Daily excerpt from A Stain that Won't Dissolve, chapter 44:
‘Uh, I’m- I’m a cleaner. Before that, I did the post-midnight pickups and drop-offs around the farms. I’ve kept to a night schedule ever since.’
Tim nodded, made some notes, asked him about his age, his living situation, if he had any partners – Alex said no – and if he had any pets. Also, no. God, he missed Dusty so much. He was the best dog.
‘If you were to pick, say…one or two things you’d want to improve about your life, what would they be?’
Alex frowned.
‘I guess… Um. I mean, things are better on the job front. Do I have to pick anything? Should it be emotional or something?’
‘It can be anything you like,’ Tim said.
‘I kind of wish the things people said to me didn’t…get to me so much. It feels so stupid when things are going better in my life – or better than they have in a while – and one person can say something, and it ruins my whole day.’
Or my whole week.
‘That’s a gooood one,’ Tim said, drawing the word out as he wrote it down. ‘Nice. Okay. Anything else?’
‘I’d like to fall out of love with someone. Maybe. I mean, no, I don’t really want that. I kind of want them to…’
…Love me back.
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SURPRISE TO GO
kim seungmin × reader - fluff, non idol au, coffee shop au, barista!seungmin - 1.1k
summary - seungmin spends his birthday working because his friends are busy. but are they really?
links - masterlist
yall i finally finished this. i forgot about seung's birthday and none of my drafts felt right so i wrote this quickly today. it's still 22nd in korea so i'm still on time. happy seungmin day! happy birthday my love! <333
no proofread and written in hurry. i hope you still enjoy and let me know your thoughts! <3
The bell rang above your head as you entered the small café. There were not many people inside at this hour. It was nearing the evening and the café was slowly going to sleep, people leaving and employees cleaning the emptying tables. You looked over the place, your eyes stopping at the coffee station. There he was, busy with preparing drinks and looking stupidly hot while doing it. Nope, focus, not the time for that now.
You felt it was a crime to make Seungmin work on his birthday, but volunteered anyway, when another barista called in that morning with food poisoning. When you asked why he did it, he just replied why not, the extra money was always worth it and his friends were busy anyway today.
Which was true. But not for the reason Seungmin thought. Ever since this morning, your secret group chat was blowing up with things going wrong. First the cake you ordered arrived damaged, then the restaurant canceled on you at the last minute… it was always something. Even now, you felt your phone constantly buzzing in your pocket.
You found yourself at a quiet corner table, where Seungmin wouldn't immediately see you from where he was and you took out your phone, dreading whatever catastrophe was awaiting you. Rolling your eyes at the chat name (seriously, who let Hyunjin name it?) you opened the messages.
SEUNGMINNIE'S BIRTHDAY BONANZA CLUB
sunshine baby sent a photo
sunshine baby: me and minho-hyung just saved the day!!
work of ART: wow the cake looks amazing lix
work of ART: me and changbin-hyung are almost done with wrapping the presents
work of ART: btw who's idea was it to do everything with pochacco paper? i hate that damn dog now he's everywhere 😭
devil bunny: stop being dramatic hyunjin you volunteered 🙄
DAD(dy): karaoke reservation for 7pm confirmed
DAD(dy): get your asses here and help innie with decorating
Oh. Finally some good news. You quickly responded to the guys, deciding on when to bring Seungmin to the karaoke. Checking the time, you realized you had about an hour left before Seungmin's shift ends and you need to somehow get him to the karaoke, where there is a surprise party waiting for him. Hopefully. But you trusted Chan that he can handle his six chaotic kids and nothing would go wrong again.
Deciding to make your presence known, you walked up to the counter. “Hey Seung,” you said, leaning your forearms on the counter as you checked the menu. “I'll have… whatever this is.” You pointed to the picture of this month's special drink, not daring to guess what was inside. But it looked big and complicated enough to hopefully fill some of the hour you had.
“Y/N.” Seungmin looked up in surprise, his lips immediately stretching into a soft smile when he saw it was you. He looked almost surprised to see you there. “What are you doing here?”
“I had to see my favourite boy,” you smiled. “And because he's working today…” You looked up, your eyes meeting his. Looking into Seungmin's eyes was always an experience. His dark, deep, chocolate eyes held the stars of the universe in them and you often found yourself weak to the love you saw when he looked at you. Sometimes, it took all your willpower to not avert your gaze. It felt like a bright beam of the sun, blinding and warm at the same time. And you weren't backing now.
If Seungmin's coworker was here, he would have by now uttered some ridiculous comment about the very obvious tension and to get a room. Luckily for you, Jongho was cleaning up spilled coffee, facing away from you.
“I wouldn't drink that if I were you,” Seungmin chuckled. What? Oh right, you were ordering a drink.
“Why not? It looks… fun?”
“It's disgusting as fuck.” Seungmin quickly looked around, letting out a relieved sigh when his manager was nowhere to be seen. “Our manager keeps coming up with insane things, but it went downhill after the first one. I'll make you your usual?” he offers instead.
You chuckled at his answer. He was the expert here. “Sure, thank you baby.”
Seungmin winked at you and began making your usual order. Moving away to not stand in the way but to have a good view of your boyfriend still, you leaned on the counter.
You loved watching Seungmin to do just about anything. He moved with practiced ease, knowing the steps by heart. If you woke him up at midnight and told him to do something, he would excel at it half asleep. He was calm, confident and always knew what to do. It was hot.
“There you go.” Seungmin slid your drink over to you and you smiled when you saw a cookie next to the cup.
“Is this the girlfriend privilege?” you laughed, carefully unwrapping the cookie and breaking it in half. You waited for when Seungmin was free again to call him over and feed him half of the cookie as he laughed and protested he's on the clock and shouldn't. As it turned out, bothering Seungmin was a great way to pass up your time and before you knew it, he was clocking out and offering his hand to you so you could leave together.
You led Seungmin to the karaoke, making up a lie about how you wanted to eat dinner together to explain why you weren't taking the usual route back to his and Felix's place.
“Karaoke?” Seungmin raised his eyebrow when you arrived in front of the building.
“You like singing and the buffet is great?” you shrugged, pulling him inside.
You made your way to one of the rooms, leading Seungmin into the darkness. “Happy birthday Seungmin!” the guys shouted as you flicked on the light, revealing your friends, balloons and gifts wrapped in matching wrapping paper and the cake Felix and Minho made.
While Seungmin stared in shock, you grabbed your present, lining up with the guys to congratulate him. “Thank you, Y/N,” Seungmin smiled as he received the box and you knew it wasn't just for the gift.
Later you watched him unwrap the presents with a glass of champagne in hand, enjoying his reactions to the gifts of all sorts. Sentimental ones, nice ones, and Minho's. That one deserved its special category, because the way he doubled over in laughter when he saw the shorts and couldn't show you for a solid two minutes, was something you very rarely saw. His eyes sparkled, barely visible with how much he laughed and that would forever be your favourite sight.
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Dear Mr. Edgeworth,
I recall from one of your previous postings that you are particularly fond of cats, and am interested in your opinions on other animals commonly kept for human companionship. What are your thoughts on dogs? Horses? Rodents? Birds and reptiles?
I would assume that last one would have interesting twofold connotations given your status as a law student, due to these creatures' association with the legal profession - the epithet of "legal eagle" on the positive side, and all the jokes about snakes and crocodilians' show of professional courtesy on the negative. As an enthusiast of all things reptile related, I feel it is a reputation undeserved by these misunderstood, scaly creatures... as well as those aspiring to take on careers in law, very important for society...
But I digress. Lastly, I would also take it that, for rather obvious reasons, you don't really like fish, the way they remind you of a certain someone...
Regards, Seraphine. Again, may you excel in your studies, and no slanderous jokes come your way.
Dear Ms Seraphine,
Thank you for the kind words and inspiring thoughts.
Despite, as you noted correctly, being fascinated by cats, I am not that fond of most domestic animals, and my liking for cats is simply an amusing exception. However, there are still some species that I could call charming and interesting in ways different from keeping them as pets.
The first animal that came to mind was a graceful black panther. Ever since I was a kid, I thought of panthers as majestic, powerful guardians, trustworthy leaders, and dangerous vigilantes. They might not represent justice in the traditional sense of court cases and hour-long debates, but if one crosses their road, they should be wary of seeing their eyes shine in the dark when the night falls.
On the other hand, I could never resist swift, elegant antelopes' beauty. As someone who has always strived for success and improvement, their efortless endurance and resilience resonated with me; antelopes are in a constant state of action, awareness, and searching for new paths, opportunities. For me, they are a symbol of motivation and energy.
As my final point, I would like to mention swans. Even though they are often depicted as an embodiment of love, from swan figurines being placed on wedding cakes to towel swans on hotel beds, these birds have always struck me as an exquisite representation of change. On another note, the concept of a swan song has captivated me ever since I learned what the expression meant. It is impossible to deny that I spent hours considering what my swan song could possibly be, and to tell the truth, I still think about it from time to time.
Unfortunately, I do not have a strong stance on reptiles. They are the most beautiful when admired from afar, and their quiet deadliness amazes me; snakes in particular have been painted as villains since the beginning of time, so despite me condemning the demonization of reptiles, I understand why people have those... preconcieved notions about them.
Keeping rodents and other smaller animals as pets does not make much sense to me. For me, it would be impossible to love something that is barely capable of communicating its needs. These fluff balls always seemed closer to decor than to actual companions.
As for fish, I would not say that a certain someone you mentioned has enough influence over me to make me actively dislike fish. Marine species look magnificent in acquariums when the interior is done right, and personally, I do not mind fish... served with a tasteful side dish, that is.
Best regards,
Vincent Edgeworth
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TGP BSD AU DETAILS PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE I NEED TO BE FED. WAIT. DOES THAT MAKE ATSUSHI CHIDI??????? IM GOING FERAL PLEASE WHAT HAVE YLU DONE
Omg here we go
Akutagawa as Eleanor. Obvs. That Beast flavor of protagonist vibes. Unapologetical Yokohama scumbag. Used to work for the Yakuza before he died.
Atsushi as Chidi. Used to be a literature university professor. He's perfect fit to fill Chidi's anxious shoes.
This time most of the comic relief is born from having a literal mobster, for whom homicide has always been the first solution to problems, being dropped in paradise, where everyone is already dead so he can't kill. Ft. the very very stressed Atsushi, nothing more than an academic nerd who's trying /so hard/ to stop him from breaking havoc.
“Do all soulmates come with complimentary haircuts or?”
A looooot of initial conflict and Akutagawa and Atsushi fighting, even more than cheleanor, you can guess it. Yet Atsushi does never step back from offering his help to Akutagawa.
Akutagawa who struggles to even ASK for help. Atsushi is 100% done and spends half the time saying “why am I even doing this” and yet he does keep doing this.
Atsushi teaching Akutagawa to be a better person through literature more than philosophy. Them reading books together and learning that there's beauty in the concept of all humans being inherently connected through time and space by feeling the same things (cue to “we're all in this together”).
*Minor inconvenience occurs* “I say we kill them” “No, I– what?? We– you do realize we're in the afterlife, right? You do realize you can't kill people here, right?”
Please imagine Atsushi as a classical literature professor with glasses and turtlenecks and a stack of books always in his hands it's very important to me
“You know what, for someone who barely knew how to read when we first met, you speak with a surprisingly elaborate vocabulary”
Where Eleanor's struggle is constantly being triggered by people being better than her, for Akutagawa it comes more in the form of being constantly reminded that he was never good enough
When it comes to Atsushi... It's a mess. For the most part of the story, you'd see him and think he's nothing but a professor. Yet gradually, slowly, start to appear hints that something is off with him. In reality, he's absolutely tormented, he's just used to not make it transpire. Differently from Chidi, he does, very early on, start questioning if he belongs there in the Good Place– but tries again and again to convince himself that he does belong there, that he's good. That's all he's ever tried to be, that's all he's ever done, why wouldn't he? And yet it constantly feels like he's just lying to himself, but he does want to lie, he wants to believe he's good. He's tried so hard all his life to be good– and now his struggles are paying off! They are, right? So it doesn't matter if he killed that man when he was a child. He's a good person. He's spent his whole life trying to make amends for it. He's good he's good he's good (grows increasingly insane)
Aka, Atsushi killed Shibusawa when he was little. The orphanage director covered it up and nobody came to know, but the truth haunted Atsushi his whole life, and now keeps haunting him in the afterlife too, because deep down he knows he doesn't belong. Aka Atsushi going through the horrors™ once again.
So Atsushi's helping Akutagawa isn't, at least initially, moved by altruism like Chidi's (Atsushi is a pretty selfish character...), but by his desperate need to prove he's good + a sort of auto-inflicted punishment. He's fucked up...
On the hand of Akutagawa's backstory– you know when Eleanor's background is revealed, and you're like “that doesn't justify her being a shitty person, but at least I understand now?”; for Akutagawa it would be revealing he joined the Yakuza in the first place to provide for his little sister. I can see him revealing it to Atsushi after having spent a long long time together and having eventually warmed up to each other (and having fallen in love), on a particularly vulnerable night: Akutagawa tells him that although there's nothing from his life of hell on earth he could ever miss, he worries about how his little sister is doing without him; to Atsushi's genuine astonishment, because in months of knowing each other Akutagawa had never brought up having a sister.
Akutagawa's character core is once again finding the reason to his existence– or better, finding the answer. (That's taking from Chidi's character this time)
“You know the reason yourself, don't you” would be Akutagawa's “There is no answer // but Atsushi is the answer”. This au basically writes itself
Dazai as Michael... You know why
Further sskk tgp au ramblings (1) (2)
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