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miraculouslbcnreactions · 2 months

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Gotta admit to some confusion with the “Max is a sexist” takes? If it’s rooted in how he assumed Marinette didn’t know how to play the game, I could see a bit of merit even if there could be other reasons, especially since it happens in line with Kim’s more expressly sexist attitude of surprise. But when he loses, he congratulates her, and his upset while clear is framed as being completely due to losing his spot in the competition.

Ignoring how his anger was a part of his own private thoughts which HM exploits, Max as an Akuma targeting Marinette instead of Adrien always seemed to me to be due to the fact that she is the one who replaced him. Yes, they both beat him, but Adrien winning didn’t lead to Max losing his spot, Marinette winning did.

Also, the lesson of the day seems squarely centered around how Max deserves to play because he’s the one who really wanted the opportunity, which is why Alya as the writer’s mouthpiece scolds her beforehand about taking it seriously and cinched when Marinette explains why she’s surrendering her position. And while I’m not arguing the episode itself as whole doesn’t contain sexist elements, I feel the writers attempt to avoid that reading by having Adrien surrender his position to Marinette because she is the better player.

For Max, is there perhaps further context than Gamer that I’m just missing? Because I don’t nearly see the same amount of “Kim is a sexist” takes, and unfortunately Max being Black does put him at risk of being held to higher standards than other non-Black characters.

I will do my best to walk through the episode and explain why it makes Max read as sexist to a lot of people. (Or, at least, this is why I think people reach this conclusion. It's why I reach it.)

It's true that Max's reaction to Marinette wanting to play is potentially a little sexist because he assumes that she doesn't know how to play:

Max: The rules are elementary, You battle each other's robots with your own and... Marinette: Please... Every time you win, you loot its items and gain XP, which upgrades your mech. I'm not a noob, thank you very much. Max: Ah, sounds like you have a sufficient amount of knowledge. Let's see if it's enough to beat me.

It's hard to be sure, though, because we don't know if he tried to explain the rules to everyone. I still think it's fair to read it as sexist because it's paired with other characters acting like Marinette can't play, but I also don't think this is a big enough issue to call Max the clear problem of this episode. If he is being sexist, then he's far from the worst one in that scene and his initial reaction to loosing is excellent and without a hint of sexism!

Max: I accept this defeat. I relinquish my position at the tournament. Congratulations, Marinette. And Adrien.

It's also not even remotely sexist that he's upset by his loss and goes on to rant about it as soon as he's alone:

Max: I should've been going to that tournament. I was the chosen one! I worked so hard for it! This is Inconceivable!

While it's not sexist, I would argue that this reaction is something that he needs to work on. If Max wants to be in competitions, then he has to own the fact that he may lose them. This is an issue that we'll get to in a minute. First let's talk about what happens while Max is an akuma.

Even though Adrien and Marinette are together when Gamer attacks, Gamer is only out to get Marinette. He is obsessed with the idea that Marinette should have lost and doesn't care about the Adrien loss.

(Suddenly, the Gamer's robot appears. Marinette and Adrien notice it.) Marinette: Tell me this isn't some kind of publicity stunt for the tournament! Gamer: Well, well. Marinette, let's see who's victorious this time. Adrien: Doesn't look like a publicity stunt to me.

Gamer: Game over, Marinette! Marinette: How does he know my name? Max! (the Gamer's robot fires lasers at her) I guess he really did want that spot in the tournament!

While this makes sense since Marinette is technically the one who cost Max his spot, it doesn't change the fact that this obsession and the earlier framing of Marinette's win make the focus of the episode Max's reaction to Marinette winning. That means that the episode's ultimate lesson will be about the validity of Marinette's win.

This is where Max's part in the sexism really kicks in. Not in the pre-akuma stuff, but the post-akuma stuff. That's where this image comes from:

[Image description: Max and Marinette standing outside of the tournament arena. Max has a sad expression and is refusing to look at Marinette who is awkwardly standing behind him]

As you can see from this image, we don't see post-akuma Max apologizing to Marinette for blaming her when she didn't do anything wrong. Nor do we see post-akuma Max just generally owning his loss, promising to work on taking losses better in the future, and saying something like, "I'll just have to do better next year." Instead, we get post-akuma Max pouting and refusing to even look at Marinette.

This is hardly the behavior of a good loser and yet the story completely validates it. We go from Max pouting to this:

Alya: You bent over backwards to be in the team and now you wanna pull out? Marinette: It's just that I feel so bad for Max. And well, it just wouldn't be right. Alya:(stops her) You're doing the right thing. But honestly, it's not like you get the chance to play with Adrien everyday... Marinette: ...Max? I've thought about this a lot, and... Well, I think you should be playing tonight, Max. Max: What? Marinette: Don't get me wrong! I love gaming, but it's not my heart and soul. This is your baby. It's your tournament, Max. I don't wanna take that away from you.

The appropriate reaction to Marinette's offer is for Max to say, "No Marinette, I'm sorry, I'm behaving terribly. The school is supposed to be represented by the most skilled players. That's you and Adrien, not me. I lost fair and square. I'll work on my skills and get a spot next year." This is how you show character growth and emphasize that Max has moved on from viewing himself as the "chosen one" while unfairly blaming Marinette. Instead we get this:

Max: I don't know how to thank you.

While Max certainly isn't saying anything awful like, "damn right I should be playing you stupid girl," this ending still validates his anger towards Marinette and implies that his behavior was perfectly fine. That it wasn't wrong for him to ignore her until she gave him back "his" spot. That's the sexist element. We should not have seen Max rewarded for treating Marinette poorly and making her feel guilty for daring to win a videogame.

It's important to note that this all happens on the day of the tournament, meaning that it's been days since Max lost and yet he's still mad at Marinette. That's not a great look. At the very least, he should be equally angry at Marinette and Adrien by now. Instead, his anger is still shown to be focused on Marinette as if she is the one and only source of his problems when, in actuality, it was his double loss that cost him his spot. Marinette only knocked him out of the running because Adrien won first. If the order was reversed, then would it be valid for Max to be angry at Adrien? According to the show, I think that the answer is "no." At the very least, I don't see how you can argue that it's clearly "yes" based on what we were given. Adrien's win is treated neutrally by everyone and Adrien letting Marinette play is treated as him being kind while Marinette letting Max play is treated as her righting a wrong.

As others have pointed out, when it comes to Max getting akumatized, what difference does it make if Max loses to Marinette in the preliminaries or to someone else in the main tournament? Do you really think that he'd be fine losing at any point in this competition when he thinks that he's the "chosen one"? At what point is it not cool to hold onto the anger of losing in spite of all your hard work? And why does Marinette's motivation matter when it comes to Max's feelings? He had no idea that she was only playing because she wanted to be Adrien's teammate. All he knows is that she beat him fairly and that she now feels bad about that for some reason.

It's really important for kids to learn that hard work doesn't always lead to a win, but this episode doesn't teach that. Instead it says that it's totally fine for Max to feel wronged and that you should only compete in tournaments if you want to win for the "right" reasons, whatever those are. If you're going to go this route, then at least give Max a noble cause to contrast Marinette's selfish one. As is, he's just as selfish. It's not like he wanted the prize money to save his family from poverty! As far as we know, there is no prize money! He just wanted bragging rights.

What's even more bizarre is that Adrien gives us the lines that Max should have given:

Adrien: Go on, Marinette. You're a hundred times better than me. You belong on the team. Win the tournament for the school. I know you can do it.

What even is this mess? The episode didn't establish that Marinette was better than Adrien! We did get this exchange:

Adrien: Wow! We won again, thanks to you! Marinette: Yeah, um, yes we did. Adrien: We? That was practically all you. You're amazing, Marinette. I guess you wouldn't even need me. I'm so lame compared to you... Marinette: Um, no no no, I... No, you're so good. I mean, I'm the one who's not good. I mean... I'm lucky, that's all.

Leading to Marinette giving Adrien her lucky charm, but this isn't Adrien losing to Marinette. It's just Adrien being impressed by her skills when their team won a match. We never once see Marinette beat Adrien.

There's also the fact that the rest of the episode is focused on Ladybug and Chat Noir gaming together against Gamer, proving that they're the dream team, not Marinette and Max. The logical ending of this plot is for Marinette and Adrien to do the same thing on the civilian side because they're the dream team no matter which side of the masks they're on. Instead we validate Max's anger towards Marinette and tell the little girls at home that it's wrong to show off to boys. How feminist?

It would have played so much better if Max initially took Marinett's spot, but changed his mind after Adrien's line since Adrien's logic isn't unique to Marinette. It applies to Adrien as well and logical Max should have seen that. Why is it right for Adrien to give his spot to the better player while it's fine for Max to take a spot from those who beat him? Shouldn't the best players be the ones to represent the school? Especially when those players have actually been practicing together while Max hasn't done any co-op training? The lesson here makes no sense at all!

It's definitely true that Max isn't the only one who comes across poorly in this episode. Kim, Alya, and Rose's reactions to Marinette's initial win all also play into the "A girl? Playing video games? No way!" issue. Alya and Tikki play into the, "Marinette was in the wrong to ever play because we must be good and virtuous in our motivations and not do things to impress boys" issue. Both of these elements exacerbate how Max comes across by setting a sexist tone to the episode, but that doesn't change the fact that Max completely failed to learn a very valuable lesson, unintentionally making him look like a bit of a sexist loser even without the sexist leadin.

Max's sexism is also heavily exacerbated by some real world issues that are going to impact the way that people view this episode, so let's skim the surface of those rabbit holes because I think we have to acknowledge them to really understand why this episode bothers people.

I'm going to give you some studies here to back up what I'm saying because, when it comes to these sorts of claims, I want to give you something you can evaluate for yourself. I don't want to just talk about known issues as if they're hard facts without any proof and I prefer studies to opinion pieces or articles that mention studies without the details for you to evaluate. However, I will note that I'm limited in what studies I can access because many research papers are stupidly price locked and my public library's research database is pretty limited, so I'm stuck between that and what I can find for free online.

Feel free to reblog this or to send me an ask with suggestions of better studies or books on these topics or even on the topic of the way that black people and characters are held to higher standards because that's certainly a very real issue that's important to keep in mind! We all have unconsious biases from things like the media we watch and the only way to become aware of these biases/learn to look for them is for someone to point them out and for us to do some learning. Like I'm trained to look for sexism by my experiences, but picking up on subtle racism is much harder since I don't have a lifetime of experience to pull from. There are lots of great resources out there, the trick is finding them and maybe even accessing them as I certainly found when I was looking for studies. I'm far from an expert on gender or racial studies. My hobby research field is history.

Issue One: Female Socialization and Those Precious Male Feelings

It is a documented phenomenon that women are socialized to be nurturers. They're taught to prioritize the feelings of others - especially men - over their own wants, needs, and successes. One study on this topic focused on how success effects intimate relationships and noted that:

We find that climbing the societal ladder has positive associations with women’s well-being and relationship outcomes... however, these associations reversed for women who surpassed their partners in social status. ...Among women with higher status than their partner, traditional women intend to adjust their behavior to fit the gender norm (e.g., thinking about reducing work hours in favor of their time at home), whereas egalitarian women did not, but felt guilty toward their partner.

In other words, this study found that women have happier relationships when they don't do as well as their male partners. When they do surpass their male partners, they either try to compensate for that success or tend to feel guilty for failing to compensate.

While this study was about romantic relationships, I don't think that it's a stretch to apply it to platonic relationships, too, especially since we're talking about the messages a TV show is sending to young girls. That's where Gamer comes in. What does that episode have Marinette do when she surpasses her male friend Max? She feels guilty and compensates for daring to be better than him, reinforcing a pretty ugly gendered stereotype.

This type of thing goes beyond interpersonal relationships. It's a well-known issue that women are looked down on when they act too "masculine" in the workforce:

Numerous studies have highlighted that female leaders are evaluated less favorably than their male counterparts when engaging in identical behaviors. For example, using a job-hiring paradigm, past research demonstrated that female candidates who violated the modesty prescription by self-promoting during an interview were evaluated as less likeable and less hireable than self-promoting male candidates.

Gamer was not an instance of Marinette doing something questionable to get close to Adrien. It was her taking her hard-won skills and using them to show off to her crush so that they could get closer, a thing that Adrien was clearly 100% okay with.

This episode should not have been an instance of Marinette being show to be in the wrong. A show that aims to empower little girls should never include an episode where a girl is chastised for daring to self-promote, but that's exactly what Gamer does. It says that Marinette was wrong to put her wants over Max's feelings. What kind of girl power show sends this sort of message? How do you take a woman fairly beating a man and make it a bad thing?

If anything, the message of this episode should have been focused on Marinette being told to NOT feel guilty. After all, that's the far more likely issue for young girls to face. They will have lots of people reminding them to treat others kindly. The message could have also been about winning gracefully and been fine, imo.

Issue Two: Gender Discrimination in Male-Dominated Hobbies

It's a well documented fact that female gamers have long been treated as outsiders by the gaming community as this study discusses:

The researchers played against 1,660 unique gamers and broadcasted pre-recorded audio clips of either a man or a woman speaking... Findings indicate that, on average, the female voice received three times as many negative comments as the male voice or no voice.

Since most of that study is behind a paywall and I don't know if you can access it, I'll also give this openly available study that looked a subset of the recordings from the initial study as it gives you some fine details of what they saw. I think that this second study is a little weird in terms of what it's trying to argue, but the hard data and the research methodology seem fine and that's what I want to focus on here:

We show that lower-skilled players were more hostile towards a female-voiced teammate, especially when performing poorly. In contrast, lower-skilled players behaved submissively towards a male-voiced player in the identical scenario. This difference in gender-directed behavior became more extreme with poorer focal-player performance... Higher-skilled players, in contrast, were more positive towards a female relative to a male teammate.

There's also this study which was free through my public library, so hopefully you can find a way to access it, too, if you want to read the whole thing. For the purposes of this post, I'm just going to highlight some of the statistics and cases that it talks about during its introduction:

Recent studies have suggested that sexual harassments in online games are committed mostly by male gamers against female gamers. For example, in South Korea, one of the countries with the largest per capita gaming populations, players who play the female character Mercy in Overwatch are commonly called by an online slang, Bo-Rcy, which literally means ‘Mercy played by female genitals’ and connotes that women are incapable [of playing] the game. Also, a female professional gamer has been falsely accused of using an illegitimate tool simply because her win rate was too high for a woman.

33% of female gamers experienced gender discrimination, and 57% experienced severe sexual harassment after disclosing their genders. Furthermore, 64% of female World of Warcraft players answered that they experienced various in-game sexism such as exclusion (i.e. removing women from the game-play) or gendered flaming (i.e. using derogatory language specifically against female gamers) Also, a report documented that women are exposed to worse forms of online harassment (e.g. stalking, physical threats, etc.) and that about 44% of Internet users, regardless of their sex, agreed that online gaming is ‘more welcoming toward men’. Overall, it can be concluded that ‘video game culture is actively hostile towards women in the private as well as the professional spheres’

In other words, by having Max only ever blame Marinette for his loss, Gamer has Max acting like a tame version your typical woman-hating gamer who can't handle the fact that they've lost to a girl. This is something that I've seen myself and is part of the reason that I lost interest in online gaming. I even know one girl who had to change her in-game name because it openly acknowledged her gender and got her a ton of harassment. Of course, the guys that we played with blamed her for choosing such a harassment-inviting name because heaven forbid that a woman openly play videogames!

Conclusion

Sexism or no sexism, Gamer undeniably validates Max behaving poorly. The perception of that poor behavior is simply exacerbated by existing gender issues. These real-world problems are why people look so negatively on Max's actions. While his behavior is far from the worst gamer rage that I've ever seen, it does represent a classic, sexist issue in gaming.

If it weren't for all of the complexity around the real-world treatment of talented women in male-dominated spaces or the issue of women being taught to prioritize the feelings of others, then this episode would just be one of those episodes with a nonsense moral. For example, it would still be bad if Adrien was in Marinette's spot, it would just no longer be sexist.

However, we don't live in a world without those issues, so this episodes comes across as hella sexist and Max is the main victim because he's representing some major gendered issues that woman have to deal with. I can name so many real world moments that this episode reminded me of and none of them are happy memories. Every single one of them involves someone telling me to put a man's feelings over my own desire or comfort. This is not the kind of messaging I want to see in shows aimed at young girls.

All that being said, I don't think that Max was supposed to be read as sexist. The writers just did him dirty and made him look terrible when he could have been a wonderful lesson on taking a loss with grace and treating female gamers with respect. After all, as we've already acknowledged, Max did start out handling his loss reasonably well. The rest of the episode just completely undoes that initial good reaction, making it so that a lot of viewers will only remember Max being a pouting sore loser who gets rewarded with the thing that he wanted while Marinette feels guilty and gets lambasted by others for daring to want a spot on the team. I am not surprised that the credited writers for this one are a pair of dudes. I sincerely hope (and assume) that this was them being oblivious to a gendered issue and not anything more malicious.

#thecapturedafrique #gamer salt #ml writing salt #ml writing critical #Max deserves better #I spent literal hours looking through studies for this but I only brushed the surface of what's available #Feel free to suggest better ones!#This isn't a field of research I'm super into and I don't have access to larger research libraries #So this was just my best low-grade effort #As I didn't feel like doing days of research when I was already frustrated by so many paywalled sources that seemed perfect #ml's wacky morals

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tothefiniteyou · 4 months

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Something that's been in my head a while concerning the brothers and their "roles", so to speak. This is meant to be about the original Mirage comics, but applies to 2003 and IDW as well. Potentially 2012, maybe more. I don't remember the exact issues, but this WILL contain spoilers for IDW and the original comics.

Raph is the one that takes on the responsibilities no one else does/wants to. He very often has to play the part of the bad guy because his convictions are more rebellious in comparison to what Splinter teaches them, core beliefs and rules that Leo in particular takes to heart. Raph keeps his family in line through his anger, for better and worse, being the one of tough love. In volume 1 of Mirage when they retreated from New York after Leo was almost killed, he calls his brother a coward for not "finishing the job" and goes off to face the Shredder alone. He almost got killed because of his impulsiveness, yes, but Leo's always been about saving his family. So really, he had the courage to face Shredder again because it was for someone else's sake. Their whole fight was kind of gruesome and full of harsh words, but at the end of it all, Leo thanks Raph for it. It's very interesting to me. It shows that Leo, even if he was originally mad, understands that his brother was only doing it because he was scared of his family being hurt again. He sees that it was for his own good, so he expresses gratitude.

Alongside that, I've said before that it's not that Raph wants to be the leader because of the title itself, but rather that he wants freedom, and for others to listen to him. He resents Leo for holding him back, not fully understanding his brother's reasoning. He focuses more on action and less on the consequences of said actions and choices.

In essence, Raph is often the one that has to do the dirty work. His parentification in Rise is even similar to this, having to parent his brothers and be the one to tell them "no", even when it isn't his responsibility. But if no one else is going to do it, then he has to be the bad guy, even if his brothers resent him for it. At his core, he always has his family in mind, even if the execution is flawed.

Raph being thought of as the shield has always felt right to me, as shields can still be used to hurt.

On to Leo - Leo is a very existential person, and that also makes him the most spiritual. Kind of a yin and yang ordeal, with him seeing how there's a balance to things. (I would also say that he needs to assign a purpose to everything, if only to rationalize bad things. It's sort of why he has a bit of a crisis in several iterations when Splinter isn't there to guide him). He's the most "warrior-like" because of the way he values life and honors things like bushido. He'll kill to protect, but that doesn't make him callous, just "strong" (putting this in quotes for multiple reasons). I think IDW tackled this quite lovely, especially when he goes on to have a greenhouse just full of life.

However, I can't say all of this without mentioning the fact that Splinter's teachings are often flawed. I've said before that a lot of Leo's major "arcs" and "growing up" is about becoming his own person and leader, and that's still very much true. Blind Sight is my favorite story to have come from the original comics, and I think it really puts into perspective how Leo struggles to see himself as anything but a weapon. It's that bad habit of his where he must assign purpose to everything, struggling when proven wrong or having to recontextualize things. There's so much more I want to say about him and his role, but a lot of it would be reiterating my points from this post. I struggle to call Leo the sword of the team considering his words to Mikey about how, if he were to throw his katana off the roof, would that be the same as throwing himself. But in Blind Sight, he does learn that he's more than just some sword for his father to wield, and that a sword not only hurts, but protects.

People infantilize Mikey wayyyy too much in this fandom for just being the youngest, which makes me have to pick and choose my words very carefully for fear of the wrong impression. He's definitely the goofball that tends to not take things as seriously, but I think something that The Last Ronin meant to emphasize is that his "raw talent" is from a place of love. It's not that he's not the best of them all just because he lacks focus, it's that he's never seen a reason for him to have to be a warrior like that. Surrounded by his brothers, he doesn't have to try so hard. He'll watch their backs and they'll watch his. He's got the same warrior's spirit as the others, it's just that he rejects some of those teachings in his own way? Raph is often seen as the contrast to Leo, and that's typically true, but I think Mikey can be as well... In a way, Mikey has the most ties to humanity, and that's why I think he's similar to Leo in some ways. Not to say the brothers don't have humanity, but... It's so hard to word what I mean, bear with me.

Being a better warrior kind of means losing his fun-loving and go with the flow nature. He would be less like Mikey. Not to say that being good at fighting exactly equates to being deadly, but that's always a possibility, you know? IDW Mikey is such a good balance and blend of his little shit characterization and his more empathetic side. When he's the first to leave and reject Splinter's ways in IDW, this shows what I mean with him being more strong than Leo's way of being considered strong. He might not be "the best", and he might not tap into his raw talent that several characters mention, but I don't think that's what he necessarily wants. Splinter's idea of strong isn't necessarily the best.... Hopefully this section makes sense and my point gets across that Mikey is both the heart and armor of the team.

And as for Donnie... Oh boy! He has to use a gun in the original comics and actually be the one to kill (since only Raph and Leo really did that from what I can remember), and it shakes him up SO BADLY... And volume 1 just ends with him not choosing to go back to the sewers with his brothers, but to stay on the farm with Splinter for a bit. This is quite a finishing scene after ending a whole war within the city...

Donnie doesn't love his brothers any less, it just goes to show that he's never wanted to be the one to have to kill, and maybe wasn't prepared for it. While Mikey is definitely a pacifist, you can argue that Donnie is more of one. Him wielding the bo even supports this idea, as it can still be deadly, but not as lethal as his brothers' weapons. He's a very soft-hearted person that prefers to invent and give life to machines.

I hate when people think he's any less skilled in fighting than his brothers, because that's wrong! He just doesn't like violence and, dare I say it, I don't think he ever wanted to be a warrior in the same way. His intellect is a mightier and more useful weapon to him, because he can use it to keep others safe and make machines that can do all sorts of things. He'll fight to protect, same as the others, but disarming is more of his goal in the end. This makes Donnie, at least to me, both the brains and armor for the group. He's more than that, but... something something, things falling apart when Donnie is missing in SAINW.

At the end of it all, something you have to remember about all of them is that, even when they grow older, they started out as nothing more than child soldiers cultivated for the sake of revenge. Killing was always in the books, but they all have a different role on the team, and killing wasn't meant to be Donnie's. He helps with plan-making and would probably rather be support than a tank, if that makes sense.

They're heroes but but but. They're just kids, too...........Gripping my head

#tmnt #tmnt 1984 #tmnt mirage #tmnt idw #tmnt 2003 #tmnt 2012 #all of them #leo may be my favorite but i don't play about any of them #their core characteristics are so important to me #character analysis #rottmnt #since i mention it a few times #i didn't add this in mostly because i wasn't sure how to word it but #there was that really good thread on here about rise leo and his relationship with death and i think it heightens my point #i think i could've mentioned how this affects things in the 2007 movie but #well #anyways #i have many thoughts about these guys all the time anytime

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talonabraxas · 3 months

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"Become the energy you want to attract."

We all know the law of Attraction but the dissection of thought is less known. Everything in existence is vibration and the visual reflection of vibration is geometry. Each pattern of thought has its own vibrational frequency and can contain over a paragraph of information. Masculine energy uses angles while feminine energy uses curves. This is the difference between the Sri Yantra or Metatron's cube and the Seed of Life patterns, but thought patterns can contain both.

There are four additional types of frequency in this respect. High and low can refer to violet and red because spiritual thoughts resonate higher than carnal thoughts. The other two can be called attuned and discordant. Though each chakra is on a different frequency than the others, if the root is in tune but all the others are discordant, it will be more powerful than the others. This is why love overwhelms fear. Anyone holding discord will typically have poor health.

Neuroplasticity gives us the ability to have memory and we can use it to reconstruct how our brains work. The spiritual science of this is called alchemy. Anthropomorphic thought patterns are represented in mythology, especially by the Greeks and gnostics. The Roman names are typically used in correlation with the planets which leads to astrotheology. Alchemical artists place certain symbols in specific places to convey how these thought patterns should interact to bring about a certain end result. Once enough work has been experienced, it will become much easier to help others along their journey.

The universe doesn't naturally operate in a negative sense. If we say we don't want something, we will only attract that something we are thinking about. If you don't want debt, you're giving energy to the topic of debt. Instead, the positive aspect would be to want prosperity. This is a shift in perspective necessary to be more attuned. It does not require that we just ignore our true feelings but, rather, transmute them. To agree with all our feelings, attach to our initial perspective of a situation and embody the ego's reaction would make us a product of our environment.

All humans originate from the same Source, so we are all connected. The collective ego of all humans is sentient which is why evil is intelligent. Gnostics call this entity Yaldabaoth. It plays humans like pawns, causes problems, escalates conflicts, exploits our weaknesses, etc. It is discord itself. For each of the chakras, and because Yaldabaoth is androgynous, it reproduced within itself 7 androgynous children called archons; his sons are envy, wrath, tears, sighs, grief, lament and tearful groans. His daughters are anger, pain, lust, sighs, curses, bitterness and strife, and they reproduce to form other, more complex thoughts based on the evolution of any scenario. These metaphysical parasites feed on negative energy we produce and the parasitic feeling is addictive. It is the proverbial 'slippery slope', like quicksand.

In severe cases, where the victim has been entirely enslaved, it is like meeting Yaldabaoth in human form. Many humans act as avatars for different demons. They are suggested thoughts they think are their own and, because of programming and lack of self-awareness, they act on behalf of whatever influence has exploited their greatest weakness. This is the essence of spiritual warfare and the reason why our struggle isn't against flesh and blood. If we use discordant energy to retaliate against other humans, we accomplish nothing but embody that which we say we are against, on which the archons feed.

Attuned and discordant can also be referred to as soul and ego, heaven and hell, awakened and ignorant, forward and backward, etc. Society's discord is an effect of individual discord. An utopia, where nobody is discordant, is the end goal of the teachings in the Bible. Following the procession of the equinox, in accordance with the Revelation, this will happen around the Age of Capricorn. The highest state of consciousness, Nous, is where we have a direct connection with Mind. The faculty which allows us to have noetic thought is called Christ or the Logos. The return of Christ is on an individual level and, eventually, will be like a metaphysical EMP which floods the earth eradicating discordant energy.

We are all capable of being psychic. Differing thought patterns emit their respective energy into the atmosphere and we can read it, but a distinction must be made. An aura shows the core state over a period of time, so reading auras is different than reading thoughts. It becomes easiest after analyzing the energy of each thought we have without bias. Becoming familiar with the energy of our thoughts helps us recognize the energy signature someone is giving off. The tool which allows us to perceive the metaphysical side of reality is called the third eye.

There is an argument about whether the third eye is good or bad. This is because a hammer can be used to build or destroy. It is part of our anatomy so it depends on the user, through Lucifer or through Christ, with discord or with atonement, through Phosphorus or through the Pentagrammaton. In English gematria, Lucifer and Jesus both equal 74. This is not because they are the same; it is because they are two sides of the same coin. It's all about perspective and through which side the third eye is used. For a physical analogy, try looking through the peephole of your front door from both sides. The difference in perception is between internal and external awareness.

"We can not do injustice to another or harbor thoughts of revenge without building into ourselves the nucleus of the very condition thought about. The plot, the very wish that injury may befall someone, builds cells of a similar quality within ourselves which, because of their discordant composition, because given a feeling of malice, not only work from the four-dimensional plane to bring about the injury contemplated but, due to their essential vicious nature, also work to attract misfortune to ourselves.

Both the ductless glands of the physical body and the thought-cells of the four-dimensional body take orders as they come. It is not within their ability to reason and make decisions; only to obey. If, therefore, the thoughts are evil, or the emotions run wild, they act as thus directed, unaware that destruction follows to their master."

-C.C. Zain

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king-midas-fortnite · 3 months

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Hello. I assume there is little need for introduction, but I am Midas. I've recently returned from a brief..."sabbatical", shall we call it, in the Underworld.

My daughter, Jules thought it would be a good idea to keep a blog. Not sure why. Something about venting feelings, connecting with other people not in my crew, etc. Not exactly things I find very high priority, but I suppose it can't kill me. I'd know better than anyone what can, after all. And perhaps it'll make keeping tabs on people of interest easier...

Feel free to reach out, if you wish. Message me, tag me, whatever the case may be. I'll do my best to be active here. Whatever it takes to make my daughter happy. However, I am a busy man. Apologies if I miss anything.

((Keep reading for rules and notes!))

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Rules and guidelines for interacting!

1. This blog is run by an adult. I am 26, my main is @snippydippy. Please keep this in mind when interacting with me. I ask that minors please consider a different Midas.

I will use (()) to indicate when I'm speaking out of character in any posts!

2. I don't mind NSFW content myself, but may not answer questions or reblog content pertaining to sexually explicit topics to keep things relatively appropriate.

3. This blog may contain ship content, it may not. I have ships I like, they may not be the ones you do. While my version of Midas is cis, he's not straight (bi king). If this bothers you, I don't know what to tell you.

4. My DMs and asks will always be open! Please don't be shy, Midas won't bite. I'm down to RP in the reblogs with anyone! However, DM roleplays for other adults only, please.

5. This blog will always be skewed towards a more serious vibe. I take my characterization of Midas very seriously (more so than I probably should for a FN character lol). You won't find much in the way of him being a silly guy. Even if I find it funny, if I don't think a situation would be in character for my version of him, it won't happen.

That's it as far as my rules go aside from the obvious "don't be a dick" sentiments that I feel I shouldn't have to say. Thank you for reading them! Next are just a couple notes on my headcanons for Midas.

-Midas has some control over his Golden Touch. I think of the curse in a way that is similar to chronic pains. Some days, it is manageable, and he can touch whatever he'd like without issue. Some days, it is bad. He has to avoid people, can't eat, and struggles getting through mundane tasks without frustration.

I believe his curse may also be in part tied to his emotions. Any intense anger, sadness, or other strong feelings will make it harder to control the Touch, and it does cause him some amount of pain when it's out of control. (Doing mental gymnastics to explain why Fortnite itself isn't consistent with his power.)

-Jules means everything to Midas. He will do absolutely anything in his power to keep his daughter safe and to keep his relationship with her in good standing. He's wronged her in the past, and is doing all he can to make up for those actions and lost time.

-His time in the underworld changed him a bit. He's less cold to the people close to him. He allows more feeling than pure calculation into his thought processes, but a stranger may not be able to tell. Midas is a relatively closed off man. He does not wear his emotions on his sleeve, and doesn't often make friends without some kind of benefit to be had from the relationship. Be it power or connections. However, the friendships he does have mean a great deal to him. He is quick to provide aid in any way he can to those he cares about.

Another thing about his imprisonment in Hell: Time in the underworld was experienced differently. While we may have waited four years for Midas to return, for him it was much, much longer. Now that he is back, he is determined to never be put in chains ever again.

-My version of him obviously has not left the island after returning from the underworld, instead opting to stay as his curiosity for how things have changed has gotten the better of him. He wants to keep up with the power struggles, and find a way to insert himself back into them.

This blog is semi-independent! Some lore is shared with @perseus-ihatemydad-fortnite in that he helped Midas escape from the Underworld. As well as most often being seen interacting with @kado-fortnite and @valeria-fortnite

Tags I'll use!

#Midas Answers -For asks answered in character

#Midas Posts -For interactions in character

#Gold Reserves -In-character reblogs of art, aesthetic posts, etc.

#Gold Encounter -For interactions between other characters that are meant to be read as happening in-person/privately

#Journal Entries - For uh. For Journal Entries lol. These are, in a meta sense, private to him. They are for interactions that happen on the Discord server rather than Tumblr for reader convenience.

- 👑 for anon messages

#Shut your trap snippy -For posts like these that include me talking OOC (I know, long tag. It's just what I've been using on my main blog for years to tag my own garbage lol)

Screenshot in this post and my header are from @corvidazed 💛

Thank you for getting all the way down here! I hope our interactions are fun!

#fortnite rp #shut your trap snippy #midas #midas fortnite #roleplay #i havent had an rp account in a while #i am excited to start this one

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reincarnatedintospace · 11 months

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my current wriothesley observations so far...

*contains spoilers for 4.1 archon quests and wriothesley's story quest.* i am really enjoying wriothesley so much, so here's some observations i've made so far about him. i'll add/edit as i unlock more of his voice lines and story... everything said below is said with love. just because he's an awesome character doesn't mean he also doesn't have flaws and isn't still human.

this man read the 4-hour work week and said bet. he grinded his way to the top, created and documented several robust processes that would run on it's own and then kicked his feet up and watched the mora roll in. he literally gamed the system. (use the prisoners for free manpower and reap the benefits. sounds a little familar.)

he was an angry ass young man. all the shit he'd seen and been put through and (i assume) no one came to his and his siblings aid. so he took matters into his own hands because he didn't believe anyone else would do anything. he's worked hard since becoming Duke to temper that anger. it still comes out when something really gets to him, which is very evident on his character trailer and his end scene in his story quest.

this asshole literally drops people out the airlock into the literal ocean for getting on his bad side '...most people know better than to raise a real stink, while as for those who don’t… there are places where they can go. Just as flowing water can cleanse itself, so can a functioning society get rid of its rot.' - Character Story 2. those bodies are gonna show up Dexter style one day, my man.

he's not lazy, he's efficient, and values his own time.

he likes to play. this idiot enjoys being strategic and gets a kick out of outsmarting people. he's out there roaming around meropide observing everything he can so if anything comes up he's already got a 10-step plan in place to manourve everyone to his liking

he'd be very good at chess (what else is there to do in a prison but play board games? and workout)

wriothesley priotirizes consent and trust. "I am honoured to win your trust."

in saying that, it also feels like he still has some insecurities and doubts, feeling the need to be worthy of someone's trust and earn it in a way that seems like he needs to do something of value to be trusted and valued in return.

his tea obsession is funny. i know this is a game and it isn't all that deep. (i'll make it deep gdi) but it feels like there's something there, a story behind that. either a direct opposition to something he hated as a child, or a need to keep people around him. or something else.

he took up boxing to protect himself and others. no longer was he going to let anyone hurt him again. ever.

he's manipulative, in a 'i'm going to protect you because i know what's up and i enjoy the reactions when i reveal the truth/plot i'm only privy to'

i have so many thoughts so i might part 2 this.

#wriothesley #wriothesley spoilers #4.1 spoilers

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ladyiristheenchantress · 6 months

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Working with Fire

Welcome to the Second part of my elemental series! Today we will explore some aspects of working with fire like offerings, devotional activities, common lessons, aspects, and more! With all that said lets get started!

To preface: I am a devotee to water itself, I am a west witch practioner which means I work within the domain of water, the past, divination, and psyche! I also am a general elemental practioner and have experience working with all of the elements and their aspects!

What is working with fire like?

The verified gnosis will vary from culture to culture but some things remain consistent! Fire has aspects of destruction, control, warmth, light, and more! Whether its torches being used in studies to learn, the sun being honored as a ball of fire, or the destruction of a warring city being burnt down, fire is both volatile and chaotic but it also is controlled and helpful. Fire doesn't have a gender (Neither do any of the elements) so venerating the divine energy itself is a complicated and beautiful concept.

In general, Fire is considered primordial in its raging and free form, however it has modern connotations because of how it has interacted with mankind! Its more peaceful and loving traits stem directly from people. Some of the aspects include bonfire, forest fires, magma, lava, and torch! All of which have been venerated to some degree

Some of the lessons you learn will depend on how you interact with fire itself. Even in forest fires and after destruction there is this idea of rebirth and coming back together from the helpful ashes. The phoenix is a wonderful example of this, a bright bird rising from the ashes! Fire touches on anger issues, and in a torch form, control. Fire teaches us how to control and regulate our actions to create a really helpful and roaring spirit much like what we can learn from a bonfire!

Some things to note is fires personality is not set in stone, it can be loving and nurturing, manipulative and warring, and every emotion in between. The elements are not omnipotent nor omnipresent because they physically exist, so you may have better luck lighting a fire or keeping a dagger on the altar to represent the flame! Don't be surprised if you are called to fire if you have problems with anger, manipulation, or really deep rooted shadow traits. In a working relationship you may be called to cook with fire, enjoy bonfires, do spells using candles and knives, taking note of controlled bunings, and being pushed into new things. Note that to the elements we are animals like any bear, bird, or lion! Fire tends to be more direct than other elements.

UPG: In my experience, fire is really sporadic, I was doing a spell and all of a sudden my bedroom floor was on fire because the energy took control. Fire is very direct and my clairs have a really easy time hearing it talk to me in day to day life. Fire has a couple flaws when it comes to anger and manipulation often being considered a trickster spirit that messes with practioners to prove a point!

Another thing to note is fire does not have a direct birth connotation, instead a rebirth connotation! Fire itself cannot create life until after it has died via ash. Because of this rebirth connotation it can be really helpful when it comes to earthly transcendence or working with your witches eye!

What are common offerings?

Most people place an altar to fire in a bedroom, kitchen, or the hearth of the home! bedrooms can be warm and intimate spaces, kitchens often delve into heat and sometimes fire, but the hearth historically contained the fire in the home because it helped keep people warm! Fire can enjoy hand picked items however it especially likes a space to just be! Think candles, plenty of warmth, etc!

There is not a heavy emphasis on action, but rather feeding fire itself within spell works and offerings! Things like sacrificing herbs into flame, cooking and letting some of the food char if it falls out of the pan, and even setting up bonfires and gatherings outside!

Make sure that you are focusing on all aspects of fire safety!!! You need a fire safe altar (ceramic bottoms, fire repellant cloth, etc) and you dont do something like leaving a flame on, and unattendant, and more! For information of fire safety check out the resources below Fire safety 101 (smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, etc) Candle safety 101 Spiritual Fire safety 101

Some common practices include hosting bonfires, cleaning up and visiting controlled burn sites, lighting pinecones and using cool ash as a growth material, lighting candles and fire scrying in the dark, using tarot cards relating to fire, and even

Correspondence:

These are just some of many!

Crystals - Red Jasper, Carnelian, Fire Agate, Sunstone, Citrine, Red Opal, Orange Calcite, Amber, Aragonite, Lava Stone, Mahogany Obsidian, Mookite, Pyrite.

Herbs - Rosemary, Palm, Sunflower, Cinnamon, Chili, Pepper, Cloves, Ginger, Wormwood, Asfoetida, Marigold, Amaranth, Snapdragon, Dragon's Blood, Calendula, Sagebrush, Stinging Nettle, Holly, Cedar, Mace.

Colors - Red, Orange, Blue, Yellow, Gold

Energy Centers - Sacral, Root

Zodiacs - Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius

Tools - Daggers, Swords, candles, fire starters, tarot cards

Scents - Woody, Smokey, Spicy, Musky

Resources

Tip Jar

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exitpursuedbyavulcan · 7 months

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hey,

I wanted to ask about the Silver Dragon story, specifically the relationship between Arianwyn and Aemond.

I get this impression Aemond kinda puts Aria on a pedestal of sorts. Would it be fair to characterize it as such, especially given what he did following the events of Storms End?

I ask cause I'm writing a similar relationship between Aemond and an OC in my story (which also coincidently kinda places Daemon in place of villian of the story) and that's more or less the angle I got going.

Oh boy, I've thought hard about this one. Answer is under the cut so as it contains Silver Dragon spoilers.

"Putting her on a pedestal" doesn't feel quite like the right phrase to me. Not entirely sure why.

To understand their relationship, we have to acknowledge that their identities are inextricably tied to each other. After all, they met when Aria was ~3 months old and Aemond was ~9 months old. They are each other's counterparts - two parts of the same whole. Up until their separation after the Driftmark incident, they literally had no memories where the other was not there. So losing that lifelong connection that literally played a part in defining who they were was devastating.

Aria dealt with that loss by clinging onto the connections she still had (i.e. Brynna, Emrys, and her guards), and the letters Aemond and the others back in KL sent to her. She never lost hope that somehow, she would get back to the people she loved and the place she called her home. In short, she was optimistic.

Aemond dealt with the situation in two ways. First, by channeling all his feelings into one concentrated well of anger, directed solely at Daemon. After Aria was gone, he redoubled his focus into his martial training not only to fulfill his role as the second son of the king, but because he wanted to be able to defeat Daemon and punish him for everything he did to Aria and for taking her away from him. Unlike Aria, he fell into a vengeful pessimism. With one exception...

Realizing he loved Aria solidified his purpose of protecting her and saving her from her father. In all the fairy tales they read, it was the duty of the prince or knight to protect his lady, and he took that to heart from childhood, as y'all will see in the new chapter 2 (coming soon!). After Driftmark, when Aria not only got taken from him, but was actually injured, he felt like he failed her and his purpose. So while most of his love for Aria was channeled into longing for her and imagining what she would be like when she either returned or was rescued, it also fed into his anger and desire for vengeance.

Unfortunately, that desire didn't go away when she returned, thanks to some nasty things Daemon did and said. Aemond is very much a "I will destroy everything in the world if that's what I have to do to keep you safe" kind of partner.

So, he doesn't put Aria on a pedestal so much as he sees her as his purpose - his reason for basically everything he does.

And when we add in his own insecurities and the way he thinks of himself, that's where his reverence of her goodness starts to come in. After Driftmark, he did start to think of himself as a villain and a monster, thanks to the opinions of the court that he overheard, the way his father treated him, and his own interpretation of his emotions. But again thanks to the fairy tales, he believes that a monster that protects goodness can eventually find goodness for itself.

This is also kind of a result of him basically being raised by Criston Cole, who does the same thing with Alicent. They take it upon themselves to get their hands dirty in order to preserve the cleanness/goodness of their ladies - Alicent and Aria.

After Driftmark, Aemond feels so dirty and monstrous that he thinks even being with him will taint Aria's goodness. But she's convinced him (mostly) that he can still be redeemed, and if she believes it, he does too.

So I guess this could be called putting her on a pedestal, but I think a more accurate description is that she is his purpose. Did any of this make sense? I feel like it maybe didn't.

#asks #the silver dragon

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cipheramnesia · 1 year

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Can you talk about Thelma (2017)?

Thelma is too much for one ask, but I can try. I'm fairly confident there are some specific religious and cultural touchstones I'm not familiar enough to unpack for starters, and the movie itself is so dense with possible readings that I could approach it from at least three separate angles. It's like... where exactly do I start at this?

Just on the most surface level, we're looking at an X-Men situation with the sudden introduction a superhuman ability in someone's life is used to parallel a wide array of different experiences of systemic oppression - I think mainly patriarchal, sexual, and religious but these are all wrapped together in much the same was as they tend to be in individual lives.

What personally gets my heart aflutter over Thelma are its queer elements. Not that these can be neatly separated from the others, but the way it plays with a level of ambiguity in the attraction between the protagonist and her love interest feels especially true to the queer experience of wondering if we're experiencing kind of real mutual attraction, or if we're only seeing things in our imagination - the way queerness is treated as something taboo, even when it's socially permissible, makes finding personal connections a delicate process of hope and guessing. It transforms the relationship elements of the movie seen through that specific lens, including moments where our protagonist is struggling so hard against herself that she tries to make her own sexuality vanish.

But it doesn't operate exclusively as a queer movie, and that's part of why there's just... just so much stuff to try and work through here. I feel like a huge amount of the underlying text of the movie rests on how her capabilities horrify her parents and prompt them to find ways to suppress them, to keep her under control. Additionally, the way she works her way through the medical system as they find themselves at a loss to discern any easy answers to her symptoms. And for that matter, the notion that her supernatural abilities are themselves something wrong with her is also rife with meaning to any disenfranchised group, not just queers or women or non-xians.

I suppose it's a little weird to discuss what I think the movie is about without bringing up... what the movie is about, but there's not a large amount that happens precisely. Or more directly the plot, unadorned, is not particularly complicated. Although I expect if you're hanging around this blog, you might be really interested to learn about a movie which is all about a young woman developing supernatural powers to control reality, and eventually breaking free from her oppressive (albeit loving) xian parents.

Not to sound pretentious, if this was made in the USA, it would be quite a bit more spectacle and flash. Thelma the movie and protagonist both are quiet revolutions, tense with knowing something extraordinary is happening, but not knowing how much will survive it. Some of it put me in mind of Dario Argento, even if it's not quite as flamboyant, there's an emotional intensity and an obsessive focus to the camera work that feels familiar. The colors are not quite as bright and primary as Argento's work, but they feel dense and saturated in the same way. If a movie like X-Men captures the explosive emotions and anger of learning you're different in some way society does not accept, Thelma captures its alternate quite despair and seething rage.

But this all really just gets maybe a little under the surface. I would happily translate the family losing a son to their daughters power as metaphoric to how some families treat their trans children. The ambiguity of the ending, the significance of the birds and snakes as metaphors, the use of symbolic reflections all need greater exploration to the point where this film has a fair thesis worth of material contained within. It's a rare, special, and complicated movie which I would hope everyone takes the time to see (with the exception of people with serious medical concerns over flashing lights, it has A LOT of those). Thelma is about making the decision to burn bright while everyone around you sits with quietly folded hands.

#thelma 2017 #thelma 2018 #horror movies #queer horror #Joachim Trier

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the-broken-truth · 10 months

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Hello friend! How are you? Are you making Yandere letters?! How awesome!! I want to request a Yandere letter too but from our Mighty Bear AU, for now I would like a Kratos Yandere letter to Björn that he receives when he’s in Asgard with his adoptive family. Björn decides to read what’s in the letter but when he finishes he’s like “HAHAHAHAHA F*CK U!” and he burns the letter with an annoyed smile in his face.

Broken Truth (Reading a Nordic Scroll before looking up at the ask, then back at the scroll): Björn getting a letter from Kratos while he is in Asgard? How would it even get there? Revna could take it to him - considering Kratos doesn't know who Revna really is. (Waves tail) Let the words weave together!

Björn was seated on a sofa in front of a fireplace, feeling the warmth radiating from the pit that filled the room with light and comfort. His clawed hands were holding a tome, and his golden eyes scanned through the written words on the pages. Lord Heimdall had given him the task of learning everything he could about the Asgardians and their way of life. Having made a name for himself in Asgard, Heimdall wanted the Bear Cub to be well-versed in the Asgardian hierarchy. Surprisingly, Björn knew his place as someone below Heimdall, even though Thor had taken him as his kin after losing his own sons Magni and Modi and his brother Baldur. Heimdall wanted Björn to be all he could be in Asgard, and he knew that knowledge was power, which is why he gave him books to read.

Björn looked up from his book as his mother Sif and twin sister Revna entered the living room. Sif kissed Björn on the forehead before allowing him to continue studying. Revna, known as the Wise Raven of Asgard, sat next to him. Despite her vast knowledge, Björn respected her just as much as she respected him. She handed him a folded letter from her satchel without a word. Björn looked confused at first, but as soon as he began reading, he understood why Revna looked uninterested. The letter contained news that left him stunned.

Boy,

I hope this letter finds its way into your claws, I was certain to give it to the girl known as Revna since she seems to know where you are all the time. I would have given the letter to Atreus to hand to you but I understand from what he has shared with me during his time in Asgard, that you avoid him as if he is the personification of death itself; I shall assume that you have not forgiven him nor I for what we have done in that past but you must understand that your anger, your rage, towards your brother and I are completely misplaced. We were only trying to make you see the error of your ways by making bonds and blood ties with the Sons and Brother of Thor; why would you make them your 'brothers' when already had a blood brother in Atreus - the one whom you shared a womb within the belly of your one and only more - Faye.

When you were born moments after Atreus, you mirrored Faye to perfection even though you were her son; now that I think of it, that girl to whom I had delivered this letter to you also looks like Faye, almost a spitting image. It is quite chilling considering that she has no links to her or even you, correct? I digress, I am getting distracted from the reason I am contacting you: You are to come home at once the next time Atreus returns here. This game you are playing has gone on long enough and we are sick of it, Björn - you are one of us, not them. You have the blood of a Greek God and a Jotunn and, I am sure that you know, the Jotunn are enemies to the Asgardians; especially Thor, who hunted down all of them but only missed your mother since she was able to defeat him in battle. How can you really call yourself Faye's son when you are calling her mortal enemy 'Father'? Get this through your head, Boy; you are not an Asgardian and you never will be. The only reason you are there is because they believe the Blood Contact you did with their lost spawn means that a piece of them still exists within you but we both know that is mere fantasy.

Stop this game and return home. You are not meant to be a warrior and you shall never be what you desire. Accept what you are and allow us to defend you as Faye would have wanted.

Until Then, ~ Your Father, Kratos

Björn looked at the letter for a while before looking at Revna with an expression that matched her own; they held their eyes together for a good minute as if they were having a silent conversation before they started bursting out with laughter as if they were jackals.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I needed a good laugh." Björn said as he balled the letter up between his clawed hand and threw it into the flames, watching the burn away the Ghost of Sparta's Words, "Your delusion is that I would actually believe your words, Ghost. FUck you and your words." He said before picking up his tome once again and continued reading with the smile remaining on his face.

#the might bear au #male reader/björn #female reader/revna #god of war ragnarok #platonic yandere letter #platonic yandere

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magicshopaholic · 2 years

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The Reason (Taehyung x OC)

Summary: After a moment of unexpected nostalgia, Taehyung and Dilara have a talk.

Pairing: Taehyung x OC

Genre: Angst, minor smut

Word count: 15.3 K

Rating: 18+ for language and brief smut

Warnings: crass language (I mean it), mentions of infidelity and blowjobs, jealousy, kissing, nipple play, fingering, sex, masturbation, minor physical altercations

A/N: It hurt to write this one. Begins a little over a week after Melbourne in the present day and contains mentions of Namjoon and Kaya. The soundtrack to this fic is one of my all-time favourites 🖤

For my disclaimer regarding the other idol who plays a role in this fic, please read the sidenote in Melbourne.

Tagging: @bbl32 @quarter-life-crisis2 @meirkive @dreaming-with-happiness, @kflixnet (drop a message if you want to be added)

Listen to: “the reason” by hoobastank

taehyung masterlist | main masterlist

It doesn’t escape Dilara’s notice that one by one, all the members are getting back on her good side. It happens so gradually and so circumstantially that she doesn’t think much of it, not until they’re back in Italy a week later, this time in Imola, and she realises she’s not dreading seeing them as much as she was after the summer break in Belgium.

Even with Taehyung, it’s not dread she feels anymore. After the initial horror, awkwardness and forced avoidance, after seeing that absolving himself seemed to be his top priority, all the sadness and pain somewhere transformed into anger and borderline disgust. Being around him isn’t exactly difficult anymore, not the way it was before. Now, she’s just determined not to give him what he wants: a chance to apologise.

It's not easy. He's still he and she’s still she, and their history doesn't disappear just because she’s decided to torture him. There are still moments where it feels as though she might break down at any moment, demanding an explanation from him in a haze of tears.

Where the rest of the members are concerned, Dilara is still wary. Jimin is still far too loyal to Jungkook and Taehyung, the only two members she’s still consciously avoiding, to interact with her beyond pretty smiles and the occasional greeting when he catches her alone. Yoongi was never one to actively approach her anyway, choosing to talk to her only if the situation presented itself. Seokjin still seems to feel rather guilty and keeps a respectful distance, only ever asking her, for some reason, if she’s eaten.

Namjoon is the one person Dilara honestly wishes would be less guarded around her. After the shower incident in Austria, she’d awkwardly given him an actual travel size bottle of her cocoa butter conditioner as a thank you. He'd blushed and initially refused, but eventually taken it with a bashful and dimpled smile. She doesn’t know if it's the leader in him or if, like Seokjin, he's still feeling guilty, but either way, his absence is one that genuinely feels like a loss.

That leaves Hoseok, the only person in the entire house that speaks to her completely normally, calling out her name, asking her questions, offering her food and even offering to train with her when she offhandedly mentions how much aerobic training Lexie usually did with her. It's a beautiful offer and she’s almost considering accepting it when Jungkook enters the room and conspicuously loses his smile, looking from her to Hoseok before muttering something and stepping out of the room.

It's a different kind of awkwardness with Jungkook. For one, he's the only member younger than Dilara which makes the subtle power distance that exists with the others disappear. His guilt also feels different; his hesitation in meeting her gaze, his hurry in Austria to make sure that she knew the one detail she wanted the most… all combined with the fact that they silently work out together almost every day without a single word passing between them proves it. He didn't just help his friend dump his girlfriend; he also betrayed a friend on the way - and he knows it.

On Wednesday in Imola, after a hot and tiring day consisting of way too much PR with Netflix and unnecessary paddock drama, Dilara arrives at the house. The sun has set by now but the air isn't any cooler. Even in a tank top and sweatpants with her hair tied up, the heat is palpable. All she wants is to strip, get into the shower and stay there, possibly drown herself while she’s at it.

But when she nears the house, Dilara spots the group through the window in the living room. She can’t hear them from this distance but it looks like karaoke, with Namjoon and Taehyung holding mics while Jimin and Hoseok laugh and do a ridiculous routine in sync, all four of them facing the same direction. If she enters now, she’s guaranteed to ruin the mood. It's exhausting, being this Grinch-like figure, especially after the news Max gave her today.

Somehow, amidst all the relationship drama and racing incidents, Max Verstappen has managed to find a loophole and worm his way out of this PR shitstorm they have with BTS. Apparently his contract has a clause, allowing him to cut down on PR and endorsements if he's in the running for world champion.

It's foolproof, especially since Max is very much in contention for the title. But, selfishly, it means he's gone from here, choosing instead to live out of the luxury motorhomes most of the drivers usually use around Europe. As much as she tries to resist the urge, she ices him out enough to make it known to him just how much she resents him for leaving her alone in this house.

For the icing on the cake, Christian and Helmut give her a stern lecture on "taking one for the team", partly about this stupid PR nonsense and partly because they want to switch out her power unit for this race, which can only mean an insane grid penalty.

"You're a Red Bull driver," said Helmut, thick Austrian accent sounding more severe than ever. "If you can't make it through the field from P12, you have no business being here." He'd brushed her off after that, followed by Christian who'd simply shook his head at her. Now, standing outside the house, Dilara finds she has no desire to go inside and be the odd one out once again, darting through their taller figures and shutting herself inside her room for the rest of the weekend.

Suddenly overwhelmed by how fucked up everything is, Dilara rams her fist into the punching bag hanging outside. Her knuckles sting and for a fraction of a moment, she forgets about everything else. She punches it again, and again, and again, before she takes off her stupid backpack and swings it, hitting the stupid sack with it. Every punch is punctuated with a grunt or a scream of annoyance, each more satisfying than the last. Finally, she chucks her bag down and kicks the sack, once, twice, and collapses on the ground, facing the sky and not moving, trying to catch her breath.

She sees stars. Not in her head, but actual, real stars in the sky. It's too peaceful a sight for her mood at the moment so she shuts her eyes, wondering briefly if she can just sleep here and not wake up.

A soft sound does that for her, though. It's right next to her head, like something being dropped. She opens her eyes to see Jungkook looking down at her, wearing a t-shirt and shorts which are predictably all black, hair messier than ever and his expression a mixture of concern and hesitation. He doesn't say anything, so she turns her head to see what he dropped on the ground.

When she notices the boxing gloves, she scoffs quietly and looks back up at him again. He has another pair in his hands, his long fingers fiddling with the strings in what she imagines is nervousness. His offer is clear, even if he isn't saying anything. Dilara considers it, replaying an array of phone calls and how Jungkook had ignored each of them, until she’d finally tricked Jimin into answering her.

From the way his gaze falls momentarily, huge doe eyes meeting hers, she can tell he’s thinking the same thing. After another moment of considering it, she sits up and grabs the gloves, silently getting to her feet and following him to stand in front of the punching bag. They put on the gloves and he demonstrates a few moves to her, showing her how to stand, how to move her arm, how to use her back, where to concentrate her strength.

"No, try turning from here," he corrects after a while, coming up behind her and tapping her side before holding her shoulders and turning her. "Use your back. The force should come from here so that your arm doesn't get too tired," he explains, showing her how to do it and delivering a strong punch to the bag.

"Right," mutters Dilara, nodding and brushing her sweaty bangs off her forehead. She tries the move, and all the other moves he's shown her. It works for the most part; the strength and the adrenaline keeps her mind from going towards the suckfest that was today, especially when Jungkook brings out the pads and she tries to keep up with him.

"Don't go easy on me, Jeon," she warns him breathlessly, before throwing a surprise punch that he just catches.

Jungkook cracks a smile and for a moment, her stomach does a backflip at the world famous smile she hasn’t seen in weeks. "Not at all, Komyshan," he replies, tossing his own sweaty hair out of his eyes. "I know it’s not easy being the second strongest person in this house."

Dilara scoffs, not stopping. “Excuse me?”

“You know what I mean,” he mutters, eyes locked on her fists as he moves the pads in quick succession. “It’s a compliment. Oh, come on - you call that a punch?”

She doesn’t reply, partly unable to speak and partly unsure of what will come out of her mouth if she opens it. Instead she punches faster, her bangs falling in her eyes, her breath now coming in ragged bursts.

“Yeah, that’s better. Faster, faster - use your shoulders to - oh, fuck!” Jungkook’s hands, pads and all, fly up to his face, his eyes screwing shut as he covers his nose.

Dilara’s hands instantly fall to her sides, her jaw dropping. “Holy shit. Are you okay?”

He mumbles something incoherent before nodding and holding up one pad again. “I’m okay. Come on, keep going,” he instructs, his head tilted up with the other pad still covering his nose. “Come on,” he urges, waving his free hand, looking like some kind of demented windmill.

She looks at him incredulously. “Are you insane? I may have broken your nose.”

Despite the awkward angle of his head, he gives her a look. “You’re not that strong.”

“Shut up. You need to ice your face or something, Jungkook. We can do this some other -”

“No, come on, I hate leaving workouts midway.”

“We’re not going to keep boxing now.”

Jungkook groans, gingerly letting go of his face. “Why not?” he whines.

“Because I don’t want to get sued, you idiot,” snaps Dilara, knocking his hand away as he tries to stop her and moving closer to study his face. It looks alright from where she is, and she feels an unexpected bit of relief when he tries to move his nose and winces only a bit. “Can we just… I don’t know. Do something with less physical contact? Before someone thinks I did this on purpose?” she mutters.

Thankfully, he doesn’t respond to the last statement, only rolling his eyes and heading back into the gym. He returns with a shotput ball, easily four or five kilos, and they start tossing it back and forth, each catch working her arms, her back, her glutes and her quads. Finally, when they’re done and Dilara can't possibly move another muscle, she sighs and bends down, resting her hands against her knees.

"You're good," he comments after returning the gloves to their original place, running a hand through his jet black hair.

"Of course I am," she pants, straightening up. "Do you know how much strength we need to resist the G-force through every turn?" She frowns and tilts her head. “How’s your face?”

"Fine. The pain’s almost gone.”

“If you say so.”

“I’m telling you, it’s not that bad.” He smirks. “You’re not that strong,” he repeats.

She gives him a look. “Next time, catch me when I’m actually working out and not after a shitty day in the paddock, little boy,” she informs him. “We’ll see who’s the second strongest.”

“Deal.” Jungkook flashes her a toothy grin, and this time she can see relief in it as well. It reminds her instantly of why he might be feeling relieved and once again, the air is awkward.

“Anyway,” she begins after a moment, picking up her bag from where she’d abandoned it. “Thanks, for, uh…” She gestures to the workout gear.

Jungkook nods, eyes wide and anxious as he watches her leave. Just as she’s climbing the porch, he speaks again. “Dilara,” he calls. When she turns, he visibly hesitates. His expression reminds her of Jimin’s when he’d apologised, but a moment later he changes tacks.

“Yeah?”

“Don’t box without gloves.”

“Got it. Go ice your face.”

—

Tae [01:34] Jungkook

Jungkook [01:35] Yeah

Taehyung [01:35] Are you awake?

Jungkook [01:35] No, I’m sleep texting

Jimin [01:36] What’s happening

Jungkook [01:36] Why are you texting from the other room

Taehyung [01:36] Because Yoongi hyung is asleep in my room

Jimin [01:37] Yeah Hobi hyung is asleep in mine

Jungkook [01:37] So? Jin hyung is asleep in mine And how did we all end up in different rooms??

Taehyung [01:38] Unimportant I think Dilara is in the living room so we have to text

Jungkook [01:39] You’re avoiding her now?

Taehyung [01:40] No She’s avoiding me And if I have to watch her leave a room because of me again I think I might kill myself

Jimin [01:41] Since when do you call her Dilara?

Taehyung [01:41] Since she asked me to

Jungkook [01:41] Ouch

Jimin [01:41] She did?

Taehyung [01:42] Yeah, when she hurt her ankle So she was a bit preoccupied to realise she was ripping my heart out

Jungkook [01:43] Damn hyung

Taehyung [01:44] Forget it Are you two friends now?

Jungkook [01:44] I have no idea honestly But I’m leaning towards no

Taehyung [01:45] You were boxing with her

Jungkook [01:45] I was just helping her out

Jimin [01:45] Wait whaaat? Seriously?

Taehyung [01:46] Yeah, before dinner

Jungkook [01:47] That’s it though She was having a bad day and taking it out on the punching bag But she would’ve hurt herself the way she was doing it With bare fists

Taehyung [01:49] Why did she have a bad day?

Jungkook [01:49] I didn’t ask

Taehyung [01:49] Why not?

Jungkook [01:50] She hates me hyung

Taehyung [01:50] Apparently not

Jungkook [01:51] She’s still mad at me though The hyungs apologised to her which is why she’s sort of talking to them

Jimin [01:52] I apologised too

Taehyung [01:52] You did?

Jungkook [01:53] Wait what?

Jimin [01:53] In Austria

Jungkook [01:53] 😱

Taehyung [01:54] Why am I only hearing about this now?

Jungkook [01:54] What did you say?

Jimin [01:55] That I was sorry I was the one that lied to her face Well, on the phone And I hate it when people are mad at me

Taehyung [01:57] What did she say?

Jimin [01:57] Nothing really I don’t think she was really prepared for it But she still seemed mad

Taehyung [01:58] At you?

Jimin [01:59] Not me so much

Taehyung [02:00] So... me What else did she say?

Jimin [02:00] Nothing

Taehyung [02:00] Really?

Jungkook [02:01] Jimin hyung

Jimin [02:02] She thought Taehyung sent me But I told her he didn’t

Jimin [02:03] I told her you still love her

Taehyung [02:04] You did?

Jungkook [02:04] Hyung 😬😬😬

Jimin [02:04] It’s true isn’t it?

Taehyung [02:05] What did she say to that?

Jimin [02:05] I don’t remember

Taehyung [02:05] Liar

Jimin [02:06] She didn’t believe me

Jimin [02:07] Taehyung She was angry and confused It doesn’t mean anything

Jungkook [02:10] Taehyung hyung?

Taehyung [02:12] So you don’t know why she had a bad day today?

Jungkook [02:12] Um no I didn’t want to make it worse by asking her

Taehyung [02:13] But she might need to talk

Jungkook [02:13] Not with me

Taehyung [02:14] Who else is here? You two were friends Although it seems like she and Jimin are too

Jimin [02:15] Taehyung It’s not like that And I don’t even know if she’s forgiven me

Jungkook [02:16] She has other friends hyung Her trainer Lexie?

Taehyung [02:17] She’s not here Have you seen her around? One of her parents is sick so she’s back home in America

Jungkook [02:18] How do you know

Taehyung [02:18] She told Namjoon hyung Apparently she’s telling everyone everything Except me And yes, I know it’s my fault

Jungkook [02:20] What about Max Verstappen?

Taehyung [02:21] He’s her competition, she would never talk to him And anyway, his solution is probably just to get her drunk

Jimin [02:22] Taehyung I think you should try talking to her again

Taehyung [02:23] That’s the worst idea

Jungkook [02:24] I think Jimin hyung is right You’re so worried about her She’ll know you still care It might even be a good thing

Taehyung [02:26] How could I fuck up this much? How could I do it? How did I put her in this position? Fuck fuck fuck

Jimin [02:29] Taehyung, don’t She’ll forgive you eventually Even if it takes time

Taehyung [02:30] What if she doesn’t?

Jungkook [02:30] She will hyung A few weeks ago she wouldn’t even look at any of us Now she’s talking and all

Taehyung [02:31] Will you box with her again?

Jungkook [02:31] If she wants to

Taehyung [02:31] She won’t ask Did it seem like she felt better afterwards?

Jungkook [02:32] Yeah She smiled and said thanks

Jimin [02:32] She smiled?

Jungkook [02:32] Like a tired smile

Taehyung [02:33] I don’t even remember what her smile looks like

Jimin [02:33] Taehyung…

Jungkook [02:33] Wait

Jungkook [02:34] [picture]

Jungkook [02:34] It’s a nice smile

Jimin [02:34] Jungkook!!!!

Jungkook [02:35] What?

Taehyung [02:36] I can’t do this Goodnight

—

Pain. It's pain, but a good pain. It's a stretch, like muscles that haven't been used in a while, like a stinging on the brink of turning sensual. She tightens her fingers and feels her nails sink into skin, followed by a hiss, partly of pain but mostly of pleasure.

She’s wet. So wet. Her thighs feel sticky and the soft, almost silent sound of fingers against her clit are barely audible over the sighs and moans. The stretch is worse this time but she’s filled up, so filled up…

"Taehyung..."

He pauses only long enough to toss his long hair out of his eyes, before looking down at her with such lust in his gaze that she wonders for a moment if he’s even aware of what he’s doing to her.

"Say it again." His voice is deep as he commands her softly. His hips move faster now, and every thrust is a whole new sensation of having her walls wrapped tightly around him.

"Say - say what?" She knows what. She can say it - she wants to say it. But she wants him to ask again.

Swiftly, in one movement, he picks up her left leg and throws it over his shoulder before lowering himself onto her. The stretch in her hips feels so good, so wonderfully colliding with how he's fucking her in this new angle, that she lets out a whimper.

"You know what. Say it. Tell me who's fucking you so good." In contrast to his lewd demands, his voice is soft, like deep velvet, his lips brushing her earlobe and his warm breath on her neck.

A particularly deep thrust makes her moan, her fingers threading through his thick hair and clutching at it. "Fuck, don't stop…"

He doesn't, but he moves his head lower and takes her hard, slightly sore right nipple into his mouth. His tongue swirls around it, lips brushing it, kissing it… everything apart from what he knows she really wants.

She pulls his hair slightly, urging him. When she feels his hair brush her breast, she looks down to see him gazing up at her, big eyes challenging. She sighs and drops her head back on the pillow. "God… Tae, please," she begs, admitting defeat. She just wants the sweet finish.

She hears his satisfied hum at her voice before he lowers his head again and sucks on her nipple. She moans louder as he increases his rhythm, straightening up a bit to support himself better. His hands reach up to knead at her breasts before he lowers one of them to between her legs, long fingers finding her clit again.

"Fuck, you're -" He grunts, breaking off to momentarily close his eyes, and she knows he's close, too. "You're so beautiful, Lara, fuck…"

His fingers move faster now and she knows she’s seconds away. "Tae, I'm - "

He nods, long hair falling into his eyes. "Cum all over my cock, baby… fuck, I want to see you cum…" He squeezes her nipple with his fingers and she lets out one last -

"Min Yoongi!"

Like the sound of a gunshot, Kim Seokjin's voice wakes her up with a jerk. She sits up suddenly, wondering for a moment if something’s wrong. Her breathing slows down when she registers silhouettes through the curtain on her window, recognising Seokjin, Yoongi and Jungkook, running around with what looks like a basketball in the backyard.

Sighing in relief and annoyance, she realises her legs are still trembling. With a throbbing in her core, she recalls the dream, shutting her eyes when she remembers who the subject was… and what he was doing to her. The thought alone sends another wave of heat through her and she involuntarily squeezes her thighs together.

Dilara checks her phone for the time and sighs. She doesn't need to be at the paddock for another hour and a half - or, rather, they don't. Today is another day of rigorous PR, both with F1 and BTS. They are to accompany her to the paddock, where this time, they will take turns driving fast cars. Thankfully, all she has are a few interviews and a couple of quiz-type things, mainly with Max, so as far as she’s concerned, he's the only person she needs to really interact with.

The tingling still hasn't gone away… she closes her eyes and, before she knows it, she’s lain back down on the bed. Just for a moment, she tells herself, snaking her hand down into her underwear, cursing softly when she feels how wet she still is. She hasn’t got properly laid in ages; he may have started her off, but there's nothing that says he needs to be there while she finishes, right?

But that resolve goes to shit fairly quickly, especially when the moment she closes her eyes, a familiar, beautiful face comes into view, jaw clenched, eyes heavily-lidded under his bangs, lean and golden torso within reach…

Dilara finishes in under a minute, biting back a moan and feeling only partly spent. The other part feels a bit glum, if she’s being honest, not to mention disgusted that after everything, he can still make her climax faster than ever. When she thinks about what his reaction would be if he knew, all traces of her orgasm disappear and she hurries out of bed, needing to shower this whole sex dream away.

It doesn’t get better after that. When she reaches the paddock, trying to brush off Max who comes at her with an apologetic hug for abandoning her with the group, but eventually giving in, she discovers that while she’s brought BTS, he’s brought Kelly Piquet. It takes a chorus of aahs from the bunch of the boys behind her to realise that not only has she arrived in a blur of shiny hair and red lipstick, but Penelope Kvyat has made her first appearance in this half of the season as well.

Predictably, all through filming the PR gimmick, Jimin, Jungkook, Namjoon, and Taehyung most of all, are obsessed with her. Penelope is an adorable, lively child and the undivided attention she’s getting from the boys just makes her more so. Kelly is beyond thrilled, too, showing off her daughter and beaming with heartwarming pride, especially when any of the boys does something to make her giggle and laugh.

Dilara tries her hardest not to pay attention. She’s not particularly drawn to kids and neither, ironically, is Max himself. P is sweet, though, so Dilara can’t help but engage with her a bit when she first arrives, especially since she recognises her and runs towards her, squealing “Dilala!” before hugging her legs with her tiny arms. Even though Dilara prefers dogs doing it, she kneels and hugs P back, asking her exactly two questions she always asks kids before relying on the more kid-friendly people to take over.

Even after the PR shoot, the boys hang around, playing silly games with P, dancing with her and just making her laugh. Towards the end it’s just Jimin and Taehyung, both of whom look at her with such wonder and affection that Dilara is half-tempted to film it and release it on Twitter, watching the carnage around the world as she stands back and watches.

It’s the first time that Dilara has been around Taehyung for this long since Spa without him trying to approach her. He already seems so in love with Penelope, his boxy grin permanently etched on his face as he plays hopscotch with her. Nearby, Kelly looks on fondly as her daughter runs around.

She’s never seen him around kids, but now that she is… it doesn’t surprise her at all. Dilara watches him while she waits for the reporters to set up their cameras for her and Max’s interview, a strange ache in her chest. She can’t fully put her finger on it; it’s not love, or any kind of sadness. It’s almost nostalgic, as though if the smallest domino hadn’t caused a landslide of events, this exact moment would see a world of difference. She searches, half-heartedly, for the anger in her but it’s just too tiring.

Eventually, she gives up on hating him for a few minutes, watching with a tightness in her throat how happy he sounds when he laughs, his gigantic smile when P reaches up to fiddle with his fringe, how tall and limber he looks when he picks her up and spins her around.

“You know, you can still talk to him.”

Dilara snaps her head around and almost pulls a muscle. Next to her, Yoongi casually sits down on the pavement and stretches his legs out, giving her a brief and unreadable look.

“I don’t -”

“You were smiling.”

“No, I wasn’t,” she says immediately, suddenly realising he’s right and hoping no one else noticed. “And it doesn’t matter. Talking’s not going to change anything.”

Yoongi shrugs. “Maybe. Or maybe you’ll feel better. You know he’ll keep trying, anyway.”

She does know. He’s stubborn, so he’ll keep trying. He doesn’t want to feel like a bad person, so he’ll keep apologizing. He gets jealous, which explains the flash of blond she’d seen in the kitchen window when she and Jungkook were boxing together. He loves kids, so he’ll indulge them all day long.

“He hasn’t changed,” she murmurs, realising too late that she’s said it out loud.

“People don’t change in a few months,” says Yoongi. “Even people who’ve done the stupidest things,” he adds in a mutter, his eyes on Taehyung.

It’s not exactly what Dilara means, but she doesn’t voice it. It’s a dull, slightly painful realisation for her, because acknowledging her feelings doesn’t make them any less over. If anything, she’s looking forward to hearing him out even less now, now that she’s actually let herself think about him for more than thirty seconds without cursing him or crying.

At that moment, another familiar figure comes up behind them.

“Dude,” says Max, taking a seat on her other side, “are you just going to keep staring at your ex until your uterus explodes? Because it’s getting really obvious.”

Dilara chokes, ignoring Yoongi’s roll of the eyes; she doesn’t think he particularly takes to Max’s brand of frat boy commentary. “What are you - I wasn’t looking at -” Her stuttering only makes things worse and when Taehyung suddenly glances in their direction, his face softening when his eyes meet hers momentarily, she feels her heart skip a disproportionate beat. “Don’t be an idiot, Verstappen,” she mutters, standing up and dusting herself off before tugging at his t-shirt. “Come on, the interview’s starting.”

It's impossible to stop thinking about it, though. Even when they get back, the image of a carefree, happy, almost childlike Taehyung haunts her. It stays with her all day and before she knows it, Dilara’s heading to the lounge in the evening where she knows all the guys are.

Standing outside, she takes a deep breath, wondering if she’s really about to do this. She forces herself to think about how he looked earlier today with P, happy and laughing, so similar to how he’d looked in a field of puppies once upon a time. Before she can change her mind, she knocks.

It takes a few moments; the door opens to reveal Jungkook, eyes wide in surprise. Behind him, the others are frozen, barring Namjoon and Yoongi, the former shaking his head and the latter sparing her a glance before going back to his phone. Giving Jungkook a nod of acknowledgement and a polite hint of a smile, she looks straight at Taehyung in his white CELINE t-shirt, standing behind the sofa.

“Can I talk to you?” Dilara is careful to reveal nothing in her question or her tone. Judging by his frown and momentary hesitation, she’s succeeded.

“Yeah,” he says finally, as though pulling himself out of a trance. She nods and turns around to leave, glancing back when she reaches the front door to see him right behind her, pulling on a black jumper.

They head out to the backyard - or she heads out and he follows her, trailing a couple of steps behind. Dilara stops where the path to the gym begins and leans against the railing. He leans on the one opposite her, a good ten feet between them. Now that she’s finally in front of him, her words seem to fail her. She has to remind herself that right now, she has the power in this dynamic.

“So… why did you want to come outside?” he asks after a moment. He sounds doubtful, and she realises she hasn’t said anything yet.

Dilara shrugs, not knowing where to look. “Too many ears in there. And out here for that matter,” she adds. When he frowns, she raises her eyebrows and tilts her chin towards the house. He turns and they see three or four faces hurriedly disappear from the window.

She half-chuckles while Taehyung curses under his breath, slowly turning back to her. “How are you?” he asks. The question is innocent enough, but his tone burns with curiosity and - she isn’t sure - concern.

“Same old,” she answers. Before he can use this excuse to chit-chat, she exhales. “You said you wanted to explain.” She nods. “So… explain.”

All traces of his smile fade and he swallows, clearly knowing that this is where they were headed all along. For a few moments, he says nothing, just looking at the ground as he presumably gathers his thoughts. Then, he looks up, looking nervous but determined.

"Dilara, I -" He breaks off, sounding rather like he hasn't thought of what to say beyond these two words. She’s in no hurry, though. For once, she feels calm.

"First of all, I'm… God, I'm so sorry, Dilara, I'm so -"

"Stop," she interrupts, shaking her head. "Just… stop. This isn't… I don't want to hear you apologise." Dilara looks up to see his devastated face looking confused. "You said you wanted to explain. I assumed you meant… how it happened."

For a moment, it seems like he's going to argue. But then he licks his lips and nods, and she braces herself for the worst.

"I… we -" He huffs in frustration, and she knows it's because he's unable to think in English in a situation like this. "It was - it was a bad few months, Dilara. We were being overworked to death and you and I couldn't - we weren't… we didn't get time. Ever."

She says nothing. She knows what he's talking about but the last thing she wants to do right now is agree with him and give him an out he doesn't deserve.

"I know that doesn't make it okay. I know that." He shakes his head and runs his hand through his messy blond hair. "And I didn't - I wasn't… I had no intention of cheating on you, Dilara. I didn't want anyone else, ever. It was just… it was so busy and I was so angry that I couldn't talk to you and I missed you and it was just -" He breaks off, pressing the heels of his palms to his forehead. "I started feeling so far away from you and I hated it, I hated thinking we were going to be one of those couples that just - just drifted apart and fell out of love or -"

"So this was better?" Dilara can't help it. It almost sounds like an excuse and she’s not about to accept one.

"No, that's not what I meant, Dilara… come on, you know it was hard. And I was trying everything I could but it wasn’t enough and I didn't know what else to do and then… and then…"

The tone of his voice tells her what's coming. She swallows and pulls her hoodie tighter around herself, suddenly wondering if she’s ready to hear this.

Taehyung sighs shakily. "Jennie and I -" He breaks off abruptly and Dilara realises she’s automatically looked away at the mention of the name. "She - we've known each other for a while. Not well, of course, but… we've met at award shows and stuff and - and we were at a party and we were all drinking and…" His voice cracks and it looks like he's about to cry. "It was - it meant nothing. Not a thing. I promise you -"

"What happened?" she interrupts. When he frowns, she stands her ground. "What happened with her? What did you do?"

She can see it dawn on his face, what she’s asking. "I - are you serious?" he asks in horror.

"Yeah. I want to know." I want this to be as hard for you as it is for me, Kim Taehyung.

“I - that’s not a good idea.”

“I don’t care. I want to know.” Dilara holds his gaze. “You kissed her. Did you use tongue? Did you take off her top? Suck her tits?” She’s being brutal and extremely crass, but it’s the only way she’s going to make it through this confrontation without breaking.

Taehyung looks tortured. “Dilara, don’t…”

“Fine. I’ll go first. You know I went out with Jaden, right? Do you want to know what I did with him? Well, he actually did suck my tits when we went back to his room, but before that he kissed me in -”

She gets interrupted when Taehyung swears loudly, eyes blazing and looking livid. “I don’t want to fucking know!”

“Then tell me.”

"Dilara…" He warns through gritted teeth and she knows she’s lit a fuse. Good. Get angry. Bring it, Kim. When she doesn't respond, he squeezes his eyes shut and sighs before opening them, glaring at her as though telling her she’s asked for it.

"You really want to know? We - we made out, okay? She kissed me and I - I wanted to push her away but… I kissed her back and my hands, uh… went up her -” He breaks off, wincing, but Dilara doesn’t say anything. “... and I… and then she started unbuttoning my jeans and then she got on her knees and sucked me off until - no, Dilara, I’m sorry, please don't cry, baby…"

The tone of his voice changes instantly and she can hear the guilt washing over him. She feels him gently pull her by the shoulder to face him but she flinches out of his grasp again.

"Don't touch me!" she snaps hoarsely, sniffing and stepping back. "I’m just… God, I fucking - hate you!” she shouts suddenly, pushing him back by the shoulders. “I hate you so, so much!” she sobs, continuing to push him backwards, hating how he takes it in silence before his hands come up to hold her wrists, his strength overpowering hers for once.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, baby…”

Dilara can’t hear him. Physically, his voice sounds like she’s underwater because all she can do is picture it, picture the tall and beautiful idol - she can’t recall her face for the life of her, but imagines her tall and slender - getting down on her knees, adjusting a flowy dress, looking up at him with sexy eyes as she unbuckles his belt and pulls down his trousers… Dilara barely registers Taehyung bringing her into his chest, murmuring wrecked, desperate apologies in her hair, languages blurring into each other.

She can’t stop; it’s like a movie rolling in her head. Did Jennie palm him through his underwear first? She pictures him straining against black material, head tilted back as he lets out a throaty groan, a glass of whiskey in one hand. Dilara imagines her pulling his underwear down, taking him in her mouth, his large, angry length, bobbing her head, his fingers tangling in her hair… she lets out another shaky sob before she realises what she’s doing and with a strength she rarely uses outside her car, she pushes him away.

Taehyung stumbles backwards, taken off guard. Ignoring the shocked expression and how the tip of his nose is already reddening, Dilara angrily wipes whatever tears have escaped down her face. “Go on,” she snarls. When he sniffles, she stomps her foot. “Goddamnit, Kim! She sucked you off - what happened after? Did you fuck her? And you may as well tell me the truth because believe me, this can’t get any worse.”

He swallows. "I didn’t. I - I swear,” he says immediately, and Dilara believes him. When she raises her eyebrow at him expectantly, he shrugs. “Well, I - I mean, that was it," he says lamely, shrugging and stepping away. "I realised what I was doing and - and I just got the hell out of there. I felt so terrible, Dilara, you have no idea."

“Did you cum?” she asks quietly, looking at his feet. The silence is so long and deafening that the answer is obvious. She closes her eyes as her heart sinks.

“It meant nothing,” he whispers dismally. “I don’t even remember it. It didn’t mean a thing, Dilara.”

"Meant enough to date her after,” she mutters, unable to get the image out of her mind of him finishing in someone else’s mouth, eyes closed, a frown on his forehead, mouth open in ecstasy, emitting a low and raspy grunt that always echoed in the room...

"It wasn't like that… Dilara, I didn't know how to face you after that. I was so ashamed - I felt like such an asshole." Taehyung pauses, as though expecting her to agree with him. When she says nothing, he continues, bottom lip trembling now. "I couldn't believe what I'd done and I just needed - I just needed some time to figure out how to tell you and I…" He looks up at her and shakes his head, looking completely devastated. "I'm so sorry, Lara, I should've -"

"Jesus, stop apologising!" Dilara turns away from him, more angry than sad right now. "What the hell was I supposed to do while you were figuring it out? That didn’t matter to you?”

"I handled it horribly, I know. I knew I was going to hurt you and I -" He sighs, running a hand through his hair again. "I know I did anyway. But I swear, Dilara, I was going to tell you. I was going to tell you and do whatever it took to fix it. I didn't want to end it… I didn't want to lose you."

But you have. She doesn't need to say it - he knows. It lingers, unspoken, between them.

"But I guess I took too long…" His gaze falls and she hears him sniffle. "Jennie came to our studio and everything and we talked about it and we decided nothing more was going to happen, that we weren't… but then the article came out and I knew I was fucked. The moment I saw it I told Big Hit to put out a statement and I called you but I could never get through and then I got your package and -"

"And then you started dating her," she finishes for him, not finding it necessary to tell him that his tokenistic phone call means nothing to her, that blocking him achieved more than just rejecting his calls.

"I…" Taehyung rubs the back of his neck, looking uneasy. "It wasn't like that. It wasn't… a relationship. Like a real one. We just - I mean, it was already public and I - I didn't want everything to have been for nothing."

Dilara stares at him. "You - what? Are you kidding me?"

"No, I just mean that -"

"What the hell do you mean by everything?" she exclaims, dropping her hands to her sides. "Nothing happened to you - you're the one who -"

"I know and I hate what I did, but I never wanted us to be over, Lara -”

“I told you to stop calling me that!” she shouts, wanting to throw something. From the corner of her eye, she sees figures at the window again but she can’t be bothered about that right now. “You thought dating her was going to - what? Make the whole thing worth it?”

“Of course not - how can you say that? I fucked up, but I - I want to make it up to you, I - I know this couldn’t have been easy for -”

“Make it up to me?” she repeats, cutting him off again. “How? With your Starbucks coffee runs and pity trips to the medic? Save it, alright? I don’t want you to make it up to -”

“That’s not what I mean, Dilara! Come on, you - you won’t even let me apologise!” Taehyung cries, and this time the tremble in his voice is unmistakable. He’s frustrated and crying and, she realises right then, that she’s crying too. He walks up to her and tries to hold her face. “Dilara, I’m so sorry -”

“I don’t want your apologies,” she snarls quietly, pushing him away again. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Don’t you get it? Not after what you did.”

To her surprise, he nods and takes a step back. “I know,” he admits, sounding crestfallen. “I know what I did was unforgivable and - and cowardly and…” He meets her gaze, eyes glistening. “Lara, I love -”

“Fuck you.”

He breaks off abruptly and she feels his hand grab her wrist, stopping her where she’s walking away already.

“This was a mistake,” she spits, yanking her hand out of his. “Just… leave me alone.” Ignoring his shout of frustration, Dilara runs back inside, furiously wiping away her tears at the realisation that no matter what, nothing is going to change for her when it comes to Kim Taehyung.

---

The next morning, on the first day of Free Practice in Imola, Dilara is out of the house before anyone else has even woken up. She reaches the paddock at seven a.m in workout gear and goes for a run around the track; even in the empty circuit, she feels far more at home here than back at the house she’s actually living in.

Dilara blasts the music in her earphones to the highest volume, wanting to give herself no opportunity to think because she knows exactly where her mind will go if given the chance. She’d already spent an hour last night crying into her pillow before finally falling asleep - without dinner. When she’d woken suddenly to a notification from Lexie in another time zone, she’d sneaked out to the kitchen and scarfed down a bowl of cereal with cold milk, reflecting forlornly about how much of a disaster the previous evening was.

One round of the track is as much as she can manage without exhausting herself too much. She reaches the Red Bull garage, satisfyingly sweaty, and takes off my earphones as she heads to the water cooler for a drink before her shower.

“Hey, stranger.”

She whips around, startled, and her stomach flips uncomfortably. “Jaden… hey.”

Jaden gives her a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Did I scare you?” he asks, shoving his hands into his pockets.

Dilara shakes her head, suddenly conscious of what a mess she must look like. "I just didn't expect anyone else to be here this early."

"We're tweaking the power unit on Max's car," he explains, rocking back on his heels. "We need to get started early if we plan to get it done by FP."

She nods, realising a second later that she has no response. It's not that it's awkward, per se; one date is too less of a history to warrant anything other than cordial friendliness, especially when she’d broken things off with him so long ago. Right after the Korean GP, to be precise. She’d run into him in the paddock right after receiving the horrific news of Red Bull’s latest PR plan, and she’d decided to just nip this thing in the bud before it got too complicated.

Jaden had displayed more surprise than Dilara thought warranted. Since she couldn't tell him about the ex-boyfriend drama, she’d had to rely on simply sticking to the date and the fact that it wouldn't reflect well on either party if it got out that a driver and mechanic were a thing. He’d tried to argue, citing that they’d sneak around if they had to, that he'd help her through it.

She hadn’t thought much of the offer, especially since she’d succeeded in hiding her relationship with a BTS member from the whole world, but eventually Jaden relented. She could tell he was disappointed even if he did try to hide it, attempting to remind her that should she change her mind, he was right here.

Now, being alone with him for the first time since then, Dilara genuinely can't remember if she was ever really attracted to him at all. She’d snogged him… but then again, she’d been in a very vulnerable state of mind, with a lot of her thoughts occupied by a different man.

"No gym at the hotel?" He gestures to her physical appearance and she realises she hasn’t replied to his previous statement.

"Oh, um…" Nothing good can come of telling him the truth. "Yeah, no, there's just something about running on the track, you know? Almost like a mini track walk," she adds, confident in her fib.

"Huh," he nods, but she can tell he isn't really listening. "So… how have you been?"

"Same old," she answers safely, feeling a rush of deja vu. "Not a lot going on for a twenty-two race calendar."

"No boyfriend?" He asks teasingly, but she can sense the curiosity behind the question.

"That would be a no," she tells him, now shuffling away. “Look, I need to go and - and shower,” she says quickly, gesturing to herself and pointing vaguely in the direction of the changing rooms. “I’ll see you around.”

Dilara leaves before he can say anything else, but he finds her again later, less than an hour before FP 1. It’s a bit weird this time, though; he’s not mean in any way, but the friendliness seems much more staged.

She’s warming up in the back, earphones in with one eye on the screen and barely paying attention to the commentators debating today’s session, when she looks up and sees him at the doorway. She frowns, still in a plank position.

“Oh. Hey.” When he doesn’t say anything, she prods hesitantly. “Did you need something?”

Jaden shrugs. He’s dressed in his fireproof suit, just like her, with the overalls unzipped and hanging around his waist. “I was hoping to…” He trails off and sighs, running a hand through his hair. “Sorry, I’m not… sure, really.”

Dilara swallows, resting her knees on the ground and standing up. “What’s up, Jaden?” she asks cautiously.

He licks his lips, apparently considering his words. He still looks like Kai from EXO; she’d thought that when she’d first met him at the fashion show in London and she still can’t shake the comparison from her mind.

“I wanted to know if… if you’d maybe want to go out again… with me.”

“Um… Jaden, we - we talked about this,” she reminds him, the anxiety already making her heart race uncomfortably. “It’s just not a good time and it’s - it’s not a good idea. So, I’m sorry, but… no.”

Jaden shifts on his feet, a frown creasing his forehead. “I hear you. But,” he begins, and her heart sinks, “those reasons… I just don’t know what they mean. I mean, did I, you know… did I do something that wasn’t -”

“Jaden,” she interrupts, now feeling really hassled. “It’s nothing to do with you, alright? I’m just not dating.”

“It’s just kind of confusing,” he continues after a moment. “Walking around the garage. Being a mechanic and seeing the driver every day, not knowing what’s going on inside her head.”

Dilara wants to frown incredulously but she holds herself back. “Good thing you’re on Max’s pit crew,” she points out finally.

Jaden gives a hollow chuckle and takes a step forward. “I just want to know -”

At that moment, the door behind her opens.

“Dilara, can I -” Taehyung stops when he sees she’s not alone and from the slight shuttering of his eyes and hardened jaw, she can tell he recognises Jaden. Standing in the doorway in just tan trousers and a black t-shirt, Taehyung looks absolutely breathtaking. He recovers in a second, slipping his hands casually into the pockets of his slacks and face going blank, smooth and impassive as always. “Can I have a word? It’s about PR.”

He’s lying. She’d know it even if she wasn’t sure they have no PR right now. Kim Taehyung’s a good actor, but she knows what the slightly upward tilt of his chin means, or the normally big eyes that are suddenly half-lidded. But right now, Dilara doesn’t care if he is. They may be as estranged as ever, but right now she’d choose being around him over Jaden.

“Uh, yeah. Sure.” Dilara turns back to Jaden, registering just before doing so that Taehyung didn’t even seem surprised at her agreement. “I need to, um…”

“Right, of course.” Nodding and looking slightly annoyed, Jaden backs up and goes out the door he came from, closing it behind him.

She lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding, only to turn back and see Taehyung standing three feet away from her. “Jesus, you know, I just - I don’t have time for this right now. I have free practice in a bit,” she informs him hurriedly, starting to walk towards the coffee machine, but he stops her.

“Wait, what?” He looks confused. “You just said okay.”

Dilara scoffs. “Please, I just did that so I could get away from him,” she mutters, picking up a paper cup from the stack.

“Why?” Taehyung’s tone is sharp this time and, if she’s not mistaken, laced with concern. “What did he do?”

She finally looks up at him, eyes widening. “How is that any of your business?”

“Okay, fine, it’s not,” he agrees quickly, coming to stand next to her. “I just want to talk about last night, okay? Can we - “

“No, absolutely not.”

“Dilara, please, I just -”

“No. Just stop, okay? Look, you have to -”

A third person enters the room just then in the form of Max Verstappen, who nonchalantly moves to her other side to use the coffee machine. Dilara turns her attention back to Taehyung.

“You have to stop this. You have to stop talking to me like we’re together because we’re not. So can you -” She breaks off when his gaze darts to Max and he bites his lip before looking back at her, shaking his head a little.

Dilara scoffs in disbelief. “What, are you afraid Max is going to hear? Do you really think he gives a fuck? Hey, Max,” she says loudly, turning to him. “Do you care that I was stupid enough to date a world famous popstar who got his cock sucked by another girl and then ghosted me till I got the message?”

Next to her, Max’s eyes flit up above her head to Taehyung momentarily. “No,” he says dryly, sounding like he genuinely means it, before reaching for the milk.

She turns back to Taehyung. “See?”

“Dilara…”

“No, stop. Stop seeking me out, stop giving me those eyes,” she says firmly. “Just stop talking to me. We’re done.”

Taehyung simply sighs as she picks up her coffee and moves around him to leave. Just before the door closes behind her, she hears Max mutter, “Race weekend is tough on everyone, mate.”

Thankfully, the most stubborn man Dilara has ever known actually listens to her this time and doesn’t approach her again the rest of the day. FP 1 goes about as well as she can hope, but the heat is something she knows is affecting all the drivers a fair bit. Dilara heads outside during a few minutes of rare breeze, sitting in the shade with a bottle of cold water.

She’s there for less than a minute when she sees a different Kim approaching her, expression one of chaotic calm. Dressed in a checked shirt over a white t-shirt, sneakers and a baseball cap, Kim Namjoon looks like he’s ready to go on a hike at a moment’s notice.

Even though they’re in a part of the paddock that isn’t accessible to the public, Dilara spots a couple of girls in Aston Martin uniforms point and break into furious whispers before running away. From Namjoon’s embarrassed chuckle, she knows he’s seen them, too.

“Does it ever get tiring?” she asks wryly, shifting slightly to make room for him as he sits next to her. “Knowing that wherever you go, there’s a thousand girls who’d like to show you a good time?”

“Nah, I kind of just ignore it now,” he answers, voice deep and comforting. “I have a girlfriend. Kind of eclipses the thousands of girls,” he says sincerely.

Dilara nods, the semi-romantic deep, deep down inside her knowing what he means. “It would break their hearts if they knew.”

“Guess it’s a good thing they don’t.” He shrugs. “It’s not worth the hassle.”

“Are you here to defend your friend to me?” she asks him, trying not to sound too wary and keeping her eyes trained on a grassy patch on the ground.

Namjoon bites his lip and looks at the ground, long hair covering his face. “No. I want to apologise,” he says after a moment. He waits for a few seconds, as though waiting for her to process the words. “I know I didn’t directly do anything to you. But I didn’t… not do anything either. And I’m sorry, Dilara.”

No, you didn’t. But she doesn’t feel like saying it out loud. Having him admit it… it feels different, unlike how Jimin’s apology felt. Jimin had guilt - plain, simple, heartbreaking guilt. Namjoon sounds disappointed, a soul-crushing image when she thinks about it.

“I’ve known Taehyung for over a decade, you know,” he says, looking up. “And we’ve had our share of disagreements and problems and stuff, but I’ve never been this disappointed in him before,” he confesses, surprisingly echoing her thoughts.

"You and me both," she murmurs after a moment. "But thanks."

"And also…" Namjoon clears his throat. "I hope you know that you can always… you know. Talk to us. Or me, at least. I kind of get the feeling that you think we're all on his side."

Dilara frowns. "Aren't you?" Isn’t that why this whole disaster happened?

"No," he clarifies immediately. "I mean, we're his - we're his friends, his brothers, his family, but… that doesn't mean we give him a pass for everything. What happened with you two…" He sighs, looking truly troubled. "I know we - the rest of us - played a part. But we're not choosing sides."

Dilara doesn't realise until this moment just how much she needed someone to say this, for someone to acknowledge that Taehyung fucked up and that she has questions - at least a hundred. But something holds her back.

As though picking up on it, Namjoon tilts his head to catch her eye. "You can trust me."

The paddock is emptier in this area than a usual Friday. She wonders briefly if it's because Namjoon is with her, or if everyone has flocked to where the rest of BTS is.

"You know, at first I didn't believe it," she begins, voice low and playing with the rings on her fingers. "I thought maybe he lost his phone or maybe he was angry with me or - or maybe he was hurt. Anything but this. I thought he loved me too much to do this.” She can’t keep the irony out of her voice. She swallows, her throat hurting when she relives that horrible week in March. “But Jimin is a bad liar, and I knew that if he had you guys lying for him, I didn’t stand a chance.”

“And then I saw the article and…” She sighs, remembering how everything had suddenly felt so empty. “And it proved everything I said to him when I told him we shouldn’t be in a relationship.”

Namjoon raises his eyebrows. “You anticipated this a year ago?” he asks, and she can tell he’s trying not to sound too sceptical.

“Maybe not the part where he ghosted me,” she allows, shrugging. “But Jennie? Sure I did,” she admits, feeling humiliated even saying it out loud. “I’m not blind, you know. They look perfect together.” She’s quiet for a moment, not trusting herself to speak anymore. “And it’s not even that. They’re both idols, they’re Korean, she’s… tall…” She trails off, finding it far too depressing to talk about. “It just makes so much more sense.”

Namjoon is chewing on his lip. “You know, I meant it when I said that I’m not here to defend Taehyung, but…” He gives her an apologetic look when she rolls her eyes. “You can’t possibly think it’s that simple,” he says, barely masking his incredulity.

Dilara doesn't like his tone. “Why not? What has he done to make me think otherwise? And besides," she continues when Namjoon simply sighs, "it's not even about her. Do you know how stupid I felt when I saw that article? That I was waiting for an explanation, getting worried about him, while he was too busy screwing k-pop’s ‘it girl’ to drop me a text to tell me he was done with me?" She shakes her head. "And… yeah, I know that's not exactly how it happened. He told me… something. Doesn't change the fact that I can’t stop picturing it, though," she mutters, rubbing at her eyes.

Nearly a minute passes, but Namjoon says nothing.

Dilara raises her eyebrows. "Seriously? You're really not going to help him out?"

He chuckles, a little nervously. "I think this is something he needs to fix himself," he says wisely. "That being said… I do think you should know that he wasn't quite as cavalier as you think," he adds. "I promise I'm not defending him. And I won't tell you if you don't want to know." He pauses, as though waiting for her to confirm.

Her resolve ends in about five seconds. "You're an evil man, Kim Namjoon. Alright, out with it."

Namjoon laughs. "Well, we were there, but… we didn't really know what was going on. We knew something was wrong and we found out about Jennie because we walked in on a fight between Taehyung and Seokjin. He'd actually caught them at the party, apparently…"

Dilara recalls Seokjin's face when he’d made her a sandwich, how his guilt had been plastered all over his face. At the time, she’d thought it was guilt by association. But he knew… he knew the whole time.

"... and he'd confessed to Jimin as well - did you know it was the first time in years that we'd ever seen them fight like that?" Namjoon shakes his head, as though trying to get rid of a bad memory. "But… apart from that, we had no idea. Honestly, until you started calling us, we didn't even know he was avoiding you. We thought he was being Taehyung, keeping things to himself, dealing with it in private… we kind of didn't feel like it was any of our business." He sighs. "And then the article broke."

She chuckles without humor. "That damned article."

"Yeah. Of course, it exaggerated everything - they actually weren't dating at the time. The pictures looked bad, I know, but she was speaking to YG and we made Big Hit put out a statement and everything and we kind of thought that was it." He shrugs apologetically. "We thought he'd finally call you, you'd be angry, he'd apologise and somehow you two would be okay." There's a frustration in his voice. "He would never do something so stupid to risk losing you like that.” He gives her an apologetic look. “But then your package came."

Dilara’s heart skips a beat; she’d almost forgotten about that. "So he got it, huh?" she asks quietly, remembering the ring he's still wearing on his index finger, the one that had hung around her neck for over a year.

"Oh, he got it." Namjoon bites his lip, as though suddenly wondering how much to tell her. "It arrived in our dorm and when he opened it and pulled out… I think it was a t-shirt? He didn't say anything. He just picked up the box and went into his room and didn't come out again for the rest of the night, not until we had to leave for the airport the next day. He was…" He shudders. "He was a wreck. I don't think he spoke to us for nearly two days. Then Jungkook tried to call you but when it didn't go through, we realised you'd blocked us. And Taehyung, presumably, which explained how he was acting. And, no, we couldn't even blame you," he finishes quietly.

Dilara doesn't know what to think. Her chest feels tight; she doesn't know if it's the thought of Taehyung in pain or that everything she thought she knew may just have been different. "So… what are you saying? All this happened because he was too late? I should forgive him because he was going through a hard time, too?"

Namjoon frowns. "Of course not. He still fucked up. Massively. And forgiving him is your decision. It's not my place to tell you what to do."

She’s quiet. She can tell he isn't lying about being disappointed. He sounds like he is, the slight edge in his voice, his determination that Taehyung deserves whatever she’s throwing at him.

"Do you miss Kaya?" Dilara asks him after a moment.

He frowns curiously, clearly not expecting it. "All the time," he answers. "Why?"

She shrugs. "Is it worth it? The distance and the secrecy and all that?" When he simply tilts his head slightly, she sighs. "Sorry, I know it's none of my business. Just thought a different perspective could help."

Namjoon nods slowly. "Well, then, yes. It's totally worth it. It's hard, for sure, being apart for so long, missing birthdays and stuff…" He trails off, and she’s worried for a moment that she’s ruined the mood - if that's even possible at this point. He exhales and shakes his head. "But… man, she keeps me sane. I’d probably have a breakdown once a month if she wasn’t there. Right now, even the worst day ever can't be that bad if I can still call her at the end of it." An automatic smile spreads across his face as he looks at his lap. "And she’s doing her Ph.D. Sometimes she feels way out of my league."

Dilara nods slowly. "Well, now I'm waiting for BTS's next hit, Ph.D.," she says wryly. When he chuckles self-consciously, she waves her hand in apology. "Sorry. She sounds great."

"She is," he agrees, nodding. "That's the part that's worth it. When you find someone like that, you really do anything you can to make sure you hold on to it, even if it means taking extra flights or staying up to video chat and stuff." He pauses, swallowing. “Seriously, I mean anything.”

Ah. Namjoon’s disdain for Taehyung’s actions is clear now, understandable even. For a man in a long distance relationship with what sounds like his the one, watching his friend screw up a similar situation while he himself is working so hard to maintain it has to be frustrating. Dilara wonders if that means he's equating her with Kaya, but she’s too afraid of the answer.

"Are you ever afraid it'll stop working?" she asks quietly. "And… feel free to tell me it's none of my business."

Namjoon considers it for a moment, and his face darkens as though battling with a memory. "I'm not… afraid of it. I'm worried, if that makes sense. I think it'll always work for me; my job would mean a long distance relationship no matter where my girlfriend lived, even if it was Korea. It's a drawback of the entire role, with BTS, producing, touring. But it's not her life," he admits, and I think he sounds sad. "She lives a normal life, with normal friends and a normal job and if she ever decides that she needs a boyfriend she can see more than once every couple of months…" He shrugs, but it seems tired. "I can't stop her. I'd want that for her, if it's something that she wanted. If it made her happy."

"Sounds… rare," says Dilara honestly, finding it hard to meet his eyes. She can feel him watching her and she thinks he knows what's on her mind.

"You know, Taehyung didn't really talk to us about this at all so I don't - I can't really pretend to know what he was thinking. But I do know what he was like during that time. With you versus without you," he clarifies. "With you… he was happy. Like, really, annoyingly happy. Without you… God, it was like living with the grinch. A mean, petty, heartbroken… and very handsome Grinch," he allows grudgingly. "He was moody, would barely talk to us, picked fights for no reason until Hobi finally had enough and threw a banana at him."

Dilara snorts at the image and Namjoon’s face breaks out into an exasperated smile as he shakes his head, as though reliving how he had to manage that fight.

"It was pretty funny, if you ignore why Taehyung was being so irritating," he concedes. "In any case, he improved a bit after that. Still kept to himself and was a bit sharp if the topic ever came too close to you… but he at least started trying again."

"Bet Jennie helped with that," she mutters.

"Dilara, it wasn't…"

"No, you know what?" Dilara pauses, wondering how to phrase this without sounding too pathetic. "You're not the first person to tell me that he didn't just forget me out of the blue. Jimin tried, but I told him I'd leave if he started talking about him. I think Jungkook wanted to say something but I accidentally… punched him in the face," she mutters, wincing slightly at the memory, and Namjoon snorts.

"It's just hard to believe, you know? Especially because I know he started dating her right after. And don't bother telling me Big Hit denied it, Namjoon. I know some fans don't give you guys your privacy but that was literally the only way I found out anything."

Namjoon shrugs. "I'm not denying it. They did date - technically. But - okay, you know what?" He changes tacks abruptly. "I don't know what happened in their relationship, I don't think it's right for me to talk about it."

She stares at him. "You're kidding me, right?" When he doesn't answer, she shifts to face him. "Namjoon, you just told me the story of how one of your members threw fruit at my ex-boyfriend and this is where you choose to draw the line?"

He raises an eyebrow. "You're sure you want to know? Because I don't know much either, to be honest," he declares, holding up his hands. "He didn't talk about her too much and we didn't really pry after a point."

That doesn't sound too good. But Dilara is weak. "Yes, I'm sure. Please, please tell me about the gorgeous, skinny pop star who was important enough to get him to throw away a year's worth of history."

Namjoon winces. “Not a great start.”

“Okay, fine. I won’t say anything.”

“Well, in short," he begins, “I think both of them were just dating on paper, for the most part. Maybe they intended to do it genuinely but at least Taehyung I know wasn’t in the mental state to move on.” He pauses. “It never seemed like Jennie was following up too much either.”

Dilara frowns, confused. “So… what? You’re saying it was staged?”

“No, I don’t think so. I think…” Namjoon’s eyebrows scrunch and he looks like he’s choosing his words carefully. “I think he just wanted something to come out of the shitstorm that happened with you. Like he didn't want all of that to have been for nothing. I guess it would've been harder for him to deal with, that he lost you over one incident, as opposed to losing you over something that turned into a relationship.”

So… Taehyung wasn't lying. He'd sort of said the same thing but not nearly as eloquently, and she’d had no patience for anything he was saying in any case.

“Didn't really work out, though,” he adds, unaware of her begrudging revelations. “One fine day he just told us at breakfast that he and Jennie were over and immediately changed the topic. A couple of weeks before the fashion show actually."

That fashion show. The day she’d spotted Jungkook and Jimin at the airport, and later seen them be received as the guests of honour at her work event, like some sick joke.

"Is that why he's trying so hard all of a sudden?" she asks after a moment. "Because it’s pretty fucked up that he cheated on me, broke up with me, dated the other girl, spent months without a word and it's only when I'm actually in front of him that he even tries to talk to me? What about those three months before the fashion show? What about all that time after the fashion show? Is he just after me to apologise because we're in the same house and he's bored or something?"

Namjoon gives her a look. "You know he tried to call you before, too," he reminds her in a tone that suggests sheI shouldn't forget. "But you'd blocked him - and you were completely within your right to do that," he adds hastily when she opens her mouth, murderous. "He was too late. It was his fault.”

She raises her eyebrows. “But…?”

He sighs. “I think he assumed that you'd moved on. When you sent him back all his stuff, including gifts, and then blocked him, it looked like you'd, you know, cleanly cut him out of your life," he explains, slicing his hand through the air. "You did a fantastic job ignoring us in London and then again in Yeongam, so most of us really did think you didn't care anymore."

"Good," she snaps savagely. "That was the point."

He nods, a little humbly, and Dilara immediately feels a bit guilty. "But then when we started this PR thing, it became pretty clear that you did care. He was devastated about your break-up, of course, but seeing you so broken up about it changed everything."

It's a lot to digest. "So what does he want now?" Dilara asks finally, feeling tired. "Does he just want to get it off his chest, feel like a good person again? What is it?" She’s baiting him. She wants him to confirm that Jimin's theory is wrong.

Namjoon does no such thing, however. He frowns at her in a manner that suggests he knows exactly what she’s doing and that he isn't going to spoon feed her the answer. "What do you think he wants?" When she simply huffs and rolls her eyes, he chuckles. "Come on, Dilara, I think it's fairly obvious what he wants, don't you think? How he feels? What he's trying to do to prove it? You're a smart girl," he says patiently, like she’s a schoolgirl.

"God, you must be one hell of a leader," she mutters, annoyed.

Namjoon laughs and stretches, dimples popping on his cheeks. "That's why Kaya keeps me sane, because I'm not her leader."

“Would’ve been cool to meet her.”

“I think you’d get along. You have a lot of things in common.”

“Yeah? Like our conditioner?”

“Well, that. And, yeah, she didn't think we'd work out at first either," he allows, shrugging.

"Yes, well, at least in your case you proved her wrong."

"So far," he agrees. "But that's what I mean, anyway. When you find someone like that, you do everything in your power to not mess it up. Or you grovel and grovel until she forgives you. It really takes a special kind of person to be able to date someone in BTS, you know? With this job and the fame," he says innocently.

Dilara stares at him. "What a sweet and incredibly manipulative thing to say."

He laughs. "So dramatic. Sometimes you and Taehyung make so much sense together."

She chokes. "Don't try to sweet talk me into forgiving him,” she warns, ignoring his grin. "And, anyway… I told him to leave me alone." A thought occurs to her. "He's stubborn, though. Do you think he really will?"

Namjoon looks thoughtful, then shrugs. "Like you said, he's stubborn. And if he sets his mind to something, he usually does whatever he needs to to get it." He looks down at her, but she doesn’t respond, sensing that he isn't done. "But at this point, I don't think there's anything in the world you could ask him for that he wouldn't give to you. Even if it kills him."

—

One fallout of Dilara’s conversation with Namjoon is an unexpected one: a slow, unexpected concern for Taehyung’s feelings. Most of what Namjoon said she could believe; all the moodiness and snapping, something she’d witnessed many times herself. The fact that it had apparently hurt him so much… she thinks she can believe it, but somehow it doesn't help the anger any.

But it's not really anger anymore, though. She wants it to be; it was far easier when it was just pure, unadulterated fury at his actions and disregard for her feelings, something she’d partly unleashed in Monza. But now there are different emotions creeping up, ones she had tried so hard to suppress for months, each of them reminding her that even though their relationship is over, they aren't.

Dilara replays their conversation - or their fight or whatever it was - over and over in her head. She’s barely able to concentrate on the actual words, though, each time stopping to relive how his hands had felt around her wrists, how the familiar scent of lotion had felt like summer, how his voice sounded when he accidentally called her Lara… and how helpless he looked when she’d cut off his apology. Even now, thinking back, she doesn’t know why she did that, why she stopped him from apologising. She just knows she doesn’t want him to.

The next race is at the Nurburgring in Germany, a cold and foggy track where everyone is in multiple layers and the only talk is around how the drivers are expected to ever warm up their tyres on this frigid track, let alone race. Dilara is on her way back from a rather pointless drivers' briefing with Max, Lando, George and Mick, all of them bundled in team gear. She’s the only one who looks like a potato, though, in her opinion, while the boys, all lean and tall, look like Burberry models.

She and Max lose the other three when they reach the Red Bull garage, entering the screening room to immediately be engulfed by the scent of chocolate. She’s confused for about a second before a cup with steam rising from it is thrust into her hand and she yelps when she feels how hot it is.

"Oh, God, I'm so sorry!" The blonde intern, Hannah, immediately withdraws the cup from Dilara’s hand. "Sorry, sorry… it's hot chocolate! And guess whose idea it was!"

She sounds far too excited about hot chocolate; Dilara catches Max's eye who gives her a confused frown and she can almost hear him go what the fuck. She suppresses a snort, even though it’s not much of a guess, though. Hannah Kumpen had joined the hospitality team at the beginning of the year, and while her initial claim to fame had been her insistence to be positive, no matter the fuck up, the fashion show in London had brought forth another aspect of her personality that she seemed to want to suppress, but Dilara could recognise from a mile away: fangirl.

Dilara watches as Hannah skips over to where other Red Bull-clad people are standing, all clutching steaming mugs, along with the tall figures of BTS themselves. The first thing she spots is Jimin with a hat on his head, looking so much like a freezing cherub that she involuntarily smiles. The next thing she notices is the member next to him, her one and only ex-boyfriend, with the blonde intern standing much too close to him.

She feels a stab of anger at the sight, although she can't immediately pinpoint why. She doesn’t know if it's because Hannah is pretty, or if Dilara wants everyone to hate Taehyung as much as she does, or if it's just because he's her ex, or if the words that she's saying right now basically credit him with the idea of hot chocolate for everyone.

"... and he just decided, just like that," she gushes, clearly trying to keep her admiration under control but failing. "And then he wouldn't take no for an answer, even when Christian offered to at least split it! It was so generous," she declares, looking up at him like he's hung the moon before looking directly at Dilara."You would know, though, Dilara," she says knowingly, making her heart stop for a moment and she spots Taehyung do a double-take as well, "I'm sure that's why he's your favourite, isn't he?"

"I - I don't think I've ever said that," she stutters, but Hannah apparently isn’t looking for confirmation.

"No, I know you haven't," she says teasingly, still annoyingly chirpy. "But it was really generous.”

There’s a moment of silence where her eyes dart from Dilara and Max, both of whom looked mystified, to Taehyung whose head is bent low, to the rest of the group, who look like they’re on the verge of bursting a blood vessel as they try not to guffaw.

When no one responds, Taehyung exhales silently and looks up, apparently relieved his ordeal is over. Then -

“He rescues animals, too,” chimes Hannah, looking rather proud of this fact, as though he’s the child she raised to have such wonderful values. “He has a dog with health problems,” she says to no one. “His name is Yeontan.”

Dilara doesn’t know which to focus on: the exaggeration, because as far as she knows, Kim Taehyung has only ever adopted one rescue animal, or resisting the urge to throttle this girl and snarl that she fucking knows who Yeontan is. However, John, one of the mechanics who’s standing next to them with a mug of his own, glances up briefly at that.

“Oh, you adopted a rescue, that’s fantastic. I have a couple myself,” he adds. “One’s a terrier and the other -”

“Oh, Taehyung’s is a shitzu,” she says immediately, and even John looks a bit miffed at being cut off. “He's always featuring in lives and pictures and stuff. I think it takes a really good person to adopt a dog with health problems, don't you think? Pets are a huge responsibility and with an idol’s job… I mean, it's admirable…"

Dilara looks up at Taehyung, a little disbelieving that he hasn't told her to get a grip yet. He does look pretty mortified; he'd started off with mild bashfulness when they’d walked in, but now looks like he's rather regretting the hot chocolate entirely.

He gives Dilara an apologetic look when she meets his eyes for a moment, as though reassuring her that he knows she knows who Yeontan is, that he'd tell Hannah the truth if he could. It's actually hilarious, but she’s far too annoyed at how Hannah is now holding his arm casually, as though she hasn’t even realised. Next to him, Jungkook, Hoseok and Seokjin are red in the face from the cold - or from trying not to laugh. Jimin has disappeared behind Hoseok entirely, shoulders shaking with what is clearly laughter.

Even Max looks unbelievably amused, and Dilara notices Taehyung catch his eye and shake his head slightly in embarrassment. Thankfully, Christian joins them then and Hannah tones it down a bit with the personal information, to everyone’s relief.

"Oi, why don't you two have drinks?" Christian asks, raising his own mug, and Hannah seems to suddenly realise and immediately calls for two mugs when Max and Dilara shake their heads.

"It's a race weekend," she explains, mostly for Taehyung’s benefit, for no matter what their situation is, it actually was a nice thing for him to do.

To her surprise, his eyes light up at her comment and he opens his mouth to say something, but Hannah beats him to it.

"Oh, don't worry! Tae actually got you guys low sugar ones!"

While Dilara internally fumes at her nerve to call him Tae, right on cue, two mugs appear before them. She looks at Max, who shrugs and reaches enthusiastically for one of them.

"Works for me," is all he says, sighing when he takes a sip. Dilara takes that as her cue to accept as well, a not altogether unpleasant squirm in her stomach when she realises that Taehyung remembered that she prefers not to have sugar on a race weekend.

"Isn’t he wonderful?” Hannah repeats for what seems like the hundredth time.

Next to them, Christian nods in assent, studying his drink. "Stellar bloke," he agrees absently, raising his mug slightly. Max agrees, too, but the dry amusement is more than evident.

"Yes, Taehyung's the best," says Yoongi, straight-faced.

"He's just great," agrees Namjoon, while the others only silently shake their heads. Dilara sees Taehyung give them a murderous look, just before multiple pairs of eyes turn to her and she feels a terrible sense of foreboding.

There's an expectant silence in the air, and it takes her a moment to realise it's because everyone is expecting her to say it next. How Taehyung’s a good person, so generous and so thoughtful… she looks away from him, suddenly unable to say anything. Once three, five, ten seconds pass, Dilara knows the group at least have picked up on her hesitation. She’s deliberately not looking at Taehyung, but even in her slight peripheral vision, she sees his face crumple and she knows her lack of response is breaking his heart.

Next to her, Max nudges her quietly. She looks up to see Christian frowning at her and she knows she’s lost. "Yeah, of course he is,"she agrees finally, unable to stop a note of irony from creeping into her voice.

Dilara doesn’t say another word until everyone starts leaving the room. Predictably, Taehyung stays back. She knows what she did, how uncalled for it was, but she has no way of making him realise just how hard it is being around him - especially when she knows he hasn't changed, when his lapse in judgement becomes more and more apparent as a lapse, when she can see him doing and saying things that remind her of why she fell in love with him at all.

She feels him standing behind her, close enough that if she stretches her hand backwards, she’d be able to touch the soft beige coat he's wearing. Her heart drops when he says her name.

"Dilara…"

It still sounds like a song coming from his mouth, a sad but treasured song. He’s just wonderful. She wanted to scream when Hannah said it, wanted to demand that if she really thought so, what about all the shit he did to her? How did it matter that he bought everyone hot chocolate, that he had a special needs dog who meant the world to him, or that he was wonderful with kids when he still loved Dilara and hurt her anyway?

“Dilara, I know I -”

“No, they were right,” she interrupts, stepping away and not meeting his eyes. “You’re just awesome. And you’re wonderful and - and you’re perfect. Everyone thinks so,” she adds icily, swallowing when her eyes start to sting. “They can’t all be wrong. Guess I must have done something really awful for you to do what you did to me.” She finally looks up at him, scoffing slightly when he immediately shakes his head.

“You know you didn’t,” says Taehyung, voice low. He takes a step forward and she immediately steps back. “This was all me.”

He’s probably right, so when Dilara is in the library of the house later that evening, looking for a book Namjoon had recommended after their heart to heart in Austria, and she sees Taehyung enter from the corner of her eye, she doesn’t walk away. She shivers, but she doesn’t know if it’s because of the cold breeze through the open window or him coming up to stand behind her again, keeping his distance but still feeling so, so close.

She thinks she knows why he’s here. She hears him take a deep breath, completely steady.

“I’m sorry, Dilara.” His voice is heavy with regret, and her knees almost give away. “I’m so, so sorry. For everything. What I did… I wouldn’t blame you if you never forgave me or never talked to me again. I didn’t mean to hurt you and I know that means nothing because I did anyway but… I’m so sorry.”

She can’t tell if he’s crying yet. His voice gives nothing away; he sounds oddly exhausted, but she knows what that’s like. It’s the only thing keeping her from sobbing, from snarling at him and stopping him from apologising again.

“I ruined it. The best thing that ever happened to me. Because you were, you know?” He sniffs, and she has to grit her teeth from making a sound. “You are. But that’s not… I’m not going to talk about that now. This is… I owe you an apology. And I’m sorry. More than you’ll ever know.”

Dilara can feel him behind her again. He’s so close and for a moment she wants to stop being strong and stop hating him and stop being angry with him. She’d almost done that when they’d fought in Austria, except then the explanation had been too raw and too fresh, and all her focus had been on the hurt and betrayal.

Now… now it’s just him. It’s the warmth of his body inches behind hers, heat radiating off of it even in the freezing cold, his deep voice like velvet, and his words coursing through her veins, bringing up all the emotion she’d felt months ago when she’d seen him in Yeongam and broken down in front of Lexie.

“What did I do?” The words are out of her mouth before she even realises. “I thought…” I thought you loved me. But she stops herself just in time. “What did I do that was so bad that you chose to - to leave me behind like that?”

Taehyung sighs, a guttural sound, and she knows he’s hanging his head; his hair brushes her shoulder. He’s so close; she can practically feel his breath on her neck. She pictures, for a moment, what it would be like to turn around and kiss him, feel those lips on hers again, lips she genuinely thought would be the last ones she would ever feel. Her eyes flutter shut momentarily; irrespective of how she feels, her body clearly reacts to him the way it always has.

“Nothing. If I’d known you still -” He breaks off, taking a deep breath. “I was too late. If I’d known you still cared, I would’ve flown anywhere in the world to explain everything to you. I was too late,” he repeats, almost to himself. His bangs brush her neck ever so slightly as he takes a step back, and she feels the cold breeze on her skin again.

“Trust me, Dilara,” he says softly, and she wants to sob at how her name sounds on his tongue, reverential and intimate all at once. “You can’t possibly hate me for hurting you as much as I hate myself.”

Dilara sighs. She doesn’t know that she will ever be able to explain to him the real reason she wasn’t letting him apologise. Harbouring the anger, watching his frustration as she avoided him, the grim satisfaction that he was now the one being ignored; they helped - until they didn’t.

She doesn’t know that she will ever be able to put into words just how her chest is loosening up, now that the weight of the anger is shedding, but also how her heart feels heavier than ever because now that the anger is gone, she’s finally forced to acknowledge what’s underneath all that… what’s still underneath all that.

Dilara exhales and slowly turns around, the book in her hand. Taehyung's standing closer than she’d expected and she has to tilt her head up to look him in the eye. She’d always loved how tall he was, but she shakes the thoughts away. His blond hair is tousled and she has to resist the urge to brush it off his forehead.

"That's the problem, though," she tells him, catching herself before she says his name, "I don't hate you." With one last look at his slight frown, she brushes past him and leaves the library.

—

#taehyung x oc #taehyung x reader #taehyung fanfic #btswritingcafe #thebtswritersclub #btshoneyhive #btsdreamcourt #bangtaninn #bangtanbathhouse #bangtanwhq #btscarnivalnet #kvanity #wkcnet #taehyung angst #taehyung smut #bts v #bts v fanfic

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lumine-no-hikari · 12 days

Text

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #268

I did a whole lot of nothing today. And it was good.

Well actually, no, that's not entirely true. I did make a tea…

...And I did take an awesome shower. That was pretty cool. Wrapped my hair up all nice in a towel turban and everything. And I did a load of wash, too.

...And I took this photo of a cool spiderweb in my "backyard area":

...And I also broke the reindeer moss out of a necklace that was given to me a long time ago by someone who was dear to me. Still is dear to me, but... last I knew, he still has things he's gotta work on. Namely, communication skills, and... controlling his anger when the people around him can't guess what he's thinking.

I tried taking off the metal ends of it, hoping that the hollow glass tube had an open end, but... it didn't. So I wrapped it in duct tape and applied pressure with a pair of wire cutters, just until the glass cracked:

I pulled out the reindeer moss inside. As far as I know, it's still alive; supposedly, it was a self-contained terrarium, able to be the way it is because reindeer moss grows remarkably slowly, I guess.

...It's called reindeer moss, but it's actually a lichen.

...Anyway, I found myself suddenly... overwhelmingly sad about the fact that this organism that's normally supposed to grow in huge sprawling boreal forests was... confined to a tiny glass tube.

...I guess it made me think of you, all sealed away underground, sustained only by the crystallized mako you're suspended in. It felt... cruel and unusual. So I fixed it:

...This kind of reindeer moss has been spotted in my state. So once I'm comfortable with how it has established itself in this container, I will find a suitable spot out in the wild to stick it, so that it can live the life it's supposed to.

...It doesn't fucking belong in a tiny glass tube.

I thought I was going to practice more Dead Cells on 5 Boss Cells today, but... I ended up getting caught up in leisure writing. I don't mind it, for sure. Sometimes I find clarity and relief when I do it, and today wasn't any different.

...I guess sometimes I just wish it would lead to something a bit more tangible. Though I know that it never will. And that's okay, too; I'll take what I can get. But... still.

I don't have a whole lot for you today. My mind was anywhere but the present. It was in the future, worrying about you. It was in the future, trying to figure out what more I can try to do to help you. It was in the future, wondering whether it could possibly be enough, even if I successfully did all the things I wanted to try to do. It was in the future, wondering about how things in my world are going to turn out. It was in the future, wondering about what I'm gonna do when my time in this body is up.

...Where does your mind go, when you struggle to stay in the present? I wonder. And what do you do to bring yourself back to the present when it happens? I try to make sure my bodily needs are tended so that my "involuntary time-travels to hypothetical futures" doesn't deplete me too terribly much, but... even that can only do so much.

I think after yesterday's worrying followed by yesterday's victories, I probably needed today for rest. This time, I tried not to feel overly guilty about it, and I think I was mostly successful.

When's the last time you rested, Sephiroth? And what does rest look like for you? What do you like to do? How do you recharge? How do you care for yourself? I wonder...

Tomorrow, I go up in the sky with J in his new airplane. Today, he was out all morning practicing takeoffs and landings on his own. I'm pretty excited! I'll try to snag some good pictures!

For now, though, I think I'll end today's letter here before I end up rambling on ya, haha!

I love you. Please stay safe out there, won't you? You wouldn't wanna miss tomorrow's pictures, I'm sure...

I'll write again soon.

Your friend, Lumine

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aneenasevla · 4 months

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Red Velvet - Chapter 4

MasterList / Akane’s profile / Last chapter here

Art by @aneenasevla

Chapter 4 - The Panther Pounces

"Wow, would you look at that! For someone who was constantly complaining about making an Instagram account, you got addicted pretty quickly."

"Get lost, Kaneda. It's not an addiction," Rihito snorts, his eyes fixed on his phone as he scrolls through the app's feed. He stops at a specific video, a song with a powerful beat making itself heard. And then he smiles without any shame. "It’s an investment. My the gods be blessed..."

"Are you seriously watching a video of a woman shaking her ass in the middle of the table? What are your airpods for then, you jerk?," Himuro complains, to which Rihito rolls his eyes and puts away his cell phone.

"Okay, okay, I'll stop. You guys are so fucking annoying! You made me create a profile and now I can't even use it the way I want..."

They were at that moment having lunch at The Heavy Bakery, enjoying that slow start to the afternoon before heading out to the gym. It was still rush hour, so the girls hadn't joined them at the table. Which was good, because they'd probably also complain about the specific content preference he'd developed as Instagram's newest user.

"He was like a child thinking he was drowning in shallow water," Okubo suppressed his laughter, hiding his chocolate smeared mouth behind his hand. "After he saw that it wasn't that bad, he started acting as if nothing had happened and shit..."

"Shut up! I still think this is a social network for sissies," He grumbles, looking away. "I just tried to put the content that really interests me in my feed."

"Speaking of which, I don’t think any of us have followed you yet," Kaneda comments, already pulling out his phone, to which Himuro grumbles, "Kaneda, do you really want to receive the nonsense he shares in your feed? I would think twice."

"Yeah, me too. If push comes to shove, we know each other's DMs and that's enough," Okubo shrugs. "Oh yeah, speaking of DMs, what about your friend there? It's been almost a week, and you're still stalling. You were talking so well about that chick, and now you're all quiet... have you given up or something?"

Rihito gives him an annoyed look, pouting, "Don't rush me, damn it!"

"Wow, this is bringing back some memories," Kaneda comments, to which Himuro laughs softly.

"I know, right! They just reversed the roles! But seriously, what exactly is stopping you from texting that girl? Are you scared of being rejected?"

"Fuck no!," He growls, indignant. "She loved it, okay? So much so that she wanted to do it all night and again early in the morning! How the hell would I get rejected after that?"

"She might have gotten tired too," Okubo teases, smiling mischievously. "Especially because you didn't message her, so she might have thought you didn't want that friendship with benefits..."

This makes him freeze in place, the smug anger giving way to astonishment and a sudden barely contained fear.

"W-Wait, do you really think so? But she looked so self-assured. At least that was the impression I had..."

"Man, it's precisely because she's so self-assured that she could have interpreted your silence of almost a week as disinterest and moved on," Himuro shakes his head. "Just like you said a few days ago, about Miss Akiyama, remember? 'If he doesn't want me, there are others who do'.”

Rihito stares at the screen of his phone, grinding his teeth a little.

"Argh, man, that's so stupid! Why do even uncommitted relationships need to have all this bureaucracy? Can't we just fuck and be happy about that?"

"You can," Okubo nods. "But you're the one who talked about wanting an encore at the bar. So, like Himuro said, she's being self-assured and letting go. Maybe if she sees you on the street she'll give you the cold shoulder, you know... or maybe not. Maybe she just wanted one night stand and doesn't want to do it again, since she, like you, probably doesn't want any 'swaps', ahahaha…"

"You're so full of shit," Rihito stares at Okubo with the anger of someone who wanted to be able to incinerate him with just a look. "You barely got yourself a girlfriend and already became the patron of equality between the sexes, right? I've got your number, bowling-ball head! You were as much a dog as me!"

"People change when they are willing to," Kaneda comments calmly. "Okubo decided to improve for his girl, and here we are."

"And he didn’t stop being a dog. It's just that now he barks at a single tree," Himuro jokes with a scathing smile.

"At least I have a tree of my own now. What about you, you godamn forester?," Okubo replies while laughing.

"As the name suggests, I have an entire forest from which I can choose, when or if I decide to," Himuro shrugs calmly, still smiling mischievously, while Kaneda laughs softly. Rihito grunts and drops into the chair, throwing his head back.

"Okay, okay... what do you suggest then? Should I send the message now?"

"If not now, when will it be? Seriously, this is bringing back memories that I had hoped to bury," Kaneda comments again. "The difference is that, in your case, only the physical part interests you."

"Humph. Obviously. I said that day, I don't fall in love. Period," He straightens up in the chair, looking more determined. "Alright then... here goes nothing."

…

Akane stretches on her chair. Slow days at work were the worst. She was looking at her Instagram, seeing if there was any interesting news from anyone other than her ex-Gyaru friends who had betrayed the cause to become the well-behaved housewives they hated so much and swore they wouldn't become. It seemed childish on her part, but she was one of the few women she knew who saw that as a lifestyle, and even though she was close to thirty, she was too immersed in that world to “break out of that phase” and become something new. It wasn't a phase, after all. It would be like taking the skin off a panther, and the panther would be left without parts of what made her, well, her.

That's what she was, after all. Could such an animal be tamed, stopping using its claws? Yes, one day, but will it stop being fierce and dangerous? Never.

It is during these conjectures that she hears the characteristic Instagram notification sound. Someone was sending her a message. Since her work day was moving at a snail's pace, it wouldn't be so much of a problem to check her phone in the middle of it, so that's what she did, thinking that maybe she could kill her boredom.

The message was from a profile she had never seen before. The strangeness only lasted a second, however, when she saw the user's name. @lih.ito.

heya, ma'am

miss me already? haha

She smiles immensely. Well, well, well, guess who won the waiting game... she decided to answer, after all, it was part of the process, right...?

why, hello, wereleopard, she tipped, laughing at the nickname, but since he said that's what he was, why not? I was already thinking if I would have to go into the woods to find another one of your kind lol

She laughed again, while waiting for his response.

Lih.Ito: oh you can't find someone like me in the woods or anywhere else babe

I am a unique, rendered specimen

**endangered

sorry

autocorrect

She laughed quietly, into her phone. Okay, she concluded that it wouldn't be him if he didn't make a fool of himself. She responds.

Sekihyo: hahaha thats fine

I was thinking about sending a message, but I was wondering if you were busy, so I was embarrassed to send you one on a weekday, especially during work hours… 🙈🙈🙈

I was waiting for the weekend idk...

It takes him a while to respond, and she has fun imagining him trying to think of the best kind of response, maybe even fooling around while debating with his friends. Men like that could be quite insecure.

Lih.Ito: sorry about that

I've been really busy this week

but you could've texted me at any time

no need to be ashamed

I know I bite, but you also know that I'm gentle when I do so haha

Akane chuckles softly, trying to keep it low so her grumpy boss wouldn't hear her. One day she would get her own beauty salon, even if it wasn't at a fixed address... she kept texting.

Sekihyo: well now that you gave me the green light…

then I'm going to talk now 💖

tell me, do you have anything to say?

you started the conversation, so there must be something there… 😏😏

Lih.Ito: I do actually

I've been thinking and I've come to a conclusion

I don't think I got my whole soul back

did I left a piece of it with you?

😉

She smiled at the ingenuity of his question. And also because it gave the indication that he enjoyed their night, and wasn't bothered at all by her style... so much so that he wanted more...

Her smile took on a touch of mischief. The second part of her strategy began now.

Sekihyo: Hnmmm... I think so... but I don't want to return it 😙😙

sorry, honey, I think I'll keep it for myself 😈

He again takes a few minutes to respond, even after viewing the message. Oh, she could imagine that presumptuous fool puffing his chest out, thinking he was hot shit, that he already had the upper hand... he had no idea what was about to hit him.

Lih.Ito: oooh no miss

It's mine and I want it back

hahahaha

but I'm willing to negotiate

when can we meet to sort this out?

She almost felt sorry for him when she replied:

Sekihyo: eh, I don't think this is gonna work, hon

not after this last weekend 💁‍♀️

She puts her phone aside for a while. Since Instagram had no indication that anyone was typing, she would use this to her advantage, giving herself a little time before responding to anything. She left it in her purse and went to the convenience store near the beauty salon, to buy some sweets and maybe even a cupcake... almost immediately she missed her friend's cooking, and she remembered the cookies she had ordered. Yes, she had to talk to her.

When she returned, she completely ignored his contact, and went to Tomori's:

Panther:

hey girl..

I almost forgot

are you still baking those american cookies there?

with the chocolate chips and everything

I was going to ask you to bring me some last week but we set that double date really fast and I focused on getting all dolled up 💅💅💅

Wolfie:

heya girl

oh yeah, your cookie box

I kinda forgot with all that's going on hahaha

but I'll bake some for you real quick, no prob

with lots of chocolate chips 💕

Panther:

ILU 💕

can you bring it to me this weekend?

or I'll come to your house, then we can have fun and gossip 🤭

Speaking of gossip, I have a juicy one

damn, I can't wait

I'll say it straight away: Blondie is already asking for an encore!

Do you feel avenged now? 😈😈😈😈

Wolfie:

DAMN

LMAO

I sure as fuck do!

I can see them from the pantry window

holy shit his face!

He looks like he was run over and didn't write down the license plate LOL

Panther:

are his friends laughing at him?

if they are I'll be one happy hoe lmao

Wolfie:

He isn't letting them look at his phone

LMAO

girl what the hell did you do to him???

😭

Panther:

he wasn't cutting his bullshit, so I cut it for him LOL

if he really wants me, he will find a way to come to me

but thou hast not seen my final form. Just wait and see…

She then went to check Rihito's messages, which consisted of a series of short, almost monosyllabic texts, where she could read the perplexity in each digit.

Lih.Ito: huh?

wait wdym??

I don't get it

what happened last weekend?

miss agata??

She laughed, and shook her shoulders like a panther about to pounce. Ooh, that was going to be good…

Sekihyo: what, hon, have you forgotten?

on top of being average at best, you also got memory problems? 🤭🤭

His answer arrives almost instantly, and ooh, she could see the indignation, the wounded ego of a prideful man, stamped in each of those little letters.

Lih.Ito: average??

what the fuck is that supposed to mean??

that's not what you told me that night!

explain that shit better!

Sekihyo: do you really want me to explain?

oh boy... I will, quit whining

just a sec

She started laughing to herself, going to Tomori's contact meanwhile.

Panther:

Sooooo?

SPILL THE BEANS, GIRL!

how is he reacting?

Wolfie:

girl I don't know what you're doing

but please don't stop

bitch he's RED AS A TOMATO

holy fuck

I had seen him angry before but not like this

the boys are completely lost LOL

💀

Panther:

ahhahahahah, calm your tits… everything's going according to plan

he'll stop and calm down soon, I believe...

And she cautiously returns to his contact, writing a long response, to make up for the waiting time:

Sekihyo: So, here's the thing: I'm not saying I didn't like it, so calm down. I really came every time we did it (I'm not a faker, okay?! 😠😠😠).

It's just that I'm really experienced and well, I saw your effort, and I even asked for an encore to see all your strong and weak points (do you remember the test thing? I was serious ) and well, my verdict is... you barely scraped by.

There, I said it. Man, this is so embarrassing, I don't know how to explain this 💀💀💀

Like, you can improve, but… for me it was just another fuck like any other. Period.

So idk what else to tell you. I'm now embarrassed to look you in the eye after that

And she went back to Tomori's contact. She was doing that cautiously so as not to get confused and send a message in the wrong chat. It was a very delicate process.

Panther:

there, I spilled the tea.

send some feedback

did I take him down a peg or nah?

Wolfie:

girl

omg

I think you broke him

he went from red to white in a second

he looks like a chameleon ffs

Naoh looks so worried, poor thing

He's even coming here, I think he's going to ask for some water for rihito lol

one sec

…

Hiro looks at Tomori on her phone while he was at the register, arching an eyebrow.

"Girl, don't you have a job to do?," he asks.

"Oh- my bad, Hiro!," Tomori starts a little, putting away her phone. "Akane sent me a message! She wants to order a cookie box."

"Oooh…," he looks askance at the small chaos happening at the four idiot's table, including Okubo getting up and coming right to the counter. He looks back at Tomori, whispering, "And she's commiting first degree murder with blondie's ego, right?," he starts to laugh quietly.

Tomori looks discreetly at Okubo, who was coming towards them with a slightly alarmed expression, while hissing to her friend, "Yes. I don't know what she's doing exactly, but whatever it was, it made him deflate like a flat tire."

"Play it cool," Hiro whispers before looking at Okubo. "What can we do for you, honey?"

"Hey babe. Do you want to order anything else?," Tomori asks, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

"Oh, yeah, I want some water, please…," he seemed worried. "I don't know what's going on, Tomoh, but things are getting tense there. Rihito went from red to white to blushing like crazy, I don't know what's going on! He just sent a text to your friend and that's it..."

Hiro's eyes widen.

"Oh, boy. May his soul rest in peace then…," he puts his hands together as if he was praying.

"What does that mean?," Okubo blinks, confused.

"Dude, there’s a reason that girl’s nom de guerre is Panther. And it’s not because she's a Kama Sutra black belt or something…," he tries not to laugh. "We warned you. She's no joke."

Okubo's eyes widened. "Wow, and he was praising her to no end and everything..."

"Well… I mean, she does a good job. The problem here…," he raises his hands. "Is him. If you're not at her level…," he laughs coquettishly.

Okubo makes a hissing noise as if he was in pain.

"Ugh… damn, now we’re the ones who are going to have to listen to him whine…," He takes the water bottle that Tomori was offering to him. "That's gonna be a blow at his pride… or he might make a scene, I don't know."

"Relax, she’s just like us," Hiro winks at him. "You know me, so you know her."

Okubo thought it was strange and didn't really believe what he was hearing, but looking at Tomori, who seemed calm about it, he relaxed a little.

"Okay… but hey, if he gets his heart broken…"

"Then we'll take the matter in our own hands, honey. He's our friend too," Hiro says seriously. "Kanami knows how important he is to you too. And for her boyfriend too. We're keeping an eye on it."

"Yes. You can rest assured, Naoh. Now go and help him, please," Tomori asks with a grimace. "Seriously, he's going to need it."

Okubo nods, returning to the table, smiling at Tomori before leaving.

And indeed, Rihito appeared to be in a state where medical intervention would be necessary. He stared at the screen of his phone, holding it with shaking hands, so much so that Kaneda and Himuro were actually afraid he was going to throw it against the floor or the wall. His green eyes were glassy, livid, burning with a fury they had only seen during his matches. He gritted his teeth tightly, breathing deeply through his nose like a bull about to charge into a red cape.

They didn't know what kind of response he had received from his newest conquest, but whatever it was, it hadn't been good.

"Rihito, calm down," Kaneda asks quietly, soothingly. "Okubo has already gone to get you some water, so don’t go crazy in the middle of the bakery..."

"Come on, dude, tell us what happened," Himuro leans towards him with some urgency. "What did she tell you? You can talk, we won't make fun of you."

He glares at them, shaking his head afterwards.

"Leave me alone!," He snarls before turning his attention to his phone, typing furiously.

…

She went back to his chat to assess the damage done.

Lih.Ito: no wait

you hadn't told me any of that

at all

fuck

I don't get it

that's not how I saw things, much less what you told me

what kind of feedback is that??

Akane decided to cut him some slack and answer that.

Sekihyo: I told ya this was embarrassing...

now imagine doing some shit in the middle of your workday because of that

and giving feedback right after sex would make me biased

cause I was in the middle of the afterglow, cmon... 😳😳

I'm telling you how it is as a friend, man, can't you take constructive criticism?

She waits for his answer, wondering if he was going to rage, be rude, maybe even swear at her. It happened frequently.

But the answer doesn't come. The minutes pass by and there is no sign of notifications.

Yeah... she definitely shot the leopard down.

She smiled with an evil, coquettish laugh, rewarding herself with a lollipop, returning to her work.

Now it was just a matter of waiting for the beast to come to her den.

…

Himuro and Kaneda are a little startled when Rihito drops his phone on the table abruptly, the object sliding across the smooth surface until it stops dangerously close to the edge. He puts a hand over his face, huffing angrily, his eyes closed as if he's trying to contain himself.

The only thing they could conclude, basically, was that he was rejected. And in a not so pious way, judging by that reaction. They look at each other, worried, and then turn to Okubo, who was arriving with a bottle of water. "Just give it to him, man, he’s as white as a sheet…"

He gives it to him without ceremony. "Take it dude, we're worried about you," he pulls his hand away when he takes it abruptly, opening it quickly. Behind him, away from his view, he silently signals to the other two a “everything's fine, just chill” sign before returning to his seat.

Rihito chugs the entire bottle, drinking as if his throat was on fire. Some of it runs down his chin, dripping onto his sweatshirt. Then he places it on the table, almost crushing it between his fingers, the plastic cracking loudly. The other three exchange alarmed looks.

"Bro, calm down-"

"I'm calm!," He almost shouts, and then falls silent when he sees that half the bakery has turned to look at him. He takes a deep breath, the sound coming out shakily, and then repeats, in a lower tone, "I'm calm... calm as fuck, actually, I've never been calmer..."

"Yeah, yeah, we get it," Okubo sits down, still cornered. "Seriously, man, you're scaring the shit outta us here. You want more water or something?"

"No, if I drink more water I might drown...," He growls, scratching his eyes hard. And then he seems to see his friends' worried expressions for the first time. He growls again, putting his hand over his face.

"I'm sorry, guys... I'm sorry, really... this isn't your fault, but... damn, dude..."

"Can you explain what happened without having a stroke or something?," Himuro asks. "Maybe we can help, I don’t know-"

"No," He responds without a beat. "There’s nothing you can do to help. This is my thing to sort out... aargh, she's so fucking nasty...!"

Yep, looks like they hit the nail on the head.

Okubo massages his face. "Okay... so... just move on, y'know? That thing about 'you already had the no' and such…"

"No!," He responds louder this time, although not shouting, his fists clenching on top of the table. "I'm not going to fucking move on, not until I hear everything, EVERYTHING I read on this fucking app straight from her mouth."

The other three become even more alarmed, Kaneda even rising from his chair.

"Rihito, don't be stupid! You can't just go after this girl, even more so when you're pissed like that."

"Yeah, dude! You could do some really bad shit, and even us won't be able do defend you," Himuro warns, pointing at him.

This makes Rihito pause. He stares at them, anger briefly giving way to shock.

"What the fuck do you think I’m gonna do? Beat the crap outta her or something?! Of course not, what the hell!"

The other three let out a collective sigh of relief. Kanami had even taken a look in his direction but soon calmed down, returning to what she was doing. Ohma, who was at the counter like the regular customer he was, had also stopped to look, but kept to himself.

Okubo was still a little alarmed. "Alright, but are you going after her today? Do you know where she works or where she lives? There's no way you can find her today."

"She has her work address on her Instagram profile. At least I already have a reference point," He picks up his phone again, now looking almost madly focused. "A beauty salon or something..."

"And you’re going to go after the girl at her work? Really?," Himuro gestures agitatedly. "You're basically begging to be humiliated even more!"

"Or to have the police on your tail, and honestly, your record with them is already bad," Kaneda sits down again. "Just forget it, Rihito. It really sucks to be rejected, but that's life. You already got what you wanted from her, anyway..."

Rihito looks up at them again. And they see a new feeling beyond anger or indignation in his eyes.

Humiliation, pure and simple. A shame that made them want to look away and not have to deal with it, because seeing Rihito furious was one thing, but seeing him dejected like that was another.

It reminded them of when he had suffered that crushing defeat to Kuroki Gensai, in the Annihilation Tournament, almost five years ago. His pride had been broken. It had taken him a while to pick up the pieces. And now he looked like he was about to go through the same process all over again.

"You don't understand. You didn't read the shit she texted me. I won't have peace until I hear it from her, guys" He says in an almost desperate tone.

"Dude… I can go with you, if you want," Okubo offers, but Rihito's face made him change his mind "Okay, okay, it's a stupid idea, but man, at least it calmed you down a tad. I still remember that time when you were pissed off during a spar session and almost took a chunk out of my arm. And I'm built for combat! Imagine how it could go with a girl as thin as a rail. I know, I know you're not going to do anything to her, but as your friend, your bro, your homie, I'm not gonna to let you go after her foaming at the mouth. We can do shit like that, you know me and I know you too."

Rihito closes his eyes, taking a deep, hard breath. Himuro and Kaneda look at each other before nodding.

"Okubo is right, man. If you want to go after her, fine, but do so with a cool head. Otherwise you might do something you'll regret, especially because it will be by accident," Himuro reaches out, touching his friend's shoulder, and being relieved when he doesn't reject him.

"In the meantime, you can vent here with us too, if it makes you feel better. Uh... you can even cuss us out if you want, we can handle it," Kaneda swallows a little.

Rihito shakes his head, and they feel a little more relieved to see him regaining some color.

"I'm not going to... I don't even have it in me anymore, damn it... I just can't understand what the fuck I did wrong! And why was she so mean like that, because I swear we were getting along pretty great on Saturday! I did everything right, I held on, I kept my hands to myself until I saw that I could be more forward…"

"Huh…," Okubo raises an eyebrow. "did she curse you or call you a bad thing?"

And there came the violent blush taking over his face. But they could see it wasn't out of anger.

"... No. She didn't swear at me. But I'm very used to swearing. But that...argh!," He shakes his head, grinding his teeth again. "Forget it, I’m not gonna keep whining like a little bitch! I'm just gonna wait for my blood to stop boiling, because like you said, I want to keep my head cool. I'll need it."

Himuro and Kaneda look at each other again, very worried. What, had she said he had a small dick or something? They were afraid to ask.

Okubo sighs. "Okay, then… do you wanna break some bottles? We could use the alley next door… this way we can spill over things and whatever…"

"... Fine," He gets up from his chair, breathing hard through his nostrils. "I really need to break something..."

"Go ahead. We'll call you when it's our time to leave," Kaneda says, and Himuro nods. They would rather see Rihito breaking bottles in an alley than tables and chairs inside the bakery, honestly.

…

Panther:

there you go, girl

the damage's done. 😮‍💨🤣🤣

his ego has been cut into thin slices and mixed with some sauce of confusion

now we'll just wait and let it simmer 🍳🍳

Wolfie:

girl holy fuck

I get it now

you're using that strategy, aren't ya?

damn, a classic from high school times

Panther:

man, I hadn't used it in SO LONG

I even thought I'd lost the touch

But I'm not doing this on a whim, you know...? 👉👈

Wolfie:

yeah, I guessed that

you're one mean bitch LMAO

but that means you liked going on a date with him, right?

I told ya, he's not bad once you get to know him better

he just has a giant ego lol

🤫

Panther:

yeah, he's really cute

he has those "puss-in-boots" kinda eyes that are hard to resist

and I'm not gonna lie, he has some potential to be a nice fuck buddy, but alas... 😗😗😗

he needs to pass my tests first y'know?

if he doesn't, at least he'll come out better than before

I guarantee that 😜

Wolfie:

lmao girl you're ruthless

and you know he'll come back for phase 3, right?

he was blowing smoke outta his nostrils lol

Naoh even had to take him outside to let it all out

he'll come after you like a bull comes for a red cape 🐂

Panther:

yeah I fucking hope so!

I'm ready for him

but morally speaking, I didn't insult him or left him heartbroken or anything

I just hit his pride, so please don't hit me back 😰😰

if Hiro or The Butch sees this, they might get pissed

I'm aware that since he's your friend, and they're at the bakery, he's their friend too

Wolfie:

don't worry about that

Hiro immediately understood what was going on

and we'll explain it to Kanny too

I'm tellin ya, he needed that ego beating

he's a womanizer and has a massive ego

he needed a healthy dose of humbling

Panther:

alright then

I'll get back to work now

don't forget my cookies, okay?

I wanna chocolate chip cookies and some of those pretty sugar cookies you make

and I want a king-size box cause girl, I need some sugar...

can I tell you something? 👉👈

Wolfie:

I'm working on it now!

you can come by my house to pick it up if you want, then we can gossip some more lol

and sure, go ahead!

Panther:

I worked out like hell this weekend…

by sunday I was a fucking wreck, holy shit

taking down a bull-sized man is no easy task

and yours is even bigger, right?!

man, that sounds awesome, never having to be on a diet again 😍😍😍

Wolfie:

LMFAO

It's what you call an intensive workout 🏋️‍♀️

girl, they're all fighters

they never get out of breath, it's almost scary

I must've lost about 13 pounds after I got my bull-sized man

🤸‍♀️

Panther:

c'mon don't make me jealous

I'm probably just going to do a rodeo tournament with him and that's that

best case scenario, we'll not look at each other funny if we meet on the street

I'm not in the mood to get in a relationship either.

There's still that thing, y'know... my previous fuck buddy was a piece of shit

I still haven't gotten over that

I got a text from him yesterday, but I blocked him

man, being hot is no joke 💅💅💅

Wolfie:

wow girl hahaha

but seriously, don't give in, please

cut this creep's bullshit out if he comes after you

you and you devastating leg lock hahaha

Rihito wanting to do you again is proof of that

because the boys told me that he never asks for seconds 😏

Panther:

Who said women aren't fighters too?

I have a black belt in KamaSutra, baby 🤣🤣🤣🤣

My blows are fatal and my movements are coldly calculated

Okay, that's it for now, my boss' gonna chew me out

BYEEEE!

Akane sighs after having a good laugh. Now came an even more delicate part of her plan. He would probably come after her one day from today. He would find a way to come, at least. Then she would be prepared for whatever it was.

Next chapter HERE

#kengan omega #kengan ashura #kenganverse #heavybakery #fanfiction #kengan oc #redvelvet #lihito #rihito #ichiro nakata #nakata ichiro

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