#i blame the sun being down because it feels like it's 9pm

[btswishes]

Fake love, real feelings

BTS AU

A/N: I received a request for genderneutral and male main characters, so I will do my best to try and add as many as I can. I might make a place specially for these scenarios when they reach maybe 5 or 7, just so it can be easier for everyone interested in them to find them.Until then please enjoy this one and sorry for any mistakes made, it’s my first time trying this out. 🙂

Word count:  2,148

Warnings: None

Gender of Y/N: genderneutral  

 What is love?I am sure many are annoyed of this question. People ask it often, it’s stupid, right? Well yeah I guess, but in the end the answer is whatever we want it to be. I love, you love, everyone does. Love can be many things, between friends, between loves and of course that erotic ecstasy. For some it can be the fear of the unknown, the fear of showing our true self to our partner.Funny, this one word has so many meanings. Love is a mix of many emotions.

 It’s not Valentine’s day, it’s not Christmas, yet you were happy and exited. The bed was warm and the cover was snaked around your body in a loving hug.Moments before you opened your eyes, the alarm on your phone turned on.With a long and elegant hand you turned it off. Your back followed the movement and stood up. A bright light awoke you fully, as you laid your eyes onto the lock screen. It was a picture of you and your significant other.They were a very interesting person, maybe a bit possessive or more, but you loved them,.

 Today was your birthday, a day about you, when your life began with the first cry. A bright smile was curving your pink lips up, but in a way it may have been hiding something more beneath all of the emotions.

 You checked to see if there was a message from your partner, but your mail was as empty as you thought. 

“I am sure P/N (partner name) is just working, it’s early after all.This year will be different.”you thought to yourself and decided that a glass of coffee or tea would be nice. Enjoying breakfast you were answering ‘happy birthday’ messages that weren’t from P/N, yet you still were hopeful. Maybe that was like a clock set in your heart for a very hard decision.

 8am, 9am, 12am, wow did time sure fly when you were waiting and waiting and waiting. At 2pm you stood up from your chair and looked at the time. You weren’t going to let this depress you, so you jumped into something comfortable, yet stylish like always.A walk would be the best thing to let your mind think about other things.

 Today was just amazing,warm,birds singing and sun illuminating every part of your exposed skin. Your happiness was glowing like a bright light from your body.Everyone around you noticed that, most people looked back at you. I am more that sure that the sweet mixture of beauty and childlike purity were the love potion that was pulling people towards you like a magnet.

  Your eyes on the other hand were wandering over to all the couples that were passing you on the street. Deep down no matter how much you were trying to forget, you wanted only one thing a ‘Happy Birthday’ from P/N. Funny, it had happened before too, you decided to delete that information from your brain, but your beloved had the tendency to forget one day and that was today.

 At this point you were walking aimlessly around town. The clock on your phone was telling you that it was almost 9pm. Was there a tear forming in your eye? Well you wanted to believe that is was from the wind blowing in your direction, at least that was the lie you were telling yourself. It worked for a bit, until you decided that the best choice would be to go home and forget, like P/N did again. 

 Turning around you felt someone’s chest collide with your forehead. For a moment you thought you were going to fall back, but this person grabbed you by the waist before that could happen and saved you in the nick of time.You looked up at the mystery man the moment your name rolled off his lips.

“Y/N?” he was shocked, yet his dark hair and hypnotizing eyes were something you could never forget 

“N-namjoon….”you stuttered for a bit “Is that really you?I haven’t seen you since, you know…that time.”he helped you stand up and let go fast, almost like he got burned, yet it felt like he wanted desperately to touch this fire again.

“Yeah…”his hand scratched the back of his head as he looked at the ground and kicked a small stone next to the front of his shoe. “So, how have you been?Is P/N with you?They wouldn’t leave you alone at this time of the night right?”he tried to smile to break the ice in the atmosphere ,but that made it more thick around your throat. The tears that you were holding back started rolling down your cheek, as your head was hanging.

“Hey, are you ok?” you looked up at him slowly. His face a blur from the salty sadness flowing out of your body. Namjoon bend down a bit and panicked “Whaaa! Did I say something?I am really sorry.”

“N-no.”you quickly grabbed your sleeve and started wiping as much of your pain as you could.The people walking passed you two were looking. Namjoon took of his hoodie and placed it on your head and pulled your body close to his as he escorted you to the a bench in the park, illuminated only by one light.You sat on it slowly. He didn’t know what more to do, he could leave but he didn’t want to do that. His heat was bringing him back to that moment all those years back. 

 One deep breath later he knelt in front of you and cupped your cheeks.With his thumb he gently whipped your last tear and made you look at him. 

“I know after that happened, you don’t think of me the same, but the fact is that I am here with you now.You can talk to me.” those words were like the key that finally opened the door to your true feelings. You placed your hand onto his and pulled it down.

“Today is my birthday Namjoon, I don’t know if you remember that.My beloved, the one person that I thought had the same feelings as me, the only one that I thought would never hurt me, forgets only one date every year.That date is today, it’s my birthday Namjoon. Out of all the days in the calendar it had to be this one. “ you took a deep breath, a small break and continued.It hurt to admit it, but it felt nice to let it all out “This isn’t love, I now know, I understand. All it was was me projecting my feelings onto P/N waiting for them to send them back my way. I guess even after all these years it staid a fake love.”

 Namjoon looked as his watch and stood up, your head following his movement.He grabbed your arm and pulled you ,saying only a “Follow me.”not like you had a choice in this matter.

“Wait!Where are we going?”you were holding his hoodie tight, until his body stopped.You moved a bit closer and found yourself face to face with a lit up flower shop.

“Choose which ever you like.” his eyes were looking in front of himself

 With an unsure trembling step, you walked over to the roses, funny.They are the symbol  of love, beautiful, yet they can hurt with their thorns. Namjoon saw you eyeing them and pulled around 10 from under your nose.He gave them to the cashier and ask her to arrange them beautifully. You were standing in front of the shop at 10pm, with Namjoon’s jacket on your shoulders, just looking at the dark sky and the way your warm breath was flying towards the stars.

“Here you go.”

 Out of no where a big bouquet of roses popped up. You didn’t know what to do as your hands wrapped around them.

“They aren’t as pretty as you, but at least I hope you can accept them.”

“N…namjoon.”you stuttered as your eyes filled with tears again, which made him panic

“Did I do something again!?” 

 You laughed out loud “No silly.” your sleeve soaked the tears up “I am happy.”

“Oh thank goodness.”he sighed “That is great right?”

“You know…”you looked up at him “You always used to act dorky when you were in panic, but why 10 roses?”

“Do you remember that day all those years back?The last time we saw each other?”you nodded sadly still keeping that memory in your mind “You asked me, as a joke, on a scale from 1 to 10 how much I could love you if we ever fell in love. I know why you asked me that, I know it wasn’t a silly joke.”you didn’t know what to say.

 Namjoon placed his hands over your trembling fingers and moved the flowers closer to your face “This is my answer, it was back them too and it will be in the future as well.”

 Your lips parted slowly, eyes wide open. He stood up and looked away “I know what I did that time was awful, I shouldn’t have kissed Jane in front of you, but I didn’t know what to do. I was a little piece of shit. I would kick my ass if I could go back in time, but I can’t.Shortly after you started going out with P/N. I lost you forever, then you cut me out of your life.I was angry, I started fights with random people, I broke stuff ,even my arm.”he laughed out uneasily ,still not being able to face you “No matter how enraged I was, I never once in my whole life blamed you, because I knew it was all my fault.”

“Namjoon…I” 

“Don’t.”he placed his hand onto your lips “There is no point in me telling you this now…I know…., I just thought that maybe, maybe if I finally told you, time could turn back.Yet deep down I know I lost you.” sighing he smiled at you, a smile that was the same mask you put in front of P/N “I am glad we met, I hope that at least now I will be able to sleep peacefully.”

 You both turned around, backs facing each other “Thank you.”you whispered and a light chuckle was heard from behind you. Step by step you were getting farther and farther from one another. The wind blew strongly and stopped you, you were holding the flowers tight, they were the last thing you had that felt real. The universe was trying to tell you something, a message that you understood the moment the hoodie flew off your back. You turned around and dropped the roses, trying to reach it as it was flying away fast.

“I don’t want to loose you again!”you screamed out, arm stretched, tears running down your cheeks. Almost out of no where you felt a pair of lips crashed onto yours, an arm holding you flush against a body you were longing for.Your breath was almost at it’s limit when you pulled back, leaning into his palm.He placed the hoodie onto your back and looked down at you with such love into his eyes, something you thought you would never see. 

 You jumped to hug him “Smile at me, lie to me, I don’t care just don’t leave me again!”

“I wanted to forget you, but I couldn’t, I still wanted you. Every flower, every rain drop every smile reminded me of you, I…I was afraid to lose you even though I already had.”

“You knew it Namjoon, the untold truth.”you snuggled into his chest.His hand was holding your head close to him, as his eyes were focused onto the stars, yet looking deep inside himself.

“I always thought that if I had the courage to stand in front of you, I would finally be the man you wanted me to be.”

“I don’t care about that, I don’t care about P/N, I still want you and only you.”

 Namjoon pulled you back slowly and went to pick up the roses “Hey, I gave you a 10 out 10 and you dropped my score.Not very nice.”he pouted and you giggled 

“I am sorry.”he placed his hand around your shoulder and pulled you close to him 

“How much would you give me?”the night was cold, but no matter where you went or how fast you walked, it always felt this warm

“Ummm let me think, maybe a 8 out of 10.”

“What!”he stopped and looked at you “Why?I gave you a 10!!!”

“Oh come on Namjoon. Kissing you know who takes a point down and taking you this long to finally tell me the truth takes another point.”

 He looked a bit pissed, but after a long sigh he stretched his back and grinned at you “I have a whole eternity to gain those points back, so I don’t mind.” that one word was enough to make you realize your answer to ‘What is love?’.

 Love is just him.

[floralseokjin]

— ask and you shall receive | pt 4—final (m)

it's been a couple of months since you and your sugar daddy changed your arrangement and while all has been well, practically floating on cloud 9, something is about to happen that will drop kick you back into reality…

pairing | jung hoseok x reader, sugar daddy! hoseok genre/warnings | angst, romance, fluff, smut words | 9,405

  » pt 1 :: pt 2 :: pt 3 :: pt 4  ✓

It was nearly a week later, after that catastrophic argument (although there was no actual shouting, just almighty crossed wires,) Hoseok messaged you. It was just gone 9pm and you were in bed, huddled under blanket after blanket like you had been all week pretty much, when your cell buzzed and as if you were psychic, you just knew it was him. That eerie dread creeping up your spine and when you swiped the screen and saw his name, the dread became a knot in your stomach, twisting and turning. You knew you had to read it. You couldn’t leave it unread for eternity, so you took a deep breath and clicked on the notification.

— Hoseok: I’m home tomorrow. Do you want to talk?

You took another deep breath, not exactly sure what to think or what to do. All you’d wanted to do was talk to Hoseok this past week, but he’d be deadly silent and you weren’t about to beg him for the tiniest amount of contact. Now he was messaging you again, even though a part of you wanted to believe he truly did want to speak and sort things out, the larger, more logic side of you knew no amount of talking between Hoseok and you would work. You both wanted two different things.

Your phone buzzed again while you were deep in thought and you looked down to read another message—much longer this time, and it made your heart begin to ache.

— Hoseok: if you don’t want to that’s fine. If you don’t want to see me again that’s also fine… You don’t even have to reply to this. I’ll take your silence as an answer to leave you to get on with your life.

His words made you feel empty inside. You knew they should have probably made it easier for you, after all, you knew deep down there would be no seeing him anymore. It was hard to wrap your head around but you knew it was for the best, just like Jiahn said. It had been her sole responsibility to make sure you were okay this past week, comfort you and give you solidarity—strength in numbers, because you were weak on your own. You needed her to drum it in that you and Hoseok could be no more after this. He’d made it perfectly clear how he felt that night at yours. He wasn’t looking for anything serious. Your relationship wasn’t supposed to evolve, at least, not for him.

You pulled the skin of your bottom lip between your teeth, worrying it raw as you fought the urge to respond to his message. You knew Jiahn wouldn’t be happy if you gave into him in some type of way, for she partially felt guilty for giving you the idea to find a sugar daddy in the first place. You’d tried telling her if wasn’t her fault at all. It was your fault for falling for someone out of your reach. You knew secretly it’d been happening but cowardly you’d ignored it, living in your own little bubble because it was too good to be true. Of course, it was. And now look at you.

Heartbroken. The one thing you didn’t want to be.

You stuck to your guns, knowing Jiahn would be proud of you, but more than that, you’d be proud of yourself. Maybe not yet, but in weeks, months, years, you could look back on this and know you’d done the correct thing. Hoseok wasn’t the man for you. You’d wanted him to be, you’d almost believed he was, but no… Not now. Maybe in another lifetime, but definitely not right now…

An hour later your phone buzzed again and this time reading his message made you cry. You’d cried a lot this week but it looked like it wasn’t over just yet.

— Hoseok: I wish you all the best. Have a great life. I know you’ll only do amazing.

You quickly deleted Hoseok’s messages and finally his number, knowing that was the only way you’d give yourself a chance at getting over him. You wiped your tears away fiercely, vowing this would be the last time you cried over him.

It was over. You needed to accept that.

It was over. He needed to accept that.

However, it was hard to do when all he had was thoughts of you plaguing his mind. He hadn’t been able to concentrate on his business trip and he’d definitely been unable to concentrate the weeks after you ended things officially by not replying to him. He didn’t blame you, in fact, the logical side of him knew that would be the case after all the things he’d said to you that night, but even though he had trained himself to act as that of a machine over the years, carefully and intensely controlled, there was a still a small part of him that wanted to let go. To be loved and to love in return.

He knew in his heart of hearts you were most probably the one. The only one. There was something about you from the very first time you’d met. He couldn’t stay away, not that he wanted to or had to, but he was still unsure. You didn’t want him like that, he was so sure of it in the beginning, but over time he knew the attraction he felt for you wasn’t just one sided. However, he has waited because he didn’t want to make it look like he’d forced you into something you didn’t want. You were still very dubious of the whole sugar daddy/baby thing and he didn’t want to scare you away because imagining you not around was something he couldn’t fathom, despite how little time you’d been in his life.

Even though he’d made the same mistake of having sex with his company before, and he didn’t want to do it again because it made the situation way more seedy than it needed to be, he couldn’t stop himself with you. You were different. For one, it truly felt like you weren’t using him, weren’t disgusted by him. Of course you wanted his money, but it wasn’t to live a lavish lifestyle, it was just to get by. To finish school and better yourself. When you laughed with him, kissed him, touched him, it wasn’t fake. It was all real. Too real in fact.

It was real for him too, but in the end, he’d run away from his feelings. It’s what he did best. He may look and act respectful but deep down he was a coward. When it had come to love he’d run away his entire adult life. Using his career for an excuse was quickly proving futile because although yes, he did work all the hours under the sun and had to go away on business trips, sometimes with little or no notice, it didn’t stop him from holding down a healthy and balanced relationship. He’d proved that over the last six months with you.

It was all him. He couldn’t pinpoint when commitment had become such a huge issue to him. There was no trigger, no explanation, he’d just realised while in a relationship that he didn’t want to settle down. He’d been with the same girl since college and while all their mutual friends were getting engaged, even married…having kids…that’s not what he’d wanted. Breaking her heart had been the worst thing he’d ever had to do, now on par with breaking yours. Although he was sure this time hurt him more than the first because he knew deep down this wasn’t what he wanted and also, it was a punch in the face, a hit of reality—he was still the same, no matter how many years had past. He was still the same.

Even though, with maturity he’d realised back then it wasn’t potentially a fear of settling down, more like realising the girl wasn’t the one, but his subconscious had taken it as a sure sign of an impenetrable fear of commitment and now here he was, it was still ruining his life. Relationships never worked out for more than a few months, a year at the most and then he’d run away. That’s why when his best friend Yoongi had suggested the idea of the dreaded, unthinkable word sugar daddy he’d somehow thought it was a good idea. It seemed like a good way to attract and dine company without the worry of anything serious. There had only been two. You and Veronica.

Veronica was a bad first example, he’d let himself fall for her impressive looks and aura, spoiling her with gifts she didn’t need, nor could he truly afford, not really. It had taken him a while to realise he was being used, but when he had, he had quickly ended their agreement. You were the last try. He didn’t think the lifestyle was for him. It was downright sleazy most of the time and impersonal. Veronica really hadn’t cared for anything other than his money. However, he was still lonely, needing some type of company, so he thought if he specified he was only looking for it in the form of friendship there’d be a better chance of it all working out. And it did…for a while, but then he’d found himself falling for you…

You were different to Veronica. Different to any other woman he’d met in his whole life. It was impossible to deny that your agreed relationship had turned into something more, but that night after the disastrous dinner he’d found himself doing just that. He didn’t know why. Maybe it was ingrained in him—to run away when things got serious. To ignore his heart and ruin it. Everything he’d told you that night had been a lie. You didn’t know how much his heart had swelled when you’d said all those things about liking him and wanting him, regardless of status and money.

But that was the problem… He had worked incredibly hard to build this life for himself, to create it and in the end, to hide behind it… His company was his baby and he used it to halt getting close to a woman. He couldn’t be in serious relationship if he had to work practically every day, even when he wasn’t at the office… It had fooled many before you, but no, not you. For he had given you his all, only to shove it back in your face and disregard it.

However, he wasn’t expecting it to affect him this much. He was used to bouncing back on his feet, controlling his emotions down to a tee. But here he was unable to concentrate on anything other than thoughts of you. He’d used his business trip as time to work out what he wanted and while he was still conflicted he had truly wanted to speak to you in person again. He wanted to have a long talk and maybe, hopefully show you how he felt. He wanted you to understand but like he’d expected, you didn’t want anything to do with him. You probably hated him. And he couldn’t blame you. He had belittled your feelings and practically told you they were invalid. He’d ran away without a backwards glance and you didn’t want anything to do with him.

He needed to respect that, despite how much he wanted to see you, to talk to you, to make you understand… It was too late. He’d lost his chance and now he needed to get over it, like you were getting over him.

He’d ruined everything.

It was over.

Time went on and you began to get used to Hoseok not being around. Days quickly flew into weeks and with some space and time to reflect you realised how stupid you were to think a relationship with Hoseok could work out. You were even more stupid to try and live with your head buried in the sand all that time while seeing him—while he was paying you for your company. There was nothing normal about that situation. Nothing loving. Yes, you both may have been attracted to one another, but that didn’t mean everything could magically worked out.

What were you expecting to happen? For you and him to live together happily ever after while he continued to pay for the most mundane things you needed in life, or would it have just gotten worse? What more could you take from him while pretending everything was normal, everything was okay. You had fallen for the dream, not the reality, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t still taking you time to get over him. Out of all the men you had fallen for in your life (a few at that,) it had never hit you this bad, and it was a struggle to get on with your life like normal without him.

You had to get a new job, which of course you didn’t mind, actually, it was nice to get back into the real world. It was nice to earn your own money by doing something substantial. In fact, that realisation just made you even more bitter. Really, what were you thinking when you thought a sugar baby life was for you? It was laughable now, looking back. You must have really been desperate, or lazy… You weren’t cut out for that life…you didn’t think Hoseok was either… You wondered if he was still accepting that or if he’d given up on that life too… The thought made your head hurt, fresh waves of heartbreak squeezing against your chest.

Your new job was in a little café, not too far into the city, so closer to your apartment. The hours were less strenuous than the restaurant jobs you’d had in the past, easy to manage between classes and school work, but that did mean the money was less helpful. That’s when you had to swallow your own pride and ask your parents for some type of allowance. They give it to you of course, like you knew they would all those months ago, and of course, it made you just wish you had done. How different would life have been? You wouldn’t have met Hoseok that was for sure…but despite everything, you couldn’t let yourself think like that. You were glad you’d met him, he’d changed you as a person and for that you were thankful.

You couldn’t help but wonder though, how different things would have been if you’d met him in the real world, if you’d bumped into him randomly, gotten along…became friends…even more... How would that have changed things…? Would it even have at all?

You guess you would get your answer soon enough…

❀❀❀❀ 

You saw Hoseok again just over two months later. It was a shock and you totally weren’t expecting him to be sat right in the corner of the little café you worked at. You almost didn’t realise he was there, masked in a group of co-workers, employees, business partners? You weren’t sure, nor did you care, because as soon as you noticed he was there time stood still. You weren’t prepared for the wash of emotions that flooded your body and froze you rigid. He still looked the same, although that was obvious, why would there be any radical changes? It just made realise without him in your life time still ticked by, he had carried on with his life, just like you had and now he was here…. not a few metres away from you.

And you had to take his order. You had to physically make your body move and walk over there with your legs, one foot in front of the other. You had to speak. You had to make eye contact. You had to be beside him once again. After thinking you’d never see him again, the universe had forced you back together, if not just for an hour or so.

You felt sick. Physically sick. But you forced yourself to go. You needed to do this, just for you. It was test of sorts. To see if you could handle it. To see if you were truly over him, or if not, just to help you along. To make you stronger.

He hadn’t noticed you worked here, he hadn’t noticed you were there until you spoke, and you hated the sound of your own voice. It sounded fake, too high, too sweet, too forced. You were suddenly too self-conscious to think properly, moving on autopilot, the smallest of movements seeming like outlandish dramatic motions and you wanted the ground to swallow you whole.

“Can I take your guy’s order?”

You watched as Hoseok’s body tensed up, recognising your voice straight away, the smile freezing on his face as he slowly turned his head towards you, drawn to the familiarity, eyes widening when they landed on your face. You shuffled on your feet, black pumps squeaking on the floor, feeling scrutinised, heart pounding inside your chest. You couldn’t do this. You wanted to run away. You felt like you were braking and you immediately broke eye contact, every nerve in your body tingling with anxiety. You were relieved beyond belief when the people he was with began ordering and you welcomed the distraction, head down in full concentration as you scribbled on your notepad, your heart jumping around when Hoseok made his order last. You nodded your head furiously and turned to leave, wanting to get the hell out of there, but a hand clasped your wrist and stopped you.

“Hey, I’m so sorry,” Hoseok whispered and your heart stuttered, the muscle freezing up as you turned to face him coyly. He was trying to act discreet so no one would notice and you finally plucked up the courage to look him in the eyes again, if even just for a little bit.

“If I had known you worked here I would’ve never come,” he told you, almost apologetically, and you smiled without realising, a small one that tugged at the corners of your mouth.

“It’s okay, Hoseok. This city is pretty small, right?” You reassured him, and then off you went, your legs feeling like jelly, but at least you made it.

It wasn’t his fault he was here. You didn’t want him to have to avoid public places in fear of you turning up. In fact, there was very little chance of you bumping into each other…this was just a one off…right? A cruel trick that the world had pulled?  It didn’t mean anything. After today you probably wouldn’t see him again, and in all honestly you didn’t know how to feel about that.

You couldn’t help but watch him converse and eat while you busied yourself with serving other customers. It was addictive, you couldn’t look away. You wanted to absorb every detail of his face, his laugh, his posture. If this really was the last time you wanted to take every little detail in.

The familiar heaviness in your heart reappeared again when he left, and you didn’t miss the tentative glance he stole in your direction as he left. You weren’t over him. Not that you thought you had been by any means, but this was just a stark reminder of how devastating the reality was that now you had to live your life without him in it…

You were back to square one that night when your cell buzzed—hiding in a cocoon of blankets on your bed, a mass of thoughts circulating your mind. Maybe you really had to get on with your life to get over him. Meet someone new? Live your life like a young person should do in college? But the thought of moving on made you feel weird inside and when you picked up your phone absentmindedly, really not expecting the message to be from the one person you were trying to forget, you stopped for a moment…maybe this was a sign?

— Unknown: Hey, it’s Hoseok. I don’t know if you still have the same number or not, or if you deleted mine, but I’ve been fighting the urge to message you all afternoon… I didn’t ask how you’ve been doing. Please forgive me for being so rude.  

You read the text over and over again, eyes practically blazing through the screen as you processed and probably overanalysed each and every single word. In the end you couldn’t help but giggle at how formal he was being. Please forgive me for being so rude. Why was he always so polite?

Your fingers hovered over the keys, trying to think of a fitting reply because you were going to reply. For some reason the thought hadn’t even crossed your mind to not. You craved his company, even if it was just a few moments via text message. It was still more than you’d had in months.  

— You: I still have the same number, yes — You: Hi.

You take a deep breath, bracing yourself as you waited for his reply, but it turned out you didn’t have to wait long before your phone was buzzing again in your hand.

— Unknown: Hi! Thank god. Although I wasn’t expecting a reply, that was vain of me…

You went to reassure him straight away, wondering what to say. For some reason you were desperate to keep the conversation going, scared that this contact may be fleeting and then you’d be left back at square one.

— You: It’s perfectly fine… I’ve been well, thank you. And you?

— Unknown: I’ve been alright, thanks.

You went to ask him how work had been going but at the same time you sent the message your phone buzzed with a question from him.

— You: How’s work going?

— Unknown: How long have you been working at Marie’s? Do you like it there?

— You: lol

— Unknown: Haha

You couldn’t help but giggle again. The sound a little foreign but natural nonetheless. Your heart was beginning to tingle, knowing that he was just as desperate to keep the conversation a float. You waited for him to answer you, but when he didn’t, you realised he was waiting for your reply first.

— You: just over a month now… it’s a nice place to work at, the hours are easier to handle than a restaurant

— Unknown: That’s great. I’m glad it’s not as stressful on you like before. How’s school? Work is fine for me btw. The same old, nothing rarely changes…

You sunk back into your bed, beginning to relax as you typed some more and told him how school was. You found small talk with Hoseok once again became natural and before you knew it, you were catching up…all while skirting around the subject of the break up—if you could call it that. You didn’t mind though, you hadn’t expected it, you were just happy to be talking again.

It was getting late after a few more messages were past around and you had an 8am class the next day, but for some reason, you didn’t have it in you to cut the conversation short. When it felt like it was waning you’d say something random to get it back started again and now you were currently inwardly panicking after he hadn’t replied for a few minutes… Maybe he’d fallen asleep? Or maybe your new conversation starter about veganism had freaked him out…

Your eyes were just beginning to give in and droop when your cell buzzed on your chest and you jumped up, scurrying to open it and read what he’d said. Your heart beginning to beat a little too fast once you had.

— Hoseok: You know when I said nothing rarely changes…? I lied…

What did that mean? You were confused, wanting to ask him to elaborate, but you could tell by the three dots bouncing up and down on the screen that he wasn’t done.

— Hoseok: I miss you. I hate myself for laying this on you right now, so late at night too…but I miss you so much.

This time your heart stopped mid beat, re-reading over his words as if you couldn’t believe them. You didn’t, not really. You wouldn’t let your hopes be messed about with.

— You: Hoseok…

This time he took a lot longer to reply and you waited with bated breath, your heart beginning to drum again, wildly and relentless as his messages buzzed in one after the other, typos and all as he seemingly tried to make his feelings known.

— Hoseok: Not much has changed at work, but I have. Or at least, I’ve been trying to. I left things so awfully and I regret a lot of what I said to you that night—if not all of it. I never had a chance to explain myself because I respected your wishes when you didn’t reply to me a couple of months back, but I still do

— Hoseok: want to explain that is

— Hoseok: and typing this all out is frustrating and I can’t express how I feel snd I don’t know, I just want one last chance to tell you everything I’ve been feeling. Was feeling. Still am feeling…

It took a while for his words to sink in and you stared blankly at the screen for so long he messaged you again, probably second guessing himself.

— Hoseok: It’s probably too much to ask. I’m sorry for being so rude.

You replied before you could overthink.

— You: I miss you too — You: A lot.

— Hoseok: You do? You don’t know how happy that makes me feel

— Hoseok: I mean, it doesn’t make me ecstatic that you miss me just thta I’m not alone. I’m sorry

You paused to giggle a little, not used to Hoseok acting like this. It was kind of cute.

— You: It’s okay, I understand what you mean… hearing you say you miss me was a great feeling too

— Hoseok: I miss you. I’ll say it again just to make you feel great. I love making you feel great. You mean the world to me.

— You: Hoseok…

You had to warn him again because you were afraid you were falling too easily again. Granted, he had just confessed more than he’d ever done in the six months that you’d known him and it seemed like he wasn’t done, but you still were too afraid to get your hopes up. He had hurt you—broken your heart if you were being honest and a few text messages weren’t going to make it magically all better—

— Hoseok: Can we meet up? — Hoseok: Tomorrow? So we can talk properly

—but maybe speaking in person would be a better option… He was right, you hadn’t given him a chance to explain himself before, maybe that was selfish of you? Maybe everything could have been resolved if you had? Or maybe you were too weak? Jiahn would probably think so, and you groaned, realising you would have to tell her everything tomorrow…

— Hoseok: I’m sorry if I’m pushing this. All you have to do is say no and I’ll listen and won’t bother you again. It’s just today felt like a sign and I can’t ignore it, not if there’s a chance of working things out.

A chance of working things out? Your throat felt dry and tight. Did he mean it? You thought today was a sign too… It had to mean something, right?

— Hoseok: I don’t usually beg, but…please. Please, if not just so I can explain myself and try to make you see none of it was your fault.

You took a deep breath before replying. You knew you needed this. You both did.

— You: Okay. I think we need it. — You: Where?

— Hoseok: Thank you. I don’t deserve it. — Hoseok: the park where we used to go for walks?

Of course you agreed. And off you went to the park where you’d shared many a memory with Hoseok. Seeing him standing there waiting for you took your breath away a little but you pushed yourself forward, greeting him with a hi.

“Hello, you,” he smiled. “How was class?”

Truth was it was torture, half asleep from getting little to no rest last night, even after you’d said goodnight to Hoseok. You hadn’t been able to drop off, mind a mass of thoughts, but the good kind this time, and now you were paying for it, bags under your eyes, face surly swollen a little. But of course you lied and said it was good.

You walked for a little while in silence. It wasn’t awkward, just a little nerve wracking. You didn’t know what to expect, especially when he asked you to sit down on a bench—the very bench where you shared your first kiss… The memory stirred fresh feelings inside your tummy, swirling around like crazy. Hoseok was still silent for a while and you patiently waited for him. He was after all the one who wanted to speak to you. You had said all you wanted to say that night. Now it was his turn.

After some awkward shuffling and quiet sighs, he finally opened his mouth, and after a few minutes, he was finally beginning to relax as you listened silently, the words falling off his tongue almost easily.

He told you how much he’d missed you, how much he’d wanted to speak to you and make things better again, but most of all, how much he regretted everything that had happened. For disregarding your feelings and making you feel like it was all in your head. Because it wasn’t. He had feelings for you. He still did, but he’d cruelly pretended it was nothing more than a business agreement. That wasn’t true. He wanted nothing more than to be equals with you, to share everything with you. He cared about you and he hated his life without you. He missed you every waking moment. He was happy to let you live your life if it meant you’d be better without him, but he’d taken yesterday as a sign. A last chance. He needed this, if not nuts for closure—for both of you.

He had wanted to be honest all those weeks back but it was hard for him. Still was hard. He was a coward, scared of his own feelings and he’d chosen to run away from it all. He was selfish. It had always been like that. He told you about past relationships and why they had failed. Commitment issues maybe? He didn’t know. He thought it used to be something like that, but maybe he was just too frightened to let someone in? For someone to see the real him, flaws and all. Having someone love him was scary because he thought he would only break their heart in the end… or maybe selfishly worse; what if he let someone in and they broke his? He didn’t know if he could recover from that.

You realised as he spoke, you hadn’t known much about his life before you. Yes, he talked about his business but that’s as far as it went. While on the contrary, you had told him so much about your life it was maybe stupid. Or not? Hoseok was a great listener and he enjoyed helping people out, but you understood even the most helpful of people deserved to have people listen to them once in a while too. The most giving deserved the most help.

The conversation lulled into a comfortable silence after he got to explain himself, express himself and you basked in it, finally feeling a little full? Complete? It was a nice feeling but you still had small regrets itching at the back of your mind.

“What are you thinking?” He asked after a moment and you turned to face him to see him watching you carefully, concern lightly darkening his features. His hair had grown a little longer since you’d last seen him and dark strands blew in the wind and curled over his face. He looked positively breathtaking and your heart ached a little.

“I kind of just wish I had replied to you those couple months back—maybe things would have been resolved quicker,” you admitted easily. There was no need to feel self-conscious anymore.

“Selfishly I wished that too for a while,” he nodded after a moment, “but it works out better this way. We had some space to clear our heads and see what we want, and I don’t know, a few weeks ago I don’t think I would have had the guts to be so open with you,” he confessed. “Missing you this much has shown me how incredibly bad I want you in my life.”

You let out a breath, “you really mean that?”

“With all my heart,” he told you sincerely, looking you straight in the eyes and taking your hand, before continuing to babble. “You’re the one. I’m sure of it. I want us to try again. Slowly. Properly. As equals—dating? I want us to go on date nights and hang out together and—

“Like sharing the cost together at restaurants?” You butted in with a wry grin.

“Yes,” he agreed after a pause, chuckling slightly, “going dutch, right?” He asked and you nodded. “I want that. I want us. I know it might take us a while to get there again—for you to trust me and be confortable around me, but I really want to be given the chance to show you I’ve changed. Even if I don’t deserve it, I want to—

He was off again, speaking a mile a minute and you cut him off with a kiss to the lips. You weren’t really thinking properly but your attention has been on his mouth ever since he’d started babbling and it was the only thing you could think of to shut him up. It was brief but it still had your heart swelling to twice its size.

“I think you deserve it,” you grinned, pulling away with a smooch.

“Really?” He breathed, eyes wide and unfocused, still in awe by the kiss.

“Of course,” you insisted, taking a breath before carrying on. “Hoseok, you are the most genuine guy I’ve ever met, give your faults, but everyone has those. I do—” you paused when he went to interrupt you and you shot him a look “—don’t try to argue. Humans aren’t perfect.”

“I think you’re perfect,” he quipped and you rolled your eyes, hitting him playfully on the shoulder as you leant into him and he wrapped his arm around you.

“Okay, now you’re just trying to butter me up,” you smiled as he leant down to kiss you once more, a peck so gentle you hardly felt it.

“So, you’re giving me another chance?” He wondered, needing to make sure and you nodded, looking up at him with earnest.

“I’m giving us another chance.”

A few weeks past and you and Hoseok got into a routine. It was surprising how easy things got back to normal, only this time things were infinitely different to how they were. There was no guilt, no stresses when money wasn’t involved. You didn’t feel like you owed him anything, although you never did, and finally you had got what you wanted. A relationship. Just you and he on equal footing.

Jiahn was surprisingly easy to convince, even easier than you and she gave her blessing, telling you she “knew you both were made for each other”, despite not two months ago her telling you, you were better off without him and it would have never worked out. But you took it with a smile, knowing she just wanted you to be happy and obviously she could see that you were.

True to his word, Hoseok took it slow. He took you out; dinners, movies, museums. You spent so much of your free time together and enjoyed each step of the way. You’d recently began to spend time as his again. He was a dab hand at cooking and he was into creating new recipes for you to eat. Tonight, he was making something Thai, something you’d never heard of but it smelt wonderful.  

“Only the best for my baby,” he’d grinned when you had told him, wrapping his arms around your back as he nuzzled his face into your neck, basking in your perfume.

The meal was amazing, as expected, and afterwards you had been cuddled on the sofa, your back against his chest as you settled in between his legs, sipping on wine.

“It’s getting late, I should call you a taxi,” Hoseok hummed as you watched the television.

“No, it’s okay, I can call one for myself,” you shook your head, sitting up slightly, but feeling slightly disappointed. Leaving was the worst time of the night and you got up with heavy feet.

“Or…?” He began, almost as if he was suggesting something and you turned your head back to look at him hopefully, “what?”

“It’s nothing, I just—” he tried again, beginning to get awkward. “You could stay the night? It’s actually really late, too late for you to go home alone.”

“Okay,” you agreed almost instantly.

“Okay?” He repeated, sounding shocked and you nodded.

“If you want me to, yes.”

“Oh. Okay,” he smiled, outstretching his arms for you to join him again and you took his hands, settling back down and falling against his chest as he placed a kiss to your hairline. “That’s great.”

You took the suggestion easily. You didn’t know what it meant, but you were excited regardless, even if it just meant sharing a bed. Imagining waking up next to him again made your stomach flutter. However, Hoseok was beginning to act awkward, deadly silent and stiff under you. Looking up at him he seemed tense, jaw locked.

“Hoseok?” You wondered out loud and he hummed. “Are you okay?”

“Hm, yes or course,” he grinned, but it seemed a little forced, “why?”

“You’ve been distracted ever since I said I would stay over,” you shrugged, sitting up once again and he let his arms fall from around you. “I can go if you want? Do you have to wake up early or something?”

“No,” he exclaimed, sitting up with you. “No…that’s not it… it’s just—ah—” he stuttered,  “—um, oh god, how do I—

“Hoseok,” you interrupted, “what’s up with you? You’re all antsy and acting weird.”

It was true. You’d never seen him act this way before, not even when he was apologising and letting you in. He watched you for a moment, swallowing loudly as you raised an eyebrow, confused and now a little worried.

“I-I wanted to ask you something…” he began, and you waited with bated breath, nerves drumming up your body. “I don’t know how though…like, how do I ask for you to…to be my girlfriend…?”

Your eyes widened as time stood still, happiness filling every vein inside your body. This is why he’d been acting so weird? You chuckled, reaching for his hands and clasping them.

“I think you just did.”

“I did?” He repeated, looking unsure of himself. It was rare you saw him like this and it was sweet, your heart filling with admiration.

“You did,” you grinned. “And my answer is of course.”

You leaned into kiss him, closing your eyes as you felt his soft lips against yours and he sighed in relief, kissing you back before he pulled away gently.

“There’s one more thing actually,” he added hesitantly. “If I’m out here being honest—the new me,” he chuckled silently and you went to join him but the air was knocked straight out of your lungs. “I love you—I’m so in love with you I can’t think properly. You turn me into somebody else, but someone so much better.”

Confession stunning you for longer than you imagined, his words ringing inside your ears you forced yourself to move, shuffling between his legs to cup his face, kissing him again, desperate to show him everything you were feeling.

“I love you too,” you grinned breathlessly, breaking apart to speak. “Of course I do.”

It was true. You’d loved him for a while, you were positive, although you hadn’t wanted to admit it, and you were so happy that he felt the same back. Everything had finally fallen into place and you’d never felt happier. You kissed him again and this time he kissed back with a little force. You could never get enough of kissing him; his touch, his taste… It was addictive, and now you could have it forever.

You shifted, pushing him back by the shoulders a little so that his back was against the sofa and you straddled him, sitting snug in his lap as he wrapped his arms around you, groaning into the kiss as he parted his mouth, tongue lacing against yours, one of your hands gripping his shoulder while the other cupped his neck, pressing your chest flush against his.

You don’t know how long you sat there kissing, but the whole room was beginning to get stuffy, your skin hot as the kiss developed into something of a frenzy. There was something more behind each of your actions tonight. You were craving one another. It had been so long and every flick of his tongue, every caress of his fingers along your back and legs were driving you wild. You could feel his shaky breath against yours, see the sweat forming at his hair line and you couldn’t help but drive your crotch into his, friction of his pants rubbing against your thinly covered core, dress having ridden up as his large hands rubbed at the bare skin of your thighs, sending shivers up your spine.

“Hoseok,” you murmured. “I want you so bad.”

He moaned at that, sound breaking in his throat as his hands moved to your hair, angling your head so he could kiss you a little firmer, tongue strong and taking control before he slid down your chin and finally to your neck, making you moan lewdly, losing yourself as he sucked and licked at the sensitive flesh.

“Are you sure?” He breathed, air blowing icy cold on the wet spots and you shuddered, gripping onto his shoulders, his actions having a zealous effect on your body.

You nodded wildly, not trusting your voice this time around, especially now as he was making his way to your throat, nibbling at the skin. You grit your hips into him sterner, desperate for him to make more of a move and you could feel his erection beginning to strain against his pants. The slightest of friction was enough for you to let out a shaky breath, body sensitive and your panties were most definitely getting damp between your bodies, craving him so bad he didn’t even have to touch you, not really.

He broke away with a squelch, neck wet with his salvia, flesh burning as if you were on fire, and his hands slid down your spine, catching the zip of your dress in the process and dragging it open, revealing the expanse of your back before he was messaging your butt, rolling and moulding the flesh in his palms, fingertips teasing the skin that peaked out, pressing your crotch into his harder, a growl leaving him as he looked up at you, eyes black and hungry, jaw slack.

“Bedroom,” he got out and you nodded once again, squealing a little when he stood up suddenly, holding you to him in his strong arms before he flew to his room.

It had been a long time since you’d been inside but it was exactly like you remembered, clean and minimal, bed sheets white and not a crease insight—well, that was until he placed you on them and towered over your body, fingers caressing your sides before he was pulling the sleeves of your garment down, as if he was desperate to undress you. He was never this quick but he seemed unstoppable tonight, as if he couldn’t control himself.

He almost fell backwards when he realised you weren’t wearing a bra and you had to shimmy out the rest of the dress yourself, kicking it to one side as he watched your body in awe. His hands reached out to touch you almost gingerly, fingertips tickling your tummy before he was tracing circles around your hardened nipples, making light sighs of pleasure escape you. You reached up to try and get him out of his shirt, fingers toying with the buttons and it took him a little while to get the hint before he was straightening his back and undressing himself, giving up with his buttons half way to just tug the stiff material over his head, dark hair tousled, but you hardly realised that because your eyes were too fixated to his chest, skin practically growing, shimmering with sweat. Your hands flew to his belt, unclasping the leather quickly, the clink of the metal causing your stomach to somersault.

He watched you intensely as you freed him, unzipping his fly with little problem, hand slipping inside to feel his hardness against your palm. He groaned, buckling into you without realising and he wrapped his own hand against yours, just basking in the feeling as you squeezed.

When he couldn’t wait any longer he let go, pulling his pants down and you watched as he stripped off completely, eyes taking his naked form in, as if he could disappear at any moment and you needed to remember as much as you could.

His thighs flexed as he crawled over you, shaky fingers coming up to the band of your underwear and he tugged a little, slowly revealing the last of your body, mouth finding yours as he peeled the chiffon off, stuck to your damp core that tingled when the air hit it, turning you on even more. You kicked them off completely and then you were both naked, flesh against flesh, limbs bumping and sliding against each other. You didn’t know where you wanted Hoseok to touch you first, you wanted it all at once, your body burning with a ferocious heat.

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath, breaking away from your mouth to peak between your bodies, seeing your soaked centre ready and waiting for him. “You’re so beautiful. I’m so lucky,” he breathed, lightly caressing your thighs as you bent your knees.

“I want to touch you everywhere,” he said with a kiss to your lips, “I want to pleasure you everywhere,” he kissed you again, “but,” and he half chuckled, groaning when his member accidentally rubbed against your heat. “—I don’t think I can wait any longer. I need to be inside you so bad. I’ve missed you so much.”

You moaned as he laced his fingers through your hair, angling your chin so he could kiss your lips long and hard and you felt his length slip between your legs, tip pressing against your opening.

“Are you good?” He asked, bracing himself with the palm of his hand as he pushed against the mattress, and you nodded.

There was no need to use a condom, you hadn’t been with anyone else since Hoseok and you knew he hadn’t either. You couldn’t wait to feel him inside you once again, after all this time and you held your breath as he pushed inside you, walls hugging him to you, like they had missed him too, like he was made for you. Your body wanted him so much there was no need for any warm up, you were wet enough and the burn of the stretch didn’t last too long, the pleasure outweighing the discomfort.

“Mhm,” he groaned, eyes clenched shut. “You feel better than I remember—fuck, baby…”

The name fell so freely from his tongue and your stomach began to knot up, a warm fuzzy feeling in the pit of it as you watched him intently, his face contorting with pleasure as he began to thrust into you. His movements were stiff and hard as if he was overcome with pleasure and it wasn’t long before his head was falling into the crook of your neck, breathing heavily against your flesh. He was shuddering and tense and you realised at the last moment that he was close to coming. No longer had the thought rushed into your mind he was groaning and filling you up with his seed, gripping the sheets under him, knuckles turning white.  

You lay underneath him, feeling him grow flaccid inside of you as he panted for breath and it wasn’t long before he was chucking weakly against your shoulder. “That was slightly humiliating,” he admitted.

“It’s okay,” you reassured him, wrapping your arms around his back. If anything, you were even more turned on than before. Hoseok had always been a man or self-control and restraint, seeing him like this now was new and exciting. There wasn’t even time to feel disappointed.

You shifted under him but he stopped you, hand coming out to grip your waist. “No, wait. Stop for a moment,” he murmured, straightening his back to look you in the eye. “Let me stay inside you. Kiss me—I’ll get hard again soon.”

Your heart fluttered madly as he dropped his head to capture your lips in his and you listened, staying perfectly still as he snaked his tongue with yours. “I want to stay inside you forever,” he whispered against your mouth.

You moaned a little, kissing him harsher until he broke away and began kissing down your chest, taking one of your nipples inside his mouth, swirling his tongue around the flesh. You clasped at his hair, fingers digging into his scalp as your stomach dipped in crazy hot pleasure, legs writhing around the bed as your tried to anchor yourself to the mattress. It was unbelievable how wild he turned you from just a kiss, and slowly you felt him begin to rock his hips against you again, testing the waters. You could feel him growing harder inside of you, stretching you out once more and you wrapped your legs around his hips, wriggling your hips and beginning to meet each thrust.

He grunted, kissing back up your chest until he met your chin, kissing up to your ear and sucking on the lobe, sending shivers up your spine, the feeling unbearably good and you dug your nails into his shoulders, moaning louder as his thrusts grew more forceful.

“See what you do to me,” he panted, voice strained. “You’re amazing.”

You jumped a little when both his hands clasped around the bed frame, thud echoing in your ears as he used his weight to thrust his whole body into you, your legs sliding off him to settle wide on the bed. You could feel him everywhere, hitting as far as he could go until he bottomed out with every push of his hips, choked moans leaving you as you tried to control yourself but you couldn’t help but pant his name, hands playing with the small of his back and the curve of his ass, desperate to have him as deep as he could go. You could feel the sweat coating his flesh and see the sheen that covered his chest. He looked mouth-watering, hair in his eyes as he looked down at you, teeth gritted.

He was all yours.

The thought hit you hard, your heart swelling inside your chest. You had never really let yourself feel this in the past, always something holding you back, fear of getting hurt or it all blowing up in your face. But now it was different. He was all yours. He was in love with you. There was no longer a reason to hide.

His dick slid in and out of you freely, your arousal coating him and yourself profusely, although it was mixed with his come, and the thought turned you on even more, realising he was fucking his own arousal into you over and over again. You were so full with him, you wondered if some of the white liquid was spilling out of you, slick sounds filing the room mixed with his grunts and your moans as your imagination ran away with you.

“F-fuck,” you choked, finding your voice finally. “Hoseok, you feel so good.”

“Yeah?” He got out.

“Mm,” you moaned. “So good. I missed you,” you chuckled breathlessly.

“Me or my dick?” He teased, eyes flashing with mischief as he dropped one hand from the bed frame to trace a line down your chest, circling around your belly button when he hit your stomach, his thrusts slowing for a moment.

“B-both,” you grunted. “All of it—please don’t stop. I’ll cum soon.”

“That’s good to know,” he said, “want a helping hand?”

You nodded vigorously, stomach stirring in fresh pleasure, clit pulsing in anticipation before the pads of his thumb and index finger pinched the hardened flesh lightly. You groaned, pressing your head back as far as it would go into the pillow as he worked his hips into you harder, skin slapping against skin, rubbing against you now as you let the pleasure take over your body, the tension twisting in your stomach. You clenched your eyes, words spilling out of you, unstoppable now, although certified trash, you couldn’t even hear yourself.

“God, I’ve missed the way you moan,” he exclaimed, thighs locking your legs down to the bed so you couldn’t squirm.  “Always will be so good for me,” he murmured lowly, inferno blazing in the pit of your stomach at his words. Even when he was overcome he was still hot.

Your walls were clenching around him nonstop about a minute away from coming, holding your breath because you knew if you did so it would happen quicker, blood supply getting caught off and coating you in mind numbing pleasure. You kept your bottom half still, your hands clasping around Hoseok’s waist, forcing him harder inside of you.

“Hoseok—oh g-god,” you cried. “I’m gonna cum—cumm-ing-g,” you bit out, and he growled as he felt you spasm around his dick, freezing under him with him a long drawn out moan, tears pricking in the corner of your eyes and then sliding down your temples.

He stopped thrusting almost instantly, hand falling from between your legs to dangle in the air as his stomach muscles tightened. He was letting you milk him dry, no need to move and it wasn’t long before he was filling you with his seed again, groaning as his head shot back. Knowing so much of his come was inside of you filled you with so much pleasure you thought you were floating, your limps weak as you chuckled breathlessly, hearing him join you.

He pulled out of you slowly with a groan that told you he didn’t want to but he didn’t have a choice and you felt some of his arousal trickle down the inside of your thigh, staining his bed in the process no doubt. You weren’t expecting him to collapse straight on top of you, but he did just that, careful to not crush you, of course, and you basked in his warmth, giggling when he placed ticklish kisses against your neck.

“We should have a shower but I don’t want to get up,” he groaned against you.

“We can wait for a little bit,” you smiled, wrapping your arms around him, listening to his heart beating against your chest as his breathing evened out.

“Waiting sounds good to me,” he agreed, lifting his head to meet your eyes. “We have forever, right?”

You went to reply, your heart doing flips at his words but he kissed you, long and hard, out of breath once again.

“I love you, Hoseok,” you murmured once he pulled away, eyes dreamy and unfocused as you looked straight at him.

He was all yours. Everything had worked out. You were both finally happy.

“I love you too, ___.”

And with that he kissed you again, his hair falling into your face and tickling your nose, making you giggle. His heart swelled inside his chest.

[theoraclehealer]

Jung, mysticism and psychopomp signature.

Sept 28, 2017

chiron and carl jung

and the zodiac signs

taurus has to ascend. what does that even mean, right?

as i sat with this, i imagined somehow seeing a taurus - bull - rise up into the air and go up the heavens. I’m clueless.

so i sat with this some more and thought about the introvert, as she seems to be in need of the most help here.

there always comes a time when i have these breathing episodes and everything runs amok.

for example:

ok, how bad is this?

how bad will this be?

and then i have to sit with it and see if i reach a point where it will just stop or carry on for a bit longer. this morning’s episode was awful (i still blame the seroquel). there are many tricks that i will try - reasoning my way through it, sounds, rescue remedy, coffee, water, contemplation, whatever … but then ill even try talking to myself but out loud, pretending someone is there with me.

focus has been a BIG theme here … but now I’m realizing that its actually human connection.

so ill talk out loud and see if that works.

but this morning was difficult - it changed a lot but was also more stubborn until i started to realize just how bad this sheer terror is that i have around death.

i contemplated a couple of times whether or not i wanted to call 9/11 but that proved to be problematic for a few reasons - one namely, i was home alone and was stuck upstairs so i couldn’t really go all the way down stairs and then upstairs and then change my clothes, find my shoes, make sure the dogs were okay, etc.

but in my mind, it was clear to me that i just wanted someone around and sadly, other than my mom, EMS workers are my only shot. 

how difficult is it to heal from all of this … on my own?

narcissistic abuse … emotional deficits all over the place … sheer terror … profound rejection 

and yet no one to look to in the eye.

no one to “pull you out of it” when you need it the most. 

so it could be that the introvert would have gotten hurt at any time because in the end, she’s the traumatized one. and now in order to get taurus to ascend, i have to find her and tell her it’s okay … but ask me if i believe that it will be?

theres a chakra component here though and as i started to type this, i felt the shift in my lower chakras rise. i saw a red/pink light in the distance.

i have lost the passion for life and living. because my life was taken from me. all of it. blindsided and then burned. you wake up and its ALL gone because YOU understand the gravity of the disaster that you will now have to face, its a sense of knowing. 

the people around me are tired to me.

i was in love with something before. it wasn’t a man but it was … the air. the moon. the sun. and the stars. 

isn’t it great? she thought. 

and now the world around HER this time, not God … has grown dark. 

its take a great amount of effort to get out of the house.

because i generally don’t care.

whats in it for me?

so i drifted off to the left, to look around and think.

i realized the contemplative aspect of me has also severely suffered. another I in NFP.

but it was then that i realized who she was and we reconnected.

morissey’s - how soon is now? ran through my head.

then out of the corner of my eye, i could see my phone lighting up but it wasn’t a notification - it was red, orange and yellow - and i heard “its a bird” and by the flames that encompassed this image, i could tell it was the phoenix. i smiled.

my left arm said “i want my life back”

and was happy for about a few seconds but then stopped because … life.

the magic doesn’t uplift me anymore.

i want to be concrete for a time and see that life can be mine again. but i feel like i am owed something … from someone and yet all avenues are shut.

chiron told me i had a job to do.

isn’t that always the case?

even if i found $50,000 and i moved out … my health is still bad. the nebulizer is the bane of my existence.

i have gone through so many phases where i THINK I’m going to ween myself off of it and then there’s a kick back … of something i don’t understand … but last time, i blame the sleep study. and again, even as smart as i am and as intuitive as i am … with my history, someone should have stepped in and said “no way … lets talk this out instead because you matter”.

everything comes … after the fact.

even the help.

—————

things worth mentioning bc it gets so sticky throughout the day - i have been having upper back pain and have had to lay on the floor and hearing some pops around my neck but the pain is around c4. i suspect the seroquel relaxed things TOO much and through this nerve into a mess. laying down doesn’t help but sleeping in the chair is causing numbness and tingling in my hands again. I’m getting pain in my infraspinatus - both sides. this can be the only thing that i can think of that causes weird and sudden attacks, randomly.

the episodes take forever to resolve. and the pain at SI9 gets worse when i have these episodes ... very local and sharp pain.

something else to note, i don’t know the stages in which the healing happens ... with the vertebrae ... passions and love ... C4 ... insane heartbreak and emotional neglect and lack of emotional support.

and then things calm down, after i get so angry because of the physical damage/repair thats STILL happening ... and you realize just how  many layers you have to build UP and not work through ... to get to the emotional body ... and where intuition comes from as you’re doing acupuncture on a client and you see a blue/purple small round light appear on your left pointer finger and you hear “john lennon” is your intuitive guider of principles long forgotten like “love is all you need” because love makes you feel like you can overcome ANY of your demons. Victor said that when we were talking last year, that he felt more stable.

——

hindsight is 20-20 right?

Elizabeth Thorson told me that unless i get grounded, I’m not going to know what work I’ve done will stick.

That was …. about 8 months ago and THIS is how long its taking me … after her esteemed shamans all failed.

“love is all you need”

———————-

so at the end of the day, this has not been an uplifting journey. and i have a new definition of “enlightenment”.

but I just did a search online for remedies for herniated discs and came across st johns wort oil and elderberry.

i had been told by “myself” that i didn’t need the elderberry anymore.

funny enough, muscle pain and tension has been an issue ever since … and thats exactly what one website said it helps with. 

pisces sabotage. 

and where has the help from the other dimensions been for this?

and whats a firefly? and why was it getting in my way today?

this is all going to end up wrapping up and i have no say in anything. it has to happen and i don’t want to stay like this but there is no book or teacher that i have here on earth to reassure me that things are indeed winding down.

my entire life has been trauma. and many things happen suddenly. my death happened suddenly and has been MORE trauma.

I’m running into problems talking to some clients about things like … their grief bc instinctually, i pull from experience and can only be as “fake” honest as i can be, knowing they’re not going through what I’m going through. 

but when the extra energy and interference is gone, what work is left for me to do? how quiet will life be? will it be a rough transition? and how much longer will i be alone? my mouth keeps saying … as if being fed words from the left … but think of how fruitful your life is going to be! and i go … prove it.

——

and as i try to just sit with what i just wrote, i also sit with one of my other selves who seems to be championing me … trying to tell me that she’s going to help me take melatonin tomorrow … and if she’s not here, to take it at 9pm.

THIS alone triggers my biggest fear but i should be allowed to …. SIT.

my eyes go to the keyboard … “christine’s biggest fear is coming up! meows!”

and now i have that on my mind … unless i just keep typing. 

but is the electricity too much for me today?

FUCK.

spiritual awakening or spirit murder? this journey has been horrible. 

————

lets talk. 

so you’re all full of shit.

I’ve been astral traveling day in and day out to heal … myself.

taoist astral gods of healing. 

i can call on whomever i need in a pinch.

but i “step outside” of myself to try and gain a different perspective right?

but she sees things i cannot.

i just wish there was more information because then i would have been more willing … and just allowed it to happen with an understanding. 

theres other things going on that i am “feeling” out … and i suspect MY spirits are the ones swirling around, swiping shit away. 

i started to become more and more suspicious of “the spirits reside within” … until you derail in the most horrifying way possible and they have to step in and do the work.

“we want our girl back!!!”   - said to Petra who didn’t spend any time in exploring this with me. i dissociated but i didn’t black out. i heard the whole thing. she just watched …. and probably thought “ohhhh a case study … how freudian”

so who’s in my eyes?

I’ve already suspected a few things here … but i get the shen, liver, gall bladder and the bladder and the eyes. 

i get that the shen scatter with trauma but something is a-miss.

——

earlier today, twice at least, i thought of arielle and her death. she died in her sleep. and i had been talking to a client about this tonight and said that we all have these experiences, day in and day out and while its not easy (she was struggling with losing her friend recently), its better to allow yourself the time to process it. i had shared with her the complications of dealing with my own death and coma, along with dealing and processing arielle’s. she died in her sleep and i fear dying in my sleep … and its two-fold because i now have a coma to contend with. its hard to figure this one out as its a lot of imagery more so than words attached to a feeling … and this could be the curse of an empath.

she was so young. when she initially came through, whether it was her or not, i was feeling something different towards her than others … i was shut down a bit and well, on some level, feeling at one with her. 

“hey - hows it going - this shit is nuts right?”

“I’m sorry you’re dead, arielle.”

you’re DEAD.

[b0blegum]

At the Same Level.

Author: b0blegum

Pairing: Choi Youngjae x Reader

Rating: PG (but who wants their parents to read this with them tho, just read at your own risk lmao)

Genre: Smutty-Fluff

Status: COMPLETED

Part: One-Shot

a/n okay, so this is actually requested by @fannyfransiscaaa. I don’t know if she’d like this as much as i do, but let’s just hope this is also her cup of tea x

Saturday, 9pm.

Nothing much different than any other weekends. The apartment is quiet. You, reading a book you haven't got the chance to finish it since last month and Youngjae, your flat-mate, busy clicking mouse and torturing the keypad with eyes locked on bright computer screen.

You and him are not fond of going out on weekends, because both of you share the same thought; why would one go out on weekend when they were out everyday on weekdays? Were those 5 days not enough?

"Youngjae!" You shouted from your room. You always let your door open. Except when you are showering or sleeping, of course.

"Hm?" He hummed, without taking his eyes off the screen.

"I am hungry." He kept quiet, waiting for your next chain of words. "Want to order some chicken?"

"No, shit!"

"Excuse me?"

"Oh, sorry. It was the game. What did you say?" He shouted. Fingers still busy on both keyboard and mouse.

"I want to order some chicken. Fancy that?" You walked out to his game room. The only room that doesn't have windows and clock, where Youngjae could spend the whole day there without realising the moon had replaced the sun

"Yeah, yeah." He stole a quick glance at you before locking his eyes back on screen and began saying words you don't even understand.

You rushed to his room, took his wallet that he put carelessly on the bed and took two bills from it, but something stopped your action. You saw a photo of you and him, in his wallet, between the bills he has.

"He keeps this photo?" You slid out the photo carefully. "Jeez, i looked ugly." You commented, before sliding it back in and threw his wallet back.

"I'm paying with your money." You said, intentionally saying it with low voice, so that he can't really hear it, but if he asked you where his money is, you could easily say 'I've told you earlier but you didn't respond so i took that as a yes.' An old trick you always pulled and he still fall for it every time.

After around thirty minutes of waiting, you smell something nice, followed by a ring on the front door.

That is definitely the chicken. You marched to pick it and brought it inside. Putting it on the small coffee table in the living room along with two cans of beer you took from the fridge.

"Youngjae-ah, my boyfriend is here. Come eat him up!" You showed up at the door of the gameroom. He didn't say anything until the result of the game came on screen. He took off his headset and joined you.

"That sounds so wrong. Eat him. I don't eat men, (y/n)." He hissed and opened his can.

"Why is everything has to be related to sexual activity to you?" You rolled your eyes.

When you first met him, was the day he moved in to your flat. He seemed innocent, reserved and all that treats that a nerd would have, but all of your first impressions of him were completely wrong. He is goofy, loud (especially when he laughs) and his mind were filled with either games of girls– and dogs, okay, he loves dogs.

"Don't blame me. You chose that word and i happened to know a lot of phrases, so..." He chewed his chicken.

"Whatever." He chuckled at your reaction. He loves to annoy you. He loves you being angry (but not really) at him. He just love your reactions and not only that, he loves teasing you. He loves giving you a sudden back hug when you were cooking. You were blushing when he did that for the first time, but not until he whispered 'The bathroom smelled so bad, you must've pooped a lot.' Since then, you always brushed his hands immediately, when he was about to give you a back hug.

"Hey, i'm turning on Serendipity, alright?" You searched for the remote, then clicking the buttons, switching to the movie mode to found your favourite movie.

"God, i am a man and i've watched that movie zillion times. I feel weird." He stripped his last portion of chicken before downing the beer.

"You don't have to join me if you don't want to. I'm cool." You leaned on the lower part of the couch and fixing your eyes on the TV as soon as the movie played.

"You believe in serendipity?" He asked when Jonathan made an appearance.

"Well, i believe in omnia causa fiunt, there's not much different with serendipity, right?" He nodded. His eyes involuntarily sticked to the TV, following the korean subtitle provided.

He let you watched the movie in peace, because he knows you'd be mad at him if he disturbs you when you are watching a movie.

He stood up, tidying the mess from the chicken you both just ate and after he was done throwing all of them to the bin, he came back with a blanket. His.

"Get on." He tapped the empty space beside him. You stood up, but instead of getting on the couch, you walked to turn off the lamp first, giving it a movie night kind of feel.

"Why did you turn it off?" He asked as you slipped inside the blanket you both share.

"Why? You don't like it this way?" You asked back as you curled yourself, taking more blanket than him. "Want me to turn it on?"

"No, no. It's fine."

Your eyes grew heavy as the movie went by, but you still managed to smile at the elevator scene. Same went to Youngjae. He already had his head tilted, supported by his hand that rested on the inside arm. His head fell a couple of times from his arm until he finally gave up and lulled his head back and somehow your head fell to his shoulder. He didn't realised it anymore because he already fell into a deep sleep and you, too. You adjusted your position to the one you thought the most comfortable for you.

The glimpse of sun rays insisted to touch your lids. You rubbed your eyes gently and put your hand to where it was before. It's firm, but... Soft. Your forehead curled, thinking about what is it under your hand. Your bed doesn't feel like this and so does your pillow. You moved your hand a couple of times as you gently pressed it.

"That... Is my chest." A raspy, just-woke up voice shocked you that made your eyes immediately wide open.

You looked up to found your flat-mate, none other than Youngjae, laying really closely to you.

"We fell asleep on the couch together on accident." He pulled his hand from strands of (your hair color).

"How did we end up in this position? Were you brushing my hair?" You asked, somehow felt annoyed.

"Were you breathing on my neck?" He asked you back as he felt a warm air touching his crooked of neck. "Oh, yes you are. You are breathing on my neck." He said softly, almost a whisper. "But... Don't you think it feels really comfortable?"

You blinked your eyes rapidly. Slowly you felt your stomach tingling, it felt funny inside.

It is, it is comfortable. You thought. But...

"Uh, Youngjae..." You called him. You could feel his jaw moved slightly, brushing your head. He found you trying to get off from your position.

"(Y/n)," he called you. "I know we're not on that level to do this, but..." You stopped wiggling trying to get off from his arm. "Can we just stay in this position for a while? It's... Comfortable and it's monday." He added.

He was right. You wanted to stay in this position, as well. His body is surprisingly perfect to be leaned on plus he smells so good.

"You're saying nothing, so i take that as a.. Yes?"

"It really is... Comfortable." You wiped his clothed chest gently and adjusting your head back the crook of his neck.

Both of you stayed in that very position for a really long time that even you almost fell back to sleep. Until his voice snapped you.

"Why are you keep refusing my back hug?" He asked as his finger took a few strands of your hair and played with it. You didn't protest and just let him.

You let out another warm breath onto his neck. "That poop thingy, you idiot."

"Poop?" He repeated.

"You said the bathroom smelled so bad that i must've pooped a lot." You rolled your eyes.

He chuckled, "I really said that?"

"Oh, please, Youngjae."

"I'm sorry about that, but if i promised i'd never say something like that ever again, will you accept my back hugs?"

"Why is it plural?"

"Becaus–"

"Hold on, i just remembered something. Why did you still have that photo of us?"

"A photo?"

"The one on your wallet. The one between the bills."

"Oh," he stopped playing with your hairs. "That is our first photo together– wait, you go through my wallet?"

"Chicken, Youngjae. I used your money."

"You little bastard." He rolled his eyes and smiled.

"Youngjae..." You called him. He only hummed and waited for your next sentence. "Why is it so comfortable." You repeated his words he said minutes ago.

You started to feel that tingling sensation again everytime your skin brushed against him and when he moved his head slightly, making a contact with your head or when his fingers playing with your hair. You felt like your breath was caught up in your throat and without you even realised, your legs moved by itself, intertwining with his. He didn't seem to refused, instead he adjusted to it and made it even more comfortable.

Knowing that you received positive feedback from him, you moved your hand slightly upward, closer to his neck, stopped right on his collarbone.

You could feel he looked down to you and moved his free hand slowly. The butterflies on your stomach began to made chaos. The funny feeling stroke back, waiting– no, expecting for his action.

He put his hand on your cheek and brushed it softly with the back of his hand.

"(Y/n)," he said. "We've been living under the same roof for... Ages, but were you always this beautiful?" His comment made you blush. You could feel your face getting warmer.

He slowly slides his hand to your jawline then to your chin. Lifting your head slowly, probably being cautious, in case you don't like what he does. But you did not refuse.

You were staring into each other with soft gaze, like you were both talking, only without a sound. He then brings his face closer to you and closed his eyes. You did the same. You closed your eyes and waiting for something you know he'd do in just another second.

And you were right.

In no time his lips touched yours and it stayed like that for a couple seconds before you gave more pressure against his lips, not that much but enough to tell him that you're up to whatever he is currently doing.

Knowing that you were up to it, he moved his hand to your cheek, cupping it as he adjusted both of your lips between each other's. Then he slid his hand gently to your neck, while your hand was still on his chest, slowly making its way up to his nape.

The kiss were slow but intense. He didn't force you to let him in nor you both were battling for dominance, no. It was sweet and gentle and it was the kiss that made you feel like time slows down, like it was controlled by the two of you.

Slowly, he shifted himself, supporting his weight with his arm that was pressed beneath your body. You were instinctively shifted yourself, laying underneath him, being pressed lightly by the figure.

His hand moved down, trailing the curve of your body and stopped when it reached your hip. He fixed his hand there as he deepened the kiss.

You played along with his game, you bite his lips couple of times that made him smirked and bite yours back, more softly.

"I don't know you'd like this idea," he whispered in your ears as he pecked your jawline.

You said nothing but moaned as he kissed you down the neck, biting the flesh and leaving marks.

You involuntarily spread your legs, giving him a way to put himself between you and once he's there, you locked him with your legs.

"I don't know what this is, but i'm loving our time now." You grabbed the back of his head and invited him for a more intense kiss.

“I think, we’re already in the level to do this kind of things.” He smiled in between kisses.

Check out my other works >> MASTERLIST <<

[nei-ning]

From Different Dimension Ch 7

* This fic will be about 2014 turtles. There might be mild tcest parts in future chapters! -- I woke up early like always and spend my morning with Master Splinter in his room, enjoying morning tea with him. I also asked his permission to go out with little Leo today and it brought smile on father’s face. He liked the idea. Encouraged by him I waited little Leo to wake up and then have breakfast. It was a bit risky to go out at daylight but there still were shadows where I could hide with him. Around 8am little Leo woke and slowly made his way in the kitchen where Mikey was already preparing his breakfast. I watched from further away how little Leo smiled at Mikey after getting plate full of oath meal in front of him with little piece of butter on it. Instead of just going and giving him milk Mikey asked would little Leo rather have orange juice instead of milk. That little head nodded eagerly few times while pointing juice carton. “You look suspicious this morning, Leo.”

“Huh?” Raphael stood slightly behind me, taking few steps slowly closer. “You talked with Splinter about going out with little guy?” “Yes. He gave me his blessing to do so. I will wait little Leo to finish his breakfast and then I will go out with him.” “You have your phone if you need to call?” “You know I always carry my phone with me, Raphael.” “Just wanted to be sure. Hey, little guy! Morning!” And like that Raphael vanished from my side, heading happily towards little Leo who’s whole face shined as he smiled widely to my little brother who bend down to kiss that small green cheek. I heard Don yawning as he too approached me, wishing me good morning while passing me. I heard his tired voice asking Mikey was there any coffee ready. Of course Mikey had thought about Don too and prepared him full pot of coffee. The way how Don sat down and kept his eyes shut was a sign he hadn’t sleep much last night. He had work whole night with our battle shell and if I knew Donnie at all, there were many sleepless nights to come. Sometimes Don just didn’t know when to stop and get some rest. – “Are you ready to go?” I kept my eyes locked on little Leo in front of me as he wore longer jacket for kids. He didn’t seem to like overlong sleeves too much but he didn’t dare to show it too clearly but I saw all those little signs on his face he found them annoying. Placing a hat on his head I smiled at him as he looked up at me. “We need to hide ourselves just in case. Sun’s up and people would see us otherwise and it would be bad.” Little Leo understood. Before heading out Raphael landed his hand on my shoulder making sure we were ready and prepared just in case. I admire his concern over us at times. After convincing him hundreds of times he finally dared to let us go since deep inside he knew little Leo was in good hands. Removing manhole cover silently I made sure none wouldn’t see us and road seemed to be clear. I jumped out and helped little Leo on the street and he stood still by my side as I moved manhole cover back on its place. “Okay, rules.” He looked up at me as I looked strictly down at him. “We stay in shadows, out of peoples sights. We make no sounds – we move as silently as we can. No running away from me at any time. You stay tightly by my side. Do you understand?” Little Leo looked a bit unsure and fearful but he nodded few times. “Good. Then we are good to go. We go on the roof and see where we go from there. Come.” I walked fast but still making sure little Leo was able to keep up with me when we reached for ladders and climb up on the roof. It seemed to be amazing experience to little Leo since he looked all around with wide eyes as wind gently moved his slightly big hat on his head. I allowed him to took his time to look around and admire the view with me. Yeah, New York was very pretty city both at day and night time. It was rare to get to see it at day time. “Hey, L.” Little Leo looked confused, looked around few times and then pointed himself. “Yes, you. I will call you L out here, okay?” And he nodded. “I wanted to ask would you like to take a photo with me?” His eyes grew so wide as his mouth turned fully round and open like an o as he stared at me. I assume it was yes. I knelt down next to him and while I was taking my phone out of my pocket, I escorted him right next to me. “Look at that small spot there. It’s a camera. Keep smiling aaaanddd – there!” I waited my phone to load my newest photo and I showed it to my little version. He made weird raspy squeal sounds as he jumped on his spot holding my phone and staring the photo. It was very nice photo. Sun was raising behind us and we both were having happy smiles on out faces. It was nice photo indeed. I have to ask Don to print it for little L. “Okay, enough. Time to move on. Where do you want to go?” Little Leo turned around looking in all directions and when he spotted ocean at the horizon, he eagerly pointed there. “You want to see ocean?” And he nodded eagerly. “It’s rather far away… But we can go. I carry you. Hope on.” I knelt down and took L on my shell. Making sure he knew he needed to hold on me tight I started to run, jumping from roof to roof, sometimes landing on all fours when I heard peoples voices coming from their balconies. I had to be careful. Little L tho seemed to enjoy his ride on my back. He kept making his weird giggling and silent laughs as I kept running and, whenever I jumped, he made a little louder squeal, his hands taking more tighter hold on my jacket. Yes, I too wore a jacket not to be notice. It took almost an hour for me to reach the buildings near by the ocean but we finally were there, little L gasping eyes wide as I put him down. He looked at me and pointed the edge of the building and I nodded. I walked behind him as he tiptoed fast at the edge raising on his toes to see better far away at the ocean. He soon started to point a boat what slowly slipped through the horizon. I’m sure he wanted to ride one but sadly I couldn’t grant that wish. I knew no one who had a boat and I couldn’t break into someone’s boat to give him a drive. Some seagulls flew over us screaming as the wind from ocean blew past us. The smell of ocean air – so calming and wonderful scent. My sleeve suddenly was pulled few times and I turned to look where that small finger was pointing at. There was small carnival at the shore and little Leo clearly wanted to go there. Can’t blame him since people seemed to have fun there. Sighing I knelt down placing my hands on those small shoulders. “I know you want there but we can’t go there. We are not humans. If we go there we will be seen. We will scare many people and police will come after us. They think we are bad. I would like to go there too but it’s better if we stay away from that place. It’s for humans, not for us.” L made little sound as his lower lip started to hang out more and he turned to look carnival once more. I understood how much pain he was experiencing at the moment. Being a child and wanting to go to have fun but you weren’t allowed because you were different… I heard him sniffing once and it made me feel even more bad. I shouldn’t had bring him here. I squeezed his small shoulder in comforting way but it didn’t seem to help him much. Then – an idea hit me. “Wait here.” I left the roof and landed on the street. Making sure I was super well hidden under my long jacket and my hat was tightly on my head I rushed over the silent road towards the entrance of the carnival noticing a sign board. Open to 9am – 9pm. Hmm, 9pm would be kind of late already but then again little L could sleep longer in next day. Making sure I wasn’t getting any attention from anyone I returned back on the roof meeting with little Leo. “You know what, little guy? You will get to go there but after 9pm. Until then we need to go around the city or go back home and come back later.” L shook his head and then pointed the city. So he wanted to see more of it? Very well. I took him more closer to central square where he saw many different people and lots of happenings, many commercial TVs, lots of stores, lots of everything. He was amazed but then again I had been pretty amazed too when I had seen all this for the first time. We went from roof to roof until L made me stop, pointing at huge toy store. “We can’t go there.” I hated to keep repeating that and make him sad but this time he didn’t give up. He kept pointing towards the store and when I took more closer look at the window, there was huge turtle plush. “You want that?” He made excited and fast panting sounds while nodding. I didn’t understood why he wanted it but he most surely would blew our cover if I wouldn’t go get it. “Okay, I go get it if it’s not too expensive. You wait here.” Instead of letting me go his hold got more tight. D-did he want to come with me? “Leo, I can’t ta--” But he protested looking at me angrily with pout, making his hold even more tight. I sighed deeply while rolling my eyes in my head. “Okay, okay. You can come BUT you stay by my side. No fooling around, no running away or anything. You can’t show anything about yourself to anyone. No hands, no feet, no face. We are really screwed if you or I do that. Understood?” He nodded looking all so serious. I couldn’t help but to chuckle at him a bit. He reminded me so much about Raphael with that expression. I took ladders down with him, heading slowly to a main walking street. I must admit I was darn nervous and tense, on guard all the time and ready to grab L and just run and hide. He took a hold on my jacket’s hem as we waited walk light to go green. I felt him being nervous as well since there lots of people around us but none of them didn’t seem to care about us. I mean you see ALL kind of people in New York. Light turned green and we walked with the group over the road heading straight to toy store. We were greeted by old couple who seemed to own the place. Without wanting to spend too much time in there I marched to them and asked about the turtle plush on the window. It was on sale and they were giving it away with half price because it had been in the store for so long. I paid 50 dollars and climb on the window to get it since I could had never asked those old people to go get it when they couldn’t move so well anyways. I felt their gazes on me and I’m sure they saw my hands when I reached for the plus but neither of them said nothing. I climb back at store’s side looking around but I couldn’t see L anywhere. “Son? Come here, we’re leaving.” I waited and waited and, darn, those seconds felt so long. Soon little Leo came to me holding a bear plush in his hands. It looked very much like the same what he had with him when he came to live with us but I couldn’t buy it to him. I already had buy him one teddy bear which was already wrapped and hidden under my bed, waiting for Christmas. “Go put it back. You already got this big turtle so no teddy.” He stopped like if he would had hit the wall. His blue eyes looked at me sad under his hat but I shook my head. “No. Take it back. You got this turtle already. One toy is enough.” He was swallowing while lowering his gaze on that teddy. It seemed to be dear to him already and I didn’t want to make him cry there but I had no choice. “Son, for the last time. Go put it back. We are not getting it.” So slowly he turned around and walked away with slow sad steps, disappearing behind the shelf. “I’m sorry about that, ma’am. I hate to do that to him but…” I went back more closer to this older woman and leaned towards her, keeping my face hidden and voice low. “After we leave, could you take that bear and put it aside? I will ask one of my friends to come to pick it up later to my son as a Christmas gift. She will pay it and I will pay it back to her. Name’s April O’Neil.” “Sure thing. That wouldn’t be a problem at all, my dear.” I felt relieved and smile escaped on my lips. “Thank you.” I stood up straight hearing little feet hitting the floor. Little Leo came to my side and looked up at me with watery eyes. “Come now, I’m sure Santa will bring you something nice if you’re a good boy. And do you know what a good boy is? Someone who smiles and laughs instead of cries. Come on, smile. You make Mister Turtle here sad too.” I lowered that huge turtle towards L who looked at it for a moment and then petted its head, slowly reaching to hug it. I heard silent “aawwh” from the old lady behind the cash register. I didn’t want to force L to let go but we really needed to go so I took hold on his hand, said bye to the owners and took L out of the store. We found small dead end where we rested a moment. I thought about lecturing little L for that what happened in a store but seeing him now happily hugging that turtles leg made me change my mind. – Carrying that big turtle and L around the city for a whole day was exhausting and it also had made me hungry. Or actually both of us since for a while now I had keep hearing L’s stomach growling as well. Once more I had hid Leo and went on my own way. This time towards pizzeria. I ordered one cheese pizza and took it with me. I thanked God for the fact none wasn’t there before me so I got my order pretty quick since after I left, huge group of younger people came in. Climbing on the roof and hiding in most darkest part L and I sat down and enjoyed our meal. Steamy and warm pizza at the moist and cool city night… It was something and worth to experience. During eating my phone vibrated in my pocket. I text from Raph, of course. “How are you two? Everything okay?” “Everything’s fine. We’ll go check one more place and then we will come home.” “Ok. Don’t be too late. Little Leo needs his sleep.” Hmh, yeah. Like I didn’t need any sleep either. I chuckled silently in my mind releasing hold on my phone, feeling it falling into my pocket. Leaving empty pizza box on the roof we started to head back towards the ocean since clock was soon 9:30pm. I was sure none wouldn’t be there anymore – and there wasn’t. Good. Running fast in shadows over the road to closed and dark carnival area I helped little Leo inside the area following him silently. “Okay, pick a device what you want to use but remember we can’t be here for long. We might get caught.” I looked around in silence. “Besides here can be cameras what might record us.” Little Leo nodded. He understood the risks and rules. He walked all around and picked carousel. He climb on a horse kicking its sides gently smiling and pointing forward. I chuckled while shaking my head. It would never move like that. Stepping closer and making sure power wires were on, but not the light ones, I turned the power one and carousel started to move around silently in darkness. Little Leo seemed to have so much fun and so did I while watching him. After carousel turn L pointed at sweet stall. I couldn’t blame him for wanting some sweets so I picked few for him what he selected, picking few of them more to my family as well. April was the one who once had brought us some sweets from carnival and we had liked them a lot. We passed carousel while heading towards the gates when multiply thud sounds echoed from all around us. Taking fast look all around of us I spotted many foot soldiers. “Oh fu--- fish! You guys couldn’t pick a better night to try to attack me?” No response. Only blades shines in the night as they all revealed their weapons. Giving candy bag to L I stepped more closer to him. “Stay close to me unless I tell you to go away.” Throwing my jacket and hat away I was able to pull my katanas from my back, getting ready to fight. Raphael would kill me if something would happen to little Leo. Steadily staying still I waited their turns and they all attacked me at once. Blocking sword with a sword, arm with an arm and leg with leg I managed to keep up with them. “Leo! Go behind that carousel horse! I need space to move!” Thanks to my sharp senses I heard him taking off slow but surely since he took that huge turtle plush with him. Fast look over my shoulder and I saw him hiding behind a horse. Good. Now I didn’t need to worry about him. Now I could go freely all out and I felt my blocked energy flowing in my arms, legs and whole body as I started to dance with my blades freely. I loved this feeling since it made me go in this blissful and completely relaxed zone which felt like hypnotize or very deep meditation. My body knew exactly how it needed to move and where and when. My eyes were getting half closed as my sharp senses became even more sharp. I felt it clearly when my blade cut flesh, when they just ripped a fabric, when they hit with another weapon or cut just air. At some point my senses started to fade back at their normal state and my eyes slowly opened. Pile of bodies laid on the sad, their bloods coloring part of the beach red. I heard sirens in the distance but I was sure they were heading this way. Placing my swords back in their scabbards I picked up my hat and jacket rushing to little Leo. “We need to go, now. Cops are coming.” L came with me as we both hurried over the road to closet manhole. Placing the cover back above my head I finally dared to sigh loud and deep. Damn, what a day. Feeling cool sewer floor under my toes after last ladder I put my whole weight on my feet, feeling instant sharp pain at my ankle. Looking down I realized I had been cut by one of those darn Foot ninjas. It wasn’t deadly but painful nonetheless. Little Leo poked me and pointed my leg and then made walking movements with his fingers. “No worries, I can walk. It just hurts a bit. Let’s go. It’s late already.” It took a bit longer to reach home because of my ankle and when we reached home, angry Raphael was awake alone and waiting for us. He jumped off from a chair and marched towards us. Little Leo his a bit behind my leg as Raphael came to stop in front of me. “Have you any idea how much the time is?” “I’m fully aware it’s almost 11pm and past little Leo’s bedtime.” “Damn right it is. What took you so long? And what the heck is that big turtle toy?” Little Leo stepped next to me pointing himself. “The reason why it took so long to get back home is that we had way too much fun and no rush to get back. We also did some shopping as you can see. Here’s something for you too.” I handled little sweet bag to Raphael what he took slowly in slight surprise but he managed to say thanks. “Are others in bed already?” “Yeah. Splinter went to bed in his regular time and yes, I checked his leg with Don before letting him sleep. He’s healing well. Mikey went to bed early too. Don was putting up a little fight when I forced him to bed around 10pm as well. Darn he doesn’t know when to sleep and think for his own good. I almost had to drag him in his bed and cover him.” I almost laughed out loud to him when he kept explaining what had happened at the evening. “How about you? Why you’re not in bed?” “Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t had been able to sleep while knowing you and little Leo were still out. What if you would had need my help and I would had been sleeping? You always wait any of us to come home before going to bed so… I thought I at least could do the same.” I felt warm inside after hearing those words. I adored it how much he cared and worried about us. How much we meant to him. “Sorry for keeping you awake. You can go to bed now.” Taking a step with my injured leg, what I already had forgot, made me reel forward with loud hiss. Raphael instantly stepped forward, arms open and ready to catch me, worried look in his eyes. “What the shell…?” Little Leo was pointing my bleeding ankle which now was noticed by Raphael as well. “How the hell you got that? Or actually, never mind. You can talk later. We need to get you to sit down so that I can check that wound.” “I can check it myself.” “Shut it.” Raphael bend slightly down and I felt his arms going behind my knees and shell and with one simple move I was in the air, in his arms. “R-Raphael, I can walk..!” “Yell a bit more and you wake everyone up.” “S-seriously, put me down.” “And let you walk with snail’s speed? Your ankle will get rotten in that time and fall off before you reach that couch so just shut up and let me carry you.” I had to accept my defeat so I kept my mouth shut and allowed myself to be carried on the couch. Little Leo dragged his huge new toy on the carpet next to living room table and climb on turtle’s shell on his stomach. It indeed was huge toy since he was able to lay on it without any problems. Soon his eyes were getting more and more closer and he fell asleep on his toy. “You should take him to bed first. My leg can wait.” “He can wait, not your leg. That darn cut is full of dirt and it needs to be cleaned and all.” Disappearing into needle room Raphael soon came back with first aid kit, placing it on living room table near him. Pulling small chair to himself to sat on Raphael placed my foot in his lap, starting slow and careful cleaning progress. He was extremely careful, checked my wound many times to make sure all dirt, even tiniest ones, had been removed before he went on. I sat there silently watching him working and I couldn’t help but to smile. His big fingers were fast and skilled despite their size. It also was rare to see Raphael ‘fixing’ someone since usually it was him who needed fixing. “Who cut you? And don’t try to give me lies. I have seen so many katana slices that I can easily tell this was made by the sword.” His green eyes rose up to meet mine as he patiently waited answer. “The Foot. Little Leo and I were in carnival after it was closed and when we’re leaving, group of Foot soldiers came there from nowhere.” Raphael instantly turned to look little me. “It’s okay. He’s unharmed. I know you would had kill me if anything would had happen to him. I… I did my best to keep him safe.” Raphael’s head slowly turned back towards me, our eyes locking to stare each other once more. “You took a hit because of it?” “I actually don’t know in which moment I got injured. I was too much into zone during that fight. I noticed the cut after we came back in the sewers.” “I’m glad it’s only a cut. You could had lose your whole foot below ankle.” “I know.” “… You won him that big turtle?” Little hiss escaped me when needle with stitch yarn pierced and went through my flesh as Raphael slowly was pulling the cut close layer by layer. “You okay? I can numb the area better if needed.” “No, no. I’m okay. Just wasn’t prepared to that. Go on.” “Hmh.” “About that turtle. I bought it to him from toy store. He spotted it from the roof and he wanted it so bad. He would had cry a lot if he wouldn’t had got it.” “Tag says it costed 50 bucks. Where you got suck money?” “From April when she and I… You know.” I didn’t want to say anything further just in case if little Leo was or would wake up. Thank God Raphael realized what I was talking about. “Ah, I see. … I assume you two still had fun?” “From my part yes.” “Hmh, it seems he had fun too.” Turning to take a look of sleeping little Leo Raphael turned back on stitching me. “He sleeps with a smile on his face. I’m glad you spend today with him.” “About that… I think we all should spend a day with him. Don could have a turn tomorrow and then Mikey.” “Sounds fair. He get to know us more and all.” Making small knot after stitching my whole wound up Raph cut the yarn and wiped my skin on and around the wound. “There. It ain’t as pretty as Don’s doing but it holds.” “It’s perfect. Thank you.” I was trying to get up but Raphael’s big hand on my chest plate stopped me. “Woah, woah! Where you think you’re going?” “Um, sleep. To my own bed.” “Hold on a sec.” His voice was low and warning so I knew better than go against him. Sitting back down I watched how Raphael squatted and picked little Leo up with the turtle plush, carrying them both near little Leo’s bed. Gently moving little Leo to sleep on his bed, Raphael placed plush on the chair what was near the bed. It seemed he didn’t want to leave it on dirty and moist floor which made sense. Covering little me and kissing his forehead Raphael took his direction towards me. I was gonna get up again but his low growl stopped me in the middle pose of getting up so I rolled my eyes and waited him to pick me up in his arms. “You’re not gonna walk with that leg for now.” “Yes, mom.” He gave me a look and snort but still carried me to my room, placing me on the edge of my bed. Kneeling down Raphael started to take off my leg gears and shoes which made blush spread on my cheeks. “K-knock it out! I can remove them myself.” “I will take only these off. Rest you can take off yourself.” After removing gauze and shoes Raphael kept his words and stepped back still staying in the room and watching me undress. However he didn’t let me stand so taking my pants off was difficult. “Get on your shell and lift your legs up a bit.” Before his words even sank in my mind that well he pushed me on my shell and took a hold on my pants waistline and pulled them down. “R-Raphael!” “What?! I’m helping you! Or do you want to sleep with these dirty pants on?” “… N… No.” “Then shut up. They are off already.” Bending my pants Raphael placed them at the end of my bed, helping me to turn right way on my bed, slowly pulling blanket over my body. “You really didn’t need to do this much.” “I know but I wanted to. Got any complains?” “Of course not. I… I appreciate all what you did. Thanks.” “Hmh, don’t mention it. You’re good now? Need anything?” “Thanks, but I’m all good.” “Good. Go to sleep now then. Keep your phone close so you can call me if you need anything.” “I will, I will. Good night.” “Night.” Watching my room’s door closing behind him made my smile grew wider and wider, my hold getting tighter and tighter on my blanket. Him being so caring made me feel so super happy until I fell in much needed sleep.        

[rachelisnotatwork]

Sweltering round the Fatherland

I did not leave Berlin willingly. In fact I complained constantly throughout the one final brunch I demanded. And on our way to the car rental place. And most of the drive down to Dresden. After nearly 5 weeks in our glorious Airbnb I felt like we probably had at least some light squatters’ rights.

It didn’t help that our apartment in Dresden was in what I’m sure an estate agent would describe as an “up and coming” area, i.e. a bit of a shit hole. It also managed, no matter what we did, to be hotter than the outside world and our host- clearly dubious about the continence of the guests, had covered the bed with extremely noisy plastic undersheets that heated the bedroom to essentially the equivalent of sleeping in a Finnish sauna. That plus a disappointing evening meal did nothing to discourage my belief that leaving Berlin was a mistake.

We had two days in Dresden and it’s surrounds. Because some of the museums are closed on Monday, we decided to use our Monday to go visit “Saxon Switzerland”. The name Saxon Switzerland sets the bar high and naturally it then disappoints because it’s more hilly than Alp-y. I would blame an over-zealous tourist board committee but apparently it was some homesick 18th century Swiss artists.

First off we visited a place called the Bastei bridge, which is a bridge built between giant rock formations. It is pretty beautiful although I feel someone without crushing vertigo could probably appreciate it more, especially since the top was also frequented by a man with an extremely badly behaved Alsatian, thus combining my fear of heights and dogs in one terrifying location.

Our next stop was more pleasant. We walked through the woods and then took a boat ride along the Obere Schleuse, which is a shallow river in a gorge between Germany and the Czech Republic. The boat was gondoliered by a guy who gave a little tour as he punted us slowly down the river. He had what I strongly suspect was a very thick local accent but Marcel thought there might be a chance he’d had a stroke. Either way it was fairly impenetrable to me, expect bizarrely a few minutes where he talked about lichen growth. So I guess that month at language school was really worth it?

The only downside of the trip was that the walk to the boat had been entirely down into the gorge and thus the walk home was entirely uphill. It was fairly steep and exhausting, and what wasn’t particularly reassuring was to find a gravestone half way up one of the steep climbs with a gravestone from the 19th century with a very specific time of death for a forester from something called a “Blutschlage” (literal translation: blood blow). So I guess I should be pleased we got out with just a few insect bites.

The next day we’d booked onto an English-language tour of Dresden. Almost everyone else was north of 75, which made us feel super young. And had also reached the complaining years. The ticket could be torn off to leave a free postcard of Dresden. One Australian woman then complained to the guide that it didn’t include a stamp and wouldn’t let it go.

The tour was pretty good though. The centre of Dresden is stunning as was mostly built by August the Strong, who really liked to party. My favourite fact from the tour was that he’d weigh guests before and after parties and those who hadn’t gained enough weight weren’t invited again because they were clearly no fun. He built a huge complex called the Zwinger for summer parties in addition to a huge palace for one of his mistresses (he had a lot) so he didn’t have to go far for the night.

The downside of touring Dresden is the crushing guilt you get to feel if you are British (or American) for brutally firebombing it. They have pretty much completed the reconstructions now but when you look at the before photos… well, it was no big surprise that both groups were some of the biggest contributors to the fund to rebuild the cathedral (the blacker stones are the only original ones).

After the tour finished we went up the cathedral for the view.

Then we went into the Mathematisch-Physikalischer Salon. This is largely a collection of clocks and super creepy automatons from the 18th century, so right up my street. Afterwards we had coffee and cake on a cafe on the roof and I went on what felt like an epic trip in the boiling sun to find a toilet somewhere I could use (doesn’t seem to be a legal requirement for cafes to have one here) and ended up begging a cleaning lady to use a museum one. Think Marcel thought I was pretty much dead by then, I was gone so long.

The next day we headed up North. Whilst our final destination was the island of Ruegen, we had a planned stop for the day at a place called Godnasee. This is a lake in the middle of nowhere, where we had a delightful afternoon swimming, sunbathing and reading. The nice thing about East Germany is it is full of lakes and is rapidly depopulating, so it is very easy to find an empty swimming spot.

We got to Ruegen in the evening, just in time for a quick walk before dinner. There were two national parks we wanted to visit in our two days and because the weather was due to be better at the one further away, we went to the Nationalpark Vorpommersche Boddenlandschaft the next day. The spot we picked  to go to was a lighthouse on a beach that was a 5km walk/cycle ride/horse and carriage ride away from the nearest car park. We decided to walk because of my lack of cycling aptitude and because legs are a lot cheaper than horse-drawn carriages (thanks to the endless slow tragedy of UK politics, the Euro to pound ratio could be best described as...sub-optimal for us).

This turned out to be a mistake. Apparently Marcel had showered in mosquito pheromones that morning or something so after a few minutes he was besieged by such a huge crowd of them that, whilst he was the main attraction, some of them by dint of sheer numbers bumped into me. This lead to less of a “walk” through the woods than a mad charge frantically waving our arms until we eventually reached the lighthouse. The beach there is quite pretty and in typical fashion, once you walk a short distance from the lighthouse, quite empty.

We took a route back through some wetlands to stay in the sunshine and hopefully avoid the mosquito plague- a successful plan. It also brought us across a cafe that served the only accommodation in the park (a caravan park) so stopped to eat the traditional hot sunny day beach food of...struedel.

On our way back we stopped in the city of Stralsund. It is a pretty little city that used to be a Hansa city (so lots of nice brick architecture), spent a long time being part of Sweden and is now the political seat of Angela Merkel. We had a nice wander around and came across a Simson pharmacy, so I felt quite at home.

The next day we headed out to explore Ruegen itself. Our first stop was a wander along the chalk cliffs there. Sort of surprised we found them and that they were decently high as driving around the island it had seemed as flat as a pancake. 

The previous day I had been messaging my friend Karo and mentioned I felt like I was the only British person for about a hundred miles and she directed me towards a place called Woody’s Little Britain, which is a British “emporium” featuring scones and cream tea in the middle of nowhere. Naturally we went. It was pretty boiling, which felt pretty unBritish and the cream was whipped not clotted (Debrett’s would be horrified) but the scones were pretty good.

Afterwards we headed to the beach. Ruegen has some huge long beaches, so we parked up and wandered through the woods to about 10km of pretty empty beach. Marcel went for a swim. I declined because the ocean was full of seaweed and also after Australia, I’m pretty convinced the sea is out to murder me. So I remained on the beach, which in the fashion of East German beaches was full of naked people and noted with amusement that the extremely elderly naked woman sitting a few metres down from us had cracked out a pair of binoculars to look down the beach. I initially just thought she was a shameless pervert, but apparently she was looking to see if her elderly nude swimming companion was coming down the beach (or at least I assumed that was what she was doing, because he did eventually turn up. We didn’t cover the vocab for that in language school).

The following day we headed West. Our first stop was the town of Wismar. Or more precisely a cafe within because we’d left without breakfast and then got stuck in traffic so were both hungry, overly-hot and grumpy on arrival.  We then wandered around the town. It is again, a pretty Hansa city, although this one we bombed a bit. We went up a rebuilt cathedral, which I did point out to Marcel that thanks to our bombing could be reconstructed with a lift right up to the tower in (you’re welcome guys!). It is still a port city which apparently brings logs from everywhere to turn into sawdust, or so the giant piles of logs and delicious smell of sawdust that wafts through the town suggests.

After that we went to Schwerin, which is also lovely and historic. It also has a famous castle which looks a bit gauche if you ask me, but Marcel just says looks German. 

We had a late lunch and then accidentally discovered some weird mooning monument with no explanation. A rather lengthily googling seems to suggest it is a scene from the life of the founder of this town, who got mooned by the folk of his home town when returning home for a visit because he’d directed all the trade that used to go to their town to Schwerin. I would have thought this was the kind of thing that merited a plaque as far lesser things have generated one, but apparently not.

We ended up having a subpar dinner in town and disappointed, both of us developed a craving for ice cream. This is apparently not something you can get in Schwerin after 9pm so we ended up driving to an out of town McDonald’s for late-night McFlurry’s and then I got all indignant that the lids weren’t hedgehog-friendly like we have in the UK, confirming to all the national stereotypes of weird British eccentrics who are overly sentimental about animals.

The following day we weren’t due in Luebeck, our next stop, until the evening and beautiful weather was forecast. So Marcel found us an amazing canoeing place to go. This was on the river Warnow and was a 15km trip down river through a nature reserve. The initial part of our trip was a little more exercise than I’d have liked as we happened to set off at the same time as a large school trip of teenagers. Not wanting to enjoy the beauty and solitude of a nature reserve with 30 shrieking teenagers, we decided to use our superior canoeing skills to put some distance between us and them. Annoyingly though either we are shitter at canoeing than we thought or they were perhaps a school canoe team as we had to paddle REALLY hard to keep any distance between us and them. And when we did create some distance, we managed to catch up with a family that had decided to enhance their trip to this protected nature reserve by mounting a boombox onto their canoe in order to play some incredibly loud techno. Thankfully they decided to pull over for a break before I could ram them and knock their stupid boombox into the water, and shortly after that Marcel wanted to take a side stream so we could “have a picnic at a castle”. This involved some very hard paddling upstream through a shady, stinky mosquito swamp that didn’t actually end in a castle but just in a village with the German word for castle in. Thankfully there was a field we could eat our picnic lunch in, and that placated my bad mood somewhat.

The advantage of this stop was that by the time we rejoined the river, pretty much no one was on it. We still had about 8km to go and this was the wilder, less-maintained stretch with lots of weaving around trees to be done. German prep for these sort of trips is also a lot more casual than English prep so a good few times we were left wondering where to go and which part of a rocky course was better to navigate. But it was beautiful, sunny, thousands of electric blue damselflies constantly flitted around us and there was a spot for a gorgeous (albeit cold) swim.

We finally got into Lubeck and our ancient house in the evening. We then had a great dinner at a place called Schlumacher’s, so that was a great day out. We fell into bed pretty exhausted, and then I nearly fell out again, because that is the problem with elderly houses with subsidence.

The next day we decided to go on a tour of Lubeck. Lubeck clearly doesn’t get a lot of English-speaking tourists as it only has a once-weekly tour in English and that did not happen to coincide with our stays. Completely disregarding my previous experience of near total incomprehension with a german tour, I merrily signed us up for one again. This went slightly better initially as our tour guide was old so spoke slowly and bellowed loudly, but it was boiling hot, I rapidly fatigued and the tour was two incredibly hot hours and by the end I was desperate for him to stop talking as by this stage I wasn’t really getting any of it and everyone kept laughing at jokes I couldn’t get. I ate a huge ice cream to recover from the experience.

Lubeck is an ancient Hansa city that is pretty much entirely a UNESCO world-heritage site for ancient buildings. However the original city was built on swampy ground with some eccentric choices (like a fortified gate that had 3m thick walls on one-side and 1m thick on the other, leading the heavier side sinking a lot faster). The whole town is full of extremely wonky buildings, which you are fairly surprised are still standing. On the outside you can see essentially ornamental pole ends that support the floors and hold the two sides of the buildings together.

In the afternoon, hot and having toured most of Luebeck (as it prides itself on being “the city of short distances”), we decided to retire to the swimming lake opposite our front door. There we wiled away an enjoyable afternoon swimming, sunbathing and eating hot chips with mayonnaise. Glorious.

My grandfather was born in Kiel and the next day we had a plan to drop in there on the way to our next airbnb in the countryside. We had briefly considered staying in Kiel before we discovered it was Kieler Woche, which is some sort of sailing festival shebang. So we decided to limit it to a day trip.

It was exceedingly hot and our trip to Kiel brought forth the following observations 1) sailing festivals are pretty dull if you are on shore and thus are mostly a series of kiosks 2) Kiel was apparently bombed to the ground in WW2 but unlike areas that went for a painstaking reconstruction, they went for the construction of multiple ugly shopping malls 3) I know it sounds like it is impossible but apparently the town has absolutely no shade in it and I had forgotten to put suncream on and get extremely grumpy when I’m too hot.

So all in all, I would not recommend Kiel and our trip there was brief. By the end of a hot sweaty couple of hours there we were both dying for somewhere to cool down and so googled the nearest beaches. We found a nearby beach called Heidkate and headed straight for there.

How nice the beaches are around there appears to be a pretty well-kept secret (perhaps real Germans know. Imitation Germans like Marcel do not). Miles and miles of white sand, grassy dunes and the clean, calm Baltic sea. We found a quiet spot, quickly changed into our swimwear and raced into the...well, Baltic water. It was cold, but in a lovely cold way, especially when you are hot. And lead to the strange dichotomy of having a boiling hot upper half that was sweltering in the sun, and a frosty cold lower half. The sea was so calm between the groynes (and shallow) that even with my sea-phobia I swam again and again, in between coming up to lie on the beach and warm up thoroughly. 

It was really tough to drag ourselves away...and we ended up leaving rather late (it stays very bright for a deceptively long time here so what we thought was about 5pm was actually 7pm) so we didn’t end up getting to our airbnb in the North Friesland (apparently Marcel says it is a byword for German hicks) until 9.30pm. It was still light though, so we hung out on our terrace and watched a huge number of bumblebees flitting between the wildflowers.

The next day we decided to visit both “seas”. First we headed to the North Sea. There are huge “sands” here called the Wattenmeer. Or at least that’s what I thought they were. What they actually are is enormous windswept mudflats. This is exactly as appealing as it sounds. It was also 7c colder than where we’d come from, so we hastily turned around and headed over to the Baltic side again.

We found ourselves a lovely stretch of sand near Flensburg from which you could pretty much spit on Denmark (should you so want; I quite like the Danes so didn’t). The sea was incredibly shallow and warm as we waded out over the white sandy sea bed. And then noticed we weren’t the only things who liked the warm and shallow water. There were hundreds and hundreds of moon jellyfish. These can’t sting people, but sharing the water with a huge number of dinner plate-sized jellyfish is just a bit...off-putting. I decided this would more be a reading on the beach afternoon than a swimming day.

The next morning we packed up and set off for Hamburg. Since our last couple of days were city days, we took the car to Hamburg airport, dropped it off in the lengthily car rental queue and took the S-Bahn into town. We checked into our hotel and went for lunch. Whilst waiting for our food, we got a call from Enterprise who were wondering where our car was. Because apparently we are sometimes great planners and book to drop our car off in the downtown area right by our hotel. It turns out though we are not great rememberers and were both convinced we had to drop it off at the airport. Somewhat mortifying. They did find the car eventually though.

Many, many years ago when I was at undergraduate, my friend had sent me a trailer for a place in Hamburg called Miniatur Wunderland as a piss-take. It showed a tiny model train world with dead prostitutes, red light districts and car accidents. I immediately was desperate to go. It took a long time to finally get there, but finally, finally it was time! Now you know when you hype something up massively, and then you go and it is actually a big disappointment? This was emphatically not one of those times! It was even better than I thought it was going to be. We spent three hours there and I could have easily spent longer watching tiny fire engines driving around putting out tiny fires and pressing buttons (there are so many buttons you can press to activate things- pro tip, visit in the late afternoon when all those 4 year olds that would normally be hogging them are having dinner).  It was amazing. And also huge. I mean tiny, but huge in that it covers nearly two floors of a big warehouse.

The following morning we went on a free walking tour of the city. One of the things Miniatur Wunderland has is a tiny version of Hamburg. Having seen all of the sights in miniature the day before, this lead to a rather disorientating case of Alice in Wonderland Syndrome, where I started to doubt what size they were, or I was. It is quite a pretty city though (on one side, on the other is about a million shipping containers and container ships). 

It has always been a big shipping centre so there are lots of historic shipping offices in there. Our guide took us inside one, nominally to see the interior décor but actually so we could ride in a Paternoster lift. These are the endlessly moving doorless lifts that are super dangerous, so everyone else got rid of them. Germans however are weirdly protective over them and refuse to let them decommission them. And whilst I appreciate they are super dangerous for kids, the elderly, anyone moving slowly etc, they are pretty cool to ride. Marcel and I agreed it was pretty much the highlight of our day (nerds4eva).

After that we climbed a tower for the views, then had some lunch. Marcel decided he wanted to do a boat tour of the canals. There weren’t any English language ones but I decided it would probably be okay with German (having again, learnt nothing from prior experience). This time though I was completely screwed because we got on the boat last of all and so were sitting at the back. Where the speakers were broken. So I couldn’t even hear him properly. Anyway, Marcel said he had terrible and monotonous delivery, so I probably didn’t miss much. And it was a nice sunny day to be pottering about on a boat.

After that we decided to go through the Elbe tunnel. This is a 108 year old beautifully tiled tunnel under the Elbe. It has a few additional bonuses in addition to that. 1) you can ride down in giant freight lifts for the occasional cars they let through and 2) It is really nice and cool down there. During a heatwave in a city with no air-con, it was quite hard to feign interest in getting out on the other side to see the view.

A couple of years ago Hamburg completed their new concert hall, the Elbphilharmonie. It was supposed to cost about 200 million euros and take 3 years to build. It overran by 7 years and the final cost was about 800 million euros. Had to admit to a slight schadenfreude in discovering we aren’t the only country that can’t organise a piss-up in a brewery when it comes to accurately and speedily building new projects. The concerts now sell out months in advance but you can get a free ticket to go inside it. So we did. Marcel was very excited as he discovered they have the world’s largest curved escalator. I was too because I imagined it might be curved in the way of a grand curved staircase in some Antebellum mansion. Actually it was just an hump-backed escalator. Underwhelming.

In the evening we decided to take full advantage of the fact our hotel was creepily empty despite being very nice (Marcel being blunt ended up asking why we were pretty much the only guests. They said it was because they’d newly opened, so I recommend getting in there for a stay before they fill up. Fraser Suites Hamburg) to use the sauna. I love saunas. However I normally only think of visiting them when it is cold out. It turns out if you’ve spent all day in a heatwave, it isn’t half as nice. Does mean if you wash your hair though it dries super fast, so less effort than a hair dryer.

Marcel knows me well so had booked a chocolate tour at Chocoversum for our final morning (softening the blow of leaving). I was keen because tours always involve free chocolate. But this was actually a really educational tour. You learnt all about the history of the plant, how to transport it in a cargo ship, how to roast and extract it, what all the machines are called and how they work, plus you get to make your own chocolate bar. So now if the apocalypse comes, I’m extremely prepared to restart civilisation/aka chocolate production.

After that Marcel wanted to walk around the Alster Lakes before our flight. It was pretty hot for walking but Marcel had picked a scenic restaurant quite far away. We got to there and it was a beautiful spot, on a pier so pretty much all of the tables had a lake view. To find it only took cash. And we were nowhere near an ATM and deliberately hadn’t got any more cash out because German ATMs charge you 5.99 to get cash out. So we turned back and found somewhere that would have been perfectly nice if we hadn’t just seen a better one.

And then, alas it was time to leave the Fatherland for the Motherland. It had been an amazing trip and we were pretty depressed to leave. But hey, London in summer is also full of endless sunny days...right?

[hillbillyhippiemusicreview]

POST #7 - Tumbleweed: The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly

Y’all, this is my last post reviewing Tumbleweed and this post is a little different. I promised y’all from the beginning that I would be honest in all of my reviews. This post will point out the good, the bad, and the ugly, of the festival as a whole. I won’t be reviewing artists, but I’ll be pointing out things that Borda Productions and the Tumbleweed team did better than last year and things they could still improve on. This is by no means a bashing article, it is just constructive criticism and is not meant to be viewed as a negative review. So I will list all of the good, the bad, and the ugly until I can’t list anymore. Again, this is based solely on my personal experiences of attending Tumbleweed as a fan and from other attendees gathered through social media. So, here we go:

The GOOD:

1. Tumbleweed has one of the best lineups of southern rock, real, alt, and outlaw country of any festival in the nation. While some people argue that it didn’t compare to the lineups in 2017 or 2018, it was still a killer lineup for the price of the festival. Some say it was a little more rock than country, but honestly you have zero complaints or criticism from me.

2. There were quite a few more people present on staff this year. Last year’s staff seemed tired and scarce. This year, the staff rotated in and out and were always helpful. I actually heard several people comment on the hospitality of the staff.

3. The new “VIP Area” on the festival side of the lake. This year they had some benches and a small area gated off with garbage cans for all of us campers to sit and finish our drinks before going into the festival grounds. This is awesome considering I had 2 coolers full of booze and really didn’t wanna pay $7 for a Coors Light.

4. The selection and amount of Vendors and Food Trucks this year was much improved from last year. As far as food, there was everything from Fried Ravioli and New York Style Pizza to Gyros and Burnt End Sandwiches. The vendors ranged from cowboy hats, cattle feeders and jewelry to CBD oil and Hemp infused coffee. Throw in the festival and artist merch and there was a little something for everyone.

5. The libation selection this year (in my opinion) was better. Instead of only having Bud Light and Bud Diesel, there was a plethora of alcohol options. Beer was limited to Coors Light and Miller Lite unless you were a VIP. VIPs, if I was told correctly, were able to get some Anheuser-Busch products. There were also certain times where you get get “tastings” of Twisted Tea. You add those in with the mixed drinks and Jell-O shots available and you’re in for a good time.

6. They took advice from last year and moved the “general store” closer to the camping area. Last year we had to walk up and down “buzzkill hill” to the festival grounds in order to get ice. By the time you got back to camp, 3/4s of the bag was already melted. This year the “general store” was by the camping area and was much more convenient. From what I saw, they seemed to have a pretty good selection of everything.

7. Trash pickup (at least in our part of the forest camping) seemed pretty regular and nothing piled up too high.

8. The artists not taking part in the festival were amazing. You could just walk up and down the forest and RV camping and hear people pickin’ and singing. Apparently, there were several great song swaps that we missed out on. Y’all this festival brings out a ton of talent that isn’t listed on the poster and website. It’s where some people get “noticed” or get there start. In all honesty, you could never go to the main stage and still get the chance to see a plethora of talent.

9. And last but definitely not least, the artists were so personable and cool. I personally was able to meet Bryan James, Ritch Henderson, Laid Back Country Picker (along with Honey) and Senora May. While regrettably I didn’t get to talk to the Comancheros I saw them talking with a ton of people and they seemed like they were awesome guys. I also got the chance to meet a couple of artists not playing the festival, but there as fans. Cody Tyler and Jon Green are 2 great and talented dudes! Seriously, every artist that I just mentioned will sit there and have a conversation with you like you’re friends; and after you’re finished talking, you are friends!

The BAD:

1. I’ll start with this, because it is no ones fault and can’t be improved, but EVERY SINGLE CAMPER complained about it...”Buzzkill Hill” sucks. That is all.

2. This year there were significantly less artists than last year although there seemed to be more people there. This could be based on the price paid for the quality of artistry. I’m going to assume that BlackBerry Smoke, Whiskey Myers, and Alabama are not cheap, but that’s just my speculation.

3. Last year, I really liked the 2nd stage that was covered. I know there were complaints about not being able to see 2 artists at once, but hey, part of the fun of a festival is running back and forth. Plus the covered stage allowed for some relief from the sun. I would suggest the team bring it back for next year.

4. There was some miscommunication between staff and attendees that needed to be improved upon. For example, the shower houses and bathrooms had a large sign outside that said they were open from 9am to 9pm. When you actually got up to the door of the shower houses, there was a sign that said 9am to 12am. No one really seemed to know what the actual time was.

5. The distance between the forest camping and parking this year seemed to be an issue for a lot of people. While it was a trek and was a pain for carrying supplies, I’m not sure of a way to fix it. The good thing is that’s not my job. Yeah, the Tumbleweed team had people with carts, tractors and trailers, horses and trailers, etc. that could help for a fee, but I would still recommend them taking another look at the situation. I would also like to be transparent here and say I haven’t been to a lot of music festivals, so I’m not sure how it compares to others. It could be better, it could be worse, it could be the same.

6. The last criticism that I heard from other people was the height of the underbrush in the forest camping. If they could have brought a bush hog, weedeater or something through closer to camping time, the weeds and in turn the ticks MAY not have been as bad. Not a huge deal, but hey it was mentioned so I tossed it in here.

The UGLY:

1. Since the original fan vote winner could not make the trip out, they just removed the fan vote artist from the line up. I genuinely believe that they should have gone down the list until an artist was able to make the festival. Whether that be the #2, #3, or #4 fan vote, I think someone should have taken the stage as the fan vote winner.

2. The showers (men’s alteast) frequently ran out of supplies and weren’t always the cleanest. While I don’t blame this staff at all, this is just something that was in fact “ugly” about the festival. I don’t know why us men always have dirty bathrooms. Y’all- if you drop paper pick it up. If you’re too lazy to lift up the seat or you can’t aim, well I don’t know what to tell ya. Either don’t be lazy or sit down I guess. Good lord, no wonder women get mad at us and say that we are heathens... Anyways, there were 6 or 8 showers (I can’t remember how many exactly), 2 toilets and 2 urinals. That doesn’t quite seem like enough, but at least it’s something. $30+ worth? Honestly, no but I’ll still pay that to not use a portapotty and to have some running water.

3. FREAKING TICKS! Those things were everywhere. We used 2 cans of bug spray and still found a few of them little b@stards crawling on us.

The UNFORTUNATE:

1. While writing, there was one criticism that I heard from many people and even spewed out myself. Whiskey Myers only had a 45 minute set! That sucks. But you know, there was nothing to be done about it. There was a thunderstorm and heavy rain that passed through causing an evacuation of the festival and camping grounds. The Tumbleweed team also noted that Whiskey Myers had to leave at a certain time to make their next show. I’m not sure if 30 minutes would have made a difference or not, nor am I here to complain about. It sucked yes, but it was bad or ugly? No, because hey sh!t happens. No one could have stopped that weather. So instead of calling it bad or ugly, I label it as unfortunate, because it is. It just sucked and everyone, including the Tumbleweed team, was bummed about it.

Anyways, that concludes my series of write-ups on Tumbleweed. This post was not meant to bash or be negative in anyway. It was simply to cover all of the great things and the things that could be improved on as the festival goes on. Overall it was a great festival that I plan on attending again. This year was my 2nd year, but it won’t be my last.

Also a special thanks to Lauren, Lori, Matt, Jennifer, Angie, Tommy, Stacey, Jason, Bruce, Laura, Amy, and Becca for your contributions and thoughts.

Y’all give us a like of Facebook, follow us on Instagram and feel free to suggest any album reviews that you would like to see!

This post and all of the great things about Tumbleweed 2019 is dedicated to Nick LaDelfa. I didn’t know Nick, but from what I understand he loved Tumbleweed this year and served our country in the US Army. Unfortunately, Nick left this world shortly after he attended Tumbleweed this year. Rest In Peace sir and thank you for your service.

-Cheers, N.

*This is an independent review. The Hillbilly Hippie Music Review was not compensated in any way for posting this review.

*The Tumbleweed logo and imagery with the raven are not ours, nor do we claim it in any way. We simply added the words “The Good, The Bad, & The Ugly.”

[allthatwehear]

because the unimaginable happened.

today, laying in a park with the sun on my back (the first full day of sun in days), I talked with my soft-spoken and gentle counselor, a presence in my life for about two months now. I found her before quarantine. 

I’d walked into her office seeking help for the recent death of my sister. I saw her after Juge died. sometimes it doesn’t feel like that was only three months ago. only three months. 

I relayed to her some feelings that have been cropping up again here and there, as I’ve returned to the land of coffees, rainforest-like greenery, and Thai food -- aka, Seattle. they are feelings of heart ache, and sadness & yearning. if you read my previous blog post, it was a hollow cry from the ache of my sister’s terminal diagnosis and eventual death to help -- help me, and help those who are grieving. from those words, written in sincerity, I received numerous “me too’s” and “you’re so courageous” and “I’m here for you’s”. many of them were from my-then close friends who -- either slightly offended by my post or genuinely considerate -- approached me and asked for ways to help -- ways to be better.

well things didn’t get better. they didn’t get better - and though they tried, things quickly grew too tiresome - burdensome - too much upkeep - I don’t even know what it was? to continue in the acts of helping me with my grief, and provide me with peace and friendship in my time of need. soon I was crying on doorsteps, helplessly attempting to hangout but was forgotten, or excluded from things that would have brought me comfort. then I tried the alternative -- accepting crumbs -- whatever it took to keep my “comfort” people around; but I got wrecked, until one night it hurt so bad that I ran away from the night before I was supposed to fly home to my sister dying. there were plans to be with me that night, but the clock eventually hit 9pm and there was not a word from my “friends”, and I faltered. crumpled there, beside the ocean. looking out and wishing this wasn’t my reality, this wasn’t my life. 

what i put out all on the line - my counselor said - when i asked for help, i was met with indifference and lack of care, a lack of empathy. the first attempt I’ve made in my 21 years of adult life, to finally advocate and scream for help! was met with nothing - nothing. the opposite of love isn’t hate, because hate implies that you still care. the opposite of love is yes, indifference.

and so my heart-song today with my counselor was, “how could they do this to me?”. call me evil, but there is a grace I cannot give: grace to forgive that, though they had all the information to help, though I had written a blog-post explicitly to suggest ways you can help grieving people, (sorry, but I may as well have been holding their hand with training wheels - yes sweetie, this is how you care for people who are grieving) there was such little regard, and respect. 

I rattled my laptop screen to my counselor,  “no like, how could they do this to me?”

just help me while my sister is dying! was what I asked.

my counselor asked where I felt this anger: I said, “I feel it in my gut”. a pit in my stomach. a monster making-nest to stay. he wasn’t going anywhere; because those “friends” were still out there, and on occasion, little monster-guy rattled my ribs and reminded just how much I missed being with them -- and then I get angry all over again. 

counselor calmly said there was a quote “on Twitter this morning that reminded me of you...It was song lyrics from the musical Hamilton, about living with the unimaginable”

Push away the unimaginable The moments when you're in so deep It feels easier to just swim down

The Hamiltons move uptown

And learn to live with the unimaginable

then it hit me, though it didn’t make me feel better. maybe those people were having difficulty caring because truly, I am going through the unimaginable. because really - you lose a twenty-one year-old sister to suicide when you are seventeen - and by the time you are finally twenty-one, your oldest sister dies of a vicious brain cancer she already had when she was four but it came back and now killed it her. it killed her while you were busy making a life at school and you were already a survivor for taking a shot at a “normal” life after losing your other sister to a traumatic and unexpected suicide. forget the dad with substance abuse problems and the current estrangement of your last-living sis -- your life is fucked. 

maybe they ran away because it was too unimaginable. because even though I was the one who lost a sister, and one of the five stages of grief is denial, they were experiencing denial that more bad events could happen to me. if that’s true, I don’t blame them? a girl they met freshmen year of college, adopted into their friendship, and then learned she lost her 21 year-old sis to suicide just two years-prior, is now losing her second sister to brain cancer? unimaginable, right?!? maybe it was just better for them to pretend that wasn’t what was actually happening. maybe easier to walk away, to disregard, to be indifferent.

but why do we walk away.. when it’s unimaginable? when it’s unimaginable, for you, but did you realize, that it was a reality, for me? it wasn’t unimaginable to me - though I tried to pretend it away, Julia’s last breaths and my hand on her still-one are a bit hard to un-imagine. 

I still don’t have the answer for this; I don’t have the answer for their behavior, though I ask, almost every day. 

friends, we have got to be better with our empathy. because though something is so tragic, so seemingly wrong and unimaginable -- it is real and true and happens to other people.

so what kind of friend are you going to be? what kind of person are you going to be, when you are met with someone with such immeasurable grief, with such gaping, hollow sadness? will you step into their shoes, and let them guide you into the ways that you can help them? will you allow yourself to learn the things you might not ever have to learn (which damn! be thankful for!) but lean into their discomfort, anyway? 

i’m not going to stop writing about these things on my heart. and when they come and they don’t stop surfacing - like what happened above, with the friends I have lost through my sister’s death - I will write what needs to be talked about. I will write in the hopes that you’ll come to me with your “unimaginable” life circumstances, that you’ll tell me how you made it and you’ll see, too, that your experiences are valid and I am so, so sorry for you.

My grievers, my bereaved, I am still maddened by a society and country that handles grief by pushing ourselves (our sad feelings) and each other aside. Non-grievers, we are grieving - and we need your help! so help us! i will not stop saying this. 

[birdclowns]

need to create or I'll explode. but also if I start to do anything, i will explode

real predicament I'm in tonight

[artificialqueens]

Never Too Old Chapter 1 (Biadore) - China

AN: I tried to submit this the first time but I totally forgot to put the tags. So I hope I’m doing this right. This fanfic is gonna be using their real names. I hope you guys like it.

November 29, 2016, 7:00 AM

For most of Bianca’s life she was used to being alone. She was even told that she was getting older and that it might be the time to find a partner and settle down. But she’s is too busy to be in a relationship, because she’s used to working almost every hour of every day. She did had Jason Daniels for years but that fell out harder than she thought, never saw him after the break up. She doesn’t blame him for walking away a few months ago, she never mentioned to anyone about their relationship and after being crowned America’s Next Drag Superstar, she’s been on the road and doing her shows almost every day, barely having time for Jason. After the failed relationship, she tried to power through everything and realized she doesn’t need to depend on anyone, she knows she works hard for herself and she usually does it alone. She occasionally has dates with herself from time to time and she enjoys that. Sometimes she doesn’t have to worry about much because she does have her dogs and Bianca admits she can die alone just as long as they’re with her. But thinking about Jason Daniels was too heavy for her and she may have been over with him fast but hearing or thinking about him still hurts.

When she decided to join RuPaul’s Drag Race, it was something she wasn’t so confident about first. She still stands by what she said during the reunion, she thought it wasn’t for seasoned queens like her. Since everyone is young and talented, she was thinking to herself “Why would I bother?” Then again, the money did motivate her to do it. But her life turned completely different after that. She wasn’t alone anymore, it was unwanted sometimes but it feels nice to have people visit her in her apartment or go around the world and do her known stand-up comedy shows. Even after the break-up with Jason and trying to be more independent, there will always be someone who would want her company or be Bianca’s company. She does get tired from it, but she knows she has to suck it up because she can’t help but admit that she enjoys the company of the new friends she made throughout the years.  Adore and Courtney are her frequent visitors. She’s surprised they still wanted to hang out with her after Drag Race. Because since they’re young and they go to parties a lot and that’s not usually in Bianca’s world. But they have been like her best friends ever since they were Top 3.

Her life before was just Roy by day and Bianca by night. But now it’s like she’s Bianca every time. She loves it, but she definitely loves going home to be Roy again. Even if it’s just with her dogs only, she enjoys it. The life of Roy Haylock and Bianca del Rio are very different, Roy did quit his job as a costume designer but he still makes costumes for fun. He also chose to stay in New York instead of moving back to New Orleans. He does visit every once and a while to see his mother. But there was something about New York that made him want to stay there and see where his life was going to bring him to. Despite of being a 41 year old man, still doing drag, it didn’t stop him. He still had the energy to work on booking his shows in the morning and perform at night until the sun was rising for the next day. It seemed like a routine for him and it seems that his life is defined by this and it’s already taking a toll on him; he needs to take a break.

Today, he wants to wake up as Roy. He decided to ask a month off from everything so he can relax for a change. Roy Haylock was a different person from Bianca, the quick and snarky comments were still there but he knows that it’s different when he’s being Bianca del Rio.

His one month break starts today until the first week of January of 2017. Roy rubbed the sleep from his eyes and gave a small stretch. He woke up to the usual buzzing sounds of New York, but he didn’t mind, he was used to it. He looks at his alarm clock, 7:00 am.

"God damn, when can I ever sleep in?“ He mumbles to himself. He placed his feet on the ground and shook off the rest of the sleep from his body. He walked to his kitchen and picked up his favorite mug from his cup board and decided to make himself one cup. His dogs, Sam and Dede were running around next to him energetically, waiting to be fed. Roy smiled down on the both of them, he placed his coffee mug down and went to feed the two pups. He went back to his kitchen after making sure the two dogs have food and water, he started placing water and coffee in his coffee maker and turned it on. He remembered to check on his phone because maybe someone that isn’t from work might text him, but he wasn’t really expecting much since everyone knew he was taking a break. He sees around 14 missed calls from Shane and Danny, he squints and tells himself he doesn’t want to know what’s up but then again, with his caring instincts he got worried something bad happened. He checked his call logs and he got more calls from Shane but he got more texts from Danny. The times they contacted him were just last night, Roy remembered he passed out at 9pm so it explains why he hasn’t picked up. He decided to read Danny’s messages first.

Danny: [9:38 PM] hey?? Where are you? We’re like in NYC right now

Danny: [11:04 PM] ROOOOOYYYY

Danny: [2:39 AM] I can’t believe you fell asleep by 9pm, you’re such a grandpa!

Danny: [6:28 AM] if you’re not gonna reply I’m gonna barge in your apartment

Roy chuckled to himself when he was reading Danny’s message, he always found Danny adorable and still childish, but he didn’t mind.

To Roy, Danny was something special, different in a good way if he wants to call it. Danny was not part of his world but he can’t explain how much he feels for the younger man. At first Roy would just try to think it’s like motherly love or like they’re sisters, and Roy never thought of Danny in a romantic sense and he knew Danny didn’t see him that way as well.  Quite frankly, Danny was reckless and very disorganized and those are the two things Roy has a hard time tolerating with. But when it’s Danny, he just can’t seem to get angry at him for it. The best he can do is reprimand the younger man and he would just get over it. Roy knew that there might be something more from Danny than family love. It was on Danny’s birthday that him and Jason broke up; asking Roy to choose to stay with him or go to Danny’s party and Roy chose Danny in a heartbeat.

Roy remembers the way Jason looked at him when Roy made his choice and him walking away for good. It was obvious he didn’t blame Danny for it, Roy knows it was his choice. Willam and D.J. were really good friends of Roy and they knew about the break up. D.J. was just asking Roy if he was okay and if he needed anything but Willam on the other hand, asked him if there was something more about the break up because he just had to be in a situation where he was stuck between choosing his boyfriend over Danny. Willam is known to be very informal and reckless but what people don’t know is that he is smart and a very keen observer. Roy and all their friends know you can’t hide anything from Willam because he can read you without even saying a word to him. He remembered the words from Willam that got him thinking for a while, “Maybe what you feel for Danny is much more than what you think. Who knows maybe you really do have feelings for him and you’re just not recognizing it.”

He checked the time of the last message Danny sent and his eyes when wide when it was sent at 6:28 am. That was almost thirty minutes ago. Roy decided to reply but he heard a buzz on his door.

"Oh fuck me.” He dropped his phone on the counter and headed to the door. He peeped in and saw Danny’s face smiling like he knew Roy was looking. Roy gave a face and unlocked his door. "What the hell are you doing here, bitch?“ He said slightly annoyed while opening the door for Danny.

"Well you weren’t replying to my texts and I really missed you!” Danny said in his usual tone and skipped inside to hug Roy. Danny was wearing his usual thick rimmed glasses and baggy jeans but he smelled of cigarettes and alcohol. Roy pushed him back immediately. But when he took a good look at Danny, he noticed he’s wearing the Bianca del Rio tank top he gave to Danny a year ago. Roy felt his lips curve into a small smile and felt a faint warm feeling on his cheeks. He looked back up to Danny, but his smile faded when he smelled Danny again.

"Where the hell have you been? You reek.“ He said closing the door behind them, He took Danny’s jacket and hung it behind his door. “And I can’t believe you still have that shirt. You wore it like all the time. Even during All Stars 2.”

Danny paused a bit and smiled to himself. Hearing the words All Stars 2 was a very painful thing to remember, he shrugged off the memory and glanced up at Roy again and gave him a weak smile. “I don’t think I can get by everyday if I don’t have this shirt with me.” He smiled at Roy. He saw Roy’s face warm up to a smile and it made Danny even happier. He was already forgetting about All Stars 2. "And if you’re wondering why I smell, it’s because me and Shane decided to check out of the clubs and bars around New York City, since you’re such a grandpa and slept early.” He chuckled. Danny glanced at his phone and scrolled through his inbox.

“Okay you guys we’re out, but where’s Shane right now? He’s not with you.” Roy replied going back to the coffee waiting for him on his kitchen counter.

“Honestly I’m not sure if Shane is in our hotel room or at some random guy’s house ‘cause I’m pretty sure he scored last night.” Danny laughed, he gave a good look at Roy and smiled at him. “You look really good, Roy. Like I can totally sense the sexy sugar daddy vibes from you."

Roy turned his back on Danny and gave him a dead stare. He shook his head and gave a lazy chuckle. "There ain’t no way I’m a sugar daddy, Danny. I’m too poor for that.”

"Too poor? Bitch you won $100,000 dollars years ago and been touring around the world and you think you’re too poor? Hell I would have asked you to be my sugar daddy if I wanted to.“ Danny said and he was chuckling in between.

"You’re crazy.” Roy said while smiling. He gestured to his living room and went to open the blinds. “Well, make yourself at home. I’m making coffee, you want a cup as well?” Danny fell on his kitchen counter and gave a lazy nod.

"Yes please. I’ve been dying for coffee since I left home.“ Danny said, his face flat on the cold surface. Roy smiled at him again and went to get a mug for Danny. Danny watched Roy in his natural habitat. Yes, he’s been at Roy’s apartment for a while but every time it amuses Danny. He loves the way Roy walks, the way his dimples show every time he moves his mouth. Then he starts to think about his lips, they aren’t the usual sexy lips every drag queen has but to Danny, Roy’s was different. It looked soft and the way it forms a smile made Danny a bit giddy. His mind drifted off to Roy’s lips and started wondering what it felt like to kiss him. Danny has always wanted to kiss Roy, he has kissed Shane and Jay but it was Roy’s that he was more interested in.

There was something about Roy that Danny could always notice, but it was something he couldn’t put into words. Danny is not a person of words, he was more on emotions and actions and that’s his best way of expressing himself. Danny wasn’t sure about how he felt for Roy, but there are a lot of things that Roy does that just seems so out of this world for Danny. As Bianca del Rio, she was scary with her words and everyone from the season were usually scared with what she has to say about anyone. As Adore, she didn’t want to work with Bianca at first because she thought they couldn’t be in the same level. But once Bianca turns back into Roy, everything changes and that took Danny by surprise. Roy was sweet, helpful and without the heavy makeup, he was a very handsome fellow. Danny thinks its Roy’s deep dimples that gives it away, his teeth radiate a smile that makes everyone just stare at him.

Roy started waving his hand in front of Danny.  "Danny? Hellooo?"

Danny sprung back to reality and giggled at himself. "Oh my god I’m sorry. I’m so drained right now.” He lied. He was too busy thinking of Roy, the truth made him smile at himself. Roy gave a smirk and handed Danny his coffee; Danny gently grabbed the mug from Roy and took a small sip. “You know, you make good dresses and all but damn, you make good coffee.” he exhaled.

Roy chuckled and sat down in front of Danny. "Well thank my cousin, he usually sends me his packs of grounded coffee from New Orleans."  He stirred his coffee and took a sip. He looked at Danny, who was enjoying the coffee. Roy usually catches Danny smiling to himself and that always makes Roy happy. He knows that Adore is a happy person and that she’s out going and alive. But when Danny is Danny, he has a small shell that he cramps himself in and stays there. He’s usually not happy with himself or he always feels like he isn’t enough. These are the sides of Danny that he’s told Roy and Shane about. So seeing him smile as Danny, makes Roy very relieved.

———————————————————————————————————

Their morning chat went on for hours and eventually they both agreed to go on with their own thing while waiting for Shane to show up. It was already 1:00 pm and Shane still hasn’t contacted them. They were sitting by the couch, Danny was on his laptop and Roy decided to water his plants. Roy looked over at Danny who was fiddling with his laptop and it made Roy smile. Danny hasn’t been in the best condition for the past few months because of what happened during All Stars Season 2. Danny was really devastated and he locked himself up after that. It was a vivid memory for Roy, because Danny ran to him when he got out of the show. It was almost Danny’s birthday too and Roy tried his best to be there for him. It was something he couldn’t take lightly because he knows how much Danny wanted to compete in All Stars and in the end he decided to just leave and Roy knew there was a deeper reason to that. Roy did help him out before he left to compete, he chose a dress for Danny to wear and bombarded him with warnings and advices. Roy was slightly disappointed that Michelle Visage didn’t like the dress he chose for Adore to use, but being mature, he didn’t say a word. When Danny was crying about it to Roy, Roy just smiled at Danny and just told him that things happen for a reason and that you can’t always have it easy in life.

When Roy started spraying water over his plants by the window of his living room, he stared out to the window and contemplated. His life wasn’t like this before, no Danny, no Shane, just himself. He was so used to being independent and that was the basis of this big wall he’s built around himself. After Drag Race, Danny and Shane just demolished that wall and intruded Roy’s life. As much as Roy hate to admit but he didn’t mind the broken down wall these two young people have done. It was very uninviting but he had no complaints. Shane was usually the one asking Roy to go out to clubs and do something adventurous, something that Roy hasn’t done in a while. They have toured to different countries and across America and Shane usually is inviting Roy and Danny to do something crazy with him. Danny on the other hand, he was the youngest among the three, so he would usually just ask them to go out at one in the morning to drink or buy pizza. Danny is usually the one drinking from them so he would always end up at Roy’s apartment passed out on his couch or on Roy’s bed.

But clearly out of the three, it was Danny and Roy that had the most tension. The two had a connection and that they deny that it’s there. Shane can see it, and he knows that Danny has a crush on Roy but he has no idea what Roy thinks about it. Shane is very optimistic and he knows that he can get something out of Roy. Despite of just getting out of the relationship with Jason, Roy has been sensing this lingering feeling towards Danny. He knows he never declared anything with him, or did he tell anyone. Roy was basically at a blank with what he feels towards Danny, all that he knows is he loves Danny’s company. He loved talking to him, sharing weird and exciting moments and eating pizza together. He wanted Danny to be there even if he still wasn’t used to it. At this point, all that Roy wants is that Danny is okay, despite of anything, Danny should be okay or Roy won’t be.

Roy glanced over the younger man, still on his laptop and playing with his dark brown hair. Roy smiled to himself and sprayed the last plant in the room.

"You think Shane is dead?” Roy said heading to the kitchen sink to spill the water from the watering can.

"I highly doubt it.“ Danny replied, his eyes still fixated on his laptop. He glanced at Roy who was at the kitchen and bit his lower lip. He immediately returned to his laptop when he saw Roy turnaround.

"Maybe he got too drunk and flew back to Australia.” Roy cackled after making a fake Australian accent. Danny laughed hard and almost dropped his laptop.

"You bitch!“ They were both laughing and it kind of hit Danny. "Okay maybe I should call him. It’s been hours already.” He murmured to himself. Roy walked over to Danny and sat next to him.

Danny dialed Shane’s number, the phone was ringing but Shane wasn’t picking up. Danny got impatient and put down the phone. He glanced over at Roy who was already staring at him. He locked his sight with the deep chocolate eyes of Roy’s, his mouth went dry and his breathing felt short. Roy had beautiful eyes and Danny always gets lost when he looks straight at them like it had a spell. A part of him was already thinking that he’s been staring at Roy for a while now, but Roy hasn’t said anything yet. Danny panicked a little and it didn’t help because he didn’t know what to do or say, he just kept looking at Roy.

Seconds after the door buzzed, Roy had to stop the staring contest and got up from the couch to open the door. Danny plopped his back to the couch and released a sigh of relief.

“What was that all about?” Danny thought to himself. He started fiddling with his finger nails remembering the way Roy was looking at him. He glanced over at Roy trying to unlock his front door.

"Well look who decided to rise from the dead.“ He said while opening the door to Shane. Shane smelled really nice, like he was in the spa. He gave Roy a big hug and welcomed himself in.

"Well I know both of you are wondering where I was the whole morning.” The Aussie said to his friends while sitting down next to Danny.

"You took a bath in a random guy’s bathroom?��� Danny guessed.

"No.” Shane replied.

"You found yourself in Gia’s closet. Cause most of her clothes smell like you right now.“ Roy sarcastically replied. Danny gave a loud laugh and Shane just smiled and brushed it off.

"No, Roy.” He sat up straight and looked at the both of them. “I was at Dan’s house."

"My house?” Danny said looking confused.

Shane laughed and shook his head. “No, silly. Dan Donigan."

The two friends looked at each other in confusion. "Who?” They both said.

Shane threw his head back on the couch and groaned. “You really don’t know his name? I was with Milk this morning."

Roy and Danny gave the face and looked back at Shane. "Why were you with Milk?” Danny asked putting his laptop down.

"Well, I did sleep with a guy last night. But there was no sex involved, surprisingly. He actually passed out when we got to his apartment so I decided to just sleep there since I had no idea where I was. Then I left the apartment at 7:00 AM because I know Danny was heading to Roy’s at that time. Then at the sidewalks by Madison Square, I bumped into Dan and he invited me for breakfast.“

"Why would a guy bring you to his apartment and pass out?” Roy answered. He wasn’t so interested in Milk but he did find him a nice person. Just not good enough to be an exciting topic.

"Well I was pretty happy I did go there because I had a great time with Dan.“ Shane said. He gave Danny a look and Danny kind of got a hint.

"Oh my god, you slept with Milk this morning.” Danny said out loud. Roy paused for a moment and looked at Shane.

"Are you serious? You didn’t get laid last night so you lashed out on Milk?“

"I never lashed out. He was actually very charming. And I’ve always found him attractive since we first met.” Shane said feeling giddy about it. Danny smiled and gently pushed Shane.

"Wow, Bitch. You did get some. And not just with anyone but with Milk.“

"Yeah, I heard a lot of people wanted to tap his ass.” Roy said sitting down on the couch next to Danny.

Shane went to his phone and started smiling again. “Well there will be a second date actually."

Roy gave another unamused face and Danny was just the usual supportive friend. The three started to chat until they decided to head out for a late afternoon snack. Roy told his friends about his one month break and it made them very excited because they’ve been wanting to do something for a while already. Danny had an idea on what to do for the whole month, but he decided to tell them his plan when they go out later. So Roy is going to be seeing a lot of them for the next days. Knowing Danny, he was more than happy to spend time with Roy.