#i forget sometimes to just lean into writing flash fiction as a genre

[raptortext]

i knew this already and i just talked myself in circles about it with w/ a friend but i need to keep reminding myself i’m a flash fiction sort of writer and i don’t need to keep worrying about not being someone who regularly writes above like 2k or mostly even 1k

i sometimes get insecure about word count bc i’d say most of my fics are under 1k (a lot under 100 even) and that’s okay! that’s just what i do

i like writing small! i think it’s fun to keep it concise and simple, and with word/sentence limitations it’s like a puzzle of what i need and don’t need to tell a story. and the 1000-2000 word max (depending on who you ask) is about where i cap off anyway usually. it’s the end of the year, i’m doing a lot of thinking i guess

[out-of-jams]

Vesper || jjk

↠ Vesper↞ “There’s a first time for everything.”

Pairing: Jungkook x Reader

Word Count: 2k

Warnings/Genre: doberman hybrid!kook. human reader. explicit language. fluff. PG 13. one shot.

This fic is apart of The Hybrid Collab hosted by @jeonggukkiepabo​! A special thank you to Anna for bearing with my idiotic forgetfulness, aka me writing this and then forgetting to post it over my hiatus. 🥴 ᵖˡˢ ᵈᵒⁿ'ᵗ ʰᵃᵗᵉ ᵐᵉ  (also it’s a lot shorter now than it had been when i’d written it bc sfw lol)

All works here are purely fiction. Everything I write is my intellectual property and therefore belongs to me. ©out-of-jams. Do not copy or repost without permission. That is illegal and you are stealing no matter if you give credit or not

Cold – adjective.

Definition: freezing your fucking ass off.

You were well acquainted with the word– all but became one with it– what, with how absolutely balls cold out it was. The line to get into Vesper was stretched all the way down the sidewalk outside of the building, and extended out of sight around the corner. Sounds of city life echoed through the streets, cars zooming in between traffic and music leaking out of the bars.

From the crack in Vesper’s backdoor, the beginning’s of a hip-hop song filtered from the expensive sound system. It was loud, eardrum-rattling so, and you closed your eyes, leaning against the brick wall off to the side. A cloud of white left your parted lips as your warm breath hit the biting chill in the air. It was too bad that you were nowhere near drunk enough for the weather not to bother you.

Why you’d chosen to follow your friends out in sub-freezing temperatures was a mystery. You hated clubs, how packed to the walls they were, filled with writhing bodies so close together like sardines. It made you feel utterly claustrophobic, but it was your friend’s birthday and so you couldn’t opt out of following along with the group’s plans for the night. Not that you were ever able to say no to them when they insisted on dragging you out to the place.

Vesper was a popular club that you were sometimes forced to go to, located in the heart of downtown that catered to not only humans, but hybrids as well. It wasn’t the first establishment to do so, seeing as how hybrids integrated into society more than a decade ago. No longer were they as discriminated against as they once were, back when they first came about.

No one was 100% certain on how they’d even come to be; some sort of radiation exposure. The first hybrids had been humans, before they changed, morphed. Due to some sort of exposure to radiation, their cells had multiplied and transformed over the course of a few weeks until half of their genetic makeup resembled animal genes.

While the blatant racism had died out over the years, some, the more elitist members of society, still discriminated against hybrids. Looked down at them because they were born to be ruled more by their animal instincts than their human counterparts. Treated them as less-than because they weren’t completely human, when they were really just misunderstood.

Because of the fact that they were more tapped into their animal side and therefore behaved that way, hybrids used to be seen as beings who could be let loose into society. Who could not “control themselves.” So they took them as pets, tried to tame and sell them.

Shaking yourself out of your thoughts, you fished a cardboard box from the inside pocket of your coat. The sound of you tapping out a white cigarette was in time with the beat of the song pouring outside, and blended in with the cars honking out past the alleyway. Normally, you weren’t one for smoking. But after the stress of college finals week on top of the feeling of the walls closing in on you back inside Vesper, you’d asked one of your friends for their carton in hopes of calming your racing heart.

“Shit,” you murmured as you scoured your pant pockets for a lighter and then groaned when you failed to find one.

Because of course, your luck was anything but lucky and you really didn’t feel like trying to part the sea of sweaty people back inside in search of one. Pursing your lips, you let your head tip back against the brick wall behind you and let your eyes flit over the light polluted sky like it somehow held the answers to all of your life’s problems.

“Need a light?”

The addition of a new voice had you jumping away from the wall with a startled squeak. Hand pressed to your chest as if that would somehow restart your skipping heart, you whirled around. Standing in the now wide-opened back doorway into Vesper was a familiar face. Well, as familiar as a practical stranger could be.

Beneath the single, flickering light in the alley, his black t-shirt with SECURITY printed in white glowed in the surrounding darkness. It stretched itself over his broad shoulders, the bottom tucked into the slim waist of his pants. Your gaze slowly slid up his tanned neck, past his coral colored, pouty lips, sharp jaw, and the straight bridge of his nose. His wavy, dark hair was parted a little off-center, the sides falling over his forehead until it threatened to hide his stare from your view.

Finally, your eyes met his. Framed by long eyelashes, they were a bright, inhuman shade of lilac. Not all hybrids were equipped with the features of one, like a set of sensitive, animal-like ears or even a tail. If a human and a hybrid got together and had children, those kids would end up possessing more human cells than animal. Therefore, their appearances mirrored that.

But they were never completely indiscernible.

Just like every other time you’d ever laid your sights on him, your pulse skyrocketed and your stomach fell through the floor. And also like every other time, you pushed the feeling away and refused to acknowledge it. Because harboring a crush on a man who you’d only conversed with occasionally was a bad idea.

Especially when they were as handsome as he was.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you,” Jungkook apologized shyly. His voice wasn’t too deep, nor was it high; lying right in the middle. Switzerland

“No, it’s alright.”

It was notalright, if only because the man made you feel flustered.

The only time the two of you really interacted was whenever he’d be scheduled to man security at Vesper’s entrance checking IDs. A small comment about the weather here, a compliment given with a flash of a smile with the reddening of cheeks there. Hell, the only reason you even knew his name was because it was etched onto the heart of his shirt.

“So,” Jungkook began, still standing in the doorway like some kind of club guardian. “Need a light?” He nodded his head at the unlit white stick tucked between your fingers, his parted hair brushing across his eyebrows with the movement.

“Oh. Yeah, you have one,” you asked.

He answered your query by pulling a lighter from the back of his pants pocket and finally slipped away from the door, leaving it open a crack so the two of you wouldn’t get locked out. The music flooding out from inside quieted down to a barely-there whisper. Pressing the cigarette between your lips, you almost faltered when he stepped close to you.

Jungkook’s body heat practically swallowed you whole as he entered your personal space with a cute smile pulling up at the corners of his lips. His two front teeth were a little too big for his mouth and you would’ve suspected his animal counterpart to be a bunny or rabbit of some sort if it wasn’t for his job. The small mammals tended to be pacifists and you doubted working as a security guard counted towards pacifism.

The lighter came to life with a clickand a tiny burst of flame, and you watched from beneath your lashes as he lit the end of your preferred cigarette. As soon as you felt the heat of the smoke sear itself into your lungs, a thought came to you.

“Wait,” you began, lowering the white stick from your lips to dangle from your cold fingers. “Doesn’t the smell bother you?”

Jungkook’s cheeks puffed up beneath the weight of another smile and he stepped back from crowding you to lean a shoulder against the brick wall. “My roommate, Yoongi, smokes. So I’m used to it.” He tapped a finger to his nose.

“If you’re sure,” you said hesitantly.

“I’m sure.”

Humming, you resumed your position of leaning against the brick, your shoulder only a few inches away from his. Hybrid’s tended not to wear perfume or cologne because of their elevated sense of smell, but Jungkook must have been wearing some. Or perhaps it was just the scent of his laundry detergent that drifted from his body like an invisible cloud.

It was comforting. In a way that you couldn’t quite understand.

Glancing at him out of the corner of your eye, you took a slow drag from your cigarette and made care to blow the resulting smoke away from him. “Ditching work?”

He was looking out past the alleyway and towards the busy street beyond. Jungkook’s side profile was stunning even in the near darkness. “Technically, I amworking.”

“Oh?” Your voice was filled with amusement. “Expecting someone to pop out from the darkness like Batman and attack the club?”

He snorted, his tongue darting out to wet his soft looking lips. “Batman would never attack a club.”

“There’s a first time for everything.” Shrugging, you sneaked a peak over at him again to notice him already looking at you. His violet hued eyes glowed brightly as they roved over your features appreciatively.

“How about a first date then?”

You sputtered, choking on nothing except air at his blunt words. “I–what?”

Jungkook broke eye contact for a moment, your reaction coaxing a light shade of pink onto his cheeks. “I like you. And I know we don’t really know each other, but we always end up running into each other, which is why I want to change that.” He looked back at you, expression soft. “If you’re interested, of course.”

“I..,” swallowing, your mouth opened and closed in shock before your tongue finally let the syllables slip. “I would like that very much.”

His answering grin lit up the shadows lingering in the alleyway.

[catrector]

Meet the Writer

1. What type of writing do you do?

I’m working on a fantasy novel at the moment, based on Norse Mythology from the eyes of Sigyn, the woman who in the Eddas was Loki’s wife. So in a sense, it’s speculative mythology with themes of love, loss, revenge, fate, and LGBTQ lifestyles.  I’ve also spent some time writing short stories or flash fiction, but the novel is my main focus.

2. What genres and/or topics do you write about? I’ll write about my obsessions. My obsession for the last two years has been Norse Mythology, and I’ve managed to find a little place within it to carve out a story about the things I care about/am interested in, like morally grey leanings and queer characters. I almost exclusively write within the fantasy genre. 

3. How long have you been writing?

I wrote my first piece of nonsense when I was 12, so roughly 15 years on and off. 

4. Are you published?

I do have two published pieces. One is a nonfiction short story (https://tinyurl.com/y6wopdy6) and the other is a piece of flash fiction (https://tinyurl.com/y9gowcc2).

5. What was the first story you ever wrote?

The first thing I wrote of my own accord was a piece of fanfiction when I was 12 years old. It was GARBAGE and I was so proud of it that when I moved across the country, I tried to use it and my obsession with Buffy to attract new friends. Somehow I’m still best friends with that girl 15 years later, bless her heart.

6. Why do you write?

I wasn’t writing for a long time. You know how life can stick you in the capitalist meat grinder and make you believe arts aren’t worth pursuing? I didn’t figure I could make a living at writing, so what was the point? But when I was at the lowest point I’d been in years, I followed my obsession and started to write this story about who Sigyn might have been. It started as a way to ground myself and to kill time, but turned into a 5th draft 170k story. Now I write because it’s the only way I can breathe. 

7. How do you find time to write?

Currently I’m studying IT in a course that demands almost none of my time. I’ve been blessed to be able to work on my manuscript day in and day out for more than a year, other than when I’m in class. I’m in the process of finding work though, which is going to reduce the amount of hours I have in a day.  

8. When and where are the best times to write? I tried writing in cafes but often find it distracting. I can write in a study area of a library, but the best place for me is at home, at my pc, preferably with my boyfriend quiet or at work XD

9. Favorite food/drinks while writing?

I don’t eat much while I write. It’s hard to eat and type. I’m the kind of person who’ll just forget that food is needed and discover I haven’t eaten for eight hours. I do like a drink though, normally Red Rose tea, a black coffee or some water. This combination is why we bought a blender; at least if I drink a smoothie, I’m getting some vitamins from it. 

10. Your writing playlist?

WHY I’M GLAD YOU ASKED! I have two versions of The Goddess of Nothing At All playlist, with spoilers and without. I also have a playlist for when I’m writing that has zero English in it and is very viking aged moody. https://tinyurl.com/yc9wtt3p

11. What do family/friends/loved ones think of you writing?

My family and friends have been extremely supportive. My family has seen a few chapters, and some of my close friends are also writers, so they’ve taken on my newest draft for beta reading. My best friend read the first draft and without her enthusiasm, I would’ve stopped there. The boyfriend is incredibly supportive and enthusiastic, but it’s difficult for him to read my high fantasy English since he’s not a native speaker and reading isn’t his forte (we’re a gaming couple :P)

12. Parts of writing you enjoy the most?

Honesty, all of them. I used to think I’d hate editing but I love getting the chance to refine things and make them more beautiful layer by layer. I love the draft, I love the rewrites, I even love the critique. I’m lucky that way. 

13. Parts of writing you find challenging?

WAITING. Just. UGH. I hate any part of my life being out of my hands, because then I have no say in when things happen or how. Right now I’m waiting on all but one of my beta reviews to come back and trying to keep busy is the only thing keeping me sane. If my anxiety kicks into high gear, I’ll start wondering if radio silence means everyone hates my work, so I’m giving myself other projects in the meantime. 

14. What do you write with and on?

I write on my desktop PC, or sometimes my laptop that I bought for writing but it’s a little laggy. I use Word because of compatibility issues that I’ve had with things like OpenOffice. I’m a simple person, I don’t need a fancy program. 

15. How do you overcome writer’s block?

I usually stick one of those playlists on and immerse myself in the story they remind me of until something clicks. Sometimes it’s also a matter of going back and reading something I’ve already written, to get the gears turning again. 

16. How do you motivate yourself to write?

Listening to the playlists, holding myself accountable to my writer friends and tremendous amounts of guilt. I have this unhealthy thought process that if I’m not accomplishing something, my day is wasted. It helps me get a lot done, but don’t take up that kind of habit. 

17. Authors who inspire you as a writer?

Patrick Rothfuss. I hadn’t found an author in years that I really was enthralled by, but his writing is everything I aspire to be.

18. Books that inspire you as a writer?

The Kingkiller series by Rothfuss. A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray. American Gods/Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman. Tolkien. Probably a dozen more. 

19. Best advice you’ve gotten as a writer?

Find a community. My community came to me, and very much by accident. Some members of our reading club had formed a writing club and drug me into it kicking and screaming. I wasn’t a writer. They didn’t listen to me, and they’re why I’m still here, working on this story. The power of support is incredible. 

20. Writing goals this year

To finish the after beta reader edit, and distribute that draft to some new readers. Make a temporary cover, put up a website, do this Tumblr thing right. I could go on.  Thanks for reading, I know that was quite a journey you took with me!