#Trading Platform Familiarization

[spectraglobal]

Discover the Power of a Futures Trading Demo Account

In the dynamic world of futures trading, gaining experience and confidence is crucial before investing real money. A futures trading demo account provides the perfect platform to practice trading strategies, understand market trends, and hone your skills without financial risk. Let's explore the benefits and features of a futures trading demo account, and why it could be the key to your success in the futures market.

What is a Futures Trading Demo Account?

A futures trading demo account is a simulated trading environment that mimics the real futures market. It allows traders to practice buying and selling futures contracts using virtual funds. This simulation helps traders learn how the futures market operates, develop trading strategies, and make informed decisions without the pressure of losing real money.

Benefits of a Futures Trading Demo Account

1. Risk-Free Practice One of the main advantages of a futures trading demo account is the ability to practice trading without financial risk. This risk-free environment enables you to experiment with different strategies, learn from mistakes, and build confidence.

2. Real-Time Market Experience A demo account provides real-time market data, allowing you to experience market fluctuations and understand how various factors influence futures prices. This real-time exposure helps you develop a better understanding of market dynamics.

3. Strategy Testing Before applying strategies in a live trading environment, it's essential to test them thoroughly. A futures trading demo account allows you to backtest and optimize your strategies, ensuring they are robust and effective in different market conditions.

4. Familiarization with Trading Platforms Using a demo account helps you become familiar with trading platforms and tools. You'll learn how to navigate the interface, place orders, set stop-losses, and use technical indicators effectively.

5. Emotional Control Trading in a demo account helps you manage emotions such as fear and greed, which can significantly impact trading decisions. By practicing in a stress-free environment, you can develop emotional control and discipline.

How to Get Started with a Futures Trading Demo Account Choose a Reputable Broker:

Select a broker that offers a comprehensive demo account with real-time data. Spectra Global is a trusted name in the industry, providing a robust demo trading platform.

Sign Up for a Demo Account: Visit the broker’s website and sign up for a demo account. You'll typically need to provide some basic information to create your account.

Download the Trading Platform: Once your account is set up, download and install the trading platform provided by your broker. Most brokers offer platforms compatible with various devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones.

Start Trading: Use the virtual funds in your demo account to start trading futures. Practice different strategies, track your performance, and refine your approach based on your observations.

Best Practices for Using a Futures Trading Demo Account

1. Treat it Like Real Trading Approach your demo account with the same seriousness as you would with a live account. This mindset will help you develop realistic trading habits and better prepare you for live trading.

2. Keep a Trading Journal Document your trades, strategies, and outcomes in a trading journal. Analyzing your trades helps identify strengths and weaknesses, allowing you to improve your trading approach.

3. Focus on Learning Maximize your learning experience by fully utilizing the demo account. Focus on understanding market trends, practicing different strategies, and gaining confidence. Avoid getting too attached to virtual profits and losses.

Conclusion

A futures trading demo account is an invaluable tool for anyone looking to enter the world of futures trading. It provides a risk-free environment to practice trading, develop strategies, and gain confidence. By choosing a reputable broker like Spectra Global and following best practices, you can make the most of your demo trading experience. Start your journey today and unlock your potential in the futures market.

Ready to take your first step in futures trading? Sign up for a free demo account with Spectra Global today and start honing your trading skills in a risk-free environment. Your future in futures trading begins here!

[sungchanphile]

strangers who knew each other very well 𐙚 jung sungchan

༄.° WORD COUNT: 18.6k ༄.° PAIRING: riize's jung sungchan x female!reader ༄.° TAGS & WARNINGS: exes!au, angst, fluff, slightly aged up riize ༄.° SONGSPO: scott street - phoebe bridgers ; woojooin - seo youngju ; spring into summer - lizzy mcalpine

༄.° SYNOPSIS: you're back in town for the first time in four years because your best friend is getting married. it sounds easy enough, apart from the fact that you broke the best man's heart 4 years ago and haven't dared shown your face since. ༄.° NOTES: inspired by hong sijun and son jua from melo movie aka my all time favourite k-drama second couple !! the title comes from the episode that focuses on them in the drama <3 this is kinda similar to my other second chance romance sungchan fic, but i think i wrote it differently enough to be a worthwhile separate fic :>

౨ৎ⋆ ˚｡⋆

i. anyway, don't be a stranger

You knew this day was coming, but that didn't mean it hurt any less.

The train screeches to a halt and the passengers around you get up in a buzz to collect their belongings and crowd around the double doors.

You watch stoically as they step out of the train for an adventure in the big city or to return to their busy lives. You stay still, clutching your carry-on suitcase and just wait, maybe even until you're kicked off the train.

Seoul Station is the last stop on the route, but you're in half a mind to jump platforms and get on the next train going to somewhere you hoped was far away from here.

"Ma'am," you hear a voice call out to you kindly and you turn to face a young woman with a slightly concerned look on her face, "Is this your stop? The train ends here."

You blink, "Yeah, it is. Sorry- I'll get going."

"Have a good day," she wishes you sweetly, but you know that's a luxury you will find hard to come by these days.

You pry your large suitcase from the luggage compartment and step out into the station.  You're still underground, but it hurts like no other to finally step foot in your home for the first time in years. Breathing this air doesn't feel refreshing; it feels like you're suffocating.

Sluggishly, you navigate the maze that was the station until you surface to the public area. You're not that familiar with the place anymore; it's been a long time, but you make it up to where you had arranged to meet your best friend, finding her already there.

"My Y/N," Hana envelops you into a tight, warm hug as soon as she lays eyes on your solemn face, "How are you?"

"I'm good, Hana," you reassure her as best as you could muster.

"I'm sorry that I couldn't get you from the airport," she apologises as she pries your luggage out of your grip, "Taro had the car, but he's on his way to pick us up outside."

You faintly remember her saying something about last minute wedding errands he had to run that precluded your best friend being able to pick you up herself off the plane.

"I could have made it to your house by myself," you chide, "I used to live here, after all."

Hana's smile falters for a second at your voluntary mention of the past, but she brushes you off, "I wanted to welcome you back."

You notice her avoidance of the word home and you're thankful because a reminder of what was once a happy memory has turned into the opposite is something you've been trying to forget.

She leads you out of the busy station and to a pick-up zone outside. It's a sweltering summer day with the sun beating down relentlessly. It's something you haven't missed about Seoul after trading your extreme weathers for the grey skies across the world.

"Look, Y/N," Hana begins hesitantly as you watch the cars zoom past you, "Thank you for coming all the way here and doing this for me. I know it's gonna be hard for you, but I'm still here for you, okay?"

You knock shoulders lightly, "What kind of a best friend would I be if I missed your wedding? We've been planning our weddings since we learned what one was."

Hana chuckles lightly, mind flashing back to the days you spent designing wedding dresses and choosing songs for your wedding playlists, "I know right?"

You fall into silence as you both reminisce. Everyone thought you were going to get married first. You always wanted to get married young, ever since you met your first love at 14 and started dating at 16. You had everything you wanted planned out- the cake, the flowers, the shoes, the gifts, the groom.

Life doesn't always work out the way you want it to- you learned that at 22.

"I'm an adult, Han," you exhale, "I promise it'll all be okay. I can do this."

"You're the best, Y/N. I really missed you, by the way," Hana admits as her eyes lock onto a car.

It's only been 7 months since you last saw each other, but you spent the first 22 years of your lives practically conjoined until you moved away 4 years ago. You'll never forget the shock and joy you experienced when she turned up at your door alone out of nowhere with a rock on her finger and a gift box asking you to be her maid of honour for her wedding set in 7 months time.

"I missed you too," you return fondly.

A large, black car stops in front of you and the window rolls down to reveal a face you haven't seen in a while.

"If it isn't the Y/N back in Seoul," Shotaro flashes you his famous smile from the driver's side. You wave at him excitedly and drag your bags to the boot that he's opened from the inside. It's a busy road and he can't hop out and help, but between you and Hana, you fit the bags into the spacious boot. It's not even that much- you've only packed to stay two weeks.

You climb into the backseat and Shotaro turns around to take in the fact that you're really here. You reach over to squeeze his shoulder, "I haven't got to say congratulations in person yet, so congratulations on the wedding. You bet that we're going to have another best friend talk soon."

Shotaro and Hana choke in surprise at your menacing words. The Japanese man crinkles his eyelids in amusement, "I wouldn't have expected anything less, but thank you Y/N."

When they started dating years ago, you had cornered Shotaro at a house party and warned him so terrifyingly about what you would do if he ever broke your best friend's heart that he couldn't look you in the eye for the rest of the week. It was fair anyway, considering the talk your own best friend had given your first love when you started dating.

The drive to their house was a fair journey that you spent with your eyes screwed tight pretending to be asleep. You couldn't bare the thought of having to look out the window and catch the familiar streets you had grown up on and made so many memories on. This trip was always going to end in heartbreak for you, but you wish to delay the onset.

Hana calls your name softly when you arrive and you do a slow-blink to try to convince her. You don't know if she believes it, but she doesn't say anything otherwise.

It's weird that you haven't stepped foot in her adult home after you made her childhood home your second one and lived in the same apartment through your college years. You can still picture her teenage bedroom with the pink walls and the Fin.K.L poster across her double bed. You spent hours and hours in your college rooms eating ice cream and watching films together. Now, you don't even know the number outside her door.

"Welcome to our humble abode," Hana smiles proudly as she unlocks the front door.

They live in a very nice area, afforded by Shotaro's idol choreographer salary and Hana's lawyer income. It's obviously a beautiful home, decorated very cosy with sprinkles of their personality dotted around.

They show you to the guest bedroom and point out all the items Hana prepared for your two week stay in the house, despite the fact that in ten days' time, they were jetting off to their honeymoon the morning after the wedding. She had put together an adorable and thoughtful welcome basket with everything you might need and your heart clenches at the kindness of your best friend.

Over these years, Hana has been patient in coming to you versus you coming to her. Your blatant refusal to come back to Korea has limited your live meet-ups to once a year, twice if you could find some wiggle room in your budgets, but her wedding meant you couldn't put it off any longer and had to face your fears.

While Hana was your best friend, Shotaro had his own best friend acting as his best man. You always knew this was coming- even from the moment you introduced your best friend to your first love's best friend in freshman year of college.

He wasn't the only reason you were avoiding coming back, but he was the main one. You'd like to think that time heals all and maybe it has, or maybe it's just shoved that little pocket of pain deeper and deeper out of sight until the day you finally are forced to face it. Unfortunately for you, that day has come.

౨ৎ⋆ ˚｡⋆

Hana was kind enough to give you the night to settle before everything kicked into full force. She knew it would be too much for you to get off the plane and have to face your ex-boyfriend, so she pushed the meeting that required both of you as much as she could until there was no time left.

You woke up bright and early, although your stomach was in ropes at the thought of seeing him again. You hoped that the very long list of errands you had to do would distract you enough from all the emotions swirling in your stomach.

It was only 1pm, but you had already visited the bridal shop to do a fitting of your maid of honour dress, considering you couldn't try it on when you were over 5000 miles away. Thankfully, it didn't need a lot of alterations and you could pick it up in the next few days. She continued distracting you by trying on her wedding dress in front of you, causing you to shed a few tears. You were virtually present during her dress hunt, but seeing it for the first time in person really made it sink in that your very best friend in this world was getting married.

The very next thing in your agenda was a meeting with the wedding planner to finalise the timings of the day. You were going to meet at a café- a safe and public space for you to finally see your ex-boyfriend after a number of years that you wished you stopped counting.

Hana parks her car along the road opposite the café and the second you stepped out the car, you were slapped across the face by the side-profile of your first love through the large window, a wide smile on his features as he chatted with his best friend.

Hana squeezes your hand, "Tell me if it gets too much. I know it's gonna be hard."

Sungchan looks so familiar that your heart squeezes at the sight of him. It's the body that you fell asleep across for years on end, the hair you used to run your fingers through when you talked late at night, the smile that made your heart race every day- it was still him.

Your breath hitches when he begins to turn in your direction. Before you can make eye contact, Hana tugs at you to enter the café, murmuring reassurances towards you that she was going to be here for you- even at her own wedding events, she was still being selfless.

"Hana, Y/N," Shotaro calls the two of you over as soon as the door jingles open and he spots you, "I ordered your drinks."

Hana squeals at the sight of the indulgent hot chocolates, but worriedly looks over at you to see your reaction. You're looking down at your feet and Sungchan is staring straight up at you.

"Hey, Sungchan. How are you?" Hana chuckles awkwardly, tugging you to her side to sit down at the round table. When the wedding planner arrives, they'd sit between you and Sungchan, so you could have that distance.

"Good, Hana, thanks," he breaths out as the corners of his mouth drop, "Hi, Y/N. It's been a while."

Your eyes shoot up to meet his, "Uhm, yeah. Hi, Sungchan."

It feels like you haven't said that name out loud in years- it brought you too much pain before. You're immediately saved by the wedding planner, thankfully, who appears out of nowhere and apologises profusely for her delay. She denies ordering a coffee, and begins to spread binder, papers and tablets all over the table.

Hana squeezes your hand under the table and your eyes point down to your thighs.

"Maid of honour and best man, I take it? It's nice to meet you both," the planner Jian smiles sweetly after catching her breath, "How'd you guys know the couple?"

You nod with a terse smile, "Childhood best friends."

Sungchan lets you finish before he bumps shoulder with Shotaro, "College roommates. We've been attached at the hip ever since."

"Looking forward to your speeches on the day then," she muses, "Shall we get started?"

You focus your efforts into concentrating through the meeting and trying to not let the pit growing in your stomach distract you. You were here to help out your best friend and her soon-to-be husband, so you gave your opinion when you felt it necessary and not much more.

You haven't been physically present through the past few months, but Hana had clued you in to everything she was doing as it was happening. You'd been discussing your dream days for years on end, so you felt like you had good opinions for the final touches of the plan.

After two hours going through every single detail, you wrapped up and Hana was beginning to talk about what she was going to cook for dinner.

"We have some salmon in the freezer, I think. That's enough for the three of us," she links arms with you as soon as you stand up, practically dragging you out of the store to avoid any more time alone with your ex-boyfriend.

"I was gonna go home after this, remember? My parents are unfortunately expecting me," you remind her regrettably. It's been a while since you saw your family- maybe a year now?

"Oh. Do you want me to come? I can drive you! I haven't seen your parents in a long time-"

You hear a cough behind you, "I'm heading that way actually. It's my dad's birthday soon so we're gonna have a meal at home. I can take you, but only if you're comfortable with that."

Sungchan's confident and unwavering tone freezes you on the spot, your eye moving to the side to gauge your best friend's reaction. Her eyes transform into sorrow as she presses her lips together. Hana looks at Sungchan, "It's okay, I can take her. I want to."

It makes sense why Sungchan would offer a lift practicality-wise. His family lived on the next road over from your house and you used to walk to school together after he moved to your school at 14.

Shotaro sighs behind Sungchan, "Hana, we still have that Zoom meeting with the venue co-ordinators. It's in like 40 minutes."

Hana curses under her breath, "Well then I'm sure Y/N will be fine taking the subway. Right?"

You're looking down at your feet, unable to even see the expression on Sungchan's face. You don't know his motivation to offer you a ride 45 minutes across the city to your old neighbourhood, and as pure as you know his heart is, you genuinely don't know how you could cope sitting in a confined space with your first love for that amount of time.

In the corner of your eyes, you see him shrug nonchalantly, "Whatever's easiest for you. See you guys soon."

You lift your head up in time to watch him wave goodbye and turn around. His face is seemingly neutral, but you hadn't spent 8 years of your life learning everything there was to possibly know about him to not be able to read the emotions behind his eyes at the very moment.

"Wait, Sungchan," you slip out of your friend's grasp, "I'll come with you."

Hana catches your wrist and hisses under her breath, "Y/N, what? Are you sure about this?"

You try to give her a convincing smile, "I'll text you when I'm coming back, okay? I don't think I'll be too late anyway."

Shotaro waves you off with a puzzled glance and you do a small jog to catch up to the distance he traversed with his long legs.

Sungchan gives you a half smile and shoves his hands into his pocket, "What made you change your mind?"

You nibble on your lower lip, "It's about to be rush hour on the subway. It'll be impossible to get a seat."

Sungchan nods at your response and points out his car across the street. It's a lot nicer and newer than the car he used to take you around Seoul in. You wondered briefly when he got rid of it.

Wordlessly, you enter into the passenger side, buckling your seatbelt and trying to keep your eyes trained in front of you. If you thought too much about the situation you put yourself in, you feared you might jump out of the moving car.

He turned on the radio to a quiet, but comfortable volume. A new song that's dominating the charts is playing as he reverses out of his spot and joins the cars on the roads.

"When did you get back?" Sungchan reluctantly begins.

You were hoping for a silent car ride, but you knew that was just in your dreams, "Yesterday evening."

"How was your flight?"

"Long. It's about 13 hours straight in the air," you hum.

"Is it? Wouldn't know- I've never been to London," it's not obvious, but there's something deeper that you can't figure out in his tone- is it snide? Snark?

"The climate's quite different over there," you reply back shortly, "It was hard to get used to."

"There must have been something you loved there so much that it kept you away for 4 years," he says, "Or something you hate here."

You swallow nervously, "Can we not do this, Sungchan?"

He scoffs, "When will we ever?"

"Is it necessary? I thought we said what we needed to say back then," you huff, letting your eyes flutter close in frustration. You should've known this wasn't going to be an amicable ride- that that disappointment in his eyes when he was walking away wasn't something to latch onto and hope, "I'm only here for 2 weeks. Can we just be civil until their wedding? That's what I'm here for."

"So even after 4 years, you have nothing to say to me?" his voice cracks in the most delicate way and if you looked to the side, you'd see his knuckles turning white as he gripped the wheel tightly.

"What do you want me to say, Sungchan?" you sigh in defeat.

"I don't know, Y/N," he runs his fingers through his hair frustratedly, "Do you regret it? Leaving?"

Your heart constricts in your chest as you shook your head, "I can't."

"What?"

"I can't regret leaving. Otherwise everything I did it for and did there becomes nothing," you confess, "I shouldn't."

Sungchan exhales a puff of air into the car, "This is gonna be so much harder than I thought it would be."

You agree silently and don't say another word for the whole drive.

౨ৎ⋆ ˚｡⋆

ii. and i can wish all that i want, but it won't bring us together

Shotaro and Hana decided to forgo the traditional bachelor and bachelorette parties. They themselves were far too busy for that, let alone thinking about the time and effort it would take to coordinate 6+ people on each side to do an activity or vacation. Plus, on Hana's side, some of her bridesmaids weren't all too familiar with each other having come from different periods of her life, so she didn't think that cooping all of you up in a vacation home a week before her wedding was worth her energy. She loved you all separately, but that didn't mean you would all have to be best friends.

Thus, the couple decided on a joint dinner hosted in their home just to get everyone acquainted with each other. You'd spent the afternoon with the other girls picking out jewellery you wanted to all wear for the wedding and returned home to find a spread of food prepared by the private chef the couple hired.

Despite the fact that you were dreading to face Sungchan again after the disastrous ride home, you were also excited to see Shotaro's other groomsmen, who were also old friends of yours from both high school and college.

When you entered their home again after your group shopping trip, you were immediately crushed by a tall figure.

"Y/N-noona," you hear Anton sniff as he hugged you, "Do you still remember me?"

You gasp and let out a nervous chuckle, "Don't be silly- hey Chanyoung. Long time no see, right?"

One of the worst parts about your breakup with Sungchan was having to relinquish your relationship with the boys too. It wasn't that they had to choose sides or anything, but you just thought it was easier for everyone involved. Of course, you still texted them occasionally on birthday, holidays and randomly throughout the year, but you hadn't seen any of them other than Shotaro since the breakup.

"Stop hogging her. We all haven't seen her in four years," Seunghan bumps Anton out of the way to envelop you into a comforting hug, "I almost forgot what you looked like, noona. You don't post on SNS."

"Has anyone entertained the idea that she's actually a British spy now?" Eunseok smirks as he takes his turn hugging you, "Welcome back Y/N."

Before Shotaro came into the picture in college, Eunseok and Sungchan were the first package deal. They were the closest in age to one another and were family friends growing up. Eunseok was the reason Sungchan moved to your school when his family relocated to the area. They adopted Shotaro in college and found the other boys along the way.

You've known Eunseok as long as you've known Sungchan and he was one of the ones who took the breakup the hardest out of all of your friends. Hana was your best friend since childhood and Eunseok was Sungchan's- that's when it felt like people had to take sides, no matter how close you also were with Eunseok.

"I missed you guys," you whisper lowly into Eunseok's embrace.

"You should have invited us to London," Sohee sniffles when he takes his turn hugging you. Wonbin joins the two of you in a group hug.

"Well then I'm inviting you now. I'd like to take you to Buckingham Palace so you can see your twins," you joke at Sohee, ruffling his hair, "Bin, how are you?"

"I'm great, noona. Honestly," he smiles softly at you. You've never had the deepest nor most complex relationship with Wonbin, but you take comfort knowing you're both satisfied at the low-maintenance friendship you've formed.

You realise quickly that a member of the wedding party is missing when you spot Shotaro mingling with the bridesmaids. Eunseok seems to read your mind immediately, "Sungchan's in the kitchen."

"Did he tell you?"

"About the car ride?" Eunseok grimaces and you mirror his expression, "Everyone knew this was gonna be hard. Neither of you should force anything or expect anything from yourselves."

You sigh, "I know. Doing that just makes everything worse. Besides, this week is about Taro and Hana. I don't want to draw attention from them or cause any problems that might affect them too."

Eunseok nods understandingly, "I guess so. But just think about yourself okay? That's who should be the most important person to yourself always."

You spot Hana trying to beckon you over, so you excuse yourself from Eunseok and wander over to your best friend, who slides her arm around your waist.

Four out of the 5 other bridesmaids are all her friends from the law firm she began working at since graduation 4 years ago. The other one is her cousin who lives in the opposite end of the country, but who she visited every summer and holidays. You're all around the same age, but you haven't had the chance to meet them or even speak to them outside of the bridesmaid group-chat Hana put you all in 6 months ago until today.

"How's it seeing the boys again?" Shotaro hands you a flute of what you think is a mimosa.

"I missed them," you admit simply with a small smile.

"You went to college with all of them, right?" Taehee questions curiously, "You really haven't seen any of them since you moved to London?"

"Taro and Hana have visited me a few times in London, but that's it," you press your lips together, "It was just a lot of things that stopped me from coming back."

You haven't said anything to the other girls about your ex-boyfriend, mainly because this week was not about you and your finicky relationship, so they're all none-the-wiser to your situation.

"Shall we go over to the dining room?" Hana suggests, sniffing the air when the chef throws open the dining room door and the smell of the food floods out, "I'm so hungry!"

Their usual dining room table has been replaced with a temporary set up for the 13 of you in a large, round table. You stick by Hana's side and immediately take the seat next to her, sighing in relief when Eunseok takes the other seat beside you. You try not to look up, but you practically feel Sungchan's presence in the room when he enters and takes a seat on the other side of the table, flanked by Seunghan and Anton.

When the starter is brought out, you're engaged in a conversation with Eunseok and the bridesmaid beside him about the places you've travelled in Europe. Mina's well-travelled herself and Eunseok is far too fascinated hearing what you've been getting up to since you left.

"Did you visit Paris? You must have," Mina wonders, "It's so close to London- I'd be going every weekend!"

Your heart drops and you swallow, "No, not since I left Korea."

"You've visited before?"

You hold yourself back from looking up, "In the past, just once."

"Isn't it lovely? It's one of my favourite cities in the world," Mina gushes excitedly, "I love art and museums, so Paris is my element!"

You recall back to the summer before your senior year of college and the week you spent running around Paris in the evening, dancing along the Seine and holding your first love under the moonlight. Every time you were invited to Paris since then, something would stop you going- it would only remind you of the most beautiful week you had spent with Sungchan as your anniversary trip.

By the time the entrées arrive, the conversation has moved onto updates from Eunseok- how much his little brother has grown since you last saw him, how his family got an adorable new dog and how his parents are getting older. Your families were friends too, just like Hana's family and Sungchan's family. It's a shame you missed out on so much, but you know it's your fault anyway.

You make it through dinner by ignoring that steady thrum in your veins and the pumping of your heart just being in the same room as the one who haunts your memories, but it becomes harder when the couple moves you into the living room to mingle and chat with flutes of mixed alcohol.

"We actually have a task to do for tonight," Hana smirks slyly as you all turn towards her, "We haven't actually figured out who you're gonna walk down the aisle with."

"We thought it'd be better to choose after seeing who looks good together," Shotaro shrugs, "Height differences and that."

Hana claps her hands definitely, "Okay, everyone just go stand with a partner and then me and Taro will shuffle as we see fit."

You freeze, having not been informed of this by your best friend beforehand. With a glimpse of hope, you tug at Eunseok's sleeve and he looks at you with a confused glance.

Jiwoo frowns at you across the room, "Wait- I get it for the rest of us but the maid of honour and best man are walking down together, right?"

Your face probably mirrors Sungchan's - like a deer caught in headlights as you both begin to chuckle awkwardly.

Hana's eyes widen as she looks at you apologetically, "I suppose so. Though it doesn't have to be."

"It makes most sense that way," Taehee agrees beside Anton.

"Um, then Sungchan and Y/N, you guys can just sit down or help us match," Shotaro quickly splutters out.

Nodding in agreement, you float over to Hana's side again, like two opposite poles on a magnet. She smiles at you sheepishly and you subtly dismiss her. It's her wedding- you just had to suck it up. Sungchan takes a seat away from where you were standing, trying to busy himself on his phone.

In the end, it took an excessive amount of time to decide on the final pairings, made all the more difficult by the absence of the girls' heels that played a part in the decision-making. You had no idea that something so trivial could take up so much of an evening and cause such hilarious tiffs fuelled by wine. 

Hana gasps from the corner, "Wait, where's the camera? I want pictures of everyone for the scrapbook."

Shotaro retrieves a baby blue polaroid camera displayed on their book shelf and loads a new cartridge of film inside. Your heart is beating fast as Hana shoo's each couple against a deemed-aesthetic backdrop and snaps a single, quick photo of the two that prints out in just seconds.

Surely she wouldn't do that to you, right?

But when her head turns towards you and a soft, pleading smile graces her features, you're resigned to standing up and following the orders she's sending telepathically.

"Sungchan, c'mere. I need one of you and Y/N," Hana calls out gently.

Wordlessly, he rises from the spot he's been planted on for the better part of an hour and positions himself beside you, with a good distance separating your shoulders.

Hana raises the camera to her eye, but she clicks her tongue in frustration, "I can't get you both in."

"Just step backwards," Sungchan advises, his tone light, but with an edge.

"I want all the pictures at the same angle," she counters, "Just move a little closer together."

"Y/N won't bite, right?" Mina laughs jokingly, to which you try your best to give a convincing chuckle.

He shuffles a little closer to you, the fabric of your shirts brushing against each other delicately. You're focused on keeping the smile on your face as neutral and natural as possible, silently pleading your best friend with your eyes to hurry up.

She finally counts down and clicks the button, the flash blinding you for a split second. Before you could even fully regain your vision, Sungchan has already traversed the room to join Seunghan and Wonbin nosy through the bookshelf.

Ouch. He really wants nothing to do with you.

౨ৎ⋆ ˚｡⋆

iii. you left me no choice but to stay here forever

Exactly one week before the wedding, Hana bursts into your room with a panicked look.

"What's wrong?" you gasp at her state, scrambling up from the edge of the bed where you were scrolling lazily on your phone.

"Taro forgot to pick up the wedding rings," Hana pants out, clear frustration in her eyes, "The jeweller's going out of town tomorrow."

"Oh!" your own eyes widen, "Do you need me to go pick them up then?"

"Yeah, please! If you can," she smooths out the white dress she was wearing, "I'd do it but it's the opposite direction to where we need to go and we're already running hella late."

You stand up and steady her by her shoulders, "Don't worry about it. That's what I'm here for, yeah? To make your life easier."

Hana relaxes with a sigh of relief and pulls you into a hug, "What would I do without you?"

The couple were off to another one of their endless wedding appointments, which was seemingly going to take up their whole day. It was still just the morning, but Shotaro was running down the stairs already, calling for Hana to get in the car.

"I'll text you the address, okay? I'll also text the jeweller that you'll be coming," she smiles gratefully before disappearing out of the front door.

Instead of buying traditional wedding rings at a famous store, they decided to have their own personal set made that was completely tailor-made and customised for them at a small, local business. You thought it was sweet how they wanted to design the ring that would symbolise their union and love together instead of any old, generic piece of metal.

Taking the subway over to the store wasn't a bad experience- it was a hot walk over to the station, but the carriages were air conditioned and not terribly busy. It's a stark contrast to the hot, cramped and dirty tube of your current home city.

The jeweller's shop is in a part of the city near your old university; you used to frequent the area a lot, so you were experiencing major nostalgia walking the streets again after a long time. You even contemplated visiting your favourite stores and coffee shop after picking up the rings, hoping that taking a trip down memory lane won't hurt you too much.

When you reach the shop, it's empty save a couple sat across an attendant looking at rings together at a table in the corner. At the check-out desk, an older gentleman is polishing a set of gold rings.

"Hi, my name is Y/N! I'm here to pick up the wedding rings for Hana and Shotaro," you inform the man.

His eyes crinkle with a smile, "Ah, you came first. Wait here while I get them. Feel free to take a look around as well."

You frown at his words but dismiss them as you spot the case filled with rings of all styles and metals. There's some engagement rings with dazzling precious stones and intricate bands, but there's also a bunch of unique sets of rings that you assume are ready to sell.

When you were younger, you used to think that you wanted the largest diamond with the most elaborate designs and stones to show off. As you grew older, you realised that you just wanted a ring that would signify the love your other half had for you, no matter the size or price.

Your finger traces along the display case, humming lightly as you evaluate them all and try to guess what Hana and Shotaro's rings would look like. Would they be silver or gold? Would they have diamonds? Would they be engraved?

"Y/N?" the deep voice startles you from behind and you jump on the spot.

You turn, meeting face-to-face with Sungchan. Your heart skips a beat.

"Sungchan, what are you doing here?"

His eyebrows are tugged together in confusion, "Shotaro asked me to pick up the wedding rings."

Your mouth dries, "Ah. Hana asked me to do the same."

"Really? They didn't talk about it?" Sungchan frowns.

"They were in a rush, to be fair," you say awkwardly.

"Oh, okay. Well if you're here, then I guess I'll go," he nods, turning his body towards the door, "See ya."

"Oh, you must be the best man!" the jeweller laughs a full-bellied laugh as he emerges from the back, "Must have been some miscommunication with the bridge and groom as I got two separate messages telling me they each sent someone here."

"Yeah, that's me," Sungchan chuckles, "If I'm not needed then I'll head off."

"Have a look at the rings," the jeweller beckons the two of you over instead to a free desk with chairs on either side, "We'll be shutting the store down tomorrow for a couple of weeks, so inspect and make sure it's all okay. I have some information to pass along to the couple too."

Reluctantly, Sungchan approaches the table with you and takes the plush seat beside you. In another universe, you look just like the other couple in store, grinning at each other with lovestruck smiles as you tried on different rings. You push the thought away and swallow the mass in your throat down.

The jeweller takes out two red leather boxes from inside a small carrier bag that has a sticker with their names on it. He sets out the boxes in front of you and moves the bag aside.

"The couple requested the rings to be engraved so there's no risk of you taking away the wrong rings anyway," he clarifies as he picks up one of the boxes, "This one's for the bride."

When he opens it up, you're floored in awe at the beauty of the ring. It's a band of beautiful diamonds sparkling under the light of the store. He tilts the ring and brings it up closer to your eyes until you can see the small letters on the inside- S&H.

"It's beautiful," you whisper.

He twists the ring around in his grip, "No diamonds missing, no cracks or gaps or breaks, yes?"

When you nod in confirmation, he shows it to Sungchan who wordlessly inspects the precious stones. The jeweller places it back in the box and does the same with Shotaro's ring, which has less diamonds but is still shiny.

He puts the boxes back in the bag and shows you the booklets he had places inside, "There's ring care instructions, the certificates for the warranty and what to do if there's anything wrong with the ring."

You nod as you take in the information.

His eyes soften, "Please send my regards to the lovely couple. I am heartbroken to not be able to send them off with their rings. I hope they love it."

"I'm sure they will," you hum as you take the small bag from him, "Thank you."

He spots the absence of metal on your fingers as you reach over, "Ah, no wedding or engagement ring on you, hm? Come and visit my store in the future if you happen to need one."

The back of your neck heats up, "No ring on me. I'll keep you in mind."

"What about you, best man? A lucky lady in your life?" he turns to your companion and drops him a wink, "Gotta get as much business as possible."

Sungchan flashes his bare fingers, "I'll come to you if the time ever comes."

Four years ago, you imagined that you would be way past this stage. It twists your heart to know your best friend gets to do all of it first. You're inexplicably happy for her that she's found the love of her life that she wants to spend forever with, but you always wished you could be doing these steps together. You both always wanted to get engaged at similar times, to get married in consecutive years, to have kids all at the same time, but you've fallen behind already.

"Y/N?" the jeweller calls out softly, breaking your trance, "Everything alright?"

You offer a small smile, "Yeah, sorry. Thank you for your time and the rings."

He waves you off with a genuine smile and you leave the store with Sungchan following behind you.

You take one brief look at him and his unsettled expression and murmur, "See you again soon."

"Wait, how'd you get here? By train?" you nod at him and he sighs, running a hand through his hair, "Come. I'll drop you off back at their place."

"That's not necessary. I can handle myself-"

Sungchan gives you a pointed look, clearly unimpressed, "You're carrying around rings worth thousands. Can't risk you losing them or getting robbed."

You look down at the bag, embossed with the logo of the jeweller's, "Uhm, you can just take it if you want and give it to them when you next see them."

"I'm sure they'd wanna see their rings as soon as possible when they get home," Sungchan argues, "Just get in the car with me, Y/N. We don't even have to speak."

Your mouth flattens into a grimace as he begins stomping towards his car parked along the road. Wordlessly, you climb into the passenger seat and secure the bag on your lap. He starts the car and turns on the radio loud enough where you couldn't hold a conversation over it.

You make it 15 minutes into the journey by watching the city go by through the window in front of you. You recognise most places, but it still is not completely all familiar.

It's hard to relax when you're in the car again with the person whose heart you broke. Your fingers grip into the bag and you try to control your breathing so your heart wouldn't run as fast.

"You're getting a call," Sungchan murmurs as he turns the radio down.

You're about to tell him that it's okay and you'll take it later, but when you take out the phone, you see it's your mother. She's a busy woman who doesn't always get the time to speak with you, so you always try to answer her calls.

You mumble a sorry to Sungchan and raise the phone to your ears, "Mhm, mother?"

"Hi my darling, I was just calling to check up on you. What are you up to?"

"I just picked up the wedding rings because Hana and Taro are busy and the store's closing for a bit," you tell her, "I'm on my way back to their house."

She gasps in delight, "How exciting! You're taking a taxi back? It sounds like you're in a car."

You debate internally whether you should tell her, "Sungchan is driving me back to their house. We were both accidentally sent over to the jeweller's."

"Sungchan?" her voice is reluctant and shaky as she utters his name.

"He's the best man," you can tell he's listening by the way his grip tightens on the steering wheel and his knuckles are turning white.

"Of course, you said," your mother remembers what you told her at dinner a few nights ago, "I'll leave you to it. Say hello to Sungchan for me- I haven't seen him and his family in a while. Will they be at the wedding?"

"I suppose," you murmur, "Love you, bye."

Your mother parrots the sentiment before the line clicks.

"My mother says hello," you tell him quietly.

Sungchan forces a small smile, "Thanks. It's been a long time."

Your heart aches at the thought of just how much your family loved and adored your first boyfriend. You started dating and hanging out when you were still teens in your childhood homes, so he and his family got friendly with yours and eventually became close. You've taken endless group trips together and merged your family so well, thinking that you were going to be forever.

The rest of the drive is done in near silence. Sungchan doesn't turn the radio up again, but he also doesn't utter a single word. You felt like you could hear your heartbeat in the quiet.

When he pulls up to the drive, he barely gives you a look as he gets out the car, "I just need to get my jacket I left the other night."

You swallow and nod, following him to the front door where you enter the passcode to get into the house.  You don't really know what to do with yourself after you placed the bag on their coffee table.

Is it rude if you go to your room? Should you offer him a drink? Do you just wait by the door until he leaves?

Sungchan finds his jacket in a closet along the stairwell and he drapes it across his arm. You're waiting awkwardly in the middle of the front room when he stops in front of you with an unreadable, frustrated expression. He squints his eyes slightly at you before letting out a soft sigh.

"What?" the word drops from your mouth quietly.

He shakes his head, "It hurts to look at you."

The words feel like poison injected straight into your veins. Your mouth goes dry and hangs open, "Do you hate me?"

Of course he does. Of course he hates you.

You left him.

"I thought I did. I carried so much resentment over the past 4 years but looking at you again like this," Sungchan pauses and meets your eyes, "It just... hurts."

"I'm sorry," your head hangs low, "I'll be gone soon. You don't have to worry. You don't have to see me at all after all this."

Sungchan lets out a sarcastic, dry chuckle, "I wish that could be the case. What about when they have their first child? What about when the others start getting married too?"

You open your mouth to try and say something, but he continues, "I thought I was finally moving on or at least forgetting. It was a hard 3 years. Then, Shotaro tells me he's proposing and Hana says you're going to be the maid of honour and that in 7 months you'll be back in Seoul. I spent 7 months thinking about what to say to you when I see you again. 7 months wondering what it was going to be like between us. And then you come back and you can't even look me in the eyes. And I don't know what to say to you. And you're saying that I never have to see you again after. What do I even do with myself, Y/N?"

"I'm sorry," it's all you can say as you choke up and tears start forming on your lashes. You feel so pathetic, knowing there was nothing in the world you could say to make this easier.

"Even if you are, that doesn't fix anything," his voice cracks, "Do you actually not regret leaving? Leaving me?"

He brings you back to the other day in his car and you swallow nervously, "Of course I do, but I felt like it was the only choice I had back then. It was getting harder and harder to be with each other. We were fighting all the time for no reason and I had no idea how to fix us. And then I got that job offer I couldn't turn down and you got a good job here in Seoul."

Sungchan's hands ball into fists, "Every couple goes through hard times. I would have gone to the ends of the universe to fight for us. You were everything to me. Was I not to you?"

You snap, "You don't know how hard it was to leave."

"And you don't know how much worse it is to be the one left behind," his voice raises slightly in frustration as you realise that he's crying too, crystal tears falling from his pretty eyes, "What went wrong with us, Y/N? I still don't understand."

"I had no idea who I was without you. We spent every waking moment tethered to each other. Don't you think we needed to grow?" you whisper, "We were fighting so much I thought you would begin to resent me and that it meant we had outgrown each other."

"I wish we could have talked more about it before you left. You gave me no choice, Y/N. You just moved across the world and left me behind," the pain in his voice is evident, "I know I wasn't being a good boyfriend at the end. It was stressful starting that job and becoming an adult in the real world after college, but if you'd given me the chance-"

"There's no point talking about the what-if's," you interrupt him, "It'll only hurt us more."

"Do you still love me?" he questions suddenly.

Your face pales as you look up at him. His tears are flowing so fast, but so delicately- you wish you could reach up and dry his tears with your fingers, not too dissimilar from the way he used to kiss the tears off your cheeks in the past whenever you would have squabbles.

"What?"

He gulps, "I've spent 12 years loving you since the moment I met you. I'm so scared that I'm going to love you for the rest of my life."

"Sungchan-"

"I can't let you leave again without telling you. You have to know it's only ever going to be you."

Sungchan sniffles as he takes a step closer to you. His jacket that was on his arm is discarded on the floor.

"I'm so sorry," you whimper again as your eyes flutter shut. You bite your lip to try and control the tears.

Before you realise what was happening, you feel the soft pad of his thumb tug your lip out and then the pressure of his own mouth against yours as he captured your hot tears in his kiss. And like it was a reflex, you melt into his body and part your lips, giving him access and trying to forget that this was a terrible, terrible thing to do.

His large hands come up to cradle your face and he walks you backwards until your back hits the wall. You're both sobbing into the kiss, but you can't pull away even if you wanted to.

You haven't kissed anyone in 4 years and Sungchan's lips on yours feels like you finally came home to him. It's desperate, sloppy and you're both choking on your own tears as you move your mouth against his. Your heart and your brain have disconnected from each other and your hands are gripping the fabric of the jacket he was currently wearing like your life depends on it.

Time freezes in this moment with him and you don't know how long you're kissing for until you've both stopped crying and your mouth goes numb.

He presses his forehead against yours, "I missed you so much."

"I missed you too."

౨ৎ⋆ ˚｡⋆

iv. but you come back with gravity

You don't say anything to Hana when she knocks on your door later on in the evening once they returned. She texts you after, asking if you were awake and if you wanted dinner. You wait 30 minutes before replying that you were in and out of sleep, exhausted from all the exploring you told her that you did after collecting the rings. You're thankful she leaves you alone after that but not before apologising over the mix up with Sungchan and that she hoped he didn't bring you any trouble.

You toss and turn in the bed all night.

When the next day comes, you force yourself out at the crack of dawn, commandeering over the kitchen to cook your friends some breakfast. It was the least you could do for them as they hosted you. You knew Hana would be awake soon since she was still working remotely for a few days. Shotaro, on the other hand, could afford to take some leave by busying himself more than usual in the months prior to the wedding to make up for it.

When Hana comes down yawning, you greet her tiredly, "Hey."

"Awww, my Y/N cooked for me?" she pouted sweetly at you, "You're too sweet. I could get used to this; why don't you come back and live in our spare room forever?"

Your stomach flips on itself, "Do you think I should?"

Hana was about to bring a mouthful of egg into her mouth when she stills, "I mean I was joking but I don't think you are. You want to move back?"

The image of Sungchan from yesterday with tears in his eyes is burned into your brain and you can see him every time you blink, "No... it's just that-"

"Whatever it is, I would say move back. I'm the first- no the second person who wants you back here," she quips.

"Who's the first?"

She glares at you like you're stupid before tossing a piece of kimchi on top of your rice, "Did something happen yesterday? With Sungchan? Did he say something to you?"

You're in half a mind to blurt out the truth, but you stop yourself. You're here for your best friend and to make her life easier before her wedding, not to add problems. Maybe when she's back from her honeymoon and you're alone again in your flat in London you could tell her over FaceTime, but you hold your breath for now.

"No," you shake your head, "You getting married just has me thinking about my future. Like where I'm gonna end up and settle."

She shoots you a sympathetic look, "When did life suddenly whizz by? One second we're giggling by our lockers writing confession notes and the next we're thinking about where to root our lives. Anyway, I want you here, but more importantly, I want you where you're happy. I can tell it's been hard for you to come back here."

"I'm just kind of lost in life. I thought I could build a life in London and stay there forever. I have- kind of, but there's nothing that's actually keeping me there. If I packed up and moved away, no one is missing me," you sigh.

Hana claps like she suddenly had a bright idea, "You know what you should do while you're here? Open a dating app! Maybe you'll find your reason to stay."

You look at her like she's grown 10 heads, cause WTAF?

"I'm gonna pretend you didn't say that," you deadpan.

Hana rolls her eyes, "Seriously? Why not? Are you still in love with him or something? I thought that seeing him again would give you closure and you can finally move on."

You stay silent and she groans, putting her head in her hands, "Jesus, it's done the opposite, hasn't it? Made you feel things again?"

"This is not about me. Or Sungchan. Stop, stop," you frantically dismiss her, "No talking about my tragic love life. You're literally getting married!"

Hana sighs at you, "I am, but doesn't mean I can't care and worry about you. I have enough of myself to share with those I love, honestly. Getting married to Taro is gonna be one of the greatest things ever, but you know, I love him every single day regardless and not much has to change. It's a big deal to us but life still goes on for everyone else."

"I'm so happy you guys have each other," you tell her, voice dropping to a whisper.

"It's all thanks to you and him," she reminds you, "And if you realised that you still love him, I won't judge. I just don't want either of you to get hurt again."

You nod slowly, trying to internalise her words, "I'll be okay, right?"

She reaches across the table and squeezes your hand, "You're gonna be fine, my love. Whatever happens."

You finish up breakfast talking about what you were gonna do during the day instead. It was 6 days until the wedding and you were scheduled to pick up your dress from the tailors after they finished the adjustments. Hana was going to do some work first and then you both would go out and get the dress together, then have some brunch with some of your old friends from college. A lot of them stayed in town, but you both had lost touch with some of them after your move and Hana's fancy job she got straight out of school.

Spending the rest of the morning trying to relax proved to be futile. Every time you were left alone with your thoughts, all you could think about was Sungchan's lips on yours, the pressure of his body caging you in- and then the emptiness you felt when he ran away as soon as.

How could he tell you that he still loved you and proceed to flee after kissing you? Your brain and heart are in complete tatters.

You're still thinking about him by the time Hana knocks and tells you she finished up her work and you think about him the whole drive over to the bridal shop.

You think about him when you try on the dress again. You think about whether he'd think you're pretty in the dress. You think about the wedding dress you'd have picked if life went to plan.

On the whole walk to the brunch restaurant, Hana gave up on trying to capture your attention. She just links your arms together and hums into the air.

Minjeong and Jimin are already sat at the table when you arrive and they spring up in delight at the sight of you and crush you between them.

"Holy crap, you've been away as long as we knew you," Minjeong whines as you all sit down. Like the boys, you messaged her on special occasions and haven't substantially talked since, but you'll always hold a lot of love for the few friends you made in college.

Minjeong and Jimin lived in the apartment next to yours for your entire college journey. They too were best friends from childhood and you and Hana mirrored them in so many ways.

"How are you? How's London?" Jimin asks curiously.

"It's weird to be back, for sure," you smile slightly, "But I'm happy to see you guys again. London's London- busy, gloomy, grey."

"Did you make friends okay over there? Find a new man?" Minjeong raises her eyebrows. Jimin elbows her in the side and gives you a sheepish look.

It wasn't like you made a public statement that you and Sungchan broke up, but people must have noticed something was up when you started posting in the UK and disappeared off each other's social media accounts.

"Still just me," you chuckle, "Anyway, what are you guys wearing to the wedding?"

Jimin claps her hands excitedly and rushes to her phone to show you the photos of their dresses. They're coming in complimentary pastel yellow dresses with frills and all.

"You guys are gonna look so good! Like cute little twins as always," Hana squeals in approval, "No dates for either of you?"

Winter grimaces, "We've not been as lucky as you in that department. I don't know if we scare each other's potential suitors off."

"Taro was terrified of Y/N for a while, remember?," Hana reminisces fondly, "He was my first proper boyfriend, so Y/N really lay on the act thick to make sure he would treat me well."

"And my screening process worked, didn't it? You're the one getting married in 6 days," you quip at her.

"Yes, I have you to thank of course," she nuzzles into your side, "Why does it now seem like I'm not going to be attending any of your weddings anytime soon? I want to attend one that's not my own!"

Jimin snorts, "I can get eloped for you, if you want. What age did you guys want to get married?"

Winter sighs, "I wanted to get married out of college," and then gives the stink eye to her best friend who mutters under her breath that she should have tried harder then.

"Around this age would have been nice, I think," you say sadly, playing with the rings on your fingers and trying to imagine how they would look beside a wedding or engagement ring.

"I told her to go on a dating app earlier, but she said no," Hana informs them.

"That's modern dating now, unfortunately. We can't all have high school or college sweethearts," Jimin purses her lips in thought, "Or how about you just get back together with your ex?"

It's Winter's turn to smack her friend's arm in shock, "Yah, that's so out of pocket, Jimin! Sorry Y/N."

You attempt to keep your face neutral as Jimin giggles innocently, "Sorry Y/N. It's just that I heard that he's been single this whole time. You've seen him recently, right?"

"He's Taro's best man," Hana nods, "We've had a few wedding events and dinners since Y/N got here."

"It's not really up to me, I think. I'm the one that up and left."

Winter reaches across the table to grab your hand and comfort you, "You must've had your reasons, Y/N-ie. Sorry, I know you probably don't want to talk about it."

"It's fine- it's just complicated," you smile softly in reassurance.

౨ৎ⋆ ˚｡⋆

v. i could go on and on and on, and i will go on and on and on until it all comes back

4 days out from the wedding and you find yourself alone in Seoul again. Hana and Shotaro decided they needed a spa day to relax just before it got incredibly intense over the weekend and asked if you wanted to join. Of course, you weren't going to sandwich yourself in the nearly newlywed's plans.

You remember the café near the jeweller's you wanted to visit, eager to see how time has changed the shop just as it had changed you. Taking the subway was tiring, of course, but you occupy your time by people-watching through every stop. It's a weekday, so the carriage isn't so busy during the middle of the day. You're lucky enough to find a row of seats and be able to rest your feet.

The walk to the café from the station isn't long, but you walk slow and take in your surroundings on the sunny day. It's hard when your memories are so entwined with the one you didn't have anymore.

Every corner you turn, you can still picture you and Sungchan there walking, holding hands and bright-eyed. He'll probably have said something ridiculous that made you laugh and you'll have playfully hit him on his arm and cuddled into his side as he dropped a kiss on the top of your head.

Being in Seoul brings back all the nostalgia of your youth.

You order a refreshing iced drink, slightly sad that you don't recognise the cashier behind the till. Your feet carry you to an empty table before you can realise it's the one you liked to sit at before- by a window, far away enough from both the front door and the toilet, and with a view of the main street in front to watch the world go by. You know there's a charging port at your feet and that it takes 12 steps to get to the stand with the tissues, sugars and stirrers. You know that you've spent many hours hunched over on the seat, trying to complete each essay and assignment. You know what you like off the menu and what you don't. You know that it's where you had your first date with Sungchan in the city when your parents let you out at 16 together.

It hurts to remember the very first time you were here, giggling, flustered and nervous for your very first date with a boy- the same boy you'd been infatuated with since the first time you laid eyes on him 2 years prior. Sungchan had carried your bag on his shoulder the whole train ride over and tried his best to look all tall and tough to protect you in the big city despite it being one of his first times going to the city without an adult. He had opened all the doors for you, pulled out all the chairs and paid for all your drinks and food as he listened to you ramble about cute cakes and pastries.

You had talked about your high school exams, what you wanted to do in college and how you imagined your futures. He had told you all about his sweet family, his love for football and things you never got to know about him in a group situation.

On the way home, with the sun about to set, he held your hand the whole way.

You stop reminiscing when a figure takes a seat in front of you, and then you're thrown straight back in.

"What are you doing here?" you ask Sungchan tentatively, unsure what to make of his presence.

"Hana told me you might come here today. I was going to come to the house to see you," Sungchan says simply, playing with his fingers, "I didn't really have any way to reach you."

Of course- your Korean number was long deactivated, you had unfollowed each other on social media and your temporary number was shared only with those you deemed it necessary.

You look up at him through your eyelashes, expression slightly menacing from the way it brought a pang to your heart to look at him. You knew exactly how he felt when he said it hurt to look at you.

"You left, Sungchan. You told me you missed me and then you left," you murmured quietly, suddenly hyper-aware of your surroundings.

He sighs longingly, "I know. I'm sorry for that. But my head's a mess, I'm confused and I don't know where we stand."

"You're the one that kissed me," you continue accusing him.

"You kissed me back and I didn't expect it. You told me you missed me," he bores his eyes into yours, "But you're going to leave again in a few days and I don't know if my heart can handle it again to watch you walk away."

"What's our options here?" you grip the cup in your hands tightly, "We just forget everything happened, just get through the wedding and then never look back?"

"Is that what you want?" there's a tinge of hurt in his voice.

"What I want and what I can have are two different things."

He pauses and then swallows, "What do you want?"

"You said it- it's only ever going to be you," you confess.

There's no point lying to him; you know each other better than you know yourselves- or at least you did. He knows your soul like it's his own, learned you inside and out over the years you grew up beside each other. You might've changed a bit away from each other, but you were each other's anchor in your formative years. Of course he knows you.

You watch his eyes transform with hope and then hesitancy, "What's stopping us from being together then?"

"We haven't spoken in 4 years and the most we've done here is argue," you remind him, "And I could love you with all my heart and every inch of my being, but that doesn't mean we'll work again."

Sungchan looks at you with those big, brown eyes that transports you 10 years back, in the very same seat, as he asked you to be his girlfriend, "Can we just try?"

10 years ago, you had blushed and hid your face in your hands. He had laughed sweetly, melodiously, prying your fingers away from your visage. You had giggled out a small 'yes' and he had entangled your fingers together in glee.

But now you're 10 years older, cheeks less puffy and the passage of time eroding at the innocent naïvety you both held. But love has no timeline, hope even less.

You're the one to reach over to his restless fingers and entwine them in yours, "Yes."

౨ৎ⋆ ˚｡⋆

You have more questions than you have answers. You have more anxiety than you have reassurance. Your head spins the minute you attempt to solve all the newfound puzzles and dilemmas in your head, but you try to bury them back deep into your brain so you could focus on your task at hand and what you came here for.

Like most brides before their wedding, Hana was starting to get a bit nervous. She had absolutely no doubt about marrying Shotaro of course, but it was a lot of stress to deal with all the moving parts and logistics of actually holding the wedding. Every evening, you've been sitting with the couple, going through their to-do-lists and wedding plans to make sure you didn't miss a single detail.

To be honest, there's nothing left to do until the rehearsal dinner you were hosting tomorrow, which was the day before the wedding. Overthinking details unnecessarily would just add stress to the couple, so you've been trying to reassure them everything was going to be perfect.

"It's actually so close," Hana exhales slowly, as she closes her eyes and tries to relax.

You're sat outside in the lawn chairs of their garden, basking in the late afternoon summer sun, "My best friend is going to be a married woman in 2 days."

"And then you're going to leave again," you can hear the pout in her voice, "When's the next time we can take time off work so we can properly hang out without the wedding planning being the center of attention? HR probably won't let me for another 6 months, but I'm itching to come visit you in London already."

"Don't act like your wedding isn't the most exciting thing that's ever happened to either of us," you scoff at her.

"It is, but it's literally consumed our entire life," Hana puffs out, "I'm excited to see it come together, though. Make sure you try and have fun at the wedding too, okay? I know I asked you for a lot of favours as my maid of honour, but I still want you to have a good time. Maybe meet one of Taro's cousins or studio friends."

You flush red at the sudden thought in your head, "Don't say anything, okay, but Sungchan and I are gonna, um, come to your wedding together-" Hana slaps her hand over her mouth and you sit up, "I said don't say anything!"

Over the past 2 days, you'd been texting and chatting on the phone a lot in the times you could. He was still working during the day as a hot-shot physiotherapist for one of the elite football teams in the city, so he didn't have time to see you when you were available. You'd agreed to be each other's dates to your best friends' wedding, even though the time you would spent with each other was probably going to be very limited with your duties. It's the thought that counts.

Hana's peering at you with the widest, most shocked eyes, "What did I miss? What the hell?"

"It's nothing," it's everything, "We just got to talking a bit, decided to see if it might go anywhere and stick this time. We're taking it like really slow."

Hana rolls her eyes, "How slow do you have to go? You're already each other's greatest love- oh don't give me that look!" she reaches out to poke your exasperated expression, "I get it. You don't want to get hurt and you don't want to hurt each other. Just don't stand in the way of your own happiness."

"I'm sorry to make it about me," you sigh, "We're not going to be obvious at your wedding or anything."

She reaches over to take your hand, "Babe, I told you, your happiness is my happiness and I mean it. You know I've always rooted for the two of you."

Hana was the very first supporter of your relationship. While she came to know her soon-to-be husband through you and Sungchan, you only ended up together in the first place by Hana getting fed up of you dancing around each other and basically telling Sungchan to ask you out on a date. She'd spent 2 years listening to you go on and on about the cute guy that moved into the neighbourhood and watched as he fell for you with every waking day. You were both too shy to make a move, until she cornered him and convinced him that you would definitely say yes to a date (even the blind could sense that you'd say yes in a heartbeat).

"I love you. I'm so lucky to have you as my best friend," you sniffle, squeezing her hand.

"Save the confession for your Prince Charming. I think he just got here," Hana nods behind you, in the direction of the house.

"What? You didn't tell me he was coming over? He didn't say!" you scramble up to your feet, afraid to turn around knowing you'd find him leaning against the door frame of the garden door.

"Hey!" you hear his familiar sweet voice.

"Sungchan-ie, come here," Hana beckons him over and motions for you to sit down again, "Come join us. What are you doing here?"

"Taro asked me to hang out," he shrugs and takes the chair besides yours, flashing you a sweet smile as he did so, "Sorry for breaking in, but I thought you two would be out having girl-time and getting pampered."

"Our appointments were pretty efficient," Hana shrugs. You had spent the morning doing your final beauty treatments and touch ups - nails, brows, last-minute hair tweaks, lashes, facials and all. You managed to get through them all quickly and ended up having enough time to lay out in the garden with a cocktail on the side-tables, "Taro should be home soon, though. He's probably caught in some traffic back from the airport as he picked up his family."

"Do you want a drink?" you ask him, motioning to the pair of glasses.

"D'you make that?" he quirks in amusement.

You nod, "I befriended the bartender at the pub I live near. She taught me how to make some good cocktails."

"You're full of surprises," he chuckles at you, "Up for passing on that knowledge?"

You look back at Hana, who simply turns her face away with a smirk as she closed her eyes to appreciate the sun. You get up with Sungchan and motion for him to follow you into the kitchen.

"You told her? That girl cannot keep a neutral expression to save her life," Sungchan utters behind you, his tone amused.

"I said we were going to the wedding together, if that's okay," you prepare the ingredients in front of you.

"Mhm, more than okay. I'm sure she was happy to hear that," he muses, "Did she tell you how thick she laid it on in the weeks before you got here? Every time I saw her, she would remind me that I shouldn't miss my chance when you got here."

You gasp at your scheming best friend, "No way! She's the one that's been telling me to get on a dating app! And wanted to set me up with Taro's colleagues!"

Sungchan pouts in faux betrayal, clutching at his heart like he got shot, "Back-stabber! I thought she was on my side!"

You laugh at his antics, "Nah, I think she was playing the long-game with us. Anyway, watch and learn, yeah?"

Sungchan watches in fascination as you show him how to make a salt and chilli rim and how to mix a cocktail together. He's delighted at the way you shake the drink in the shaker the same way bartenders do it and begs you to let him try. You watch him carefully to make sure that the liquid wouldn't explode everywhere throughout your best friend's house and he's smiling in triumph as he strains out the drink into the cup.

You'd forgotten just how adorable he is when he's not trying to ignore you in the room.

"You're an expert too," you clap happily, "Like it?"

"Best cocktail I've ever had! Thank you!" he proclaims, and then sticks himself by your side, slinging a casual arm around your shoulder to pull you close, "I didn't get to say hi properly. Tell me about your day."

"We just went appointment to appointment," you show him your nails that he coos at, "Went café hopping a bit and then came home to chill since it was so sunny."

"Mhm, it'd be so nice to go to the beach," Sungchan sighs dreamily before his expression changes, "Oh, yeah. When are you going back to London?"

"I've got three full days after the wedding," you try to keep your voice steady, not wanting to give away how unsettled you felt about all the uncertainty, "We can spend that time together, yeah?"

He smiles gently, reaching up to tuck a piece of your hair behind your ear and then placing his large palm on your cheek, "We can make the most of it. Then I'll find a good time to come see you in London."

It makes your heart skip a beat, "That'd be nice."

Sungchan's eyes furrow together as he maintains his warm touch on you. He leans down, "Can I kiss you?"

You don't reply. Instead, you reach up and press your lips against his. This time it's sweet and full of adoration instead of the angst and desperation of a few days ago. He smiles against your lips and you taste the hint of salt, vodka and a little something sweet. When he pulls away, he leans his forehead against yours and exhales, content and feeling like he can finally breathe again.

౨ৎ⋆ ˚｡⋆

vi. i trust the universe will always bring me to you

The day comes around all too quickly when time had been passing so slow in the week before. The rehearsal dinner was beautiful, but over in a flash and then suddenly, you were in the guesthouse of the venue, watching with teary eyes as your best friend in the world clips her veil on.

Her mother sniffles next to you, clutching your arm tightly. Hana was biting her pink-stained lips, trying to keep herself from crying off her pretty makeup. The room's drop-dead quiet with all eyes trained on her on her special day.

"My beautiful baby," Hana's mother coos at her only daughter when she looked over at you all expectantly for your reactions.

"You're gonna make me cry! Stop it," she whines adorably, but accepts the tight squeeze her mother wraps her in.

She turns to you and you have to look up to blink the tears away before you can hug her again, "The most beautiful bride in the world," you whisper fondly, "I am so happy for you, Hana."

"Thank you for being here with me," she says sincerely, squeezing your hands, "And for being my best friend in the world."

She gives her bridesmaid hugs too until the coordinator tells you it's time for your best friend to get married. You all file out of the room in order to walk over to the ceremony hall, with Hana being the last one to leave. Ahead of you when you get to the entrance, you finally see the boys all huddled around Shotaro, who looked both nervous and giddy at the same time.

Hana stays hidden from the groom, but you spot the tallest boy of the group and tug on his sleeve.

"Y/N," he gasps when he turns around, his gaze softening into pure adoration, "Oh, baby, you look so beautiful."

The dress you picked out with Hana falls perfectly on your body and the colour is the perfect complement to your skin. The fabric drapes delicately in all the right places and hugs where it should. It makes you feel incredible, especially when Sungchan reacts the way he does.

"You look really handsome too, Sungchan," you reach up to straighten his tie as you all file into your orders.

"Shall we?" Sungchan asks nervously, offering his arm out to you as he notices the other pairs link together.

You smile at him, entwining your arms together and pressing yourself into his side. Before you forget, you turn around to see Shotaro rubbing his hands together.

"It's gonna be amazing, Taro," you reassure him.

Shotaro sighs in relief, "I just can't wait to marry her."

You're happy to know your best friend gets the happy ending she deserves.

Sungchan nudges you when the door opens and the pairs start walking down the aisle. It goes by in a heartbeat for you- you don't even remember what happened between the time you started walking and the time you and Sungchan separated to stand on either side of the altar.

When Hana walks in, you almost cry again. She's radiant in white and her eyes are so full and shiny with love as she keeps her eyes on her groom waiting for her. The wedding is beautiful and the vows make everyone laugh and cry.

You meet Sungchan's eyes multiple times through the ceremony and each time, he gives you this subtle, but comforting smile to reassure you that he was there. You wonder if you'd have been in Hana and Shotaro's place earlier had everything not happened.

Ever since she asked you to be her maid of honour, you've been preparing for the speech you were asked to give at the reception. You're nervous the whole time as the MC introduces you and prepares to hand you the mic and Hana gently squeezes your hand before you stand up with a fond look in her eyes. Sungchan on the other side of Shotaro is still looking at you like you hung the stars.

"For those that don't know me, my name is Y/N and Hana has been my best friend since we were born," you begin slowly, taking the time to breathe, "Our parents are friends from the same neighbourhood and we grew up together, practically as twins. When we were young, we were as inseparable as they came and did everything together. We went to all the same schools, all the way up to college, which was when I introduced Shotaro to her.

"Hana was the reason that I was able to date my first love by her meddling in high school. Ever since then, I had wanted to find the perfect match for her to share her heart with and to make her happy. Sorry Shotaro, but Hana has been my other half since birth and I felt like I knew her well enough to know who she'd click with. When I first met Shotaro in that tiny freshman dorm, I knew he'd be perfect for Hana.

"Taro and Hana are two of the most loving, gentle and caring people I have in my life and I can't be any happier to know that my best friend is loved the exact way she deserves. She's the best person I know and knowing I played a part in introducing her to her person makes me so happy. Even though I'm thousands of miles across the world, their love inspires me every day. They've felt like a married couple since the day they started dating and their love hasn't flickered or weaned once since.

"It feels just like yesterday when Hana and I were planning our dream weddings in our childhood bedrooms and here we are now, marrying you off to the love of your life. May the rest of your life together be filled with endless love and happy memories. I love you both so much."

Hana is tearing up by the time you finish your speech and you have to gulp to hold your own tears back. She stands up to hug you tightly and Shotaro follows beside her. They both thank you for the lovely speech and you hand the mic over to Sungchan once he's announced.

"When I met Shotaro on the first day of freshman year, I was honestly terrified. He looked so intimidating and scary up until I found out that it was only because he wasn't quite fluent in Korean yet and was actually from Japan. We were roommates in freshman year, so we got to know each other pretty well. He's been my best friend since and I'm grateful to have such a thoughtful, considerate, sweet and of course, talented, friend in him.

"Taro and Hana's very first date was at a diner on the other side of the city. What you two don't know is that Y/N and I actually followed you there and spied on you in wigs and glasses," you gasp in remembrance at the memory and burst out into a large smile, "And then we swore to each other that we'd keep this secret until your wedding day after your disastrous first date when you both came home crying in frustration because you liked each other so much that you were too nervous on the first date. We had to chaperone your next few dates and it was such an honour for us to watch you fall in love with each other with our very own eyes.

"I met Hana at 14 and I was scared of her for a few years, but even then, I knew she was a crazy loyal best friend to Y/N, who would do anything for her best friend's happiness. Even now, she shows me she cares in all the small and big ways and having the two of them in my life makes me feel very lucky. And even though I cringe at you two for still being in your honeymoon phase 8 years later, I couldn't be any happier that you have each other to have and to hold. Thank you for everything you've done for me and I also love you both very, very much."

Later on in the night after the dinner and cake-cutting, Jiwoo, Seunghan and Sungchan join you at the bar getting the signature cocktails created by the couple.

"You guys did such lovely speeches," Jiwoo says sincerely, clinking her drink against yours.

"Thank you. I didn't want to embarrass them so I held back on that aspect," Sungchan chuckles.

"And you mentioned that Hana set you up with your first love. Are you still together? Are they here?" she asks you curiously, innocent to the situation.

Seunghan coughs into his drink and has to turn around to control his face. Sungchan tenses up beside you, but you look over at him and smile softly, "Yeah, he's here."

Jiwoo's eyes widen in shock as she begins to laugh awkwardly, "Oh! I'm sorry- I didn't know you guys were together! Hana never mentioned!"

"Don't worry, Jiwoo," you reassure her.

"Jiwoo, look- Mina's calling you over," Seunghan points out across the room, where Mina, Taehee and Anton were chatting at a table. Jiwoo flashes a sheepish smile before she disappears away into the crowd. The younger boy looks between the two of you, "I thought that was taboo."

Sungchan rolls his eyes at his friend and places his free hand around your waist to the bewilderment of Seunghan, "None of your business."

He slaps his palm across his mouth, "I knew it! I knew this was going to happen."

"Don't go around telling everyone now," you request from him, "It's Hana and Taro's wedding after all."

"Of course," Seunghan nods enthusiastically and then relaxes into a soft smile, "I'm happy for the two of you, though."

He's whisked away by Eunseok and Wonbin, who both stare confused at your proximity but decide against saying anything as they get chased down by Hana's eccentric grandmother who always loved Eunseok when you were all younger.

Sungchan squeezes at your waist, "How you feeling?"

You look around the room at mostly familiar faces and the sight of your best friends breaking it down on the dance floor, "It's crazy- like, they're really married! When did we all grow up so fast?"

"I know, right? They'll be having kids soon, I bet," Sungchan agrees with a fond stare over at the couple, "The wedding was so beautiful as well."

"But then it's over just like that," you sigh, "Well, I guess those two are going off to their honeymoon literally tonight, so it won't feel like it's over for them yet."

"Oh, tonight? They're just leaving you in the house alone?" Sungchan raises an eyebrow curiously.

"Mhm, Hana didn't want me to book a hotel for just a few days," you say off-handedly, not picking up on his tone.

"Oh," Sungchan gulps, "I don't want you to be alone- do you, maybe, wanna come over?"

When your head whips around to look at him, he's already flushing red. You don't know if it's the alcohol or something else, but he's gnawing on his lip. You just give him a reassuring smile, "I'd like that, actually."

After some dancing with your best friend and childhood friends and some mingling with the parents, you're saying a very tearful goodbye to Hana and Shotaro in the foyer of the venue. Their bags are packed and with them and they're about to head to the airport to jet away.

"Promise you'll come back more often, yeah?" Hana is crying into your shoulder, "Thank you for everything you've done this week. I'm gonna miss you so much."

You have a feeling you'll be back much sooner than another 4 years.

"Enjoy yourself, okay? You're gonna have such a great time, Mrs. Osaki!" you sniffle into her jumper.

You embrace Shotaro in a similar fashion as he also thanks you for the help. He drops a wink as he says, "Check on the house at least once before you go, okay? I know you probably won't be there much."

"No idea what you're talking about," you try to keep a straight face, but you both burst out laughing.

You watch them ride off into the night in a blacked out SUV and try to dry your tears as you feel a weight drop on your shoulders in the form of an arm, "Ready to go? The taxi's coming soon."

Sungchan's presence is warm in the blustery foyer, "Yeah."

౨ৎ⋆ ˚｡⋆

You rest your eyes with your head on his shoulder the entire journey back to Sungchan's place. His hand finds home on your thigh, the pad of his thumb brushing repeatedly over the silk of your dress. His suit jacket sits comfortably around your shoulders as you doze in and out of sleep, but the car stops before you've even realised.

"We're here, Y/N," he whispers to pull you into consciousness. He thanks the driver and rushes around to your door to open it for you.

It's dark when you step out and the nearest street light doesn't illuminate your surroundings enough for you to recognise what part of the city you were in. Sungchan grips your hand in his tightly all the way through the side-street and into the lobby of the apartment building.

He keeps quiet beside you, only the pattering of your heels and his dress shoes echoing into the empty room. You come to your senses quickly and then gasp.

"Sungchan," you freeze beside him.

He chuckles softly, "Yeah, I know."

"No one told me," you say quietly as he leads you to the elevator, "Chanie."

"It's home," he shrugs as he presses the floor of the apartment.

You're nervous when you get off at the floor, then it grows as he keys in the code on the pad. You gulp at the order of the numbers- the same sequence it's been since you moved in four and a half years ago.

"Welcome back," Sungchan murmurs behind you. He places his hand on the small of your back to gently guide you inside, since your feet were planted into the ground.

It smells exactly the same as when you left (though more of his scent and none of yours) and then he turns the lights on and you choke up as it looks nearly identical as before. It's the very first home you and your first love moved into together and it breaks your heart all over again to know he's been living here this whole time.

The shoe rack you picked out still sits by the door, but it's only occupied by large men's shoes now. The artwork you and Sungchan bickered about is still hanging above the chest of drawers on the other side of the door where you used to dump keys and bags and other knick knacks you collected for the 6 months you lived here.

"Oh, baby, don't cry," Sungchan is now in front of you, wiping at the tears you didn't even know were falling.

"Why didn't you move out?" you lean into his touch.

"Because this was our first home," he says, "And this was all I had left of you."

You crash your body against his, wrapping your arms around his waist tightly as your tears soaked into his dress shirt, now stained with your makeup.

"Shh, don't cry, my love. It's okay. I was strong enough," Sungchan murmurs into your hair as he presses his lips into your scalp, "You know that I love you, mhm? I always will."

"Channie, I love you," you cry even harder as he squeezes you, "I'm so, so sorry."

"I know. But you came back home to me," Sungchan sighs contently, smoothing your hair down to comfort you, "That's all I can ask for."

"I ruined us."

Sungchan shakes his head, "No, baby. You're here now. It's fine."

"It's all my fault."

Sungchan unwraps your arms from around him and takes your hand to lead you to the bedroom you made home in the past. He sits you down at the edge of the bed as you cry and crouches in front of you, holding your hands.

"You look so, so beautiful, my love. Don't cry, come on," he soothes, "I'm here, Y/N. I'm here."

Sungchan finds a packet of makeup wipes from your bag and swipes gently at your face as you sniffle and try to stop your tears. He goes through a few before the makeup is no longer staining your face and he hands you some tissue to blow your nose from the sobbing. While he waits for you patiently, you look up at the ceiling to try and stop the hot, silent tears that kept escaping.

"Do you think we'd have been married by now?" you ask, guilt surging in your vessels, "We always wanted to get married as soon as possible."

Sungchan's soft gaze falters for a second, but then he comes up to sit next to you and wrap you in his large arms, "It doesn't matter, Y/N. It's not your fault."

"But I left," you mutter.

"And I made you feel like you had to," Sungchan pats you comfortingly, "We'll be better this time, mhm? We'll know better."

"But what if I'm not the same person anymore you used to love?"

Sungchan furrows his brows tightly together, "That's nonsense. The moment I saw you again in that café, I knew. You're still the one who has my heart. I promise."

He holds you a few minutes longer, whispering sweet nothings into your ears as you halt the crying. You grip onto him tightly, afraid he was going to leave you- ironic, isn't it?

When you finally calm down, he drags you to the bathroom to brush your teeth together with his spare toothbrush and he washes your face with a foaming cleanser while you do the same to him. When you're applying his moisturiser on your skin, he watches from behind you, arms holding onto your waist as he blinks slowly through the mirror. And when you realise you don't have any clothes, he unzips your dress from the top and dresses you up in one of his favourite shirts, adoring the way it swamps you.

He gives you this look and pulls you under the sheets, immediately tackling you into a hug and covering your body with his.

"This isn't really taking it slow, is it?" you hum, tracing shapes onto his bare arms.

"It is for me," Sungchan's eyes flutter shut in contentment, "If I had things my way, we'd be up on that altar beside Taro and Hana. How does a double wedding sound to you?"

You gasp and break out into laughter as you shove against his body, but he pulls you in tighter, "Shut up. You'd so be the type to propose at someone else's wedding."

He scoffs, as if offended, "Hell no. Do you wanna know how I'd do it?" you miss the way his voice wavers. His eyes are still closed and you're staring into his chest, "In a flower field or meadow, you in a pretty dress. Maybe we'd have a picnic, but it would be definitely be on a sunny day because you're extra happy when the sun is out. I'd set up a camera or something. Say I want to take pictures of us and there's no one else around. And when I succeed in distracting you, I would get down on one knee and you'd turn around and start crying, probably. And you'd love the ring too."

Your voice drops to barely a whisper, "Seems like you've thought about it a lot."

"You were the only person I could have ever imagined spending my life with. And I didn't want to spend any time apart from you," Sungchan admits, "When I bought the ring after saving my first few pays, I got scared and I pulled away. I had no idea it would drive you away in the end. I'm sorry for that."

Your heart stops, "The ring?"

He lets out this heavy sigh as he turns around and reaches over to pull his nightstand drawer open. He digs around into the depths of it and pulls out a box. It looks tiny in the palm of his hands and he presents it to you with his big brown eyes suddenly tearing up. He's doing that thing where he's nibbling on his lips and looking up and away to stop the tears falling.

"I don't want you to feel guilty or sorry. I just need you to know everything before we can start again," he mumbles, "If you want to open it, you can. Of if you don't, you don't have to."

For the countless time since the day started, you're crying again. You're in his arms, again.

"Sungchan," you cry out, "You were going to propose?"

"I wanted forever with you," he coo's sweetly, brushing the hair out of your face to plant kisses on your cheeks, "I still do."

You take the box from his hold and open it slowly, breath hitched. He's right- you love it so much that your stomach twists into itself. You had always wondered what ring would call to your heart- you didn't think you could describe it if someone asked, but Sungchan had known then, even without asking.

"It's a bit dusty now. I haven't looked at it in a while," Sungchan giggles.

Your heart is beating fast, almost out of your chest as you eye the metal and the precious stone. It's even better than any ring you saw in that jewellery store with him. You can feel his eyes locked on you as you take the ring out from its plush cushion and inspect it close up.

The room is only lit with a dim lamp, but the stone sparkles in the dark anyway. You can see something engraved inside the band, but your hands can't stop shaking long enough to read it. Sungchan's looking at you and he looks nearly exactly the same as he did 4 years ago in this very spot.

"Do you like it?" he asks quietly, "I picked it out by myself."

You don't say another word as you toss the box beside you and slip the ring effortlessly on the finger it was intended to rest on. Sungchan opens his mouth but you catch the gasp with your kiss as you smash your lips against his. He makes this strangulated noise as his fingers dig in to the side of your hips to pull you over him and his tongue slips into your mouth.

You kiss fervently, ferociously, having been devoid of his taste for more days than you wish would have passed. The cold metal of the ring digs into the side of his cheek, but Sungchan has never known more bliss than this.

"You can't take it back," Sungchan pants against your lips as he captured them again in a hot kiss. His hands slide up your bare flanks under the loose shirt and you detach from his mouth just to be able to gnaw at the side of his neck in that one spot you remember he loves.

His sweet mouth curses into the still air, "Fuck, Y/N."

"I love you," you murmur into his neck as his hands run wild, "I always will."

Sungchan places a hand over yours, the stone now digging into his palms. It's worth it, he tells himself now. You're here, he tells himself.

"I love you. It'll only ever be you."

౨ৎ⋆ ˚｡⋆

vii. i'm always, forever, runnin' back to you

The city is too polluted for you to ever feel like you're taking in a breath of fresh air. You should probably hold your breath, even.

Though the sky is teetering on the border of blue and grey, the sun still peeks through the clouds and greets you with a diffuse, warm light. You're humming to yourself as you walk down the street, head up to avoid walking into anyone. There's no music in your ears because you want to appreciate the rare sunny days that look like they'll be pulled from under you at any minute.

Your surroundings are familiar, having walked them nearly daily for the past few years, but when it comes to a crossing, you turn left today and instead of right. It's a diversion you take on special occasions- a diversion that takes you to your favourite café in the entire city. They serve the best cakes and pastries that are the cherry on top to anything you have to celebrate. Sometimes it's a promotion, sometimes a birthday and other times just a hard day that you didn't think you would make it out the other side of.

Before it comes into view, your phone rings.

"Hello?"

"Hey," your best friend's voice rings out through the speaker, "You finished work?"

"Mhm, I'm walking to that café I took you to now," you tell her, "What are you doing up? It must be, what? 2 or 3 in the morning there?"

"Late night at the office anyway with this huge case. I just got home," she sighs and you can finally hear the exhaustion in her voice, "But I also couldn't miss this. I'm proud of you."

"It's kind of a bittersweet feeling," you hum thoughtfully, "Thank you for calling, Han. But get yourself to sleep now."

"Are you at the café now?"

You nod before you realise she can't see you so you affirm verbally as the shop front enters your field of vision. You're met with a surprise that causes a smile to spread on your face.

"Yeah, just got here. I'll talk to you and Taro soon, okay?" you coo at your best friend who bids you farewell before you hang up the phone.

There's a tall figure leaning against the brick wall beside the shop entrance. He's got his hands in both pockets and he's watching your every step with an impatient, but fond stare.

"You said you weren't here yet!"

"Took your time, hm?" his voice is the closest thing that feels like home now until you walk straight into him and wrap your arms around his torso, "Surprise!"

"It's my last time doing that walk," your own voice muffles against his black shirt.

"How was your last day of work?" Sungchan strokes your hair gently as you bury yourself closer.

"I cried a bit saying goodbye to my co-workers," you admit, "But I know this is the right choice. I didn't even mean to stay here this long."

Sungchan hums from above, "Thank you for choosing this, though."

You look around the street you find yourself on in this area of London, knowing it's the last time you'll be here for a long time until you decide to come back and visit.

"Home has always been where you are," you pull away from him to intertwine your hands, "I miss Seoul and everyone there. London has taught me so much, but mostly that I can't live without you. These past 5 months were horrific too."

"Well, we're on the other side now," Sungchan leads you into your favourite café, the one you showed him when he first visited London 5 months ago just a few weeks after your friends' wedding.

You recommend things to order and end up with a generous spread on the table. Sungchan watches with a loving gaze as you arrange the plates to form an aesthetic birds eye view and you snap away with your phone camera.

You handed in your notice as soon as you got back from the wedding, but you had to wait to wrap up the big project that you had just started back then. Sungchan flew to London three weeks after the wedding on a whim and you had spent those two weeks he could work remotely playing house in your apartment in the evenings and showing him around the UK on the weekends. Then, you were apart for 5 months as he saved up his holiday time at his work and you were only connected via late night and early morning video calls to satisfy the itch of being together.

It wasn't always easy, of course. There were some weeks that you were able to spend more time with each other than others and it got frustrating at times, but you always managed to put it back into perspective that it wasn't long until you were reunited again without a looming flight to take you away.

He arrived in London a few days ago, helping to pack up your place while you were tying the last few loose ends at your job. It always felt nice coming back home to him at the end of the day and going back to Seoul feels like such a relief knowing you're going to come back home to him again every day for hopefully the rest of your life.

You and Sungchan share each dish, savouring your last bites for the foreseeable future. He takes photos of you when he thinks you're not looking and you kick against his feet casually. It feels like you're still in your honeymoon phase, even though you should be celebrating 10 years of your relationship this year. To be fair, it's only been 6 months since you've rekindled, but your love still burns bright like it was never encased into a small flicker.

He holds your hand the entire walk home, brushing his thumb on your skin as he talks your ear off about everything and nothing in the world. Being by his side brings you this peace and comfort that you didn't even realise you were lacking, as if your body has just been running on auto-pilot the past few years without him, surviving only long enough until you were finally reunited again.

"Hana's gonna be so excited too," Sungchan exhales, an air of anticipation in his voice.

One thing about you and Hana- you could keep secrets for the benefit of the other. She knew how shocked you'd be when she turned up at your door in London over a year ago with that ring. You decided to turn the table on your best friend, waiting the 6 months until you got back in Seoul to tell her about the ring that was sitting on the ring finger of your hand.

Even your parents don't know yet, wanting to wait until you could tell them in person. In a perfect world, Sungchan would have liked to ask your parents for your hand in marriage beforehand, but considering how excited they were to see you two holding hands and slow-dancing together at the wedding, neither of you think either set of parents would care.

Your mother has been begging for Sungchan to come and visit the house while you've been in London, claiming she was due a catch up with him, but you begged her to relax until you were back in the city.

"We'll have so much to do when we get back to Seoul," you hum along, "Hana and Taro seemed kinda stressed doing all of it too."

"But now they've experienced it, they can help us," Sungchan shrugs and goes quiet for a second before he starts kind of giggling.

Though it makes your heart burst at his adorable nature, you look at him quizzically, "What?"

"We're getting married," he continues that cute noise as he squeezes your hand in a pulsatile manner, "I'm getting married to the love of my life."

You roll your eyes playfully but your cheeks are turning pink as joy blooms in the depths of your bones, "Yeah, yeah, and lucky you, you didn't even have to organise a proposal."

Sungchan gasps and he splats your still-entwined hands over his heart like he was just shot, "Y/N," he whines, "I told you I would organise one! You don't know how much I want to properly propose to you."

You chuckle at him softly and nudge his side, "I'm just playing. You know that our moment was perfect. It was so very us."

"Don't worry, baby. I'm gonna plan the most perfect wedding for us too," he smiles down at you.

"What did I do to deserve such a sweetheart like you?" you press a kiss into the back of his hand as the two of you enter the tube station together.

You know he hates it whenever you talk about feeling guilty for the past or not being enough for him. You've been working through your feelings over these months, trying to be more open while he does his best to reassure you. But Sungchan gives you this look, just perfectly content in this moment, "I'm just for you, and you're just for me. It'll always be that way. Now let's go home."

a/n: thank you thank you thank you for reading. find my masterlist here & all likes, comments, reblogs and feedback are so, so appreciated <3

[blueiscoool]

Stunning Tang Dynasty Murals in a Tomb Unearthed in China

A Tang dynasty tomb unearthed in China dates from the 700s, and the murals on its walls give an unprecedented view of daily life at the time.

Archaeologists in northern China have unearthed a centuries-old tomb decorated with stunning murals portraying daily life during the Tang dynasty, which ruled much of central and eastern China from A.D. 618 to 907.

The tomb includes never-before-seen depictions of daily life, including men threshing grain and making noodles.

One of the murals also depicts what appears to be a "Westerner" with blond hair and a beard who probably hailed from Central Asia, Victor Xiong, a professor of history at Western Michigan University who wasn't involved in the discovery, said in an email.

The tomb was discovered in 2018 during roadwork on a hillside on the outskirts of Taiyuan, the capital of China's northern Shanxi province, but archaeologists only reported on the completed excavations last month.

According to an article from China’s government-owned news agency Xinhua, an epitaph in the tomb states it was the burial place of a 63-year-old man who died in 736, as well as his wife.

The tomb consists of a single brick chamber, a door and a corridor. Scenes from life during the Tang dynasty adorn the walls of the tomb, the door, the corridor, and the platform on which the coffin was placed. The domed ceiling of the chamber is painted with what may be a dragon and phoenix.

Tomb guardians

Several figures painted near the door represent the "doorkeepers" or guardians of the tomb; they are wearing yellow robes and some have swords at their waists, according to Xinhua. Other murals portray natural landscapes, as well as men threshing grain, women grinding flour, men making noodles and women fetching water from a well.

They are rendered in the traditional "figure under a tree" style that was popular in the Shanxi region at the time, the South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported. As its name suggests, the style features people carrying out activities underneath beautifully depicted trees.

Many of the figures in the murals look like the same Chinese man and woman, and archaeologists think they may have been the two people buried in the tomb. The woman, in one scene, is dressed in a colorful gown and is leading four horses, alongside a bearded man holding a whip.

Other murals show mountains, trees and camels, and the series of paintings around the coffin may represent the Chinese tomb owner at different stages of his life, Xinhua reported.

Traditional style

The murals in the tomb appear to be well preserved. "The most familiar theme depicted in these murals is that of human figures under trees ��� a tradition that harks back to the Han dynasty [206 B.C. to A.D. 220]," Xiong said. Similar murals had been found in China's Xinjiang, Shandong, Shaanxi and Gansu regions.

He noted that the blond "non-Han" man leading camels has distinctive clothing. "Based on his facial features and outfit style, we can identify him as a 'Westerner,' likely a Sogdian from Central Asia," Xiong said. (The Sogdians were a trading people along the Silk Road routes between Asia and Europe at the time, living mainly in what are now Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

He added that many of the murals gave "never-before-seen" representations of daily chores and labor during the Tang dynasty.

By Tom Metcalfe.

[lilsocksiswriting]

You are secretly an OF creator and your best friend's older brother is one of your top fans.

Note: no beta, and I'm dyslexic sooooo  

Yuji: Yeah that’s fine! My brother is home . he can let ya in!

That was right. Yuji was a twin. That’s what people say right? The Itadori twins.  But you’ve never seen Sukuna around campus? Mabey he went to trade school or chose to not do the whole grad school thing.  Yuji talks about how he’s a good cook so mabey that’s what he does?

The man who answers the door can in no way be Yuji’s twin. 

He’s fucking massive!

Sukuna is a good two heads taller than you, hell mabey three since you were wearing platforms today.   And he is covered in tattoos. Thick black bands circle his upper arm and wrist. Shap lies that frame his face.  He’s giving major bad guy vibes with the glare like your soem nuisances benight him and that eye patch.  Really the only thing tha this man and Yuji have in common is their short pink hair. 

“U-umm hello, hi,” you give a small wave. “I’m here for a study sesh, Yuji said he was on his way  but he said his brother was here…?”

The man does look any less pissed at your mere existence. After a long, tense moment, he finally moves. Hsi hulking figure steps to the side to allow you in. Your back is still stiff straight as you walk past him, then toe off your platforms.  You feel his eye boring into the back of your head and it makes  you dizzy with worrisome thoughts 

This was the first time anyone had invited you over somewhere.  So you did dress up a littel more than unusual.   You just were so excited. Yuji and hsi friends were so cool and nice, and not judgemental.   And  They all have this thing that makes you unmask without even realizing it!

“Make yourself at home,” is all this ‘older brother’ has to say. 

Then he just stalks off to soem other part of the house.

You blink. You may not quite get social norms, but that definitely wasn’t normal. 

You shyly venture into the house. It was a lovely house. Old and lived-in. high wooden ceilings and a modern-looking kitchen. It smells like coves and other cooking spices. The living room was pretty big.  Though the house was old, it was deftly a rich person’s house. You forget that Yuji’s technically a rich kid.  He is not as snobby and disconnected. Same with Megumi and his cousin Maki. 

The carpet feels soft under your socked feet. There is a huge flat screen, two plush couches, a love seat, a glass coffee table- 

“A fireplace!” you softly gasp.

You wonder if they use it.   It was freezing, and spring was still a few months away. You wonder if they use it to cook stew. Just set up a big cauldron and add brother and veggie and meat.  Oh, that sounds so nice! A big pot of stew.  Ofr tucked yourself under a blank with a journal or a book. Some hot chocolate, mabey.  You hope you found a place with one soem dat. The dorms you lived in with Nobara and Maki were….well, not ideal. But the girls were way better than your roommates in undergrad. 

“What are you doing?”

You jump, like literally jump. You feel your feet leave the ground at the familiar deep voice. 

Sukuan stands there bracing both hands braced over the bacl of one of the couches, just staring at you impassively.  How long has he been there? When did he get ther? You figure a man that size would make noise when he walks around. It’s at that time your brain is like,  hey, look at that.  The tight black shirt trains against his muscles. Was that one of those compressions short? You’ve only seen them worn by more leaner people.

“Speak,” he commands. 

“I just like fireplaces! there, um, like a vibe.”

“A vibe?”

“Yes?”

“Now you not sure?”

“No?”

The sound keys unlock the front door and save you from the hellish embarrassment.  You feel a breath leave your chest.

“We’re home!” Yujin yells 

“With pizza!” Nobara adds. 

This seems to draw Sukuna’s attention off you as he turns and asks,” What did you brats get?“

It wasn't until the first of you were sitting in the living room, Sukuan somewhere else in the house that you asked Yuji,” Hey is he your twin?”

“Hmm, oh well, he's not acutely my twin. He's my older brother.  Same brother day, different year.”

“Ohhhh,” 

“Yeah,” You laugh,” we just got tired of correcting people at some point. “

“He’s like super scary right?”

You quickly at Nobara.

“Once he warms up to you he’ll be less scar, promise.”

You feel the warmth seep into your chest and Nobabra’s off-handed comment.  You try to hide your smile with another bit of pizza. The three might not quite get it, but just the noting that they are paned to keep you around as a friend made you do one of your small happy stims. 

Once the pizza was devoured, your four then got to work on class work. You and Nobara took an art criticism class together this semester, but the professor was a trip and not the fun kind. Megumi was in Law school while Yuji was getting his Master’s in sports science. The two had majors that were so different from you and Nobara’s. You both were going from M.F.A’s (your writing and Nobara Fashion). The one thing all you had in common was the insane amount of coursework you had. 

You were in your second semester and you still were not use to the course load.  But you did love it. You wish you could take all the classes that the graduate program had to offer. 

You are sitting tucked into one corner of the couch with your iPad, tackling reading. Yuji had shared the wifi with you so you could download them from BalckBoard. But you could also check in to see if King Of Cursing….

Your fingers swipe over to your web app before you know it. It was muscle memory at this time. You onlyfans would be a year old this coming March and it  King had been since your first stream.

KingOfCursing: you got to stop teasing Star, I don’t know if I can wait till your stream tonight.

Me: heheheh, you can last a littel longer. If you haven’t come, your pants already.

KingOfCursing: I almost did but got interrupted. 

Me: mmmm, good. See you tonight. Oh, and here’s a snake peak. 

You send a pic of you on the new bralette and panties you got, a deep red color, King’s favorite.  It was somehtgn you took last night to send to a few of your top tippers and to save in the vault for later. Like all the rest of your photos, videos, and streams, your head is kept out of it. 

You swipe back to your reading and just in time too because you hear Sukuna calling out from the kitchen, “I’m going for a run!”

“Don’t freeze!” Yuji calls back without looking up from hsi textbook. 

“I know right,” Megumi says to you. 

You close your mouth, not realizing the choked and disgusted face you made. You did exercise, too, but in the warmth of the small gym on the first floor of your dormitory or some stretched in your bedroom. 

“He needs to stay in shape for his all the thirst traps he posts.”

“But it’s cold. It's like 30 out. What doe she do if it rains?”

Yuji shrugs like rain and wet socks are no big deal.

“He wears a raincoat.”

“But his socks would get wet.”

“I don't think he cares.”

You put a hand on your chest like your mother would do,” Your brother is a  psychopath.”

Nobrab bursts out laughing and you blink in confusion then surprise. Still not used to people thinking you're funny and not weird.  It’s nice. It makes you feel comfy and even confident. You don't have to pretend to be funny or happy because you genuinely are those things. 

You carry the lightness with you all the way home and as you lock the door to your room and get ready for your bed.  Your stream doesn't happen till around 3 AM. It’s pretty late for one, but one would be supported by how many people are weak and horny at that hour.  It was one of the main reasons you began Onlyfans.  You’ve always had trouble sleeping through the night. It was only when you found out that a lot of autistic peoel have the same trouble you stopped trying to force yourself back to sleep. 

Besides people used to wake up in the middle of the night all the time before capitalism and alarm clocks. And after a few hours of working on your Onlyfans, you usually went right back to bed.

The other reason was that you did not want to move back to your parents after graduation.  It was also nice to be able to afford a nice steak and fresh veggies. You go through your nighttime routine of a hot shower,  motioning up your skin, getting in your pajamas, and then wishing everyone a good night as you fill your water bottle. 

You wake up just before three o'clock with an excited smile. You quickly and quietly get out of bed and make it up all cute since it was the blurred background and strip.  You turn off some Lofi to dampen your voice, not that anyone would hear you any way you’ve subtlety confirmed that one of your roommates heard anything but the soft music you play. 

The second you go live, people start flooding in. You say hello and reply to comments, giving everyone time to log on and get comfy.  Your tagline for your stream was ‘Come in settled down, grab your favorite drink and toy, and let me spin you a tale.’

Those stories could range from actual stories, dialogues,  or your own fantasies, all of which are written in a journal. You keep a special pillow under the bed up, yup, dorm, hidden before soem boxes( the rest of your camera and mic are stored in your closet) It was frim, felt, and matched the color palette of your set up. The pillow fits perfectly between your thighs and the best part? You could attach dildos and vibrators to it. 

You see the moment King’s name pops up and your eyes light up. 

“Evening, King, or good morning, or good day. We are bout to begin in a few minutes. People are still trickling in,” you say a voice that is a tad different than your normal pitch and way more confident with a screen between you and all these peoel.

You giggle at his reply, “Oh come now, you can wait a few more minutes won't kill you.”

KingOfCursing: it might, my cock’s been killing me, pretty Star.  Need you to get me off so fucking bad.

You sink your teeth into your bottom lip and type out a quick profit measure to KIng.

Me: I’d love to see the mess you make for me.

You then turn your attention back to the stream,” Ok everyone ready?”

Yes’s and please's fill the chat making you giggle. Your fans were always so eager. 

You launch into the story you had prepared, and your journal is lying open beside you to reference.  This one was a fantasy. You ideally play with the dildo as you begin to set the scene in a secluded corner of a library, two stem majors are staying there late, but not to study. Like yes, they have that bif chemistry final, but they also haven’t gotten off in weeks.  Do you know how distracting that can be? To be constantly horny and never have the time to get yourself off?

So, of course, they fuck. They need to get it out of their systems. As you describe, the woman crawls on top ot the man and fists his hard cock, smearing precum down hsi shift; you mimic the action by spreading lube over the toy.

You also pay attention to the chat.  the tips coming in, people reminiscing g of their college days, how they too wanted to fuck in a library, or that yes, that was their last semester.

KingOfCursing: shit, you know what your doign with that toy. 

KingOfCursing: Bet this is a fantasy of your’s to your bibliophile.

Ron: please, please, please, baby need to see those gorgeous tits.

WetAndInDebt: I could listen to your voice forever 

Susy: red looks amazing on you, but now that we’ve seen take it off. 

“Patience, I’m getting there.”

You go on to tell how the two get so lost in the euphoria of touching, licking, and kissing each other that they no longer care if they get caught. They need this.   As you do, you strip off your bra in a rush. Then what you know will  bring in the most tips as  you speak  in a breathless voice about how the woman didn’t even  want to get up, she needed to keep touching him, keep pleasuring the man’s dick, keep hearing those beautiful sounds this body was making for her that-

Riiip

The panties were already an old pair, they had a small hole on the hip, right under the waistline. No one on stream could see it and it made for the perfect thing to hook your finger into and tear your pants off, and you shuffle your hips forward.

sinking yourself down onto the toy you glance over at the chat. Yup, tips are pouring in. People are going crazy, but you only keep an eye out for what King is saying. 

KingOfCursing:shitshitshit, I can’t take this Star.  Drivgn me fuckign mad. Almost came right then and ther. Dicks so hard and swollen. 

You roll your hips and mao as you go on. You tell the stream how frantic and feel the two were. You mimic the way she rides the man’s cock with your toy, moaning and whining as she does.  Not even caring for the tattered remains of your panties still around your hips. 

The mix of the story comes when you, well, when you and the characters of your story  cum. As you come down from your high, giggling softly and wrapping up the story, you find yourself searching for King’s messages in chat.

Ron: oh that was wonderful sweetie

DD_Don: another great steam.

Fireredandfirehot: You ride that dildo like a champ.

112_you: so fucking hot. 

Nothing but a big fat tip from King. That was ok. He’d definitely reply to your private message. 

You end the stream and quietly get cleaned up, then slip back into bed. Seriously, a good orgasm beats your sleeping meds sometimes. 

Beofer, you doze off until the next alarm you check your privet messages, and sure enough, King did reply. The pic was definitely going to be put in your spank bank for later. A heavy-looking spent diick being helped by a cum cover hand

---

Ok so Sukuan was warming up to you, but you kind wich he didn’t.  When he was this cold and scary-looking guy that loomed over you you didnt get butterflies at the slightest hint of a smile.

It's been a few weeks since you first met Yuji’s not actually twin. He still acted like you were a nuisance, but he acted that way with Nobara and Megumi too.  But ther was, like, this warmth with his grumpiness and jabs. Ok, so sometimes the jabs hurt, and you never say anything beiacse you don't wanan make anything awkward. You also don't think Sukuan realizes your austisics. Either that he just really likes to give you a hard time.  It's hard to tell when people are messing with you.

Like now, Sukuan leaned against the doorway, not even bothered by the cold bite of the morning air.  He’s in a loose tee shirt and sweats. You don’t know the color, too afraid to glance down. He also had hsi eye patch on. You wonder if he sleeps in it. The front door is wide open but his body is blocking the way. He also hasn’t invited you in. Just stand there smirking down at your shivery form.

“Are you some kind of vampire?” he questions.

Ok, he was deftly fucking with you and you did not like ot one bit. You don’t even have coffee yet. 

“No, your it the way.”

“You could just push me,” he shrugs. 

“Bro, I am a 23-year-old grad student. I do not have any muscle mass. It’s like a twig at an oak tree. “

He humms, taking his sweet time thinking it over,” Yeah, that seems accurate.”

“Can I please come in?”

“Oh beggin' now?”

“Dude stop being mean!” you hear Yuji call frm further inside the house. 

Sukaun’s face falls and he mutters, “Kill joy.”

He moves aside, and you scuttle in, tossing off your sneakers and winter coat.

The gang was getting together for pancakes this morning. The cafe on Camus has pancakes, yeah but they are not actually pancakes. Seriously for as much as you pay in tuition, the least they can do is get actual pancake mox. Whatever the cafe served was not pancakes. 

Pancakes were meant to be warm and fluffy like the stack already sitting in the kitchen bar. Megumi was already there nursing a mug of coffee while Yuji was slicing up a few pieces of cantaloupe. 

“Morning,” you chirp.

Megumi only grunts. 

“He’s still coming too,” Yuji tells you.

“I get it. “

You glace arousn, but Sukna is nowhere to be seen. The menacing was lurking somewhere, though.  You’ve learned that whenever he leaves the house, he announces it. Loudly. 

You want to dig in so bad; they look so good, and Yuji even made you coffee from Sukuan’s fancy coffee maker.  But you are so scared to seem rude that you wait. Nobara is the last to arrive sleepy-eyed but ready for the day. You are too, but you don’t have class until later in the evening. 

Megumi’s also becoming more awake. He holds a small conversation with you and the food is set out on eh bar and you all begin to make your plates. 

You get your small stack of pancakes and soem fruit. Smother it all in syrup The pancakes are perfect, warm, sweet, and fluffy, the stuff dreams are made of. You melt into the taste so much that you don't notice the happy stim you do. 

Sukian does so. It was the same thing you did while checking out the fireplace the first time you were here.  He has seen it a few times since then. But never this close. You don’t even realize that he is behind you as you chow down. 

So when he asks, “Why do you do that?” you nearly jump out of your skin. 

“Jesus, why doesn't Yuji give you a bell or something?”

“Where would the fun be in that?”  Sukuan crossed his arms over his broad chest waiting for your answer. 

“And well…it's just one of my stims.”

Sukuna glances at hsi brother, and the two seem to have soem sort of silent conversation. Before his eye looks back down to you. In hsi eye, you remind him of a chipmunk. Cheeks full of Pankckaes as you chew, then swallow it all down with a swig of coffee. You are not looking at him but rather at whatever is behind his shoulder.  Are you scared, unbothered? Can't be that scared if you want to put a collar on him like some pet or scarf down the food he paid for. 

“Is it a good thing?”

“Dude,” you hear Yuji stresses in a hushed voice. 

“Y-yea, it’s a, uh, happy stim. I do it when I’m happy.”

You keep looking up at the man; your body now turns a little to face him further. Sukuna appraises you for a moment longer before humming.

What does that mean? And what does he do that makes his arms so fucking thick?

“I’ll be home late tonight, clean up the kitchen, or you dead punk,” is all the goodbye Sukuan Gives his younger brother before heading out. ‘

 After the sound of the door to the garage closes Yujoi says, “Sorry about him. “

“Sorry for what?” you ask.  Did you miss something?

“The questions. Sukuana’s….”Yuji trails off.

Megumi isn’t afraid to say it,” Stuck up his own ass to the sighs of neudovergcy.”

“Yeah, “ Nobara agrees, “Back in high school, we were surprised that the big brute could read.  If just seemed to beneath him.”

“Speaking of being big, what does he do? He’s just. There's just so much muscle there?”

“Oh, he’ stunt coordinator.  Like from TV shows and stuff when that  fighting scenes.”

“oh, that’s actually pretty cool.”

“He taught me and Maki how to use a switchblade!” Nobara says proudly. 

“Like all those swoosh swoosh motions?” you ask motioning your hand the way you see people on TV flick out the weapon with ease.

Nobara nods. 

“Oh, that’s sick.”

For the rest of breakfast, the four of you make easy conversation like any other time. Only this time, you can't stop thinking of Sukuan flipping out a switchblade like it was second nature. The shape bade moved between his fingers. And that means the sort of smirk he gives you when he is the Itadoir sibling to greet you at the front door. 

Welp this is going down a dangerous road and I can’t stop it. 

For the rest of the day, then the week,  all your horny littel mind can seem to think of is Sukuna.  Sukuan and hsi big arams. Sukuan holding you. Him keeping your hands warm. Him being able to pin both your hands above your head by your wrists. He is so much bigger than you that when he mounts you from behind his whole body will cover yours. Him fucking you in a full nelson. 

It did not help that you also stalked his Instagram and ho boy. Wow.  With his follower count, he was basically an influencer. His feed was mostly him doing stunts, food, set pics, being tagged with famous actors at fancy-looking events or in a training room filled with mats, and soem videos of self-defense moves. 

You tell yourslef that this is fine. You think your best friend’s older brother is like realy super hot, and your horny little mind loves that shit. It won’t turn into anything. Just thirsting which you can then turn into content. The whole best friend’s older brother thing is hot on paper but is probably like wayyyy messy in real life.

So, by the time your next stream rolls, you have a penalty of content to work with. And that’s just a week's worth of daydreaming abotu Sukuna.

You check the camera once more.  You think the shot of your legs curled d against you just, with just s sliver of a peak of your bare pussy looks perfect. You still have soem time before the stream is due to start, so you check your messages. You reply to a few peoel before getting to King’s message. 

Me:  just some fantasizing, best friend's older brother stuff

KingOfCursing: oh fuck yes, Star. live ti when we have the same dirty thoughts.

Me: Oh? Which sibling would you be?

KIngOfCursing: The older brother, of course, dummy.

Me: Thought so. And just what about this kind of fan stays turns you on?

KingOfCruses: planning to use it in the stream tonight?

Me: maybe ;0

KingofCursing: mmm, well, in that case.   It’s definitely the sneaking around. Plowign her in my room with her, my brother, and the rest of her friends downstairs.   Mabey a bit of power play, too. I’m a bigger guy and I love it when my women aren't built like a stick. They can handle me getting a little rough. Leaving soem bruises and hickeys I get to watch them frantically hide. 

Me: oh you’ve given th a lot of thought.

You check the clock and see it’s time to go live. 

“Hello everyone! ugh, I've been waiting all day to spill this to everyone!  I've had that whole my best friend's  older brother in my mind a lot lately~”

You spread your legs and trial your hand down to the head already between your legs. 

Ronnie: Oh shit she’s already wet.

Softthighsxxx9090: mmmm, as an older bro I can def say that fantasy goes both ways.

“That��s really reassuring gn to hear soft thighs. Seriously I can see how it can be a littel hot because there’s, like, this tabooness to it ya know?”

WetAndInDebt: oh we know girl.

Fredd_W: We love a rule breaker.

“I think about a pool party or a barbeque. Really to get me in a  tiny Bikini really. I’d make up soem excuse to slip inside for a bit and the older brother would come in a littel bit after me. My friend's being none the wiser. “

Your fingers dip between your folds and spread them apart for the stream to see how wet the fantasy already has you. 

KingOfCursing: Shit Star. You look so fucking pretty soaked like that.

Ron: damnnnnnn

DoItDoggy: shitshitshit, I almost came. 

You giggle as the tips pop up,  the nighest being King. 

“I got really worked up his week but wanted to be abel to put on a good show for you all. Anyway, where was I? Oh. yes,  The older bro would pin against the nearest wall and rip my top down little my tits plop out.”, you spill the dirty thoughts you have been keeping hidden away in your journal as a hand comes up to fondle one of your brests. Your fingers have always begun to slip and play with the wet mess between your folds.

“All he’d have to do to get ot my needy cunt and stuff full of his fat  cock or even his fingers. It’s so hard to sneak around when you think about it. We haven't gotten to touch each other or barely kissed in days. It’d make me so needy.

KingOfCursing: Oh, how cute and pathetic. Getting so fucking needy and desperate like that.

420galpal: oh i fuckign love me  despte girl

Bento_K: I could watch her play with that pussy for days.

You moan reading over King’s comment. He always knows just what to type so sounds like he is both praising and degrading you. Something that never to make you a tinge of pleasure run through your core.

“ All he would have to do is hike a leg over his hip and  pull my bottom aside and then… just…”Your voice tappers off into another mon and you pus to fingers inside yourself.

Fread_W: Oh that’s a money shot. 

Ron: Only if you waxed baby, that’s send daddy over the moon.

KingOfCurisng: Fuck you are so perfect Star. 

You let out a slow breath then continue as you fuck yourself with your fingers.  And pinch a pebbled nipple between your fingertips. 

“B-but I’d be having suc a hard time staying quiet. His cock would just feel so good inside me.  And trust me he would try to tell me to be quiet, maybe even get a littel annoyed with me. He’d end up shoving fingers in my mouth, not realy gagging me, but effectively shutting me up and making it impossible to close my mouth.”

Your hips give a littel buck, pleasure building as you county playing out the fantasy in your head. The chat is loving it. 

“Yeah, so I’d definitely start to droll at some point as he plows into me. I’d like to think I’m not the only one who would be just as needy. The older brother wouldn't even be abel to get home off. After getting a taste of my cunt  his hands just won’t do it anymore. H-he’s gotta have his cock buried in my cunt to get off. 

KIngOfCursing: Fuck Star that’s the stuff my dreams are made of

“And I’d be such a lewd sight to see. My hands grasping at his ass to keep him close to me, drool dribbling down my chin- oh fuck I’m getting close.  One tit squished in his hand and the other bounced along wit his thrust.”

The chat was going crazy with your release so close. But you keep looking for King’s name.

“C-can you just imagine, “ you say, “Him snapping his hips forward with such a force it literally knocks the breath outta me? fuuuuuck , hearing him grunt in my ear as he felt me with shi hot seed-Yesyes, of fuck I’m cumming~”

You crane your head back and spread your legs further apart to give the stream the perfect view of your cunt squeezing around your fingers. 

The orgasm leaves you breathless and that tal tlae floaty feeling a good orgasm leaves you with. It was wild you make a living off of this. I make a goofy smile spread across your face. You bit th tinder of your cheek to stop yourself from giggling.

JayJay:  aww that's the good shit

Ron: so hot

KingOfCursing:  please don't stop talking. 

HaloSolider_334: Well I just made q mess in my boxers, wanna see baby?

For the rest of the stream, you continue to play with yourself as you tell your viewers more fantasies.  Like sitting on the other side of the couch and sexting, or sneaking into his room just to suck him off in the morning before anyone else was awake.

As you are cleaning up you get a message frm King

KIngofCursing: shit Sary to nights stream was a dream.

Me: I hope a wet dream.

KingOfCurses: oh my boxers got pretty wet.

You giggle.  A few others have messaged you but those can wait until tomorrow to be replied to. You spend the next hour or so talking to Kng instead of going back to sleep.

---

You find it hard to regret your decision to stay up and chat with KIng. it was not the first time you’ve done this and it probably won’t be the last. He just words things in a way that makes your stomach do a littel flip. 

 By the time 6 AM rolls around you find it useless to go to bed when you have that damn 8 AM. You roll out of bed and begin to get ready for the long day ahead. You were deftly getting take out as a reward fro staying away. And a large coffee on your way to class.  

You still arrive early and a littel cold. You were happy to have soem time to yourself before students stay to trickle into the classroom. You take a seat by the window.  Your class was on the top floor of the media and broadcasting board so it had a nice view of the university lawn. 

You hear someone else come in but don’t pay them any mind until they sit next to you. 

“Hey, Y/N right?”

“Y-yes.”

“Yea I 've seen you hang around Yuji and his friends before and though I recognized you.”

You do not recognize the women. You know she is in this class but that's it. And she looks like you could pick her out of a crowd. Her blond hair is pulled packed in these perfect high pigtails, a choker with soem old look jewel, board looking, sharp eyes. They are staring at you like you're supposed to know her. 

“Right….i’m Momo.”

“Oh, ok. “

Your mind was racing. The one-on-one conversation was not your strong suit and you are trying not to panic. Trying to act normal. 

“Right so,” she trails soem of  her silk hair between her fingers, “ I was actually wondering if I could come to hang with you all sometime.”

Huh? 

She takes your slice not as confused but continues on, “Yeah we were, like, friends in high school  and I want to reconnect ya know.”

“umm, ok” No not ok why was she telling you this? What did you say back? You just wanted to sip your coffee and be a littel nonverbal before class. 

She smiles,” Great thanks so much!”

Then she just gets up and takes another seat at the front of the class. What the hell was that?

---

You get somewhat of an answer that evening. It was the one day of the night that the four of you could have dinner together which typically meant gathering at Yuji’s for take of soem kind.  You are all gathered around a pizza box that sits on the Kitchen islands when you bring up you encounter with Momo.

“her, oh, well we never really hung out in the saem crowds…”  Yuji trails off recalling their high school years. 

“She  ran with the  rich kid crowd is why.”

“Aren't you and Megumi like rich?”, You point your half-eaten slice to Yju and then Megumi.

“Our families are rich,” Megumi corrects you, since Yuji’s cheeks are stuffed with pizza

If you like this whip, i have plenty more over on my Patreon!

[a-d-nox]

economic advice and timely buying tips: 2025 transits

as of late, social media has many discussions about what to buy - or avoid buying - over the next few years, largely in response to the political climate in the united states. across europe, many regions are actively preparing their populations for potential crises (sweden's seems to be the most popularly discussed - link). due to the urgency and pressure to act, as if the world might change tomorrow (and it could though i believe we still have time in many places), i’ve decided to analyze the astrological transits for 2025. in this post i provide practical economic advice and guidance on how much time astrology suggests you have to make these purchases everyone is urging you to prioritize. if it seems to intrigue people i’ll explore future years as well.

things the world needs to prepare for in 2025 in my opinion and why my advice is what it is: the rise of ai / automation of jobs, job loss, geopolitical tensions, war, extreme weather, inflation, tariffs - a potential trade war, a movement of using digital currency, the outbreak of another illness, etc.

paid reading options: astrology menu & cartomancy menu

enjoy my work? help me continue creating by tipping on ko-fi or paypal. your support keeps the magic alive!

uranus goes direct in taurus (jan 30, 2025)

advice

diversify investments: avoid putting all your money in one asset type. mix stocks, bonds, index funds, and, if you feel comfortable, look into sustainable investments or new technologies.

digital finance: familiarize yourself with digital currencies/platforms or blockchain technology.

build an emergency fund: extra savings can shield you from sudden economic instability. aim for 3-6 months’ worth of expenses.

reevaluate subscriptions and spending: find creative ways to reduce spending or repurpose what you have. cancel subscriptions that don't align with needs/beliefs, cook at home, or diy where possible.

invest in skills / side hustles: take a course/invest in tools that can help you create multiple income streams.

by this date stock up on

non-perishable food items like canned goods, grains, and dried beans. household essentials like soap, toothpaste, and cleaning supplies. basic medical supplies. multi-tools. durable, high-quality items over disposable ones (the economy is changing, buy something that will last because prices will go up). LED bulbs, solar-powered chargers, or energy-efficient appliances. stock up on sustainable products, like reusable bags and water bottles. blankets. teas. quality skincare.

jupiter goes direct in gemini (feb 4, 2025)

advice

invest in knowledge: take courses, buy books (potential bans?), and/or attend workshops to expand your skill set. focus on topics like communication, writing, marketing, and/or technology. online certifications could boost your career prospects during this time.

leverage your network: attending professional events, joining forums, and/or expanding your LinkedIn presence.

diversify income streams: explore side hustles, freelance gigs, and/or monetize hobbies.

beware of overspending on small pleasures: overspending on gadgets, books, or entertainment will not be good at this point in time (tariffs already heavy hitting?).

by this date stock up on

books / journals. subscriptions to learning platforms like Skillshare, MasterClass, or Coursera. good-quality laptop, smartphone, and/or noise-canceling headphones. travel bags - get your bug out bag in order. portable chargers. language-learning apps. professional attire. teas. aromatherapy.

neptune enters aries (march 30, 2025)

advice

invest: look into industries poised for breakthrough developments, such as renewable energy, space exploration, and/or tech.

save for risks: build a financial cushion to balance your adventurous pursuits with practical security.

diversify your income: consider side hustles or freelancing in fields aligned with your passions and talents.

"scam likely": avoid “get-rich-quick” schemes or ventures that seem too good to be true.

adopt sustainable habits: focus on sustainability in your spending, like buying high-quality, long-lasting items instead of cheap, disposable ones.

by this date stock up on

emergency kits with essentials like water, food, and first-aid supplies. multi-tools, solar chargers, or portable power banks. art supplies. tarot or astrology books (bans?). workout gear, resistance bands, or weights. nutritional supplements. high-quality clothing or shoes.

saturn conjunct nn in pisces (april 14, 2025)

advice

save for the long term: create a savings plan or revisit your budget to ensure stability.

avoid escapism spending: avoid unnecessary debt.

watch for financial scams: be cautious with contracts, investments, or loans. research thoroughly and avoid “too good to be true” offers.

focus on debt management: saturn demands accountability. work toward paying down debts to free yourself from unnecessary burdens.

build a career plan: seek roles / opportunities that balance financial security with fulfillment, such as careers in wellness, education, creative arts, or nonprofits.

by this date stock up on

invest in durable, sustainable items for your home or wardrobe that offer long-term value. vitamins or supplements. herbal teas or whole grains. blankets. candles. non-perishable food. first-aid kits. water. energy-efficient devices.

pluto rx in aquarius (may 4, 2025 - oct 13, 2025)

advice

preform an audit: reflect on how your money habits and your long-term goals.

make sustainable investments: support industries tied to innovation, like renewable energy, ethical tech, or sustainable goods.

expect changes: could disrupt collective systems, so build an emergency fund. plan for potential shifts in tech-based industries or automation. AI is going to take over the workforce...

reevaluate subscriptions and digital spending: cut unnecessary costs and ensure your money supports productivity. netflix is not necessary, your groceries are.

diversify income streams: brainstorm side hustles or entrepreneurial ideas.

by this date stock up on

external hard drives. cybersecurity software. portable chargers. solar panels. energy-efficient gadgets. non-perishable food. clean water supplies. basic first-aid kits and medications. portable generators. books on technology and coding. reusable items like water bottles, bags, and food storage. gardening supplies to grow your own food. VPN subscriptions or identity theft protection.

saturn enters aries (may 24, 2025)

advice

prioritize self-reliance: build financial independence. create a budget, eliminate debt, and establish a safety net to support personal ambitions. avoid over-reliance on others for financial stability/decision-making.

entrepreneurship: consider starting a side hustle / investing in yourself.

save for big goals: plan for major life changes, such as buying property, starting a business, etc. make a high yield saving account for these long-term goals.

by this date stock up on

ergonomic office equipment. home gym equipment. non-perishable foods and water supplies for potential unexpected disruptions. self-protection; consider basic tools or training for safety. high-protein snacks, energy bars, or hydration supplies. supplements like magnesium, B-complex vitamins, etc. stock up on materials for DIY projects, hobbies, or entrepreneurial ventures.

jupiter enters cancer (june 9, 2025)

advice

invest in your home: renovating what needs renovating. saving for a down payment on a house.

focus on security: start or increase your emergency savings. consider life insurance or estate planning to ensure long-term security for your family/loved ones.

embrace conservative financial growth: cancer prefers security over risk. opt for conservative investments, like bonds, real estate, and/or mutual funds with steady returns.

focus on food and comfort: spend wisely on food, cooking tools, or skills that promote a healthier, more fulfilling lifestyle (maybe this an RFK thing for my fellow american readers or this could be about the fast food industry suffering from inflation).

by this date stock up on

furniture upgrades if you need them. high-quality cookware or tools. stockpile your pantry staples. first-aid kits, fire extinguishers, and home security systems. water and canned goods for emergencies. paint, tools, or materials for DIY projects. energy-efficient appliances or upgrades to reduce utility costs.

neptune rx in aries/pisces (july 4, 2025 - dec 10, 2025)

advice

avoid financial conflicts: be mindful of shared finances or joint ventures during this time.

avoid escapist spending: stick to a budget.

by this date stock up on

first-aid kits, tools, and essentials for unforeseen events. water filter / waterproof containers. non-perishables and emergency water supplies.

uranus rx in gemini/taurus (july 7, 2025 - feb 3, 2026)

advice

evaluate technology investments: make sure you’re spending money wisely on tech tools, gadgets, or subscriptions. avoid impulsively purchasing the latest gadgets; instead, upgrade only what’s necessary.

diversify streams of income: explore side hustles or gig work to expand your income sources. focus on digital platforms or innovative fields for additional opportunities.

reassess contracts and agreements: take time to revisit financial contracts or business partnerships. ensure all terms are clear and aligned with your goals.

prioritize financial stability: uranus often brings surprises, so focus on strengthening your savings and emergency fund.

avoid major financial risks: uranus retrograde can disrupt markets. avoid speculative ventures and focus on stable, low-risk options.

by this date stock up on

lightweight travel gear or items for local trips. radios, power banks, or portable hotspots in case of disruptions in digital connectivity. stockpile food, water, and household goods to maintain stability during potential disruptions. invest in high-quality, long-lasting items like tools, clothing, or cookware.

saturn rx in aries/pisces (july 13, 2025 - nov 27, 2025)

advice

review career: assess whether your current job or entrepreneurial efforts align with your long-term aspirations (especially considering the state of the world). adjust plans if needed.

strengthen emergency funds: aries energy thrives on readiness. use this time to build/bolster a financial safety net for unforeseen events.

prepare for uncertainty: build a cushion for unexpected financial changes, especially if you work in creative, spiritual, or service-oriented fields.

by this date stock up on

health products that support long-term well-being. essential supplies like first-aid kits, multi-tools, or non-perishables. bath products. teas. art supplies. drinking water or water filtration tools.

jupiter rx in cancer (nov 11, 2025 - march 10, 2026)

advice

strengthen financial foundations: building an emergency fund or reassessing your savings strategy. ensure everything is well-organized and sustainable.

by this date stock up on

quality kitchenware, tools, or cleaning supplies. pantry staples and emergency food supplies.

have ideas for new content? please use my “suggest a post topic” button!

return to nox's guide to metaphysics

return to the masterlist of transits

© a-d-nox 2024 all rights reserved

[chrysalind]

last chance

pairing: kuroo tetsurou/reader wc: 860 tags: pre-relationship, fluff, high school setting (third year), bad flirting, kuroo is really trying

"What'd you get for number 8?" Kuroo asks as he leans over you.

"Umm," you tilt your head and the golden light of the late afternoon sun flickers across your cheek. "I think I put down 1868 to 1912."

"Wait, seriously?" He claps his hand on his forehead. That's five questions he's probably got wrong now, not to mention he'd barely finished writing his second essay, meaning the maximum possible grade he could get is...

"I hate history," he grumbles, trying to redirect his train of thought from its depressing destination. "I'm never taking it in university."

You sigh ruefully. "I feel the same way about chemistry. The moment I walked out of yesterday's exam, every piece of knowledge about thermodynamics just—" you wave your hand near your temple, "—vanished."

"Bet you're glad I gave you my notes though, right?"

The train doors slide open and a crowd of students from another school shuffle in. His legs brush against yours as he tries to make more room around him.

"Only because I gave you my English notes," you counter dryly, moving your bookbag onto your lap as a freckled teen slides into the seat beside you. The small plastic Keroppi charm on its side swings erratically against your thigh.

"A more than fair trade," he reasons. "Especially since I was getting the highest mark in chem, while you were just below Takaichi in English."

"Takaichi's mom is from New Zealand," you reply, with a roll of your eyes. "He's been practically fluent since he was born. Plus, your handwriting sucks, so you get points taken off for that."

Kuroo snorts, but has no choice but to concede. After all, he can barely read his own notebooks from last semester.

He watches as the Tokyo cityscape rushes past, still thrumming with life, even as the sun dips low in the sky. It's hard to imagine an afternoon where he won't be packed into the subway at this time, with his loosened Nekoma uniform tie around his collar, and your occasional company on the afternoons he's able to catch you at the school entrance.

His short spell of mourning is interrupted by the announcer as the train pulls into a familiar station. You both exit onto the platform and make a beeline towards the escalators.

"I'm not staying in Tokyo," he says, as you're halfway through the barriers.

Keroppi's face smacks against your zipper as you pause. "Oh?"

"I'm going to Osaka," he continues, weaving through the crowd. You fall into step beside him and there's a second in which Kuroo thinks he's vastly overestimated his importance in your life.

"That's..." He watches as a crease forms between your brows. "I thought you were going to Tokodai."

"Nah," he says, re-adjusting the strap of his bag. "I think it'd be good to gain some independence, you know?"

"Right," you say, tucking your Suica away. The sound of the city fills in the quiet that follows as you step out of the station.

Truthfully, Kuroo had been hoping for something—anything—more than the pensive silence that now settles between the two of you as you both walk the last few blocks of your high school era. But as you round the corner, the weight of the moment only grows heavier.

From his peripheral vision, he can tell you're sulking with your lips turned down in a pout that you probably aren't even aware of. And even though you've never admitted it to anyone, he's not oblivious to the way you can barely hold his gaze for more than two seconds, or how you linger at the intersection when you part ways.

"You know," he says, as you both stand before a crosswalk, "this is probably your last chance."

Your eyes flash up at him.

"What do you mean?"

He straightens up.

"Your last chance to admit that you're in love with me," he blurts. He had meant for it to come out a bit smoother, maybe aiming for a kind of teasing tone, but something had gone horribly wrong in the last second. Embarrassingly, he feels his own cheeks grow hot at the boldness of his declaration.

The crosswalk indicator changes, but you're both frozen in place.

You blink, looking absolutely bewildered, and he begins to fear that he's broken you.

And then an odd sound emerges from your mouth—a short snicker, followed by an open burst of laughter. Your giggle seems to carry over the noise of the traffic around you and Kuroo tries very hard not to die right then and there.

Instead, he forces himself to laugh along. How could he have miscalculated so bad?

He's sure he'll remember this moment for many sleepless nights ahead.

"Don't worry," you say later with the world's most bemused smile, as you near his building. "It's not my last chance."

Kuroo works up the courage to look you in the eye.

"After all, I still have our graduation ceremony."

[collapsedsquid]

If you squint, you can make out versions of the same story — people bypassing the mainstream media to their own ends, the importance of social media in determining public perceptions of protest movements. There’s also an unmistakable tone shift from gently awestruck condescension to gently horrified condescension. (Disclosure: I was a reporter at the Times from 2016 to 2022, where I sometimes wrote about this subject.) In a far more significant sense, though, something is different. This week’s protests have been visible on social media, but their portrayals are fragmented, strange, and to people on the ground, often absurdly divorced from reality. If social media used to work for activists, or at least could,now it’s more effectively used against them. This sort of narrative role-swap isn’t new. For all the attention Twitter got as a factor in the 2011 Egyptian revolution — a story embraced by the company’s leadership — the story of social media’s role in Egypt’s politics since has mostly been one of suppression, surveillance, and harassment. An American version of this story has been taking shape for a while. The most significant factor isn’t really about tech — it’s that the current administration is proudly hostile to protest and has cited social-media posts as thin pretexts for no-process arrests and deportations. An administration that both routinely threatens activists with imprisonment, deportation, or worse is more than enough reason for activists to regroup in spaces where privacy can be maintained, not just traded for attention.

But social media really has been transformed, too, in ways both explicitly ideological and technical. Twitter, the platform people are most often referring to when they talk about these things, is owned by Elon Musk, who bought the platform with the explicit goal of disempowering its “woke” users and has more than accomplished his goal. Meta is still run by former BLM supporter Mark Zuckerberg, who more recently embraced Trump and pivoted to military contracting. TikTok, which is legally banned, is still online because the Trump administration promised not to enforce the law under vague and suggestive circumstances. Before its legal ban, TikTok’s rise set in motion industry trends that would alter social media’s relationship to activism in material ways. Meta, X, and Google reoriented their platforms around TikTok-style algorithmic video feeds, which relied less on users following one another and more on black-box per-user recommendations. For the platforms, this meant more engagement. For activists, it meant there were no longer coherent public conversations in which to intervene, against which to push back, or to join in any meaningful sense at all. Platforms that were once useful for understanding and following the news became venues for pure spectacular consumption. In some ways this was novel and strange, with hundreds of millions of people consuming individualized feeds determined by automated recommendations. In other ways, it was familiar, since it was a reversion to pre-social-media power dynamics. The platforms were no longer social, in any meaningful sense of the word, but rather centralized and exercising constant (algorithmic) editorial discretion. At least as much as the mainstream media that’s now been twice replaced, TikTok-ified social media rewards decontextualized spectacle. This can be useful for activists to bring attention, generally, to their causes — at least some of the large swing in support for Palestinians can surely be credited to the endless stream of horrific videos from Gaza, which are plenty powerful without further context and don’t require the authority of a trusted follow. More often, though, the lack of a common chronological feed — the crude social-media proxy for a “shared reality,” I guess — produces disorientation, uncertainty, and the ability to retreat completely into ideological safety, pure fantasy, or both.

[mariacallous]

The Trump administration’s Federal Trade Commission has removed four years’ worth of business guidance blogs as of Tuesday morning, including important consumer protection information related to artificial intelligence and the agency’s landmark privacy lawsuits under former chair Lina Khan against companies like Amazon and Microsoft. More than 300 blogs were removed.

On the FTC’s website, the page hosting all of the agency’s business-related blogs and guidance no longer includes any information published during former president Joe Biden’s administration, current and former FTC employees, who spoke under anonymity for fear of retaliation, tell WIRED. These blogs contained advice from the FTC on how big tech companies could avoid violating consumer protection laws.

One now deleted blog, titled “Hey, Alexa! What are you doing with my data?” explains how, according to two FTC complaints, Amazon and its Ring security camera products allegedly leveraged sensitive consumer data to train the ecommerce giant’s algorithms. (Amazon disagreed with the FTC’s claims.) It also provided guidance for companies operating similar products and services. Another post titled “$20 million FTC settlement addresses Microsoft Xbox illegal collection of kids’ data: A game changer for COPPA compliance” instructs tech companies on how to abide by the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act by using the 2023 Microsoft settlement as an example. The settlement followed allegations by the FTC that Microsoft obtained data from children using Xbox systems without the consent of their parents or guardians.

“In terms of the message to industry on what our compliance expectations were, which is in some ways the most important part of enforcement action, they are trying to just erase those from history,” a source familiar tells WIRED.

Another removed FTC blog titled “The Luring Test: AI and the engineering of consumer trust” outlines how businesses could avoid creating chatbots that violate the FTC Act’s rules against unfair or deceptive products. This blog won an award in 2023 for “excellent descriptions of artificial intelligence.”

The Trump administration has received broad support from the tech industry. Big tech companies like Amazon and Meta, as well as tech entrepreneurs like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, all donated to Trump’s inauguration fund. Other Silicon Valley leaders, like Elon Musk and David Sacks, are officially advising the administration. Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employs technologists sourced from Musk’s tech companies. And already, federal agencies like the General Services Administration have started to roll out AI products like GSAi, a general-purpose government chatbot.

The FTC did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WIRED.

Removing blogs raises serious compliance concerns under the Federal Records Act and the Open Government Data Act, one former FTC official tells WIRED. During the Biden administration, FTC leadership would place “warning” labels above previous administrations’ public decisions it no longer agreed with, the source said, fearing that removal would violate the law.

Since President Donald Trump designated Andrew Ferguson to replace Khan as FTC chair in January, the Republican regulator has vowed to leverage his authority to go after big tech companies. Unlike Khan, however, Ferguson’s criticisms center around the Republican party’s long-standing allegations that social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, censor conservative speech online. Before being selected as chair, Ferguson told Trump that his vision for the agency also included rolling back Biden-era regulations on artificial intelligence and tougher merger standards, The New York Times reported in December.

In an interview with CNBC last week, Ferguson argued that content moderation could equate to an antitrust violation. “If companies are degrading their product quality by kicking people off because they hold particular views, that could be an indication that there's a competition problem,” he said.

Sources speaking with WIRED on Tuesday claimed that tech companies are the only groups who benefit from the removal of these blogs.

“They are talking a big game on censorship. But at the end of the day, the thing that really hits these companies’ bottom line is what data they can collect, how they can use that data, whether they can train their AI models on that data, and if this administration is planning to take the foot off the gas there while stepping up its work on censorship,” the source familiar alleges. “I think that's a change big tech would be very happy with.”

[mclalan]

Corp Zomphis, 2020s Design Speculation

I want to talk about Corp Memphis again— that corporate style of gangly, dead-eyed characters trapped in a neoliberal purgatory, posed between pot plants and spreadsheets.

I don't need to go too far into describing it. Heaven knows there are already so many takes on it that you're probably sick of hearing about it. However, I think a succinct description of it can be found at the end of that Wired magazine article from a few years back:

Wired: Corporate Memphis: The Tech Industry’s Favourite New Art Style

"But, despite all this, it may not be worth lamenting the immense reach of Corporate Memphis or the design possibilities we’ve been deprived of because of it. The style is, after all, simply a reflection of big tech, and how it has constructed a world with users on one side and executives on the other.

A more interesting and visually rich digital space would mean more than coming up with a new illustration style—it would require a change in how the tech economy is run. Until then, Corporate Memphis is likely to stick around, bendy arms and all."

This touches on why Corporate Memphis looks the way it does: it's a reflection of the material reality it's made in and the economic conditions it serves.

To work in a design job today often involves being a "multi-practitioner"— corp speak for a jack of all trades. You might have multiple platforms to manage, need to create a mix of media (motion graphics, branding, illustrations, etc.), and produce multiple pieces of content, all for some pointless product consumed by placated consumers.

And that’s all in a day's work, to be repeated the next. It's gruelling, unforgiving, mind-numbing work—especially if you take pride in what you do. Life doesn't become easier, but it does become bearable if the medium you're working in isn't fighting against you. A style that can work across platforms, can be easy enough for anyone in the department to use, but versatile enough to allow effort when there's time and money. It's homogeneous to the point where the messy, qualitative complications of art direction don't come into play. You can download a vector stock or make it in-house with relative ease and speed, and it looks good enough. The consumer, despite being fatigued by it all, seems to find it good enough. And that's what marks the style really: it's "good enough." It's a style linked to speed and practicality in the face of intense demand and pressure, low industry wages, accessible skills for entry levels, and high corporate barriers as everything's locked within Adobe's infrastructure.

But its strength as this homogeneous vector glob style, with its lack of any real individual identity, is also its biggest weakness. Although I'm sure some designers might enjoy working in this style, it's not really a style designed for creative individual expression. It's called "corporate" for a reason. If you want something different, you might be tempted to try freelancing...

Outside the corporate design department, you might think you're finally free to create in your own style, no longer having to work in that dreaded Corporate Memphis one anymore. But it’s hard enough to work in your own individual style under the best of circumstances. That's because the whole economy is based on the same structures of endless content production for algorithmically optimised consumption that allowed Corp Memphis to thrive, so you're still facing familiar obstacles—creating vast amounts of content, quickly, for wide and insatiable consumer audiences. So, in a way, we have this algorithm-enforced market of content, favouring those who have optimised their style to be better seen by it. It's no wonder Corporate Memphis has endured past its welcome.

However, despite all that, illustrators and artists still plod on. They end up making stuff, somehow navigating these systems— either playing them like a fiddle, outright rejecting them, or going accelerationist about it, like with something such as Corecore. Self-expression can take many forms, and that potential untapped capital value is tantalisingly mouthwatering to corporate capitalists.

Corp Memphis is optimised to a fault. It's too polished, too automated, and fits too well with the well-oiled design apparatus. Thus, it's developed a semiotics to reflect this—it's cheap and it's perceived as cheap. That's why an art director (typically) won’t just stick some Corp Memphis imagine on an album cover or use it to illustrate a particular lifestyle magazine. It wouldn't suit it, it's signalling the wrong stuff. Culture, art, ideas, aesthetics are reflected in work created by practitioners with an artistic vision, or that taps into what's going on in the present. And this is reflected in their art style, something Corp Memphis can't easily do, if at all.

That's why there's still a kind of fringe freelance industry with a speciality in design identity, otherwise known in the industry as "creatives", albeit small and closely gatekept by the likes of legacy institutions such as Goldsmiths and corporate industry leaders like The HudsonBec Group. If a corporation needs design to be spiced up with some kind of creative identity, it'll turn to these agencies or freelancers from this background rather than use Corp Memphis.

But the sad thing is how a corporation doesn't have total control over the process and thus can't control the value and pricing since they have to deal with hiring these pesky freelancers. But how does a corporation even know who to hire? With moodboards, of course! It’s easier to hire someone in-house with "good taste," who can simply curate hot practitioners to hire, like a dragon collecting .png gems. Although a corporation will try to get the best deal it can, these pesky freelancers can potentially negotiate a price for themselves, especially if they’re some big shot who holds a lot of cultural capital.

But another benefit of a moodboard is that it can be converted into a design guide. Simply share the sorts of designers and illustrators that a corporation dreams of hiring but with a cheaper designer, and ask if they can copy the desired style for less. Failing that, they can just outright steal the style anyway. If the creator is small enough, who cares?

But the value and cultural capital that corporations must seek outside their infrastructure, the very thing Corp Memphis cannot do, comes at the price of what Corp Memphis can do. Freelancers are annoying to corporations. They’re inconsistent, outside their remit, and expensive—since any level of lost capital is an expense. And worse of all, they don’t own them. Work made in-house in a corporation is completely theirs to be used forever, however they see fit. A freelance gig is limited to the contract, and typically you have to keep paying for different uses, or pay a lot if it’s expected to be used for something big.

How dare these skilled workers... sorry, freelancers, leverage themselves. If only we, the corporation, could control and treat the work of freelanced art direction like we do Corporate Memphis. Well, maybe we can—with AI.

AI is a whole can of worms of its own. But I will outline how AI shares a lot with Corp Memphis in terms of mechanics, but it's not "good enough" like Corp Memphis is in terms of its aesthetics.

Let's put it like this, if Corp Memphis is above a stock image, which is above clip art, which is above a farting Elsa asset-flip mobile game, then AI-generated images are below that, sharing the same disdainful semiotics of a YouTube thumbnail. AI renders are synonymous with trash, with viewers combing over images seeking out any sniff of AI to decry it. This is, of course, unfortunate for corporations, because AI is wonderfully cheap and efficient to produce. The problem with even "the best" AI is that it still reeks of AI, because it's trained on relatively limited data sets that are the wrong semiotics that corporations typically use and that their consumers are typically familiar with. It's not consistent with typical standards and trends. But even the AI art styles synonymous with AI are really that of unfortunate ArtStation artists whose work has been stolen, scraped, and trained into these models. But none of it is directed, follows trends, or should I say, reflects trends favoured by brands.

Design industry standard work is also bolstered by their industry standing. Their "credibility" sets them apart from, as Mark Zuckerberg puts it, the worthless creators and publishers who ‘overestimate their value’. Sure Zuckerberg might say design is worthless, but let's not forget that Facebook Alegria, the design language developed for Facebook by the mega studio Buck Design in 2017, pretty much started Corp Memphis! I don't know how much that would have cost Zuck, but given how huge Buck is, I don't know, close to $1 million if I had to speculate. So what Zuck is actually saying is you are worthless, without your titles and industry standing, and are ripe for the scrapping.

I still think it would appear crass to the wider public if someone as tactless as Zuck were to steal wholesale from something like It’s Nice That's list of featured artists, due to the "prestigious" tutelage and culture capital of such trendy practitioners. Good luck if you're on your own though.

There's also the issue of copyright. I've no idea how litigious David Rudnick is, maybe he wouldn't even mind, but perhaps it would be legally safer to just hire a copycat of him rather than train an AI on his work. There's no shortage of copycats of him after all, and they'd probably do a better job than AI anyway.

No, a corporation if it wants to avoid all this mess will instead use AI this way:

Step One: Moodboardism

Directed by their little Pinterest moodboards and Instagram saves, a corporation will find the next latest and strongest trend that they want to utilise, be it Y2K or whatever's current on the human ant colony-as-algorithm site, Carri Institute's aesthetics.

Step Two: The Sellout

Hire an on trend freelancer with a large sack of money marked with a dollar sign to do a year's worth of graphic content in a particular on trend style. This is all then fed into their in-house AI database model.

Step Three: Rise and Grind

It's then handed over to the in-house sweatshop graphic designers as the latest toolset that they have to use. They're now tasked with grinding out prompts in this trendy style with the consistency, efficiency, and speed once only achievable with Corp Memphis.

So congratulations, now we have AI that isn't generic Facebook shrimp Jesus trash; it'll be its own unique trash. And sure, perhaps some AI artefacts might come through, but that's what the in-house graphic designers are for— to Photoshop those fingers. The corp no longer needs to put up with some meddlesome expensive freelance art director, as the AI model is consistent enough that someone in-house can direct it, just like Corporate Memphis. And even then, if it still comes across as AI-ish, the hope is that for the general public, it's "good enough", just like Corp... You get the idea.

And this is possible because a freelancers' perceived autonomous strength as corporate mercenaries is also their biggest weakness. They think they can dance with the devil and win, making essentially veneers for capitalists, never once thinking the corporations will one day come to extract capital from them too. Corporate Memphis is never going to die; it's going to mutate into a corporate zombie... Corp Zomphis?

Why bother hiring individual skilled freelancers to do a job in a specific style when you have a year's worth of art, seeded by one of them, to prompt out your own "unique" designs in their style. It's more efficient and cheaper to approach design as a egragore hungry for its next feed, rather than pay for a single illustration. But you'll just have to trust me when I say that I'm not making this up; annual hires to train their own ai is genuinely what big corporation are doing.

But what about the industry, are they just gonna let it happen? I don't know. But I think freelancers don't typically see themselves as a working class, but instead as individualistic, competitive even, little businesses. This is why I think corps will be able to steamroll over freelance designers and illustrators with AI driven Corp Zomphis, because there's no solidarity amongst designers and illustrators, unlike US animators with their union and perception of themsleves as workers. If one freelancer rejects that devil deal to make the annual quantity of prompt feed for a corp, then the next hire will. I remember even hearing the AoI stressing how it wasn't a union, as if union was a dirty word. Instead its existence is to help one interface with their corporate client overlord. Well, soon enough that interfacing will be about betraying your industry freelance brethren to a corporate egragore, basically turning everything into a potential Corporate Memphis reskin. If Corporate Memphis is the design logic of the economy of the 2010s, then I wouldn't be surprised to see people nostalgic for it in the future, if the speculative 2020s model I've described turns out to be true.

[darlinluxx]

𝐂𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐘 𝐍𝐄𝐂𝐊𝐋𝐀𝐂𝐄 | 𝐊𝐀𝐍𝐆 𝐒𝐀𝐄 𝐁𝐘𝐄𝐎𝐊 ౨ৎ

pairing : saebyeok x fem!reader

fluff, tiny bit of angst

warnings : tiny bit of angst, pickpocketing

summary : you’re so in love with her, including her reckless behavior.

a/n : inspired by candy necklace by lana del rey

if you have any requests, feel free to message me <3

𝐓he weight of her hand in yours is a grounding force, a constant amidst the chaos that seems to follow Saebyeok like a stray dog. you love it, the weight, the warmth, the callouses on her fingers that you trace with your thumb when you think she isn’t looking. you love her. everything about her. even the parts that make your stomach clench with a mix of fear and exhilaration.

like right now.

the Seoul subway platform is a hive of bodies, a symphony of hurried footsteps and muttered conversations. you’re pressed close to Saebyeok, the familiar scent of her cologne a comforting smell. your eyes are fixed on her hand, the one that isn’t holding yours. it’s dancing, a silent predator moving with a practiced grace you both admire and dread.

you watch her fingers, long and elegant, slip into the pocket of a distracted businessman. a wallet, plump with bills, is extracted with the skill of a surgeon, disappearing into the folds of her jacket before the man even blinks. a thrill courses through you, a dangerous current that tugs at your heart. this is Saebyeok. this is the woman you love.

you know it’s wrong. you know you should say something, pull her away. but you don’t. you can’t. you’re mesmerized. it’s not just the skill, but the audacity, the utter disregard for the rules that she carries like a second skin. it’s a reckless flame that has somehow drawn you into his orbit.

“did you get it?” you ask quietly, your voice barely audible above the rumble of an approaching train.

her lips curve into a secret, almost predatory smirk. she doesn’t need to say a word. the slight bulge in her jacket pocket is all the confirmation you need. she squeezes your hand, the warmth of her touch a promise of excitement and perhaps something a little more dangerous.

you know the stories. the whispers of Saebyeok’s past, the things she did to survive, to get her brother out of the orphanage, to protect them both. you understand the desperation that fuels her, the hunger that drives her to find her way in a world that has never been kind to her. and while your soul may ache with concern, your heart swells with something akin to fierce pride. she’s a fighter, a survivor. and right now, she’s yours.

you’ve tried to talk to her about it before, about the risk, about the potential consequences. but her eyes would harden, her smile would vanish, and you’d find yourself silenced by the quiet, smoldering rage that burns beneath the surface. you know it’s not just about the money; it’s also about the power, the thrill, the feeling of taking control in a world that feels so impossibly out of her grasp.

it’s a complicated love. it’s a love that keeps you awake at night with worry, a love that’s often fueled by adrenaline and stolen glances. you know that one day her recklessness might catch up to her. you’ve seen the glint of steel in her eyes, the unspoken knowledge that this path can only lead to one of two outcomes: freedom or destruction. and you’re terrified of both.

but as the subway pulls into the station, doors hissing open like a hungry beast, she looks at you, her eyes softening, the hard edges of her face smoothed by a genuine affection you’re lucky enough to receive. she pulls you onto the train, navigating the crowd with a feline grace that makes your heart skip a beat. her hand, still warm, is back in yours, and in that moment, amongst the chaos of the city, you wouldn’t trade her chaos for anything.

you love her. you love the reckless, the dangerous, the unpredictable Saebyeok. and you just pray that one day, she’ll learn to love herself just as fiercely, and perhaps, just perhaps, she’ll learn to carry that fight in a less dangerous way. until then, you’ll be there, holding her hand, bracing yourself for whatever comes next. because that’s what you do for the person you love. you follow them, even into the fire.

[aroaceleovaldez]

You've talked about the pjo fandom's lack of fandom infrastructure a lot, what I want to ask is: why do you think the pjo fandom has so little?

I've seen other much smaller fandoms that have just developed infrastructure as the years go on but pjo feels like it's stayed quite stagnant in that regard. I would've thought that with pjo being so big there'd be a lot more than there is. Did we have a lot then we lost it along the way or did we just not develop it that much?

We definitely used to have way more! In my infrastructure list there's a LOT of old infrastructure blogs from back in the day. There's definitely more than what's on that list, but a lot of those blogs have been deactivated or otherwise lost. I've also talked a bit like [here] about some of the old stuff the fandom used to regularly have, like events that no longer run, common tag games and other community habits, etc. We also used to have more zines and other collaborative projects. These just don't happen nearly as often in our community anymore, because the people running them stopped being able to and nobody was able to pick them up and they were forgotten.

I mostly attribute this change to new fandom attitudes and the loss of community. Back in the day I feel like one of the most influential things to the fandom environment was how a lot of younger fans often looked to big-name-fans for how they should behave and navigate fandom spaces. A lot of people are familiar with the old "big 3" fanartists of the day - Viria, Burdge, and Minuiko - but what a lot of people don't remember is they used to trade art back and forth all the time! And with other artists/fans in the community! They were all just genuinely friends and so much collaboration happened between them! That's how we got a lot of the old big AUs and concepts in the fandom because people loved sharing those and collaborating. And because a lot of young folks often mirror the people they look up to in communities, younger fans were mimicking that behavior and there was a lot of exchange and communication and community happening in the fandom at the time. That behavior was demonstrated, replicated, and encouraged!

And young fans mirroring BNFs they look up to is still absolutely a thing! You can see this all the time if you just take a quick glance at fanart - how many character designs are clearly influenced from large artists in the fandom? Insert every Piper with Velinxi heart-shaped cowlicks here. But because there's a lot of ideas now about curating online presences as if it's a business (or literally turning it into a business) or outputting "content" we see a lot less of people - particularly larger fans in the community - vocally interacting with other fans. Everything feels very sanitized and polished and impersonal. There's way less exchange between fans now, or at least way less vocally.

And this is also pushed by general "new/passive fandom" culture as i generally refer to it, where there's so much more emphasis on consumption and "content" versus community (and again, that idea of curating socials like a business/brand). When everything kind of shifted with the like 2016-2018 adult content bans and everybody was moving around between platforms, folks lost a lot of means of learning about fandom history and their communities and how those communities looked. A lot of fans - including now older fans - have never known that fandom is supposed to be a community, and so now we have the older fans in the community with this very content-oriented presentation of fandom that is how fandom is generally advertised in mainstream media, because that's how they learned about it and how new fans are learning about it. They have no easy means to learn fandom history and nobody to mirror appropriate social fandom behavior from (which is also what i attribute to why so many fandoms have become "more toxic" or rude in recent years - especially with quarantine meaning a lot of young folks lost irl means of learning to mirror appropriate social behavior).

In smaller and newer fandoms, communities form easier and if they're the groundwork for the fandom it will persist and self-perpetuate most of the time. In general if a fandom is able to maintain that community aspect, it usually does just fine! (As per usual I point to the furry fandom as a great example of an older fandom with good infrastructure and community.) This is why I like to harp on about building community and reinstating these types of environments and blogs and such, and generally discussing the fandom's history as much as I can and remember it. People can't fix problems they don't understand or things they don't know about, so making that information as accessible as possible and encouraging these things is important.

[simon-roy]

A little press release from Image comics - we're putting out a mass market edition of Griz Grobus! Press release follows:

PORTLAND, Ore. 12/07/2023 — The high fantasy, graphic novel Kickstarter sensation, Griz Grobus, by co-writer/artist Simon Roy (Prophet, Jan's Atomic Heart and Other Stories) and co-writer Jess Pollard, with colors by Sergey Nazarov, will be available in trade paperback format for the first time this June 2024 from Image Comics.

Griz Grobus was originally a popular Webtoon sequential webcomic that leveled up its exposure with the 2021 launch of a Kickstarter campaign for a stunning hardcover edition. The campaign ignited fandom fervor, was fully funded in under a day, and raised nearly $70K—far exceeding the stretch goal. This Summer’s forthcoming paperback edition will bring this roaring success story to an even wider audience of readers.

"Part of what we wanted to make, in Griz Grobus, was a story that felt like a foreign film from a country you haven't heard of," said Roy. "Natural, familiar elements, sitting harmoniously alongside the new and unfamiliar. The proposition of getting to introduce a whole new audience to our little pocket universe, and the worlds within it, is very exciting!"

Set in the same sci-fi universe as Roy's Habitat,Griz Grobus is another tale of life after the collapse of the interstellar empire. But unlike Habitat—where a once utopian orbital community found itself descending into cannibal tyranny—the characters of Griz Grobus inhabit the rural world of Altamira, where post-utopian frontier life has blossomed into something a bit more wholesome.

Pollard added: "I can definitely say it is one of the funniest, most delightful things I've ever been a part of, and I laugh every time I read the story, as if I'm reading it for the first time. I hope readers will feel the same warmth when they read this edition, whether it be for the first time, the second, or third.”

Griz Grobus tells two parallel, intertwined tales from the far-off colony world. High in a sleepy mountain village, the overzealous academic ambitions of a young scribe lead to the resurrection of the town’s ancient colonial-era priest-bot. This long-defunct pastor finds himself in a world that has passed him by, but refuses to simply accept his obsolescence, much to the chagrin of the scribe and the local townsfolk. The second story, a mise-en-abyme, is Altamira’s most famous novel (being avidly read by the characters of the first story). It is a fantasy tale about a war-god who gets trapped in the body of a goose, and the efforts of one pacifist cook to delay the war-god’s bloody return to the battlefield.

This lush, intricately detailed, standalone fable is perfect for fans of Hiyao Miyazaki, Asterix, and Arthur C. Clarke.

The Griz Grobus trade paperback (ISBN: 9781534397866) will be available at local comic book shops on Wednesday, June 5 and independent bookstores, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Books-a-Million, and Indigo on Tuesday, June 4.

Griz Grobus will also be available across many digital platforms, including Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Google Play.

[fizziepopangel]

What would happen if Stolas fails to make it on time to save Blitzo from being executed?

What would the ramifications be if she killed or try to kill Andrealphus? Would Moxxie and Millie go along with this revenge or try to stop Loona before she makes things worse?

I could imagine the monument Loona snaps is when she sees Blitzo's head roll on the floor. She feels nothing. Then she looks at Andrealphus, and then she snaps, breaks out of her restraints, and attacks Andrealphus killing him, who didn't see this coming, shocking everybody in court.

OOOOOOOHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!! Babes, this is a good one!!!

Only Vengeance Now

“Just… Just take care of Loona for me.” Blitz said to Moxxie and Millie as the chains sprang to life, dragging him to his knees suddenly. “I love you guys.”

No. I thought as he fell to his knees and he let his head rest on the chopping block. I wanted to scream, beg them for some sort of mercy, or to let me trade places with him. Despite everything I had said and done over the years since he had taken me in, Blitz was…  He was all the family I knew. He was my hero; my home…. I knew somewhere deep inside, he wouldn’t be around forever, but it couldn’t happen like this. This was a joke. A cruel joke; just a bad dream that I would wake up from.

The executioner raised their axe. This can’t be happening. Not like this. Please. I squeezed my eyes shut, but it did nothing to keep me from hearing the whoosh of the blade as it cut through the air. 

There was a thump, then just a thick silence as the metallic smell of blood filled the room.

“Blitz…..” Millie whimpered beside me, her sobs mixing with Moxxie’s beside me.

“Oh my Lucifer…” A familiar voice whispered in shock. “What have you done?”

My eyes opened despite my mind begging me not to look… Bile rose in my throat as I looked over to where my dad stood just moments ago, a sea of black pooling around where his head had dropped. “Dad…”

“Loona, don’t look.” Millie said, a hand reaching toward me. She kept talking, and I knew she was touching me, but I couldn’t tear my eyes from the scene. He had been there just a second ago…. And now he was just… gone. 

Time seemed to slow as I stared at the sight in front of me. My mind was buzzing with every time he hugged me, every time he held me when I cried, every pancake breakfast, every stupid gift he had ever given me, and everything he wouldn’t get to see me do, but at the same time, my mind was blank; I felt everything and nothing all at once….. I didn’t even notice when they unmuzzled me until I felt a pair of arms drape around my shoulders.

Looking beside me, Stolas stood there, an arm around my shoulder and tears in his eyes as he looked at me. I think he wanted to say something, but the voice that cut through the haze of thoughts buzzing around in my skull wasn’t his.

“Well,” Satan clapped, standing up from his throne. “That’s lunch everybody.”

“I thank the courts on behalf of my aggressively attractive sister and her husband for ridding hell of that… fillth.” Andrealphus says, taking an exaggerated bow and smirking in our direction.

“My dad was not filth.” I growl, shoving away from Stolas to stare down the overgrown ice pigeon.

Andrealphus chuckled, stepping down an icy staircase until he stood just before us. He smirked, glancing down at the severed head of the only father I had ever known. My fur bristled as I watched him move toward the body and head. “This,” He says, grabbing blitz’s head by one of his horns and holding it high, “is the definition of filth if I’ve ever seen one.” I watched him toss Blitz’s head over the edge of the platform he stood on… and suddenly something in me snapped.

Red filled my vision and suddenly I had cleared the divider that separated us from them. “Loona, don’t!” I heard from behind me. I wasn’t sure who called me, but it was already too late.

Gasps rang out as my jaws clamped down on the arm of the Goetic prince, pulling him from his feet and slamming him down on his back. Blitz’s blood splattered around us. In his shock, he almost seemed to forget to fight back. It didn’t matter though; even as my fist’s slammed into the man’s face over and over, I wasn’t looking for a fight.

“Loona, stop!” Moxxie cried, the imp and his wife attempting to pull me off the prince, only to be thrown in one swift move.

Nothing matters anymore. I thought, tears in my eyes as Andrealphus’ blood began to spray me with each hit. Nothing… A stalagmite of ice shot up from beside me, the tip slicing my arm. In the split second it took me to howl in pain, Andrealphus managed to scramble out from beneath me, attempting to crawl away despite his blood dripping down his face and blurring his vision and the obviously broken arm.

I lunged, my head slamming into the good for nothing prince as he attempted to get up, struggling to even summon another platform of ice in his current state.

A fresh round of tears blurred my vision as I continued to beat the struggling Goetia. There was a commotion somewhere behind us, but it didn’t matter to me. Nothing will matter until he bleeds for what he did. 

Andrealphus flailed blindly, the few hits he managed to land weak and pathetic just like him. “You pathetic piece of shit!” I snap through clenched teeth, my hands wrapped around his throat. “You don’t deserve to fucking breathe.”

I was pulled off of him, forced to watch him roll over and gasp for breath. I struggled against the solid figure holding me. “Get off me!” 

“This won’t bring him back, Loona.” Bee said as she and Asmodeus held me back.

“He doesn’t deserve…” My words dissolved in tears as I slumped against the Sins. I could hear Moxxie and Millie and Stolas pleading with the court on my behalf as Satan summoned the executioner once again. Bee held me, stroking my hair and trying to tell me that it would be ok… But behind her, I could see the executioner, their axe still dripping with Blitz’s blood as they kicked his body out of the way to make room for me…. The reality hit me like a truck: Blitz was dead, I had attacked a Goetic prince in a courtroom full of the most powerful being in hell… I was going to die.

I looked back at Andrealphus as someone helped him to his feet. Even bloodied and beaten, he looked smug when he looked back towards us…. It made the decision easier. If I was going to die, he needed to go first.

With tears still in my eyes, I shoved the gluttonous sin off of me, breaking free from the grasp that held me, hurling myself at the executioner, hands outstretched toward the axe. The second the axe slipped from their hands to mine, I raised it, lunging at the bleeding prince.

Screams rang out as I brought the axe down, sending Andrealphus’ head tumbling from his shoulders, though there was pure silence as his body dropped.

The axe fell from my hands and without a word, I walked to the chopping block, taking my place on my knees in front of the executioner. I couldn’t bring myself to look at anyone in the courtroom that I loved, though I could hear sobbing from more than one of them. Taking a deep breath, I locked eyes with Satan. “I’m ready.”

[scarscribblesstuff]

Rest

Fandom: Redacted Audio

Characters: Ollie, Baby

Pairings: Ollie/Baby

Song: https://open.spotify.com/track/2IgosCxKc7R7SwVmk7D0gy?si=G8x9zYPyQwyT3_yHXp7KcQ

Coming to you live from another flare up, I've been relistening to a lot of Ollie's videos so wanted to make some lil fluffy chronic pain comfort. Hope y'all enjoy!

As always here it is on ao3 if that's easier! Please do not feed to AI, claim as your own, or repost to other platforms without my permission. The characters belong to Redacted Audio and this is a fan work.

(Fic below cut)

It was not a good day today. Ollie had been away all weekend at a convention with friends. They had wanted to come, but Ollie’s friend only had one spare ticket. They wouldn't trade his excitement for the world, even if that meant missing him the whole weekend.

The weekend had seemed like the perfect opportunity to crack down on some housekeeping and a few extra hours on work projects. Plus some socialising and cooking. And a cat spa day to try and get Ollie's cat, Oatmeal, to bond with theirs, Captain, a little more.

None of this came to fruition however when their body betrayed them yet again. Waking up to a familiar aching, and exhaustion settling throughout their body. They sigh, knowing that so many of their plans will be lost. Hearing the insistent meowing of the two menaces who live here rent free, they slowly drag themselves out of bed. Painfully they shuffle around the kitchen doing what little they can. Breakfast is eating leftover pizza and then a swift return to bed to garner what rest they could.

The intended productive weekend is instead spent pushing themself to the limit and beyond; forcing their body to try and work where as much as it can. They knew Ollie would have insisted they stop and relax, but the poor signal in the con centre, and long days meant communication was limited to good morning and night texts. So Baby kept pushing, determined to do as much as they could, promising themselves rest after one more chore. The frustration driving them to go much farther than they should have, determined to do what they planned.

Monday rolled around and Baby felt terrible. Bags weighed heavily under their eyes and every muscle felt like it was burning. They had barely made it to the office on time after a long struggle to get up and shower that morning. But they had a huge deadline coming up, there simply wasn't enough time to stop. They'd deal with the consequences some other time, they'd rest some other time.

Baby is sitting in their office staring blankly at the glaring light of the new monitor. This stupid email had been open for ten minutes now, and they weren't any closer to comprehending the business jargon as their joints throb and scream for attention.

There's a cheerful knock at the door. “Hey Baby!” Ollie’s chipper voice and sweet face enters into their office. He's hiding something behind his back and gives them a peck on the forehead.

“Hello my love.” They smile softly. “How was your weekend?”

“Oh it was fantastic! You should've seen the games they had available. And there were tonnes of cosplayers too, we got to see this incredible Dragon Age cosplay-”

They try to listen, truly they do. Normally they're all ears for Ollie’s rambles, relishing the joy in his voice and the opportunity to hear from him, especially after being separated for a few days. Today however, their pain is banging pots and pans in their brain and even maintaining a positive face is a struggle.

“Baby?” They focus back in, to a very worried looking Ollie. 

“Sorry Ollie, what did you say? I missed it.” They murmur, adjusting as best they can in their seat.

“Are you okay Baby? You don't look so good.” He lifts up his hand. “Can I?”

They nod, allowing him to place his hand against their forehead before gently cupping their cheek, his cool hand a small relief. “Flare up sweetie?” He asks with concerned eyes.

“Yeah.” They croak, leaning into his touch weakly. “But it's okay. Lots to do. Sorry, please continue, I wanna hear about your weekend.”

“How long have you been like this Baby? You need rest.” He shakes his head at their apology. “Don't say sorry, I care more about helping you be comfortable than a rant that can wait.”

“I like listening to you.” They swallow, trying to sit up a little and wincing as the ache stops them, sending a shooting pain up their back.

“I have a spare pillow at my desk, you wanna lie down? I can make the floor more comfy if it's better. for you.”

“I don't think I'll be able to stand up again if I do.” They confess, frustrated tears welling in their eyes.

Ollie scoots around the desk. “Hey, that's alright. Can I hold you, or are you not feeling touch right now?”

“Hold me please.” They answer thickly, leaning into him as much as their body allows. Being back in Ollie’s arms felt like a relief; and feeling his gentle touch surrounding them, fingers lovingly tracing up and down their spine.

He kisses their forehead, then their nose, and cheek, and all over their face until they're giggling. “I've got you Baby.”

“I missed you Ollie.” They sigh, gaze drifting back to their computer. “...I have to get back to work though.”

“Not right now.” He says firmly. “In fact, we're both going home.”

They open their mouth to argue but he stops them gently. “You are in no condition to work Baby. You can delegate this for at least a day or two, I promise. And I've finished most of my department's stuff early, so don't use me as an excuse. Your team will survive without you.”

Too tired to protest any further they weakly nod, leaning against him again.

“Okay Baby, I'll be right back.” He kisses their forehead and carefully sits them up before heading to the door. “Be back before you can say taxi!”

They mourn his hold as he slips out of their office, and Baby's left staring longingly at the monitor. One email can be done while they wait, surely? 

Ollie returns a few minutes later to them sluggishly typing at their computer. “Baby.” 

They sheepishly look up at his stern tone. “I was just trying to finish this email.” 

He stands beside them, looking at their screen. “Your hands are shaking and you've barely written ‘hey Aaron!’”

Baby slumps against the desk. “It felt like a bigger success at the time.”

“Don't get me wrong,” he gently rubs circles their back just how they like, “it is astounding you managed that much. But you shouldn't push yourself. Aaron has already agreed to cover you today and get your team on it - saying quote 'they look like shit, get them to relax for once', so you are coming home with me to rest.”

Baby wants to protest, but all their stubborn drive to carry on has long since been lovingly taken by Ollie. They're unable to even make a snarky comment about Aaron and glass houses. “I want to go home. I'm sorry.” They croak out against his neck, and Ollie feels his heart shatter.

“Hey don't apologise Baby.” He murmurs immediately. “You can't control this, you deserve a break more than anyone I know.” He kneels next to their chair, carefully taking their hands in his. “You can always come home. I'm always here for you.” He smiles, giving their fingers a light squeeze. “Now let's get you out of here.”

Helping them up, Ollie takes care of everything. He drives the pair home and helps them up the stairs to his apartment; the whole time chatting about his weekend, cursing the broken lift, and not expecting any response or engagement on their part. Just happy to be with them. They're ushered straight to bed once they're through the front door with sweet kisses and murmured comfort.

“What do you need?” He asks, placing a cup of water by the bed. “Join me?” 

Without hesitation he slips under the covers with them, allowing them to rest against him, while he wraps his arms around them. “Better?”

They hum in approval, nestling in close to his chest and doing their best to ignore the pain.

They sniffle, holding him back as best they can.  “I love you Ollie.” 

“I love you too Baby.” And he doesn't let go of them, a sweet kiss against their forehead.

[big-mean-trans-dyke]

Megan Wilson knelt, gasping, in front of a tall, well-built transfem. She was a mess. Her chin dropped spit, a couple coughs only adding to the mess as she gasps in a couple breaths. Her tits are as soaked in spit as the lower half of her face, and her lap ties the whole thing together, itself a puddle of some mix of pre and saliva.

She leans forward, jamming her face into the woman's balls and sniffing in hard, doing her best to inhale every bit of ball-sweat she can. She knows, if she wasn't nose-deep in girl balls, that she'd still be able to smell the piss marking her hair. She doesn't care, though, not right now.

The whole scene is hot on its own, obviously, but there's something that really makes it that much more special for the girl in front of Megan, her cock dripping spit and a little dribble of pre. Megan had a secret, something nobody else could ever know. Megan was a TERF. That wasn't her secret, of course, she'd tell that to anybody who would listen. No, her secret was that behind closed doors, away from the protests, *this* was her favorite place to be. Kneeling, serving girlcock. It was an addiction for her, a compulsion. One she couldn't possibly resist.

When the cameras were on, she was actually quite well known. She held the dubious distinction of being one of the only TERFs that anybody at all took seriously that also held a platform of more than a couple dozen people. She was a familiar name over about half the country if you asked anyone who followed that kind of thing, and even had her share of international followers.

All this, and all it would take to ruin her would be for one of the five or six women she treated like this, one of them women who treated *her* like this, to release video. She always let them film, she couldn't help it. They all promised not to release it publicly, just use it to jerk off to. That was a thought that often came to Megan when she was speaking publicly, that somewhere out there, someone might have her speech on one monitor and a video of her pissing on her own face with a dildo in her ass on the other.

And still, she lived her double life. She spent her days protesting, making preachy videos and whining about meaningless bullshit, and spent her nights gagging on cock, stretching her asshole, and generally making a fool of herself.

Unknown to her, behind the scenes her collection of 'friends' actually knew each other. They'd all agreed amongst themselves not to share the videos publicly, only because it made it so much hotter to share them amongst themselves. Trading videos of how well she takes a DP for videos of the girl guzzling piss and spit and cum with a ring gag in. Knowing that while everyone else is taking her seriously, they know who she really is. It's only a matter of time before something goes wrong, someone smells the ball-sweat on her breath or walks in on her washing the piss out of her hair, but for now, everyone's happy to enjoy their arranegment.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Sarah Jones at PoliticusUSA:

The power of the broligarchy grows as new reporting comes out that Elon Musk, who runs a government department called DOGE and thus can be seen arguably as the government when he speaks, pressured Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on content moderation.

“Elon Musk pressured Reddit’s CEO on content moderation.

Not only has Musk been waging a months plus long campaign on his social media platform X against content posted on Reddit, but “he was also privately messaging Reddit CEO Steve Huffman,” The Verge reported today, based on sources they cite as familiar with the matter. Musk was angry that after his “Nazi” salute at Trump’s inauguration, some subreddits banned links to X (formerly known as Twitter). When that didn’t change anything, the Verge notes he “posted that Reddit users advocating for violence against Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) employees had “broken the law.” In February of this year, the BBC reported that Reddit had “temporarily banned one of its communities - and removed another - after X owner Elon Musk claimed comments made by the site's users about his employees were breaking the law.” This happened after a subreddit that posts funny posts from Elon’s social media platform “posted comments calling for violence against members of the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency (Doge)” while “responding to reports which suggested some Doge staff have been granted access to sensitive personal information of millions of Americans.” But it turns out Reddit banned hundreds of comments that did not call for violence or doxxing, according to today’s reporting in The Verge: Shortly after the two CEOs exchanged text messages, Reddit enacted a 72-hour ban on the “WhitePeopleTwitter” subreddit that hosted the thread about DOGE employees, citing the “prevalence of violent content.” The specific threadMusk shared on X was also deleted, including hundreds of comments that didn’t call for violence or doxxing. (So far, Reddit doesn’t appear to have intervened in any moderator decisions to ban X links from the subreddits they oversee.) In other words, Elon Musk illegally took our private information and then went crying to the CEO of Reddit because people were angry about his theft of their private information. Publicly calling for violence is not okay and Reddit is a publicly traded business that can set that limit on “free speech” wherever it choses because it is NOT the government, but it is notable that there are hate reddits that appear to dox other public figures and comments plotting against children that Reddit seemingly does not take action on.

So the real issue here is not that some people called for violence, but that Reddit took action to silence hundreds of commenters who did not call for violence after the head of a government agency contacted their CEO to complain about people who were upset about him breaking into systems and stealing their private information.

[...] Musk also put on that big show of the “Twitter Files,” which got me and a few other journalists written about (shamed?) for calling out those who carried out stenography for a billionaire. One of the false narratives of the Twitter Files was that the government had “illegally coerced Twitter into censoring a 2020 New York Post article about Hunter Biden.” [...] Whatever his reasons, though, the bottom line is this is the Trump administration’s attacks on free speech. They do not respect the fundamental freedom of free speech. They do not respect what makes America great. They want to silence everyone who disagrees with them because they seek the ultimate, unlimited and unchecked power.

Petulant manchild co-President Elon Musk forced Reddit to censor comments critical of Musk and DOGE in the r/WhitePeopleTwitter subreddit. This shows that freedom of speech is eroding in America.