#han has had so many random injuries

[hanibalistic]

CELESTIAL STRINGS | HAN JISUNG.

genre | fluff, angst, romance, friendship / soulmate au, magic au 

synopsis | having been alone most of your life, the last thing you thought would gain you a few friends and a home was helping a random boy get past the school gate after he was late.

word count | 34.5k+

warning | violence, mentions of blood and injuries / mentions of death and killing ​

note | limiting 1000 blocks per post is the single most stupidest thing tumblr pt.2

parts | one, two, three

Seconds ticked by as you and Jisung stared at each other, him with determination and you with anxiety. He was watching your every move, or at least it seemed like he was observing every churn of your muscles. 

It almost felt as if he had already predicted your backup plans and was ready to strike out a solution at any given moment. And if he noticed how your hands were trembling, he had given you the time to deal with it instead of butting in.

What could you do, [Name]? You have dealt with so many problems on your own before. You have managed to sneak out of your home and leave the city you once resided in without leaving a single trail. You have managed to create a brand-new identity and conceal your magic from plain sight. You have managed to go several years without shelter or stability over your head.

You got over so many things, including letting the wrong people know your magic and the act of memory erasure, so why did your head suddenly start stumping just because it involved Han Jisung this time? Why was it hard for you to wipe a small piece of memory this time?

You looked up at him, your eyes wide and glittery as though there were tears of concern withering underneath them. Jisung softened at your vulnerable state, which almost compelled him to drop the matter altogether. But you had thrown him over the edge of a gate and blasted him across his own bedroom, and you have dead parents and no home to go back to. 

Nothing that happened was an ordinary thing. None of what he heard about you was daily news to him. Not only did he deserve an explanation from you, he would also never forgive himself if he does not take the opportunity to get everything answered.

“I am your friend, [Name],” he whispered, his eyes wide with sincerity.

Right. He is your friend, and just that simple fact made everything so much harder for you to disclose. You were juggling this friendship at the tip of your fingers, uncertainty floating everywhere. The idea of him slipping away was haunting. The idea of your dropping back to where you began was haunting.

“You can tell me,” he persuaded, not stepping over to you yet but simply choosing to use verbal comfort. “I can help you. Let me help you.”

You let out a strained noise at the back of your throat. He was talking like you have major problems going on in your life, which you certainly have! You just haven’t gotten the time to realize it. As days pass, you have gotten used to how your life turned out, and the bad has become normal.  

Your dead family, your empty home, the city council, the fear of authority, the pressure of early maturation, the loneliness—they all suddenly started to fill your head up like a storm, twisting and swirling to destroy all that was left inside you. Everything came back to you at once, forcing you to remember and reminisce.

Jisung held back a gasp when you glared at him. Your eyes were teary, but no tears fell, and he somehow knew that the anger burning within was not directed at him. He was baffled, for sure. He had never seen you on the verge of tears before. But he was more empathetic than surprised. He wondered how much you have been through in your past, how much you had to endure on your own and he never knew of.

“Jisung…” Your voice was small as you finally spoke, but he heard you and replied. When you looked at him, you gulped. “I don’t know where to start.”

Finding the right words to describe your childhood, from its timeline to its tragedies, should be easy since everything happened for a reason, and one thing led to another. But you did not know where to begin, somehow. Going to the root of all things felt like you were trying to make sense of your trauma, but there is never sense in those things. There is only a cause and an end, and you have yet to reach the end. 

It was an organized mess with too many events and repressed emotions for you to explain it like a glorified story.

“That’s fine, I got you,” he said with a quick nod. Finally approaching you, he gently tugged at your hand and pulled you to the edge of his bed, where you both sat down. He hummed for a little, gathering his questions before asking, “Let us start easy. I don’t need that much detail, but can you tell me about the strings on your hands?”

“Yeah,” you said after a sigh. “They are–”

“Magic?” Jisung looked at you. His tone was more serious than you have ever heard him. When you gave him a shocked expression, he shrugged. “I kind of figured. You threw me over the school gate, which is tall as hell. And you just sent me flying across the room in your sleep. I wouldn’t believe you now if you tried to tell me otherwise.”

You pursed your lips together. The determination in his eyes was familiar to you, yet they felt vague and confusing. You feared what the burning was for. Was it the intention to hate and expose you? Or was it to accept and understand you? The question lingered, but you kept it inside.

“Yeah, they are magic,” you muttered, rubbing your wrist in a circular motion. “I was born a magic-user. I used to live in a magic-populated city. It’s the one close to this city, so I escaped here to Seoul. This is the fastest place I could run to and hide, and it is a bonus that this city is huge.”

Jisung raised an eyebrow. He was hearing too many buzzwords. “What are you escaping from?”

“Like I said, it is a very long story,” you informed. 

You were not holding out hope that Jisung would choose to back down and let the matter drop. It was more to give him a fair warning that he was about to dive deeply into your childhood and everything that led you up to this point. Glancing up at him, you took a deep breath to calm yourself when you saw that he seemed ready and steady to listen.

“All magic cities have two councils, one for the magic users and the other for the ordinary people living there. The one we are focusing on pertains to people like us. I was never too sure what it is that they do. Legal things and whatnot. I was too young to understand them. I just know that my family has always held a high status within the council because of the unique magic we use,” you explained, rubbing your hands to calm your nerves.

“A new group of councilmen is selected whenever the current ones turn too old for the job. There isn’t a set interval like the government system you guys have. Things don’t change every couple of years. Things change when people die," you said. "And, like I said, my family has a history of working for the council. They go through the elections and tend to be chosen to be part of the group of councilmen. It has been like that for a long time.”

Jisung was nodding along as you spoke. He listened carefully to everything you said, about how the last election was no different than the rest and how your father was supposed to be the next in line after your grandfather had passed away. Until that point, a sense of dread had gradually started to paint over his face. He could almost predict how things would unfold for you, and he was devastated.

“The election ceremony happened at night. I was not told any gory details about what exactly went down. I just heard that there was a blackout, and when the lights came back up, my entire family was gone. Dead. If not dead, injured,” you said, your voice trembling and your brows furrowing as you tried to remember. 

It felt like there was a knot clogging in your throat, and it was taking you too much effort to speak. “The injured ones were all rushed to the hospital, but only my uncle managed to come out alive. He has been in a coma ever since. I… I am not sure why, though. I can’t wrap my head around why they decided to keep him alive.”

Jisung wanted to comment on the event, but he clasped his mouth shut instead. He didn’t know what to say. Nothing felt appropriate at the moment, not even a simple ‘I am sorry for what happened’ because it did happen, and it was terrible. An overused, sympathetic line would not suffice for anything.

“The family of each election candidate is supposed to attend that ceremony. You can imagine how big and glorified the process is. Everyone is supposed to be there! But I couldn’t because I got the flu that day.” You glanced down at your hands, where you squeezed your nail to the skin of your palm as a sore laugh left your throat. “People like to tell me I got lucky that I wasn’t there. But you know… sometimes, I kind of wish I had been there.”

What was it like? He wondered. What was it like to receive that much death news in one go? Were you too sick and too young to comprehend it at that time? Have you been sleeping the night away, only to wake up and find out you’ve been completely isolated from the world? Were you lucky to have slipped away from death’s grip, or were you unlucky to have lost everyone you’ve loved at such a young age?

“Since everyone was dead and the only person who could replace my father’s place was stuck in a long coma that I am not smart enough to reverse, I thought they would elect someone else,” you said, then you shook your head as a dissatisfied expression confused your face. “But they didn’t. They waited a few years until I turned ten, and then they forced me to take classes to learn about the council and prepare me for a future campaign. ”

Jisung furrowed his brows. “What about that? Is that bad?”

“I didn’t think so originally, but I am slowly coming to an understanding now,” you told him, your tone gradually lowering as you started to glare at the empty air. “My family has always done well in the council. It is so much easier for our family to gain trust from people. I like to think it's because we rarely mess up, but the way the other candidates see it is that we are just legacy hires. People with my family name have always been in the council, so might as well let that continue!”

“But, with this sudden mess, the other households finally saw a chance of breaking the pattern, and that was through me.” You pointed at yourself. “Working with people so much older than me, who know more about the council's inner workings than I do... it's all a disguise. They paraded me around like a sad orphan rescued, but they were trying to screw me over. When they do successfully mess me up, my failure will inevitably lead to the downfall of my family’s reputation, even though only two of us are left now.”

Jisung’s jaw dropped in thought. He was piecing the information together now and, thankfully, it was much easier to understand than he expected it to, albeit definitely much more dramatic. It sounded straight out of a television show. If only he could utilize the same method to solve your problem. 

“Besides, I don’t even want to be in the council. The whole authority thing just doesn’t sit well with me, even if I am the one having it.” You shivered with a grimace. “But it doesn’t seem like I’ve got a choice. I tried my best to give them shit for trying to teach me anything, but that was proven to be unsuccessful.”

It is certainly troublesome to have a child who is unwilling to obey, but it is even worse to have an adult who refuses to listen. Everything you did, including trying to straight-up ignore those who attempted to pamper you to be qualified enough, has gone completely unnoticed on purpose.

“Eventually, I decided to just pack my bags and leave for good,” you sighed, a troublesome pout forming on your lips. “It is hard for me to visit my uncle now. I can’t guarantee I won’t get caught if I go back, so I haven’t seen him for some time. I doubt that he had woken up, though. I am sure people are pulling strings to ensure he never does.”

Jisung clicked his tongue as if he were the one with an uncle lying on his almost deathbed. Just listening to the story was infuriating for him; if he had the power to beat those adults asses, he definitely would do it. Not just for you but for the city's greater good.

You laughed at his scoff. “Yeah. me too. But it doesn’t matter much now. I am here. He is there. There is almost nothing I can do about the situation, so I am focusing on laying low and making sure I won’t have to run off somewhere else anytime sooner.“

Jisung fiddled with his fingers. His head was hung low in thought, thinking about the possibility of you ever being discovered. He certainly wouldn’t hope for you to leave. Mostly because he would want you to stay, that thought deriving from very friendly reasons. But also because he would love for you to settle down somehow.

Find a home, perhaps. And find people who could and would take care of you; that was an important goal on the bucket list he made on your behalf. Frowning a little, Jisung’s mind twinkled within the obscurity that if you permitted him, the boxes on the list would have long been checked off.

The thought never crossed his mind that he may be put in harm’s way simply by being your friend. Frankly, to calculate the harm a victim can do unto you immediately after they have told you their story was indecent to him. He was more humane than that. He has better morale than that. 

Things were pretty much out and clear now. At the very least, he thought he knew what he should know. Not that he wouldn’t dig deeper into your traumatic childhood experiences. He most definitely would like to share the burden a little if allowed, but the night felt too full already, and he didn’t feel like adding more pressure to it anymore.

"Okay,” he responded quietly to accommodate the nighttime. ”Thank you for telling me everything.”

"You are welcome.” You offered him a faint and unsure smile.

Jisung was taking things too well, and you have told him a lot more than you have said to previous others. You only used to talk about your magic, never about your family. No one was ever interested in your family. Pursing your lips, there came a thought that maybe Jisung was different than everybody else. From how he reacted to your story to how you always feel this strong magnetic pull towards him.

What was up with that? You still have not figured out why you felt so drawn toward him.

“[Name]?” Jisung called, tilting his head to the side questioningly. When you looked at him, he asked, “Are you feeling okay? Do you want to go to bed?”

“I’m fine, it’s just… I didn’t tell you anything about the strings, actually,“ you muttered. "Just thought you might want to know.”

Jisung laughed after a moment, his eyes widening in realization. You had branched off from his initial question, and he forgot what he asked because of the intensity of the information dump. Grinning at you, he shrugged with a dismissive wave, “You can tell me tomorrow! Just go to sleep. On the bed. Sleep on the bed.”

You gave him a furrow of your brows as protest, and you tilted your head when he stubbornly held your gaze.

“Okay, fine.” You rolled your eyes, turning around to adjust the pillow on the bed so you could lie down after Jisung left for his desk.

Covering yourself with the blanket, you felt a rush of fluff drowning down your chest. The warmth and the softness of this little cocoon you’ve created were none you’d ever thought you could have again. You pulled at the hem until it reached your shoulders, and you peered over at Jisung slightly.

The lamp illuminated his back, almost as if casting a natural glow around his heavenly self. Your heart slowed down at the peaceful sight, and you fidgeted with your mind to check whether you wanted to say something.

“Um… Jisung?”

He turned at your timid voice, brows raised in concern, “Yeah?”

“Thank you for not being weird about this,” you said.

Jisung softened, his grip on the pencil lightening up, and the eraser tip tapped against his textbook. Whatever has left you with the impression that you needed to thank people for not acting out on a life you didn’t choose to live, he wished you had never needed to go through that again. And all that life has thrown at you by far, he wished you never had to go through that again.

“Yeah, of course,” he replied with a mutter. 

You gave him faint snores as a response, and Jisung breathed a short laugh of relief. He left the blessing of a good night's sleep for the dimming of his lamp and the fact that he would be just a few steps away if anything were to happen.

Jisung was too tired to throw a hissy fit early in the morning when he found out you stuck him back onto his bed and slept on the floor with a thin sheet of blanket anyway.

When he was called to wake up in the morning, he happily urged you to freshen up in the bathroom first so he could have an extra five minutes to sleep. The appalled expression on his face was priceless when it only took you roughly two to three minutes—or what Jisung felt to be ten seconds—to clean yourself up for the morning.

“Come on, Jisung,” you said as you tugged at the bedsheet he had pulled over his face. “I don’t want to have to haul you over the school gate, and I cannot guarantee that I won’t throw you too harshly again this time.”

He whined from under the blanket, his voice muffled as he pulled harder at the blanket in refusal. It was a game of tug of war, one that you knew if you tried, you would win. All you needed was one strand of red string. But you decided to humor him a little, your hands still pulling gently at the fabric as Jisung stubbornly wrapped his legs around it to keep you from removing the warmth.

“Alright, I warned you.” You let go of the blanket after allowing him a minute to be childish about going to school. Stepping away from his bed, you moved to the corner of the floor and grabbed your backpack. You headed to the door and looked behind your shoulder at him, sighing. “My shift starts in the morning, so I’m leaving now. Thanks for letting me stay the night, Jisung.”

Jisung furrowed his brow. The farewell was too sudden. He wanted to think you were just bluffing to make him wake up. Yet, when he was piecing the puzzle together, what you said was not only within your character, but it also made sense. You did seem like the type to leave with a short announcement, and if you weren’t attending schools, you would have to work to sustain yourself.

He peeked an eye over the blanket to see if you were standing in his room, and a part of him jumped to find an empty room. Trailing his gaze to the side, your bag was also gone from where it lay yesterday night. You did leave! Gasping under his breath, Jisung quickly sat on his bed, flipping his blanket over to the side.

Panic rose in his chest; he needed to catch up with you! Who was to say you wouldn’t ghost him for another week after you leave?

“Shit–hold on, [Name]!” He swung the door open, planning on heading to the living room to see if you were still in his home. But he abruptly stopped when he found you standing right outside his room with a deadpan expression on your face.

“Good, you are finally awake,” you muttered as you removed your backpack from your forearm and swung it over your shoulders to wear.

Taking your action as an incentive to leave, Jisung quickly took a step closer to you and took hold of your arm, his eyes rounding innocently as he spoke. His voice came out low and raspy, so he cleared his throat before he spoke again, “Wa–um…wait, you are staying for breakfast, right? And then we are going to school together?”

Shrugging his hand off, you gave him a grimace. “Yeah. Your mom already made me breakfast outside, so I have to stay for that,” you pointed out, looking towards the door leading you directly to the living room. “But it doesn’t take me that long to eat, so if you aren’t ready by the time I finish my bowl of rice, I will leave first.”

“I’ll be quick, I promise!” he exclaimed. “Just don’t leave without me, okay?”

You pursed your lips in defeat, a faint eye roll struggling to surface. “Okay. Just hurry up. I have work.”

The relieved smile Jisung showed you only made your grimace widen. 

This boy was infuriating at best without even trying to be so. As cheesy and corny as it sounded, he was different than others, drastically different that you were unsure how to react to him sometimes. Until now, you still could not understand why he was so hell-bent on befriending you. He has practically done all that he could, hasn’t he? He refused to leave you alone; he put a shelter over your head, and now he was making sure he could spend his entire morning with you as well. 

And no matter how hard you tried, you couldn’t wrap your head around why he wanted to spend all that effort on you.

The idea of you exuding any appeal was unfathomable, so that reason was immediately thrown out. Could it possibly be the magnetic feeling you felt with him? Did he feel it as well, that intriguing pull akin to faint electricity dancing across your skin whenever you two are near each other?

“You’re so weird, Jisung,” you commented under your breath. When he threw you a questioning tilt of his head, you couldn’t help but huff out a curt laugh. “No one has ever gone this far to make sure I become friends with them before.”

“Well, they should!” he said, almost proudly. “I think you would make an incredible friend!”

You laughed, “Oh, great. I thought you would say something about me having magic.”

“Oh, yeah, that is pretty cool too.” Jisung smiled sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his neck. He let his arm drop to his side after a moment, his eyes growing more sincere suddenly. He was looking at you intently, ensuring he had your attention before saying, “But I think even if you don’t have magic, I’d still want to be your friend.”

Surely, he gained interest in you because you threw him over the gate, and he wanted to find out how. And, surely, it was interesting to know that you were one of the rarely heard-of magic-wielders living near them. And, surely! He felt an unnerving pull towards you. He could feel its presence wherever you were around, like it was waiting to reveal itself.

But, ultimately, your slip of the tongue about your parents got his empathy up and running, not the magic. 

You looked up at him, the glimmers in your eyes wavering at his words.

Jisung was different in that he showed you genuine affection and interest. He easily balanced out the magic part of you and the personal part of you, it was never only the magic part of you unlike how it has always been. He took all aspects of you to his heart, and he held you carefully in his hands despite your many attempts to fall from the gaps in his fingers.

“You are making this too sentimental for me,” you commented monotonously, giving Jisung a smile so rigid and forced that even he started feeling awkward.

“You know how I get emotional, [Name],” he muttered funnily, his eyes squinting to mimic how his heart was squeezed by your disappointing response to his touching words.

“I don’t know, Jisung.” You tightened the grip on your backpack straps, blinking at him with a small frown. “You see, we’ve only been friends for a couple of days, and so far, only I spilled my childhood traumas.”

“Oh, no worries. I can spill all my childhood traumas to you if you want. I’ll get you spooked about all the chocolate I’ve stolen from the cabinet.” Jisung said as he glanced down at his invisible watch. He looked back up at you then, feigning professionalism on his serious features. “I am free tonight at ten o’clock. We can have a background check session in my room before we call it a day. We have much to talk about.”

“How about you finish your morning routine first? The clock is still ticking, and you are still in your pajamas.” You poked his shoulder with a glare. “Like I said, hurry up or go to school alone.”

Jisung glanced at the clock on his wall and yelped in shock. Brushing past you quickly, he slammed the door to the bathroom. You sighed inwardly when you heard the lock click and slowly made your way to the living room with a mind filled with thoughts.

The day had barely started yet, and he was already trying to make sure you would stay for another night. You didn’t plan to stay another night, frankly speaking. No matter how agreeable he and his family were, you just could not get past the feeling of being a burden.

Your shoulders relaxed a bit when you realized you’ve got to think up a plan during the day; at least that would keep your mind off all the unfortunate people you would meet during your shift.

“Han Jisung!”

A lunchbox slammed itself down on the table, and its tremor caused the bird that had landed in front of Jisung to fly away. He glanced up at the intruder and clicked his tongue when he found Hyunjin staring back down at him with an apologetic yet guiltless grin. Following suit behind him were Seungmin and Felix, one with a faintly annoyed expression while the latter held a natural smile.

“You scared the birdie away!” Jisung complained with a pout. “I was feeding it my sandwich.”

“Alright, I’m sorry.” Hyunjin sat down from across the boy. “Since when did you start playing around with birds anyway?”

“It flew over and refused to leave, so I thought it wanted my sandwich.” Jisung shrugged. “I peeled some of my bread for it, and it was eating just fine until you decided to slam your lunchbox on the table, you damn brute.”

“Hyunjin was just excited today. He didn’t get the chance to talk to you during recess because he needed to finish his make-up test, but he has been dying to talk to you the whole day,” Seungmin mumbled when he finally approached the lunch table as well. He gently set his homemade bento box down and scooted onto the bench seat next to Jisung. Turning to the boy, Seungmin tilted his head. “Come to think of it, I am also quite curious.”

“Curious about what?” Jisung questioned, taking a bite of his sandwich and munching on it as he looked at all his friends.

“We saw you arriving at school with someone today,” Felix finally joined the conversation, trying to balance the paper plate of food while picking balls of rice with his other hand.

Seungmin groaned when Felix approached the table, and he quickly slid the boy a pair of chopsticks to use. Meanwhile, Jisung stayed rigid on his spot, unsure what his friends wanted him to tell them about you while their eyes focused on him with anticipation.

“What about it?” Jisung asked, taking another bite of his sandwich to occupy himself.

Hyunjin scoffed with a roll of his eyes. He moved away from the table briefly before leaning back in, his forearm on the edge to give him a more menacing vibe. Arching a brow at Jisung, he urged his friend to speak up. “Who are they? We didn’t know you had friends outside of us three!”

“Not to mistake that as us thinking we don’t want you to have friends outside of the three of us, of course,” Felix clarified with a shrug. “We’re just curious since you two walked to school together.”

“And they also did this!“ Hyunjin jumped up from his seat and reached over to Jisung. His finger tenderly traced a line over Jisung’s forehead before he smacked Jisung over the eyes playfully, a laugh erupting through the table when Jisung swatted his hand away with a frown.

Felix blinked from the side when he noticed something from the brief moment Hyunjin moved Jisung’s bangs away from his face. His eyes were wide and observant when he said, “Hey, Jisung, I think your scar is gone!”

Hyunjin hummed at Felix’s words. He hadn’t seen it before because he was too busy trying to get Jisung riled up about you. But now that he had taken a closer look, he finally noticed the smooth surface on the side of Jisung’s forehead where there was once a scar he had gained from falling off the gate he had tried to climb the other day.

Jisung reached up and pressed his fingers against his forehead. He gasped lightly when he couldn’t feel the stinging pain anymore. “Oh yeah,” he chuckled as he glanced at the table. It must have been your doing, possiblely when you healed him yesterday night after you threw him across his room. “My mom got me these medicinal creams from a facial shop. It healed me up quicker than I thought.”

As Hyunjin sat back down, he gave the boy a moment of relaxation before he looked at Jisung expectantly again. “So…” He started expectantly, “Who are they? Friends? Crush? A lover from outside the school? Soulmates?”

Seungmin snorted with an eye roll. “Wow, the lineup gets worse.”

“How is soulmate the worst?” Felix furrowed his brows in disagreement.

“They’re worst in the way that they don’t exist.” Seungmin shrugged as he replied, his focus on his lunch. “There is no point in pinning over non-existent things.”

“How do you know they’re not real?” Felix retorted again, holding desperately onto the romantic concept. His grip on his plastic spoon was as strong as his determination to hold onto this concept. “Do you also think people who can use magic are not real just because you’ve never met one before?”

“Where is the correlation?” Seungmin muttered impatiently, nonsensical annoyance flooding briefly into his eyes. “Also, as far as we know, those people are only alleged to exist. We have never heard any news about them. Nobody talks about them online, and they live in their own city or region or whatever. They are way too good at excluding themselves from reality to be real people.”

Jisung laughed awkwardly from the side, refusing to make eye contact with anyone. His past views on magic-wielders were not as extreme as Seungmin’s, but part of his friend's statement was correct. The perfect ability to conceal a whole population of people this well did make the existence of said population rather dubious. Everything anyone has heard was just heresy and fairytales. The concept of soulmates must be included as they were part of the cosmos and, therefore, magic. 

Jisung pat Seungmin on the shoulder when he saw the boy was about to throw another devastating truth (that Jisung now knows was mostly not true at all) at Felix. 

Come to think about it, from what he remembered, your family did have a history with strings. Perhaps you might know a thing or two about the red string of fate, and he might be able to discreetly give Felix some solace about it.

“Don’t mind him, Seungmin,” Jisung said. “There is this college boy Felix is having a giant crush on at the tutoring center.”

“Really? What happened to the girl from your class?” Hyunjin asked in bewilderment, turning his attention to Felix then.

Seungmin heaved a defeated sigh. “It’s Felix. He probably likes them both right now.”

“They’re just crushes!” Felix said defensively, a mouthful of rice and spitting everywhere during this heated moment. “Oh, what, I can’t have crushes now?

Seungmin grimaced at the rice that had accidentally scraped past his face. He began his daily distasteful scolding while Hyunjin chimed in from time to time just for the sake of getting Felix more flustered than he already was. Jisung laughed along at the side, feeling a little glad that he could divert the attention away from him and you.

Glancing down at his lap, he discreetly peeled a piece of bread from his sandwich and handed it to the bird that had quietly nudged its way back to him mid-conversation. As it pecked the crumbs of the bread off his palm, Jisung couldn’t help but giggle.

“Did [Name] send you here, birdie? How are you so mellow?” He muttered under his breath before he laughed.

That would not be impossible, but he thought it’d be unlikely.

Felix glanced down at his phone and sighed before he shoved it back into his pocket. He glanced up at Jisung, his eyes softening at how Jisung kept glancing back and forth along the street. Felix had only planned to wait a while with him since he was quite curious about who you were as well, but they have been waiting for longer than Jisung had verbally anticipated and you still haven’t turned up yet.

“Jisung,” Felix called, his voice showing mild distress.

“Yeah?” Jisung looked behind him at his friend, his brows furrowed and his eyes holding a glare not meant for Felix.

“Are you still waiting?” Felix asked, ignoring the firm gaze thrown at him. “It’s been an hour.”

Jisung nodded, his lips pursing tightly as if to prevent the negative thoughts from being voiced. You would be here, he believed. You promised him. “Yeah. I told them I’m not leaving unless they show up.”

“Oh… I…” Felix sighed in confusion. “What is the situation, exactly? Did you have to give them something important?”

Jisung was already reluctant when he mentioned that he planned to wait with him. Felix chalked it up to Jisung being possessive of your relationship and chose to stay behind anyway. But, seeing that it had been an hour and most students had already left the school premises, this felt like an urgent matter rather than a slight obsession with a new crush, which was still just an assumption on his part. He knew nothing about you and who you were to Jisung, after all.

“No, but it is about something important,” Jisung replied with his eyes dead-set on the street far down. “They promised me they would be here, and I told them I won’t leave until they arrive, so I’m waiting.”

“Oh… well, I have to leave, though,” Felix pointed behind him at the bus stop far away. “I have to head to the tutoring center.”

“You should go then,” Jisung urged, waving his hand dismissively without sparing a glance at his friend. “You don’t want to be late.”

Felix quietly left his side. A part of him didn’t plan for his friend to see him act all nervous and fidgety anyway. It was an uncommon sight for him to be all sweaty and anxious like this. Not to mention how pathetic he felt when it dawned upon him that this tightness came from the simple thought of you backing out on your words.

His frown deepened as each second ticked past, and you were still nowhere to be found. He was seriously contemplating heading to where you left off this morning in hopes to see if he would stumble upon the shop you worked in somehow. But you would have already left your work, would you not? Your next job should be at the convenience store… no, that was on weekends!

Before Jisung could make sense of his plan to find out where you were, he looked up from the ground and found you rushing towards him with an unamused expression. He breathed out a heavy sigh and straightened his back as you approached him quickly. He threw you a pout when you were within earshot, frustrated that it took you so long to arrive and without an ounce of anger in his being.

“What took you so long?” He whined. “I thought you backed out!” 

“I had to stay behind for a bit because someone didn’t show up today,” you replied. “I thought you knew? I told you not to wait for me.”

“When did you tell me?” Jisung asked incredulously.

“I sent you something! I put it on a birdie and sent it to you!”

Oh, that was you.

“[Name], I don’t understand birds!” he exclaimed with a growing smile, throwing his arms up in defeat.

You stared at him, eyes wide in deep thoughts. Then, comedically, you pointed a finger at him and tapped against the air. “Yeah, I always thought how much that must suck for you guys,” you mentioned, causing Jisung to drop his jaw in disbelief. 

“Anyway, I strapped a note on it,” you muttered to yourself then, recalling your lunch break when you clearly made sure you tied a ribbon around the sparrow before flying it off to the school. Pouting, you scrunched the side of your mouth. “Maybe it dropped my note somewhere.”

Jisung huffed out a hopeless laugh as he began walking, making sure you were following him and never going too quickly for your pace. “You know, people here don’t send birds, we use phones,” he commented. “You should probably invest in one.”

You grimaced, reaching into your pocket and pulling out an old smartphone. You showed it to him, waved it, and said, “I do have one.”

The look of betrayal Jisung flashed you was dramatic at best. He looked like you just told him you hate puppies and that you have purposefully run over a few with your nonexistent car. You rolled your eyes at him, not really in the mood to deal with whatever stunt he planned to pull about you having a phone and not telling him so you just handed the device to him.

“Just add your number in,” you said.

He grinned as he snatched your phone away from your hand. He examined it initially, his brows failing to hide a judgemental scrunch when he realized what year the smartphone came out. He was quick to disregard that as he unlocked your phone; he wrote a mental note to himself to remind you to give your phone a password. 

You could hear his excruciatingly obnoxious typing sounds, and you prayed for your phone’s poor screen. After he was done, Jisung called his mobile to make sure he made no mistake before handing it back to you. His grin was cheeky and wide. It seemed like he was up to no good.

You turned it on to check for your contacts. It wasn’t hard to find him. With no relatives or friends, you only have a few essential numbers stored in your phone, like your boss and co-workers. But the thing that made his contact pop out the most was the name he set for himself. It left an immediate frown on your face. 

“Best friend Han?” You questioned, blinking at the red heart emoji sparkling next to his name.

“Mmhmm.” He nodded as he showed you his phone. “I put your name like that too, my best friend!”

You looked at his phone, a fit of giggle bubbling up threateningly when you saw the same red heart next to your name. “Do you add hearts to everyone’s name or are you just weird when it comes to me?” you asked when he retreated his hand to look at his screen.

He innocently scrolled at his phone and puffed out his cheeks. He let his cheeks stay jutted out with a pursed smile as he shook his head. “No, it’s just you. And it’s not weird, it’s…” He told you, his eyes rolled up to the sky as he thought for a while. “I don’t know what it is. I just felt like doing it.”

The hysteric laughter that once surfaced reduced to small, gentle hiccups of joy under your breath. That was a very Jisung thing to say; impulsive, but somehow it worked out in his favor, and the impulsivity brought you solace due to how closely you related it to him. Putting your phone back into your pocket, you nodded at him as a simple response.

You two shared a moment of silence. For once, Jisung chose to delay a topic of choice and instead enjoy the laid-back sensation where both of you walked quietly down the street, presumably where the bus stop was since you hadn’t raised the idea of teleporting both of you back to his home yet. You, too, enjoyed not having to constantly think of something to say despite rather liking how chattery Jisung has been with you so far.

“So…” It took Jisung a while to clear his throat and break the silence. You perked up at his voice but didn’t turn to look at him. “How’s your day been? How is work?”

You were quick to shrug in response. “Normal. Nothing special happened. I did my job and stayed away from people when I could.”

“That’s not very fun.” Jisung frowned. “You should at least try to befriend other people, you know? They might be able to help you down the line.”

“I don’t like asking for help,” you pointed out honestly, causing him to laugh.

“I know. I learned it the hard way,” he muttered to himself, faintly throwing a smile your way but you weren’t paying attention to him.

“What about you? I’m sure there is plenty of juicy drama circling a high school?” you asked after clicking your tongue in mild annoyance, quickly turning the topic on him.

“I’m not a very big rumor person so I don’t know anything about that,” Jisung said with an innocent shake of his head. He then slammed a fist to his palm upon thinking of what happened during lunch, and suddenly his excitement spiked. “Oh, my friends told me they saw us together this morning and they asked me about you!”

Your eyes widened in amusement as you looked over at him. You fidgeted your fingers and asked, “What did you say? You didn’t say anything stupid, right?”

“Of course not! Why would I do that–wait, hold on,” Jisung paused with squinted eyes. He looked at you, a weak finger pointing up at the sky and then at you. “Why do you care if I said something stupid? That’s not like you.”

You stared at him innocently. “What if you spill my secret?”

His jaw slowly dropped as he processed your words. The light came back into his eyes and he made a noise of acknowledgment, a silly grin appearing on his lips as he laughed out the embarrassment.  He initially thought you cared because you might have fancied one of his very attractive friends, and somehow, the thought didn’t sit well with him. But then he remembered: you have never met any of them before, so how could you? 

“You should have some faith in me. I might talk a lot but I never reveal any classified information!” He patted his chest to emphasize how trustworthy he was, a move that did nothing to convince you, but he thought it was cool, so he did it anyway. “But really, though, I didn’t say anything. They just kind of guessed who you were, and I never responded.”

You huffed out a laugh. “What does it look like we are? We’re friends.”

“My friend Hyunjin saw you brush my hair, and he thought it was evidence of something more intimate,” he said. “He was all up my ass about it. He even guessed if we’re soulmates, and then Seungmin had a whole pessimistic debate with Felix and it’s just all messy!”

You laughed in bewilderment, not so much at what Seungmin and Felix were debating about but more so at what his friend had suggested you two to be. Soulmates were not a foreign concept to magic-wielders; the concept itself came from one of your kind and anonymously traveled over to the fictional world of normal people. But to think that you and Jisung were predestined to meet each other and, in some sense, like each other was not plausible to you.

Besides, non-magic wielders having a magic-wielder as a soulmate was rare, if it even happened.

Jisung had looked at you weirdly when you laughed. He waited for you to explain what about it you thought was funny, and you gave him a quick shrug.

“I think I would know if we’re soulmates, Jisung,” you said, slapping a hand to your hip and shaking your head. “Ahh, soulmates… that is hilarious. I will never understand why you people make such a big deal out of it.”

Jisung tilted his head to the side. His opinion on soulmates has always been neutral. It was certainly a romantic idea; to have one special person created just for you. Truth be told, Jisung secretly yearned for a love similar to the ideals that soulmates hold—a bond so strong that two people can feel each other constantly, an understanding so special that two people can tell what the other is feeling without the need for words. 

A conditioned unconditional love that lasts across time and space.

It was a great idea because it wasn’t real, and it rarely happens. Jisung would love to experience it if he was given the chance. But the idea of soulmates just didn’t feel real enough for him to make a big deal out of it. It could be true, but so far he hasn’t been shown evidence that it was.

“People think it’s romantic,” he told you. “It’s also an out-of-reach idea, and people tend to go after unavailable things.”

“It’s not out-of-reach,” you said. “Most of us can find our soulmates with magic. For me, I can find them just by following my fate string.”

Your casual tone should not be paired up with words like those. Widening his eyes in surprise, Jisung turned to you quickly and he asked, “Wait–so it’s real? Like soulmates are an actual thing?”

“They are. Everyone has a special person, Jisung. People aren’t creative enough to make up such a vivid concept, it had to came from somewhere,” you informed, crossing your hands in front of your chest. “But it’s not that big a deal, though. There are a lot of cases of soulmate rejection.”

“Oh, I’ve seen those in stories before.” Jisung snapped his fingers in acknowledgment as if he had found a solution to a world crisis. 

“Good, so you aren’t one of those who believe soulmates have to love each other,” you muttered before looking up at him. “Soulmates are a little different than what you might expect. The red string they share actually stores the feelings and memories. The stronger the feeling, the stronger the string is, meaning the more magical it is. If you never share any memories or feelings with your soulmate, it’s just a string.”

He nodded at the newfound information. How he wished he could tell Felix all about this! That freckled boy would be so energetic (and probably a little smug) to hear that soulmates are, in fact, a real thing. Jisung could almost hear the disbelieving scoff in Seungmin’s voice, bright with retorts despite having the blatant truth mapped out in front of him.

“You can store magic in your string?” Jisung asked suddenly then, trying to keep the conversation going.

You nodded at him, and then you shook your head in thought. It was a rather complicated concept, but it also wasn’t. There were a heaping amount of interesting cosmic laws to how soulmates work, and you didn’t know where you could begin explaining it. 

“Yeah, it’s so soulmates can help each other out in desperate situations. It is a form of magic that even non-magic users can, I guess, subconsciously utilize,” you said. “Obviously, normal people don’t actually get to cast a spell with it because you guys know no spells. But, when soulmates are together, the string acts as a shield to fend off bad luck or accidents. Those things.”

The soulmate string links two people together. The more in love with each other soulmates are, the stronger the magic is. It is, however, not tragedy-proof. There will always be death within the laws of the universe; the Cosmo feeds off of the human soul because it needs energy to protect those it chooses to stay alive. Love is great but it is not above the truth, and the truth is that everything comes to an end. 

The soulmate string cannot prevent death from happening. It, in turn, causes it—when one dies, the other goes shortly after. But it also does not. The most humane thing about that was its voluntary occurrence. People choose to fade. When a spouse dies, the other spouse soon follows. When a best friend dies, the other best friend soon follows. When a child dies, the parent soon follows. 

The human spirit yearns so hard for their other half that death becomes voluntary. That is what makes soulmates a big deal, you supposed.

“Magic needs to go through a certain medium, like how I have to use my strings to manifest my magic,” you added. “When an emergency comes, the soulmate string can be our last resort. It’s never really used, though, since that requires breaking the string and transferring the magic.”

Jisung raised a brow, getting more and more intrigued with more information. He asked, “I suppose something bad happens if you break it?”

“I don’t think it’s too bad. The person who breaks the string will be forgotten by their soulmate, that’s all.” You shrugged. “Since the magic builds on your memories and feelings, when you break the string, you just release everything and set them free.”

“What? Why would they do that!” he exclaimed. 

“Magic has consequences,” you replied. “You get one good thing and another bad thing happens.”

Jisung shivered. That took a dramatic and miserable turn. It would make an interesting story plot but knowing that it could happen in real life made him feel an unknown sense of fear. The complete memory erasure of an important person, all the unknown feelings of nostalgia that always caused pain to him… those would bother him. 

Glancing at you, he blinked to himself as the thought of how you could have easily just erased yourself from him floated into his head. He wondered why you never chose to do that even though you didn’t start out being fond of him at all. And he felt glad that you still hadn’t tried to do that to him yet. He hoped you never would. It would be a shame to forget about you completely.

“You can see who your soulmate is, right?” He suddenly asked, both wanting to break free from the negative thoughts and because he was curious.

You hummed a little, bringing your right hand up to your face and glaring at your pinky finger. The red tie slowly appeared in your sight and you scoffed. Never have you ever obsessed over such a trivial thing before, it had always just been a long strand of string to you and nothing more. Whoever was at the end of it likely never cared as well, since they never tried tugging at it.

“I can. I just never looked for them,” you said.

“Oh… can you see who my soulmate is?” Jisung asked then.

You rolled your eyes a little and turned to him with a faint groan. Reaching out to grab his hand, you held his finger gently and waited before the red knot appeared around his pinky. You pinched the thin string carefully, your eyes widening in surprise when you saw the bright redness coursing through the lining of it. The vibration surrounding it was strong, which either meant their mutual feelings for each other were strong or that his soulmate was near.

“There is magic in here,” you said, shifting your gaze to Jisung. “You’ve not just met your soulmate. You've built a relationship with them.”

“I have?” Jisung whispered out in anticipation.

His heart picked up its pace suddenly at the knowledge that he had brushed shoulders with his soulmate before. His mind raced to check past all the faces he’d met and interacted with before, and he tried to guess who his soulmate could possibly be as best as he could. 

This had just gotten exciting; the suspense was slowly killing him.

“I can try to pull at the string but if it gets too long, we’re not going to follow it to the end,” you said, carefully grabbing a hold of his fate string with your fingers. Glancing up at him, you warned, “Don’t come crying if the universe made the wrong choice.”

Jisung nodded. He watched you intently as you continued to pull at the string, going at a fast pace until you abruptly came to a stop. You huffed out in frustration, unsure why the string was not leading you anywhere. It usually should, especially if the soulmate was standing at a distance. Jisung’s string felt in place as if it got cut off somewhere and was no longer attached to someone from a far distance. 

With furrowed brows, Jisung tilted his head and took a step closer to you, his voice urgent as he asked, “What is it?”

You blinked at your hand as you continued to pull at the string. Eventually, you made it to the last millimeter of the string just to find a knot attached and burning at your own pinky. Confusion clouded your mind for a second before it was replaced with disbelief and refusal. You let go of the string and grabbed onto Jisung’s hand, then you dropped his hand and raised your own, pinching your fate string instead and pulling at it.

Jisung stared at you with a troubled expression. Concern was etched on every part of his features as he watched you rapidly pull on your soulmate string until, all of a sudden, he felt a strong pull at his hand. He lurched forward towards you at the impact, his eyes widening in the process. That was when his surroundings came to a magical halt. It was like nothing he had ever experienced before.

Time stopped, literally, just within the atomic spaces you two stood on the street near his school. Fateful magic creased up both of your skin, yours shedding from your blood to travel through the red string to him so he could see what a magic-wielder could see; a long, bright red string surrounded you two in a multiple loose circles, creating a bubble. 

“Oh my god,” you whispered.

Jisung glanced down at your hand and back up at your face, where you looked more shocked than ever. He finally understood why he got pulled forward and what the messy map of red string he briefly saw in the air when he got closer to you meant. He finally understood the constant, special pull he felt towards you. Those electrifying feelings he kept feeling when he was with you.

“Are you… are we soulmates?” Jisung asked, anticipation flooding into his brilliant eyes.

You gulped with a nod. “Yeah, we are.”

He broke into a slow smile then, his chest heaving in excitement. “That’s great,” he said. “That’s exciting.”

“It is?” you asked incredulously, a reaction Jisung wasn’t quite expecting but he was suddenly too fond of the idea of soulmates for him to nitpick at your less-than-happy expression.

“Of course!” He beamed. “Because I really like the universe’s choice.”

The ticking of the clock was getting rather annoying. You couldn’t sleep. It was not because of the clock. You just needed something to blame your insomnia on aside from that messy head of yours. Shifting your weight on Jisung’s bed, you turned to the other side and scooted closer to the edge. 

You peered down at the floor where Jisung slept, your hands unconsciously bringing the covers up to your chin.

He slept in a curled-up position with a thin blanket draped over his small frame, giving you the false sense that he might be shivering from the cold night. Jisung was not a loud snorer; you could still hear his breathing from up on the bed, but it was nothing too distracting. It's not distracting enough for you to blame your lack of sleep on, at least.

Seeing him so fragile and small made you feel guilty.

Slowly and surely, after deciding you needed a breather, you got off the bed and tip-toed out of his room, not before taking a long strand of blue string for yourself. Heading to the living room, you quietly slid open the glass door leading to the balcony and stepped out onto the cold tiles. You sucked in a long breath as you propped your elbows on the fence, taking in the chilly air and letting them bruise your lungs like drugs and alcohol.

After discovering your soulmate ties, your first reaction was not the best you could muster. But, you were usually so good at hiding emotions you thought would harm others and, thus, a disadvantage to you. For some reason, your inability manifested at the most important time; supposed anxiety does make performance worse.

Your anxiety was not the only fault. The more time you spend with Jisung, the more he removes your default need to hide in plain sight. Self-expression became easy and normal, and Jisung has made it so that you were expected to be embraced through all the flaws in your demeanor and opinions. It has gotten to a point where when your first reaction to having him as your soulmate was fear, you just immediately showed it to him.

He didn’t seem visibly upset about how you were unsatisfied with the universe’s choice. All he did was smile and beam that he has you as a soulmate. Yet, even then, some of you wondered if he was mad at you. Or if he was disappointed, at the very least. 

Crazy how you two could do the same thing, but while you lied for yourself, Jisung lied solely for others.

That was just one of the many reasons that weighed down on why you didn’t want him as your soulmate. Your selfishness, instinct to protect yourself, tendency to feel annoyed, suspicion and insecurities, lack of desire to experience human interactions, and so on.

You’ve created an uncountable list of negative traits you possessed within two hours of laying on Jisung’s bed because you needed something solid to think about, not just bits and pieces as to why you do not deserve Han Jisung as your soulmate. Not as measly as that, everything that has happened to you and your family was somehow deserved, it seemed. You didn’t have the power to change your inherent characteristics, which was the consequence. 

Standing straighter, you counted the seconds you inhaled and tapped your finger against the vinyl rail to remind yourself you needed to release the air slowly. Your heart calmed down, but your chest still had an exhausting slump. The cosmos could make no mistakes; your life was supposed to be this tragic. You were unlucky and bad, and that was the end of it.

Your eyes traced across the night sky and the bright buildings. The empty air hit your ears with a gift of white noises of sounds that traveled from the alive souls of others. Among the chatters you could faintly hear, you remained silent as you always have, with no soul to confide in. Despite all the people that surrounded you, you were ultimately alone within. Nobody could truly understand; the one person who could hasn’t been awake in ages.

A shy tear rolled down your cheek, and you huffed at yourself, reaching up to wipe it away as more rushed to your waterline in hopes of welcoming their escape. You pursed your lips together and faced skyward at the ceiling, forcing down a shaky breath only to feel a croaked sob claw up your throat. Too much was happening in your head, from revisiting your past for Jisung to you suspecting he was probably mad at you.

This was bad, really bad. After keeping your feelings on a down-low, you knew very well that the tears would start flooding once you break out of moderation.

You should fly for a while, you urged yourself. You should jump off the balcony and float for a little. The sky had always cradled you as one of its own, and the ocean had always hugged you as her child. Nature was your second mother and then your first after your own passed. You had slept in trees and sung to the moon. If you wanted to calm down, you should fly. You would feel safer with the clouds.

Rubbing your eyes, you hoisted on the balcony fence and balanced your body to stand still on the thin railing. The wind brushed against your body, causing Jisung’s thin shirt to stick closely to your skin. The wind seeped through the fabric, grazing you with cold. You prepared the blue string in your hands, which makes you weightless, and you closed your eyes. 

You tried to ignore the droplets rolling down the corner of your face, but the crying didn’t stop. It never stops. The pain just keeps going, possibly until exhaustion takes over you.

From your past experience of flying, you liked to chant the spell while falling through the air. The thrill was addicting to you. Despite the constant protest of your teachers and family members, you continued to do it, and you have gotten used to it now. Your shoulders slumped with an exhale as you prepared the spell with your strings, and then you poked one foot out into the air after you finished the initial spell-casting phase. 

Just as you were about to fall forward, a pair of hands harshly gripped at your ankles, yanking you back to the ground with a huge thud. Jisung scrambled across the floor, ignoring the pain that expelled from his back when he fell with you on top of him.

He couldn’t see straight; only the vivid image of you standing on the balcony fence haunted his knowledge. The instant he has you all forgotten. He knew not that you could use magic or assume that you knew how to fly. All he knew was that he needed to feel you in his arms. He needed to know he pulled you back from falling and that you were safe with him.

His arms fussed around the air, desperately searching for your form before he grabbed a fistful of your shirt and tugged you to his chest, hugging you with every ounce of strength he had. The previous grogginess slowly began to vanish. It was slowly coming back to him now. 

He thought you woke up to get a glass of water, but you had been gone from his bed for too long to just be getting water. When he decided to leave his warm cocoon, he remembered seeing you tipping your leg forward into the sky and how it brought him a sense of panic he had never felt before.

It wasn’t the usual paranoid nervousness, something most anxiety-prone people would feel daily. It was not the ones that would surface when it was his turn to do a presentation in front of a class or when his mother found a loophole in his array of lies about failing the Math test. This felt like spikes growing from within his ribs, penetrating his body, and there was nothing he could do aside from waiting for the impending moment of his heart being pierced through. 

This was genuine fear. The second he was introduced to the concept of losing you, all Jisung could feel was terror. And then it was the resolution that if you did, in fact, not know how to fly, the next person going off the building would be him.

“What were you thinking?” he asked shakily, still pressing you close to him despite his arms aching from the overuse of muscles. “Wha–what the hell were you doing? You–you can’t do that.”

Your brows furrowed because you were unsure why he acted this way. But then it hit you that he probably couldn’t see the string across your fingers, so his mind just aimed for the worst. You tried to pull away then, to give him an explanation that you knew how to fly, but Jisung refused to let you go as he whined out a panicked sob.

“No, don’t! Don–don’t,” he stuttered, burying his face to your shoulder as he so desperately needed to feel you with him. Starting from your body to your scent, he had to latch onto you to calm himself down. “Please.”

You licked our lower lip in a troubled manner. Jisung was agitated, and it was not in his usual energetic way. You found it harder to deal with him when he was like this since it was an unfamiliar sight to you. You never counted on him to be at a loss for words or on the verge of breaking down. Therefore, you opted for the best thing you could do for him—let him hold you until he feels better.

“Jisung, I’m not…” You exhaled carefully. “I’m not trying to do that.”

The calming process was slow. You could feel his shoulders heaving slower now, but even then, it seemed like Jisung had no plan of letting you go anytime soon. And you felt okay with that. You could stay where you were for a while longer.

“You don’t have to worry. I promise I am not trying to jump off,” you said with your hand on his head, patting him gently to ease him down further.

“Why… why aren’t you sleeping? It’s so late,” he asked with a muffled voice, seeming to slowly relax into your caressing touch.

“I felt a little overwhelmed, Jisung. A lot of things happened recently, and my lifestyle completely changed,” you replied. “I just came out to have a breath of fresh air… and to think about things, that is all.”

He sniffed, turning his face to press his cheek against your shoulder. You smiled at its softness, feeling wet tears staining your skin, making your own rush to your eyes. You were sure Jisung was the first person to cry for you, and that thought touched you more than it baffled you. 

“I’m sorry I acted weird when I found out you were my soulmate. It was not my intention,” you confessed to him, feeling the impulsive rush that you needed to do it now when the timing felt right. “I thought the universe made an incompetent choice and got a little mad. You have such a good heart, Jisung, and I think you deserve so much better than having me.”

Jisung narrowed his eyes, his breathing hitching in his throat. Disbelief riddled his senses—how dare you say that about yourself? You were such a strong individual to have continued even after what has happened to your family and yourself, and you have been so endearing to him with your hidden smiles and playful bickers. If the roles were reversed, Jisung doubted he would survive it.

You don’t even know how much he adores you, from your spirit to your presence.

“I’m so sorry,” you apologized. “This is all my fault.”

“No, it isn’t. Nothing is,” he mumbled slowly, shaking his head and finally deciding to pull away to look into your eyes. “You just had to find a way to release yourself. I’m not going to blame you for doing that.”

Neither was anything that happened to your family. You never chose to be born into that position, nor did you choose that people possess such cruelty against each other. This was all the universe’s doing. This was all God’s doing if he even existed. Everything that has happened to you was just an unfortunate tragedy that he—a cruel man—could have let happen to anyone else or just not happen at all.

“But please give me a heads up next time you do something like that. I love you, and seeing that just then scared the hell out of me,” Jisung blurted out. And even when he saw how you reacted to his confession, which was to freeze on the spot and stare at him judgementally, he did not attempt to back down.

It was true. He was only being honest. Was it a little too early for him to say that? Perhaps, but what are the standards for human affection, anyway? There is none. There is never any standard. Love is blind and ignorant in the face of time; it has always been. Sometimes, you just have to shoot your shot and believe in yourself. Sometimes, you just have to trust that you are in love with someone and that it will last for eternity. 

“Yeah, I said it. I love you! There, I said it again! I love you, and… uhh, yeah! I love you!” Jisung declared, his eyes glimmering with affection when you begin to soften at his antics. 

A smile slowly moved up his lips, the force he had always felt in his chest magnifying as he looked at you fondly. He wondered what the string looked like now. Would it be vivid with redness? Would it be rich and overflowing with love? Would it become so powerful that it could save a city of people if a hazard occurs?

Jisung has quieted down now. The calmness solidified when he faced you with care. He leaned his torso forward tentatively, hesitation riddled in his movements as he inched closer and closer to you. For a moment, he thought your lips would touch if he didn’t change his mind. But he altered his action and bumped his forehead against yours instead. You nudged at him with a hearted huff, smiling. 

He closed his eyes to feel your presence. When he spoke again, his voice came out as a whisper. 

“I don’t want any other soulmate but you.”

You didn’t know what to say. Words have never been your strong suit, especially when it was a reply to a confession that Jisung made so shamelessly. Or screw that. Receiving love has never been your strong suit! It was a habit you had been unaware of after the death of your family. How were you supposed to react to someone who throws verbal affection at you? Laugh? Accept it with the same amount of love? You have not a single idea.

But his lashes were wet, and there were faint trails of tears down his chubby cheeks. It warmed up a smile on your face. Your heart felt more cradled than ever at the sight of his vulnerability. Perhaps you were never too good with words, but Jisung would understand, and you felt it was okay to resort to the second-best thing you could do.

The second best thing to show that your heart was filled and your loyalty was now tied to you and to him. Your hand moved up to his face, and you stroked the dry line on his soft skin, causing Jisung to glance up at you in surprise. Innocence filled the glimmer of his eyes while his mouth went agape at the unexpected action. He had only seen your gaze so celestial like this when you thought no one was looking: bright, loving, filled with the tender light of each star visible in the sky. 

He squeezed his eyes tightly in one bashful swift when you leaned forward to plant a featherlight kiss on his brow, somewhere close to his temple and the corner of his eyes.

“Thank you,” you said as you pulled away.

Jisung’s eyes flickered around his surroundings, his cheeks fluttering with a nice pinkness your friendly kiss sent him. He hadn’t got the time to think properly. He could only remember how soft your lips felt and how, surely, the spikes in his chest had pierced through his heart happily from that brief moment. 

His heart will bleed for you. He just knows it. He could suffer for you, but the suffering would be kind and gentle because he had done it for you. 

“Of–of course…” He lowered his head, a wide smile hidden.

If it wasn’t for Jisung, you would probably be lying on a rooftop somewhere, stargazing freely and flying without a care in the world. It was good back then. You enjoyed the freedom. Now, you could almost safely say you have a place to return to. You have someone who would look out for you, cry for you, sit under the night sky, and hold your hand until you both get tired.

Now, you have Jisung.

It was good back then, and it was much better now.

“Okay, the next thing you do is loop your fingers through here. You just go under section five with your thumb and pull it all the way back to section one,” you instructed while demonstrating to him how you could make the symbol for a healing spell.

Jisung had suggested having you try riding the bus to school (or to work) after the many times you teleported you both there, leading to him having extra minutes of sleep. It was mainly because riding the bus could give him so much more time to spend with you, but he kept claiming that it was to make sure you get the full high school morning experience, which to him simply consisted of waking up late, rushing to get his morning routine done, and meeting with you by the door completely untidied. 

Halfway through the bus ride, he finally remembered to bring up the topic of your magic—how it works, where it came from, what kind of systems there are, and so much more curiosity exploding in his head.

“Do you know if your family is the only household that uses string magic?“ Jisung asked as he kept his focus on the pattern on his hands.

After much convincing, he got his hands on one of the strings you had stuffed in your bag. While knowing that the magic would not work on him since he wasn’t born with the blood to activate it, he still wanted to fulfill his curiosity and learn a thing or two about it. He also wanted to earn some bragging rights about knowing how to make such complicated patterns with just a simple string, but you didn’t need to know that.

“No, there are other families that use string magic as well. My family wouldn’t run a magic string company if we were the only ones using it,” you replied. “But I am sure we are the only ones who use it like we do.”

Jisung nodded. “So magic is divided into categories.”

“Yeah, you can say that!” You nodded in agreement. “String magic is, by itself, a whole category. Each category possesses sub-categories that show the different ways people use magic. For my family, we utilize string figures and spells. Each bloodline possesses a uniqueness that allows the person only one kind of magic, and–“ You paused shortly when you looked at his hands. ” “No, Jisung. You move your index finger over circle two in section three.”

The boy groaned faintly under his breath, the tip of his tongue poking out in concentration as he delicately moved his fingers in fear that he would make a mistake and cause the whole build-up to crumble. You beamed at him when he successfully mirrored the symbol on your hand, causing him to sigh in accomplishment.

“Finally!” he exclaimed, throwing his hands up due to the impulse of the moment. And as his face morphed into one of shock, he quickly lowered his hands and made sure he did not ruin the pattern. “How fast can you usually do this?”

You looked at the green string around your fingers and hummed, tilting your head to the side. You have not thought about a time frame in a while. After learning all the base patterns that exist as the first step in every pattern, you never really thought about how fast or accurate you have been making the string figures. You could do it with your eyes closed and at a quick speed. 

“Well, this is a more complicated symbol since this is a really big spell, so this will normally take me a second longer than usual,” you replied. “But for the easier spells, no more than a second. My family made me practice a lot when I was younger. My family does have a reputation for being one of the more resilient magic users. We think quickly, and we act quickly!” 

Jisung gasped in awe, nodding his head in approval. What took him a full, twenty-minute journey to school to do could be done by you in under seconds! Somehow, it made him feel proud to know that you mastered such a complex skill. He wondered how you would find in normal academics; would Mathematics be your strength? 

“What is this spell for?” he asked, staring at it with intrigue as he wriggled his fingers, imagining how it would feel if he had the magic to use it.

“This is a healing spell. A very strong one, like giant gashes and bullet wounds,” you said. “The stronger ones tend to fix you immediately, so there is no need to go to the hospital. The medium spells usually patch big wounds, so you can buy time to get help.”

“Oh…” Jisung nodded before he looked at you with furrowed brows. “Have you guys found the cure to cancer yet?”

“Jisung, we do magic, not miracles.” You rolled your eyes with a snorted laugh. “We can buy some time and alleviate pain, but I think regular medicine and chemotherapy also do the same thing. Except you guys pay thousands of dollars for it, and we just…” You looked at your hands and grimaced with a mutter, “Do it ourselves?” 

“Imagine! DIY cancer treatments!” He hollered out a laugh, almost doubling over dramatically, but thought better of it because of the fragile string woven between his fingers. “If someone invented that, it would cost thousands for us to have one kit.”

“Hey, maybe someday they will figure it out,” you said. “And I promise I will learn it so you can grab a free ride through me.”

“Or maybe you will figure it out! These strings feel very trustworthy,” he joked, arching his brow at you as a bashful smile appeared.

“Sure. Hello, I’m [Name], the cancer cure founder,” you joked grimly, looking at your hands. “If my own people didn’t take me out years ago, your government will.” 

After a moment of thought, you finally let go of the patterned string. You stared at the shimmering line, the sun bouncing off the celestial lights printed on the material, and you felt your eyes glass over with nostalgia. It looked just like the way it was when your parents first introduced you to it. It was such a shame that you could never look at the strings with the same amount of delight you used to anymore.

“I can’t even cure my uncle, not to mention cancer.” You shoved the string back into your pocket and crossed your arms.

It was a fatal flaw of yours: your lack of knowledge.

Magic is diverse. Like the skeletons in every family’s closet, every bloodline utilizes a category of magic uniquely, and each family within the bloodline will have a slightly different variation of the craft. You have not learned enough about other types of magic to fully understand how to defend yourself and others from it.

A simple spell is still a unique spell. Sometimes, the simpler it is, the harder it is to understand. If you never learn in-depth about other categories of magic, you will have difficulty reversing them. 

Unfortunately, that was the case with your uncle.

Jisung frowned, his arms lowering in front of him at your dejected state. He still could not imagine, and he knew he never would be able to imagine how it feels to have to constantly worry about a bedridden loved one from across a city, one that was filled with people trying to exploit your life.

He supposed he couldn’t have helped you any better, but he sincerely wished he could have at least been there for you. He blamed it on the universe for messing up. How could it put you both in different worlds but still tie your fate strings together? How dare the universe let his soulmate suffer so much without his presence there for moral support?

“I’m sorry I can’t help with that,” Jisung muttered, gaining your full attention. His steps slowed, and he looked at you, a serious expression replacing his once goofy smile. “And I know this isn’t my fault, but I never got to say I’m sorry for not being able to be there for you when everything happened.”

It just made him feel so frustrated. You escaped your city years ago, yet somehow, you two have never crossed paths. He could have given you a home earlier. He could have helped shoulder your survival responsibilities earlier. He could have done so many things for you, but he wasn’t able to, and he didn’t. And even though he was not at fault, he could not help but feel incompetent somehow. He resented his past for not having you in it.

“Jisung, this isn’t your fault.”

“I know,” he said, gulping down a knot. “I just wish it could have been my fault. That way, I might have been able to do something about it, at least.”

You bit your lower lip. God, Jisung is so lovely. He is so damn lovely. His voice, his heart, his attitude, and everything. He was just born with it, wasn’t he? He was just born precious as such, with immense empathy and the capacity to care and love like no other.

And anytime it would dawn upon you that you got the privilege to experience how tender he has learned to cradle one’s heart and how you could now laugh in a world where he exists right next to you, you just freeze with a mindful pull in your chest. Your heart falls to your sleeve, beating at the sight of him, beating for him.

And you love him. You do love him.

“You can be here for me from now on,” you said quietly, not looking at him.

Jisung softened. These cheesy lines were starting to become less and less rare, and he was so delighted to see the progress of you becoming more and more comfortable with him. Your heart was finally settling down alongside his. He nodded enthusiastically. “I will, I promise.”

A small snort escaped from behind you both. You could not recognize the voice, but Jisung certainly could. Widening his eyes, he spun around and glared at Hyunjin, who had probably been listening long enough for him to make Jisung’s lunchtime a living hell hours later. Pink blushes quickly formed on Jisung’s cheeks at the thought of it.

“Good morning, Jisung,” Hyunjin greeted slyly.

You watched as Jisung shoved his friend on the shoulder before grabbing him by the collar and pushing him back. Hyunjin was giggling and not attempting to get Jisung off of him, clearly enjoying the moment of Jisung’s misery.

“How long have you been listening?” Jisung asked in a low whine.

“Long enough to hear you make that cheesy promise,” Hyunjin snickered. He then feigned a pout, his lower lip jutting out dramatically as he blinked his eyes until they looked soft enough to be romantic. Tilting his head to the side, he dialed his voice up and mocked, “I promise I will stay with you forever. I love you so much, oh my god–“

“I will end you right here, right now,” Jisung threatened, which didn’t feel much like a threat after he clamped his palm over Hyunjin’s mouth.

Hyunjin rolled his eyes and peeled Jisung’s hand away from him. He stepped away, finally settling his eyes on you before he did a curious head tilt, scanning you from head to toe. Jisung frowned from the side, feeling the uncomfortable tension rise in his chest as you challengingly held Hyunjin’s gaze for longer than he liked. You looked rigid, like the first time he met you. 

“Stop staring,” Jisung groaned, reaching up to smack Hyunjin’s cheek and mess up his hair when he turned away to dodge the attack.

“You two are why people think students from our school are ill-disciplined.” A calm Seungmin appeared from behind the two, brushing past them and stopping in front of you with the same amount of curiosity Hyunjin showed you. After a moment of silence, he nodded. “My name is Seungmin. It's a pleasure to meet you.”

“And I’m Felix!”

Your eyes widened at the shorter boy who popped up from behind Seungmin. Damn, there were just more and more of them! 

Awkwardly, you gave them both a nod of acknowledgment before you said, “My name is [Name].”

“And that one over there is Hyunjin,” Seungmin motioned over to the black-haired boy, who gave you a sweet smile as he struggled with the loose headlock Jisung was desperately trying to put him in. 

Seungmin rolled his eyes at the two, inwardly fed up with their morning antics but not having the energy to break them apart. He spent most of his time finishing multiple assignments yesterday night. He has not an ounce of energy for fun. “Those two are always on about something. They can get pretty physical with each other.”

Felix snorted at the mistranslated connotation, causing Jisung to finally let go of Hyunjin and return his attention to you three. He was frowning, embarrassment and annoyance crossing his face when he approached you again, giving Seungmin a glare in the process. 

“Can you not say it like that?” Jisung complained, crossing his arms with a scoff.

“There is nothing wrong with the way I said it. You just took it the wrong way,” Seungmin shrugged. “There is also nothing wrong with what I said. Who cares, seriously?”

Jisung grumbled under his breath, his pout more permanent now as he sulked with shrunken shoulders. He was feeling down about how Hyunjin ruined such a nice moment you two were sharing. What you said was a token of your acceptance, or at least he took it that way. You telling him that he could stay by your side meant that you had decided you would no longer suffer alone. 

But that was ruined now. Then, the rest of his friend group joined in when he could have just tried to shoot Hyunjin away so he could resume talking to you about anything.

Seeing his sudden grim state, you raised a brow and reached out to pat his arm. When Jisung looked at you, you tilted your head, your eyes asking all the questions you needed to ask, and Jisung replied the same way you asked him: with his soul leaping through the windows of his eyes. It was a conversation without words, and that alone showed a kind of bond all his friends could see had grown to be close-knit and sacred in some way.

“Oh my god, Hyunjin! I think you might have jinxed it when you said soulmates,” Felix mentioned quietly, his eyes fixated on you both when you gave Jisung’s arm another nudge to make him smile. His heart was pounding, his head wandering into a romantic space as he imagined one day when he could find someone he could talk to by looking at them.

“Again? Felix, don’t be ridiculous.” Seungmin waved his hand dismissively. “Soulmates don’t exist.”

The words hung on the top of Seungmin’s tongue, and somehow, the words felt wrong when he looked at you two again. The way Jisung was looking at you and the way he was smiling at you—Seungmin didn’t see it; he felt it. It was different. His eyes crinkled slightly more than usual, so the space within could only hold your image. His lips quirked without effort to show how euphoric he felt just being there with you.

How Jisung looked at you differed from how he looked at everyone else. And the more he looked, the more Seungmin wondered if Jisung knew that himself.

A tap on his shoulder shook him out of his thoughts, and Seungmin barely turned his head to the person in response. Felix breathed a short laugh when he saw Seungmin's gaze on you and Jisung. He was uncertain why he was suddenly so concentrated, but he knew it was something he could tease him about anyway. Felix smacked Seungmin’s shoulder harshly to gain his full attention, rolling his eyes playfully when Seungmin glared at him.

“Do you want to invite [Name] to hang out with us after school today?” Felix asked, motioning towards you.

“I don’t care. Ask Hyunjin.” Seungmin shrugged.

“Really? You stare a lot for someone who doesn’t care,” Felix responded.

Seungmin scoffed then. Whatever Felix was thinking about, which he could assume was something related to some dramatic romance, he was not feeling it. He just had a frozen moment of disbelief in what he had always thought was true: that soulmate didn’t exist. He had always been so against the idea because of what he mentioned to Felix before: people desire it when they can never have it, and there is no point in chasing over a petty ideal.

Besides, people will never love each other so strongly like that. There was no way.

“Jisung feels different, don’t you think?” Seungmin asked gently, his hands tightening on the strap of his school bag. 

Felix raised a brow and looked at his friend before turning back to Seungmin, a shrug leaving his shoulders. “Not really.”

Seungmin sighed. Perhaps it was just him and his tendency to detect changes because Jisung felt different. He was still as fulfilling and bright as he used to be, but it wasn’t just him anymore. The blinding innocence in Jisung’s eyes, the way he speaks, his gestures, and everything started to look softer, as if there were extra he could give, but he was holding back for something.

Everything about him went from shining for himself to a light that learned to accommodate somebody else. Jisung used to feel like he had all the love for the entire world, but now he feels like he has put space aside to love someone special. And it was not a mystery who that special someone would be.

“Whatever then, forget I ever said anything.” Seungmin shrugged before he marched forward to catch up with the rest, urging Felix to follow behind.

When the two finally approached you both, the first thing Felix did was strike up a conversation with you. 

“We saw you with Jisung once and have meant to introduce ourselves for a long time,” he beamed. “We never got the chance, though. And Jisung is so against us meeting you for some reason.”

“He thinks we are going to steal you from him,” Hyunjin joked with a roll of his eyes.

Amused, you arched a brow at Jisung, who groaned with a faint blush on his face. He thought the teasing would end earlier, but it had just begun. Starting with his mini crush on you when you two first met each other to the strong affection his feelings have gradually blossomed into now. He knew he would not be getting out of his hellhole in a long time.

“You overestimate yourself,” you muttered, turning your usual annoyed look—the signature dead eyes and the furrowed brows—at Hyunjin.

“Hah,” Hyunjin mused with a growing smirk, completely unfazed by your lack of enthusiasm, causing your frown to deepen. Suppose optimism runs in the friend group, but in this case, it felt like a massive load of ego. 

“Anyway, we were thinking maybe you’d want to tag along with us to shop after school!” Felix asked, then he turned to Jisung, the smile on his face dimming slightly. “I hope you didn’t forget we planned to hang out today.”

Jisung clicked his tongue in annoyance, finding it very disappointing that his friend had such little faith in him. “I remember,” he replied before looking at you and whispering, “I was going to tell you about it, but I guess they beat me to it.”

“You don’t have to tell me if you’re gonna hang out with your friends, Jisung,” you muttered.

“Well, I mean–since we always go home together, I figured you should know,” Jisung grumbled, his mind short-circuiting as he tried to explain why he needed to tell you everything he does that did not involve you. He did realize how much he had made it seem like he was reporting to a significant other about his whereabouts, and perhaps that was what got him all flustered about it.

Seeing his friend being rendered speechless so quickly, Hyunjin rolled his eyes and let out a short scoff. He hasn’t seen Jisung like this since back in freshman year when he fell briefly—uhh, not quite—in love. Even back then, he hadn’t looked at the girl the way he looked at you today. A crush would suffice, though. Hyunjin hadn’t heard Jisung’s voice trail off that way since he had this giant crush on that senior girl.

He has been trying to find a way to get Jisung to shut up sometimes. All it took was to get him to fall in love. Maybe Hyunjin should have been more seductive in their friendship.

“Well? Do you want to tag along?” Hyunjin chimed in, stopping you from replying to Jisung. He tilted his head at you, raising a brow in encouragement, yet it felt more like a challenging stance.

“Come along! It’ll be fun, and we can get to know you more!” Felix exclaimed, snapping his fingers as if what he said was a brilliant idea.

And he was right. It could be a great idea. Expanding your social network, even if only by three people, could help you with your loneliness. Not that you have been lonely for a while now. Ever since Jisung came into your life, everything flipped upside down. You’ve got company every morning and every night, whether it was in the form of spam texts during lunchtime or messy rambles at midnight when Jisung would slip under the cover with you and just talk nonstop.

And you have never once complained about only having Jisung as a companion. He was more than enough for you and more than what you thought you deserved.

However, not only that, but having more friends could also help you with your future plans. Your nearest goal, which has been in progress for years, was to navigate away from a magical life into a human one. That would require you to suppress a very important part of your identity: being a magic user. But what needed to be done cannot be changed, and you were willing to get on an alternate track for a more comfortable life. 

(Given that waking your uncle up was a plan that has decomposed in your mind for a while now.)

You looked at Jisung, asking for his opinion. He gave you a shrug, a warm smile on his face. His friends were great people. Hyunjin might be stepping on thin ice, but according to Jisung, this is just how you two act around strangers. Him being an egomaniac and you being an antisocial, to speak on hyperbolic terms. Once you get to know all his friends, they would be just as amazing as how he knew them.

When you hesitated, Jisung gave you a small nudge on the back, encouraging you to take the invitation. Scanning all three of the unfamiliar boys, you pursed your lips together for a brief moment before you nodded. “Yeah, sure, I’ll come along.”

They smiled. Hilariously, you could assume their personality just from how they smiled at you, just like you did when you first saw them back during your little stalking period. Hyunjin held a smirk; Felix’s grin was wide, and Seungmin only pursed his lips and let his eyes speak the rest. Your heart pounded slightly as you heard Felix begin talking about his shopping plans while Seungmin walked ahead of you with him, Hyunjin following along closely.

It felt thrilling to gain friends your age once again. It made you wonder if the ones you used to have back then still remember you or if they’ve ever tried to go after you. You let out a bitter chuckle. It was unlikely. You have never been friendly enough with anybody for them to drop everything just to find you, especially when sheltering you could mean going against the city council. 

“Are you excited?” Jisung asked then, snapping you out of your thoughts.

You softened. “Kind of.”

He turned to look at you then, his warm smile still evident. “I bet you can’t wait to hang out with someone who isn’t me, huh?”

You laughed, your voice as light as feathers. Although you desperately wanted to make a joke, the swirling in your heart prevented you from doing so.

“No. I know it would be great to have a few more friends, but I don’t think I will ever get tired of hanging out with you,” you replied casually. “And just so we are clear, no one can ever take me from you.“

You didn’t look at him. You weren’t sure if you would have been able to say such embarrassing things if you were looking at him. But he was staring at you with the same look again: softened eyes and a loving smile. The look that mirrored the tender falling of first love, the chilling excitement when the first snow touched your nose. A look that screamed he had fallen in love with you all over again.

“I love you, [Name],” he whispered, the thought too big in his head that he needed to get it out of his system.

You laughed brightly. “Yeah.” You reached over to grab his hand and ran your thumb smoothly over the back of his palm, feeling his rough skin and delicate touch. “I promise I will say it back someday.”

He smiled. He’ll wait.

You pulled at your fingers as an uneasy feeling struck your chest for no reason.

You went through with the plan and joined the boys on a window-shopping spree after school. It was mostly just them chatting while they walked through a busy commercial street crowd. Occasionally, they would stop by a shop or two when they found something interesting, but more often than not, they would look at the product of interest and just whine about wanting to buy it instead of buying it.

The only one who bought anything was Felix and his boba milk tea, which everyone else had already taken at least two sips of.

The boys have been engaging you in casual conversations, hoping you could warm up to them more easily. Especially after Jisung spent lunchtime making sure they wouldn’t accidentally step over the line and warning them about you being relatively alert around strangers. You could tell they were cautious about where topics were straying, though. The way they would change subjects, or when it felt like one of them was holding back a joke of sorts, had alerted you.

You appreciated their effort and have been engaging. But while having good intentions in mind, they could not detect that you were only growing more and more anxious as time passed.

When you first met Jisung, you didn’t have anyone else you were trying to please; therefore, you had more chances to distance yourself from him. With him, it was a gradual process of becoming friends. You did not immediately click with him, you did not see him every single day, and you did not have full-blown conversations with him for over thirty minutes.

There were time lapses in between your process of getting closer to Jisung, which was what you were more comfortable with.

Hyunjin, Seungmin, and Felix were three people who kept dragging you into conversations. Seungmin was lesser than the others, you realized, but he was a pain in the ass for being so good at holding onto a conversation you deeply wanted to end. Not to mention, both of you have an argumentative nature. You were just less vocal about it. 

It may be a misunderstanding on their part that you would find silence more awkward than sounds, but it was exhausting to talk for so long with people you barely knew, especially when you were in constant fear that what you said simply wouldn’t be entertaining enough for them. They were, after all, Jisung’s friends. You would like nothing more than to leave a good impression and to make new friends, but not at such a quick pace where you need to answer one curious question after another. 

It was completely out of your comfort zone and not within your social capability. You needed to be away from them to recharge yourself, yet somehow, whenever you tried to bring that up, you found the words stuck in your throat.

These three were excellent and friendly people. You could not guarantee their reaction when you told them you needed them to shut the hell up for a second, and frankly, you didn’t want to have to say that to them.

Jisung noticed your micro-movements when you turned away to face the zooming cars out on the road. His smile faded, and concern quickly flooded into his eyes. Discreetly moving away from his friends, who were bickering among themselves, he grabbed you gently by the edge of your wrist and pulled at you for attention.

When you looked at him, he asked, “Are you okay?”

His eyes have been home to you ever since the night you told him about yourself; calming, caressing, warming. You could tell him everything he wanted to know, and you have told him everything he wanted to know. But as you caught his eyes right now, all you could think about was how much you must have burdened him for the past few weeks and how much you wanted to stop doing that.

“Yeah,” you replied. “I am just a little hungry.”

He looked at you for a while, accessing your facial expressions, and then he broke into a soft smile. 

“We can go get something to eat, I know a store just down the street,” he said before turning around and beckoning his friends over. “Let’s go get something to eat! [Name] said they’re hungry.”

Felix perked up with a nod, agreeing to the idea. Then he stretched his arm out to you, the bottle of milk tea in his hand. “You can have some of my milk tea if you want,” he said, shaking the bottle.

Seungmin chuckled as he pointed at the cup. “I think you drank all the milk tea already. It’s just boba now.”

Felix furrowed his brows as he raised his cup to glance inside. He let out a small yelp of surprise when he saw a pile of boba with the tea drained from the cup. All the weight he felt was an illusion created by the weight of the boba! Clicking his tongue in annoyance, he turned to Seungmin and whined, “You drank everything! What about me? I bought this!”

“Me? What about Hyunjin? He was holding it for a good five minutes back there,” Seungmin retorted as he shoved Hyunjin a little, looking at Felix in disbelief. 

Seungmin then turned to Jisung and pointed at him as well. “Jisung drank a lot, too! He just takes big gulps and stores them in his cheeks at a time. That’s why it feels like he didn’t drink too much, but he did!”

“I saw that too! He’s right!” Hyunjin chimed in, also pointing a finger at Jisung.

You watched them. Their tendency to start an argument over the littlest things was, needless to say, entertaining to you. Not only did it give you a chance to relax, but it also gave you free real-life drama to watch.

Amid their bickering, you relaxed a little upon the lack of attention fixated on you. Finally, you decided it would be a good time to help yourself out with some anxiety-reducing magic. You should have done it all along, but there was never the right time to bring the strings out, and you didn’t feel like lying about it.

You reached behind your bag and fished around blindly for the plastic board of strings. Your brows furrowed as you traced their bands with your finger, trying to feel their energy and find the loose ends. As you did so, you also focused on the conversation that the boys were having, which seemed to be getting more and more heated—in a playful way—as the seconds ticked by.

“You guys always drink my stuff! It isn’t just this time!” Felix complained, pouting down at the bottle with angry eyes.

“If you don’t like it, why didn’t you say something?” Hyunjin asked. “We wouldn’t have drunk it if you told us not to.”

Jisung gave Hyunjin a faint, deadpan smile. “You know Felix is a people-pleaser, right? He can’t say no.”

“So you’re saying he is a pushover?” Hyunjin snickered, causing Felix to glare at Jisung in shock.

Seungmin rolled his eyes. He didn’t want to join the argument; it all seemed pointless, and he wanted to end it as quickly as possible. “I’ll buy you one back then, you petty bastard,” he said to Felix, once again not being the best conversation killer.

Felix grimaced bitterly, unamused by Seungmin’s tone. “When you say it like that, it makes me sound like the bad person,” he said. “If that’s the case, I don’t want it.”

Hyunjin huffed out a laugh, turning to look at Jisung and shoving the boy on the shoulder. “People-pleaser, you say?”

“Oh–shut up!” Jisung groaned out, punching him back with an equal amount of strength.

Hyunjin gasped, not expecting Jisung to repeat his movements since he never really did. “No, you shut up,” he retorted, returning the punch and, thus, adding a sub-argument to this seemingly never-ending cycle of heated bickering.

You were too focused on threading a pattern with your fingers to care about what the boys were still discussing. You could hear their voices being thrown back and forth, though, just not quite the words they were saying. After all, there was no need for you to pay attention. Everything would be resolved quickly, just like all the other little quarrels they’d had the past hour about allowance money, parents, grades, and food.

As you concentrated on creating the pattern with your fingers, you found yourself growing less and less nervous when there was a complicated task. You could hear a loud yelp from Jisung and a clumsy shout from who you guessed to be Felix. After that, an array of honks came from the road just beside the pedestrian street you all stood on.

“Hey! Hey! Jisung, watch out!

You snapped your head up. That sounded urgent enough for you to finally break out of your own bubble.

Eyes trailing after the boys, who were all staring with blazing eyes toward one single direction: Jisung. His body was falling backward, presumably being pushed by someone who had miscalculated their strength, and he was close to falling to the ground below the curb when your eyes shifted up at where the honk came from.

A car was rushing forward seemingly slowly, but you knew it was only a perception problem. Your heart rate picked up, and your fingers had already started to undo the pattern on instinct. Judging by the way Jisung was falling and by the distance between him and all of you, it would be impossible for Jisung to be pulled back to safety in time.

It would either be the driver slowing down, which was unlikely, or he gets tackled farther down the road, which would be equally as dangerous as this was a two-lane street. 

Without a second thought, as the car from behind tried screeching to a pause to no avail, you jumped out of your spot and onto the road. Your hand had immediately thought of the quickest spell you could think of, tying knots and moving fingers until an easy pattern was formed. The string moved quickly as if it could feel your urgency, and as soon as it wrapped around your forearm, it squeezed your skin with a piercing ache to churn out more energy.

Jisung could feel a hand around his head, a palm pressing against his hair, and his face muffled in your chest. He could recognize your embrace anywhere and at any moment. But instead of feeling solace as he would typically when drowned in your arms, his mind was suffocating with the sound of shattered glass and a beeping engine. 

He breathed heavily, his eyes moving to glance to the side, and his eyes widened at the trickle of blood that melted down the string on your forearm.

Magic has consequences. He remembered. This was the first time he had seen it. 

The pain was relentless in its attack, spreading from your palm and breaking the top hood of the speeding car to all the exposed skin of your forearm. You channeled too much magic, and even then, it was not enough as your fingers felt numb under the impact of shielding the both of you. You’ve broken your hand with this, but the bone-shattering pain went unnoticed as you pulled yourself away from Jisung and stood up.

“[Name]…” Jisung muttered, his eyes wide at your lifeless hand as you clutched it with your functional one.

Your brows were furrowed, not registering his presence. The pain was finally starting to get to you, all after you had made sure Jisung was fine and safe from harm. Looking around, you sucked in a huge breath at the prying eyes and gossipy cameras those eyes have whipped out. And your new friends—if you could consider them that now—were all staring at you in horror, not sure of what you did or what you received as a result.

There was too much attention plastered all over the crowd, targeted on you, your bleeding hand, and your swelling fingers. It felt worse than your broken bones. You couldn’t move your hand at all without the help of the other one, and you felt your functioning hand slipping as the blood lathered itself all over your skin. The only thing keeping you from succumbing to the pain was the lingering magic sparing you an act of generosity.

Glancing back at Jisung, you huffed quietly and shook your head when he stepped towards you. “I…” You inhaled sharply, and all you could fathom to do was turn around and run for it.

“[Name]–hey, wait!” Jisung wanted to go after you, but the driver quickly stopped him, who was half concerned about your injuries and half angry that Jisung had appeared out of nowhere. 

Swinging around and swatting the stranger’s hand away, his gaze was a pit of merciless black when he glared at the driver, wanting nothing more than to run after you immediately. “Look, sir, I don’t have time to talk to–“

“Go, I got this,” Seungmin chimed in quietly as he moved Jisung to the side. He gave the confused boy a firm nod, glancing behind his shoulder at where you had run off to before ignoring Jisung’s questioning gaze and turning to the driver. He had it all figured out by now: a magic user in the land of mundane reality.  

“Jisung, we can still catch up if we run now,” Felix urged as he pulled at his hand, forcing him to move.

Jisung blinked momentarily, still trying to comprehend the situation he already knew of. He needed to process it correctly. You got hit by a car–no, you did not get hit by it. You shielded him and yourself, so technically, a crash did not happen. But you were bleeding when you ran away, and the hood of the car was destroyed–it must have been you. He did see strings on your wrist, he believed. He also saw blood, a lot of blood, which entailed a lot of pain.

Jisung breathed heavily, looking around. 

He realized you were alone. 

The strings couldn’t work with one hand.

You have never considered such a circumstance before, when only one set of your fingers works while the others are rendered completely useless. It was so suddenly presented to you that you weren’t able to think of any plausible solution aside from struggling through the pain and hoping you could somehow make the patterns work with one hand.

You remembered seeing your mother do it when she was multi-tasking around the house, so at least you could have faith that it was possible.

After finding an empty alleyway, you reached the far corner of the dark space and slid down against the dry, rocky concrete wall. Even puffs of air went in and out of your lips as you tried to regulate your breathing and not cause any more pain within yourself; the broken hand and the torn skin were hurtful enough. Glancing down at your hand, your previously steady breath came out shakier than ever upon the reddening bulge, glazed over with the pouring blood that stained the blue string.

You couldn’t feel your arm anymore when you poked at it, but somehow, the pain still lingered strong. It looked ugly.

“Okay… okay…” You kept reminding yourself as you reached to blindly a loose end of your blue string.

It was submerged with your skin entirely, you found out. Using the wrong string for a power-type spell was already bad enough, as it channeled unnecessary energy. But you had to keep using it for pain reduction to keep yourself from collapsing from the injury, causing the string to keep draining your blood through the tissues of your skin by wrapping its bladed surface tighter around your arm.

You had no other choice but to dig your nails through the gap where the string was etched into, hoping to needle out an opening for you to lose your finger through and tug the string out slowly between your flesh.

Tears welled up in your eyes at the agonizing pain when you ever so lightly pulled at the hem of the string, peeling it away. It felt like the sharp end of a blade running across your skin repeatedly, the sharp and stinging pain gutting you with each inch you take off.

The pain-reduction spell was losing its patience with you. You had less than enough blood to give.

Opting to take breaks between each little peel, your heart clenched at how hopeless you were, and a bitterly triumphant smile slowly eased its way to your face.

This situation hit home for you—being in trouble and being alone. You welcomed this eerie nostalgia, even relaxing into it so you could feel better about this situation. 

A loud exhale left your lips as you let your arms drop to the ground, your eyes roll skywards at the clouds, and your smile dimmed with satisfaction when it suddenly hit you that you could kindly take your time soothing the pain. You didn’t have anywhere else to be anyway.

Your phone suddenly rang, snapping you out of your thoughts. Letting it ring for a while, you clicked your tongue at how insistent the caller was before you fished it out of your pocket. When you saw Jisung’s name flashed across the screen, your heart halted with a stumble.

Oh god, what were you thinking? Someone out there was desperately looking for you. Han Jisung has been looking for you all over the place.

“[Name]! Where the hell are you?” Jisung’s panicked voice came out as a shout when you picked up.

“I… uhh." You gulped a harsh breath. “I mainly ran straight. You will see a mini-park when you leave the shopping area and go straight. You will see an alleyway if you turn a corner around the crossroad. I’m just far inside.”

There was shuffling on the other side. You could hear Jisung call out to his friends before he pressed his phone back to his ears, and he huffed with each step, not quite running but walking fast enough to be out of breath.

You didn’t dare hang up. He sounded angry when you finally picked up the call, and you assumed he had things to tell you. While he stayed silent to follow your direction, you held your phone between your ear and shoulder as your hand returned to business.

“You better be okay when I get there,” Jisung scolded, his mind flashing back to the bloodied arm you got before you ran away. “How could you just up and leave like that?”

“I’m sorry–“ you winced with a squint of your eye, a yelp leaving your lips when a particularly sharp inch tore at your skin.

Jisung furrowed his brows immediately, the grip on his phone tightening as he picked up his pace. “[Name], what is that? Are you okay?”

“Yeah… no, actually. But I am dealing with it,” you said through gritted teeth. “Anyway, I just got overwhelmed, and my first response was to run away.”

Jisung sighed in defeat. He couldn’t blame you for that, especially since he knew how much you hated being under the spotlight and how much the crowd drains you out. He just wished you could have asked him for help so he could have done something. He could have left with you to fix your hand, which he assumed you would much rather not go to the hospital for. But you were still in pain, and the fact that he was not there to help you was breaking him apart.

It felt like a piece of his heart just left his chest and started to roam around the world looking for you, and he couldn’t protect it. He has no idea where it would go and what would happen to it. 

“I think I’m here–oh, please be there,” Jisung muttered as he turned a corner and walked straight into the alleyway. He hung up the phone and shoved it in his pocket, his legs rushing until he finally saw you sitting in the back corner.

His heart dropped at the sight of you. Hair stuck to your forehead due to the sweat, your bloodied arm still a raging color of fresh redness, and you were breathing heavily in pain as you tried finishing off with the tightened blue string around your forearm.

Jisung felt tears brimming behind his eyes as a lump of fear jumped to his throat, forcing him to let out incoherent sounds of protest as he rushed to approach you before dropping to his knees.

“No, no–what are you doing? Stop, you’re hurt–you’re hurting yourself.”

His voice came out croaked, and his hands fumbled in the air, somewhere close to yours, hoping to stop your movements. But still, he wasn’t sure if he should stop you because he knew he wasn’t knowledgeable enough.

“Jisung, I have to do this. This has gone far too deep,” you explained calmly, despite wanting nothing more than to break down in front of him. “If I try to heal it, the string will get ripped out of my skin. It’ll hurt way more than me doing it slowly now.”

His friends finally made it to the end of the alleyway then, and you could only give all three of them a firm nod before returning to Jisung.

“You can help me by making the pattern I taught you this morning. Can you do that?” you groaned out. 

Jisung nodded. “Wh–what do I have to do?”

“Just go into my bag and find a green string, the same amount I made you use this morning. You will have to make it for me because my bones are shattered,” you instructed, feeling him pause before going to your backpack.

When Jisung gave you a verbal agreement, his voice was much more watery than before. “After you make it, try slotting it onto my hand.”

Jisung was trying very hard to focus on his task. His eyes darted between his hands and you, his mind jumping between remembering what to do and feeling anxious that you were literally going through so much pain right in front of him. He felt like crying, the tears threatening to spill over little by little, but he held it in just so he could appear firmer than his heart was.

You could see him trembling from your peripheral vision as you focused on taking the previous blue string off your forearm, and you could tell by the way he was cursing that he had to start over multiple times.

Jisung was getting fearsomely frustrated that he couldn’t get the pattern done faster, and he was starting to blame himself for everything that had happened thus far.

However, no matter how much you wanted to help him out, you couldn’t break concentration on your task. You have learned to lean into the pain now. If you turn to talk to him, you will have to start over again. You just need to have faith that he remembered what you taught him.

Standing not too far behind you both were the rest of the boys. Awkwardly and unsurely, they stood close to each other and stared ahead at you both. What they witnessed just then was still vivid in their mind, but while demanding an explanation from you or Jisung, they planned to keep quiet for now at this tense minute.

“Should–should we do something?” Felix whispered after he leaned towards his two friends, his eyes focusing on the dry blood staining your skin. The continuous urge to puke lingered, and he could taste the sourness beneath his tongue. 

None of them replied to him because there was nothing to say. 

Hyunjin barely understood how you didn’t die or how the car got more damage than you did. Seungmin figured out what your identity was, but the process of realizing everything that he thought was fake was, in fact, real gave him a reality check he did not appreciate. Felix was on the verge of throwing up, both the sight of flesh and the confusion of it all contributing to his weakened mind.

All three of them were having issues of their own. How were they supposed to go about helping you out?  Besides, this whole incident happened technically because of them. This would not have happened if they hadn’t started bickering.

Jisung screamed in joy when he was finally done with the string. He smiled at it before looking at you for confirmation, but you were still trying to remove the remaining blue string.

Furrowing his brows painfully at you, he waited patiently before you suddenly collapsed against the wall with a relieved sigh, the string dropping to the ground after you let go of it. Jisung felt the rocks on his shoulders roll away as soon as you were done.

“I did it! This is right, I hope?” he said, presenting you with the pattern.

You looked at it, your eyes squinted in thought before you gave him a faint nod.

“Yeah…” You reached your working hand out to him, your fingers spread widely. “Put it on my hand.”

Jisung blanked out then. He has only ever seen you do this with both hands! He was barely skilled at it, let alone sticking the pattern to only five of your fingers!

Shaky eyes trailed towards your face and fingers, then he gulped as he eyed his own hands—Jisung didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t even begin transferring the string to your hand.

“I…”  He suddenly turned behind him and yelled at his friends. “Can you guys come and help me, please?”

The three scurried over to you quickly, kneeling by your side and wordlessly listening to Jisung’s explanation. Many suggestions were made as all four fumbled with the patterned string on Jisung’s hands, trying their best to shrink it all to fit at the tip of your fingers and use your palm as leverage. It took a while, but they finally constructed a messy string figure.

Without a second thought, you immediately cast a healing spell and palmed your bloody forearm. The pain vanished gradually, and your wounds sealed themselves up in a fading manner. The boys watched the process unfold; blood suckled back into your flesh, and your skin sewed itself together seamlessly. It was so unreal that it almost looked as if the sight was generated by a computer program.

“Oh, thank god,” you huffed out as you raised your arms in front of your face to wiggle your fingers, feeling your muscles move freely, unlike before.

Seeing your arms going back to normal, Jisung relaxed upon relief. Although the dry blood stains still served as a reminder of what had happened, he took off his schoolbag and scooted closer to you so he could move your arms away and dive right into your embrace. His arms went around your torso as he slumped down onto the ground, sprawling across it.

You widened your eyes, wholly taken back by his action. Not only did you smell like metal, but you also looked like a damn dirtbag. And all of his friends were just there, watching you both with careful eyes.

“Jisung,” you whispered. “I’m bloody, don’t do this.”

He whined with a shake of his head, stubbornly tightening his arms around your waist as he adjusted the position of his head on your chest. He reached for your previous injured hand, loosely lacing his fingers through yours and leaving it on the ground. After all that preparation, he finally stared into the distance, clearing his head to listen to your heartbeat.

It had always calmed him down to hear it. The idea that you’re alive and next to him was delightful.

A pout inched to his face when you asked him to move again because your blood could be staining his white uniform. Jisung insisted on holding onto you at the moment, and he only relaxed when you heaved a sigh and gently patted his head in defeat.

Looking up at the three boys, all with faces of confusion, you pursed your lips together. “I’m sure you three have questions.”

“No shit, we do,” Hyunjin said, his brows furrowing finally as he looked at you.

You told them everything. Almost everything, at least minor details of how your family fell to its deathbed and how exactly magic as a whole works. That could come later.

For now, it was the overall gist of what would clear their confusion about who you are, both as a magic user and as a person who has lived among non-magical people. You watched their suspicious faces turn into clear understandings of the situation.

Hyunjin was the first to stand up after silence ensued. Everyone turned to him with curious eyes, waiting for his next move, and they were all taken back when he wordlessly turned around and just walked out of the alleyway. Not protesting his action, although still unsure why Hyunjin had reacted the way he did, Seungmin and Felix both gave you and Jisung a glance before they got up and left with Hyunjin.

You sighed loudly when you knew they were out of earshot, your hand dropping from Jisung’s head to his waist.

“Do you think I scared them away?” you asked then.

Jisung hummed in genuine thoughts, not seeming to be taken aback by his friend’s actions. “No, I think we have done worse things to each other,” he commented truthfully. “They can handle this. If I can handle it, so can they.”

You breathed out unsurely, your anxiety getting the best of you.

While not quite caring how your background could affect your relationship, since you’ve always had people leave you for it anyway, you wished hard that it would not ruin Jisung’s friendship with them. For one, making him choose between his friends and you would be cruel. For two, you have second thoughts about who he would choose if the dilemma proposes itself to him.

You continuously doubt your place in Jisung’s heart. He would go insane if he knew you didn’t trust your place in his heart to be the top priority because he’s always placed you before himself. He knew that before when you two just realized you guys were soulmates. He knew when he started whispering those ‘I love you’s' differently after you fell asleep. He knew that now, with his arms around your waist and his head still pressed against your chest, refusing to let go.

If you go, he will soon follow. It is the tradition of soulmates. It is the tradition of love.

“[Name]…” His voice was muffled when he looked up at you, eyes innocently wide and sparked with sincerity. They were how he always looked at you, and they always made your heart jump with affection.

Your hand instinctively flew up to his head, playing with his hair as your eyes softened upon the vulnerable atmosphere. Jisung played with your finger, his movement bashful and shy before he held your hand and let it lay on the ground.

“I… “ He sighed. “Next time something like that happens, please don’t run away again.”

You pursed your lips together, feeling guilty about putting him through such stressful events. But the remorseful feeling vanished as soon as he spoke again.

“It scares me to not be there when you’re hurt. Even if I may not be of much help, I want to at least be there so you aren’t alone,” he explained before he looked up at you again. 

There was something in his eyes. A swirl of fluorescent light, something celestial but different than the usual ones you have seen. A kind of affection that traverses what you used to know from him. He was looking at you differently. You could tell for the first time.

“I love you so much. Please don’t do that again," he whispered to you.

And somehow, you just knew he had meant that. He meant that confession in the most loving, romantic way possible.

It wasn’t the ones he threw at you during mid-conversation, the ones he would say with a goofy smile when he made a mistake. This was real, as real as the double knots he pretended to tie on your soulmate string that night so it would not be broken, and as real as the feeling of his lips on your eyes when he kisses you goodnight, thinking you wouldn’t know.

“I’m sorry,” you muttered, your eyes facing forward. “I…” You sucked in a shaky breath, but you felt ready, “I love you too.”

Jisung’s eyes widened for a fraction. He had not expected you to say it back so quickly. He thought he would have to wait a little while for it, which he didn’t mind. This was a pleasant surprise, and he hugged you tighter for it, a tender smile and a soft blush growing on his face. 

He felt childish for being so overjoyed over something so small, even though it is never something small when having your deepest feelings returned by the person of desire. You’ve got to be really lucky for the universe to time your moments right like this. It seemed like the stars loved you both enough to hand you over to each other, and how fortunate it was that they got it right this time around.

Footsteps could be heard from not too far away, and you looked up, anticipating the arrival of three boys. Felix was the first to stop before you, followed by Hyunjin and Seungmin, who trailed behind slowly. You raised an eyebrow at the giddy boy, watching as he knew, and pulled his hand out from behind his back to reveal a small paper bag.

“We got you something!” Felix exclaimed as he handed you the bag.

He sat on his heels and watched expectantly as you pulled out a small keychain knitted into a cartoon squirrel with dirty brown strings. You couldn’t help but let out a low chuckle as you dangled it in front of your face.

This must be because you use string magic, but unfortunately, these strings would probably not do you much good due to their low quality. You weren’t supposed to separate the squirrel anyway.

Jisung snickered for a moment and shrunk back towards you when he received three glares.

“Sorry about what happened. It was our fault,” Hyunjin said. “This won’t compensate for it, but we hope you will take it anyway.”

“I paid for it, by the way,” Seungmin chimed in. “These two just found the store and picked it up.”

It was the thought that counted. You haven’t received a gift from anyone but yourself in a long time, and this one single keychain felt like ten missed birthdays mashed into one.

Giving them a smile, you held it tightly and spoke, “I accept your apology, and thank you for the keychain.”

A smile slowly blossomed onto their faces, widely and discreetly. Felix clapped his hands together, and then, with a hopeful expression, he said, “So we’re still friends, right?”

You paused in speechlessness. The thought that you were friends with them has never crossed your mind. Your position was as miniscule as being a mutual friend, and you had expected things to remain that way. But seeing Felix’s genuine smile, it seemed like these three had already roped you into the group without your knowledge, and you did not have the heart to refuse such an offer.

You nodded at them, and you felt warm on the inside. Like they just barged into your heart, bickering and laughing loudly, disregarding every aspect of you that you thought was unloveable and intolerable, and they lived with you. They just sat beside Jisung, taking up the remaining space he couldn’t occupy. You figured they would stay in your soul for as long as you could handle it.

“Great! Now, can we actually eat something–oh no, wait.” Seungmin frowned at you as he eyed your blood-stained figure. “Your shirt and arm. We can’t go outside like that.”

“Hey, I have my jersey if you want to wear it! It can cover up most of the stain,” Hyunjin suggested with a shrug. “It probably smells like sweat, though, since I haven’t washed it in a week and practiced in it every day.”

Felix removed his bag and reached for a water bottle and a handkerchief. He looked at you and hummed, “We should try washing the blood off. We wouldn’t get past the kids playing in the park, so it’s better to wash it off here.”

“Oh yeah, that’s true.” Seungmin nodded. “Or you should do an invisibility spell if you know one.”

The boys looked at you, waiting for your response. It felt like an opening to a question-and-answer segment, and it was debatable whether Seungmin had suggested the idea to offer a solution or if he wanted to watch you try out even more magic. You usually minded the curiosity, but you did not mind theirs. 

“Don’t be insane. They literally just went through tremendous pain because of using magic,” Hyunjin said, piecing the puzzle together in his head. “I don’t think it’s a good idea to use magic for every little thing, or at least unnecessarily.”

Everyone turned to him, shocked at his surprisingly keen observations. Seungmin pulled a face in dismay that Hyunjin, of all people, beat him to being intelligently considerate, and then he shrugged. “That’s fine. I have a body spray you can use, though. Hyunjin’s sweat smells like literal garbage.”

Jisung snorted, finally pulling away from you and looking up at Hyunjin, who glared at Seungmin with a deadpan expression.

“I thought you wanted to cover up the bloody smell.” Jisung laughed. “But yeah, totally. Hyunjin smells worse than that.”

Hyunjin rolled his eyes, ignoring the mindless insults thrown at him. “You know you only need three people to start a religion, right?” he urged suddenly. “There is Felix, me, and [Name]. I will literally build a Seungmin and Jisung-hating religion.”

Jisung laughed. “[Name] won’t join you.”

You shook your head as you sucked in a breath, inhaling your lips into a mocking smirk. You playfully followed along with Hyunjin’s ridiculous idea. “Yeah, I don’t know about that.”

Jisung widened his eyes at you then, but instead of calling you out for playing along, he turned to Hyunjin and began a string of lousy trash-talking.

You watched as Seungmin attempted to resolve the argument, only to have his quick tongue spill something distasteful to their ears and get roped into the bickering. As Seungmin got dragged into the feud, mindless insults thrown around the air like a plastic ball, Felix stepped close to you and linked his arm through yours.

“We better get going!” he exclaimed lowly, eyeing his three friends. “Or else we’re gonna get involved in all of that.”

You agreed with him silently by letting him drag you out of the alleyway. You smelt of sweat and blood, but Felix did not mind. As you two turned a corner, he inched closer to you with anticipation, to which you responded with a faint body retreat.

“I just want to ask something,” he said. “Soulmates are real, right?” 

You blinked; how could you forget? Jisung told you about Felix and his fascination with love, thus leading to his yearning for the existence of soulmates. His innocent eyes blinked, waiting for an answer. You would have lied to him anyway.

With lips slowly pursing into a smile, you nodded bashfully at him. His smile grew in miles, and he was excited and grateful for the beauty this universe has allowed to happen to people. After a beat of a second, he looked toward you and faintly squeezed the corner of your inner elbow by pulling toward his direction. 

“Do you know who yours is?” 

You told him, and he bursted into giggles when Jisung’s struggling voice traveled through the walls to find you after he realized you had been stolen from him. Felix pulled you into a jog, loving nothing more than to see his friend miserable. You couldn’t help but mirror his joy, letting yourself smile.

You have gotten closer to the three boys than you ever thought you would be. You had been meeting up with them after school, and they dragged you to different places before and after your work.

Coffee shops where you all share one cup of bitter coffee after debating for half an hour if a five-dollar pizookie was worth it. Clothing stores where none of you ever buy anything from, just hold the shirts to your bodies and think about wearing them. Pop-up art museums where you were pretty sure they only went for the aesthetics rather than the actual art.

It felt like you’ve been around the world just by spending time with the four of them. And everything they did—all the dragging you to places and waiting for you to finish with work so they could take you to hang out—was all in an attempt to give you back the childhood you should have had.

They knew they weren’t responsible for what happened to you, but as your friends, they felt it would be their responsibility to make you as happy as possible.

They even went as far as to join you at your graveyard shift after midnight once. It was an event organized by Jisung himself, and Seungmin made up the sleepover excuse so nobody’s parents would worry that their child wasn’t home yet. 

They had caused a ruckus in the convenience store that night, but it had been okay because barely anyone approached the outside world in the dead of night. They continuously purchased instant noodles and sodas until they had either tried everything in the store or started getting tummy aches from all the different food mixtures. It was an effort to keep themselves awake.

All four of them ended up falling asleep with their heads on the countertop by the start of sunrise, and you all ate breakfast in the store when your shift ended before bidding each other goodbye.

It was the closest you have ever felt to having a family. When Felix laid his head on your shoulder as he dozed off, still sipping the juice box in his hand; when Hyunjin ruffled your hair when you could finally join them by the windowpane; when Seungmin went to heat the bento box for you and stood by the counter table because he gave you his seat. 

All the minor things that made the world a little brighter for you. The small things that make up a group of people and their habits around each other make everything a little better for you.

You could not have asked for better friends.

“I knew we should not have picked today to come here,” Seungmin said as he faced the crowded area.

Most of the time, at least.

You guys have planned to visit a cat café on a whooping Sunday afternoon—well, no, Felix planned it. He made you join him by booking a table for five beforehand. Seungmin had complained about him picking the wrong date, and he was right. The shopping area was packed with people free from school and work, moving from one corner to another as they went about their last free day before the week recycled again. 

That made it harder for you all because none of you knew exactly where this café was located, and you guys were on quite a tight schedule.

“There was only today!” Felix huffed. “Hyunjin should have come earlier so we wouldn’t have to worry about being late to the reservation. We would have had time to look for the café.”

Hyunjin rolled his eyes, clicking his tongue in response to the accusation. “You made the reservation, Felix,” he said. “If anything, you should know where it is.”

Jisung and you shared a look before he pursed his lips and stepped between the two, his hands raised in mock defeat. With an awkward laugh, Jisung began, “Alright, let’s not fight! We can just ask [Name] to find it for us!”

You widened your eyes at him incredulously then, surprised by his suggestion. When the three boys turned their hopeful eyes at you, you only shook your head at them.

“I can’t do that,” you said. “We don’t have location spells like that.”

“What? So, what kind of location spells do you have?” Jisung asked, dropping his arms to his sides.

“The kind that finds people? Or the kind that finds places that don’t have duplicated names like ‘The Meow Café,’ ” You replied with faint disbelief.

“There is probably only one of those cafés around this area, [Name],” Seungmin pointed out.

You sucked in a breath and forced a smile at him. Seungmin was always so clever, but somehow, he was never on the same page as you.

“Right, except the strings don’t point out where it is to me so I can eliminate the places,” you said. “They pull me towards the place, meaning that if there is one of these cafés down the other direction, I will get pulled towards two different places simultaneously.”

Seungmin sighed then. It was a somewhat disappointed sigh. “That’s unconventional.”

“Phone maps that don’t work without an internet connection are also unconventional,” you retorted. “At least my strings work anytime I need them to.”

“Do they, though?” Seungmin questioned. “Because from my recollection, you said that magic has consequences. And from what I am seeing, your consequence can actually end your life at some point.”

Seungmin was about to add to his point when Jisung clamped a hand over his mouth. There was a smile on Jisung’s face, but his eyes possessed a glare. Part of him was happy that you and Seungmin’s relationship had gotten to this point where you could bicker with him as much as he and Hyunjin would. Still, sometimes he thought how much more venomous you two were in comparison.

It may be the product of you both being logical and pessimistic people. When you two argue, it is never like the silly arguments that Jisung has with everyone else.

Jisung possessed a ridiculously unserious nature that you nor Seungmin did, thus making every friendly quarrel stupid banters. You and Seungmin were both stubborn and opinionated. It was not the best combination for disagreement but was great when needing a solution. 

Jisung urged Seungmin to shut up and ensured Seungmin would comply before he was released from Jisung’s grip. Jisung turned back to stand by your side, giving Seungmin one last pointed glare to behave.

Clearing his throat, Jisung gave everyone a brief look before he suggested, “How about we split up and look for it? If some of us arrive, they can’t cancel our reservation.”

“Finally, an idea!” Hyunjin exclaimed. “I’ll go with Felix!”

Seungmin furrowed his brows as he looked at the two. When he realized he didn’t feel like joining the chaotic duo, he turned to look over at you and Jisung. He frowned more because of the petty argument you two had, and he grimaced as he took a few steps. 

“I’ll ask around by myself,” he said.

You looked away, not wanting to meet eyes with him. It was not because you felt wrong about what he said, but it was out of pure spite to act like you couldn’t care less. You were only willing to be petty about this because you and Seungmin knew this was less than it seemed to be.

It was just friendly hatred. Like siblings, a random question or an offering of food would fix the rigid tension. 

You knew he would come around eventually, and you two would be chatting again in no time, so for now, you’d wither under all the spiteful actions you could muster and prepare to apologize to him later.

After the little searching parties were formed, you all went separate in different directions. You and Jisung continued walking straight ahead while the others went on either side, where the roads opened up with more stores littered.

The crowd was still large and buzzing, causing much trouble to stick together as you walked. It was almost as if you two were stuck waiting in a queue in a theme park. Jisung kept turning his head back to glance at you, his brows furrowing more and more each time when he noticed how you seemed to get farther and farther away from him.

Soon enough, when he turned back once again, he could barely see you among people anymore. He clicked his tongue and halted his steps, his eyes darting everywhere for your face. He waited for the people to move around him, some throwing him glares for not moving while others simply moved out of his way. None of them caused him to budge from his spot until you caught up with him slowly, popping out from behind strangers.

“It’s so crowded here,” you complained with a sigh. “Felix really chose a bad day.”

He smiled faintly, giving you a shrug. “At least we can pet kittens later,” he said before looking down at his phone, a map displayed on his screen. 

He had no idea where it was bringing him to. Back then, when the group was still gathered, the map clearly showed they were at the destination despite their inability to find it. The route on the screen continuously changed to fit the illogical directions he was heading toward, and he just knew he didn’t trust it. He only still had a map out because it was better than blindly guessing where the café would be.

Putting his phone back into his pocket after he took a good look, he gave the surrounding shops a scan before he hummed. “I think we should try walking further and see.”

“Yeah, I will keep an eye out.” You nodded at him.

Before Jisung moved again, he casually grabbed your hand before walking. A silent squeal fell at the tip of your tongue. For some odd reason, your mind didn’t consider this a grand gesture even though your heart was swelling at how bold that was.

It was just to keep you from getting lost in the crowd and being separated from him. For all you knew, Hyunjin was probably dragging Felix by the hand, considering the sea of people around you. 

But it was a romantic gesture, nonetheless.

Jisung kept his gaze forward. The first few seconds of him holding your hand, he went through it with widened eyes and pursed lips, a blushy smile threatening to rise to his face. He was both surprised at his daringness and glad you kept his hand wrapped under yours. Then, he slowly got used to it. The softness of your palm no longer a foreign object of his affection and desire. 

You were close to him; you two were holding hands among the crowd, and there was that.

As you two shifted through waves of people, Jisung suddenly paused as his head turned to the side. You followed where he was looking, wondering if he had found the shop already, only to find him looking at a stationery store.

Turning back to him, you asked, “Do you need to get something?”

Jisung hummed in thought, unsure if he should wait until you guys were done with the café before coming back here to get what he needed for school. But he also didn’t want his forgetful self to remember he needed something until you both got home because a coffee shop filled with cats seemed like a nice place to get school-related amnesia.

“Kind of,” he muttered as he started tugging at your hand, bringing you out of the main street and to the side where the shops were.

“It’ll just be a minute,” he said when you two were at the entrance, his thumb briefly brushing past the back of your palm as a form of farewell before he let go and rushed into the store.

You watched his back disappear into the shelves before looking away and leaning against the wall, hiding near an empty corner so you couldn’t be in people’s way. During this dull moment, you decided to glance down at your hand instead of watching people pass by, thus running the risk of making awkward eye contact with strangers. 

A small smile appeared on your lips as you squeezed your hands together, remembering the shape of Jisung’s hand in yours.

You felt like such a sap, but it was rightfully so. Everything has changed for both of you since that day in the alleyway. None of you have made a declarative move yet, but there have been moments of affection here and there; there have been many suggestive questions and dodgy replies, blatant smiles and glances, and a lot of subtle touching.

It was all pushing and pulling, not telling each other how you felt, and leaving confusing signals.

All three of your friends knew, though. Seungmin had also dragged you into confronting conversations about how you felt about Jisung (which he already knew). The conversation would quickly be halted by a distracting topic about the differences between your lives. No matter how much of yourselves you reveal to each other, there is more to learn. 

The most hilarious thing was Seungmin’s reaction toward your childhood tragedy, which you expected from someone with such strong opinions about everything. 

As you huffed out a breath of fresh air, trying to keep your mind off the sappy relationship problems (that were not real problems, really), you made a mental note to yourself that you should initiate the apology this time. Your eyes wandered off in the moment of not thinking, and quickly, you caught sight of a pair of designer shoes stopping in front of you. 

You ignored it momentarily, your brain not ready to process your surroundings yet. But you finally snapped your head up when the person refused to leave.

The irritation that masked your face faded when you saw those familiar eyes shining down at you. You paused to assess the familiarity; was it illusional nostalgia or real? Was he who you thought he was?

The man also stared at you for a good moment, having the same question as you. Realization flooded his face, and he huffed out an almost relieved laugh upon seeing your faint smile.

“Minho…” you muttered under your breath, disbelief clouding your judgment upon seeing the man who used to babysit you when your parents were off to council gatherings.

Lee Minho lived within the same residential area as you. His house was within your block, only separated by two houses. His family was also part of the council but was less long-standing than yours. Since his family was more lenient about having him be around at council meetings despite being of age to do so, he had always gotten free time to take care of you. 

“Oh my god, it is you," he gasped. “It really is you.”

“Were you searching for me?” you asked.

He shrugged solemnly. "Yeah... kind of."

"Alright," you dragged out suspiciously. “What's up?"

“What's up?” he scoffed with faraway eyes and a few nods. He was thinking, debating whether to bring up what had happened. “I have been worried about you all these years.” 

Minho was young then, but he understood the situation's intensity. He had waited for you to turn to him for help or comfort. He did take primary care of you immediately after the accident despite his parents’ protest.

You lived with him for a while; he took care of all the living expenses with his allowance and would bring you to check on your uncle in the hospital. Then you grew older. You turned ten, and the council stripped you from his protective grasp. 

You did confide in him once or twice when you were forced to be under the educational curriculum of the existing council members. Then, one day, you vanished and never returned. You just fled without telling him anything. 

“People thought you died because nobody in the council has heard from you again. I thought you died!”

You gave him a casual shrug, your lips pursing as you thought of what to say. 

He must have felt betrayed somehow. Despite everything, Minho had once been close to you, albeit you were very young and didn’t feel the need to be grateful. He cooked your meals, he tutored you with school, and he lied to your parents for you countless times. Even the trusty spell you used to hide your trails came from him when he taught you how to always win in a game of hide-and-seek.

It was a simple spell. It was easy to break, but nobody thought to break it, not even Minho. Until now, at least.

You wondered why you never looked to him for help, and it felt like the answer was already there: his family was part of the council. You knew not of the details of what happened and who schemed the entire incident, so you were unwilling to place your bets on any family.

Minho’s family was just as likely to have taken part in the murder of yours despite you knowing them as kind neighbors.

Would it directly be Minho’s fault that your family died? No, but he became a liability once the possibility that his parents may have been part of the culprit group, and you refused to take any chances. Even though he cared about you. Even though he was a great friend of your uncle.

“You need to come back, [Name],” Minho said, straightening his posture.

You furrowed your brows at him, unable to fathom how he thought that would be a good idea. Even if nobody was plotting your downfall, why would you return to the city where you lost everything? He was idiotic to make that suggestion. 

“There is no reason for me to,” you replied.

“The council still has a spot for you,” Minho said softly.

“Tell them to find somebody else,” you blurted out coldly. “I’m not interested in working for or with people who murdered my family, nor am I interested in helping them be better.”

Minho gave you a brief sigh of defeat, trying to find the right words to phrase everything. He understood. Logically, he really did. If he were in your position… well, he would probably do a few things differently, but your hatred for the council was justified.

However, things have changed drastically since then. Change was bound to happen after so long; as Minho saw it, the council would be safe.

There was no reason for you to suffer alone in the mundane world. 

“Look… it has been years. I apologize for being insensitive, but I promise the council is much different now. Most of the people who used to be there are no longer members, and most of us do not agree with what happened, nor will it be allowed again. You should give it a chance. Come back, come home. I can help you.”

You sucked in a breath. Disregarding that you could never get over what happened to your family or that only a majority of things changed and not all things, you could appreciate Minho’s determination to help you out.

But you never wished to go back to that godforsaken place, not only because of the tragic memories plastered all over that city but also because you have important things here with you now.

You built your identity in this city, found your jobs, met your friends, and found your soulmate here. You would never permanently leave this city unless the people you love are leaving it too.

“I am not going back, Minho. I’m sorry.” You shook your head. “I am doing really good here.”

Minho was quick to frown at you.

“Good here?” he said, his voice suspicious and almost condescending. You have never seen him like this because you never got the chance to. Everyone around you used to be magic users. “People here can’t do what we can. You can’t explore your potential here, which is a huge waste. Remember who your family is and what they can do; don’t let all that go down the drain.”

“Who cares about my magic if I will be miserable for the rest of my life? As you said, most of the council has changed, but not all of them. I will not be safe until all of them are gone," you reasoned as you stepped up to him. “I am better here. At least no one is trying to exploit my family’s legacy.”

“Because nobody here knows who you are,” he pointed out.

You laughed sardonically, rolling your eyes in disbelief and letting your gaze linger out at the street of people. You shook your head, reminding yourself of all your friends and all the great people you have encountered. There would always be terrible people; unfortunately, the world would never be perfect. But, the greatness of having the good ones near you made it meaningful. 

You have good people around you here. You have had bad ones, but the good ones outshine them by a million miles. 

“No, actually,” you argued quietly. “People here do know me. They’re just not greedy and horrible like us.” You glared at him then, finally deciding to meet eyes with someone who you once trusted. “I can’t believe you even tried to convince me to go back. Do I need to remind my uncle is still in a coma? You know, the man who was once your close friend.”

Minho huffed, a flash of tainted guilt covering his eyes before it was replaced with unexplainable disgust. You dared to bring up his friendship with your uncle. You dared all of what you have, which was little to nothing. You knew nothing about the two of them. He knew your uncle longer and better than your measly shared blood. You had no idea how he felt about his friend falling victim to his own family’s greed. 

You were a child, and you still were despite all the hardships you have endured. You knew nothing. 

Minho was going to speak, to scold you perhaps, but his eyes shifted when a certain boy walked up behind you and tugged at your shirt. You were pulled back from Minho, a hand soon wrapped protectively around yours as Jisung threw a worried glance between you and Minho.

“What’s going on…?” he asked quietly, frowning at you.

“Nothing, don’t worry.” You waved it off with a soft smile. “He’s just someone from my home city.”

Jisung widened his eyes in shock. He was not expecting to see another magic user, especially someone with a history with you. Turning over to look at Minho, he accessed the man silently; lean, stoic, and angry-looking. Jisung wondered if something had happened or if the man was born with a stern face. His observing expression faded into a timid one when he found Minho staring at him in thought.

Minho’s eyes shifted to your hands, and he raised a brow, a smirk of contempt reaching his cheeks when he saw the faint string linking you both together. You kept talking about hating the council, but there was an even bigger reason why you refused to leave this city, wasn’t there? Your soulmate was here, and he was a soulmate who cared. 

Unlike his own—a soulmate who never woke up after a tragic incident years ago, one which you conveniently sat out of.

“I see,” Minho hummed. “He is the reason why you won’t leave this city.”

A breath hitched in your throat. Minho sounded threatening, almost as if plotting something in his head. You couldn’t be too sure; you would love to give yourself the benefit of the doubt that he still, with the childish part of him, cared about you.

You hoped when he saw you, he saw the kid he used to love. But your mind was too paranoid that something would happen to Jisung if you showed a bond here, so you didn’t.

“He’s just a friend,” you said, removing yourself away from Jisung on a quick whim.

“You forget who I am, [Name],” Minho smirked as he gestured toward your hand. “I can see the red string just as you can.” 

“What is your problem?” Jisung asked as he took a bold step forward, pulling you behind. 

You shoved him backward as Minho flashed the boy a menacing glare. Jisung struggled against your grip; he could tell something was up. He wasn’t as stupid as he liked to act normally.

While unsure of what exactly Minho’s deal was, knowing that he was a past figure from your childhood was enough to warrant him doubting Minho’s intention. Why would you be here without help if he was someone close to you?

And he wanted to help. He wanted to shield you from pain and drama and death and everything harmful that could ever come your way. He wanted to be helpful. 

“Step aside, Jisung,” you whisper-yelled at him. “He’s just asking me to go home.”

Oh? Now he has to be here because you cannot go back. 

“Go somewhere else. Let me handle this.” You demanded again when Jisung stood on his ground. 

“No! Are you serious? This man looks like bad news!” Jisung retorted stubbornly, flipping his wrist so his hand would clamp over yours instead. He squeezed your hand, looking at you firmly. “I’m not leaving you here alone. What if he takes you?”

“He is not going to,” you reassured him. “Please just leave? I will catch up with you, I pro–“

“Hey! Don’t touch them!” 

Minho had snuck up behind you without your knowledge. Once your attention is focused on Jisung, all else often fades into the background. You had no idea Minho even marched behind you until Jisung shifted his weight, took a giant stride to maneuver over you, and swatted Minho’s approaching hand away from your shoulder. Jisung deathly glared at the taller man, refusing to budge despite the unspoken power dynamic.

You spun around just in time to see Minho clench his jaw in irritation and the tattoo inked on the side of his index finger glowing a halo white color. You furrowed your brows; you had no idea what the rune meant, but it must not have been a regular spell if it was hidden in a place like that.

Although the glow disappeared as Minho calmed himself down, you held your caution like a wall and put your hands on Jisung’s shoulders.

It was unlikely, but there was still no guarantee that Minho would not discreetly do something publicly and frame it as an accident. He was always good at that. Thanks to the less obvious medium he inherited from his family, he was always good at subtle and stealthy magic.

You attempted to pull Jisung backward. “Jisung, leave us alone!”

“No! Screw him–screw you!” He snatched himself from your grip and advanced toward Minho, pointing an accusing finger at him. “You know what happened, and you did nothing to help them! How dare you come here to ask them to go back home like there’s a home to be had over there! You are a terrible person!”

Panicked, you kept your eyes focused on Jisung as he animatedly defended you when there was no issue genuinely present. He was getting louder, and a crowd began gradually forming to check out the source of this commotion. That would cause nothing but trouble and inconvenience for both you and Minho. You had to leave, all of you. 

You unzipped your bag and pulled out your string card, quickly unwrapping a small piece to create a teleportation figure. Minho seemed to have caught sight of your rapid movement because he shifted his torso to the side to see better what you were doing.

His sudden distraction caught Jisung’s attention. Jisung turned around, eyes narrowed with distaste, and he jolted in surprise when you took his wrist and dragged him elsewhere.

Minho followed suit, trailing behind you as you led him straight into an alleyway with fewer people. Jisung huffed in exhaustion to follow up with your speed, and when you finally stopped, you spun around to meet him face-to-face.

You immediately put a hand over his head, not sparing him a second to speak. Jisung widened his eyes, uncertain about his assumption that you were putting a spell on him. His doubt was erased once you changed a familiar-sounding spell under your breath, and his voice struggled in its protest.

“I’m sorry, Jisung,” you said quickly. Before you closed the portal on him, you reassured him, “I’ll find you later.” 

He was gone in a second, carried away by the wind and magic. Minho watched the disappearance of the portal with disinterest, his hands shoved in his pocket as if he had been idly waiting for you to get rid of your nosy soulmate. When you exhaled in relief once he was gone and your ears were quiet, you looked to Minho with disdain.

“You are so vulnerable with him,” Minho pointed out. “I am surprised.”

You clicked your tongue. “Why? I was the same way when you knew me.” 

“I didn’t mean that,” he said with a knowing smile. “Either way, I take it that you’re not going home when he's here, are you?”

There was a shove at your chest. The word ‘home’ sounded uneasy. 

The word ‘home’ sounded like Jisung’s house, where his parents were continuously loving and where he loved to joke and laugh around. The word ‘home’ sounded like the cheering with your friends from the bleachers at Hyunjin’s basketball game, inhaling and arguing over Felix’s baked cookies. The word ‘home’ sounded like Seungmin scribbling on his notebook as he studied at the convenience store you worked at, mutters of equations leaving his lips.

The word ‘home’ was none of the above when it left Minho’s lips. He no longer sounded how you knew him to sound; he was not the sweet boy you knew. 

“No,” you answered faintly.

“This is not the place for you, [Name]. People like you and I don’t belong here,” Minho said as if it was a desperate attempt.

You clenched your fists, your head lowered to face the ground. You felt unsteady, but you knew your decision was final.

“You’re wrong. People like you don’t belong here,” you told him. “I earned a place here. This is my home now, and I am never going back there. I’m sorry about Uncle Chan, I really am.”

Minho remained silent. He looked disappointed and discouraged.

“I have been researching what to do, and I think I can wake him up.”

Light returned to your eyes for a split second. You caught his gloomy features and realized you had misunderstood him.

He wasn’t here to convince you to go back for the council. Why would he? He must also have a bone to pick with them because of what they did to your family, to his soulmate. He was never here to drag you back, so you have another chance to suffer eternally.

You looked down at his fragile hand and shuddered at the dirty red string. Gashes and nail marks adorned its surface, waiting to be broken so it could save the love of a lifetime and promptly destroy it simultaneously.

Minho planned to risk the fated bond to save Chan, and he needed you to be there for him. Nobody else knows of their bond, and his feelings—nobody else but your family, and you were the only one left. 

He would never take you back there and force you to walk in the steps of your parents. Minho was here to beg you to return for him, even for a little, because he was about to lose everything. 

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered when you were within his reach. 

You pursed your lips. “It’s not your fault.” 

“Don’t break the string,” you suggested. “We can figure it out another way. I will keep researching. You can try to bring my family’s books over for me to go through them. We will figure something out.”

Minho sighed, his voice shaky. Hearing you reassure him did alleviate his stress, thankfully. “It’s been so long. He’s not waking up.”

“No,” you said, “I think he will.”

He has to. Because it cannot be just you. It cannot be just you on this stranded land. 

A somewhat relieved exhale left his parted lips. He looked relaxed now, not as stoic as before. You forgot how gorgeous he was; it all came to light once you put down your shaded lenses.

The heat at your neck released itself throughout the rest of your body once you realized the previous tension was gone, and you felt at ease. Minho’s shoulders slumped in unison, his guard being let down, and he smiled remorsefully at you.

“How have you been?” he started again. "I forgot to ask you."

You hummed contently. “I’ve been good.” 

“You found your soulmate. Here, of all places,” he said, looking around him in confusion. There was almost relief in his voice when he added, “But he loves you.” 

“He does,” you sighed with furrowed brows, recalling when you sent him away without much explanation. “I have probably upset him a great deal just then, so I need to find him.” 

Minho nodded in silent agreement. He kicked his feet subtly and stood up straight again. “Yeah, you should go find him.”

“I plan to,” you said, your eyes lingering on his face. “Stay safe, Minho. I’ll see you again.”

After he gave you a wave in response, you spun on your heels and ran off.

Jisung did not return your calls nor reply to your messages. You did not necessarily want to pull the strings out for this, but after minutes of spinning around in a circle in this shopping area to find no traces of him, you opted for the easier way out: you pulled at him by the soulmate string.

You were there before you knew it, running after where the string was leading you and finding yourself at an emptier part of the shopping area. There were more cars than people here, and most stores were restaurants with few people.

You slowed down to catch your breath, and then your hands were on your knees as you inhaled and exhaled rapidly. When you were finally done, you stood up straight and called for his name.

Jisung froze on the spot. It was just a habit to respond whenever you called out to him, and he would turn around to respond with a bright grin. He turned around this time, but his face remained grim and betrayed.

However, part of him relaxed when he saw that you were safe and sound before him. He waited as you jogged up to him and stopped before you crashed into his body.

“Hey, I’m back,” you said. “Did you manage to catch up with everyone else?”

He shook his head, a frown tattooed on his face. “No, I was busy worrying about you.”

You smiled a little and shrugged. “I already told you I would handle the situation.”

He sighed. You didn’t understand him. You couldn’t understand his feelings of panic and fear. Perhaps this was all just an easy feat to you because you were born with the ability to physically defend yourself, from being able to do fantastic things and the ability to self-heal.

But to him, an ordinary boy, none of this was breezy and understandable. What he saw in Minho was what he would see in someone holding a knife and marching toward him. Minho was a person who could do you harm.

It was not about you being able to take care of the situation. It was about him not knowing what was happening and being forced to be scared in a tiny corner. It seemed his feelings were disregarded when you brushed him off with a half-hearted laugh. 

“How am I supposed to know that? I cannot be sure of that!” he reasoned in a fury haze. “Maybe you have the upper hand with danger when you are here, but I doubt you do when facing someone with the same capability as you.”

“Jisung, I am literally standing here now.” You awkwardly laughed. “ It’s really not that big a deal.”

“Yes, it is! My feelings are a big deal!” He pointed at himself repeatedly, his fingers jabbing at his chest as his eyes emphasized how hopeless and inferior to you he had felt. His eyes were staring into your soul angrily. They made you shiver.

“I am allowed to be scared for you and not be teleported away without my consent when you need me!”

You kept silent for a second. Your brain was processing his words and fishing out specific details to fit a narrative only you understood selfishly. You could not understand his frustration; where was it coming from? Why should he be upset? Your issues were never his, even though you knew he had the desire to shoulder your burdens for you. You didn’t need him to, though. You never wanted him to either because what can he help with? Not much is provided in terms of real solutions.

You shook your head and sighed, “Is that it? You didn’t like it when I used magic on you without asking?”

“What–my god, no–yes! But that is not the point I am making!” Jisung exclaimed, messily waving his hand as he squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head to calm the ringing noises in his head.

Speaking came as a strain to him. He hated fighting with you. He wanted this to end. “It’s not that. I’m mad because you pushed me away again when there was a problem, which you promised me before you would stop doing. You won’t let me help you.”

“How can you help? You can’t help me! You were escalating the situation and making everything tenser than it already was! I had it all under control!” you returned the exclamation but did not move from your spot.

You had all your frustration within your body, waiting for the perfect time to explode. “Had you kept that up, a fight might have broken out. Then what, huh? I have to save your ass again because you can never help me!” 

You were right. He would never be strong enough to help you; your family issue and your position in your home city were beyond the scope of his ability. He was just a boy, and even if he grew older, what was human flesh before the blade of magic? Not much. Everything you said was right, but they were not to be said, especially by you. You were not allowed to make him feel inferior because of something he could not control.

You made him feel like baggage you had to drag behind you. You made him feel like a burden. 

Jisung shrunk back at your words, his heart beating in glass shatters. He backed away when you tried to take a hesitant step forward and refused to look at you.

“Jisung, I’m sorry, I didn’t–“ you flinched when he backed away again, “mean it. I didn’t mean it.”

“Please leave me be,” he whispered. “I don’t want to see you right now.” 

You panted with the shivers in your body as you watched him walk away. Your sight blurred with water, and the ringing in your head grew as low as an ambulance’s alarm. There was a hole in your eyes that blinded you from anything and everything and forced you to act upon instincts only. Your senses were being piled into disarray; it felt like you were slowly descending into madness. You wouldn’t like it if you could process your emotions a lot.

Not a single thought traveled through your brain as you walked fast, trying to catch up with Jisung. Your hands ripped at your bag for strings, and you hastily latched onto the sparkly white string. A blank canvas to start things over, a blank towel to wipe the dirt on, a string to erase important memories. 

Jisung gasped in shock when you suddenly appeared before him. Your eyes were blank bullet holes with no shades of life in them, and you moved like a robot as you grabbed onto his shoulder and forced him in place. He furrowed his brows in concern when he saw the strings on your wrist glowing brightly.

Magic. On him. Again. You and your fucking magic.

He shoved you away hard, causing you to stumble back a few steps and regain your consciousness. His blood boiled with anger—god, he has never been this mad at you. He was afraid of what he would say at such a hectic time like this. But why should he care? You didn’t care when you said everything you did. 

“You used magic on me again!” he exclaimed, annoyed and utterly fed up. But he had no idea what words he was spilling out his mouth, and his heart hammered against the trap his sudden boldness locked it in.

He would never say this. He should never say this. Why was he doing this?

“I just told you I don’t like it, and you went ahead and did it again! It’s like you just do whatever you want, which you do! You can just up and leave your home forever, and you can just destroy a car if you so ask. I do not care if you did it to save me!”

You never thought of a single occasion where you acted out on your own, but if Jisung said so then maybe you did. He was right. 

You shook your head immediately, realizing you had made a grave mistake. “I’m sorry–“

“Good lord, that is all you do. All you do is apologize.” Jisung furrowed his brows at you, his eyes mercilessly cold and hurtful as he glared at you. “Get a grip, [Name], please. And stop ruining everything for once.”

It was all your fault. This argument, today being crowded, the cat café being hard to find, your uncle being in a coma, Minho’s desire to tarnish his fated relationship, your family’s eventful death, your solitude for years, Jisung looking at you with distaste, you being born.

Everything was your fault. It was all your fault. There was nothing good coming for you, and there has never been. 

You picked at your nails, feeling weights trapped at your ankles and reeling you backward into the cave Jisung helped you out of. 

Things were gradually heading back to square one for you. It could be a momentary lapse, but a moment was enough for you to make a decision that could cost you everything you have earned and gained thus far. Your friends, your life, your love—everything is gone within the blink of an eye.

This felt like the beginning of a relapse; you could do nothing to stop yourself from spiraling. 

All you needed to do was leave and never appear again. 

“I’m…” You caught the apology at your throat and refused its escape. A tear rolled past your eye, but you could not see how Jisung softened immediately. 

“Don’t guilt-trip me,” Jisung muttered as he looked away. His knuckles were white from gripping the straps of his bag. “Just leave me alone. I don’t want to see you right now.”

He has all the right to be mad. You knew that to heart. You hurt his feelings enough for him to churn himself over and act like this. Deeply enough that he chose to walk away from you when your image of him was that he would never leave you first. This was your fault. Your soulmate leaving you was your fault because you weren’t smart enough to fix this. 

You weren’t smart enough to save this situation, nor yourself, nor your uncle, nor your friends, nor anything. 

Your existence was a rejection of life. That was your fate, and nobody was present to tell you otherwise. 

[hanarchy]

pls dont read the tags on this if u dont wanna look at my skz anxiety

[rainpudding]

Hi! Can i request k and i for childe?

ANGST ALPHABET | CHILDE

kidnapped injury

note; i already did injury in Childe's fluff alphabet (link here) but because this is angst let's imagine the injury is fatal

tw; few sentences mentioning toxic obsessive behavior; yandere! blood and injury

K idnapped - the reader is kidnapped/missing

Childe is usually on missions very far from home. And when he didn't see you for a while he is very pouty and excited to cuddle you. When he finally gets out of work It's usually very early morning or late at night. He opens the door of your shared home and makes tea. Then gets into comfy clothes and finally opens your shared bedroom. He thinks you're already in deep sleep under many blankets. So when he finally gets under covers and reaches his hand to the pile of blankets. He only finds cold space. The sheets don't have your body warmth, they are cold.

♡

Childe would get super paranoid. For how long was he away? You could already leave him. But when did you leave? Was it an hour ago? A day maybe a week. Or is it a month? He looks around. Your clothes and bags were there. Yet the furniture was covered in dust. The bathtub was filled with cold water. The food that remained in the kitchen had mold on top.

Childe's heart is shattered. His chest tight it hurts. He feels dizzy and he feels sick. He can't do anything but blame himself. His body shakes violently. Eventually, he would calm himself down. And after few hours of looking through your things, it was clear you were forced to leave. All of your things stayed where they belonged.

He seeks help from Zhongli. He calls Traveler and even orders fatui agents to look for you. Childe would grow more and more depressed and obsessed with the idea of finding you. Spending days in his room putting non-sensical clues together. These boards with photos and papers connected with red strings.

He doesn't sleep, he thinks. He stares onto the board talking to himself and laughing in despair. It drives him crazy. He drinks coffee and doesn't talk to people. Those who try to help him get pushed away. Fatui agents that try to bring him to the reality of not finding you get executed.

He kills for fun, he drinks alcohol and smoke. It's a never-ending cycle of torture. Hope that he will be in your embrace again. He is desperate. He doesn't remember your face anymore. He forgets your name. But he still looks for you. He gets aggressive and angry at people who disagree. He went to sleep with scenarios of you and him. He is slowly losing himself. He slowly loses a sense of reality.

But let's say he found you :D

there are two ways it would go

1) he finds you before he gets mentally ill

He would be happy and pepper your face with kisses. Holding you for hours and cuddling you inhaling your scent. He would make sure you're alright and he would buy you anything you would touch. Eventually, everything would go back to normal.

2) he finds you with his corrupted mind

He would grow obsessive. Holding you that much it hurts, squeezing you not letting you go. He would buy handcuffs and alarms and cameras. Nobody will ever tear you apart. Not again. You have a strict schedule. You even have bodyguards. If you try to run away the alarms will alarm not only bodyguards but also Childe who would be aggressive and mad. (Those who played mysme imagine this as Jumin's han bad ending route)

I njury - reader has a fatal injury

Childe likes challenges and fights :0 so if you're dating I can imagine having random challenges or fights. However what if you would have a little more serious fight and emotions would be included. Emotions are like drugs. When we are under them we can't control our behavior.

And as you're dodging his attacks one of his water blades cuts your skin. You feel the pain in your right arm which makes you drop your sword. The blood staining your clothes. And you're quickly pushing pressure onto it trying to back away taking a deep breath.

Childe is still angry at you tho and he continues attacking you. You're nimbly avoiding the hits until you stumble over your leg falling to the cold floor. You hiss in pain feeling growing dizzy from the blood loss. Your eyes growing glossy. Childe is blinded by his emotions that he can't see you struggling. He is only focused on winning.

So you're backing away until you hit the wall. You feel the anxiety wash over you as you can't speak. With fear in your eyes, you look at Childe who is slowly walking to you. His eyes are dead. Without a sparkle. They are blank and bland. Suddenly you yelp as he pulls your hair. He kneels in front of you. His water blade right next to your neck artery. He lightly cuts the top of your skin. It's just a small cut but you still feel the blood running out of the wound. You cry for help but he only slams your head into the wall.

You began to breathe heavily putting pressure on your wound. Tears rolling out of your eyes as you look right into Childe's ones. "P-please Chil-childe yo-you won let me go," you choke between deep breaths.

♡

Childe would shake getting out of the trance his emotions put him into. He panics as he looks at your wounds. One small cut on the neck and one deep on your arm. You already lost a lot of blood and it was by his hands.

 He calls for help and waits in the hospital as they're bandaging you. He takes you to dinner afterward. You reassure him that It's okay, it was a fight after all. He feels like he can never forgive himself. He feels disgusted. He can't look at you for few days. The image of you being hurt, the image of your blood on his hands. It's hunting him. He wakes at midnight in sweat fast breathing. He had a nightmare of killing you. Again. He barely gets sleep. He can't ever get this image out of his head.

Masterlist

Angst alphabet here

[cienie-isengardu]

Not only do I not regret asking you to "RELEASE THE RAMBLES!", I'm sending you requests for more. Below is a list of questions that I asked @bihansthot , and enjoyed their answers, but because you are so thorough, and answer in such depth, I'm re-asking them to you.

Brace yourself, it's a list. I didnt have time to sort thru them, I just copied and pasted, so if any are questions you already answered before, please feel free to include the links.

"LET US BEGIN!"

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

In the spirit of potential future writing,  I'm trying to find a building that  would make a good substitution for Lin Kuei temple.

I've tried looking up ancient Chinese military barracks/forts, and have found some stuff,  but is all exterior.  Anyone know of any locations (or several I can cobble together) that would make good inspiration fodder?

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

So, uhm, religion? What's the Lin Kuei's take on that one? I know they are aware of Gods, they team up with/ encounter Raiden all the time,  and have literally worked for/against Shinook, so I know they recognize higher powers... but I  guess the question is,  do they care?

Do they have a religion,  or spiritual practice that resembles religion? Or do they have a more practical approach "gods exist,  but we just consider them very strong people"?

Which segues into... do they recognize and participate in holidays, or things like birthdays? Or are all their celebrations work related (I.E. successful missions or levels of combat mastery)?

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

Food.  What foods do they normally eat? What foods do they like?  What foods don't they like? What foods do they absolutely love so much they'll stop what they're doing to get it?

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

If you had to match the Lin Kuei with a dynasty,  what one would it be? (I know the 2021 movie has the opening in the Ming dynasty, so the Lin Kuei is at least that old,  but given that movie Bi Han hasn't aged in 400 years, and was taken is a child,  its probably much older) (and also know the game probably cherry picked random Chinese things it liked).

What do you think the Lin Kuei's view on artistic culture (probably not the right word) is? I know they are heavily militaristic,  but in the game,  Kuai Liang offers Hanzo tea and he properly prepares it the Japanese way, that says they have something of an education other than just related to fighting?

Lastly,  in the movie,  everything Bi Han does is "for the Lin Kuei", but the Lin Kuei is on Earth (assumedly),  and he is working for a guy who wants to enslave Earth, so what do you think the deal is?

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

Question about the Cryomancers. I know the game lore says that they are supposed to be rare, but I also know that the Lin Kuei have had at least 5 (grandpa, papa, older, and younger Sub Zero,  and Frost). 4 of which are part of 3 generations that inherited it even with mixed blood (I'm assuming Mama Sub Zero wasn't Cryomancer since they left her alone).

That's a lot of generations in a row for a rare trait... So do you think the Cryomancers as a group have figured out they're being hunted and have chosen to live in hiding?

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

Lin Kuei society question? I like writing so I also like world building and I think about these things.

Is Lin Kuei society ever covered? I know there is a Grandmaster, a handful master assassins (Sub Zero's, Sektor, Cyrax, etc) and the  movies always have a bunch canon fodder lesser assassins.

And they live in the very isolated Lin Kuei Palace/Temple in Arktika (or wherever it used to be)

But is Lin Kuei (we'll call it "village") ever covered?   Do they have willing servants, kidnapped slaves, or a mix of both? Are there women (non fighter women,  I know there's Frost) or do they employ strictly male help? If there are women, what's their role, and are there children born there? What about Elderly? What about resources,  is everything (from food, clothes, weapons, and the raw materials to create them) grown or manufactured on sight by skilled laborers or do they import/interact with the outside world? How vicious or civil is this society, could you be killed for looking at Sektor wrong or do they value your services to a degree? What's the degree? This is obviously a combat culture,  but is everyone expected to know martial arts of some variety, is it optional, or do they prohibit it among the servants/slaves? How strict are they on things like clothing, food, alcohol,  drugs, "luxuries", or pleasures? Money? If they interact with the world do they recognize and use $$ currency, commodity currency, or a mixture? Internally are the Lin Kuei payed or just provided for? What about illness or injury,  if you're not a master and it a serious injury/illness are you taken care of or do they just give you a quick death?

Etc. That's all the questions I can think of,  but please feel free to answer questions I didn't ask,  if you think of anything else.

Thank you for this wonderful list to talk about! I’m gonna split the answer into smaller parts, for better focusing on each aspect but also so I don’t feel bad for keeping you waiting for ages, lol. For now let’s focus on asks about the religion!

So good questions! I do think they have some spiritual practice(s) because in martial arts the state of a mind is as important as the physical body and religion is one of many ways to shape someone’s mindset from a young age. I do, however, think that Lin Kuei does not worship the gods. They are aware that the gods exist (with Raiden as the thorn in the side) and may even respect their supernatural powers and battle skills but it never has stopped Lin Kuei from desecrating holy places, murdering people and stealing stuff for the best price. So, it seems to me that whatever religion the members of the clan follow, by nature it is rooted in nontheism.

Of course, there is also a chance that Lin Kuei worships some forgotten deity or deities (as a remnant of their ancient connections with Outworld / realms conquered and destroyed by Shao Kahn?) or may even practice ancestor worship which seems like a good way to uphold a widely understood tradition that plays an important role in the discussed community.

The closest thing to religious practice was seen in Mortal Kombat X, when Sub-Zero and his warriors seemed to pray together before statue of god / deity / ancestor / legendary warrior / personalized thing they value the most (sadly, my knowledge about Asian religious practices or faiths is very limited so I don’t have idea if the statue is supposed to represent any real god/religious symbol).

At the same time, it could be just a bluff since Grandmaster was aware of Cage’s team infiltrating the Lin Kuei territory and used this moment to lure them into a trap. Additionally, Mortal Kombat X comics presented once Kuai Liang sitting before the same statue albeit in a completely different (devoid of reverence?) position.

Of course, if we take into account Mortal Kombat Armageddon, the game states that Lin Kuei Temple placed in Arctika was actually once the Temple of Delia (the great sorceress & wife of god Argus) that at some point get abandoned and re-used by Sub-Zero’s clan.

(In the background, we can see a statue of Delia that Lin Kuei does not worship but did not remove for whatever reason. Mixing both old and new games, we can only wonder if MKX!statue is also the remnant of someone else's faith/religion?)

Beside that, Kuai Liang was pretty vocal about Lin Kuei not worshipping the Elder Gods, what was seen in MK11’s intro dialogue with Cetrion

Sub-Zero: The Lin Kuei do not worship the Elder Gods.

Cetrion: We seek gratitude, not worship.

Sub-Zero: I see no distinction.

and personally did not have any reason to pray to the goddess:

Sub-Zero: Why should I pray to you?

Cetrion: Why does a bird flap its wings?

Sub-Zero: I asked a simple question.

In all fairness, in MK11 Kuai Liang seems the most passive-aggressive toward the Elder God while Frost is focused on her ambitions and Noob!Bi-Han just wants to be left alone when bothered by Cetrion. Similar thing happens toward Raiden. Despite gratitude for saving him, Kuai Liang does not spare the god criticism (can’t serve both Elder Gods and Earthrealm, isn’t fit for his role of protector) and in MKX outright says he does not fear divine beings:

Raiden: Sub-Zero...

Sub-Zero: I fear no gods, Raiden.

Raiden': That's why you shall lose.

Surprisingly, Kuai Liang’s interaction with MK11!Fujin sounds less accusing than with Raiden and Cetrion and it is connected closely to their ties with Bi-Han. And maybe Kuai Liang did seek in the past Fujin and other elements to make a peace with them, like he planned to do so in Mortal Kombat 4 Limited comics?

"I came here to make peace with the gods of the elements that you fought [...]"

Anyway, the accusingly behaviour toward Raiden and Cetrion could be just Kuai Liang’s personal dislike for gods and serious authority issues, which makes sense considering how much he suffered because of their meddling and conflicts.

But honestly?

The available examples of Lin Kuei attitude toward gods, demigods and supernatural beings suggest how little the warriors - especially cryomancers - care for them.

Like, we have Bi-Han in Mythologies, who asked Quan Chi about details of mission:

Sub-Zero: If it's so precious, why don't you get it yourself?

Quan Chi: I cannot enter the temple until the four elements within its walls have been defeated. And I am not on the best of terms with the gods of your realm... especially your god of thunder.

Sub-Zero: Tell me about these elements.

Quan Chi outright said he and earthrealm gods weren’t friends and Bi-Han, reading between the lines, could get the idea that he may end on bad terms with Thunder God. Yet he was interested only in elements (lesser gods than protector of realm?) guarding the temple.

Then Bi-Han beat down four demigods and met a displeased Raiden after Quan Chi got the Shinnok Amulet. His reaction? No fear, like meeting an angry god was a normal occurrence.

Rayden: Do you realize what you've done??

Sub-Zero: I was just earning my living.

Rayden: Your clan's ignorance and greed will cost this entire realm. You must now set things straight.

Sub-Zero: Quan Chi could simply be a lunatic sorcerer. I've never heard of an elder god named Shinnok or of a place called the Netherrealm.

Rayden: Well, you'd better start believing in both, because you're going to the Netherrealm and you're going to bring the amulet back. We must act quickly. I have no dominion in the Netherrealm... You are reality's only hope.

Sub-Zero: I'll do it, Thunder God... but only because I have no choice.

And once he came back from Netherrealm, where he was fixing what he messed up in the first place on Raiden’s order, his abrasive attitude did not change much:

Sub-Zero: Here... the amulet.

Rayden: Impressive, Sub-Zero. Perhaps you will reconcile your reckless past after all.

Sub-Zero: That's it? Not even a thank you?

Of course, to some degree Raiden’s words did have an impact on Bi-Han but even the god’s warning about his soul tainted with evil did not stop him from coming back to Lin Kuei. Bi-Han’s attitude and/or approach to gods seems to change somehow once he was reborn as Noob, but that is a different matter for different times.

Anyway, Mythologies!Bi-Han and MK11!Noob act less aggressive toward gods than Kuai Liang. But then we have Sub-Zero from from the MK novel by Jeff Rovin, who not only is not afraid of gods but outright insult them:

“Wait! Be warned, Shang Tsung. He is cursed!”

“Cursed? By whom?”

Ruthay wailed, “By the immortal Yu.”

Shang Tsung felt cold spiders crawl up his spine. “The demigod Yu?”

“Yes… he who is said to dwell in the underground caverns of Horse Ear Mountain… which is sacred to the goddess Kuan Lin. He who protects the canals… and the tunnels… and looks after all who use them, human and animal.”

“What did our brash friend do to Yu?”

“He… killed a man,” said Ruthay.

“What man?”

“A toll-taker… one who had given up a life of crime… one who had been a partner of the man… you… seek.”

“And how did that crime come to the attention of the spirit of Yu?” Shang Tsung asked.

“The man was killed… slowly disemboweled with a sword… while accomplices forced his wife and his son to look on! After his murder… the man’s remains… were dumped into a canal!”

Shang Tsung raised an eyebrow. “Is that all? I was expecting something truly terrible!”

“It was!” Ruthay shrieked. “When he disposed of the body… in that way … he profaned one of the sacred waterways… of Yu!”

Shang Tsung smiled now. “Then he is definitely the man I want,” he said. “Anyone who is impudent enough to insult a demigod won’t be afraid to attack a member of the White Lotus Society, or the gods who watch after them. I will send Hamachi, Ruthay. When he nears his goal, see through his eyes and guide him!”

Book!Sub-Zero was impudent enough to insult a demigod which is why he was one of Shang Tsung’s favorites. And to be clear - book!Sub-Zero did not regret insulting the demigod at all. Even more! He found humor in it!:

He dwelt in a cave two hundred feet up the face of a cliff by the sea. The mouth of his home was barely wide enough to accommodate a slender adult, and was accessible only by climbing the sheer wall of rock, a feat that was impossible for most adults and daunting even to the few arachnids and marsupials that tried it.

Maybe some of them were even sent by Yu, he thought with a smirk, little assassins who would chastise me for having spilled blood in his precious canal.

The less abrasive attitude toward gods was shown by Cyrax, who talked a bit with Raiden over Bi-Han’s remains. He wasn’t outright antagonistic but wasn’t overall respectful either. He talked with Thunder God like he would talk with any other human being that wasn’t actually Scorpion. Frankly, from the named Lin Kuei only MK9!Smoke actually addressed Raiden in respectful manner, with proper bow and the name of lord

albeit did he do so because he respects the divine beings or just out of gratitude for saving him, hard to tell for sure.

So yeah, it seems like no matter what kind of timeline or age or medium of the story, Lin Kuei does not fear gods nor pray to them. And the clan has a long history of dealing with Raiden, so the Lin Kuei had first-hand experiences with supernatural beings. Somehow, cryomancers are the most impudent warriors when it comes to dealing with or criticizing the gods.

Interestingly, as much as Lin Kuei warriors don’t care for gods, most of the known to us named characters believe to have - and to care - for their own souls. Sektor and MK11!Frost embraced the Cyber Lin Kuei idea but Kuai Liang, Cyrax and Smoke were opposed to C.I. project out for concern for their souls among other things. Even Bi-Han, to some degree became concerned about his soul after trip to Netherrealm.

Believing in souls is usually a sign of belief in the afterlife, albeit after all of them went through (the change into cyborgs, death and change into Revenants) this is less a matter of faith (religion) and more first-hand experiences. And let's not forget that regularly dealing over the centuries with Shang Tsung who steals people's souls on a daily basis makes it really hard to not believe spirits are real.

Also, an interesting matter of Lin Kuei practices that could have a religious/spiritual ground and/or be an example of ancestor worship is the clan’s funeral rites. I don’t think we actually saw any Lin Kuei to bury their own (especially after warrior’s failure?) and for sure MK9!Cyrax and Sektor did not bother to take care of Bi-Han’s remains. However the sources provide examples of Lin Kuei keeping corpses, most likely of their own leaders or warriors.

And so, we could see human remains:

put in two coffins on each side of statue

hidden / kept in a block of ice(?) in chamber of Fallen Lin Kuei in which Frost’s frozen body was also laid, but on the altar

Cyrax’s cyber body was kept and guarded by Sub-Zero (and this is like the only thing that Kuai Liang and Cyber Sektor so far agreed on)

and even Cyber Sektor’s remains, even if just for pragmatic reasons, are kept in what seems to be respectful manner:

It could be just Kuai Liang’s good nature to honor fallen of his clan (I’m still not sure if Lin Kuei Palace is the new place for Sub-Zero’s clan or the ancient hideout) but even in MK Conquest TV series, after Grandmaster was killed by then-currently-Sub-Zero, there was the farewell ceremony with clothes on display (cause there was not much left of body after freezing and shattering) while new leader gave the speech promising to punish the guilty.

Which makes me think that Lin Kuei did honor their fallen warriors (especially those exceptional, deserving). Such custom and apparently common belief in soul could also support the ancestor worship - both as some ancient, mythical ancestor(s) connecting warriors into one clan (family) and tradition to follow in the footsteps of forefathers (Bi-Han taking place of his father [old timeline] or grandfather [current timeline] or Kuai Liang taking Bi-Han’s place as Sub-Zero).

My general conclusion about Lin Kuei is that its members believe in souls, have respect and use of spiritual matters (meditation?) and maybe ancestor worship. Whatever the religious / spiritual practices they have over the centuries, it is not something they will share, as the Lin Kuei by nature are secretive people who keep personal things mostly for themselves. The people that joined the clan (Cyrax and Smoke) maybe kept their old, eventual religious beliefs but overall, Lin Kuei warriors did not fear, care for nor pray to gods. They may respect god (Raiden, Fujin) as a person but not because of their divine nature. And even that would not stop them from criticizing said god. Which is pretty much how Kuai Liang and Raiden’s relationship looks like. Grandmaster is grateful to Thunder God for saving him but he won’t blindly follow his authority.

(Kuai Liang has serious authority issues, hasn't he?)

As for holidays, I can’t really see Lin Kuei to follow any specific religious (theistic) special day cause they don’t care much for gods in the first place. Unless they worked undercover and needed to act as normal human beings, religious holidays would mean nothing to them. The warriors may however celebrate their mission success, combat mastery or promotion between themselves or in secret, I think. Like, Lin Kuei did forbid friendship because it was considered warrior’s flaw yet we know some members either were blood-related (Kuai Liang, Bi-Han, previous Sub-Zero - father or grandfather, depending on which timeline is correct) or considered each other a family (Kuai Liang and Tomas Vrbada) and most named characters worked in duos so they have both opportunity and knowledge about each other to celebrate important matters. If they managed to remember anything from previous life, that is. Because from ancient to at least Great Kung Lao’s times most(?) adepts were kidnapped from biological families at a really young age (something around 6 years old). And Mythologies: Sub-Zero takes that even further:

Its warriors are chosen at birth to be raised apart from the workings of day to day civilization and are stripped of their former lives. Only the clan knows their existence. Each of them posses certain skills and abilities that set them apart from normal men. These abilities are passed on from generation to generation and honed throughout the experiences of life.

So, celebrating birthdays doesn’t sound like happening much, unless those with family around could allow themselves such luxury. The clan may however celebrate the day of becoming a fully trained and sworn warrior? Or the fallen warriors? Who knows.

Also, something worth thinking about: in Mortal Kombat Conquest TV series, when the Grandmaster presented newly appointed Sub-Zero to the rest of the clan, he “celebrated” the cryomancer's first official performance as the execution of two men who failed their mission. So, yeah, celebration of something special in (old) Lin Kuei does not necessarily mean anything nice.

(The next part of answer most likely will be focused either on food or architecture / origin of Lin Kuei. Let's hope I will get it written sooner than later)

<><> EDIT <><>

RELIGION <> ORIGINS / ARCHITECTURE <> FOOD <> FOR THE LIN KUEI <> ART <> CRYOMANCERS <> LIN KUEI SOCIETY <> MONEY & MATERIAL GOODS

[sixteenthshen]

my rant on episodes 31/32

I feel so conflicted about them.

On the one hand, I wanted to watch the shared horse scene so much. On the other,  there were so many inconsistencies and WTF moments. I can't bring myself to touch those episodes again to make more gifs, which is such a pity because WKX falling down the cliff? SO PRETTY. 

Spoilers behind the cut. If you do follow the drama with Chinese fans, you’ll probably have heard the same things like a million times. To save yourself more angst/stress, skip my post. 

The upside is that the director took the fans complaints to heart. They were making edits until 2am last night. I heard it’s already live, but I’m still trying to prepare myself. There’re some things that can’t be fixed >< 

*hopes for the best on Tuesday* 

In episode 11, WKX wanted to tear the Scorpion assassins into ten thousand little itty bits because ZZS had some blood on his lip, which made me mentally scream so much from joy. In episode 31, he  LETS Duan Pengju, that evil dickface(TM) go, just like that? Where's the rage? Where's the anger? Do you see the colour of ZZS's face? Can you see what he's wearing? Do you know what dickface did? 

Although it's a very touching moment when WKX decides to acknowledge the shixiong/shidi relationship, it's super weird that the ghosts are behind. I mean, I suppose it can make sense if we focus on the fact that he's planning to "retire" from being the big bad CEO of Ghost Valley. But it seems careless to expose a weakness in case someone tries to take advantage of it since they have to kill you to get to be the new CEO. 

There's no follow up on the injuries sustained from being tortured by the evil dickface(TM). How could they make WKX seem so callous? Maybe a scene where ZZS asked Wu Xi to hide his injuries from WKX, but WKX's right outside. He overheard ZZS telling Wu Xi to hide it from him, so he pretends not to know. *cue angsty scene for WKX here* 

The only thing related to injuries was when Wu Xi said ZZS could be saved from his self-inflicted nailing. Okaaaay. What about the piercing of the scapula? (穿琵琶骨 (piercing pipa bones) - it's supposed to cripple your martial arts ability until you heal ok) 

WKX suddenly decides to go off and be a career man, which is perfectly fine. But he suddenly has Gu Xiang watch over ZZS like a hawk, not letting him drink. (Seriously, I forgot if this belongs in TYK or if this is yet another thing stolen from Sha Po Lang) Where is WKX showing any concern over ZZS's total loss of 2 out of 5 senses? I ASK YOU MS. SCRIPTWRITER. What have you done to WKX's character??? Poor WKX, poor ZZS. 

And did everyone laugh off the fact that ZZS can't taste, so why should he drink wine? Ok, I can make myself accept this if I remind myself that ZZS would not like people making a fuss and pitying him anyway... (but shouldn't someone, anyone care???) 

We get many hints that WKX has a sneaky scheme, but he doesn't tell Gu Xiang, his closest friend since childhood. He doesn't talk to his soulmate about this either. 

WKX and ZZS's dialogue just before he falls down the cliff... Seriously reminiscent of Silent Reading, when Fei Du makes the same self-flagellating confession & Luo Wenzhou stops him. 

ZZS draws his sword and stands beside WKX. What is going on?! How does he still have his martial arts ability? Did months pass since WKX saved him from evil dickface (TM)? Nothing makes any sense!  

ZCL's hidden weapon is what forces WKX over the cliff. If ZCL did not know about the sneaky scheme, then WTF is this kind of scriptwriting? ZCL's character turned from a good, young child to a prop-causing drama and angst. Even if he felt betrayed, was he not there to see how depleted WKX made himself trying to save Han Ying? Did he not see how WKX tried to keep his shifu safe? Or taught him how to fight? Did ZCL become stupid all of a sudden just to create angst? 

 It only makes sense if ZCL knew about the scheme because of all the info he was privy to, such as Zhao Jing as the villain behind it all (when he heard WKX and ZZS talking). How would he go from knowing that to thinking ZJ should be the new head of the alliance? As a matter of fact, how could Shen Shen?  

Ye Baiyi has to be in on it unless WKX suddenly gained so much martial arts ability in the short time since they last fought. I mean, it only makes sense that WKX got so much stronger because he got injured by YBY, then depleted his strength saving Han Ying. 

So ZCL, YBY, Scorpion King and his buddies, fellow ghosts, possibly Shen Shen... WKX only kept it from the two people closest to him? The two most likely to do something stupid when they find out? *flails at this logic* 

The scene where ZZS's nails magicked their way out of his body... It's so awkward!!! I mean, we're supposed to feel emotional, but the special effects are just awful. I tried not to skip through it, I failed. 

So now what? ZZS essentially sacrificed himself to help WKX complete his goal. He gave up on his chance to be saved to fulfil WKX's pursuit of revenge (and take revenge for WKX's death). And it's all because of a misunderstanding. 

Between ZZS's nails and the ZCL-issue, I'm drowning in dog blood. What happened to WKX and ZCL's characters/personalities???? 

Also episode 32 is VERY choppy, it seems like we’re jumping to scenes randomly, the flow isn’t there. 

I can only say that the "Priest" spirit is gone; it's not a bad drama by any means. I'm still watching & I'm still going to buy the new episodes on Tuesday. But the random angst and abusive scenes inserted without no reason nor much logic are very un-Priest-like. 

I feel a little cheated about the scriptwriter being a fan of Priest. Priest's novels always feature couples who communicate. The supporting characters can come off flat in a drama sometimes because they're so normal. They don't have ridiculous backstories that make them tragic villains, and they behave logically. 

The angst "created" in Priest's novels makes sense. Characters don't suddenly change their personalities so that we can watch something exciting. The "dog blood angst/drama" is the big failing of so many Asian dramas. *CRIES* 

Now, the GOOD & HAPPY STUFF. 

WKX SAVING A-XU. *heart eyes* 

NGL, no matter how short it was, I liked the horseback scene 

There was a cute moment between Qi Ye and Wu Xi, scriptwriter knows how to ship!! & knows how to make it clear who’s gong/shou lol. 

THE HAIRPIN SCENE. IT’S EVERYTHING.

Even though I’m 90% sure the no-alcohol thing is copied from Sha Po Lang... I have so much love for Gu Yun and ZZS that it made me happy. My drunkards <3 

Did I mention WKX looks extremely pretty when he falls down the cliff? How do you fall so prettily? Plz teach me. 

WKX also looks pretty fake-dead. ZZS looks pretty when he’s heartbroken

I ship xiangcao so hard even though I know what’s gonna happen. (Cao Weining & Gu Xiang) They’re too cute.

I love the Poisonous Bodhisattva, I thought the Tragicomic ghost would be my favourite because of how gorgeous she is, but she’s too tragic & not enough comic. Poisonous Bodhisattva is my new goddess.

[worldburnrp]

“It was a maddening image —

Little by little, the rooftop space filled up with guests. It’s impossible for a rum-sponsored party not to turn lively; and certainly, it has. While some are happy with their drinks and stay in the venue, drinking and dancing their spirits away — others choose to venture out, either returning to their rooms or getting lost in the maze that are the corridors of The Mark hotel.

In either case, the night is light and young, and there’s not a worry in their minds.

Little do they know however, that in the shadows, the Syndicate awaits.

— and the only way to whip it was to hang on until dusk —

Although the night had been planned to exhaustion, it’d been all but a coincidence that the operation had fallen on the same date as the party launch. It’s a blessing, at the same time that it’s a curse; more people circulating the area isn’t ideal — but a sea of potential issues isn’t so much so, if they’re impaired to begin with.

130 million dollars, gone up in flames. But they ought to make their money back, somehow.

So here the Syndicate hides, and at around 10:30, they strike. Swift and professional as ever, they go completely unnoticed — and they will take all that they can.

A highly effective heist, right under their noses. Those 130 million earned back in just a night.

No wild cards, no action that isn’t necessary, were the instructions given. Money, jewelry, art, anything of true value — that’s what they’re after. Designed as a victimless crime as far as bloodshed goes, the Syndicate still accounts for all. No issue, lest you get in their way.

— and banish the ghosts with rum.”

Unfortunately however, some unlucky few have. As instructed, should anyone be a concern, be it that they’re found in their rooms or other areas in the midst of the operation — they should be neutralized, by whatever means necessary. All with still keeping their anonymity, and succeeding at their tasks.

The pairs that have crossed paths are:

Ludovica Malatesta and Rus Ralston

Nora Vidal and Lee Malkovich

Zafar and Mathias Cain

Vir Zafar and Ibrahim Ziani

Abel Rousseau and Nik Erykssen

Oliver Wright and Jin Yoo

Tima El-Masri and Audra Smythe-Priestley

Avi Grover and Samar Burman

Max Szczesny and Enzo Principe

Karolina Erykssen and Samar Burman

OOC Info:

Part Two out of Three.

Part two will run for a few days, to allow for everyone to comfortably write their interactions in time; an update will be made both on the blog and discord for subsequent parts.  

There is no requirement that people drop previous event threads set during Part 1 — but we encourage everyone to prioritize Part 2. This can be either through new fresh threads, or shifting your Part 1 thread into Part 2.

For characters not involved in the conflict, there are no restrictions to replying to starters (or continuing things) from Part 1, unless they were posted by someone, or are written with someone involved in the conflict. In that case, those starters may no longer be replied to. You’re also free to start any new things with other non-conflict characters as you wish.

If you wish to have any injuries (be them major or minor) or heavy impacting plots happen involving your character, please contact the admins so we can include it into the narrative.

Those in the conflict are encouraged to come up with scenarios where, mid-robbery, one would have the other held hostage. Be it at a hotel room, in some hidden office, or anywhere that is far from view and where there would be plenty to steal. They’re on a mission, after all. As always, if you have trouble coming up with ideas, the admins are always willing to help.

At the end of this post, we offer challenges to the guests. However, those are simply suggested interactions — and even if you choose to write it, your character is not limited to just writing those.

SYNDICATE CHARACTERS:

[ ALL SYNDICATE MEMBERS ARE WEARING NEUTRAL BLACK CLOTHING AND MASKS. IF THEIR CLOTHES WEREN’T NEUTRAL AT THE PARTY, THEN AT THIS POINT THEY WOULD HAVE CHANGED. NOTHING ABOUT THEIR APPEARANCE (THAT THEY CAN CONTROL) SHOULD BE RECOGNIZABLE. EVEN IF ENCOUNTERING SOMEONE THEY HAVE MET BEFORE, THEY ARE TOLD TO KEEP THEIR IDENTITIES SECRET TO THE BEST OF THEIR ABILITIES. ]

For Syndicate members especially, Part 2 should be prioritized so that plots can flow easily.

If you have Part 1 threads, we won’t ask that you drop them, but that you work your way into finishing them — with your characters, above all, keeping in mind that they have a job to do. It might be a night of fun for everyone else, but not them.

From now on, you can only interact with other Syndicate members, or the character you were paired with.

You can write as many mid-robbery threads with your fellow Syndicate members as your heart desires. Interactions amongst them are allowed, and absolutely encouraged!

As far as the rest of the party goes, you may only interact with the character yours was paired with, as one is the other’s hostage.

Your character should be focused in the robbery itself and collecting valuable goods. Anyone they’ve encountered is damage control.

Important: this is meant to be an incredibly secretive and smooth operation. Get in, get out, without causing disturbance. The main party should not have any inkling or knowledge that this is happening.

POINTS AND CHALLENGES:

Syndicate members and conflict volunteers will each earn 20 points for writing their paired threads. (It doesn’t matter if one character ‘wrote’ the starter; both members will be awarded points.)

All remaining characters will earn 20 points for completing the challenges prompted below. They are not mandatory, but we will reward you if you choose to go forth with them.

The points above will be awarded at the end of the event, to account for any starters going unanswered or quickly dropped, as we wish to be as fair as possible.

Surprise! We’re also rewarding conflict volunteers with 30 points for being wonderful team players and allowing us to use their characters for this plot. We adore you and appreciate you, so here’s a small gesture to reflect that!

CHALLENGES:

Jennifer Callaghan recognizes Izaak Walker from his internet presence, and attempts to strike an interview, or even a comment. Izaak knows it’s unadvisable to go forth with it, given all the rum ingested tonight.

Andrea Galán has been avoiding Aaron Keaton, until they cross paths. There’s an inkling or knowledge of her involvement with crime, and tensions rise.

Gideon Hayes is spotted by an off duty Joaquim Borges whilst trying to deal — be it to a random guest, or worst yet, the very detective himself.

Danvir Persaud thinks he recognizes Laith Hassan, from briefly crossing paths in the law-and-lawful world. There’s no reason for a sketch artist and a lawyer to engage however, until now — that they’re both trying to get a vending machine to work.

Renata Cervantes-Müller and Úrsula Villa are both powerful women in their own right — except that they share far different ideals, and defend different people. It’s been easy to avoid one another thus far, until the elevator doors fail, locking them in.

A dentist and the state’s most prominent politician walk into a... bathroom. It’s a classic, slightly awkward, run-in. Except this time, it involves Nicholas Bergeron — and Julian Berkeley.

Jakob Cervantes-Müller is a busy man, and the things keeping him busy aren’t the kindest. For prevention (and future endeavors), he needs a lawyer — and he’s heard Adam Starke is one of the best. What a coincidence, that their drinks just got mixed up at the bar.

Constance Romero, the Cartel’s informant manager, is always on the lookout for future contacts. Like some other select people, she’d heard of Lev Movska’s defection from The Brotherhood — and hell if she isn’t going to try and get all of that knowledge into archive for them. The enemy of my enemy, as they say.

With too much rum in their system, Lola Villarin and Diego Romero end up wandering — testing every other room for unlocked doors. Eventually, they make it into a suite; it’s all fun and games, until the lock won’t allow them back out.

Hazel Arthur and Ryan Fitzgerald barely look at each other, when touching up their make-up in the lobby’s bathroom. But they have to acknowledge each other’s presence when they realize they’re locked in — and Hazel hasn’t heard back from her partner in far too long.

They’d both had the same idea — the hotel’s fire escape as the perfect spot for a smoke break. Hans Starke and Zuleika Sandoval are now forced to share the space (that both claim to have found first).

Bob Bekker and Aera Paek, different positions at different publications. One man with success in his horizon, and a woman who can grant anyone it. It’s a throw-away conversation until the words fact checker come to rise. The best paper, after all, is the most accurate one — would this man do her the favor of failing, in exchange for a brighter future?

Araceli Aguilar suddenly stops Heather Hyeon Seo in the middle of the lobby, with an unwarranted prediction of her future. Even if Heather doesn’t believe in it, it’s intriguing enough that she must hear more.

Rahi Kumar is well known for his love of the sky, preferring to gaze upwards towards the heavens; it is this exact preference, that sends him careening into Andel Kenza, who scurries away from a main party room, clutching what appears to be an empty bottle of rum, a strange substance congealed on its base. The pair stare at another another - a stalemate. 

Erin Katz was never a woman to wait for opportunity to simply knock on her door - she prefers to kick it in herself, a stiletto crashing through wooden panels. JJ Baptiste is a man who can make or break you in this city, and with the intriguing wallet she’s just found on the floor, she thinks she’s got enough leverage to earn his ear as he lords over a table in the back of the bar.

Moon Subin is currently scouting the media world, looking for new voices to either support his agenda in the press — or to simply gain insight. It’s unclear which Maureen Keaton could be, yet... but it’s worth a try.

FINAL NOTES

1 — If by any chance your pairing partner, or your challenge partner doesn’t get back to you — please contact the main page and we will rearrange things so that you may still write it! No one will be left without some event fun, we promise.

2 — If you’ve missed the window to volunteer your character for conflict, or you have joined recently and didn’t know about it, you can shoot the main page a message and we will do our very best to include you into the action. Only main page messages, please — as Discord will be hard to keep track of.

3 — As always, the admins are only a message away should you have any questions.

Part 2 interactions are now open. Have fun!

[sasorikigai]

Can I get a hanzo or two doing that friendship thing with one of his romantic interests? Any verse of him really, let the man be silly and cute happy.

Random Inbox Shenanigans || anonymous, based on this gifset (x) || always accepting!

▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 ❄️ || Even as the hurt buries itself deep within, Hanzo Hasashi becomes amazed at this condition of his heart breaking; it’s not physical. No bone nor blood or any visible injury, and yet, he feels as if his heart is slowly dying. As if he can feel the flesh tearing and his ribcage opening up. The pain is unbearable and excruciating, but where? Where does it originate? He feels it, but he cannot account for it. He is a most curious creature who loves and pours everything he has into another once his hard-built trust solidifies and becomes eternal. He would push every bit and piece of his trust and devotion to the center of his heart, with the very real risk of having it all taken away in the blink of an eye with a single vicious fatal blow. 

In the past as Scorpion, he may have been doomed to oblivion, just doomed with no saving grace. At least as Hanzo Hasashi, with all the regained humanity and matured sagaciousness of a refined warrior, he still continues to live in a pocket of oblivion. Even as his life itself brings dissolution of senses at times, with his emotions devolving into nebulous destructive hellfire, with spirits of slaughtered lightning across shadow incandescent landscape of desolate and arid earth, Hanzo Hasashi reminds himself of the steady rustling energy of love becoming a catalytic hope. And how the breaking would burn and burrow deep within his soul, as the Shirai Ryu massacre had challenged his self-observation and self-awareness, as Scorpion had lost all the compassion and honor which used to be Hanzo Hasashi’s foundation and blueprint. 

Kuai Liang would be more than familiar with the physical and mental toll of Hanzo Hasashi’s many sacrifices and endured cruelties. Rebelling against the forbiddance of attachment of any kind, the Lin Kuei principles of the past which he vehemently rebelled against, as it reviled any possibilities of human sentiment, which were deemed weak and as vehement hindrance against their fearsome ferocity. Had Kuai Liang known the specifics as Tundra, nearly ostracized from his own clan, but Bi-Han’s younger brother did have significant influence as he was the second-best, the worst cryomancer they had out of the two. The heart-wrenching culture of impermanence would have been still etched deep in Sub-Zero’s heart, for he had experienced and gained knowledge that anything, anything could be taken away from him in an instant. 

And even his honored distinction as Bi-Han’s continued instruction which would further the progress of his stagnant cryomancy did not placate the fact that his life could end in a moment in time. Even the roof above his humble cot and equally simple clothes on his back could be taken away from him, as he once had been kidnapped to the Lin Kuei temple as an infant. The stark synchronicity of his name - quick-freeze - may not even be his real name, despite having been called Kuai Liang or Tundra, or Sub-Zero as he took the mantle in honor of Bi-Han’s name for so long that it too, had become his own foundation and blueprint. 

Their inseparable correlation, the disparate, yet conjoined red strings of fate which entwined them as bitter rivals, then unlikely allegiance, towards tying the knot in Shirai Ryu tradition of Scorpion thrusting his chained kunai deep into Sub-Zero’s heart under both soft, yet portent cerulean skies mirroring the gentility of Kuai Liang’s peaceful love that could stretch like an unfathomable ocean as his awakened passion could match that of Hanzo Hasashi’s effulgent flames, the sunflower yellow and pristine blue-clad warriors, husbands, and Grandmasters engage in warmth-rift of numerous scars, as rich lush earth of the Shirai Ryu Fire Gardens permeate them as their bodies coalescence without boundaries, save for their distinctive flesh hues. 

The overflowing vigor and strength may continue to color them in livid bruises, as the meaty smacks of their fleshes and hard collisions of their adamantine bones and hardened muscles littered with blemishes will continue to blend in with the onyx shadows of the night, while the heated fire and passion they both conflagrate upon one another will grow their love and its commitment profoundly, enough to let one wound one another. What is love, but a sacrifice, and what is love but a collection of wound? 

Having been thrown over the erected ice slab of Kuai Liang’s cryomancy, the scorching tip of Hanzo Hasashi’s kunai penetrates the air with vicious, viper-like celerity, as the serrated blade hooks upon the strap of Sub-Zero’s plated shoulder armor. “GET OVER HERE,” he bellows with his characteristic gravelly baritone, which Sub-Zero effortlessly translates as the recited intensity of the pyromancer’s undying, inextinguishable love. The severity of Scorpion’s visage visibly mellows, as the cryomancer’s broad, bulky torso collides against his more narrow, chiseled musculature. “How you have transformed the drab, moribund, deathly sky to become magnificent, and consolidated my paradigms, principles, and my own spirituality. I will forever be yours, if you promise to be mine in not only life, but beyond death and on as well.” 

How Hanzo Hasashi’s entirety illuminates, as his swollen profile settles and nestles deep into the damp crook of Kuai Liang’s neck. Kuai Liang reciprocates, as the anchoring light olive of his arms cradle the taller lover’s waist, as the deep ocean of his sapphire gaze reflects the dwelling fire in Hanzo’s dark amber eyes. “I will continue to wear your pain as a reminder, for my heart should be able to continue to simply conjure you into my existence - here, beside me to talk, to kiss, to do whatever we envision. For without you, the heart is just a muscle, and not even a heart.”  ▬▬ι═══════ﺤ 🔥 ❄️ || 

[unwiltingblossom]

Queen's Favor (Mysme Jumin/MC AU 11/?)

Summary: Being a maid would be much easier if the cat would just let her do her job.

AU - Instead of joining the RFA via random text, MC is hired on as one of the maids assigned to Jumin Han’s penthouse. Nothing else about the setting has changed, the messenger and the RFA still exist, only the MC’s position has been altered.

Arguably, she was too distracted to do her job properly...but 'I'm too distracted thinking about the wallet I lost and then found again' wasn't really a valid excuse for leave no matter who she spoke to about it. Even she wouldn't approve of it.

"Ow-!" She hissed as she yanked her hand back and immediately stuck her finger into her mouth - as if she hadn't just stuck the handle of her duster there five minutes before and her mouth was a sanitary sanctuary untouched by bacteria.

Maybe it was her own fault for losing focus, but she still glared at the previously jammed vacuum anyway. The blood sacrifice of biting her finger had apparently sated it, and this time when she put it back together it started and spun its brushes freely. "I'm not resetting the calendar for you, we're not counting this one."

No one was in the room to hear her admonish the equipment, but that worked just fine for her: it meant no one was in the room to see the injury, so she could claim she slipped going up the stairs before she got into the penthouse at all. If anyone asked. Though the bigger concern was that she couldn't exactly bleed all over Elizabeth, and her boss didn't want her to handle the cat with latex on her hands. Technically that probably applied mostly to the dish gloves and other things she wore, not a simple band-aid, but there was always the chance that the cat was just so pampered it'd never encountered latex before and might even have an allergy. Or maybe Mr. Han did?

Well, the important thing was, she'd have to handle the cat with one hand today.

"Next time don't sit around fantasizing about pretty boys while you work, and you won't make it harder on yourself, now will you?" She scoffed at herself, shaking her head as she turned and made her way to her equipment back to dig out the necessary bandage.

Really, though. It wasn't the first time she'd messed up something that day, just the first time she'd injured herself. Arguably, she was too distracted to do her job properly...but 'I'm too distracted thinking about the wallet I lost and then found again' wasn't really a valid excuse for leave no matter who she spoke to about it. Even she wouldn't approve of it.

It's just...

Why had her wallet been in the middle of the floor? She never carried her purse over there, so how did it even get there? Between going to the convenience store for a late night snack a couple of nights before that and her near-death walletless encounter, how had it moved from the purse she kept by the door to the floor several feet away from it? It was even in the open, and sure she wasn't getting that great sleep but did she really miss it that many days without even looking at the floor? Was she becoming a slob in her own house as a consequence of being a hyper-vigilant maid elsewhere?

But she never took her wallet out of her purse in her home, and she always took her purse with her...

A rolling 'mrew' broke through her thoughts and she blinked, looking up at the still sealed bandage in her hand. "Ah-"

Elizabeth sat next to her, blinking up at her with those curious blue eyes. Rather ominously close to her cut hand. Before the cat could get any ideas - and she find a way to end up in the hospital for something even more embarrassing than last time - she quickly pulled her injured hand up out of reach of the cat. "Don't look at me like that. You know, I have fifteen more minutes of me time before it's your turn."

She blinked, and then gingerly reached out to pat the cat on the head with her uninjured hand before standing up. "Don't tell you father about what I just said." As far as she was concerned 'focus on work, not cat' counted as 'her time', but she doubted her employer would feel quite the same about her referring to her actual job as something like 'me time' - especially while she failed to actually do the job properly.

She managed not to drift off into pointless thoughts through the rest of the day, and therefore not injure herself further or mess up entertaining Elizabeth with just one hand. Still, she'd wasted some precious time early on and had to hustle to catch up to her schedule. Rather than have a decent chunk of time left before the owner of the penthouse got back, she was left with only a few minutes before her deadline when she was finally done. She'd blame it on the fact that it was Monday...but she knew full well Mina did the penthouse on Sunday. She had no one to blame the rough day on but herself and her own ridiculous imagination.

At the end of the day, there really wasn't any other answer to how her wallet got to the middle of the floor from her purse than that she somehow spilled it out of the purse at some point. Maybe when she was tired and frazzled on Saturday night after she'd walked all over creation chasing that one street jerk. It was possible, at least, and that was better than literally any other idea that came to her.

She flumped over onto the couch in the most dramatic way possible - knees on the rug, face and arm buried into the leather cushion. She could technically leave right now, but she didn't have to, and if she was going to catch her breath after a harrowing day of being her own worst enemy, it was much more comfortable to borrow the penthouse to do that than wait until she could lay on her own threadbare bed to do it.

A soft thump and shift of the cushion told her the cat followed her.

She peeked up from her arm to the cloud of white and two bright blue eyes looking down at her. Ordinarily, she'd use the hand her face wasn't pinning to the couch to pet the cat with, but that one happened to be the no-no latex one, so staring contest it was. "I know, he'll be here any minute, but I think we both can agree this isn't the weirdest position hes walked in on me in."

Elizabeth meowed directly in her face. It smelled of fish.

"Yes, well, you'll have to pet yourself with my hand, because I'm not getting up yet."

The cat flopped to the side, head on her wrist.

"That's just lazy."

Elizabeth huffed and twisted onto her back. And bapped a cat paw directly to her cheek. All pad and no claw, at least.

"That isn't a counter argu-"

The door choose precisely then to open. Which didn't mean Elizabeth won. They could continue the conversation next time. The cat rolled itself right off of the bed and sprinted over to the legs of the penthouse's owner, and she spared a glance over her shoulder up to meet his. She didn't know if she should feel ashamed over the complete lack of surprise or intrigue in his eyes, considering she hadn't moved at all from where she'd been.

One day she'd get him to look surprised at what he walked in on, and on that day she'd probably die from whatever it was she'd have gotten herself into.

She really was tempted to just put her face back into the couch and stay there for a while, but while her employer gave no sign of disapproval that she'd yet to leave - she was pretty sure they'd long ago crossed the line to where her being literally present in the penthouse at the same time as him wasn't really a concern - that wasn't exactly an open invitation for her to remain, either. She was the help, not a guest. Alas, she had to bid farewell to the comfortable sofa and rug, and go collect her things. She brushed off her pants - no matter how much effort she put in, there was always cat hair to be brushed off - and gave her employer a small nod as she strode across the room to get her bag of stuff.

"I'm already finished, so I'll be off."

"I won't be working tomorrow." His voice was smooth and matter of fact, but still somehow managed to startle her.

"Huh-? But my schedule said-"

He nodded, casually undoing the buttons of his overcoat, before reaching down to collect the cat in his arms. He didn't even bother to take the coat off before picking her up. The words his dry-cleaner must have had about him... "It is uninterrupted, yes." He tilted his head slightly, and the rare flicker of a smile passed over his lips. "I believe...I may be able to avoid getting in the way for one day, at least."

She wasn't even sure herself if her brief laugh was out of amusement or disbelief.

"I'll be sure to report any unruly disturbances to you immediately."

His eyes squinted, just slightly, in what she chose to assume was amusement, rather than disbelief. "Do so."

–

The springs of her bed - which doubled as her couch - squeaked in protest when she settled down on it, and...yes, it really wasn't anywhere near as comfortable as the one in the penthouse. Somehow, the apartment wasn't that big and yet the remote for the television was still out of reach from where she sat. Did she really toss it that far away last night, or had she turned into such a zombie in the mornings that she kicked it across the room just getting ready and hadn't noticed it?

Really, it wasn't that strange to work with the owner present. Many times that was just part of the job, actually. Only Jumin Han's own eccentricities made it feel like something strange to work in the house when he was present. Well, that, or she still nursed some suppressed trauma over the time she got a concussion. One of those, anyway. Though it did make her wonder if she'd walk in on him doing something strange for once this time.

Granted, if she did, she couldn't help but expect there'd be an immediate NDA or something slapped down right in front of her face immediately after. Somehow he'd still manage to be the one who came out on top, even if she walked in on him half dressed and covered in strange tattoos, hunched over a pile of burning books and eating half of a rabbit or something.

Wait, no...

That image was just terrifying.

The phone lit up as she shuddered.

She glanced down immediately, train of thought broken from the sudden burst of light in the darkness of her apartment. That actor, Zen, had sent her a friendly text the night before to test whether her number actually worked, so if he put in that much effort he probably hadn't done it just out of some kind of weird sense of politeness. Follow up texts were always possible.

-No, it was just some unknown number. Really, who gave her number away to some spam company? She just kept getting random phonecalls from weird numbers recently! And they were mostly late at night, too, so probably some foreign based companies.

I bet it was that glasses jerk...

She clicked her tongue and tossed the phone to the nightstand next to her bed, flopping back onto the mattress lengthwise. "I didn't almost die today." That was an improvement over the weekend. If she managed not to injure herself in front of her boss tomorrow, she might actually be set for a completely normal day - nay, perhaps a week even.

Her own laughter cut through the rare quiet of her room. "Thinking about attractive men at work and then about your employer at home, really? You really are a mess."

Ah, yes. Her thoughts were full of a random man who rescued her from death, a ridiculous self-created mystery about her own wallet, and about her work. And she talked to herself when she wasn't talking to a cat. Her social life was in shambles.

[avengerscompound]

Lesson Learned

Lesson Learned: A Bucky Barnes Fanfic

Buy me a ☕ Character Pairing:  Bucky Barnes x  F!Reader

Word Count:  963

Rating:  T

Warnings:  minor injuries, fluff

Synopsis:  When you get excited your hands flail wildly. Bucky keeps telling you, you’re going to regret it. One day you find out why.

Lesson Learned

“Ow! There are other ways of getting my attention besides punching me!”

Bucky rubbed his arm where you just hit him.  It was your pattern.  Not that you meant to hit people exactly.  You just got excited and emoted heavily and that often resulted in you punching people.

Clint had stopped sitting anywhere near you citing that he breaks his own bones easily enough on his own and he didn’t need your help.  Natasha had gotten really good at detecting them and catching your wrist when your fist came flying in her direction.  Everyone else had just come to accept that you were a little boisterous.  Rubbing their arm and telling you to chill out.

“Sorry, Bucky.”  You said, sheepishly.

“Yeah, you’re going to be sorry one day.”  He said before turning to look at the thing you wanted to show him.

It didn’t seem to matter how many times he said you were going to regret it, you still kept punching him when you wanted to get his attention.  A cute cat walked by?  Bucky got a punch in the arm.  Your team got the winning touchdown?  Bucky got a punch in the arm.  You suddenly realized what HYDRA’s plans were?  Bucky got a punch in the arm.   Each time he’d warn you that you would regret it.  You thought it was a threat.  That he was worried that he was going to turn Winter Soldier on you.  You knew he wouldn’t.  You felt safe around Bucky.  It wasn’t like you ever punched random strangers because you were excited after all.  Playful punches were for people you care about,  Even if they did kind of hate them.

Sunday night was movie night.  The whole group would gather together with popcorn and watch something together in the home theater.  Bucky was sitting next to Steve as he often did so you took a seat on his left.  You were doing a catch Bucky and Steve up on movies they had missed.  Tonight was the Empire Strikes Back.

“You’re gonna love this and hate it.”  You said sitting down next to Bucky and taking a handful of popcorn.

“Well, I liked the first one. So that’s a good start.”  Bucky said.

“You know anything about it yet?”  You asked.

Both Bucky and Steve shook their heads.  “No, we were told to try and avoid finding things out about this one.  So we were really careful.  No googling.”  Steve answered.

You chuckled and settled in the chair.  “Oh man, this is going to be good.”

You sat and watched with them.  Enjoying experiencing the film through the eyes of a couple of Star Wars virgins.  The shock of Han cutting open the TonTon.  The capturing of Han thanks to Lando’s betrayal.  Each shocked gasp and muttered curse made you bounce a little excitedly in your chair.

When the fight between Luke and Vader started your eyes flicked from the screen to Bucky and Steve waiting for their reaction.  Vader sliced Luke’s hand off and sent it and his lightsaber over the edge they both gasped.

“There is no escape! Don’t make me destroy you.”  Vader said looking down over the huddled form of Luke.  “Luke, you do not yet realize your importance. You’ve only begun to discover your power! Join me, and I will complete your training! With our combined strength, we can end this destructive conflict, and bring order to the galaxy.”

Luke shuffled out to the middle of the walkway, pulling himself up on the beam at the end.  “I’ll never join you!”

“If only you knew the power of the Dark Side.  Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father.”  Vader reasoned shaking his fist at Luke.

“He told me enough! He told me you killed him!”  Luke seethed climbing down onto the ring below him.

“No, I am your father,”  Vader said.

“What the fuck?”  Bucky yelped.

Then it happened.  Your excitement got the best of you and you punched him.  Not gently either.  Your level of excitement always was reflected in the strength of the punch, and you were really excited.  This was the reaction you had been waiting on.  You wound up and your hand swung across connecting with Bucky’s arm.  Except where you normally sat on his right, today you were on his left.  Your hand connected with the metal of his arm at such force that you felt the bones fracture as it happened.  You screamed.

Everyone turned to look at you.  “It happened didn’t it?”  Clint asked bouncing on his knees as he looked back at you.

Bucky nodded as he gently coaxed your hand to him to look it over.  “Yep.  I warned you, didn’t I?  I told you you’d end up regretting it?”

“How has it never happened before?”  You asked as tears pricked your eyes.

“I keep putting myself on your left, you dummy.“  Bucky said shaking his head.  “Bruce I think she’s broken her knuckles and at least two fingers.

Clint started laughing loudly and tipped off the back of his chair.  “Ow,”  He said from the floor.

“You brought that on yourself, birdbrain,”  Bucky said, rolling his eyes.

“Yeah, well so did she, but you’re being nice to her,”  Clint complained as he crawled to his feet again.

Bruce got up and came over.  He gently took your hand and touched your fingers.  You hissed in pain wincing as he touched each broken bone.  “Yeah, gonna need to x-ray this.  I hope you’ve learned your lesson.”

“Yes, Bruce.”  You say getting up and following after him.

“Good because I’d actually like to be able to reduce the five-foot radius I stay away from you normally.”  He said shaking his head.  “Not sure Hulk would like it if you punched me.”

[brehacrgana]

just watched TROS and i have NO WORDS... (except i also have many). what was that

at about half of the movie one guy stood up, put on his jacket and left...I don’t think he was wrong

spoilers below (the bad and the good - however little that might be). please come to talk if you’ve seen the movie

first of all...WHAT THE FUCK. what the fuck...i sat through the movie and i had to laugh at times because whatever was happening was so absurd shit i couldn’t even imagine. at other times i just sat with my mouth open and could not believe they really went there...it was that bad. how in the world is this the end of star wars

the way the movie started... in the title sequence...”THE DEAD SPEAK” lol. palpantine’s return or whatever shit announced immediatly (which i didn’t expect would happen); then the first scene of kylo ren in slo-mo killing some random people (literally who was that) in some woods and then finding palpantine’s cave or something where palps told him “hurr hurr i created snoke...i was every voice in your head...kill the girl” - sir how are you even alive. i literally don’t remember if this was explained in the movie and i don’t think so

rey - jesus christ. girl. i don’t know what they did to her character. but anyway. in the beginning of the movie leia did some jedi training with rey and i loved that...especially when rey adressed leia with “master”! but in the start of that scene rey was flying in the air while doing some meditation and that was absurd imo / i laughed lol. then kylo ren showed up because of that force bond shit and rey messed up her training which sucked

nice scene: finn and poe returning from some mission and meeting/reuniting with rey on the rebellion’s home base - rey and poe bickered a bit, rey and finn hugged...i liked that

rey finn and poe and chewie went to a desert planet where some party was going on. nice scene: rey talked to an alien being there and it was a cute, nice interaction that would have been heartwarming

lando shows up, points them to some cave, where a big snake or something was which had an injury lol...rey gave it some life power through the force  and healed it. LOL: foreshadowing...

kylo ren and the knights of ren (lol who are they even) show up on that planet. while the others try to make a ship ready to leave, rey (why...) goes and stands in the middle of the desert waiting for kyle ron to show up or whatever. he does of course and races at her with his ship, she does that jump from the trailer and cuts his ship in half. it crashes and explodes. no, kylo somehow doesn’t die from that. meanwhile poe and finn told chewie to get rey bc they have to leave (knights of ren approaching), but while rey is busy doing whatever the fuck that was, chewie gets captured by some stormtroopers and is led on their transport ship. it takes off. finn screams to rey “they have chewie” and rey uses the force to try and drag that ship back to the ground...kylo emerges and also uses the force on that ship, and they have a force battle until rey does palpantine style force lightning on that ship. it completely explodes. everyone thinks chewie is dead. i was really horrified, not gonna lie, like rey...

but lol. SOMEHOW chewie was on another transport ship (lol???? where was that) and is alive after all. they go to rescue him. while they fly to the stardestroyer where chewie is being kept prisoner, rey says that “yada yada people say they know me but nobody does” to finn and it is awful... arrived on the star destroyer, finn and poe want to free chewie, while rey fucks off to do her own thing and go to kylo’s quarters. force bond kylo appears, they fight blabla, he tells her...

“oh you wanted to take my hand, i kNoW YoU you’re a palpatine, he was your grandfather” ................................................ i read the spoilers so i knew this was gonna come, but seriously???? what a crack fucking theory. REY PALPANTINE!  I QUIT!!!

flashback to rey’s parents who look like nice people who tried to protect her by leaving her on jakku. palps killed them after they didn’t tell him where rey was

meanwhile finn poe and chewie are captured, stormtrooppers are going to execute them. then hux steps in hilariously, kills the stormtroopers, and is like “i’m the spy for the rebellion.” i laughed

who is zorii...or whatever her name was.

the trio gang goes to that planet where the remains of the death star are...they meet a group of horse riders, one of them jannah. i loved her! i really did. she was one of the bright spots for me in that shitshow. her and finn talk, she also used to be a stormtrooper and has the same story as finn

also Finn was shown very clearly to be force sensitive! loved that

rey does another solo trip and goes to the remains of the death star...where she meets dark!rey which was hilarious and absurd. they fight and at one point dark!rey hissed and bared her teeth at rey - i actually scream laughed

well then kylo ron came to that planet, the water fight scene happened, and actually rey fucking killed him!!! he died! cut to leia. she says “ben” and then somehow just actually dies too. seriously. just like that. FROM WHAT???

anyway rey feels that leia has died and lol idk she’s like oh know and resurrects kylo with the force. yeah. lol. she’s then like “yeah i did want to take your hand...ben’s hand” and cries and leaves

really...who is ben. why do you care. what

on the rebellion base people are gathered around leia’s dead body and i don’t remember her name, but lupita nyongos character say “farewell, dear princess” and that almost made me cry

back to kylo. he’s looking at the ocean in contemplation. suddenly a voice behind him says “hey, kid”. he turns around and it’s han fucking solo. LOL

they basically play out the same scene as in tfa just before kylo killed han except this time he doesn’t. han says kylo ron died and kylo yeets his lightsaber into the water.

ok, another hilarious absurd scene: rey goes to luke’s exile planet and sets kylo’s ship (which she took to fly there) on fire. she’s throwing the lightsaber in the flames but oh! a hand yeets out of the flames! it’s force ghost luke who caught the saber and is like oh you should be more careful with a jedi’s weapon.

luke then shows her LEIA’S LIGHTSABER and there’s a flashback scene of LEIA AND LUKE DOING JEDI TRAINING !!!! a good part of the movie

rey takes both lightsabers and flies to palpantine’s planet. she meets him in his cave. palps does he’s usual unimaginable power shit...”i want you to kill me...then my soul will go over to you and all the siths that have ever been will live in you”. whatever

“ben” also shows up of course, he kills the kights of ren with the lightsaber that was magically teleported to him by rey i guess

rey and “ben” face palps together. he is like oh your bond is so strong, let me take all your energy...very reminiscent of dementor’s in harry potter movies sucking out their souls lol. they drop to the ground, unconscious. palps lifts “ben” up and yeets him into a big abyss.

there was a nice scene in between of poe grieving for leia and saying he doesn’t know what to do/how they can make it, but then lando shows up and they talk about how lando and the old trio back in the day didn’t know how to make it either, but they still tried etc. and made it

ok another nice scene: while palps is doing super force lightning to destroy the rebel fleet or whatever, rey is on the ground gatherig strength and she hears the voices of old jedi masters...obi wan! anakin i’m pretty sure also!

then there’s a nice shot of her standing up and facing the emperor with lightsaber in hand.

she kills him, but dies doing it.

but wait lol...”ben” somehow crawls back out of that abyss to cry over her dead body. he also revives her with force power. they look at each other sappily and kiss.......no words. they fucking really went there

actually when that happened the people in the cinema made a lot of sounds, some said ew lmao others just laughed

then “ben” dies for good lol. people scream laughed

in the end there was a nice rebellion victory celebration scene, i always like scenes like that

rey goes to tattoine and buries the lightsabers of luke and leia who show up via force ghost. somehow rey then has a yellow lightsaber in her hand. some old woman comes along and asks who are you? rey says...i’m rey.....skywalker and then watches the sunset. the end.

in spoilers i read it was said that rey says she feels incomplete without kylo and goes to live on tattoine alone for the rest of her life. maybe i blacked out and didn’t get that, but i did not see it. it did not happen, right?

when the movie ended some people in the cinema actually started clapping.

lol. i don’t know what that was...yeah it had some good moments, but it really was the worts star wars movie of all times for me. it was wild and absurd and stupid as fuck and i am so, so disappointed. TFA i loved, there was so much potential there...but then tlj happened and somehow tros eneded up even worse than that. i don’t know what the worst part for me was, rey palpantine, leia’s death in that manner, reylo... it was a mess. it actually makes me really sad. bye felicia

[swimmingnewsie]

Of Coffee and Cookies (Chapter 12)

Hey guys, major trigger warnings for gun violence and domestic violence in this chapter. Take care of yourself first, I promise I won’t be upset. Your mental health takes priority to this angst fest.

Major props to @writetheniteaway for helping with the legal aspects and previous chapters. Give her work a look sometime. She’s one of my best friends and favorite writers. If you like the angst I write, she gives me a run for my money so please check her out!

On with the show

Link to AO3 

---

Anna felt as though she were going to crawl out of her skin. They had only been in the courtroom for fifteen minutes but she felt Hans’ glaring eyes on her the whole time. Even in her dress pants and long shirt, she felt exposed. She wanted to cry, but to cry would be to show weakness.

She closed her eyes tight for a second, wishing her sister had been allowed to sit with her instead of behind her in the gallery. Her attorney was giving their opening statement, including as many of the criminal related facts he could. It was hard to hear about that night, no matter how many times she had been forced to tell the tale or how many times the attorney said it out loud. Her therapist said it would get a little easier each time, and that in telling her story, she would gain a sense of agency.

Anna thought her therapist was full of shit.

Because no matter how many times she spoke of it, she still felt the pounding in her heart. She still felt the way he touched her. Felt the cold metal against her back and the fear that she wouldn’t see the next morning. 

“I saw the way you acted with him! You stupid fucking slut!”

“You will not ruin the Westerguard family name!”

“I know you’re hiding in here. Come out come out wherever you are!”

“I’m all you’ve got left, sweetheart. No one’s coming to save you tonight.”

“You are nothing.”

His words rang in her head no matter how much she tried. At any other time she would distract herself, put in earbuds to block the hurtful words. But the hearing required her full attention- or at least as much of it as she could bear to give. 

She really did try to listen. It was important, and she would be asked to speak at some point. She needed to pay attention, but her fear held her hostage.

And if listening to her side of the story again hurt, then listening to his side was absolute tourture. 

“Your honor, my client Officer Westerguard did not perform the acts proposed by the opposing side. The only evidence of gun violence is a single shot into a wall, a wall in their guest bedroom to be more specific. Additionally, there is no proof that the injuries caused in the photographs were in fact caused by Officer Westerguard. 

“Has this young man not suffered enough? Spending almost a year in which he had to feel as if he were a criminal in his own town? There is no purpose in continuing the protection order, for not only is Officer Westerguard innocent, but Ms. Arendelle has not been seen anywhere near the Denver metropolitan area in months. For what purpose does a protection order have if there is no opportunity of interaction on a regular basis?”

Anna could feel her blood boiling. No evidence? She had specifically taken pictures of the gun and her face with date and time stamps, just like she had read online. But when looking at the pictures on the screen, those stamps were suspiciously missing. Not to mention the fact that multiple 911 calls were made- the 911 calls that had helped her earn the temporary protection order. But now those calls were considered “unimportant”?

The statement about Hans suffering threatened to push her over the edge. Hans had been the one to suffer? She was the one who had to start a whole new life. The one who cried herself to sleep for months because she couldn’t feel anything besides fear.

But sure, Hans was the one who was suffering, being seen as a criminal to people he had no care or interest in. His law enforcement friends certainly didn’t see him as a criminal, sitting behind him in the courtroom with a little too happy of grins. 

“For these reasons, I argue that the protection order between Ms. Arendelle and Officer Westerguard need not be made permanent.”

"Thank you, Mr. Peterson. You may be seated. Ms. Arendelle, if you would come to the stand please?" 

Elsa gave her a reassuring look from where she was seated behind, giving Anna one last boost of courage. She could do this. Her heart felt about ready to explode, but she could do this.

"Ms. Anna Arendelle, do you solemnly swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help you God?"

"I do."

This was it. Anna squared her shoulders, looking dead ahead at the judge. In ten minutes this would be over. She just had to survive those next ten minutes, one breath at a time.

"Can you tell me what happened on the evening of April 20th this past year?"

It took everything in her not to get stuck in the fog of her brain. She tried to listen to the tiny voice in her mind, telling her that it was okay. It was okay to talk about it. There was someone listening to her, someone who could help her.

Anna’s heart felt as though it were going to jump out of her chest when she heard the door open. Their earlier fight had been replaying in her head. It was stupid. Why was it such a big deal that she had gone out to the game night at the coffee shop? She wasn’t doing anything wrong.

But it had made Hans mad, and it was all her fault. She knew better than to think going out would actually help him cool down. She knew that his anger would only escalated in proportion to the number of shots he had at the bar. By the sound of the door slam, she could tell it had been more than usual. If she was lucky, she could get him to bed before anything could happen.

His mumblings grew louder and louder. Things about how the house wasn’t clean enough, why did he even keep her around if she wasn’t going to fucking clean? 

She greeted him, knowing that ignoring him would only make things worse. 

He had that wavering look in his eyes, mirroring his unsteady feet. He was shouting about the house. Shouting about how she was whoring herself around, how horrible of a human she was, how no one loved her but him. She braced herself for his hand, straight faced. She had stopped wincing a long time ago. 

She made an excuse some time later, getting herself back in their bedroom. A fire lit inside herself. She couldn’t live like this anymore. She snapped a quick photograph of her injured face and sent it with a message to her sister. It was her only hope of outside help, a slim hope at that. She hadn’t been allowed to talk to her sister in so long.

She heard him coming, deleting the text messages, pulling it up to a random contact.

That was her mistake. He saw it, a friend from the shop, a male friend.

He shouted again, saying how he was going to teach her a lesson. He was gone and then back again, stumbling with his gun. In an instant, the cold metal was pressed against her back Tears streamed from her eyes. This was it. This was how she was going to die. 

“We fought for a while, until he shot the gun aimed at me. But our wall was the one to take the hit. I dislodged the gun and ran outside as fast as I could. And that’s when Officer Baker from Arapahoe showed up.”

The judge nodded at her. “Thank you, Ms. Arendelle. Please be seated.”

She had done it. The wave of relief passed through her. Someone who could do something heard her. Now Anna just hoped it had been enough.

She couldn’t bear listening to Hans’ side of the story. It wasn’t so much his side as it was twisting her words and fabricating a tale in which he was the victim. He said that she had been cheating on him, and that he only went to drink to forget his troubles. He spoke of how she was particularly clumsy and had fallen earlier in the week, that those bruises were not his fault. 

He spoke of how because he was the man in this case, no judge would take him or his pain seriously. He had only shot to defend himself from her rage. He had been the victim in this. He didn’t care for a restraining order, finding that he could protect himself from her. She was the one who needed to be locked up and away.

It made Anna’s blood boil. This was all wrong, so so wrong. There was no way in hell that anyone would be able to believe that bullshit.

But she was wrong.

How could she be wrong?

Why was she wrong?

She couldn’t help the scream that echoed through the courtroom. Elsa ran to her, holding her tightly and rocking her back and forth. Her lawyers were speaking, saying they would make this right. But in reality, they all knew this decision was final. Hans was a free man, free to do what he chose to whom he chose.

And in that freedom he was bold enough to walk over to her.

Elsa blocked her vision, whispering sweet nothings in her ear. She was thankful, she couldn’t bear this on her own. But beyond the whispers, she heard Maren shout at him.

“Don’t you fucking touch her, I swear to God! Go talk to your stupid friends about how you rigged this trial in your favor! You are no victim here. Justice weeps at your presence.”

Hans could only laugh. 

“Perhaps, but the law stands by me. While the law could send you back to wherever you came from in a heartbeat.”

“Fuck you, you racist bastard,” she growled, fire in her eyes. “This land has been mine and my people’s far before yours. Now get out of here. Now.”

“You don’t scare me, sweetheart. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever.” And as quickly as he had appeared, he was gone. 

Anna sobbed. Everything she had worked so hard for was gone. How could she ever feel safe again?

---

Elsa was miraculously stoic. Ever since the judge uttered his fateful words, she was a rock. Anna hadn’t stopped crying for more than a few minutes at a time, but Elsa was there to catch them. But regardless of how much she masked it, Maren could see right through it. Today had been hard on all of them, and Elsa was no exception.

Maren was just coming back in their hotel room from calling Ryder. The boys were just as outraged as they had been. But the judge’s word was final: he had believed Hans and to try him again would violate his constitutional rights. All there was now was damage control. 

Elsa was sitting on the bed further from the door, softly stroking her sleeping sister’s hair. As Maren watched, she noticed the small tears falling from Elsa’s eyes. How many times had they had nightmares over this very outcome, only for it to come true?

Maren breathed deeply, loud enough as not to startle Elsa. Slowly, she stood behind her, wrapping warm arms around Elsa. “Hi,” she whispered with a light kiss to the neck.

“Hi,” she breathed. Even with just one word, Maren could hear the exhaustion in her voice. “How were the boys?”

Maren sighed to herself. “Angry. I had to convince Kristoff not to get on a plane right this minute. I think they’re going out to the batting cages, let some of it out before we come home tomorrow.” The sooner they were all out of this blasted city, the better, Maren figured. 

Elsa nodded, leaning her head back into Maren’s chest. “Tomorrow can’t come soon enough.” 

Maren hummed in agreement, holding tight. “How long has she been asleep?”

“Not long.”

“Then how about we do the same?” Maren suggested, leading Elsa towards their bed. “You’re exhausted.”

Elsa sighed rubbing at her eyes. “I wanna be there when she wakes up.”

“You will be. You’re only a few feet away, love. I promise it’s okay to take a break. Come here.” Maren left no room for argument, pulling her towards the soft sanctuary of the hotel bed. Surprisingly, Elsa didn’t resist, instead curling up into a ball. She was silent for a long time, long enough that Maren thought she had fallen asleep herself. 

“How did it go so wrong, bumblebee?” Elsa asked quietly, her voice wet with tears. It crushed Maren’s heart. “He should be rotting in a cell a million miles away, not walking the streets, working his patrol like nothing’s wrong.”

Maren shook her head, willing away her own tears. “I don’t know, snowflake.” She pulled Elsa closer to her. “I don’t know why or how. But it isn’t right.” Her eyes betrayed her, wet tears dripping down her face. “And we aren’t allowed to do a damn thing about it.” 

“And the way he talked to you! Even off duty, what kind of officer talks to his citizens like that?” Elsa’s face scrunched in distress. “He’s a racist, bigoted asshole and how can he just run free saying things like that?”

Maren looked down sadly, playing absentmindedly with the sheets. “More do it than you think, love. He’s no isolated case.” 

Elsa clenched her eyes tight. “It’s not right. None of this is right. Why? Why did it have to end like this?” she cried. Maren could only hold her for there were no words. 

They laid there for a long time, tears falling freely. There was no reason to be brave now. Sleep pulled at their eyes as the setting sun outside mirrored the pain in their hearts. Their darkest night was here, and all they could do was wait for the sun to rise again. 

What else could they do?

[paradise-of-guilty-pleasures]

Shattered Reflections {17}

[Helsa RP- Fanfic]

Fandom: Frozen

Genre: Post-Frozen/ Canon Divergence

- Hurt/Comfort, Drama, Romance

Pairing(s): Hans/Elsa, Kristoff/Anna

Previous Chapter: 16. Oh Brothers

17. Never Again

Hans knew it was ill-advised-- because everyone told him so. Still, he was a determined man, and doubly determined to make sure that he made himself useful. So after a few weeks and Hans could pick up his sword from the bureau, he had someone fetch him a cane, and walked out of his room escorted by Captain Kristofferson, to meet the guards they had wrangled up. 

 "Gentlemen," He announced, as he arrived, setting down a stack of papers he had brought with him. "I am Hans, and I have had many titles. Prince of the Southern Isles, Admiral of the same, treasonist, prisoner, fool, and advisor; I'm sure I'm missing a few. To you I am 'trainer' or 'teacher'. I'm here to ensure that people like me can't get past people like you again, so we don't have another raid like what happened a few weeks past. When I'm back in form after having been stabbed in the recent raid, I'll teach you all how to run to catch those who would flee, to fight those who would attack, and to stamp out any cowardice or fear of pain you have. At the end of training we will all have bruises, we will all want a heavy drink, and some of you may hate me, but you'll be a good set of guards in the end." 

 "Some of you were thwarted by a snow-child specifically meant to be kept out of a room you were guarding, and others had no problem letting a prince from another country casually take control of a kingdom. I had better not see abject failure to perform your duties like that again. That you now have a treasoner standing before you telling you how to do your damned jobs is a disgrace, and you need to be aware of that." He paused, looking over the guard staff, standing tall and speaking with the authority of the Commander of the Navy that he had once been. 

 "So, it's a very good thing that we're wiping that slate clean." He gestured to brush his hands off, leaning on his cane as he did. "From here on out, your motto is 'never again and never before'. You will never let that happen again, and it never happened. When you get hit in sparring, it has never happened before and it will never happen again. When you fail to complete physical training, it has never happened before and it will never happen again. When you fail, it will be a unique experience and you will learn from it or by god I will make you learn from it. You are here to guard the Queen of Arendelle, not to protect a sweet-shop in the market square from children. If you don't have an excuse from the doctor, you will train daily. If you aren't mourning a family loss or having a baby, you will be at work, and if you make a mistake you will own up to it and you will deal with the consequences like a man, and carry on with life as normal. And if we're all good at what we do, and we're all alive and well, we might even have a bit of fun with it. I've never been a man of the lash, I've always been more for drinking with the men, but I will bring it back if I have to. Now, everyone, pick up a paper and a pencil. I need to know where you're all at. I'll never have anyone do anything I wouldn't do, once my wound is fully healed I'll train right alongside the rest of you, and I'll challenge you to best me at every step. For now, let's get to know you and your experience." Hans was, and it was easy to forget, a military man. He knew how to command men and how to motivate them, both positively and negatively. 

The papers asked a number of questions. Name, Age, rank, years of experience; but it also included questions about travel, how many languages one spoke, personal hobbies; strengths and weaknesses, that sort of thing. Some things were intellectual questions about math or logic, some were morality questions. It was a strange hodgepodge of all sorts of questions, almost at random. ~~*~~

The majority guard consisted of men from their late teens/early twenties to mid-forties. There were a few outliers of course, but it's seemed like an accurate representation. The age differences seemed to split the men into two categories: the seasoned members that had been serving since before the Coronation and the new recruits who started serving after, many of them joining recently after the raid. So there were a lot of old dogs and new blood in the mix. There had been some murmurs among the men. Mostly among the new cadets, as well as some of the stubborn old men. A lot of them had been taken aback, when they found out the infamous Hans of the Southern Isles would be their training teacher. The newest recruits had only heard rumors of the Prince's return to Arendelle, they had not witnessed him taking charge during the raid nor understood why he was no longer a prisoner. Even if they were supposedly wiping the slate clean and having a fresh start, there was still some notable doubt among them, yet none of them spoke up to voice their concerns. They did as they were told and picked up a paper and pencil, at least they were good at following orders.

Hans adjusted himself to sit on the desk a while, to give them all time to work. 

 "When you're done, turn in your papers up front. If for whatever reason you can't complete a question, come to me and ask. I'm a bit of a bastard, yes, but I'll never tease you for an affliction like not knowing a word or not knowing how to read entirely. Indeed, if any of you know anyone who can't hear and needs a job, bring them here. Deaf people are oft good guards, and unfortunately overlooked. Hell, a few particularly ambitious women wouldn't hurt the guard staff either. We're a bit short staffed, by the look of things." He looked among the room. It was packed tight, but the room was already fairly small for the kingdom's guard staff. "Perhaps things are done differently in the Isles, but I don't understand how a kingdom can exist so readily with so few guards. I suppose I should be glad we lasted as long as we did, during the raid. It isn't the fault of any one man, nor even the group of you, I suppose. I cannot fault a fisherman for not catching fish, if none taught him how. At any rate, this is not a graded test." 

 He waited patiently until the tests were turned in, then stood up again. He moved more slowly, but hid how much pain he was in. "I'll look at these tests a bit later. If you have concerns, feel free to bring them to me privately, I'm sure you know where I'm staying." He offered, leaning heavily on his cane. "Now that that's done, let's clear the air a bit. You all have questions, I can see. I have answers, and I'm not opposed to giving them. Go ahead and ask, I can't do much physical training with you yet, after my own injuries, but I can train your minds, and I've precious little else to do while I'm healing. So, give me your best shot. Ask your questions, 'what did this son of a bitch do to deserve this job'?" He was still a sailor, and there were no royals around. He could curse if he damned well pleased. He waited to see who had questions to ask.

It was rather quiet, with only a few hushed voices murmuring among each other. It seemed no one would be brave enough to question Hans, then all of a sudden the silence was broken. 

 "What did you do?" one of the new recruits boldly asked. Surprised, everyone turned to look at the young man. "'Cause last most of us have heard, you were the traitor of Arendelle, tryin' to take over the throne." There were gasps at the cadet's audacity to ask. Even with all the eyes on him the boy stood tall and not sheepish about what he'd just asked. Hans had offered after all, everyone was thinking it, so why not dare to ask to get the answers they wanted?

Hans chuckled a little. "Brave boy, I'll teach you how to lead. It takes guts to ask those questions before others, guts that leaders need and followers need to learn to use." He observed. "I was the traitor, yes. I had my reasons, reasons I'm sure I'll tell you all about at some point, but rest assured they weren't very good. I came back to tell my side of the story and make amends. For more reasons, I was in the castle at the time of the raid. Because the castle rooms aren't built as a prison cell, the doors were left unlocked and guards left, under the assumption that they would be able to stop me if I tried to leave. I won't postulate about whether or not that's a correct assumption, but I never tried the door until I heard the sound change in the hall, and the guards understandably gone. Then I went searching for a sword, to help fend off the attackers. By the time I got to the Queen's side, even Captain Kristofferson was down, so the Queen and I held off much of the attack until Anna's boyfriend -Lord Kristoff, I believe?- came in with bow and arrows. The fight wasn't fun, but we managed against nigh impossible odds. I got stabbed in the process and caught a pommel to the face, the Queen got a slight scratch to her face and an injured arm." He explained. "As it turns out, the pommel truly is the way to 'end them rightly'." That was a very niche and obscure joke he didn't expect a single one of them to understand. As if to illustrate his point regarding wounds, he raised the hem of his shirt so they could see the unpleasant wound to his side, stitches gone, but the wound still red and warped. "It's not my first, nor my last scar, in battle or otherwise, and I was already healing from the lashes one gets for being a traitor in the navy, if you'd like to see those scars, too." He gestured to his back, but didn't show them immediately. He looked more amused than bothered. "Does that answer your question? I'm afraid I do love to ramble, feel free to ask more."

"Yes, sir." The young man answered with a nod. There was a brief silence yet again. 

 "Question," someone else spoke up. This time it was one of the older men. "About the paper we just filled out. The questions made sense, for the most part, but some of them seemed rather arbitrary, for example asking about our personal hobbies. I don't understand how exactly knowing that information has anything to do with training?"

Hans smiled a bit and shrugged. "Whom do you send to learn tactics for battle-- the man who prefers swordplay, or the man who prefers games of skill? The answer is games, for tactics are just strategy games with a risk. Who do you send to battle, the gambler or the logician? The gambler, because he understands chance. Westergaard ways are old ways, I prepare for sieges and swordplay, as well as modern diplomacy. Does anyone know why Deaf guards are so very useful?" He asked, and glanced between them, to see if there would be answers. "A Deaf man on a ship cannot be fazed by cannon fire around him, a Deaf guard in a castle chamber cannot spill secrets. Every man has his use and every hobby has its useful applications, if only we can find them. We in Arendelle have the unique experience of living in an era under which ice is our greatest tactical advantage, so if any of you happen to enjoy ice-skating-- you'll be the finest swordsmen we'll have by the time I'm through with you. If you have good aim, archers. If you favor brute strength, zweihanders and door-breakers, if you prefer to run, we'll have ammunition runners and recovery men. Everyone will have their uses and be able to be dispatched at notice. I will get to know your names and your stories over time, as will Captain Kristofferson, so we will know where to send you at a moment's notice when you're needed. We'll see who's the best not by bragging, but by practice, and everyone here will be the best in the squad at something." He paused, and rolled his neck, to pop it and let the silence hang a moment. "Every man has his use. Does anyone know why a cat is a necessary crewman at sea?" He waited patiently, to see if anyone would answer.

"Vermin," answered one of the men. "To keep rats from eating everything," added another. "They've got nine lives," one remarked more humorously.

Hans laughed. "Yes I am, but what about the cat?" He joked dryly. "For the mice, precisely, but their luck doesn't hurt either! If the ships had mice, the mice would eat the food, and the men would have no food to eat. Thus, we would have a dead crew and a dead ship, all for the lack of one hungry cat. Who among you will be our hungry cat? Someone will be the lynchpin of success, and it could be for any reason, in any event. Who will be Fletcher, the young man in the crow's nest who could point out pirates in a fog too thick to see the fore from the aft? Who will be the cannoneer Grym, with perfect aim? There is a niche for each of you to fill, in order to make a perfect crew, and without the right ones, we may fall. So, I will find you your niche, if you don't find it for yourself." He assured, already getting excited about the prospect. "And as soon as this damned wound heals, we are going to have ourselves a hunt." He rubbed his hands together, already excited at the prospect. "For now... who wants to try some sword fighting? I'm reasonably confident I can take any one of you injured, and I'd like to see you bastards prove me wrong." He grinned playfully, clearly just trying to get them in the spirit of the game, and get them geared up to beat him at sword fighting.

The men's laughter rumbled throughout the room. Hans had managed to boost the troops' morale to start their training and him opening up for questions had seemed to ease some of their doubts. 

 "I'd gladly oblige to your challenge Westergaard, just to try to prove you wrong, I like seemingly impossible odds. Though it's highly likely you're still able to kick my hind, even in your current condition, I don't think the Queen would be to thrilled if she found out I returned you more scratched up than you are now, that is if I managed to surprise even myself by beating you," chuckled Captain Kristofferson. "I'll also take you up on your offer, for real, once you're in peak condition, even if that means the odds are against me. It'll hurt my pride to lose, even if it's just in practice and 'it never happened', but if it helps me improve myself in any way to better protect Arendelle I'll do it in a heartbeat. I hope you're all committed to do the same." He declared, taking the lead trying to set the example to his men as is to be expected of a Captain.

Hans rubbed his hands together. "Excellent, let's show the men a good sporting game, shall we? Out to the yards then, tell me you've got some good practice swords? I expect to have to order you all a whole new armory, but practice swords should absolutely be standard. I don't know whether I'll be more disappointed if they're falling to pieces, or if they're new." He warned. He still leaned on his cane somewhat as he moved. "Luckily my injury isn't on my sword-arm side. You might stand a chance if I had to operate left-handed." He teased. In spite of the cane, he moved quickly enough. He moved out to the practice yard, and claimed himself a practice sword closer to a navy cutlass than his own bastard sword, with a few practice swings. "This'll do." He then went about checking the space to clear it out, and used the point of it to hack a few rings into the space. 

 "Who was present during the raid?" He asked, when he was done, moving himself to the center of the rings he had made. "Who, if any among you, recalls what direction I shouted as I passed by to find the Queen? What advice did I give? And, why am I asking?" He loved to challenge them with questions, in between making them laugh. He was glad to see they had a sense of humor about them. That was more or less how he led ships, too.

There were various voices that answered: 

 "Press in!"

 "Repel them back!"

  "Hold the line!"

 As Hans was having a teaching moment, the Captain was choosing his sword, he decided to go with a standard arming sword.

Hans clasped his hands over his wooden sword-hilt and looked so proud. 

 "My god, you actually listened." He seemed genuinely touched at the idea. He took a moment, then cleared his throat a little. "Now, today we're going to see what I mean by that. We can all see where I'm starting, yes? Bulls-eye." He gestured down, standing in the middle of the field. 

"Captain, drive me as far from this point as you can, and I'll try to defend without moving from the bulls-eye. Then we'll switch, and see who can press the other back furthest. You know the rules, only thieves try to hit family jewels, ey? And I'd like my head as un-cracked as possible while I'm still recovering from my two recent near-death experiences. Otherwise, do your damnedest, or I'll never stop giving you shit about it." He flourished with his wooden blade a little, and readied himself. The Hans who trained men was certainly a different man from the Prince Hans who was all 'Your Majesty's and 'Good Sir's. He suspected this Hans was the one the men would learn from best.

"I won't go easy on you just because your wounded Westergaard, I know you won't hold back either, and I'm quite aware I'll never hear the end of it if I don't give it my all," affirmed the Captain with a nod, holding his sword with both hands in the ready position. Once he saw Hans was ready he charged him with all his might.

"Good, because you'll never hear the end of it when you lose to a wounded man, either." Hans teased. He proved to be an agile fighter, in spite of his cane, which he seemed to have forgotten about, fallen to the ground. He defended and parried skillfully, using short thrusts and sharp raps about the shins to force the Captain to back up as best he could, stepping to one side or ducking or even turning -into- attacks to avoid being forced back. He didn't hit hard, because that wasn't the purpose; nor did he aim to disarm, because that would've gone against the point. He simply aimed to hold his ground. While injured, of course, this was no easy task. Being limited to a circle was a difficult business, and this was certainly the challenged position to begin in. He was forced back once or twice by attacks to his weak side, which he was forced to defend more carefully against, but he regained his position by stepping in close and aiming for weak parts of the abdomen, or careful strikes near the neck. He said he wouldn't attack the head, but he'd never said anything about the throat. He was all business during the fight, perhaps entirely because he had to be, as he was recovering. He kept his free hand over his wound, to protect it from getting any worse, but he never flinched from a blow, even if it did make one of his many injuries hurt.

  "I think we've quite made our point, Captain? We never did specify an endgame, my fool mistake, but if I reopen any of my wounds, my doctor may simply stitch me up with a burlap like a sack-doll, so I ought to be careful." He chuckled a little, clearly wearing a little, himself. He would be the first to admit that he wasn't in full form, and he doubted the Captain was, either. They had proved the point, that was the necessity. The battle was short, but illustrative. "Shall we switch?"

" Of course," agreed the Captain. "Wouldn't want to get an earful from the doctor and much less displease her Majesty by being the one responsible in completing your transformation from man to hessian." They switched places, and the Captain was trying to prepare himself for Hans swordsmanship as the one charging, he knew the younger man was far more experienced in swordplay than he and the only he could really do was try to stand his ground as best he could for as long as he could manage.

 "I'm tempted to say you think far too much of her Majesty's opinion of me." Hans pointed out. The first time he said it, it was an amusing aside. Now he was beginning to wonder what exactly their reputation in the castle was. "You're not implying anything, are you? About Her Majesty or I?" He seemed genuinely thrown by that idea. It took him a moment to think about that, before he began his assault. He started easy, throwing a few attacks, defending a few others. Then as he got back into the rhythm, he took his own message-- Press in. He stepped into the Captain's personal space, ignoring the lines, shoving the other's sword away to get as close as humanly possible. He was also not above throwing in an elbow or a knee. Swordsmanship was one thing, but in close combat, a dagger was more useful, and an elbow would do in the meanwhile. Again, he didn't do it painfully, he was illustrating a point. His goal was not to hurt the Captain, nor to disarm him, but simply to push him out. That was the advice that he gave to the Arendelle guards-- push forward.

"Not at all, I'm not implying anything," the Captain retorted, stern shake of the head. "Just indicating the Queen's compassion, and that it wouldn't look good on my behalf as her Guard's Captain if I mistreat an already injured man." The Captain was just calling it like he saw it, Elsa clearly cared about the Prince's well-being that was undeniable, he wasn't insinuating anything about their relationship, he would never presumptuously speak ill of the Queen. 

 The Captain had not expected Hans to get up so close and personal in his combat, he was finding it quite difficult to continue to roll with the punches. Hans was good at using him as a dummy to demonstrate the tactic.

"Oh good, I might've been a little thrown, then." Hans teased gently, sounding much less bothered now. "My brother Eduard was always much better at this tactic," He admitted, even slipping past the Captain, only to turn and hook his throat with an arm. Harmless, no blade contact, but enough to halt the defense. "But he was good at getting into men's personal spaces for much different reasons." He let the insinuation be playfully scandalous for the men to ponder over. He twisted to kick the Captain's leg out from under him and bring them both down-- though Hans came down on his knee, and grunted a bit as his wound moved painfully. "Ah, and there's where my doctor yells at me." He huffed, cringing at the pain he inflicted upon himself. The landing for the Captain would have been softer, all on the grass, nothing contorted or twisted, just uncomfortable. 

 "Alright then, well done, Captain." He stood back up, though struggling a little with his wound, and offered a hand to help the other up just the same. "Now then, lessons: See how far we moved?" He gestured down at the ground. "I gave the Captain no choice but to retreat, by getting into his personal space. It limited my opportunities, but I am familiar with one of my favorite rules of swordplay: Swords alone are for duels. Wars are won by teeth and pommels, sand in the eyes and dirty tricks. Use your elbows, use your knees, use your god-given wits before you lose them. Hell, use your head if you fancy it's hard enough. Watch your environment, know your opponent. Are they chatty? Wounded? Favoring their left? Do they excel at power or balance? Lord, I think I'm done with demonstrations for the afternoon." He laughed somewhat painfully and used his sword to pick up his cane, to use that. "Don't let me catch any of you using a sword as a cane either, wood or no. Else I'll teach you what a sword is for the way we do in the Isles." He huffed a little, leaning on it. He really needed to be more cautious.

 The Captain took his hand and stood up quickly, not wanting to weigh him down. "We might have been a bit too ambitious. How about we --and I mostly mean you-- don't do anymore physical demonstrations ey, Westergaard? At least until you manage to heal that up well enough not to damage it again, lest you wish to keep the injury there indefinitely. I'll handle the physical training myself until you're up to the mark, you shouldn't worry about anything other than writing up guidance or giving out orders before that time comes. Don't worry I'll be as rigorous as you intend to be, can't cut them any slack. Got to give it our all from the set about else they're bound to rout later, once you're finally ready to train them for real. You might be in charge of retraining, but it's still my job to command the troops."

 Hans chuckled dryly. "Ah, but it's just not as fun for me." He joked. "A little pain never stopped me from a damn thing, but you are right, her Majesty would be vexed by me hurting myself, so I'd best not do that again for a bit. I wasn't really planning to do that, to be frank I was expecting the written test to take longer." He glanced at the sky to check the time. He didn't exactly have a watch, as a prisoner. "I'm just showing my pains now so you'll keep me honest." Why else would he? Pain was useless to him. "I'll see about writing up some simple physical fitness goals and exercises for you to train them with. I may start borrowing men periodically to speak to them about these tests, get to know a few." He looked over at the men pensively.

  "So then, that, my dear boys, is what we call a Pyrrhic victory, something I'm quite prone to. Is a win still a win when you've lost as much as you've gained? That's a philosophical subject for you to decide. For me, as long as whatever I do improves the chances of her Majesty surviving another raid, I'll take my pains and be glad about it. Pain just means I'm still alive enough to suffer it, but maybe that's just a philosophy one gets with twelve older brothers. So, what do we think of me? Hm? Am I good enough to train her Majesty's guards after my wound is properly healed?" He wanted to see, was the murmuring and skepticism still there? Had he won them over? Or were there yet holdouts who hated him? They were the ones he wanted to speak with first and longest.

The men all silently looked at once another for a moment. Then some voices started to spark from the crowd.

  "Yeah!"

  "For Arendelle!"

 The voices all got louder and echoed among the men, they all seemed rather animated, cheering and raising their fists in a sign of support, if there were still any embittered people among them they surely didn't seem to stand out anymore.

Hans seemed, not just surprised, but genuinely touched. In a way, it was bittersweet. They believed him so readily, they genuinely thought he wanted to help Arendelle. And, he did. But god, how did they believe it? What had he done to deserve that same loyalty that he got from his crew. 

 He fixed his usual confident look to his face, with a wry smile. "Excellent. Keep that spirit, men. And do come to visit me if you want to talk about anything. God knows I'm bored, healing. I'll take these papers, and leave you to it, returning to my... room?" He looked at the Captain, almost raising an eyebrow. "I'll be perfectly honest... I'm still not used to not calling it a cell." Did that say more about him, or what he was used to?

 "Anyway, I should be off, before I do some other demonstration and accidentally kill myself." He laughed dryly. In truth, he was leaving so he could get to his room and try not to cry again, this time with, what, relief? It was a good feeling, whatever it was. Bittersweet.

[sparrowjaywrites]

In My Head

(Soulmate AU: You hear your soulmates thoughts but can’t tell them your name or what you look like.)

(Gender Neutral Reader X Cisco Ramon)

           You’d heard him since your twelfth birthday, your soulmate. People could begin to hear them at any point in their lives as long as both soulmates where over the age of five. No one really understood how it worked or why some people started hearing soulmates on their fifth birthday and some didn’t hear them until they were in their nineties. The only thing anyone knew for sure outside the age requirements is if one could hear their soulmate, their soulmate could hear them. Oh and of course there where the rules.

           Soulmates rules where considered to be as real and unbreakable as the laws of physics, or as unbreakable as they had been before Meta Humans had started running around. Rule One: One could not tell their soulmates their name. Rule Two: One could not tell their soulmate their age. Rule Three: One could not describe themselves to their soulmate. Rule Four: One could not tell their soulmate their location (Discussing future locations could work but no dates or times). Rule Five: One could not block out their soulmate.

           The rules where not the only things making finding ones soulmate hard; people could of course fall in love with people who weren’t their soulmate whether they could hear them or not. It wasn’t uncommon for people to wake up one day able to hear their soulmates only to find their soulmates where happily married and soulmate or not they were not willing to leave their marriage or their kids. Many people who ended on the unhappy side of these situations would end up taking their own lives within the year. This had prompted the invention of a device that could severe a soulmate connection; this severance could end very badly and had been banned in most countries, but some desperate people still found a way when needed.

           You had begun hearing your soulmate at twelve; you’d nicknamed him Westley after learning his obsession with the movie Princess Bride. In response he’d tried to nickname you Buttercup, that hadn’t ended well. After a few weeks of arguing he’d come up with the nickname Starlight, he would never tell you why.

           Westley was an interesting guy, way too smart for his own good sometimes, hilarious, obsessed with pop culture, sassy as all hell, and very good at reading people, even when they were simply a voice in his head. His favorite color is purple although that does tend to change weekly, his favorite Pokémon is Bulbasaur, and he really likes superheroes.

           You had decided not long after meeting him in your head the first time that you would find him someday. Of course the particle accelerator blowing up had put a damper on that for a while. When ones soulmate died the other wouldn’t know it, they would simply stop responding to them.

           When the particle accelerator had blown up, you had been thrown through a window by the dark matter blast, your injuries resulting in a yearlong coma. When you had woken up it had taken a few weeks for the connection to reactivate and Westley had flipped out. He’d thought you had died. You hadn’t told him why you had been in a coma for so long not wanting him to know you were a Meta human, scared of what he’d think.

           You’d woken up a Meta human nearly five years ago now, and had yet to meet Westley in person. He’d dated on and off during that time, hesitantly but excitedly telling you about his current relationship as he always had in high school. You had also dated of course but not as recently. At nearly thirty you just wanted to meet Westley in real life, you had fallen in love with him years ago, although you’d never tell him that. He was your closest friend, for obvious reasons.

           ‘Morning, Starlight, what are you up too today?’ You smile shaking your head as you slip a strand of (H/C) hair behind your ear.

           ‘Coffee at the shop, while I work on my book.’ You respond sipping your medium flash with vanilla bean creamer.

           ‘I’m getting coffee right now, maybe this is the day we’ll meet?’ Westley responds excitedly.

           ‘Of course, you’ll trip and spill coffee on me like in all the cliché fanfictions your always telling me to read on Tumblr.’ You snicker.

           ‘What makes you think I’ll be the one spilling the coffee? Who says it wouldn’t be the other way around?”

           ‘Because for one, I’m sitting down, and two even if I was walking I’m more coordinated then you.’

           ‘Are not! You trip over everything!’

           ‘Exactly and your still a bigger klutz, that’s my point.’

           ‘Well I never.’ He huffs mockingly laughing lightly. You snicker smiling at the laugh. The day passed as usual you spent your morning at Jitters working on your book interrupted every twenty minutes or so by Westley making a joke or asking you something. Your afternoon was spent working on tech for your company, (Y/L/N) Technologies.

           ‘I just looked at the sky and thought of you, my Starlight.’ You let out a small snort at the pickup line you’d heard a million times before.

           ‘I like the line and all Westley, but you need new ones.’

           ‘As you wish.’ You let out another laugh causing people to glance at your; you bow your head with a blush.

           ‘Shut up, you’re making people stare at me.’

           ‘Oh am I?’ That mischievous tone is one you know well, and it spells trouble. ‘Hmm maybe I should just look up something to read to you then?’

           ‘Don’t you…’

           ‘Here we go, the five times Luke walked in on Han and Leia and he one time they walked in on him, this will be a most interesting read wouldn’t you say, Starlight?’

           ‘Westley, I swear to god!’ You groan your face a bright red as you wish for the line to move faster or for your obnoxious soulmate to shut the fuck up.

           ‘Luke was bored, he wanted to go for a ride in the Falcon, but Han was not where to be found. Oh well he would just go for his ride and Han would never need to know… as he entered the Falcon he found something a strange, a random black boot sat in the doorway as if thrown there. Shrugging he steps inside more clothing were spread down the hall leading to the cockpit… oh double meaning!’ Westley reads dramatically clearly getting a huge kick out of your annoyance and protests.

           “A large flash to go with vanilla bean creamer please.” You order doing your best to keep a straight face.”

           ‘Luke’s eyes widened as he froze in place, in the captain’s chair was his twin sister, in far less clothing then he’d ever seen before, on top of her was his best friend in a similar state of dress. “Oh, Han, yes!” Luke quickly turned on his heel running for his life wishing he hadn’t seen that!’

           ‘Westley that’s gross, knock it off!’

           ‘It is pretty badly written, I’m sure you could write it better!’ Westley laughs.

           ‘Would you shut up, you damn idi…’ Your train of thought is derailed as a dagger spins past your face lodging in the counter in front of you. It glowed with a golden orange. You spin around in time to see a person in a black coat with a hood and mask standing in the doorway as people start screaming around you. The person holds out a black clad hand the dagger spinning from the counter into it.

            You take a step back; dropping your coffee clenching your fist silver sparks crackle around it for half a second before suddenly failing. Why weren’t your powers working?

           ‘Starlight?’ Before you can answer the dagger is spinning towards you, just before it can hit you’re tackled to the ground by a dark skinned woman with long black hair.

           “Are you okay?” The woman asks quickly.

           “Y… yeah, I think so.” You nod moving to your feet, pulling your gun from your ankle holder as you do, the dagger spins back across the coffee shop into the monstrous Meta’s hand.

           “It’s time for you to die.” The Meta says stalking towards them. You drag the woman who saved you to the side as the dagger spins towards them again. You raise your gun.

           “Back off.” The Meta throws the dagger again, you open fire, one bullet bounces off the dagger sending it off course, the Meta quickly dodges the other.

           “Are you a Meta human?” The woman from before asks you. “She’s after Meta’s that’s the new Cicada.” You blink at her looking back at the woman firing two more rounds that miss, embedding in the now empty of patrons shop walls.

           “Yes, I am.” You admit.

           “Leave them alone.” A vibrating voice joins the madness as a red steak appears in front of them, less than a foot away stood the Flash. Westley would be having a field day right now if he where there, he loved Meta Heroes.

           “Good, I can kill you too.” A purple blur suddenly shows and the next thing you know you are being set down in what looks like a lab of some type. Computer monitors surround you. The woman from the shop quickly rushes over to a computer talking to the Flash through a headpiece. Moments later XS and the Flash are standing in front of you.

           “Are you okay?” Flash asks gently taking your gun from your hands. You blink still processing where you are.

           “Um… I… uh,” You run a hand through the back of your (H/L) hair nervously, when did your hands start shaking? “I think so… where am I?”

           “This is Star Labs; we brought you here to get away from Cicada.” The woman speaks up. You slowly nod.

           “Okay… why the hell is this Cicada after me in the first place?”

           “She wants all Meta humans dead.” XS explains.

           “How would she even know I’m a Meta? No one and I mean literally no one knew but me before tonight.” You protest crossing your arms.

           “The dagger she was using has the power to block powers, it glows when near a Meta human, you probably were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.” Flash explains. You nod frowning.

           “Then what the hell am I supposed to do?”

           “We’ve gotten most of the Meta’s out of the city and into hiding?” A woman with long brown hair says entering the room followed by a man who you were pretty positive was Harrison Wells, which made no sense as he’d been dead for four years, a tall dark skinned man, the DA, Elongated Man, and Vibe… who was another person you thought was dead.

           “I can’t just up and disappear.” You protest looking around at the super heroes in front of you.

           “Protective custody is your best shot.” The man suggests stepping forwards and showing you his badge, Detective Joseph West, the DA’s husband and the head of the Meta task force at the CCPD, you’d met him once after the particle accelerator had blown up.

           “If this lady is after Meta’s then why haven’t all of you left?” You challenge motioning to the Meta heroes.

           “Because we’re trying to stop Cicada and this is our home.” Elongated Man says.

           “Exactly, this is your home. Central City is my home; I’m not going to run away because some new psycho with a thing for leather and hypocrisy wants me dead.”

           “If you don’t go you’ll die. We can’t protect you all the time.” Flash argues.

           “I can protect myself.” You shake your head.

           “Your powers won’t work around Cicada.” The DA speaks up.

           “I wasn’t referring to my powers, and if powers don’t work against them, then I’m on an even playing field as all of you.”

           “We’re not going to be able to convince you are we?” Flash sighs shoulders slumping a bit.

           “Nope.” Flash shares a look with the woman from Jitters and XS two blurs disappearing down the hall, followed by everyone but Detective West. The two of you stand there awkwardly for a few minutes before the group enters again.

           “I’m Iris, this is Caitlin and Sherloque.” The woman from Jitters introduces herself motioning to the brown haired lady and the Harrison Wells look alike. “That’s Cecille,” She motions to the DA. “And I’m sure you know who the different heroes are?”

           “I do.”

           “What’s your name?” Flash asks.

           “(Y/F/N) (Y/L/N), most people call me (Y/N/N).” You introduce yourself smirking when she sees the Flash’s eyes widen.

           “The CEO and founder of (Y/L/N) Tech?” You nod with a snort.

           “Yup.”

           “Oh…” XS says eyes wide, looking surprised. A few people look at her questioningly; she shakes her head at them with the universal gesture for later.

           “What are your powers?” Detective West asks.

           “Do I have immunity for anything I say here?” You ask narrowing your eyes at him. “I’m not a criminal but I’d rather not regret this little meeting later?”

           “Of course.” Cecille speaks up, smiling at you.

           “Any of you heard of the vigilante people are calling Starlight?”

           “Yeah.” Iris nods.

           “You’re looking at them.” You gesture to yourself.

           “But you look nothing like them?” Elongated Man says shocked. You snort. You push a few buttons on your watch; thin strands of metal quickly cover your body from your watch, your belt and your glasses. A simple black suit covers you, silver specks shimmering throughout. Metal wraps around your glasses turning them more into a mask. You clench your fists then open them, shimmering silver sparks quickly spread over the suit making the effect look like a shimmering night sky full of stars, your hair floats up a bit turning a shimmering silver, your (Y/E/C) eyes quickly turning a soft silver. “Whoa…”

           “That’s amazing.” Flash laughs. XS is grinning now looking beyond excited.

           “Okay, that’s cool.” Detective West says pointing at you.

           “That’s wicked.” Vibe laughs grinning; he’d been silent so far looking at you as if trying to figure something out. Your eyes snap to him. You knew why he’d been staring at you now… his voice you recognized it… you’d heard it every day since you were twelve.

           “Well since we know your identity it’s only fair.” Flash shrugs looking at the others who nod. He removes his mask, and holds a hand out to you, his brown hair now free from the rubber. “Barry Allen.” You look at his hand having to drag your eyes away from Vibe. You shake his hand.

           “Nice to meet you.”

           “This is Nora, Ralph, and Cisco.” Barry motions in order to XS, Elongated Man, and Vibe. You look Vibe over without his glasses, he was cute, Hispanic, with flowing black hair, a kind smile. You deactivate your suit, letting your powers subside, your hair and eyes quickly changing back to normal.

           “Well, (Y/N/N) if you won’t leave we’ll have to figure something out.” Barry says smiling at you.

           “You could join team Flash?” Nora speaks up stepping forward smiling hopefully at Barry. “You’d make a great addition!” You raise an eyebrow.

           “Nora, a word please?” Iris speaks up. The two step out Barry following.

           “So, Starlight? I see where you get the name.” Cisco approaches you as the rest of the group follow Nora seemingly to join the conversation you can hear getting heated in the hallway.

           “I had the nickname long before I became a Meta.” You eye him up and down. “But I think you figured that out… Westley?” Cisco breaks into a grin.

           “I thought I recognized your voice.”

           “I recognized yours as soon as you spoke.” You laugh. “But to be sure.” You hold your hand out to him. Cisco takes your hand hesitantly. A slight jolt shots up your arm.

           ‘So Westley, my name is (Y/F/N)… holy shit, it is you!’ You think to him slowly grinning as you realize the rules were gone. When a person first made physical contact with their soulmate after their connection was made the rules would break allowing them to talk more freely from then on.

           ‘I can’t believe it’s really you…’ Cisco thinks back grinning just as widely. “It’s wonderful to finally meet you, Starlight. I’m Francisco Ramon, I’m your soulmate.” Cisco says out load.

           “It’s wonderful to meet you too, Cisco.”

~~~

AN: And that’s the end of Part One? I may do a few more parts?

[hwas-housewife]

Perfect U

Yoon Jeonghan x Reader

Word Count: 1.1k words

Summary: When Jeonghan comes home to a crying Y/N, he finds his own way of comforting her. 

Warning: pure, unadulterated crackhead Jeonghan. You have been warned 

A/N: this is a crack seventeen alternative of my other drabble, Support Squad. Special thanks to @nomnomsik and @kimseokmomjins for filling my head with crackhead ideas all the time, this one’s for you~

~~~~~

Your body shook as you choked out yet another sob in your attempt to quiet down your crying.

It had already been twenty minutes since the beginning of your breakdown, and the last thing you wanted was for Jeonghan to come home from practicing all day to this.

His girlfriend of over a year, crumbled on the ground in the middle of their shared bathroom, sobbing uncontrollably.

It started slowly, stemming from a prolonged look in the mirror. You originally wandered into the bathroom to brush through your knotted hair, for it had been a mess since you woke up three hours prior, and you had yet to touch it.

Grabbing the hairbrush from its location on the counter, you stood in front of the mirror on the door and began to brush through your hair.

Sadly, your hair decided it would refuse to cooperate today. No matter how many times you ran the brush through your hair, it never seemed to settle right on your head. One brush after the other, your hair just didn’t seem to fit your face.

From there, your gaze wandered elsewhere on your body. You squished your face a few times, noticing a couple of blemishes blossoming on your face and a few too many hairs around your brow bone. Your face morphed into one of disgust as you released your cheeks.

You looked at your arms, which just didn’t seem to fit the proportions you swore they used to be. They looked wrong for your body. Too long, perhaps? After that, you began to come to acknowledge how nothing on your body seemed to feel right.

Nothing looked particularly desirable. You weren’t a supermodel for goodness sake. You’re just a normal girl, who somehow managed to score one of the biggest idols to ever exist, as your boyfriend.

And that’s when the tears, which you didn’t even notice were already trickling down your face, morphed into a full-on breakdown.

How could anyone like you if you looked like this? How could your boyfriend like you like this?

Your body slowly sank to the floor, where it has remained for all of your breakdown. The cold tile of the bathroom floor underneath you has long since numbed your bare legs.

Your thought spirals, like this one, are not uncommon events. On the contrary, these spirals are something that has led to many late-night conversations with Jeonghan about the most random topics. But it would suffice to say that this was one of the most negative, and dramatic spiral yet.

You were so in your head about trying to stop crying before Jeonghan came home, that you didn’t even hear the click of the front door unlocking, or the padding of his footsteps as he approached you.

“Y/N?” Hannie knocked lightly on the bathroom, already hearing the muffled cries behind the door, “Can I come in?”

The sound of his voice was like a cold hard slap back into reality. You rushed to stand up, a big mistake since your legs were fast asleep below you. A series of loud sounds followed as you tried to regain footing, alarming you and Jeonghan.

Frightened by the aggressive sounds, Hannie entered the bathroom without your permission. A sigh of relief left his lips once he entered, as his eyes quickly glanced over your body for injuries and found none.

The relief didn’t last long, though, seeing your puffed eyes and tear-stained face.

“Y/N, baby, what’s wrong?”

His question echoed in the bathroom, which for some reason feels way smaller than you remembered it ever being. A moment of silence past as you stood there, your arms circling your midsection, before another sob escaped through your cracked lips.

Warmth engulfed your entire frame within seconds, as Hannie wrapped his body around yours. His entire frame surrounded your small one with a comfort that you welcomed openly.

For a few minutes, the two of you just stood there. Jeonghan rocked you back and forth, shushing you as a few more stray tears escaped from beyond your eyes.

Once you were calm enough to speak, you buried your head deeper into his chest and rushed out a few muffled words.

“Could you please say that again, angel? I didn’t quite hear you,” Hannie’s soft voice reverberated in his chest, mixing in with his heartbeat you were focusing in on.

Reluctantly, you pried your head away from his torso to stare meekly at the ground.

“Why do you love me? I’m not even as pretty as the other idols,” your voice might have felt small, but Jeonghan heard it clear as day.

His body went ice cold from fear and worry coursing through his veins.

“Is that what this is about? Do you think I don’t love you Y/N?”

He gently grabbed your face in his gentle hand, tilting it upwards so he can meet your eyes. All you gave him was a weak, defeated nod.

“Angel, I have so much to say, but I can’t seem to organize myself,” his words escaped his lips with a sign and ghost of a smile, “What I wanted to say is that on one fine day, you magically appeared and took my heart and attracted my eyes.”

Han made eye contact with you, noticing your wide-eyed stare, and decided to continue.

“We chose each other, Y/N, and when I see you, it's breathtaking. Normally I'm not like this, but I want to show you myself without hiding anything. What kind of expression can deliver my heart? Should I take my heart out to copy and paste on you?”

At those words, Jeonghan’s slender finger booped your nose, the ghost of a smile now on full display for you to see.

Tears began to well in your eyes for a second time, but this time from laughing. Jeonghan gave you a puzzled look.

“Aren’t those just the Pretty U lyrics, Han?”

A wide smile graced his face as he chose his next words carefully.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but I can’t see anything but you. You’re so ice ice baby.--”

You cut your idiot of a boyfriend off and pulled him into a tight embrace.

“Too obvious?”

“Thank you. I really needed that, despite you stealing those words from the others,” you whispered back.

He then laid a gentle kiss to the crown of your head. Jeonghan’s smirk gave away what he was up to as you listened to his next few words carefully.

“You’re perfect Y/N. One could say you’re a perfect u.”

The apartment echoed with yours and Jeonghan’s laughter for the remainder of the night.

[butchgwenwhyvar]

“And all the stars that scream” “there are no happy endings” “what endings find us happiness”

OW FLAIM WHYYYY 

ok here we go

“And all the stars that scream” would be a codex fic where Rex finds out what happened to Cody on Utapau and the aftermath, and ends in Rex going to Kamino in a royal snit to try and de-brainwash his husband. Unbeknownst to him, Cody’s no longer under the influence of the chip and is training the latest batch of stormtroopers. He’s bitter and lonely and depressed and hates what he’s doing. Sure, there was no glory in war, but he was fighting for a cause, fighting for honour and safety. There’s none of that in the Empire, and now he’s just training a bunch of kids who are freshly kidnapped and scared and he has to show them how to fight and he just can’t take it anymore. The Empire gets hold of Rex and tortures him in front of Cody, and Cody can’t do anything but watch and scream as his husband is slowly killed in front of him. 

Eventually, the rebellion (and Ahsoka) comes to rescue them because Rex got a distress beacon out before he was captured and they get to a safe planet, but it’s too late to save Rex. He gets his happy reunion with Cody, but he dies in his husband’s arms. His last words are probably something sappy like ‘the stars were never as beautiful as you’ (because I like tying fic titles into dialogue for some reason), and Cody joins the rebellion and fights for all that Rex tried to save him from

(and now I’m sad and I want to write this. It’d probably be a multi-chapter epic with a giant playlist and fanart or something)

I thought about turning “There are no happy endings” into my usual obianidala with Obi-Wan moping post RotS but I’ve written three and posted two of those and it’s utterly fucking typical for me, so I’d say this would either be Vader reminiscing about the war and how happy he was and how he fucked it up, or it could be force ghost! Padme looking at Vader and Obi-Wan moping and murdering. 

If we went Vader, it would start with Anakin and Obi-Wan and Padme waking up together and having a peaceful morning with the twins and Ahsoka dropping in and it’s all happy. And then Vader wakes up feeling slightly unsettled, like something from his past’s just come out of his head and whacked him on the helmet, but he ignores it and goes about his day. He keeps seeing things in the corner of his eye though, like there’s a kid following him around the ship. He just shrugs it off because there’s stormtroopers to intimidate and a death star to build, but it keeps him wondering about what really happened to Padme and Obi-Wan and their kids (he can’t be certain, but in those last dreadful moments before Padme’s force blinked out entirely he felt two children). Eventually he confronts Palpatine about it and Palpatine goes all torture-dark-lord-etc on him.

If we went Padme, the fic would open with her death, and seeing Qui-Gon in the force. He’d probably tell her what’s going down and she sits and watches over Luke and Leia and Obi-Wan (she can’t make herself even think about Vader in the early days, can’t think of the man he used to be and the monster he’s become), and eventually figures out what Ahsoka’s doing and helps her set up fulcrum. She’d appear to Luke and Leia a few times, she’d try to talk to Obi-Wan but he’s probably crawled into a bottle or something at this point and is therefore passing off her messages as hallucinations and ignoring it. Vader, on the other hand, is so desperate to hear from anyone from his family, so he imagines Padmé everywhere even though she’s not. Padmé sees what’s going on and tries to snap Vader out of the dark but it doesn’t work, and she tries to help Obi-Wan but it doesn’t work either and the fic ends with her bemoaning her husband’s fates and being sad I guess (thus the title, ‘there are no happy endings’. If I was actually gonna write this fic, it would be called ‘(there are no) happy endings’ just to drive the angst home).

(Oh no I kinda wanna write this one as well)

“What endings find us happiness” would be an au where Anakin didn’t fall, Padme didn’t die, Obi-Wan didn’t go off moping in the desert, and (most of) the clones listened to Rex and Fives and took out their chips. Fives survived because Fox had his guns on stun (like they were supposed to be) and so he was only knocked out; he was around for Anaxes and getting Echo back. 

Mustafar plays out differently, with Obi-Wan and Anakin fighting a fallen Barriss, and as they’re barely escaping with their lives, Padme goes into labour. They end up at Polis Massa with Bail and Yoda etc, when the truth comes out about obianidala’s relationship. Yoda tells Anakin that Ahsoka is most likely dead, but Anakin insists that he can still feel her in the force. There’s an epic screaming match between Obi-Wan and Anakin, who are all for going off and looking for survivors, and Yoda, who wants everyone to go into a nice quiet exile. 

Anakin ends up pinching a ship with his spouses and tiny children (Bail offers to look after them for a while and they very nearly take him up on it) and heading to the Mandalore system to try and find Ahsoka and the clones. Padme suggests that they check Utapau to see if Cody’s alive (and not under the 66 trance as well) but Obi-Wan can’t face it and Anakin’s freaking tf out about Ahsoka so they ignore Utapau for now. 

Once they get to Mandalore, they find that Rex and Ahsoka have gone missing (and possibly the fake grave that they set up in the Ahsoka novel), as well as a dying Kix and a freaking out Jesse, with Fives and Echo nowhere to be found. Everyone freaks out and grabs the two survivors (despite the two clones involved in the chip debacle being 501, not many listened to Fives. A few removed their chips, and tried to protect Ahsoka when 66 went off but were gunned down. Rex and Jesse barely escaped with their lives, and Kix was shot several times while trying to save a brother) and they go off on a massive road trip, looking for everyone else. Kix recovers slowly in this time, but Anakin has to build him a prosthetic leg and he’s still in a lot of pain. Jesse usually refuses to leave his side. 

They’re about six months into the ‘road trip’ (complemented with newborns, injury recovery, and the usual PTSD and nightmares combo that they all have) when they find Rex, who’s laying low somewhere in the outer rim. Rex has no idea where Ahsoka went after they parted ways, so they start methodically checking all the planets near Mandalore first, and then they get to Thabeska and find her there, about to head back to Raada to save Kaeden and Miara (they also find out about Bail’s rebellion at this point). Raada plays out pretty much the same. Ahsoka still gets her sabers, and Bail ends up hiding them on Alderaan until the proper rebel base is set up. 

Once the base is set up and they’re monitoring Imperial chatter, they hear reports about two renegade clones causing trouble in the outer rim territories. They start to monitor those frequencies more carefully, and eventually hear of an attack on Kamino by these two. Obi-Wan and Padme, who become the commanders of that particular base, send Anakin and a squad of X-Wings to Kamino to extract the clones and help them out. 

The clones turn out to be Fives and Echo, trying to rescue Cody and Wolffe, and any other clones, dechipped or not (Wolffe’s chip was damaged when Ventress took his eye, he managed to pull himself out of the 66 trance just after Plo was shot down). Anakin and his squad get them out with a couple casualties (Bly is still on Kamino when Fives takes out his chip, he sacrifices himself so that the others can escape because he can’t live with the fact that he killed his General, his riduur) and head back to the base. 

There’s lots of tearful reunions when they get off the ship. Ahsoka immediately launches herself at Fives and Echo. Rex and Cody refuse to leave each other’s sides for ages, and there’s a very emotional conversation had along the lines of ‘I should have listened to you’. Cody and Obi-Wan have their reunion as well and that’s sad as hell.

Life goes on in the Rebellion, Kaeden and Ahsoka get married when they turn 20, and the twins grow up with X-wings for playgrounds and the sounds of air-raid sirens as a lullaby (some nights, when Padme’s waiting up for Anakin, who’s in an X-wing far above, engaged in desperate dogfights with the TIE’s that Palpatine sends, and Obi-Wan’s in the control room, she wishes she’d left her children with Bail or Mon. No child should grow up in a war zone. And then 3 year old Luke starts snoring in the bed beside her and Leia’s hair is in her mouth as her daughter does the octopus on her shoulder, and she thinks that she can never leave them no matter what). Other surviving Clones and Jedi make their way to the rebellion as well, until there’s a thriving community on an outer rim planet full of retired Clones and Jedi and their families. 

A New Hope plays out differently: the twins have been trained (by Ahsoka and Obi-Wan and Anakin) and they know what they’re doing, and Luke and Ahsoka waste no time in grabbing some random smuggler off of tatooine and dragging him out to the death star, where Ahsoka and Barriss fight as Han and Luke rescue Leia. The twins help their older sister and get her (injured, but alive) onto the ship, and Luke joins the death star run while his parents and sisters are chewing their nails to the quick down in the war room. 

Empire Strikes Back is much the same, including Luke heading to Dagobah because Obi-Wan,  Anakin, and Ahsoka decided they needed Yoda’s help to deal with Barriss. The Han and Leia arc plays out the same, and Luke still goes to rescue them and fights Barriss again. 

Return of the Jedi is also pretty much the same as in canon, but it’s Ahsoka and Luke who go up to the Death Star and fight the Emperor and Barriss. There’s an emotional scene between Barriss and Ahsoka at the very end, where Barriss comes back to the light and apologises for what she did. There’s a party on Endor which turns into Wedge and Luke’s impromptu wedding; Han and Leia get married a few days later. 

Everything is happy and nice and calm, no one dies, and nothing bad ever happens to them ever again the end.

(I also want to write this one as a full-blown au like what I planned modern au to be)

[imsfire2]

Writing meme

RULES: List the openings of the last ten stories you published. Look to see if there are any patterns that you notice yourself, and see if anyone else notices any! Then tag some friends.

I was tagged by @atthelamppost – thank you for tagging me!

1 By stardust and moonlight

“I know you’re out there,” Jyn Erso says to the open door, and the wolf beyond it. 

The creature’s been hovering round her cottage all day, and so far has made no attempt either to hide itself, or to attack.  It’s no normal beast of the wild woods, this, though she’s not yet sure what it is.  But talking to it is certainly worth a try.

Her home stands on the edge of the forest, in a dell sheltered from the north-east wind by the embrace of the trees, and hidden from the eyes of soldiers, and worse, by the hunched spine of moorland and the broken land and marshes in the south.  Any company she needs, she goes to; no human soul comes here, not without her permission, and very precise directions.  Yet the place tends to attract strange creatures like this; the place, or she herself.  There’s probably a shine of magic on her like a full galaxy’s light, could she but see it.  But though the stardust of her power makes her fingertips tingle and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up, it’s invisible to human vision.

2 A table at the wedding

“We shouldn’t have been put here,” Jyn hisses. “We’re near the front.  It’s not right.”

Her neighbour leans down a little to answer.  Okay, perhaps more than a little.  Cassian has had a few drinks and his hair is in a mess, his collar open, his eyes mild and smiling. “Not right? - how?”

“Up here it should be – close friends.  We ought to be on the back table.”

At least she’s not so drunk as to say family.  The groom has none and the bride has only her brother.  Besides Han and Leia, and Luke acting as best man to both bride and groom, the top table is occupied by Chewie, Mothma and Admiral Ackbar, and Threepio embarrassedly passing dishes to and fro.

3 Epiphany and cake

The first thing that hits Cassian as they come out of the terminal, hauling their wild assortment of luggage and looking around for the promised eight-seater mini-bus-cab, is the temperature.  It must be a good 16 or 17 degrees C here.  And okay, that isn’t hot; but after weeks of northern European winter temperatures, culminating in the astonishing beauty and fairy-tale sparkle of a snow-bound German Christmas, the temperature he confidently described as cold in October now feels astonishingly warm.  Balmy, even.  It’s comical; within minutes he’s perspiring in his jacket, and he hasn’t so much as looked at the parka stuffed in the top of his cabin bag. 

The sky had gradually cleared as they flew south.  First there were small breaks in the white, that allowed him glimpses of the Croatian coast with its lace of islands; then another bank of solid cloud, as brilliant as the snow over Saxony, and for over an hour the ground was hidden again.  But as they started to descend the cloud cover broke for good, like a clean line swept across the air, and the mountains came into view, rough gold and grey, bleakly rocky and definitely snowless.  Every ridge seemed to be lined with wind turbines, turning steadily in the clear air.  The valleys and coastal plains were startlingly green, the sea an assertive deep blue; fine golden roads looped between small towns like red and white tile mosaic, with an occasional glint of turquoise glass where a swimming pool caught the light. 

4 Out of darkness (Solo Quiero Caminar fic – all the rest are Rogue One)

So, he watches her.

The street is dark, and she is walking into the dark; he isn’t quite sure where the borders of the darkness lie, in the pools of streetlight or in himself.  His eyes aren’t working quite right anymore, and he clings on to the last sweet thing he will see, clings to the sight of her walking, as his brain clings to the last sweet thing it will know, the memory (remember me remember me) the memory of her body her lips the sadness in her eyes…

The blood running down his hip and pooling in the plastic seat is sickly, stickily hot and he is beginning to feel numb inside, the pain putting itself at a distance from him.

The street is dark, and Aurora walks into the dark, and he goes into the dark watching her.

5 In the mountains

There’s still snow on the ground at this altitude, and the grey cloud cover seems to come steadily closer to her as she climbs.  Steadily, and faster than it properly should.  It’s almost as if it’s creeping downslope towards her.  Pretty soon she’ll be enveloped in it.  Already the damp in the air is snaking inside her jacket, pinching at her old throat.

Well, so serve her right for volunteering.  All very well to acknowledge the twitch of guilt that comes when she looks at them, that tiny remnant of the Resistance, a few dozen beings with fear and hope in their eyes, without letting herself get sucked into joining them.  She could just have commiserated and offered a few quiet supply routes.  Instead of putting on her stoutest boots and actually marching out.  Time was, when she was a settled businesswoman, she’d have had more common sense.

Time was, she could have paid someone young and fit to do this job.  Why the hells the old fighter had to choose a place like this for a hideaway…

6 Home is where you start from

Jyn holds her hands out to the official.  Waits patiently and with a face of practiced unconcern while they scan her palms and the pads of her fingers. 

She has to discipline her expression slightly more when she’s offered a swab and a sealable tube.  There were too many years of hiding for it to be easy even now to surrender this data casually.  Even more than her hand-prints, her DNA could be used to identify her.  But the records-search can’t be completed without a clear and unequivocal ID.

Cassian, beside her, reaches out under the counter-top.  He squeezes her tense right hand briefly as she takes the swab in her left.  Jyn gives him a quick smile. 

7 Shh…

She’s muttering Shh, shh, shh sleepily, rocking in the old upright chair, and there’s a sudden warm light and movement in her peripheral vision.  She looks up, to Cassian leaning in the doorway, watching them. 

Esperanz has fallen asleep again, his nightmare gone, the warmth of her body a safety and a strength to ease his little heart.  She rocks him very gently as he clutches reflexively on her shirt.  Tiny toddler fingers, iron grip.  Heavy limbs, heavy head, sweaty brow pressed into her collarbone, sweaty curls under her hand.

The lamplight streams round Cassian and silhouettes him, but she can tell he’s smiling even in the shadows. 

8 Advice

All the Jedhan survivors look to Chirrut and Baze as parental figures and sources of counsel.  Outside of senior command levels elders of any race are in short supply in the rebellion, and sometimes you need the advice of an elder, both for personal questions and for practical things you simply don’t know how to do.  Things it would be hard to ask an admiral, even one as approachable as Ackbar.

It can be a little awkward at times. 

Baze does his best, patiently determined either to have an answer or to find one, or to find someone else who can.  He never knows when someone may turn up, hovering at his side, with their anxious eager eyes and random medical questions, and moral and domestic and childcare questions and Oh, it’s frustrating but he does what he can…  Stain removal, how to cook Argussian spinach, can you still eat old cheese if you cut off the mouldy bits?  Sometimes it flat-out stuns him, the things people think he’ll know.

9 A custom of poetry

Jyn is writing, and for a few moments, with the tip of her tongue caught between her lips, she feels as though she can do this.  How hard can it be to say what she has to, in a poetic way?

She reads through the handful of words on the screen.

Winces.  Deletes.

Tries again.

10 Pain

It galls Jyn to admit it, but she’d find her injury easier to bear if it had happened in the line of duty.  But to have taken up a bed in med-bay and a doctor’s time, to be using precious analgesics, when all she did was over-extend helping to move a console out of the briefing room; it’s just humiliating.

Right now, she’s doped up like a tantaun on a transport.  She can move about her quarters, she can walk and lie down, and bend into a seat if she takes her time about it.  Just.  But her back isn’t going to get better for a good while, and krif it, it’s no good, she needs the painkillers.

(I’m ignoring “Fifty words from a journey underground” because as that follows the fifty single-sentence mini-fics formula it doesn’t really have a beginning in the normal sense).

So...

Patterns/common themes/shared qualities errrr

I’m finding it surprisingly hard to spot any.  I seem to like to start either with description, or with a line or two of dialogue and then description immediately after.  Scene setting rather than jumping straight into action or plot.  Also I tend to open with one of my weaknesses, a rather long sentence.  

Tagging @gloriouswhisperstyphoon, @skitzofreak, @thenewleeland, @bright-elen