#hes not just a rough delinquent guy hes a hormonal teenager

[tomboyyyaoi]

something people dont talk about but they should coz its one of the funniest facts in trigun: brad is 17 in the manga

[pleathewrites]

bellow the fire into my deadened lungs

chapter 4 excerpt — seroroki first kiss read full story here

“When did you start smoking?” 

“Smokin’ what?” Sero’s native accent bleeds into the night fog of his exhale.

“Whatever you’re smoking right now.”

Sero laughs, and it’s rough in all the best ways — raspy, deep, loud enough to bounce off the moon back into Shouto’s lungs.

“It’s just a cigarette, Shou. Started when I was, fuck, thirteen, I think?”

‘Oh, that’s quite — ’, “Young.”

It makes sense, in a way. Sero holds the cigarette with a lazy respect Shouto has only seen his eldest brother uphold. Sero’s voice, upped with the hormones of a teenage boy, scratches on the same words Shouto’s own would hold steady. Even the way Sero sits, in that same corner of his dorm balcony every night Shouto visits, speaks of years of habit. His lithe body folded like a discarded stall pretzel — propped, knobby knees to rest his bulky elbows, the back of his head laid back against his balcony door for easier exhale, leaving his stretched throat vulnerable to Shouto’s quite appalling fantasies. 

Shouta has never wanted someone so badly.

“Yeah, well,” Hanta continues, “Not much else to do in my house.”

Shouto remembers.

[ 11 months ago, April — Second Week of U.A., First Year

The door slams shut, and Shouto is finally by himself. 

He's beyond thankful the school offers boarding to students who cannot — or simply do not wish to — commute from home. The room U.A. assigned him is smaller than his own at the Todoroki estate but it’s his to do with what he pleases, away from the surveillance of his father and the suffocating silence of his older siblings.

He needs air, and with his own balcony, he doesn’t even have to leave his room to get it. 

To say Shouto is… nervous for his first year at U.A. is an understatement. He’d never been to school before, never spoken to so many strangers at once, and he wasn’t even the one talking the majority of the time. He understands the novelty of it all, though — the last son of the Number Two hero, and everyone is itching to ask, ‘What’s it like having such a great hero as a father?’

Well, everyone except his dorm neighbor, who’s apparently been too busy destroying his lungs the next balcony over.

“I think that’s definitely against school-rules.”

The boy startles from where he sits, sucks in a deep breath, and coughs so heavily that Shouto thinks the guy might die. He doesn’t. Instead, the boy’s cough subsides after a few long seconds and he takes a deep inhale before clearing his throat and looking up to meet Shouto’s curious gaze.

This is the moment Shouto thinks Sero Hanta has the largest pair of eyes he’s ever seen. Wide black irises framed by lashes so thick, Shouto wonders if the boy is wearing makeup.

Pale eyelids shut briefly before the boy coughs out a nervous laugh, “Fuck, uh… You gonna tell on me, or sumthn?”

Shouto thinks about it, or pretends to, and tilts his head to the side while his eyes roam over the relaxed form of the delinquent in question. Maybe it was the situation — someone finally asking him something that doesn’t revolve around his family —  or, maybe, it was the sleepy accent from a devil-may-care demeanor Shouto hasn’t really encountered before, “No. Provided you let me keep you company.”

This is the moment Shouto also realizes Sero Hanta has the biggest smile he’s ever seen.

Large, slightly crooked teeth glint under a night with no moon and Shouto doesn’t understand why his hands feel so sweaty — he usually has excellent quirk control.

“Yeah man, c’mon on over,” Shouto hops over the rails of both balconies and settles next to the boy, despite his sensitive nose twinging from the bitter smoke, “Couldn’t sleep?

Gulping whatever anxiety lingers in his throat, Shouto nods, “New environment.” 

“Yeah,” Sero snorts, “This is nothin’ like home.”

Shouto doesn’t want to talk about his home, “What is your home like?”

Sero takes a puff of his cigarette before his words come out thick with smoke, “Oof, gettin’ deep ‘n personal already. Y’know what they say about the midnight-hours.”

Shouto doesn’t, “What do they say?”

“Somethin’ ‘bout the stars loosenin’ the tongue.” 

Shouto rolls his tongue over his teeth, “My tongue is still firmly attached,” He doesn’t think the stars could have such a quirk. 

Sero laughs, and Shouto’s not really sure what he said that’s so funny but, Gods, does he wish he knew, because Sero’s lips are stretched wide over his teeth and the tip of his tongue is so pink, “Ah man, how I wish I was smokin’ somethin’ else,” At that, Shouto furrows his brows in confusion, and Sero waves his hand assuringly with the cigarette still lit between two fingers, “Nah, it’s, like, a ‘poetic’ way of saying how people are more likely to be — you know, vulnerable, at night.”

‘Ah, a metaphor,’ Shouto thinks, ‘Like when I bought Fuyumi-nee that sweater she was eyeing for weeks before her birthday and she said she was, ‘so happy, she could die.’ Thankfully, she did not die.’

Shouto nods, “I see… I was not allowed poetry.”

Sero hums, “Didn’t really have access to it, either. Schools were shit in my area.” 

To say Shouto was intrigued would be an understatement. Maybe he felt some kind of kinship with the smoking boy whose shoulder warms the right of his. Maybe he was desperate to hear someone else’s story rather than repeat the manicured version of his own for the dozenth time. Maybe he wondered if their stories could be more similar than either of them would think.

“Where are you from? You have an accent you cover up. Why?”

“Slow down, man,” Sero laughs and Shouto’s shoulders shake with it, “I’m not from the city. Some nowhere-village, you wouldn’t’ve heard of it,” Dark eyes twinkle with something that feels like a shared secret, “But yeah, I'll give you that. I’m tryin’ to, y’know, fit in ‘n whatnot.”

“I understand,” Shouto knows all too well about exclusion, “I… don’t think I fit in.” 

Sero smiles, “Well. Ya got a spot right here, in this lil’ smoker’s den of mine — ours, if you want it.”

And Shouto’s heart skips a long beat for the first time in his little life. ]

Shouto smiles at the memory. 

Over this past year, Sero’s balcony became his solace. A place to vent and scream and curse at the moon. A lighthouse to guide his shivering body out of the roaring oceans of hurt and anger that perpetually marinate in the slim meat of his bones. The warmest blanket of the softest kind of understanding Shouto’s ever known, a constant heat to battle the eternal ice that regularly threatens to freeze him from the inside out. Out of 240 nights, Shouto has spent over half of them hopping onto cold metal that does not belong to him, to sit next to a boy who invites him to belong instead.

Sero’s balcony is where Shouto fits. It is the only place where he can take the world off his shoulders, and be the sixteen-year-old boy he would have been, had he been born under a different God. 

It is where Shouto made his first friend. (It will be where Shouto will have his first kiss.)

Because here, under the cloak of quiet galaxies and fading smoke, Shouto is a sixteen-year-old boy with a nearly ten-month-long crush on the person who was kind enough to coax him into their small, star-speckled haven, and offer it as his own.

The secret of Shouto’s affections weighs heavier every day. Touya’s words rattle in his head, ‘maybe you should just — I dunno, tell him that.’ But how? It is often said that Shouto is brave, but in the same breath, Shouto would argue that he has spent the majority of his life alone, with nothing to lose, and he believes bravery without sacrifice shallows itself down to the same arrogance his father suffers from.

With everything that’s happened recently with Touya, with his father under arrest, it doesn’t make sense how, at this moment, the only thing on Shouto’s mind is the way Sero Hanta’s lips wrap over that cancer stick, and how much Shouto wants to lean in and take its place, grab that pointed chin between his own chilly fingers and plead, ‘breathe me in, instead.’  

However, losing the peace Sero offers him to a silly moment of desire is not something Shouto thinks he is ready for.

Shouto looks away to mentally shake off his thoughts, and lands on the first thing he sees — a familiar, worn cigarette pack with a unique design oddly felicitous to Sero, “The box is pretty.” 

‘It fits you.’

Rogue blue waves rising up to meet a dark sky with an overly bright and full moon. Shouto likens the design to finding serenity in the reality of mother nature's chaos. 

Sero takes the box and thumbs over the design absent-mindedly, “Yeah, it used to be the only brand I smoked, really. A bit of a nuisance, though, fuckin’ hard to find — one of those, if you know you know.” He flips the box open, “It’s kinda dumb, but I usually just put the ciggs I buy now in this pack ‘n throw away the original box.”

“Did it taste better than others?” Shouto thinks it must have, to be Sero’s favorite. 

“Huh, well, not really. ‘S more like, sentimental value, I guess,” Sero’s laugh rings like rusted, broken bells, “All of ‘em taste the same, really, one way or another. Some’re just extra, y’know, harsh on the throat.” 

Shouto thinks that judging by the smell alone, smoking still doesn’t sound very pleasant, “I’ve heard it tastes bad. It smells… strong.” 

The shrug of Sero’s shoulder bumps his own in a blissful moment of contact, “Ya get used to it.”

Now, Shouto knows his face tends to be quite expressive — for someone who wasn’t allowed to express much growing up — and so, when Sero looks at him and ticks the corner of his lip in a way Shouto has only ever seen a handful of times when Sero would talk about the more cheeky experiences of his life, he knows he’s been caught. “Why? You wanna try?”

“I don’t know,” He really doesn’t know but the lowered lid of Sero’s large eyes makes Shouto want to try anything, just to keep that dark gaze on him for a few seconds longer.

Sero lays the cigarette box down and scoots closer. The left side of Shouto’s face fills with blood and the heat makes him woozy. 

‘Is this what it’s like to feel drunk?’

Shouto can’t really think about yet another teen experience he fears missing out on because there are cool, slender fingers grasping his chin the same way Shouto daydreamed about minutes ago. 

Sero briefly turns his head away to take a long drag of his cigarette before facing Shouto again, his whispering mouth barely a centimeter from his own, “C’mere.”

And Shouto listens, leans, lets his body loosen to the calloused thumb pulling at his bottom lip, and opens his mouth. As if on autopilot, at the sound of Sero’s exhale and the reality of being this close to a boy Shouto has spent countless, dreamless nights with — Shouto inhales.

Something rushes to his brain. The smoked tar itches his throat but Shouto was born with the breath of fire. When he exhales, there is a tightness in his chest but Shouto knows it is not the nicotine that affects him so, but the boy whose bottom lip grazes his own and lingers in the lightest caress of a question Shouto has known the answer to for months.

All it takes is the tip of Sero’s strong nose nuzzling the side of his own for Shouto to throw all his cautions to the windless night, lean in, and press.

Sero’s soft kiss is everything he imagined it would be, and more.

read full story here

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[idolizerp]

LOADING INFORMATION ON POIZN’S LEAD RAP, LEAD DANCE KANG CHANYEOL…

IDOL DETAILS

STAGENAME: N/A CURRENT AGE: 26 DEBUT AGE: 18 TRAINEE SINCE AGE: 15 COMPANY: 99 ETC: This member is a rap soloist

IDOL IMAGE

Most idols are forced to wear masks, completely fabricated personalities or at least heavily distorted versions of reality, to fit the image desired by their companies. Pushed into boxes without so much as the chance to protest and thrown onto the stage with their new colours displayed proudly. Some take to it well, some can’t acclimatise and fall flat on their faces. On some rare occasions there’s no need to adapt, the person already ticking every box on the checklist, personality perfectly synchronised with the concept. This is the case with Kang Chanyeol.

Poizn have always been defined by their bad boy image, and even before considering his future prospects as an idol this was how he decided to display himself to the world. A carefully curated exhibition of attitude and cock-sureness, delinquency and unpredictability, bluntness and raucousness. And so the transition from trainee is near seamless, and rather than toning him down, burying his cockiness and smoothing the rough edges, they instead focus a magnifying glass on them. Amplifying and exaggerating those aspects of his personality instead, the faint fog of arrogance that surrounds him doesn’t always win fans and he’s grown to be a somewhat divisive figure, but it keeps the group on everyone’s lips.

Time has gone some way to tempering this. These days he is no longer the cheeky upstart with delusions of grandeur and no qualms about stepping out of line or speaking out of turn. The fiery passion that had previously defined him has frozen over. Every year that passes, every scandal that plagues them, and every poorly judged choice from company higher ups serves only to sour him, chilling his demeanour further. He still knows to play along with the group, to do as he’s told and paint the picture they’ve commissioned, and when to shut his mouth but there are times when he can’t hide the disdain.

A rebellion against 99 as much as anything else, he is often deliberately contrarian. A few years back they attempted to re-brand him, to somewhat rehabilitate his image and present Chanyeol 2/0 to the world; an idol that retains the same tsundere charms and devil may care attitude, but with softer edges than before. A savage beast with a heart rather than a up and up punk intent on provoking for the sake of provoking. It’s been met with open arms by some, a healthy dose of scepticism by others, but behind it all he remains the same man as before, barely pulling his punches anymore and most days barely managing to veil his contempt.

IDOL HISTORY

Chanyeol never wanted to play the bad guy, but when most of your life is spent in the company of the amoral and outright dishonourable it is perhaps an inevitability.

To most children money holds little value, just scraps of paper and lumps of metal, but to his parents it is the single most important thing in their lives. To say that he was born with a silver spoon in his mouth would be a vast understatement. The spoon is at the very least golden, the handle encrusted with rubies and diamonds. He never wants for anything. Every need and desire, the finest foods, clothes, education, is catered for with just a click of his fingers, always someone to wait on him. It’s a lifestyle that so many crave, and in his early years it’s one he adores.

As the years roll by however, the novelty begins to wear thin. He’s lucky if he sees his parents more than once a week, and even then, only for a few hours, instead raised by a vastly underpaid minder. Even when they’re home, they’re rarely resent, instead preoccupied with conference calls or meetings. They are more interested in their business than in their son, building the empire that he is one day expected to inherit. A kingdom for an unwilling emperor. They ply him with gifts, buy his affection and attempt to plug the gap with material possessions. It fails miserably.

He struggles connecting with people his own age, having next to nothing in common with his peers. Those in the echelons of the upper class do not share his feelings of disdain, and the rest deem him too snobbish, too elitist to bother with him despite all of his efforts to prove the contrary. A few try to draw close, but as the years pass it becomes clear that they are less interested in him, and more interested in the family coffers. He grows to be distrustful, assuming an ulterior motive in everyone and burning up any would-be Icarus without care when they stray too close to the sun.

He feels ostracised, like a piece from the wrong puzzle; he just wants to be normal. To be noticed by his family, and seen as something other than a walking cheque book. Friends, even. But most of all to be appreciated as a human being.

A lone wolf in almost every sense of the word, on a diet of haywire hormones and teenage angst Chanyeol’s attitude only sours. Attempts to purchase his affection become more and more extravagant in turn. He starts acting out to get some sort of reaction, to pull some response from the ivory tower, but one never comes. Instead it just drives him further into the wilderness, those around him becoming even more reluctant to interact. By age ten he’s buried under a mountain of toys, age eleven drowning in a sea of electronics, and age twelve suffocating under a mass of musical instruments. A guitar, a piano, a violin; he doesn’t even know why. He’s never expressed any interest in the arts. Perhaps they’ve simply run out of things to buy him, or perhaps they truly knew so little about their own son. Either way, most are discarded or forgotten about.

Landing himself in (yet another) schoolyard fight aged fourteen is a turning point. Looking back he can’t even remember what caused the conflict, only that blows were traded and bruises exchanged; split lips and black eyes were near semi-permanent features of his face. The school punishes them, and it forges a strange bond. They clash, but they would go to the ends of the earth for one another. Two kids mad at the world, feeling forsaken by everyone around them. It’s the first time that a real connection is made, and over the months they draw close. The new companion is entrenched in western music, and introduces him to the sounds of 1970s London and 1980s New York and early 2000s Seoul. The sounds draws him in and the attitude makes him stay. Fiery rebellion. No one person better than any other. Anarchy. Punk rock.

When the bassist leaves his friend’s band, he steps up despite not having played a note in his life. “The Sex Pistols couldn’t play when they were recording albums, four chords and the truth is all you need, it’ll be fine.” He reasoned, digging out one of the guitars that had been buried in storage for years. It was here that he learned how quickly he could pick up instruments, and first fell in love with performance. The band ends rather suddenly a little over a year later, tensions within the group rising to unbearable and irreconcilable levels, and his outlook sours once more.

Age fifteen he’s asked by his parents, or rather an employee of theirs, to model for a few lines scheduled for release later in the year by subsidiaries of their main brand. Modelling is not something that he’s particularly comfortable, or even familiar with, at this stage but he agrees regardless. It’s likely just another money saving measure, he realises, but if he shows willing enough he might finally earn their approval. Despite his hesitance he takes to it like a duck to water, and returns to shoot promos twice more over the following months. None of the photos from the second or third shoot ever see the light of day.

After the third shoot he’s caught off guard, a stranger thrusting a business card in his direction babbling about an audition and then scurrying into the crowds outside the studio. Chanyeol simply scoffs. What’s prompted it he isn’t sure (That revelation would come later), nor is he certain how genuine it was. Though his initial reaction is to toss the slip over his shoulder he instead tucks it into his wallet, eyeing it cautiously over the course of a few days before curiosity gets the better of him.

It’s not a path he’s ever paid much mind; in fact it’s one he’s been actively against. The Korean entertainment industry is the antithesis of punk values in his mind, a hive money hungry businessmen watching over a factory floor where teenagers are stripped of personality. Now that the offer’s been made though, he’s rethinking. It would give him direction that he was sorely lacking, free him from the shadow of the family name, fans to feed his ego, and he’d be able to perform for a living… worst case scenario, he can buy out the contract. Best case it’s a platform that he currently lacks.

As it turns out the stranger had been serious, and what’s more when the time comes for his audition he sails through. Contracts are signed, and he’s in. Clean. Simple. Nowhere nearly as traumatic and stressful as he’d heard others make out.

Training is manageable. Gruelling, but manageable. He has less experience than most, weaknesses obvious from the outset but over time he learns to hold his own. The early months are rough, Chanyeol growing frustrated at his shortcomings and barely scraping through the first few evaluations, and he’s often tempted to quit but still he soldiers on. During this time he falls in love with hip-hop, noticing the similarities with the subculture that he knows and loves. The same rebellion, the same danger, the same edge. When it becomes clear that his vocals are weaker than so many of his peers, he instead focuses on rap and only then finds his feet.

There’s always a feeling that he’s treated differently though. The instructors are firm, but they seem to be less harsh towards him. His attitude persists and for whatever reason it isn’t crushed underfoot. This is not a world that he knows well, but even he knows better than to test the boundaries, and so never steps too far out of line, but little things seem to slip through the net. It’s never said aloud, but Chanyeol feels it, and so do his fellow trainees. Nobody dares outright call it out for what it is, but they treat him differently. Some shun him, seeing the treatment as unfair, and some scramble closer hoping that mere proximity will make their ride easier. It’s an all too familiar vision of the past that begins to push him back towards bitterness.

Three years pass before he debuts. Time sees him hone his rap skills and become a skilled dancer, and though his singing still sometimes borders on woeful his stage presence (and more than a little studio trickery) overshadow the flaws. Poizn are an ideal fit, the concept a near perfect match for Chanyeol.

It isn’t long before the scandals begin. Smaller at first, but escalating quickly. Other members take the fall first, tell all articles and exposes by netizens suggesting that perhaps their bad boy image is less of an illusion and more of a reality. When dealing with the backlash it seems as though are intent on making the worst decision possible at every turn; brushing off rumours rather than addressing them, outright ignoring others and letting them fester. Perhaps he should be mad at the members, but in his mind the damage that each scandal has is a failure of management, and the company are entirely to blame for not dealing with them.

For his part, Chanyeol’s scandals have only ever centered on one thing. Not relationships, not sex, not drink, all of that is carefully hidden, but there is no containing his fiery attitude. He is caught on camera in the midst of heated exchanges with several members of staff and other idols on more than one occasion. It all pales in comparison to his reaction to a gaggle of Saesang fans tailing their car one night, when he is filmed exploding at them and using language less than befitting of an idol before storming away.

For this, they pull him from group promotions, effectively throwing him into the cellar and losing the key. The response seems disproportionate considering past actions by 99, and Chanyeol feels personally slighted. That Christmas he returns home, and as is typical of the festive season things end in arguments. He confides in his parents, who have decided to make a rare appearance, about his frustrations with the company, about their mismanagement of Poizn. About how torn up he is over it, how it’s almost destroyed him before he’s even begun. They simply shrug. “Don’t worry about it. Money is the best motivator.” His father says, barely looking up from his plate. It’s as though he genuinely doesn’t understand why people are up in arms. “We’ll write them another cheque, encourage them to let you do what you like. Or we just get lawyers involved.”

It’s said so flippantly that you’d miss it if you blinked. Slowly the cogs click into place. Another cheque. Through gritted teeth he asks the question, gets the answer he expects, and thus begins the shouting match. They didn’t outright buy his place in Poizn, but they paid enough to encourage a scout to wait outside the photoshoot and grant him an audition.  He passed on his own merits, but the fact remains that the only reason they saw him was because their palms had been greased. On top of that, a few extra Won had ensured that the entire process was a painless as possible and though he’d had to train just as hard as everyone else for his spot in the lineup rumours of special treatment were not entirely unfounded.

He doesn’t bother to ask why they’d done it, or why they hadn’t thought it worth mentioning. He assumes it’s another misguided attempt to buy his loyalty, or to keep their brand relevant. Nothing would be better publicity than the prodigal son of the fashion moguls becoming a star, after all. Whatever the reason, whatever the intention, it doesn’t lessen the sting or the sour taste in his mouth. Needless to say they now speak even less than before.

Everything that he has, he only has because it was paid for. Every opportunity he’s been granted, the result of a dirty deal. How much was down to him? And how much was down to his bank account? Everyone he chooses to trust believes in him so little that they see the only path to success as corruption and bribery.

The stigma lingers like a bad smell, melding with the countless other controversies of the members that emerge shortly after their debut. The whispers persist weighing heavy on Chanyeol, anytime it’s mentioned he physically stiffens up and looks as though he’s about to launch across the room and punch you. The public see him as a joke. Other idols see him as a punk, and not the kind he’d hoped for. Both simply sneer.

And he sneers back. If they want a villain, he’ll give them a villain.

His attitude only spirals. On camera he becomes gradually frostier, but manages to maintain the image that they’ve built their career on. Off camera he stops caring about how he’s viewed. Stops even trying to be personable, teeth bared and ready to lash out at any given moment. Blunt as a rock, his words drip with venom and tongue cuts like a razor. If you do good by him, he’ll do good by you, but otherwise he has no problem cutting you down as so may others have done to him.

A few years later, of begrudgingly playing the game, avoiding scandal and rising through the ranks, the company are convinced that his image can be rehabilitated. They wish to maintain his hardened, devil may care image, but soften the edges. In return for playing along, they say they’ll give him a solo with creative control. It feels no less dirty being on the receiving end of the bribe, and it’s tempting to refuse but… creative control has always been his endgame. And so he begrudgingly agrees.

Poizn have been around longer than most, at this point a legacy group in all but title. And yet now they are arguably more relevant than ever, the runaway Love Scenario shifting the goal posts. Where at times in the past it had felt as though they’d been coasting, a conduit for scandal and little else, this is a shot at group redemption. It’s enough to wake something up inside of him.

Long term, he’s under no illusions about his future. The chances of his contract being renewed are negligible at best, and frankly he’s jumping for joy at the prospect of ditching 99. The only reason he hasn’t jumped overboard yet is fear of dragging his members down with him. Despite it all, they’re the closest thing to a functional family he has ever known. Besides, it would be foolish to depart when they were riding such a high, so for now he’ll just do as he’s told. With any luck his solo career continues to be a success; consider it an audition tape for any other companies interested in taking him on after he’s unceremoniously dumped.