#i listened to their entire debut album instead of going to bed so i think that says something about me

[juicedrop]

y'all help i'm listening to weezer, devo, and arctic monkeys instead of going to bed

i mean... i'm not complaining... but i kinda want to sleep as well.

[dollarbin]

Shakey Sundays #1:

Neil Young's Neil Young

My buddy Greg asked me last weekend, very earnestly, why Neil Young? Why is he your favorite artist? Why?

Greg likes Neil. But he doesn't own 38 different Neil records which are what he'd grab, along with his kids and, I guess, the cat, if the house was on fire; nor has he temporarily and blissfully lost all sense of hearing after seeing Neil in concert eight glorious times, once driving 7 hours each way on a work night to do so; nor did he sing each of his safe-from-the-fire kids to psychedelic sleep every night of their childhoods with a steady diet of Powderfinger (my son always insisted the first line was "look out Momma, there's a white bird coming up the river"; if I sang boat instead of bird he'd sit up in bed, his doll Carson cradled in his arms, and howl in indignation), Lost in Space and Little Wing.

(By the way, that fire scenario really happened: long ago, when the kids were still little and there was no room whatsoever left in our tiny home, all my records were stored in a family cabin in the woods; one time I watched the backside of the ridge behind that cabin going up in flames and then rushed home to get everyone, and all of my Neil, into the car so we could get the hell out of there. Everyone/thing made it out just fine.)

In other words, Greg's not me. Plus, he grew up a Pearl Jam guy so we were listening to Mirror Ball as a common ground of sorts when the question, Why Neil Young?, was asked. At that point Neil was hollering about the place called downtown, where the hippies all go, so my first, slightly inebriated, explanation - "dude, I don't know, he's just the best" - didn't really fly. After all, the hippies were dancing the Charleston; they were doing the limbo.

Greg's question is a good one. What attribute can you insert after the statement "Neil Young is the best _____" that adequately describes his odd and supreme genius?

"Poet" doesn't work. Sure, Neil can write about roads stretching out like healthy veins and wild gift horses that strain the reins, but he can also dedicate a ten minute song entirely to describing one person's surplus of mashed potatoes.

Nor can you get away with "he's the best songwriter" when he's released at least 6 different versions of the song Dance, Dance, Dance and much of his oeuvre from the past 10 years spews hot, Promise of the Real sized chunks.

Even Neil's newest robot will probably concur: there isn't any single thing that Young is the stand-alone-best at. (Well, maybe he is the best at screaming into his guitar's pickups...)

And yet, for me, the truth has never been in doubt since I first heard Side 2 of On the Beach over thirty years ago: Neil Young is, and always will be, my favorite musician.

So I think it's about time this blog started wrestling with Neil "Shakey" Young himself. That's why I'm kicking off this weekend with the first of many Shakey Sundays: I'm gonna write about every one of Neil's studio albums, in order.

Those of you who only show up to see if I have more to say about John Darnielle's cooking skills: relax. I'll continue to post Dollar Bin posts on other artists alongside this new project. I promise. But be warned, Young currently has 45 studio albums to his name and I have a ton to say about all of them. So this will take awhile.

I'm not making any promises of the real here: I'll surely take some Sundays off, these posts will often appear, like this one, in truly Shakey fashion, on the wrong day of the week, and I may keel over or get a life before I ever write about Storytone or Fork in the Road. But it's time to give this Neil Young thing a shot, a shot that will ring all around the border, like a venom in the sky. Will we make it? Hey, who knows where or when. But let the Dollar Bin's Shakey Sundays begin.

Here we go:

Neil Young did not yet know how to be NEIL YOUNG in 1968. When putting together his debut solo album he:

Overdubbed instruments and vocals alike instead of leaving everything as live and raw as an octopus that's just been tossed up On The Beach;

Brought in ace session musicians and back up vocalists instead of the wandering cast of reckless, drunken fools who he's been working with ever since;

Boxed up (nearly) every raggedy edge of his sound into tiny, bite-sized morsels instead of pummeling us into submission;

Bounced around from one real studio to the next over three months instead of doing it all in a barn or in front of a crackling fire in the night;

Waffled between, and deferred to, three different producers instead of ordering everyone around like they were his private army of Jawas; and finally,

He recorded while sober.

And yet the end result is a lovely, under-appreciated record, one you're fairly likely to pick up in any Dollar Bin to this day. I suspect a lot of casual collectors have bought Neil Young in the last 55 years based on the twin false assumptions that Joni Mitchell painted the cover (she didn't) and that it'll sound, you know, like Heart of Gold. Lucky for you, those buyers listened to the album once, understood none of it, then chucked it. So go get it already.

I remember picking up my own copy for a buck or two. It was the summer of 1992 and I had a bus ticket to take me from my grandmother's house in North San Diego all the way to my buddy Ned's parent's house in Coronado. I was 16 and had the day off from my summer camp job. Every cent of my huge $46/week salary was in my pocket and I had zero bills to pay nor any responsibilities to speak of. That sounds so awesome.

Anyway, there I was on the bus, feeling groovy. I'm not too spontaneous a guy but I saw a record store along the way and got out; there was yet another shop across the street. Encinitas, CA, was a cool place to be 30+ years ago; today I'm sure those store fronts are both dedicated to the kind of high end vegan yoga wear I'd need to take out a home loan to get into. But oh boy, just imagine how good I'd look...

Neil Young was included in my Dollar Bin haul from that afternoon, as was Time Fades Away. Who knows what else; who knows why I remember any of this.

Then again, I know exactly why I remember this: it was one of the funnest days of my life. I showed up at Ned's a few hours later and showed off my new records to a pretty big swath of 16 year old boys. No one was impressed; at that point Neil's only real claim to fame with grungy white kids was that Sonic Youth had opened for Neil the previous year. No one really cared about Sonic Youth; they only cared that Nirvana had once opened for Sonic Youth.

Poor Kurt was still alive and well at that point; he was the most famous musician on the planet. Everyone wanted to talk about him, not speculate with me about the fact that one single song seemed to take up nearly all of Neil Young's B Side.

So, instead of talking about Shakey, we spent the rest of the day, and night, driving from one 7-11 to another all over San Diego county, hunting for the most mythical of Slurpee flavors: Cinnabomb. That's a quest that I suspect a lot of 16 year old boys could still passionately get behind. Sadly, we never found Cinnabomb, but I did learn how to jump out of Ned's Vanagon with everyone else at red lights and make a lap around the car while screaming.

Good times. No, Great Times.

At that point I liked Neil but was still a year away from lifelong devotion. In a future post about Weld (uh oh, maybe I will need to do all the live records too?) I'll describe what it was like seeing him live for the first time a year earlier; I think it permanently altered the shape of my face. But I was too young to really know it yet.

After 31 years of pretty regular listening to Neil's debut, I'd argue that it demonstrates just how many different paths were open to him as he transitioned away from what was essentially a big deal boy band, Buffalo Springfield.

Neil Young opens with The Emperor of Wyoming, one of the most unique tracks Young's ever produced. As the strings play toss with Neil's slick guitars, opening a comfortable prairie scene to the sun, the wind and to our cheerful gazing eyes, we're given the immediate sense that Young could have wound up becoming a proper musician: scoring films, producing for others, you know, making music for normal people.

Missing entirely from the track is any sense of underlying menace, and menace is always a hallmark of Young's best work. Rather, it sounds as though the fine people of Wyoming are all holding hands and working together to build their Emperor a lovely barn, a barn no one will ever convert into a recording studio. Rather, everyone will have access; the people's grain will be safe and the Emperor will bestow handfuls of flowers upon every last one.

It's an instrumental track, and how many of those are on all 45 of Neil's albums? There's all of Dead Man, of course, but that's a soundtrack album. Side 2 of Neil Young opens with another instrumental, as well, one that he seemingly had absolutely nothing to do with. And I think that's it! Neil put this great track together, then never made music like this ever again. Wow.

But there's a back story of course: I think The Emperor of Wyoming is a sequel of sorts to a track Young didn't release, in his classic, mercurial fashion, for another 40+ years. Take a listen to Slowly Burning, recorded under the Buffalo Springfield moniker a year earlier. In actuality it's Young in the studio with session musicians, teaching himself how to make beauty.

Next up on Neil Young is The Loner, and we start to hear the Neil Young we know. There's plenty of that menace I was talking about in the song's titular character: this guy is watching you, probably right now, and if you get off the train at your station alone, he'll know that you are.

But Neil wasn't ready to unleash such menace sonically: every sense of the chaos he'd tapped into on Mr Soul a year and half earlier is immediately strangled off on The Longer, leaving room for full strings. Young was ready to sing about creeps. But he had not yet decided to sound like one.

The drums suck on this track; the guy responsible would go off and found the band Poco, together with the album's primary bass player, Jim Messina, who is the sole member of Buffalo Springfield that Young welcomed into this project (and Messina was barely a member of the band, only playing on their last record). My famous brother will probably soon tell me that Poco is a a big deal band I ought to get into. He's wrong; I know this even though I have never listened to a Poco record; I simply have intuited that they are un poco terrible.

But back to Buffalo Springfield. I debated starting this entire project with their first record. After all, that's the first thing Neil properly released. That record is great for a lot of reasons. For one thing, it demonstrates that Stephen Stills, at least for a moment, didn't suck. But Neil Young is where we're starting!

The most important hold-over from the Springfield era on this record is producer and pianist Jack Nitzsche, one of Neil Young's three outside producers. Nitzsche is a figure of significant folklore: he's like Phil Spector's mini-me: almost as prolific, almost as genius, almost as nuts. There'll be more to say about Jack on future Shakey Sundays. For now, suffice it to say that he was once arrested for chasing his, and Neil's, former lady friend, Carrie Snodgrass, around her home with a handgun. And then, years later, he and Snodgrass got back together.

Nitzsche seems responsible for much of the greatness within the very best song on Neil Young, The Old Laughing Lady. Every version Neil's ever done of the song is wonderful. He hypnotized himself and every one else present with his coffee house version, busked it incognito on an Amsterdam street corner, rewrote it almost entirely for his 76 acoustic tour, complete with train effects, and laid it down in isolated, after hours perfection during the credits of his otherwise dull concert film Heart of Gold. Next up I hope there's a children's choir involved, singing through his vocoder.

Neil Young's studio take of Old Laughing Lady is a masterpiece. Nitzsche's piano lines are subtle and deft; his production corrects the amateur flourishes that undercut the previous year's Broken Arrow: everything is dense and sparse at once, and the backing vocals, led by the incomparable Merry Clayton a year before she laid down some of the best vocals in any rock song ever on Gimme Shelter, are a surging, moaning pulse that's, once again, unlike anything else Neil would ever put on tape.

But arguably the best thing of all on the song is the bass line. Take a listen.

That's not Jim Messina. It's Carole Kaye, the only female member of Phil Spector's studio band, later known as The Wrecking Crew. Light years ahead of her time, Kaye is responsible for a bunch of the best notes in all the 60's. She's the bass player on Pet Sounds and Smile; her playing there reset the entire way Paul McCartney played bass. She's on La Bamba, I Hear a Symphony and Love's Forever Changes, plus hundreds of other songs we all know from the late 50's and 60's.

So why don't we talk about her all the time? Sexism people, sexism. The poor woman was abused by her music teacher when she was 13 years old and wound up marrying him and having his child at age 16. Somehow she rose above this all and broke just about every barrier you can imagine in the studio. And good for her: she bailed on the whole hideous scene two years after playing on Neil Young. Now the internet is filled with sweet images of her like this one:

But why doesn't she play on all of Neil Young? After all, she was in the sessions a year earlier that produced Expecting to Fly and Slowly Burning.

I'm guessing that a) she was too expensive for Neil (she once claimed, without bravado, that she made more as a session musician than she would if she were President of the United States), and b) Neil was already realizing that he's happiest and most successful when surrounded by lesser musicians. No offense Jim Messina, but you didn't freak Neil out with your mad skills. Carole Kaye did.

Much of the rest of the album is filler, stuff Young wrote to flesh out the record and stuff he largely has not returned to since. But most of that filler is great.

Take I've Been Waiting For You. If you set aside Young's uptight, anodyne vocals and the fact that this song is little more than a chorus and a guitar riff, you'll discover that Neil was well on his way to Prince-like studio skills. He stacks up his own organ, piano and guitars atop drums that don't suck. The whole thing, even the unfunny Ha's! in the intro, swings.

But we've got to end this first Shakey Sunday by taking note of the most important relationship Young began during the record. Indeed he says it was one of the most important relationships in his entire life. Supposedly, Neil was hitchhiking in Topanga Canyon at some point in 68 when a guy even crazier than him, David Briggs, picked him up. I guess we'll buy into that story and wonder if we would have stopped for Neil in 1968. Before you jump to any conclusions, remember what he looked like at that point.

I don't know about you, but I'd have left his ass on the side of the road.

Briggs had no real qualifications for producing Young or anyone else at the time. But he quickly supplanted both Nitzsche and Ry Cooder in the production booth and helped Neil make more than half of Neil Young. Briggs had exactly what Neil was looking for at the time, and he's still looking for it now: sublime amateurism, both from himself and from his contributors.

Maybe Briggs taught Neil how to run around the car screaming at red lights during their first drive together; maybe not. But either way, he made Neil happy, and he started to get him truly comfortable in front of a microphone for the first time.

Thank God they found one another. Yes, some of what they made on Neil Young is mediocre for Young, and the album's never-ending final track, Last Trip To Tulsa, is one of my least favorite Neil Young songs (except when the Stray Gators are tearing it into wonderful pieces), but most of the best things we'll talk about in these upcoming posts came from the partnership between Young and Briggs.

And so I hope you're out there right now with a similarly sweet partner of any kind, digging your Shakey Sunday.

[bitdemonic]

Hey bestie boooooooooooooooo, you already know I’m up in here 🗣️ ‼️

How do you think the reception of specifically my debut and first project (the EP I’m working on) will be like?

Love ya - 💋🫶🏽

princess eva🥰 tyyy for participating and being patient, love you bunches! hope this resonates sister

four of wands. three of cups. nine of swords. the magician. magic.

for starters, i noticed that this version of “rules” i chose has a different cover art opposed to the one i’m used to (hot pink album)—this makes me think that your ep is going to be an original, or that its uniqueness makes it a standalone. it feels like the unique aspect revolves around the sound; maybe it doesn’t match the cover art or it’s more of something than expected to be? hard to decipher tbh and i feel like that’s part of the illusion on your end as well; i feel seductive and mystical but it's not at all sexual, it's mysterious. funnily enough this feels planned (obviously lmao); i sense hopeful energy, like wanting this reaction to happen or dreaming of a similar reaction. with the magician card and magic card (purple; creativity + spirituality) being present, this can indicate using divinity to receive this response as well (manifestation, praying, visualization). two cards representing metaphysical forces give me the impression of your spiritual team working overtime; watchful eyes are protecting this project and they're keeping it "safe" by making sure it's created with passion. you'll find yourself not feeling motivated or bothered to mess with your music although you really want to; maybe scrapping tracks that had potential but lacked the "it" factor—this is their influence behind the scenes. instead of using your perfectionism against you (trying to break it or cause disruption), your guides support the "bad" habit because it inevitably creates something good (understatement fs).

in terms of the public debut; it's going to be on a social media platform or streaming service (if not both)—channeling "snapchat" right now and it seems to be a reference to promoting your name wherever you can. this is a new new beginning, one that's more special than the last so you're doing what you have to without shame. apart from this determination you’ll be dealing with your own internal response; very self deprecating tbh, it seems you're not the happiest in this moment. despite the outcome being “good” and worth celebrating, you’re digesting the fact that good isn’t perfect. “validation” and a small frown on your face came in; you were expecting things to go a certain way, or the way you imagined it. the desired outcome isn’t reality (at least not in the beginning) and you’re resisting the acceptance of it. def work on getting out of your head beautiful, everyone has to start somewhere and it’s going to be worth the journey.

audience and ep wise, i’m hearing “good news” and seeing sirens go off lol. their perception of your persona will def lead into following the track of your music (day ones, supporters since the beginning). majority of the people that listen to your ep (music in general) will be piscean themselves; guided by neptune and either constantly in the dream state or wanting to escape it. your music offers sanctuary, especially since i’m seeing someone put in headphones and fall into their bed with a sigh. “melatonin.” it’s a drug, listening to your harmonies and instrumentals during late nights or in parked cars. this is the literal definition of a vibe, being one with the source and sitting in the moment. it’s immersive. the first artist that came to mind was jhenè aiko; her entire catalog is the embodiment of immersion, ten seconds in and you’re already floating lol; this is what you’ll master as an artist. very cool and it’ll be recognized as such. all in all you’ll have a beautiful rollout, especially considering that this will be a spiritual accomplishment and the first chapter of a new era. good luck!✨

[lovesanmotion]

yandere!ateez as fanboys

Hongjoong: 

The moment he hears one song from your latest album, it immediately swept him off his feet from the ground and made the decision to stan you. You are his favorite soloist. The moment he hears your latest comeback album, he immediately listened to all your other songs and made his research about you that night. Of course, the caffeine boosting him. 

He made a lot of social media accounts just to follow you. Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, you name it. He would follow your every move and post. But is still didn’t feel the same. To Hongjoong, he felt like he was still missing a large chunk of your life and he didn’t want that. The next night, he pulled a couple of strings and ta dah! had access to your very personal information. And he felt so complete afterwards. 

To you, Hongjoong was just one of your few male fans that you adore. I mean, the guy makes covers of your songs. And part of you agreed that when he made his own remix of your songs, it would sound 10000% better than the original. However, you just didn’t noticed the subliminal messages and tones he inserted in his remixes. 

Seonghwa: 

Seonghwa was one of those rare male fansites you have. Being in a 7 member girl group called Starlight, you are the group’s visual, main dancer, lead vocalist, center and face of the group. Once your group made its debut, fame automatically found you. 

Endorsements here and there, landing yourself in various commercial films and even coming to be a guest of variety shows. Your popularity instantly swept off and in a blink of an eye, the whole of South Korea knew your name. And your name tasted delicious in HwaLight_Y/N. Seonghwa’s fansite name dedicated to you. He thought of a name that would connect him to you. Hwa meaning star, replacing the english word and thus the birth of the fansite name. 

With his good looks, he too became known amongst the fans. He was known as your handsome fansite master. And since he was one of the rare male fansites you have, you would immediately recognize him from afar. Smiling at his camera and waving at him. Much to Seonghwa’s delight, he felt like there was already a deep connection between you two. And he wanted more of that. 

He started coming to your unofficial group activities. Slippiing his way inside the venue just to be able to feel your presence a few feet from him. He started purchasing flight and hotel information from other “fans” and would purchase the seat closest to you or the room nearest yours. 

Didn’t noticed those red beaming lights hidden inside your hotel room when you’re changing clothes or taking a shower? Click click! Or you were dead asleep tired from rehearsals when someone barged into your room? Click click! Ever noticed how your favorite red lace underwear went missing only to come back with a stain? Click click! 

Yunho: 

At first, he wasn’t entirely dazzled by you. Yunho was just a regular idol manager who would follow you into your every activities and schedules. He needed the money, plus, companies like him for his tall and muscular physique. The kind of person that can ward off creepy or scary fans that tried to get close to you.

You, on the other hand, is an ex member of your former girl group but found fame as a solo artist. Your debut song swept the charts and immediately won every single music show chart. Topping music chart billboards in every country. Despite all the glitz and glamor that followed you, you felt lonely and desperate for human touch. 

It wasn’t supposed to be how Yunho, naked and in between your legs. How such alcohol can make you two do things that violates his contract with you. One night was all it takes for him to see a completely different side of you. And he wanted more of that. 

Yunho became more protective towards you. Becoming more aggressive to anyone who dares lay a hand on you. Even going as far as sleeping in one bed with you as he thinks “its completely necessary, who know, someone might be barging into your room in the middle of the night?”  You can never get away from him. Companies like him, remember? With his clean records, your company would do anything to keep him signed with you. 

Yeosang: 

Channel YNbyYS is a youtube channel run by Yeosang. It’s the platform wherein he posts his dance covers to your group’s songs. With a bit of his dancing elements and the original choreography of your group, the blend came out much nicer than what everyone expected. His heart leaped more at the idea of you endorsing a chicken brand. From that day forward, he became a regular of the certain chicken brand nearest to him. 

Yeosang may seem like a complete innocent and harmless fanboy. But do you ever what he is behind his dance covering youtube channel? Why, he is the second most influential person in your company. The son of your own CEO. He had his very own place within the company. And he uses it to the extent of getting closer to you. 

The gifts that came into your company? Those are ALL Yeosang’s gifts for you. From the dresses to the shoes. He shamelessly threw away other gifts’ that were for you because according to him “he is the only relevant and special person that can offer you gifts”. Anything else is directly to the bin. 

And you wonder how your “fans” know your taste in fashion. 

Mingi: 

Mingi, before being blacklisted by your company, was just a regular fanboy of your group. You were the group’s main rapper and the lyrics to your bars spoke volumes to him. He was just casually listening to your verses and mixtapes until one day, he realized that he wanted to be more than just your fanboy.

It started slowly when he would attend your group’s fansigns and even follow you towards the airport. But the bodyguards prevented him from coming anymore closer to you. And so he did the unthinkable. Knocking down a bodyguard that was shielding you and enveloping you in his arms. His heartbeat raced and he felt a second heartbeat between his pants. With you in his arms, he only realized how petite yet handful you are. Hands running all over your body, burying his nose in your hair inhaling that soft and sweet strawberry shampoo that you use. 

Despite being blacklisted, he never cared about going public and meeting you at your group or individual activities. Instead, he resorted to barging into your dorm. Whether you’re home or not. 

 San: 

You are your group’s maknae and visual. Dubbed as Korea’s IT Girl, your face can be found anywhere in Seoul. From commercial films to leading Korean dramas, releasing your own solo album and attending fashion weeks, you are always the talk of the town. Whenever your name comes up, its always met with praises. Of course, the people loves you! You are a crowd and fan favorite. 

And you had managed to capture the eyes and heart of San. Calling himself as your number 1 fan. He was never absent in any of your activities. Getting front row seats in your concerts, being present at your variety shows and even buying products that you endorse - soju, cosmetics, literally anything. 

To your fans, he is the biggest fanboy you ever had. And it was quite entertaining to watch him profess his love to you. You even chuckled a few of his pick up lines that he threw at you during your fansigns. When asked if you had anything memorable that a fan ever did to you, the answer would always be San. 

Behind closed doors, San kept a dirty secret. Remember how he always gets front row seats to your concerts? He hid a camera in his clothes to film your upskirt. Beating his meat every night to his own collection of your tight and revealing clothing. Remember how you would endorse anything? He’d buy it and imagine how ripping it off your body feels like. His greatest possession? Your black lingerie. Too bad, you’re never getting it back. 

Wooyoung: 

ForYN is a website account run by Wooyoung. He regularly updates his content - from posting your pictures that are uploaded today, to your daily activities, the products you use and a little sub website from his channel wherein he writes poems and graphical fanfiction of himself with you. But of course no one would ever read between the lines. The way how Wooyoung would write would be so poetical and endearing that it? doesn’t? have? any? hidden? meaning? 

He only came once to your fansign and gave you a pink teddybear. It wasn’t the best gift you owned but you liked it somehow. There was something about the teddybear that you didn’t know why you’re into it. Its just a plain gift but everytime you look at it, its as if you’re drawn to it. 

Maybe becuase you didn’t noticed how it has camera eyes? 

Wooyoung’s love for you deepened when he caught you humping on the pink teddybear. Cum splattering all over its face. It was just one gift, but it was everything to you. 

And Wooyoung’s working on the next entry for his fanfiction. 

Jongho: 

For today, you were having your own vlive. Doing what you called a YN mukbang. As the convenient food store you bought was placed on the table, you began to greet yours fans, asking them how they are feeling before digging in your food. Among the hundreds and thousands of viewers, Jongho was one of them. 

He was engrossed in two things: one, how adorable and beautiful you look despite just eating. Second, the rude comments that were popping up in your live video. Rude remarks of body shaming were what caught his attention. He took his time digging deeper into someone else’s username and IP address. Once he got a hold of their information, he would report those comments and head out. In his disguise while hunting the people who made disguisting remarks at you. No one should ever make such remarks to a goddess. 

[acequidwrites]

Chaeyoung thinks being in love is probably a requirement for writing love songs.

Or, at least, having been in love once.

FANDOM: Blackpink (RPF)

PAIRINGS: Kim Jisoo/Park Chaeyoung, Jennie Kim/Lalisa Manoban (background)

Chaeyoung arranges Jisoo’s fingers on the guitar fretboard, and that feels like the beginning.

Jisoo is hopeless, can only make discordant sounds that hurt her ears. That’s okay, though, because Chaeyoung can play well enough for the both of them. She sings softly with the string melody and Jisoo thinks about how, in a different context, a movie, maybe, this scene would be romantic.

Jisoo thinks about Chaeyoung making music, writing songs. Love songs, sung at night, or on a date beside the Han River. It’s a picnic, it’s someone’s anniversary.

(It’s their job to sing for others, and it suddenly occurs to Jisoo that she can’t remember the last time someone sang for her.)

Chaeyoung plays guitar beautifully. Chaeyoung is beautiful.

Jisoo wonders if she’s ever thought this before.

~

When she was younger, just a nobody in Melbourne, Roseanne would play games with her church friends. Squeaky bike races to the music stores to gawk at all the new album covers: Big Bang, Super Junior, 2PM. 

Shoving at the window: Who’s your favorite? And, No, he’s mine! And, I’d move to Korea just to—

Roseanne, slipping past, stopping tentatively in front of the wall of guitars in the back, impossibly tall. She runs her fingers over the gloss on an acoustic model, dares to pluck one string. 

It’s in her, the bug, the urge to perform. An itch in her stomach nothing else can scratch. She receives the guitar for her birthday and doesn’t let it go.

Later, when Rosanne boards the plane in Melbourne and Chaeyoung steps off in Seoul, she will clutch the handle on her guitar case with a white-knuckled grip. She can feel it starting.

Chaeyoung strums and sings in front of the panel of YG Entertainment judges, and that feels like a start. She stands at the back of the group of young, nervously shifting girls in the dance studio she will come to know like home, and that feels like a start,  too.

A short, confident, older girl walks up to her with her palm outstretched and says Kim Jisoo, and that feels like something else entirely.

~

It’s not that sharing a room with Chaeyoung is hard.

Quite the opposite, actually. It’s easy.

Jisoo wakes up, and Chaeyoung is up. Jisoo goes to bed, and Chaeyoung is already sleeping. 

Occasionally in the mornings, Chaeyoung brings Jisoo breakfast. At night, Jisoo brings her tea. 

Jisoo never sets an alarm, because Chaeyoung always wakes her up if they have a schedule. Chaeyoung doesn’t need an alarm, because her body is set to what the world calls “a healthy sleep cycle,” and Jisoo calls, “freak time.”

Chaeyoung’s hair falls out a lot, the result of years of dyed and damaged roots. Jisoo will find long blonde hairs everywhere: her pillow, her clothes, her own head. Surprisingly, she doesn’t mind.

Jisoo plays games at night and Chaeyoung watches, sometimes, padding across the room to warm Jisoo’s duvet. Usually, she falls asleep there, bathed in the blue light of Jisoo’s phone, head on her shoulder.

Jisoo doesn’t mind this either.

~

Dieting is the worst, and not because of her own hunger. Jisoo thinks she could probably survive on rice and sunlight for like, ever.

No, dieting is the worst because when word trickles down through about seven layers of managers that they have a performance coming up, Chaeyoung shuts down. 

Not all at once; gradually, as the days crawl on and the gnawing pains start to hit all of them, Chaeyoung gets quieter and quieter.

Jisoo hates it.

“Chaeyoung-ah,” she says, the open bag of chips held out, “just have some.”

It’s the look in her eyes as she considers. Jisoo hates it. 

First, temptation. Maybe just one, Jisoo can see the words almost pass her lips. Then, rapidly: responsibility to the company, guilt for the thought in the first place, embarrassment at her own hunger, determination to stay strong.

“I shouldn’t,” is what Chaeyoung says instead, with a tight smile. 

Fake. Fake. Jisoo wants to wipe it off her face.

Lisa, sweeping through, snatching the bag out of Jisoo’s hand before she can react: “You’re skinny, Chaengie. Eat some snacks.” A crunch, to emphasize her point.

Even Jennie watches them from over the rim of a full-fat vanilla latte. 

Chaeyoung shakes her head, resolute, and leaves the kitchen instead.

Jisoo thinks about smuggling food and murdering managers.

~

Lisa and Chaeyoung are best friends, and Jisoo and Jennie are best friends, and Lisa and Jennie have always been something...more. And Jisoo sees this and knows what it means and doesn’t want Chaeyoung to feel neglected, so she tries a little harder. She plays pretend affection: part show to tease the others, part effort to strengthen her relationship with Chaeyoung. It’s funny and fun and light.

She learns Chaeyoung will blush at compliments, but cringe at aegyo. She prefers movies to dramas, but likes being outside over either. She cries easily but laughs easier, and believes anything anyone tells her.

Jisoo brings her a flower, and Chaeyoung presses it in a book. Jisoo buys her a guitar, and Chaeyoung physically can’t speak.

Jisoo plays pretend affection, and then one day she isn’t pretending anymore.

~

“What’s wrong?” Jisoo asks, because Lisa has been pacing up and down their living room for hours, sighing audibly and generally being mopey and dramatic, and Jisoo can only withstand so much.

Lisa emerges from the depths of her hoodie hood and casts a deeply miserable look to where Jisoo is (trying to) watch TV, and says, slowly, like the effort tires her:

“...What?”

Jisoo could smack her, really.

“I said, is something wrong?”

This is a mistake, clearly, because Lisa takes it as an invitation to sprawl onto the couch next to her and occupy as much surface area as possible. “So many things wrong, unnie,” Lisa whines, and Jisoo reaches over to pack a pillow over the younger girl’s face.

It’s not like Jisoo doesn’t know what the matter is.

The matter: Jennie filming a CF in Japan.

(The other, smaller, secret matter: Chaeyoung in the recording studio. All day, every day. And maybe, Jisoo is maybe getting just a little tired of it.)

“It’s so boring here alone,” Lisa cries, violently shifting position and ending with her head dangling off the edge of the couch and her feet scuffing the wall. This is code for I’m upset Jennie is gone, and, I miss her, and, Jisoo-unnie, you’re great, but you’re really not the person I want to see right now, and Jisoo knows this is the code because she speaks it right back.

“I’ll flip you if you don’t get your feet off the wall.” (I’m sorry Jennie is in Japan. She’ll be back soon. Tell Chaeyoung to stop working so hard because she doesn’t listen to me and she comes home too late and she isn’t eating enough and she’s tired all the time and she—)

Lisa sticks her tongue out. “Flip me, then.” (I miss her a lot and it hurts, I think it isn’t supposed to hurt but it does, and I miss her, and I don’t know what to do.)

Jisoo doesn't lift a finger, settles deeper into the cushions, makes a sort of scoffing sound, and turns the TV a fraction louder. “All the blood rushing to your head will make it explode,” she says, and there’s no malice in it.

We’re pretty pathetic, aren’t we?

Yeah.

~

Chaeyoung thinks being in love is probably a requirement for writing love songs. 

Or, at least, having been in love once. 

And she has no regrets about anything in her life until she sits down in a practice room with a pen in hand and tries to write, only to find that in the past ten years of training and schedules and performing, she’s never found time to meet a boy. So she caps the pen, and she uncaps the pen, and she tries to invent the feeling of love. 

She watches movies. She reads books. She reads poems. She watches couples outside the window and it’s so close she can feel it. She can see the shape of it, in flowers exchanged, in smiles hidden, hands clasped, words repeated, a billion different stories and none of them hers. Love is everywhere but in her brain, in her fingers, on her tongue.

She thinks about it so much the word turns foreign, meaningless. She traces the letters over and over at the top of the page, the only scrawl on the field of white. The light overhead is dim, but bright enough to see how bad she’s failing. Love. Sarang. The paper rips and ink bleeds through onto the table.

Chaeyoung is a songwriter – or at least, she wants to be – and she doesn’t want to fake it. Sometimes, she thinks about how easy it would be: take all the words she’s found through study, rearrange them, spruce them up and make them pretty and set to music, debut. 

Debut. Solo debut, isn’t that what she’s always wanted? Quoted lines bubble up in her throat. Bitter, artificial, but god, would it be so easy.

Then: Lisa will take Jennie’s hand under the dinner table. Or, Jennie will rest her head on Lisa’s shoulder after practice. They’ll smile together, quietly (and when has Lisa ever been quiet), and giggle about something no one else can understand – could possibly understand, when it’s a secret for just the two of them.

Everything Chaeyoung has memorized falls away. 

She is a songwriter, and she doesn’t want to fake it.

~

It’s Bangkok.

Or, Amsterdam, maybe. Paris, or back home in Melbourne. Chaeyoung knows there’s a stage and an audience, for sure.

(It’s Inkigayo, 2016.)

There’s a song — several songs? — she can’t remember which. It’s not like they have that many to begin with.

(Osaka? Fukuoka?)

It’s the four of them against the world, riding the high of the crowd. It’s hot, and the crowd roars, and confetti snows down, they’re breathing it in, and Chaeyoung doesn’t think it’s possible to come down from this, and it’s enough. It’s enough. 

She doesn’t need anything else. Not when Jennie is beaming and waving like nothing sharp has ever pierced her armor, not when Lisa is jumping and dancing and laughing loud enough to be heard across the stage without a mic, not when Jisoo, Jisoo—

(Gayo Daejun, 2018.)

Jisoo.

It looks like this: Jisoo, confetti in her hair — tall on heels, glittering dress — Jisoo, hands outstretched, catching paper, flowers, plushies from the fans— smirking for the picture — pose, peace sign, finger heart, pose — eyes shining, Chaeyoung has never seen that, someone’s eyes actually shine, it’s something that happens in fiction, in songs —

(Seoul. It’s Seoul, in the end.)

Jisoo catches Chaeyoung’s eye from across the stage and winks, or rather, attempts a wink and blinks clumsily with both eyes instead, an action caught by the cameras and mirrored in gigantic high-definition for the whole stadium; the crowd erupts into a frenzy and Chaeyoung hears none of it. Jisoo scrunches her nose and blows an air kiss instead and Chaeyoung finds herself laughing, expelling the butterflies beating against her rib cage, reaching out, snatching up the kiss and putting it in her pocket.

(Mine.)

She puts the mic to her lips and starts the post-performance speech and pretends a single thought isn’t winding like a ticker tape headline around and around her brain.

Jisoo is beautiful. Jisoo is beautiful.

Chaeyoung wonders if she’s ever thought this before.

[kwanisms]

Jealousy - ick

anonymous said: can i ask for something smuty with changkyun where he’s your best friend or something like that, and doesnt admit hes jealous of you until he loses his mind? thank uuu love your work <3

⤑ genre: angst with a bit of smut, idol!Changkyun, best friend reader ⤑ pairing: idol!Changkyun x bff!Reader ⤑ warning: sexual content, foul language, slight daddy kink, choking, ⤑ summary: Changkyun is your best friend and you notice how distant he’s become since you befriended the rest of his members, especially his hyung, Kihyun. ⤑ word count: 5k

a/n: I hope this is okay, I wasn’t sure what you wanted Changkyun to be jealous about so I made up a reason. Thank you for requesting and I hope you like it! ~K♡

You pulled out your phone and felt a pang in your heart when you saw that Changkyun hadn’t opened your message. It had been two days since he last talked to you which was odd. Changkyun had been your best friend since you were kids.

When he became a trainee, the two of you lost contact but after he debuted with Monsta X, the two of you reconnected like you hadn’t spent a day apart.

It happened at a fan sign. You bought a ticket, luckily, and flew to Seoul to attend. You were halfway to the stage when you spotted Changkyun. He was smiling at and talking to a fan, signing their album while they told him a story.

After she finished, she moved on and Changkyun took the opportunity to look around, spotting you instantly and his eyes widened when he recognized you. The entire time you were working your way down the table, he threw glances at you until you finally reached him.

“Wow,” he breathed, dropping Korean for your language instead. “(Y/N),” he said smiling at you. “It’s been a long time,” he said, resting his chin in his palm and looking at you with a grin. “You look amazing,” he added looking down as you pushed your copy of their album at him.

He took it and started flipping through the pages of the photobook. Once he found what he was looking for, he started writing. “What have you been up to?” he asked.

You regaled him with the tale of your high school experience without him, navigating the halls you once roamed together until you graduated and went onto university. He listened with interest as you recounted the past few years without him.

He smiled up at you, capping his marker and taking care to close your album and put it back in its sleeve. “Let’s catch up, yeah?” he asked, giving you a wink and handing your album back to you. He took your hand in his and gave it a small squeeze.

“Make sure to look through the whole book,” he said nodding at the album. Before you could ask, you were ushered along to the next member while Changkyun turned his attention to his next fan.

After the fan meet ended and you returned to your hotel room, you pulled out the album and pulled out the photobook, flipping through it to find the members’ messages to you. It wasn’t until almost the end that something caught your eye. Changkyun had written a note at the very back of the book on a blank page.

“I have a new number, but my KKT is the same. Message me sometime,” it read. You hadn’t used the Korean texting app in years, losing it when you changed phones and never redownloading it.

You decided to give it a shot, downloading it and trying to sign in with your own credentials. It worked. You had all your old contacts back, including-- Changkyun.

You clicked on his user and pressed the freechat option. Your thumbs hovered over the keyboard, not sure what to type. You settled for something simple. “Hey, what’s up?”

His reply came quickly.

Kyun [21:42]: hey (: not much. Just got back to the dorms. Wbu? You [21:43]: just chilling in my hotel room. I check out in a couple days. Kyun [21:44]: you don’t leave for another day? You [21:44]: nope Kyun [21:45]: i’m free tomorrow after morning practice. Want to meet up?

You froze. Should you? Wouldn’t he get in trouble?

You must have taken too long to reply because Changkyun sent another text.

Kyun [21:47]: you okay? You [21:48]: won;t you get in trouble for hanging out with me? Kyun [21:49]: probably, but who cares? (; You [21:50]: … okay (:

The next day, the two of you met up around lunch time, grabbing a bite to eat before exploring the city. You wore a black dust mask and baseball cap at the request of Changkyun. “To protect your privacy,” he told you. The two of you spend a whole day out together, enjoying the mild weather.

You parted ways, promising to keep in touch until you moved to Seoul for work.

Months later, you made the move and Changkyun used bit of every free time he had to spend time with you. He called it making up for lost time. You were loving it. Everything was almost as if you never parted.

At first, Changkyun didn’t tell the members about you, wanting to keep it a secret for a while but eventually, they found out and started pressuring him for details. He couldn’t keep you a secret any longer. He told the guys about you and how he knew you.

To his surprise, they encouraged his friendship with you and even extended an invitation to you to come around and meet them and perhaps join them in a movie night, an offer you accepted the moment Changkyun told you about it.

So one Friday night, you got dressed in your comfiest clothes and made your way across town to their dorm. Changkyun met you downstairs and led you up to their dorm. Once inside, you were introduced to the rest of the members of Monsta X.

You had a great time hanging out with them and they enjoyed having you over so they continued to invite you over. Movie nights were a popular thing with your group. Changkyun always sat you between him and Kihyun whom you formed a very fast friendship with.

Little did you know how much your friendship with Kihyun would affect your relationship with Changkyun.

Before long, Kihyun started asking you to go out with him. You didn’t think much of it, since it was kind of the same when you went out with Changkyun. Just two friends hanging out.

After the first time was when you noticed Changkyun’s distantness. You asked him if he was okay and he confirmed he was. He asked you to spend a day out with him and you agreed, needing another day out after a rough week at work.

After going out with Changkyun, he seemed to return to his old self. Until you mentioned going out to get lunch and go shopping with Kihyun.

Changkyun refused to answer your texts and that was where you were at now. Dealing with him being unresponsive.

You were starting to worry so you did they only thing you could think of. You called Kihyun.

He answered on the fourth ring. “Hey, (Y/N),” he said in a cheerful voice. “Hey, Ki,” you replied. “Are you guys home?” you asked. “No, we’re out right now. Well,” he said. “Changkyun’s home.” he added. “He mentioned not wanting to go out,” he said.

You nodded to yourself. ‘He has to be ignoring me then.’

“I was thinking of popping by to see him. Is that okay?” you asked. “Of course!” Kihyun replied happily. “Try to cheer him up, if you can. He’s been acting like a kicked puppy for a couple days now.” You thanked Kihyun for giving you the code to get in and started getting ready to head over.

The commute over was long, giving you plenty of time to think about what you were going to say to Changkyun. Maybe figure out why he was being so distant.

When you reached the dorm, you made your way up, unlocking the door to get in. Once in the dorm, you looked around, noticing that there seemed to be no sign of Changkyun. You made your way back toward his room, the sounds of a computer game growing louder with each step.

You peered into the room through the cracked door and saw Changkyun sitting at his desk, playing some sort of online game. You pushed the door open quietly, watching him for a few minutes. He was cursing and muttering under his breath at his opponents.

It was kind of cute. You decided to get his attention and coughed, clearing your throat. Changkyun jumped, spinning around to look at you. The moment he looked away from his screen, his character died and he swore loudly, rounding on you angrily.

“How did you get in?” he asked, getting up from his seat and crossing the room to meet you at the door. “Kihyun gave me the code,” you said, letting out a yelp when Changkyun grabbed your arm and started to lead you down the hall and towards the door.

“Well, Kihyun isn’t here, so go home,” he snapped, shoving you toward the door, causing you to stumble. You stood up straight and rounded on him. “I didn’t come to see Kihyun. I asked him for the code so I could come see you,” you said, your eyes narrowed.

“But clearly I made a mistake coming here,” you added bending down to slip into your shoes. “(Y/N),” Changkyun started scratching the back of his neck. “Don’t worry,” you said, choking back sobs. “I’ll just go since you clearly don’t want me here,” you said reaching for the handle of the door and turning it.

You had only pulled the door opened a little before Changkyun pushed it shut. You turned to glare at him, finding only his soft expression instead. “I’m sorry,” he said softly. The two of you stared at one another before you sniffled. Changkyun pulled you into a hug, wrapping you in his warmth.

“You’re mean,” you murmured, your voice muffled by his shoulder. He shushed you, hugging you tightly. “I know,” he replied. “I suck. I’m sorry,” he repeated. The two of you parted and Changkyun led you back down the hall to his room, shutting the door behind you.

You turned to face him, watching as he sat down on the edge of his bed, running his fingers through his hair with a heavy sigh. You moved to stand in front of him, reaching a hand up to ruffle his hair. “What’s wrong?” you asked. He looked up at you and instead of answering, he wrapped his arms around your waist and pulled you closer, resting his head against your stomach just below your breast.

“I’m an asshole,” he said plainly. You smacked his shoulder lightly. “You’re not wrong, but don’t say that,” you said as you rubbed the spot you hit. The two of you said nothing until something hit you.

“Why did you think I was coming to see Kihyun?” you asked. He shrugged. ‘Nope. That’s not good enough.’ You took Changkyun’s face in between your hands and forced him to look up at you. “Answer me, Kyun. Why did you think I was coming to see Kihyun?” you asked again.

“Because you’re always spending time with him,” he murmured, not looking at you, instead looking off to the side. You narrowed your eyes at him. ‘Was he… jealous?’

“I spend time with you,” you countered and he shrugged. “Lately it feels like you’re all about Kihyun,” he said quietly. You poked his shoulder. “I can’t believe this,” you said and Changkyun looked up at you. “You’re jealous,” you said. The word struck a chord with Changkyun and he got defensive.

“No,” he said. “I’m not.” You smirked at him. “Oh my god, you totally are!” you said. Changkyun growled and grabbed you by the hips, pulling you down past him onto the mattress.

You let out a squeal as Changkyun tipped you backwards onto his bed. “Changkyun!” you said, propping yourself up on your elbows as your best friend hovered over you, his face dangerously close to yours. You gulped, feeling the heat rise in your cheeks as your heart thudded erratically in your chest.

You had never been this close to him before and it was affecting you more than you’d like to admit.

“W-what are you doing?” you stammered, noticing the way Changkyun’s eyes dipped to your lips and then back up. Neither one of you moved nor said a word. ‘What is his deal?’ you wondered. ‘What is he thinking?’ you asked yourself.

Sometimes Changkyun was an enigma to you, doing and saying things to make you think one thing and then turning around and acting the opposite. It was confusing but you got used to it. You were experienced with his weird mannerisms. His cool facade.

What you weren’t used to was this man before you. The one with a stoic face but eyes that burned with the fires of jealousy. Changkyun had never been the type before to express jealousy before. He had never gotten mad at you for spending time with other guys. That just wasn’t him.

The man before you now was exactly that. Someone driven to do things he wouldn’t normally do because he got jealous over you spending more time with another man. What happened to him?

The feeling of Changkyun’s breath fanning over your face brought you out of your own thoughts, reminding you of the situation you were in. You watched as his eyes dipped to your lips again and back up to meet your eyes, flashing a split second warning before he acted.

He closed the distance between you, pressing his lips against yours and taking your ability to breathe away just like that. Your head swam with thoughts but your subconscious pushed those thoughts aside, allowing you to focus instead on what you were doing. You were being kissed by your best friend. So you did the only thing that made sense. You kissed him back.

Changkyun was shocked at himself for crossing the line he said he would never cross but he was even more surprised when he felt you soften under him, your lips moving against his gently as one of your hands moved to grab onto his bicep, squeezing slightly, urging him to continue.

Changkyun slowly laid his weight on you, forcing you down on your back, his hips resting between your thighs. The kiss slowly progressed as Changkyun parted your lips with his, allowing his tongue to slip into your mouth and start exploring as your free hand moved to comb through his hair.

Feeling your nails against his scalp, Changkyun let out a soft moan, muffled against your lips. You tugged slightly, signaling him to pull back a little. The two of you didn’t move, instead stared at each other intensely as you both struggled to catch your breath.

“How long?” you finally asked. Changkyun took a couple of short breaths before responding. “Years,” he answered. You took his face in between your hands. “Why didn’t you say anything sooner?” you asked, studying his face. Changkyun shrugged. That answer wasn’t good enough for you.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?” you asked again. Changkyun sighed. “Because I would rather have part of you than none of you at all,” he answered. It was sweet in a self sacrifice sort of way. 

You smiled, running your fingers through his hair, pulling him back down for another kiss. “You can have all of me,” you murmured before kissing him again. Changkyun pulled away, staring at you with wide eyes.

“Do you mean that?” he asked sitting back up. You sat up to meet him. After studying his face you nodded. “Yes,” you said. “I mean that.”

Changkyun reached out, taking one of your hands in his. “Like, right now?” he asked and you cocked your head to the side watching as his eyes trailed down to look at his lap and back up. Glancing down you could see what he meant. You could see his growing erection through his sweats.

A sly grin pulled over your lips as you looked back up, meeting his gaze. You nodded your consent before grabbing the front of his hoodie and pulling him toward you, locking him in yet another kiss. Changkyun wasted no time in taking control, pushing you back on the bed, his lips still on yours.

He broke the kiss momentarily to remove his hoodie, revealing his white tee shirt. His lips attached to your neck, kissing along the sensitive skin under your jaw while his hands were free to wander, feeling their way down your sides to your hips and down the outsides of your thighs.

His hands gripped the underside of your thighs, pulling your hips closer against his as he pressed his hard on against your core, earning a gasp from you. You felt him nip at the skin on the side of your neck, running his tongue over the same spot before biting down a little hard, allowing a moan to escape your lips.

Changkyun, incited by your sounds of pleasure, grinded against you again, letting out a satisfactory moan at the friction. You could feel your arousal starting to pool in your panties and if he kept doing what he was doing, you would be soaking in minutes.

Despite never being intimate with him, Changkyun seemed to know your body better than you thought. Or perhaps he was just a quick learner. Whatever the case was, it was clear he knew what he was doing. Changkyun bucked his hips again, pressing his hard member against you and this time, you moaned out his name.

He pulled his head back to look at you, his pupils dilated as he looked into your eyes. “(Y/N)?” he whispered. Your hand moved to the back of his neck, preventing him from pulling away. “I need you,” you said breathlessly. Changkyun couldn’t believe this was happening.

He had fantasized about this for a few weeks now. Ever since he’d realized his feelings and desire for you were real, he’d wanted this exact moment to come but now that it was here, he didn’t know what to do. He froze, staring at you with wide eyes. ‘Shit.’

You sat up, taking his hand. “Changkyun?” you asked. At the sound of your voice, he seemed to come back to reality. His eyes met yours. “Are you okay?” you asked. He nodded vigorously. ‘A lie. He was terrified.’ “Yeah,” he said. “I’m fine.”

You could tell he was not fine. You could hear it in his voice. Instead of pressing him further, you scooted closer to him, almost straddling him. “Do you want to stop?” you asked softly, watching as he considered it. After a moment, he shook his head. “No,” he breathed.

He pulled you in for another kiss, his hands moving to your hips, guiding them against his own. You moaned, breaking the kiss to throw your head back while Changkyun’s lips kissed down your neck. “Lie back,” he said softly and you did, lowering yourself back onto the mattress. Changkyun grabbed the sides of your shorts and slowly pulled them down, pulling your panties with them.

He maintained eye contact as he discarded your shorts, tossing them to the side. His hands rested calmly on your knees before pushing them apart gently, eyes trailing down your body until he stopped at the place where you thighs met. He let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

Your cheeks burned as he looked at you and you wanted to move; close your legs, cover yourself, something. Changkyun brought one hand down to trace your lips coated in your arousal and you shuddered at the contact, your eyes fluttering shut as he slipped a finger past your folds to find your clit.

He watched your face as he slowly massaged in circles, enjoying the way your hips twitched and you bucked involuntarily. It wasn’t long before he had you trembling, slowly building up your orgasm. He smiled as you tossed your head side to side, whimpers and moans leaving your mouth.

“Does that feel good?” he asked in a low tone, amusement laced in his voice. ‘Was he mocking you?’

You nodded, biting into the plush skin of your bottom lip. “Mhm,” you moaned, your hips slowly rising and falling to match his ministrations. Changkyun watched in awe as you started to ride his hand, your breath coming in shallowly, uttering soft whines occasionally. He couldn’t have you coming undone so easily.

He slid his finger into your entrance, enjoying the warmth that enveloped the digit. He could only imagine how amazing you would feel around his cock. The thought of sinking his hardened length inside you had him twitching in his sweatpants. He pushed those thoughts aside for later.

Right now, he was focused on your pleasure and making you feel good. Changkyun added a second finger, slowly pumping them in and out of you. One of your hands traveled from above your head down to cup your own breast and Changkyun’s mind filled with ideas.

He slowed his hand, causing you to look up at him. “Don’t stop,” you moaned. Changkyun chuckled, enjoying the amount of control he had over you. ‘Did he ever feel like this?’ he wondered but pushed that from his mind. Even if he did, it didn’t matter. You wanted Changkyun now, not Kihyun.

“Take your shirt off,” Changkyun said, nodding at the offending article. You obliged, taking it off you easily and tossing it aside. Changkyun had to stop and appreciate the sight before him now. You lying on your back, legs spread for him in nothing but a black lace bra. You were stunning.

Changkyun resumed his earlier speed, his fingers moving in and out of you quickly, stopping inside to curl against a spot that seemed to draw out the deepest moans he’d heard yet come from you.

“Fuck,” he swore, enjoying the way you sounded, knowing it was all because of him. “You’re so beautiful,” he whispered, watching the rise and fall of your chest from your labored breathing as he coaxed a climax out of you.

“Please, Changkyun,” you whimpered. “I need you.”

Changkyun smiled, moving to lie on the bed, his head between your thighs. “Soon, baby, okay?” he said softly. “I promise,” he added. You opened your mouth to respond but any words were taken and replaced with a moan when you felt the tip of his tongue against your clit.

He flattened his tongue, running it up and down, over your clit repeatedly before kissing it, sucking softly. You let out a cry, your walls clenching around his fingers. He tried not to smirk as he continued, flicking his tongue against the sensitive bundle of nerves while simultaneously pumping his fingers in and out of you, coated in your juices.

You couldn’t bear it anymore. Your body shook from the build up, unshed tears in the outer corners of your eyes. You just wanted to come already. You voiced your wants to Changkyun who merely chuckled.

“You want to come that bad, baby?” he asked, watching as you nodded frantically. He curled his fingers inside you again, rubbing against the rigid spot inside your walls that had your body trembling. “Do you want to come on my fingers or tongue?” he asked. Now he was getting cocky.

You shook your head quickly. “I don’t care, just please let me come!” you whined. Changkyun chuckled again. “Okay,” he said. He didn’t speak again, instead putting his mouth to better use as he brought you to the brink of orgasm with both his mouth and fingers.

Your body reacted to the overload of sensations by shuddering before you whimpered that you were about to come. Changkyun pulled back momentarily to encourage you. “Do it,” he whispered. “Come for me.” He curled his fingers inside you, his tongue working wonders on your swollen clit, pushing you over the edge and you came with a cry of his name, your body shivering as he helped you ride out your high.

After a few moments, you felt Changkyun pull his fingers out, leaving you empty. He was only gone for a few moments before you felt the bed dip. He settled between your legs, moving them to make space. You felt the tip of his cock graze your entrance and you tried to sit up. “Wait,” you said and he paused, looking up at you with concern. “What is it? Did I do something wrong?” he asked.

You shook your head. “I should return the favor,” you said only to be met with a chuckle. “Maybe some other time,” he said. “I’d rather just be inside you right now,” he said, rubbing the tip of his dick against your slick folds. “Let me know if I hurt you,” he said, giving you a serious look. You nodded to show you understood. Changkyun slowly pushed past your lips, gliding into your wet pussy rather easily.

Or so you thought.

Once the head of his dick was inside you, he started to push further, a slight sting greeting your senses and you hissed. Changkyun stopped immediately, searching your face. “(Y/N)?” he asked. You nodded. “I’m okay,” you reassured him. “Please keep going,” you added.

Changkyun nodded and returned his attention to his length, slowly disappearing inside you. Little by little he slid in until he was fully buried inside. The throb of his member inside you made up for the feeling of emptiness earlier. Changkyun waited as your body adjust to him, feeling your walls contract around him occasionally. Finally you gave him the go ahead to move.

He held your hips in place as he slowly slid out of you until just the tip was inside before slowly pushing back in, drawing out his thrusts in an agonizing pace. “Stop teasing me,” you said after a few moments of this, causing Changkyun to laugh softly.

His grip tightened as he picked up the pace, thrusting into you at a faster speed. You moaned at the feeling of being filled, the earlier sting now replaced with a dull ache. You couldn’t be happier.

Changkyun, on the other hand was elated. He reveled in the feeling of your warm walls tightening around him as he thrust into you, a soft moan, falling past his lips as his eyes fluttered shut. It was undeniably the best feeling he’d ever experienced and being that it was you made it all the more special for him.

Your moans grew in pitch as he continued thrusting into you, the head of his cock hitting at rigid spot he’d felt earlier while fingering you. It seemed like that was your sweet spot and now that he found it, Changkyun was taking full advantage of it. He aimed for it, slamming into you harder, faster, and deeper in an effort to hit that spot, repeatedly. He wanted you to scream his name.

He wanted the whole building to know that he was the one fucking you so good. Not him.

Feeling his own orgasm drawing nearer, he focused on making you come again, his hand slid up your stomach, ghosting over your breast until it reached your neck. He softly wrapped his fingers around your throat, enjoying the way you clenched around him.

He remembered what he’d read about choking, taking care not to press against the front of your throat, only squeezing the sides, restricting the blood flow to your brain. You were still able to breathe but you head started to swim from the lack of blood to your brain, You let out a deep moan, your walls clenching around Changkyun tightly as he thrust into you, deeper than you thought possible.

He loosened his grip, allowing blood to flow once more.That didn’t stop his hips from snapping against yours though. Your entire body was hot, as if you had a fever but you knew you didn’t. You were close now. “I’m close,” you whispered. Changkyun moved his hand from your throat, sliding down your body until he pressed his thumb against your clit, massaging in time with his thrusts.

“Are you going to be a good girl,” he started, watching your face as your body started to shake, particularly your legs. “And come for me?” he added. You nodded, whimpering out a “yes.” Changkyun took this opportunity to push you just a bit further. “Yes, what?” he asked in a husky voice, his own orgasm within his reach.

You looked up at him, your face flushed, looking fucked out. You were a sight to behold. “Yes, daddy,” you breathed and that was all Changkyun needed to send you over the edge. Your second orgasm hit you like a wave, washing over you as you came on his dick with a cry of his name. Changkyun helped you ride out your high by chasing his own. He pounded into you, holding your hips against the mattress.

Not long after your second orgasm, you had your third as Changkyun was going for his. You came a third time with a whimper, begging him to stop. “It’s too much,” you panted, your body shuddering from the sensitivity of being overstimulated. 

“I’m almost there,” Changkyun whispered in your ear. 

He made good on his promise, and after a few more thrusts, he came with a groan, releasing into the condom he’d put on earlier. After a few shallow thrusts, he stilled, buried inside you as he panted to catch his breath.

After a few more minutes, he pulled out of you and rolled onto his back beside you, removing the condom and tying it off to toss in the trash can.

The two of you lay in silence for a few moments before he spoke. “That was incredible,” he said and you giggled, a blush forming on your face. You looked over to find him staring up at the ceiling. “Yeah,” you agreed. “It was.”

Changkyun turned his head to look at you. “I guess this means that you and Kihyun are--” he started.

“We were never a thing, Kyun. Honestly. We flirted a little but that was the extent of it. We never even kissed or held hands. He’s literally just a friend,” you said sitting up and looking at your best friend.

“I never wanted him, Kyun,” you added. “I wanted you. From the beginning, I always wanted you.”

Changkyun sat up, studying you with excited eyes. “I guess you can have me,” he said with a lopsided grin.

[amratsu]

alright these girls have haunted me for about a whole month now time to break it all down for anyone vaguely interested in them

hololive/vtuber 101 below the read more

THE FUCK IS HOLOLIVE?: An idol agency except all of its roughly 20 or so girls are youtube streamers who have their identity protected by a live2d avatar. They recently had a very fun live concert and all of them have or will have 3d models, but the majority of content is just them streaming whatever's their fancy at the time. (As of 2/17/2020 a lot of them play a lot of ARK, thank Coco for that) Therefore, they're part of the new form of niche culture called Vtuber.

THE FUCK IS A VTUBER?: Virtual youtubers. Like a normal streamer but, again, live2d portrait instead of their actual face. That's basically it. Content is about as varied as any other youtuber.

ALRIGHT, WHO WE GOT?: Hololive's split into OG Tokino Sora, the girls alongside her who are also primarily 3d, and then 'generations'. Just plug in their names and you'll find their channel easy. Again, variety differs between all the girls, but expect a lot of Nintendo games, chat streams, karaoke, and Minecraft across the board.

-Tokino Sora OG mom slash idol, debuted all the way back in 2017. Probably the only proper idol in all of Hololive. Warm, friendly, relaxing. She mostly does 3d variety streams and song debuts so she's hard to follow without advanced japanese.

-Roboco(-san) Pose happy killer robo with a notably smokey voice and calming demeanor. Plays a large amount of minecraft and first-person games in general; recent streams include ARK, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon remaster, Apex, and Fortnite.

-Sakura Miko ELIIIITE MLG miko idol with a tendency to swear a bit. High energy, fully embraced 'press f', gives herself sunglasses during streams, great friends with Pekora. Also notably into eroge. Did a full playthrough of Papers Please lately and is one of the most addicted to ARK (21 streams at around 4-5 hours each.)

1st Generation -Yozora Mel Sleepy vampire with the occasional killer instinct. Soothing, gentle, kind of lewd. Very much into nintendo games with Smash, Ring Fit, SwoSh, and Mario Kart being her latest content, but she's a little slower with the output. Part of the lewd blonde club with Aki, Haato, and Choco, who were demonetized until recently.

-Aki Rosenthal Cyber elf with detachable twin tails. Pretty similar to Mel in disposition, though less sleepy and more...I want to say 'fantastical'. Recently gained popularity due to her buck naked superhuman beefcake character in ARK, with Kerbal, Go Home, and some ASMR rounding out the rest of her content.

-Natsuiro Matsuri Eternal 17 year old cheerleader from the class next door, Matsuri is a high energy raging lesbian who's also a complete sweetie. Her infamous bandaid clip is what got a lot of western fans into Hololive. Plays a wide variety of games but also twitcasts at random times of the day like when she's in bed or in the bath, just to chat with her viewers about what's on her mind. Well loved.

-Akai Haato The ESL transfer student, girl next door, Haato is, well, exactly that. Commonly traveling for studies, Haato is a bubbly girl with a fine sense for aesthetics; you'll catch her making elaborate builds in Minecraft or playing visual novels during streams, along with a smattering of other games. Notable in that she's the only girl that'll do purely English streams, likely to help with her own education. Also kind of a baka.

2nd Generation -Minato Aqua Disaster masochist maid who's actually stupidly good at video games sometimes. She's both mischievous and hard working, massively popular in China, and, again, stupidly good at games. Soulsborne speedruns, PUBG, ARK (also one of the most addicted), Minecraft (seeing a pattern?), League if you catch her bilibili streams...but she's also the one who will spend a stream calling the other girls and asking them to bully her. Wild card gremlin.

-Murasaki Shion Genius mage who doesn't do a lot with her magic. Pretty well known for her 'neeeeeee', with a distinctly smug avatar/voice. Pretty good at games too, with a variety of Pokemon, retro games, Minecraft, Smash, horror, Mario Kart, etc. Excellent singing voice too, would recommend her covers.

-Yuzuki Choco The totally-not-a-succubus demon nurse at your highschool, Choco embodies :sweating:. Obviously she's lewd, but there's also a silly and petulant side to her that's fun to watch too. ASMR is her specialty. She's also, surprisingly, really into Dead By Daylight, so if that combination sounds fun to you hit her up.

-Oozora Subaru If Haato is the girl next door, Subaru's the bro next door. A very down to earth but energetic and sporty tomgirl, she recently spent three streams and sixteen hours on trying to take down Sans. Other recent things include Live A Live, The Witch's House, and GTA. Refreshingly easy to relate to compared to the other girls sometimes.

-Nakiri Ayame Hello, honored humans~ Hololive's millenium old oni. Has a peculiar way of speaking, especially in her pronouns, which lends a certain charm if you can got on board with it; happy go lucky, easy to like, and really cute on top of all that. Recently recovered from sickness (as of 2/26) so was the last to get on the Ark craze, she's actually very fond of multiplayer games as a way of 'getting to know mortals'. Apex Legends, Mario Kart, Splatoon, etc.

GAMERS: A sort of generation on its own, and also a kind of weird designation when all the girls game so frequently. Oh well!

-Shirakami Fubuki Fox. Not a cat. Super cheerful, makes a lot of weird noises that people turn into youtube poops (that she encourages), and also a helluva gamer. Plays plenty of battle royales, ARK, and of course Nintendo/Minecraft stuff. Infamous for her absolute feral hunter instincts in Project Winter, where she commonly massacres the entire map on her lonesome when she's the traitor.

-Ookami Mio Mom wolf who has to play tsukkomi (straightman) to basically all of Hololive sometimes. Which makes it all the more hilarious during her semi-common charisma breaks, like during Haato's recent English Exam stream. Has been into EDF, Pokemon, Ghost Trick, and Splatoon lately.

-Nekomata Okayu The sleepy smug cat with the most chill personality. Notably very, VERY close with Korone, and in general kind of a playboy in general. Never denies it or any of her myriad transgressions though. Her Mother 2 run has been fun recently, but really you could just tune into her frequent chat streams and relax that way.

-Inugami Korone Dog. An oddball who kind of just goes at her own pace, playing all sorts of weird games like Nyanpo (the pokemon prototype) and weird PS1 retro games. Shows a disturbingly violent side sometimes; her ongoing Blasphemous run and recent RE4 runs have shown how much she's into that kind of stuff. But also she's still a dog, so really don't worry.

Inonaka Music: -AZKi AZKi is closely associated with Hololive but is really more of her own thing, being even more idol than Sora is. Doesn't stream much if at all, has her own album out, does music collabs more than anything else, etc. Helluva singer though.

-Hoshimachi Suisei The vtuber idol who's totally not a psychopath, and totally a goddess at tetris. Like Fubuki, made a name for herself with her psychotic rampages in Project Winter, and also very much unfazed by horror games. Really fucking good at tetris too, doing 98v1 streams lately in Tetris 99, and a godly songstress too. Her karaoke streams are to die for.

3rd Generation: Also known as Hololive Fantasy. These girls are particularly close to each other. If you can find translated clips, I definitely recommend their host club streams where they compete in seducing other Vtubers. (Yes. That's serious)

-Usada Pekora AH^HA^HA^. You'd think she was a cute rabbit, but no! It's a Tewi level shitposter combined with some legit video game skills. She likes playing the heel deliberately just for shits and giggles, like when she nearly walked off with Miko's Nether Star. She's in fact very close to Miko, their relationship being both great friends and great rivals. Definitely one of the most addicted to ARK too; she's been making headway in conquering the ocean.

-Shiranui Flare Handsome half-elf archer, Flare's the designated tsukkomi of the third generation. She's definitely the most down to earth of them, charismatic to boot, and does as she pleases with a relaxed personality and husky, smokey voice. Very very VERY close to Noel. You'll find some really fun playthroughs of various action games like Dark Souls, Bayonetta, and Sekiro on her channel, and thanks to her picking up game mechanics fast they're fun to watch for anyone.

-Shirogane Noel Knight Captain of the Shirogane Knights, Noel's...kind of an airhead, actually. But she's definitely a pleasant, softspoken sort of person who's incredibly relaxing to listen to. Also a big eater, you'll hear her talk about beef bowls and muscles a lot. Just try not to stare too much at her 'pectorals.' As mentioned, VERY close to Flare (they just had a two day long date to a ryokan). Plays whatever with no focus in particular.

-Uruha Rushia The cute, soft, innocent apprentice necromancer, Rushia occasionally comes out of the gates roaring with rage filled screams before chilling out. An absolute cutie though, who loves her fans very much (though really every Hololive member does), her attempts to be cool and reliable lend to some great comedy. She's got a great singing voice if you can find one of her bilibili streams, and otherwise plays a wide variety of things.

-Houshou Marine A~hoy~. The completely safe for work, modern, not-cosplay eternal 17 pirate...and everything I just said was a lie. Most of it anyways. Marine's a riot of a lady with an incredibly dirty mind and dirtier motor mouth, great voice acting ability, and knack for art that she'll happily show off (among other things). Definitely one of my favorites, you'll find plenty of chat and art content on her channel, along with some of the most Ark addiction and a full array of Touhou game playthroughs.

4th Generation: Hololive's newest five girls, it's been a month and change since they debuted. They're notable for working together on some of the most wild content Hololive's put out so far, all helmed by a certain dragon. But we'll get to that.

-Tokoyami Towa The little devil that does whatever she wants, Towa's known for a couple of other things at this point: refreshingly honest personality, Pokemon playthroughs with an eclectic choice in team comp, and her charmingly atypical tomboy voice (though her mic's not amazing). Great singer, super funny if you can find the rare translated clip of her, and was an absolute menace at the recent Hololive werewolf/mafia game. How she managed to fake being a Seer from day one and nearly win, I'll never know.

-Tsunomaki Watame Hololive's bouncy sheep. Ram? Something like that. A very girly, friendly, lightly ara-ara personality, she's an honest and open with her feelings sort of girl. Earnest laughter at chat and games, real emotional tears while watching the live concert with her generation mates, Watame's a total sweetheart who streams a bit of music everyday as the pre-show to Coco's Morning Shitposts (official name). She's also gotten very close to her senpais in some regards...but above all she likes singing, chilling out in Minecraft, and recently playing through a couple Kirby games.

-Himemori Luna If you want to see a completely innocent cinnamon roll looking character say things like 'ass' and 'don't f*cking take crystal m*th', Luna's your gal. Her high pitched, almost childlike voice takes a bit of getting used to but she's a sweetheart that just has fun no matter what she's doing. But she'll also say a bunch of really funny shit while doing it just from sheer juxtaposition of her voice/appearance and the vocabulary. Surprisingly good at video games too.

-Amane Kanata PP Tenshi. Perfect Pitch, Powerpoint...Kanata's a bit of a sheltered honor student sort of girl who has an incredible vocal range, so much you'd be forgiven for thinking she was a professional voice actor or singer. She loves playing along with jokes even if she doesn't get them some times, and is really close with Coco. If not for said dragon she'd be the biggest memelord in the 4th generation, but alas; her channel has lots of collabs with fellow members and a series of cute 'research' videos on the various generations of Hololive. Unfortunately untranslated though.

-Kiryuu Coco The one, the only, the President of Nishinari herself, Coco has been a force of nature since she debuted. Her vulgar sense of humor, rapid fire jokester nature, fluent English speaking, and complete conversion of Hololive to the wonders of dinosaur taming in Ark has made her one of the most subscribed girls in a matter of weeks. Every day at 6am JST or 1pm PST, she does a quick 20 minute gig called Coco News (officially translated as Coco's Morning Shitpost) where she reports on the various ongoings in Hololive. This ingeniously brings attention to the silly crap everyone's been up to, really fostering a sense of community between the girls you don't see elsewhere, while also being a riot to watch as she roasts everyone for their silliness (with full permission). Other notable memes include her stalwart boycotting of Nintendo Switches, her desire to fund a Hololive house, and her recent Hitman 2 run.

[harringtonheartache]

Daybreak | Part Two

Part Three 

Pairing: Steve Harrington x Lab Escapee! Reader?

Summary: Part two of this fic. A less eventful chapter but a necessary one! Next part will be super fun n’ cute (-:

Word Count: 2,900+

Warning(s): Cussing

A/N: Here ya go! P.S. When I described Steve’s room I took from what little we saw of it in S1 + added some details of my own. I included the The Smiths poster because their debut album came out around the time of ST (1984) and I love their music & would like to think Steve would enjoy it too. & yes Queen and Joy Division are based on my own music taste as well.

“Okay, so this is my room,” he told her as he welcomed her into his bedroom with grand exclamation. “You can have my bed, I don’t mind the floor,” he said as he gathered a spare pillow and blanket from his closet. They were folded nicely, the work of his mother most likely. Disregardful of their neat composure, he tossed the bedding to the floor. She stared at her proposed sleeping arrangement for the night. His bed was double in size compared to what she was used to, presumably offering greater comfort as well. “I promise the sheets are clean,” he spoke up at her apparent reluctance. Her head moved swiftly in his direction, and he stood with a look of utmost sincerity. “Okay,” she told him. She wanted to thank him again, but did not allow herself when his attention fell from her and he went about setting up his own bed for the night.

She climbed on top of the surrendered piece of furniture, feeling the cushioned fabric beneath her as she did so. Her assumptions were correct, it was much nicer than her bunk at the lab.

“So tomorrow I have to go to school,” Steve said, bringing up a topic of conversation that needed discussing before they could sleep.

“School?”

“Yeah, it’s where people go to learn. I have to leave at 7 in the morning, and you can’t come with me, but I will be back by 3.” The panic returned. As much as she thought herself someone to take comfort in solitude, she knew herself someone to fear such a thing in unfamiliar environments.

“You’re leaving?”

“Yeah, but I’ll be back. You can sleep the entire time I’m gone if you want, I won’t be that long. But you have to stay in this room. My mom will be home and she can’t know you’re here, remember?”

There were too many holes in the plan. “What if she comes upstairs?” Upstairs was supposed to be her hideaway.

“Um,” Steve returned to a place of deep consideration and planning. “Here,” he said. He moved the upper half of his body forward, partially abandoning his makeshift bed to reach underneath the one 009 sat upon. His hands emerged with a few belongings: a sweatshirt, one shoe, and an old backpack. He tossed these forgotten items in the direction of his closet, although they fell short of full entry.

“If you hear anyone come upstairs, hide under here,” he spoke again, confidence in his own scheme restored.

She gave him an inquisitive look. “Under the bed?” she questioned.

“Yes. I would tell you to hide in the closet but if she comes into my room she is probably putting clothes away in there. So, if you hear anything just go under the bed. There’s lots of room, it’s not that bad, and you probably won’t even have to. My mom doesn’t come in my room that much.” That much. To her, that sounded like a game of chance she didn’t care to participate in, but she complied nonetheless as she was grateful for anywhere to hide.

“Okay, under the bed.”

A procedure ready to be followed, spoken and memorized through one conversation.

“Oh, shit,” Steve exclaimed softly, mostly to himself. Standing from his place on the floor, he moved to find the door handle. With a small click, he locked it. The girl watched this action as he performed it much to her consternation. He began to settle himself again but was not able to completely do so without noticing her concern. “Oh, I-,” he started, “I’m not locking you in, I just don’t want my parents walking in here while we’re asleep. You can just turn that small lock on the knob to the right and it will unlock.” He explained this, his tone benevolent. She was appreciative of this clarification, and filed his thoughtful instructions away in her head for possible future reference. A smile was offered in response.  

A few minutes passed, the lights no longer illuminating the entire room. Steve’s thoughtful nature did not end with the door lock however, as he left his desk lamp on to rid the girl of any worries pure darkness may have brought. They laid in their respective beds, 009 tucked under Steve’s own comforter that smelled pleasantly of him. It was a strange occurrence for her - sleeping in a bed that smelled of someone else. The scent became comforting; it served as a reminder that she was not sleeping in the same bed she had been in all of one night ago. She was not at the lab. “Hey, Steve?” she was ready to give him the thank-you she intended to give him earlier. He didn’t pause long before offering her a small hmm? to let her know he was listening, but long enough to take recognition of her first use of his name.  

“Thank you”.

---

“Shit, where the hell- Are you kidding me I just- shit.” Steve’s thoughts dropped out of his mouth, loudly enough to wake up 009. She sat up quickly, a small gasp leaving her mouth; a gasp she hoped Steve didn’t hear once she realized where she was. Terror was still engraved into her mind, and it would take more than one night of sleeping safely for her to rid herself of this feeling. It had become her daily ritual to fear whomever she would face first thing in the morning.

“Oh, hey. Sorry I didn’t mean to wake you up. Have you seen my- what the hell am I saying no you haven’t seen my backp- wait it’s in the car. Right?” He now spoke with a whisper to his tone. As opposed to last night, they were not entirely alone anymore. His parents were now home, and he couldn’t be heard talking to a person they weren’t supposed to know was there.

“Hey yesterday - in the car - did you happen to see a backpack in there?” She blinked a few times in substitution for a response. She had not yet fully returned to Steve’s bedroom from her state of sleep, or from her morning delusion that landed her momentarily in the lab. “I- I don’t know,” She now responded, but her answer did not help him any more than her silence had.

“Shit, well, I hope it’s in there.” He gave up on his bedroom search and now passed his attention to the task of putting on his shoes. “I’ll be back in a few hours, by 3:00, okay? There's a clock on my nightstand so you will know what time it is. And uh, remember your hiding spot if you hear anyone coming upstairs.” He told her these things with quickness to his words. She heard every one though, and chose to say “okay,” when she realized he was focused on tying his shoes and would not see her nod her head ‘yes’.

He now stood from the place he had been crouching on the floor. “I’ll see you soon, okay?” He seemed averse to leaving her sitting neatly atop his bed. For a second he pondered who would be more questioning: his mother after finding her in his bedroom, or Hawkins High’s staff and students if they saw her following him through a day of school like a service dog. While the second option allowed him to stay by her side, number one presented itself as the best choice if she were to be discovered. This time she nodded to his farewell, an addition of her own voice leaving a “goodbye” at the gesture’s tail end. He smiled at her, a comforting gesture. Opening the door, he slid his body between the small area of room he left open for his departure. He did not even chance fully opening the door, for someone could be in the hallway. Her responsive smile faded as the door drew closed, and she sat unmoving where he had left her.

While he had originally told her that she could sleep the entire time he was away, she now thought that to be a bad idea since the conversation of someone walking in on her. Why couldn’t she just lock the door? She guessed it would arise too many questions, or just be entered anyway (using a key) without the repellent of a sleeping boy behind it. His family was polite enough not to disturb a resting person. The idea of family sat at the top of her mind, asking her who she could claim to be her own. She refused to answer that question, even to her own brain, recognizing the truth was not a single person. Instead she glanced to his nightstand, where his promised clock sat. 7:09 it read. She thought of getting up to explore his bedroom, the concept of privacy something she was without experience with, but told herself that she shouldn’t move. Moving produced sound, and she didn’t want to have to retreat to the underside of the bed she laid upon.

She settled on exploring with her eyes. His room was simple, the bed she sat upon was the centerpiece. The walls were covered with a white plaid wallpaper, and the curtains that hung in front of the window were patterned to match. The sun was already poking through the blinds, but she did not wish to close the curtains and mask the pale light. On the wall to her left was a poster that read The Smiths. Centered underneath it was a dresser, various items scattered across the top - a hair comb, a few tapes with names like Queen and Joy Division scribbled with slanted writing across the front, and a silver stereo to play said tapes on. She pulled the comforter up to her nose and sank a little - making sure that she could still see the gap under the door that provided half an inch of sight into the hallway. That half inch was going to be watched carefully, as if it could really give her significant insight as to what was going on through to the other side of it. She knew that if someone were to walk in right now, she would be fully visible, but tucked under the covers she still felt safer. Maybe part of it was that reassuring scent of the comforter.

---

2:32. The lock was still climbing to 3, but was now only 28 minutes away. Having abandoned the heat of the covers, the hiding girl who had remained in Steve’s bedroom all day sat cross-legged where she had slept that night. Twenty-eight minutes left, meaning that seven hours and thirty-two minutes had passed where she had not been disturbed. A soft beat: feet on carpeted stairs. A sound perhaps easy to miss if you were not waiting to hear it all day. Number nine heard it, and moved from her place on his bed for the first time that day. She pressed herself onto the floor quickly, using her hands to push herself under the bedskirt of the mattress frame. The sound came to a stop, soon replaced by the noise of a creaking door. She swore the door had not been that loud when Steve had left his morning. Becoming suddenly aware of her breathe, she began to hold it in her lungs. She doesn’t come into my room that much. Steve’s promise was now disproven, or perhaps today was the occurrence that had prohibited him from telling her that his mother did not come into his room at all.

Her hands were pressed to the floor in front of her, sure to be imprinted with marks of the carpet’s texture when she drew them away. She heard another door slide open - the closet. She mentally thanked Steve for choosing her hiding spot with consideration. How long would his mother be? The underside of a bed was no place to stay for the remaining 28 minutes. Perhaps it was closer to 25 now. From under the bed, she scooted backwards until her feet touched the wall. She wanted to be as far away as possible from the woman who threatened her discovery. Her discovery and likely return to the lab. More footsteps were heard now, but these were quick and heavy, someone besides his mom. They entered the room with haste, and the sound of the door hitting the back of Steve’s bedroom wall made 009 flinch. Was it his dad, was he home too? Under the bed, the girl closed her eyes. She had already stopped breathing and hoped that eliminating her sense of sight would somehow eliminate theirs too. A voice broke from the panicked entry. “Mom, hey! What-a- what are you doing?” It was Steve. Home 24 minutes early.

“I was just putting some stuff from downstairs back in your room, why? Is everything okay?” the voice without a face questioned. “Yeah! Yeah everything’s fine, I just have this uh-” Steve stumbled over his own words, trying to spit them out quickly so that he could check the underneath of his bed for the person he worried greatly about. The room looked just how he had left it, aside from her absence. For a second he questioned whether she was under the bed or gone completely. “I have this project I have to finish for tomorrow and I really need to hurry.” A weak lie, he would admit that, but one fitting of a teenager, and one his mother would eat up without question. “Okay, I’ll get out of your hair,” she told him. With that last sentence, the soft beat of her steps resumed as she left the room. The door closed again - most likely Steve’s doing considering the amount of force recognizably used to do so. 009 did not move from under the bed, even with her confident suspicion that he was now the only person besides her in the room. “Nine?” he asked in a whisper, a whisper even softer than the one he had utilized this morning. He bent down, lifting the bedskirt a little too rapidly for her comfort. She flinched again. He sighed. “Oh thank fuck, are you okay?” She turned her head to him, meeting his eye with a look of unease. “It’s safe now,” he told her. He reached out a hand, offering her removal from her place of concealment. She took it; an act of trust in the person who eliminated the threat. She was pulled from the narrow opening beneath the bed frame, her feet leaving their place against the wall. Now she was able to stand, and let out her own sigh once she did.

“I’m so sorry, I came home as soon as possible. The traffic in the parking lot was just really bad and- I’m sorry I really didn’t think she would come up here.” He finished his hurried apology, getting it out quickly as if she would retreat back into her place of hiding if he were not fast enough. He turned around to pick up the plate he had abandoned atop his set of drawers during his panic. “Here, I brought you another sandwich,” he told her. The sound of glass leaving a wooden surface rang in the air as he lifted it to give to her. He smiled at her, a look of sincere apology. Her own face dropped the slightly hostile expression and picked up a smile of her own. “Thank you,” she said.

They both sat on his bed now, herself tearing the sandwich into smaller bites and him offering her conversation after hours of silence and seclusion. His explanation of his day fell to a conclusion. Hearing of a normal teenager’s life was both compelling and saddening to Nine. “Do you want to go out?” he decided to present her with a question. “Like to the store? We can buy you some things. You know, like necessities. Your own toothbrush, deodorant, things like that?” An afternoon out of his bedroom, appealing at first thought, but dangerous after a second. “What if someone sees me? They’re probably looking for me, it’s too unsafe,” she reminded him. It was like he had forgotten she was a fugitive. His expression abandoned delight and met dissatisfaction. “Shit,” his response was simple. They sat for another moment, her fingers fiddling with the crust of the wheat bread. “Wait,” he told her. He returned to the place where his mother had been earlier, peering into his closet. He removed from inside a hat, one with a thick brim. “You can wear this! I also have a pair of sunglasses in my car, they will cover your face. Plus you will be in my clothes so nobody will recognize you, right?” His tone was hopeful again. A promise he couldn’t make, but one he was confident in.

She pondered his proposal. It was not the best, certainly, but it was also one that her strong desire to leave the house made hard to shoot down. A hat and sunglasses. Was that all it would really take to keep her safe? Her eyes looked over the hat, studying the object she considered putting her complete faith in to protect her identity. Her eyes then traveled to Steve’s face. It wore a look of both longing and optimism. It made her trust him and his stupid plan a little bit more. “Okay,” she spoke up. “Let’s go.” The underside of her teeth met her bottom lip and she pulled it in to present him with a close-mouthed smile. He returned one, and added a laugh. He took a few paces forward, and extended his hand that held the hat. He watched her face, careful to only make contact if she was comfortable. Gently, he placed the hat on top of her head and smiled down at her. “I don’t even recognize you,” he told her jokingly.

[timeaftertime-chriscornellfanfic]

Chapter 18 - Into The Flood Again

Seattle Washington, March 2 1990

(Andi is 20, Chris is 25)

ANDI: It was a grey Pacific North West afternoon, typical weather for Seattle and I had just finished my short little 4 hour shift at the local used record shop - Bluestreak Records - downtown. Instead of taking the bus back home, I decide to walk. Normally Chris will come and pick me up but he said he would be at Kim's rehearsing this afternoon so I just said that I would meet him there once I stop at home first to clean up a little. 

I wish I could just drive instead of having to catch a bus or a cab or have Chris drive me everywhere. Given my condition, it's definitely recommended that I don't. I wouldn't want to be behind the wheel and suddenly have an episode and end up causing an accident or killing someone.

As I walk out on to the sidewalk, slinging my bag over my shoulder, I take out my Walkman with my headphones and blast Metallica's Master Of Puppets album in my ears. Eventually I make it back home and climb the steps to the front door. Once I open the door, I step inside and take off my bag and my head phones, setting them down beside the door, then slip off my leather jacket and hang it up. The living room was dark as no one seemed to have opened the curtains at all since I left earlier this morning and I could hear the faint sound of Van Halen's first record playing from Andy and Xana's room. I walk over to the far window and open up the curtains to let some light in, though the gloominess of the day doesn't really help much. Then as I make my way down the hallway to get myself ready to take a shower, I see the bathroom door slightly open and a bare foot peaking out from the corner of the door.

"Xana?" I call out slightly panicked but trying to keep my cool. 

Nothing.

"Andy? Is that you in there?"

Still no answer.

I quickly move to the door and attempt to care fully open it but I couldn't as they were laying in front of the door.

"Andy!? Andy!!" I shout but no answer. After a few moments of me pushing on the door, I was able to slide myself through the crack and see that in fact it was Andy laying on the floor on his back, his blonde locks matted to his forehead, only in his blue plaid pajama pants and a syringe hanging out of his left forearm right in the crook of where his elbow bends.

"Holy shit, no... no, no, no, no," I keep repeating frantically as I maneuver myself in between him and the bathroom counter, and try my best to lift up his head, tapping his cheeks to get him to wake up. I lean over him and listen to see if I could hear him breathing and I could, but just barely. I take his right wrist and feel around for a pulse and then move my fingers up to his neck since I couldn't feel anything with his wrist. Eventually I do feel a pulse but it's so incredibly faint, it's almost hard to tell.

"Andy... can you hear me? Please, can you hear me?" I start to cry as I tap his cheek again. He still doesn't move but I hear a little groan emerge from his throat. I then carefully pull out the syringe from his arm and maneuver him into my lap, cradling his head as I attempt to get him to come back to me.

"g-g-g-gone" He groans out, barely able to form words as I hold him in my lap.

"What? Andy... no, no, no... stay with me," I cry and he tries to make out a few more words.

"l-l-l-love y-y-y-you," He mumbles as he tries to open his eyes.

"I'm gonna call an ambulance ok?" I say wiping away my tears.

"N-n-n-no," He mumbles again, and slowly starts to come around. He groans a few more times and begins to try to move. He throws his one arm around me and slowly begins to open his eyes to focus on me.

"I-I'm good... s'ok... I'm... ok," He slurs, still sounding so sleepy.

"I'm gonna call Chris and see if he can find Xana ok?" I say with tears still streaming down my cheeks.

"N-n-no... don't do that, j-just stay... stay here with me," He says closing his eyes again. I move my hand to his neck to check his pulse just to make sure and it's stronger than it was before but still slow.

"j-just stay here... with me... stay w-w-with me baby," He slurs and tries to laugh a little, though I definitely do not feel like laughing.

*****

A couple of hours later, I was sitting in the living room sipping some tea, trying to distract myself by reading an article in a magazine about how the music scene in Seattle was starting a revolution. It mentioned Mudhoney, The Melvins  and Green River as pioneers of the whole Seattle sound and with a strong focus on Soundgarden leading the way for major record labels to want to pick up on the scene emerging. It also mentioned Mother Love Bone as the next big thing with the anticipation of the release of their debut album 'Apple' on Mercury/Stardog records.

Andy was eventually able to somewhat re-gain his composure and I helped him into his room for him to sleep of the remaining high he was still enduring. I was still supposed to go and meet Chris but I was afraid to leave Andy here alone in case something happened. Just as I was reading the last sentence of the article, the door opens and I see Chris coming through with his guitar case.

"Hey baby," I say sweetly, setting my cup down on the table in front of me.

"Hi... I uh... I thought you were going to meet me at Kim's?" He says as he sets his guitar case down and slips off his leather jacket.

"I know, I'm sorry... I uh should've called," I say as I flip closed the magazine, setting it beside me and rise from the couch. He hangs up his jacket, flipping those gorgeous dark curls out of his face and turns to see me. He takes me in his arms and places his lips on mine, in a long soulful kiss. He then breaks away from me and touches his forehead to mine.

"Everything alright?" He asks and I could feel my cheeks flush. I knew I had to tell him what happened, I just have to keep myself calm. But as soon as he asked that question, my brow began to furrow and my bottom lip began to quiver.

"Baby, what's wrong? Talk to me," He says attentively. I shake my head a little trying to rid the feeling but it was hard.

"Chris -I... I don't..." I start but I couldn't get the words out.

"Andi no baby, don't slip if you can help it... tell me, tell me what's wrong," He says sternly but not angry, more like frustrated at the fact that I might disappear before him.

"It's... it's Andy, I came home and I found him on the floor in the bathroom -"

"Was he using again?" He asks quickly and I nod.

"Where is he?"

"He's in his room..." I start to feel faint.

"No baby... stay with me... Andi! " He says and that's the last thing I hear before I find myself in the dark bathroom of Chris's basement.

****

CHRIS: "God damn It!"

I didn't mean to yell but fuck. Why did she have to slip right now? Of all fucking times, why right now? I'm not mad at her I'm just so... it's just frustrating.

I pick up her clothes from the floor and set them on the couch, then make my way down the hall to see exactly what was going on. As I walk into the bathroom, I don't see any sort of evidence that anything had taken place until I see the syringe with a few dirty cotton balls in the trash.

A wave of sadness and hurt washed over my entire body at the fact that she was the one to find him in the bathroom. I immediately make my way out of the bathroom and back down the hall to Andy and Xana's room knocking loudly on the door.

"Hey man, you in there?" I call but no answer. After a few minutes I just decide to head in myself. Normally I wouldn't be so determined but when it comes down to the fucking love of my life, the reason I breathe, finding him on the floor fucked up like that, it's a whole other ball game.

"Dude, you awake...? Andy...?" I ask my voice deep with assertiveness as I grab his ankle at the end of the bed and gently try to shake him awake. He lets out a grumble from the pillow but I couldn't make out just what he was saying.

"Andy wake up," I repeat.

"Whhaaa?" He groans as he rolls over and sees me standing beside his bed. He blinks his eyes a few times and sits up slowly, running his fingers through his hair, leaning his elbows on his knees.

"You alright man?" I ask. I figure I should start with that at least.

"Uh... yea, I think so," He says groggily with his eyes closed.

"What the fuck man? What the fuck are you doing?" I ask trying to not be angry because I know as well as anyone that never works.

"I don't know man," He says.

"Andrea found you, you know that? Just what the hell man?" I say as my anger recedes and I feel worry and hurt bubbling to the surface.

"I never meant for her to find me," He says quietly, his eyes still closed.

"Fuck, you're lucky she did. I mean... what if she never came home from work?  What if she just decided to head to Kim's to meet me without coming home first? What then?"

"Chris man, I'm sorry,"

I let out a sigh and flip my curls out of my eyes looking away for a moment while Andy looks up at me, looking like hell.

"I don't want you to be sorry... I just... I'm worried. We're all worried. We just want you to stop. You quit once before remember?"

"Yea," He says quietly.

"If you need help dude, I'm here. I'll always have your back man," I say and he gives me small smile and holds out his hand. I take it and give him a brotherly handshake patting him on his shoulder.

"Thanks," He says quietly and suddenly I hear a cry from the living room. We look at each other for a moment, then I quickly run out of his room and down the hall to the living room to see Andi sitting up on the couch, pulling down her Aerosmith T shirt and flipping her curls out from underneath.

"Babe?" I ask.

"Uh huh," She says calmly smirking as she reaches for jeans.

"What happened? When did you slip to?" I ask, a little concerned as to why she's so incredibly calm and seemingly much happier than before.

"Um, July '84," She says and pulls up her jeans, hopping into them as her curls bounce around her.

"July '84... oh... oohhhh," I say realizing with sudden lustfulness that seemed to come out of nowhere. She glances at me, sauntering over, biting her bottom lip as my memory of that night comes back to me. She lifts herself up and presses those soft plush lips to mine, lacing her fingers through my hair like she always does, which sends chills all over my entire body.

"You were amazing then, but you are incredible now," She whispers in my ear. She slowly pulls away from me and passes me to walk down the hall and as my eyes follow her, she looks back at me biting that bottom lip again and I couldn't help but practically chase her into the bedroom to relive that night over again.

*****************************************************************************************************

[silverlightqueen]

I wake up in a cold sweat, shivering as I take deep gasping breaths, my entire body shaking. Tears running down my face, I kick the covers off me, switching on my lamp, and run towards the door, knowing that I can’t stay alone after that nightmare. I throw the door open, dashing out into the corridor, and make a beeline for Yoongi’s room, curling my hands into fists and hammering on the door desperately. ‘Wait a minute,’ I hear his sleepy voice call from inside the room, and I wait, trying to take slow breaths but instead beginning to hyperventilate. The door opens and I ready myself to fall onto Yoongi. Except it’s not him. ‘Y/N?’ Jimin asks, voice low and gravelly from sleep. He’s wearing just a pair of black boxers and a navy blue t-shirt, strong legs on show, blonde hair fluffy and messy, and eyes squinting in the bright light. ‘Oh! Sorry, Jimin, I thought this was Yoongi’s room,’ I manage to breathe out, voice shaky. ‘It’s okay. Wait,’ he says, eyes suddenly wide open and a hand running through his hair. ‘Are you crying?’ he asks, sounding much more alert as he stares at me concernedly. ‘Um… yeah,’ I say, a fresh wave of tears beginning to run down my face, sobs beginning to rack through my body. 

Without saying a word, he pulls me into his strong arms, my face smushed against his shoulder. The kind gesture has me crying even more and I audibly sob into him, definitely staining his t-shirt with my tears. He pulls me into the room, shutting the door behind me, and just holds me in the space beside the door. I feel such an overwhelming sense of safety and security in his arms that I just completely let go, allowing myself to just cry and let out years of pent-up grief and sadness. I don’t know how long it’s been when I finally calm down, the tears beginning to cease and my heart rate regulating itself once more. He releases me from his arms, still holding on to my shoulders, and looks me in the eye intensely. ‘You can cry some more, if you want. I don’t mind,’ he says, and I let out a watery laugh. His serious demeanour breaks, a grin appearing on his face at my laughter, and he leads me to his bed, the two of us sitting at the foot.

‘Are you stressing about tomorrow? Or today, should I say? Because, you don’t need to. You did great in rehearsal earlier,’ Jimin says, his kindness warming my heart, and I shake my head. ‘What happened then, if you don’t mind me asking?’ he asks, and I take a deep breath. ‘A few years ago, one of my closest friends died, took his own life. It was tragic, completely unexpected, and I was heartbroken, obviously. I still am. I struggled to sleep for the first few months, and I had lots of nightmares with him in them. I haven’t had one for years…’ I trail off and Jimin ends the sentence for me; ‘up until tonight.’ I nod, and he sighs sadly, a comforting hand appearing on my shoulder. ‘Yoongi knew that I had nightmares a lot and that’s why I was gonna go to his room,’ I explain, feeling inexplicably comfortable to confide in him. ‘You can stay here if you want. I’ve been sleeping since like 5pm anyway, so I’ve already had a good nine hours,’ he offers, and I smile. ‘I think I’ll stay just for a while, if that’s okay?’ I say, and he nods, moving to get more comfortable on the bed, stretching out onto his back, the bottom half of his legs hanging off the bed. I sit cross-legged beside him, looking down at him. ‘I’m sorry about your friend. I know it doesn’t really help, but I offer you my condolences,’ he says, and I smile sadly. ‘Thanks, Jimin, and it does help. For me, anyway,’ I say, and he grins.

‘Do you wanna order some food? I’m really hungry,’ he says, reaching for his phone from the bedside table, and I shrug. ‘Why not?’ I reply. ‘What shall we get?’ he asks, and I think for a moment. ‘Panda Express?’ I suggest, and he grins widely, nodding. ‘You’ve got good taste, I’m impressed,’ he replies, tapping away at his phone, and I feel an explicable rush of pride run through me at his words. Once he’s done, he discards his phone off to the side, his attention back on me. ‘Do you want to talk about your friend, or should I change the subject?’ he asks, and I shake my head. ‘Change the subject. I’ll end up crying even more and then my eyes will be puffy for our first show,’ I say, and he laughs.

‘Are you nervous for the first show?’ he asks, and I nod. ‘Terrified. I’m always scared for first shows. This is like my fourth arena tour, but it doesn’t make it any less scary. Once I’ve done the first show, I’ll settle into it and it’ll be like clockwork. To be honest, the second I step onto the stage, I’m sure I’ll be fine,’ I say, and Jimin listens attentively, nodding in agreement. ‘Yeah, agreed. This is only my second arena tour so I’m obviously not as experienced with this as you are, but I get what you mean,’ he says. ‘I wouldn’t say I’m more experienced than you guys. I mean, the first two times, I was a support act. I only had my first real one last year, and then this one too. I think it’ll make it easier having all you guys with me too,’ I say, and he nods. ‘Yeah, definitely. I always feel better at the thought of not being alone on stage. It must have been really hard for you the last three times,’ he says, and I nod, smiling. ‘It was. I had a band the first time to ease my nerves, but the last two times, I was by myself. It was scary but amazing at the same time. But I’m really looking forward to performing with other people too. You guys will be my first idol interactions, pretty much. The fans will love it,’ I say, and he frowns. ‘What about the Blackpink girls? You guys are friends, right?’ he asks. ‘Yeah, we are, but YG doesn’t let them publicly interact with me, because of my, uh, record label history,’ I say, and Jimin tilts his head to the side in confusion.

‘What record label history?’ he asks, and I laugh. ‘The record label I was with folded the day before my debut because of corruption and fraud, but I managed to get my hands on my album and music videos and released them myself. My debut was really successful despite the whole thing with the record label, and so they tried to sue me but they didn’t have a leg to stand on, because I pretty much created all of my own music and content. I’ve carried on through my career with no record label and just my manager, Sana. That’s why I don’t have any staff at all,’ I say, and he looks at me in shock. ‘No way! So who produced and recorded all your music? And edited your videos and stuff? Booked all your appearances and tours? Does your hair and makeup and styling?’ he asks in shock. ‘I hire out a recording booth in Seoul, or I have one in my house, and Yoongi helps produce a lot of my music. I have to hire a camera crew and director and editor and stuff for my videos. Sana does all of my booking and finance and everything. And I do all my own styling and hair and makeup,’ I explain, his mouth widening with each sentence. ‘Really?’ he asks, and I nod. ‘So that’s why you have no staff on this tour. Not even your manager?’ he asks, and I shake my head. ‘No, she’s pregnant, and I didn’t want her on flights every few days and stressing herself out, you know?’ I say, and Jimin nods. ‘No wonder I don’t have my hair stylist anymore,’ he jokes, and I feel a bit embarrassed. ‘Sorry,’ I say sheepishly, and he waves it off. ‘I’m kidding, I’m kidding. You’re welcome to steal my stylist noonas any time you like,’ he says, and I smile.

‘So are the Blackpink girls your only idol friends?’ he asks, and I nod. ‘What about the other people born in the same year as you? You’re part of 98 line, right?’ he asks. ‘Yeah, but I’m not really friends with any of them. I used to be in a 98-line group chat with all the girls, Dahyun from Twice, SinB and Umji from Gfriend, Taeha and Nayun from Momoland and me, but I got removed from it,’ I say embarrassedly, and Jimin gasps. ‘Really?’ he asks, and I nod. ‘That’s so rude. What about the boys?’ he asks. ‘I’m in one with all of the 98 line, boys and girls, so all the girls and Seungkwan and Vernon from Seventeen, Juyeon, Kevin, New and Q from The Boyz, Chan from iKON, Seonghwa and Hongjoong from Ateez and Yuto, Kino and Wooseok from Pentagon, but they’ve all got their own inside jokes and stuff. I never speak on it, and no one ever speaks to me on it. I guess they don’t really like solo idols,’ I say, shrugging, trying not to let on how crappy it makes me feel. ‘Well, you’re not a solo idol anymore. You’re part of the Bighit gang, even if you’re not signed to Bighit,’ Jimin says, and I smile shyly despite myself. ‘Speaking of the Blackpink girls… is, um, Jennie still, um, going solo?’ he asks, and I burst out laughing at the terrible joke. ‘Yeah, she is. Why?’ I ask suspiciously, and he laughs. ‘I was kidding, don’t worry. I won’t try to get with one of your only friends,’ he teases, and I pretend to be hurt.

‘I’m not gonna lie, I was really worried about this tour,’ I say, and he gives me a quizzical look. ‘Why?’ he asks. ‘I was like a hundred percent sure you hated me,’ I say, met with silence. ‘Now I’m only like fifty,’ I joke, but he stays quiet. ‘You thought I hated you? I thought you hated me,’ he finally replies, and I raise my eyebrows. ‘Why would you think that?’ I ask, and his eyes widen. ‘You completely ignored me at the Melon Music Awards!’ he exclaims, and I gasp. ‘When?’ I demand. ‘I walked past you in the corridor backstage and I bowed and smiled and said hi, and you looked me in the eye, you didn’t even smile or anything, and you just walked straight past me into the toilet!’ he exclaims, sitting up, and my mouth drops open. ‘I do not remember that!’ I say truthfully. ‘It was like a few minutes before you went on to perform. I said good luck and everything!’ he says, and then I remember. Going into the toilet to throw up because I’d just walked past an idol group who I bowed to, got ignored by and then laughed at once I’d walked past them, mere minutes before having my very first award show performance. I didn’t even notice Jimin and my performance got delayed a couple minutes because I had to have my makeup touched up after throwing up my lunch. I tell him the story and I see the guilt appearing on his face. ‘I am so sorry, y/n, I didn’t even realise,’ he says, and I wave it off. ‘Don’t apologise, it’s not your fault! I should be the one apologising, I’m the one that completely blanked you,’ I say, mortified with myself. ‘Unintentionally!’ he adds, and I shake my head. ‘I didn’t even bow,’ I say, shocked. ‘y/n, it’s okay,’ he says, and I laugh. ‘Is that why you ignored me when we met backstage at MAMA?’ I ask, and he nods, seeming sheepish. ‘I can’t believe we’ve been so petty over the past couple years, because of something so ridiculous. We haven’t been bowing at each other, shooting each other dirty looks, not clapping for each other, all because of that MMA,’ he says, and I nod in agreement, disappointed in myself. ‘Well, at least we can be friends now. We’ve got this whole tour to be friends so I’m sure it’ll be great,’ Jimin says, and I smile, excited. ‘You’re right,’ I say, ‘it will be great.’

part eleven - blushing

daisies

(idol!au - angst, fluff, smut, crack)

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a/n: please don’t be annoyed if your faves are discussed by y/n and Jimin in this part, it was necessary to the story and these are not my personal opinions about any of these idols. hmu if you wanna be on the taglist and lmk what you think of this part so we can gossip !! 💕 (edit: I just realised that it’s the wrong gc name for the girls sorry guys😭)

au masterlist

silverlightqueen masterlist

taglist💕: @khaoticamour @rjsmochii @minniestudies @oodlespadoodle @shay-the-turtle @yasbts705 @goldenchemistry @arvbellas @anothershorthuman @knadiuniverse @golden-pixie-dust-200 @onlinewhale @maknaeroni

[xxfanfiction-emo-trinityxx]

Prompts 2 & 123 with Dallon Weekes

Prompt 2: “How long have you been standing there?”

Prompt 123: “Oh, did I scare you, big boy?”

Word count: 2 153 (Not a drabble anymore. Do I care? No. I just know now that I’m bad at writing short things.)

A/N: It’s way past my bed time, but I needed to finish this one. I hope the ending is not to disappointing. Otherwise let me know and I’ll fix it for you xo

Lazily you walked down the corridor. The house you were in looked inconspicuous from the outside, but inside studios, sounds labs, and offices, all belonging to the label you were employed at, were situated.

It was getting dark outside, and you felt a little ripped out of time. You had spent the entire day inside a windowless studio, helping a band to record parts of their new album. You did not know them, they were new to the label, and while they were all very friendly in the beginning, they had grown more and more grumpy the further the time processed.

You did not blame them; you knew how exhausting it was to get the music out of their heads and out into the world. Luckily most bickering had been taken place between the band members, but you were glad to be out of there none the less. Almost twelve hours of being trapped in a dark room, with blinking, glimmering lights, separate sounds of different instruments, and only some Chinese take-out and tea to keep your strengths, always felt weird, like you had been on a trip to an alien planet.

Moving your feet had felt strange after all the hours in a huge chair, and the corridor seemed less real than the weird repeating of drum rhythms in your head.

The sounds that were still playing over and over in your memory got mixed up with the gentle strumming of an unplugged electric bass, and slowly a warm voice, humming a soft melody, seeped into your conscious.

Halting your steps you tried pulling yourself back into reality, until you finally identified the direction the sounds came from. It was not unusual for the studios being occupied in the night; many musicians were a lot more productive after sunset. But when you followed the sweet melody, that engulfed you like a warm blanket of honey and lulled you in, you found that it was not a studio from which the music sounded, but rather one of the break rooms.

Curiously you spied inside. The room was small, no windows. On two of the walls sofas were lined up, a coffee table standing between them. On one side of the room there was a side board with a coffee machine and cups, as well as milk and sugar sticks. A few magazines were placed on the lower board of the table.

And on one of the sofas sat Dallon. He was facing the door, but had his head lowered, the bass resting in his lap, and his fingers skipping over the strings in a never ending flow of little tucks and strums. From what you could see, he had his eyes closed. Which was a pity, because he had very nice eyes. But it also allowed you to watch him a little longer.

It had been a while since you had last worked with his band, or rather the duo he was playing in. You had been one of the people who had helped Dallon and his bandmate Ryan to turn their debut EP into what they had envisioned.

It had been nice working with them. You had known them for a while already, and they were great to work with. Dallon seemed to be the visionary of the band, but appreciated Ryan’s suggestion which always ended up completing the songs in just the perfect way. Dallon was very precise on how he wanted things to turn out, and it was your job to tell the machines to do what he envisioned, but much to your content he was, unlike some other musicians, always very patient, when it took you a moment or two to understand the atmosphere he was aiming for. And he always thanked you over and over when the songs eventually came together the way he had wished them to.

You liked him, this you were sure of. And not just because he was a good musician. He was kind, funny, nerdy, not to mention incredibly beautiful. But probably also not interested in you.

Supressing a sigh, you leant against the door frame, and watched him. The melody he was playing was enchanting, like a day in spring that was spent lying in the soft flowers of a meadow, somewhere far away from the troubles of the world.

He hummed quietly along, clearly already knowing the words that belonged to the melody. You wondered what he was singing, or rather humming, about. It sounded like a love song of sorts, but not the sarcastic, bitter kind he always used to write, more like the slightly broken, despaired kind of song. Taking in his appearance you wondered if someone had broken his heart. Obviously a stupid person, because they had to be, if they had hurt him.

You ignored the jealousy in your chest, and instead watched strands of his brown hair dangle into his forehead, covering his still closed eyes. He was dressed in a walnut-brown sweater, blue jeans and socks, his shoes discarded to the side, under the coffee table. He looked soft and cosy, dressed like this, and you wondered if he was as warm as he looked. It was a little bit of what you would call a guilty pleasure, to imagine yourself cuddled against his side, listening to his humming, or running your fingers through his fluffy hair. But as long as nobody knew about this, it did not hurt anyone. Except maybe you.

Without a warning the soft strumming and humming stopped, and you were, once again, ripped out of your thoughts. You expected Dallon to have discovered you, but instead his head was still hanging low.

He clapped his flat hand against the strings of the unplugged bass guitar, as if he was counting to start a song, and indeed, two slaps later, he started strumming. It was definitely the same song, but it sounded different, and you assumed it to be the intro. After a couple of bars, Dallon started singing.

It was quiet, his voice so silent that you barely understood the words that left his lips in a whisper, but you now were certain that he was singing about love. You watched him carefully. His eyes still closed, but his head lifted a little, allowing you to study the emotions on his face. He looked sad, pained, as if he had been betrayed, heart broken.

But when he reached the chorus, a smile tucked at his lips, his expression softened, and he almost looked happy. After the chorus a short instrumental part followed, and he strummed the first notes of the second verse, but no words left his mouth. Instead he let his head fall back down, and his fingers stopped moving. It almost looked as if he had fallen asleep, but then he groaned quietly, making you furrow your brows.

“Come on, Dallon. How the hell do you plan on singing this to (y/n) if you can’t even remember the lyrics?”

You stood in the door frame and blinked confused. Had you understood this correctly? Had he just mentioned singing a song for you, a love song at that?

Over the hammering heart in your throat you completely missed how Dallon suddenly let out a triumphant sound, and continued playing, having remembered the second part of the song again.

You just stood in the entryway and blinked helplessly into the room. It took you another couple of moments until you eventually focused back on the scene before you. Dallon had reached the end of the second chorus and was trying out different variations for an instrumental break, but he seemed unhappy with whatever he came up with.

Eventually he groaned, and bent down, resting his forehead against the instrument. He sat like that for a few seconds, before he reached a hand into the brown fluff of hair on his head, and brushed it out of his forehead, then he sat up.

It took his eyes a second to adapt to the light around him, but his eyes immediately found the person who stood in the door, leaning against the doorframe, hands tucked into the pockets of their trousers, a gentle look in their eyes as they followed each one of his movements. Involuntarily he flinched, before he recognized it was you.

Now it was Dallon’s turn to blink.

“How long have you been standing there,” he asked, swallowing audibly.

Had you heard what he had said?

“Oh, did I scare you, big boy,” you wondered, taking a step into the room, a playful smile on your lips.

“I just didn’t think anyone’d still be around,” he confessed, trying to ignore the feeling of doom that settled in his stomach.

He really should have gone home, and written the song there. He wanted to impress you with it, make you swoon a little, but if you had already heard the half-baked version of it, then the magic was destroyed, and he would have to write something new, something better to make you notice him.

“Yeah, I was on my way out,” you explained, gesturing over your shoulder.

Your confidence faltered. Even though you had planned on just telling him what you had heard, your courage left you more and more with every breath, and you ended up turning towards the door.

“It’s late, I should probably go-“

“How much did you hear?”

His voice, sounding so insecure and almost scared, yet determined, made you freeze in your steps, and you slowly turned back to look at him.

“Uhm… well, I think, about everything,” you confessed. Could you somehow pretend you had not heard him saying your name?

“Oh.”

He was quiet for a moment before he looked back up from where he was sitting on the sofa.

“I wrote it for you. You weren’t supposed to hear it until it’s finished,” he explained in a small voice.

“Why would you write a song for me?”

The question, you realized a moment too late, was obviously stupid. After all it was a song about love. About love, and about you. So it was kind of obvious. But also kind of unbelievable.

“Well,” Dallon placed his bass aside, and got up from the sofa. “Truth be told: I wanted to express my feelings for you, and preferably impress you with it in the same turn. I mean, I’ve liked you since the first day we met, and then you helped us with the EP, and I miss not working with you. I just… I had to get it off my chest somehow, you see?”

Nervously he was tucking at the sleeves of his shirt.

“I miss working with you too,” you admitted, making him look at you in surprise.

“You’re not… I don’t know… mad, or think it’s awkward that I was writing about you?”

“If I did, I wouldn’t be standing here anymore, actually I really like the song from what I heard,” you told him, feeling your face grow hotter with every second.

Dallon stared at you for a while incredulously, and you held his gaze, unable to tear your eyes away from the blue pools in which you felt your soul drown.

“So… you-“

“Yes.”

You answered his question before he had even finished it, but you knew exactly what he had wanted to ask. Releasing a shaky breath, he dropped his shoulders, which he had kept pulled up the whole time.

“Neat.”

You could not help but laugh at his reaction, making him raise his eyebrows at you.

“What?”

“I think it’s neat, too, that we like each other,” you giggled, making him smile.

“Oh shut up,” he chuckled.

“No, you’re the one who started it.”

“I’m gonna start something entire different here, if you’re not careful,” he threatened jokingly.

“Oh yeah, and what would that be,” you challenged.

“Do you really want to find out,” he asked mockingly.

“Oh you can bet I do,” you laughed, but your laugh was swallowed not half a second later, when Dallon had crossed the small room, and pressed his lips against yours.

Not entirely sure what exactly had just happened, your knees almost gave out, but Dallon had already wrapped you in his arms, pulling you into his tall frame.

A little helpless and totally overwhelmed, you wrapped your fingers into the soft pullover he was wearing, and subconsciously you noted that he really was as warm as you had imagined him to be. After the initial surprise you finally managed to kiss him back, which immediately caused him to smile.

“So, are you going to be quiet now,” he mocked as he gently pulled away, but keeping his arms wrapped tightly around you, holding you close.

“Only if you keep kissing me like that,” you heard yourself answering, sounding a lot cockier than you actually felt.

“Oh I think that can be arranged,” he grinned before leaning in again.

[kookie-for-you]

Royal Flush

Summary

BigHit, who started taking female trainees again in recent years, decides to debut a new female group with five members. Kim Yeji is 20 years old and has been a trainee for only a couple years. Despite this, she finds herself selected as a member for this new group. Will she make it to debut? And will the group last beyond that point? And what on EARTH will she do when a member of BigHit’s most legendary group takes a more personal interest in her—and she in him?

Chapter One

“Why do you think you should be in this group?”

This was more intimidating than when I had auditioned for the company.  I tried not to show my nerves as I adjusted my seating position, attempting not to cower under the gaze of the PDs.  Instead, I gathered myself to give a confident answer.

“I know I’ve only been a trainee for a short time,” I began, glancing between the three professionals sat before me.  Three people who were responsible for forming the best group possible.  Three people with my entire future currently in their hands.  “And I’m far from the most talented trainee here.”

“Not quite selling yourself yet,” the one lady PD said, raising an eyebrow.  She was so pretty, she could be an idol herself.

I took a deep breath.  “What I do have is passion,” I said, and the PDs looked interested.  “I’m 19. I’ll be 20 next year.  I didn’t come here for a childish dream of fame. I know what I want.  And I know that BigHit can help me get it.”

“What is that, Yeji-ssi?” the man to Bang PD-nim’s left asked.  

“To make music.  To make art.  BigHit doesn’t make cookie-cutter stars that they work to the bone until they’ve rung out every last dollar.  BigHit makes artists.”  I took a breath, feeling shaken when putting these things to words, things that I wanted so deeply.  “If you look at the practice times you’ll see how much time I spend in the studio, in lessons, in the gym, even in my free hours.  I’ll be the hardest worker in any group you can make.”

The room was quiet except for some scribbling on the PDs notepads.  I kept quiet, having said everything I could.  That near-silence seemed to last forever before Bang PD-nim looked back at me with a smile.  “Thank you, Yeji-ssi,” he said.  I took the message, standing and bowing respectfully to the producers before leaving the office.

That was several months ago now.  Today, I found myself in a studio ready to take an array of pictures for our debut in the next few months.  After the hours and hours of dance rehearsals and recordings we’d been having all day the past few months, this honestly felt like a vacation. Of course, I hadn’t stepped in front of the camera yet.

I glanced away from the mirror to see Jahyun smiling charmingly for the camera.  She seemed like a natural, shining in her inherent cuteness—even playing it up a little, peeking from behind her fingers, flower-cupping her hands beneath her chin, and widening her eyes in a look of surprise.  The managers wanted her image to be especially cute and innocent, being the maknae and only 16.  

“This one first,” one of the wardrobe eunnies said, holding out a fluffy skirt and long-sleeved cropped sweater, along with a pair of white fishnets.  It was cute, but not too cute, which went along with our concept.  BigHit didn’t want to pigeon-hole their girl group into all the other schoolgirls and aegyo overload traps that debut girls had a tendency to fall into.

Once I had changed, I sat down in the makeup chair, closing my eyes and allowing the stylist to take control of my makeup.  It hadn’t been long that I suddenly felt a presence beside me, and a pair of lips right by my ear.  “Happy birthday, Yeji.”

Delighted, I opened my eyes to see my own reflection before me, accompanied now by Li Haneul standing behind me. “Haneul-eunnie!” I said happily. “How did you know?”

“I wouldn’t be a very good eunnie if I didn’t know your birthdays,” she said, and I filed away the idea to learn my younger members birthdays quickly.  I couldn’t rely on Haneul to always know.  “When did they finish your hair?  It looks so nice!  Did you come home like that last night?”

Guiltily, I shook my head, sending my new bright red locks swinging.  “I slept in the studio last night,” I admitted.  “I was working on the dance break for ‘Deck of Cards’ and then I wanted to write a few more lyric ideas for next album, and then it was too late to think about coming back.”

“You have to stop sleeping on that sofa, it’s not good for you,” Haneul scolded, and I meekly nodded.  “Minji will say the same.”

“Minji is only 18, she can tell me all she wants,” I joked, but both of us knew that even if Minji was younger, she was the leader and we’d listen to her if she told us something related to the group. “I know, eunnie, I’ll stop getting so caught up.”

“Good,” Haneul said, hugging around my shoulders quickly while the stylist looked for some more colors on her vanity.  “You need to be at your best for debut and we already work so hard.  You need good sleep and good food.”

“Did Jisoo make something very good last night?” I asked, mouth watering at the thought of what leftovers might be waiting in the dorm refrigerator.  

“Just chicken and vegetables, but the soup she made was even better.  There’s some left over for you, we made sure to set some aside.  I assumed you’d eat it when you got home…”  Haneul shook her head again.  “I wondered why I didn’t hear you come into our room.  Did you even eat at all?”

“I had some of the crackers from the studio. I wasn’t that hungry anyway.”

“What am I going to do with you?” Haneul demanded, looking equal parts amused and worried.  “I’m serious, Yeji, be sure you’re home at a reasonable hour tonight, or I’ll march to the studio myself and drag you back to bed.”

Even as Jahyun was led away to change and the managers started calling for Haneul to take her place on the set, my eunnie still stared me down until I answered.

“Yes, eunnie, I promise,” I assured her.

I broke my word, of course.  Truly, I hadn’t meant to, but once again the time had gotten away from me.  Just one more practice, I kept telling myself.  One more run-through of the song.

We would be debuting live in only two and a half months.  There wasn’t enough time to become perfect.  As I critically eyed myself in the mirror, I kept comparing myself to Haneul or Jisoo.  I’d never be as good of a dancer as them.  Haneul had a way of making everything seem effortless, and the swag that Jisoo had in her rap also extended to her dance.  

And yet, I constantly found myself being placed at the center.  “Yeji-ssi has such a strong visual.”  That was what the managers and choreographers had said.  I wondered if my looks were what had gotten me into the group.  Had my hard work spoken for itself, had my talent put me here?  Or did they just need  a center, a visual?

Exhausted after another round of rehearsing, I plopped to the floor right in the middle of the studio.  I fumbled for the remote for the music in my pocket, turning it off before it started itself over again.  Laying flat at my back, I squinted up at the bright lights.  How was I going to keep up after debut?  The members always reassured me when my fears came to surface, saying I was just as good as them and we all needed each other for the group to be a success.

Absent-mindedly, I started humming a tune, one that I’d invented in my head and had been stuck there for weeks.  All the songs for the debut album were written and mostly recorded. But, like I’d told Haneul earlier, I’d already found myself thinking of new songs for the next album.

Slowly, I sat up, turning away from the mirror. I didn’t want to look at my exhausted reflection any longer.  I was pretty sure I had sweat so much that my new red hair would bleed onto my skin. The tune in my head kept playing and so, almost unknowingly, I began to sing.

This song was different than the ones that were for debut.  The ones we had were poppy and happy, things to make you dance.  Even the one ballad was about having fun in the sun at the end of the day.  But this song, the one that my heart seemed to be demanding I write, was more personal to me.

The studio had great acoustics, and I found myself singing louder and louder, basking in the sound of the words echoing off the practice room walls.  It felt freeing, honestly; to sit here and sing something that didn’t have to be perfect just now.  It was something that was just for me.

“And I’ll fly,” I sang.  “I’ll fly.  But like petals tossed in the air, am I flying or floating or falling?”  My own lyrics hit me harder than I thought they would in that moment.  I really didn’t know whether I was flying or falling right now.  What if everyone hated our group?  BigHit hadn’t put out a new group since Bangtan—what if we couldn’t live up to them? They’d had the benefit of not having such high expectations when they debuted.  The whole world would be watching Royal Flush.

“It’s a shame you never know, until you land or hit the ground,” I finished, letting the last note reverberate around the space and then fade away.  Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes for just a moment.

And then they flew open again, hearing applause from the doorway.  One set of hands clapping.  I whirled around, expecting to see Haneul or Minji, ready to scold me and drag me back to the dorm.

What I didn’t expect to see was one of the most handsome and most famous men in all of South Korea leaning against the doorframe.

Next Chapter

[doomedandstoned]

Candlemass: 35 Years A Band

  ~A Doomed & Stoned Double Feature~  

Dare To Knock On   The Door To Doom

By Magnus Tannergren  

I don't know how well known it is that CANDLEMASS hails from the same hoods in the Upplands Väsby right outside Stockholm as both Yngwie Malmsteen and Europe. And it is a fact that Candlemass debut album Epicus Doomicus Metallicus was released just two weeks after Europe's smash hit album The Final Countdown. We all know that that album earned Europe worldwide fame. Candlemass, on the other hand, remained an underground affair for decades.

Yet the legacy of Candlemass cannot be underestimated in anyway when it comes to heavy music. Their slow, heavy Sabbath worship paved the way for a whole genre inspired by the heavy rock and proto-metal of the ‘70s that we call, up until this present day, doom metal. Ironically, Europe now days have returned to their roots and sound more like Deep Purple or Rainbow than anything else. The circle is complete.

Anyway, this is a review of the new Candlemass album 'The Door To Doom' (2019 - Napalm Records) and not a study of when two parallel universes collide. This album also completes a full circle for Candlemass in many ways, too. It sees the return of the mystery man who did the vocals on that legendary debut album that arrived more than three decades ago. It was shocking news when Johan Längquist was announced as the vocalist on the new album -- an album that was already done with vocals by longtime singer Mats Levén (Therion, Krux). Oh the drama...

But maybe this is exactly what Candlemass needed to get back on track. The band has not been able to really deliver the goods these past ten years or so, in my opinion. Maybe it's because of the lead singer issues that have been tormenting Candlemass for ages. The reunion with Messiah Marcolin back in 2004 went south, Rob Lowe had a great voice but didn't work out as a touring member, and so on. Add main songwriter Leif Edling’s struggles with chronic fatigue syndrome and it is easy to understand that this doomsday machine has not been firing on all its cylinders for a while.

Yet here we are now. The new album is out and it is a grand return to epic doom metal as we know it should be done by Candlemass. I am the first to admit that I was skeptical, as I always am, to these kinds of albums that try to summon the glory of the past by reuniting with old members. But I am also the first one to admit when I am wrong. This is a fantastic Candlemass album.

The Door To Doom by CANDLEMASS

The voice of Längquist has matured as a good wine. It depth and grandeur coupled with attitude and experience. The vocals add that extra drama to tracks like "Splendor Demon Majesty" and "Astorolus – the Great Octopus" (yes, there is a solo by Tony Iommi on this, so another completed circle), but there is also beauty to be had, such as in the epic ballad "Bridge of the Blind" with its echoes of the great old ones, like Dio. I'm glad Johan Längquist is back. His silence has been a waste.

Musically, Candlemass delivers an album that stands proud besides the classic first four albums Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, Nightfall, Ancient Dreams, and Tales of Creation. It measures up to the challenge to invoke the gods of doom in a way that sometimes sends shivers down my spine, as I recall the greatness of this band's early years. It bares the mark of true doom and the spirits of the old classics possess this album. The guitar works by Mappe Björkman and Lasse Johansson are stellar and the thunder of Edling’s bass and Jan Lindh’s drumming is spectacular.

The music bares all the marks that makes up the legend of Candlemass. It is, in the words of the band itself, “the sound of 666.” I already mentioned some of the highlights on the album, but I must also say The Door To Doom doesn't really have any weak spots. All the songs are very strong and the riffing is epic. Despite my skepticism, I got bewitched again.

A great doom metal record, indeed, executed with precision and power. I fully believe this material has focus to make Candlemass relevant as a scene-anchoring act in metal once again and I hope they succeed, because the world needs this band. On the other hand, if this turns out to be the last album by this legendary Swedish doomers, The Door To Doom will also serve as a fitting final chapter in the Book of Candlemass. I honestly hope it’s not.

Magnus is the founder and host of Into The Void Podcast. He is also a senior staff writer at Slavestate.se, one of Sweden's oldest and most important online zines about heavy and extreme music.

☠

An Interview with

Candlemass Co-Founder

  Leif Edling

By Willem Verhappen  

I must say I was very surprised when the new record was announced, since at the time of its release, you said 'Psalms for the Dead' would be the final Candlemass full-length record. What made you change your mind? >

The "House of Doom" single. It was great fun to write it! Also working with producer Marcus Jidell was fantastic. We're quite a team, I must say. There I got the inspiration back for an entire album. We had a couple of band meetings about it and it was very clear that the band shared the enthusiasm for a new record. They had been playing live without me for a couple of years, with good response, but without an album it is easy for you to become a retro band pretty quick. Don't want that to happen to Candlemass.

I see what you mean. It's quite a challenge to stay relevant as an "older" band, especially in this day and age, when everything retro seems to be cool. On one hand you have bands like Priest and Saxon, who are still releasing decent records, and on the other hand there's bands who've been past their expiration date for decades. Do you prefer to see a band over their top or just remember them as they were?

That one’s easy. Remember them as they were. But having said that, it is a joy to see bands like Angel Witch, Manilla Road, Pries, and Saxon today, because they can still deliver. When you can’t deliver the goods anymore, maybe stay at home instead. Hope somebody will tap me on the shoulder one day and say “Leif...It’s time.” (laughs)

"Too many discussions & arguments over the years. Maybe some heart was missing in it all."

Just before the Christmas of 2013, you had a bout with burnout and stepped away from live performances for a while. What made you realize you needed to take a break? How did you get the “fire” back again?

A bit better, but not 100%. I'm still struggling with it. I hope I can do the rest of 2019's shows without too many problems. Have to look after myself, rest as much as I can, eat regularly, not party too much. Well, this is very "rock 'n' roll" to say, but it is great to be back. You have to listen to your body. If it says "rest," you have to step back. If it says, “Go, you can do it,” I hope I can!

I hope so. too. As a diabetic. I know it's sometimes difficult to listen to your body and not get drawn into the excitement of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. Is it difficult for you? What do you do in these moments?

On the Candlemass tour with Ghost, there was lots of partying on the bus after the shows. I was there, but took it quite easy. Went to bed early, but still I felt tired in the morning. So if we go on another tour, I might have to stop drinking totally, to pull it off. Playing live almost every night takes its toll. I’m 50-plus, struggling with fatigue syndrome, on a tour bus to hell -- talk about the wrong man in the wrong place! (laughs) Said "yes" to it instantly, of course.

In 2015, you released Avatarium’s second album, 'The Girl With The Raven Mask.' Was it difficult for you to pick up writing again?

Yes, it was. Well, not super hard. The burnout gave me the time to rest and get new inspirado for songs. In a way, I’m glad that it happened. Think many people just go on and on without taking a break. They just keep on going and get themselves an aneurysm or something. I quit before that happened. Got lots of time to think about future and what to do with it. Songwriting is one part. That Avatarium album is pretty good, I think.

I agree. It's my favorite Avatarium record. But you're saying this like you're not as happy with the other two records. Is that the case?

No. I love all three of them, but the second is the best.

We spoke briefly at Roadburn 2017 and I don’t know who was more nervous, me for meeting you or you for getting back on stage, playing the first ever live show with The Doomsday Kingdom. I remember that you were afraid no one would show up. Luckily, the place was pretty crowded and you guys gave an amazing show. I still get goosebumps when I think of your emotional performance of "The God Particle." How do you remember your return to the big stage?

The stage wasn’t that big (laughs), but it felt rather good. I could have played better, plus it's true I was quite nervous. It was the first small step to a full return, I would say.

In September of 2017, I spoke to Markus Jidell at an Avatarium show and he told me you were working on something very special. This was shortly before the 'House of Doom' EP was announced, so I assumed he was talking about that. Was he or were you already working on 'The Door To Doom'?

We worked on the House of Doom for about six months before we started on the full-length album. If I remember correctly, we started the demoing of the new songs on November 1st. The full album took exactly one year to make. Too long! Next time, I hope I’m better, then I hope we can deliver an album in three to six months. Shouldn’t take more time than that.

Does that mean there will be more Candlemass music coming our way?

Well, eventually. Hopefully!

The only surprise bigger than a new record was the return of Johan Längquist. How did that come about?

During the recording, we felt something was missing. We had too many discussions and arguments over the years -- all of us. Maybe some heart was missing in it all. I'd worked my ass off for this record, but was struggling with my health. Too much work, too much business, too many arguments, too much bull! In the end, we took a band decision to bring in Johan again -- go back to the "ground zero" of Doom, so to speak. Mats had done a great job, but we needed to do something in C-mass to find the spark again and Johan was the answer. Now we focus on having fun, not letting any business take over. I have no clue if it will last a year or two. At least we will enjoy the time left.

Lyrically, as well as musically, I think ‘The Door To Doom’ feels like a very dark record. What were your inspirations while writing this album?

It’s a good thing that people see the albums music and lyrics in different ways. I don’t think it is that dark. We have done darker things in C-mass, definitely. The songs are about the state of the world, how I feel myself during the burnout process, sea monsters, and reflections upon life in general. This time around, I’m pretty satisfied with the lyrics.

"I have no clue if it will last a year or two. At least we will enjoy the time left."

It's no secret that you’re a massive Black Sabbath fan, owning over half a meter worth of vinyl of their debut alone. I can only imagine how special it must have been for Tony Iommi to play on your record. How did that come about and what was it like working with Tony?

We just asked him. Seriously. We asked and got a "yes!" Our manager emailed his personal manager. Couldn’t believe it when we had the positive answer back. I was over the moon. Tony Iommi will play on my song! Hardest thing was to keep my mouth shut for three months. (laughs) But, you know, if you aim for the stars, you might succeed. He sent us the solo after a while and it was absolutely great! A dream came true.

Amazing how easily these things can happen.

Yes, Dio said once in an interview that he would have loved to guest sing on records but he never had the question put to him.

You’re currently on tour, opening for Ghost. When I went to see your show in Amsterdam, I noticed their audience is turning more mainstream. For instance, before your show, I heard someone say: “I looked up Candlemass online. They sound kind of like AC/DC.” Do you recognise this and how have the reactions been so far?

I have heard that we sound like Iron Maiden and Motörhead, to mention a couple. AC/DC? That’s a first. But the crowd reaction for our short set during the Ghost tour has been really good, actually. Better than we expected, so we must have done something right. The reactions for the album have been fantastic. Super great criticism from all over the world. And the Cardinal said to us, “You are special guest on this tour. You’re not the support act.”

With a band like Ghost, I can imagine the touring life is quite the experience. Did you have a chance to interact with those guys much beyond the stage?

Not really, they play a nearly three-hour long set and they take it seriously, as you should. We did have a couple of record hunting trips with the Cardinal that were very pleasant. He is a real vinyl buff, so we raided some shops here and there.

I can only imagine how these raids go about. What's your best find this tour?

The first Steamhammer record. First press on Brain €50. I gave it to the Cardinal after the last show, since we really wanted it, too. He got it as a gift from me, saying thanks for a great tour.

Since you’re a record collector and a fan of old school metal, are there any new bands you’re into that you think everyone should check out?

I haven’t bought a record with a new band for several years. I have no clue what’s going on in the metal world anymore. I just buy old albums. Seems like they knew how to write songs back then. Lost art, unfortunately. Is Blood Ceremony considered to be a “new” band? They are pretty good, I think.

Do you have future plans for the band or will you be shifting focus to side projects like Doomsday Kingdom, Krux, or others?

We just released a new Candlemass album and the schedule for this year is already full, so I won’t have any time, this year anyway, to do anything other than C-mass.

True, your calendar is swelling with the Ghost tour and some festival appearances in the summer. Are there any shows you’re especially looking forward to?

Yes: Sweden Rock, Hellfest, Wacken and, well, all of them! (laughs)

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[kayincolwyn]

Mad World (reflection, 10/28/2018)

When I was about 19 or 20, after my parents had split up, for about six months or so and for the first and only time in my life, I was living on my own, in a rental room in this old lady’s house, in St. Johns on the outskirts of Portland, where I was working my first job at a McDonald’s, and that was when I first watched this now cult classic film called Donnie Darko, and when I got to the end of the film, sitting there alone on a bed watching a TV in some stranger’s house, and heard Gary Jules’ cover of Mad World (originally by Tears For Fears), I was so moved that I wept.

For those who haven’t seen it, Donnie Darko is the story of a somewhat outcast and antisocial high schooler (much as I was when I was in high school), played by Jake Gyllenhall, who, after an engine of a plane crashes into his house, and specifically into his room, when he is away, begins experiencing visions and other weird happenings in his life, and begins losing touch with reality as he tries to understand what is going on and what some higher power seems to want from him, all while he meets and falls in love with this girl named Gretchen.  Eventually events lead up to Gretchen’s death when she is hit by a car, and then everything falls into place, and he finds himself traveling back in time, and he realizes that he was meant to be there and die on that day when the plane engine crashed into his room, which will spare Gretchen’s life at the cost of his life and the cost of them ever knowing one another. In this scene, as Mad World plays in the background, we see shots of different people throughout his town that we see throughout the film, sitting in their rooms in the middle of the night, smoking or drinking or crying or just starting blankly into the dark, people who during the day pretend to be things that they’re not or wear masks or keep secrets, all while Donnie laughs alone in his room on that fateful day, knowing that death is coming for him, but embracing it to save someone he loves who will not know who saved her or that she was even saved at all. I believe he laughs as he finds the comedy in the tragedy, the joy in the sadness, the light in the madness...

Looking back, I think I was deeply moved by this not only because of that beautiful cover of Mad World by Gary Jules, but also because this scene showcased the sadness and, yes, the madness of the world, in how we say or do things in life that don’t reflect who we really are or who we really want to be, just to survive or to get by or to fit in or for reasons that we don’t even really know ourselves, all while under the surface and behind closed doors we feel empty or alone or broken or wounded, not even really knowing how to express how we feel... and yet it also showcased the beauty in knowing that we’re all in the same boat, we’re all human, so we’re not alone in all of this, in trying to cope and figure out this thing that we call life, and the beauty in love and relationship and giving to and sacrificing for others and how that can give our lives a sense of meaning and purpose in a world that otherwise doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. In this post I wanted to try and talk about this, about how maybe we can find, or at least try to find, like I believe Donnie does in the film, some kind of meaning and purpose in this world that is so full of sadness and madness, or at least that’s my aim here... There have been times in my life when I have experienced nothing but sadness and madness, whether because of stressful or painful circumstances or because of internal existential struggles, times when I have been that person crying or staring blankly in the dark, empty and alone and broken and wounded, and yet I’ve also been someone who was comforted or encouraged by others, or has been someone who has comforted and encouraged others, and someone who has found some meaning and purpose in love and relationship (even in spite of its many ups and downs) and has both received from others and given to others, and all of this lives within me simultaneously, because, as poet Walt Whitman once said, “I am large, I contain multitudes”.

I recently discovered and have become a fan of the young Norwegian musician Aurora Aksnes (and I recently purchased a ticket to a concert here in Portland next February, which I will be looking forward to), whose music is as creative as it is thoughtful, and whose personality is very unique and refreshing, as she has a pure and childlike spirit while also having an intelligence and wisdom beyond her years. Many of her fans consider her something of a real life Luna Lovegood, who is one of the more popular characters from the Harry Potter universe (and who also happens to be my favorite HP character), known for her eccentricity and non-conformity as well as her wise and empathetic nature.  Of course Aurora is just a human being like you or me, and no doubt with her own fair share of faults and flaws, who makes mistakes and doesn’t know everything and doesn’t have all the answers, but she has an angelic or fey-like quality about her that is wonderful and attractive. She calls her fans ‘Warriors and Weirdos’, and I think she is a combination of those herself, a warrior and a weirdo, and I believe she encourages others to embrace those qualities within themselves. When you watch interviews with Aurora she comes off as very authentic, speaking and acting in sometimes strange and funny ways, but you can tell she is entirely herself without putting on any airs, which makes her very endearing and charming and magnetic, but then much of her music, which she writes herself, is thought provoking and heartfelt, clearly written by someone who has thought and felt about life, both the darkness and the light in it, deeply. I wanted to focus on a couple of her songs, which are among my favorites of hers, one from her debut album All My Demons Greeting Me As A Friend, and the second from her new album Infections Of A Different Kind (Step 1). Through The Eyes Of A Child, a beautiful and moving song that has a lullaby-like quality to it, was Aurora’s favorite song from her debut album according to an interview from 2016, and in the interview she said this of its meaning: ‘It’s a very important song for me that’s about getting older and seeing the real world and how cruel people can be. You discover this more and more as you grow older, and it gets quite hard on your shoulders knowing all of these things. So it’s about being able to see the beauty in everything and everyone, and innocence in the world, which I miss.’ Here are the lyrics to the song: World is covered by our trails Scars we covered up with paint Watch them preach in sour lies I would rather see this world through the eyes of a child, Through the eyes of a child Darker times will come and go Times you need to see her smile And mother's hands are warm and mild I would rather feel this world through the skin of a child Through the skin of a child When a human strokes your skin That is when you let them in Let them in before they go I would rather feel alive with a childlike soul With a childlike soul Please don't leave me here I remember when I first discovered this song I listened to it on my music player while walking home from work in the middle of the night and it moved me to tears as I resonated so strongly with it. Like Aurora I’ve learned as I’ve gotten older that life is full of pain and as humans it is so easy for us to hurt or disappoint one another, and then sometimes we find ourselves longing, as impossible as it may seem, for a world where it wasn’t like that, a world where there was only joy and where we just loved one another, a simpler and kinder world where we didn’t feel any need to hide ourselves from others for fear of getting hurt or being misunderstood, or where we didn’t feel as though we were just stumbling through the dark, or where we didn’t feel like we were alone. And tonight as I was writing this I watched a live video of Aurora singing this (which you can watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ncG9zTzsisE) and when she sings that last line, ‘please don’t leave me here’, there is this look on her face afterwards that’s so real and moving and that brought me to tears, as it felt like she was putting her soul into those words, and because I have felt, ached, and prayed, those words at times myself... I’m reminded of Mad World, which I quoted above, where in the chorus it says ‘the dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had’, which certainly sounds morbid, but I have to admit there is a part of me that looks forward to death, not because I hate life or because I really want to die (and please don’t take this as me being suicidal, as that’s not where I’m at, though I have been there in the past no doubt), but because, in spite of my uncertainty about life beyond this one, I hope that if there is life beyond this one that it is more like that kind of life, life through the eyes of a child, that Aurora sings about.  And it’s not so much that part of me wants to die, but more that part of me wants to die to a world full of sadness and madness and instead find myself in a better one full of joy and light, if that makes any sense. But I don’t believe that we have to, or even should, wait for death to see if that might bring us into that kind of world, even if we may have hope for that, as we can also try to create that kind of world here, or at least as much as we are able. And I think that’s what people like Aurora are trying to do, and I suppose what all of us who are capable of love in this world try to do for those we love.

The next song, Infections Of A Different Kind, the title track and the final track of her new album, was, according to Aurora in a recent interview, the most personal song on her new album, which came to her in the middle of the night and was the seed that inspired her new album.  I feel like this song in some way addresses that desire to create a better world (and here’s a link to the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bdasfyaPjA). Here are the lyrics: It's a feeling growing old with time Like a restless in the leaves coming down The world is a hole and we all seem to fall Down and down And the universe is growing tall And we all are caving into dreams of this space Unfolding her arms cannot do any harm Violent contractions And if there is a God, would we even know his name? And if there is a God, I think he would shake his head And turn away So belong to us all Be God in the shape of a girl Who walks this world And I beg, I beg to be drained From the pain I have soaked myself in So I can stay Okay, and more than okay for a while For a while, for a while Infections of a different kind The world is being attacked by your pain If I am the world then why would I hurt All that is living? And if there is a God, would he then believe in us? And if there is a God, I think he can't hear all of us Belong to us all Be God in the shape of a girl Who walks this world And I beg, I beg to be drained From the pain I've soaked myself in So I can stay Okay, and more than okay for a while For a while, for a while This is the breath, this is the breath... There was a discussion on one of her Youtube videos that I was reading tonight that came out of a fan wondering if this song was questioning and even jabbing at belief in God and I can understand why some people would take it that way (though as far as I can tell Aurora seems to be a very spiritual person, if not particularly religious), but I resonated more with what another fan said: ‘For me, I would say that she is rather asking us to be reflective on what we've done for each other so far, and how much more we can do in the years to come. "I think he would shake his head" and "Would he believe in us?" are powerful statements that make us realize that the only one causing our pain and distress is ourselves. To me, she's not saying that there isn't a God, she’s saying it doesn't matter if there is, because he is not responsible for our problems that we created.’   I can agree with this for the most part, and I would add that I felt her line where she says ‘Be God in the shape of a girl who walks this world’, rather than being some blasphemous statement as some might take it, is referring to that spark of the divine in every one of us (or the image of God as it is referred to in the Bible, or the inner light as Quakers call it), including herself, and then to how we have the ability to be a kind of divine presence (where one might say that God is working through us) in one another’s lives if we choose to be. This reminds me, putting this into a more Christian context, of this quote from Catholic saint Teresa of Avila: “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.” Now as I’ve said elsewhere I no longer consider myself Christian, at least not in a traditional sense, but I can resonate with this idea of our being a channel or conduit for the divine in one another’s lives, and I believe this is kind of what Aurora meant or was trying to say through her song, and there can be truth in this whether one believes in a God or not. Even the end where she says ‘this is the breath, this is the breath’ reminds me of the Greek word pneuma, which means both breath and spirit, so she could also be saying ‘this is the spirit, this is the spirit’.  Of course I’m not really sure whether that was what Aurora was getting at here (would love to pick her brain about this song by the way), but in the context of the song I think it makes sense. I admit that I don’t feel as though I am really a channel or conduit for anything like a divine presence much of the time. It’s something I aspire to be, and maybe sometimes in spite of myself I can be that, but much of the time I feel that I fall short of that. I often find myself feeling irritated and annoyed by people, and I often feel numb and apathetic to others and their lives. I have my bad habits and negative tendencies, my faults and flaws, and I certainly don’t feel very angelic or Christlike or whatever one may call it much of the time, and if anything I often feel like something of, well, an asshole. I know there are people that love and care about me that would disagree with this feeling I have, which I appreciate, but it’s something I often feel regardless. I feel like I contribute my own share of sadness and madness to the world you could say, and though that may not be my intention, or any of our intentions really when we do that, it is what it is and there’s really no way around it save for me to try and balance that out by bringing more joy and light into the world, as I believe Aurora and many people, or maybe even most people, are trying to do. As author George Eliot (aka Mary Anne Evans) once said, ‘ What do we live for, if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?’  I think this is a question that we all have to wrestle with, especially in times like these where there is so much division and fear and uncertainty, where that sense of being in a world full of sadness and madness is all the more acute (or at least that’s how it feels for many of us) and it’s not an easy question when many of us, like myself, struggle just to deal with our own problems, let alone anyone else’s, but it’s a question we have to ask ourselves because we all share this world, and in large part I believe how we choose to live our lives in it, or what we choose to bring into this world, can add either to its sadness or joy, to its madness or light.  In Donnie Darko, Donnie was willing to give his life to save the life of someone he loved. Aurora, like many artists out there, gives her time and energy to her music to hopefully bring some more joy and light into the world. What can I do to make the world better, to make it a simpler and kinder one? Honestly I’m still trying to figure that out.

Last weekend I spent most of the day with some of my family on my grandpa Allan’s side, including his wife Miriam, my aunt Angela, my aunt Shannon and her husband Jeff, and my cousin Andrea.   My grandpa Allan passed away from cancer in March of last year, and he would have been 82 years old on October 21st, so we observed his birthday by visiting his gravesite. I remember as we gathered around his grave I felt awkward and uncertain, as I imagine all of us did to some extent, because death can’t help but leave us feeling awkward and uncertain on some level I think, and yet I know that we all felt, and feel, love for him, and we tried to, and continue to try to, honor him, being grateful for the part that he played in our lives, for the ways in which he loved us, gave to us, and brought joy and light into our lives. We went to lunch at Shari’s and I remember talking with my aunt Shannon who was sitting next to me much of the time, and I remember telling her how Allan’s story of how he found his faith resonated with me, the story of being a foster child who was often abandoned and rejected, who then had an experience where he felt that God told him that he would not abandon him or reject him as others had, and it resonated with me because it had a message that was so universal and childlike, so basic and primal, and uncomplicated by theology and doctrine, that I believe almost anyone could connect with it, that desire and longing to be unconditionally loved and accepted where you are and as you are, and that that desire and longing can be answered. Perhaps, much like Aurora, through that experience Allan learned to see through the eyes of a child. Maybe at bottom he had the faith of a child, and even if he may have built different theology and doctrine around that experience that he had over the years, that experience, and the message within it, was still somewhere at the heart of his faith, and I can resonate with that. After lunch I was at Allan’s house, and Miriam and Angie gave me some of Allan’s things that they wanted me to have, including a tie and some cufflinks and some of his rocks from his rock collection (he was a big rockhound), and I spent some time with my cousin Andrea, connecting over music (including some music by Aurora, which she liked), and I remember looking at pictures of Allan on the walls and thanking him for whatever hand he may have had in helping me to connect more with his family, and I remember telling Andrea that I felt like maybe that was his final gift to me. We didn’t really discuss politics at all throughout the day, although it is something that Allan’s family has had some conflict over from what I’ve heard as there are some in the family who are more conservative and others who are more liberal, and since the 2016 election there has been some tension among some of the family members. The only time it ever came up in any way was when Angie, who is a little more conservative herself, pointed out a letter that acknowledged Allan’s service in Korea that was signed by President Trump, and she wondered what I thought of that and if I would like a copy, and I told her that even though I don’t like Trump myself that if it’s something that is meant to honor Allan then I’m okay with it as that’s what really matters to me, and not who signs it, and I would be okay with having a copy. I think it’s safe to say, being the elephant in the room, that politics causes much of the sadness and madness in this country and in this world, and I think this is something that people on both sides of the political spectrum can agree on. But my day with Allan’s family was a reminder to me of a potential answer to much of the division and tension, the sadness and madness, in this country and this world, that being the awareness that we’re all in the same boat, that we’re all human, that we’re not alone in this, that love and relationship is what matters most of all, and a desire, and really a choice, to try and find what brings us together rather than what divides us. I may not completely agree with Allan’s family when it comes to politics or religion or when it comes to this or that, but at the end of the day we all loved and love Allan and we all miss him and hope to see him again whenever we cross the veil, and that is something that we all have in common in spite of whatever differences we may have, and while as human beings we may all be capable of bringing more sadness and madness into the world, we are all equally capable of bringing more joy and light into it as well, and into one another’s lives, just as Allan did. And just as Donnie Darko left an impact on the world after his death, I believe Allan did as well, just as he did in life, and maybe we can all do that.

A couple weeks ago I watched the Netflix series The Haunting Of Hill House, which I really enjoyed and found equally frightening and moving. The basic premise of the series is there is this family, the Crains, who move into Hill House for a few months and begin having strange experiences which lead to the mother’s suicide, and as the season progresses you find out what happened in the house from the perspectives of each of the family members in flashbacks as you also see how their experiences in the house have continued to impact them as adults, leading to different ways of coping with the trauma, and effecting their relationships with one another and with others. The two children who were impacted most by the events that took place when they were in Hill House were the two youngest children, Luke and Nell, who were twins and have a psychic twin connection. My favorite scene in the whole series was in the last episode when Nell (who is found dead in Hill House after a nervous breakdown not long after the death of her husband, presumably killing herself) reunites with her siblings in spirit and reassures all of them, forgiving them for however they let her down in life, and letting them know that she is not truly gone. When Luke, who was closest to her, tells her that he doesn’t know how to go on without her, she responds tenderly:  “There’s no without. I’m not gone. I’m scattered into so many pieces, sprinkled on your life like new snow.” I remember being really moved when I heard this, thinking of Allan and others that I’ve lost in recent years. While my own beliefs about life after death may not be in line with this in a literal sense, as I believe, or hope, that a consciousness, or a soul, continues somehow after death not just in the memories of those who loved them but also in some other dimension that is beyond (if also in some way connected to) this one. But I interpret this as the impact that that person had on us (and continue to have on us even after their death), all the different ways that they loved us and gave to us, all the ways they brought joy and light into our lives, sprinkled onto our lives like new snow. And whether you may believe in a God or not, whether you may believe in life after death or not, I believe the impact you leave, the legacy you leave, matters. Even my mom, who is a self-proclaimed atheist, hopes that when she dies that she will be have made a difference in the lives of people she loved, and maybe in the world too, and that she will be remembered well.  I believe she hopes, as many of us do I think, that she will leave this oftentimes sad and mad world just a little better for her being in it, that she can do her part to take away a little of the sadness and madness and bring a little more joy and light into it. While I don’t consider myself as an atheist, I can resonate with this desire and this hope, as I share it, even if I may also desire and hope for some kind of life beyond this one where I am reunited with Allan and others. In short, if in living our lives we made life a little less difficult for others than maybe we have lived life well...

It’s only a few days till Halloween, one of my favorite holidays, when children, and children at heart, dress up in costumes and go trick or treating or simply party and have fun, embracing the spooky and creepy, and in some small way answering darkness and the night and death with laughter as Donnie Darko did, bringing joy and light into it, seeing the world through the eyes of a child, and maybe being channels and conduits of something, well, holy, in what some may see as unholy, being divine sparks in the night, and I think it’s kind of wonderful. The world is kind of wonderful, and it’s kind of horrible, the world is kind of funny, and it’s kind of sad, the world is kind of beautiful, and it’s kind of mad, and I dream of a better world, a simpler and kinder one, beyond this one, but I also dream and hope to help make this world I am living in a better one if I can, even if only in some small way, and it’s hard to know how to express everything that I feel about this world, and it’s hard to take everything that I go through in it, and people are running around and I’m running around, and it can feel pretty crazy sometimes, that’s for sure. But like Donnie I will keep trying to find some kind of meaning and purpose in this world in which I live, and like Aurora I will try to hold onto my childlike soul and be open to being a channel and conduit of the divine in the world, and like Allan I’ll try to hold onto those experiences that help me to feel unconditionally loved and accepted, as I hope like him to make an impact on the lives of others, even after it is my turn to cross the veil, hopefully leaving a little more joy and light behind me in this world than sadness and madness, leaving pieces of myself sprinkled over other’s lives like new snow. And I know that this world can be very very mad indeed, but I know it can also be very very beautiful, because, like me, and like all of us, the world is large and it contains multitudes. 

[tenecity]

like we used to

requested: yes

genre: angst, a little fluff

masterlist

* mentions of lyrics from EXO’s Peter Pan

❝ 조그만 미련에 지우지 못해잊고 또 잊으려 했던 순간에도

(Even moments I tried to forget youBut I couldn’t because of these feelings)❞

—like we used to, by The Rose

Xukun hastily picks up some of the clothes and chucks them into his overflowing suitcase. Once again, he is moving, only, this time, he doesn’t quite mind. He is on his way to Beijing, to participate in Idol Producer—another survival program—to once again, hopefully, realise his dreams.

As he clears out his closet, his eyes trail to the bottom of it, and sitting there quietly, in a corner of dusk, is the album. He brushes off the dust on the old photo album, and as he turns the pages, looking carefully, fingers tracing your features, it is as if you are there still, like before, and you stayed. Recollection overwhelms his mind; memories that he had tried so hard to push out, to forget. But at the sight of these photos, nothing shields him from the aching heart he has when he looks at the slightly yellowed photographs.

It’s a bit of a sad thing, that we can’t go back to that time.*

His fingers lightly caress the corner of the picture, a bitter smile at the edge of his lips. He remembers that day.

It was like any other day. Finals were around the corner and as the red, yellow, orange leaves flow to the ground, he crunches his way to the nearby cafe. Not many people there, most of the students chose to stay in school instead, to study. Even so, you were startled from your work when a loud bang, of books and papers, sounded from the seat across you.

You have never seen a more beautiful person.

His dark locks curled and veiled half of his eyes that seemed to hold galaxies. His voice, deep, smooth; and those pink lips? Well damn, you were a goner. You didn’t even listen to what he was saying, mouth open as you gape at this stranger.

Snapping his fingers in front of your face, he pulls you out of your daze and chuckles at your flustered expression. “Are you even listening to what I was saying, princess?” The nickname just hangs at the edge of his tongue and you wonder how someone can flirt so shamelessly, as your cheeks flush a brilliant red.

“Sorry, um, what...what did you say?” You mentally curse yourself as you bite your lips, the light pain distracting you from your embarrassment.

He laughs again, a twinkling one, melody to your ears. “I said, I’m Cai Xukun. And you are?” He asks once again, eyebrow raised, hand gesturing in a dramatic manner. Your teeth sink deeper into the chapped skin as you bite back a laugh, head bowed to hide your excitement, eyes naturally trailing to the phone in your hand, pretending to be uninterested.

Snap! A blinding flash made your head snap up. “What did you do?” You say as you stare at his polaroid, horrified.

He had insisted, laughing as he held the picture high above his head, well above your reach, that he was using the photograph for his classes, whatever that means. Of course, later when he shows you the photo album he compiled for you on your first monthsary, you knew he was lying.

After much bickering, he repeats his question. “So who are you, hmm Miss Fiesty?”

Rolling your eyes, you reply, “I’m yn. And um, excuse me, why are you even sitting here?” An eyebrow raised, you gesture at the empty seats in the cafe.

“I couldn’t give up a once in a lifetime chance to seat opposite a beautiful human.” He says, a smirk hanging at the edge of your lips. 

And that was when, with pink tinted cheek, you wanted this boy for forever.

And from that day on, the two of you were inseparable. It started with shy dates at the cafe, drinking mocha and frappes, admiring the bustling street life on the other side of the window pane. Then, finals season was over and he didn’t have an excuse to see you anymore, so he decided to take you out on a date. To the movies, to the beach, to the park, it didn’t really matter to you. The only thing you had on your mind, was that you wanted to date this boy.

It was on the ferris wheel, deep into the night, the two of you one of the last few passengers at the colourful carnival. He had pressed his face against the cool window, warm puffs of breaths causing the glass pane to fog. As you looked at his excited expressions and out of the blue exclamations, you could barely suppress a smile, softly chuckling to yourself, eyes full of love as you wonder how you could love someone so much. You had no gauge as to where you stand with him, but that didn’t stop you from gently pulling him away from the window and gently pressing a kiss on his lips.

Pulling back, eyes on the floor, cheeks heating up, you immediately regretted your impulsive action, and had no idea how he would react. A thousand possibilities ran through his mind, but him cupping your face and pulling you in for another sweet kiss certainly wasn’t the scenario you expected.

That’s how you ended up dating, and every single time he sang for you, every single time he said “I love you”, every single time he pressed his lips against your soft ones, you could feel your heart lurch, and you fall in love over, and over, and over again.

-

Kisses, are definitely a highlight in our relationship, Xukun thinks, before lightly clenching his fists, correcting himself. Kisses were a highlight in our relationship. Were. Past tense. It pulls his heartstrings and he lets out a long sigh, closing his eyes.

No matter how much he tries, he still can’t erase the memory of your lips against his, the memory of the sweet nothings blurted out between kisses, the memory of waking up next to you, the feeling of warmth radiating from you overwhelming his entire being with blissfulness.

He especially loved it when you were sleepy, completely in a daze, unable to react as he places his mouth on your skin, savouring every bit of it. 

The way you leaned into his touch, head lolling from side to side, having no energy to keep it up, was intoxicating. His hands are always finding their way to your jaw as they carefully support you. 

Tongue running over marred flesh, exploring every part of your mouth, sucking hard on your weak spots, was electrifying. 

It was like he set on you on fire, every touch of his creating sparks on your skin, lighting you up. The whimpers you let out despite drawing blood from your lips from trying so hard to be quiet, encouraged him further.

He especially enjoyed tracing your angular features with his tongue, light flicks on the jaw, a lick on the hickey he created, like an apology.

He always ended with a kiss on your forehead, smiling at how your eyelids have already fallen close.

He snapped another picture, this time, of your sleeping figure. No matter how many times you had begged, pleaded, bickered with him to burn the ugly photo, he had only pouted cutely and shook his head, slipping the photo into the album, causing you to go weak in the knees and fall victim to his antics once again.

-

He stares sadly at the last photo. That was the photo right before your fight. He was lucky enough to get a short break of about three days, and the two of you decided a day to the beach would be a perfect date.

As the waves crashed onto the sandy land, and the water glittered as it reflected the dim street lights, your fingers interlace with his as you both walk in silence, footsteps tracing the shoreline. Eventually, you two sit at the edge of the water, marvelling at the cold dark waters, enjoying the cool breeze. Snuggling into his embrace, you sighed against his neck, your stomach swirling with never ending happiness.

“Kun?” You had asked, head lifting slightly to look into his dark orbs.

“Hmmm?” He hums in reply, fingers threading your locks, pressing a gentle kiss on your forehead.

“When you go for that Super Idol competition, you won’t forget me, right?”

“Of course not princess.” He says comfortingly, lips trailing to your cheek.

“We’ll be together, forever, right?” Humming in reply, his lips trail down to your neck and you chuckle in surprise.

“Promise me?” You say, acting childishly, sticking out your pinky finger.

“I promise you.” His smooth voice flows and soothes you, as his pinky finger locked with yours.

He didn’t mean for it to be an empty promise.

-

Ever since he debuted in SWIN-S, he has been far too busy, apparently to text you or call you at all. And hurt feelings aside, you were worried about his health, his safety, which is why you decided to text him.

You were beyond pissed. All the hurt, the feeling of abandonment, the feeling of emptiness, fueled your rage and before you could tame your anger, it was flowing out of you, your fingers tapping on the screen furiously.

He threw his phone on the bed, raging and fuming, wondering why why why you just couldn’t understand that he was busy, that his work didn’t allow him to do anything else besides practice, dance and sing.

-

But the next few weeks, the laughing image of you seemed to be imprinted in his mind, always reappearing right in front of his eyes, in his mind. You cooking soup for him when he fell ill. You flying to Beijing to see him. You sending him comforting messages when you thought he was not doing well.

You had done all of that. And what did he do? All he did was give you a cold shoulder, pushing you away, so far until he pushed you over the edge and down the cliff, completely unreachable.

He had tried to call you multiple times. At first, it ringed incessantly, without anyone picking up. Then later, it was the line is engaged. Finally, the AI told him that the phone was out of service. He had tried, texting, calling, finding your number, but the results were pathetic. He had no idea where you were, and trying to find one person in China was like trying to find a needle in a haystack.

3 months ago, he gave up, realisation hitting him hard in the gut as he finally acknowledges that he had lost you completely. It wasn’t your fault. 

It was his. 

-

Sighing, he snaps the photo album shut, chucking it back to the corner of the closet. If he brought it with him, he would never successfully complete the competition.

With the help of the taxi driver, he drags his luggage towards the registration counter, and before long, the auditions came around and he got an A. 

Things weren’t going too bad. In fact, it seems like things were going better than he expected. He hadn’t thought about you once throughout the day. That’s definitely some improvement.

But all that comes crashing down, when the staff member calls her manager, saying that they have to check his luggage blah blah blah. He was in a glaring match with the staff members, arms crossed when the manager came in, sighing.

-

When his eyes met yours, it was as if it was back in the old days, and your heart lurched all over again, falling once again. But you expertly catch your heart before it crashes to the floor, smiling politely at his shocked self, telling the staff it was alright and dismissing them all.

He follows you out to the corridor, and you once again, smile politely, asking him how he was.

“Yn, stop.” His hand abruptly cuts you off and he rubs his temples.

“Can we not act like strangers?” He is almost pleading you, wanting you. Finally, after all this time, he wants you. You almost lose balance and give in to his antics, but you catch yourself, professional facade only fading for a second.

“Xukun, I’m a staff here and-”

“I tried to find you, you know? Did you read my messages? I’m, I’m really sorry yn, I, I regret everything and anything, I regret it all and I’m so so sorry. I just, I just, I can’t live without you ok? I know that sounds weak and you kind of hate that, but I really can’t. I, I

“I want us to go back and be like we used to.” His eyes are wet and tears are flowing down his cheeks, his voice and tone just pleading, and desperate, reaching out to you, about to wrench your heart out of your chest, and pull you into his never ending spiral.

“Baobei!” A staff member walks past, stopping in his tracks when he sees Xukun.

“Sorry, am I interrupting something?”

You blink back your tears and swallow hard, before turning around, a smile plastered on your face.

“Not at all.”

And you walk away from Xukun, the thin thread between the two of you stretching to a point where it can’t stretch anymore, and it snaps from the tension, hanging lamely at its torn ends.

-

And it rips Xukun apart, his crumbling figure, the only thing left.

[thotyssey]

On Point With: DJ Ten Yards

Sam Branman, the DJ third of Brooklyn nightlife monster trio Str8 to DVD, is also churning out some of the skimpiest and most fashionable Speedos on the planet (among other things). Thotyssey tries to keep up with Ten Yards!

Thotyssey: DJ, hello! Thanks for chatting with us today! First of all, OMG YOU GOT HIT BY A CAR!? How exactly did this happen, and how are you?

DJ Ten Yards: It was super fucking annoying. I was actually on my way to Annie Mae, which is Laè D Boi’s party (currently first Sundays at The Rosemont) I’m the resident DJ / video curator for, and I was literally crossing the street one block from my house and a fucking pickup truck hit me from behind! I’m mostly okay--my left arm got banged up and I’m doing PT to get that back to full fighting strength. They also destroyed my laptop! The truck actually sped off after hitting me, but I found it thanks to some nosy neighbors, and I’m starting legal proceedings. I obviously didn’t make it to the party, and went to the ER instead.

Does this bring home how terrible the world and it's people can be?

I mean, everyone who saw me get hit were super nice and helpful! I’m not letting one asshole who can’t drive ruin my worldview. even if it did jack my arm up.

That's the spirit! Will you still be making it to DragCon, if that's something you were planning to do?

Absolutely! I’m lucky in that I am able to work on jewelry and I’ve been preparing for it for months, so I have a lot of apparel no one’s seen yet ready to go! I’m at table C31, and I’m there all weekend (except Saturday morning because there’s no way I’m going directly from Str8 to DVD to DragCon, which starts at 9. My husband Erik can work that alone.)

Between your designs and your DJ’ing, there's lots to talk about, so we better start right at the beginning. Where's your hometown, and what came first: fashion or music?

I grew up mostly in Olive Bridge, NY, but I just say I’m from Woodstock because it’s the closest landmark that people who aren’t from there know. Fashion came first! I loved dressing up as a child, and I started sewing what mostly resembled actual clothing when I was 18. I had decided to go to college for photography, not fashion. But I’m a big nerd, so I’d do a few cosplay projects to wear at the anime conventions I went to every summer.

Who were you cosplaying as?

My first actual cosplay was Hirai Ken from the “Pop Star” video. There’s three of him in different colored jumpsuits, and I could sort of do the hair he has in the red one! I also did a very loose Tommy February6 (we share a birthday!), invented a fake Japanese band with friends, and Ray Watts from KMFDM / PIG / Schwein. I still wear the shirt I made for that, but the jumpsuit was sacrificed last year to become Beltane ribbons, and the others just languish in my clothing labyrinth.

And when did DJing come into the picture?

I’ve always wanted to be musical, but I’m not. I tried to learn instruments, to learn how to write music. I was briefly sort of in a band or two (I even have album credits). I am, however, a collector and very opinionated... so I can DJ! My friend DJ A-Ron’s DJing partner moved away, and he offered to show me the ropes. We did a few gigs together at Nowhere back in 2013, and I struck out on my own DJing for a few now-defunct parties around Manhattan and Brooklyn. I didn’t start the drag-DJ gig until Qhrist With a Q and Sherry Poppins asked me to do what was then 1-900-HOT-GLUE two years ago!

You met Qhrist in a nerdy chat room, right?

Yep! Eightish years ago? I helped convince Qhrist to go to Purchase, too.

Good for you! What was the rationale at the time behind creating HOT GLUE, which is now STR8 to DVD?

At the beginning, I was just helping out! They wanted to make a space for themselves and the other performers coming out of Purchase, like Maxxx Pleasure, Lindsay Blowhan, and Jenn D'Role, and I was along for the ride. I didn’t initially do any production work besides promo, letting Qhrist and Sherry stay at my place, and making sure I had everyone’s music at first. But now we all do booking / coming up with names. I’ve been the one finding our newbie performers all year long, and I convinced them to change the name to STR8 to DVD.

This has become a hugely popular night, enough so to warrant a recent move from monthly Mondays to Fridays! What have been some memorable moments for you from STR8?

Every single one of Qhrist and Sherry’s stupid, perfect, beautiful, unrehearsed duets. They’re so good together that people don’t realize how unrehearsed they are. When Sherry was still getting ready at my house with Qhris, they might listen to the song once or twice to get the words down, but that’s it! 

I’m also very fond of our massively overbooked Halloween show last year, when we all kept booking people and forgetting until it was too late. We wound up with 9 performers and 13 actual numbers. It was perfect. Half of them involved food, because we’re gross and live in Brooklyn.

That reminds me, I hear that pasta and fake blood were factors in a perilous Bushwig this summer!

I fully missed all of the mess, because of where my booth was at Bushswag! I couldn’t see shit. I made sure to see the performers I’d made clothes for, and my personal legends like Charlene, Untitled, Ragamuffin, Tyler Ashley, and Chutney Spears with that fucking snake.

Gurl, that snake! So STR8 is turning 2 this Friday at Gold Sounds ... what's in store for the anniversary?

STUPIDITY! I’m glad we’re leaning into being irredeemable and canceled. Qhrist already has to redo the flyer because one performer canceled, we forgot we booked one performer, and Lindsay Blowhan is coming all the way up from Virginia for it, and we should probably have her perform? I guess? It’s not like she’s Sherry’s daughter and performed at our first, like, six shows or anything. 

We’ve got Sandy Devastation who made her debut at STR8 to DVD, Papusa Smear who made their debut with us, and Kaey Kiel, a nice cabaret singer and journalist from Berlin who doesn’t deserve to deal with any of this! She’s staying with my husband and her dream is to perform in New York, so we’re making all her dreams come true.

Another monthly (third Saturdays, in this case) you've been DJing, Emi Grate's “A+: The Asian Revue,” has also recently had it's own (1st) anniversary, and has moved to The Monster in the West Village. What has it been like, being a part of that?

It’s super fun! Emi is so fucking on top of every detail. She sends out a multi-page email with every piece of information you could ever want, she has the lineup a month in advance sometimes, and the show is at a reasonable hour! Never underestimate how great it is to leave the gig at 10pm and still be able to go out afterwards... or even just go home, have dinner, and go to bed. Because of the way Gold Sounds is set up, I don’t actually do much DJ work if there aren’t drag queens on stage. But with A+ (and Annie Mae), I spend a significant amount of time actually DJing. That’s always fun. For both those shows, I play exclusively Jpop and Kpop (and would happily take suggestions for fun pop and dance music from throughout Asia! A cute boy suggested some Hindi pop songs at the most recent A+)

And the next “Annie Mae” is October 7 at the Rosemont! That's a super geeky celebration of genre fan culture that Laé D. Boi produces. That must be right up your ally!

It is! I always choose anime movies or TV shows to screen during the party on top of DJing! This month the theme is Studio Ghibli, so I think I’m gonna be playing Princess Mononoke, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and either Pompoko or Lupin III: Castle of Cagliostro. I’m pretty sure Sherry Poppins will bring one of her swords, too.

So, your Ten Yards clothing line is all the rage! The sexy and colorful speedos are especially in demand! How did this come about?

I wanted to make bathing suits--made a few for myself. And then it felt like suddenly people started asking me to make them suits, and now here I am! A local bathing suit mogul. It’s been over four years, and all it took was saying “Sure, I can do that.” and then figuring it out.

How long does it take you to make a speedo now?

My first few took time, but I’m a fucking wizard now. Obviously with my arm it’s hard right now, but I can make a speedo from start to finish in about 35 minutes. Jockstraps are 27 minutes if I go at full speed!

And now you’re bringing us jewelry as well!

You can thank my mom for the jewelry! She made it all in the 80’s and early 90’s. I’m just the refurbishing squad. I’m actually photographing it right now, so I have a record of it, because most of it’s totally unique and once it is gone, it’s gone.

And much-belated congratulations on having your Fashions nominated for a Brooklyn Nightlife Award a few months back.

It was amazing to be nominated, and I knew I would lose to Florence or Diego because they’re both powerhouses! Luckily, Florence moved to Manhattan, so I have an entire year to snatch that brick from Diego’s beautiful and talented hands.

Another thing to congratulate you on: being happily married! That may sound trite, but finding true love in the nightlife biz is damn hard. What’s your secret?

So, part of it is that we don’t live together, so I’m usually not disturbing him when I come home at 4am. And when we have problems, we talk it out! Erik’s also a lovely angel who supports me no matter what. He helps out whenever I have to sell shit, and buys fabric and zippers even if it makes him nervous. But he has a day job, so he’s only been able to come to three of my gigs in the five and a half years we’ve been together.

I also wasn’t working in nightlife when we met! That probably helps, too. He’s been there every step of the way as I’ve made the switch into nightlife and fashion design.

Okay, do you have anything else you wanna plug or discuss before I ask the closer?

Nah, just a schedule recap for people who get lost in my rambling! STR8 To DVD: CANCELED is at Gold Sounds (44 Wilson Ave) on 9/28, we have shows at Midnight, and it costs $5-10. I’ll be at table C31 during DragCon (that’s the 28-30th at the Javits, ugh), Annie Mae: Ghibli is at The Rosemont on 10/07, and is free, I’ll be there at 10:30 to start the movies! See you there!

Finally: who would you really love to see in one of your speedos?

Anyone who wants a pair! But I wouldn’t say no to some Instagram thots with 30k+ followers, so long as they tag me.

Thanks, Ten!

Check Thotyssey’s calendar for DJ Ten Yards’ upcoming gigs, and follow him on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

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