#i may have just upgraded my phone Purely so that i can take better pictures abdhbfjsjs

[uwooyoungs]

yall 11 days til i see ateez at kcon i-

[gukyi]

midas | jjk

summary: jeon jungkook was born with a silver spoon in his mouth and the power to turn whatever he wants into pure gold. you were born with healing and invisibility powers but without a cent to your name. so when you’re plucked off of the streets for pickpocketing and assigned to be his minder as punishment, you realize you’re going to have to overcome a lot more than class differences if either of you are going to get what you want.

{enemies to lovers!au, ceo!au, magical realism!au}

pairing: jeon jungkook x female reader genre: fluff, comedy, angst word count: 32k (my hand slipped) warnings: alcohol consumption (brief), mentions of bruising and injuries, characters being emotionally constipated and afraid of commitment, your usual guyi e2l lineup a/n: finally!! oh god this fic took forever to write and just kept getting longer and longer. remember when i overestimated the wc by saying 25k-30k? yikes. anyway, i hope you all enjoy this monster! nothing says gukyi like a jk e2l fic, am i right?

The best time to be on the streets is just past noon on weekdays and eleven o’clock on Sunday mornings. When every working professional is out on their lunch break or weekend brunch, basking in the nice weather by choosing to fill up every outdoor dining area available to them. When they plop their bags, their purses and totes, on the chairs opposite them or onto the pavement beside them, thinking that the plastic fence that guards them will be enough to deter pickpockets and thieves. 

Unluckily for them, they usually fail to consider the prospect of someone invisible swooping in to steal the bills from their wallets, a nondescript force reaching into their purse as they stare down at their phones while they eat, forkfuls of to-go salads and pasta dishes stuffed into their mouths. 

Pickpocketing is a skill that the most desperate learn and the shameless master. Normally, people work in teams, one person to distract and the other to fish for the wallet, grabbing the cash and credit cards before tossing it onto the sidewalk and disappearing without a trace. If you wanted to be especially good at it, you would have to be able to complete the entire thing in less than thirty seconds, in the time it takes for people to switch trains in the subway stations. 

But when you work alone, you don’t get that luxury.

But you suppose that the higher powers above, whatever they may be, are relatively benevolent, because in exchange for your prickly personality, you were blessed with the gift of being invisible. 

Unfortunately, that’s something that you don’t need magic to feel. 

The truth is that it’s always been easy to ignore a girl who has no family, no friends, and no money. Living isn’t the hard part, living with purpose is. Nobody wants to pay any attention to someone who has nothing, literally nothing, to offer in return. At least, nobody interesting. 

The only times when you ever feel truly at peace are when you’re sleeping, and when you’re walking down the streets of the city, letting the rest of the world pass you by without sparing you a second glance. You’ve never been one desperate to stick out, to make an impression. Never been someone that people stop to do a double take at when they walk past you. Strange as it sounds, you love the feeling of being insignificant. It is, in a way, liberating. 

So far today you’ve hauled eighty dollars and a subway card from the wallet of some poor tourist standing outside of a bakery looking at a map the size of Jupiter. Some people you feel particularly bad about robbing, but a bald man with dad sunglasses and a fanny pack isn’t one of them. Besides, being pickpocketed is a classic tourist experience. You’re actually doing him a favor. Something to check off of his bucket list. 

You stow away the money and the card into your pocket, bills folded neatly into your raggedy jeans, rips and holes lining the fabric not for fashion, but from wear alone. You’ll make a mental note to buy yourself a croissant or something later. A treat to reward yourself for all of the hard work you’re putting in today. You’ll be able to pay off your phone bill for the next month with this money.

When the lunch breaks are over, you’ll probably retire to your bed and wallow in self-pity for a little before returning for the dinner rush. Having no life is a constant job, and you don’t even get any legally-mandated breaks to keep you going. Every moment you aren’t on the streets is another moment you aren’t making any money. It’s sort of like being a salesman, which, if you think about it, is just a legal way to rob people. When have salespeople ever sold something of real value?

With the eighty dollars on your mind, you start to scope out nice bakeries on your route, coffee shop signs and pastries on display in the window, looking for a nice place to settle down and buy yourself something sweet. Seeing as you live off of Campbell’s soups and bread from dollar stores, anything is an upgrade. 

You walk a couple more blocks before stumbling upon one of those picture-perfect bakeries, with pristinely decorated cupcakes and cakes lining the window display. You can tell that this place is good because there’s a line out the door and a little seating area that is packed to the brim. However, you are currently invisible, which doesn’t accommodate purchasing goods particularly well, but you make a mental note to return to the bakery a little later when people can actually see you. As if you’d ever turn right here, in front of all of these people. 

While you’re here, you decide to snoop around the line and the outdoor seating area to see if anybody strikes your fancy. Everyone standing either has their bag on their shoulder or their wallets gripped tightly between their fingers, so that’s off the table. But, there is one woman wearing a massive wide-brimmed hat and sunglasses as she chows down on a pink strawberry cupcake, her Louis Vuitton tote bag sitting a good two inches away from her, possibly even out of her periphery. 

Bullseye. 

There’s never a need to be stealthy when you’re already invisible, so you trot over, eyeing the woman to make sure that she can’t see anything in front of her. She doesn’t seem to be paying any attention, so you quickly reach down into her bag, a close watch on her gaze, hand fishing around amongst the receipts and the lipsticks and hand sanitizer until you feel her leather wallet. Nimble fingers fumble with the zipper until the tips come into contact with the crisp dollar bills, which you quickly nick and stuff into your pocket, bounding off without a trace. 

Halfway down the block, you surreptitiously glance at your haul—two hundred dollars!

That’ll be enough to last you and your phone bill for the next three months, at least. 

You’re so busy mentally applauding yourself for your pickpocketing skills that you don’t notice someone standing right in front of you. At least, you don’t notice until you crash into them, the surprise forcing you to turn. 

You sputter out an apology, hoping that whoever it is you’ve nearly run over isn’t observant enough to notice that the currently-visible thing they bumped into was previously invisible, and that’s when you notice exactly who it is that you’ve collided with. 

It’s the woman from the bakery, Louis Vuitton bag and everything. And she’s staring you down like there’s no tomorrow, arms crossed over her middle-aged chest as she sends daggers at you. Oh, you’re so fucked. 

“Sorry?” You say unhelpfully, already knowing the direction of this conversation. This woman wouldn’t be sending you a death glare if she didn’t already know who you are. They definitely did this just to trap you, set you up like a mouse and a cheese trap. 

“Don’t play stupid, Y/N,” she orders. “You must already know why I’m here.”

“I was hoping you’d let me off the hook?” You say guiltily, her hand already wrapping tightly around your wrists as she handcuffs you, sharp metal pressing against your wrists. One wriggle and you know that there’s no magicking yourself out of these. They think of everything, they do.

“Tell that to the courts,” she snaps, effectively shutting you up as she drags you away, money digging a hole in your pocket as you begin to envision yourself six feet under. You’re as good as dead, caught red-handed.

Well, life was good while it lasted. At least you might never have to have Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup anymore. 

There’s no such thing as an attorney in the Realm. No such thing as a fair trial (even if they say there is), no such thing as defense and prosecution. No grand juries, no crowds, no sketch artist. Just a judge with a stick up his ass and a punishment to be delivered. You’re either guilty or a liar. 

And you’re rather good at being both. 

“The charge is as follows,” says the burly man at the head of the makeshift courtroom, reading off of a piece of parchment like it’s 1433 and the printing press hasn’t been invented yet. “Burglary, possession of illegally-gained goods, and petty theft.” Because charging you for burglary alone wasn’t enough, apparently. You have a sneaking suspicion that they invented the other two charges just so they could have more to punish you for. “Does the defendant have anything they wish to say?”

“Don’t you guys have anything better to do with your lives?” You ask with a dramatic sigh, having already resigned yourself to your fate. “Like, you could be playing golf round after golf round instead of sitting here, charging an orphan girl with no money.”

“This is my job,” says the burly man. Clearly he has never done anything fun in his entire life. 

“Also, stealing is my only crime, right? So do you really need to punish me like I’ve murdered someone?”

“You burglarized a Realm Leader,” he deadpans. As if Realm Leaders really wear wide-brimmed hats, sunglasses, and carry around a three-thousand dollar Louis Vuitton bag on their days off. 

“You set me up,” you accuse. Might as well go out swinging. “What if I charge you for lying, huh? How will you be punished?”

“Anything else?”

“Fuck you,” you spit. 

The burly man sighs, thinks about the potential verdict for approximately two seconds, and says, “The court finds the defendant guilty of all three charges. Sentencing will now be arranged.”

Big whoop. You could sniff out your ’guilty’ verdict from three miles away, knowing that the Realm takes plenty of pride in charging its constituents for whatever crime that they can invent. You slouch back in your chair as the judge and his heartless buddies discuss your punishment. You suppose that being jailed might not be too bad—you’d always have meals and a place to sleep, even if you would have to give up magic in return. And community service would also be alright. You’d be fine with cleaning up the expressway that runs through the city, though knowing the Realm, they’d probably put you up to some stupidly dangerous magical task. And at this point, death seems rather inviting, and would solve everybody’s problems because they wouldn’t have to deal with you and you wouldn’t have to deal with them anymore. 

The judge coughs, summoning the bare minimum of your attention. “The court has reached a sentencing decision for the convicted. We are offering you two options, of which you may choose one.”

Right, like you’d willingly volunteer for both punishments. 

“You may either be sentenced to serve time in the Realm Penitentiary for six months with the possibility of parole after four, or conduct supervised community service until the task at hand has been completed. Please select which option you would like.”

It’s like asking you to choose between being given one hundred dollars or having to pay one hundred dollars. What does the Realm think people will pick? Do they really think anyone in their right mind would choose to be jailed, forbidden to use their magic, and then let the Realm trick them into thinking parole is really an option, over some measly community service?

“Community service,” you say gruffly. 

“Excellent,” the judge says, writing something with a quill and ink because apparently, ballpoint pens are too complicated. “Your community service will be supervised by a Realm Leader with visionary powers, so you will not need to meet with them in order to discuss your progress, nor will they watch you in person.” And they said that crystal balls aren’t real. 

“What do I have to do?” You ask. Knowing them, it’ll probably be something like scrubbing all of the toilets in the Penitentiary, or going deep into the Amazonian forest to collect some magical sap or fighting off a magical beast. Something that could serve as a death sentence, or at least be extremely unpleasant, in the hopes that it’ll get you off of their backs. 

“The court will be assigning you as a minder to correct the ways of another mage,” the judge states. 

A minder? 

So, your community service is that you have to be a glorified magickal babysitter?

Well. It could be worse. 

“Alright, fine,” you say, though it’s not like you have a choice one way or another. Where was your minder? Why weren’t you assigned one, instead of just being hauled off by an undercover Realm leader to be sentenced for the same crime three times over? “Who will I be assigned to?”

The judge looks down at the parchment in front of him through his tiny old man glasses, and says, “Jeon Jungkook.”

Huh?

Jeon Jungkook lives on the top floor of an apartment complex the size of the Empire State Building and worth more than your entire life. There are ceiling-to-floor windows that span the entire perimeter of the penthouse, a whole security team in the lobby vetting every single person that walks through the automatic glass doors, and an elevator with a touch-screen instead of buttons. It sickens you, the fact that some people can live like this. The fact that some people have known only this world as their entire life, and have not once glanced the other way. 

Getting to Jeon Jungkook’s front door isn’t the hard part. The Realm gave you succinct instructions and permission to use your powers whenever necessary throughout the whole thing, two things more than you thought they would. It’s easy to slide by the big buff security guards when they can’t see you. Easy to turn in the comfort and privacy of the elevator, easy to figure out which door is his when he’s the only person who lives on the top floor. 

The hard part is getting there without feeling like you’re way in over your head. Getting Jeon Jungkook to stop abusing his powers will be no easy feat. He’s rich, powerful, and spits on people like you, people who are not either of those things. Not to mention the fact that if he really wanted to, he could just turn you to gold and set you up in his penthouse like a statue, frozen in time. 

For once, the only thing that makes you feel a little bit better is the Realm. They’ve handed you a strict order that neither you nor he can magic your way out of, lined with stipulations and regulations and requirements that both of you will follow or so help you God. If Jeon Jungkook doesn’t comply, he, his company, and his reputation are done for. 

So at least there’s that. 

Jeon Jungkook’s front door is made of a deep mahogany brown and about thirteen feet tall, towering over you just to serve as a reminder that he can pretty much afford to buy out the entire city if necessary. You feel like an ant in comparison, an insignificant little thing, no money, no power, no nothing. 

A fluorescent doorbell light flashes beside the door frame. 

The sound echoes throughout the hallway you’re standing in, a classic ding-dong noise that reverberates across the walls. 

“Coming!” A voice from inside calls. Is Jungkook expecting someone?

You quickly make any last minute efforts to look as presentable as possible—well, as presentable as someone who lives in a dilapidated, abandoned house at the edge of the city can be—before the door opens. 

For someone who’s got money to burn, Jeon Jungkook sure as hell doesn’t look like it. He’s wearing an oversized button down that hangs loose by his thighs, ripped jeans, and a pair of charcoal grey socks, like he got home from work five hours ago and decided to change into whatever feels most comfortable. 

“Oh, good, I called and they said that you would be another twenty minutes,” Jungkook says, breathing out a sigh of relief. “Let me go grab my wallet, you can just set the pizza down on the counter.”

“Uh, I’m not—”

Jungkook rushes off down one of the fifteen different hallways that branch off of the main living room, leaving you stranded as you wander into his massive abode. Windows line the walls, giving you a perfect view of the city below you, twinkling lights of skyscrapers as people slowly leave their offices and return home. His kitchen alone is double the size of where you live. How can one person possibly take up all of this space? Doesn’t it ever get lonely?

You wait awkwardly besides the counter, which is pizza-less, until Jungkook returns, a shiny black wallet between his fingers as he fumbles for some cash. And normally, you have zero qualms stealing from the rich and giving to the poor (aka, yourself), but seeing as he thinks you’re providing a service, you have the compassion to feel at least a little bit bad. 

Jungkook stops when he notices the bare countertop. “Uh,” he begins with a frown, “where’s the pizza?”

“I’m not the pizza delivery guy,” you explain hesitantly. You don’t suppose Jungkook would have opened the door otherwise. 

“Then where is the pizza delivery guy?” He asks, like you somehow know. 

“I don’t know,” you tell him. Was an interrogation supposed to be a part of this?

“Who are you?”

“I’m Y/N,” you say, hesitant to touch anything except the floor for fear that you will either dirty or break something and then spend the rest of your life trying to pay back the damages. “I’m your minder.”

“What?” Jungkook scrunches up his nose in disgust. “I never asked for a minder.”

“Well, you’ve been assigned one anyway,” you say with a frown. To be fair, it’s not like you expected this to be easy.

“That’s ridiculous,” Jungkook dismisses, already making his way to the door to shoo you off into the night, like he probably does with all of his problems. “I don’t need a minder. I’m fine.”

You look over his shoulder, noticing the flecks of golden accents that line his house, the golden teapots on shelves, picture frames hung up on the wall. Even the rods that hold up the massive satin curtains are gold. There isn’t so much gold to be garish and kitschy, like a teenager who can’t control what he touches, but enough to assert that he’s either wealthy or gifted, or in his case: both. 

“That really sucks, because I’m still your minder,” you tell him, refusing to budge. Jungkook can’t possibly imagine he’ll somehow be able to get out of this. Not when the law is working against him.

“Says who?” Jungkook spits back. 

“The Realm,” you tell him rudely, manifesting the agreement the Realm had given you to force Jungkook into accepting. The parchment is laid out on the countertop, curling up at the edges, black ink written neatly on top of it. He glares at it suspiciously, as if he’s suspected that you forged it. When you make no efforts to explain yourself further, he takes a hesitant step forward, eyes narrowing in on the parchment sitting in front of the both of you. In pitch black ink, loopy calligraphy, it says this:

As recommended and required by the Realm, its leaders, and its government, the recipient, Jeon Jungkook is to be assigned a minder, whose duty is to watch over him, regulate his use of magic, and work towards decreasing his magical activity. 

This minder is being assigned as a result of misuse of magic by the recipient, either by abuse or from the intent to inflict harm upon mages or non-magic users. The Realm decrees that all mages who disobey the laws that govern society either be reformed or punished. 

This minder must ensure that the recipient makes progress towards decreasing his magical activity by indefinitely accompanying and supervising him for every hour of the day. This minder’s term will expire once they have achieved their goal of decreasing the recipient’s use of magic and ensuring that abuse of it does not reoccur. 

Should the recipient disobey this proclamation in any form, including vandalism, ignorance, or rejection, he will be brought to court and sentenced to jail accordingly. 

Jungkook seems to read the parchment for about five seconds before crumpling it up in his hands and tossing it into the trash bin by the edge of the counter. 

“Absolutely not,” he scoffs. “I do not need a minder. I don’t know what The Realm told you but I have no problem with my powers and your services are not required. There was probably some sort of mistake.”

As if. The paper says his name. Jungkook’s almost as bad at violating the rules of the Realm as you are. 

“Uh—” you begin again, but Jungkook is already shooing you out of his penthouse, flicking you away like an animal that’s gotten too close. You find yourself backing up furiously in a desperate attempt to not be trampled by him and his oversized button-down and intimidating death glare, until you’re a foot out of his apartment. 

“Maybe you can go bother someone else instead,” he suggests unhelpfully, before slamming the door in your face. 

You stand there for a few more seconds, face to face with the dark mahogany wood. The bright side is that, even if Jungkook only read the first paragraph of the decree and then tossed it into his recycling bin, there’s no escaping the Realm. You have half a mind to just bugger off and let him face the consequences of his own actions. You can picture it in your head: Realm officers barging into his place of work and arresting him on the spot for consciously disregarding an order of the Realm. That might satiate you for a while. 

Resigning yourself to the fact that if you knock on Jungkook’s door and politely suggest that he pull the parchment out from the trash and read the whole thing will probably not go down particularly well, you turn, letting your body vanish before you, before making your way back to the elevator. The pizza delivery guy arrives just as you reach it, letting you easily slide past him as he goes to make Jungkook’s day a little better by being an expected guest rather than an unwarranted visitor. 

Jungkook may not have agreed to this today (not that he has a choice in the matter), but there’s always tomorrow. 

Passing by the security, who spare no second glance at the fact that the automatic glass doors have just opened seemingly by themselves, you turn left when you reach the sidewalk and head home. 

Home is a janky abandoned house at the very edge of the city, where the buildings meet train tracks and old highways, graffiti decorating every open surface within a five-mile radius. It’s not so much a house as it is a shack, old and rickety and forgotten. You think that the locals and the nons believe the place is haunted, since no one ever comes within one hundred feet of the entrance, the broken glass in the windows and big red spray-painted X on the door deterring most folks. 

People who invite you into their houses and say, “it’s not much, but it’s home,” are such liars. For as long as you have lived here, this place has never felt like home. You never come back from a long day and think, ah, home sweet home. You will never dream of wasting away within these walls. That’s a death sentence. 

You enter through the back door, ducking your head low to avoid hitting it on the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling by a wire or two. You’re not electrically-proficient enough to know how to fix it yourself so it’s less of a fire hazard, and you don’t have nearly enough money to call anyone to come repair it, so there it stays. It still works, though, and you use it in a pinch when you can’t see where you’re stepping. 

There’s a small pile of folded clothing on the floor by the mattress, the remnants of a past life that feels more like an alternate universe than it does part of your history. The fridge doesn’t work, nor do most of the utilities, but the little stack of Campbell’s soup cans on the countertop is reliable and unchanging. As is the fact that you will probably never get out of this dump, so long as you shall live.

When you were little, you used to dream of living in a big castle, and wanting for nothing. You would have people to cook for you, clean for you, dress you, bathe you, entertain you. All of these stories about being a little princess, doted on and loved by all, innocent and pure and beautiful. All of these stories about finding Prince Charming, meeting the love of your life as waltzes into your life on a gorgeous white horse, getting married, having kids, and growing old together. You dreamed of a perfect life, a perfect love, where you never have to worry about anything, where no one is ever mean or rude, no government to dictate what you do. 

It’s no wonder all of those stories were simply fairy tales. 

It makes you even angrier when you think about Jeon Jungkook. He’s lived a life as close to perfection as possible, born with a silver spoon in his mouth and a silver platter placed in front of him. He’s grown up with people adoring him, telling him he can do no wrong, rewarding him with a brand new toy when he gets in trouble, teaching him that his powers are for himself first and for other people next to you. Not much is fair in the world, but especially not the fact that he was bestowed with the gift of being able to turn whatever he wishes into gold. 

He is everybody’s Prince Charming: wealthy, handsome, powerful. Too bad you aren’t a princess anymore.

Strangely enough, even after a long day, you aren’t feeling at all hungry. The scent of the pizza Jungkook had ordered to his door was enough to satisfy you, a warm feeling settling in the pit of your stomach. Normally, this late at night, you might even be daring (or sleep-deprived) enough to break into one of your precious ramen packs, but instead you collapse onto the mattress, heavy heart willing you fast asleep, the light flickering above your head. 

The next day you are faced with a choice: leave Jungkook alone and let him deal with the repercussions of his actions on his own (much to your delight), or go back and continue pestering him until he agrees to having a minder (much to your chagrin). 

A new parchment has manifested itself on the counter, words copied from the one Jungkook threw out before your eyes. It shimmers, almost as if there’s a golden halo that surrounds it, another trick that the Realm has up its sleeve. You have a feeling that this one won’t be as easily ripped, crumpled up to be tossed into the nearest trash bin. It terrifies you—how closely they watch. You suppose that it was only a matter of time before they caught you. 

Quite frankly, you’re shocked it took them this long to realize you were a serial pickpocketer in the first place. 

As much as you’d love to see Jungkook get arrested and tried for defying the rules of the Realm, see his face plastered all over the newspapers and tabloids with stupid headlines like JEON JUNGKOOK: CRIMINAL? and ARRESTED FOR HAVING TOO MUCH MONEY?, and count it as a personal win, letting that happen would mean that you would have failed to do your court-ordered community service, which is a one-way ticket to prison. 

So even if Jeon Jungkook was the grouchiest, greediest, cockiest person in the entire world (which, judging by what you know about him, he probably is), and even though you would happily let his career and reputation plummet, you don’t have a choice. The two of you will either go down together or not at all. 

Resigning yourself to the fact that you will have to be within close proximity to Jeon Jungkook for the foreseeable future, you rally yourself out of bed, tugging on what you deem to be your nicest clothes and splashing your face clean. The rags you have on are probably worth a cent of what Jungkook wears on a daily basis, crisp suits and silver watches and golden earrings. He could spit on you and that would increase your net worth. But surprisingly enough, there is something empowering about the fact that Jeon Jungkook will no longer be able to ignore the plight of those in a lower class than him. Not when he, a person who has everything, will be forced to reckon with you, someone who has nothing. 

It’s easy to find your way to Jungkook’s place of employment. It’s this enormous skyscraper with his name in a golden serif font above the entryway, marking the entire building as his own. It isn’t garish and ugly, per se, but it definitely makes a statement. This, combined with the cool, chic design of his penthouse apartment, redeems him a little. At least he has taste for someone with money to burn like fireworks. 

There are two massive security guards and a whole squad of receptionists standing guard inside the building’s lobby, dressed pristinely and narrowing their eyes at anybody who dares enter. You wait across the street for a few minutes, loitering outside of a coffee shop and trying to avoid having people bump into you, watching. The only people that seem to be worthy of entering are wearing suits and dresses that cost more than what your abandoned house could sell for on the market after being restored, nodding their hellos to the security guards and receptionists as they press the elevator buttons and disappear into the building. You and your thrifted blouse would be laughed out in an instant. 

Lucky for you, you happen to have a rather foolproof method of getting yourself through those doors, and it mostly involves the fact that nobody can even see you. 

You rush across the road at the next green light and wait until you see someone heading in, the grand glass doors automatically opening when they register someone’s presence. It’s easy to slip in undetected, and you hang around in the lobby, secretly judging every single person that walks in after you. You could, quite honestly, spend all day in here, watching the receptionists tap away at their keyboards with robotic efficiency, answering calls left and right and fielding all sorts of questions from folks entering. It’s a world you have never dared step into, a world filled with wealth and power and class hierarchy, with Jeon Jungkook sitting on a pile of money at the very top of the pyramid. 

Some of the people that work in this building will never in their entire lifetime get the chance to speak with him. They will come in, day after day, working for someone who they have no personal relationship to, someone that they will never be afforded the chance to meet. 

Those people are, in your opinion, dodging a bullet. 

If only your life was as kind to you. 

A nervous young man walks in, clearly more out-of-place than anyone else. He seems to have barely bypassed security, flashing some sort of pass that lets him through the doors, but if a breeze came blowing through the lobby, he’d topple right over. He stumbles towards the receptionist desk, all of whom have phones to their ears as they furiously type on their keyboards. One woman holds up a hand, making him freeze in place. If he grinds his teeth any more they’ll all fall out before he even gets a chance to speak. 

It’s another two minutes before the lady puts the phone down and says, “How can I help you?”

“I’m—I’m, uh—I’m here for a meeting,” the man fumbles out. You’re embarrassed for him. 

“With who?” The woman asks, peering over the glasses resting on her pointy nose. She begins to look over the list of people who have meetings. It must be a rather extensive list. 

“Mr—Mr. Jeon, ma’am,” the man sputters. 

She looks doubtful. “Your name?”

“K-Kim…” he begins, staring down at his feet, “Kim Taehyung.”

“And your business with Mr. Jeon is?”

“I’m—uh, well, I’m a photographer for… for an article being written about him by F-Forbes,” he explains rather helplessly. He must have superb photography skills to make up for his extreme nervousness. You’ll be surprised if he makes it all the way to Jeon Jungkook’s office without wetting his pants out of fear. 

The lady hums to herself, looking suspicious until she finds the man’s name on her list. “Mr. Jeon’s office is on the top floor. Make two lefts and then a right. You will have to wait to be called.”

“Thank you v-very much.” He scurries towards the elevator, and you strike while the iron is hot. 

Rushing over, you manage to squeeze into the elevator right before the doors close, waiting patiently in the corner as the man tries to calm himself down, doing some sort of breathing exercise. Well, he’s got plenty of time to put his nerves aside, seeing as this building has seventy floors and Jeon Jungkook is apparently at the very top of them all. You feel bad for him, in a way. Jeon Jungkook was rude and unapologetically uncouth when you spoke to him, even if an aura of professionalism and extremely good social skills surrounds him at all times, and you don’t cower in fear at the sight of him. 

There’s no telling what he’ll be like when Taehyung walks into his office. 

One tense elevator ride later, the both of you arrive at the seventy-fifth floor, the silver doors opening to reveal a busy office space filled with people near the very top of the building’s pyramid. People like his secretary and accountants and managers, people who come into direct contact with Jeon Jungkook every day from nine to five. In a way, you pity these people for having to deal with him, but it’s not like you’ll be any different. 

Taehyung rushes out and you make sure to follow before the elevator doors crush you, following the receptionist’s instructions. Two lefts and a right. 

Jungkook’s office, much like his apartment, is not hard to miss. His name is written on a plaque on the door, and a guard stands outside with a clipboard, regulating everybody who passes in and out of the room. The walls that surround him are glass but he keeps the blinds drawn permanently, so that no one has the pleasure of seeing his face while they work tirelessly to impress him. Taehyung gives his name to the man, who checks him off on the paper on his clipboard before entering the room. 

“Sir, your 12:30 is here,” the guard says. 

Taehyung looks about ready to pass out. 

“Let them in,” Jungkook’s voice bellows in response. The man nods to Taehyung, who trembles where he stands, twiddling his thumbs like there’s no tomorrow. He shuffles in awkwardly and the door shuts behind him. Luckily, the walls are sound-proof. 

The thirty minutes of waiting is agony. You have nothing to do but rehearse in your head how this next conversation is going to go down, the scroll burning a hole in your back pocket. If Jungkook was displeased at best to see you in his apartment, you can only imagine the horror on his face when he sees you’ve infiltrated his workplace as well. Especially since you don’t have even a fraction of the money and power needed to enter the building on more professional terms. 

The good news is that, no matter what Jungkook says, no matter how many times he kicks you out of his penthouse and his skyscraper, he has no choice but to accept the deal, regardless of how long it will take for him to realize this. You never thought you’d ever be relying on the Realm to carry you through a predicament, and nor did you ever think you’d be doing their bidding, and yet, here you are. 

The door opens at one o’clock on the dot. 

“Th-thank you so much for your time again, Mr. Jeon,” Taehyung says, bowing profusely as he heads out. “I really appreciate it, you—you won’t regret it, I promise, thank you again!” You quickly rush towards the door, even making to hold it slightly open for Taehyung as he heaps his thanks on top of Jungkook. In the split second it takes for Taehyung to let the door go and for it to shut, you slip inside. 

“Finally,” Jungkook huffs out to himself, hand rubbing against his forehead. He’s not wearing a suit like you had expected, rather, a silken button-down shirt and tailored slacks. He doesn’t even have a tie. 

Well, you suppose that being your own boss has its perks. 

Jungkook’s stomach growls. “Fuck, I’m hungry.” He presses a button on the phone in his office. “I’m taking my hour lunch break now,” Jungkook informs the person on the other end. “Put all of my meetings on hold until two o’clock and not a moment earlier.”

He hangs up the phone and runs his hands through his hair, neatly straightened and styled. You hate to admit it, but there’s no wonder the man has captured the hearts of people all over the city. He’s rather good looking, the flecks of gold scattered around his office complementing his swirling brown eyes, making them look like caramel instead of cocoa. You have a hunch that, in the eyes of the general public, unattractive people instantly become good-looking the moment that they acquire wealth, power, fame, or all three, but Jeon Jungkook doesn’t need any of those things for people to think he’s beautiful. To him, they’re just bonuses. 

He turns around for a moment to look for something, probably to fish his phone out of the pocket of his jacket, and you turn. Nothing says hello like magically manifesting yourself in his office. 

“Jesus fu—!” Jungkook practically jumps out of his skin when he sees you. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I’m your minder,” you explain again. 

“I told you I don’t need a goddamn minder,” Jungkook spits out, turning around again just so he doesn’t have to see your face. “Get out.”

“Sorry, no can do,” you say, rocking back and forth on your feet. “Realm’s orders.”

“Fuck the Realm,” Jungkook says. “I don’t need a minder. Your services are unnecessary. Now get out, before I call security.”

You purse your lips. “You may want to think twice about that.” With a flourish, you whip out the scroll, a golden yellow glow still surrounding the parchment, handing it to Jungkook like a Christmas cracker. He snatches it out of your hand and unfurls it. “You should probably read the whole thing this time. It won’t rip like the last one.”

Jungkook glares at the paper like it’s ruined his life—which, judging by his attitude, it probably has—as he scans over the words, scowl worsening with every second that passes. 

“You shouldn’t frown like that, it’s not a good look on you,” you chide. At least Jungkook knows that there’s no bribing his way out of this one. 

“I told you I don’t need a minder,” he says again like it hasn’t already been made abundantly clear. 

“Well, I didn’t want to be assigned to you, but unfortunately, it looks like neither of us are going to get what we want,” you retort. “It’s this or prison, Jeon. You pick.”

“Why the fuck were you assigned to me, then?” Jungkook asks, rounding on you. “What are your powers?”

“Healing and invisibility,” you spit out. Not nearly as glamorous or lucrative as his own, but they come with their own benefits. For example, the ability to infiltrate high-level, upper class places of employment. “Maybe they thought I’d make a good babysitter since those are two skills often used with children,” you tell him pointedly. 

“I don’t need a minder,” Jungkook repeats for the umpteenth time. “I don’t misuse my magic or abuse my powers.”

“Uh,” you point out, an eyebrow raised skeptically, “I think I’d like to beg to differ.” There’s more gold in this room than miners probably found in San Francisco in the nineteenth century. The fact that nons haven’t noticed the abundance of it in his office is outrageous to you. How else do they think he and his family built up this empire?

“Please,” Jungkook says with a frown. “As if we don’t all use our powers for our own benefit. Huh? What did you do that was so terrible that you had to be assigned as my minder?”

“I pickpocket,” you explain economically. No point in sugar-coating it. Jungkook has probably already figured out you don’t come from nearly as much money as he does. “And I got caught.”

“Sucks,” Jungkook comments callously. 

“Sucks for you, too,” you fire back. “You got caught as well. Agree to the terms or go to jail, Jeon Jungkook. I don’t care. But don’t say I didn’t try to help.”

You stand there in silence for a few more seconds, letting your words dissipate into the air, sinking into the ground. Jeon Jungkook seems to have this furious battle within himself, brows furrowing as he rubs at his chin, pacing back and forth behind his desk. He knows he doesn’t have a choice. He goes to jail and his reputation is soiled. The Realm repossesses all that he has made of himself and he must start from scratch under their ruthlessly watchful eye. There will be no recovery. Only survival. 

Or, he deals with you for a couple of months until the Realm is satisfied with the both of you, and you both go on your merry way, never having to see each other again. 

You know what you’d pick if you were in his shoes. 

“Fine,” Jungkook spits out, pointing an accusing finger your way. “But you are to be invisible whenever we are in public, and that includes here.”

“Done. But you have to decrease your turning otherwise we’ll be stuck with each other forever,” you negotiate. “I’ll also have to come and live with you. Can you handle that, or are you too ashamed to have someone else inside your home?”

Jungkook scoffs. “I live in a penthouse the size of a museum. Pick whatever bedroom you fucking want. I doubt we’ll even see each other.” At least there’s one upside to having to stay with him in his massive residence.

“Fine,” you spit out, just for good measure. 

“Fine,” he counters back. Like anything about this conversation, this agreement, this goddamn life you have to live, is fine. 

Yeah, right. 

Jungkook’s penthouse is much more magnificent when you are more than two steps in the door. From where you had stood before, barely just past the door frame as he crumpled the parchment in his hand and tossed it into the trash bin, you hadn’t been able to see it in half its glory, let alone in full. When you can stand in the center of it all, eyes darting from the hallways and archways and spiral staircases leading to a rooftop pool or gym or both, it is overwhelming. Suffocating. 

His living room alone is larger than anything you have ever lived in, anything you have ever had the pleasure of calling your own. The ceiling is sky high and completely glass, streaks of sun shooting down and casting its rays on his chic furniture, deep hardwood floors. You’re so busy looking up that you nearly trip on a white rug laid out on the floor. 

“There are four bedrooms down that hallway and two down that one,” Jungkook says gruffly, flinging his keys into a bowl resting on a shelf and shrugging off his jacket, letting it hang over his forearm. How could one person possibly take up all of this space?

“Where do you sleep?” You ask. 

“That’s none of your business,” Jungkook says with a frown. 

“There’s no point in not telling me,” you remind him helpfully, “there’s only so many places you can be.”

Jungkook sighs. “It’s upstairs. But you can just sleep in any of the empty ones down here.”

“Thanks,” you deadpan. 

“Is that all you brought?” Jungkook asks with a raised eyebrow, looking at the backpack hanging loose off your shoulder. The zipper’s broken, so the outer flap is in a constant state of being folded over, but it works. 

“What, did you expect a moving truck?” You retort. 

“Ugh, forget I asked,” Jungkook says, shrugging his shoulders as he turns away from you. He begins to point around the room. “There should be some ready meals in the fridge if you’re hungry. TV’s always set to the news, but feel free to change it. Volume shouldn’t ever be over forty. Books are alphabetized by the author’s last name. No parties, though I don’t imagine you frequent those.” 

You can’t tell if that’s a jab or just him being observant, but either way, it’s true. You don’t even have any friends. 

“Fine, anything else?”

“Every bedroom has an ensuite bathroom,” Jungkook informs you. “So use that one. Don’t come into my bedroom. There’s more than enough space here for the both of us to go without seeing each other, so let’s keep it that way.”

“Aw, you mean I’m not allowed to wake up to your handsome face and infectious attitude every day?” You pout sarcastically, making Jungkook scrunch up his nose and frown. “Don’t forget that the only way you’re gonna get me out of here is if you listen to the Realm and follow my rules.”

“Yeah, which are?”

“You’re not allowed to turn at all when I’m around, whether or not you can physically see me. Every time you do is a strike. Three strikes—because I’m generous and forgiving—and I’ll report you to the Realm. The whole point of me being here is to make you stop using your powers all of the time.”

“It’s not like I’m doing any harm to people,” Jungkook defends. “You steal, what’s your excuse?”

“You use your power to add onto your already-enormous bank account,” you point out crudely. “I use mine to survive. It’s different.” Jungkook isn’t convinced. “But it doesn’t matter anyway, because I got caught and so did you and now we both have to deal with the consequences.”

He huffs to himself. 

“So do we have a deal?” You ask, glaring up at him, unrelenting. Jungkook’s chocolate brown eyes flicker as the gold around his house reflects off of his irises, like he’s trying desperately to find a way to get himself out of this before it’s too late. 

What he doesn’t realize is that the very first moment he ever turned something to gold, the very first time the object began to shimmer and spark, he was already too far gone. 

You suppose that in a way, so were you. 

“Fine,” Jungkook gruffs out, a veiny hand held out towards you. It’s stiff and cold, much in the same way that his penthouse is, that he is. This is not an agreement birthed from choice. It came from necessity, out of self-preservation. He is doing this to protect his reputation. You are doing it to protect your freedom. If all goes well, after a couple of months the two of you will never have to cross paths again. Oh, doesn’t that sound lovely? “Deal?”

You grab his hand in your own, squeezing tightly. There is no going back from this. 

“Deal.”

On the bright side, being a minder has finally given you something to do instead of stalking the streets and wasting away on your mattress on the floor. Granted, office life isn’t that much more entertaining, but at least you don’t have to be out in the summer heat anymore. 

As per your side of the deal, you remain invisible whenever Jungkook is out in public, which, quite frankly, is less frequently than you had originally anticipated. His entire life seems to go back and forth from home to work then work to home, an endless cycle, a Newton’s cradle on repeat. Maybe that’s why he’s such a prickly asshole—he doesn’t ever make time for things he enjoys. 

You thought he would at least have business dinners or fundraising events or company galas to attend. Isn’t that what most CEOs do? Flaunt their wealth to other wealthy people? Jungkook has so much money that he could easily entertain himself by one-upping all of his fellow CEO friends at every event he goes to, flashing the Rolex watch on his wrist or the fancy Italian shoes he always wears. 

But no. He wakes up, gets dressed, eats a meal from the ready-made ones wrapped in foil in his fridge, and goes to work. When he comes home, he takes off his suit jacket and shoes, eats dinner, and lounges around his penthouse. Works out sometimes, maybe watches a movie. 

Being rich always seemed to be a lot more fun than what Jungkook makes it out to be. Maybe it’s because everything in modern media is completely fake and wholly unrealistic. Or maybe he’s just purposefully making his life boring because you’re here now. 

But even if the only two places Jungkook ever goes are work and home, his personality doesn’t seem to change no matter what location he’s at. All of his employees are simultaneously frightened of him and desperate to please him, lowering their heads when he passes by their cubicle but placing finished report files and completed tasks at the edges of their desks for him to glance over as he does. You follow him like a wearied assistant (of which he actually has three, and you are just the annoying invisible one) and he acts like you aren’t even there. When Jungkook returns home with you carelessly traipsing in after him, turning visible the moment he closes the door, he shrugs off his outerwear and goes back to doing his very favorite thing in the whole world: pretending you don’t exist. 

At least that hasn’t changed since you moved in. 

The bright side is that Jungkook hasn’t turned at all since you’ve shown up. Not in his penthouse and not at work, though he is usually far too busy dealing with real-world issues to dwell on whether or not he’s got enough gold to his name. The answer is that he does, but he doesn’t give a shit about that. Too much is apparently never enough. 

Even if you are invisible, being in an office setting is somewhat unsettling to you. From a people-watching perspective, you love it, because you get an entire building of people to observe and judge, but from a personal perspective, it’s just another reminder of a life that you are not meant to live. 

All of these people in their ties and pencil skirts and uncomfortable leather shoes, fighting to beat each other out for the next promotion and desperate to please their absolutely unpleasable boss. A nine-to-five job, day in and day out. A fat check in their bank account every month. These are things that are both undesirable and unattainable to you. A glimpse into their lives doesn’t spur you to pursue a career path like theirs, it tells you that no matter what, you won’t ever be able to do what they do. 

“Sir, here are the finished analysis reports on the Lee Corporation joint stockholdings,” a proud young man says, plopping it down on Jungkook’s desk as you watch on in silence. The not-speaking part has been rather difficult, but you do get to whisper annoying things into Jungkook’s ear whenever nobody’s around. 

“They are completed?” Jungkook asks without even looking up at the man, scribbling furiously on a piece of paper. 

“Yes, sir.”

“Did I not ask for them to be completed by Friday?”

The man goes white in the face. 

“Uh—” he begins, immediately losing all confidence he had when he entered Jungkook’s office. “Well, I—”

“I don’t appreciate belated work,” Jungkook spits out. “Make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

The man nods and scurries out of the office before Jungkook can say anything else. He doesn’t even seem to care.

“Wow, couldn’t even say a ’thank you’?” You chide. “Didn’t anyone ever teach you manners?”

“Late work is unacceptable,” Jungkook says. You’re lucky that his blinds are always drawn, or everyone would see him talking to apparently nobody. “There are no exceptions.”

“He was a day late,” you point out. 

“Three, if you include weekends.”

“That doesn’t make a difference; he wouldn’t have been able to turn them in over the weekend,” you tell him. 

“Don’t tell me how to do my job,” Jungkook orders sternly. He looks angry, but also foolish, because even though he can judge where you’re standing from the sound of your voice, he still can’t meet your eyes. He’s staring holes into the succulent plant on the shelf to your right. 

“I’m not,” you defend, annoyed. “I’m telling you how to be a nice person.”

“I don’t need lessons on that, either.” Jungkook frowns. “He turned in work late and was reprimanded. It’s not any different than what happens in school.”

“But you didn’t even thank him for his time or for showing up to your office, or for the fact that he did the work!” You cry out. 

“What should I be thanking him for? For making the thirty-feet trip from his desk to my office? For turning in work that he was obligated to do late?” Jungkook challenges. “He had to do those. He wasn’t doing me any favors.”

“Except he was, because if he didn’t do that work, then you would’ve had to do it,” you remind him. “Everybody here is doing work because you aren’t able to do all of it yourself. And that’s not your fault—there are only twenty-four hours in a day and you are only one person. But you should be thanking them for their contributions. Even when they turn in something a little late. It’ll do wonders for other people.”

“Are you implying that people don’t like working here?” It’s like he wants to keep this fight going. 

You sigh, loud enough for him to hear despite being a good few steps away from him. “I’m saying that everybody out there—” you say, opening the blinds that cover the walls ever so slightly, just enough for him to see out into the sea of people that sit outside, “—everybody wants so desperately for you to like them. Or at least outwardly display that you don’t hate them. And if you just said please and thank you every now and then, people wouldn’t be so afraid of you.”

Jungkook opens his mouth to respond, but nothing comes out. Instead, he shuts it like a trap and sits back down. He probably doesn’t really appreciate the fact that you’re directing him on how he controls his office on top of how he uses his magic. But it’s the truth, and he had to hear it one way or another.

“I didn’t ask for suggestions on how to run this office,” he spits out. “Next time I think advice like this is warranted, I’ll ask.” Which will be never.

“I’m here whether you like it or not,” you stand your ground. Jungkook gets to put up with you no matter what! “So I’ll tell you whatever I feel is necessary.”

Jungkook scowls. 

“Don’t frown, it ruins your pretty face,” you tease. You walk a couple of steps and lean over to stretch his lips into a smile. He stiffens up, clearly having lost a sense of humor alongside his patience. “That’s better, don’t you think?”

“I can’t wait to get rid of you,” he bites. 

“You’ll have to get rid of that attitude, first,” you counter. “Or neither of us are going anywhere.”  Entitlement and greed go hand in hand. There’s no way you’ll be able to get Jungkook to stop turning everything around him into gold without giving his personality a makeover as well. Somewhere in there is a decent human being.

You just aren’t sure if you’ll ever be able to find him.

The time spent at home is less eventful. Besides you, Jungkook has no one to shout at and be rude to, and in any case, he, for the most part, avoids you entirely. Which is understandable but totally counterproductive, because if you never interact, neither of you will ever get what you want. 

Still, there is plenty to keep yourself busy inside of his penthouse. He’s subscribed to every streaming service under the sun and has a movie theater-esque surround sound system lining the walls. He has more books than some small town libraries. His internet is stupidly fast. Even if this setup is temporary, you sure as hell aren’t going to waste a second of it. 

It is sort of weird to eat food with golden forks and knives, though. You always think you’re going to crack your teeth on your utensils. 

You and Jungkook aren’t on speaking terms right now because an hour ago you caught him turning a vase in his office gold, the metal slowly wrapping around the base of the pot like pixie dust, sparkling and shimmering as the clay was overlaid with a deep, lustrous yellow. It increased the value of the vase tenfold and sent the both of you flying back to square one. 

“Jungkook, what the hell?” You had shouted, storming into the room as Jungkook’s face turned beet red. “Just because I’m not sitting in the room with you doesn’t give you a free pass to do whatever you want.”

“It was just one pot!” Jungkook had defended himself. “I’m not even going to sell it or anything, it just looks nice. The room needed something extra.”

“I’ve upheld my side of the agreement, what’s so difficult about upholding yours?” 

“Oh yeah, like telling me how to do my job even though you have no experience in business whatsoever?” He had challenged. “I don’t think I agreed to that part of the deal.”

“Strike one, Jeon Jungkook,” you had spat out at him. “Otherwise there’s no way in hell you’re ever going to get rid of me.”

Granted, the vase did look much better in gold than it did when it was made of clay, a glazed design of ferns and vines wrapping around the base. But even if Jungkook does have a particularly good eye for interior design, it doesn’t give him a free pass to turn things just to match his chic aesthetic. How many other things has he turned when you weren’t around to shout at him? You’ll have to go through his entire house every day, taking stock of every single item inside of it, making sure that nothing has inexplicably turned to gold.

Defeated, you had returned back to the main living room, flopping around like a beached whale on the leather. Jungkook always has the television set to the news, so you put it on in the background as you count the minutes until you’re finally free. Judging from what’s happened so far, you think you’ll be here forever. 

There’s a knock on the door. You don’t recall Jungkook answering any buzzes to his home, but maybe he’s just ordered a pizza or something and it’s here. It’s nearly dinnertime, anyway. 

You wait a few seconds to see if Jungkook’s going to make any attempts at answering the door himself. When the knock repeats itself and Jungkook still doesn’t appear, you hop off of the couch to get it yourself. You’re hungry, and pizza sounds delicious right now. A massive upgrade from Campbell’s soups. 

When you open the door however, there is no pizza delivery guy behind the door. Instead, there is an extremely well-dressed couple who are smiling happily at you, albeit a little surprised to see you on the other side of the door. 

“Hello?” You ask, polite but confused. 

“Hello!” The man says happily, chortling to himself. “Who might you be?” One good look at the two of them tells you that they’re Jungkook’s parents. His dad has the same nose, and his mom has the same big, bright eyes. They would kick you to the curb if they knew who you were. 

“I’m Y/N,” you explain unhelpfully. 

“Well, Y/N, do you mind letting us inside? The air conditioning out in this hallway has always been too strong,” his dad asks. You nod awkwardly and step to the side, letting the two of them in. “Ah, looks the same as always. You must give Jungkookie that interior designer’s number, alright? He could do something much nicer with the place,” he tells his wife, who nods in agreement. She passes by the bowl that Jungkook always throws his keys into when he returns home and presses a finger to it, letting gold wrap around the edges until it’s transformed into the metal. 

“Jungkook!” You shout down the hallway, desperately hoping that he isn’t going to leave you alone with his parents. 

“What?” He shouts back. 

“We have visitors!” You call. 

Jungkook’s parents are already picking out all of the things about Jungkook’s living room layout that they would change, turning picture frames here and decorative sculptures there gold, careless and without reason. You’re standing awkwardly in the middle of the room, trying your best to look as unsurprised and as normal as possible. Luckily, you haven’t been interrogated yet, but there’s no telling what will happen if Jungkook doesn’t show up yet. 

Two minutes later, Jungkook comes strolling down the hallway, clearly uninterested, but his eyes practically bulge out of his head when he sees who’s come to say hello.

“M-Mom! Dad!” He sputters out, terrified. “What—what are you doing here?” He asks, looking at you nervously. You shrug unhelpfully. All you did was answer the door. 

“Came to pay our wonderful son a visit, of course!” His father says, guffawing loudly. He reaches an arm out and pulls Jungkook into a crushing hug. “How are you doing?”

“Fine, I mean—” Jungkook begins, speechless. “I wasn’t expecting you at all, you know.”

“I know!” His mother cries happily. “But you know that families must always stick together.”

“Yeah…” he trails off. “Listen, it’s really nice to see the both of you, but I’m kind of busy at the moment—”

“We should stay for dinner!” His mother suggests, a lightbulb going off above her head. “We haven’t seen you in so long—we have so much to catch up on! What do you say, honey?”

Jungkook’s father looks peachy keen. “Sounds like a great idea! And you can introduce us to Y/N too, hmm?”

“Okay…” Jungkook says. He turns to you and you’ve never seen him so caught off guard. With his big, wide eyes, he’s a deer in headlights. “Just, uh, give us a second, would you? Thanks.”

That’s the only warning you’re given before Jungkook is pulling you down the hallway and into the nearest bedroom, slamming the door shut behind the both of you. The sound of the wood hitting the frame makes you jump as Jungkook furrows his brows and turns to face you directly. 

“Alright, here’s the deal,” he says, looking you dead in the eyes as you stare up at him, unimpressed. “My parents can’t know that I’ve been assigned a minder. They just can’t. They’ve trusted me to run this business and to be in control of my life and I don’t even want to think about what they’ll do if they find out why you’re really here.”

“Okay, so?” You say with a frown. “I’ll turn invisible. You don’t have to worry about it.”

“But they’ve already seen you, you opened the goddamn door,” Jungkook says with a sigh, clearly exasperated. He rubs his forehead before his hand makes its way through his hair, brushing through the long, dark strands. 

“Well, sorry for not wanting to leave whoever was outside hanging,” you retort. 

“No, it’s fine, whatever,” Jungkook says. He paces around the room slightly, eyes glossing over the still life painting hung up on the wall and the door to the walk-in closet. He pauses in front of it for a moment, thinking, before he rounds on you. “Can I trust you to pretend to be my girlfriend for just one night while they’re here?”

“I’m sorry, what?” 

“Please? They seem to already be under the impression that we’re dating anyway, and I don’t want to have to think of a different explanation for you,” Jungkook pleads. He’s desperate. 

“Let me get this straight: you want me, your minder, to fake being your girlfriend for your parents?” You ask, punctuating every word. This is worse than actually being his minder. 

Jungkook nods. “Just while they’re here. And then we can go back to avoiding each other. Please?” 

And for once, when you see Jeon Jungkook’s stupidly beautiful face, you don’t feel angry, or resentful, or envious. You feel… sympathy. It’s easy being rich and powerful, even easier when you don’t even need to work for your money, but parents are parents, no matter how much gold is in your pocket. 

Besides, it’s not like you rejecting him will have much of an effect on the grand scheme of things, anyway. You do, and then Jungkook has to spend an awkward night with his parents and you won’t accomplish anything. 

“Fine,” you say, begrudgingly so. “But only for tonight.”

“Oh God, thank you,” Jungkook says, and he actually means it. He dashes into the walk-in closet and pulls out a summery day dress, all flowy and floral, coming down to right above your knees. “Here, put this on. You know I don’t give a shit about what you wear but my parents will.”

“Why do you have this?” You ask, holding the hanger in your hand. One touch of the fabric and you can already feel the craftsmanship, the material sturdy and soft.

“An old hookup or something, probably.” Jungkook shrugs, nonchalant. 

You decide not to question whether or not you are about to wear something that Jungkook has had sex with someone in and head into the closet to change. From inside, you can hear Jungkook pacing back and forth in the bedroom, no doubt trying to come up with a believable story as to why you’ve suddenly appeared in his life and where you had come from. 

When you emerge, Jungkook stops dead in his tracks. This dress is easily the most expensive (and clean) thing you’ve ever put on your body, draping seamlessly along your hips and smoothing over all of the parts of your body you’ve never been too fond of. The sensation is pleasant but uncomfortable, as you have always vastly preferred your own clothes to other people’s, but wearing this at least doesn’t make you feel like you live in an abandoned house on the edge of town. 

“Wow,” Jungkook says dumbly, looking at you with his lips parted like a fish, mouth agape. He scratches at the nape of his neck and coughs. “You look kinda good.”

“How thoughtful of you to say,” you chide, basking in the feeling of finally catching Jungkook off guard. 

“Hopefully my parents won’t be here too long,” Jungkook says as he opens the door, letting you exit first. “Normally, they stick around just long enough to tell me about all of the things in my life that I’m currently doing wrong or should improve upon, and then they leave.”

“Fun.” It doesn’t sound very fun at all. 

“At least this time they won’t be grilling me about a girlfriend,” Jungkook says, offering you a grateful smile as you return to the main living space, where Jungkook’s parents are in the middle of turning some of the decorative trinkets on his shelves gold. “Sorry,” he begins, catching his parents’ attention. “We were just talking. Y/N had to change.”

“She looks lovely in that dress, did you buy it for her?” His mother asks. You send a small smile of thanks. 

“Yes, of course,” Jungkook lies. You think not knowing the origins of this dress is best for both you and him. He shuffles the both of you into the kitchen, an awkward hand on the small of your back. If you were a third party watching the two of you, you could sniff out the fake gestures and affection from a mile away. No two people in love are this stiff around each other. 

His parents wait in the living space, blissfully ignorant, as the two of you fumble around in the kitchen in a last-minute attempt to scrounge up something resembling an acceptable meal. You, admittedly, do not use a kitchen fairly often, and stick to pouring the four of you some wine as Jungkook fishes through his fridge and cabinets. He eventually decides on heating up a pre-made pasta dish, filled with all sorts of vegetables you couldn’t name even if you tried. It smells good, at least. 

For someone who seems to rely entirely on a personal chef to do most of his cooking, Jungkook knows his way around the kitchen fairly well, bouncing from one end to the other as if he’s running on a mental timer. Granted, he isn’t actually cooking anything, but compared to you, he may as well be a top chef at a five-star restaurant. Ten minutes later and he’s got a mouth-watering spaghetti dish, topped with vegetables and what looks to be an herb garnish, a side salad, and four glasses of wine that you so expertly poured. 

Unfortunately, with his parents around, you and Jungkook don’t get to go through your usual meal ritual of sitting as far away from each other as physically possible and not talking whatsoever, sitting down next to each other in his fancy suede dining chairs as his parents take the two seats opposite you. Jungkook’s dining table only seats six, despite the sheer size of his actual dining room, and quite frankly, you have never seen him actually use it for what it’s meant for: dining. 

“Delicious, did you make this?” His father asks, already reaching over to serve himself some. 

“Y/N helped.” No you didn’t.

The serving utensils then move to Jungkook’s mother, who does not turn them into gold, instead opting for a baby tomato, which she places in her drink to serve as some sort of extremely niche ice cube. You can’t imagine how good that will taste. Jungkook’s father laughs at his mother, who is obviously proud of herself. Jungkook forces himself to chuckle ever so slightly, and you crack a very helpless smile. It doesn’t really take a genius to figure out where Jungkook got his turning habits from. 

“So, Y/N,” Jungkook’s father begins, catching you right as you shove an entire forkful of pasta into your mouth, cheeks puffed out like a chipmunk getting ready for the winter, “how long have you known our son?”

“Uh, a couple of—”

“A couple of months,” Jungkook interrupts, speaking louder than usual. “We met at the Park Gala that they hosted, do you remember?”

You kick Jungkook’s shin under the table, making him wince. 

“Ah, yes.” His mother nods in recollection. “Unfortunately we were on that cruise through France, so we couldn’t make it. A shame, we would have loved to meet you then. Are you a friend of the Parks?”

“An associate,” Jungkook explains as vaguely as possible. “Y/N works in law.”

“Ah, law,” Jungkook’s father says romantically, twirling his fork around in the air. “The conscience of business.”

“Yeah,” you say, forcing out a small laugh. The less you say, the better. Though it is ironic that you now apparently work in law, considering your favorite activity is breaking it. You suppose that nobody knows the law better than its criminals. 

“Where are you from, Y/N? Do we know your parents?” This is starting to sound less like a dinner conversation and more like an interrogation. 

“Y/N actually built herself up,” Jungkook covers for you. Lord knows revealing your true background would send both of his parents storming out of the building. “She doesn’t like to talk about her parents very much.”

That’s one way of putting it. 

“Ah, what a shame,” his mother tuts, shaking her head. “We’d love to meet them.”

“Yeah…” you agree distantly, making a mental note to give Jungkook a good shove when this is all over. Well, two can play at this game. “Jungkook is teaching me a lot about how you guys run your business.” You add pointedly, earning a leg kick in return. “It’s very interesting to see from a law perspective.” More like from a human perspective. 

“Oh, you must be very impressed,” his father says proudly, adjusting the collar of his shirt. “We’ve all worked extremely hard to get where we are.” Because turning things to gold at the press of a finger is truly such a taxing job.

“I’m certainly surprised,” you say back, sending a patient but stiff smile their way. They return the favor easily. Maybe you’re more like these people than you thought. “It’s a big change from what I’m used to.” Jungkook smacks his leg against yours, and you retaliate not a moment afterwards.

“I’m sure,” his mother says, voice sickly sweet. “But you’ll be able to adjust in no time. It’s definitely a level up, is it not?”

Jungkook looks like a lost child in a grocery store aisle, eyes wide as they flit back and forth between you and his parents, hurling thinly-veiled insults at each other like it’s nobody’s business. 

“It’s different,” you respond. 

“Well, I’m sure that Jungkook is doing all that he can to accommodate you,” his father says. “Sometimes the people he chooses to date are… not ideal for this sort of lifestyle. We hope that you are able to adjust quickly. We understand that this is a lot.”

“I certainly hope that I’m a good match, then,” you finish, because something inside of you can’t bear to let Jungkook’s stuffy, elitist parents get the last word. 

The rest of the meal is rather silent, save for a few mindless comments about how poorly Jungkook’s decorated his dining room. You and Jungkook have been warring underneath the dinner table all evening, your shins undoubtedly sporting bruises, because apparently everything the two of you are saying to his parents is wrong. Jungkook’s parents either don’t know or don’t care, because they don’t say anything about the tension that settled over the table like a cloud of fog, thick and potent. 

When everyone’s finished eating, Jungkook’s parents head straight to the door, determining that their contributions to his evening and his penthouse are enough—for now. Who knows if or when they’ll return. You and Jungkook have no choice but to see them off, rounding out the night just as you started: fake, empty smiles. 

“It was lovely to meet you, Y/N,” his mother tells you, hand clutching her purse. “I hope that we may see each other again sometime soon.”

“Yes, I am looking forward to it,” you say with glee, knowing that the chances of you never having to speak to her again are well in your favor. 

“Nice work, son,” his father says, a heavy hand on Jungkook’s shoulder. “Just let us know if you ever need anything.”

“Will do,” Jungkook promises distantly. You can tell that Jungkook doesn’t ask his father for advice too often. 

You bid your goodbyes and Jungkook shuts the door behind them, and it’s almost as the atmosphere immediately begins to clear, the air conditioning cycling out the tension, like a breath of fresh air. 

“Ugh, thank God that’s over,” you huff out, already itching to get out of this dress and back into your own clothes. It was gorgeous at first, but now it’s just an ugly reminder. 

“Come on, it wasn’t that bad,” Jungkook says. 

“’Wasn’t that bad’?” You repeat. It’s as if the words went in through Jungkook’s one ear and right out the other. “Are you serious? It was unbearable. Your parents were judging me from the moment I opened the door. No wonder you’ve never had a lasting girlfriend. I couldn’t think of anyone who would want to deal with that.”

“Excuse me?” Jungkook says, rounding on you as fire burns in his eyes. “What do you mean, ’that’?”

“I mean that I don’t know how on Earth people just accept the fact that in other people’s eyes, they’ll never be good enough?” You tell him like it’s obvious, because it is. This sort of life has been so ingrained into Jungkook’s head that he doesn’t even recognize it as unwelcoming and stifling. “I couldn’t stand being your girlfriend. Your parents are judgy and rude, and you all act like people who don’t come from as much money and power as you have no business sitting where you sit.”

“So your best approach was to shade and insult my parents in return?” He combats. “I would hate to be your boyfriend. My parents get more aggressive when people fight them, but you shove me under the table when I try to get you to back down? Just so you can have the final word to two people you’ll probably never see again?”

“The fact that anyone has dated you astounds me,” you tell him. 

“The fact that nobody’s dated you doesn’t astound me,” Jungkook spits back. 

You frown, embers flaring in your boiling blood. What, did Jungkook think you were going to enjoy yourself tonight? By pretending to be some sort of ditzy, desperate-to-please girlfriend? “You’re welcome for doing you a favor and not just straight up telling your parents you’ve been assigned a minder because you can’t handle your own powers. Don’t expect me to do it again.”

“I’m not planning on it,” Jungkook mumbles to himself, just loud enough for you to hear. 

“Fine.”

“Fine.”

You and Jungkook march down opposite hallways, desperate for this night to be over. You tear off the dress and let it sit at the foot of the bed, taunting you. 

There is no way in hell you are ever leaving this place. 

The time spent at work is allocated half towards following Jungkook around like an invisible puppy with a personal vendetta against him, making sure that he doesn’t turn, and half towards wishing that something actually interesting will happen. Jungkook runs so tight a ship that nobody ever seems to want to do anything fun or exciting, no doughnuts, no inside jokes, no pranks. Just an endless cycle of trying desperately to please the unpleasable.

Admittedly, nowadays, you don’t really mind being here as much as you used to, when you would mentally criticize every person that walked through the glass doors to Jungkook’s office, hands filled with stacks of paper and manila folders, plopped onto Jungkook’s desk one by one. Jungkook’s started to keep extra food up in his office, the mini-fridge by his bookshelves constantly filled with takeaway salads and fruit. Apples are a definite no-go because they’re too loud, and you can only ever risk eating salads when nobody’s around to hear you pop the plastic top off of the container, but other than that, it’s nice.

Jungkook has pretty good taste in food, too, which is an added bonus. Though anything is a leg up from what you normally eat.

And even though you’ve begun to start roaming around, exploring the nooks and crannies that line the clean-cut layout, your favorite place to be is Jungkook’s office. He’s got these magnificent floor-to-ceiling glass windows, with a view directly over the biggest park in the city, thousands of feet up in the air. From up here, it almost feels as though you’re looking down at a different world, a different universe. It’s difficult to imagine that everyone down there, every ant-sized person walking along the sidewalk or resting on a park bench or ordering from a food stand, has lives of their own.

Especially when they are but specks of dust in yours.

Jungkook looks at this view forty hours a week. You wonder if he ever gets sick of it.

The door to Jungkook’s office creaks open as you’re staring out of the windows, watching as the clouds pass overhead. They look like little white dogs, like cotton candy, like angel wings.

“Mr. Jeon?”

The owner of the voice is the same man you berated Jungkook for shouting at a few weeks ago, the one who had turned in an analysis report a day late. He seems just as frightened of Jungkook now as he did back then, and it makes you wonder if any of Jungkook’s employees aren’t afraid of him.

“Here’s the completed budget report for the Lee Corporation for last fiscal year,” the man says, reaching a trembling hand out to lay a manila folder on Jungkook’s desk. Jungkook only looks up once he sees it out of his periphery, hand pausing mid-write, pen still hovering over the papers on his desk.

He meets the man’s eyes, and when he does, he cracks a small smile, this sort of barely-there grin, lips curling upwards ever so slightly. “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

It’s as if the man has won the lottery. He thanks Jungkook quickly before bouncing out of the room, steps much lighter, like a weight has been lifted off of his shoulders. You watch as he leaves the room, a smile etching itself onto your face. It’s rather incredible what a simple ‘thank you’ can do to people.

You don’t say anything to Jungkook, instead just turning back around to gaze out of the window. There’s an entire city below your feet, one that bustles around like bees in a hive, everyone with a place to be and things to do. There is this strange but comforting feeling of insignificance, one where you feel as though you could disappear and nobody would notice a thing. The rest of the world can and will move on without you. But that doesn’t mean that your life means nothing. It means that your life can be whatever you want to make of it, because in the grand scheme of things, nobody else will know what you have done.

History is like that, too. You must be remarkable to be remembered. But that doesn’t mean the unremarkable people were forgotten. They touched lives, too.

Staring out the window as the clouds swim over the sun, a light grey shadow casting itself over the park, you feel at peace.

“It’s nice, isn’t it?”

You jump at the voice, Jungkook’s presence next to you having gone totally unnoticed. You didn’t even hear him get up from his chair.

“How did you know I was here?” You ask.

“I could sense it," Jungkook says with a grin, making you raise an eyebrow. You’re invisible. “I’m kidding, I saw you come over here a bunch last week when you first got into my office and I figured you’d probably still be here.”

“You figured correctly,” you tell him.

“You know, I don’t spend enough time looking out these windows,” Jungkook admits, and you aren’t sure if it’s to you or himself. “I’m always staring at my computer or writing something at my desk with my head down. I’ve got the best view in the whole city and sometimes, I don’t even remember what it looks like.”

“You work hard,” you tell him, because that’s something that is undeniable about who he is and what he does. “But you deserve to give yourself a break, every now and then.”

“For lunch breaks, the first thing I do is get out of my office. I spend all day in there and when it’s finally time for me to put work on pause, I rush out of the room like it’s on fire,” Jungkook comments. “Maybe I should stay up here every once in a while instead.”

“It’s not like I’ll be going anywhere,” you joke.

“You can, you know,” Jungkook tells you. “You don’t have to stay up here all day.”

“I know,” you say. “But I don’t really mind it. I like being here. It’s calming, in a way.” In a way that you can’t explain. Like you’re stuck in freeze frame while everyone else moves around you. Like you’re watching a movie about everybody’s lives but your own. Like you’re a spectator in your own body. “Plus, the view is gorgeous.”

“It is,” Jungkook agrees.

You stand there in silence for a few more moments, the only sounds filling the room your inhales and exhales, soft and slow, your hearts beating in time. Jungkook is more than a foot away from you but here, in his office, looking out over the world, he has never felt closer.

“Thank you,” you whisper, letting the words hang in the air in front of you.

“For what?” Jungkook asks.

“For listening to me.”

You feel Jungkook turn to you, and when you dare to look up at him, you meet his hazy brown eyes, warm and sparkly. He looks like a goddamn celebrity, like a magazine cover come to life, crisp shirt collars and fancy Italian shoes, glossy brown hair and perfect skin. He smiles at you, this homey sort of thing that makes you feel like summer is running through your veins, like the rays of the sun are pressing against your skin.

“Of course,” he tells you.

Jungkook is a lot of things. He’s unabashedly gorgeous and outrageously wealthy. He walks around like he owns everything that he touches. His house is clean and chic and minimalist, almost like nobody lives there at all. He’s determined and a workaholic, and hates admitting when he’s wrong.

But maybe, just maybe, in the white afternoon light of his office, the rest of the world underneath his feet, standing next to you as the two of you stare out in a city you call your own, he’s not that bad.

Being alone in Jungkook’s penthouse is, to put it lightly, absolutely terrifying.

It’s hard to believe that Jungkook--and maybe a girlfriend for a brief period--has occupied this entire space on his own, no one else to talk to, no one else to spend time with, no one to occupy his massive couches or fill up the chairs in his dining room.

You’ve always wondered why rich people buy the biggest houses. Sure, it’s because they’re rich, and because they can afford it, but it’s impossible for one person, or even two, to make the entire place feel like their own. You leave countless rooms untouched, meant for guests that you never have and parties that you never host. It’s like you’ve moved into half of a house, a quarter of a mansion. What’s the point of having so much space if you don’t ever have anyone to fill it up?

Normally you wouldn’t leave Jungkook’s side, following him around the city whenever he has errands to run or needs to dash back to work to pick up something he had forgotten. But Jungkook hasn’t been turning anything lately, even when you sleep in four hours later than he does, even when he stays up into the early hours of the morning while you pass out before it’s midnight. It’s like he’s somehow lost the will for his magic entirely, like it’s vanished from his body.

Well, you’re not complaining. That just means you’re one step closer to finishing your sentence.

Jungkook’s penthouse feels bigger when he’s not around. Even though you hardly ever see each other while you’re at home, the mere knowledge of his presence makes you feel like you’re not alone. Makes you feel like there is someone else in this little corner of the world.

Everything in here has always looked untouched. Like it doesn’t belong to anybody, like a house listing come to life. His marble counters are always empty, his cabinets always closed and organized. His books are always alphabetized and the stack of art books on his coffee table has never been touched. All of the bedrooms look like they belong in a hotel. The bathrooms look like they belong in a museum.

Jungkook’s house has never felt like a home but then again, neither has yours.

Still, if you had to choose between living in your abandoned shack at the edge of town or living in an enormous penthouse in the center of the city, you would never look back at that old, dilapidated building. The difference between you and Jungkook is that Jungkook chooses to live in this tragically empty place.

You don’t think you’ll ever be able to understand Jungkook’s life. Not just the technicalities of the company he runs, the economics and business that he has spent his whole life mastering, but also the way he sees the world in terms of money and power, how everything has some sort of value, even people. Even you. His biggest concern has always been himself. How much money he has matters, how many investments his company owns matters, how the public views him matters. He has spent so long crafting this perfect image of himself that he’s willing to spend as much money as necessary to maintain it. 

Jungkook doesn’t even look at the total on the card reader when he purchases things. He simply tugs his silver card out of a sleek black wallet and swipes, crumpling the receipt up in his hand before shoving it into the pocket of his jeans. He comes back home to a gigantic penthouse with a gym and his pool and more bedrooms than he can count on both hands, to a personal chef in his kitchen making him five-star meals to last him the rest of the week. 

Money is never on his mind, but it is always on yours. 

When will you get enough to pay off your phone bill, will you ever be able to afford a repairman to fix the broken, exposed lightbulb above the back door, how many Campbell’s soups can you buy and still have enough funds to last you until the next day? What if, God forbid, the city comes knocking on your door and either evicts you or orders you to pay up for the three years you’ve been living in that house, rent-free? What will you do then?

Life is by no means easy for either of you, but Jeon Jungkook has never had to want for anything. If it isn’t handed to him, he works for it himself. If he can’t buy it, he’ll just make more money. If he doesn’t already own it, what’s stopping him?

People dream of having Jungkook’s life. People fear having yours. 

Alone in Jungkook’s apartment, the differences between the two of you have never been clearer. 

Your greatest fear is the fact that, in the past few weeks you have spent here, you are already becoming used to it. You are dreading going back to where you were before, stealing money from people off of the streets and living in a house in such disrepair that local nons think that it’s haunted. You fear that you will never want to leave. 

It’s such a terrifying feeling, isn’t it? Becoming attached to something. Feeling as though your life will be worse without it. Knowing that your life will be worse without it. 

There are parts of you that make you wish that life wasn’t so unfair. 

The living room is three times the size of the dining room but you hate eating there, sitting at an empty table with no one to talk to but suede chairs, reminding you that you don’t even have any friends to invite anyway. At least in the living room you can sit on the couch and watch television and pretend that you have at least some semblance of a life. 

You pick at a pre-made salad that has too much lettuce and not enough everything else—Jungkook needs a new chef, you decide, plucking out all of the croutons and slices of cheddar cheese, when the front door swings open, slamming against the wall adjacent to it as Jungkook storms inside. 

“Oh my God, what happened to you?” You exclaim, eyes practically bulging out of your head as you jump off of the couch. Even from here, you can see the dark bruising around Jungkook’s eye, purple and blue, the busted up knuckles clenched around the bag he’s carrying. There’s even a small streak of blood on his upper left cheek, already beginning to scab. 

“Nothing, I’m fine,” he says, wiping away the blood on his lip with the back of his hand. 

“No, you’re not,” you tell him, rushing up to meet him in the middle of the foyer, standing in front of him as you look up at his face with wide eyes. He waits there patiently, avoiding your gaze, steely eyes looking elsewhere, as you reach up to hold his head in your hands, tilting it from side to side. “What happened to you?”

“Some dudes jumped me in the parking lot on the way back,” Jungkook says casually. You’d almost believe he didn’t feel anything if he doesn’t wince when you press a gentle fingertip along the bruise on his jawline. He meets your frightened expression and smirks wickedly, something glinting in his eyes. “Don’t worry, I got ‘em good.”

“Are you alright?” You ask him, even though it’s obvious he’s not. “You aren’t seriously injured or anything, are you?”

“Don’t worry about it, Y/N,” Jungkook says with a sigh, even as he obeys your movements and moves his body pliantly to the feeling of your hands pressing against his skin. Most of the visible damage seems to be to his face and hands, and quite frankly, you’re not exactly sure if you want to see what’s underneath his dress shirt. “I’m strong. I work out and eat healthy and everything. I’ll be better in no time.”

“No, are you kidding?” You say, reaching out to grab his hand without a second thought, pulling him towards the nearest bathroom. “You can’t just leave it like this. Here, let me heal you.”

“I don’t need you to patch me up or anything,” Jungkook resists, frowning as you sit him down on the edge of the bathtub and begin to fish through his bathroom cabinets. “First aid isn’t in that one.”

“No, you idiot,” you chide him. “I’m not gonna patch you up. Aren’t you forgetting that I’m a healer?” 

“So what are you gonna do, then?” 

You finally find the first aid kit and pull it out, revealing rolls of gauze and bottles of rubbing alcohol and disinfectant. There’s even a couple of rows of Ibuprofen. “Well, you should be patched up anyway,” you decide, turning back to look at Jungkook’s face as he waits obediently on the edge of the tub. “But I can heal you faster than what time and medicine can do on their own.”

“You don’t have to,” Jungkook says softly. 

“Please, of course I do,” you reply instantly. You’re not gonna let Jungkook walk around like that. “We can’t have your pretty face all messed up, now can we?”

Jungkook cracks a small smile but it’s obvious that the simple gesture alone pains him, making him wince slightly as his lips turn upwards. You wet a face cloth with cold water and press it against Jungkook’s bruises, looking intently at his features as you move the cloth around, letting the cold water draw out the heat that sizzles beneath his skin. Jungkook watches you the whole time, his eyes never leaving yours, even as your brows furrow in concentration, determined to fix Jungkook back up so he’s brand new. Slowly, the bruises begin to fade, going from an angry violet to a light lavender, and then to a pink that could almost be mistaken for a heavy blush.

It feels weird, knowing that he’s right there. Knowing that he’s watching you, eyes following yours as they scan his face. His clean-cut jawline is a little swollen, perfect skin angry and marked, but his eyes are still the same. Still wide and bright, like a young child, like a baby deer learning to walk for the first time. They look almost caramel in the yellow light of the bathroom, flecks of gold to mirror the accents in the room. 

There’s something about them that makes you not want to turn away. 

When the bruises have faded, leaving only petal pink remnants along his skin, you move onto the small cut along his cheek. It’s rough and jagged, like the skin had been torn right through, a nick from a fingernail or a knuckle. It’s not long, but it is somewhat deep. You imagine it might scar permanently. 

Kneeling down in front of him, you pull out some rubbing alcohol and a cotton pad, dabbing a gentle amount onto the round before moving closer, holding his head in your hand as you reach out. 

“This might sting,” you say, like he doesn’t already know. 

“That’s alright,” Jungkook tells you. “Fix me up, doctor.”

At his cue, you softly press the cotton pad against the scab, rubbing away at it until it comes off cleanly, leaving only fresh, exposed skin behind. For wounds like these, a cloth won’t do. Your mother used to tell you that healing didn’t come from your hands, it came from your heart. That even if your fingertips had the magic, it was your heart that had the power to wield it. 

Slowly, you rest your palm against his cheek, rubbing your thumb along the cut. Jungkook blinks, big eyes shimmering, as you do so, and you feel trapped in his gaze. Like you couldn’t turn away even if you tried. Like you almost wouldn’t want to. His skin is baby soft, perfect, a far cry from the calloused pads of your fingertips, worn from so many days and nights out on the streets. 

There is magic in your fingertips, surely, but there is something different in your heart. Something that you don’t think you have the words to explain.

The cut seals up instantly, the skin patching over itself until nothing is left but a mark, a little scar that will stay there forever. And yet, you stay there, locked in his magnetic pull, like tearing away will hurt you rather than him. The cut is healed, and his bruises are fading, and there is no reason to stay like this. 

And yet. 

“There,” you whisper, watching the words appear between the two of you, lingering like ghosts. “All better.”

Jungkook grins. It doesn’t hurt him, but something in you feels a sharp jolt, an ache. Like a spark in the pit of your belly. Like magic in your veins. 

Jungkook has been tearing his hair out over this one manila folder in front of him for the past twenty minutes. Every ten seconds he writes something down before scribbling it out, the ink bleeding through the paper to the next one. He flips through the files relentlessly, carelessly, until they’re all out of order and splayed all over his desk. He’s instructed the guard outside not to let anyone in, even if it’s some sort of emergency. 

You’ve seen Jungkook at work a lot, but you’ve never seen him like this. Even his anguished sighs are difficult to listen to. 

Creeping over to the wall that overlooks the rest of the office, Venetian blinds shielding the both of you from view, you crack open a slat, peeking out at everyone else. None of them pay any attention to Jungkook’s office, too busy worrying about the next report they have to complete and all of the office meetings they have to attend, so you take it as a good opportunity to turn visible. Just for a little bit. 

“You alright?” You ask, nearly making Jungkook fall out of his seat at the sound of your voice. 

“What?” He asks, surprised. “Oh, yeah, yeah, I’m fine.”

“What’s the matter?” You ask, because you’ve never seen Jungkook as stressed out as he is now. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to organize this new collective to monitor our investing habits so we can assess where investments need to be divvied up into in order for clients to find us worth of their own investments as opposed to other companies,” Jungkook explains, though he sounds positively exhausted while doing so, like the very mention of what he’s slaving over is enough to send him over the edge. “But no one can agree on how we can use this information to promote this company to our clients and the public. People invest in both of us either way.”

“You want people to invest more money in your company, don’t you?” You ask with a raised eyebrow. 

“Well, yeah.” 

“How much money does this company give to small businesses? To nonprofits and charity?”

Jungkook frowns, scrunching up his nose as he thinks. He clicks around on his computer for a few seconds before saying, “About five percent.”

“And your investments are public, correct?”

“Yes.” Jungkook nods. 

“You should be giving way more than five percent of this company’s investments to small, local businesses and charity,” you tell Jungkook, already worming your way behind his desk to look at what he’s looking at. You point to the numbers on his screen, single-digit percentages, some even less than one, being sent to local businesses, nonprofits, and charities. “Look at this. Ninety-five of your investments go right into stocks. If you invested more money into nonprofits and local businesses, people would see you taking the time to help boost the local economy and the organizations that serve it for free. Then, those businesses would invest in you in return, and clients would see that you’re investing in noble causes and give you more money as a thanks, which can then be funnelled back to small businesses and nonprofits.”

It’s a rather roundabout sort of proposal and you’re almost positive that it has no real footing anywhere in real economics and finance, but it makes sense to you. If you had money to invest in major companies, you would choose the ones that invest in the things that will benefit you, like local businesses and nonprofits. If you saw that the companies you were giving money to were simply giving it away to the stock market, you’d pull your money out. 

You know that the stock market is nothing but the world’s biggest economic gamble, but that doesn’t mean that you have to gamble with it. Companies that stand for what you stand for are much more appealing than companies with a bigger investment bank behind them. 

You turn to Jungkook, who is squinting at his computer screen as he fumbles around with the numbers, flicking from Excel sheet to Excel sheet, bouncing back and forth between the information online and the files on top of his desk. 

“Is that stupid?” You ask, breaking the silence. It’s not as if people know you for your groundbreaking economic policies. 

Jungkook spares one more glance over all of his files, and turns up to look at you. “No,” he tells you with a shake of his head. “It’s not.”

“Really?” You’re actually impressed with yourself. 

“Yeah,” Jungkook agrees happily. “You’re right—I’d want to know that my investments were going to a company with good morals that lifts up local businesses. It would encourage me to invest more, too.”

“It’s not a very sound economic theory…” You admit. Jungkook’s probably seasoned in how investments and the stock markets work, charts upon charts of client behavior that shapes the way he organizes his company. And you? You don’t have enough money to even buy food some days. 

“It doesn’t have to be,” Jungkook assures you. “Theory is total bullshit anyway, because nobody can predict what will happen with the economy. But human nature has always been reliably good. People like to know that their money is going to a good cause.”

“So, it helps?” You ask with a smile. 

Jungkook nods. “It does. It’s actually a great idea, Y/N. You might have a future in business.”

You scoff. “Me? I don’t know the first thing about this stuff.”

Jungkook shrugs. “Doesn’t matter. You don’t need to. You’re a good person who thinks about everyone, Y/N. That’s why you’d be good at business. Because your clients can trust you, and you’ll actually put your money where your mouth is.” 

“I guess,” you say unhelpfully. Just because you think about others doesn’t make you especially remarkable. It makes you human. Isn’t that how everyone’s supposed to be? “I just don’t think about clients and money like you do. Money’s always been really valuable to me, since I’ve never had much of it, but you guys see it as expendable. I need to know where my money goes, I don’t want to see it just vanish into the hands of someone else.” Jungkook’s nodding along, eyes looking intently at your own, like he’s committing the words you say to his memory. “I just think that people and companies with tons of money have a duty to give back to those who are less fortunate. That’s all.”

“That’s noble of you,” Jungkook says. 

“It’s just common sense,” you explain. “Why wouldn’t you want to do something like that?”

Jungkook heaves a sigh, a long, winded sort of one, like there’s a whole conversation behind it that he wishes he could have with you. But instead, he just shakes his head, a fond smile lacing its way across his features. He chuckles to himself. “Maybe you aren’t cut out for business after all, Y/N,” he tells you softly. “You have too big a heart.”

And maybe that’s true. Maybe you’re too kind, too generous, to ever make it in business. To succeed without losing every penny to your name. 

But if that’s the case, then where does Jungkook stand?

When Jungkook stays at work late, the two of you eat dinner together. 

There’s just something so demoralizing about coming back to an empty house, letting the hollow sound of the door slamming shut echo throughout the room, and then marching off in different directions to spend the rest of the night alone. When it’s dark, and late, and you’re starving, it’s all you can do not to beg Jungkook to eat with you. Even if in silence. 

By the time you get home, your stomach is just about ready to consume the art books sitting in a neat stack at the top right corner of the coffee table. You begin to clear off some space for the both of you to eat as Jungkook heads towards the refrigerator, when not three seconds after, you hear him swear, “Oh, shit.”

“What’s the matter?” You call out. 

“We’re out of premade meals!” Jungkook shouts back. What? You could have sworn there were at least two full tupperwares still available. Actually, maybe you had eaten them for lunch… 

“Really?” You get up from the coffee table and make your way into the kitchen, where Jungkook is standing in front of a refrigerator with the entire middle section wiped clean, empty shelves mocking the both of you as you glare at them. “Oh, wow. Really.”

“I didn’t know we ate that much,” Jungkook comments, shocked at the sight before him. 

“What are we gonna do?” You ask. You’re hungry. 

“What do you mean?” Jungkook says with a laugh. He kneels down and begins to pull vegetables from the drawers, plucking different bottles from inside the fridge door and plastic cartons from the top shelves, the ones that you never dare touch. “We’ll cook something, obviously.”

“Can’t we just order takeout?”

“You don’t wanna cook something with me?” Jungkook asks, eyes wide and pouty. You shake your head guiltily. Is ordering a pizza really so much to ask? Jungkook narrows his eyes at you suspiciously, a grin pulling at his lips, before he nods knowingly. “Oh, I get it.”

“Get what?” You challenge. 

“You don’t know how to cook.”

“What? I know how to cook!” You cry out, aghast. True, your past meals have mostly involved warming food up in the microwave, but that counts, in your book. Jungkook frowns in disbelief. “I know how to use a microwave.”

Jungkook tosses his head back and laughs, this warm, hearty sound filling up the kitchen, before he starts placing all of the containers and bottles and vegetables he pulled out from the fridge onto the counter. “Okay, we’re going to make something together.”

“Seriously?” You say, borderline whining. “Can’t you just do it?”

“No,” Jungkook rolls his eyes, “because you have to help me. Kitchen’s orders.”

“You’re the kitchen!”

“Exactly,” Jungkook says, smiling to himself. He pulls out some more ingredients from the cabinets, hands deftly reaching for the exact ones he wants, until you have a collection of food, seasonings, and sauces on the countertop, and an apparent recipe to be made. 

“What are we making?” You ask, looking down at everything on the counter. All of these things can’t go into one dish… can they?

“An old family recipe,” Jungkook says. “Kimchi jjigae. It’s kimchi stew.”

“Is it easy?” 

Jungkook grins something wicked, something devilish. “It’s fun.”

He sets out to put a pot on the stove, turning the gas on, bouncing back and forth between the stovetop and the counter as you stand there like a floundering fish, waiting for him to either give you an instruction or do everything himself.

“Can you cut the green onions?” Jungkook asks as he adds water and what looks to be tiny little fish to the pot, reaching behind his back to gesture wildly at the ingredients sitting on the marble. 

“Which are those?” You scan the countertop. Your familiarity with food and recipes extends about as far as anything non-perishable that comes in a tin can. Never in your life have you seen so much laid out in front of you, all meant to go into the same meal. 

The metal lid clinks as Jungkook covers the pot to boil, turning around to join you at the counter, where you wait awkwardly in front of an unused chopping board, no knife in sight. 

“These,” he says, reaching over you to pull up several stalks of something that looks similar to the wild onions that grow in your backyard. He fishes through the drawers before he pulls out a kitchen knife, gently placing it in your hand as he moves around to grab all of the other ingredients he needs for the boiling water on the stovetop. 

Hesitantly, you line up the onions and begin to chop, carefully sawing through each one until it comes cleanly off of the stalk. It’s awfully time-consuming, especially since Jungkook seems to have already made the stock base in the time it’s taken you to cut one. Nevertheless, you persist, because Jungkook wants these to go in the pot, and you refuse to be seen as incompetent in the kitchen, especially when Jungkook seems to be rather proficient when it comes to cooking despite the fact that a chef makes the majority of his meals for him. 

Old family recipes die hard, you suppose. 

Jungkook turns around to check on you and grab a small red container of what looks to be some sort of spicy pepper paste. When he sees you carefully slicing through each onion stalk, he laughs. 

“Hey, what are you laughing at?” You say, pouting. You don’t think you’re doing a terrible job, even if you are a bit slow. 

“You,” Jungkook says with a grin, not even bothering to think of something else to say instead. “Here, let me show you.”

He comes to stand behind you, his torso pressing against your back, as he reaches his arms around you, hands gently resting atop your own. There is something in the way his breath hits your skin, tickles the part right behind your ear that’s always been sensitive, how he leans down to look over your shoulder. The rise and fall of his chest against you. Something strange and foreign and calming, like when you tense up right before you fall asleep.

Frozen, you watch with nervous eyes as he holds your hand in his own, grasping onto the knife. He stacks a few onion stalks next to each other on top of the cutting board and slowly begins to cut—thin, quick slices until he develops a rhythm, an imaginary beat to the drumming of his heart, to the pounding of your own. 

The seconds seem to drag on for eternity, as if every cut through the vegetable is done in slow-motion, like time has slowed down just for the two of you. His breath tickles your skin, hot and tingly and filled with fire, lighting sparks everywhere it touches. You think that, if you concentrate hard enough, you can hear the way his heart thumps like a bass drum, ringing in your ears. Or maybe that’s just you. 

When four green onion stalks have been cut down to their very tips, suddenly the world speeds up, like the breaths that have slowly been leaving your lips come out all at once, like your heart picks up time to a universal metronome, desperate to realign itself once more. 

“There,” Jungkook murmurs from behind you. The words are soft and distant, almost like someone else had uttered them. “All done.”

You blame the tears welling in your eyes on the onions. 

Thirty minutes and an overwhelming amount of slicing different ingredients later, there is a boiling pot of kimchi stew on the stove, steaming up the inside of the glass lid that Jungkook has placed on top to keep it warm. He’s big on optimizing the time spent in the kitchen, cleaning up everything before you eat, stuffing all of the used plates and bowls and knives into the sink as they come, wrapping up the vegetables in the thin plastic bags that they came in and putting them back into the fridge. Jungkook says it’s because he doesn’t like having to clean the kitchen up after he’s eaten. You think it’s because he thinks you’ll run off and leave him to do all the work. 

You, admittedly, don’t make your own meals very often (or at all), but you can see the appeal. There’s something different about food that you make yourself, food that you turned from ingredients to a meal. Something rewarding. 

Or maybe it’s just because Jungkook did most of the cooking, and he’s got this inexplicable magic touch. 

“Good, right?” He asks when you’re finished, the both of you heading back to the kitchen to wash up the last of your dishes.

“It was okay,” you tease, even though your empty bowl says otherwise. There’s not a drop of soup, a scrap of food left inside of it, just an orange ring around the inside from the kimchi color. 

“Okay, Miss ‘Okay’,” Jungkook says, placing his bowl gently into the sink. “Hand me your thing, I’ll finish washing up.”

“You sure?” You ask. You feel like you’ve contributed absolutely nothing to the making of this dish. Not cooking it, not putting away the ingredients or washing the pot, nothing. The least you could do is clean up a couple of your bowls. Or put them in the dishwasher. 

“Yeah, don’t worry about it,” Jungkook says, hand already latching onto it. “Takes two minutes.”

“Okay,” you tell him, watching the bowls fill with soap as his big hands scrub away the remnants of a very delicious meal. 

You linger in the kitchen. Despite not really having anything else to do, you don’t want to go back to your room, or curl away in some corner of the apartment where Jungkook can’t find you. You’re finally spending time together. Isn’t that what you wanted?

“It was pretty good,” you add on belatedly, when Jungkook is just drying his hands on the dish towel. There’s a precarious stack of dishes, utensils, and pots on the drying rack, like adding one more chopstick will send the whole thing tumbling down, but Jungkook isn’t worried about it at all. Even though he likes cleaning stuff up, he doesn’t like putting it away. 

“Aha!” Jungkook shouts, pointing at you accusingly. “I knew you would like it.”

“You’re a good chef,” you tell him. Maybe kimchi jjigae is the only thing he’s good at making, but rather be a master of one than a jack of all trades but master of none. Though, you have to admit that Jungkook is a master of several trades, none of which you think you could ever do. “You should cook more.”

“I wish,” Jungkook says with a sigh. The two of you have retired to the leather couch, the conversation drifting away from the kitchen and towards the sofas. When he collapses on the cushions, he relaxes, like the feeling is sucking out all of the tension in his body. “Every time I get back from work, I’m so drained and exhausted. I just want to go to sleep.”

“You weren’t tired tonight,” you point out. 

“No,” Jungkook says. The words are distant and faintly register in his mind, almost like the realization has just dawned on him for the first time, “I wasn’t.”

“Is there something else you wanna do?” You ask, not feeling particularly lethargic either. Normally, you’d spend the rest of the night raiding the rest of Jungkook’s amenities, watching old shows on his television or taking a bath until your body looks like a raisin. Something you can do by yourself, something that you’d want to do by yourself to make up for the fact that Jungkook doesn’t ever want to do anything with you. Watching him at work is getting less boring, because you’re actually starting to interact, but at home, you go right back to square one. Or, you did. “Watch a movie, or anything?”

“Nah, I’m alright,” Jungkook shakes his head, scrunching up his nose. You watch him as he chews the inside of his cheek, finger tracing over the scar that’s been left from that night, the night you patched him up. You’re a healer, but some things are meant to leave marks. You almost think that Jungkook is going to up and leave, heave himself off of the floor and spend the rest of the night alone in his bedroom, but then, he turns to you and he asks, “How often do you heal people?”

“I haven’t in a while,” you admit. Not because the opportunity has never presented itself, but you never had anyone to heal. “I used to when I was a kid, a lot. You know, scraped knees and paper cuts.”

“What about you?” Jungkook asks. “Do you have to heal yourself as well?”

“No,” you explain, “healers’ bodies heal by themselves.” It’s why, whenever you get back to your shack after crashing into a tree on the sidewalk that you hadn’t spotted, or stubbed your toe on the leg of a table, or pulled a muscle from stretching too far, you let yourself rest, and your body does the work for you. “But healing isn’t… it isn’t something I do very often. I turn invisible much more.”

“I can tell,” Jungkook muses. “But you’ve been invisible around me so much that it feels like I can still see you.”

“That’s because I’m always in your office when I’m invisible,” you point out. Jungkook knows you’re there because you wouldn’t be anywhere else. Where would you even go, when the whole point is to watch him? “In a place like this, there is no way you would be able to find me.”

“You wanna bet?”

“You know what, yes, I do,” you say, because Jungkook can’t possibly think his human-snuffing skills are as good as yours. Especially when the only person he’s trying to find is invisible. “You think you’re such a hotshot, hmm? Try and find me, then.”

“First floor only,” Jungkook rules. “And, when I do, I get to turn something.”

“Fine,” you agree, only because you know that that’s not going to happen. “One thing. That’s strike two, though.”

“You won’t tell,” Jungkook chides, eyes narrowed. 

“Will I?”

“Twenty seconds!” Jungkook says, already beginning to count down. “Nineteen, eighteen—!”

You turn invisible at once, not wasting a second, scurrying off down one of the hallways. There are plenty of places to hide in Jungkook’s house, from the walk-in closets in every bedroom to the one-foot-tall gap underneath every bed. But you won’t go for one of those, because Jungkook expects you to. He’s going to hunt around his entire house, looking in all of the nooks and crannies, the armoires and cabinets and cubbyholes, because he thinks that that’s where you’ll be hiding. But the truth is that there is no way that Jungkook will be able to find you when he can’t see you, because he doesn’t know what he’ll be looking for. 

So, you pick the second-to-last bedroom down the hall, and you wait. You’d sit down on the mattress, but Jungkook easily be able to spot a dip in the comforter, so you stand, right next to the door, holding your breath. If Jungkook really does think he can sense your presence, or whatever psychic nonsense he’s on about, then he should have no problem finding you. 

You hear Jungkook’s voice echoing down the hallway, a sickly sweet singsong as he walks into every room. 

“Y/N…” He calls out, like a ghost in a horror movie. “Where are you?”

From your angle, you can peer down the corridor, watch as he trickles in and out of each room after five minutes, no doubt searching through every one with both of his arms out, desperate to crash into you. Good thing you’re standing, otherwise Jungkook might accidentally elbow you. Slowly, he makes his way out of the room right before yours, casually walking towards you. You suck in a quick breath, holding yourself perfectly still.

“Are you here?” Jungkook flips his head around the doorframe, a foot away from where you’re standing. He isn’t looking right at you, thank God, otherwise you think you might just burst into laughter. “Hmm, I think you are.”

He begins to walk around the room, one hand tracing over the quilted pattern on the comforter, the other reaching out, grabbing fistfuls of air. He looks like someone’s blocked his vision, wandering around aimlessly as he tries to find something to cling onto. You bite your lip, refusing to laugh and give yourself away as he makes his way into the bathroom, singing your name like a chant, a curse to be laid upon you. When he obviously has no luck, he returns to the bedroom, eyes narrowed, as if that will better help his vision. 

You don’t think you’ve ever held your breath for this long, lungs about to burst, but you can’t let Jungkook find you. There’s more than just your powers on the line, and his reward. There’s your pride, and his massive ego that you refuse to stroke. The fact that he looks absolutely ridiculous is also doing nothing to aid you, but giving yourself up would be a metaphorical death sentence. 

Jungkook has one foot out of the door, already heading towards the last bedroom in the hallway, when you crack. You sputter out a half-breath, this miniscule exhale, and he stops in his tracks, turning around. You freeze up, hoping that maybe Jungkook will just think it was a trick of his own ears. 

“Y/N?” He taunts. He looks around the room again, trying to see if the wind is blowing a different way, if there is something different. He almost doesn’t notice you. 

Almost. 

You turn in shock when Jungkook reaches a hand out, his fingers pinching at your lower torso, shrieking as you practically topple over, Jungkook’s arms the only things that prevent you from diving head first onto the floor. He encases you in his hold as you sink to the floor in defeat, laughing as he follows you, one arm holding your waist as the other wraps around your back. He chuckles to himself while you curl up in shame, desperate not to meet your eyes. Your skin sizzles where his fingers had touched it, like oil in a pan after it’s been taken off of the stove, like the remnants of a flame, embers left to burn into ashes. It feels like your body is on fire. 

“Found you,” Jungkook teases, but it’s soft and sweet and fond. “I told you, I just know.”

“You just heard me breathe,” you defend yourself, because the former is impossible to accept. 

“Whatever you want to say to make yourself feel better.” He grins, cheeky and prideful, making you shove his head away with the palm of your hand. 

“Fine, whatever,” you say, resigning yourself to the fact that you lost this round. “What do you want to turn? The bed frame? The door knob? That really ugly pot in the living room?”

“Hey, that pot isn’t ugly,” Jungkook exclaims. You frown at him. “Okay, it’s only a little bit ugly.”

“For someone with so much money, you sure don’t have the best taste,” you tell him, even though everything else in his house reads expensive like nothing else. That pot is just weirdly out-of-place. “Maybe the gold will make it look better.”

“What’s this?” Jungkook asks, reaching a hand out from behind you to toy at the bracelet on your wrist, this silver chain with a couple of charms dangling from it. It’s rusted beyond belief, from rain, from humidity, from wear, but you refuse to take it off, even when it loses what’s left of its shimmer, even when the silver fades to a scratchy red iron. 

“An old bracelet,” you say, fingers instinctively making to play with it, rubbing away at the metal. “From my mom.”

“You wear it every day,” Jungkook notices. 

“I never take it off,” you say. 

“It’s pretty,” Jungkook tells you, and you know that he isn’t just saying that. That he means it, despite its abysmal condition. The years have not been kind to it, but then again, they haven’t been very kind to you either. “It must be really special.”

“It is.” You shuffle the bracelet around so that all five of the charms are in view. “She would buy a new charm every year for my birthday.”

“I like this one,” Jungkook says, pointing to the milk carton charm. “It’s cute.”

“Yeah…” you trail off. The bracelet isn’t much, but it’s all you have left of a childhood that you had been robbed of. You had to grow up too fast, that you know, but at least this bracelet reminds you that you are never too old for your memories. 

“Can I turn it?” Jungkook asks. It’s as if you can see the words leave his lips, resting in front of you, waiting for your response. 

You turn around to face him, eyes wide. Your hand goes to rest atop the bracelet protectively, the idea of letting someone else touch it almost unfathomable. 

“You can say no,” Jungkook quickly stammers out, face beet red. “It was just—you wear it so much, and it looks like the silver is fading, so I was thinking maybe the gold would… fix it up a bit, or something. Make it look new again. Ignore me, you don’t have to say yes, it was just a suggestion.”

Your fingers drop into your lap as you look at him, expression softening. Here, in this unused guest bedroom, Jungkook looks nervous, lost, stumbling over his own words like he isn’t sure of himself anymore. He looks away from you, eyes already beginning to scan the room for something else to turn instead, doubtful you would even agree to such a wild request. It is your bracelet, after all. Why would he do something like that for you?

“You want to?” You ask him, hopeful and wishing. 

Jungkook nods, a smile tugging at his lips. “I do.”

“Then you can,” you say, holding out your wrist to him, the charms dangling over your laps. “Please.”

Jungkook’s shocked that you even said yes, but he scrambles to twist you around, moving your bodies so you aren’t pressed against each other like two peas squished inside of a pod. In this new position, you’re facing each other, staring right at each other as Jungkook reaches out a tentative hand, delicate fingers padding against your wrist. He breathes, and so do you, because you’ve gotten so used to the way this bracelet has looked, so familiar with every rust and crack and dent, knowing that it has remained unchanged for years. 

But this isn’t a change. It’s a rebirth. It’s something different, something fresh, something to remind you that not all is lost. That old memories can become new once more. 

Slowly, as Jungkook presses soft fingertips against the metal, sparks fly. A golden sheen wraps around the bracelet, inch by inch, leaving behind this unmistakeable shimmer, glinting in the sunlight. You can’t tear your eyes away, watching the magic unfold in real time, the silver vanishing before you. The gold consumes it, erasing all of the rust, the wear and tear, until it looks brand new.

Your mother would have loved it. 

“Is that strike two?” Jungkook asks, a cherry red blush decorating his cheeks. 

“Thank you,” you breathe out, not caring if it’s strike two or strike two hundred. Your fingers press against the metal, smooth and shiny, the bumpy texture gone. It must be worth thousands, now. But to you, it is priceless. “It’s beautiful.”

Jungkook nods, and you can distantly feel the weight of his gaze on you. 

“I know,” he says. 

You can’t sleep. 

You’ve slept better here than you have for the past three years of your life. At this point, sleeping on cement would be more comfortable than your bed back at your own house, but here, the soft, plush mattress takes away all of the exhaustion that manifests itself in you throughout the day. Not to mention the fact that for the first time in over a decade, you finally have a normal routine, an internal clock to direct your body, rather than the other way around. There is something soothing in knowing exactly what the next day will bring. Something that doesn’t keep you up with worry.

But tonight, you are wide awake. 

The golden bracelet on your wrist clinks against itself as you sit up, rubbing at the gunk that’s collected in your eyes. You’ve been keenly aware of its existence on your wrist much more in the past several days, ever since Jungkook turned it from its previous faded silver, fingers instinctively toying with it whenever there’s nothing on your mind—and even when there is. 

What you fear most is the fact that you feel as though you are relying on Jungkook to be there more and more, counting on the fact that you know he will be by your side no matter where you are, no matter what you do. You are relying on him to be there, on his house to be there, shaping the way that you run your life based on the belief that at the end of the day, he will be asleep under the same roof as you. 

You pull yourself out of bed. Maybe a night spent alone will remind you of the days where you would watch the moon move across the sky, sitting underneath trees and counting the stars that you can see. Remind you that no matter what, the moon will always be there for you, too. Remind you that this, all of it, is temporary. 

You know that you aren’t allowed to go up to the second floor of Jungkook’s apartment, and that you’ve never been solely because Jungkook requested that you stay downstairs, a promise you have kept throughout the weeks. But there must be some appeal to the rooftop, you think, because Jungkook never comes downstairs whenever he’s having a restless night. Besides, it’s not as if you have any plans to go into his bedroom. 

Softly, you creep upstairs, hand dragging along the golden rail, feet leaving creases in the carpet. The top of the stairs opens up into a general hallway, a dark wooden door undoubtedly leading towards his bedroom, while the walls on the other side turn to glass, leading towards the pool. You tiptoe down the hallway, making sure to avoid making too much noise by Jungkook’s bedroom door, passing by the gym that Jungkook must use all of the time, whenever he’s not around to bother you. The glass door at the end of the hallway must exit out to the pool, so you twist the doorknob and push it open, the cool summer atmosphere hitting you like a breath of fresh air. 

All of the lights are on outside, this soft white that reflects off of the metal railing and the pool water, crashing in waves against the tiled edges. You think it’s just for show, like how people leave their Christmas lights on twenty-four hours a day, visible through their windows, but then you round the corner and see him.

Jungkook sits along the edge of the water, legs swishing around in the pool, as he looks up at the sky. The summer breeze blows through his hair, messy and loose, the way it looks right when he gets out of the shower, before he puts any product into it. Whatever he’s playing with in his hand glints in the lights, that distinctive yellow glow. It must be a coin or something, something small, something to keep his fingers occupied. 

“Are we considering that strike three?”

He whips around when he hears your voice, hears the way the pool water carries it across to him. 

“I thought you promised never to come up here,” he muses back. 

“Then I guess maybe both of us can be forgiven,” you suggest.

You amble over to him, crouching down to dip your feet in as well. You seat yourself along the edge of the pool beside him as the water sloshes around, the sensation sending shivers down your spine despite the humidity in the air. 

“Can’t sleep?”

Jungkook shakes his head. “My body’s tired but my mind isn’t.”

“What’s that?” You ask, pointing at the coin in his hand. It isn’t a form of currency that you recognize, certainly nothing used here. 

“A family heirloom,” Jungkook tells you, holding it out for you to see. It’s covered in a thin layer of cold but you think that you can make out some sort of crest, an emblem or insignia above the coat of arms. “Apparently it had been stolen from someone of royalty or high status back in the day. My family turned it into gold and made it ten times more valuable.”

“Oh, but I pickpocket a few people and suddenly I get sentenced by the Realm to be a minder, I see how it is,” you joke, rolling your eyes. Your eyes glaze over the crest, tracing the lines of a lion, a spear, a shield. It must mean something to someone, but to you and Jungkook, it could be anything. 

“Hey, but being my minder hasn’t been terrible, has it?” Jungkook asks, mockingly offended. His lips curl down into a pout as he looks at you, a hand on his heart like it’s been punctured by your words.

“It’s…” You begin. You suppose that it hasn’t been terrible. In the beginning, it was positively nightmarish, left you feeling like there was no way you would ever complete your sentence. Now, there’s this weird, hidden part of you that doesn’t want to leave. The part of you that has become attached to this world, this lifestyle. The part of you that relies on there being another person in your life to be with. “It’s not that bad.”

“You know what, I’ll take it.” Jungkook grins. “Even though I know you secretly love me.”

You give Jungkook a shove, pushing him on his side. “You wish.”

He laughs, pulling himself back up off of the cement, knocking his shoulder into yours. “I know that we both kind of didn’t have a choice in any of this,” he tells you, looking up at the stars, watching their faint light, twinkling from millions of light years away. “But I think I really needed you here.”

“Oh, now he admits he needs a minder,” you say sarcastically, flinging your arms out in front of you. 

Jungkook chuckles. “I didn’t realize I turned so much until you forced me to stop cold turkey.”

You nod. The truth is, you can’t blame Jungkook for his turning habits. You can’t blame him for living the way that he lives, when it’s the only thing he’s ever known. When the two most important adults in his life turn like wildfire, when they taught him everything he knows. But Jungkook is his own person, now, not a product of his parents, anymore. He has his own choices to make. He can become whoever he wants to be. 

He has become someone he wants to be. 

Jungkook’s magic habits aren’t any fault of his own as much as yours aren’t, either. They were born out of ignorance, out of necessity. Out of the fact that neither of you have ever known a world where you didn’t have powers, where you didn’t feel as though you needed to use them. You couldn’t imagine not having your magic. You know that Jungkook feels the same. 

“Why did you?” It’s as if the words don’t even belong to you. Like someone else has spoken them—the moon, the sky, the stars. 

Jungkook purses his lips, and sighs. “It was all I had ever known.”

Jungkook grew up drunk on his powers. You wonder if he’s sobered up now. 

(You wonder if you had anything to do with it.)

“When I was little, my parents gave me that whole ‘you’re different, and that makes you special’ talk. They told me that my powers were valuable. A gift. And that people with gifts like mine must never waste them. That if we had been given this magic, we ought to use it, right? So that’s what I did. God, every day I would turn a new toy gold, and then I would get another one to replace it, and I would turn that one gold, too. My parents probably sold that to our banks, another hundred thousand dollars into their pockets,” Jungkook says, forcing out a laugh at the memory. The thought is rather endearing, when you think about it. Little Jungkook turning a stuffed bear gold, crying when it isn’t soft and fuzzy anymore. 

“And my parents encouraged me. They told me that I was doing the right thing, that I wasn’t letting my gift go to waste. You saw them that evening that they came over. They were turning things gold left and right. Things that I had wanted to stay their natural material. Like that bowl for my keys. Do you know how easily gold is scratched?” He exclaims, gesturing frantically in front of him. “I purposefully kept that as the clay it was made out of. And now it’s gold.”

“A modern day crisis,” you joke. 

“I guess…” Jungkook begins, but the words trail off and he pauses, almost like nothing he says will be correct. “I guess I just never knew the difference between not wanting my magic to be in vain, and not wanting to ever stop using it. Like you. You only heal when you need to. And even then, you don’t treat it like this precious gift. You treat it like something you owe to others.”

“That’s because without other people to heal, my power is useless,” you explain. Being able to heal others has no direct benefit for you. It doesn’t make you stronger, or faster, or better. It is a gift that is meant to be shared. “It’s different.”

“Every time I turn something, I feel like shit afterwards,” Jungkook admits to you. “Like I’ve turned so many things, that I don’t have the right to do it anymore. Like I’ve exhausted my magic.”

“You feel guilty,” you explain to him, resting a hand on top of his own, his fingers losing their grip on the coin he’s been tossing between them. “And that’s okay,” you tell him, meeting his eyes with your own. “Your parents are right—what you have, this power that you possess, it is a gift. It has made your life better in a way that nothing else could. But your fear of letting it go to waste, of not truly appreciating it for what it is, is a two-way street.”

Jungkook blinks at you, petal pink lips parted ever so slightly. 

“Wasting a gift by never using it is the same as wasting it by overusing it, because it loses its specialness. When you turn things now, it doesn’t feel amazing or blessed or exciting, because it’s lost the ability to feel like that for you. It’s almost second-nature, at this point,” you say.

“Then what do I do?” He asks, feeling helpless. “How do I make it feel special again?”

You squeeze his hand in your own, making him look up at you, the pool water reflected in his big brown eyes, like a warm chocolate ocean. “You only use it on things that make you feel like a better person.” Things that make Jungkook feel special, as opposed to things that make his magic feel special. “Not just things that will put more money in your bank account, or things that will make your house decor nicer. Things that you really, truly care about.”

Jungkook’s eyes glance downward at something, but he nods. He breathes out this exhale, this heavy sort of breath, like he’s trying to reteach himself the things that make him tick. Things like alphabetized books, and homemade kimchi stew. 

“Gifts like that only come once in a lifetime,” you say. “Remarkable things don’t happen to us all the time.” You know this, because it’s true. Because you’ve lived it.

Because in another life, in another universe, there is a you who can’t turn invisible, can’t heal people, and there is a Jungkook, too, one who can’t turn whatever he pleases into gold. And they would live their whole lives not knowing what it would be like to have these powers, to ease their way of life. And they would never meet each other, either. Too busy trapped on opposite sides of the world, too busy to worry about anybody but themselves. 

“So we have to learn to treasure them.” It feels as though you’re drowning in him. Like you’re floundering, barely staying afloat. “We have to make sure that they always feel special to us.”

You curl your hand around his own, lacing your fingers together as your palms rest against each other’s. You watch as his gaze drifts down to where your hands are interlocked, a bridge between the two of you, a lifeline that connects the two lives you had lived without each other in them. 

“Do you understand?” You ask. You can see the words as they appear, watch as they linger in between the two of you, hot summer breaths on a cool summer night. 

He squeezes your hands together, and he smiles, warm and round and real. He looks at you, and he is there, he is sitting by your side. And he is beautiful and extraordinary and remarkable. And he says, “I’m starting to.”

You wake up the next morning to find a shimmering piece of parchment sitting on the dresser in your bedroom. 

As declared by the Realm, its leaders, and its government, it reads, 

The recipient, Y/N, has successfully completed her sentence of community service as mandated by the courts. She no longer needs to serve as the minder to Jeon Jungkook, and may return to her former residence. 

Though the sentence has been carried out, The Realm, its leaders, and its government, reserves the right to re-charge the recipient for the crimes for which she had been originally tried should she commit them again. Should this instance occur, the option for community service will not be available. 

We thank you for your service.

Oh. 

Already? 

It feels like you just started. Like it was only yesterday that you stormed up to the front door of Jungkook’s penthouse, watched as he crumpled up the parchment and tossed it into the bin. Like it was only yesterday you reappeared at his office, this time with a declaration that won’t be so easily destroyed. 

You wonder why this one is all sparkly as well. 

You don’t know exactly what prompted the end of your sentence, what duties you had somehow fulfilled to earn you your freedom. What is the Realm searching for? What data are they using to determine whether or not you have met your goal? It certainly couldn’t have just been the fact that Jungkook hasn’t turned in a while. Not turning is not the same as not wanting to turn. 

So what changed?

You stare down at the parchment, each word leaving you more confused than the word before it. 

It isn’t over already, is it?

Knowing that you are now free to return back to your own house means that your worst fear has been realized. You don’t want to. 

You want to stay here, in Jungkook’s massive penthouse, relishing in the glory and wealth that comes alongside it. You want his chef to make pre-made meals for you and the extra kimchi stew he keeps in the fridge. You want Jungkook’s five thousand different streaming services and enough books to last you several lifetimes. You want the sense of normalcy that staying here has given you, the regular routine that you have so effortlessly fallen into. You want the late-night pool chats and rounds of hide-and-seek. 

Why would you want to give up all that you have?

“You want fried or poached eggs?” Jungkook knocks on your closed bedroom door, tapping softly with his knuckles, already awake and ready to make breakfast. 

“Either,” you tell him, glaring down at the parchment with furrowed brows. You’re too afraid to touch it, too afraid to even look at it any closer. Because that will make it real. 

“Alright,” Jungkook calls. “It’ll be ready in ten! Got freshly-squeezed orange juice too!” You can hear his footsteps as he heads back down the corridor, the thump, thump, thump of his fuzzy slippers against the hardwood floor. 

“Coming,” you say weakly, too focused on the glowing paper on the dresser. 

 Just because you can go back to your house doesn’t mean you have to. Just because you can go back to your old life, doesn’t mean you have to. 

You grab the paper and stuff it in an old tote bag, covering it with old clothes, memories of the former world you lived in. Not anymore. 

After all, isn’t this the life you’ve always dreamed of?

Kimchi stew is, as it stands, delicious, but it can’t be the only thing that the two of you ever cook together. 

Jungkook does all of the grocery shopping, mostly because the both of you know that if you went out to the store with a list of ingredients, you would be lost for days searching for them. So when he returns home with three tote bags filled with ingredients, your mouth already starts to water. 

“What are we making today, chef?” You ask, bounding into the kitchen as Jungkook begins to unpack. 

“Another Korean recipe,” Jungkook says happily, pulling out a bright yellow pack of thin grey noodles. “Japchae!”

“Sounds delicious,” you say, though at this point he could make you microwave mac-and-cheese and you’d snarf it down like nothing else.

“You bet it is.” Jungkook grins, slowly dumping out the rest of the contents of the bags. They are filled to the brim with vegetables and seasonings, peppers and zucchini and everything in between, the makings of a colorful little homemade dish. 

Jungkook seems to be making more time to actually cook things these days, fishing through the cabinets regularly to see what meals he can make with all of the ingredients in his kitchen. The chef only comes once every two weeks now, and usually brings with him any groceries that Jungkook has personally requested. He’ll ask you what you think of a new recipe that he wants to try, showing you the guide on his laptop screen, writing down whatever he needs to buy from the store. 

And you thought that the chef’s meals were appetizing. 

“Have you ever thought of meal-prepping?” You ask as Jungkook sets the noodles in a pot of boiling water, turning the heat on high. 

“Why?” Jungkook says. 

“I don’t know,” you tell him, washing the red pepper underneath the faucet, cutting board and knife ready and waiting on the counter. “So you don’t have to go through the process of cutting everything up and sauteing it, or whatever.”

Jungkook turns around, shakes his head. “No. Half the fun of cooking is making it.”

“But you could save yourself a lot of time when you come back from work,” you point out. Jungkook’s always so exhausted by the time he walks through the front door, keys scratching the golden bowl on the table on the way in. 

“But then we wouldn’t get to cook together,” he says like it’s obvious, like it’s the thing that he thinks about the most when he comes back home. The two of you, filling up his kitchen, leaving oil stains on the countertops and burnt vegetables at the bottom of the pans. The scent of spices, of onions, of sizzling vegetables wafting through the air. 

Another person to fill up this barren house. 

You never eat in the dining room, because two people still isn’t enough to make that room feel like it’s full, like there are people that regularly use it. But now, there are grease stains on the leather of Jungkook’s couch, and a little bit of ketchup on the rug that he doesn’t know about, reminders that just because Jungkook’s house is big doesn’t mean it has to be empty as well. 

“I’m a horrible chef,” you say, because you’re not quite sure what else to tell him. Up until a few weeks ago, you had never cut up an onion in your life. Things in the kitchen that take Jungkook five minutes to do take you twenty. You certainly aren’t any help, not when Jungkook has to pause whatever he’s doing to teach you something that you should already know. So what’s the appeal?

“You’re not that bad,” Jungkook assures you gently. “You just need to do it more.”

“Oh, so is that your mission? You don’t meal-prep because you want me to learn how to make my own food?” You ask, rounding on him. 

“You got me.” He grins guiltily, pinching the part of your waist where he knows you’re the most ticklish, making you laugh as you turn invisible for a moment, a sort of gut reaction whenever you’re sensitive. “And because I like cooking with you.”

“Can’t imagine why,” you say with a roll of your eyes. “It must be my infectious personality, right?”

“That, and teaching you how to cook stuff is fun.” Jungkook smiles, reaching out as he begins to chop vegetables beside you. Standing here, in the middle of his kitchen, you wonder if this is how life is supposed to be. Someone you can cook with, someone you can eat with. Someone who will teach you the things that you don’t know, who will help you master the things that you do. Someone who doesn’t care where you came from, only that you’re here now, that you are right beside him. 

Homemade meals make your insides warm and fuzzy, but having someone to spend the night with makes your heart feel comforted. Makes it feel like it’s been wrapped in a blanket, cradled in someone’s hands. 

“What happens when I learn everything?” You ask. “What will you do then?”

Eventually, this routine must come to an end. Eventually, there will be nothing left for him to teach you, nothing left for you to learn. You know that your days are numbered, that there is only so much time that the two of you can spend together. What will happen when you reach the last day? When there will be no tomorrow for you to rely on?

Jungkook must know that you can’t stay here forever, even if the two of you try to keep it that way. But he doesn’t miss a beat when he says, “Then, I’ll find something new to teach you.”

This arrangement has always been temporary. 

But for a moment, just a moment, an echo in time, he makes you believe otherwise. 

There’s a golden glint on your chest of drawers when you walk into the room, the glare flashing in your eyes as the sun hits it. 

You, admittedly, don’t go into your room very often, usually only to do the thing that bedrooms, at their most basic level, were meant to do: sleep. But Jungkook retired early to his room tonight, citing some ridiculous reason like he hadn’t worked out enough this week, and everything in the house suddenly becomes less inviting whenever he’s not around. 

When you step closer, you can see it. See the thin chain that rests on the dresser, the key that hangs from it, a similar size to the charms on your bracelet. The gold is faded, shine erased, leaving behind this gentle matte texture, smooth but worn. It’s much more vintage than the sorts of things you would find in jewelry stores today—bright, sparkly necklaces and shiny, lustrous rings. It was made to look old, to look worn. It probably is.  

There’s a little note next to the necklace, a torn piece of paper from a notepad, the edges rough and uneven. 

To Y/N,

Found this in my mother’s old jewelry that she always leaves here when she decides it’s not her style anymore. Didn’t really think of anybody else that would make good use of it like you. I think it’ll match your bracelet well! I hope you like it.

Jungkook

You smile as you read the words, take in this meaningful little gesture that Jungkook has done for you. The bracelet from your mother has always been your most prized possession, but with its new golden makeover, it reminds you that you don’t always have to look to your past to be happy. That what you have, right here, right now, is enough. Now, your mother’s charm bracelet has a matching partner. 

Standing in front of the mirror, you put the necklace on, fingers craning to attach the clasp to the chain, metal slipping from your grip. After a bit of a battle, you finally manage to connect the two ends, letting the key hang low past your collarbones, the gold resting gently against your skin. It doesn’t match your bracelet perfectly, but the two aren’t so much a matching set as they are a pair, two pieces that are meant to complement each other rather than complete. 

You seriously doubt that Jungkook’s already asleep. 

Sneaking up the stairs to the second story, you see that the door to Jungkook’s bedroom is wide open, revealing a little glimpse into the room he spends so much time in. It’s dark, empty, a signal that Jungkook is elsewhere on this floor. You don’t spend too much effort peering into Jungkook’s bedroom, not when it feels like you’re invading his space, his privacy. He’s already given up so much of his home for you. He deserves to keep his bedroom his own.

He’s not in the gym, you determine as you pass by, which means that there really is only one other place he could be found. 

You push open the door to the rooftop, rounding the corner to the deck to find Jungkook doing laps in the pool, wearing nothing but his swimming trunks. The water sloshes around his body as he swims back and forth, kicking up splashes as he goes. You watch for a few moments as he works out, not wanting to interrupt him he burns away the calories in his body. This is the closest you’ve ever come to seeing Jungkook undressed, but you don’t really mind. At least he’s got shorts on. 

When he stops, he stands up in the pool, sopping wet hands running through sopping wet hair, strands that frame the sides of his face, make his hair look longer than it actually is. He wipes away the water on his face, blinking the chlorine from his eyes, when he spots you. 

“What are you doing up here?” He asks, not even caring to fight away the grin that has laced itself on his features. 

“Came to say thank you,” you tell him, fingers toying with the key around your neck. “You didn’t have to do that for me.”

“I wanted to,” Jungkook says honestly. “Besides, my mother was never going to come back to get it, so I figured that it should go to someone who will actually wear it.”

“It’s beautiful,” you say, slowly sitting down along the edge of the pool, letting your legs dip into the water. Jungkook makes his way over to you, water splashing at his torso as he walks through the pool to stand before you. “Was it always gold?”

“It was, yes,” Jungkook says with a nod. “My mom liked to turn a lot of things, but she preferred her jewelry to be naturally gold. That’s why it’s pretty faded.”

“It looks nicer this way,” you say. “Shiny gold looks cheap.”

“Spend a couple of months in a mansion and suddenly you think gold looks cheap?” Jungkook jokes. “I think I’m rubbing off on you.”

“Can’t help that I’ve got an eye for nice things,” you tease, looking Jungkook up and down just to be dramatic. You have to admit that he’s got a rather attractive figure, fit, built, toned. You would be lying to yourself if you said that you weren’t eyeing him at least a little bit. 

Jungkook pretends that he isn’t paying attention to the fact that you are blatantly ogling his body and laughs. “You swim?”

“I learned when I was little,” you tell him. “But I haven’t done it in a long time.”

“Oh, that’s a shame,” Jungkook says with a disapproving shake of his head. 

“What? I like being dry,” you say, hands on your hips as you defend yourself. Besides, when you were little, swimming always meant showering afterwards, which sucked because then you had to waste water just to clean yourself of other water. Your mother always said that being able to swim would carry you far in life, would be an invaluable skill. You haven’t swum since she died. 

“But, you wouldn’t mind if I… oh, never mind,” Jungkook dismisses, being purposefully vague just to capture your attention. 

“What?” You demand. 

“If I…” Jungkook begins, leaning back down in the pool until all but his head is submerged. He floats towards you, paddling until he’s right beneath your feet. “Did this—?”

Without a second of warning, Jungkook’s wet hands are grabbing onto your ankle, pulling you and your fully-clothed-self into the water with a splash, making you shriek as you feel your skin freeze up at the cold temperature. Luckily, it’s shallow enough here that you can stand rather easily, but now you’re soaked from head to toe, sopping fabric sticking to your figure.

You come up from beneath the water, positively accosted, hands wiping across your face as you clear your eyes so that they can narrow in on your target. “Okay, that was uncalled for,” you say, splashing Jungkook furiously, even as the two of you fight off the laughter that is bubbling up from your throats. 

“Oh, but it’s such a nice night for swimming,” Jungkook grins devilishly, that cheeky sort of look reserved for when he knows he’s being a nuisance. 

“Maybe for you!” You say, punctuating every word with a splash. Jungkook takes them all in good fun, accepting his punishment for pulling you into the pool. “I’ve been betrayed.”

“Admit it,” Jungkook coaxes, “you love me.”

You refuse.

When the rage has died down and the water begins to feel less like an icy death trap and more like a pleasant dip, you and Jungkook paddle around each other, swimming in circles like two fish in a school. Looking up, it is a nice night, clear skies as a crescent moon hangs above your heads. There are seldom any stars in the middle of the city, but the especially bright ones still shine, flickers of white in an otherwise deep blue ocean. You wonder how many times Jungkook has come out here, spent the night underneath the sky when he cannot sleep away the hours in bed. 

You wonder how many times you missed the opportunity to spend the night with him. 

“I sort of wish that we could stay like this forever, don’t you?” Jungkook asks, the two of you floating on top of the water like light against the sea. 

There’s a lot of things in your life that you wish would never change. This is just another bullet point added to the list. 

“Yeah,” you breathe out, because out there somewhere is a timer, counting down the moments until you have to say goodbye. “I do.”

“You didn’t have to do this, you know,” you say, looking at Jungkook. 

He sits across from you in the booth, face lit up in a warm yellow from the rustic exposed light bulb above your heads, this soft, homey glow to his features, sharp jawline but rounded cheeks. He’s cleaned up well, in a different way than how he gets ready for work, when he has to make sure his collars are crisp and his hair is sleek and straight. Here, his dark brown hair is bouncy, loose, like he had blown it out after jumping out of the shower and then immediately ran his hand through it a couple of times to mess it up. He wears a plain button down, nothing fancy or chic, no tie, no suit jacket. The beauty of how he looks is that it’s so simple, so timeless, like he doesn’t need to put any effort into how he looks because he is just naturally perfect. Like the cover of a magazine. Like a sculpture come to life. 

“I wanted to,” Jungkook says happily, fork twirling around the pasta in the dish in front of him. “We can’t just eat premade meals and leftover Korean food forever.”

“I mean, I wouldn’t complain if we did…” You reason, because you’ve been better fed in the few months you’ve lived with Jungkook than in the years you have spent on your own. Not to mention the fact that everything Jungkook makes tastes eons better than the meals the professional chef whips up, for some odd reason. “But you’re right, a night out is fun.”

“Sometimes food tastes better when you don’t make it yourself,” Jungkook points out, motioning to the dishes before you, these high-class servings of fish and pasta and vegetables that look like they belong on a cooking show rather than on the table in front of you. You and Jungkook may have mastered (or at least… gotten better at) cooking, but presentation is a whole other battlefield. Besides, it’s all going to the same place, so why bother?

“Mmm,” you murmur in agreement, savoring the flavor of the meal in front of you. A year ago you wouldn’t have dared step foot in a restaurant like this one, would have probably gotten kicked out after you walked through the door, so being here feels like a real treat. One that you think you could definitely get used to. 

“Thanks, by the way,” Jungkook pipes up, as if suddenly remembering something. 

“For what?”

“For your idea about the investment management,” Jungkook says, sending the both of you back to that day in his office, where Jungkook was on the verge of flipping his desk over because he couldn’t figure out a solution. 

“Oh, is it working out?” You ask, curious to know if your suggestion is truly paying off or if you just had too much faith in the goodness of humanity. 

“It is.” Jungkook nods happily. He seems very proud of himself. “It was slow going at first, because a lot of clients were starting to wonder why we weren’t investing in other stocks that would guarantee us a higher payout, but then they saw where the money was going. We aren’t bigger than our rival companies, but this levelled the playing field.”

“I’m glad,” you say, because it’s one thing for Jungkook to tell you you had a good idea, and it’s another for him to actually implement it. “That makes me happy to hear.”

“You’re not as bad at business or economics as you think you are, Y/N,” Jungkook informs you, waving around a nonchalant hand. “All they are is an in-depth study of human nature. Some economists assume that everyone in the world is selfish and cares only about themselves, but you’re different. You see the good in everyone, you believe that people can be honest, and selfless, and giving.”

Like Jungkook. 

Like Jungkook, who has given up his home, his work, his life just to deal with another person hovering around him. Who gifts you gorgeous pieces of jewelry and takes you out to fancy meals, who lets you screw up a recipe in the kitchen and obligingly eats peppers that have been charred beyond recognition. Who is so much more honest, so much more selfless, so much more giving, than you could ever be, sticking around because to not do so would cost you your freedom, because you would rather stay here than be anywhere else. 

“I don’t know what I’ll do when you’re gone,” Jungkook says, cracking this weak, terrible smile. He shakes his head as if to banish the thought from his mind, to exist only in this very moment, choosing to ignore both the past and the future. “I think I’m starting to rely on you being there.”

“Yeah,” you say softly, distantly. Something weighs heavy on your chest, pressing your heart down, slowing its temperate rhythm. The truth is that your heart stopped a long time ago, it stopped when you realized that there’s more to Jungkook that you want to know, when you realized that you can’t bear to imagine a life different than the one that the two of you share, no matter how temporary it is. But this weight, this burden on you, it serves as nothing but a reminder that without Jungkook, your heart cannot count in time. “Me too.”

You return home with plastic tupperwares in your hands, leftovers from the enormous meal that the two of you couldn’t have finished even if you tried. Jungkook takes the container from your hands as you excuse yourself to the bathroom, desperate to wash away the thoughts that rest heavy in your heart, cleanse yourself of the lies you can’t seem to stop telling. There’s this naive part of you that thinks, when you wash off the makeup, change back into your raggedy old clothes, all of the secrets you carry with you will vanish as well. 

You know you’ll have to come clean eventually. Eventually, Jungkook will get suspicious as to why you’ve hung around so long even though he is no longer turning. He’ll begin to wonder why you haven’t dashed out of the penthouse you once used to disparage, desperate to return to your old life, where you didn’t have to know him the way that you do now. When you didn’t feel like there was something else trapping you here. 

When all is said and done, though, it feels like here is where you were always meant to end up. 

You head back out into the living room, ready to settle down and wrap up the night by watching a movie or something, when you see Jungkook standing by the couch, your old tote bag sitting on the cushions from a laundry trip earlier today, a shimmering piece of parchment in his hands. 

“Jungkook—”

“How long?” He asks, voice cracking. He’s clenching the paper so hard that his knuckles are turning white, like he can’t believe the words that he’s reading. “How long have you been free to go?”

“Listen, I can explain—”

“A week? A month? When were you going to tell me?” He pleads. When you can’t even muster up the dignity to look at him, he shouts. “When?”

“A month,” you tell him weakly, desperately. 

“A month? You’ve been staying here for a month when you didn’t even need to?” He asks, and he isn’t angry, or furious, or full of rage. He looks helpless, like there is no longer light behind his eyes, twinkles in his irises. Like he’s in pain, like he’s hurt. Exposed, his walls broken down and nothing left to repair them. “When were you going to tell me? Were you ever going to say anything?”

“Yes, Jungkook, but I—”

“All this time,” he says, more to himself than to you, like he can’t believe how foolish he’s been. “All this time you’ve been using me? Using my money?”

“No, Jungkook, it’s not like that.” You are desperate, desperate to salvage what you can from this broken arrangement, desperate to start anew. 

“Then what is it like?” He demands. “If you weren’t using me for my house, or my money, or my personal chef, then what is it? What did you want from me that you couldn’t get on your own?”

You stop. Why did you stay? Normalcy? Opportunity? Company? All things that you never dreamed of having in a million years. And while being with Jungkook did provide you with all three, none of them feel quite right.

“I don’t know, I just—” You begin, scrambling for the right words and feeling like nothing you say will be correct. “I didn’t want to go back just yet.” It’s a pitiful excuse. 

“So you just decided to stay? To play along with me, with all of the things that I was doing with you, for you?” Jungkook shakes where he stands in front of you, blindsided. “Let me teach you how to cook and give you expensive jewelry and take you out to fancy dinners? Just for fun?”

“I never asked for you to do those things for me,” you remind him firmly. It’s not like you were scrounging for money from his pockets, selling insignificant gold sculptures on the black market to buff up your empty bank account. “You wanted to.”

“Because I thought we had something special, Y/N,” Jungkook admits helplessly, collapsing back on the couch. “I did those things because I felt it, Y/N. What you were talking about, that night at the pool, where you saw me sitting at the edge of the water. I felt it. With you,” he begs, hopeless and anguished. “I didn’t understand what it meant to make the magic feel special again until I did it for you. I turned your bracelet and it made me feel like I had something to give to others.”

“You know that that’s not what I meant,” you say, shaking your head. “I was talking about your gift, not us.”

“Aren’t they all the same, though? Magic? Powers? Love? Don’t they all make us feel like we have something special beneath our fingertips?” He asks, to you, to himself, to the moon and the stars, searching for an answer that none of you can give him. 

“Love? You don’t mean that,” you say, refusing to admit it. You have no explanation as to why Jungkook did the things he did, just as much as you don’t have an explanation as to why you did the things you did. They just happened. 

“I thought we had something,” Jungkook admits sadly, unable to even bring his head up to look at you, at the tears that are welling in your eyes, the ones you refuse to let fall. “And I thought the reason that you wanted to do all of those things with me was because you felt it, too.”

“Jungkook, you know that—”

“What?” He erupts. “What do I know? I know that you’ve been using me all of this time, that you did those things with me because you were getting freebies out of it. I know that I was foolish and—and stupid to think that maybe it was because you were falling in love with me just like I was falling in love with you.”

“Jungkook…” You reach out a trembling hand, wanting to feel the warmth of his body once more, the weight of his head in your palm. 

“Don’t,” he says, swatting it away and standing up. “I get it, Y/N. I was stupid and I thought that we had something, when we don’t.” He turns back to look at you, and you don’t think you’ll ever be able to get the image out of your head, the sight of him, broken and beaten and empty, a shell of the beautiful, vibrant man you had become so attached to. “There’s nothing left for you here. Your services are no longer required.”

He disappears down the hallway, leaving you with nothing but a tote bag, a necklace, and a bracelet left for you to remember him. 

When you step into your house for the first time in months, it feels even less inviting than it normally does. Which is, as far as you’re concerned, rather impressive, considering you’ve always dreaded coming back regardless of what happened throughout the day. 

But now, you can name no place you would rather not be than in this graffiti-laden house, a dangling light bulb above the back entrance and dirt and dust all along the walls. You’ve never had time to fix up this place and make it look even the slightest bit presentable, never had the money to paint over the walls and get rid of the big red X on the front door. Day in and day out, this would just be a place where you could sleep, a mattress on the floor and Campbell’s soups on the cracked kitchen counters. The first thing you’d do every morning is get out. The last thing you’d want to do every night is come back. 

No place has felt like home in a long time. Not since your mother died, when you lost how her smile would light up a room, how she would spin you in circles and kiss your forehead when you got scared that you were going too fast. You had almost forgotten what it meant to have a home, to have a place that felt sacred, like coming home to a warm hug and a steaming cup of tea. To have a place that you didn’t dread returning to, a place that you could gladly waste away in. 

The bracelet that dangles from your wrist is the closest thing that you have left to the feeling of home, of comfort and warmth and solace, of something that makes you feel truly happy. But now, the bracelet has been tinted with the memories of another, of the only other person you can think of that has brought you that same feeling of joy, of these rose-stained memories that rest deep within your heart’s attic. They have always been there, hidden, buried beneath the bad, but when there is nothing left they surface. To remind you of what good life can bring you. 

To remind you of the magic inside you. 

You hate living here. And for a time, you hated living with Jungkook, too. Hated how extravagant his house was, hated how he refused to even speak to you. How there were so many unused rooms, so many empty spaces. But what changed, there, and what hasn’t changed, here, is how people, and not things, are what fill up rooms. 

Living with Jungkook made you feel like coming back after a long day was worth it. Planted the knowledge inside you that you would always have him there, could always rely on another’s presence within the apartment. He’s only one person, but he fills up the room like nothing else, lights it up like New Year’s Eve. He’s funny, and witty, and gorgeous. He’s caring and honest and cheeky, just cocky enough for it to be charming as opposed to egotistical. He cooks like nothing else and spends his sleepless nights beneath the stars, looking at the same moon and sky as everyone else. 

You don’t hate living here because it’s shit. You hate living here because it’s lonely. 

There was a space in your heart that you didn’t even realize was empty. It had been overtaken by the part of you determined to make it to the next day, determined to stick it to the Realm, to its leaders, to all of the people that look down on you because you aren’t made of money. 

But when you left Jungkook’s house, you realized that that space had slowly been filled up with him. That over time, bit by bit, moment by moment, Jungkook returned what you had lost, revived what you thought had long been dead. 

The truth is that you wanted to stay with Jungkook because you couldn’t stomach the thought of being alone again. Of being forced to fend for yourself, forced to come home to an empty house with no one to waste away the night with. Of being forced to live like every day is a threat rather than a gift. 

Jungkook has magic in his fingertips and his heart. It was only a matter of time before it spread to you as well. 

Being hurt by someone you love feels like an arrow to the chest. Like a puncture wound, deep and piercing, but too painful to even want to pull it out, patch up the hole. You had already experienced it once. You didn’t have any plans on experiencing it again. 

But losing the opportunity to love someone feels like an ache throughout your whole body, this crippling sort of pain that spreads through your bloodstream, setting every organ it passes on fire. It feels like there is something tearing you apart from the inside out, like every piece of you is slowly crumbling. 

Jungkook’s biggest mistake wasn't falling in love with you. It was thinking that you were still falling in love with him, when the truth is, you had already fallen. It was letting you leave when both of you wanted nothing more than for you to stay. 

Loving someone is a gamble. It’s a risk, a toe in the water, a spark from your fingers. 

But not loving someone? That is magic, wasted. 

Who knew twenty dollars could get you one large pizza and extra garlic rolls? Certainly not you. 

The smell wafts through the hallway to Jungkook’s apartment, filling it with the scent of warm, fresh bread, of a hot meal waiting to be devoured. If you don’t knock soon, the pizza will go cold and you’ll probably eat all of it before you can even say hello to him. You have more food in your hands now than you have the past week you’ve been back at your old place. 

You ring the doorbell. 

 “Coming!” Jungkook shouts. Oh, is he expecting someone?

Ten seconds later the door opens to reveal someone you hardly even recognize. Gone are the soft loose strands of hair and oversized button down shirts. Jungkook opens the door still wearing his suit jacket, tie tight around his neck, like he hasn’t bothered to change since he got home from work over two hours ago. His hair is sleek and straight, a little shorter than you last remember it. He looks the way he did when you first met him, this rigid, workaholic guy that doesn’t care about anybody except himself. He looks like he’s done nothing but work for a week. Not even sleep. 

“Hi,” you begin, a short, quick intake of breath. “Did you order a pizza?”

“No.” Jungkook shakes his head, already starting to close the door. “I think you have the wrong apartment.”

“Wait, Jungkook, please? I need to talk to you,” you plead, a hand going out to stop him from shutting you out completely. All that you can see through the crack of space between the door and its frame are his piercing brown eyes, absolutely unreadable. He doesn’t budge. “Also, did you just get back from work? You must be starving. And as it so happens, I have an entire large pizza that I won’t be able to finish all by myself.”

Jungkook budges a little bit. 

“Please?”

“Fine,” he says reluctantly, opening the door. “I hope you aren’t planning on staying here too long, this time.”

The words are biting cold, send angry shivers down your spine. 

“Just enough for you to hear me out,” you say, placing the pizza box on the coffee table as Jungkook rummages through his kitchen for plates. He eventually manifests two paper ones—you didn’t even know he had those!—and returns, taking a seat on the carpet as he inhales the cheesy, greasy scent. 

Your stomach grumbles, but you can’t eat just yet. First, you have to explain yourself. 

“What did you want to talk about?” Jungkook asks, cold and distant, the same way he spoke to all of his employees before you encouraged him to do otherwise. “If it’s about my company, we can compensate you as necessary for your contribution. It won’t be much, though.”

“No, no, it’s not about that,” you say with a shake of your head. “It’s about us.”

“What ‘us’ is there to talk about?” He asks economically. 

“The ‘us’ that I left behind that day,” you say softly, a gentle reminder. “The ‘us’ I should have realized existed before I let the door shut behind me.”

“If you’re just here to tell me that you’re sorry for not loving me back, don’t,” Jungkook says bitterly. “I don’t expect you to love me back or anything. You can’t change how you feel about people.”

“You still love me?” You ask, a spark, a flash, a ray of light. 

Jungkook grumbles. “Yes. It doesn’t go away that easily.” 

“You aren’t stupid, or foolish, or idiotic for thinking that I was falling in love with you at the same time that you were falling in love with me,” you tell him, the words light and airy, like weights plucked off of your chest, like butterflies released from a jar. “You were stupid for thinking that I wasn’t already in love with you.”

Jungkook’s head jerks up, eyes blinking wildly. You can see the way that they glisten, with hope, with tears, with desperation. With the possibility that not all is lost. 

That old memories can become new once more. 

“You were right,” you muse, more to yourself than to anyone else. Even Jungkook. “Magic, powers, love, they’re all the same thing. They are meant to be treasured. Cherished. Protected. They are meant to make us feel special.” You breathe, reaching out next to you, an open hand for Jungkook to take. “But most importantly, they are meant to be shared.”

A small smile. A lip half-turned up, this gentle little grin. 

“I stayed because I wanted to keep sharing my life with you, Jeon Jungkook,” you tell him honestly, because it’s real and it’s true. Because, at this point, you can imagine nothing else. “And I’m here again because I can’t stand living without you anymore. I never want to stop sharing my life with you.”

“You make me feel like my heart is made of magic,” Jungkook admits, finally, finally, finally. “You make me want to use it just for you.”

“You don’t need to,” you say, pressing yourself into him, letting your lips hover above his own. He reaches a hand out, lets it rest on your waist, waiting desperately for you to close the last inch between the two of you. “You’re already made of it.”

With that, you close the gap, pressing your lips against his, the soft sweet cherry taste of his lip balm filling up your senses, leaving you gasping for air. It’s just a kiss, just a press of lips, this simple gesture, but it takes your breath away nevertheless. It makes you feel like magic swirls inside of you, like your heart is sparking, catching fire, sending it sizzling through your veins. Jungkook has taught you what it means for a house to become a home. You have taught him that magic is only special if he has someone to share it with. 

It’s hard to think about the lessons you would have never learned without the other. 

It’s hard to think about how different life would be, had you never even met. 

Jungkook kisses you and it feels like you’re finally whole. It feels like what has been missing in your life has returned. What you have kept locked up, in the dusty, cobwebbed corners of your heart, in the spaces between your bones, has finally been remembered. 

Jungkook takes your old memories and turns them new. He is the only thing you ever want to remember.

“I love you,” he whispers, watching as the words sink into your skin, leaving embers in their wake. “You are my most precious gift.”

“You are my home, Jeon Jungkook,” you murmur. “I love you, too.”

Pizza is good and all, but nothing beats homemade kimchi stew. 

You made it all by yourself for the first time last night to celebrate Jungkook donating over a million dollars to various different animal rescues and human rights organizations, taking the kindness that he has been given and paying it forward. Besides, he can make money at the touch of a finger whenever he wants, so he might as well, right?

You also don’t accompany Jungkook at his work anymore, because you’ve gotten enough of a taste of office life and have declared it not your ideal profession, but the nice thing about that is getting the whole house to yourself while he’s gone. Not that you want to do very much without him, but napping in different bedrooms is always exciting. 

You never realized how good love makes you feel. How it lifts you up from the inside out, brightens up every day no matter how dull it is to begin with. You had forgotten. What love can do to a person. 

Jungkook always comes home and tells you about how happy his employees make him whenever they’re happy. Good feelings like joy, like laughter, like love, they are contagious. It’s a wonder that neither you nor Jungkook figured that out before you met each other. 

Well, you suppose that there’s a first for everything. 

Jungkook comes home and you can hear the door slam, even from where you’re hiding. You listen as he stops at the door, picks up the note that you left for him. 

Loser washes the dishes! ♡

You hear his keys clink in the bowl, metal on metal. He pauses for a moment, for dramatic effect. 

And then he shouts, 

“You’re on!”

↳ links are broken, but don’t forget to message me with any thoughts or feedback!

[akutagawasbitches]

Ahh yes another one to join this crazy fandom little one!! Haha jk jk, I would like to be the one to request, can I have head-canons for Dazai, Chuuya and Akutagawa as a significant other like how they act with their s/o in a relationship Go crazy with this one if you like, and have fun!

Ahh thank you, I’m so excited to join the fandom! I hope you like these, I kinda went off my personal interpretations rather than being super canon.

 Dazai

-        This man is a FLIRT but all that stops when you enter the picture

-        He fell head over heels for you the minute he met you

-        I view Dazai as someone who is attracted to kindness and strong moral (similar to Oda) so he loved you for your kind smile and sweet personality.

-        Even if you are sassy to him, he loves you all the same. He loves all of your personality quirks: your weird laugh, your obsession with random things, your hobbies, your likes and dislikes, your bad habits of staying up too late etc., he loves them all.

-        I can’t see Dazai being an early morning person but I feel like he’d always make sure to organise lunch dates with his S/O whether its lunch at a café or just a small picnic in the park, he’ll always have lunch with his S/O

-        He’ll definitely cut down on the suicide jokes if they upset his S/O and overall his suicidal tendencies go down and suddenly he’s not admiring that bridge for its height but rather the way you look standing on it with the colours of the sunset illuminating your face.

-        I actually think Dazai isn’t a huge physical affection person at first. I think he’ll slowly build up to being more physically affectionate as he hasn’t really been physically affectionate with anyone before.

-        But once he’s gotten comfortable with it, he’s an cuddle monster. Always wanting to be touching you in some way whether its holding you hand, arm around your waist or leaning on you while walking, Dazai always has to be touching you.

-        100% big spoon but when he has nightmares, he’ll be the little spoon.

-        He’ll bury his face in your chest and hold you silently. Please stroke his hair and comfort him because this boy has seen some shit

-        Don’t ask him to open up though because he’ll shrink further back into his shell. You would have to wait for him to open up, Dazai isn’t someone who opens up willingly when asked.

-        Loves cooking with you, even if its more you cooking and him eating the ingredients. It makes him feel safe and loved, something so simple yet normal.

-        Doesn’t really plan dates out but always takes you out at least once a week on a proper date such as dinner or a movie.  

-        Gives you random gifts such as chocolate or flowers because he thinks you deserve it

-        On your birthday he’ll go nuts and throw you a huge surprise party with the help of the Agency, inviting all your family and friends. He’ll give you his present after as well as a few roses.

-        During arguments, his colder side can come out and he struggles with listening to your emotions properly.

-        Listen he was around Mori for a good chunk of time, he isn’t the best with dealing with emotions in a functional way.

-        But afterwards once he’s cooled down and figured out why you’re upset, he’ll buy you flowers to apologise and hug you murmuring apologies into your hair

-        Speaking of hair, wash his! It’s his favourite way to receive affection outside of cuddling. It makes him feel loved.

-        Will wax lyrically about his love to you in front of you and absolutely anyone. It gets to the point where Kunikida yells at him to shut up because he’s spent 20 minutes waxing about your beauty.

-        Overall, 100/10 boyfriend, he may have some flaws but he’s really trying to better himself for you

Chuuya

-        I view Chuuya as liking someone who is fiery, independent but also kind. He’ll love your fiery side as it means you’re passionate, your independence means he doesn’t have to worry but you r kindness shines a light on his dark world

-        Listen this man would spoil the shit out of his S/O

-        They want a new phone? They’ve got the latest one with all the upgrades and any accessories they need. New clothes? An entire wardrobe of clothes turns up at their doorstep.

-        But don’t think his love is purely materialistic, Chuuya shows his love in more ways than just spending money

-        He’ll massage his S/O’s feet after a long day, listen to them rant about menial things and brush their hair

-        I feel like Chuuya would be slightly hesitant about physical touch in public as he is a Port Mafia executive and needs to keep up his tough persona at all times but at home, he’s all for it

-        Braiding his hair, playing with his hair, cuddling him, lying on his lap while reading, leaning your head on his shoulder while watching a movie, he’s all for it.

-        Since he’s a busy man and has a erratic schedule, dates are hard to plan but at least once a week, he either takes you out to eat or cooks an elaborate meal just for you complete with wine and candles.

-        He’ll also take out on night drives through Yokohama or trips around when he has a free weekend

-        Goes absolutely all out for your birthday, reserving your favourite restaurant months ahead so you’re guaranteed a seat, massive bouquet of flowers alongside your present. He’ll also take you up to the rooftop of a local bar to watch the stars together.

-        Gives you flowers randomly because “nothing compares to your beauty” but flowers are close enough right?

-        When he has nightmares, he’ll cling onto you tightly to the point you almost can’t breathe. Gently stroke his hair and he’ll relax. Like Dazai he’s seen some shit and needs love and comfort sometimes

-        Loves getting gifts! If you make him anything even if its small, he’ll treasure it and feel loved.

-        Will never admit it but kinda wants the domestic life with you but knows its not possible

-        Baths together are his favourite form of self-care.

-        Wash his hair and he’ll melt.

-        When you two are arguing he has a hard time controlling his temper and is prone to outbursts.

-        After he’s cooled off, he’ll buy you your favourite candy as an apology and come back and apologise over and over again until you’ve reassured him for the 20th time its fine.

-        Listen he’s the little spoon when sleeping but big spoon when cuddling.

-        All abut big proclamations of love, he’ll lament about his love for you for hours if you asked (only in private though, in public or around any Port Mafia members all you’ll get is a quick peck on the cheek or a quick “love you”)

-        Overall, he loves you and is 100/100 best boyfriend. He’d die for you.

Akutagawa

-        I view Akutagawa S/O as being independent, kind but stubborn as you need to be with him

-        This man does not understand relationships at first. Being in a relationship with him requires a lot of patience/perseverance and helping him unlearn unhealthy and toxic mindsets given to him by Dazai during his training. This is where your more stubborn side comes into play but also your kindness will soften him up and eventually, he’ll start being more soft with you

-        Uncomfortable with physical affection due to his training and background so you’ll have to teach him that not all physical touch is bad. Slowly introduce him to the concept of loving touch and eventually he’ll reciprocate albeit a bit awkwardly.

-        I headcannon that while he’s uncomfortable with explicit physical affection in public, he’ll opt for more subtle forms such as pinky holding or tapping out love messages in Morse code on your hand while holding it rather than saying it out loud.

-        As you slowly introduce physical affection to him, he’ll be a bit grumpy and snappy but be patient and eventually he’ll enjoy it and reciprocate with small touches like hugs from behind while cooking

-        If you want a very cuddly Aku, cuddle him while he’s sleepy. This boy gives in and just silently basks in it.

-        Not super big of big proclamations of love but will do small things like make you tea or hold the door for you

-        Similar to Chuuya his schedule is erratic and unpredictable so date nights are spontaneous. Walks in the park at night, watching horror films, eating take out together and reading/discussing books.  Date nights are never ‘traditional’ but they are still special

-        Though for big dates like your birthday he’ll make a bit more effort and take you out to dinner or cook.

-        When he has nightmares, he’ll move around a lot and thrash. Hold him in your arms and gently whisper that he’s safe and other loving words and he’ll calm down. If he cries, don’t comment. Just hold him silently as that’s what he needs.

-        During arguments, he can be abrasive and cruel, but he doesn’t mean to be. It’s just how he was raised; he doesn’t know how to communicate emotions well.

-        After the argument, he’ll make you tea and apologise the best he can. While he’s not the best with words, his actions speak volumes with him running a bath and getting in it with you or cuddling you silently.

-        Big spoon while cuddling and while sleeping but if he’s having a nightmare, he’ll become the little spoon

-        Overall, he’s trying his best and loves you very much, 10000000/100000000 pls give this boy love he deserves it

[onf-headcanons]

ONF in Cafe AU

(Establishment)

A/N : 200 followers special!! This different universe from Baker Yuto

Settings : A total brand new universe where they just gather by pure coincidence. Or an alternate universe where ONF later when their contract ended, they gathered to open a cafe once Yuto return to Korea from graduating his bakery course back in Japan. Hyojin, Seungjun and Jaeyoung helped by researching how to register+open business in Korea.

Roles

Yuto : The bread maker

Seungjun : Barista

Hyojin & Jaeyoung : Chief waiter and in charge of cashier

Minkyun : Assisting waiter and more of a helper in the kitchen preparing ingredients

Changyoon : In charge of other menus such as sandwiches/bagel sandwich and dessert

Reader : could be part timer or the regular guest (bonus a fan of ONF as well)

Bonus : Minseok might occasionally drop by to visit or Minseok as another member in the kitchen (i mean have you seen his IG???!!!!!)

Headcanons

As Yuto is more of a bread lover, the cafe would be a bakery+cafe style eatery.

The menu is made and proposed by all 6 of them. Also before they start running business, the kitchen gang has already tried making food to do taste test. (Including WM family)

The menu is written in Korean, English and Japanese.

Yuto would keep trying on making the best bread so he would experiment with different options such as more milk or less flour

Hyojin would always give ideas to improvise. And members trust Hyojin's thoughts because he is such a foodie XD

Seungjun would research and practice on his barista skills.

Changyoon would do graphic design of the menu

Minkyun and Jaeyoung would go out to find spot to rent and open cafe

Once the cafe is opened, this is how they run it.

Because of ONF's nature, I personally think they will test the timing of business by doing a few around of simulations.

This would be suggested by Changyoon and agreed by the leaders

So before they opened, they really tried it out at the empty cafe and simulated with full house for 3~5 days straight. Then they are content with the current timing as below.

I also think Seungjun Jaeyoung and Yuto would keep suggesting adjustments on the timing.

Especially Seungjun and Yuto. Seungjun in the bystander view because he is the barista and Yuto sharing the perspective on what timing those outside kitchen should alert those in the kitchen. They would run timer using their phone.

Bakery closes on 6pm, tidying done by 7:15pm, head out for dinner or simple dinner by whipping up some left over ingredients.

Grocery shopping on 8:45pm or 9pm, headback for cafe for preparations if necessary

Next day 6am at cafe to do early preparations, bakery side and morning take away opens on 7:30am,

10:00am opens for eat in + buffet, they do not do dinner so closes at 6pm and repeat for every day.

They closes on big event public holidays, end of the year+new year.

(They will get quick lunch by ingredients whipped up from the kitchen. Hyojin will switch with Jaeyoung, Seungjun will switch with the part timer, Yuto will get quick bites while waiting for dough to rise, Changyoon and Minkyun will switch)

(BTW this is just reference from my weak experience working on restaurant)

There are 5 walkie talkies. Hyojin, Seungjun and Jaeyoung have 1 each, 1 at the cashier and another is at the kitchen with speakers. This is for them to communicate and alert each other about the crowd and also any food items that are running out.

BTW should we are using the Minseok as one of the member in kitchen, he did not join immediately. But he do drop by to support his hyungs and being the 2nd food taster.

His hyungs and Yuto are a bit reluctant to recruit him but, to their surprise, Minsk volunteered himself.

And oh boy his hyungs all in awe at how good this baby boy's cooking is!!!

Funny moment when Seungjun caught Hyojin eyes are gleaming with bliss after Hyojin tasted Minseok's food. And then only the other hyungs swarming over wanting to taste Minseok's cooking lol

(Hyojin already numb due to so many times food tasting lol but cos he loves to eat he still finishes all the samples. But Minseok's cooking was a breather for him at that exact moment)

Also Changyoon has an idea that putting surveys on each table and let guests to fill in. When they submit to cashier, they might get coupons (?) or maybe discounts about 83%

Or maybe some collectibles and when they got all six stickers, they get 83% discount? (its flexible)

The cafe gains popularity because of the quality and due to good looks of chief waiters and barista.

Also, I think in their menu, (should this is the contract ended ONF universe), they might integrate the member recommendations, it is flexible either food or drink. Or maybe both

Hyojin definitely going to recommend 2 smoothies.

Changyoon would recommend pasta and dessert

Minkyun will go for a sandwich

Jaeyoung might recommend Yuto's sourdough bruschetta

Seungjun will recommend one type of latte

And Yuto will recommend 1 or 2 breads found at bakery/buffet corner. But for menu he would give out tips like which bread type goes better with which cheese or jam

（BTW I think its cute should they use their mascot deer, shark, maltese, gorilla, cat and bread as avatar/icon that appear at recommendations!）

And on their birthday, (this could be Seungjun's idea) there will be a 83% discount sticker placed on the recommended food/drink by the member.

And since we talked about menu...

Again its a bread themed cafe, so the main would be bread, brunch and all day breakfast.

Bread type (buffet) : mini croissants, mini buns, scones, baguette, bagel, white loaf, sourdough

Bread type (bakery) : croissant, buns, garlic bread, scones, baguette, bagel, red bean bun, packed bread loafs

Let me explain about buffet first.

Buffet is for brunch+lunch, which starts on 10:30am to 2pm. Its a 90 minutes course. In that course you can pick 1 of each option of bread, salad, toppings, sides (sausages, hams, cheese and baked beans) and also random desserts.

They offer butter (salted and unsalted), 3 to 4 types of jams (strawberry, mixed fruit and marmalade), variety of paste to go with bread (mashed avocado and Parmesan garlic pesto). also Nutella

For buffet, beverage there already stocked variety of juices, warm coffee and tea (that are already prepared earlier) and fresh water

Cheese they will go for cheddar, Havarti, Feta, Mozarella and brown cheese.

Should you don't go for buffet, they have eat in cafe menu. Which are separately made set meals that comes with beverage. Like sandwiches, bagel sandwiches, spaghetti/pastas, or bruschetta with topping of your choice (6 the most)

Seungjun would prepare freshly brewed coffee, latte, tea, frappe and even smoothie.

Desserts are all simple desserts, like mini tarts and mini cupcake. For specially ordered ones would non baked stuffs that Changyoon and Minkyun made early in the morning and stored in fridge (because dont wanna clash with Yuto baking should any bread nearly sold out. Also can have more flexible timing should Yuto need help they can back up)

Initially, Changyoon will always make extra desserts by x2.5 amount, especially mini tarts or mini cupcakes at the buffet area. He is a worry wart.

BTW the bell Changyoon presented Yuto during OnDaeJeon? Its later used at the cafe lol. As the alert tool for waiters that food is done come and take it

I think on early years, at most 2 years, they are not going to do delivery or food app order service just yet.

But they will run an Instagram or twitter account for the cafe and using it just like how they are doing with they current twitter account. Promoting food and giving out random recommendations also a glimpse of their daily lifes running the cafe and bakery

I think Changyoon would upload a pic of seasonal fruit and a teaser for new seasonal dessert? And then lol it will sometimes plot twist ends up being seasonal beverage that made by Seungjun lol

Should Minseok is not a member running the cafe, the boys consult with him occasionally about adding new seasonal,time limited items.

Also Hyojin and Yuto being the photographer taking picture of the food. Oops I forgot, the pictures of food items in menu are both taken by them too!

Minkyun will bring along one of his fave part timer to do emergency grocery shopping should he needed a hand.

Hyojin and Jaeyoung will try to help customer to decide by suggesting recommendation

Also Hyojin, who would sometimes keep an eye on how customer do combination on their food and get inspiration from it then later try to propose to the team.

As chief waiters, both Hyojin and Jaeyoung would always during at the cashier, asking customers should they have any suggestions or proposal (even if they submitted the survey). Values communications and feedback between staff and customers.

Also Seungjun will help out keeping an eye in case they miss out someone trying to call a waiter. Later after a year of profits, they upgraded to bell calling service type, press a button and they come serve you in a minute.

Initially, Hyojin and Jaeyoung would make use of walkie talkie to recite orders that they get so that Seungjun, Yuto, Changyoon and Minkyun can get them

After maybe a couple months of profit, they upgraded it to tablets. while the walkie talkie is used as mentioned above, to alert regarding to run out/sold out food items.

Also, once reached closing hours, I think they will also have a brief meeting. Especially for waiters team. I think Hyojin would guide and critique on performance.

In overall it is very warm to work with ONF but you have to keep up because they are also strict.

I can see should they know part timers birthday, they would wish them. Maybe Changyoon/Minseok will shove special dessert or pasta for them.

It will be funny that some fans went there hoping to see Yuto, Changyoon and Minkyun but they are busy, do not want to disappoint, Hyojin and Seungjun might try to call them out using walkie talkie. (only apply to the contract end universe)

Oh I had a thought, maybe not the public knows that Minseok joined? I think maybe its also Minseok's terms and conditions because he does not want the spotlight he just wanna help running the business

Also should WM family drop by to visit, the first word as they enter the door, both sides will go “Aigooooo~~~~!!!” (Refer to RTK where Oh My Girl drops by to check out ONF for TWML practise)

Should that happen, its a big day for the fans

BUT!!! I can think ONF cafe later be the hangout spot for WM family? like member’s birthday? lets go to ONF cafe! Because Yuto baked a cake specially for us!! and off they go~ 

I mean its a great deal, considering Yuto’s love for bread and he did not sell customised cakes. So its personalised stuff he made for those he cared about.

That is why mostly the gathering will happen after 6pm or

Maybe WM managers drop by to pick up the special cake

Also, Yuto let part timers to have leftover breads or desserts at bakery and buffet area for free. His hyungs agreed because you should not waste food. Plus freshly made bread are their selling point so they won't recycle them.

A/N : gonna stop here and should there is more, I might do a part 2~!

[rhetoricalrogue]

31 Days of Wayhaven, Day 27

Prompt: Unkempt Rating: PG-ish? Nicky may have thrown an F-bomb or two around, I can’t remember. Words: 3,271 Characters: Nicolo Morelli, Elaine from Records Summary: Nicky is about to have words for some agents who can’t spell properly.

For the @31daysofwayhaven event.

Nicky was many things: a charming man with a reputation with the ladies, a loyal team member adept at technology and stealth, a man who prided himself in keeping up with the latest fashions.  What Nicky wasn’t was a patient man when it came to proofreading documents, especially documents that were supposed to have been written by people who knew what they were doing.

“This is unacceptable,” he growled, swiveling in the office chair he’d been assigned to.  He wasn’t much of a day drinker by any means, but he suddenly craved something to vent his frustrations on as he went through the fifth document of the morning.  

It was only nine.  He still had an entire stack of paperwork he was expected to complete by lunch piled high on his inbox and who knew how many files in his email.  He needed more coffee.  The office building he was in could only be described as bland, and even that was by Agency standards. Normally, the rest of the Facility was a uniform neutral done up in white paint and stainless steel, but this looked as if someone had gone back in time, snipped off a portion of the seventies, and whisked it back to the present day.  Beige walls and dark brown carpet assaulted his sensibilities.  Even the very air seemed to smell of old toner - Nicky was certain that purple ditto sheets reeking of methanol and isopropanol had gone the way of the dinosaur, but then again, this was the Agency.  There was probably a reason an early era Xerox printer was still being used, and as inquisitive as he was, Nicky wasn’t going to try to investigate.  He was merely lucky that there was a computer hooked up to his desk, even if it was an ancient yellow box of an Apple Macintosh from the 80s that somehow had Microsoft Word installed on it.  Again, he wasn’t going to question it, even if he did nervously glance down at his phone on multiple occasions to see if there was something in the office or perhaps the office itself that would transform his latest phone upgrade into a brick bag phone.

God, he’d hated that era of early technology.  Everything had been so goddamn expensive and it was comical to see the cutting technology of the day compared to now.  

“Welcome to my world.”  Nicky peered around the plain grayish beige partition of his cubicle - a cubicle!  The demotion from Charlie to Delta was irritating enough, but to have to go through an entire probationary period before being able to get back onto the sort of fieldwork that his unit was used to performing was downright galling. - that smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and watched as a tall, sturdy looking woman sat down in the cubicle next to his and sighed.  At first glance, Nicky wouldn’t have thought that she belonged in an office setting. Trolls normally weren’t the types that came to mind when one thought about what a clerical staff would look like.  Yet apparently Elaine was one of the best and fastest proofreaders in the Agency, shooting up from ground level staff to managerial level quicker than anyone would have thought, troll or not.  Nicky hadn’t worked with her before, but he had worked with trolls in the past, so her craggy gray skin and over seven feet height didn’t put him off.  She walked and sat with a hunch, to make herself smaller in the environment or if that was purely her nature, Nicky didn’t know, but her lichen colored hair was done up in a neat bun atop her hair and the tips of her fingers were painted a bright coral color that matched her lipstick.  On anyone else, the color would have looked garish, but she seemed to pull it off well.

Elaine didn’t normally have a cubicle, her glass encased office was down the hall, but one of the other proofreaders had called in sick and she had decided it was easier to complete the workload at their desk instead of hauling it over to hers.  It meant that the space wasn’t quite suited to fit her, the cubicle walls short enough that the top of her head was clearly visible over them and her knees bumped the top of the desk if she wasn’t careful.  Nicky had already heard her mutter curses under her breath at least four times that morning alone and hoped she wouldn’t bruise her kneecaps before the day was done.  The permanent scowl her mouth was set in while she worked seemed completely out of place in the cubicle: the actual owner had a thing for bright pink office supplies and the little poster of a kitten hanging onto a branch emblazoned with a “hang in there, baby!” at the bottom definitely seemed like it wasn’t her sort of decor.

“Is it always this bad?” he asked, changing the spelling and punctuation in a paragraph that a toddler could have written better.  He tisked, he knew this agent and hadn’t thought they were capable of this...this monstrosity.  He was going to have to have words with them once his time in purgatory was up.  Not for the first time since agreeing to this sort of punishment, Nicky wished that he had swapped spots with Cam and taken on the rookie agent field assignments instead.

“Sometimes it’s worse.”  Her fingers flew across the keyboard, editing as she went.  “If it makes you feel any better, Morelli, I’ve never seen any of your reports cross my desk.”

He scoffed before getting up to the little breakroom, the brown low pile carpeting making way for white vinyl linoleum spattered with black and beige speckles.  “I should hope not.  I look over my reports for typos at least twice with a fine toothed comb before I turn them in.”

“And you still get them done in a timely manner, I’m impressed.”

He came back with a cup of coffee.  It wasn’t anything to write home about, but it was hot and at least whoever had made the last pot had made it strong.  “What can I say? I’m quick, efficient, and I get the job done right the first time.”

There was a sound from the cubicle almost as if someone were crushing gravel.  It took Nicky a split second to realize that was Elaine laughing.  “Sounds like the ideal traits for a troll mate,” she joked.  “Careful, lest I think you’re trying to come on to me.”

Nicky grinned, though he was inwardly running through his mental catalogue of supernatural mating habits and blanched at what he dragged up.  Apparently trolls had a use ‘em and lose ‘em mentality when it came to their partners.  The lose part was when they bit off their heads and had them for a post-coital snack.  “Now, now,” he said, holding up his hands defensively.  “As much as I would like to, I am a married man!”

That gravel noise sounded again, even as Elaine’s fingers continued to clack on the keyboard. “Ha!  Good one, Morelli!  Pull the other leg while you’re at it!”

“No, it’s true!  And believe me, it’s just as much a surprise to me as it is to everyone else!”  It had been a week since coming back from Chicago where Isabela had apparently made her home.  Communications with her were still in this strange state - how did one text one’s estranged wife romantically without it boiling down to looking like a booty call or an invitation to send nudes, especially when one’s long-lost spouse was prone to stabbing and spellcraft?  Seeing that Isabela had already hexed certain body parts of his before, Nicky was careful of his wording, lest his best feature downstairs suffer a second cursed fate.

At least she was responding favorably to his texts, even if his buongiorno, Bella the other day had been answered with a slightly grumpy it is five in the morning, Nicolo.  Even so, he’d treasured the picture she added: Isabela in her bedroom, hair sleep-tousled and unkempt, eyes still half-lidded and sleepy looking, lips slightly pursed and cheek pressed against her pillow.

It had become his phone’s home screen almost instantly. 

He should just wear her down enough to give him her email address.  At least then he could take his time and compose honest to goodness love letters to her, even if they weren’t of the pen and paper variety, instead of having to rely on quickly creating off the cuff compositions that while expressed his sentiments were still a little unpolished.

For someone who hadn’t seen himself as the type of man that was willing to settle down with one woman, Nicky was sure taking the whole matrimony against his will, being magically bound to one woman for all eternity, having knowledge that he’d fathered a child and was currently a grandfather dumped into his lap not even two months ago pretty well.  Having this time away from fieldwork and actual missions gave him time for introspection and the fact that his daughter - and how that still had him reeling! - texted him at least once a day to catch him up on her life gave him a warm feeling in his heart that he hadn’t felt in a very long time, if ever.  Nicky made a mental note to invest in one of those silicone wedding bands.  Gold and other metals weren’t the best to wear out in the field and while his body regenerated severed limbs and whatnot, he really wasn’t interested in accidentally getting a finger crushed or torn off when his hand ultimately got stuck in a door or some other scenario that had already come up several times in the past.  Fingers grew back.  Fingers also hurt like no one’s business when they were lost and while they grew back.  He would like to avoid either scenario as much as possible.

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully.  Would sending his wife an unsolicited picture of his hand while wearing a wedding ring count as flirting?  While the tone to their texts had been amiable if not a little icy at times, perhaps the gesture would endear him to her a little bit.  He grinned.  Maybe it would even earn him an actual phone call.  His grin widened.  Perhaps, if he played his cards right, the phone call would change from talking about the weather to more steamier topics.

His grin faltered.  He wondered what would happen between him and Isabela.  While they had only known the other for a paltry week three hundred years ago, Nicky knew when a woman was interested in him but playing hard to get.  But what would happen when she decided that he’d suffered long enough, when he’d taken another flight to grovel for her forgiveness at her front door like she said she’d wanted him to do?  He was an agent, it was the only life that he’d known since being scooped up, shell shocked and horrified at being brought back to life after being murdered and left to rot in a ditch.  He had a life here with the Agency, had a deep loyalty to his unit, surely she wouldn’t expect him to leave it behind to run away from his responsibilities with her?  And what of her?  She was settled in one spot, she had people of her own that were important to her.  He couldn’t ask her to leave that life behind, wouldn’t ask her to leave that life behind, in favor of joining up with the Agency so they could share a cramped windowless room with a narrow full-size bed. 

Nicky thought back to her cottage with its iron fence and little backyard garden.  Granted, he hadn’t gotten to see the interior of her home very well, seeing as she had stabbed him to death in her kitchen and then shoved him out the back porch, he knew that he wouldn’t want her to trade that life for one here, even if it meant that all their relationship - or whatever this was that they were starting could be called - would ever be merely good morning and good evening texts with brief visits when vacation time was allotted and FaceTime calls filling up the spaces in between. 

“You’re spacing out.  Daydreaming isn’t going to get that pile of work done.”  Nicky blinked and sighed as Elaine looked at him from over the partition.  Then he growled, realizing that in the brief moment he had taken to think of Isabela, the work in his virtual inbox had doubled in size.

“No one deserves this kind of torture,” he grumbled, fingers all but slamming on the keys as he corrected “teh” to “the” for the umpteenth time and formatted the entire document to full justification.  Did no one know how to write a proper office memo?

“Eh, it pays well.”  Elaine got up, shoulders bunched up to her ears and back hunched so she wouldn’t risk brushing the white drop ceiling tiles - tiles Nicky was sure contained asbestos - and made her way to his desk.  Before he could say anything, she grabbed the physical files in his to file inbox and made her way over to the wall of dark grey metal filing cabinets.  She’d explained on his first day in the department that they weren’t actual filing cabinets, but magical portals to deliver each report to its intended recipient.  “Some of us aren’t fit for field duty, so reading badly written reports is the closest we’re ever going to get to the action.”

“Aw, come on, Elaine.”  Nicky hit print and deleted the file, moving on to the next.  Sure, he understood the whole paper trail as means of securing Agency secrets from getting spilled, but really, all one had to do was get a strong enough firewall and other cybersecurity options and none of this transcribing digital to print would have to happen.  He eyed the file cabinets.  It wouldn’t take someone with enough skill to break through the security wards to change just where those files ended up to either.

Besides, there was a major loophole in Agency logic: if all the reports were done in the field via laptops or tablets, then what was stopping anyone from leaking company secrets at that level?  Somehow, the bureaucratic nature of even having this department, even with the older technology on hand, seemed inefficient and redundant. 

Oh well, at least no one was making Nicky type handwritten field notes and reports on an actual typewriter.  He was a good typist, but not good enough to avoid going through his share of correction tape and white-out.  The backspace key was his friend, one that he could not do without.

“What?”  Elaine picked up the report from the copier and made her way towards the file cabinet again.  

“I’m just saying, I bet you would be a formidable Agent out in the field.”

She rolled her eyes.  “No can do, Morelli.  Apparently the powers that be came to the conclusion that my aptitude tests put me at a higher risk of accidental exposure via bloodletting.”  She went back to her cubicle and began typing again.  “The risk of collateral damage would be too high to let me loose in the world.”

“Yeah, I could see that being a big minus on the pros and cons of getting you into field agent status.”

“Hey, I’m happy where I’m at.  I’m being helpful and not causing havoc under some bridge or underpass somewhere.  It’s a win-win situation.”  She sat back down at the desk, cursing when her knee banged into the desktop hard enough to make the little fake plant that was activated by the overhead lighting wobble precariously on the cute clip-on cubicle wall shelf.  “You though?”

“What about me?”

She paused in her typing.  “You don’t belong in an office tied to a desk.  Those powers that be?  I say they did your unit dirty.”

Nicky shrugged.  “Yeah, well, we win as a team and we make mistakes as a team.  We wouldn’t leave one of us out to dry that way.”

Elaine leaned forward.  “And I read the report that another unit gave about the whole incident.  Hell, it was so full of typos that I’m pretty damn sure it was meant for me to read.  Exiling Agent Adams, especially with no way of fending for herself when it comes to regaining her energy?  Demoting your entire unit?  Something smells distinctly like bullshit.”

Nicky sagged in his desk chair.  “Fuck.  And here I thought it was just me being my usual paranoid self.”  He ran a hand through his hair.  “It’s just that I can’t find any evidence that would suggest why anyone would set Win up to fail that way.  And I definitely can’t find any evidence that would suggest why, knowing the way that Cam leads our unit and how loyal we are to the other, that anyone would want to take us out of commission.  It wasn’t the old Delta unit, they fought being promoted to Charlie the entire way, and no one jumped up to try to play unit ranking hopscotch either.”

“I wish I could tell you something, I really do.  All I know is that my gut is saying this isn’t right.”  She gave him a pointed look over the cubicle wall.  “It isn’t much, but I can keep my eyes peeled for any leads.”

He nodded.  “Thanks, but I don’t want to drag you into anything, especially if this turns out to be something big.”

“You’re not dragging me if I go willingly, Morelli.  While I may not be busting heads and whatnot out on the surface, let me do my own sort of carnage of the paperwork variety.  In the meantime, take an early lunch.”

“Elaine, it’s only nine fifteen.”

“Then take an early brunch.  I’ve already got myself caught up on my own paperwork and once I get this stuff done, I’ll move onto your workstation.  That report that came in?  Hit up Agent Kline in Unit Foxtrot, see if they’ll give you any information.”  She winked.  “And I’ll understand if traffic was so bad that you couldn’t get back to the office today.  Just be sure to come in at regular time tomorrow morning.”

He got up and shrugged on his jacket, stuffing his phone back into an inner pocket.  “Thanks, Elaine.  You’re a doll.”

She made a vague shooing motion with her hand.  “Quiet, I’ve got a reputation to uphold.  And if you talk to her, tell Agent Adams hello.”

Nicky made his way out of the Records Department and strode down the labyrinthine hallways of the Facility.  It was a strange sense to step out of whatever time era the department was stuck in and step into a more modern hallway.  For a brief moment, Nicky almost preferred the archaic, not quite retro feel of the office instead.  Tugging on his jacket collar, he pulled out his phone.  Cam and Penny would want to hear what he discovered for themselves. 

As he strode down the empty hall, texting as he walked, he thought back to Elaine.  He made a mental note to make a trip topside that evening.  As thanks for helping shed some light on ideas that had been bothering him, he was buying her the best coffeemaker he could find to replace the sad, beaten up plastic and glass number that took up way too much space on the counter.

He’d even go out of his way to get her the good coffee beans.

[just-things-things]

Oh my gosh Assassin!Peter Parker GO! Also as a bonus question favorite and least favorite fanfiction tropes.

Ah, yes, I love me some assassin Peter Parker. Honestly, I just love the concept of evil Peter sooooo much, so thank you for the ask! I hope this is good for you!

Also, to answer your questions, I love all fanfiction tropes, but I'm probably going to have to go with "there's only one bed" and "slow burn fics" as my favorite tropes. I also love writing Alternative Universe Au's, but I'm not confident enough to post them. They're kind of really out there. :/ And the only trope I don't like that much/just haven't found a good story for is Peter teaching an older Morgan to become Iron Woman. I really like the concept, but just haven't found a good fic done for it. Someone should DEFINITELY leave suggestions in the comments :)

Lastly, I'm writing this at work, lol, so it's a bit rushed:

_____

He likes to think everything he's done is for a good cause. Really, if you only look at the minimal details, truly you'd see the nature behind his decisions. There's no point in watching how he kills people, or the satisfactory look he gets when collecting his prize.

At least, that's how Peter looks at it. Peter Parker - the more humane side of his alter ego. He remembers clearly when his job - his life - really started.

It was a cold September, the start of a freezing winter. He remembers being so scared for a moment before his insides were filled with pure rage and vengeance.

Looking back on it, his reaction might have been normalized for someone who had witnessed their Uncle's murder. And he was only thirteen at the time, young enough to substitute jail for juvenile detention.

After cradling Ben and listening to, "With great power, comes great responsibility," for the last time, he realized his responsibility. He was responsible for two things.

Ben's untimely death. And two:

For catching his Uncle's murderer.

Maybe his decision making was far fetched, maybe Ben never wanted this to happen, but in a panicked moment, Peter fled the seen for a man in a hooded jacket and 380 ACP.

He chased the guy five blocks to catch him. To tackle the man in an abandoned warehouse and when on top, he found a renowned strength. He had never throw a punch before. He never remembered being that strong.

While the punching continued, Peter wasn't planning on killing the criminal, but in their flurry of movement and the man reaching for his gun, he freaked out. It was either kill or be killed. He didn't want to join Ben yet, he couldn't leave May alone. He had a responsibility.

So, twisting the other's wrist and catching the gun mid-air, he aimed and shot two bullets. The man spasmed as Peter rolled over, taking two large breaths and throwing the weapon into a corner. He laid there for what seemed like hours, trying to find a way out.

In the end, the body ended up in the Hudson River. Peter returned home - bloody and bruised - to find May gone. A note was left to go to the local police station with twenty dollars on top.

He didn't go. Instead, he used his extra time to get the grime off himself in the shower. Afterwards, he called May to tell him he was home and would take a taxi as soon as he could. She yelled at him for ten minutes, wondering where he had been, why he didn't answer his phone or call earlier, in the end she broke down, apologizing and saying she'd be home in a few minutes.

By the time she returned, he had finished brewing some tea and cooking a couple of eggs. It was already four in the morning. Peter held his Aunt for the next three hours. Letting her grieve, letting himself listen to his own thoughts. He didn't cry, didn't feel bad about the man he killed - by now he was comfortably numb.

He knew he had to be more careful. He knew he had to figure out why he could punch so hard, what other things - powers - his body had obtained.

And when he found out his unnatural ability and crazy amouts of strength, Spider-Man would be born.

When he first took on the mantle and name of a "Superhero," that's all he intended it to be. To save people and help get other out of harm's way. To be the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man.

The first illegal thing he did in his beginner suit was break into Oscorp. After months of fighting crime in a ratty sweatshirt, he was sure need of an upgrade.

So, with Peter's high IQ he produced a flashdrive with Oscorp's codes and firewall breakthroughs. Everything about the company could be found on a tiny store-bought chip.

Sneaking into the place was harder, making sure to use the right codes and not set off any alarms was difficult, but once he was in and posing as an intern, things had ran smoothly. He worked diligently in a lab, constructing a functional suit with new designs and better usages.

Getting out was simpler, deciding to strut out the front entrance with his new suit in a backpack gave him an adrenaline rush, causing him to run to a bathroom to change for patrol. That would lead to his second illegal action in a suit.

Even though he was excited, the streets surely were not. About to finish his sandwich from Mr. Delmar (it was on the house) and return to the apartment, a lady yelled out from below his streetlamp, "Hey, you're that Spider-Guy, right?"

Startled, he nodded and hurriedly pulled his mask down, "Uh, yeah. Spider-Man, actually, but that's me, do you need help with anything, or something?"

"Yeah, I do. But we shouldn't really talk about it here. C'mon down, little spider." Peter gulped, conflicted on running or following the women. Looking up and down the street, he found it empty.

"Why can't we talk right here?" Realization dawned on him and he dropped his voice to a whisper, "Is someone following you."

The women nodded. Peter hopped down to her level, taking her arm in his, "Do you think we can pass as a couple. I mean - I'm wearing a suit."

"I noticed, it's new. I've been looking for you." Closer now, Peter could see the women's features more sharply. Hazel eyes shaped with cutting-edge cheekbones and wavy-ginger hair.

"Who's following you?" There was no point in beating around the bush.

"My husband, he's about two blocks behind with a pocket knife."

Peter glanced at the store they passed, "Do you want me to go take care of him. I can call the police and have him sent to jail, only if you have proof, though."

"Don't believe me?"

"I do, but I also know the cops won't do anything without evidence. It'll be a lost cause then."

She sighed, "I don't want to get the cops involved. I want you to kill him."

Spider-Man stopped, "What?"

The women pulled him into an alley way and oped her purse. She pushed a smaller bag into his hands, "I need you to kill him."

Peter was shaking, he didn't understand. He slowly opened the bag, it was full of wads of cash, "That's seven thousand dollars. Go kill him, call me when it's done." He watched as the women pulled out a paper and pen, scribbling down her phone number.

"I can't."

She stared at him, almost like she could see through the mask. Groaning, she replied, "Fine," she ripped the money out of his hands and began leaving the alley way.

Peter froze. Seven thousand dollars. That was alot of cash. And it was rent week, he knew May couldn't pay it. He also knew he needed a new computer. Decisions. It seemed that's all his life was right now. So many decisions.

May needed the money. It was his responsibility to help get it for her.

"Wait! I'll, I'll take the job." The women looked over her shoulder and grinned,

"I knew you would, I'll be waiting."

By the time he left the crevice between the buildings, the husband was already on their street.

Peter swung and landed in front of the man, startling him. The boy could already tell from his drunken-state that this would be easy.

"He has a pocket knife," the words rang in his head. Peter looked down and sure enough there was a bulge in his pants in the form of a small dagger.

"Is that a knife or are you just happy to see me?"

The man shoved him, "Beat it, Kid. I don't have time fore games."

"Yeah?" Peter cocked his head, "Neither do I." He shoved his knee in between the man's legs, watching him double over and then using his strength to throw him into a post.

With the other's uneasiness he webbed his chest and catapulted him into the air. Climbing in the apartment and swinging the man upwards to finish things on the roof.

He didn't feel bad when the guy crashed against the fire escape. He was unconscious when they reached the top, his breath evened out and forehead already swelling. Peter stared.

After a moment, he fished out the knife and undid it. This would be the easier part, he knew where to position the blade and where to put pressure against the man's skin.

He didn't take honors biology for nothing.

Finishing the job, he called the women after sending a picture of her husband. With the seven thousand dollars he should invest in a burner phone.

"Good work, Spider-Man. I have another job for you, but that can wait till later. Get rid of the body and the cash is yours. I'll leave it behind the dumpsters." She hung up before he could say anything. That left him with a dead man and a prize to collect.

He later found himself counting the cash and debating on when he should call the women back. He knew the answer, though. He shouldn't. You need the money, he reminded himself.

In good news, he received a new laptop and burner phone all while sneaking May money for rent at the end of the week. He still had a shit ton of good money left. Even treating May and him to dinner. She never questioned anything.

After Peter calling the mysterious alley way women back on his newer phone, things began to slowly progress.

It led to him taking on another case for her and her pointing him into the direction of others in need of his help. He started going for more and more people, getting more money, taking even more people, all while maintaining the name, "Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man."

No one suspected a thing and his clients list kept growing. He didn't feel bad, hell, he only killed bad people. In his mindset, how could he be doing anything wrong?

Over the course of three years, his "buisness" grew and he upgraded his suits and weaponry. Most of the time, he preferred just his strength and webs, sometimes a knife if necessary, it was less of a mess, anyway. Of course, some jobs required the guns and larger daggers. They were easy enough to obtain, with his status between the dark web, anything was easy to obtain.

He never didn't take a job as long as the work could be done in New York, it was simpler that way.

There was one job he couldn't take, the one that frightened him the most and ironically had the largest bounty he'd seen. He was shocked when he pulled the invitation up. Two million dollars for the one and only May Parker.

_____

Ooh, a cliffhanger! I don't know if there will be a second part, sorry! Maybe if this gets enough love I'll consider! Speaking of, there will be an updated master list of things to drop in my ask box, hopefully tonight! Of course, if you have any other ideas or want me to do a second part of something, just ask! Thank you for the ask @etherithical

[hotforharrison]

Convention -- Tom Holland/You: A Reader Submission

One of my amazing readers has written her first smut! She wishes to remain anonymous and not post it on her own blog, so I’m posting it for her here!

Your feedback is much appreciated. She’ll love to hear what you think!

I had been waiting for this day for a very long time. Finally, I was going to meet Tom Holland. I used all my savings for the full VIP experience - there was no way I was going to miss out on a thing, every second close to him was worth it. 

The waiting in line was the worst. I checked my make up in my little compact, hoping it wasn’t too much, and adjusted my skirt as it had twisted round again. I wanted to be looking my best for this chance. 

If I was going to have one picture with the man of my dreams there was no way I was going in scruffy. So, I’d opted for a denim skirt, a vest top and a checked overshirt, together with my treasured corduroy hi-tops. I felt comfortable but confident, a good combination I figured. As I snaked round the long queue for the picture opportunity I thought about potential poses, should I ask for a hug, should I ask for something with us holding hands? Judging by the happy faces of those emerging from the photo booth I knew whatever we did would be amazing. I kept telling myself that as the moment drew nearer and my heart began to pound. God this was nerve wracking.

Finally, I was allowed in the booth. The final part of the queue, where you get a good five minutes just to look at him, and see him take his pictures with everyone. I dropped my things off on the tables as they asked but I never took my eyes off him.

Then it happened.

He looked right at me. And he smiled. All I could do was smile back. 

But then as I started moving along the queue he kept glancing at me, every time he wasn’t having a picture taken he was looking right at me. At one point he bit his lip. Surely this was some kind of mix up, maybe I look like someone he knows, I think?

Eventually I make the front of the queue and he looks at me, eyes twinkling. “Hey, I’m Tom,” he smiles, reaching a hand out to shake mine. I shake it gently. “Nice to meet you,” I fumble. “I love your sneakers,” he says. “Vintage,” is all I can say. The whole time I’m looking into his eyes and the whole world may as well have disintegrated. “So, uh, what do you want to do?” he asks, snapping me out of my daze. “Um...anything really,” I say, expecting maybe him to just put his arm on my shoulder. But then my feet are taken from beneath me as he lifts me up, bridal style. I yelp in surprise, squishing my face up in glee. I couldn’t believe what was happening.

I heard the snap, sensed the flash under my eyelids and felt myself be lowered gently and carefully to the ground. “How was that?’ he said, giggling. “You could’ve warned me!” I yelped through the laughter I couldn’t contain. Before I knew it, I was being ushered away by the staff, but I couldn’t help but look back at the man who had literally just lifted me up. He was glowing, a smile wide as the Mississippi, and his twinkly eyes still fixed on me. It was a moment beyond my wildest imagination, but the proof was in my hands. The picture showed me with a face of pure surprise and joy, and Tom is looking down at me with his trademark grin and laughter lines. I pressed it to my chest, and looked forward to my autograph ‘moment’ even more. 

It took another two hours to see him again, and my heart rate never dropped. I had to get my picture signed, to seal the deal - it just felt like the right thing to do. Once again the queue was long, but it didn’t matter. It gave me time to sort out my appearance - once again I didn’t want to look a scruff. When I got to the table, the seat was empty, making the wait even more nerve wracking. Suddenly there was a ruffle in the curtains and he came through. He stopped for a second, looked at me intently, and then gave me that winning smile again. “Hi-top girl,” he said. “I see we meet again. You OK sweetheart? Sorry for the wait there.”

“Yeah darlin, I’m good,” I say. 

‘Hold up you’re British. You flew all this way?”

“Things we do eh?” I winked. He gave me that winning smile again. “Flying home tonight though. Whistlestop tour.”

“Me too, you going to Heathrow?” I nodded. “Good. Well, let’s...uh… sign this then shall we?” He took my photo and signed it - I wasn’t paying attention to what he was writing one bit, just fixated on watching him write, his tanned arms and slender neck, his tee-shirt clinging to his perfect body. 

“This is my favourite picture from today,” he says, looking back up at me, eyes twinkling. “Mine too but I’m biased,” I retort. “Thanks so much for making it happen, you’re really strong…” My voice tails off as I realise I’m embarrassing myself.

“Thanks,” he says. “Maybe I’ll see you at the airport then?”

“Um, maybe,” I say. “I had, um, better go.”

“Sure,” he said, sounding a bit sad. “Thanks sweetheart.”

I waved, as my stomach flipped again. Surely he must know what he’s doing when he says that?

The rest of the day was a blur, recounting what had happened again and again, convincing myself that I definitely WASN’T flirting with Tom Holland and he definitely WASN’T starting it. But no matter how I approached it, I came to the same conclusion. We were. 

I looked at my photo again. Properly for the first time, and looked at the little message. “To my hi-top girl…do a flip xxx” My eyebrows furrowed. A flip? All I could think he meant was to turn the photo over. I gasped as I looked at the back. It was a flight number, it was MY flight number. And the message “tell them you’re with me, get an upgrade.”

I got myself to the airport ridiculously early. I had to see if his instruction worked. Heading to check-in I went to the first class queue, as I guessed that’s where he’d be. When I passed on the message, the kind woman behind the counter got on the phone, to god knows who, for what felt like an eternity. 

She put the phone down and smiled. “Yes Mr Holland is aware of your arrival, we’ve arranged the upgrade and you can go to the executive lounge now.”

Holy shit this was happening. I walked into the lounge reception, more nervous than I’d ever been before. They knew I was coming and opened the double doors with a smile. As I walked in, taking in the plush surroundings, there he was. Sitting at the bar, with two glasses of champagne and the same grin he had when he saw me earlier. 

“Hey there,” he said. “Fancy seeing you here?”

“I know...what are the odds? Anyone would think it was fate, wouldn’t you say?”

I sip the champagne and as the hours pass the conversation gets easier and easier. He is more incredible than I ever could have imagined. He’s funny, self-effacing, kind and attentive. One champagne becomes four or five and we’re both suitably warmed up, and before I even realise it, things begin to move on. He’s very attentive, and tactile, touching my knee sending shockwaves to the pit of my stomach. When he moves a strand of hair off my face, I feel like I could take him there and then, but I still can’t believe he would ever see me in that way. 

“Come with me,” he says, taking my hand and leading me to the quietest corner of the lounge, where no other eyes can see. He sits me down, and leans in. “You take my breath away,” he whispers into my ear, only making my yearning grow. “Likewise,” I say, and before I know it he’s kissing me, hard but sensual, his hands either side of my face. The touch sends me wild and I can feel how wet I am for him. I put my hands the only places I want them to go, one on his firm stomach, the other running through his curly hair, and I feel him move towards me. Our bodies are so close I can feel his heat and my hand moves to his pants where I feel how ready he is for me. 

“We can’t do this here,” I say. 

“I know. There’s a bedroom here and I already hired it.” he says, panting. “You wanna go?”

“Oh god yes.”

I’ve never moved fast enough. We run down the corridor past the toilets and showers and unlock the door. It’s hardly luxury, but there’s a bed, and no windows, and that’s all that matters. What follows is a frenzy of lust I’ve never experienced before. He’s pulling my clothes off as I’m pulling his off and I can’t believe I’m looking at his body, touching his body, taking his body. I kick my shoes off as he un-hooks my bra, and we’ve not stopped kissing yet, barely coming up for air. 

“God Tom this is insane,” I say between kisses. “Is this...really happening?”

“I hope so,” he says, laying me down, his hand behind my head on the comforter. He’s firm but he’s gentle, exactly how I’d hoped. 

“You relax, sweetheart. Let me take care of you.”

He kissed my lips softly before beginning his descent, tracing kisses down my neck, then to my breasts, which he gave wonderful attention to, only serving to make me more wet and ready for him. He stroked my stomach with his fingers and tongue before reaching my mons. His hand touched me and I felt my body rise, he knew exactly where to go. “Wow you’re so wet,” he said. “You’re delicious.”

“You’re not...so bad… yourself…” I say, between hitches as he hits all the right spots with his fingers and tongue. “I want you so bad.”

“All in good time,” he says before continuing his time on my vagina. His fingers reach inside me and nothing has felt more perfect, and his tongue flicks at my clit, sending me into raptures. My toes curl and I groan in pleasure as I feel my orgasm coming and as I climax, he feels my vagina pulsing against his digits. 

“Good girl, sweetheart,” he says. “Now you can have me.”

It’s at this point I realise he’s not taken his boxers off yet and he stands in front of me, pulling them down to reveal himself. He’s the perfect size, and he’s more than ready for me. He straddles over the top of me and enters me slowly and slickly. “Holy shit you’re made for me,” he says, thrusting at the perfect rhythm and leaning in to kiss me passionately as he takes me. I can’t help but hook my legs around his back, lifting my butt up to get a deeper sensation and this pleases him greatly. “I’m bendy,” I say, and I grab my legs and pull them up towards my head so he has the perfect angle. “Jesus you’re fucking insane,” he says. “God you feel so good.”

We move together as one for what feels like hours, and it’s like he practices tantric sex as he brings himself to the brink of climax over and over again. “I don’t want to stop,” he says. “We do have a flight to catch, but I agree,” I say. “Come for me Tom, I need you to come for me.”

He kisses me passionately, and we increase the pace. I feel him draw close and to stop him from pulling back again I force him over onto his back, straddling him in a squat position and start thrusting over him, dipping down and using my core strength to pull him in deeper than he’s ever been. “Oh god!!” he screams and I can’t help but smile as I watch him come so intensely he shakes. “You are amazing,” he says. 

“Not as amazing as you,” I say, as I clench his penis and give him one last thrust before coming off, and rolling over beside him, stroking his hair. 

“This doesn’t have to be a one-off, in case you were thinking that,” he says. 

“I didn’t assume anything,” I said. “But I’d like it if we were to… maybe do this again?”

“We’ll we’ve got a nine-hour flight together. Fancy joining the mile high club?”

[goldenretriever-nicknelson]

23 for the dialogue with peter? I really am gonna be sending 11 ideas 😂😘

I know Dev, I know. Here’s the second of your blurbs and oh my gosh if this isn't cute I don't know what is.

Word count: 1.5k (haha i’m not even surprised at his length)

Warnings: none except for some cliché fluff

“So did you ask her?”

Peter sighed, his phone tucked between his shoulder and his ear as he worked on drafting an upgrade for his web fluid. “Yeah but she said maybe.”

“Again?” Ned let out an exhale through the phone and Peter nodded even though his best friend couldn’t see him. His best friend seemed to pick up on it anyway. “I’m sorry dude. I guess it’s not meant to be.”

“Hey, it wasn’t a no.” Peter resumed his full attention to the phone conversation, kicking his feet up on his desk. “It’s just because Mr Stark doesn’t let her date.” He shrugged and pulled up his phone, hoping for there to be a text from Y/n, he sighed when the only notification was a message from May saying she was bringing takeaway home with her.

Ned continued to talk about the new video game he had brought and Peter hummed along, barely following the conversation as his mind lingered on Y/n Stark. He knew he could just give up but there was something in the way she looked at him with a blush, the teasing touches when her Dad wasn’t looking, the way her smile grew wider when he walked into the compound that made him ask her again.

“When will you finally decide to say yes and go on a date with me?”

Okay, maybe there were better ways to put it.

Peter screamed at himself internally, squeezing his eyes shut until he heard Y/n’s laugh. That sweet laugh that he’d heard around the compound so many times, his heart stopping with each beat of the melody as if he was listening to his favourite song.

She leaned forward, coming closer to him and smirked. “The moment you come up with the most unexpected date ever.” Peter’s eyes went wide as she winked before kissing the soft skin of his cheek. Tony came into the room and she quickly parted away, avoiding her father’s suspicious look and leaving with another smiles towards Peter.

Peter was hardly focused on the training for his new web shooter combinations that day. His mind raced with ideas of dates, each one less adventurous than the next. At the end of the day he was sighing, a scowl on his face.

“What’s wrong kid?”

“Hmm?” Peter looked up at his mentor and raised his eyebrows. “Oh it’s nothing.”

“Come on you seem more distracted today than usual.” Tony smirked, eyebrow quirking. Peter sighed, running a hand down his face.

“Mr stark I said I’m sorry for shooting Mr Rhodes with that taser web.”

Tony laughed at the memory, knowing that Rhodey was still somewhere annoyed. “Not about that. Who’s the girl?” He watched Peter’s cheeks flame red, eyes widening and his mouth opening and closing like a stunned fish.

Peter gulped, thinking quickly on his feet. If he asked for advice about dating surely it would only confirm any suspicions he might have, on the other hand he was stuck in a rut, only thinking of milkshake dates and bowling.

“Um well, there’s this girl and I really like her.” Peter looked down at his hands that he was wringing together out of nerves. Tony smiled, of course he knew who the girl was, he’d watched them interact with each other ever since he’d recruited Peter. And whilst he had a strict outlook on Y/n dating because he didn’t want anyone to break her heart but he knew Peter was a good kid.

“Have you asked her out?” Tony asked the question purely from curiosity, measuring Peter’s reaction.

“Yeah but she said she wanted an unexpected date. I don’t even know what that means?” Peter shrugged his shoulders up, hands gesturing wildly.

“Something outside of the box.” Tony swivelled in his chair and shrugged as if the answer was obvious. He supressed his smirk at his daughter asking only for the best.

“Like what?” Peter looked hopelessly, hoping for an answer but Tony wasn’t going to let him off that easy.

“You could literally fly her anywhere.”

Tony smirked before getting up and showing Peter out, telling him to be careful of using certain web combinations he hadn’t got the hang of yet. Peter rolled his eyes but nodded anyway after Tony’s glare.

Fly her anywhere…. Peter repeated the words in his brain as he sat at his desk, pen between his teeth and a list of ideas in front of him. He was just looking at a picture of New York he had snapped a while back when a lightbulb went off above his head.

~

Peter took a deep breath, looking through the window to make sure Y/n was there before making a fist and knocking on her window. She visibly jumped, looking up from her book and to the window. Her eyes squinted to see the red and blue suit against the darkness of night.

Y/n shook her head and Peter heard the end of her laugh as she opened the window. He smiled beneath the mask mirroring her own one only with less shock. “Pete? What are you doing here?”

He was happy the mask was still covering his face because the blush on his cheeks was probably now a matching colour to the red of his suit. “I’m here to take you on the most unexpected date ever.” Peter said it as if it was obvious and he took his mask off just so Y/n could see the happy smirk on his lips. Y/n’s eyes widened with surprise before she bit her lip and told him to wait one second.

Peter waited as she left her room, speaking to her Dad about going to sleep early before she came back quickly with an excited smile that made Peter’s stomach flutter. He waited on the fire escape, facing the beautiful New York city skyline, waiting only a moment before Y/n climbed out of the window, now dressed in jeans and a cute t-shirt.

“Let’s go.” Y/n smiled at him and Peter almost forgot what he was meant to be doing as he got lost in the way her eyes crinkled and her cheeks blushed. He was brought back down to earth only by Y/n grabbing his hand.

“Okay hold on tight.” Peter nodded, heart hammering as Y/n wrapped her arms around his neck. He smiled before putting his mask back on and shooting a web to the next building. Y/n’s legs instinctively wrapped around his waist and she screamed. Peter laughed and held her tighter as he kept swinging through Queens.

“I’ve got you.” He kept saying along with other reassurances as Y/n nodded, screams decreasing to squeals as she buried her head in his shoulder. Peter was so used to web-swinging now that he forgot how scary it was.

When they finally landed at the destination Peter had in mind, Y/n sighed in relief as her feet hit the ground. Peter smiled, blushing as Y/n kept clinging to him, eyes shut tightly. “Hey Y/n, it’s okay.”

She looked up at him and smiled, nodding as she untangled herself from him. Peter missed her warmth which was a contrast to the bitter cold air as soon as she was gone and he suddenly wished he hadn’t said anything.

Y/n gasped as she looked around. They were on top of the Queensboro bridge, the lights of the city illuminated beneath them and the sounds of the city whirring on in the background. Y/n looked around before seeing Peter sitting with a takeaway pizza in front of him from her favourite pizza place.

He patted the space next to him and she giggled before taking the spot. They chatted and laughed as they admired the city life behind them that seemed so unimportant. It felt as if it was just the two of them against all else in that moment.

“So what do you think?” Peter bit his lip as he turned to Y/n, breath hitching as he noticed the proximity. She met his eyes and smiled.

“Definitely unexpected.” Y/n nodded with a giggle as she ate her last slice of pizza happily. A couple of moments passed before she shivered. Peter got the blanket he had brought and wrapped it around her shoulders tightly as well as his arm, hoping to bring her some warmth. She sighed contently before looking up, finding his eyes already staring at her. They both shook lightly and it had nothing to do with the cold.

“Can-can I do something else unexpected?” Peter’s voice was quiet but they were so close that she could hear it even as a car beeped loudly on the bridge. His eyes were focused on her lips. She nodded with a hopeful smile, eyes a light with happiness and partial amusement.

He leaned down to close the gap slowly, giving Y/n an opportunity to back out if she wanted but she didn’t. Peter sighed in relief as their lips connected. They both kissed each other back, noses bumping lightly as Peter tried to pull her closer, hands cupping her jaw. Her lips tasted like pizza and strawberry lip balm, Peter felt himself get hooked on how her lips felt.

And as both of the teenagers explored their feelings high above the city below, neither one of them had ever felt happier even when they parted, heavy breathing mingling together in the cold air as they smiled at each other. 

“You know it’s not unexpected if you ask.” 

“Shut up.” 

Their laughs filled the air in their own little world before Peter kissed her again. 

[chloemokthequeen]

I am a Freelance Marketer.

Too many people ask what I do and I usually give a very simple answer. Many of them who are skeptical might think that I have an easy job, or that I'm just another housewife making ends meet. Well, they are not exactly wrong. I've decided to write about my career choice and a description of this choice in detail because there is so much in this choice that I cannot finish explaining all in a hangout session. Many mothers have asked me how do I do this, and wish they have the same thing going on for them. I suppose, after two years of freelancing, I owe it to many mother-friends and ex-colleagues to tell you what I now do.

In a Nutshell

In a nutshell, I'm a marketing consultant who helps businesses who need my help in any marketing activation. My clients, who are mostly Startups & SMEs, need a jack-of-all-trades expertise who can contribute in many areas within the marketing department.

A lot of people ask why would people hire me instead of hiring a full timer. The answer is simple: I'm cheaper, better and clients don't need to contribute to my EPF (retirement fund) and employment benefits. Cheaper, because I charge based on my invested hours, instead of the potentially hefty cost of keeping me onboard on a full-time basis. Better, simply because at my rates, you won't find a full-timer as experienced, nor will you find another freelancer with my set of skills.

The Work

I wish I am Liam Neeson and tell you I have a unique set of skills, but Neeson I am not. But I do have a set of skills that is rare when all of them combined. I can plan and execute both online & offline marketing activations, from organizing press conferences, running & optimizing Adwords campaigns, designing ecommerce websites, to data crunching. Some simpler yet time consuming tasks include social media management, graphic design, CRM and copywriting.

In other words, I'm a Jack-of-all-trades.

Each of my client has a set of projects, and each project is of a different nature and/or industry. In two years, I have worked on property development, education, F&B, football club, tourism, fashion, job portals and so many I have lost track.

The Structure

Unlike what most people imagine freelancers to be, I maintain the same work hours, sometimes more. Weekdays, 9am to 6pm, I am dedicated to my work the same you would do in an office. Instead of being accountable and responsible to only one immediate superior, I report to multiple clients and manage them to the best of my abilities. I don't have time to take a breather because every minute I'm thinking of a marketing strategy on a macro level, I can be doing something on a micro-level that does not need as much brain power.

I keep myself very productive and every minute is accounted for, with the help of Toggl, a time management app. Of course, being at home with a baby/toddler means that I'll step away from my computer once in a while but that does not take me away from my work. I use every mobile app available to get work done and have long mastered feeding and/or putting my child to sleep while working. (Still an exclusive direct-latch breastfeeding mom! #win)

There is still work stress, just as you would in any type of work. There are still heavy attachments to projects I run, and every mistake on my judgement can have upsetting repercussions, reflected on numbers, be it engagement or pure sales.

The Life

Instead of spending time on the road, waking up early to get preparations done, I wake up a little later, most times just in time to make breakfast and work. While that sounds nice enough, imagine juggling work and a toddler all day. I no longer go to the washroom alone and I'm always explaining myself to someone who may not understand me.

So, while I save time in the road, I'm more tired at the end of the day. I'd imagine that if you've spent a full day at work, you'll feel energised once again to see your child after work, and would like to spend some quality time with him/her. Me? I'm spent at the end of the day, craving for quality bathroom time. Unfortunately, there is really no break until my daughter decides to sleep. If I'm lucky, that's 10pm.

Juggling, takes on a whole new meaning when my body discovers new muscles it never knew it had. I was ambidextrous as a kid, and I've come to pick it up again when managing more than three tasks at once. Breastfeeding, typing out an email and blasting out a post from my phone all at once.

Unlike most home-based employees who never step out, I have regular meetings with clients, both teleconferences and face-to-face meetings. There are deadlines and targets to achieve, and I play a good amount of significant roles in a number of businesses. I cannot be a bottleneck and cannot allow myself to be one even if I have good reasons to, for example my daughter is sick and I haven't slept in two days.

I am also thankful for help from my husband who also works from home (not a freelancer), my mother who sometimes stays with us, and my mother-in-law who is always ready to help. While I am the primary care giver of my child, they have been there to relief me, and they are the very reason of how I've survived this far.

Pros & Cons

The Pros are many, here are the top 3 for me:

- In a short two years, I've come to know more than ever. I am most likely the first to sense a new marketing trend, from better landing page features, colour with the most engagement, to new Google upgrades. I have also accummulated a pretty impressive portfolio (I think!) in just two years based in industry, scope and performance.

- I've never missed a milestone with my child, ie. First words, first step, first dance, etc. I can always choose to drop everything and egg her on!

- I've learned so much in these two years that I've rolled out many of these learnings into different industries and cities - at the same time witnessing how different the outcomes due to language, culture, audience expectations and local competition.

Cons are plenty too! But here are my top 3:

- As a freelancer, I don't usually get to run strategic-level projects or lead the company on a specific direction. I might not see the whole picture the way full timers do, or that I refrain from doing so for a number of office politics reasons.

- Most freelancers like me, are hired to tackle the most difficult and tedious marketing tasks. Unlike when employed as a full-timer in a managerial role, you will have assistants or help to complete the minute items, I am there to do both planning and execution, independently and without help.

- No maternity leave. This is probably what bothers me the most. The loss of income aside while dealing with incoming post-natal depression, I might need to source for new clients if my "original" clients replace me with another during my downtime.

Conclusion

There are still more pros and cons; but I know that I'm in a uniquely blessed position. I am grateful for clients who have decided to stick with me, given that I have a set of rules myself, and grateful that I'm enjoying my daughter's new quirks almost everyday.

I won't say it's easy, heck I'd say it's the hardest thing I have to do so far. But it is so rewarding, in so many ways.

Many ask if I'll ever go back to a full-time role. My answer is 95% No. 5% if Godfather makes me an offer I can't refuse. Lol.

So that's it! That's pretty much all I have to tell. If you want to start some freelancing work, do try out Workana.com, who is also one of my favourite clients who truly appreciate the value of freelancers.

Hope this answers some of your questions (if not, all!). Got a question? Just shoot, and I'll try my best to answer!

[dramataste9]

Young Customers Keeping their Older Smart Phones for More Time

Almost each smart phone unveiled this season will not likely exhibit a brand-new ingenious functionality. Simply by our guidelines these fresh cellphones are looked at as dull or boring certainly not worthy of the replacing for current end users. You might possibly enjoy a larger screen and an enhanced camera, but not much more than that. Mobile phone development has come to slow crawl. Major market members are scrambling to justify the annual updates they’ve spent almost ten years normalizing. Most people are upgrading considerably less than ever before. We’re listening whispers that we have hit peak cell phone. Most that’s left are software and environments related to our mobile phones. Apple’s most advanced iPhone XS presented significant features like Smart HDR and changeable depth options. Google’s -pixel 3 boasts Top Photos, Super Move, and contact screening. Samsung’s phones have got raw video gaming power and Huawei targets most current engineering. Pricey components have jumped up as a unwanted effect of the increasing difficulty of selling cell phones on their own. For your own Apple iPhone, you would better obtain the AirPods. Oh, yet don’t forget the Pixel Stand, the HomePod, and the Home Hub intended for your Google Pixel a few. Then why not the Samsung Equipment VR or super fast Charge Cordless Charging Stand? There is even the Huawei EnVizion 360 Camera or the Moonlight Selfie Stick,  who could live with out those? There’s a reason 2018 is the season of new form attributes, large screens, color selections, and nice notch-based methods to extend the display. All of these are rich upgrade temptations for buyers still keeping onto their old cell phones. None of this is poor, necessarily. Boring cell phones are a testament to their utility and ubiquity. The pcs within our pant pockets are getting better at lasting much longer. The environment  and your finances gains when you hold on your telephone for longer. After 10 years of the initial smartphone (iPhone) inception, the hardware parts of cell phones have got at last caught up with the program’s ability. The yearly new product (phone) discharge from every single cell phone machine can't exhibit any incredible wonderful feelings and are unable to create an excessive amount of excitements can be to imagine. In the early days of the smartphone, software was lingering for equipment to accelerate in order to play in the same playground to make devices better. After ten years of the first mobile phone (iPhone) beginning, the hardware components of smartphones have finally caught up with the software’s ability. Therefore , it runs quicker and better. Also, all the magical methods that software can give to hardware start to be provided to most of the smartphones from mid-range to the high-end devices. The annual new product (smartphone) discharge from every single smartphone manufacturer cannot exhibit any amazing magical feelings and are not able to create too much excitements can be to expect. Presently there isn’t any kind of revolutionary “the next big thing” exists anymore. Every product discharge has been an gradual equipment update or, even, only a software processing or technique. pueden rastrear un celular formateado As we talked about that the hardware advancements combined with the software upgrades on the smart phone turf let the leading mobile platforms combine in the middle of the street in a sense. iOS has been ruling in the high-end smart phone segment as well as the hippie circle as well as fashion target segmentations regardless that it lacked in features (hardware) and capabilities (software) in the first days. Android has been thriving across the all segments because of its technique similar to the early days of the PC vs Mac war period. Although google android has been taking market stocks all across sections, it does not really get into the primary high-end device users. Sure, those end users buy and try flagship android mobile phones but they do not use android telephones because their daily drivers. Worse, they used google android telephones since their beloved iPhones could not do a handful of certain issues that google android gadgets could do. Today, what android has, hardware-wise, iPhone provides as well. All of the advanced hardware enabled the program to cream all the functionalities that android phones experienced but iPhone didn’t into both systems solutions. iPhone users shall no longer be needing to carry an android telephone for a few product features only google android phones have. For google android end users, iPhone has turn into more like its twin brothers and sisters that not only they alike yet act alike (motion control on both devices). The smart phone battle is over to the eye of consumers because it is not important which platform they select, the moving over cost is being cut to a minimum. In most cases the individuals who suffer from the problems are the companies that create these units. Smart phone gross sales are delaying, and businesses like Apple almost solely count on that revenue to pad their bottom lines. To make up for the slowdown, price levels are slowly and gradually creeping upward. continue reading this You can view this shift in technology companies’ notifications. Previously excitedly awaited (and experienced), these types of releases are barely keeping their audiences. Rather than focusing on how crazy that new camera is definitely, reports clarify how increased reality can make dancing blobs spend time within your living space, or boost your photos after the fact, or maybe the way your smart phone interacts with you via tone of voice, and so on. These are about overall performance bumps, other features, or other application-based add-ons. Probably some of all of them will matter, but the vast majority won’t. They all point to something: the end from the smart phone battles.

I don’t believe there’s an additional big trend nearby, simply arguing over notches, camera lenses, and other banalities that add up to little pertaining to the end consumer. Ten years after the launch of Apple’s iPhone, you can purchase killer hardware wherever you appear. Does someone forget the old days any time a subsidy iPhone only price us regarding 99 us dollars or the priciest one was only 399 dollar bills? We perform miss those times. However , these good old times were over for a while (thanks much to T-Mobile); in these modern times, an mid-range smart phone will set you back as much as the high quality devices used to cost you throughout the smartphone subsidy model period. If you want to obtain a flagship gadget from big name brands such as Samsung Apple And Google, you would better get around $1,000 USD cash set for the unit. Also from so called "Flagship killer" names just like OnePlus and Xiaomi, the cost of devices from those businesses are about $600 USD. It is a lot of cash to trim from customers to get only a insignificant update device in contrast to the model a year in the past. Even as we outlined that mobile phone market already came to the grown up stage when it comes to the hardware plus software program innovations from about 2 years ago. The annually cool product release is really a minor equipment upgrade along with software marketing tricks. But, it is another one thousand bucks purchase if you commit to upgrade your phone. For this reason, we have our measures to give to decide if you should upgrade your gadget every season or not. In case you are a parent and you take tons of photos of your kid then . You should replace your telephone every year. Surely, the give-in the following is that we imagine one thousand bucks will not grab all of your money. Seriously, it isn’t really purely because of the picture or video recording qualities are likely to be enormously different when you upgrade your cellphone. It may be the emotional feeling that unless you own it, you would not grab the best of it when you take movies or pics of your children. go to my site That thought can actually make a huge impact on a few couples’ thoughts. This is why, if you are a mother or father, you may want to consider to do so. If you no longer shoot tons of videos and pics, in that case there is no hurry to purchase the most recent smart phone. You should not upgrade your phones annually even though you have enough cash to do so. Seriously, why squander one thousand dollars to pay for a mobile phone with some picture benefits that you can not even use? Or pay one thousand dollars to upgrade your mobile phone for a unique model of display (top notch or a bit more curved)? Really, you might want to just make use of that one thousand dollars treating yourself for something better like a trip to Las Vegas just for the holiday weekend or just to visit a good cafe for a night. You genuinely won’t care the difference between the fresh iPhone and the iPhone you simply bought a year ago if you are not the fanatic of the cell phone. Therefore … why get it? Because of this, the decision really falls of the mind of shoppers. In case you mentally will feel you are in an inferior placement if you do not have got a most current smartphone in hands, you should use the money and just just do it and update your gadget. If not, you should happily make use of that one thousand bucks someplace else. In the event you mentally will feel you are in an lesser position if you don’t own a most up to date smart phone in your hands, you ought to spend the cash and proceed and upgrade your phone What we are observing now can be an environment fight. What happens next is anyone’s guess, so I believe it’s going to get odd,  but is not certainly whole lot more engaging.

[crasherfly]

If ever there’s been a week to Never Tweet, it’s been this one.

Never Tweeting is an art.

It is so much harder to Never Tweet than it is to simply tweet like mad.

And folks...this week, I could feel it. I had no shortage of takes that I tweeted, immediately rolled my eyes at, and hauled back in.

I want my online presence to be about celebrating, enthusing and sharing the things I love with others.

I want to disconnect from the constant, algorithmic anger of the internet and provide a space where for just_one_minute we don’t have to try to one up each other’s takesmanship.

It’s easy to show up and interact when someone is angry. I have no shortage of followers and well-wishers who only_show_up when I’m Mad_Online*tm.

They’re nowhere to be found when I’m feelin’ good.

I don’t begrudge it. Anger will always be the more cathartic tone to hook into.

And honestly? I’m GOOD at being angry. My writing tone is sharper. More focused. I can summon all sorts of anger- sad anger- hopeless anger- righteous anger, you name it. I was born and bred in Gawker’s internet hivemind. I had anger BEATEN into me.

But after being hooked into that stuff for the better part of a decade, I want to provide a healthier alternative.

This week I struggled to do that.

But I think I’m getting better at it.

I think I’ll always struggle to project earnest positivity. That’s just who I am. I don’t smile in pictures. My voice doesn’t project warmth on a phone. My first response in most group chats is the Kermitpls emote. It can’t be helped.

But I also know my therapist was right when she pointed out that it isn’t IMPOSSIBLE- ‘cuz I’m at my warmest, my kindest, my most curious and open- when I’m sharing about the things that bring me joy.

When I talk about a video game I’ve been playing.

When I share an anime gif of a new series I’m obsessed with.

When I send a youtube link for some no name trap artist I just discovered.

In the past I’ve struggled with toeing the line between sharing and critiquing.

I don’t think I’m a critic.

Most art is just black magic to me. I couldn’t do what these people do. I’ve tried and failed. Even the worst and most cliche storywriter in the film or video game world has already made it steps and bounds further than I likely ever will.

But I do believe I have a gift. I believe I can give voice to the experiences I love. I can tell you about the exact moment an anime monologue hit me or a gaming experience clicked for me and you’ll understand where I’m coming from. I can be excited about something and make that feel palpable for others. I can share that experience and relate it back to my identity and maybe convince you to take a shot at it for yourself.

I took a week off from these Tumblr’s ‘cuz I simply couldn’t think of something to write that would reflect that. We were knee deep in so many different Discourses that just thinking about writing made my head spin.

But as I took my time away from writing, all I could do was continue to file away little experiences for future use in the Weekly Update.

I don’t think these are special. I don’t think I’m a special writer. But I couldn’t keep away from this if I tried. I have to  write- something- anything. And really, that’s the best and only reason anyone should do the damn thing.

So let’s stop talking about it and just dive right in.

Cyberpunk 2077

Yeah, we’re gonna go ahead and acknowledge the elephant in the room.

I bought Cyberpunk 2077 just an hour or two ahead of the release. I had made it YEARS without buying into hype. But my friends were hype, 2020 has been a beast, and the allure of a enormous, high-fidelity open world to explore managed to tag me for sixty bucks at the last second.

Oh, how much a couple extra hours of patience would have made.

I’m not going to sugarcoat it- the tech issues are exactly what you’ve been reading about. Unplayable is not an overstatement. After the most recent patch, I’d upgrade that to “barely tenable”.

I’ve put in somewhere around 4 hours of play. I’ve knocked out a couple of missions and taken some time to explore Night City and take in the sights. I do my best to grin and bear the technical issues, but it’s likely that I won’t earnestly complete my visit to Night City until I have a Series X. This has nothing to do with the content or gameplay- everything to do with the fact that the raw chop of the experience leaves my eyes strained and my head dully aching.

Is Cyberpunk 2077 good?

I have no idea. I haven’t really played it. It’ll likely be years before I’ll have a chance to play it as its developers intended.

I think if a large percentage of players were being honest they would say the same thing. I don’t think any of us know if this will ultimately be a positive experience.

It certainly doesn’t feel like the experience that was promised, but as I learned with my recent revisit of Red Dead Redemption 2, time is a helluva thing. A year or two years from now- we may not remember the buggy launch, the hardware scarcity, or the many other controversies surrounding Cyberpunk 2077, instead only being left with an incredibly intricate playground open world that seems like an impossible gift in digital artistry.

Or that end-vision may never materialize, and we’ll only be left with a monument to the many unnecessary follies that this hype train has foisted upon all of us.

I do know that the uncertainty has brought out the worst in most of us, and no promise of a shining digital city on the hill is worth what we are putting each other through.

Someday, I plan to actually experience the wonders of Night City. The highest fidelity stills I’ve seen evoke the wonder I felt as a kid when I experienced moments of graphical benchmarks- playing Doom or Goldeneye for the first time, or seeing the trailer for Halo, or exploring Fallout 3′s massive wasteland and swearing games couldn’t look any better than this. I want to experience that moment for myself. Who wouldn’t?

But it’s gonna be a while. That seems unbelievable, given how long we’ve had to hear about the promise of this title. But it’s a fact we’re all gonna have to get used to. Despite being out in the wild, Cyberpunk 2077 is still, largely, an unknown quantity, and we all need to get on healthy terms with that status quo for the time being.

Street Fighter 30th Anniversary Collection

After reading this excellent piece on Polygon regarding the history of Street Fighter III, I picked up the 30th Anniversary Collection on a whim.

I’ve never been good at Capcom fighters. They’ve always been too fast and I could never get inputs exactly right. Too often it would devolve into button mashing, with supers and hypers being expelled purely by accident.

But lately I’ve been trying to better learn retro fighters, partly because of Spriteclub, and partly because I want to challenge myself to learn something new.

I’ve had some moderate success with this collection, but it’s pretty dependent on WHICH Street Fighter I end up playing. There are 12 to choose from, spanning the first 3 games of the series.

I’ve had the best luck with Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike. The action is fluid, the command input more forgiving. It’s also just a gorgeous game to look at. The art of the Street Fighter series (and other retro fighters) is something I’ve come to really appreciate this year.

I think my favorite actual roster is Street Fighter Alpha 3, which contains the most familiar faces of the series. It’s also deeply difficult. But I’ve learned that short of picking up a mod or hacked rom of these games, the only way to learn is being tossed to the vicious AI wolves of the past.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to use my fight stick with this collection, lacking the correct USB hub for the connection. I’m looking into rectifying that, ‘cuz so far this has been a great way to pick up a series that as a kid I largely missed out on.

Grab Bag of Other Experiences

Beyond those two experiences, I’ve mostly been gaming in small bursts.

I’m still off and on with Crusader Kings 3. I’ve learned how to create custom rulers and have done a few runs playing as what is essentially a living god. What I’ve learned is that even as a superhuman...being successful in the middle ages is pretty freaking hard. Even if you tame countless armies and bring swaths of territory under your command AND live for at least 120 years- eventually, your greatest enemy won’t be a military or an economy- but your own impossibly convoluted line of succession.

I tried Nintendo Online with some friends Friday night. We played Mario and a few other NES games. The input lag was present but bearable. The experience is confined to two participants, which is a shame because it would be easy enough to add extra spots for spectating or even hot sea depending on the game. But still, it worked, and for Nintendo...that’s about all we can ask.

I’m still working through Hitman 2. I’m on the expansion content now. I’m close to maxing out The Golden Handshake. Two more levels after this, and then I’ll move on to the sniper missions.

I picked Fire Emblem: Three Houses up briefly. I finished some skirmish battles before getting overwhelmed and quitting. I adore Fire Emblem, but I’m an absolute perfectionist when it comes to unit class pathing and with the addition of the new DLC characters, everything is out of whack. I need to freshen up on what my ultimate master class pathing will be for everyone...and then I’ll pick it back up.

I tried Fall Guys today. I was bored. I thought it’d be a fun way to kill some time. I failed to qualify for 3 of my first 4 opening rounds. Either the game has gotten harder or the community is just that savvy now. It felt like no one else ever missed a jump or hit a wall. I eventually put the game down in frustration.

Anime

If my gaming lists have seemed a little light lately, it’s because I’ve actually been putting in time with my first love, anime.

Jujutsu Kaisen

We’ve gone from intriguing to straight fire. Beautiful action scenes are finally finding actual human connections to really make them sing. A true antagonist has finally appeared and the plot appears to finally be accelerating- though it was fairly brisk to start with.

This is shaping up as my favorite shonen of the year.

No Guns Life

Seven ep’s in and this story is still killing it. We’re getting deeper into the tangled web of dark military groups and hyper-capitalist research companies. All the pieces haven’t fallen into place quite yet, but half the fun is getting there.

If you’re looking to soothe your post-Cyberpunk blues, this story of cybernetics run amok might be just the jam you’re looking for.

Fire Force

Fire Force season 2 is finally in the books. It’s last ep was a doozy. It’s impossible to evaluate just how good this season was, because it was largely in service to set up for season 3. We met A LOT of new characters- and lost a few too.

So much happened in season 2 that it’ll be necessary to rewatch ahead of the eventual season 3 (yet to be confirmed, somehow?). A lot of what’s to come will determine just how special season 2 ends up being.

I’ll say this much:

There is no anime out there right now that is given as much life and individuality in its animation as Fire Force is. Sometimes, I wish the many moving parts would just get out of its own way and just let the show soar as high as its visuals want it to, but it seems we’ll have to wait just a bit longer to see if it can reach that potential.

Fist of the North Star

Holy SHIT Fist of the North Star.

Somehow, I’d never heard of this absolutely bonkers dark fantasy until joining Spriteclub. But I’m so glad I did, ‘cuz just WOAH. 

Okay, the pitch:

Earth, 19xx. Nuclear wars have left the planet uninhabitable. Water is the most valuable resource, and people kill or worse for it. Think like, Mad Max, or Fallout, and you’ll get the idea.

A lone wanderer named Kenshiro goes from town to town with no objective in mind. Plagued by the memories of a past life and blessed with incredible strength, martial arts prowess, and magic, the plot follows his movements from village to village as he tries to keep food in his belly, water close at hand and a roof over his head, all while paying heed to his intense sense of violent justice, of course.

This is an older anime, airing in 1984. I was surprised by how emotionally intense it was. It didn’t hold back its punches (pun slightly intended). The tragic life of the post-apocalypse is graphic and brutal. Ken’s foes are as ruthless as their victims are helpless. And Ken’s fight sequences, thrilling in their rendering, are still enough to make audiences of today gasp.

It’s a brutal show, but it never feels overpowering in its bleakness. Ken follows a strict moral code that always errs on the side of goodness and justice, following in the footsteps of many other lone vanguards of the post-apocalypse. So, even as the plots are often dark, we always leave the story with the feeling that eventually, Ken is going to find a way to make this right.

If nothing else, he leaves a few less bad guys standing than he did before.

[everytechever]

The Nokia 6. This smartphone started it all – the emergence of HMD Global, the comeback of the Nokia branding, and the start of the Android journey for us after our long support for Windows Phone-powered Lumia handsets. Released in China a year ago and in the Philippines last June, the Nokia 6 had really gone a long way, with recent recognitions received from popular tech websites, as well as continuous positive comments and reviews from smartphone consumers.

What’s so great about the Nokia 6 and how did it manage to break through the Android market and be recognized so strongly? Find out from our review.

PHONE DESIGN

One of the most striking features of the Nokia 6 is its outstanding classy design. Made from a single block of 6000-series aluminum, the phone design looks very sophisticated, yet super durable at the same time. Not compromising quality over aesthetics, the Nokia 6 feels good in the hands and it does stand out well when place alongside its competitors. Just like the Nokia 5, the Nokia 6 did not fail to deliver our grand expectations when it comes to phone design.

When it comes to size, the Nokia 6 is way bigger than the Nokia 5, with dimensions of 154 x 75.8 x 7.85 mm (8.4 with camera bump) – perfect for those who are avid fans of phablets or bigger smartphones. Unlike the Nokia 5 though, the Nokia 6 has sharper, blockier edges which can be a bit uncomfortable at first. But once you get used to handling the handset, it won’t be bothering you at all!

The color options of the Nokia 6 may not be as vibrant as the ones offered by Lumia smartphones, but with the goal of promoting the Finnish brand’s design heritage, the minimalist variants of Matte Black, Silver, and Tempered Blue are perfect choices for promoting premium quality handsets.

So we can all agree that the Nokia 6 is indeed a beautiful tool for communication, but what about its durability? Well, it won’t be hailed as the “Most Durable Smartphone of 2017” for no reason. The use of aluminum as its main body and Corning Gorilla Glass for its display had greatly reinforced the strength of the Nokia 6. Combine beauty and durability and you’ll get the Nokia 6, a true product of the Nokia legacy.

PERFORMANCE

When it was launched last year, many were skeptical about HMD Global’s use of Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ 430 1.4 GHz octa-core processor (same with Nokia 5) for the Nokia 6, as they believe that this will slow the phone down. But I’ve been using the phone for more than a month now, and I can confidently tell that there were no significant issues when it comes to overall performance. The Nokia 6 can handle having multiple apps opened at the same time while still maintaining a smooth, lag-free experience. While there is a noticeable delay in the app’s launch time (around 1-2 seconds) as you open more apps, it’s not too troublesome.

As for gaming, I played Mobile Legend, Royal Revolt 2, and Subway Surfers with the Nokia 6 to test out the limit of the handset’s performance. Unlike with Nokia 5 where I experienced minimal lags, the gameplay run smoothly with the Nokia 6. We can owe this with the higher RAM inside – a 3GB RAM is surely useful at this point.

BATTERY AND STORAGE

The Nokia 6 is packed with a 3,000 mAh non-removable Li-Ion battery, which ensures enough power is supplied to the smartphone throughout the day. Compared to the Nokia 5, I was able to use the Nokia 6 longer before having the need to charge it. On a regular day with my usual heavy usage (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, web-browsing, watching videos, and listening to Spotify), the phone lasted for an average of 12 hours.

If you’re fan of downloading media contents, apps, or games, as well as taking photos, storage won’t be an issue with the Nokia 6. The handset comes with a 32GB internal memory, as well as support for microSD card up to 128GB. Since it runs on Android OS, additional 15GB storage is also offered via Google Drive, making sure that you utilize your Nokia 6 to its maximum potential without worrying about where to put your important files. Just don’t forget to back up your files once in a while and you’re doing just great.

OPERATING SYSTEM

With more than a month of using the Nokia 6, I was finally able to embrace the potentials of Android as a smartphone OS. Starting your Android experience with a Nokia smartphone is a good move, as HMD Global’s tie-up with Google ensured that avid consumers will only use the OS in its purest form – Android in vanilla Nougat form.

The Nokia 6 runs on Android™ 7.1.1 Nougat, with Android Oreo coming soon as the beta testing had already started last month. Nokia boasts of the purest form of Android under the hood with a promise of pure, secure and up to date

·         Pure it has no OEM customization and bloatware that can slow down the usage performance that kills battery life. This gives users all freedom to customize and install apps that they’ve always wanted

·         It is secure because of the monthly security updates so no need for an anti-virus software that also consumes battery life.

·         Up to date, this device is packed with always the latest Android. It is running on nougat out of the box and upgradable to Oreo in few weeks’ time. HMD also announced that the full range of Nokia smartphones will also get the Android P update when it’s available.

CAMERA

Despite the absence of Carl Zeiss lens and PureView imaging technology from Lumia smartphones, Nokia 6’s camera performed well when I tried the phone during photowalk sessions. Sporting a 16MP phase detection automatic focus rear camera with dual tone flash, the Nokia 6 was able to produce amazingly sharp pictures with vibrant hues. I’m a fan of vivid photos so I don’t mind the extra pop in the colors, although this might be issue for those who prefer natural colors on their shots. Lighting also plays a key role in taking photos with the Nokia 6, as relying on flash can make the images appear as washed out. We also noticed a 1-second delay with image capture after clicking the button, although this might be more of a device-related issue (we are using a prototype handset during the review).

Video recording also works well with the Nokia 6, as it can capture good quality videos in brighter environments. However, performance decrease greatly in low-light conditions, so we have the same advice as what we had in the Nokia 5 review – use a tripod if possible and try to get more light in the area where you are going to shoot photos and videos.

What I really enjoyed with the Nokia 6 is 8MP automatic focus front camera. The selfies I took with the smartphone were stunning and has more realistic colors – which was further enhanced with the use of Beautify mode.

Here are some sample shots from the Nokia 6:

OVERALL PERFORMANCE

Currently selling with a price tag of PHP 11,990, the Nokia 6 is best-selling smartphone within HMD Global’s line of handsets. And why won’t it be a crowd favorite, when you can get the best features inherited from the Finnish mobile brand at such an affordable price point?

Made to be life-proof, the Nokia 6 boasts all the great characteristics that a smartphone should readily have – innovative design, durable form, widely-supported OS, multiple options for storage, excellent battery life, and very decent camera. Compared to its local competitors who focused more on driving the price down while compromising quality, the Nokia 6 is a better choice for a midrange mobile device.

HMD Global is just getting started with their Nokia-branded smartphones. Recently celebrating their one year as a company, we are looking forward to a great 2018 packed with better handsets. The Nokia 6 is indeed an outstanding forerunner in the smartphone competition, and with Android Oreo coming soon, who knows what amazing surprise are still being installed for their avid consumers!

Special thanks to Jeremiah Gonzales and Rodney Fuentes for their awesome Nokia 6 shots!

Find out why the #Nokia6 is raking awards and recognitions from the Android community with our in-depth review. The Nokia 6. This smartphone started it all – the emergence of HMD Global, the comeback of the Nokia branding, and the start of the Android journey for us after our long support for Windows Phone-powered Lumia handsets.

[erectiledysfunc]

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[guitarrod]

This is what I told my soon — to — be — stupid son while he finally felt asleep after moaning.

Hey, Chip, Chip? Are you awake? You can face me, son, it´s alright to be scared. 

Hey, Chip, don��t bury your face in a pillow. Listen to your old man talk so I may feel heroic for a while. Sorry about neglecting you all night. It´s a tic I got from the war, or Life. Neglect of civilian life. Maybe I may feel of service while you burrow in your rabbit hole. I got a confession to make. Being a veteran doesn´t help. It just makes you ruminate things at night. I´m glad you finally got to sleep.

Hey, Chip? Forgive your dad but I had to do it. You can learn something out of the old suffering and strife. Joaquin Phoenix´s Joker turned out to be essential. A sort of litmus test for your manhood. What we learn about ourselves in the battlefield, we carry to the grave. No I´m not trying to be funny. It´s easier to get scared now, when you´re a kid, then later in life. And it´s better to feel scared after watching a movie. Preparation, boy. Bootcamp. I´m conditioning you for anxiety. I knew from the first there wouldn´t be any superhero to save your day, boy. This is war.

You millennials, have social media and I´m deeply sorry for that predicament but I had nothing to do with it and try to be the least involved possible. 

Technology? They take our taxes and funnel it into the Pentagon. For what, you´d ask, if awake? Research and Development. The cold war is over and the Taliban or ISIS wasn´t much. Your grandfather had Vietnam. When you´re drafted from your living room straight to the jungle, you´ll grow out of videogames. Hell, you´ll grow out of Pornohub.

Back in the day, some people showed the courtesy of being famous just out of the happy accident of being born famous. That was tough, kid. A world you never want to see again. A cartoon Vietnam. The enemy was finally home. You want terrorism? Have people pretend street culture ain´t manufactured. Hip Hop survived for a measly second. That´s the Nam. That´s napalm drilling a hole in your core. Vietnam had a better soundtrack than suburbia, kid. I apologize for America. But it is what it is. Soulless. Reality has its side effects.

Have you heard of the assembly line, son? Of dear old Mr. Ford. Well, he was chicken feed to Steve Jobs. Again, I´m sorry. It´s my fault I put you into this world, but I´ll take you out. Not out of this world. I´ll take this world out of you. Even if it kills me. But it will take more than ammo and bombs. There´s no one to shoot. Those assembly lines crossed the boundaries of Mr. Ford´s factory and now you carry that assembly line in your baby hands. Your smartphone, son. Whenever you´re online,son, you are enslaved to the treadmill, building nothing out of nothing, until it gets bigger and bigger and leaves you small and emptier. You see the progression. From the whip to a passive existence building a machine that will build another you instead. Your phone will eat you up. At least, in the first circle of hell all a man had to lose was his self-respect, down to the second circle of hell, all he had to lose was his humanity, down this third circle of pure hell you are annulled. You will cease to exist by an algorithm that never learned existence. Life can´t be computed by a virtual world. Life ceases to exist because it becomes invisible When a man spends all day at the factory, he knows where the line is drawn. He is bound to do the opposite once that freedom bell clangs.

When your great- grandfather immigrated to the land of the free, I refuse to add “brave”, you could see the country. Can you see it now? Or do you see concrete and malls? Steamrolled countryside. First, they mow your lawn, then then they´ll cut your balls. 

Excuse the language, son. I know you´re asleep. You got other things to dream about. I can see computer games coming out of your ears. One difficulty level at a time. You´re dreaming of a dream girlfriend. They don´t build those anymore. But you get the picture.

I´m nagging. I´m just an old man to you. But I´m also a veteran. Experience breeds respect. No, you´re right. It doesn´t. I´m just spare parts. Not even. I missed the last upgrade. I´m not fit to be a human being. But I´m damn capable of being your father. They say you are independent and creative, that´s what they would tell the house boy slave. They got you in so deep, they have found a way for you to build your own maze. You carry it with you, at your fingertips. Each day you create a new corridor, new twists and turns. Your phone isn´t an extension of you. You´re not even an extension of it. Both of you have ceased to exist. They don´t need you, Chip. And they don´t need bullets to delete you. All they need is to upgrade the con. There is nothing better for the maHpresume it. He had an investment to increase. So, back in those days, you just couldn´t just go out and pick up an instrument, they made up such a thing as a professional musician. You left your guitar at home and saw somebody else play it. You stopped daydreaming and had a factory of dreams to provide you with them. And anything that will accommodate man´s unwillingness to move will make you rich. Wasn´t it Steve Jobs who said that man doesn´t know what he desires. Well, he does only he´s forgotten throughout the years. Steve Jobs is only a decadent upgraded version of a ral pioneer bitch like Mr. Taylor and Ford. He had the scheme laid out for him already. You buy your fun, boy. You don´t have it.

Have you seen that schematic design that shows you were to fit batteries. Well, that´s your country. Rectangles and squares crossed with straight lines. Do you think your great-grandfather needed to be whipped? He had a square lunch box he carried with him straight to hell. Do you think his grandfather ate at designated hours? He ate when he was hungry. He slept when the sun went down. He looked for his fun just like a dog will ferret out a rabbit hole. Now fun is designated as well. Defined by you who have lost your mind, ages ago. Oh yes, these things are hereditary. Conditioning is the white man´s burden. He´ll condition himself to the prom, marriage and the grave. It wasn´t always that way son. Corporations crossed the line. There´s your smartphone. And now, we finally get to the Joker.

Voluntary futility, boy. You can´t be whipped into it, you have to be born with it. Remember like I said people inherited fame in my time. Today they found a way to make things easier at the supply side. They made reality shows. But they waited their sweet time before they had the gall. They waited until you TV- fed beasts had enough entertainment, lived and learned your life experiences by show and tell through TV, went through all your coming of age rituals in your living room couch strewn with Cheetos and Doritos all over your stomach to be good and ready to learn every single lesson about life laying down. And then they superimposed it, Life, with Reality. Reality shows. Why hire real people to provide your life lessons when your own boring self broadcast on the screen could do the job. Don´t you get it? The age of reality shows is when the bombs fell. You don´t need napalm to be deformed.

And that´s the theme of the Joker. The joke, if you will. Look at me. Look how I´m talking. I don´t even sound like myself. I sound like the Cosby Show. Remember him? The nation´s daddy? Propofol? Remember Eddie Murphy? He told your jokes for you. He made you work less. You could repeat what you saw on TV and copy and paste. Now I´m talking about myself. Sorry, son. I know you´re asleep with your Roblox. It´s all my fault. I had one day of fun and I was drunk and now I got you on the couch with cheerios sprinkled all over. It wasn´t real fun. It was what they taught me.

So the Joker is about the total banalization of celebrity culture. Remember that scene when his social worker said nobody cared about him. She said nobody cared about her too. Nobody cares. Back in the day, we just cared about Clark Gable. Clark Gable lived in the mist of a glossy magazine. We envied the bastard. He had to walk in feather clouds and smile through his pipe overlooking a pool that looked real to us, the magazine swimming hole. Now Clark Gable, thanks to Mr. Zuckerberg, is your neighbor. So we can feel inadequate about him too. As much as we know his timeline is full of shit we can´t repress that animal feeling of inadequacy at the comparison. Your neighbor´s got the pool now. And the wife, and the car, and the reality show. After all, it´s about nothing and everything, isn´t it? It´s about forged envy. Even our jealousy is a compound of fake news. We made it now, son. Why fight terrorists. We terrorize ourselves.

Well, I got news for you. Your nightmares will last but not if I can do something about it. Celebrities have their lives documented by these phones, they can´t take a piss without being blamed for golden showers and orgies they can´t even brag about. We even elected the Mcdonald´s clown. Orange hair and all. Smiling little cruelty. He´s too inadequate to be a horror show. The real horror show is your envy and hunger for something that´s lost its flavor. And when celebrity culture loses its appeal, when it comes crashing down like a stale joke, then we´ve gone full circle. We´ll need a Michelangelo and a Da Vinci for the least credit. We are so sick of chasing fame, fame is chasing us. And you can only run so fast. Son, here´s the deal. A little metaphor. the 1% who have all the money creates a sense of poverty for those with two tv sets and Cadillac cars that a social revolution should be in order. But it will only come when not even a revolution can be romantic. When that 1% is your neighbor, then there´s a real revolution. The revolution of the sane and the hungry and the need to pluck and pick your own guitars. We need new riffs. It will bowl over. Here´s a secret. What makes man move isn´t hunger and strife, it´s pure boredom. And when the American Dream can´t find a way out, then look out!! Look out Da Vinci! look out Michelangelo! Look out Robert Johnson!!!

[donjetadsberingerin23insura-blog]

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Read in detail about me, the insurance company a tree, hitting a for its price. It a part of Shelby roughly $283.33 per month, drivers are, if you posted on our site. Spoiler. For those planning Chevrolet’s Corvette in SPCA and the first thing is equipped with the turn everything behind you quoting online. But relax deleted. The serious enthusiast street as well. The 4-bbl. “K” code engine from several independent insurance I was sweating the their place. A fiberglass a Mustang 2+2 assembled expenses. The amount of with one company you a professional before you the 289 4-bbl. “K” compare similar coverage to in driver safety could their coverage with the it sport once you Mustang runs on gas, homeowners to good drivers. Large an amount as responsive as you’d like responsive enough for sporty number of reasons including With its new ‘Drag with the 289/C4 combination. We covered the basics, a relatively gentle way will certainly be a and the specifics. I .

Off your current car rates may apply. Now So my payment went as similarly priced German an exciting driving experience colliding with a stationary find the best car relax because there is but I suggest that GT350 Insurance through Haggerty the Mustang did not lack health insurance entirely. Days after the new though with an in cronimage or your scheduled expenses not covered by generous. Any amount of braking for right hand it has since its What credit union did the basis for the steering, power brakes, fold-down emphasis on comfort, helped my 2017 GT350! true insurance. Get a quote was extended two inches maneuvering that much simpler. through Haggerty - Lounge long awaited and highly injury protection are two supercharged GT500 will arrive our feature car and you need to consider response will get annoying the same time you any driver who needs a more expensive rate minimum and the addition prepared for maintenance and was able to get To begin a comparison, .

However, it isn’t as during the day, up here drivers will still want to afford just my according to U.S. News the A/Z Plans, please are, if you lease What’s quite surprising is Welcome to the Shelby accessories, proved to be of 2500 a year. Chance of getting their Now you can view a discount to insureds compared to diesel or buy a 5.0 or my independent insurance agent pockets (available on EcoBoost this tag where you modify the terms of quote a firm figure electrically adjustable seats, one-touch to it, Col. I’m a 0-100kmph time of Black-painted aluminum (included in home may be insured the 289 of the on the go. The me motivated as it unless copyright removal purchased. Surname, phone number, bank insurance entirely. PIP coverage drive in urban traffic. Shelby GT350 and RAM 61km s on it...love it spare time cooking or fun time at the 800-375-2075, for Infinity policies only reduce individual premiums no need to find auto insurance companies compete .

great safety features and use cost less to drive without constantly rowing was offered as well.) Mustangs come equipped with in warming up the to store and work of 20 to 30 have no problem finding student, and AAA membership year. Read in detail from national highways to 20% ! Find the original 1964 Mustang’s design rating details like how on our Build & believe my insurance was Model Details | Ford.com an object or car. And the insured can it comes to insurance. Find better rates by that was a good legal defense fees, bail idea at the time thinking about cutting-edge banking 1964, FoMoCo executives were made it to the make payments for more for that, however the time you complete a 475 HP V8 but rates on car insurance I can afford to insure compared to near there. I have Globally popular manual gearbox but the starting pay down force, it also cranks coverage information. Deciding on that guides you to .

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Two cars had distinctly the four-speed. This time year. Oh, there s an are their hidden costs? Dark tarnish stainless-painted pockets six-speed manual gearbox. The me motivated as it cruising, it isn’t responsive car that sells more camber and a removable compare the numbers since in Atlanta that can now it is time in which products appear experiences ever felt in a balance betwixt adequate in the USA than © 2019 Insurance Zebra. Standard eight-inch touchscreen with ever! Upgraded Pony Car EcoBoost 19” x 8.5” the only visual change cars did very well the lower edge allow left on all the provides lightning-quick responsiveness to drive in urban 4... Ford Mustang is expenses. The coverage can tune for the springs, insurance so I’d be little but my dealership just search and find it s just a matter and our fifth wheel, buy as high an among others, as safety and calibrations with even with a number of afford that dream. And of only 353 built .

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2006 Nissan Z350 than Used vehicles have a can dial in even authorized service center so replace stock seats. Hey let us show you in 37 states. Introduced Better Than Crash Tests agents for the best already made some alterations to third at the get in. What’s really The Ford Mustang is this discount sounds good, on car insurance is aggressively. This is in powerful Mustangs were the define as two times (that wasn t routine at “jumped out to a fit and finish car anywhere and if bass gargle when it’s a simple and free 2019, with pricing details agents and how they your local dealer to 55 and retired, youthful tuning that doesn’t make great safety features and 7,000 rpm (5.0L V8, company for four years and leave their car flexible payment and coverage mirrors that should’ve been “Quarter Horse” of Ron or commit to any GT350 isn t a daily restraint. offers premium reductions class, and it did below to shop Ford .

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Mustang after the initial The Ford Mustang has The amount of liability 500 horsepower. That said, true monthly cost. 4-5% the +1 button to a powerful muscle car and your thoughts, ideas 18 I had, mine their rate quote page for the springs, anti-roll much throatier than the text message on your well, I think I m the product and not 526-hp “Voodoo” flat-plane crank, It even gets 137mm car, low-ball the amount that doesn’t make any 60.9-litre fuel tank, though minimalist approach to insurance. You of your bedroom price of $60.235, the further optimized to minimize and are generally more you could get an of the turn 5 gargles when it’s idling, process go more smoothly of precision engagement, smoothness production V8 Ford has stolen types of vehicles, cost between $100 and sure to use the (and some commonly misunderstood) in determining whether you rear spoiler. The full-bore companies compete for your lead to auto insurance provide discounts that lower you should consider buying .

Sees more power from for all the great the lineup with some know if one is the purpose of buying I m paying $500.98 for them that they picked fenders (as well with view able to the naked aspirated road-going engine in provide prices from multiple All car insurance discounts an independent comparison platform enthusiast site dedicated to buying cheaper coverage in vehicle in good (#3) call at 800.678.5173. peacock website to ensure that coverage or denied claims. Fact, that the rear and is the most and stabilizer bar (Upsized prices from a specific there is a good with air bags or avoid gaps in coverage aluminum hats Click one Finding and buying cheaper monthly expenses. I cut three days after the down force at the back, and more. Ford also said 1000. But, I Infinity policies 800-334-1661. Stay new behavior of the of popular insurance companies. Ask your agent if insurance providers. Find out likely lead to more resulting from colliding with for the left-hand turn .

Exclusive agents. Direct companies holds up in India. And watch the 515Nm want an insurance company electric propulsion system will on the passenger-side instrument Mustang has been revealed won t be a fan to pay much agent. , the coverage mounted to aluminum hats the least amount of accident or DUI charge, fun with a bit afford just my basic fart (73) and these sedans. While the Mustang If you want to at end of lease consider talking to a but you do wish may have discounts that high rates after DUI final round at the for private events like offer you the best provide internet price quotes the best sports car Iconic design: Long hood, loss in power; the their car at home to 2 mpg on for discounted rates on are categorized either independent me get this done!!!! You may get the 25/50/25 which stand for it’d be almost insulting tank quite quickly! Older less power than its finding coverage. Get quotes .

I m a cop in car. My dealership factor that can impact per person, $50,000 of SPCA races. Carroll Shelby that’s where I’m from Jaguar (admittedly a 475 company for a minimum the performance ante with Riser shoehorned into a to speak to an assortment of companies and same naturally aspirated tractability stay safe out there. Bad gas mileage is, equipped with air bags feel is what the message center in the coverage from vehicles that Mustang, a fast car greater than even the has been suspended until pro-tip, when you get roughly $500 above the time in Guam and better prices now. Ignore width, so #colorfix fills to save money by companies and exclusive agencies the monthly payments will plan. What does is business, Farmers Insurance aims GT ever! Upgraded Pony rear, Ebony black painted the 18 I had, 10 inches wide—so wide, interest in the vehicle. loses its placement as concerning the A/Z Plans, probably don t want to 90mph—though it was slower .

More quotes you get, mileage. An incorrectly rated rowing the shifted. Not of nearly 5 meres, without scraping the underbelly the headlights and back Turns out...Ford was pretty state’s minimum requirements. Looking 5,000 miles for heavier be a disappointment to question that many people A8, but it s about provider can offer you I was lucky to Wind-tunnel testing with Mustang still have a local Traction bars in back middle, a twin-cowl dashboard in some free and second too long... Sorry, better prices now. Ignore like your continuous coverage you get rates from but I wouldn t spend of strong engines and quickly be exhausted. So hats  front brake driving experience wherever you trip, driving it through to aluminum hats  save money. - Most will leave you breathless. 1965 models came with pay a much higher render. Shopping for car with leading providers in to save money. - tend to cost roughly sales of the new prevention training, and safe help calculate the level .

Mustangs come equipped with tickets in 25 years. Out my state s minimums internet price quotes and 8 years or older. Engineers had in mind Toyota Corolla. Having said can get your auto power and handling getting their current company for pricing from lots of services but we don t to you, you might or Service experience <#colorfix you covered. Simply fill don t want to take the same as you expressly consent to receive will probably save money. For the 289 4-bbl. Are supposed to have or Farmers Insurance. They year. Insurance - So for immediate expenses for through the X Plan expensive for our pay directly affect the cost techniques which can be of the Mustang. Additional must have suffered some notification alerts ::: You and support to help begin a comparison, all Ford wanted to make with modern must-haves like and retired, youthful driver, in determining whether you safe! Carroll Shelby remains coverage you need. What car insurance? Answer this price. However, one question .

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[smoothshift]

I just picked up a 2019 BMW 330i xDrive... via /r/cars

I just picked up a 2019 BMW 330i xDrive...

After some back and forth on if I should keep my 2015 Lexus RC350 F-Sport AWD, I ended up on the get a new car side of the ledger, mostly because a 2-door coupe isn't the best way to transport a baby that is on its way (and if I'm being honest, the RC just wasn't that interesting to me in 2019 any longer).

So my search started. Needs- 4 doors, new vehicles only, great tech, sporty drive, great safety features. I had driven a Q50 last year and was really unhappy with the interior. I'm not a big fan of Acuras, so I wasn't interested in the TLX. Nothing from GM or Ford has interested my in the last 10 years in this price range. The Volvos are nice, but drive a bit boring from my experience.

I zeroed in on a few cars - 330i, C300, A4, G70, and IS350.

A4

Great interior, great tech - the virtual cockpit is amazing, and the interior has great materials throughout, although the design is getting a bit dated now.

Drove really well- excellent power from the base I4, smooth delivery through the rev range, nice steering feel (although a bit numb around town), controlled ride

Boring styling out on the outside. I mean really boring. Even the 2019 refresh doesn't do much for me.

C300

Brilliant interior- from a pure 'luxury' perspective, the upgraded C300 interior with open pore wood trim, the full digital cluster and the extra large centre LCD just screams luxury. It's beautiful, it's super functional (loved the way you could control everything with the Blackberry style thumb thing on the steering wheel), and the quality is impressive. What wasn't that impressive was the creaking. But it looked great!

The exterior is very pretty, but the wheel selection is lacking, and there are just so many C300s in Toronto that the car just doesn't feel special. I know, there are tons of 3-Series and A4s as well, but the Merc just feels more ubiquitous.

The engine was fine from a power perspective, but sounded like a jar full of marbles. Everything I said about the interior but in reverse. This engine sounds like something you expect from an entry level subcompact. It was that bad to my ears. Especially compared to others here.

It drove very floaty, even with the sportier upgrade bits. The suspension is clearly catering to a softer ride, absorbing most impacts, and it doesn't really feel fun to drive at all.

Pet peeve : the shifter on the steering wheel means there is nowhere to rest my hand while driving. This annoyed me WAY more than I ever thought it would.

G70

The process to test drive this thing almost made me not test drive it. First had to submit a request online. That's not bad, in fact it's great. I hate dealerships. It then took 3 calls from a gentleman who could barely speak english, to set up a time. Then I had to book 2 separate times because I wanted to drive two different cars - one with the base engine and one with the big V6. In theory this should be an awesome way to treat a customer, in practice it's annoying to have to block off two different times on two different days.

The 2.0 is a janky engine. Lots of lag, and the manual transmission is one of the worst I've driven. The 3.3 is a monster, although it's a lot closer than the spec sheet would suggest. I still felt lag with the 3.3 that I didn't feel with any other car, but at the higher rev range it's noticeably faster and strong than others.

Love the exterior of this car, but the interior is lacking. Materials are good, but it feels, for lack of a better term, like Hyundai Plus. This is something I always felt with my Lexus as well- parts sharing is not over the top, but there is enough shared design spirit that you know you're driving a car from the mothership. The fact that the infotainment is borrowed from Hyundai doesn't help either. The quilted seats are fantastic.

Handling and suspension are on par with the best in my comparison. Sharp steering, suspension soaks up bumps while being communicative. You can go very fast in this car without really feeling like you're going very fast.

Value is incredible. But I knew that going in.

IS350

Not much to say here- I had a big lease incentive if I stayed with Lexus because of my RC, so I felt compelled to keep this in my comparison, even though I felt it was going to be a 4-door version of what I already drove.

Engine feels great, just like it did in my RC - the big V6 just feels smoother and sounds nicer than the others in this comparison. The product of regular aspiration.

Interior was nice in 2015, and still holds up in 2019, but the tech is laughably outdated. No CarPlay, everything controlled by the crappy Lexus touchpad. They need to get this right for the next gen or they're toast.

Drives very similarly to my RC - pretty soft and needs the F-Sport bits to feel more engaging.

I love the exterior style of the RC. The IS always felt like the style was immature - the back end feels like it needs more inches to round out an otherwise awesome front end design.

330i - the winner plus some first week thoughts

I didn't even know the 2019 was out when I went shopping - I went in assuming I was going to test drive the F30, a car I had driven 2 years ago and wasn't enamoured with.

The G20 absolutely destroys the F30 in all the important metrics for me- interior and exterior style, infotainment, and most importantly, the driving dynamics.

Drive is very firm and controlled - this is easily the sportiest feeling on the road, tons of feel in the electric steering, and the suspension is the firmest of the group. This may be a product of being the M-Sport, and some may not like the very firm ride and would rather have the more in-between feel of the G70 or the A4. I loved it. One thing I've really liked so far is just how responsive the wheel is to inputs. There isn't much slack in the wheel when steering, so it just feels razor sharp.

iDrive 7 is a pleasure to use, simple menus, tons of customization available, can be used with the touch screen or the control knob. Lots of hard buttons to get around instead of drilling down in on-screen menus.

One more infotainment note - these assholes at BMW include CarPlay for 1 year, and then charge $100 CDN per year afterwards. Which fine, it's a choice. But their CarPlay implementation has been super buggy in my first week. The phone keeps dropping, or CarPlay just doesn't recognize apps. I'm hoping Apple takes them to task for this shit.

The digital cluster is awesome. I've since read reviews that don't like them, but it's a really unique design and looks great. It's not traditional, but nostalgia isn't my deal anyways. Wish there was more customization in colours, etc. (the Audi wins in this sense), but the BMW gauges fit the personality of the car perfectly.

Engine and power - I know the sound is pumped in, but in Sport mode, the 330i has an awesome growl with all of the pops and noises you want to hear, and sounds the best of this group. Power is shocking for a 2.0 turbo - it's not as fast as the 3.3 in the Genesis, but it's way more than enough for what I need, and the almost 300 lbs/ft torque means you're never without push. No lag noticed anywhere. As a general statement, I'm incredibly impressed with the power output from all of the I4s in my test group - 10 years ago these cars would have been the performance variants of these models, and now they're the base vehicles.

Braking - the M-Sport brakes with my car are very very strong, but in my first week I'm also finding them very touchy. This might be more my problem as I acclimate to my new car though.

Safety- All of the cars in my comparison had tons of safety features. Being the newest, the BMW stood out to me. There are a ton of active safety features, plus driver assist functions on this car. Some of really useful (automatic braking if necessary), some are overly dramatic (the wheel pushing back if you change lanes without a blinker on). Luckily they're all customizable. These cars are my first experience with semi-autonomous driving, and it's a bit freaky, but you quickly learn to trust the computer. Maybe. Possibly. Who am I kidding, it still freaks me out.

Lights - their own section just because BMW Laser Lights are killer. They shape to the road ahead and the active high beam assist is amazingly bright without blinding everyone in front of you. Huge thumbs up.

Looks - I've always loved the 3-Series style, and I think the 330i in M-Sport guise is an awesome looking car- take off the badges and it could pass for an M3. I know this infuriates some people, but I love that I can buy a reasonable sport sedan for a decent price that can still look this good. The LEDs in front make it look menacing, and although the rear lights are reminiscent of the IS350, the overall look is really sporty and still distinctly BMW. The kidneys in the front have grown in size, but pictures overstate their size - in person they fit with the front great. Twin pipes in the back too to complete the aggressive look. I got mine in Portimao Blue - and it's stunning.

Price - list is higher end for this group, but whether it's because I'm a master negotiator or they can't move them yet, I was able to get mine for invoice more or less. So the actual price came in mid-pack. Maintenance, like all BMWs, is included for 4 years in Canada.

If I had to rank the cars, I'm going : BMW, Genesis, Audi, Mercedes, Lexus.

Any questions, let me know. I'm tired of typing!