, making it a great place for you and your furry friend to explore together. With its mix of nature and community spirit, Depot Park truly is a gem in Gainesville.

Kincell Bio Expands Production With New Manufacturing Partner at Its Gainesville, FL Facility

Cell therapy is a cutting-edge medical approach that involves using cells to treat or prevent diseases, especially those that are difficult to manage with traditional treatments. It can include various techniques, like modifying a patient’s own cells to fight diseases or using donor cells to replace damaged ones. Kincell Bio, based in Gainesville, FL, is making waves in this field by expanding its production capabilities with a new manufacturing partner. This collaboration focuses on developing patient-specific, clinical-grade cell therapies aimed at addressing degenerative diseases. By enhancing its facilities and resources, Kincell is well-positioned to support clinical trials and contribute to innovative treatments that can potentially improve many patients’ lives.

Link to map

Depot Park 874 SE 4th St, Gainesville, FL 32601, United States Head east toward SE 4th St 1 sec (23 ft) Continue to SW Depot Ave 2 min (0.7 mi) Follow SW Depot Ave and SW 9th Rd to SW 13th St 2 min (0.5 mi) Turn left onto SW 13th St 46 sec (0.2 mi) Lark Gainesville 1245 SW 11th Ave, Gainesville, FL 32601, United States

[cleverwerewolfsalad]

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[cugzarui]

clarifying on how the show treats the concepts of good and bad: the show does portray things as being right or wrong but that's not where the focus is. the focus is on whether something harms people and whether it helps them get along. this is, for example, why the diamonds get 'redeemed' rather than say killed. after they learn steven has pinks gem, they don't want to fight anymore and instead agree to help. there's no practical benefit to fighting them after that point regardless of any wrongdoing they did in the past.

the characters as well can't be simply put into boxes of 'right' or 'wrong'. some specific things characters do are portrayed as right or wrong, but each character as a whole will serve at times as an antagonist and at others as a hero. steven included. white diamond included actually. and a lot of the right and wrong isn't some objective right or wrong, it's a more personal kind. for instance, garnet is right for wanting to be fused all the time because that's what's right for garnet, but peridot is right for never fusing because that's what's right for peridot.

overall the shows portrayal of right and wrong is: these are people. sometimes they hurt each other or even themselves. sometimes they help each other or stand up fir themselves. wouldn't it be nice if they could all get along and not be in pain?

the cases where the show does portray something as objectively bad is when it's something very clearly and deeply wrong. like the kindergarten.

as for how boundaries fit into this: it's not difficult to figure out how boundaries work. yea white diamonds boundaries were crossed. now that you mention it i can see that's definitely a thing that happened. that's why she corrupted a bunch of gems and pulled out steven's soul gem. if you cross someone's boundaries they will do something about it. that's what a boundary means. but she herself also crossed a near infinite fuckton of boundaries herself and was still actively doing so by the end of the show and refusing to help fix the damage she was causing (which as it turns out, just means stepping into a pool for a few secs so not that big a deal). if EVERYONES boundaries are being crossed you need to figure out a way to resolve that conflict. and that's what breaking into white diamonds head was about.

as for her being wrong: again, this is more evidence against the white is god interpretation. god isn't supposed to be wrong from what i've heard. however, people who act like god can absolutely be wrong. and you know what? what she believed didn't strictly need changing. yea it seems she's doing a lot better after changing her views and understanding, but all the show really needed her for was to fix the corrupted gems. which, again, just involves stepping into a pool for a sec. she could've done that without changing even slightly. or well, she was physically capable of doing that without changing. mentally, and this is why she needs to be 'fixed', is that her views and emotional state prevented her from undoing the metric fuckton of harm she caused.

and the reason why her mental state prevents her isn't strictly because she's wrong about people's identity either. it's because she's stuck in the denial stage of grief. she thinks steven is pink diamond and that now that pinks back everything could finally go back to normal. what? cure the corrupted gems? silly, they nearly killed you before remember? no we'll just leave them as they are you should've never had a colony to begin with. let's just forget that little blunder ever happened.

it's when she finally realizes pinks really gone that she can finally heal from her grief. and consequently, fix the damage she caused.

umm..that last part of your post. i have a bit of trouble parsing it so i can't answer. could you rephrase? the last two paragraphs

“At least it's not ferociously attacking God quite as directly as Steven Universe did…”

Not that I’m surprised by this statement, but can you elaborate on this? Kinda intrigued by your thoughts on Steven Universe.

Okie dokie, you’re not the only one who has asked me about this, so I suppose I’ll poke the hornet’s nest. 😅 I haven’t talked about this before because I assumed that everyone who wanted to hear my kinds of opinions on stories wasn’t watching or interested in Steven Universe.

It’s like asking vegetarian if they enjoyed a turkey dinner. The turkey dinner was so obviously not made for vegetarians to enjoy, so why would the vegetarian even bother analyzing the turkey?

But I think if some people are asking me why I think Steven Universe is anti-God (of the Bible) its because maybe they don’t know what the turkey is. Not completely. (Maybe not you, because like you said, you’re not surprised by my comment.) So I’ll explain my thoughts on Steven Universe.

If you’re just following me because you liked some stuff I posted, but didn’t realize that I’m a Bible-believing Christian and don’t want to hear about it, unfollow me now. Because I’m going to talk about some hot button issues here and the trolls will come out.

Steven Universe is really well-done. The jokes are funny, the writing is believable, the characters have great chemistry, great design, the concept is fascinating, the slow build-up and reveal of the plot elements is great. But when you watch the throne room scene in the last episode of Season 5 “Change Your Mind,” it’s alarmingly clear how much the whole show is not just settling for defending and championing the LGBTQ+ worldview—it goes all the way to attacking what Christians believe, on the other side.

Anything that’s pro-LGBTQ+ is doing that by default, but this show goes out of its way to do that.

You have to understand: God created and designed us. Deeper than that; He created and designed romantic relationships, and invented marriage. He didn’t just create love—He is love. So when humans come along and do what we’ve always done since the fall, and say, “I’d rather define what Your thing is and how it works for myself, God,” it’s not only an incredible slap in the face, it’s an attack on God’s actual identity—and it’s destructive for us and the people around us. Like a fish insisting it can breathe oxygen.

But Steven Universe goes beyond that. It knows that the Christian worldview is it’s biggest opposition. It digs right down to the heart of the worldview-battle. LGBTQ+ worldview says, “I should get to love what I want and be who I am, because I’m me. Love is love. (By which I mean, any action or relationship I choose to call love is love, because I’m the one calling it that.)”

Biblical worldview says “No, wait, you shouldn’t base your decisions on you alone; what you want changes day to day, and you’re broken, so you can’t ever be satisfied based on what you want—the Bible says God made you for something, and you rejected that, and it broke you. You’re not how you’re meant to be: even what you want and what you think love is is twisted up and can hurt you and others. But if you submit to God He’ll help you, He’ll fix what’s broken and give you new life by making you how you were supposed to be: He’ll live in you and through you.”

Are we beginning to get the picture?

See, the whole thing with the opposing views between LGBTQ+ and Christian people is as old as time. It’s not a new debate. It’s Satan and Eve in the garden. She says, “This is not how God said things should be,” and Satan says, “Are you sure that’s what He said? He knows if you do this thing, you’ll be like Him. You’ll be god: you’ll get to decide ‘how things should be’ for yourself.”

He lied and said that disobedience would satisfy her. That she knew what her own heart needed better than the God that made it did. That the very act of being imperfect would make her godlike.

And then Steven Universe comes along and says “if every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hotdogs.”

And has a cast of created being characters who’s imperfections (Garnet’s forbidden “love,” Pearl’s obsession, Amethyst’s insecurity) are supposedly “the best thing about them; what makes them who they are.”

And has a main character who used to be a part of the god-like creator relationship, but used her power to come down to earth and completely change who she is into a fully different person.

And has a godlike Creator character who claims she “doesn’t need” her created beings (just like the God of the Bible) but they all have a little part of their creator in them so she has to repress their imperfections; she holds them all to a standard that’s impossible to reach called “perfection” and punishes them when they don’t meet it even though it hurts them to try; she expects them all to do what they were created by her for; she fixes them when they can’t meet her standard by shining her light through them and making them extensions of their Creator.

And has a main character who argues, fights back, tries to stop her, and is answered with lines that sound surprisingly like what LGBTQ+ people hear when Christians argue with them: “you’re only making things worse; you’re just deceiving yourself; even while you resist it your actual light can’t help shining through,” etc.

White Diamond just wants everything to be perfect. Like her. She just wants her created beings to “be themselves.” But what she means is, be how she created them to be.

And she’s the bad guy. She’s playing God in this show, and Rebecca Sugar is saying, “If God is telling us that can only be happy by being perfect, as He is perfect, and doing what He created us to do, then He’s wrong. Our imperfections are what make us special—unique—individuals—free—and there is nobody who has the right to take that freedom away from us, not even out creator!”

And you know what?

If God were like White Diamond, like Rebecca Sugar believes Him to be, Steven Universe would be right.

But He is NOT.

God is not a dictator who forces us to conform to a standard of perfection and then smashes us when we don’t meet it. He is a King who made us perfect to begin with, and we rejected him, because He allowed us to do that. He knew that true love was love that had to be chosen, and He wanted us to love Him by choice, so he gave us the option. But Rebecca Sugar doesn’t understand—there was never “Choose God or Choose Yourself.” There was only, “Choose God or Choose Nothing.” There was nothing except God. Then He created everything. There is no version of reality where you have something better than God, or even slightly less good but different, to pick. You’re not jumping from one ship into a smaller one, but at least it’s yours—you’re jumping from one ship into a void, and then complaining that there’s no other ship. That’s humans. That’s not God. / White Diamond didn’t make her creations perfect (Amethyst) and she didn’t make them for love. She made them for power. That’s not the God of the Bible.

Even when we did choose to try and love ourselves instead of God, and therefore warped our ability to perfectly love at all, He didn’t smash us. True, everything fell and was cursed, which is exactly what He warned us would happen if we chose it, but it was a natural consequence of breaking ourselves. And then He didn’t leave us that way. He didn’t give up on us. And He certainly didn’t just zap us, snap His fingers, quick-fix it and turn us all into robots who are extensions of Him, who say they love Him but only because it’s His voice puppeting us to say it.

No. He came to us, chose to give up His life at the exact point on the timeline when Romans, masters in the art of slow, humiliating, torturous death, would be the ones to carry out His crucifixion, and saved us Himself. Through the sacrifice of His own life. And even then, we still have a choice. We get to choose to accept that incredible self-sacrifice when we don’t deserve it, and be given new life and a relationship with the Creator who knows us and loves us better than we can love ourselves or receive love from others—OR we can just keep stubbornly insisting that our slavery to the opposite of what God wants is somehow freedom, and our twisted versions of love are genuine, and we’re not broken, and die like that. Die broken creatures who lived their whole lives stomping their feet and screaming “I’m not a creature, I’m a god!”

White Diamond sacrifices nothing, because Rebecca Sugar doesn’t know the God of the Bible. She just knows her idea of Him. She’s never actually gotten to know Him. If she had, she’d learn how silly and twisted her idea is.

Because you know what, yeah, if every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn’t have hot dogs. But people aren’t pork chops. And hot dogs have flavor (not better than pork chops) but they are awful for you.

Christians aren’t perfect cuts of meat with no individuality or flavor. Just because we all know and love the same God doesn’t mean we have no personalities. It just means we don’t think so freaking much about what we are, or who we get to be, or what we like and want. Jeez, what a self-centered, narcissistic, self-obsessed way to live. She plays Steven like he’s this wonder-child, innocent and full of heart, who encourages his friends to love and keep trying. But honestly?

This is very pretty animation but it’s not real. Steven looks happy hugging Steven but self-love doesn’t ultimately get you that.

That’s all based on the premise that what he’s encouraging them to do is actually good, and will make them happy, and will help them love better. And it just won’t. Not in real life. That’s not how any of this works. Self-love is just self-obsession. And that is a sure-fire way to hurt you, and everyone around you.

You’ll never be free by choosing to run to a worse master. You’ll never be satisfied with your crappy attempts at loving yourself, because you were made to be loved flawlessly and forever by someone who is Love Himself.

And choosing to identify with your imperfections doesn’t make you uniquely you. It just makes you exactly like every other human being marching in the same line since the Fall.

White Diamond’s not relational. She’s up high and distant. That’s not God. He made you to be in relationship with Him. He loves you, totally and perfectly, and He proved it by sacrificing for You.

So yeah. That’s the problem with Steven Universe. Come get me, SU fans.

[shyampyari]

I thought of telling you this coz u post a lot of Mahabharata stuff-- Last lockdown, me and my mum were rewatching the brc mbh. My mum was spitting mad during the epsiodes where Ashwathhama kills the Upapandavas, aims the Brahmastra at Uttara's womb and kills Parikshit, thus getting cursed by Krishna. Mum said, and I'm quoting her here, "Krishna was too easy on him. Along with cutting out his gem, he should have cursed Ashwathhama with getting pregnant. He'll lose his baby in the eighth month, but he'll never be able to expel the foetus. Instead, he'll have to carry his dead baby in his womb for eternity, until he meets Kalki. Let him feel the grief of losing a kid, along with the discomfort of swollen feet and an aching back forever." Thoughts on this? I just went 😳😳😳😳

I was literally joking around like 2 secs ago and now I am just 👁_👁 I hope I never piss your mom off

Ok that is very 'potentially' good way to punish him from a perspective but think about this: Pandavs killed people too, kids, someone's child. What about those mothers? Aren't they cursing them too?

Yk there is this theory and this story about this soilder who was too proud for his own good and like things too a turn for him with krishna that his beheaded from watched the whole wat from afar. To him, krishnas sudarshan was the only weapon and warrior in the field, beheading everyone that stepped a foot on the ground of kurukshetra. An illusion, that no one was in control of anyones life, everyones time and fate was set.

Now coming back to ashwatthamas fate, I think krishnas punishment for him wasn't just based on what he did to the pandavs kids, but the fact that he raised his finger against krishna himself, when krishna asked him to take back his brahama astra, he refused because this wasn't even about just wiling out the kuru blood from the face of earth, it was for his pride. The fact that he and only he, not one of duryodhans brothers, not karna was capable of avenging duryodhan, only he and him only was capable of a weapon that could bring duryodhan his revenge.

And this, krishna punished his pride, his power. Him carrying a decaying a rotten piece of meat in his womb would have meant just that to him, a loaf of meet. No parental affection, no motherly connection only hatred and hurt so why not give him just that?

This is complete my interpretation and my take, pls add anything and everything nyou wish to <3

@ginazmemeoir

[introvert-celeste]

saw ya post and got an instant idea! mayhaps if ya're alright with such an idea to write: vollyball owning a flourist shop after graduating from little homeworld, with maybe some pearl x volly or whoever you like shipping volly with the most. idk this was first thing that came to my mind lol.

So. I got this prompt over a year ago and I'm sorry I haven't responded to this until now, but it's done now! As usually, I tried entirely too hard on this one. I haven't written a ship fic in a long time so it was hard to get back into the zone, but I think it turned out alright. Fic under the cut!

Volley sighed contentedly, basking in the warm, early morning sun. Years ago—millennia, centuries, or even just a few years prior—she could have never guessed that she would find herself in a place like this, a space all her own, a place where she could exist and grow.

It was a modest building in the southeastern quadrant of Little Homeworld, only a few blocks from Tulip and Bluebell’s lovely little home near the center of town. Flowering vines crept along the pale pink walls, softening the appearance of the angular, notably gemlike architecture. An overflowing garden seemed to occupy every inch of space on the small property, almost overflowing with flowers and foliage of various shapes, sizes, and colors. Perched as she was on the second-floor balcony, Volley could see the country unfold before her, sloping gently toward the ocean. It was on a quiet street off the main road, but not so quiet that it became dull. Even now, as the clock tower struck 7 in the morning, there were gems of all kinds emerging from their own lovely little homes, continuing their own journeys.

Volley took a sip of her strawberry tea, feeling silly and sentimental and incredibly grateful. She closed her eye, relishing the moment, the air sweet with the smell of strawberries and a thousand flowers.

The distinct sound of metal against metal rang out in the distance, drawing her attention to the town square. From her vantage, she saw two figures sparring in the midst of a crowd of rapt onlookers, one holding a defensive stance as launched into the most graceful, flawless offense Volley had ever seen.

Well, perhaps that wasn’t entirely true; she’d watched Pearl’s technique plenty of times in past year, ever since she moved to Little Homeworld—they were routine at this point, regular demonstrations for Bismuth’s class—and yet every time was just as exciting as the first. Even now, from so far away, she was gripped by excitement, watching Pearl’s slight figure slashing, flipping, twirling, a combination of dance and combat that was entirely new, admirable, beautiful. Volley sighed dreamily, losing herself in the movements.

And then the flurry ended as soon as it began, as Pearl leapt high into the air and slashed downwards with one final, resounding clash, met with cheers from the gathered crowd. Not for the first time, Volley felt as if she were waking from an odd spell. She spared one last look at the scene below, noticing that Pearl had removed her jacket, her lithe, pale arms glowing sunlight as she showcased the sword—likely freshly forged—to the admiring onlookers.

The heat rose to her face; she quickly looked away, unsure of what to make of these new feelings. Or perhaps she had felt this before, long ago… She shook the thought from her head before it could fully form. She had a busy afternoon ahead of her, no use dwelling on silly ideas like these. Pearl was her friend, and that wouldn’t change. Besides, why would a gem as amazing as her be interested in someone like her.

“Good morning, Volley!”

Volley yelped in surprise, nearly toppling over the edge of the balcony. After a mad scramble, trying not to upset her teacup and the multitude of plant pots crowding the narrow space, she leaned over the railing to address the familiar voice below.

“Oh Pearl!” She cried in a flustered voice. “Good morning! Isn’t it such a lovely day? Simply breathtaking! That’s what the humans say, right? Come in and I’ll be down in a sec!”

She was not one to be easily embarrassed, but there was something about Pearl’s quizzical, mildly amused smirk that caught her completely off guard. Face burning, she hurried inside her apartment, out of sight.

Perhaps it was the fact that they’d hardly spent any time together outside of Little Homeschool in ages, always busy with their own projects, and now Pearl was there outside her door. Indeed, Volley looked around the cluttered room in dismay, all sorts of gaudy oddments and clusters upon clusters of flowers in half-finished arrangements lining every available surface. It was a hobby that was quickly—but not unpleasantly—consuming her idle hours, a hobby she was particularly proud of. Looking at the mess with fresh eyes, however, all she could feel was shame; she knew that Pearl wouldn’t approve.

“There’s no time,” she sighed helplessly, picking her way through the clutter.

There was one thing amid the mess that she was particularly excited to show her, even in her dismay. Gently, she scooped up a small, finished bouquet she’d completed in the early hours of the morning. It was when she felt the most inspired, or perhaps it was the only time of the day when she was particularly pensive. She’d been thinking quite a lot lately, more than she was comfortable with. Clutching the bouquet close to her chest, quelling her rising nerves, she made her way downstairs.

As her reputation as a top-notch gardener and florist spread throughout the colony, the downstairs room quickly transformed into a shop of sorts. An impressive array of arrangements sat clustered around the room, as well as a multitude of potted flowers and succulents too delicate for the outdoor elements. Gems and humans alike were free to stop by and take what they like in return for the little trinkets she so enjoyed, although their enjoyment was enough payment in itself. At this moment, however, she was relieved to find that no one else had wandered in that day, only Pearl, who looked about the room in appreciation.

“Oh Volley, I am so impressed!” she exclaimed. “You’ve really made this space your own. I’m sorry I didn’t visit sooner.”

“It’s nothing much, not much more than a hobby…” Volley shyly ducked away from the compliment in polite deference. “Certainly, compared to what you’ve accomplished. I saw your performance a moment ago and it was absolutely stellar, as always.”

There was a hint of concern behind Pearl’s eyes, as she cast her a gentle smile. “While I’m flattered by the compliment,” she replied, grasping Volley’s shoulders lightly, “my success doesn’t negate yours. I mean, just look at what you’ve done in a few short months!”

Volley blushed deeply, not expecting her sudden warmth. She hid behind her gift, thrusting it between them. “Um, this is for you,” she explained in a small voice. “I-I was going to give them to you later, but…well, now you’re here, so…” she trailed off, watching as Pearl inspected the gift closely; with interest or scrutiny, she couldn’t quite tell. “Um, I thought you might like lilies and hydrangeas, and I added some…some small roses here and there. I hope that’s okay.”

Pearl gazed at her in surprise. “Of course, Volley,” she assured her, casting another fond glance at the cluster of flowers and toying with the satin ribbon. “It’s a beautiful gift. Thank you.” Sensing her unease, she continued, “is everything alight?”

Volley began to speak, but she couldn’t find the words, couldn’t even begin to describe how she felt that the moment. Was she alright? She had everything she could possibly want and a life she had never expected, not in her wildest dreams, and yet it felt as if things were far more complicated than she was prepared for. In truth, she was terrified, which was not an unusual experience in the least for gems adjusting to the new freedoms of Era 3. Of what, however, she could not say.

All she could do was stand there, regarding this gem with whom she shared such a complicated relationship. She knew, without a doubt, that Pearl resented her, or had at first. She knew that she could be frustrating, that she wasn’t incredibly smart or neat or talented. She envied, admired Pearl’s confidence, bravado, and unabashed dominance. All the Pearls who met her wanted even an inkling of what she had, and Volley was no exception. She regarded her creation in Pearl’s capable hands and hated the shame the bubbled up in her, wishing beyond all else that she could boldly claim the pride she had felt of it hours ago.

“I just hope it isn’t too trivial,” she finally stated in a small voice, forcing back her shame. “I-I know it isn’t very impressive, but I’m trying to get better.” She could feel treacherous tears welling in her good eye. This was not how she had wanted this interaction to go at all.

Just then, she felt Pearl pull her into a tight, genuine hug. After a moment, Volley gave in to the embrace, burying her face into Pearl’s shoulder.

“Nonsense,” Pearl finally replied firmly. “I love everything you’ve done. I admire you, Volley.”

I love you. The thought flashed through her mind and caught in her mouth. “I admire you, too,” she revised, reluctantly pulling away from the embrace to smile at her. “I always have.”

[pearlplusau]

Chapter 5- The insertion (Part 1)

Decades passed in the home world galaxy, everything was different now, as the planet slowly ripped in half, the anguish of the three diamonds remains unscathed and permanent as the infinite suns.

After the incident, White Diamond isolated herself in her giant head ship all day, carrying out duties through simple mind control and formal messages to the higher ranked gems in her court, never needing to leave, never needing to see the empty palace of her starlight or the absent of the pink ship.

Blue Diamond wept, she wept day in, day out, as her only companion to feel happy together was lost and never would she returned. She suffered greatly from losing her, the sadness got so out of hand, under her eyes were dark bags as if they came to warn her about her powers draining her life force. Every now and then, she would visit Pinks sacred planets or the Human zoo, just to mourn for her, just to be reminded how she didn’t help as much as she should, just to feel what was left of her.

Yellow Diamond showed no more than what she already feels, anger. she would be in her chambers, attempting some long forgotten experiments of retrieved gem shards from the battle on Earth. Could she recognize her own soldiers from the rebels? No, it was impossible to distinguish gems by their shards, so she decided to continue the experiment. as she examines the various shards scattered on the counter,she thought of a plan . “If I can’t make a colony out of that hideous rock, then it looks like I’ll have to destroy it. White may have yet to approve my idea, but her refusal of talking anything regarding Pink won’t stop me from wiping that planet out of existence,” she thought as bitterness and anger fueled her, but she knew she was just as heartbroken as Blue, she just couldn’t show it.

She wiped off something from her eye and called out, “Pearl!”

The yellow pearl peeked out behind the counter with her arms in salute, “Yes my Diamond?”

“I want you to seek out the Inordinate one, and get her here immediately, I have a very important mission for her.”

“Yes,right away my Diamond!” Pearl bowed and left the room.

 Back on Earth,

The remains of a war was mostly scattered about, there abandon weapons, obilerated lands, and broken space ships here and there, but no gem shards were shining in the dusty bright dessert, and no real sign of battles can be seen.

A corrupted giant yam monster, the size of a giant boulder was rolling away into an abondoned kindergarden. The Crystal gems, which consisted of Garnet, Pearl and Coral panted as they chased the monster for the whole day, but it was too fast for them.

"Not that i know of, but we need a break, i dont think Coral here can withstand another hit from the monster." She pointed to the aformentioned gem as she looks like shes gonna collapsed at any moment.

Pearl was the first to recover herself and started, "That’s the third time this week it got away! Garnet! Can you see if we're able to take care of it?"

The fusion, paused and go through the multiple outcomes of the situation, but none shows a newly bubbled gem in her room.

The pink pearl was panting and wheezing as she was rather in low health, but she held her head up and assured the two gems that she's fine.

"Really! I'm fine! Let's keep goin-" She almost finished her sentence before collapsing.

Before she went unconcious, she heard Pearl mumbling and complaining, "I knew it was a bad idea! Why was she so insisting on coming along? She was the one that lost track and couldn’t keep a stable stance with it!”

“Pearl,” Garnet said, “You can’t blame her for the inevitable, besides, Rose needed sometime alone and she was the one that suggested we do it together since we can’t all just swing a sword and poof them in an instant! At least she’s trying her best.”

Pearl responded the fusion, “Well maybe, her best just isn’t-”

Coral passed out before she could comprehend her last words, and drifted into some sort of realm of the past, or rather, somewhere that’s so familiar but yet still the same.

She was standing in a dark room, but was suddenly lit up bright, she found that she was in White’s Head ship with her heels up in the air, her arms stiff and stuck in an unsual pose, and she was…greyscaled? Before her stood White Diamond herself, she looked pleased of what she’d just done.

‘Ahh yes,’ The great diamond spoke, but her voice was echoing from somewhere nearby, ‘it’s been a long time since I used my powers but looks like its doing just fine!’

She looked at Coral as if this was a fun game, and only she know how it ends.

‘Don’t be too hard on yourself pearl,’ Her voice was almost, sympathy, pitying the pearl, ‘You wouldn’t want to remember any of this now would you?’

She placed her index finger under Coral’s chin and lifted it up to her bright face, her nail was so sharp it was a miracle her skin didn’t poof on impact.

‘I’m doing you a favour,’ Her voice echoed more, it was louder this time. ‘That crack of yours will never truly heal, she can’t be seen with an old, broken pearl, you understand now don’t you? Besides, she has her new pearl now, so don’t you wory about a thing!’

Coral tried to spoke, she tried to defend herself, but she couldn’t even look away, she doesn’t know WHAT to feel. All she could remember was Pink demanding a colony from the diamonds.

“Now off you go!” A white bubble materialized around her and floated out of the White torso ship. Everything went dark.

 Back at the temple, Coral was lying in her room, tossing and turning and gasped, shes awake.

She found herself on a pile of human clothing, she doesn’t wear them, but they were soft, perfect to lie on and rest when needed. The different shades of pink from ranging from Light to Deep pink to medium violet red can be seen neatly placed in piles, almost the size of a human bed.

“What was that? I don’t think I ever... dreamt before?” Coral questioned herself.

She looked around and saw all the things too familiar, surrounding the pile of clothes was running water in a pink hue, stretching out longer and wider than the sea, but no deeper than a kiddie pool. Above her, pink clouds were drifting through, they seem endless as well, going to the same direction as the sea around her.

“Wait a sec,” Coral suddenly thought, “Weren’t we on a mission or something? Where are the others?” She rose up and took a step out of the comforting pile of fabric and ballerina her way on the water’s surface.

She concentrated and a door size glow materialized in front of her. As the light dimmed, rose stems with thorns glowed and departed, leading her outside her room.

Just as she was half-way through, she heard a voice, no, two voices talking aloud and complaining.

Rose’s voice was first recognized, “-too dangerous, you need Coral on this mission!”

‘For what? All she did was getting trampled and hit by that thing! Any more damage taken would’ve poofed her! Or worse!”

Garnet’s voice joined in, ‘That I agree.”

‘Well, even if she’s not capable of catching the corrupted gem, you should’ve leave her out like this, she’ll be heartbroken if she finds out you went without her!’

‘So? It’s better than her slowing us down! There’s so much more monsters out there, we won’t be able to bubble them all with her around! Garnet and I can’t fight AND  keep her safe at the same time!’

Garnet chipped in, ‘And it’s not that we dislike her, we love her, all of us, but if we’re gonna take care of the planet and avoid locals from getting harmed, we need to bubble as much as possible in the least amount of time.’

A faint sigh can be heard, the leader spoke, ‘If it means less suffering and less humans getting hurt, then I suppose it would be fine for Coral to have a time-out for a few days. You two need to rest, but you should head out before Coral wakes up, all right?’

‘Of course’ said Pearl.

‘Noted.’ said Garnet.

‘Good,” Rose ended, ‘Dismissed’

Coral slipped back into her room before any of them noticed her. She was processing what was heard while the rest of the crystal gems head back to their respective rooms.

I’ll show them, she thought, I’ll show that I’m capable of handling a gem monster AND myself!

When the coast was clear, she quietly tip-toe out of her room and went back to the last known location of the yam monster.

 Just outside the Earth’s orbit, various yellow spaceships can be seen in a form of a diamond, specifically, Yellow Diamond.

Inside the first spacecraft, with green and yellow glowing alien technology far advanced than anything that ever existed, and piloting each ships were handfuls of Era 1 peridots. These peridots each have a triangular gem and the same heights as pearls, but far more intelligent as they are very competent technicians. The peridots were capable of doing various tasks such as data logging, research, communication range bigger than the galaxy without external equipments.

(Art by @gemfiles​, if you would like your artwork removed please dm me, as this pic here has the purpose of visual aids for the readers)

They were busy working on the coordinates and history of the planet Earth, typing required data and analyising it’s past reputation and current resources on the ships available platform and programs.

A peridot stood and walked off from her post, the others took no notice and persume their work. The peridot stood still in front of a door, and a scanner appears from the right wall. The contraption scanned her form for her gem and found it on the back of her left hand, the light scan turn from green to light yellow and beeped.

The door slid open and the peridot went through, her arms in diamond salute as she greets her superior officer.

‘My Anglesite,” She said, ‘I am here to report that we have arrived at the planet’s orbit, do I have your orders and coordinates to land ?’

‘My, my,’ The main gem-in-charge yellow Anglesite replied, wearing a white lab coat and triangular pointy shoulder pads in the colours yellow and white. She wore glasses so thin you could only notice it up front, the right side of her face was covered by her light blonde short hair.

If you think she’s the same as the other gems, she not, cuz her lower half was just hovering circle platform, so she would resemble a vase on the circular coffee table. But, the platform serves as a method of transport, as it is designed to float above any ground so she can travel as same as other gems, it’s just faster and requires her pretty much no energy to be in motion.

at the edge of the platform, robotic hands can sprout out and execute projects better and faster than a normal gem, weapons and defence systems? You dont need to worry about that.

The yellow gem continued, ‘Just as I calculated, looks like even the atmosphere is liking what will be done to that little chunk of rock, wiping it out of our starmaps will be so much faster, and then, the great Yellow Diamond will praise me for my work, promote me and i will finally have the chance to meet my glorious, shining White Diamond!’

The peridot was getting tired of hearing the “possibility” after the mission was complete, but she could only agree with her superior, ‘Of course she will my Anglesite! So, about the course-’

‘Ah yes, set the course towards north of the largest continent on the planet, that is where the final stage of the mission will commence!’ The yellow gem started giggling and laughing, but she gave one last order, ‘That will be all!’ and continued with her laughter.

‘Yes my Anglesite.’ Peridot trudged back to her position and set the course.

The ship entered the planet’s orbit and the technicians went to work.

 It’s been a few hours, the sun was starting to rise, the cold nigh air was starting to warm up the atmosphere as shadows began to crept under the desert lifeforms.

Coral was walking aimlessly through the desert, mumbling and kicking the sand, just wanted to catch that gem monster and prove to them she’s not useless.

I can’t believe they didn’t want me to come along, she thought, I’ve been with Rose longer than Pearl has, and I was there when everything happened, it’s not fair!

She kicked more sand, but the impact wasn’t obvious, since the whole terrain was a desert.

She sighed and sat behind a rock to take a break, physically and mentally.

The whole trip was to catch that monster but she’s done nothing but follow her “instincts” and it led her nowhere. There was no tracks, no damaged that looks like its from a giant yam monster, and most importantly, no idea whats next.

Wait, she thought, whats that on the sky?

Is that….a homeworld spaceship? No wait, there’s more than one?

Ohnononono, she thought, they’re coming back for us!

I have to go back! I have to tell Rose and Garnet and Pe-

….

….

Or…

Maybe this is the chance I’ve been waiting for, to prove that I can handle myself.

Yeah, I wont be able to fight off ships of soldiers, but I can do a little sneaking around, trying to see what’s really going on, or better yet, their plan of attack so we’ll know what’s coming!

Coral summoned her trusty lance and did a quick jog to catch up with the ships.

End of Part 1.

(Heyo, so...as you finish reading this youll notice it’s pretty different from the story before.

But its not like im trying a COMPLETY different thing, its kinda like the previous chapter where we see what happens on homeworld, but in this chapter, we’re dealing with something that doesn’t really have any leads from the canon series.

Sooo, yeah, the north of the largest continent, Yellow diamonds plan, corrupted monsters, you should have a pretty huge idea of whats going on.

Also, the new gem is very different from what we usually see, but there’ll be a concept art in traditional paper, and probs no colour, just for you guys to see what she looks like, cuz the description of her isnt so...Complete?

But feel free to draw her tho, cuz i guess she kinda an OC here? If you could tell, she’s a gem under yellow’s court, but she also contains little essence from white diamond, which is why she has two diamonds on her design.

So yeah, she will be posted in a few days or smth.

Aaaannddd thats abt it for now, if youre reading this, it means you respect what i have to say, and i thank you for that.

Happy reading!

Pearlplusauchap Pearlplusauchap5

[einnosyssecsgem]

SECS/GEM on JEOL JWS-7515 Metrology Equipment: Enhancing Efficiency with EIGEMBox

In the fast-paced world of semiconductor manufacturing, precision and efficiency are paramount. One key aspect of this process is the metrology equipment used to ensure that every component meets stringent quality standards. The JEOL JWS-7515 is a leading tool in this field, particularly when combined with the EIGEMBox, which facilitates the SECS/GEM protocol. In this blog, we’ll explore the significance of SECS/GEM, the features of the JEOL JWS-7515, and how the EIGEMBox enhances metrology processes.

What is SECS/GEM?

SECS/GEM stands for SEMI Equipment Communication Standard/Generic Equipment Model. It is a widely adopted communication protocol in the semiconductor manufacturing industry that allows for seamless data exchange between manufacturing equipment and host systems. This standard is critical for achieving automation and real-time data acquisition, which helps improve production efficiency and reduce errors.

Why SECS/GEM Matters

Standardization: By providing a uniform communication protocol, SECS/GEM simplifies the integration of various equipment and systems, leading to smoother operations.

Real-time Monitoring: With SECS/GEM, manufacturers can monitor equipment performance in real-time, allowing for quick adjustments and better decision-making.

Data Collection: The protocol facilitates extensive data collection, which is essential for analysis, reporting, and continuous improvement initiatives.

Overview of JEOL JWS-7515

The JEOL JWS-7515 is an advanced metrology tool designed for high-resolution imaging and analysis of semiconductor wafers. Here are some of its standout features:

High-Resolution Imaging

The JWS-7515 utilizes cutting-edge electron beam technology to achieve high-resolution imaging. This capability allows for detailed inspections of wafer surfaces, crucial for identifying defects that could compromise performance.

Versatility

This equipment is versatile enough to handle various materials and applications, making it an invaluable asset in a semiconductor fab. Its ability to analyze different substrates and feature sizes helps manufacturers maintain high standards across diverse product lines.

Automated Functionality

Automation is a key feature of the JWS-7515, which enhances throughput and minimizes human error. The system’s ability to integrate with software tools and other equipment makes it a central hub for metrology operations.

The Role of EIGEMBox

The EIGEMBox is a powerful tool that enhances the capabilities of the JEOL JWS-7515 by facilitating SECS/GEM communication. Here’s how it works:

Seamless Integration

The EIGEMBox acts as a bridge between the JEOL JWS-7515 and the host system, enabling seamless data transfer. This integration is crucial for manufacturers who require real-time insights into their metrology processes.

Enhanced Data Management

With the EIGEMBox, data collected by the JWS-7515 can be efficiently managed and analyzed. The ability to centralize data from multiple sources helps manufacturers streamline operations and improve decision-making.

Flexibility and Scalability

The EIGEMBox is designed to be flexible, accommodating a variety of equipment and systems. As manufacturing needs evolve, the EIGEMBox can be scaled to meet increased demands without significant infrastructure changes.

Benefits of Using SECS/GEM with JEOL JWS-7515 and EIGEMBox

Improved Efficiency

By automating data exchange and analysis, the combination of SECS/GEM, the JEOL JWS-7515, and the EIGEMBox significantly improves operational efficiency. Manufacturers can reduce downtime and optimize workflow, leading to faster production cycles.

Enhanced Quality Control

The ability to conduct real-time monitoring and analysis of wafer conditions ensures that quality control measures are always in place. This capability minimizes the risk of defects reaching the production stage, ultimately enhancing product reliability.

Data-Driven Decision Making

Access to comprehensive, real-time data allows manufacturers to make informed decisions quickly. This responsiveness is critical in a competitive landscape where even minor delays can have significant consequences.

Implementation Considerations

While the benefits of integrating SECS/GEM with the JEOL JWS-7515 and EIGEMBox are clear, several implementation considerations should be taken into account:

Training and Support

To fully leverage the capabilities of these technologies, manufacturers should invest in training for their staff. Understanding how to use the equipment and interpret data is essential for maximizing the benefits.

System Compatibility

Ensuring that the EIGEMBox is compatible with existing systems is crucial for a successful integration. Manufacturers should conduct thorough assessments before implementation to identify any potential challenges.

Ongoing Maintenance

Regular maintenance of both the JWS-7515 and the EIGEMBox is essential to maintain optimal performance. A proactive maintenance schedule can help prevent equipment failures and ensure long-term reliability.

Conclusion: Elevate Your Metrology Operations Today

The integration of SECS/GEM with the JEOL JWS-7515 metrology equipment, enhanced by the EIGEMBox, represents a significant advancement in semiconductor manufacturing. By improving efficiency, enhancing quality control, and enabling data-driven decision-making, this combination positions manufacturers for success in a highly competitive market.

If you're looking to elevate your metrology operations and embrace the future of semiconductor manufacturing, now is the time to act! Contact us today to learn more about how SECS/GEM, JEOL JWS-7515, and EIGEMBox can transform your processes. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to enhance your operational efficiency and product quality!

[xiuhnny]

a montage of love / mark lee

genre: college!au, acquaintances to lovers!au, slow burn, fluff, a lot more angst than anticipated

pairing: mark lee/female reader

word count: 26.5k jesus christ

warning: alcohol and drug abuse, explicit language, suggestiveness, a bit of heart-wrenching angst

summary: High school was a time in your life you didn’t like to think about, especially when the present days were the best ones you had ever lived. But when Mark Lee shows up in the form of blast from the past, you’re left with emotions you never planned on experiencing.

author’s note: i’ve been working on this for almost a year. amid the mess that is my life, i poured my heart and soul into this project, which is the first official piece of writing i do for the kpop community. it has taken longer than i expected, and i apologise to everyone who had been waiting for this to be published since i posted the preview quite some time ago. however, it is here! i’ll never be the person who can put out a short story because my need to go into fully specific details about every single thing is stronger than anything else. pleathe be mindful of the fact that this is fiction and i dont think any character in this work resembles their real life counterpart besides their physical appearance. also, i’m aware that i mix british terms with american ones, mind you that i’m neither so bear with me for a sec lol

High school was a time you weren’t particularly fond of. 

It was just a clustered mess of stillness-infused events happening one after the other, never having anything really good coming out of it. It was either neutral or downright disastrous and embarrassing, so sometimes you pretended it either didn’t exist or it was a foggy, distant memory in the back of your mind. 

Everything had been just plain, normal, detached, never good enough to think of it fondly.

You supposed being the new kid was probably one of the causes that made your attempts at fitting in with the others fail miserably. The people you hung out with were the type of people you knew your friendship wouldn’t stretch further than the last day of high school: you relied on each other for convenience. That didn’t hurt you at all because it was something you did too. And it wasn’t like you were the best version of yourself back then. 

The best came when you entered college.

The college you was the person you had always dreamed to be. Liked by people who genuinely cared for you and your wellbeing, with whom you shared good and bad moments. Carefree in the sense that you were no longer afraid of sharing your opinions and being yourself yet carrying all the same struggles every other college student did. This was your peak. You were at the top of your game in every aspect possible. And even if you were still flawed, like you would always be, the life you lead was still worth it.

However, not everyone shared the same path as you. Some people just had it all since the beginning: they were consistent in the way they presented themselves to other people throughout the years, and consequently that in itself appeased the masses no matter the environment they inserted themselves into. It didn’t help at all if they were truly nice people, which was the case.

You weren’t sure why the fact that Mark Lee was as loved — if not even more — in college as he was in high school surprised you, but the truth was, it did. 

Going through a blast from the past was something you were expecting, seeing people from your old school navigating through the halls of a place you really liked became second nature. You saw Sicheng every once in a while, the Chinese guy you had to become acquainted because both of you had transferred to your high school closely after each other. You saw Dahyun who was from your Math class though you never really made an effort to be friends, neither did she. You saw a variety of faces with whom you had shared tiny speckles of basic interaction.

But Mark Lee wasn’t just any person. 

Mark Lee was the cool guy who looked like he had everything without even trying or working hard for it. He had reliable friends, good looks, good grades, recognition and respect from pretty much everyone surrounding him. You were sure there wasn’t a soul capable of hating or so much as even having hard or negative feelings towards him. And rightfully so, for while Mark looked like someone who breezed through life without a scratch, he was severely passionate and strived hard for good results on whatever he put his mind in to. To top it off, he had luck on his side.

You couldn’t hate the guy, you’d give him that. He was too much of a good person.

It was nearly the end of the first semester of your second year of college when you saw him for the first time after you had ended your senior year of high school. With Mark being younger than you by one year, you had been swept away out of that hellhole before him. But as luck would have it, you were back to sharing an education facility. Not that it bothered you that much, except you had to be shocked not only by his presence, yet also by the happenstance he was talking to one of your best friends with whom you were supposed to meet up fifteen minutes ago.

You were the one who was late, of course. So many years had gone by and you still weren’t able to be on time whatever the circumstance was. And when you tried to be responsible and leave your dorm early, the universe seemed to be against you. It remained a mystery why public transportation would fail you on only those specific times. 

At that moment, being late was the least of your worries, because there, in front of you, stood two people who represented completely different times of your life colliding with one another, while you watched in the sidelines and wondered why something like this was even happening to you.

 It truly felt weird to you seeing the out-of-reach Mark interacting with completely-approachable Jungwoo. 

Pursuing a friendship with one of the school’s most popular people did not charm you in any way back then. You thought about it sometimes, what would happen if you were to befriend Mark, or his best friends Donghyuck and Yeri, but reality brought you back before your imagination pulled you in too deeply. Besides that, you were never interested enough in that kind of people, the ones who seemed like they were known by everyone and their mothers. The difference between you and them was ghastly, bound to never work out.

“___!” A voice shook you out of your memory lane themed thoughts, your eyes blinking into focus to the image of the two boys now looking at you, one with sheer happiness to see you and the other surprised. For what reason you couldn’t decipher why. He had always been like that. Not that you had paid Mark Lee too much attention in high school. It was just inevitable once in a while to look over to where he was sitting and analyse his behaviour for a tiny bit. You had that habit.

“Hey, Zeus,” You smiled softly, “Sorry for making you wait. Traffic sucked balls.”

Jungwoo rolls his eyes, clearly sensing your politeness had a reason. You had stopped apologising for being late after the first ten times. “Don’t even bother, you talk like I’m not used to it. Oh!” He seems to remember something by the way his eyes jump a little, and then he looks to his left where Mark Lee is, for a fraction of a second before looking back at you again, “That’s right. How rude of me. Remember that guy I told you about named Lucas? The one who is Kun’s cousin?”

“Tall, loud boy?” 

“That’s the one.” He grinned, “This is his friend, Mark. We’re heading together to Lucas’s. They invited me over for a game night! How cool is that, uh?”

“Very.” You deadpanned, completely averting the fact Jungwoo was introducing Mark to you. He would have a field day if he knew you knew who Mark was. Because there was no way in hell Mark would know who you were. Moreover, you couldn’t believe he asked you to meet up just because of a measly textbook which you could have handed to him another time. You were still going to meet up with other friends, but the fact you had to take a last-minute detour when you were already late to your original plans stung just a bit. “Here’s the book, by the way.”

“Thanks, you’re a gem.” The sad thing about your best friend was that he knew you couldn’t resist how cute he acted. It worked every single time, including this one. “Why don’t you come over too? If Mark doesn’t mind, that is.”

Mark immediately becomes flustered, eyes widening as if he’d just heard wrong, but you beat him before he can even utter a word in response, which could destroy your nonchalant façade, “Thanks, but I already have plans. The girls and I are actually sleeping over at Eunwoo’s today, and we’re going to the movies in about…” You take your phone out of your pocket to check, the numbers that stared back at you zipping you back into full awareness that you should probably leave if you wanted to make it on time. “Half an hour. We’re watching Venom.” There’s a strange heaviness in your chest making it hard for you to breathe. Being the centre of Mark’s attention felt so alien to you, so unreal and wildly unimaginable. “And I’m sure Lucas and his friend wouldn’t really be comfortable with having a stranger in their home.” You laugh at the end to soften the truth behind your words. 

As fun as it is meeting new people, bringing them unannounced in the last minute was never recommended, and it could seriously deflate the comfort in those who were present. Jungwoo had good intentions, but that’s all it was.

(You’re not a stranger, Mark thinks, I’ve had a crush on you for embarrassingly too long.)

“That’s a pity, really.” Your best friend pouts adorably, and you chastise yourself inwardly before you changed your mind, “Let’s set up something as soon as possible, though. I feel like we all will get along well if we get the chance.”

His determined enthusiasm was cute, almost contagious if you willed yourself to let your guard down. You’d let him get away with it this one time.

“Of course! Just let us know when and where, and we’ll be there.”

Mark goes back to looking like he could be feeling every type of emotion possible, chewing on his lip with his eyes unreadably stoic, and the three of you part ways at the school’s garden but not without the thought of how well Mark had grown between the last time you saw him and now infiltrating and contaminating your brain. 

Turned out Jungwoo’s ASAP was earlier than you would have ever imagined. 

Actually, if things had gone according to the way you had planned, he would forget about the whole ordeal and you would go on with your merry little way without any unfortunate recollection lurking around and probing into your life. You truly didn’t feel the need to meet many new people; everything was already perfect as it was, so why would you even ask for more?

Clearly, your best friend thought otherwise, seeing how seriously he had taken those words, and in the following week, prompted everyone to hang out at his place a Thursday night after classes ended. Much to your surprise, most of your friends seemed okay with it.

Vernon and Kino were just ecstatic over the prospect of meeting and chilling with new people since their social circle was always willing to expand no matter who tried to come in. Eunseo already spent most of her time in Jungwoo’s house to load off of his Netflix subscription and free food so having three or four more people coming over didn’t bother her at all as long as she had her spot on the couch. Yeeun and Eunwoo seized every moment Eunseo wasn’t home to suck each other’s faces off and do God knows what.

And you… Well. You wouldn’t normally mind under other circumstances, really. It wasn’t like you were actively seeking other friendships per se, but you also didn’t avoid them. So you decided that you weren’t going to scheme your way out of a meeting where half of the people there were people you cared about. Mark made you feel a tad uncomfortable because he was someone you had never thought of interacting so closely with — and by interacting you meant standing within a few metres radius while you looked at Jungwoo’s totally unnecessary yet nonetheless appreciated large 4K TV. 

What were you supposed to do? Confide in someone about it?

It felt overall illogical to tell one of your best friends about the issue, especially when you knew they would say you were blowing things out of proportion. You could already imagine Eunseo saying something along the lines of ‘High school is shitty for everyone’ and Kino agreeing with a stern look that totally said ‘Just because you had a hard time it doesn’t mean you can project those feelings onto people who don’t deserve it’ because Kino was just the kind of introspective person who would lecture you about how to detach yourself from the problematic behavioural ways you possessed. And you would do nothing but stay quiet, because the truth was, whatever words they deemed fit to tell you were going to be true. Furthermore, you knew you had no reasonable explanation as to why you clamped shut every time someone from your past popped up in your line of view. It just happened. Like the invisible string you had around you tightened every single time, and stupidly, you just let it happen. It was wearing you out little by little.

So for today, you were going to suck it up a little for everyone’s sake and relax around a person whose presence felt so foreign and unreal.

The walk to Jungwoo’s was filled with a 00’s hits playlist blasting through your earpods as a way to let yourself loose and calm down your stupid nerves, your steps matching the beat of whichever song came on shuffle. This whole situation was affecting you so absurdly that for the first time in a really long time you had left the confines of your dorm room earlier than you were used to, so you could get to your destination on time, if not before what had been scheduled. Arriving late meant everyone’s attention would be on you as you awkwardly waved to everyone, and you weren’t really in the mood to be the centre of attention to people you weren’t close to. You would fling yourself from the nearest window if you had to go through what happened when you saw Mark, having his gaze burn uncomfortable holes along every single visible surface of your body. Being fashionably late was not on your plans. Not today.

“Uh,” You should’ve guessed Jungwoo was going to be confused when he saw you standing on the other side of his front door at 19:45, your backpack slung over your shoulders and your university hoodie almost covering you entirely because of how large it was, “___… You’re early.”

You snort, “Yeah, I like to keep you guys on your feet from time to time so you never underestimate me.”

He lets you in with a scratch on the nape of his neck, and when you glance around expecting to see the entire expanse of his lengthy living room littered with known and unknown faces, you’re faced with only Eunseo sitting on the sofa with her computer perched on her crossed legs, face too close to the screen as she typed away.

“Wait,” You frown, craning your neck so his kitchen was visible to you, “Why isn’t everyone here? Am I too early?”

Eunseo suddenly chokes, looking up from the screen, “___! What are you doing here?”

“Don’t tell me you guys…” Trailing off your words, you begin glaring at your friends with a hand perched on your hip indignantly, “You guys… Wow! What time did you guys plan with the others? Let me guess—”

“Before you strangle me to death,” Jungwoo raises his hands over his shoulders in surrender, “We never thought you’d be here so early!”

“I don’t even remember the last time you were on time, ___,” Eunseo is pouting exaggeratedly, pleading her case alongside the other traitor in the room, “We just didn’t want the other dudes to have that first impression of you.”

As much as it pained you to confess, they had a point. If you were planning on actually appearing somewhat likable to these other people you didn’t know, several measures had to be taken. Even if deep down you felt stingy about it — about how your mind seemed to only focus on the fact that they probably had done something like that several times — you understood it. Time was precious, and some could even interpret your lateness as valuing your time more preciously than theirs, which wasn’t really the case because you never did it maliciously. It truly felt like it was apart of your nature, being like that.

“I thought it was one fake bitch in this house, but there’s two.” You sniffle dramatically before going into the kitchen to fetch food to eat in the meantime.

Jungwoo fist-bumped the air in victory. Something was up, he was pretty sure.

Until now things had been going amazingly well, as always. Having Kino, Jungwoo, Vernon, and Eunseo together inside the same place was as familiar to you as the way you recognised yourself in the mirror, so the inside jokes and jabs you threw at everyone were comfortable, homely even.

You were peeking into Eunseo’s laptop with your head against her shoulder, your glasses perched on the bridge of your nose to top off your lazy outfit of the day as you proofread the essay she had been working on for the past three days when the doorbell rang and your attention diverted. 

It was incredible how you heard Loud Boy before you could even see him or whoever was accompanying him. A cacophonous, high-pitched symphony of unintelligible screams filled the whole vicinity, Jungwoo’s softer voice practically muffled underneath it all.

“Well,” Eunseo closed the lid of her laptop before putting it back inside her bag, shrugging, “I was expecting this.”

“I don’t even know why you brought it with you, this is supposed to be a chill night,” Vernon quipped from his spot on the floor, the deafening sound coming closer and closer until it was blaring ridiculously loud in your eyes, “Oh, there they are!”

You weren’t sure why you were expecting not to see Mark amongst the other two unknown faces, yet alas, there he was indeed. Looking like a Sim waiting for instructions, stoic with his bugged-out eyes absorbing his surroundings until they land on you. And then he just observes you like he’s trying to make a point you’re unaware of coming across, just until the messy reunion between the other guys dies down. An intense stare-down between the both of you that ends with you averting your gaze not even five seconds later because you’re a little bitch when it comes to eye contact. You swore you would rather gauge your eyeballs out rather than stare at someone for a really long time, and if that someone was Mark Lee, even five seconds was too long.

Lucas, the boy you had coined as Loud Boy, was just as handsome as he was extroverted. The way he carried himself and the atmosphere around him left you with a good impression of him, just like the other boy who was next to him. Minhyuk — “Call me Rocky,” he said, like the discrepancy between his real name and his nickname wasn’t that big — looked like he was a fun person to be around by the way he reacted pertinently to everything that happened. Mark, however, waved at both of you and Eunseo with what looked like a strained, forced smile, a stark contrast to the ease he seemed to exude when he did those weird handshake guys always did, despite the fact it was the first time he had interacted with either Kino or Vernon.

The way Eunseo gripped your hand tightly against hers when the boys fell into a never-ending conversation about the most recent PlayStation 4 games was a foreteller that tonight was going to drag through painfully slow, the emerging testosterone spreading through the air as the themes of their talk rarely strayed too far from gaming. Which wasn’t normally something you would find so boring if it was just your group of friends talking about it. Because Eunseo and you also played, avidly, as a matter of fact, so the fact your friends were getting lost in the hype of having new gaming buddies was reason enough to put a damper on your mood.

You had her there, though, and that was more than enough for you. These kinds of situations never failed to leave you unsure how to act, afraid of looking like an antisocial snob who looked down on others. Together, the both of you looked the way you felt, a bit ostracised and uncomfortable with the undesired and unintentional division between gender, but you accepted it begrudgingly like the other things that had happened so far.

Half an hour into their bickering and fooling around you decide to go somewhere else within the house, dragging Eunseo with you, and it’s the lack of shuffling behind him that alerts Mark of what’s going on in the back scene. It’s then that it clicks — you. You were still there, alongside your friend sitting on the sofa while the rest of them laughed and talked without even thinking about how you must have been feeling. His chest suddenly feels heavy with guilt, mind flashing back to the way the hem of your sweatshirt almost touches your knees and how much he wanted to roll your sleeves.

He’s reminded of past times, times where you were both just a little younger and surrounded by a completely different group of people, but he thinks the way he looked at you back then hadn’t changed at all in comparison to the way he looked at you now. Like he wants to get to know you so much it strangely makes his heartache from time to time. Like he can’t find a way inside your world when he had been given the chance to see you again after two years of desperately agonising over whether he should send you a friend request on Facebook or not. Yet there he was now, just a breath and a half away from speaking to you and just like the God damned fool he was, Fortnite, of all things, cockblocked him into getting distracted by a conversation which he couldn’t get back on the groove because of how truly shitty he felt. 

“Uh,” He clears his throat, “I think we forgot about…”

“Shit,” Vernon says, and Jungwoo flings his head back to the now empty space on his sofa, eyes widening to the point of almost looking like an exaggerated animation. 

Lucas is shrugging indifferently, “They probably went to drink some water or something like that,” And then he’s back to telling the rest of the story he had been telling before Mark interrupted the flow. That doesn’t deter Jungwoo, who gets up from his spot and goes through the same path you had gone a few minutes before. 

“They were sleeping,” He announces when he comes back, “Said we should catch up while we’re at it, and to wake them when we decide to be… inclusive.”

Kino hisses, his face contorting a little at the blow, “That’s something ___ would say.”

“That’s because it was her who said it,” Jungwoo snorts. Mark feels a pang in his chest at your choice of words: they were words said to cause an impact, to bring awareness, to hurt those who were inconsiderate. You didn’t like these type of things, and now he was not even in the mood to be roped back into a setting where he knew it left you uncomfortable.

“Let’s just play two or three rounds, and then let’s watch the movie,” Lucas suggests, still trying to revive the situation.

“It’s not cool to leave them out,” Mark frowns, and he means it. There were many instances in the past where he really wanted to find a way to bring you into his circle of friends, maybe befriend one of your friends just so he could have you around, but as good he was in some things, Mark was disgraceful in everything related to crushing on someone else. He knew he would make a fool of himself, akin to everything he had done ever since he saw you last week. The closest he had been to you before had been in the cafeteria line, and even then he was cockblocked; you looked at him briefly in the eyes and trapped him there, and when he was ready to smile at you, a sign of friendliness which he hoped was inviting, one of his friends calls him and that bubble involving you two was burst just as quickly as it was formed.

That had happened the last days of his junior year, your senior year. And that was the last time he physically saw you. Until last week, what he considered destiny brought you two together. Or Jungwoo brought you two together. He supposed Jungwoo would be absolutely elated if he knew the extent of his thoughts concerning his best friend.

“Yeah guys,” Mark hasn’t known Kino for that long, but he just knew the guy had a serious and righteous aura surrounding him like a superhero cape. “Let’s keep the game talk for another time. This is a movie night for a reason.”

No one seemed bothered about it, as if the original plans weren’t watching a movie, and Jungwoo once again took it upon himself to go call you and your friend, disappearing once again from their eyes, and then returning some minutes later with a very grumpy looking you with said friend rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“This better be good if you felt so compelled to wake us up,” You huff, pushing the bunched up sleeves of your hoodie over your fingers, and Jungwoo pouts from beside you before throwing his arms over your shoulders. He’s hugging you close to his body and you don’t seem uncomfortable by that: you’re neither recoiling in his arms nor freezing, you just roll your eyes at his antics and even go the extra mile to hold the hand that’s dangling pretty close to your chest. Rub your thumb against it. Lead him to somewhere on the sofa where he leans against your chest so freely it stings Mark’s heart for a moment.

He’s unsure of what to make of this. When he saw you last week, Jungwoo didn’t really make an effort to introduce you to him at all. He didn’t say you were his girlfriend, but he also didn’t say you were just his friend. He’s pretty sure the way he’s looking at you both is obvious, because Vernon nudges his shoulder to catch his attention, and whispers, “It might look weird, but they’re friends.” And just then, your other friend — Eunseo? Eunhee? — sits down and cuddles right against Jungwoo, the three of you doing this really strange yet endearing three-way spooning Mark could never think of doing. 

The mood is somehow better now, he thinks. You are all watching Coraline — your choice, because ‘it’s only fair we choose it’ — and Mark’s friends don’t seem bothered by it, neither do yours. Maybe it’s an occasional reoccurrence of yours, watching animated movies, or maybe it was just pure coincidence, but Mark is storing all of this information inside his brain greedily like a man starving for life, because it’s information concerning you, and he’ll take whatever he can get if it means it lets him get a small glimpse of who you really are. He had always doubted you were that quiet and neutral.

When the movie ends, almost everyone is sleeping. Lucas was knocked out cold against Rocky halfway through, and little by little eyes start closing and fights are lost against tiredness. The only exception to this is, of course, you. You’re still awake, looking at the TV screen with the palm of your hand propped against your cheek, squishing it so cutely Mark has a hard time concentrating on anything else. It’s stupid, he thinks, how you’re somewhat of a badass — or at least that’s the way he sees you — yet you’re still very capable of melting his heart to a dripping mess without even meaning it. It’s not like you’re doing it on purpose, to appease him or something of the sort; you’re just… Being you. Minding your business. And he likes that a lot already. He wonders how he would react if you ever directed your energy towards him to offer him a smile, or caress the back of his hand, or even hug him. He’d combust on the spot.

 But you’re not even giving him the time of your day, and for now, he’ll take that. You probably don’t know who he is, can’t remember how you two go way further back than everyone else thinks. He wonders how he can get close to you when it seems like ten million miles are separating the both of you as opposed to the fact that you’re actually sitting close to each other.

You shake him out of his reverie when you meticulously and carefully withdraw yourself from the tangly mess of limbs you had been for the past two hours. Your friends don’t wake up if anything they snuggle even more against each other like two baby otters hugging as they sleep. Mark’s heart is crawling up his throat with the desire to follow you to wherever you had gone, probably the kitchen, and for the first time ever he doesn’t let the opportunity go to waste. There’s no one to stop him from his quest, he’s a man with a mission and he will knee kick whoever tries to stop him on the throat.

As predicted, you’re in the kitchen. Your back is turned to him, the billowiness of your large sweatshirt — the colour this bright orange that immediately caught anyone’s attention — engulfing your frame, making you look so tiny and huggable it’s no wonder Mark imagines a scenario where he just approaches you and hugs you from behind, cheek poising on your shoulder before your own arms reach back and stroke his hair. It was ridiculous of him to let his mind run so wild when the reality was that you two had never spoken to each other directly. But that was about to change, even if he was on the verge of peeing his pants because of how nervous he was.

A sound startles you, seemingly someone clearing their throat from behind. Much to your dismay, it’s the person you least expected to be there.

 Mark. 

You’re stunned beyond words to see him standing with his eyes trained on you and nothing else. There was no apparent reason for any interaction between the both of you, nothing was tying you together expect the fact that you both had gone to the same high school. But you were sure he didn’t remember you. You weren’t that recognisable. Just a normal looking face amongst the crowd.

“Um,” He starts off, blinking twice as if he’s gathering his thoughts and pondering how to word them correctly, “Sorry ‘bout… What happened out there.”

Now, this was interesting. Verging on the edge of uncomfortable if you really tried to apply some logic and let your mind take over. Though the mild curiosity plaguing you felt more enticing. You really wanted to know why he was here, apologising on behalf of the others for something you had decided wasn’t that deep. Annoying, perhaps, but deep down understandable. It had already washed out.

“What do you mean?” You cross your arms against your chest and lean back with the bottom of your spine against the counter. 

“I, uh. I guess what I’m saying is that I’m sorry that we ruined your night.” He sounds strained like he’s not proud of the things he just said, but had to do it because that’s how normal conversational situations worked.

It was cute, you thought. His words. His stance. The way he was jiggling his foot up and down in what you assumed was nervousness. Him, in general. 

Mark Lee was an attractive boy, and the stiffness you felt at the absurdity of what was happening wasn’t enough to stop you from acknowledging that. He just had to be absolutely handsome, because being perfect in almost every other aspect probably was insufficient to him. No matter the circumstance, even now — looking like he would rather pop off his head like a balloon instead of standing there — he looked divine. 

If you could bet he was unaware of how heartbreakingly good-looking he was, you would. He looked like that kind of person.

“You don’t have to apologise, Mark. It’s whatever.” His name slips out of your mouth so unfamiliarly you’re taken aback. This is the first time you’re addressing him personally, hell — this is your first conversation. You almost want to discreetly pinch yourself to see if it’s true, but you don’t. Mark was apologising to you for something you no longer cared about as a way to spark a talk between you two, and if that was just a figment of your imagination then so be it.

“Really?” He’s surprised, that much you can tell by the way his irritatingly cute lips round up. “You looked pretty pissed…”

“I was,” You shrug, “It was a bit shitty of you guys, if I’m being honest, but I’m over it.” You meant those words. It wasn’t something you were saying as a means to sweeten him up. You wouldn’t do that. Not to him, not to anyone else.

“I still feel bad… But I promise we didn’t do it on purpose.”

“I know.” Words cease, because you truly don’t know what to say other than that. What were you supposed to do? Instigate something that wasn’t related to the current topic? You felt weird even contemplating it.

Seconds go by, the sounds coming from the TV in the living room muffled yet audible, and voilá, there it was.

The uncomfortable silence you knew would happen if you ever were to speak to someone like Mark. It was there, and it made you inwardly wince at how obvious it was. You were looking to everywhere but him. Feigning interest in the speckles of black in the marble countertop of Jungwoo’s home was better than looking to him. Deep down you were planning your escape route. You were ready to gulp down the rest of your glass of water and flee to the living room, maybe grab your stuff, go home to your bed where you could think about whatever you wanted without fearing someone peeking into the mess your head was. 

And then,

“I’m… I’m not sure if you remember me, but we went to the same high school.” His voice is soft, so soft but still so capable of boggling you to the point of silencing your inner thoughts. 

Mark Lee knew who you were. He knew you, and not just because you were Jungwoo’s best friend, but he knew about your existence since the time you had always dreaded. The heavy feeling in your throat resembles bile, and you try to push it down for the sake of looking presentable and okay in front of Mark, despite feeling completely the other way around. Your hands are clamming up, you can sense them and the urge to fidget with something, the urge to shrink in size to the littlest you possibly could. 

But you couldn’t just disappear out of thin air. Unfortunately. So once again, you suck it up, remember who you are and where you are, and reply with a meek, gentle, “I know.”

He laughs dryly, a hand scratching the back of his neck, “I thought you didn’t know who I was.”

You’re somewhat befuddled by his statement, “What?” A chuckle leaves your throat, and abruptly you’re no longer feeling mortified by all of this, just bewildered, curious, intrigued. He made the leap, opened a path where you both could meet in the middle, and you weren’t going to let this one go without prodding it to its bone and core. “Mark… Everyone knew you. How could I not know you?”

“Not everyone knew me,” He sounds exasperated, and you deadpan at his reply, calling him out on his bullshit. The hue of the lights in Jungwoo’s kitchen must be completely fucked up because you swear if you squint there’s some lovely baby pink dusting Mark’s cheeks. “I was just… trying not to let the conversation die. Also, you’re the only person I have recognised so far that went there. It’s nice to see someone familiar.”

You almost choke at him calling you familiar, “Your best friends go here too, though.”

“That’s different.”

You want to roll your eyes but decide against it. “How so?”

They’re…” He trails off, “My best friends. I know them. I’m with them all of the time. And you’re…”

He must have a habit of not finishing his sentences, you realise. Either that or his brain cells are trying their hardest to formulate coherent, plausible thoughts so he can say them. If that’s the case, they’re failing miserably.

“A stranger.” You quip. It’s the truth. You racked your brain for a more appropriate word, but the scan you did for approximately two-thirds of a millisecond failed you. He bites his lip and looks away like he knows you’re right but he’s afraid of confirming it. Great, you muse privately, now I’m focusing on his god damning lips. “You know something? I think I should be the one saying that.”

“Saying what?”

“I thought you didn’t know who I am,” Dropping the tone of your voice by an octave, you mimic what you think Mark’s voice sounds like. As a response, he bursts out laughing at your silly imitation, even going to the point of lowering his upper body against the island separating the both of you, and covering his mouth a few moments later because of how loud it was in comparison to your tranquil surroundings.

His laugh starts low but then ends high-pitched, and as surprising as it is, it doesn’t overwhelm you like you thought it would. It’s kind of ridiculous how something so absurdly normal is capable of making your night, but it does. Also, his face looked kind of cute when he laughed, but you weren’t dwelling too much on that.

“Sorry… That was funny as hell.” He lifts his head, scooting his body closer so he’s closer to you, so he can see you better, so he can be more attentive. There’s still that island blocking him from being too close to you, and for that you’re thankful. Having him where he was already proved to be nerve-wracking if he was mere centimetres away from you… You’d take your previously forgotten escape plan in consideration. You note that it’s the first time you can physically recognise how he’s feeling. “But to reply to what you said, I saw you around school a lot, so it’s normal for me to know who you are, I guess?”

“It’s not, Mark. Okay, let me see if I can explain it to you the best I can.” You sigh, hopping onto the counter behind you. This boy had to be oblivious of all things. “You were popular in high school. A lot of people liked you because you were cool and funny, and good-looking, and a plethora of other annoyingly good qualities.”

It’s too late before you can fully grasp what you just said. 

Because being the normal human being you were, you had just revealed to Mark you thought he was good-looking. To his face. On the first conversation you two were having.

This was one of the reasons why you had always steered away from people like him. They were dangerous, but your idiot of a brain, which was known to be very quick when thinking, was worse, and subsequently, it left you with a variety of unfiltered, unbridled voiced opinions you should keep to yourself from time to time. 

It didn’t happen this time. And if Mark is aware of it or not, you can’t really say. The weird lighting is still playing tricks on you, making his cheeks appear flushed. But you know he’s not. His expression is as confusing as it had always been.

“You have to at least know that,” You giggle nervously, “It’s okay to acknowledge it. It’s not bad to be popular.”

“So a lot of people knew who I was. What’s the big deal about it?”

“Nothing,” You shrug, “I just find it weird how someone like you recognises someone like me, that’s all.”

He furrows his brow, “I don’t follow.”

Of course not.

“I was the most ordinary person in that school. I guess I’m just surprised you know who I am from back then since we pretty much were on opposite sides.” He sends you a look, silently asking you to explain further, and with a grumble, you add, “You ran with the cool kids. I ran with… normal kids.”

He rolls his eyes and crosses his arms against his chest. You’re impressed with the range of emotions you’re pulling out of him. “We ran with different crowds. That doesn’t mean I can't know who you are. If that was the case, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” Pausing for a dripping second, he eyes you intensely, the same kind of look he gave you earlier when you saw him. So he was trying to make a point come across after all. “I’m not an asshole… or a fuckboy if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“That’s exactly what a fuckboy who’s an asshole would say.” You’re obviously joking. Mark was a wonderful person, you heard it a lot through the grapevine back in high school. How much of a selfless person he was. How caring he acted towards his friends. How serious he took things. It was simply impossible to hate the guy. You tried to hate him for being so nice, back in your sophomore year when you moved, but that just said more about you than him, really. 

He’s grinning at your choice of words, so you know he took it as a joke. You’re thankful for that. You already felt stupid enough trying to clarify your point of view in this whole You-Know-Me fiasco, it felt childish now that you thought about it, but if he wasn’t able to detect your sarcasm it’d be awkward time anew. “No, but really. I’m not that kind of person, ___.”

It’s the first time you have heard him say your name, and it floors you so inexplicably you can’t help but scratch the non-existent itch you were feeling in the back of your hand. 

Mark Lee was dangerous, you already knew that. He was that person who was able to lure you in without even wanting to, to make you feel important because you were on the receiving end of his attention.

You were dipping your foot, testing the waters. Seeing if the temperature was ideal. Like you’re standing above a swimming pool, buzzing with the rush of wanting to dive in, but holding yourself back because you don’t want to suffer a shock.

Curiosity gnawed at the frays of your being. You wondered if you would back out because you’re lazy and scared if you would submerge yourself in it, little by little as not to spook. 

Above all, you wondered if you would leap intrepidly into it and let yourself drown without a care in the world.

You smile, genuinely, “I know. You’re a good person, Mark Lee.”

Jungwoo pops up in the exact moment you finish saying Mark’s name, rubbing his fists over his closed eyes as a child does. Your heart swells at the sight. “Hey guys, what’s up?”

You grin. His timing was impeccable, as always. You were thankful the conversation ended that way.

One hour later, when you’re in the comfort of your own home, huddled underneath your warm, fluffy blanket, you put on your big girl shoes and do something for once. 

You were going to add him on Facebook.

Mark had the initiative to talk to you, which you were somehow grateful for, even if you were positively puzzled by his effort. So taking a big breath to calm down the incessant knock of your heartbeat, you click on the little Add Friend button before locking your phone quickly and shoving it under your pillow.

Turns out the prospect of never befriending Mark because you two were too different was embarrassingly ludicrous.

Your friend request on Facebook had been accepted not even five minutes after you sent it, your grubby, anxiety-ridden hands clutching your phone as soon as you heard it vibrate against your pillow. And when you woke up the next morning and checked your phone for notifications, one of them belonged to him, standing out and asking you to click on it while the others blurred in the background.

Did you get home safely? He texted, followed by a smiley emoji. In the haziness of the morning, where your senses weren’t still quite acute, your heart pounded intensely. It wasn’t like it was something out of the ordinary, but the fact it showed an inkling of worry and courtesy left your mind reeling and aware of your surroundings.

That was the beginning of a long string of texts that just never seemed to stop. From genuinely getting to know each other through questions to tagging each other on funny memes you saw on Facebook and reminded you of each other. You finally understood and were experiencing first-handed the hype about Mark Lee. And even if you didn’t hang out that much in person, the way you two had connected through messages was satisfying to you already.

Your schedules didn’t exactly match most of the times, so you could only see him in fleeting appearances when he popped up in front of your classroom, waving enthusiastically with a smile so cute it made you melt a little. Or when he went to lunch with your group of friends on Wednesdays instead of going back to his dorm room to study because he wanted to spend time with you. You supposed he was also speaking about Jungwoo, Vernon, and Kino too. He had gotten close to them as well.

On Christmas break, Mark goes back to Canada. The brief thought that floated through your mind about distance being an obstacle to your friendship is quickly washed away when he calls you through Facetime at 1:27AM, daylight clearly radiating in his surroundings while only your forehead showed on your side of the screen.

He wanted to show you the snow.

There were these instances in your conversations where your heart almost leaped out of your chest because of him. You weren’t going to make a big deal out of the first time he tagged you on Facebook until you saw the thought about you lol comment that was right after your name. 

It was annoying, the way he was making you feel.

You try to convince yourself you’re just thrilled over the prospect of being so close to him because your high school friends would be jealous of you. You tell yourself over and over it isn’t deep at all, that you have a greedy, superficial, and mean reasoning behind befriending Mark. But every time your phone dings with a notification, it feels like your heartbeat is crawling on your throat, leaving you no room to breathe at all. Like stepping on a seemingly shallow puddle yet it swallows you whole by surprise. Surprisingly enough, you don’t mind being underwater. 

Even if it means you’ll be gasping for oxygen soon.

______

It’s December 31st, and you’re sitting in the middle of Kino’s apartment deep in thought. Drunk, yet pensive nonetheless. 

If your calculations were correct, you still had two more weeks of classes left, and then the semester would be over. Normally you wouldn’t allow yourself to become so inebriated when you had finals just around the corner, but Vernon had told you Mark returned earlier than expected, subsequently confirming his attendance to the New Year’s party your friends had planned. 

Spending some days away from everyone really had put everything into perspective, and that scared you beyond words. 

The truth was, perhaps you were crushing on Mark Lee. It was insignificant, though. Everyone had a crush on him, it was as ordinary and common as liking superhero movies. As singing along to songs you like when they come on shuffle. It was as ordinary and common as breathing. So you weren’t dwelling on it too much. Except you nearly panicked at the thought of seeing him in front of you while your emotions ran high, unfiltered. It left you no choice but to chug three vodka lemonades in five minutes.

It was 11:05PM, there was a random song rumbling through the speakers you neither didn’t care about nor recognised, and you were sitting down on the floor, wondering about your academic life. Not one of your best moments, you reckoned.

But that’s how Mark finds you, anyway. 

He had shaken Lucas off of his back the moment he arrived at Kino’s, the boy clinging to him like a Koala, yelling a much-slurred m’ssed you bro against the shell of his ear, and hugged the other guys quickly. There are a lot of people he doesn’t know or run within his circle of friends. Furthermore, there seems to be a particular spot amongst the crowd that’s void of physical presence, like a black hole of sorts keeping people away from getting near. He doesn’t understand why he’s walking towards it until he gets there, sees you, siting crisscrossed and completely zoned out.

The most irrational chunk of his being wants to blast someone’s ear off for leaving you unattended and alone while you’re clearly not in a position to be so, but he’s Mark and you’re you. So he kneels beside you like he’s on autopilot mode, touches your shoulder to get your attention, and when you look up to him he just knows.

It would truly be an understatement to say he didn’t miss you.

You blink twice at him as if you’re in disbelief. He tightens his hold on you ever so slightly, just enough to make you realise he’s not a figment of your imagination. It’s obvious you’re questioning his presence. The way your eyes are glossed over so heavily plus the inconvenience of being sat on the floor rather than a normal sitting surface. They indicate your lack of sobriety. 

And when it dawns on you, amidst the fog of your thoughts, that he’s really there, you’re looping your arms around his middle, spooking him beyond words as you pull him into a hug. “Marky!” 

This is uncharted territory. Public display of affection wasn’t something you two ever did, well, except the occasional shoulder bumping or once when you grabbed onto his wrist because he was going in the wrong direction. There was no logical reason behind what you were doing, Mark was aware of that, you were drunk after all. But you have your forehead against his chest — awkwardly, if he really thought about it — and your arms are crushing his back, and yeah. In times like these, all logic flies right through the window.

“Hi.” You’re beaming and Mark feels nauseous.

“Hi, you okay?” He says in your ear, brushing away a small strand of hair. Not even the loud pounding of his heart could overtake the worry he was feeling. “Do you need anything?”

“I’m good, Marky boy! Now that you’re here, I’m even better.” 

There it was. That jolt in his chest.

It was much like a constant whenever he was with you. Whether you were with friends or not held little to no importance, it happened every time you said or did something that left his mind reeling with unrealistic possibilities. Normally, these things would be mildly dubious, like that one time where you wiped some sauce he had on his chin with your thumb — he dubbed that your motherly nature, you did similar stuff to pretty much everyone in your group. But you had hugged him, indicated his presence was a positive aspect in your life. He was about to overthink the hell out of that for the next two weeks.

“How much have you drunk?” You blink at him, pat the spot in front of you. He’s so focused on everything concerning you he doesn’t even feel the strain on his thighs from being on his knees. But he humours you anyway, sits across from you and mimics your position.

“M’drunk.” You shrug, “Not too drunk, but drunk. My feet hurt so I sat here, there’s nowhere else to sit.” 

“Kino’s room?”

“Yeah,” She snorts, throwing her head back, “That was my plan until I saw Jungwoo and Eunseo aggressively making out. I’ll pass.”

Mark’s eyes just about grow twice their size at your statement, “Jungwoo… and… Eunseo?” He pauses for some time, “Is it surprising that I’m actually not that surprised?”

“I’m not either. It’s like you’re expecting it but when it happens you’re surprised that it actually happened… It was a matter of time, I suppose.”

“I mean, she spends so much time at his place. I’m surprised, but not shocked.” He says, “It seems like everyone is getting a significant other, don’t you think?” His attempts at flirting are lame, yet he was going to try nevertheless, considering the circumstances you two were in, of course. 

“Everyone but me, m’forever alone.” You’re pouting dramatically, wringing your fingers together. He wishes he dared to say you didn’t need or were fit to be forever alone because right in front of you was someone who would die to make you his. 

But Mark was a coward. He would sooner shit his pants than say that out loud.

“Let’s cheer to that.” You take him seriously, rejoice at his suggestion, and drag him to the kitchen to get alcohol into his system. He doesn’t mind the implications of what he was about to do at all, you held his hand all the way through, only letting it go so you could grab a cup and mix a concoction you promised he wouldn’t regret drinking. And it wasn’t those palm in palm kind of hand-holding. You had your fingers laced in between his.

There’s a bitterness in the drink you hand him, yet he can still feel the sugar rush in the aftertaste. It’s something acidic, a mixture of passionfruit and lemon, and he winces at the first gulp only. It gets progressively easier when your eyes seem to make him burn a lot more than the alcohol.

One cup turns into two, two cups being enough to make him way past the tipsy stage. To make matter worse, Kino drops by the kitchen, slobbers a kiss on your cheek and offers you a blunt before skidding away. You get giddier than you already were, jumping around in your seat like a small child. It’s actually endearing.

Mark already knew Kino and some of the other guys indulged themselves with weed, and even if deep down he already knew you were one to do that too, it still shakes him a little.

It was kind of hot, the prospect of you smoking.

And he was about to witness it.

“This place is filth. Let’s go somewhere else.” You say. And by somewhere else you mean the floor. The one you two were sitting before you came here. But this time you find the rug in the living room empty and take him there, claiming you two should be comfortable.

His vision is spinning and blurry, the loud voices and music in the background muddled, and he curses himself for being such a lightweight. Mark was never much of a drinker.

You plop down on top of the fluffy red rug and he follows suit, watching you take a lighter from the back pocket of your jeans. You light the joint and take the first hit with calculated expertise only someone who did it way too frequently could pull off.

“M’conflicted.” You say after a while, blowing the smoke far from his face. Mark keeps quiet, just eyes you silently, waits for you. “I want to offer you the blunt because I don’t want to seem indelicate or selfish, but at the same time I don’t want to because I’d hate it if you felt pressured.”

There’s a twitch in his heartbeat. He hates it. “I… I have never done it before.” He gulps, pinching his hand to keep himself sane, “So I wouldn’t know how to do it.”

“I can teach you. If you want.” You quip, the joint still poised against your finger, “Only if you want, though. It’s cool if you don’t, more for me.”

It’s somewhat a dilemma to him. He wants to try it, not because you’re the person he has been crushing on for quite a while, but because he was always curious about it. Lucas was his housemate after all, and getting contact high was inevitable around him. That small buzz he felt those times was appealing to him, it made him wonder how it would be if he experienced it firsthand. He had always been curious, but never really acted upon it. Until now, with you right in front of him, offering him a chance at squashing his curiosity. 

That was his problem. You.

Mark was all for taking risks, and experiencing what life had to offer, but only if the people embarking with him were his friends. His friends friends, who knew how fucking silly and weird he was, and that definitely didn’t make his heart feel like it was about to explode inside out. 

But here you were, right in front of him, being so incredible considerate it was borderline annoying how even tipsy he could feel every nerve end. 

“Okay. Yeah, teach me.” Those are some dangerous words, he realises after he says them. His tummy feels like it’s a pot of lava, burning and waiting until it spills over.

You scoot closer to him until your knees are knocking against his, smiling brightly when he jumps a little. “It’s no big deal, really. Put the joint between your index and middle finger.” He’s frowning in concentration, and to avoid any messy situations — because of your hazy surroundings — you grab his palm to steady it and put the spliff in between his ready fingers. 

“Feels weird…” He says, and you roll your eyes playfully.

“Of course, it’s your first time holding it. It’ll become second nature to you once you do it more often.” You hum a bit, “If you keep on doing it, that is.” You hope he does. You’re nowhere near prepared to see the glorious sight of Mark smoking, and if he decides it’s just not it for him you’ll have to store that mental picture forever in the depths of your brain.

He doesn’t take his eyes away from the blunt, or if he does you miss it, so you continue instructing, “Now, you put it in between your lips, just the tip.” You’re aware of how blatantly sexually charged these instructions could sound to anyone else, and you were feeling it too. The crude images on the back of your lids were truly unnecessary when you were trying to teach the guy how to take a hit, not how to… do other things. You felt too hot in your clothes. “And you inhale. But lightly. I don’t want you to cough to death.”

Mark giggles at that, his shoulders less tense than before, “Okay,” He exhales nervously, “I’m gonna do it.”

“Lightly, Mark. Don’t forget it. After you inhale it, try to keep the smoke in for a little, and then you can push it out.” The hand he’s keeping free is wiped insistently against his jeans. Before the little rationality you have left on your brain kicks in, you put your hand on top of his and squeeze. As a way to comfort him. As a way to maybe let him magically know you had a stupid crush on him without saying it out loud. Who knows.

He inhales just like you taught him, the flame burning alive in front of you for a few seconds. The small cough he lets out is expected, and you laugh way more than you should have, considering it was his first time.

“You’re making fun of me!” He whines, the little pout adorning his lips testing your patience.

“M’sorry, Marky… It’s just cute, that’s all.” You mumble, feeling a blush take over your cheeks at your unfiltered confession. “Was it good? Did it feel nice?”

“It’s… different.” He places the joint back to his lips, takes a drag once again. His eyes widen at the intensity, and the way he exhales the smoke seems like he’s somewhat disgusted. “This shit is strong as fuck, Jesus.”

“Kino has a soft spot for me.” You shrug. 

“It seems like everyone has a soft spot for you,”

“I wouldn’t say that,” You roll your eyes at his statement, “I just feel like I have really good friends. I love them a lot. They mean so much to me I don’t think I can put it in words.”

Normally, you weren’t much of an emotionally forward person. The dullness in your life had never allowed you such novelties. 

Sometimes it truly felt like you were void of them, void of the feeling of showing someone how much you cared, outwardly. That changed when you got drunk, or high. It was as if every repressed emotion you crushed into the pit of your being just spilled out without any warning. You didn’t mind it though, neither did your friends. Jungwoo said it was a very you thing but still berated you constantly with hugs, which you didn’t mind. Eunseo always bragged about being the only person with whom you were affectionate. Kino and Vernon probably didn’t even realise it. Eunwoo and Yeeun were similar to you except when they were alone together.

“I’m glad, really. You deserve it.” He’s looking at you in a way you can’t possibly describe because he’s Mark Lee after all. And he could be looking at you in ten million different ways and you wouldn’t be able to decipher which one corresponds to how he’s really feeling. Sometimes you wished you could crack open his skull and take a peek inside his mysterious brain. 

The two of you keep chatting and passing the blunt to each other, the paper burning at the tip of your fingers as time flew by. Your eyes were droopy and your vision blurry, Mark’s body becoming one with the background. Even if you had important things to take care of, there was nowhere else you’d rather be than there with him. And so the two of you keep passing the blunt back and forth, enjoying each other’s company in silence.

Two minutes or five hours could have passed, and you wouldn’t even realise it. You’re unaware of how it happens but when you come back to your senses you have your cheek pressed against someone’s chest, their hand loosely wrapped around your back. At first, you assume it’s Jungwoo or any other of your friends. But the gentle pout of lips you see when you raise your head slightly tells you otherwise.

It was Mark.

If you were in your right state of mind, your heart would probably be catapulting out of your chest, splattering against the nearest window. Lucky for you, the weed just leaves you calm, and the slow drum of your heartbeat proves it.

There’s a sudden startling commotion in the room, voices rising in pitch as they start screaming a countdown. The countdown for New Year’s, those specific ten (and plus) seconds that held so much meaning for so many people, but to you had always been sort of a silly thing you did with your friends. When it came to the dreaded New Year’s kiss last year, Eunseo had been your partner since both of you were single and close enough to peck each other amid a drunken state.

“10! 9!”

The year was about to end and Eunseo was nowhere in sight. You figured she was finally smooching the hell out of Jungwoo, leaving you alone to kiss the back of your hand. You didn’t even have the strength in you to get up from Mark’s comfortable hold to go bother her about it.

8! 7!

Right. 

The year was about to end and you were cuddling Mark Lee in your best friend’s living room, tucked away in a corner where no one could see you both. You sit up, the arm he had around you sliding to the rug. He only opens his eyes for a second before he closes them, a smile permanently etched on his lips.

6!

These stupid traditions were not your thing. 

You were not getting swayed into kissing someone just because 2019 was six seconds away. Though it had been too long since you kissed someone. To make matters worse, you were a needy drunk.

5!

Sure, you weren’t one to fall through with silly traditions. But then again, you had a crush on Mark and he was a breath away from you, looking so peaceful it hurt you to even disrupt him. And you had liquid courage coursing through your veins.

Maybe you were going to kiss someone this year. 

To keep the tradition going.

4!

The seconds are ticking by, and there’s a foreign weight settling on top of Mark’s thighs. When he opens his eyes, he is almost sure he’s dreaming, the weed he had smoked fabricating cruel inceptions out of spite. Because the prospect of you really sitting on his lap, legs caging his, was so unrealistic he had to prop himself on his elbows, gaze wide and unblinking as if he was being deceived, scared it would vanish.

3!

You don’t have much time left. 

Processing the fact you were about to kiss Mark Lee for the sake of tradition — an excuse you would take with you to your grave, and the excuse you would give to anyone and everyone who asked you about it — was making you sober, the rush of acknowledging your decision clearing up your vision just enough so you could see how beautiful he looked.

He really was stupidly attractive. And you were going to kiss him.

“Mark,” You yell over the voices, scooting yourself closer to his waist and leaning closer to his face, “M’gonna kiss you, okay?”

2!

This was a dream, it had to be. Reality was probably playing sick tricks on his mind. Still, the weak, cowardly part of him was going to enjoy it while it lasted.

So he nodded towards you — the fabricated version of you sitting prettily on top of him.

1!

You were one second from kissing Mark Lee.

Before the last second dissipates you clasp the sides of his face gently, eyes zooming in on his lips. He swipes his tongue over them just then, and it resonates so deep within you it’s imperative to close that space distancing the both of you.

“Happy New Year!”

Calculated plans usually looked and sounded better in theory, when they were just a pencil-drawn draft with little annotations scribbled around it. The end result doesn’t always go exactly as planned. Theoretically, Mark and you were supposed to be passionately making out as others did the same around you. You had envisioned it clearly in the few seconds you had before putting your plan into action.

That’s not what happens.

You miserably miss your aim by a few centimetres and end up kissing half of his mouth instead, the force behind the puckering of your lips so strong he loses his balance, elbows giving out below him. There’s some nose bumping on his jaw, chests touching, a mess of limbs even the non-sober you feels embarrassed about. Mark knocks his head quite harshly against the rug, but his reaction ends up being a laugh. This severely high-pitched squeak like he’s truly in disbelief.

(He wasn’t dreaming, after all.)

“You okay?” He keeps on laughing loudly as you put your hand behind the nape of his neck, “Stop laughing, you idiot!”

His laugh is also stupidly contagious. As if every other quality he had wasn’t enough to make you like him. So you end up laughing with him, put your head on his chest again and listen to the sound of his heartbeat.

You’d worry about the consequences tomorrow.

You prided yourself for never getting serious hangovers in the past — usually, alcohol ran fast in your system and by the end of each night you drank plenty of water to avoid those terrible happenstances. Being the designated drunk mom of your group didn’t come with many perks after all. But the dull throb palpitating in your temples was a telltale on its own. When you opened your eyes, it only intensified. The blinds had little sits in which the light came in, and they only seemed to worsen your state.

If a pile of shit was a state of mind, it would be exactly how you were feeling.

The kitchen is completely spotless when you enter it, the bottles and snacks that used to be littering every possible surface simply gone. It’s not much of a surprise since Kino abhors having a messy house, his reasoning being one’s personal space reflects one’s inner self. Another thing that’s not a surprise is the fact that Kino is cooking, his back to you as he concocts something you are pretty sure it won’t disappoint you. Vernon is as useless as one can be in the kitchen; if it wasn’t for Kino he would be living off of frozen meals and warm tap water.

“Good afternoon, Sleeping Beauty.” He only acknowledges your presence when you sit down in one of the kitchen chairs, resting your closed eyes against your palms due to the sunlight hurting them. You don’t even make an effort to look at him.

“Afternoon— Jesus. How much have I slept?”

“It’s almost 3PM.”

“Jesus Christ. Get me some sunglasses, will you?”

He snorts but still obeys. It takes a minute for him to come back, yet when he does he drops not only the sunglasses in front of you — which you scramble to put them on —, but an Advil alongside a water bottle as well. “Can’t believe I’m friends with a real-life vampire. Do you want to feast on me for breakfast?”

“Shut up,” You groan, pausing to unscrew the bottle and down the pill, “I’m a wreck.”

“That you are. We found you last night drooling on Mark’s chest. The boy was positively spooked for life.” You nearly give yourself whiplash with how quickly you glance up to a head-shaking Kino, yet he turns his back on you and goes back to preparing his food.

There are a lot of things you want to ask: if Mark was okay, if he had told anyone what happened, how he had left, if he really had been spooked by your whole behaviour — even the one you prayed only you and him knew about, but you compose yourself before all of those questions tumbled out of your mouth without you even wanting it.

“What did he say?” A seemingly innocent question on your behalf. You couldn’t show too much emotion.

“Not much, if I’m being honest,” He shrugs, reaching upwards to grab two bowls from the white cupboard, “Just told us to get you safe on a bed and to make sure you drank water. He was baked as hell, by the way. I didn’t peg him as a stoner.”

Your heartbeat picked up unconsciously at his display of concern, once again. “He’s not. It was his first time yesterday.”

“Look at you, you little nymph, luring the innocent boy in with your illegal ways.” He’s taunting you, you can feel it. Kino always knows more than he lets on, it’s one of his specialties besides being incredibly insightful and introspective. There’s this little smirk on the right corner of his mouth you are entirely too familiar with. He doesn’t say anything else, just puts down the bowls of rice mixed with vegetables and scrambled eggs on the table, and sits on the chair opposite of yours. 

“I know, right? I’m such a bad influence. Someone tattoo BAD FRIEND on my forehead, please.” You roll your eyes, spoon digging into the mixture, “Speaking of bad friends. Where are Jungwoo and Eunseo?”

“They—”

“I know. I saw them eating each other’s faces off last night, unfortunately.”

He shudders, “They left together. It was painstakingly obvious, but it still threw me the fuck off. If he does so much as comment about what they did, I’ll choke him to death.”

“The fucker would probably like it.” You say in between a mouthful of food.

“That’s what worries me the most.”

The conversation dies down comfortably after that, both of you indulging in your bowls of food and throwing the expected occasional jabs that came along with befriending an idiot. Your friendship and Kino’s was just like that, there was this mutual understanding that neither of you pressured the other into spilling their hidden thoughts or emotions to the other. The glint in his eyes was loud enough, it said ‘I’ll be here whenever you need me. Take your time. Don’t rush things. They need patience to grow, to gain form’. Each one of your friendships was different, distinct in their own special and important way. Kino’s held a dear place in your heart for the eminent trust rooted in its foundation. You would always find a safe haven in his presence.

“Oh, that’s right. Yesterday, Mark also told me you should check your phone after you woke up.”

“You only tell me that now? We should skip strangling Jungwoo, I think you should be the one to go first.” You push the chair back and get up, making your way to the room while your friend only laughs.

“It’s probably on the bed!” He yells.

The blinds are still closed, so you paw around the bed aimlessly until your fingers clutch the glass screen of your phone. You don’t even grab it, you just throw yourself onto the bed and frantically tap the screen twice so it comes to life.

You could swear you had never clicked on something so fast.

[03:09] mark: I know you’d probably say to text you when I got home safe so

[03:09] mark: I got home safe

[03:11] mark: Rocky was the designated driver last night lol Lucas and I were fucking out of our minds

[03:24] mark: I already told kino but make sure to drink a shit ton of water, you’re not getting a hangover on my watch

[03:25] mark: Text me when you get up so I know you’re okay

[03:36] mark: Tonight was a dream

[03:49] mark: Goodnight

[13:33] you: hiiiiiiiiiiiiii

[13:34] you: i’m glad you got home okay!!!! you know damn well i’d freak tf out if you didn’t lmk

[13:42] you: btw i’m sorry i drooled on your shirt. and got you high as a kite. amongst other things……. lmao 

[13:45] you: woke up with a bitching headache but i’ve drunk water and taken an advil so worry not kind sir

[13:53] mark: Good morningg

[13:53] mark: Have you eaten yet?

[13:53] mark: I mean good afternoon lol

[13:54] you: gmornin!! yes kino cooked for me omg:( i love him

[13:54] mark: Also don’t apologize you dummy, I really didn’t mind any of it

Grabbing the pillow from beneath you, you put it over your head to stifle the embarrassing yet necessary scream you let out. Mark hadn’t given you any sign he didn’t remember the sad excuse of a kiss you shared last night, so you would have a little bit of faith in him, pray to the Gods he dared to make the next move since you had already taken quite the leap.

The ball was in his court now.

Or you hoped so.

For someone who had the ball in his court, Mark Lee did absolutely nothing that proved it. You were dreading for a move on the inside, every single moment you spent with him leaving you analysing in detail all his mannerisms and actions while hoping something would be a dead give away of a smidge of retaliation to your feelings. 

Nothing. Weeks went by, and nothing happened. Nothing. Nada.

The hope you once felt dissolved slowly into plain misery and heartbreak like toxic acid on untainted skin. And still, you weren’t going to give him the satisfaction of seeing you bend and break before him, even if you didn’t really believe he was at fault.

At the end of the day, Mark never did anything specific that could be interpreted as flirting or as a suggestion of different intentions other than a friendship. You were foolish to believe he’d look at you in any different way: you had created expectations all by yourself and now you were left to collect the shards of not only your broken heart but the hope you had built up alone as well.

He never mentioned the kiss, never even allowed himself to be presented in any other way than the way he always was, the social, happy-go-lucky boy everyone loved to be around. And you were stuck pretending you felt fine, pretending everything was okay. You should have known better than to even dream someone like him was interested in someone like you. Becoming his friend had already been a marvelous feat considering how much of a disparity existed between you two.

You delve into your studies to take your mind off of him, which works out for the best, really. Getting good grades, as a result, soothes your heart in a way you hadn’t felt in a long time.

Before you know it, the semester ends. 

The gang meets up after the last exam at Jungwoo’s house to discuss plans for the holidays. One month was a lot of time, so some of you are expecting to visit your parents for the most part, while saving the last week for the group trip. Not any group trip, the group trip. This was going to be your second year, and you were excited to go back.

“What about you, ___?” Eunseo inquires from her spot where she has only one foot on top of Jungwoo like she was lazily claiming her property. The two had started dating on the first day of the year and since then they had been the grossest yet cutest couple to ever exist. “Jungwoo, Mark, Vernon, and I are staying for the whole month. I don’t really feel like going back to my mom’s.”

You look at Mark to find him already looking at you in the same way he always did. It used to bemuse you but now it only irritates you. He looks dead inside. Averting your sight from him with the most stoic expression you can give, you then hum, “I think I might go home. I really miss my family.”

“No,” Jungwoo moans, dragging on the vowel, “Stay with us, ___. Please.”

“And risk me into getting roped in couple activities with the lovebirds? Thanks, but I’ll pass.” You snort, and Kino joins in.

“We’re gonna miss you, though.”

“Yeah,” Mark adds, “You always make the mood better.”

Your heart still skips a beat for him, there was no denying that. Even listening to his voice was enough to make your mind reel, but now you were no longer on cloud 9. Rationality had taken control of your heart. Getting over this stupid crush was the best for everyone, especially for you.

“Sucks for you, because I can’t wait to take a break from seeing you almost every day.” You looked Mark dead in the eyes as you said it, desperate to make him understand the coldness of your speech had a reason. You were hurting on the inside, though you couldn’t let it show. Words of indifference and annoyance were your defense mechanisms, the armour you had to built to preserve and protect yourself. Before your words felt too personal and too targeted at someone in specific, you quipped, “You guys tire me.”

The laugh was collective, but Mark’s was forced. Maybe his eyes were unable to make you see his true self, but the way he squared his shoulders while he laughed couldn’t fool anyone, not even you.

It seemed like the shoe had fit. He looked uncomfortable.

Good. 

Mission accomplished.

Seeing your mom smiling at you because she missed you was almost enough to make you sob right in front of her. 

But you don’t do that.

You only allow yourself to break down when you close the door to your childhood bedroom, the secureness it transmitted being enough to break apart the dam holding you together by the seams. It wasn’t like the tears rushing down your cheeks were there only because of how stupid you felt for liking Mark. Sure, part of it was because of that too, but you had the tendency to bottle your emotions until they couldn’t be contained anymore, so everything that had caused you pain during the past few months was being let out after suffering repression for a long time.

Spending three weeks in the company of your family proved to be a better remedy than you expected. Even the inevitable arguments and misunderstandings were welcomed, for they brought a sense of nostalgia which calmed the storm inside of you. In the times you isolated yourself in your room, it gave you a safe space to freely think about everything surrounding you, especially the Mark situation. 

He didn’t want to talk about the kiss, and that was fine. You were sure he had a reason for it, namely not wanting to go through the whole I’m sorry but I don’t see you like that scenario, which once again, was understandable. Mark didn’t owe you anything. You had set up the trap and fell for it all on your own.

You still talked to Mark throughout your time away from the group, because you’d hate yourself even more if you alienated him for something that shouldn’t intervene in your friendship. It was weird at first, the chemistry and dynamic between the both of you didn’t change whatsoever, which was good. Whenever he mentioned doing Facetime you always found an excuse to avoid seeing his face. Hearing his voice in the inevitable phone calls you did was already causing so much damage to begin with, imagine if you tended to his every wish. You would never improve. But you held on and followed through with it, as you knew you would. 

Those three weeks made you rationalise your feelings, swallow them whole and cage them in the depths of your chest. The longer you kept on daydreaming about you and Mark doing mundane couple things instead of focusing on the harsh reality that he didn’t like you back, the more it was going to hurt.

So when you got back in the city you deemed yourself normal again.

Jungwoo gave one of his infamous dramatic speeches about you never leaving his side again otherwise he would commit atrocities, while Eunseo did her best as the supporting role of a sidekick. These two were the closest to you out of everyone else, and the fact that they were dating now used to scare you in the beginning. Scared they would eventually distance themselves from the group like many couples do when they start dating. But that ended up being far from the truth since they annoyed the hell out of each other so frequently they even begged to be away from each other whenever they were with other friends.

The gang only had one week left until the second semester began, and this meant it was time for your group trip.

Besides being several things, Jungwoo was also absolutely loaded. Well, his parents were rich, which technically made him rich too, though he always preferred to say he just lived a comfortable life.

When the two of you met in your first year of college, in a class both of you were starting to abhor, you would never imagine how close you would become in the span of a few months. But little by little, your group began to form — Eunseo and Vernon came next, then Kino — and when the end of the first semester neared, he had suggested for the lot of you to head down to his vacation house, the one he went to every Summer. The prospect of going to a place like that in the middle of February was ridiculous until he said he had an indoor pool. Just like any other person who lived comfortably.

This year, though, there were going to be new additions to the trip. Including, of course, Mark and Lucas.

Everything was going to end up just fine because, at the end of the day, your friends were there. And no matter what happened, they were more than enough for you.

The downfall of Kim Jungwoo was being too kind and considerate of others no matter what the situation was. He didn’t have it in his heart to say no to most requests, especially if those came from someone who he considered a great friend of his. He really disliked seeing other people unhappy or lonely.

One hour into the drive to your destination for the next week, shit had already hit the fan. Jungwoo breaks the news that some friends of Mark and Lucas’s friends were tagging along because they were going to be left all alone back in the city without anyone else to keep them company. Lucas supposedly mentioned quite aloofly that statement, and Jungwoo, ever the altruist saviour, couldn’t resist but to make a proposal.

Eunseo almost choked on her gum, Vernon was sleeping with his head resting against Kino’s shoulder, Kino made this awfully funny stank expression, and as much as you wanted to, you couldn’t really avoid the poker face after he drops that bomb on the four of you.

“Are you fucking serious? Again?” Eunseo sounds completely exasperated, rightfully so. You were thankful she was taking the lead, as his girlfriend, it was more acceptable if the nagging came from her, and not from you. Even if deep down you were itching to slap the side of his head.

“Listen,” He tries to reason, side-eyeing her to keep his focus on the road, “They were going to be all alone until the semester started! And it’s not like we can’t accommodate two more people. My house is enough for all of us.”

She scoffs, “It’s not about the size of your fucking house, Jungwoo. It’s about how you just said fuck it to a comfortable environment between people who know each other to bring two more people because you pity them!”

“I know, honey,” His voice is soft, a twinge of regret and desperation coming through, “They know Mark and Lucas, though! It will turn out okay, trust me.”

You doubted it, but you couldn’t possibly hold some judgment or impact over Jungwoo invited over to his house. It was his after all, and if he had deemed fit inviting people who weren’t apart of your group of friends, you just had to accept it. Much like when Mark, Lucas, and Rocky came over to Jungwoo’s place for movie night. They were strangers to the rest (except Mark, but well, no one knew about the circumstances of your prior acquaintanceship except the both of you), but your best friend really tried hard to make his both group of friends become one.

If these friends were like Rocky, who unfortunately had gone abroad with his parents for vacations and couldn’t be present, maybe the environment was going to be amicable, fun even. You were willing to keep an open mind, despite the primary discomfort of mingling with people you weren’t familiar with refusing to wear off.

Eunseo slapped Jungwoo’s hand when he tried to hold it across the console, and you closed your eyes, repeating everything will turn out fine in your head over and over like a mantra until it became true. 

Fake it ’til you make it.

Someone had to be playing some kind of sick, cruel, and twisted trick on you.

Whoever was pulling the strings up there in the sky, God, that abstract deity or deities, were definitely set on making you suffer. Or perhaps someone who was into voodoo had a little stuffed doll version of you, and they found pleasure in pinpricking you whenever they were bored. That person must have been bored to death because nothing had prepared you for what you saw when you stepped out of the car.

You knew it was over as soon as your eyes landed on the two petite, dainty, and incredibly beautiful girls in front of you.

In your stupid, dumb, sad excuse of a brain, these friends Jungwoo was talking about were boys, rowdy, stupid boys, to match the rowdy, stupid energy Mark and Lucas emanated whenever they were together. It never crossed your mind, the possibility of these friends being girls, so unaware yet so powerfully able to destroy your self-confidence and childish hope that something would blossom between Mark and you. One of them, the tallest one with long wavy dark brown hair, has her arm on Mark’s shoulder as she laughs, head thrown back like he had just told the best joke of the century.

You feel sick to your stomach, there’s something akin to bile rising to your throat and you furiously try to swallow it down alongside the feelings you thought you had buried and locked safely in the confines of your chest.

“Guys!” Lucas bellows, and everyone’s attention shifts to your group, “Now the party can officially begin!”

A forced smile breaks on your lips, the kind everyone could see how fake it was. The girl’s hand slides from his shoulder as Mark shuffles forward, eyes on you, towards where you were standing next to Kino. The anxiety makes you grab his arm for safety, to keep you from acting stupid. You can tell Mark knows something is up by the way he scrunches his nose at your small, dismissive wave in his direction, but he neither says nor does anything about it. Thankfully.

The girls — the petty, hungry and jealous monster living inside of you ached to call them intruders — introduced themselves as Yoojung and Doyeon, the latter being the one who had been cosying all up on Mark. Much to your dismay, they’re both incredibly sweet and genuine people, to the point of helping the rest of you set up everything in the house so your stay is comfortable.

On the first night, Doyeon cooks everyone dinner and nothing but high praises are sung to the food she makes. Mark repeats the dish twice, compliments leaving his mouth incessantly, and the dagger piercing through your heart is dug deeper. You were painfully aware that she wasn’t to blame, but when even your friends begin asking for more of it, you were bound to feel the metaphorical blow on your stomach. The cook of the group was you. The person whose food always had everyone raving about was you. You can’t even stomach more than three bites before you say you’re not feeling too well.

 It was starting to resemble like that fateful movie night all over again, with you feeling retracted and alienated. For the remainder of the night, you claim to be extremely tired due to the traveling and withdraw yourself to the room you shared with Eunseo, — since she still wasn’t completely over the stunt he had pulled, but you just knew she was going to trade places with Kino midweek, who was rooming with Jungwoo for the time being — covering your entire body with the duvet. You can hear the cacophony of laughter coming from the living room. It rings in your ears until you fall asleep.

On day two, you wake up earlier than usual. Scoping around the enormous place, you find that no one else is awake, just you. Not even Lucas, who was curled in a ball on the U-shaped sofa, snoring. You tiptoe your way to the kitchen, set on making something guilt-free to ease the relentless growling of your stomach. After last night’s dinner, you were positively starving.

Cooking had always been something you loved to do as a hobby. As a kid, you had watched your grandmother, and your mother too, make the most delicious food with so much gusto it was inevitable for you to follow their steps and prove how cooking ran in your blood. Acknowledging how good you were at it was far from bragging: it was barely the result of kinship. So it was safe to say your ego was bruised at the lack of request from your friends to cook last night’s meal. This particular breakfast was meant to be therapeutic, to settle the sensitive nerves you had clawing inside of you.

You were finishing pouring the first spoon of pancake batter onto the oiled frying pan when the scraping of a chair against the floor sounds behind you, announcing someone else was now with you. The sudden heaviness clutching around your heart is a foresight, it’s like your body had become so in tune to his you were now able to feel his presence without any of your five senses.

“Good morning.” You don’t turn back to look at him, afraid the sight of a sleepy Mark would devastate you beyond the point of no return. 

���Morning,” He hums. You’re floored at how sultry and comforting his voice sounds. “What are you making?”

You were silly to think sharing a vicinity for a whole week with the person you were crushing on was going to be okay. The hand holding the scoop trembled pathetically against the bowl, and you hadn’t even look at him whatsoever. Every little thing concerning him was enough to make your heart grow in size and volume until it occupied the entirety of your chest.

“Nutella pancakes.”

Mark groans, the sound rumbling deep from his chest, and it’s so effective in the way it elicits a shiver down your spine, “That sounds amazing. Care to share some with this boy who feels like crap?”

That’s enough to make you face him. As expected, it shakes you to your very core. You couldn’t even muster up beautiful and coherent thoughts about how good he looked. His hair is obviously finger brushed, yet there’s a cowlick standing cutely stiff against the rest; the urge to put it down is so immense you claw your nails in the meaty part of your palm. “Did something happen?”

“I could say the same thing to you. You barely ate yesterday, and fled so quickly I didn’t even see you.”

You roll your eyes, but inside you’re scrambling to find an excuse while you go back to your main task, “It’s called being car sick, Mark. I’m not used to really long drives.”

“Sure,” His lips twist as a visual cue to show he didn’t truly believe your words. “If you must know, I feel like crap because I didn’t check up on you.” 

You hum once again, taking a dollop of Nutella and dropping it in the middle of the pancake before covering it with another scoop of batter. He continues, “I was going to, though. Then decided against it because I didn’t want to bother you.”

“Maybe you should have.” You say, using the spatula next to you to flip the pancake, “I wouldn’t have minded the company.”

“I’m sorry.” He murmurs. You don’t reply, and the pancake sizzling on the stove speaks on your behalf.

Silence wraps around you so uncomfortably your skin crawls at how awkward it feels. What were you supposed to say? ‘No, Mark, I’m the one who should be sorry for acting all stupid around you’? Or perhaps saying ‘The reason I’m acting this weird is because I have a big, fat crush on you and seeing you act all chummy with an attractive girl makes me want to bash my head against a wall’ would reflect the dangerous tides drowning you better. So you do what you always do best, and place your feelings in front of him in the form of probably the most perfect looking pancakes ever. He would never realise it, and at this point neither did you want him to. The sting of being rejected had over-imposed itself over any fake bravado you could possibly pour out. 

He digs in like he hadn’t eaten for days, the moan coming out of his moan paired with his eyes rolling back into his skull so obscene it propels you to swivel your body so you could actually make something for you to eat.

You sit across from him while you eat your breakfast, and all Mark does is stare at you in the meanwhile. It weighs burdensomely on your shoulders for the first minutes, then disappears when the familiarity settles in. After you’re done, you go back to your room with exhaustion seeping through your pores as if you hadn’t slept in years. 

He doesn’t get up after you, just stays there sitting on the chair.

On day three, you try to keep a more positive aspect about every possible outcome. Sulking around in possibly one of the best occasions had little to no sense. You mingle a lot more with everyone, including Jooyoung and Doyeon. It pained you to admit, but they were really sweet, witty girls, which made it incredibly hard for you to hate Doyeon when she was so likable and genuine.

You didn’t want to be consumed by this restricting feeling of insecurity whenever she was around, because really, she wasn’t doing anything wrong. Sure, she was extremely touchy when it came to Mark, it seemed like she had to be touching him in any way, whether it was the side of their arms touching whenever they were sitting down — because they always ended up sitting next to each other, leaving you to be sandwiched between Lucas and Kino — or her hand seeking solace in the slope of his shoulder as she laughed and leaned forward, but that could be simply coincidental. Or maybe Doyeon and you were on the same boat, sharing a crush on the most oblivious guy on Earth. Yet the difference between the both of you lied in the fact that she wasn’t afraid to act upon it unlike you. Even if you had kissed him, which was probably way more than she had ever done. 

But Mark either didn’t remember, or he was pretending not to.

By the end of the afternoon of the third day, everyone seemed to be in the mood for a dip in the indoor pool. And your nightmare began to unravel from that moment onwards.

If Doyeon already looked absolutely stunning with loose-fitting, comfortable clothes and minimal makeup, it was no wonder she was five times better with a swimsuit and barefaced. The simple pink one-piece she was wearing outshined your navy striped one by a long shot. You never really stood a chance against her to begin with, but now that everyone was as less clothed as one could be in public, you were feeling insecure beyond words.

Especially because Mark and she kept on splashing water towards one another, the underlying tones of flirting barely visible to anyone else but you. The way he ruffled up his wet hair, his lips parting whenever she spoke, the crinkling in his eyes. It all made nausea boil up in your throat, so you tried to distract yourself by playing silly games with your friends. Pretending was your strong suit.

Or you liked to believe it was.

That night Doyeon huddles in a sweatshirt that is too big to be hers with her head poised delicately on Mark’s shoulder, and whatever resolve to keep being strong you thought you had withered away, the bitter poison of definite heartbreak taking over and spreading like an incurable virus.

This was it.

You had reached your limit, there was no going back. A silent sob tears through your throat, your hand reaching to clamp over your mouth to prevent any sound from coming out. This was too much, even for you. Parading his probable relationship in front of everyone while completely forgetting to acknowledge what happened in New Year’s Eve was proving to be too cruel. Never in your life did you think Mark Lee, the person who you didn’t believe had a bad bone in his body, was capable of crushing your ribcage and whatever was inside into fine dust. 

The waters had completely pulled you under, and there was an anchor strapped to your ankle continuously dragging you down until you no longer could fight back.

You had taken for granted how sweet it was to breathe.

Eunseo is sitting on her bed, back leaning against the headboard when you storm in with your face blearing red and tearful. Her eyes catch yours and your knees buckle under the metaphorical pending weight of your heartbreak, still covering your mouth to stifle the ugly sobs reverberating against your palm. 

It was funny how amid your sinkage, the main thought going through your mind was not to alert anyone but to suffer in silence and alone. But it seemed like she wasn’t going to allow that.

You hear the clicking of your bedroom door closing followed by frantic hands grabbing your shoulders. Your best friend has shock painted all over her face, like this façade you were allowing her to witness was not one she was expecting.

“What happened?” Her voice is shaky, hands shaking your frame, “___, what the hell is going on?” There’s no strength left in you, you can’t even support your own weight, let alone verbalise the tsunami inside your chest. Eunseo lets you drop your body against her, her arms wrapping around you to cradle your head against the juncture between her neck and shoulder.

She doesn’t pry any further, and for that you are thankful. You just keep on crying quietly while her fingers run through your hair, humming a tune so soft and sweet it lulls you to sleep, the now dry tears leaving stain marks in its stead.

You wake up in the middle of the night to find yourself sharing a bed with your best friend. She is latched onto you so tightly it almost glues back the broken pieces of your heart back into place, and the protective streak it possesses brings a fresh wave of tears to your waterline, but you hold it back because you already feel too bad for ruining her — it was Jungwoo’s, actually — shirt. Sleep comes back to you once again, the headache resulting from your mental breakdown dissipating in the process. When the morning comes and both of you are awake, she lets you be the one to open up instead of being the one to poke through your sensitive state.

“I…” Red burns your cheek yet for a different reason than yesterday. You felt so disgustingly embarrassed to confess to another person about your innermost feelings, disregarding the fact this was one of the people you trusted the most. “I like someone.”

“I see,” Her reaction is neutral. She’s void of facial expression as if she’s cautious with the way she should react to your words. “You like someone. And the reason you cried yesterday was because of this person.”

You gulp, “Yeah. It was.”

“This person hurt you.” Eunseo doesn’t ask any questions. She resorts to making blanket statements to help you untangle the mess going on inside of you. As if you didn’t already love her enough.

“He did, but I don’t know if it was intentional.” You laugh low on your throat, shake your head in disbelief. “He’s so fucking oblivious about everything, I highly doubt it was.”

“What happened yesterday was prompted by something you saw, then.”

She was getting closer to unveiling the grand truth. The thrum of your heartbeat picked up as if your body was giving you a sign that even if it felt like you had drowned, it was still beating for you. You were still alive. You weren’t okay, but you hadn’t died because of it. “Yeah,” Confirming it was leeway to compressing the scope of potential people. She now knew it was someone in Jungwoo’s house.

“Okay, correct me if I’m wrong. You like someone so much it made you break down, and that said someone is currently in this house. Therefore it’s a person you and I both know quite well, except if it is either Jooyoung or Doyeon. Which I highly doubt because you haven’t known them for longer than four days, and the fact you said he.”

You scoff, flicking her on the forehead, and Eunseo tries to swat your hand away but fails. “Of course it’s not them. Who do you think I am?”

“I was just crossing people from the list,” She shrugs, “This was the easiest way. I also suppose you’re not in love with Jungwoo.”

“Eunseo! What the fuck!” You shove her now, appalled. She laughs aloud at your reaction, and it only makes you even madder. 

“Oh, bite me, will you?” She huffs before shaking her head with a grin, “It’s called process of elimination. “I have to narrow my options here. Do you want me to take a guess or do you want to tell me who the person is by yourself?”

And there it was again, the stinging of incoming tears behind your eyelids. They don’t come out, however.

You knew to cry meant you had held on for too long, but you couldn’t shake the nagging perception that it somewhat weakened you. Especially since the reason behind it was related to the mechanics of your heart. But this was Eunseo, your best friend. The person who had been there for you through thick and thin, while never belittling you for your complex way of being.

She deserved honesty. 

Even if finally admitting it to someone out loud was beyond scary.

“It’s…” You take a deep breath, “It’s Mark.”

She doesn’t show any major physical reaction to your confession, zeroes in on something behind you and keeps her gaze there for a few seconds. It’s unsettling to you, the anxiety buzzing underneath your skin as you wait for her to react.

“Oh my God,” You whine. It has been too long since she has spoken, and it was slowly getting on your nerves, “Just say something.”

She exhales loudly, her shoulders sagging, “Am I allowed to freak out?” You roll your eyes at her comment but nod nonetheless. Any reaction was better than none. “This is so exciting. I’ve been holding it in since yesterday but now I can finally lose my shit.”

“This is not exciting, Eunseo.” You frown. There wasn’t anything exciting about heartbreak. “He doesn’t like me back. These feelings I have aren’t mutual.”

“And how do you know he doesn’t like you?”

“Because yesterday he was all cuddled up next to Doyeon as if we didn’t fucking kiss on New Year’s Eve!” Thinking about it again made the anger you tried to tamper down close to surface. Mark was cruel.

“Wait, wait, wait, wait. Kissed?! I haven’t had time to process the fact that you even like someone, and you drop the K bomb on me like this? Tell me everything. From the beginning.”

And that’s what you do. You tell Eunseo about how you two go way back, way farther than everyone else thinks you go. 

You tell her about how your high school experience hadn’t been the best, and how Mark was the person you had always aspired to be back then. How popular and versatile he was. About how meeting him two years later had been extremely uncomfortable because a person like him wasn’t supposed to mingle with your people, yet there he had been, laughing at what Jungwoo was saying. About how you had reluctantly given this friendship thing a try, since her boyfriend was so keen on him and his friends, and since deep down you had always wanted to see how he was truly like. 

You tell Eunseo about how well you two match. How every conversation was never-ending, like an infinite, sturdy string that went for miles and miles and never stopped. How caring, and genuine he had always been, even in high school. You tell her about how little by little your resolve wore off, and his company began to feel both needed and appreciated. How on New Year’s Eve you get drunk together, and you teach him how to smoke. 

You tell your best friend how you both ended up cuddling on the rug of Jungwoo’s living room. And you tell her about how compelled you had felt to kiss him when the countdown began. Not because of some lame fucking tradition like you had tried to convince yourself, but because you really wanted to. You had never wanted anything in your life so badly.

Heartbreakingly, you tell her then about how the saddening part of the story unfolds. He doesn’t acknowledge your kiss, he doesn’t make a move, he doesn’t give you so much as an inch of leeway to convince yourself he could be feeling the same thing as you were.

By the time your storytelling ends, her hand is overlapping yours in what you consider empathy. She’s rubbing the back of it with her thumb, and the way she’s looking at you makes the lump in your throat almost lurch. You want to cry, to show how sad you were, though you don’t do it. Yesterday’s shenanigans had proved themselves to be enough — you were mentally tired. There was no more room or strength to do so.

“I can’t believe all of this happened underneath our noses and we never realised it…” She’s incredibly surprised, that much you can tell. Her face scrunches like she’s trying to remember something, and you just keep looking at her in amusement. “I seriously just thought the two of you were really good friends.”

“And we are.” You pause, remember how recently things hadn’t been that okay on your side. “Or were. I don’t know, honestly. I just feel like it will be really difficult for me to pretend that nothing is affecting me, because I have the urge to punch someone every time I see them together.”

“I’m not gonna lie, I noticed that they’re close but I just assumed it’s because they’re friends.”

“That’s such flawed logic.” You roll your eyes, crossing your arms against your chest. “You and Jungwoo were also close but there was nothing platonic about it.”

“That’s differen— Okay. You’re right. So what are you gonna’ do?”

“There’s really nothing I can do. I’ll have to get over him.” You shrug innocently, and Eunseo glares at you. She wants to call you unbearable, you know it. “Three more days to go, and then I can put my distance.”

You can tell she wants to lecture you, tell you to find another way other than giving up. But she doesn’t, in true Eunseo fashion. 

The rest of that day is spent holed up inside your room without contacting or interaction with anyone except Eunseo, who takes one for the team and keeps you company during the whole time. She tells you Mark asks for you when she gets back from getting snacks on the break between the second and third Harry Potter movie you were marathoning on Netflix. You shrug in response, drink big gulps of water as if it would drown your feelings to death.

Sometimes you wished that was possible.

Day five arrives, and the prospect of things looking up is nothing but a mere pathetic theory. Quite on the contrary, it’s on day five where everything gets worse than worst. 

Throughout the day, the interactions between Mark and Doyeon are so disgusting to your whole system that you actually end up dry heaving against the toilet, retches tormenting you as you try to make sense of the situation. You had reached the lowest of lows, the rock bottom. 

But this wasn’t you. This had never been you. Not even back in high school where you longed to belong somewhere.

The migraines had been the only constant on that trip, and they kept on becoming stronger and stronger as the days went by, much like your mood. You had gotten to the point where the only people you tolerated were Eunseo and Kino, everyone else just contributed to the hammering going inside your head.

Still, you had been able to avoid Mark.

That is until the fateful day six begins, and Jungwoo corners you in the kitchen, a furious scowl etched on his face.

“Would you care to tell me what the fuck is going on with you?” His tone is accusatory, hurtful. He’s not there to be nice, that much you had already gathered.

“Is this an intervention?” You cock your eyebrow at him, leaning your lower back against the counter. He keeps staring at you, stance aggressive. 

“Let’s call it an intervention, if you want. Why the fuck have you been acting so weird lately? Why have you turned your phone off? Why are you avoiding Mark?” He’s firing question after question, not even giving you room to process them. The way he’s handling his energy is so chaotic, it makes your blood boil underneath your skin. Jungwoo had no right to be mad at you when he didn’t make any effort to consult you about your wellbeing during this whole trip, and the moment he does, his only instinct is to spit venomous words instead of choosing a more careful approach.

“And why the fuck do you care?” There’s a fire building up inside of you, the flames licking up your throat. You’re now almost chest to chest with him, your eyes wide and vicious. If it was possible, laser beams would be shooting out of them.

“Are you serious right now? You’re my best friend, of course I care about you!”

You scoff, “Took you long enough to figure out something’s not okay.”

“You’re being so unfair.”

“Am I?” You laugh darkly, eyes roaming around the room. Jungwoo hated being left in the dark. It made him feel powerless like he wasn’t doing enough for those he loved. And you were deliberately doing what you knew would hurt him. Because that was the person you had become. “Or were you simply too occupied to realise it?”

“Now you’re just pushing it, ___.” He grits out, “I don’t know what is going on, but you’re acting like an asshole. Everyone is commenting about how you’re avoiding us. Mark is like a lost puppy wandering around because it’s like he’s the plague to you.”

The thought of Mark feeling miserable because of you is just so absurd you don’t refrain from laughing out loud sarcastically. “Mark looks absolutely fine to me. Doyeon seems to be a qualified substitute.”

“Okay, I get it now. Something happened between you two.” He says, plain and simple. You feel the blistering heat on your cheeks, and words can’t even slip from your lips because he carries on, “Honestly, I’m not really interested in knowing what happened exactly. I care about the fact that you’re being an asshole to everyone else because of it. Don’t take your anger out on someone who doesn’t deserve it.”

Shame is staining your face in such an ugly red shade you can’t even muster up the courage to look him in the eye, and fight back. Mainly because there’s nothing you can really say to him. 

“I’m putting you on shopping duty today with Mark.” He pauses, reaches for the back of your hand, and runs his finger just once against it, “Running away from confrontation is literally the worst thing you could possibly do. It will never fix things.”

He’s right, of course, and it hurts you.

It hurts you, but not because of how bittersweet truth can taste. It hurts because of all people, it had to be Jungwoo. Jungwoo, whose words had always been like rivers of honey flowing through your ears, now felt like they had blasted your eardrums off, leaving nothing but blood trickling down in its wake. This was a side of him you were seeing for the first time. But then again, this was also a side of you nobody had ever seen.

The extremes to which you had taken the situation was destroying everything around you. This vacation was supposed to be filled to the brim with beautiful memories you would never forget. Instead, you were letting your childish emotions dictate your whole persona, and disregard everyone else around you as if they didn’t exist, only him. 

You had nothing left to lose.

Maybe the truth would set you free.

For a few seconds, Mark thought he was seeing a ghost, the apparition of something supernatural right before his eyes. He was more surprised than the moment you kissed him on New Year’s Eve if that was even possible. But it wasn’t a ghost, it was you making your way to him while he waited for the person who was supposed to help him with grocery shopping. 

Now he understood why Jungwoo was acting all secretive and straight-up refusing to say who that person was.

“Are you going to stand there all day?” You sound annoyed, and he has no clue why. Actually, Mark has been in a permanent state of confusion ever since that day.

He remembers how going home after being so intimate with you felt like he had been floating in a cloud, instead of having Lucas push him by the collar and throw him on the bed. He remembers how soft and supple your lips felt, even if they had missed the initial aim because of how much of a fucking idiot he was. Everything had felt so surreal, like a dream too sweet to come true. 

But you never said anything about it or mentioned it ever again.

And Mark didn’t have the guts to invest further, because he was a scaredy-cat who felt too weak when it came to you.

“Oh. Sorry.” He makes his way to the driver’s seat, spares a quick glance in your direction only to find you staring stoically ahead. You’re wearing a navy blue cap, it sits so low on your head he can barely see your eyes, just the end of your nose and the lips he had been fantasising about for the past month.

The lips which had touched his — kind of — and since then Mark only grew defeated at the lack of response coming from you.

There was such a tense atmosphere between both of you, in comparison to how comfortable you had been around each other at the party. Everything had been going so well, Mark had never been so happy in his entire life, and in hindsight, the end of the night was just perfect. But the truth was, the kiss had been the catalyst to how distant you had become. 

No more facetime calls, no more feeling at ease whenever you both were together. And in Mark’s perspective, this trip was supposed to make the spark from the New Year’s Eve party ignite between you both again.

His expectations paled in comparison to the reality. The person he saw was avoiding him, glaring at him across the dinner table, refusing to interact with other people. Something was going on, and it was killing him not knowing why. Or worse, if he was the reason behind it all.

The eery silence ceases when you’re inside the supermarket, standing awkwardly still in front of the small magazine stall near the registers. 

“Do you have the list?” Your voice lacks any emotion, yet it still startles him. He misses talking to you freely, hearing you laugh through the speaker on his phone as he buries his face against the pillow because he’s smiling so big his cheeks hurt.

“Yeah,” He takes the folded slip of paper from his back pocket. It’s crumpled and frayed at the edges — he had been fiddling with it before he saw you. 

You clear your throat, avert your head to look at the tabloid newspapers, “We should split up, it’s quicker that way.”

“No,” He takes pride in the way his answer makes you look at him, the sternness in his voice showing. Mark wanted to be selfish for once. “I don’t want to lose you.” The pregnant pause is meant to make you think about his words, but he continues before things got too awkward, “This place is huge.”

You say nothing, but still rip the paper from his clammy hand, and storm ahead of him to find whatever was written on it.

Jungwoo’s scrawny chicken handwriting is barely legible, Mark notices once he peaks over your shoulder. You’re deliberating between two brands of rice as if it’s the hardest choice you had ever encountered in your entire life. It’s adorable, to say the least. But he doesn’t say anything, like always, because that’s what people like Mark do: they wallow in self-pity until feelings dissipate within the particles of the wind. They cower behind the false pretense of unrequited affection. They never chase their dreams to the fullest. They let them wither and fall between the cracks in the pavement.

Change scared him. Still, the thought of losing your friendship was enough to sear his heart.

So that’s why Mark was going to tread a very fine line, in hopes of at least getting back what was slipping through his fingers.

“Can we talk?”

You look over at him, a light frown adorning your face in spite of the poor attempt at hiding your face with your hat, grabbing a bottle of Coke at the same time. “We’re already talking.”

“We’re talking about groceries.”

“Are you saying groceries aren’t important enough to be considered a conversational topic?” You muse, laughing dryly right after. This indifference was starting to get on Mark’s nerves.

He strides so he’s standing right on the other side of the cart, hands holding it so tightly his knuckles turned white. “Cut the crap, ___. What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Now move.” Scoffing, you try to push the cart in your direction, but Mark tightens his hold even further so you’re unable to take it with you. “Mark. Let go. Don’t make me cause a scene right here in the middle of a fucking supermarket.”

He falters with the intensity of your voice and takes his hand off, sighing loudly, “We’re not done. I’m tired of this.”

Your head flings back violently to stare at him with the widest eyes he had ever seen. Mark finally takes note of the incredibly purple under-eye circles, the tired, dull-looking skin. The deep, heart-wrenching feeling in his gut was slowly confirming what he had been fearing: he probably was one of the reasons why you were like this, if not the only one.

“Oh, you’re tired? How sad, Mark. Maybe take your head out of your ass for once and take a hint. So many things are happening around you and you either choose to ignore it or you’re just fucking dumb enough to not realise it.”

“What do you mean?” Mark feels like he’s being stabbed all over again with every poisonous word falling from your lips. It’s not the words themselves that are hurting him, it’s the fact that he was the person who caused you to become this way and not knowing exactly what he had done.

You let out a low shriek of frustration, “Unbelievable. You wouldn’t see it even if it hit you in the head.”

“Let’s talk in the car.” He sighs. You don’t say anything back, but Mark takes the eye roll you throw in his direction as a small victory for now. The rest of the grocery shopping happens in complete silence sans the squeaky wheels of the cart and the Ed Sheeran song humming throughout the store.

Mark is dreading getting in the car with you, afraid of getting another earful of rejecting comments or worse, not being able to find out what exactly he had done for you to completely shut him out. Was it because he allowed you to kiss him while you were both not in your right state of mind? Should he had been more firm in his morals instead of giving in to what he had been wanting for the past three years?

More silence carries both of you back to Jungwoo’s house, Mark’s hand gripping the steering wheel on the way back so tightly his knuckles are ghostly white against the dark leather. The air felt stuffy, full of resentment and opportunities for new beginnings. You reckon the time to pour your heart out has come: there, inside that parked car, you were going to tell him everything without holding back. This crush had grown to lengths you had never expected, it had turned you into the shell of the girl you used to be. 

Your inferiority complex had never gone away.

“Can I ask you something?” You start off, taking the baseball cap off of your head before running a hand through your slightly greasy hair. Mark’s eyes immediately lock on yours, nods in your direction. “Did it even mean something to you? The kiss?”

“I- I thought you didn’t remember that.” He gulps, scratching the back of his neck awkwardly.

“You thought or you didn’t want me to remember?” You hate how feeble your voice sounds, how crystal clear the pain echoes with every word you say. “You know, Mark, it’s okay if you don’t like me back, the thing is that I can’t really go on any longer pretending everything’s okay when it’s not.”

Mark’s body coils like a springboard at your implied confession, his muscles tense, and the way he looks at you resembles a madman. You allow him some seconds to formulate some type of reply, yet all he does is open and close his mouth as if there is nothing he could say.

“Yeah, newsflash… I like you, Mark. I thought the kiss made it pretty obvious but then again we were drunk and high so I understand if you didn’t think too much of it.” There’s a lump sitting at the top of your throat and tears brimming in your lash line. The urge to cry is so strong now, you had never imagined that confessing your feelings to the person’s face would be so emotionally and mentally straining. “I guess I’m the one to blame because I expected you to make the next move, to show that this crush wasn’t one-sided but… Yeah… We all know how that one went, uh?”

“Anyway… This is why I’ve been distant.” You chuckle, wiping the stray tear that decided to go rogue against your will, “And as you can imagine, seeing the guy I like acting so close to another girl was bound to make me feel all types of sad. I don’t know if you’re dating or not and if you are I am sorry for telling you this. I guess I just needed to let this all out before I began moving on.”

He’s completely still, zoned out as if his body was there but his soul was absent. You’re unsure of what to make of this since you were expecting him to say something back. But maybe this was for the best, him not saying a word. It would spare you an even bigger heartbreak.

“I’ll ask the guys to come get the groceries.” You smile sadly before opening the door, leaving him confined in that tiny car alongside his thoughts.

You don’t see Mark for the rest of the day, fortunately. While in the previous days you had been the one acting all weird and evasive, now Mark had taken it upon himself to fulfill that role. It gives you time to reflect upon yourself and your situation.

Dinner that night is made by you and everyone loves it. The conversation flows beautifully between everyone, even with Doyeon: you find out the two of you have a lot more in common than you imagined. Surprisingly, the heavy burden sunk in the depths of your chest is no longer there, only a dull ache which throbbed only whenever your brain conjured any thought about Mark. You’d take that as progress. Except you can’t help yourself but think about what prompted him into isolating himself. Maybe he was too embarrassed to face you now that he knew you liked him. Or maybe he didn’t have the courage to be your friend anymore. All in all, your pride was hurt. Not having your feelings reciprocated sucked.

Later on, you watch Bird Box sandwiched between your best friends, let yourself shed a few stray tears over the sentimentality of the movie. You can hear sniffles and stifled sobs coming from Doyeon and Kino while Jungwoo holds Eunseo’s hand and brings it to his lips to gently peck it from time to time. It’s enough to make you reminisce about New Year’s Eve, about how right it felt to be with Mark in that kind of intimate setting. You want to do it again and again and again until you can’t even remember how many times you have been like that until it becomes second nature to you. But that won’t happen. So you force yourself to eradicate that painful thought from your mind and train your eyes steadily on the screen until it all blurs.

People start going back to their rooms little by little, eventually. The clock is ticking near one in the morning and contrary to what you were expecting, there’s not one ounce of exhaustion in your body. You are awake, you feel awake like there’s a buzz in your bloodstream that’s preventing you from getting sleepy. It’s as if not even your own brain wants you to stop thinking.

Lucky for your brain, you can’t stop thinking. So while everyone else is sleeping soundly in their beds, the cogs in your brain twist and turn desperately trying to formulate any reasonable explanation for everything that had happened recently. And in spite of the sting caused by rejection, your heart still called to him, pathetically so, and during this whole fiasco, you were worried about his wellbeing. You were worrying if he was hungry, thirsty, tired, either if he was crying or in need of a hug. Above your state of passion for him stood a friendship you valued tremendously; you were losing both at the same time.

The blood boiling beneath your skin makes the air around you feel too stifling like you’re in the middle of a heatwave on a July afternoon instead of a February late night where the temperature doesn’t even waver beyond 20ºC. You trudge outside to where the pool is, the moon illuminating and reflecting upon the tiny ripples of water ever so gently, just enough to showcase how beautiful stillness and darkness can be. There’s this urge within you to just dive in, even if the water is not as warm as you want it to be, and you do just that, damned be everything and everyone. 

You’re swimming in Jungwoo’s summer house backyard all by yourself in your underwear and somehow, despite the trials and tribulations of your pathetic life, you wouldn’t change anything about that moment. They are the ones that make you grow as a person, that help you shape yourself into a more mature, better version.

But moments like these are also meant to be changed. Like the way the pitch-black sky is coated with hues of pink, yellow, and orange just as dawn becomes daylight. Those seemingly slow and everlasting shifts in nature you can’t help but acknowledge: they’re meant to happen.

That’s why you don’t even flinch when you hear a small splash behind you, yet that restlessness comes to life, the one where you can feel in every fibre of your being whenever he was around. But you don’t turn around, don’t act surprised. You’re ready to embrace whatever it is that is about to come your way.

“Hi.” Mark’s voice is so soft and faint you can barely hear him. If it wasn’t for the stupid fact you like him so much to the point your chest felt like it was about to split open violently in any second, things like his uneven breathing pattern would go amiss. 

You flip around, see how sunken his face looks. It breaks your heart even further than it already was to begin with. Resisting the impulse you were having of swimming across the pool so you could hold him in your warms was proving to be the most difficult thing you had ever done. 

“Hi, Mark.”

In any other occasion, seeing Mark shirtless would be more than enough to make you go through hot flashes for the following hour, especially when you were only wearing your bra and panties, yet there was absolutely nothing sexual about this moment. You were both near-naked, stripped of barriers, of façades you put on in order to protect yourselves. At that very moment, there was only vulnerability oozing from your pores and his.

This was it. The grand finale was finally about to happen.

“How are you feeling?” You start off, lowering your shoulders inside the water to keep them warm from the breeze. “You look like shit.”

That elicits a snort from Mark’s lips followed by a gleaming smile which you can see from your spot on the other end of the pool. It’s sweet and it sticks to your memory like golden honey, reminds you of how much you have missed him in general. He was your friend before he was the one who could either make you or break you, so you yearn for his friendship way more than any other thing in the world. No one could understand you with the same intricacy and intimacy as Mark did; you would rather not be able to feel the suppleness of his lips than to lose him altogether, lose the gift of his friendship.

“Honestly?” He asks, mimicking your position and lowering his shoulders as well, “I don’t think there’s any way I can convey how I feel right now without it sounding like complete nonsense.”

This statement intrigues you. It sparks something deep within that you know it shouldn’t, but falling in love with someone brings out the person’s most vulnerable state to the forefront. A person in love will go back on their word if that means one step closer to the heart they want. “Try me,” You shrug, “I’m all ears.”

“I don’t even know where to begin.”

“If this is all because of what I told you… because I like you, then I’m sorry.” You cast your eyes downwards and flick mindlessly the water around you. “I know that it’s a lot to take in and maybe it was selfish of me to let it all build up and then lay it all on you like that.”

“No,” He interjects quickly, treading the pool waters in slow but steady strides until he’s more than an arm’s reach from you. “I was surprised, yes, and it was overwhelming because that was the last thing I was expecting you to say.”

You laugh, “You were malfunctioning back there. I get it though.”

“You don’t,” He deadpans, voice solemn, “You don’t understand at all… What it’s like waiting for years to hear something and then your brain completely shuts down when it does finally happen.”

Your heartbeat is thrumming so loud you can feel it reverberating all over your body, it courses through you like a rush of blood, intensely so, that you refrain from pinching yourself. The nuances in his speech are making you feel like you’re dreaming the sweetest dream and if it was indeed a figment of your imagination, you didn’t want to wake up any time soon.

“I’ve had a thing for you since high school, ___.” He confesses, angling his body to the side as if ashamed or embarrassed or afraid. Deep down you want to laugh because there’s no reason for him to feel like that at all. You’re desperately in love with him in every intricate and complex way possible in the world. Like a galaxy and constellations, and the moons, the planets, and the stars within orbiting in sync yet light-years away from each other.

But the heavy rise and fall of your chest and the tears welling up in your eyes tell a different story.

Mark liked you back.

He continues, “And I know you used to think I was too popular to even become your friend, but that sure as hell didn’t stop me from liking you. Hell, it made me like you even more… I knew it back then and I know it now too… I really, really like you. A lot. Like, you make my heart do these funky, weird flips every time we hang out.”

You’re crying by the end of his little confession, sniffling quietly so he doesn’t notice, yet when he finally dares to lift his eyes towards yours, he sees you wiping the back of your palm against your cheek. As if it was an instinct, he crosses the space left dividing the both of you, pausing right before his hand could touch you. Like you were a dainty marble statue that could break even with the tiniest of touches.

“Shit, I’m sorry— Don’t cry, please.”

“No,” You protest, “I’m crying because I’m happy. I’m crying because I never imagined this moment would actually happen. It’s just surreal.”

His hand stutters when it finally grazes your skin, yet his thumb still spans the surface of your cheek ever so gently, ever so softly. You refuse to believe it isn’t real, these last interactions you two were sharing were so dream-like your own hand reaches up to press against his, to feel the texture of his skin, your eyes closing in the process because of how full your heart was feeling.

Mark liked you. The person you liked, liked you back. You had been torturing yourself for the past week with thoughts of not being reciprocated to the point that you felt the very core of your being dim. And it had been all for nothing because he had a thing for you way before you even considered him a friend. 

Miscommunication was such a fickle thing. This whole situation could have been avoided if the two of you had been more open about your feelings instead of repressing them in fear of the reaction of the other.

“Mark,” You say, his hand still cradling your face, “Can we hug? Is that okay?”

Mark is unable to properly reply with words to your question, only a smile breaking through his lips at the pure disbelief of how happy such words could make him feel. He doesn’t need to say anything at all, he reckons, as he lowers your hand, and his too, before snaking his arms around yours, tumbling you softly into his chest in the process.

There’s a newfound comfort in the way your face is squished against his shoulder, like every single worry that had been weighing him down had completely vanished the moment you stepped into his arms. The pounding of his heart is no longer rooted in venom, it has tiny flowers blooming along each branch and stem, a small, lovely glimpse into paradise on earth. 

A wave of nostalgia hits Mark in the gut and he can’t help but to think about New Year’s Eve, think about how similar this moment feels to the one almost two months ago yet the contrast is so very stark. Back then you were both tiptoeing around your emotions, scared of taking a leap and finding out that there’s nothing but concrete down there. Now you’re worn down, you and him, by the cluster of emotions and the lack of experience on how to handle them. Yet you’re together in whatever this is, may that be navigating through the corridors of young love or finding out what’s on the other side of the door doesn’t quite correspond to what you’ve been idealising. 

“I’m sorry,” You’ve been in an embrace for probably more than ten minutes and Mark’s voice breaks a little, right hand spanning the middle of your back, “For not being so forward… I’m not very good at this— I’ve never been. I tried, back in high school, you know? I tried but it always felt like the universe was against me. Every time I mustered the courage to do something, another person cockblocked the shit out of me.”

You bring your head back to look him in the eyes, “It’s okay, Mark. I’m not very good at this either. I had this crazy way of thinking that you were like… unreachable to someone like me. So I never expected us to become friends, let along like you or have you like me back.”

“Please,” He scoffs playfully, tightening his arms around you, “I liked you first.”

You roll your eyes, stepping out of his embrace and flicking some water in his direction, “Anyways… I’m also sorry. For being too pushy and demanding too much from you. And for ruining this whole trip for everyone.”

“I wouldn’t say you ruined the trip, just… confused the shit out of everyone, maybe?” He tries to reason, voice a little doubtful. You’re aware of how your little jealous stints made the mood a little sour for everyone, and you feel remorseful for letting such negativity consume you. Love really made you do the unthinkable.

“Jealousy is a bitch, I’ll say that.”

“Jealousy? Were you jealous?” Mark asks, curiosity splattered on his face, “Jealous of wha— Oh. No way…”

Mark has a stupid little grin on his face like he already has you all figured out, and you stubbornly, yet playfully, turn your back to him as you begin to tread back to the other end of the pool to try and get him to follow you. Maybe hug you from behind. Kiss your neck or whatever. You’d leave that for him to decide.

A giggle leaves your mouth as you hear the water swishing from behind you. You keep going until you reach the border and when you twist your body to rest your back against it, Mark is hot on your tail, immediately caging you in between his arms.

“Jealous, uh?” He’s coming across as cocky, and given the circumstances you were now, it was far from making you annoyed or turned off.

“Yeah,” You breathe out, focusing on the droplets of water gliding from his neck to his collarbones. This game was getting dangerous. “What about it?”

“What were you jealous of?” He begins, taking another step towards you until you were chest to chest. “Or let me rephrase that. Who were you jealous of?”

You’re beginning to like seeing this new side of Mark. The Mark who unveiled what he was thinking and feeling free instead of masking it behind a façade of confusion. It was making you unravel a lot more from within yourself as well, the way you were reacting to his advances and stance just proved even further the extent of your emotional and romantic involvement. 

“You were all cosy with Doyeon during the whole trip. It was so annoying.”

“Okay, first of all, Doyeon and I grew up together.”

“That’s even worse,” You roll your eyes and Mark is feeling so inexplicably elated over seeing you express something as ordinary as jealousy that he decides to be ballsy and grab you by the waist. He ought to compensate you somehow. 

The blush dusting your cheeks makes it worth it.

“I only like one person, and that’s you,” He rasps, heart skipping a beat when you put your hands on his shoulders, feel the sturdiness of his muscles.

“I know now,” You say, caressing the nape of his neck as you look up to him, a fond smile on your lips. Mark feels so overwhelmed with the urge to kiss you. Kissing you had always plagued him, but now when it was just a breath’s away he felt dizzy with the anticipation of it really happening.

“Can I—”

You don’t even give him the chance to finish his prompt, for you take the initiative and kiss him yourself, too thirsty for something you were sure you were never going to get tired of.

Mark’s lips are exactly what you had always dreamed about being, yet more at the same time. They’re soft and supple and timid, and you don’t really mind taking the lead, spanning your hand across his jaw and tilting it to the side so you can deepen the kiss. You’ve been waiting for the opportunity of properly kissing him since what feels like forever, it shows in how you press yourself against him desperately, turn him around so he’s the one being pinned against the wall.

That seems to shake him out of his shy reverie: he poises his hand against your throat to keep you in place as the rush finally kicks in and he begins to take over, tearing a gasp from you at the sudden change in dynamics. He hums low in his throat then, using it as an opportunity to add his tongue to the mix, bravado fuelled by the desperate nature of the moment.

When the heat of finally being able to kiss each other dies down, the kisses become slow and languid, the touches delicate and sweet rather than frantic and wild, until you both stop completely to catch your breath. 

“Shit,” Mark is heaving as he starts laughing crazily, “If this is a dream I’m going to be so fucking pissed.”

You begin to pepper pecks all over his face to prove a point, “This isn’t a dream, Mark Lee. We like each other.”

“And had one hell of a kiss in the middle of the night at a pool. This is going to be a cool story to tell. After I tell the New Year’s Eve one.”

“First off, this was our first kiss.” You retort, grabbing his cheeks in between your fingers to shut him up when he starts protesting, “That will not account as a first kiss, it was a sad, sad attempt at demonstrating how much I liked you.”

“I can’t believe it didn’t dawn on me back then that you liked me back.” Mark snorts in disbelief, “What can be more clear than a kiss? Jesus Christ.”

“I was honestly disappointed but not surprised, coming from you. Such a dense, dumb ass person.”

“Take it back!” He starts tickling you in retaliation, the giggles coming out of your mouth so loudly you were sure you were going to wake someone up. But that didn’t matter at the moment, the unavoidable sweetness of the occasion is all you could think about.

You and Mark eventually get out of the pool when you notice your fingers get pruney, which in hindsight should have happened way before it did. He goes inside to fetch two towels while you sit on the little deck with your legs crossed, looking at the sky before you and wondering how a little over an hour ago you were looking at the same exact spot plagued with the opposite mindset of the one you had now.

He drapes the fluffy towel over your shoulders and sits right to your left, knees knocking against yours as he gets comfortable. His hair is sticking up in every possible direction and when he turns his head to look at you you notice how dull his skin looks and the tired under-eye circles, an exact match to yours. If this was another time before now, you would feel the itch to smoothen your thumb against them yet refrain yourself from doing so, but this isn’t the then, it’s the now and you no longer feel anxious about acting upon your desires. So you do as you wish and when Mark grabs your wrist to kiss it absentmindedly, you feel like nothing in the world could ever bring you down from the state of mind you were going through.

You and Mark stay together outside just until your underwear stops sticking obscenely to your body, not even saying anything to each other. The comfort in being around someone in complete silence, namely the person you love, warms you to your very core like there’s a fire gradually burning in the pit of your stomach, not strong enough to hurt you but not soft enough to go unnoticed.

“Mark?” You say when Mark slides the patio door open to go inside. He turns back to look at you with that facial expression you had grown to love instead of hate, the one where it truly looked like he was unreadable. 

“Lord knows if I wait for you to do this I’ll be fifty before it happens.” You laugh dryly, gaining momentum and courage, “Do you— Will you be my boyfriend?” 

His eyes widen in response and he stays frozen in place, much like what happened in the car. This was not happening again, not on your watch. “Are you having another mental breakdown? What I meant was— Do you… Do you like me enough to maybe like, want to date me?”

The cogs in Mark’s brain kick back to life the moment your voice becomes small as if you’re beginning to feel uneasy and uncertain about the situation. He really needs to work on how he reacts to positive events.

“Shit, yeah— I, yeah. I do.” He says hurriedly, fumbling for the right words, “Let’s do this thing. Let’s date.”

You duck your head to hide your smile inside the towel, but Mark notices it either way. It makes him all fuzzy inside, cotton-candy hearted. 

“Okay,” You tiptoe quietly until you’re right in front of him, reach for the back of his neck so you can press a quick peck right on the lips. “Goodnight.”

Mark blushing at you kissing him is a wonderful sight you want to see repeatedly. 

Contrary to what you think, you don’t dream about anything at all. It’s like you’re now catching up to all of the sleep that you had lost in the past, blacking out the second your head hits the pillow.

You were now going back to reality, back to civilisation. Back to having a routine and a schedule and abiding by it. For the first time in a long time, you were actually looking forward to it. 

Since Mark was on your side.

Literally and figuratively. 

To the others, the fact that Mark and you are sitting next to each other in Jungwoo’s car on the way back home was just pure coincidence, but Jungwoo knows what’s up. In fact, he didn’t even need to do much digging. He was such a light sleeper he had woken up in the middle of the night due to some strange sounds coming from his backyard. At first, he was afraid someone had broken in, even going the extra mile to grab the baseball bat from the kitchen.

But when he peeked through the glass door leading to the outside, what he saw left him in a state of disarray for only a few seconds before it settled in and he saw you smiling, giggling, and Mark beaming at you. Deep down he always knew something was bound to happen between you two, and he didn’t know the extent of your circumstances, but he was glad whatever happened before now was a done deal. 

You deserved to be happy.

“No funny business back in there, ___.” Jungwoo says loudly, bumping his arm against Eunseo’s.

“What?!” You gasp, quietly sneaking away the hand you had inside of Mark’s hoodie pocket, “What are you even talking about…”

“Yeah, yeah. We’ll talk later, missy.” He replies, amusement in his tone, “You better not complain ever again about Eunie and I being all up in each other’s business. I’ll revoke your best friend privileges right away. And you,” He glares at Mark, “No breaking my best friend’s heart unless you want to end up like a headless chicken.”

“I…” Mark gulps, his trademark bug eyes widened to the max, “Yes, sir.”

Everyone except Mark (and Vernon, who had fallen asleep the second his head hit the window) start laughing at his response and a few moments later he ends up joining in. He looks at you then, holds his hand in front of you expectingly, and when you interlock your fingers right in the middle of his, he ends up putting both your hands inside the hoodie pocket once again, a big, goofy smile plastered on his face as he drops his head against your shoulder, shuts his eyes close, and snuggles closer.

You peck his temple affectionally, because well, you loved him. A lot. You weren’t afraid of acknowledging it any longer, even if you hadn’t told Mark how deep your feelings ran for him, even if there was a possibility he took a little longer to come to that conclusion as well. You just really, really loved him and everything that entailed being in love with him. Your mind goes back to that time where you tried so desperately to root obstacles between the both of you, for you belittled yourself so much and put him in such a high pedestal, avoiding constantly the slightest chance of interacting with him. Mark wasn’t stuck up or anything of the sort, he had never been that kind of person. It wasn’t his fault your high school experience hadn’t been like his. It wasn’t his fault that he had what he had. And maybe it wasn’t your fault either, but you shouldn’t have assumed he’d be iffy about getting to know you. About becoming your friend. Because those were your insecurities coming afloat and projecting onto Mark what you wanted him to be, so it would be easier for you to detach yourself from him, to not sympathise or like him.

Well, you had failed miserably at that. Gladly so.

You could only be a dumb ass for so long.

“You’re late.” 

“The bus—”

Mark sighs, “The bus arrived earlier than you expected. I know.” 

“Yeah,” You beam at him, kissing him softly. “Hi.”

“Hi, baby.” He tucks a piece of your hair behind your ear, “Let’s go, the guys are waiting for us.”

You grab his hand as both of you start walking from the bus stop to Jungwoo’s apartment. “We’re still leaving after the movie ends, right?”

“Yes, don’t worry.” He bumps his shoulder lightly into yours teasingly, “You’ve been so frisky lately, Jesus Christ. Can’t wait until you have me all to yourself, uh?”

“Mark!” You gasp, stopping in your tracks to hit him in the chest. He giggles at your feeble attempt at hurting him, “Okay, let’s not go to my house later, then.”

“Noooooo,” He whines, enveloping you in his arms and tightening them so you can’t leave, “I was only joking. You know I, uh… I like it when we’re alone.”

“You seem to like it too much if I remember correctly.”

Three months had flown by in the blink of an eye, so quickly you didn’t even realise it until Mark texted you one day with a screenshot of Lovedays, an app that showed how many days you had been dating with your significant other, and the number 100 was staring right back at you. A lot had happened in the span of that time since it was the first relationship for the both of you a lot of trial and error had taken place during the first weeks. That pent up flame you felt had been completely let out that time at the pool, which was followed up by a bit (read: a lot) of the awkwardness of navigating through intimacy and sentimentality for the first time.

Especially when Mark’s so clumsy and his brain runs one hundred miles an hour. But you had gotten used to it. Just like he had gotten used to your incessant rants about what you’re learning in your most interesting class, even if they leave him confused 99% of the times. Mark said you confused him in general.

You called it compromising.

“Shh…” He puts his hand across your mouth, “You’re being too loud.”

You strike back by putting your tongue out and licking his palm and he yelps in surprise, pulling it back, “Oh, now you don’t want to talk about it.”

He goes back to holding your hand“, You know I’m not very vocal about… that stuff.”

“Oh, you’re vocal alright, Mark Lee.”

“La, la, la!” He screams childishly, and you roll your eyes playfully at his antics, “I can’t hear you!”

When you arrive at Jungwoo’s, only Eunseo is there, as per usual. While getting a boyfriend had changed some of the dynamics in your life, some things would never change, like your friends scheming into making you arrive on time. Or three-way hugging Jungwoo and Eunseo in a way Mark never understood how it was done, yet respected. 

Or how college was proving itself to be the best timeframe of your life. 

Sure, things weren’t perfect, though we can’t expect them to be something that isn’t by all means achievable. You still had a long way to go, growing up and maturing was a never-ending process and every day that went by you learned something new either about the world or yourself.

Yet the very imperfectness of it all was what made it all worth it. In spite of every trial and tribulation that life had thrown or was going to throw at you, you’d face it with vigour and strength.

Because you were happy. 

[su-discussion-corner]

the mysterious case of wormipede mcbeastpants

so, the big theory is that mr. mcworm is corrupted steven. we've all seen the screenshots of steven sleeping in his caterpillar sleeping bag thing and of him with the sneople outfit on and thought "oh, foreshadowing!" because the huge beast in the SUF intro looks like a caterpillar/snake monster and bears a rough resemblance to steven. so the fandom has pronounced judgement: corrupted steven, it is, and with compelling evidence.

but lets take a sec to examine this a little bit more. as the corrupted steven theory goes, a corrupted diamond would be huge, a corruption is a tearing of a gem's mind, and steven has a lot of things mentally that he pushes away consistently, and this sorry mental state leads to his corruption.

however, i disagree with parts of this theory. i think that steven's issues are definitely a part of this, but i don't think they'd be the cause of his corruption, in any case. think about it. in the case of every other corrupted gem, the initial reason for their corruption was never for their mental state, it was because of damage from the diamonds, obvious exception being jasper, and then only kind of.

can a single diamond corrupt a gem, or can steven corrupt himself? no, because clearly that power would've manifested itself. how does that power manifest itself? in the case of the diamonds, their corrupting light was caused by their anguish and anger over the death of pink, and they, not knowing what this power even was capable of for they had never known they had it, assumed that all gems on earth were destroyed by it.

really, their own sorry mental state was broadcast to the entire planet of gems, and it tore the fabric of those gem minds. by now steven has undergone a lot of mental anguish, and he has not manifested any ability to lash out with that anguish and disrupt a gem's mind. perhaps this is simply because he has bottled up the anguish and decided not to lash out with it, but even then it could not corrupt him because we know the other diamonds were not corrupted by their own anguish and power.

so, then, what could cause steven to become corrupted? simple answer is that it would have to be corrupting powers from, i believe, at least two diamonds directed towards a gem. now, given that, we see in the intro that white diamond and the beast are both lit in a pink tint, set apart from the other "villains" in that section. white diamond and the beast, possibly corrupted steven, have a connection. what kind of connection?

what if the power of white diamond and steven together corrupted steven? that's one possibility. we do have to ask whether a diamond can even BE corrupted, but assuming they can, it would seem white would have a part to play in corrupting steven, either because white lashed out or because white was out of her head. then white's own volatile corrupting light aimed at steven combined with steven's mental distress and his corrupting light, aimed towards his own self, could very well corrupt him.

now let's not assume a diamond can be corrupted. if steven can't be corrupted, and that thing isn't corrupted steven, what is it, and what connection does it have to white diamond? consider this possibility: it is the creator of white diamond and thus the gempire, and it's come back from whatever far reaches of space because it found something was wrong with the status quo. possibility two: it is a creature that hatched out of the core of a planet that had been heavily colonized by the gems. possibility three: it is some other alien force altogether that is driving white diamond mad.

why the pink tint? maybe it relates to steven's problems somehow, maybe it was called by him? maybe the pink tint is like an identifying for the greater problems steven has to face specifically? who knows. i look forward to any more discussion about this anyone has to submit or reply with.

[thecollegefootballguy]

2019 Top Games of the Week: Week 10

Friends, I won’t lie to you. This week is pretty bad. Aside from the obvious games, there are a few gems here and there if you’re willing to dig for them, but really, it’s not good.

-

The Top Ten Games of the Week

10. Miami FL 4-4 (2-3) at Florida State 4-4 (3-3)

That a game so irrelevant is on the top ten is a bad sign. I’m a big fan of this rivalry game, but sheesh, the rivalry is the only slightly interesting part of this matchup.

9. Georgia Southern 4-3 (2-1) at #20 Appalachian State 7-0 (4-0)

Perhaps the best rivalry in the Sun Belt. Georgia Southern’s triple option is likely the only thing coming remotely close to challenging Appalachian State as the Mountaineers sprint to an undefeated record in conference play.

8. Virginia Tech 5-2 (2-2) at #16 Notre Dame 5-2

After a horrific start, Virginia Tech is back in the ACC Coastal race. They probably won’t beat a mad Notre Dame squad, but the Hokies have started to patch things together.

7. NC State 4-3 (1-2) at #23 Wake Forest 6-1 (2-1)

Wake Forest is attempting to win 9 or even 10 games this year, a major feat for the smallest P5 school. NC State has disappointed so far this season, but probably has something in store for their in-state rival.

6. TCU 4-3 (2-2) at Oklahoma State 5-3 (2-3)

TCU and Oklahoma State are fumbling to keep in the Big 12 race, which has opened up a little bit now that Oklahoma has lost.

5. Virginia 5-3 (3-2) at North Carolina 4-4 (3-2)

I’d have to check the archives to make sure but I think the South’s Oldest Rivalry makes the Top Ten for the first time ever. Virginia and North Carolina currently find themselves at the top of the Coastal Division standings and the winner will have pole position in the race for the ACC Championship Game.

4. #15 SMU 8-0 (4-0) at #24 Memphis 7-1 (3-1)

I am so happy that this game will host Gameday. Is it nationally relevant? Sure, and we should celebrate it. Will it impact the Playoff race? I’m afraid that it won’t. At this point I don’t see the Committee even considering the AAC Champion. Still, I’m personally more interested in this game than most of the top 5.

3. #9 Utah 7-1 (4-1) at Washington 5-3 (2-3)

Washington is the biggest hurdle Utah has to face in the regular season. The Utes are making a push for the Playoff as the darkest of dark horses (outside of a 2-loss SEC team I guess). I don’t know what to make of the Huskies right now. They’re still clearly a talented team, and very capable of this upset, but can they pull it off?

2. #7 Oregon 7-1 (5-0) at USC 5-3 (4-1)

Yest the PAC-12 is back in the Playoff discussion. It feels a bit strange. Oregon is making a bit louder of a push than Utah and the Ducks are attempting to win out and crash the party. They’d be the second team ever to go 9-0 in PAC-12 play after the 2010 UO team. USC still controls the South, and needs to lose twice to give Utah the division.

1. #8 Georgia 6-1 (3-1) vs #6 Florida 7-1 (4-1)

Well duh. This is clearly the biggest game in the country this weekend. The biggest stakes, the SEC East, the Sugar Bowl, the Playoff even. It’s all on the table for the winner, and the loser might even make a NY6 bowl if they play their cards right. The World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party commands the attention of the nation.

-

5 G5 Games of the Week

This list is pretty pathetic. I’ll be the first to admit it. I like to only use games featuring teams that don’t have losing records, and I can’t even do that here. There literally weren’t enough. Yuck.

5. Buffalo 4-4 (2-2) at Eastern Michigan 4-4 (1-3)

Essentially a placeholder unless you really care about extremely hard-luck programs struggling to bowl.

4. UAB 6-1 (3-1) at Tennessee 3-5 (2-3)

The team with a losing record that would usually preclude it from the G5 list is Tennessee lmao. The Vols are lucky it’s such a desolate week. I won’t even pretend to be evenhanded here. Go Blazers! Drive the stake in!

3. Army 3-5 at Air Force 6-2 (4-1)

Suddenly Army seems to once again be the weakest of the Service Academies. The plucky Black Knights will be underdogs against a salty Air Force who have been playing some very good ball lately.

2. Florida Atlantic 5-3 (3-1) at Western Kentucky 5-3 (4-1)

The C-USA East race is pretty tight, if you care about C-USA. Lane Kiffin is involved at least, so you might want to keep one eye on this game at least.

1. #21 Boise State 6-1 (3-0) at San Jose State 4-4 (1-3)

San Jose State is having their best season since David Fales was QB. But here comes Boise State to grind up the Spartans. 

...unless

-

FCS Games of the Week

3. #16 North Carolina A&T 5-2 (3-1) at South Carolina State 5-2 (3-1)

We’ve got our first HBCU showdown to make the FCS Games of the Week list. NC A&T has been the class of the HBCU’s for the last several years, but are looking a bit vulnerable. Meanwhile, South Carolina State is off to their hottest start in years and looking to knock off their rivals.

2. #9 Northern Iowa 5-3 (3-1) at #7 Illinois State 6-2 (3-1)

The MVFC race is down to four realistic contenders, with NIU and ISU deciding who will remain in the top 3.

1. #3 Weber State 6-2 (4-0) at #6 Sacramento State 6-2 (4-0) 

Chaos reigns in the Big Sky as two traditionally noncompetitive teams are vying for the league title. Neither team has yet lost to an FCS opponent.

[peterporkerpeter]

Code Red P.VII [Peter Parker x Avenger!Reader]

SUMMARY: When the Avengers are given the mission to acquire a deadly weapon in the possession of a suspicious professor, Y/N must attend a gala in order to charm the professor’s quite dangerous son. Her date to the gala? None other than her crush: Peter Parker himself. That’s bound to make for an interesting evening

CONTAINS: mention of sexual harrassment (for like only a hot sec), blood, swearing, ANGST, FLUFF, peter parker crying oof

WC: 4.000 

A/N: i’m so proud of this chapter, it is my favorite one yet and i really hope that you guys like this one. i was listening to some good tunes when i was writing and it got me really in the zone lol. this chapter is extra long bc i was feeling like a generous bitch so i hope yall like it. im literally screaming. hope you have a great day/night! :) Also, some people have mentioned that the tag list isn’t working for them! I’m so sorry about that, and if i’m being honest i have no idea how to fix it lol

| ONE | TWO | THREE | FOUR | FIVE | SIX | EIGHT |

Y/N SLAMMED HER DOOR shut, violently throwing her heels onto the mattress. There were several things she needed to do, the first being to find a new, fresh pair of clothes to change into. Breathing heavily, Y/N shimmied out of her red dress, now stained with dark crimson splotches. She ferreted through her closet, ignoring the bursts of pain from her worn wrists.

She settled on a comfortable cream sweater and a pair of gray sweat pants, feeling better already. She rolled up the sleeves and headed for the bathroom, where she dunked her head down towards the sink, flipping on the faucet. It took a century and a half to get majority of the makeup off her face without irritating her fresh wounds too badly, the water turning a mixture of red, black, and brown.

Y/N patted her face dry, relieved that her skin could finally breathe. The cuts still stung like a bitch, but she couldn't care less. She was home in her room, clothed in something comfortable and no longer in imminent danger for the rest of the night. It was a breath of fresh air to her, not just her skin.

She tried not to think about the way she had treated her team earlier. She knew she was acting mean and impulsive, but the words kept spilling out of her mouth before she could stop them. She just couldn't bare standing in that living room after brushing close with death a handful of times. And her head—God, her head. It would not stop pounding, like someone was driving an ice pick straight into her skull.

The mere thought of Axel's face caused a tremor to spike in her heart. She glanced in the mirror, eyeing the injuries he'd given her as some sick present. The coldness in his eyes still left her afraid. She felt like an idiot, too. She knew something was off, but she still insisted with continuing with the mission regardless of her countering intuition. In some twisted way, she felt like part of it was her own fault. Maybe that's why she acted out—because she was ashamed.

She felt a chill run down her spine, Axel's ghosting touch still grazing along her leg, his hot breath nipping at her ear. It felt like he was on top of her, smothering he beneath him until she couldn't breath. She felt like she was drowning. She didn't want to think of what else a sadistic asshole like him was capable of. She just hoped her team would deal with him.

Warm tears poured down her cheeks, and she buried her face in her hands, wishing she could just stop thinking for a minute.

Y/N swallowed, shaking her head. She sniffled, then started to tend to her wounds.

THE TEAM ARRIVED HOME fourty-five later, completely drained and exhausted from the demanding evening. It didn't take long for Fury to send in a clean up crew and detain Axel. His father still remained in the wind, but there was no knowing if he was going to be charged for anything or not—at least not by S.H.I.E.L.D. considering the weapon was nowhere to be found. Peter had managed to create a pretty accurate cover story for the gem, not wanting Y/N to get punished for dealing with it on her own accord. He trusted that she knew what she was doing, and he would ask her about it later, just not when she was so vulnerable and upset.

Everyone was concerned for Y/N. She hadn't sent a message or any word at all regarding whether or not she was doing all right. Then again, they didn't really expect to hear from her. They knew she was in a quite sensitive state of mind, and they understood. They've all been where she is at some point in their lives. Pain was inevitable. Only time could tell when Y/N would finally realize that.

"Can we not come in tomorrow?" Clint grumbled rhetorically.

"Is Y/N asleep?" Wanda asked. "Someone needs to make sure she's patched up after the beating she took. And we need to make sure those wrists aren't infected."

"I got it," Peter muttered.

"The other guy looked worse," Natasha grinned sheepishly. "That broken coffee table in there? She slammed him down on top of it with her hands tied. She is a badass, and she'll get through this."

"She shouldn't have to," Tony murmured. His guilty conscience continued to give him a difficult time throughout the night. He knew he wouldn't sleep tonight—not with where his thoughts were. Not with the image of her wrists rubbed raw and bleeding engraved in his mind like a tattoo.

Tony turned towards Peter, whose eyes were beginning to droop. The poor kid looked utterly broken down, but he pushed through. All he wanted to do was see Y/N. The older man clasped a hand on his trainee's shoulder. "You did good today, kiddo. Honestly, the teens saved the whole day with this one. You both kicked some major ass. Props to you."

Peter shrugged, fingers tightening around the bag of Chick-Fil-A absentmindedly dangling from his grip. "Doesn't matter. Thanks, but . . . it doesn't matter. I-I don't know why she was so upset with you guys, if anything when I got there she just seemed sad—"

"And that's a normal response to a traumatizing situation," Natasha shook her head. "It's expected to lash out, especially out of shame or embarrassment. And she's still just a kid, Peter. She didn't have her powers, just what she knew from what we taught her. She was scared."

"She will come around tomorrow," Steve added. "Let her rest. Let her eat. It's best to leave her be. Someone will go in and check out her—"

"I can," Peter interjected. "She'll talk to me."

The elevator dinged, the doors sliding open to reveal the living room of the main floor. The kitchen was untouched, the cold granite countertops wiped clean the precise way they were before the team dispatched. Darkness embodied the room, silence enveloping the homey premises. Peter noticed the familiar outline of a girl standing outside on the balcony, her elbows resting upon the cement wall, eyes looking out amongst the humming city illuminated below.

"There she is," Wanda smiled fondly.

Peter's eyes softened, sparkling faintly in the darkness. A familiar warmth ignited within his chest, his lips parting slightly, curving up to form the faintest smile. It was soft like stardust. He was awestricken and intrigued and nervous. He noticed she was wearing a casual sweater and sweatpants, and she looked just as beautiful as she did earlier in her long, silk gown.

Y/N was nonchalantly manipulating a glowing line of orange tinted energy, watching cathartically as the color twisted to follow the smooth, fluid movements of her fingertips. She seemed at ease for the first time this evening since her and Peter shared their dance; he would give anything just to have her that close to him again.

He could still vaguely feel her lips pressed against his. He remembered the warmth that had curled around him like a cozy blanket afterward. The brokenness in her eyes when he last saw her hurt him more than he anticipated it would. He never wanted to see her like that again—bleeding, crying, fighting for her life. Never. He would do anything to protect her, even if that meant his own demise in the process.

Y/N glanced over her shoulder, exhausted eyes falling upon the crowd of people pouring in from the elevator. Her team looked entirely worn out from the intense mission, their bodies hunched and feet dragging wherever they wandered. Clint caught her gaze, the smallest of smiles creeping onto his face. He raised his hand into the air, offering the girl a wave. Y/N waved back with pursed lips and glittering eyes, then turned back around to face the open.

It was always a miraculous sight—the city. In the morning it was buzzing with light and intensity. Sunlight bored down on the cracked streets, cars lulling through frustrating traffic, people honking at their neighbors. The hues were of red and gray variety, shades of beige and powder blue adorning the graffitied walls and painted freight trains. Time was consistent during the day. It was never ending. It went on forever, and so did the people living within it. They got up at the same time every morning and hustled to work, took their lunch break at the bodega or crammed in their office, then went home and repeated the same damn routine all over again the very next day.

And then there was the nighttime, when blackness ascended over the city, and the tangerine sun slipped beneath the horizon. At night the city came alive. It was unpredictable and adventurous. You never knew what the city would do when the lights went out in the sky. Overbearing neon shades illuminated the large, glowing signs of theaters and cinemas, hotels and twenty-four hour diners. The streets were clearer, still littered with cars full of tired adults, hoping to get home to their beds for a few hours of sleep before they had to awake early the following morning.

Y/N could see herself in the city at nighttime, waltzing into unprecedented territories with nothing but a high adrenaline and a desire to see beyond vibrancy of its core.

But it was the transition from day to night that really got her—the part of the day when the stars were hardly out and the sun still managed to remain a glowing orb of glistening orange light in the sky. The stars were distant, like they were gently dusted across a canvas of baby blue, powdered on by a paintbrush like a Monet. There was so much going on in this hour, but the transition made so much sense to her. The more she watched and scrutinized the switch, the more she understood how much night and day were alike. As quickly as time moved during this period, it slowed. Time stopped here. Right on the skyline, the moment always stretching out to form a thousand more.

"Hey," Peter's voice broke her from the impenetrable wall of thoughts towering in her head. "I uh, I brought you food."

Y/N turned to face her friend, ignited eyes falling onto the bag of Chick-Fil-A dangling by his leg. A soft chuckle emitted from her scratchy throat.

"Thanks," the girl whispered. She grabbed the bag from his hands and set it on the nearby table. "How's the team?"

"Worried about you," Peter replied honestly. "And I am too."

"I'm just trying to not think about it at the moment. I've been trying to clear my mind," Y/N sighed. "I kicked that guy's ass, didn't I? Stupid Axel fucking Klein. Lucky you came when you did. I would've managed to kill him someway."

Peter shook his head. "No, you wouldn't have."

She cocked her head, furrowing her brows. "Yeah, you're right, I wouldn't have. But I wish I could. I wish I could kill him." A pause followed. The tension between them was thick—thicker than it ever had been before. She could taste it on her tongue. "So, what? The team send you out here because they know I'm a softy for you?"

Peter shrugged. "I-I volunteered. Tony bought the food, but I . . . I wanted to see you. I needed to."

Y/N stared into his eyes for a moment. They were soft and gentle, glistening like fragments of crystals. He somehow reminded her of the soft strum of an acoustic guitar. She found herself reaching forward for him, wanting to touch him during a circumstance that wasn't as vile and as graphic as the last. She wanted to touch him when she wasn't just about to immerse herself into a dangerous mission. She wanted to touch him when they were alone together with the unpredictable, haphazard rosy aura of the city during night.

"Peter," she whispered. She loved his name so much. She loved saying it. She loved hearing it. She loved hearing Peter.

Her hand caressed his jaw, the pad of her thumb gently grazing across the irritated cut on his cheekbone like the leaf of a swaying plant. She heard him release a shallow breath, his eyes flickering between the fragile placement of her hand and the bandages looped tightly around her damaged wrists.

"I thought I was going to die tonight," Y/N drew her hand away, feeling colder. Peter felt the same way. Peter always felt the same way. "I thought I was going to die in the hands of that . . . psychopath. You should've see the look on his face when he caught me in the car with his hands all over me. He looked so smug, so—"

"His hands were what?" Peter interrupted, anger flaring in his stomach. He ran his tongue along his bottom lip, red pooling in his eyes. He hated the guy. He hated him with every fiber in his body, and he wished he'd done a lot more to him than punch him a mere few times. No, he should've throttled him. He should've made him suffer longer, just the same way he did to Y/N. He should've—

"Peter," Y/N could sense his rage. She reached out to touch his hand, hoping to soothe the whirlwind of impulsive thoughts plaguing his mind. "He didn't do anything else. Not anything like you're thinking. He just had to get close so he could sedate me."

"I'm sorry. I-I wish I could've done more, Y/N, I—"

Peter's heart was racing. It was driving him insane, he had to tell her that he loved her. He couldn't wait any longer. He couldn't keep holding off for the right time—there was never a right time in the world to tell someone that you loved them, at least not in his world. In his world, death followed like a shadow with every risky move you made. In his world, witches were real and there was a living, breathing one standing right in front of him. There was never a right time for anything when he was Spider-Man, and there was never a right time for anything when he was Peter Parker because time always seemed to fade more quickly than it came.

Was now a right time to tell her? On the balcony of a tower overlooking the prospering, stagnant city below, right after her run in with death at the hands of some lunatic? He didn't want to take advantage of her, and he didn't want to scare her away. He would have to wait another day. He'd have to wait for the sun come up, then go back down again. Another day, another time, until finally it was the right time. Until finally he no longer had to wait.

"Peter, what are you thinking?" Y/N questioned.

"I-I—" the words were fading from his tongue. It was never the right time. "I don't . . . know."

Y/N tilted her head, perplexed by Peter's odd behavior. It wasn't like the boy didn't normally act odd, but now he was acting strange. He wasn't looking at her like a crippled, wounded animal or a damsel in distress desperate for a strong rescuer. He was just looking. His eyes were glazing over, but she didn't know with what. Was he sad? Angry? Frustrated with her? Tears leaked from his melancholy brown irises, slipping down his flushed cheeks. They glimmered like scattered fragments of moonlights.

"Peter, what's wrong?" she asked, her tone urgent and thick with worry. Her hands quickly moved to grab his arms, grounding him, letting him know she was there with him—as she would always be.

She waited patiently for him to respond, his sniffles filling the air. Peter didn't know why he was crying; he felt like complete idiot for doing so, but he just couldn't stop himself. The tears kept falling, streaming down his skin until they dropped from the bottom of his chin onto the ground. All he had to do was just feel her touching him, and suddenly he was an emotional kid. He wasn't Spider-Man or an Avenger. He was just Peter Parker. And Peter Parker had lost so much that the mere thought of losing someone else so important to him—he couldn't bare it. Not on top of the countless years of repressed pain and emotional baggage still anchored deep within his roots. Then to come too close to losing Y/N tonight . . . It was all too much to handle.

"Hey, Pete. You're okay. We're okay," Y/N's voice was soft like silk. Her hands ran soothingly up and down the length of his arms, almost as if she was warming him up after a long snowy day. "Talk to me, Pete."

"I-I just—I almost lost you tonight," he professed, and the words began to tumble out at the same rate as his tears. "And when I saw you in there, I just couldn't stop thinking . . . about what I would do if you . . . I just couldn't stop thinking. And-and thinking and thinking. And then I knew right then and there that I would never let myself lose you ever because I need you, Y/N. I need you more than anything."

Y/N's face melted, her eyes shimmering at his trembling words. They fell so seamlessly from his lips. Her stomach churned, empathy burning bright within her core. She felt the same way. She felt the same way about Peter Parker as he did her, and she felt the same way yesterday and the day before that and the day before that. She always felt the same way. She always would.

"I need you too, Peter," Y/N assured him strongly.

She grabbed his face, pulling him down so she could press her lips firmly against his damp cheeks. She peppered them along his skin, electrifying him with every touch, anchoring him further and further towards the ground, onto the winding road leading towards the glamorous city buoyant with tranquil life. She held him tight, and she would never let him go. Not now, not ever.

"No, Y/N! You don't get it!" he sobbed, pulling away. "You don't understand why I need you!"

"Then just tell me! Peter, tell me. Why do you need me?" Y/N cried.

"I-I'm in love with you," he proclaimed, standing in a pool of his tears. "I'm in love with you, and I almost couldn't save you."

Y/N was rendered utterly and profoundly speechless by Peter Parker.

The nighttime is unpredictable.

"W-what happens when I can't save you anymore?" he whispered, like if he spoke those words they would magically come true. Almost like a spell.

Her forehead wrinkled, desperation contorted onto her features. She didn't really care about what the city would feel like during the nighttime anymore, not when the transition of day to night was still fresh in her bones. Not when Peter Parker was telling her he was in love with her. He wasn't infatuated. He was in love. And that felt like time wrapped up in a perfect little bow.

Y/N placed her palm against his chest, feeling the rapid pace of his beating heart. She ran her hand up the back of his neck, Peter's eyes shining with her every liquid-like movement. He let his lids drop, wet lashes gluing together. She closed her eyes, gently pushing his neck down for his lips to meet hers. Time stops here. Her lips ghosted over his, her breaths quick and hot. Falling in love with Peter felt so painless, but suddenly she felt like she was on fire. Everything felt too real, too raw. Love seemed to operate quite frequently in the gray area of life.

"But you did. You can't think about the 'what-if's, Peter. There's always going to be 'what-if's." She whispered against his mouth.

Y/N closed the gap between their lips, the kiss soft and slow, her breath hitching dead in her throat. She couldn't grasp a hold on any of her thoughts as Peter gently reciprocated the kiss. She no longer felt any pain. She should've told Peter she loved him long before tonight. She should've told him she loved him before they left for the mission. She should've, but it just didn't feel like the right time. When did it ever feel like the right time? Time was more unpredictable than the city.

The kiss grew deeper, Peter's hand trailing up her body to hold her face delicately his calloused palm. He could feel her hands shaking like leaves on the back of his neck, her pants growing hasty as their lips entwined and tangled together. He could taste her so clearly now—something minty and reminiscent of cherries. It soon became his favorite flavor.

She pulled away, eyes still closed. She savored the moment for all of its worth. "Peter . . ." swift drawls of breath, "I love you too."

Relief and happiness fell from his lips in the form of unearthly laughter. A smile brighter than any sun or any hue covered both their faces before their lips collided once again. Peter's hands gently stroked down the length of her hair, taming the frizzy strands and smoothening the tousled pieces. Fits of laughter were muffled by the showering of intimate, fervent kisses. Peter basked blissfully in her ethereal beauty and slipped into a state of tranquility, knowing for certain that he did save Y/N, and she was here in front of him. Now. And it was the right time. He dropped his hands to her waist, allowing her to caress his angular jaw, her thumbs pressing affectionately into his cheekbones. The tears once wet on his face dried beneath the gasps of hot breath, and everything in the world seemed to succumb to the tenderness of their love for each other.

And even the city, as rambunctious as it was during the day, and as somberly alive as it was in the dead of night, seemed to sink into the earth, leaving time behind. Because when there was no time, there was no need to wait for the right moment. Not when the right moment could be every single one in a thousand.

Clint found himself walking across the living room at such a prime time. Somehow, he was always the one to walk in on Peter and Y/N, but this time, he did not interfere. He merely looked for a moment with a smile tugging at his lips, then proceeded towards the kitchen to fix himself a cup of coffee.

Tony soon joined him, hoping to find some leftover pizza crammed in the refrigerator. After all, he was going to be up all night—might as well not work on an empty stomach.

At first, he walked straight past the window, eyes casually glazing over the two figures passionately kissing on the balcony behind the sliding glass doors. As soon as the man hit the fridge, he had to backtrack, mentally rewinding what he actually saw. He relapsed his steps, Clint nonchalantly sipping on his mug, checking to see if the sugar-cream ratio sufficed.

"What?" That was the only word Tony could seem to coherently speak for the moment. He tilted his head to the side, pinching his eyes shut before reopening them again. Definitely not dreaming. "A-are they—?"

"Yep," Clint replied, pleased with his hot drink. He walked around the counter to join Tony staring at the balcony from the island.

"On the—?"

"Yep."

"Should I—?"

"Nope."

"Gross."

MASTERLIST.

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[camillebooth]

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