#instead of the circles of hell its the elements of harmony

[caracello]

fuckinf you insignificant buck joke has been making melaugh for like 2 hours straight

[anaban44]

Welcome to Alagadda

(another headcanon masterpiece)

Facts:

It is known as "the city of dreams".

there is a universal language in Alagadda,same for writing.

It is a city that borders Nevermeant and Adytum.

It's hard to pin down the time and space.

No other colors seem to exist apart from red, black, white and yellow.

the laws of physics do not apply in the same way as on Earth.

Serves as a link between dimensions.

visitors can be and do what they want in the city as long as they don't stick their noses where they shouldn't

There is no kids.

Ubications:

Uk (Martin Tower)

Italia (places like Syracuse and Venice are importan)

Note: as such we will not follow a path but we will highlight places

Door and the ritual:

"nigredo: we wilt confront the dark night of the soul - the [pineal gland] wilt be freshly extract'd. fire evokes the shadow within.

albedo: wash aroint the impurities - rain cleanses all sin and prepares the soul f'r Elysium. divide, not as dictat'd by the rigors of harmony, but rather into two opposing principles to be later coagulat'd to form a unity of opposites.

citrinitas: victory coincides with the yellowing of the lunar consciousness. the white surrenders to dawn; the travelling lamp slays the moon.

rubedo: red alludes; instead, surrender upon the apparatus a sanguine sacrifice."

this makes a direct allusion to the Magnus Opus, what is the Magnus Opus?

Is the symbolism of the quaternity of the elements as Transcript of God in the Misteriors of antiquity, of his passion, of his death, of his descent into hell and of his resurrection, projected onto matter for its transmutation, and thus achieve sacralization Of the mattery. This is divided into, major work, minor work and the great work, this last one will be the one we will observe

These phases are:

NIGREDO “MELANOSIS” Raw material putrefaction phase (dead)

ALBEDO“LEUKOSIS” represents purity, calm and truth about oneself

TRINITAS  “XANTHOSIS” (victory, resurrection)

RUBEDO  “ IOSIS” (blood, passion)

These represent a cycle, both of human life and of the seasons of the earth that, no matter how many times it culminates, will begin again, the complete cycle results in ..... the soul itself

following the steps of the first image (left) the order would be:

Red (childhood) -yellow (old age) -white (life's judgment) -black (death, end)

While in the second image (right) the steps are intended to be cyclical, starting again in red, but this time the order will be black-white-yellow and again it starts with red over and over again.

Based on the cycle of the second image, I decided to put symbols on the door.

Red // blood, banity (represented with a rose)

Black // death, ignorance, (represented with the black sun or the sun with closed eyes)

White // purity, arrogance (represented by the circle of alchemy)

Yellow // victory, selfishness ( represented by a Labrys surrounded by olive trees)

The flower in the middle is The Tudor emblem (house that was in charge of the tower of london during the period of the supposed construction of the door)

To enter Alagadda you need to offer a tribute to each of the phases, and by this mean that the door is not the only way to enter Alagadda, although it is true that you cannot arrive by accident since it requires a ritual, another person can do the ritual and push you to the city, We can verify this in two stories "The Clock Shall Strike Again" and "There are no children in Alagadda".

This leads me to the firm belief that scp-701 is in fact a ritual to enter Alagadda, as it meets all the requirements

Nigredo: ignorance both of the actors and of the spectators of the play

Albedo: the serenity of dedication to prepare the work (blind diligence)

Citrinitas: specify the work

Rubedo: by means of a knife that the ambassador gives, a senseless slaughter begins that gives a "closure" to the work

You may wonder, why would the ambassador want to take more humans to Alagadda? The answer is simple and it is that there are no children in Alagadda, so every so often the number of Alagaddians decreases and with it the power of the city also decreases.

The cult of the king:

Known as The King's Court, it was a group of people who began the search for knowledge for a greater good and, the founders ended up being blinded and consumed by the power that wisdom offered them.

At first everything was going very well, the court became a nexus of large cities such as France, Italy, United Kingdom (among others) that shared direct knowledge of the Wanderer's library with the rest of the world, soon the king's court became into Alagadda city.

When they began to investigate the dark arts they discovered that there was a ritual to obtain the power they wanted, they knew what they were doing, the King began to ignore the needs of his kingdom and his citizens,

Now when the king's court went to the wanderer's library, it managed to forbid the passage to anyone who was against their ideas. (http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/the-black-vaults-of-alagadda)

By their part, the citizens realized that something was not right, tried to rise in arms but it was too late..... The city that was once a nexus of knowledge would become the cursed city of Alagadda

The King:

"imprisoned in his own throne he waits to be released so he can bring his madness back to earth"

Although the king is the most powerful within his kingdom, he remains weakened by his own prison, the ambassador and the lords (with the exception of the black lord) fear his power, the same reason why they ensure that he is not released.

The king cannot move from his throne, but he can know almost everything that happens in Alagadda, because his eyes are in the sky of the city (the black stars), you must be very clever if you want to hide something from his view

ambassador:

He is the only one who can travel between dimensions, which is why he is not always present in Alagadda, within the city his power grows considerably, outside the city he continues to have power, but it is well known that he needs more meditation to make it work. , do not forget that the ambassador is cunning and very arrogant.

Lords:

"The White Lord, Wearer of the Diligent Mask - a porcelain guise with eyes narrow, the mouth little more than a flat line.

The Yellow Lord, Wearer of the Odious Mask - a porcelain guise with brow furrowed, the lips curled into a hateful sneer.

The Red Lord, Wearer of the Mirthful Mask - a porcelain guise with eyes wide and manic, a smile carved from cheek to cheek.

The Black Lord, Wearer of the Anguished Mask. This came as no surprise, they supposedly exiled to some forgotten backwater of dimension. It is written that the cause had been political in nature, the specifics unknown. It is difficult to imagine the court intrigue of such a place."

(honestly I love the Investigation and the desings of @zak-dar go and follow her, she is a really amazing artist, you can read her investigation here)

I'm going to try to not get too long with them.

They can't leave the city (or at least not in as physical a way as the ambassador can)

Red Lord aka "the centipede"

His job in the city is to make sure that those who are not citizens of Alagada become one in order to prevent the secrets of the city from being exposed, he is charismatic and playful in character, but clearly a sadistic.

White aka "the Alchemist"

His work goes hand in hand with that of the ambassador, he is the less corporal lord (something that I will explain a little later), his job is to understand the logic of the city for the good of the other Lords and the king, it's also an ares, someone strategical

Yellow Lord aka "Yellow prince"

His work begins when that of the Red Lord ends, when a citizen enters into reasoning and Red Lord cannot make them again "fall asleep" they must be eradicated in order to avoid a revolt in the city (he is the main reason why the citizens decrease), you can also discover part of his stranger personality in Goya's diary

Black lord aka the jester

His job is (or was) to trick visitors into joining the cause of their king, thus discovering weaknesses of the other relams, is characterized by the ability to convince the listener to do something they would never do.

Powers and Abilities:

Superhuman Physical Characteristics, Reality Warping, Higher-Dimensional Manipulation, Matter Manipulation, Gravity Manipulation, Physics Manipulation, Time Manipulation, Spatial Manipulation, Text Manipulation, Information Manipulation, Mind Manipulation, Memory Manipulation, Perception Manipulation, Teleportation(https://debatesjungle.fandom.com/wiki/The_Masked_Lords_of_Alagadda)

In different measures, or seen in a different way, each one specialized in some skill, both the king, the ambassador, lords and even the citizens have these powers, the king being the most powerful of all.

Citizens:

There are 3 types of citizens

Alagaddians

people or beings who have spent so much time in the city that they have become part of it, they are characterized by conserving their soul and body but having lost their reason "the maddened ones".

As I said, the Alagaddians are acquiring power in the city and within it they develop a type of "resurrection", you can kill an Alagaddian and they will return, perhaps with less or more parts of his body but his mind will remain lost, after a while they will reason again, when this happens they become a danger to the city and if they cannot be of help they must be eradicated (http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/there-are-no-children-in-alagadda)

White lord maintains such an active mind that it is difficult for him/her to maintain a stable physical state (just a headcanon)

Visitors

those who come from other dimensions and who still have the opportunity to leave the city, characterized by maintaining their mind, body and soul, therefore they do not have access to the power that the city offers them, but they can lose themselves in the pleasures of it and become an Alagaddian.

Dreamers

They are other types of visitors, but, unlike these, they only see the city through dreams, and, although the Alagaddians can see the dreamers, they cannot touch them because they do not have any body.(the only risk they run is to go crazy)They are characterized by having a mind and a soul but not a body, they have limited access to the power of the city (http://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-5462)

Kids and the color blue

The color blue represents calm and innocence, you cannot find either of the two in the city, and this is the reason why, although the color blue exists in the city, not many can see it, as for children, the city is cursed to remain stagnant, therefore there cannot be a new generation, the souls of the unborn are trapped in the city as a torment for the king and for those who ask for them.

If you like Alaggada consider follow this amazing artist:

@yourbestfre

@zak-dar

@cumovaleksandr

@alagadda-fandom-cn

@jollylover

@modtheunknown

@siriaaguachile

@malebeja1

@soliusss (please respect, she is a great artist, she has works of Alagadda and excellent art in general)

@mimumik <<<<<<< please!!! she have an amazing comic that you can find in Weebtoon https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/old-scars-/list?title_no=504605

EDIT:

Remember, this are just headcanons in base of what I read of Alagadda and what I been investigating, in the work there are links you can use to visit Alagadda tales.

If someone don't want the tag please let me know and I will errase it <3

this would be all, thanks for reading it ;))

god i feel like:

I promise I will return to shitpost baiiiii

[erhiem]

From left: Photo by Gi Naps/Getty Images; Photo by Rose Hartman/Archive Photos/Getty Images; Photo by Victor Virgil/Gamma-Rafo via Getty Images

Today, the House of Jean Paul Gaultier is relaunching its ready-to-wear line after a hiatus of six years. It comes 16 months after fashion’s “Maestro of Mehmed”, as journalist Georgina Howell dubbed her in the early ’90s, took her final bow as the brand’s designer, implying that this iteration of its namesake. will not be designed. Instead, the reins are taken over by a dedicated team from their atelier, with help crafted from the rotating doors of some of the most independent designers working today – Palomo Spain, Ottolinger, Nix Lecourt Mansion, Alan Crosetti and Marvin M’Tumo .

Since starting his own label in 1976, Jean Paul has been instrumental in turning underwear into acceptable outerwear, making sailor fashion sexy and, more generally, paving the way for designers to experiment with diverse and unexpected castings on the runway. have been responsible for. He also dedicated an entire collection – AW97 – to the fight against racism. The collection, titled ‘Fight Racism’, featured graphic prints of young anti-fascists with slogans printed on their chests.

In fact, with such a rich history behind it, and vintage JPGs becoming increasingly collectible since the recent renaissance—partly stemming from the Kardashians’ love of all things net—more thanks to the label’s revival. Couldn’t be the right time- the line to wear from now. Although it is a well-known fact that Jean Paul himself decided to step back from the category in 2014 after a somewhat tumultuous feud with Florence Tetier (graphic designer and co-founder). November MagazineNow serving as the brand’s creative and brand director, Ghar is poised to enter the field again. in an interview with WWDJPG’s general manager, Antón Gégy, described the relaunch as an opportunity to “celebrate Jean Paul Gaultier, its values, its archives and its history”. And what better way to raise the glass to the core of fashion? Horrible Instead look at seven of the most show-stopping moments from its most iconic era, the ’90s. Long live Gaultier!

Photo by Gie Knaeps/Getty Images

Madonna’s Conical Corset from the Blonde Ambition Tour, 1990

Back in 1989, when Jean-Paul Gaultier was told by an assistant that Madonna had told the audience, she was convinced that he was playing a trick with her. They knew how obsessed he was with her, just could not do be true But she soon found herself on the phone to the original queen of pop, making a match in ’90s fashion heaven. Naturally, Madonna already knew what she wanted: to create something for her that surrounded Jean Paul’s signature masculine-feminine crossover. Inspired by his love of the late ‘queen of Paris punk’ Edwij Belmore, Jean Paul conceived a pinstripe suit – the top of ’80s manhood – and a corset with the now famous conical bra, which he designed six years ago on AW84 had started for. /85.

Photo by Victor Virgil/Gamma-Rafo via Getty Images

Eva Herzigova’s cut-out dress, 1992

Thought harnesses were a new thing on the runway? Wrong! After all, you’re not known as a fashionista Horrible Without a sprinkling of kinks here and there, as this look proves well. Presented on JPG’s AW92 runway, this dress, so slick in its fit that clothes can even put on Eva’s body, exemplifies the powerful-yet-playful take on sexuality that serves as a throughline throughout the French designer’s body of work. runs as. Styled with bicep-clad opera gloves and proudly crafting the Czech-Italian supermodel’s bust, there’s a distinctive dome-y tone at play here, though no compromise on the beauty of the silhouette or the quality of the make. It speaks to an ideological throughline that runs through Jean Paul’s work – that no matter who a woman is or wants to be, she always has the right to be chic!

Photo by Pierre Guillaud/AFP via Getty Images

Houndstooth bodysuit inspired by Leigh Bowery, 1991

In an interview with iD in 2018, Jean Paul declared his love for the “London Way”, which means “just creating your own style, your own creativity and being free to do what you want to do”. When he took the idea back to Paris, it wasn’t very popular, but that didn’t stop him from creating his own trademark approach to design. He spent his youth in the 80s at famous London nightclubs such as Blitz and Heaven, where he met performance artist Leigh Bowery. In a nod to Bowery’s influence on fashion, Jean Paul sent down his interpretation of the Leigh Bowery Houndstooth bodysuit—which would later inspire Alexander McQueen for AW09 and Gareth Pugh for SS07.

Photo by Pierre Guillaud/AFP via Getty Images

‘Chic Rabbi’ Collection, 1993

For AW93/94, Jean Paul presented the ‘Chic Rabbi’ collection, inspired by the traditional dress of Hasidic Jews. Models in streamels and black suits danced to the sounds of a violinist who played live on the catwalk. The usual circle of supermodels was there, but Jean Paul also decided to cast someone who visually embodied the cultural context: a man with a big beard. During the ’80s and ’90s, designers were known for their casting choices, pioneering their diversity. “I’m fascinated by strong personalities, people who capture my imagination because they walk well down the street,” Gaultier explained in a 2014 interview. “Showing just one type of girl is a flaw,” he adds, “something I’ve always fought with. One kind of beauty – no. If I show a bigger girl, I’ll always show a younger girl.” will show.” It is now legend that Gaultier once posted an advertisement in a French daily newspaper release Looking for “atypical” models, saying that “facial distortions should not be avoided in application”.

Photo by Arnal/Garcia/Gama-Rafo via Getty Images

Mesh Tattoo Top, 1993

Back in 1993, the trend Declared this prestigious collection as “a startling vision of cross-cultural harmony”. While we’d be inclined to cringe at the somewhat reasonable look now that Jean Paul drove down the runway for the SS94 (which can actually be read as another nod to Leigh Bowery) it certainly Historical perspective. It also marked the debut of Jean Paul’s iconic mesh tops, which were inspired by a tattoo convention he once found himself spinning around – today, they are some of his most sought-after designs. The collection also includes heavy notes of punk, grunge, and 18th century men’s frock coats made in Jodhpur and denim in the typical JPG style. How did he ever find the place for all this?!

Photo by Pierre Vuthe/Sigma/Sigma via Getty Images

Björk!, 1994

Jean Paul’s celebrity friends don’t start and end with Madonna. A year after Björk’s properly titled debut solo album, First entry, Taking the music and fashion worlds by storm, she appeared on the designer’s AW94/95 show, about a magical train that stopped in a small village somewhere high in some mountains. And what, duh?! As you’d expect from JPG, the show was a mish-mash this time in terms of different styles of traditional arctic costume. The models trotted down the snow-covered runway (which almost tripped Kate Moss), decked out in a hell of a lot of fur, silk, wool, and leather.

Photo by Pierre Verdi / AFP via Getty Images

Op-Art Inspired Catsuit, 1995

Two women riding a motorcycle hit them. One of them descends and climbs onto a loft at a DJ booth. Jean Paul’s AW95 ‘Mad Max’ Show Has Started. As he was in the middle of designing the costumes for Luc Besson’s famous film fifth element In which Bruce Willis and Milla Jovovich fight a mysterious cosmic force, they had science-fiction in mind, which means it was technology and cyber-heavy. The bodysuit inspired by Viktor Vasarelli’s op-art paintings became the show’s most memorable aspect—now made super collectible by Kim K and Cardi B and partly responsible for the JPG-madness we’re seeing on Depop these days. Also on the show was Carmen Dell’Orefice, who walked with a live falcon on her arm and sported ornate football armor that lit up like a circuit board. Really prestigious.

Photo by Victor Virgil/Gamma-Rafo via Getty Images

trompe l’oeil torso top, 1995

The next season, Jean Paul took his quest for sci-fi polka dots further, this time translating it into menswear. This time, however, he brought his knack for trompe l’oeil print placement to the table—skills he had previously flexed in the aforementioned Les Tautouzes, and even as early as 1992, when he sculpted the enviable Presented Printed Mesh Top with Toros. The look sported here by Tanel Bedrossiantz is perhaps a little more figurative in its approach, though no less direct is its infrared-style suggestion of what might lie beneath the longtime house muse’s button-down shirt.

Photo by Danielle Simon/Gamma-Rafo via Getty Images

JPG Set Sale, 1998

In a promo video for JPG’s new ready-to-wear line, Bella Hadid is wearing a big red ship on her head. In case you didn’t already know, it debuted at the Haute Couture SS98 show, where it takes us back to the Age of Enlightenment. It was a time of scientific progress, the advent of modern capitalism and of course colonialism. The ‘explorers’ were sailing around the world from Europe, ‘discovering’ new lands for them – a ship serving as a nod to the continent’s shameful past. Some say, however, that it was during the Enlightenment that the fashion we know today – as a form of self-expression that can be accessed by the public – first began to emerge, making the historical period a fashion show. became an ideal subject. .

Photo by Rose Hartman / Archive Photos / Getty Images

Man Himself!, 1992

Sure enough, to write a list of Jean Paul Gaultier’s most iconic looks from his most iconic decade, and not for the man himself. Indeed, as Florence Tetier spoke to her before the label’s launch, “Everybody knows who she is!” whether it’s his striped Whether paired with a pleated black skirt or, as seen here, a denim vest and a punkish tartan kilt, JPG’s personal style has made her one of the most instantly recognizable designers of our time. Plus, there’s a direct connection between what she wore and what we then saw on the runway. While we may have never seen a proper, French Navy-standard Sailor From the designer, “he’s done a lot of stripes and nautical-inspired pieces,” notes Florence. “It’s really nice to see the link between the way he dresses and the way he designs.” we love you, Jean Paul! Follow iD on Instagram and TikTok for more fashion.

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The post Jean Paul Gaultier’s most iconic 90s moments appeared first on Spicy Celebrity News.

[sugaxjpg]

the consolations of philosophy

⤷ “It doesn’t make you vulnerable to allow someone else to love you, to be kind to you. Most of the time, we are not kind to ourselves, anyways.”

✓ Couple: Jungkook x Reader | ChildhoodFriends!AU and College!AU

✓ Filed under: angst, fluff, implied smut, friends to lovers 

✓ Words: 21,546

Author’s note: Truly one of the most personal-driven and overly emotional stories I have written in a while. Title from this piece.

Also, WRITTEN IN THIRD PERSON! Tell me if you like this format, or if you’d rather for me to stick to second person. All feedback is welcome (also, excuse my extra vocabulary, I promise it lightens up quickly lmao) 

Days passed by monotonously.

At times, they passed in a homogeneous nebula of empty resolutions, a haziness of venomous smoke that permeated her lungs and suffocated her from the inside out. Consolidated, it could be comparable to the vapor that performed slow-motion pirouettes in her bathroom after a shower; the same foretelling of looming storms neighboring the obfuscous skyline. It was the deprivation of vivacity; the apathy for each and every aspect of her mundane chores, those being repeated again and again—a broken record, as she would contemplate, a vexatious rasping noise in the background of her every action, a recurring routine that leisurely strangled her with its hyperborean hands. Again: the outburst of opaque grey that came from cigars on the street; the licking of conflagrant flames that illuminated nocturnal alleyways. At least it was positive for some.

Other instances, it would be detected in the viscous hollowness that dwelled in her chest. We are all born with emptiness inside of us, her mother once verbalized. That pathless sentence was one of those fragments of ruptured dialogues that lived amongst her memories, reverberating and emerging when she least expected it too—yet, when she most necessitated. Some people, the woman speculated, decided to congest such lacuna with carnal desires: sex, drugs, food, alcohol; others preferred to spend hours upon hours haunted by the immersive universes of a good book, a movie, or frequent social interactions. Most, come what may, attempted to fill it up alternatively to properly learning how to endure the feeling. Lack of feeling. Whatever could describe it more properly.  

Not solely monotonously: days passed lethargically, apathetically. Wintery, even—denuded of saturation and warmness. They came and went like self-perpetuating waves to the sands of a godforsaken beachside: crashing, cleaning, wiping away all traces that could have been left there aforetime. Undertow, drought, tormentous tides, and currents that led to the eclipsed oblivion. Comparisons aside, tracing parallels did not make those interminable hours any better; the ocean was still there, just as stupendous and immeasurable. Just as empty.

But of course, those were not all of her days. Some of them, Jungkook was there to keep her company.

Every instance his image effloresced amongst her thoughts, breaking the lifeless circle of her routine, the bliss of his memory induced for her absent-minded thoughts to describe the peculiar set of emotions that took the place of her boredom: nostalgia and longing; but also the euphoria of their shared adventures. Moreover, if the girl permitted herself to dive into those wisdomful recollections, she would discover that she was unable to elucidate someone as complex as Jeon Jungkook, finding herself lacking the proper terms to do so—that is, if there were any. After so many years by his side, traits became quite nebulous when compared to the memories they shared, but also volatile and unexpected, for they were no longer the same kids that wandered, unguarded, around their neighborhood.

There were hollow spaces in her heart only he could fill, that was for sure. Her best friend—companion; partner in crime—made her feel the happiest she would ever be; caused for several laughs to drip in between her smiley lips every instance a silly comment fell from his own. With all her heart, she could not characterize the boy with a mere enumeration of adjectives, since words could never describe the endless universe that opened in between them every time they encountered one another somewhere in the cold, desolated campus.

Yet, no rose is devoid of thorns, and hers was the kind that punctured layers much, much deeper than the barriers of carnality. There was an indiscernible element beyond the caresses of the vermillion petals, an aspect of her sentiment that did not match the ones she felt aforetime.

Pieces of the puzzle had been switched, but they had also fell into a flawless combination, a rearrangement of feelings that caused for her heart to hang by a threat: she had fallen in love with her best friend.

There was not an epiphanic moment like she once imagined it would occur. The genesis of such affection remained as a progressive, accumulative notion that had germinated within her chest without her cognizance and gradually made their way up her reason, blocking it from cutting it short when she was still able to. Before she could ever discern what had outstretched within her chest, the girl had already fallen for his laugh, such symphonious, lighthearted harmony that defeated the rhythm of the mumbling summer breeze. She had fallen for his enthusiastic gaze, grown weak under the aerial, sanctified lineaments of his diaphanous features. Heavens, she was in love with him. So profoundly, breathlessly, euphorically in love with her best friend.

What a fucking cosmical joke.

Truth was: there were more negatives than positives when it came to situations like that. Alternatively to every aspect she had expected, the very second the unwelcome realization fell upon her perception, there was more panic than there was adoration; more denial than acceptance. It was unignorable, threatening; it broke her faith into pieces and caused her throat to grow tight every instance they met. Disconsonant with her pulsating infatuation, she was aware that she could not tell him everything that haunted the walls of her heart, for she felt it bordered on unrealistic to do so. One should not tear a butterfly's wings apart just to keep its beauty, nor she should attempt to keep her best friend to herself in such egotistical manner. Jungkook was not hers, and most likely would never be. Unilateral: she knew it was all unilateral.

No: it was much, much more complicated than that simple-minded decision. It was not so easy to focus on the stars of logic when she had entire constellations of infatuation dancing and forming pulchritudinous images before her; to turn her gaze away from the phantasmal, ivory-like glow of the moon as it entwined every cell of her figure, resonating within her soul the poetic verses of the universe.

The mere act of longing for his presence was so common that it had already turned into a habit, a part of her routine that she could not simply throw away. How could she feel so lonely even when he was right there by her side? His text messages were still there, even if they held the words of cancelled plans or messy excuses. Sweet, the aroma of his perfume still impregnated her clothes, still danced over the cloud-white sheets of her unmade bed. Jungkook was still there—just at the margins of her reach, ridiculing the fact that she would never be fully able to place fill up the empty spaces between his fingers with her own.

Accordant to those claims, the girl would not cut him out just because she was unable to control the tides of her adoration, would not push his embrace away even if the mere compass of his calm heart against her chest caused for her soul to shatter into desolation. That being said, considering it bordered on the executable to ignore or revert it, she learned how to suppress it.

But—hell—some part of Jungkook was always there to torment her.

Memories would appear suddenly, taking her off guard. They connected to one another like insubstantial cords, a map of recurrent dreams that bloomed amongst her measured ponderations. Germinated within her brain in the most random of instances, coming and dragging her away to the fragmented retellings of aforetime meetings. And, amongst the billion pieces of their shared laughs and locked gazes, the girl focused on one special dialogue they had merely a few months ago.

It had been an overcast night, a very silent one at that. The two had dove into the obscuration of midnight, walking amongst the darkness of the asphalt and the dimly-illuminated streets. The same illumination that embraced his drowsy delineations like a spectral candlelight; dancing in his unfocused gaze and scintillating beyond the abysm of his stygian irises. His eyes could hold the entire universe inside, but it all apperated to get as cloudy as the sky above once he was in that situation: drunken out of his mind.

She could recall the small hiccup that erupted in Jungkook’s throat before he dared to bother the quiescence of the night, “Don’t place your happiness upon someone else,” he had told her without forewarning, his arm around her shoulder, voice flowing that way that always sent an explosion of warmth radiating through her chest—between a secretive whisper and a kind advice; almost as if he permitted himself to be wholesomely frank, yet remained to hesitant to share his thoughts with the rest of the word. It was okay, she did not want him to. “No one, you hear me? Value comes within yourself, and no one can take that away from you. Grow it, and the world can’t throw shit your way.”

Philosophical, almost. Did not matter that he was drunk, nor that she had been the only one to offer to guide the boy back to his dormitory. She decided to keep those elements out of focus and, instead, remained attentive to the words he had graced her with: something she needed to learn; needed to feel, “Value is a hard thing to grow,” she had responded, hoping he did not hear her subsequent words. “besides, you make me happier than I probably could ever make myself. I don’t see what’s wrong with that.”

She did not know if he had captured her delicate enunciations alongside with the mumbling of the midnight wind, all she knew is that Jungkook closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and continued walking with difficulty.

Then again, he was not always there for her.

Insomnia was usually the most fundamental element of her late night insights, and most were not as positive as she would like. Once, she came to the hypothesis that those unbelonging, unexpected life lessons that he gave her had a reason other than the lack of filter provided by alcohol: mayhaps Jungkook was sentient to the distance growing between them, the void that pulled the two friends into complete edges of an unfathomable cosmos. They were progressively growing apart with time, losing intimacy, and that was most likely why the boy always made sure to tell her those things: so he could be certain her happiness did not subside after he had departed.

Nothing but a utopian idea, if that had been the true cause. Most of the times, life was not at all that merciful nor rational. Justificatives were just broken, slumberous explanations that germinated amongst the intoxicated soil of her anxiety, no one could guarantee that their fruits were not, too, contaminated by its poison. Running while remaining in the same place, she would continue to attempt to find reasons for their progressive separation—though, just like the emptiness that they held inside, it could not be explained so ingenuously.

To lose a close friend to the world is always, in idiosyncratic levels, a traumatic experience. Primordially, the stages of drawing away were almost imperceptible: the long time to answer messages that before would appear so quickly; the change of demeanor into a more closed-off posture, or even a defensive one at times. Later on, it would be the lack of interest in shared activities; in scheduled plans; and, at last, in the person at the other edge of the spectrum. At times, that distance was usual and even inevitable; mutual or unilateral; purposeful or subconscious. Nevertheless, there was a point in which that separation would become more clear, and the signals would be far too vehement to be neglected or absolved

Jungkook was not someone she lost, per say, more of a companion who gradually creeped to the borders of their progressively evanescing friendship. He was still there, appearing like a lost phantasm amongst her mundane tasks, a shadow at the depths of her routine. His messages still came—some faster, some slower—and they still had nights in which they would spend entirely immersed in futile conversations. A fervent dialogue in which, eventually, more serious and personal topics would emerge, only to be avoided.

In all sincerity, she thought all those other fragments were perfectly normal and healthy—after all, everyone needs their personal space every once in awhile—but the second she noticed the manner he skirted those personal conversations, instead growing irritable, she knew there was something wrong.

Maybe one day she would learn how to breathe without his presence to warm the air that entered her lungs. Maybe there would be a day in the future that the ghost of his presence would not bother her as much; the lack of eurythmic laughs would not feel as sepulcral to endure. In the future, there might exist a day in which the static of the TV did not exasperate her, the emptiness of her dormitory did not appear as gargantuan as the longing within her chest. Surely, that day could be waiting ahead, but, as for now, she had to endure the scars of his departure with the prideful impassibility of her broken heart.

Two weeks before, she had convinced herself that she would, too, take some time for herself. Preposterous excuses and justifications came and went amongst the pandemonium of her confident thoughts, the mantra of her decision repeating over and over—a broken record. If space was what Jungkook desired, she would give it to him gracefully, she would keep her mouth shut and decorated with a smile; keep her ebullient sentiments on a leash; would accept that sometimes that was just the way friendships would unravel. She would not reject him, she would just stop searching for someone that was not even looking for her.

As pathetic as it was, that decision did not last for much more than a week.

Sunrays passed through the viridian leaves with resplendent smoothness, gifting it with a clearer shade of its characteristic pigmentation. In between undulating branches and twigs, came the ethereal radiance of the golden light, dripping past the spaces of the foliage and falling upon the two people sitting by that small circular table. They were the only two outside the establishment, and appeared to be more uncomfortable than other friends that passed by.

Jungkook exhaled, placing his white mug on top of the dark wood. In the midst of his downhearted features, the shadows of the leaves were casted over his serious expression, inducing his mere image to resemble a momentaneous hallucination, “I swear, sometimes it's like you’re a old woman trapped in a young girl’s body,” the outside of the small coffee shop was almost deserted as those words broke the breviloquent silence, dragging along the vague redolence of the cappuccino he had just took a slip of. He had just heard another negation in regards to a party invitation, and he was unable to mask his frustration towards it, “you’ve always been like this, ever since we were kids.” the boy added carelessly.

She could not pinpoint if what she heard in his voice was simple playfulness or if, amongst his light timbre, there were deep cuts of resentment pulsating in silence, “You never told me you were bothered by it,” she dared to say, hoping it would serve as a starting point for him to soothe her baseless worries. Mayhaps, he would sense the traces of shame that ornamented her speech and, if she were to be lucky, Jungkook would look at her with his deep eyes—that could hold the universe inside, from the stygian void to the oscillating specks of anemic stars—and laugh at how absurd she sounded. Light as the morning air, his smile would blow her preoccupations away, and it would all be okay.

However, that was not what that day enventualized. Instead of signals of empathy or the curious glimpse of his puzzled spirit, the boy merely scoffed, looking down at his half-empty mug with skepticism, “Bothered is not the right word, you know?” she did not know, and he never told her what it was, “whatever, we’ll do something else. Again. Can I see you later this week? I’ll be late to class if we stay here for much longer.” he was quick to add, not gifting her with the space she needed to fully absorb his words and construct a response based on it.

Always later—later today, later this week, maybe after midterms?—,always rushing somewhere else. Jungkook always had his mind above his clouds, hardly ever recalled where his feet touched. He was always looking miles upon miles ahead, dwelling in the hue that vacillated between the tangerine and the ochroid. Maybe he did not have time. Maybe he did not have interest. That lovely morning, for instance, the boy had twenty minutes to spend, and the walk to his building would not take more than four. He had time.

She knew it, but accepted his fruitless propoundment regardless of the afflicted laceration that punctured her fast-beating heart, “Later this week. Definitely,” she consented. Neither of them specified a date and, soon after, the girl found herself alone in that table for two.

The lump in her throat prevented her from thinking straight. Part of her mind swore it was merely an overreaction from her part, but the other made sure to vociferate the terrible possibility of her paranoias being close to the truth: Jungkook was gradually moving away from her.

But of course, not all of the days passed by his side were filled with empty promises and the vacant redolence of moments past. There were also the days that showed her just why Jungkook was so important, why the universe had pulled all the correct strings so they could grow up together, claiming ever so childishly to being kings and queens of their own personal glimpses of fantasia. Delightful moments which caused for her infatuation to effloresce to the melody of his vernal voice, for her preoccupations to fall like conflagrant autumn leaves; moments that belonged to the two of them, and them only.

That special Friday afternoon happened to be one of those days.

Comparable to the lively color of honey, the golden luminosity of the resplendent sun melted past the swinging of cream curtains, accumulating in auriferous puddles over the carpet’s extension. The air was slightly cold, but calm, holding to the welcoming aromatic combination of fresh coffee and the vanilla of her perfume; the buzzing sounds of the campus could barely be heard beyond the translucent windows. Peace impregnated each and every fragment of that shared instant, and it was a fantastic sensation to dwell in.

Sitting across from her on that two-chaired kitchen room table, the boy had his eyebrows knitted together in a permanent state of confusion, eager eyes now completely puzzled at the endless lines of ink that stared back at him. Surrounded by such diaphanous luminescence, Jungkook’s image reminded her of those graceful masterpieces produced during the romantic era—the same delicacy of forms; the contrast between his caramel skin and the onyx ink of his hair and eyelashes. His lips, such gentle shade of roseate, mumbled speechlessly the words he read, attempting to find meaning within the sentences that filled his slumberous mind.

Those unexpected glimpses at his beauty usually caught her off guard, causing for her eyes to navigate around his lineaments for a bit longer than necessary. That instant, however, she was somewhat prepared to the exquisite figure that would meet her eager gaze, and was able to dissimulate his effect with a deep inhale.

After a moment of ponderation, the girl placed her book over the ligneous surface, the subsided noise enough to call the boy’s attention to her direction. Even before the words left her lips, Jungkook was aware of what they would be, for that random enunciation of curiosities had turned into a customary part of their study routine, “Did you know that the modern musical notation was created by an italian monk?” she asked, pausing for a second to accompany the way his disquisitive eyes switched upwards, blinking away from the incomprehensible pages of his book. “Guido d’Arezzo was his name. From the basic names to the mnemonic system.”

Leaning back against her chair, she then suspired as if to mitigate the restlessness that had accumulated within her bosom, waiting for his acknowledgement patiently. She had the costume of communicating something along those lines, curiosities or thought-provoking facts that soon dispersed the weight of the overwhelming silence. Jungkook thought it was nothing more than a common idiosyncrasy amongst History students, and considered to be quite captivating, even adorable at times.

So precious, in fact, that the boy could not suppress the smirk that creeped up upon his lips, nor the crystalline engrossment that resounded in the background of his subsequent inquiry, “What? Seriously?” he wondered, incapacitated to camouflage the genesis of his interest.

Humming, she moved around on the chair, her rhapsodic tone causing for her enthusiasm to become transpicuous, “Yeah, it came from the first syllables of the first six half-lines of a religious hymn. To John the Baptist, if I’m not mistaken. Some stuff changed along the years, but the basic notation and the musical breakthrough is his to take,” the girl explained further, holding herself back from diving into more specific characteristics, for she soon noticed the fatigued splashes of violaceous underneath the boy’s eyes. “you, on the other hand, look as if you’re about to fall into the nearest grave. How are things hanging there?”

It was his turn to suspire in never ending lament, running of his hands through the cascade of his ink-pigmented strands of hair. Even so crepuscular, some parts of it still embraced the sanctified hue of the sun, and gifted the boy with a particular, empyrean golden aura, “My brain stopped working around two hours ago, honestly,” Jungkook confessed, his hand then moving to cup the back of his neck. He usually did that as a way to mask his anguish, “It’s Friday, why do I have to study?” then questioned the boy.

She had been prepared for that inquiry ever since he had arrived at her dormitory, around three hours ago. For someone as distinctive as Jungkook, he could be quite predictable at times, “Did you have any other plans?” she counterclaimed, waiting for a second as her childhood friend ruminated on an answer. As the only response she received was a small biting of his lower lip, she smiled, triumphant. “Didn’t think so.”

Jungkook whined, crossing his arms over his open book, “You don't have to be rude,” the boy pouted, placing his head over his arms. In that position, it appeared as if he was as near as possible to merely closing his eyes and taking a long nap—something she was quite aware he would do if she were not there to keep him awake. Jungkook turned his gaze upwards, appearing almost child-like as his vague manipulation spilled from in between his cherry-painted lips. “we have two weeks before finals, we could—”

“—We couldn't,” the girl interrupted his sentence even before his proposition could be enunciated. Secretly, she was a hundred percent certain she would never be able to deny the upcoming alternative, so it was wiser to cut his ideas short before they could grow within her own perceptions. Convincing: Jungkook had always been dangerously convincing when there was something he desired, “Last time I left you to study by yourself, you almost fainted from exhaustion in the middle of the exam. No all-nighters under my watch, Jeon.” she crossed her arms: you will not make up my mind, her body language firmly stated.

Wickedly, his smile grew larger by a few millimeters, “I did get that A, though.” he contradicted with pleasure.

She rolled her eyes, leaning in closer to the boy so she could enunciate her rationalization with smidgens of astringency, “Along with a possible brain damage. Don't fight me on this,” the history student warned, not gifting him with an instant to defend himself. Instead, she looked down upon the open pages before him, attempting to read those jumbled words upside down. “what are you even studying?”

“I'm trying to understand Descartes,” Jungkook responded, meeting the breviloquent coruscation of confusion that flashed over her features, “you know, the math guy. Cartesian coordinate system, analytical geometry...” he elucidated.

She elevated one of her eyebrows and unhurriedly nodded in a unspoken signal of her understanding, recalling her own personal studies in regards of the scientist. Fragments of the so called ‘Dutch Golden Age’ permeated her thoughts—alongside with a brief biography of the man: something about serving for Maurice de Nassau? She made a mental note to check that later on, “Yeah, I think you have told me something about him before,” YN acknowledged, pausing for an instant to recall the correct name of one of his works. “Discourse on the Method, right?”

Once anew, one of his hands ran through the black seas of his hair. He was truly beginning to get nervous, “Something like that, yeah.” he reluctantly agreed, instead thinking it would be wiser to go with the overly simplified title— ‘Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences’ was not something that easily rolled off the tongue.

It was her turn to pout. The girl, too, crossed her arms over her disorganized stationary in a subconscious act of mirroring her friend, soon placing her head over the back of her hand. Now much closer to one another, Jungkook could consummately sense the sacchariferous aroma of her vanilla perfume, a scent which induced for his heart to skip a beat as she continued speaking on, “Hey, come on, don’t get sad because of the math guy,” the amicable history student smiled lightheartedly, leaning her head slightly to the left. “tell me what you know, maybe it’ll help you grasping the subject better.”

He disregarded her idea with a scoff, stare flickering towards an orange pencil that had been left over the wooden table. Rather than looking to encounter the welcoming world of her enthralled irises, the boy focused on the minor details of the object close to him; the unnoticeable grooves on the light-colored wood, the dark silver tip of the graphite that ever so dimly shone in a more pallid shade of grey under the weak incandescence, “I know jackshit.” he thoughtlessly mumbled.

The enchantment of her proximity was undone the second that, with a prolonged exhale, she leaned back against the wooden chair; the air that her figure dislocated appearing to have been removed from his own breathless lungs, “Don’t be ridiculous, you've told me tons about his philosophical trips,” she repudiated his claim as easily as one brushes off dirt, confident that it was his despair speaking louder than his logic, “you think, therefore you are. Make René Descartes proud and just tell me what you know.”

Deeply, she hoped she had not misused that quotation, for a momentaneous signal of confusion crossed over his expression. No... not confusion: she knew that face—the face of a mischievous kid; the same expression he had gifted her when they were younger, a few minutes before the school staff crossed the empty hallways with furrowed eyebrows, seeking for her best friend like there was no other culprit possible. Most times, there was not.

Without looking at her, the boy reached for the relinquished pencil, taking it in his hands and examining the sequence of numbers that had been imprinted in one of its sides, “What do I get in return?” mindlessly, he inquired.

“In return?” echoed his best friend, taken aback by the preposterous nature of his question. She swore to the heavens above that, at times, she simply could not comprehend the odd trail of thought that took turns within his mind, “A good grade, for starters.” she responded.

Jungkook shrugged; he, too, moving back to a sitting position. The cantaloupe pencil was placed over the disorganized sheets of achromatic paper and, if she did not know him for so long, she would have swore his disinterested tone meant arrogance, “I get those regardless,” he told her. At last, his gaze flickered upwards and, even if she did not meet it, she could practically feel the way his interested irises burned in expectation. “I was thinking more of a little something from you.”

She ridiculed his sentence with a puff of air that exploded in between her lips, skeptic at the vague proposition that found its way to her ears, “You’re aware that there is nothing I want from you, don’t you? This is the worst trade I have ever experienced,” the girl threw back at him, moving her hands back to the sides of her open book. Sometimes, it was like talking to a child with a superiority complex, going in circles without even understanding why the two had departed from their previous subject. “I’m going back to my own stuff, then. Don’t come crying to me when yo—”

“—Are you feeling like going out tomorrow?”

Just as simply, her voice receded into quiescence. Taken aback by the brusque invitation, the girl did not think her actions through, looking up from the endless ink of her book to encounter the same cimmerian shade that lived beyond the pupils of her company. All that she wanted was to make sure his controlled tone did not betray her, instead disguising a joke from his part, but she was met with more than she ever foresaw.

There it was again: the universes he hid inside, the shooting stars that crossed his ebony gaze every time he glanced at her direction. Again and again, she had wished upon the falling comets that ornamented his gaze for that instantaneous moment to stretch towards the margins of infinity—only to fall back into normality once she realized it was nothing beyond a faint distortion of her position; maybe even the projected necessity to have her feelings mirrored by someone so dear to her.

Each and every time she allowed herself so dive so profoundly into his eyes, a hazy memory would shimmer in her mind: she was laying on her garden, most likely bordering on her ten years of age, and observing the vast, awe-inspiring cosmos that mushroomed right before her infantile perceptions. The girl lamented and sighed continuously, wanting to send a signal up the oscillating stars; to contact the planets that lived beyond the line of her platitudinous atmosphere.

That was how she felt when she was trapped in the spacious infinity of his gaze—under the atramentous skyline of numberless constellations, wishing she could verbalize her sentiment into a brand new, unexplored cosmos. Nonetheless, equiparable to how her story had unraveled back then, she could not find the right words to do so. So, as a final attempt, she merely stood there, hoping the signals could arrive from the other edge of the galaxy’s muted iridescence.

Thought, they never truly did. Not that she could capt, at the very least.

Her pulse quickened, but she was able to mask her breviloquent surprise with the clearing of her throat. Hopefully, he did not perceive the way her fingers trembled against the hard book cover, growing paler at the tips as she attempted to hold down to substantiality—getting her hopes up was a suicidal mission, “What are you talking about?” she managed to say, glad that her tone was not nearly as undulating as her palpitations.

Like the static between two songs, the boy merely shrugged, allowing for silence to be casted over the room as he leaned back against the chair, “It’s been awhile since we went out and had fun together,” it surely took you some time to realize, she thought, but said nothing in return. Jungkook was avoiding her gaze, but nothing out of the ordinary. Yes, her hopes had in fact been raised, for she now felt them falling and crashing down like pieces of a mirror as the boy continued his apathetic speech, “I would invite you to a party, but I know you would deny even before I could finish my sentence.” he said.

She chuckled, even if humorlessly. Her heart felt heavy with despondency, and she convinced herself that she should have grown used to it by now, for it was the harsh reality she had faced for all the years that had passed, “You know me so well. Besides, the last party I’ve been through ended with me dragging a certain drunken someone back to their dorm,” and, with a faint smile—which he rapidly returned—she was sure her decaying sentiment had been flawlessly dissimulated once anew. “what’s your alternative?”

How melancholic was it that the same hand that saved her was the one who clung around her throat and prevented her from breathing? Ironic, at the very least.

Jungkook, regardless, remained unaffected by her subtle comment, “I already apologized for that, I got a bit too carried away,” he spoke out, but his words did not appear to carry any sort of true resentment. The girl did not even need to look up to see that his eyes had grown darker, the same way that happened all the times his mind started to wonder somewhere else, a place she was always unable to reach before it evanesced, rolling into a kindhearted—yet notoriously artificial—phrase. Which was precisely what occurred, “library,  bookshop, museum, theater, movies, whatever you want. Outside is my only request.” he vocalized.

Shaking her head in skepticism, she took a moment to exhale before claiming, “You’re spoiling me,” still a bit hesitantly.

Then, something she did not expect fell from in between his lips. In that very second, the student thought the universe had been constructed for her to observe the beauty of his timid smile, the euphonic accordance of his mumbling voice as he enunciated his devoted confessions, “I’m missing you so bad lately. Missing us. It’s been awhile since we went out to have some fun,” Jungkook shrugged, pausing for a second as if to check the reflection his words had upon her expression: he saw none of the fireworks that exploded within her chest, none of the trembling heartbeats that echoed throughout the threads of her patched-up soul. “I just want to spend my Saturday with my best friend, could I do that?”

On the opposite side of the room, the movement of the curtains followed the rhythm of her own deep breathing—inflating, relaxing—before she responded with the phantasm of a smile, “You could,” the girl nodded, eyes flickering downwards. There was nothing printed amongst those inky lines that could hold more despondency than what resonated alongside with her subsequent words. “I missed you too, Jungkook.”

And, heavens, how acutely, profoundly, passionately did she miss him.

She was not certain if the reverberation of such confession was enough for his heart to suffocate in the same pain she felt within her own chest, but judged it to be sufficient for such peculiar circumstances. Her mind felt less clogged with negative ponderations the very instant that mundane—yet deeply personal—declaration departed from the captive of her incarnadine lips, a glimpse underneath her mask of artificial assuagement. High hopes corroded her spirit from the inside out, but she could not help to cut them off before they begun to germinate within her conceptualizations, infesting her mind with delusional ideas. They were solely friends—and that only—meaning that the concept of a ‘going out’ would not, could not, go anywhere above that definition. As much as it tormented her nature to think so, she had to be realistic, pragmatic even. It was for the best.

Back in the living room that now suffered under the poor, tangerine-pigmented phosphorescence of that lackadaisical day, boy cleared his throat, oblivious to the avalanche that had broke within her body, “That’s—”

“—Now, back to René,” her interruption was immediate, almost unaware that those warm-blooded, panicked words had left her vocal chords. As mercurial as such reaction escaped the grasp of her demeanor, the girl cursed her lack of control over her temperament—that was how she felt: vulnerable and vandalized by her inner, most uncontrollable sentiments. It was almost pathetic, if she were to be utterly sincere with herself, “rationalism, methodological skepticism… whatever that is. Spill your knowledge.” she pushed forward, hoping it would be sufficient for his focus to move away from the previous subject.

Jungkook’s lips parted as if there was something else needed to be said, but, from the space in between them, no sound came out. Even if he would most likely never admit it out loud, there were some sentences he did not know how to enunciate, some words that perished in his throat before they could be verbalized with the gentleness they necessitated. He felt as if his very soul was in dissonance with the commands of his flesh, somewhat out of tune with the instruments of his perception.

It did not matter. Another time, he would discover the most suitable words for his unspoken confessions.

Another time, perhaps—a better one.

According to Jungkook, there were some fragments of the world that could not be characterized solely by the senses, but also by what they caused upon one’s heart and soul.

Of course, if he could, he would go on and on about all the details of that specific piece of campus that felt ever so compelling to him, the way those interminable shelves were inundated by a particular type of classical elegance; the majestic resplendence of the golden sun that sliced the dust-filled air like blades of honey. He would pay close attention to each and every literary work, feeling the pleasant contrast in between each pigment and font, titles that could say everything and nothing at all. From Nietzsche to Voltaire, the ceremonious architecture of renaissance to the pictographic writing of ancient Egyptians; would read everything his tired eyes permitted him, diving into the erudite multiverses that were just at his reach.

As Jungkook stood there, feeling ever so minuscule when encircled by such honorable names of history, he thought of doing just that. Permeated by the fantastic aroma of new and old books, the lukewarm air would embrace his lungs like an amicable hug; the texture of the works underneath his fingertips would cause for his attention to be utterly trapped amongst those unexplored cellulose worlds. And, unquestionably, he could listen to the fumbling of students, and the delicate caressing of paper; the hushed whispers and the immersed conversations—but, then again, the senses alone said nothing beyond the substantial.

And that was when she came in.

It was in between two shelves that the two childhood friends spent around two hours, commenting and desiccating to the bones the most various works of literature that the small bookshop could entrust them. Amongst the turmoil of his ponderations, Jungkook could still notice the continuous repercussion of such discussions, the manner her eyes lighted up time and time again every time she discovered a title that was able to set her heart aflame. That, he thought, could never be explained merely by the response from senses—it was a reaction much more particular than that, an interest that whispered until it was given a chance so scream out, shining behind her eyes as her fingers followed the obsidian-printed letters, lips curling up in a smile that sucked out all the air from his lungs.

Somnolent, the sun unhurriedly moved to sleep beyond the horizon, submerging the campus in a progressive penumbra, guiding its inhabitants into the peaceful chromasia of a clear night. Time slipped through Jungkook’s fingers as the hours went by, remaining imperturbable with the gradual dimness of natural luminescence, then the switching on of the bookshop’s lights. It had always been like that, the absent-minded boy found himself thinking: he always lost his notion of time when he was by her side, dwelling in the comfort of her amicable company.

Moments like those at the relinquished bookstore shook up the margins of his controlled demeanor, causing for an eruption of infatuation to feel like magma in his lungs. It all felt so simple, yet so perfect. To him, importance hid behind the details: the diaphanous lineaments of her focused features to the way her hair embraced promptly the luminescence of the cantaloupe daylight; the gentle symphony of her timbre as her enthusiastic voice waltzed alongside dirt particles in the diffuse atmosphere, carrying along the most unexpected bits and pieces of the history she studied ever so vehemently.

Who was he kidding? It were not the details in those particular instants that enchanted him, but her particularities—hell, it was all of her.

It had always been her.

Jungkook had been in love with his best friend for so long now that he had almost grown accustomed to the quixotic, romantic sensations he held within the walls of his chest. Almost.

During some rare instances, he was able to push those preposterous feelings to the back of his head, attempted faithlessly to convince his infantile optimism that it was absurd—unrealistic, naive—to hold such deep affection for someone who did not see him as anything above a companion from her childhood. The two of you were—and have always been, always would be—merely friends, best friends; closer than anyone else could reach to the margins of their intimacy.

To throw all that away would be equiparable to tearing his soul apart—stitch by stitch, thread by thread, until there was nothing left but the arid interior of a hollow doll. It was best just to ignore it, he convinced himself continuously, forcing his impassioned spirit to move back behind the walls of his cognizance. By holding to reason, he would saving the glory of her company with the coast of his own shattering hope.

Ignore it, for it would all soon go away; forget it, Jeon Jungkook, don't be stupid—the boy repeated like a mental mantra, hoping the baseless frequency of its echoes would be sufficient to make his desperate wishes come to life. He should use logic when drawing possibilities about its consequences: it would never happen. Ignore it, forget it. It would evanesce eventually, and it all would come back to normal.

At times, it almost worked to soothe his worries. Almost.

The boy was cognizant of the fact that she was sharing something with him as he entered those subjective endeavours—most likely another haphazard curiosity about the cinnamon-colored book that rested upon her hands—, but he cursed his own limited mind for being unable to recall perfectly the sequence of words that departed from her lips. He swore he tried to drag his own enchanted mind back to the substantiality of her euphonic voice, but his fragmented attention had been completely shattered under her overpowering aura: so mellow and sympathetic.

And god, it felt like smelling the sweetened aroma of a rose, while remaining eternally oblivious to the way its thorns pierced his skin. To look down upon his ensanguined fingertips and wonder how he had gotten himself in such claustrophobic position; to wish to let go of the gracious flower, but being far too weak—too enamored—to perform such preposterous action. Heavens, it hurt him like the licking flames of inferno; but it was far too compelling to let it go to waste. Jungkook could not—would not—allow for his sentiments to continue to be tied to his reason for much longer. Control had a cost, and his was as painful as the hypothesis of rejection.

There were a million things he wished to have said instead, but all that left his throat was a faint provocation; a delicate, honey-like mockery that he knew would be sufficient to break the daydreams of her statuesque position, “You know, when I offered the bookshop, I wasn't being serious.” the boy smiled.

Blinking, she returned from the land of her phantasies and turned around to stare at her companion. When she smiled back at him, the story repeated itself anew: the same flower efflorescing within his heart, the same thorns piercing his lungs and preventing him from camouflaging the infatuated coral hue that painted his cheeks with such overwhelming heat. She is beautiful, Jungkook thought for what could have been the tenth time that night. She was beautiful: she was the entire ocean he drowned in, and he felt like nothing more than a mere drop of water amongst the fury of the rain.

In her fingers, she closed the literary work with a subdued noise, but did not let go of it, “Don't throw the bait then complain you caught the fish.” his best friend cooled, playful.

At that, he could discard his own reveries for the mere instant that took for a laugh to bubble in his chest, “Did you just compare yourself to a fish?” Jungkook questioned, taken aback by the unbelonging comparison. He felt as if he was floating above the horizon, pulled towards paradise by the force of his adoration.

Scoffing at his reaction—somewhat expected, if she were to be sincere—, the girl rolled her eyes at him, not hesitating for a second before speaking back, “Did you skip high school classes on allusions and metaphors?”

Unable to hold back his silly, love-struck smirk, Jungkook shrugged, taking that battle as lost, “Might as well have.” he agreed, causing for her to chuckle.

Suddenly, the boy felt taken aback with the amicable laugh that she presented him with, being faced with the surface of her divinity, “For a philosophy student, you’re so reckless about education.” her words sliced his impulses short right after, causing for his unspoken confessions to drown in the desert of his throat.

As unconventional as the realization appeared to be, Jungkook understood that he was one misstep away from pouring his inner contemplations out into the open, regardless of the consequences they could bring along. Alternatively to such reckless behavior, however, he merely laughed at her odd phrase, “I don’t see how the two could possibly be connected, but, please, don’t tell Socrates,” he joked back, thinking it would be wiser to switch the subject as soon as possible. So, as he pointed down at the object in her hands, that was precisely what he did. “what do you have there, after all? You’re basically on a date with that book instead of me.”

A date.  

Cherise took over her cheeks like a flower swirling open, covering her skins in vermillion petals. Her lips instantaneously felt shut at the sudden term, mercurial heartbeat resounding in her blank mind with the chaotic rhythm of her surprise. Stop being so naive, he is just joking, the girl convinced herself, claiming on and on how idiotic it was of her to believe his words held any sort of deeper veracity. They were just friends.

Somewhere over the momentaneous shock, she could still hear a faint voice cursing her own infantile reaction. Even more, the suddenness of the term caught her so off guard that she was unable to mask its crystal clear effects as nervousness trembled amongst the syllables of her response, “Uh… what d-do you..." she stopped, and cleared her throat. Looking down at the book in her hands, her eyebrows moved together and, a second later, she was able to verbalize her inquiry better. She felt absolutely pathetic to be acting in such manner. "What do you... think of this one?”

Jungkook hummed and looked downwards in a way to mask the way his own hopes had shattered ever so gracefully. Numb was how his heart felt, for there was no initial signal within his brain that warned him of the term before it dripped from his mouth. Again and again, his demeanor cursed himself for not filtering better his choice of words—what was he thinking, throwing something like that so absent-mindedly? He truly felt like an idiot.

Flickering over the details on the cover, the boy’s eyes took in the odd image of the copy in her hands. Three cimmerian-pigmented words stood out amongst a clear cover—The Black Death—and, right underneath the title, there was a somewhat disturbing painting of what appeared to be a village back in the Middle Ages. In the image’s main focus, laid a woman and her child, both screaming out in a silent lament for that devastating, demonic torture to finally cease. All across the background, more nameless strangers curved in pain, skeletons visible through their feeble skins, and shadowy amethyst blemishes infecting their bodies. The figural simulacrum of death was casted over them, painted in fine brushstrokes of the most humane of angonies.

The choice, as odd as it appeared, no longer impressed her best friend—if anything, was even a bit predictable, “Medieval again? Didn't you read all the existing books on it already?” Jungkook questioned, looking back to meet her expectant gaze. Now compared to the horrendous image of a past long gone, her semblance appeared to be almost sanctified, angelic. She is beautiful, he came to terms once more.

Glancing at her eyes was like envisioning a waterfall, he usually thought. Not because of the tears she had shared with him, but for the way they mixed and transitioned so perfectly between the magnificence and peace of the unexplored scenery; though could also crash down upon his contemplations like the overwhelming ponderation of collapsing water, the impact of the roaring cascades. In that breviloquent moment, his reaction stood somewhere in between the two—admiring their exquisiteness, but also growing preoccupied of his choice of words.

Though, the girl chuckled at his response, lowering her book and pressing it against her chest, “One day, maybe,” she told him, pouting at the incredulous expression that emerged within his traces. “come on, you know it's one of my favorite periods.”

“The night that lasted a thousand years...” Jungkook trailed off, knowing what kind of reaction it would be received. Just as expected, her mouth opened in a silent exclamation of negation, eyebrows coming together in a frown. History students generally became very defensive over the claim that nothing was accomplished throughout the Middle Ages, and she was no different, “I'm joking, calm down. You have your history on check. You can stop with those medieval books.” he made sure to add it quickly.

She huffed, shoulders falling in an unspoken relaxation, “Define ‘on check.’” she spoke back.

It was his turn to roll his eyes, crossing his arms before his figure. Only then did she notice the pleasant contrast between his white shirt and the oceans of obsidian that existed in his hair, falling over his eyes like an obfuscous veil. Even under such delicate, lackluster lights, Jungkook still managed to hold the artistry of a renascentist masterpiece, mischievous eyes coruscating with the vitality of youth, “Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re both at the top of your class, and you constantly shower me with more historical curiosities than I could ever recall. If that’s not being on check, I don’t know what it is.” he explained.

“I can't see how the two could possibly be connected,” she repeated his phrase from aforetime, quick to move her sentences forward before he could even consider a proper response, “I'm buying it anyways. I don’t have this one, and I want to change that.” she shrugged.

With a suspire, Jungkook accepted his defeat, reaching out of the book, “Fine, hand it over,” the boy requested, soon meeting the crashing puzzlement of her confused expression. “what? I'm paying for it. It’s a gift.”

The girl hesitated as if she had just been faced with a prospect far too unrealistic for her to comprehend immediately, “Did I just enter a parallel universe? You used to be bothered when I had no money to pay for ice cream, and now you’re buying me a book?” questioned the lost history student, moving the back of her hand to touch it against his forehead, “Are you feeling okay? Do you have a fever?”

Jungkook moved her hand away with a groan, getting the book from her in a harsh, impulsive manner. He was aware she most likely thought that the blush that covered his cheeks was nothing more than his irritation at her childlike demeanor, but it was specifically because of how dangerously close she had become. Hell, he felt like a teenager sometimes, “Don't get bratty, let me be nice to you before I change my mind,” the boy mumbled, taking a step back. The book felt oddly heavy in his hands, but he gave it no importance—was it hot in there? He was not thinking straight. “I'll be back soon with your stupid Black Plague book.”

Still taken aback by the sudden switch of his temperament, she stood there for an instant and, in an unexpected eruption of staggering words, claimed she would then wait for him on the outside of the bookshop. Jungkook merely agreed with a suppressed hum, then turned around to head towards the cashier—who was staring at the two college students with a certain level of interest.

As she walked towards the exit, she could not organize the confusion that had unraveled within her mind. Longing, her heart induced for her muffled steps to resound amongst the quick beating of her heart; the melody of her affection exploding within her chest in warm ondulations of appreciation. Something about that simple action awakened the love that she was ever so desperately attempting to keep six feet under, causing for a trembling sigh to break in between her curled up lips. Amorous and compassionate, waves of tenderness pulsated through her veins like the cadency of a bird’s wings—quick, precise—and called for her heartbeat to adopt  more of an erratic rhythm.  

As the afternoon air embraced her body, the contact with the chilly winds only made her position become even more corporeal, concrete; as if the sudden change of temperature only served to confirm that those past minutes had not been part of a faithless daydream. Deliquescing into igneous amber, the skyline welcomed the crepuscular indigo of the forthcoming night with open arms. By the side of the humble bookshop, small cerulean flowers trembled under the caresses of the wind, appearing to be far too fragile to endure their characteristic beauty; gradually, they, too, succumbed into the shadows of dusk.

On one of them, a yellow butterfly moved its wings in a lethargic, lackadaisical manner, setting a rhythm disconsonant to the one of the mumbling earth. It beat it once, twice; then flew away, utterly unbothered by the effervescent conversations that gradually resonated around campus. Inside her heart, the same tempo followed.

A date.

Heavens, she could feel the way her pulse trembled underneath the mere connotation of that term, never once used before by him. At the same instant she was aware it did not held the significance she wished, the girl could not shake away the endless sparks that ignited within her spirit once she had heard that term a few minutes ago. She felt so stupid, yet so blissfully happy.

Little did she know that, as Jungkook departed from the inside of that small store, he felt the very same.

Gratitude was plastered all over her features as an alluring smile appeared upon her traces, welcoming the boy as he returned with the small bag. She took it with delicacy, afraid that a brusque movement would be all that it took to shatter the wonderful world of reveries she had immersed herself in, “You're the best person I have ever met.” she spoke, fighting the urge to curl her arms around his body and pull him into a warm hug. Aforetime, that would have been so simple, casual, but now she was not certain that was inside his area of comfort.

Jungkook, regardless, merely responded with a satisfied smirk, glad that his small present had given her that much joy. Even if she could not tell, the affection that scintillated beyond his gaze took in the eternal glow of the stars, bordering on the euphoria he fought to keep inside, “You’re very welcome. If I knew the way to your heart was through lame history books, I would've done this years ago,” then, with a concise pause, the boy placed his hands inside the pockets of his pants, chewing on his following words as his eager eyes traced the details of the falling adumbration, “where to, captain?” he lightheartedly questioned.

Humming, she considered his inquiry as the two began to walk without a destination. She held the bag with two hands behind her back and, with every step, its vague noises resembled the calm melody of the wind that whispered through the trees. Again and again, her partner in crime could only wish to drink the sallow moonlight that bathed her focused features, to listen to her euphonic voice as she distractedly spoke out.

“Let's just... walk around,” at last, her response came. For an instant, the boy forgot what he had asked, but it soon emerged within his infatuated mind. Only then did he allow himself to chuckle in amusement, a reaction she had grown quite used to along the years. “I sense that you have another idea, don't you?”

With that single loose edge, his facade came undone, “I might have one, yes,” Jungkook agreed instantaneously, unable to disguise the sudden excitement that glimpsed within his features. As the two passed underneath the cascades of continuous streetlights, the shadows that melted down his features gifted the boy with an image that bordered on the mystery of his prolonged elucidation, “a certain someone might have the keys to a very empty and unwatched gymnasium.” at last, he said.

“Interesting…” the girl said, allowing for her word to trail off into the vacuum of night. The eternity of that moment reflected within his wicked eyes, dripped in between his cherise lips as a song she would adore to follow—a sailor allowing for a siren to trap him underneath the tempestuous waves of a stormy sea. “did a certain someone steal it?”

From the way Jungkook promptly chuckled at her inquiry, she was certain she had already accepted his unspoken request the very second it had fallen in between their bodies. Weak—she was dangerously weak when he looked at her like that: so meaningfully, yet in such infantile, naive manner, “A certain someone got it from their coach when they were still part of the football team, and then never gave it back,” the philosophy student responded without a trace of hesitation. “what do you think? Worth the shot?”

With a purposefully prolonged suspire, she pretended as if she had pondered upon his idea for an instant. Again, Jungkook was very convincing when he needed to. Or, mayhaps, she was just biased, manipulated by her bottled-up emotions, “Fine. Just because you got me that book.” finally, she accepted.

“Oh, I love how you act as if you're not the tiniest bit curious,” he managed to joke back, thanking the lack of luminescence for masking the roseate hue that burgeoned upon his cheeks. Instantaneously, Jungkook drowned in the oceans she held inside as her euphonic laugh dispersed into the ashen clouds above, her beautiful smile dragging him away from his broken, eclipsed reveries of years past. Once again, he thought about how beautiful she was—it was not as if he had any sort of control over those fascinated observations, anyways. “whatever helps you sleep at night, that's good enough for me. To the gymnasium we go.”

And, without an instant of hesitation, so they did.

Lost amongst the cimmerian shadows of the falling indigo skyline, the two could almost convince themselves that there was no destiny to be reached, merely the path of their intertwined souls; the mesmerizing melting of one color to another, dancing together to form the kaleidoscope masterpiece that was the blazing sundown—then the abysmal nightfall. As one subject progressively transfigured into another, they talked about the most frivolous of interests, jumping from topic to topic with the fluidity of the passing incandescent lights. The overwhelming comfort of something so simple took over their enamored hearts, for it was fantastic to simply go on about everything and nothing at all; the kind of liberty only conversations with him could provide her.

Enthusiastic like the wind, able to move between delicate breezes and the pull of a hurricane. Never once had the girl felt so light, so unrestricted by the ties of her subdued sentiment. As the wind caressed the spacious world that expanded in between their bodies, all her preoccupations dispersed into the nocturnal winds. As strange as it might have seemed, she sensed as if that instant became boundless, as immeasurable as their own story. It was ordinary, but lacking any flaws; momentary, but infinite—it was just the two of them and the perpetual embrace of dawn.

She missed that, she truly did.

So much, in fact, that the sentiment blinded her to the obvious manner her friend stole quick glances in her direction, hoping and praying his admiration would not become translucent through his armor. Even with so much adoration continuously blooming within her breathless chests, the two could not win against the enormous space in between their tentative hands.

Truly, one of the most melancholic kinds of love was the one that remained silent, afraid of never being returned with the same vehemence.  

Jungkook could never quite elucidate the sentiment that sang inside his soul once she was there by his side, absolutely obvious to the mystical effects she had on his soul. Continuously, frequently, hopelessly—Jungkook had envisioned that determining occasion again and again, hoping his courageous spirit could show itself when facing the paralyzing, faceless nemesis of his confession. He had imaged how feather-like her honeyed lips would feel against his own, dwelled in the picturesque smile she would present to him once his idolatrous words dripped in between his clenched teeth.

Three small words never felt so threatening, so invencible; spinning his bravery around like a carousel, giving him the motion sickness of a hypothetical rejection from her part. Jungkook hoped for a smile, but could not face the possibility of a frown, of a confused stare; of an unilateral infatuation.

Uncountable instances aforetime he had considered pursuing the rocky path of a faithful confession. Frequently, he had portrayed the most absurd sequence of events, all of them intercalating the ethereal, paradisiacal glory of mutual feelings to the scalding inferno of a possible humiliation, the burning of being turned down by the one he adored ever so dearly. At some occasions, Jungkook got as far verbalizing the syllables that constituted her name with the harmony of his growing hope, words intoxicated by the same affection that hung ever so sweetly at the tip of his tongue—nevertheless, he never enunciated his love. Never found the sufficient amount of courage to do so.

Returning to the unbearable space that dwelled in between their bodies, Jungkook looked to his side in the internal expectation of meeting her image. Neighboring the otherworldly, there was an extraordinary aspect about the way her gaze was lost beyond the sempiternity of the violaceous skyline, how her skin glowed under the golden, aureate lights of a campus that slowly begun to embrace its nocturnal habitants. Heavens, he had lost himself in her charms so many instances, yet the boy was never entirely prepared for the way her grace monopolized his thoughts, causing for them to metamorphose into anarchy as he attempted to formulate the most basic of sentences.

It was brusque, impetuous—but it was not unnoticeable. Deep in the rampageous turbulence of his inner dilemmas, Jungkook thought that peaceful moment was perfect for his courage to present itself—it would finally arrive, and he would recklessly relocate his reluctancy aside, telling her with unshakable bravery how mindlessly, profoundly had he fell for her. Communicate it to her not as a request, not as faithful attempt for her to experience the same: Jungkook would confess his feelings for the girl as if it was nothing at all, a subject could be overlooked  if she wished to do so. He would make sure to say how it would not change anything, how she had absolutely no obligation to feel the same.

Though, that was all that he could ever wish for.

Suspiring, the girl brought his attention back to the two of them, back to the grey asphalt and the howling of the autumn wind. At last, the prolonged tension of his expectation was broken with the notes of her voice, somewhat embarrassed at the subject being presented, “That chick you hooked up with that last party… the one with the long curly hair, you know?” YN asked, seeing from her peripheral vision how the boy nodded in agreement.

Jungkook looked at her in expectation, taking that brief instant to appreciate the cherubic way her features embraced the streetlights with so much grace—her nose appeared as if it had been outlined by gold, the pallid yellow of the lamps that fought the penumbra just to shine upon her cheeks, down her face, around her roseate, petal-like lips as she continued her reluctant speech, “She came to talk to me yesterday, wanting to see if I could give her your number.”

He frowned, clearly puzzled at the unforeseen prospect, “Did... you?”

Her mouth closed at that, eyes seeking for the answers that hid behind the trees of the silent campus. Guilt was not precisely what she was feeling, but it was the only word that emerged within her mind as she attempted to characterize her position, “I didn't know if you wanted me to, so I made up some excuse about breaking my phone and that I never memorized your number,” the girl confessed those words quickly, as if a part of her was silently begging for him to forgive the sins she never committed. “we ranted for a bit about the technological dependency we have, but she bought the lie just fine. I didn't give your number to her," and, after a pause, she made sure to add that, "I know her, though. If you want, I can reach out.”

Jungkook shook his head in negation, moving his hand in the air as if fanning away the nefarious clouds of his apprehension, “No, no, that's fine as it is,” he was quick to say, forcing his tone to remain somewhat controlled. “I don't even know her name. Don't want to change that.”

From the manner her lips fell back shut in a momentary image of hesitation, he knew there had been some fragments of his rapid negation that resonated with an erroneous chord within her soul, “I... understand. Maybe you should tell her, though,” his best friend counterclaimed, measuring her sentences with infinite care, so they would not show the personal pieces of such carefully constructed puzzle. “it's quite sad to just sit and wait for someone like that. Specially if they're avoiding you.”

The hidden gloominess that embellished the corners of her smile often induced for the boy to discover his limbs suddenly growing stiffer, his lungs contracting in apprehension as he met the wonders that dwelled in the fathomless world behind her gaze. In the captive of his throat, the words he would never say died once again. His confession had its spotlight prepared, but he was terrified of the stage, “Yes, you're right,” was what he proffered instead, masking the anxiety of his missed chance with a quick, almost timid cough, “I suppose I should... tell her.” Jungkook acknowledged.

At that, she only hummed in agreement, but said nothing else. As the terminal syllables of his thoughtful sentence lost themselves amongst the hyperborean atmosphere of the night, neither of them knew if they were still discussing that faceless stranger, or if their inner preoccupations had peeked through the cracks of their pride.

It did not matter. Another time, perhaps.

A better one.

Arriving at the gymnasium was not troublesome, but opening its passageway turned into a much more arduous task than they could have ever envisioned. Jungkook pushed and pulled the doors with just enough force so there would be no obstreperous reverberations, but none of his efforts appeared to cause any sort of change in the fact that such dark metal entrance remained imperturbable, standing in the same place as if it was a loyal soldier in its designed position.

Behind the two explorers, no other living being crossed those parts of the campus, for their Saturday night was reserved to other, more vivacious landscapes. Such unique equanimity became quickly cherished by the curious girl—for there was a secretive element about the forlornness of an universe once so ebullient that appeared to be mesmerizing, a piece of reality only the two could waltz in. To her, even if only as an internal conceptualization, the sands of time had stopped to run so the two could observe the gorgeous navigation of passing clouds, how the light of the moon bleed through the opaque nebulas of such onyx cosmos, then withered into the twilight of those dimly illuminated ambients.

Disregarding all those mystifying aspects, her focus solely resided in the boy before her. Bathed by the consecrated complexion of the caramel streetlights, Jungkook held tightly to the ethereal aura it gifted him, the golden aureole that slipped in between the charcoal strands of his disheveled hair—just like that day at the cafe, he appeared to be a pulchritudinous hallucination; a treasure that flinched away from her grasp continuously.

Fumbling with the newly discovered lock, Jungkook angrily mumbled at the overabundance of keys in his hands, uttering profanities at unseen divinities every instance he attempted to utilize the incorrect one, “Okay, I think I think I got it,” the boy said after a breviloquent instant of expecting silence, his shiny eyes looking at her with the endless stars of his bliss. She did not care the reason why he had grown so happy, for it was the image of his endless joy that brought her such euphoric comfort; memories of their childish years coming back to her like tides of wistfulness.

Repeatedly, she thought that she could still catch glimpses of his younger self slipping between the cracks of his controlled persona, and it was an extremely conflicting sentiment to endure. Youthful, his heart lured her into moments of magic and wonder—yet, they kept crashing down back into reality, turning her position into a much more anguishing one.

At last, an exclamation from his part sliced her reveries, causing for the whine of the opening door to echo in the nocturnal infinity that surrounded the two, “Welcome to the castle, princess,” her best friend joyfully greeted, dramatically moving his arm as if he was a painter presenting his newest masterpiece to eager art lovers. In some level, that was precisely what unfolded, “the world is yours to take.” Jungkook added, taking a step to the side so she could walk in first.

And, God, what a world it was.

Near the ceiling of the gymnasium, an elongated line of rectangular windows stood at the top of the wall opposite to them, allowing for the caliginous illumination of the street to welcome the two into those relinquished lands. The spiritless, aurulent phosphorescence from the neighboring lamps dripped from the dusty glass and caused for the specks of dust to oscillate in the static atmosphere, obtaining the achromatic pigmentation that made them seem like anemic lampyridae against the moonlight.  

Casted away by her momentaneous reveries, the girl released a long sigh; looking all around as if checking any other peculiarities she could have missed at first: the wooden benches by the side of the court; the mountainous bleachers that embraced the blades of luminescence with its phantasm-like semblance; the polished cantaloupe wooden tiles, the bleached demarcations that separated the areas of the court, but also guided the two adventurers to enter its realms. There was something terribly alluring about the entire ambient, which she could not yet elucidate.

“God, I hate how pretty this place is at night," she groaned as she slowly walked towards the center of the court, lamenting how rapidly memorable situations like those could become. That small fragment of campus belonged to them—and them only—for god knows how long. If she could, she would have spent the rest of the night there, merely accompanying the midnight darkness as it grew thicker before, at last, gifting its position to the auric resplendence of the burgeoning sunlight, "have you been here before?” she questioned, turning around to meet his silhouette.

Momentaneously, she considered that an answer could not be exactly what she desired. The mere hypothesis of him taking other girls there was able to make her stomach turn. It was not induced by jealousy, but by the damage of replacement. The hurt of longing for someone who escaped in between her fingers like mercury.

Yet, her inner preoccupations did not appear to have any effect on the oblivious boy, “When it's empty?" Jungkook questioned, almost mindlessly. His friend only nodded in agreement, and he hummed for an instant as his mind worked around its memories. After a few prolonged seconds, he was able to construct an answer, "Only once, when I needed some space to think, but you're the first person I bring here.” he confessed.

Perfectly, she masked her alleviation with a shiny smile, “The honor is endless,” she spoke, those words holding more significance than she ever expected. Truly—the world was theirs to take, “it's... weird at the same time. So empty, devoid of noise.” she shared her thoughts.

“Yeah, I see what you mean,” Jungkook agreed, placing his hands inside the pockets of his pants as he moved closer to where she stood. Against every fiber of his body, he forced his gaze to remain on the endless lines of pallid windows, avoiding to meet the beauty of the girl amongst the consolidated penumbra of that secluded night, “I'm glad we got this night for ourselves. I really missed it.” he manifested that with so much tranquility that she overlooked the turbulent storm clouds that begun to accumulate within his obfuscous eyes.

Humming, the girl but down on her lower lip, taking a couple steps up the solitary bleachers—against what she expected, her footsteps did not sound like thunder amongst the emptiness of the gargantuan construction, but soft and precise as the heartbeats that pulsated within her veins, “We haven't done this since what, freshman year?” the history student questioned, at last sitting down, closer to the middle. By her side, she placed her new book. “Damn, you used to be bolder back then.”

Jungkook chuckled at her peculiar choice of words, forcing himself to follow his best friend up the steps, “Bolder?” he echoed, somewhat puzzled by such term. Communication appeared to be odd between the two childhood friends, for each syllable shared held a level of ambiguity that made him uneasy. “Are you talking freshman year of college or high school?”

With a sudden glimpse of interest, her eyes widened in the face of an upcoming recollection, “I was thinking about college, but you just made me remember something,” she said, promptly meeting the reluctant expectation that was casted over his focused lineaments as, finally, he stood and sat by her side. “and yes, we're going down memory lane whether you want it or not. Picture this: teenager Jeon Jungkook, climbing up my window in the middle of the winter, having to wait for almost twenty minutes on a tree before I got out of the shower to let you in.”

Of course, he could recall that perfectly. Even with some particularities lost amongst the nebulous trails of his mind, Jungkook could still feel the claws of the gelid winter diving deep in his skin; could recall the sound of her surprised exclamation as she left the bathroom with just a pale blue towel around her body, her widened eyes meeting his own behind the glass window. The scalding roseate hue that exploded in both of their faces was barely noticed under the hushed whispers and fervent curses, his excuses were quickly disregarded and curtains were rapidly moved in front of the translucent surface as she claimed she needed to get dressed. Almost twenty minutes later, the boy was allowed entrance. The price to pay: a couple playful hits to the head.

Back to the present, Jungkook then laughed—one of those free, careless laughs that he allowed himself to present when he are truly, foolishly happy. If anything, the most elementary kinds of bliss were the one he cherished the most, for they were both the most achievable and the most alleviating to experience, “Don't do that to me, that was such a traumatic night,” he confessed with a smirk, feeling as if some part of him had shattered under the ponderation of nostalgia. Their bodies were so close, just a few more millimeters and his hand would be placed over warmth of her own. “though, I remember you sneaking out with me to go to that party. Did you parents ever find out that we went there?”

She paused for an instant, ruminating on her memories. As the nuances of that peculiar nightfall returned to the surface of her chaotic memories, the history student came to the uncommon conclusion that she could remember minute, almost ignorable details about those comforting instants, small quirks and expressions that could never be applied to anyone else but her best friend. In the end, even unable to characterize the boy that now stared at her so patiently, Jungkook was one of the most singular individuals she had met, someone that completed her oh so perfectly.

Memories like those were the kind that remained in the depths of her childish mind and, when they returned, they caused for your heart to flutter under their overwhelming wistfulness. That instance, nevertheless, they only brought her a certain sense of disappointment, accompanied by a sign that appeared to hold the entire weight of the world within it, “Not that I know of,” her negation came with a measurement of hesitation, causing for him to grow preoccupied at what would follow. “it was a pretty terrible night, though. I spent most of it in the couch by myself, groaning at drunk people.”

Jungkook’s primordial response was a smirk, his eyes falling down to the polished court that awaited in the hollow spaced in between the steps of the faded bleachers. There was a certain sorrow camouflaged within his every syllable, and she would have never noticed it if she had not been so attentive to his every minor signal of irritation, “You do that during every party you go to.” he spoke underneath his breath, hoping that the traces of regret within his tone could be sufficient for her to understand his fragile position.

Open, then closed. Her lips moved as if delineating her words in the air, but allowed no sound to run from in between them. There was only silence, only the beating of their arrhythmic heartbeats. Open, closed.  

It was during moments like those that the boy finally understood that the duality she presented him with was nothing but the existence of a melancholic soul in a vivacious personality; the glimpses of hope and despondency that morphed to form the girl he had fallen so deeply for, “Yeah, but you left me alone,” she spoke, breaking his romantic reveries instantaneously. That was not even close to a sentence Jungkook ever expected to receive, far too close to his nightmarish forthcomings for him to promptly take seriously. Paranoia was not all that it was, then: he had truly relinquished the one who he adored the most. “I mean, I get it. You wanted to have fun with your friends, I don't blame you for it. I'm also not saying it was on purpose, but it did make me feel down. For a long time, at that.”

Those words made him feel sick to his stomach, the impact of his guilt absorbing all the air from his already feeble lungs. Jungkook could not put into words how much he hated the fact that the girl felt that way, especially if it was because of infantile and reckless decisions he had once took. He would have done anything to put poetry into her life, to find the lyrism that tied them together with so much perfection. The white rymes, the flawless metric, the correct verses at the specific time. Everything he did not have, that is. Everything opposite to what he had truly given her.

“You never told me it bothered you so much,” he spoke those words with care, almost as if he was scared of the consequences of facing a wild animal. Though, he was aware YN was not even close to a roaring lion amongst the endless fields of the savannah, nor the calculative wolf that awaited for its pray in between the alabastrine snow—she was his best friend, someone that knew him even better than himself, “it's nothing that wouldn't happen nowadays, too.” he quickly added.

Subsequently, he came to realize that it was a calamitous choice of words. It was nothing that would not happen nowadays: he would still leave her alone, “I know. It does happen sometimes,” the girl agreed closely after, bringing his deeper nightmares to life. It was like watching a piece of glass falling to the ground in slow motion: body paralyzed, wide eyes merely awaiting for the crashing impact that would soon arrive. And, duly, it came. “Jungkook, you know I'm not someone that gets comfortable at parties. I only go because you want me to, and every time I think you'll keep me company, which you don’t. I don't demand to be exclusive, it's just kind of exhausting when you drop me to be with your friends or some random girl the very second we walk through the door.”

With her amable voice and the dainty reluctance it provided, Jungkook’s best friend shattered his spirit with the simple pronunciation of those words. Brusquely, all elements of nature he once perceived within her became the natural disasters that would tear him apart—calamities, oh calamities—the same calm breeze had now turned into a merciless hurricane. Paralyzed. Slow motion. He spoke out, “Is that why you... are already gone every time I go search for you?” he seemed unable to find the correct words to formulate his inquiry, but he did it regardless. Jungkook expected that amongst his shaky timbre, she would capt his disguised message: he had gone after her, she had not been simply forgotten nor replaced.

Though, it was much more complicated than a disguised apology and the infantile hope of a benevolent forgiveness, “Yeah, I get tired of waiting, so I just go home.” she shrugged, and moved her gaze away from his own. That was, in a way, the breaking point: a simple misstep that sent him flying down to the abyss of his suppressed frustrations.

Like wildfire, his frustration started to fumble around in his tight chest, taking over the arrhythmia of his heart and burning his logic thinking into ashes. He felt the pressure of the earth shaking beneath his feet as his subsequent words ate his mouth, bringing along a poison that he did not recognize as being his own, “I've seen you talking to some people every once in awhile, though. Some guys.” added the boy, trying to hold back the rivers of his awakening exasperation.

If the hidden connotation of his claims reached for her cognizance, she gave no signals that she had been affected by it, “I'm not socially inapt, Jungkook, I can talk to other people,”  she spoke back with bittersweet aftertaste hanging at the tip of her tongue. She could not explain the reason for his sudden harshness, nor the way that it reflected upon her very temperament. “it's just the same story all over. The guys you see me talking to just want to flirt and fuck around, and I'm not interested in that. Besides, it's not like it's an excuse for you to just leave me like that.”

He frowned, unaffected by her sentence. The thing about resentfulness was the blindness it dragged along, preventing its owner from recognizing the irrationality that slipped through one’s every movement, “Why is that?” he thoughtlessly inquired.

Was that jealousy she perceived within his tremulous phrase? No, she was not being rational: of course Jungkook was not jealous. She supposed that was a common behavior amongst the ones who fell in love to place a special, idiosyncratic meaning in everything their loved one did, for it was much more soothing than to face the hypothesis of it being an one-sided devotion.

As much as she was sure it was the case, some stubborn, hopeful part of her heart expected otherwise, and it was sufficient to prolong her anguish even further. She paused for a second, taking in the vague question, and the curtain of such abstract feeling that had fallen over his eyes, “What do you mean?” she thought it was better to question.

For the first time, she did not see Jungkook as an unexplored mountain, did not force herself to fight the radiance of the sun in a faint attempt to glimpse at the secrets the cloud-hidden apex held. Now, the boy was nothing beyond the best friend she had lost a long time ago, an hesitant and even quite timid kid that was unable to construct his sentences with the correct words. His mouth was opening and closing, his flickering eyes were moving around—everywhere but on her—seeking for the answers that he necessitated. She could almost sense the waves of frustration that emanated from his body, but could not pinpoint the reason for such swift change of demeanor.

Each step forward, the boy felt as if he was taking two steps behind, crawling away from a reality he would forever deny to face. Keeping those thoughts at bay, he forced himself to clear his throat, resuming his speech with care, “Why are you... not interested in any of them?” at last, he reformulated his previous inquiry, his voice a note softer than before.

“I don't know, I'm just not,” she breathed out, allowing herself to embrace the profound waters of his gaze for a momentaneous instant of weakness—in her perceptions, his beauty still resided amongst the harshness of his expression. Fragility reluctantly opened before her like a efflorescing flower, presenting her will the prismatic magnificence of his kind spirit, the kindness that sometimes got eclipsed by his reckless acts. Yes, that piece of a lonely universe was duly was a beautiful ambient, but his presence managed to make it even better. “the heart doesn't pick what it wants, I suppose.”

Taken aback by the pulling currents of his heartache, the boy felt as if he was nothing more than a book with a torn out page: missing an imperative scene, a discontinued trail of thought. Jungkook truly despised how distant he had become, and was unable to direct his anger towards himself. Instead, it dripped in between his mouth like drops of a corrosive liquid, burning his patience to threats, “It really fucking doesn't,” he bitterly agreed. “I'm sorry, okay? I never noticed I was doing that.”

If it had been in any other situation, she would have left that slip. She would have overlooked the pendulum of emotions that guided his posture, would have disregarded his unbelonging frustration as being caused by the subjects the two would much rather avoid—however, that moment, everything switched back to place. The same constrained petulance that deteriorated his heart could be reflected within her own chest, crushing for her reckless speech to reverberate past the static air before she could ever hold it back. Not that she would have, for she was, too, reaching the margins of her patience.

“I told you about this at least two times already, though,” YN continued to say, refusing to acknowledge an apology that was as empty and mechanic as the others he had presented her with. She could see that the boy was compassionate towards her position, so she could not comprehend the reason for the prompt manner he avoided diving deeper into such matters. “you apologized, but the story remained the same. In fact, if I'm being honest, I feel like you purposely avoid me at this point.”

There it was, and there was no way to take it back. Her piercing words felt like cold daggers to his chest, slicing his pride in half and causing for his negation to shatter into reality: Jungkook could no longer escape from those demons. Perhaps, there was not another time—a better one—waiting for him ahead; the universe would not be merciful enough to take that miraculous decision for him, or even to plan the correct, unrealistic instant for his devoted speech to leave his mind. He was losing his best friend at every hollow apology, it was not worth the secret.

At the same time, running over that blame distribution made his limbs hurt, those fragmented opinions and past recollections that only induced for his inner guilt to shine with a new force, “What are you talking about?” Jungkook questioned, aware that he was being irrational, speaking in circles. She was right, and he was searching for signals that held absolutely no verisimilitude. “We're alone in a gymnasium. How is this avoiding?”

“Yeah, I'm as surprised as the next guy,” scoffed his best friend, her calm tone in dissonance with the clear astringency of her measured words. Heavens, he felt as if the paradise of her gaze had just metamorphosed into inferno, oscillating in a middle-ground in which her melancholy appeared ever so clearly. “you're always postponing our plans, always making up excuses to cancel or leave early. And when you do stay around, your mind is miles away, you never even hear what I’m saying.”

Syllables felt arid as a desert as his poorly pronounced negation fell from his mouth, “That's just not true, YN.” was all that he was able to say, even if he did not believe that claim for a mere second.

Truth was: Jungkook had been aware of how the two had followed separate ways, traveled different roads. Ever since they had gotten into college, they were no longer the kings and queens they once pretended to be, just two pathless students amongst an ocean of strangers. More than that, he knew perfectly the way he had purposefully avoided his best friend with the objective of muffling his feelings—which, ironically, only added to his overwhelming longing. She had all the right to be feeling lonely, to be placing the blame on him. God, he hated himself at that moment.

The girl, however, merely shrugged at his words. For the first instance, Jungkook came to the conclusion that her disappointment was so rooted down her mundane chores that she could barely present him any sort of sentiment: it had become part of her routine, “Perhaps not, but that's how I feel.” she humorlessly told him.

Stitch by stitch, his facade was torn apart, lying somewhere in between the broken and the frustrated, “Maybe you should ask me how I feel.” Jungkook said without a second instant of ponderation.

Parts of his forgotten reason still screamed within his mind for the boy to better filter his verbalizations, but he was aware that, phrase by phrase, the damage that was progressively being done could not be fixed so easily. He was certain, one way or another, that the time he had been waiting for now approached at full speed. It felt less and less like a kind embrace, and more like a truck about to hit him in the middle of a deserted road, its phosphorescent lights so strong that blinded the boy to any sort of self-control.

She, too, appeared to grow conflicted at the spectacle that unfolded before her eyes, pursing her lips together in a quiescent instant of hesitation, “Very well,” she agreed after a sigh, placing her hands on top of her knees. Her palms felt horribly cold, even if it ambient was warm, “for starters, why are you getting so defensive?”

“Defensive? I'm not getting defensive, I'm just getting mad,” and he only got himself to blame—the two of them knew that. “seems like every time I'm about to do something right for once, a talk like this blocks the way. We haven't been close ever since we started college, that's normal, but do you have to rub it in my face that it's all my fault?”

At that, her shield of apprehension shattered. Yet anew, the naivety of his younger self shimmered past his staggering tone, causing for the girl to remember that the two had a story far deeper than those shallow years of college, “I never said it was all your fault. Things like this are mostly never unilateral,” her shoulders fell at that, voice growing more delicate. Even if she still blamed the boy for the way he had departed, she could not pretend as if she could not have fighted harder for it. In a way, she, too, appreciated the security of distance. “I know you for too long, Jungkook, I know you wouldn't just cut me out because you're feeling like it. Or, at the very least, I'd like to think so.”

Her words felt like kerosene setting his soul aflame, the sparks that gradually consumed the rope of a dynamite. From the manner Jungkook swallowed his anguish dry, he could tell he was merely a couple steps away from the edge, holding himself back from a road divider he was so frightened of facing, “I would never do something like that, you're my best friend.” Jungkook spoke, but did not fully believe himself. He had done it, after all.

Patient, the girl breathed out, placing her hand over his own. Her touch was like poison ivy, burning every part of his skin and causing for his throat to itch under the bothersome presence of unspoken claims—nothing could ever come close to how much he wanted her at that instant, even if it was to solely feel her embrace, her heartbeat mixing with his own, “And you are mine. You just haven't been acting like it,” she tenderly responded, voice faltering for an instant before continuing with the subject. “what's going on with you lately? You know you can tell me anything, I won't judge you.”

What’s going on with me is that I have no fucking idea how to love you, and it’s tearing me to pieces, the boy innerly responded, but could never find the courage to push those brave claims out of his asphyxiated chest. He was two steps away from crying out mercy, giving up to the fatigue of his suffocated sentiment and merely allowing for it to spill out amongst the breaking thunder of his pride.

Regardless, what he said was the complete opposite, “Nothing’s going on with me.”

Breathing out, she took her time to find the air she necessitated to continue such personal conversation, “Look at me,” requested the girl and, after a concise second of vacillation, the boy glimpsed upwards. Jungkook could swear that it was almost sanctified the way the colorless glow of the moon dripped over her frown, the chimerical traces of her confusion standing out amongst such welcoming persona. Preoccupations painted her features in shadows, and he could tell that there was no way he could turn back from the path they were heading. “tell me what's wrong. We can't fix it otherwise.”

Jungkook scoffed at her sentence, promptly feeling terrible for doing so. His heart skipped a beat the the apathetic temperament that had taken over his spirit, for he was aware his defensive posture would soon get the best of him. For a moment, he found himself inquiring if that would be the last night she would spend by his side, if the subsequent renunciation he would present her with would be enough for their friendship to be ruined forever, “We can't fix everything, YN.” he counterclaimed.

In fact, it would make everything worse. One fallacious advancement, one misspoken sentence. One step out of the chord that divided who they were and who they had become, and the two would downgrade into the vacuum of utter evasion that existed in between.

However, the manner her fingertips curled around his hand in a silent comfort was enough to puncture his heart instantaneously. Her touch, as intoxicating as it was, was also warm as a splendiferous summer morning; welcoming as the oceans that stretched beyond her eyes—seas he had continuously drowned in, being pulled under by the enchanting spell of her voice. His own eyes, however, were again moving away from hers, focusing on the achromatic particles that danced in slow motion against the phantasmal lambency, “Let's at least try.” she told him with care.

Even hours after that scene had occurred, the boy could not pinpoint what it was about that simple sentence that felt like the last drop to him. Self-condemnation had corroded his soul for so long that Jungkook could not do anything but feel infuriated at himself, profoundly displeased by the manner she continued to be benevolent to him even though he had done her so wrong—Jungkook anathematized how much he loved her, how much she made him fall deeper and deeper with every loving touch. He hated how he continued to keep all that as a secret.  

Of course, he was not obligated to.

Groaning in annoyance, he ran one of his hands through his cimmerian-pigmented strands of hair, leaning back against the bleachers as in a silent signal of defeat, “Fine. We're doing this, then,” Jungkook rolled his eyes, an action that felt like hyperborean arrows being shot straight through the walls of her hopeful heart. He was mad, frustrated even. “let's play guessing game, if that’s what you want from me. Guess why your best friend is unable to look you in the eye, guess why he can't stay around for you for long without making an absolute fool out of himself. Guess why I always go to search for you during parties and end up so frustrated that you left that I get the first chick I see in front of me.”

Once, twice—she blinked lethargically, using all the seconds she could to fully comprehend the explosion that had just came from his lips, “I... don't know the answer to any of those questions. That's what I'm asking you, Jungkook,” said the bewildered girl. His name slid off her tongue with so much easiness, so much harmony. It would soon be the end of him.

Of them, even.

Thunder broke once he opened his mouth, bringing along the reverberation of his suffocated misery, “Why do you think I got pissed drunk back in that party, uh? I was trying to man the fuck up and be straight up with you.” Jungkook said, aware that each syllable took him closer and closer to a path of no return. The boy was staring at the barrel of a gun; patching up each and every sliced up fragment of his temperament from which his genuine sentiment could slip through. Nevertheless, some calamities are stronger than the man’s will to control them, and to fight against nature is to lose sooner or later.

The wild winds of his tone shook what was left of her cognizance, his sentence holding meetings far too abstracts for her to promptly grasp, “Be straight up about... what?” strangely, she found that simple sentence particularly challenging to pronounce.  

Like flowers that ruptured the cement, Jungkook's words broke upon his clenched jaw before he could ever measure their inevitable consequences; the ponderation of revealing his most secretive emotions to someone that could tears his very soul to pieces with a mere negation, “Are you that dense?” the boy spat, moving his head back so his eyes could meet the overwhelming infinity of her own: patient, kind, understanding. All at once, it all spilled out from his mouth. “I’m in love with you, YN, how can’t you tell?”

With that, their world withered into quiescence.

Cold and silent, the devastating space between their bodies appeared to grow within the span of a heartbeat, pulling the two lovers towards opposite edges of the ambient. Paralyzed by the connotation of those words, the two impassively watched as their story reached the end of a long-running chapter, turning to a page that still remained blank. Their young hearts faded for an instant and, ever so strongly, fell back to the turmoil of the present.

Encompassed by quivering stars, the moon casted its porcelain aurora on the eternal minutes that prolonged inside that gymnasium, embracing their still bodies in a ghostly, melancholic atmosphere. Ache and bliss irradiated inside her suffocated lungs, inducing for her dry lips part as she progressively absorbed the impact of such abrupt epiphany, “You’re… w-what?”

Jungkook had his eyes lost in the abyss far beyond her position, avoiding her presence vehemently. By her side, the cover of the book appeared to mock his coward nature, causing for the explosion of his devotion to progress into the weight of his words, “Don’t come to me pretending you didn’t hear it,” he spoke those words with weakness, finding it hard to discover the same ruthless he had tasted just before. “I hate this shit: I’m in love with my best friend. I've fallen for the oldest trick in the goddamn book. Fucking fantastic.”

It was sudden, overwhelming—but it was there in all its melancholic glory. The abrupt crash of their shared emotions, the spectral way his thoughtful irises still resembled the ones who stared so fondly at her all those years ago. The confirmation had reached her years, and the brokenness she felt for so long was now silent before the fulfillment of her numb euphoria.

Sincerely, she was planning to verbalize something back at the vulnerable boy—anything she could ever conceptualize, really. As her petal-like lips fell open in the wordless enunciation of a silent exclamation, the girl swore there was a vague idea of which baseless, improvised sentences would come out of her mouth, a broken inquiry or, perhaps, a faraway recollection of her profound reflections. Nevertheless, as her wide-eyed gaze met the beautified lineaments of Jungkook’s anguished semblance, all those blurred thoughts dispersed into a blank canvas, his very image causing for her breath to get trapped in her throat, “J-Jungkook, I—” she stuttered.

“—No, listen to me,” he interrupted vehemently, unsure if the fragile voice that left his lips was truly his own. It felt too rushed, too piercing; too broken, “I know I’m a prick sometimes, alright? I know I end up ignoring you, that I leave you hanging. I know I’m always overprotective of you, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry because I’m aware that’s not healthy, but I can’t work with what I’m feeling,” he spoke those endless confessions like a cascade of reverence, unable to pause and fully ruminate on everything that had been told. He hesitated, then continued after a sigh, “shit, I tried to ignore it, I tried to go out with other girls. But they weren’t... you. As stupid as that sounds, they weren’t you, and you’re the only one that I want, YN.”

Looking at him at that very instant was like losing her balance; equiparable to the absence of gravity that a lost astronaut would feel when floating around the void of space. Everything was so out of focus that she could only pay attention to the odd pattern of sensation that took hold of her: his eyes, that torn-apart gaze of someone who had just pulled the final loose edge of a decaying friendship, pulled her into the blurred hollowness that existed beyond it—no more phantasmal constellations in sight, “Why… why are you saying it now?” was all that she could ever question.

Amongst the fragmented adumbration that painted his features, she could perceive a niveous blanket of tears shimmering over his eyes, “Keeping this inside it’s just too much, alright? It's suffocating me, sometimes I feel like I can't even breathe,” Jungkook was honest with his every sentence, feeling as if it bordered on the inexecutable to respond without losing control of his already staggering speech. “I'm sorry that I couldn’t just pretend as if you weren’t such an important part of my life. I'm sorry I was a coward and that I pushed you away. I'm sorry I fell in love with you and now that I'm throwing it all on your shoulders.”

Once anew, the girl opened her lips to respond, but he silenced her with a quick raising of his hand—an unspoken request for her to continue listening to his unplanned confession, for he was uncertain if he could ever be able to find the correct words to continue if she verbalized something in between them, “I'm sorry I'm a fucking idiot, alright?” Jungkook breathed out, shaking his head. Yet again, his eyes fell to the spacious nothing that existed in between the steps of the bleaches, the hole that he wished could swallow him whole, deleting his existence or merely taking his tormented spirit away from such terrible position. “You deserve someone that will treat you better than this. It’s not fair with anyone.”

After Jungkook’s trepidation had dissolved into the obfuscous eternity of night, she awaited for an instant to check as if he had said everything he wished to. Amidst the soft infinite of the elephantine quiescence, YN melted into the nostalgia of their past, both embracing it and pushing it away from the present that they now dwelled in—for, no matter the ones that they once were, it would be infantile to grasp into moments that could never be replayed, people that had long moved away from those childish imaginations.

The two friends had truly grown up, enough so that he had spilled out his emotions in a momentaneous explosion of devotion, an uncalculated reverie that ended up holding much more significance than the two could have ever foreseen. Now, it was her turn.

Gentle sighs, deep breaths. As the afterglow of his confession tingled in the space between their silhouettes, a pallid shade of roseate burgeoned on her cheeks and she sighed, rupturing those never ending moments with the symphonious tranquility of her timbre, “Can I talk now?” delicately inquired the girl. Only then did she notice that, throughout his eruption of emotion, he had taken his hand away from her own, and the coldness of night felt as venomous and merciless as ever before.  

Jungkook had immersed his demeanor on the unspoken task of maintaining his composure intact, for his pride had long fell like ashes to the ground, combusted by the volcanoes of scalding secrets that had just grown in between the two. Contoured by the waxlike luminescence of buzzing lights, his impassive lineaments did not show even a fragment of the pandemonium that exploded beyond the two simple words that constituted his response, “Go ahead.” he shrugged, hoping that the shame of her refusal would not scar his soul as deep as he expected.

The chuckle that dripped from her lips was enough for his eyes to unwillingly dart upwards, presenting the girl with the opening she needed to continue, “Jungkook, you have to be the denser person I have ever met in my entire life,” she playfully told him, instantaneously recognizing the way his gaze danced in between the confusion of assuagement and the shock of her reaction, “you don’t know if I feel the same? Really? What do you want me to do, wear a T-shirt with your name printed on it? Change my relationship status to ‘it’s complicated’?”

He rolled his eyes, turning his head forwards and staring at the now closed passageway. Meters from where they stood, he could still perceive the vague shimmering of the silver keys scintillating in the air like a solitary astro, guiding him into amenity like a personal north star, “Complicated is one way to put it.” was what he said back, for he felt unable to comprehend her reaction wholesomely.

Placing her hand on his tensed-up shoulder, she called for his attention again, “Hey, Jungkook?” his best friend’s mellifluous tune culminated in a swift movement of his gaze back towards her direction. Suddenly, the smile she presented him with was everything he could see—no dusty gymnasium, no silvery stars—and her sacchariferous timbre was the only melody he ever wished to hear. “Do me a favor and just... shut the fuck up.”

And then, the boy found the softness of her lips pressed against his own.

Kissing her was like having a drink of whiskey—addictive, intoxicating; it was drowning in the mesmerizing sensation of her lips without caring for the hangover that could arise alongside with the morning sun. Feeling her trembling heart against his own was like an earthquake inside his soul, like they were colliding and drowning away, feeling the spacious nothingness between their lips before diving back to it with much more adoration.

And god, the roses! The roses blossomed like galaxies exploding within his chest, the thorns no longer cut his breathing short. It was everything so perfect, so immaculate; a scene that could be part of a formidable romance—a painting, a masterpiece—of two friends finally succumbing to the feelings they have kept inside for so long; souls shining brighter than the lackluster moonlight that was casted over their interlaced fingers, their waltzing mouths.

Honeyed, then astringent. Peaceful, then tormenting. It was perfectly imperfect, flawlessly damaged. It was the two of them, and nothing more.

At last, she departed from his lips with another peck against his swollen mouth, her following words coming out in an infatuated whisper, “I’m in love with you too, Jungkook," the girl confessed in infinite devotion, her tone resembling the faint beating of a butterfly's wings, the rustle of the tall grass beneath its kaleidoscopic colors signaling the blowing of the vernal breezes. "maybe you would’ve noticed it if you weren’t so busy running away from me.”

However, at that instant, nothing about his poorly calculated mistakes mattered.

The bitterness of their past no longer held any sort of relevancy, for the honeyed nectar that danced at the tip of their tongues was sufficient to silence all the howling poltergeists that remained at the back of their heads—at times, things did not have to be so complicated, for the simple, innocent certainty of a shared love was already enough, “You know me, I can’t cope with some stuff. I just avoid it and hope it goes away magically,” the he chuckled at his own words, noticing promptly how pathetic they were after everything that had unfolded, “I guess it was too much at stake. I couldn’t just throw years of friendship out—”

“—Like you just did,” she was quick to interrupt, gaze flickering downwards to meet the contours of his swollen, scarlet-painted lips.

“Like I just did,” Jungkook echoed with infinite adoration, taking one of his hands so he could remove a strand of hair from the front of her pulchritudinous eyes. He paused at that, the warm feeling of  her skin against his own awakening an exquisite emotion amidst the never ending haziness of his mercurial conceptualizations. If he were to elucidate such feeling, it seemed as if he had just woken up from a deep sleep, but his heart continued to waltz on a chimerical cosmos of unachievable reveries. “and I’m very, very glad I did.”

Time and time again, he would find himself getting lost in her details—the way her hair fell around her head, embraced by the aura of the tarnished incandescence; how her smile held the allurement of a thousand renaissance masterpieces, lips moving with the fluidity of a running river, oscillating like petals in the wind to form the most harmonious of notes, “I’m glad you did too.” she repeated, placing her hands on his shoulders in an unspoken cue for him to move even closer.

And so he did.

Breaking him down and building him back up, she used the architecture that hid in her kiss to fumble around with the pieces of his soul, writing unsaid poems on the silk of his mouth and a suppressed, indestructible suspire escaped from his mouth. One of his hand navigated to hold to her waist, touch light as a feather, electric as a lightning bolt that coruscated amidst the raven ink of dawn; as the other continued to cup her cheek, holding her in place as his mouth explored the gentleness of her kiss.

Jungkook swore he could still see her comeliness even with his eyes closed, for it was the same grace he had experienced time and time again throughout the years they had shared. He had fallen in love with her very soul; the color of sunset that it emanated, the heat of the sleeping sun’s radiance—those brief seconds in which the sky was in absolute equilibrium between light and penumbra, waltzing with strands of gold and the sapphire sea; painted in light brushstrokes of white and grey.

It was both an ending and a brand new beginning. When the day reached its ending, night would soon follow and, once the stars were already exhausted of its continuous glow, the everlasting flames of the sun would come to bring them assuagement. Like her, the sun would continue to rise, sunset would continue to embrace him.

The two would meet in the horizon, consoled by the philosophies of its equilibrium.  

At times, Jungkook would catch himself thinking about the meaning of the most introspective of concepts. Often, love and beauty.

Love, to him, came and went in waves, and the movement of the seven seas never ceased. The pellucid waters slipped through his fingers and shone under the sun like they carried along a million diamonds; the alabastrine spume of the caressing ocean fell like a pulled blanket over the sand: crashing, cleaning, wiping away all traces that could have been left aforetime; turning the world into a clear canvas ready to be painted by a brand new story. Undertow; drought; tormentous tides and currents that led to everywhere he could ever imagine.

To her.

And, heavens, he had drowned in those crystalline waters a long time ago.

His most accepted characterization of beauty, however, came solely after a few months the two of them had been together. Not in an epiphany, as he once expected, but in between the tender caresses he had now grown so blissfully accustomed to, combining itself with the other special little word that haunted his contemplations—it was welcomed, regardless. For it was more perfect that he could have ever imagined.

Her lips were like the finest of silk against his own, the warm embrace of two bodies intertwined amongst the sheets of a messy bed. There was something tragically pulchritudinous about it, something so wholesome about the way her arms wrapped around his neck and pressed their chests down together—hearts intertwined, beating in consonance. It was like waiting for years for a rare flower to blossom, only to find yourself overwhelmed with its beauty, taken aback by the nectarous, sacchariferous scent it brought along. It was like home. Like the story they shared. Like her.

She moved apart from the embrace of his kiss with a prolonged sigh, her eyes fluttering open as the afterglow of their afternoon crashed down upon her nude figure, “I swear, this must be the third time we say we’re gonna study, but we end getting carried away,” the girl mumbled, using the snow-colored sheets to cover her chest, as the boy moved closer to her, placing his hand on her waist with a mischievous smile that she quickly recognized, “and don’t even think about saying it, Jungkook. This is not anatomy studying.” she cut his sentence short.

He merely smirked at that, never saying that he would have claimed otherwise, “Well, I’m not complaining,” Jungkook told her, hearing as the sound of the moving bed sheets danced on the stillness of the air.

Behind his figure, the window of his dormitory bedroom presented the girl with the beauteous imagery of the afternoon skies, unrealistically achromatic when compared to the conflagrant leaves of cantaloupe trees, burning like amber, dancing like autumn. The horizon casted an anemic silvery hue over his caramel-painted skin, appearing like a thin white line that contoured the lineaments of his shoulders; that melted in between the strands of his black hair. Many months had passed since the two shared that kiss in that abandoned gymnasium, but his gaze still held the same adoration, the same immaculate love.

“What’s with that face?” She questioned as she moved around, her chest facing his own. There was some sort of odd glorification shimmering inside his attentive eyes, precious metals that lured her into the treasures his soul held inside. Something has switched: they both understood, but could not pinpoint what it was.

Jungkook took the chance to pull her body closer, causing for their arrhythmic heartbeats to overlap one another as their skins collapsed together. As his inquiry reverberated on the thin air that existed in the middle of their lips, she felt as if the weight it carried caused for the gravity in her chest to increase, heart swallowing in infatuation, “What did I do to deserve someone as amazing as you?” he questioned.

She rolled her eyes, taking one of her hands to remove the disheveled strands of hair from her forehead—something she always did once she was trying to mask a reaction, in that case, the appearance of a roseate blush upon her cheeks. Even so messy after everything that had unfolded, her strands irradiated around her head, falling over the pillows like a silky cascade, “Piled up karma from your childhood, most likely.” groaned the girl in a sarcastic manner, hoping he would take her playfulness as a signal not to enter those emotional subjects.

Regardless, Jungkook was never quite able to catch signals from her part. That never truly changed.

“Stop it, I’m being serious,” mumbled the boy, allowing himself to smile just enough so comfort would return to shine within her chest. His nose scrunched up as another euphonic laugh ruptured the equanimity of his cherise lips, eyes shining in interminable amorousness, “I can't believe I have someone like you in my life. I'm being honest when I say that I could hear you talk all day about the invention of musical notes by some random Italian monk or whatever the hell you just discovered, and I'd never get tired of it. That's quite something, especially coming from me.”

Laughing feeling at his odd confession, the girl could only feel feel herself growing lighter again, “You’re being so cheesy, please.” she claimed, almost timidly.

Jungkook pouted at her words, leaning his body closer so his lips hovered over her own—light enough to touch her skin like diaphanous feathers, but not enough to gift her with any sort of pressure, “I don’t care, I’m being honest,” he counterclaimed, allowing for his eyes to flutter shut under the embrace of her presence. Both of them begun to value unpremeditated, filterless honesty more than ever after their unique night at the gymnasium. “just staying by your side… it’s enough to make my day so much better. You’re my everything, you know that.”

She did. It was something Jungkook told her often—not necessarily by spoken words, but by actions, the sudden surprise of welcomed affections and minor details that made their entire day count. It was within his every touch, within every glance that stood glued to her figure for a bit longer than necessary. Heavens, how deeply did she know that, “What about finding value within yourself?” Questioned the his best friend, taking one of her hands to the cataracts of his onyx hair.

Jungkook’s eyes opened at the delicate contact, the line of his lips curling up as if he had been waiting for that question to find its way back to him, “That doesn’t mean someone else can’t make you just as happy,” the boy promptly responded, each and every syllable feeling as if it was the part of an ethereal, gorgeous melody of affection. He looked into her eyes like he was able to envision the entire universe in them, and, in some way, he was. “it doesn’t make you vulnerable to allow someone else to love you, to be kind to you. Most of the time, we are not kind to ourselves, anyways.”

“Here comes the philosophy student,” the girl teased, but took his words to heart. It was true, after all: to love was not what culminated in torment. The element which did was what was done with a such sentiment; at times murdered by the hands of humans who did not know how to grow it, asphyxiated by hearts too feeble to find courage, “thank you, though. You know I feel just the same way.” she made sure to speak further.

And, yes, he truly did know.

Jungkook would not give up the roses that grew in his chest, regardless of the pain that they brought along. Just because the world was a never ending incendium, he would never allow for its blazing flames to consume the hope he held inside; to tear away from him one of the last comforts he still held to so tightly. Heavens, but how could he? How could the boy relinquish the warmth of her presence, how could he overlook the manner even the most gelid and merciless of winters melted under her scalding and welcoming aura?

Only the courageous showed their vulnerability with so much eagerness: they opened their arms and vociferated at the top of their lungs to bring on the pain of humanity—tear me apart, my love, they would bravade, tear me to ashes and throw me out of your life, burn my wings and break my soul apart: I can take it all, for I know the path was worth it. Kiss me like there is no tomorrow, ruin me like there was no yesterday. Show me that we were alive, that we meant something. That we are. Were. Will be.

Show me who you are, and I will be brave enough to show you who I am.

Then and there, she was graceless. She was courageous; vulnerable. She was everything he had imagined and a bit more. She was his. He was hers.

Perfect, gentle, palpitating—oh, God, how the roses effloresced! How their scarlatine hue dripped in between their lips, how their characteristic smell embraced them with the gentle aroma of the welcoming spring. How graceful their delicate petals felt, how perfectly articulated their touch caressed their skin with so much adoration. The roses burgenated; wilthered. Though, they never burned. No, never did.

Jungkook swore he could capture that moment forever, that the words that left his mouth would reverberate for all the years to come, guiding him throughout his times of doubt, “That’s the most fantastic part of it all, isn’t it?” her best friend questioned, hints of a smile daring to blossom in his roseate lips. They had such a sweet, delicate delineation, so perfectly sculpted to feel the graceful details of his features, “I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where...” the boy continued, pausing for a second as if to check her reaction.

And there it was: the brief confusion that transfigured into understanding, then the skepticism of his sudden reference, “Is that Pablo Neruda?” asked the history student, finding herself dwelling in the fuzzy sentiments that took over her chest.

With the euphony of her laugh, Jungkook was sure he would tear his very spirit to shreds if that was what it took him to listen to it again; would fight for the rest of this days for that gorgeous smile to remain locked into her features, “The one and only, love,” the boy responded before leaning in.

The reverberation of his heart against her chest increased as his lips met hers once anew, staying there for a moment far too quick for her to fully drown in the nectar they carried. Jungkook placed his forehead against hers, noses touching, and continued the poem as his mouths still brushed against one another line fine strokes of oil on canvas—each word meeting her flesh with awe-inspiring artistry, “I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you...”

The love that irradiated in her chest motioned her to move her head upwards, trapping his enamored words in between a kiss before the poem could reach its ending. Her fingertips, ever so patiently, traced the insubstantial path in between his shoulder blades to the back of his neck, then to the base of his hair, at last intertwining in his silky strands of ebony-painted hair. Jungkook half-smiled and half-sighed against her mouth, his own arms moving from her waist to wrap around her figure. It was so safe, so welcoming. It felt truly like home.

Breaking the kiss with a timid smirk, she closed her eyes. Again and again, she smiled by his side, filling her being with a sentiment she could not yet pinpoint—it did not matter, a label was not necessary, “I swear to god, you’re so cheesy sometimes.” she whined.

With slow, tender movements, the boy’s feather-like fingers caressed the softness of her skin with endless adoration, allowing for him to drown in the profound waters of her eyes as his subsequent words escaped the captive of his swollen, red-bitten lips, “Hm, maybe I am. But you love it.” Jungkook claimed.

She breathed out, taken aback by the hidden veracity of those simple words, “I really, really do.” the girl confessed, unable to hold back the smile that effloresced amongst her features. There was nothing she ever loved more than her best friend, especially during moments like those.

Reason relinquished amidst the diaphanous rhythm of their intertwined hearts, Jungkook kissed her once anew—he kissed her as if the universe was falling down to pieces, as if the shining stars could not reach the sparking incandescence that danced in between their nude bodies. His lips caressed hers as the roaring waters of the seven seas crashed down past her skin, hitting her legs in a silent, tender wish for the two to move closer. Nature was present within their every loving touch, as perfect as ever.

His hands moved towards hers, fingers filling the space between her own. Palm against palm, hearts beating in euphoric arrhythmia; Jungkook felt as if they were as profound and illimitable as the oceans of their naive adoration, lips trembling and caressing one another like the gentle wings of a butterfly beating against the vernal wind. Feeling her mouth dancing—oscillating, trembling—ever so tenderly against his culminated in a bottomless belief of security germinating within his veins. Just then, his arms held tighter to her figure, pulling her even closer.

An ethereal suspire escaped her as he did so. No matter how breaths she took, the girl still felt as if it was impossible to breathe under his embrace; the absolute infatuation the two shared finally exploding around them like polychromatic, soundless fireworks. It was poetic, thoughtless; impossible to be characterized or elucidated by a mere sequence of adjectives—it was Jungkook, and, for her, that was all you truly needed. A friend, a lover. Him.

Drinking the honey of her presence was equiparable to the grace of a dream, he realized. It was completely unreal the way her lips felt against the kiss prolonged itself with patience; absolutely fantasious the form she embraced him with the spell of her mouth. Beautiful, staggering, inspirational. It was the sempiternity of nocturnal endeavours; the tormenting flames of hell and ecstasy of paradise melting at the tip of their tongues. It was a long story that was far, far from reaching its terminal chapters.

Jungkook thought that beauty could be discovered within the simple, common fragments of life. It was breathing in the aspects of daily tasks most would consider mundane, the unnoticeable particulars and technicalities of the universe’s perfection; from the kindest of winds to the colder of dewdrops, the contours of snow-like clouds and the iridescent starlight that casted its glow over the obsidian blanket of dawn. It was the classical proportions of imperishable, timeless artworks, the mathematical precision of the golden ratio; the coordinated symphony of collapsing waves against the shore.

At last, beauty and love coexisted in the natural manner the two closed their eyes and dove into one another, finding synchrony in the oscillating breathing of their overwhelmed lungs. The flowers were there, blossoming like their bodies held spring in their veins, but their thorns were no longer hurtful.

On and on, their days passed beautifully.

[jennacha]

here’s a big rant about The Child Thief

ok i have a big confession to make

I’m kind of obsessed with the book The Child Thief.

It’s not a particularly good book. In fact, I would go as far to say it’s poor. The writing has the cadence of 15-year-old-going-through-their-novelist-phase. I guess I could say it reads like fan fiction. The plot is very messy. The characters are badly written. It feels like a book that wasn’t edited. The word “magic” is used a lot, and it’s embarrassing. There’s a part where a character slams their fist on the ground and yells “WHY?!” and it’s embarrassing. The dialogue feels like it came out of a 1990s teen adventure fantasy movie trying to imitate the success of a Corey Feldman/Haim movie. Several times throughout the book the thought, “Why did the author do this?” popped in my head. However, the author is a fantasy illustrator, so the descriptive writing is a plus. He knows how to illustrate the landscape with words as well as he would in painting. The book is not a special unit dumpster fire piece of shit insult to literature; in fact, as far as I know a lot of people like it and it has gotten a decent amount of praise. It’s just not very good, in terms of the surface level writing. But I can easily see a lot of people enjoying it for basic entertainment value.

So that would be my YA-focus blog summary review of the book.

My public outcry summary review of the book is this:

I’m obsessed with the book because it’s so fucking weird.

It’s so fucking weird in that it’s a perfect shitstorm of the author not knowing what he’s doing, and thinking he’s knowing what he’s doing. Like a perfect bad B-movie that exhibits textbook schlock where the director is incompetent and clueless but lacks any self-awareness, in terms of style, layout, and production.

But also, the author thinks what he’s doing is…cool.

The book is about evil Peter Pan.

I could end this whole thing right there. But I must release these hounds. I’ve been needing to let all this out.

My wretched insanity craves affirmation.

This book should be a carbon copy of every other average to below average dark fantasy novel that you see on the bookstore shelves and never heard of and wonder what the author is doing now with all their not-fame. This book should be one that could’ve been written by anybody and it wouldn’t have made a difference. This book should be one of sixty million examples of nothing special. In a way, it is definitely 100% yes definitely yes all those things. The universe decided that I would be the bearer of the burden of having much stronger feelings about it then necessary. I probably feel more strongly about it than the author ever did. It is in my life now.

The biggest thing about this book being so fucking weird is the mind boggling tonal inconsistency. There are a number of shifts in universe-encompassing moods, which go from “Christopher-Nolan-but-also-kind-of-Stephanie-Meyer-dark-gloomy-the-world-is-unhappy-and-I-like-it-that-way”, to “David-Fincher-the-world-is-ACTUALLY-awful”, to “Oh-right-this-is-a-Peter-Pan-story-whimsical-fun-Goonies-meets-Disney-Channel-original”, to “A-worse-version-of-The-Hobbit-movies-with-some-redeeming-qualities”, to “Quentin-Tarantino-literally-wrote-this.” This isn’t hyperbole. The writing language can be REALLY EMBARRASSING and straight out of a Disney movie. That tone of a fun romp for the whole family is cradled by an abundance of swearing, unsettling fantasy-horror, and extreme, shocking violence.

You know when you’re watching Beetlejuice, and you’re like “Okay this movie is for children” and then out of nowhere Michael Keaton goes “NICE FUCKIN’ MODEL” and grabs his dick.

In The Child Thief, THAT washes over you every time you finish reading a sentence. Only, it’s as if you’re watching Hook, and at one point Robin Williams slices a person’s face off, and the camera stays on the faceless person for a minute and Steven Spielberg walks into frame and points to the gurgling faceless head and describes to you how you can still see the holes where the mouth, nose, and eyes were.

(Yes that actually happens in the book.)

Or if you’re watching Neverending Story and at one point you get expository dialogue explaining how Atreyu was pimped as a boy and had to live on the streets because his mother was, uh, a drug addict or something?. 

(That also happens.)

Or if you’re watching Indian in the Cupboard and the film opens with a little girl about to get raped by her dad.

(I’m serious.)

Or if you’re watching Hocus Pocus and Bette Midler is a vampire and she preys on a 6-year-old kid and neither of them have shirts on.

(I swear to god.)

Or if you’re reading a modern re-imagining of Peter Pan and the story involves blatant themes of gore in acute descriptive detail, mass murder, torture, and scenes with naked women and perverted fantasy-creature-men.

(Oh, wait.)

You’re probably thinking, “All those themes are found pretty much everywhere in every medium, especially the naked women and perverts. Big whoop.” I’ll add, then, all those themes, involving children.

Now you’re thinking, “Jenna don’t you love that movie Drag Me To Hell which involves a child being murdered within the first 2.5 minutes?”

Just hear me out and yes.

The Child Thief is entertaining in how CAPTIVATING the strangeness is. The tonal mishmash of kid-friendly meets rated-R is something I actually like, when it's a hit. I like things that have a quality of whimsy amidst dark themes. Movies such as Temple of Doom, Gremlins, Return to Oz, Darkman have this quality…basically almost every movie from the 1980s during the period when audiences had grown up with movies after censorship was abolished and half the world said “think of the children” and the other half said “no.” There are tons and tons of other examples in every medium of how general tonal contrast makes for unique and effective works of art. My point is, this specific type of tonal contrast also can be done well.

But those movies don’t open with attempted child rape, and they don’t end with children literally being mowed down in a grisly battle scene (I’m serious). I’m making a lot of comparisons to movies because the book almost feels like a movie, in that the author isn’t a novelist, he’s a visual story-maker who wrote a book because he knew that no movie studio would pick this shit up. Maybe the films I listed didn’t intend for tonal contrast to be a calculated driving element for their stories, but the subtlety of tones in those movies allows for one encompassing, harmonious tonal blanket to wrap them in. There is no subtlety in The Child Thief.

The tonal confusion of The Child Thief is, I almost wanna say coincidental. I think the author just didn’t know how to write well, but he’s a very dark visual guy and had all these dark visuals in his head ready to be unleashed. All the horrible violence and awful themes are fine in and of itself, but they aren’t earned if the attitude of “I’m gunna turn the children’s book foundation on its head” isn’t committed to, and “I’m gunna subvert everything you know and love about Peter Pan” isn’t calculatedly plotted out. The author has a bad sense of humor, a poor understanding of what is required of an epic storyline, and treats violence, horror and revenge less like a literary device and more like a fetishization of coolness in a vulgar display of power as a writer.

The misguidedness goes as far as the character writing. None of the characters’ motivations make sense. The author couldn’t keep track of either committing to one motivation or the other, a lot of the times for the sake of the plot. Especially with the Peter Pan character. He’s basically literally the anti-christ (this is 100% canon, if the author says it isn’t then he’s a liar and an idiot) and written like a “troubled villain” but then gets these VERY polarized directions of unrelenting psychopathic Cause It’s Die Motherfucka Die Motherfucka Still, Fool villainy and ham-fisted humanism and victimhood. It’s a case of like, the author meant for him to be the charming bad guy who tricks the audience into being on his side because that’s what Peter does to the characters in the book. But the author found him too cool and wanted to be his friend, but in order to justify being friends with a character who wants to murder everybody, he inappropriately gives him remorse and forces the reader to feel bad for him.

And like all the kids in the book are supposed to super love Peter Pan but the version of Neverland is like this horrific, NIGHTMARE HELL of a place and the kids are basically being used to fight in a war, and all the kids are totally okay with it, because their lives in the real world were really awful and the whole thing is that Peter “saves” them and they’ll do anything for him. And it’s like, okay???????????????????? But wouldn’t it be cooler if the kids were like okay this guy is a fucking psycho and Neverland is a horrific, nightmare hell and I’m learning a lot about myself right now having once trusted him???? And then in their retaliation Peter would show his true colors and enforce aggression onto them in serving as his personal enslaved militia? And it becomes like this inner circle of conflict? And since Peter is the only person who can bring them back to the real world, they play ball but hope to steer their own agenda out of the situation? OH, right, that DOES happen, but with ONE of the characters. ONE. Conveniently, the main character. And god knows there can’t be more than one smart human being at a time.

But if you want to SUBVERT the BELOVED CHILDREN’S STORY FORMAT wouldn’t it be fun to do PETER PAN VS. THE LOST BOYS? Instead of MY CHEMICAL ROMANCE PETER PAN AND THE HOT TOPIC LOST BOYS VS. THE ONLY SEMI-SMART MAIN CHARACTER? Like wouldn’t it be GREAT if the characters WEREN'T DUMB? And the author put in some CONSTRUCTIVE, CHALLENGING CREATIVE EFFORT and treated the interactions like a CHESS GAME instead of a CONTRIVED MISUNDERSTANDING BETWEEN JOEY, ROSS, CHANDLER, RACHEL, MONICA AND THE OTHER ONE? Wouldn’t it be GREAT if ALL THE CHARACTERS TURNED AGAINST PETER but then Peter SLOWLY CHARMED SOME OR ALL OF THEM BACK IN, to make him MORE like an UNEARTHLY MONSTER? Like the lost boys became SELF-AWARE LITERAL VICTIMS OF THE ORIGINAL TALE FORMAT, where Peter Pain is this IMPOSSIBLY CHARMING CHARACTER THAT IS BELOVED BY THE LAWS OF THE UNIVERSE? ALSO, the MAIN CHARACTER is supposed to be the MODEL OF REASON FOR THE READER TO RELATE TO, but the main character still gets CHARMED BY PETER PAN, WHILE WE KNOW AS RATIONAL ADULTS WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING TO HAPPEN? LIKE THAT’S SUPPOSED TO BE HOW READING BOOKS IS? When we KNOW WHAT’S GUNNA HAPPEN? BUT THE AUTHOR WANTS TO BE PETER’S FRIEND SO HE DOES IT ANYWAY? AND LIKE SEVERAL OTHER CHARACTERS THAT THE MAIN CHARACTER IS FRIENDS WITH ARE ALSO SUPPOSED TO BE FIGURES OF REASON BUT THEY’RE ALSO 100% PARTISAN IN SIDING WITH PETER? SO IT’S LIKE HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO LIKE ALL YOU DUMB, DUMB KIDS?

LIKE OKAY, SO HOW IT GOES IS THAT PETER CAN LIKE WALK ACROSS THE DIMENSION BETWEEN NEVERLAND AND THE REAL WORLD AND THAT'S HOW HE GETS THE KIDS? SO AT ONE POINT IN NEVERLAND THEY ALL HAVE TO SCAVENGE FOR FOOD BECAUSE THE VEGETATION IN NEVERLAND IS DYING, AND THEY MENTION HOW PETER USED TO BRING THEM FOOD FROM THE REAL WORLD? AND IT'S LIKE, HOW ABOUT YOU JUST KEEP DOING THAT? OR LIKE, WHY DON'T ANY OF YOU WANT TO JUST LEAVE? YEAH THE REAL WORLD SUCKS, BUT IS IT WORTH STARVING TO DEATH JUST SO YOU CAN STICK IT TO THE MAN? LIKE ARE THERE PEDIATRICIANS IN NEVERLAND? ARE THERE AT-RISK YOUTH SHELTERS? FOSTER CARE? NEVERLAND SOUP KITCHENS? NEVERLAND SOCIAL WORKERS? NEVERLAND CHILD PROTECTIVE SERVICES? NEVERLAND POLICE? NO? JUST MONSTERS THAT PAINFULLY KILL YOU, ZOMBIE PIRATES, NO FOOD, AND LITERALLY THE ANTI-CHRIST?

AND THEN THERE’S RIDICULOUS SHIT LIKE, AT ONE POINT ALL THESE MAGICAL FANTASY CHARACTERS HIJACK A NEW YORK CITY FERRY TO GET TO THE HARBOR AND IT’S LIKE, THIS IS SO RIDICULOUS IT SHOULD BE AWESOME, BUT IT ISN’T AWESOME BUT IT SHOULD BE SO WHY ISN’T IT?

AND LIKE ONE OF THE CHARACTERS IS A FAT USELESS KID NAMED DANNY AND THERE IS NO REASON FOR HIM TO BE IN THE BOOK BESIDES TO BE THE TOKEN FAT USELESS KID NAMED DANNY?

BUT DANNY IS LIKE ALSO THE ONLY OTHER SMART CHARACTER IN THE BOOK BECAUSE HE’S LIKE WHY DID I SAY YES TO THIS WHY ARE WE STILL FOLLOWING THIS GUY WHY DON’T WE JUST LEAVE AND IT’S LIKE YEAH PUT DANNY IN CHARGE BUT NOBODY LISTENS TO HIM AND HE’S JUST COMPLETELY UTTERLY USELESS?

AND THEN CAPTAIN HOOK ADOPTS DANNY AND IT’S LIKE OH MY GOD THE AUTHOR FORGOT HE NEEDED TO GIVE DANNY SOMETHING TO DO?

AND LIKE I DON’T EVEN REMEMBER THE MAIN CHARACTER’S NAME?

AND THEN AT THE END OF THE BOOK, SO, THERE’S THIS BIG HUGE BATTLE SCENE WHERE CHILDREN DIE LEFT AND RIGHT, LIKE THE “ANTAGONIST” (NOT PETER) HAS A HUGE SWORD AND IS SWINGING AT THE KIDS LIKE HE’S HARVESTING WHEAT, OH AND YEAH, BY THE WAY, AGAIN, THE REAL WORLD IS LOCATED IN NEW YORK CITY AND THE BATTLE HAPPENS ON LIKE THE FRONT LAWN OF A LIBRARY OR SOMETHING. LIKE THE STORY KIND OF TOTALLY GOES OFF THE RAILS INTO FANTASTIC SCHLOCK. AND AT ONE POINT THE BATTLE IS ABRUPTLY INTERRUPTED BY NYC POLICE AND IT’S LIKE ARE YOU SHITTING MY NUTS THE NYC COPS ARE INVOLVED IN THIS FANTASY BATTLE THIS IS AMAZING, BUT THEN THAT DOESN’T HAPPEN AND IT GOES NOWHERE. AND ALL THE MAIN CHARACTERS ARE DYING, AND NONE OF THEM HAD ARCS, LIKE NONE OF THEM REALIZED WHAT THEY GOT THEMSELVES INTO OR WHAT PETER REALLY WAS, AND AT THE ACT 3 POST-LOW POINT THE MAIN CHARACTER DIDN’T GO OFF TO DO HIS OWN THING AND TRY TO SAVE THE DAY, HE JUST GOES WITH PETER TO DO WHATEVER HE WANTS, AND THEN HIS ARC IS BASICALLY NOTHING AND THEN HE DIES. AND *PETER* WINS. AND AGAIN HE’S LITERALLY THE ANTI CHRIST SO THE BOOK ENDS WITH HIM BRIDGING THE REAL WORLD WITH NEVERLAND, AND BASICALLY BEING THE BRINGER OF HELL UNTO THE EARTH. AND UP UNTIL THEN THE BOOK HAD ABOUT 68 INSTANCES OF THE READER SWITCHING BETWEEN FEELING BAD FOR PETER AND THEN ACCEPTING THAT HE IS HITLER NURSE RATCHED MAO STALIN. SO WHEN ALL THE KIDS DIE, HE HAS A SCENE OF FEELING REALLY BAD AND THE READER IS SUPPOSED TO BE ALL LIKE AW HE REALLY DOES CARE! AND THEN NEVERLAND GETS BRIDGED INTO NEW YORK CITY, AND HE’S LIKE HA HA HA HA I DID IT I WON. BUT IT’S WRITTEN IN SUCH A WAY THAT LIKE, THE AUDIENCE IS SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE, WHEEEEEE! LIKE THIS THING THAT HAPPENED IS THE DOOM OF MANKIND, AND THE TONE SHOULD REALLY BE “OH GOD NO.” BUT THE AUTHOR WAS HAPPY THAT PETER WON IN THE END BECAUSE HE WANTS TO BE HIS FRIEND, EVEN THOUGH LIKE FIFTEEN PAGES AGO PETER CAUSED THE DEATH OF AN ARMY OF CHILDREN (AFTER ANOTHER 600 PAGES OF ALL KINDS OF OTHER AWFUL SHIT). SO NOT ONLY ARE WE SUPPOSED TO FEEL SAD THAT PETER FEELS SAD, BUT THEN WE’RE SUPPOSED TO FEEL HAPPY THAT PETER FEELS HAPPY. HOW ABOUT GO FUCK YOURSELF? HOW ABOUT IF YOU’RE GOING TO MAKE PETER A CHALLENGING UNRELIABLE ANTI-HERO, DON’T MAKE HIS DARK QUALITIES SO INCONTESTABLY EVIL, OR, EITHER CHOOSE TO MAKE PETER HATED BY THE AUDIENCE, OR MAKE THE AUDIENCE FEEL FOOLISH FOR BEING CHARMED BY PETER AND PARTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THE BAD SHIT THAT HAPPENED AND GO FUCK YOURSELF?

...

I’ll give a different example of both tonal incongruence and bad character writing.

So, the opening scene of the book that involves attempted child rape, so. What happens is that Peter saves the little girl in time by killing the dad, and gains her trust to go to Neverland. The way the story regards the introduction to Peter is that of wonder and curiosity through the little girl’s eyes, as if it was derived from the original children’s tale. So the opener is meant to establish: a gritty “realness” to the book (which is never earned but i digress), and Peter as a mysterious magical hero. Then, the story carries on into describing Peter’s motivation in saving (the book uses “stealing”) children, which vaguely mentions his villainous indulgence (he’s saving children to recruit them in an army in Neverland to fight captain hook because his mommy is the president of neverland and there’s almost-Oedipal themes going on). Fine. However, the cadence of Peter actually being villainous is very very…undermined. Like the actual voice of the NARRATION is misinformed. Like the narration sounds more like Peter’s inner monologue speaking in the third person. Like the third person is in on it. Like the author is painting Peter as this wicked wrongdoer as if it’s a cool thing and he wants to be his friend (Oh wait).

This is how the voice of the opener is handled: Child rape —> Peter prevents child rape and saves child —> Peter is a good guy for doing this —> Peter is still a good guy for doing this but he did it maybe not for the right reasons. As it turns out, Peter is unquestionably the bad guy. Peter was the bad guy from the start, Peter was the bad guy while he was saving the little girl.

The rest of the book is handled like this: Peter is cool and badass  —> Peter is mischievous but still the person we want to follow —> Peter is a psycho...but still cool —> Oh shit Peter has a super awful past and his psycho-ness is the result of being a victim so I forgive him —> Wow Peter’s both a psycho and an asshole—> Okay I dunno about Peter —> The author keeps having Peter save people from being raped as if he’s not an asshole but he’s still a psycho and an asshole so I still don’t know —> The plot has a a lot of stuff so I guess I’m still with Peter —> Okay Peter won but everyone is dead because of him and he’s still an asshole so I still don’t know.

Peter tricks victims of rape, abuse, slavery, etc. into thinking they’re being saved when in fact he objectifies them for his personal needs. Remember how I said this book’s insane tonal confusion isn’t subtle? Well, from the book’s perspective, putting a finger on Peter’s good side and bad side...is subtle. Problematically subtle. Which, on a literary standpoint, sounds like a good thing, but...

This is the part when I say the thing you ACTUALLY SHOULDN’T BE SUBTLE ABOUT is PETER. You CAN be subtle about his tragic backstory. Be subtle about sprinkling his good qualities over his CAKE TOWER of BADNESS. Give him some KICK. Have the flavors INTERACT. Make the audience be like “OOOH, is that cumin?? Interesting! HMMMM! INTERESTING! CUMIN! ON DORITOS! YEAh I am definitely eating Doritos, this is absolutely Doritos, but there’s some CUMIN in there! Okay, back to eating my DORITOS! OOOOH, IS THAT CAYENNE?????” But whatever you do, make it CLEAR what you are SERVING. You should not have a MIXED BAG, a MEDLEY, and try to sell it like not-a-medley. You should NOT make half your plate super spicy and half your plate super sweet and make the audience roll the dice on each bite they take. Peter Pan isn’t some complexass Faustian character study, it’s SUBVERSIVE HYPERVIOLENT DARK FANTASY PORN. IT’S DORITOS

This is how the voice of the opener should've been handled: Child rape —> Peter prevents child rape and saves child —> Peter is the bad guy.

This is how the voice of the rest of the book should've been handled: No matter what happens —> Peter is the bad guy.

I don’t have and never will have the literary criticism credentials to say anything with credible boldness, but I’m going to say this anyway: Using child rape to force the reader to feel a certain way about the tone of the world and the first heroic impression of a character is wrong. Forcing an act of heroism (especially for you to then later say “Just kidding not the hero”) in that context is inappropriate and wrong. That’s like throwing 9/11 into the background of a love story to force the audience to feel extra emotional. 1) There are many, many, many, many ways you can establish “realness” in your opener with or without violence. I’m not saying there is a hierarchy of what kind of awful things involving children are okay to write about, but opening your story with attempted child rape is an unnecessary extreme if parts of your story reads like an episode of Saved By The Bell. Revenge alone isn’t cool. John Wick is cool because of the way revenge is handled. Writing about attempted child rape and then immediate revenge on the rapist is the Epipen-shot-to-the-brain method of forcibly getting your audience to go “I LIKE PETER!”, which isn’t at all earned and probably shouldn’t be in your story… 2) ESPECIALLY if you don’t simultaneously establish with slats nailed on a wall that Peter is the bad guy. The author basically deceived the audience into liking Peter in the worst way possible, ironically, which is what he had Peter do to the other characters. If you want to cleverly deceive the audience into liking Peter, do it through his dialogue, personality, the externalized product of the relationship between him and his environment. Be inventive about it. It’s a book. You got words. Use...words to your advantage. If you want to open your story with attempted child rape at the very least as a way to tell the audience this shit’s serious, don’t.

Just don’t. It’s fine.

The Child Thief can’t be pinned as So Bad It’s Good. It’s poor, but it’s not Tommy Wiseau-acclaim-bad. The only way I can describe it is So Disorderly It’s Weird. But it has potential for being SO Weird It’s Kind Of Genius. Which makes it So Almost SO Weird It’s Kind Of Genius It’s Frustrating.

The book’s biggest detriment is that it takes itself too seriously. The author’s motivating in writing the book (this is fact) was that he recognized that the beloved original tale of Peter Pan has a lot of dark elements, but continues to be celebrated as a children’s story. And he wanted to take that notion and run with it. What happened was that he selectively fell in love with elements of that concept, and instead of writing a story that was meant to pull the rug from under us, he ended up writing a run-of-the-mill edgy dark fantasy that he was obliged to pepper with Peter Pan references. Instead of pulling the entire rug beneath our feet and hauling us onto our asses, he took a small handful of rug here and there and just occasionally tugged at it roughly, so that we’d almost lose our balance and get annoyed and tell him to stop.

The book lacks its own conceptual self-awareness that it built for itself, and the result is two different bodies trying to be forcibly shoved into the same book-sized box, when it should’ve been a new gross, satirical, humorous, unique body entirely.

In that sense, I really think this book could’ve been truly unironically awesome. I love the idea of cartoonishly exaggerating the dark elements (especially the violence) of the original tale that have been culturally ignored, like a lot of (or most) (or all) old children’s tales. My ideal solution to this book would actually be making it even more ridiculous in every way, but strung together with self-awareness and intention, where the author could acknowledge that the absurdity is instrumental, not indulgent. There are many aspects of the book that I really like thematically, and none of them are fully (or at all) seen through to their potential. These ideas aren’t really intentionally presented in the book, but: I like the idea that Peter is a sadistic volatile killing machine because he’s cursed with being riiiiiight on the cusp of hitting puberty, and his body is trapped without that natural sexual/psychological release, turning him into an aggressive animal constantly teased by unfulfilled subconscious heat. I like the idea that the lost boys element would be subverted into an inevitable Lord of the Flies esque shitstorm. I like the idea that the danger and villainy are at first generalized in adults but eventually presented in the children. I like the idea that every single possible fucking thing in the world—both the real world (mostly nyc LoL!) and Neverland—are a threat and are actively trying to kill the children, and the children treat it like an adventure before the horror becomes real. I like the idea of illustrating the outcome of blindly following fun naive figures of leadership. There are even a number of character interaction scenes that I like format wise. Just minus the embarrassing dialogue. That stuff's easy to rewrite in your head as you read it. Also I would take out that part in the book that I described as Bette Midler not having a shirt on while preying on a 6 year old. That part was really fucking uncomfortable. Seriously wtf, Gerald Brom.

I must concede this notion: The writer didn’t set out to create a masterpiece. He wrote the book to have fun. He succeeded, and his readers expected the same thing and received the experience they wanted. Of all the things that could’ve landed in my hands and tickled me in a weird enough way to make me wish it was better, for some reason it had to be this.

I could keep going, but...eh, (sigh).

But lastly—again, the descriptive writing of the world is very lush, and at times effectively horrific. The reading experience is a constant stop and start call-and-response of really great potential, really clumsy writing, and really misunderstood tonal directions. All those things put this book directly on the edge of FRUSTRATING. Uniquely frustrating. It couldn’t have been salvaged by the hands of a more competent writer, because the product came to light specifically out of the author’s unintentional confusion, not his laziness. A lazy product with potential can be salvaged through additions and tweaks, but The Child Thief cannot because the story was seen through the way it existed in the author’s head and heart. It is exactly what it...is. It can’t be imitated, or inspired by, or re-re-imagined. This weirdass fucking book is just sitting on this planet, being read by people, and shit. 

…..Anyway. This was all just meant to be the caption for my fan art. http://jennacha.tumblr.com/post/172559227502/i-made-fan-art-of-a-book-i-both-love-and-hate-lol

[cadpadawan]

31-Day Music Challenge

The social media is now flooded with all kinds of funny challenges, as people are stuck at home with nothing much to do. I guess online gaming, or getting shitfaced, becomes increasingly boring, when all kinds of tiresome responsibilites, like work, do not present any restrictions and limitations anymore. In a way, Facebook has started to resonate the air of those naive first few years, when your newsfeed was basically just one continuous stream of challenge that and challenge this.

Well, why the hell not?

What else is there to do, in order to pass the time with your mental health intact?

So, here I am...just another bored individual to join this endless crusade to make life worth living again, to make my personal life great again. Thus, I jumped on the wagon, and took on this fancy 31-day music challenge, that has been circulating in Facebook (for years, I think).

Although, I didn't find it challenging enough to just type the daily keyword in the Spotify search box and post the result in my Facebook wall. Because: more is more.

(Go ask Yngwie Malmsteen, if you don't believe me...)

The challenge for day #1 was to pick a song with a colour in the title.

I could immediately come up with a bunch of songs, only to realize that the vast majority of the song titles were themed around two basic colours: black and blue. I guess songwriters are a lazy bunch, when it comes to colours. It's pretty obvious, why lyricist everywhere find these two colours exceptionally appealing and resort to the abundant use of them, neglecting all the wonderful possibilites posed by the other colours of the spectrum. Of course black and blue, in terms of emotion and imagination, are much stronger than, say, yellow and orange. So, instead of just settling with the first few titles that came to mind, I wondered if I could come up with one song for each colour I can think of. I mean: a song that bears some personal meaning to me. In practice, this challenge basically meant that I would have to think hard while rummaging through the main three Spotify playlists that I have compiled with something like +16k or +17k songtitles, with the addition of my personal collection of some +2600 cd's – at least the rarities section for songs that are not available in Spotify.

Let's see if I have the stamina to go through my cd-racks, though. I had the forethought to organize my cd's in alphabetical order, by the name of the artist, years ago. For some weird reason, my beloved spouse has not yet agreed to the idea of re-furnishing our apartment with the central theme being those precious compact discs. That's why the cd-racks are placed in somewhat random and impractical fashion: most of them are located in the living room, with a few sections located in our bedroom. I guess, it's a good thing I had disposed of my vintage Rhodes-electric piano by the time when we started dating 20 years ago. I'm pretty sure she would have opposed strongly to the idea of having the instrument as a kitchen table, with the giant lid down. My Rhodes-piano was the so-called suitcase model, with a keyboard of 73 keys. When I moved out from my parents' house in the mid-90's, I decorated my one-room-apartment in the ethos of Japanese minimalism, due to the fact that I spent most of my income on records and alcohol. That Rhodes-piano served as a kitchen table, when I wasn't actually playing with it. Because: why the hell not?

Ok, then. The first colour...it shall be black.

Oh, boy! What a multitude of choices it presents! Should I pick an iconic 90's grunge anthem, like Soundgarden's Black Hole Sun? After all, I saw the band on stage in Helsinki cirka 1995. (I say ”cirka” because I'm not 100% sure about the year, and I'm too lazy to look it up in Google) The fond memories of those grungey early years in the 90's instantly remind me of a couple of equally important bands: Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains. Although, I've never seen either of them live. Pearl Jam had a song titled Black on their breakthrough debut album Ten. Alice in Chains had a killer track titled Black Gives Way to Blue. That epochal Pearl Jam album played non-stop in my car stereos at the time of its' release. I had it copied on a C-cassette. Remember that vintage format, anyone? (Yes, I'm THAT old...) With this particular AIC song I fell in love much later, as it was the title track on the band's comeback album, released in 2009 with the new singer William DuWall. First, I kinda hesitated to give this new AIC line-up any chances, but it turned out to be pretty damn good. Obviously, nothing can top the impact, that the Laney Staley-fronted AIC made with their Dirt-album in 1992. At the time of its' release, that album was a full-blown mindfuck! In retrospect, the year 1992 seems to have been pretty kick-ass, in terms of album releases:

Alice in Chains: Dirt

Rage Against The Machine: Rage Against The Machine

R.E.M.: Automatic for the People

Pantera: Vulgar Display of Power

Tori Amos: Little Earthquakes

Faith No More: Angel Dust

Dream Theater: Images and Words

Aphex Twin: Selected Ambient Works 85-92

Prince & The New Power Generation: (Love Symbol Album)

Stereo MC's: Connected

Tom Waits: Bone Machine

Sade: Love Deluxe

The Prodigy: Experience

Megadeth: Countdown to Extinction

Eric B. & Rakim: Don't Sweat the Technique

The Orb: U.F.Orb

k.d.Lang: Ingenue

Suzanne Vega: 99.9 Fº

Stone Temple Pilots: Core

Curve: Doppelganger

Nick Cave: Henry's Dream

Neneh Cherry: Homebrew

Maybe I should choose something less obvious? At least, it would make this challenge less arduous for me, because it's evident that making a choice between two particularly dear songs from the past is nothing short of impossible. When in doubt, go for the dark horse! So, here goes: my choice for the song with the colour black in the title is:

Bonobo: Black Sands

Being something of a jazz aficionado, despite not really possessing any of the musical prowess to actually play jazz myself, it was love at first soundbite, when I chanced to hear the title track from Bonobo's 2010 album Black Sands on Bassoradio's morning special back in the day. Bonobo is the musical alias of British DJ-producer-musician Simon Green. His career spawns from the 90's trip hop aesthetics, with heavy influences of jazz and world music. Spicing up electronic beats with raw jazz samples, or even live musicians, was the thing to do, somewhere along the mid-90's. I guess it all started with a few insightful hip-hop artists layering their ghetto stompers with the occassional hardbop jazz sample back in the late 80's. For a short period, acid jazz was the coolest shit ever in the early 90's. In a somewhat natural chain of events, jazz eventually made its way to the brand new genres that evolved around the middle of the decade, trip hop and jungle, too.

That's how I got sucked into the all-consuming whirlpool of this abominable voodoo music – jazz. It's a wonder no-one has come up with a gateway theory yet, regarding the highly addictive nature of jazz music. It usually starts with small doses: an occassional jazz sample is slipped in the hip-hop track, or the breakdown section of a rock song is ornamented with a brief, improvised saxophone lead. Then you find yourself craving for more, and start delving into the depths of acid jazz, nu jazz, or whatever new genre that has incorporated jazz as an inherent element in its' aesthetic toolkit. After this honeymoon period, that might spawn over years and years, you eventually catch yourself red-handed, holding a genuine jazz album in your hands at the local record store, probably the usual entry-level drug-of-choice jazz classic: Kind of Blue by Miles Davis. It has been awarded the title of the greatest jazz album of all time – and for a reason, too. Multiple times. Then you're hooked. Next thing you know, you'll be blasting John Coltrane at a family reunion, with your beloved relatives giving you the dead-eyed stare, doubting the state of your mental well-being. Long story short: you simply cannot go wrong with a mellow waltz rhythm that's punctuated with the organic groove of a flesh-and-blood jazz drummer, and topped with hauntingly beautiful brass harmony.

Next up: the colour blue...

Again, I could go for something utterly obvious, like the song titled Blue by A Perfect Circle. Those lucky few, who know me in person, should be well aware of the fact, that I'm quite a diehard fanboy of the band. I was lucky enough to see the band's live performance a few years back, when they paid Finland a visit. Nevertheless, I think I can come up with something more unexpected.

Just let me think for a sec...

Remember the band Europe? Of course you do! (Unless you were born yesterday, like some, eww, millennial!) I think it would've required some exceptional measures in the noble art of cutting contact with the external world to not have been exposed to the band's 1986 megahit Final Countdown, during the past 34 years. (Fuck! Do I feel old yet?!?) BUT...before you dismiss the band as yet another hair-metal has-been, check out this song:

Europe: Not Supposed To Sing The Blues

It's pretty damn hard to believe it's a song by the same band that's responsible for that Final Countdown atrocity. To be honest, that particular throwback 80's hard rock ear-worm wouldn't probably get under my skin in such a thoroughly repulsive fashion, had I not performed the song countless times myself. It was quite an essential part of the live repertoire of the party band, that I toured with cirka 2004-2008. The modus operandi of this covers-only band was to play the most annoying 80's megahits, with the lyrics translated in Finnish with a liberal amount of tongue-in-cheek references to gay erotica. (On a side note, the band was actually quite popular in certain small regions, despite this dubious approach and the substantially high level of bad taste incorporated in the lyrics and live performances. We even ended up playing in a genuine gay wedding once. The humour of the band was, after all, benevolent albeit a bit harsh, at least in the context of these politically correct times...)

The song Not Supposed to Sing the Blues was released in 2012. It's pretty evident, that during this 26-year-period, following the release of Final Countdown, Europe managed to grow some serious balls, hidden somewhere below my musical radar. The oriental sounding motif, played with some cool mellotron string patch in the refrain before the chorus, has a nice Led Zeppelin-esque feel to it. You can't really go wrong with a slowed-down hard rock blues that is sugar-coated with a grain of Kashmir-strings, now can you?

Next up: white...

What first comes to mind? Whiter Shade of Pale by Procol Harum, and Nights in White Satin by the Moody Blues, obviously. You see, I had both of these tracks in vinyl format, way back in the early 90's, when I was going through my ”moustache prog from the 70's”-phase. (Although, this particular Procol Harum song was actually released in 1968, and the Moody Blues song in 1967 – but, in order to be consistent and thorough, I had to dig deeper, to the roots of the prog...to the very dinosaur fossils)

I could throw in White Room by Cream, too. I used to listen to these particular tracks A LOT! In the age of vinyl, conducting a music marathon themed around, say, 60's and 70's ”moustache music”, was actually quite a laborous ritual. Every 25 minutes, or so, I had to flip the side of the record. Shuffling songs totally at random was simply a no-go-zone. Nowadays, it's so easy to compile a lengthy set of personal favorites in Spotify, WinAmp, iTunes, or whatever the fuck application you'd prefer, and just hit the randomize-button...fucking millennials, they have it SO easy. They have no idea of the struggle.

That's why we had those vintage C-cassettes: to copy that very special selection of songs, compiled with tender love and care, onto a format, that didn't require you to be on a constant lookout for when the album side was closing to an end. Besides, before the onslaught of cd-players, those vintage C-cassettes were the only way to impress people with either your refined taste in music, or with the lack of it, while you were occupied with the gentle art of pussy racing, driving around downtown in your awkwardly tuned-up mirthmobile, every goddamn Friday night.

I could pick White Wedding by Billy Idol, too...

It was one of those 80's hits that I used to play with the ”covers only”-party band.

Nah...

I think I will have to choose between Aisles of White by the Aussie soft-prog band the Butterfly Effect, and The Heart of a Cold White Land by the Finnish doomsters Swallow the Sun.

My beloved wife introduced me to Aussie prog, some 10 years ago. The gateway drug, I think, was Karnivool with their music video for All I Know. One day, when I was coming home from work, I caught my wife watching this particular video in YouTube. A little bit later, she unearthed a shitload of Aussie bands in Spotify. I guess she must've been hitting that ”similar artists”-link quite relentlessly. The Butterfly Effect was one of those magnificent bands she discovered. I remember hearing the song In A Memory for the first time. It struck a chord with me, in such a profound way, that I felt compelled to order the album Imago ASAP from some Australian music webstore. At the time, the back catalogue of the Butterfly Effect wasn't available in Finland. I don't know, if it's available even now, because the band is no longer active, I think. Aisles of White is the track #2 on that album, released in 2006. The band released one more kick-ass album in 2008, titled Final Conversation of Kings, and then I don't know what the hell happened.

Swallow the Sun is a bit doomish Finnish metal band, and I'm not really sure, when I actually found the band's music. I think I had their debut album The Morning Never Came (2003) in my cd-rack for years, but it wasn't until 2012, with the release of the magnificent Emerald Forest and the Blackbird album, that I truly fell in love with the band. It took me some five years to actually haul my ass to their gig for the first time. Every single time, when I found out that they were touring nearby, I was too busy with some utterly meaningless work-related bullshit to make it. Finally, in 2017 it happened. I had managed to get rid of my soul-sucking job, although due to a pretty hardcore reason (a brain tumour), so when I found out that Swallow the Sun was performing in Helsinki, in the legendary rock venue Tavastia, I definitely made sure that I was there – and fuck me sideways! It was indeed one of the best live performances that I have ever experienced, hands down!

In 2015, Swallow the Sun released a monolithic triple album Songs From the North, and this particular track, The Heart of a Cold White Land, is on the disc II, that is focused on the beauty side of the band's doom palette.

Swallow the Sun: The Heart of a Cold White Land

Next up: Red

Sielun Veljet was one of the most iconic Finnish rock bands in the 80's. The band released only a couple of albums with lyrics in English, of which the 1989 release Softwood Music Under Slow Pillars was the only one with the songs originally written in English. There was some other attempts to gain international fame and fortune, but in those cases, the songs were merely English translations of their most beloved hit songs, initially written in Finnish. This particular album was planned for international release – but the label executives were pretty disappointed, to say the least, when the band came up with an album full of acoustic psychedelia. It was released only in Finland and Sweden. The artwork on the album cover is actually a painting by a Peruvian artist Pablo Amaringo, depicting the shamanic ayahuasca ritual. Listening through this album in one go is somewhat similar experience, I would guess: a rewarding journey into the depths of the human psyche, albeit potentially exhausting, especially if you're not exactly in the proper mindset to begin with.

Well, ever since I got exposed to the oriental psychedelia of, say, Jimi Hendrix, Kingston Wall, and the like, I seem to have acquired a taste for this kind of weird and druggy, over-the-top freeform musical expression.

Sielun Veljet: Hey-Ho, Red Banana

Ok, then...What next?

What other colours are there, anyway? The three primary colours are: red, yellow and blue. All the other colours can be derived from these three fuckers. To be precise, I think black does not actually qualify as a colour... So, I've got most of these covered already. Of course, in order to pick some hairs, printers actually use magenta, yellow and cyan as their primary colours – and black, obviously. I can't recall a single song with ”magenta” or ”cyan” in the title, though. I could come up with a band or two, with these colours in the band name, such as Magenta Skycode, or Cyan Velvet Project, but song titles?

Nada.

Maybe, if I combed through my post-rock and soundtrack archives, I could come up with some epic 15-minute instrumental with either cyan or magenta mentioned in the lengthy piece of contemporary literature, that is supposed to be the title of the song...but I guess those tracks would not exactly mean worlds to me, as I clearly cannot remember them now. If something comes to mind, while I'm writing down this epistle, I'll address that particular colour and song, accordingly. Now, I shall get on with this challenge journal, onto the next ”normal”, everyday colour...

Which is?

The colour green.

Having played keyboards in a dubious number of proggy bands, with the tonal preferences leaning heavily toward everything vintage, I might as well pick a mellow Hammond-organ classic, such as Green Onions by Booker T. & the MG's, or a vintage synth classic from THE motion picture soundtrack album of all time: Memories of Green by Vangelis, from the timeless Blade Runner soundtrack.

But I won't...

It wasn't actually easy to come up with that many titles with the colour green mentioned. Excluding these two aforementioned classics, I could barely come up with four! As much as I like the desert rock stonerism of Kuyss, the song Green Machine is not my personal favourite in their back catalogue. So that narrows my options to three. The problem is that two of these songs seem to defy the laws of quantum physics: they both take a firm stranglehold on my soul, and throw it casually down the dark and dangerous alleys of nostalgia.

In the midst of 90's acid jazz boom, I had a peculiar habit of buying compilation cd's at random, if the heading on the cover somehow suggested that the contents of the cd had anything to do with this particular genre of music. By impulse-buying music I discovered a lot of gems, like the song Apple Green by Mother Earth. The band was an English acid jazz outfit, virtually unheard of in Finland, despite the tidal wave of acid jazz washing over also these rural perimeters. If Jamiroquai, the Brand New Heavies et al. rub you the right way, you definitely need to check this band out. I can still remember clearly, as if it happened yesterday, how I picked this acid jazz compilation from the vaults of the local record store that no longer exists.

Mr. Big was a band everybody just loved to hate at the turn of the decace, when the gigantic hair-do's of the 80's started to flatten out, and flannel shirts were showing faint signs of becoming the next level shit in the never-ending quest for cool. At the time, I was an under-aged college drop-out, devoting my attention to the finer things of guitar playing techniques, instead of studying for a decent profession. I had received my first electric guitar from my parents in 1988, and for the following 5-6 years, I spent most of my time and energy in an attempt to unravel the secrets of how to play guitar like Jimi Hendrix. I listened to quite a lot of speed and thrash metal on the side, too. Y'know, bands such as Anthrax, Metallica, Slayer and Stone, which was quite a legendary Finnish speed metal band in the late 80's. My budding personal artistic expression was anyhow more influenced by legendary old timers, like Hendrix. I simply loathed all sorts of pyrotechnical wankery (with the exception of certain tracks by Steve Vai and Joe Satriani). Mr. Big's lead guitarist Paul Gilbert was famous for that very special blend of technical stuff, that I wasn't interested in, not in the slightest. So, I never really gave the band a chance. I think my misconception of the band's music as some kind of a shit-show of technical masturbation was due to some instructional videos hosted by Gilbert. After all, his fame as a highly skilled guitarist must have derived from his contributions to several guitar magazines and instructional videos, instead of his career in Mr. Big. So, everytime I heard the intro of, say, To Be With You, on my car radio, I simply had to change the channel. In order to do so, I had to manually rotate the tuning knob. Yes, my first car stereos were THAT vintage! What a time it was to be alive! Years later, with the maturity of age like with a fine wine, I finally listened to the worn-out hits of this horrid band only to find out that – bummer! - in terms of songwriting, those goddamn Mr.Big hits were actually not that bad at all. The song Green-Tinted Sixties Mind was released on the album Lean Into It in 1991. Now, everytime I am exposed to this particular song, I am instantly reminded of what a stuck-up elitistic music snob I used to be during those emotionally tumultuous times.

So, I could resort to the luck of the draw, but luckily I've got one more candidate to go.

Lonely the Brave is one of my most recent findings. It's an English alt.rock band from Cambridge, formed in 2008. I really don't know much about the band, just this one song titled The Blue, The Green. I was exposed to it while playing the music trivia game Songpop 2 with my mobile phone during the past two years, I think. The game is about guessing songs within the timeframe of a 15 second clip. Pretty addictive at first, actually. This 15-second-soundbite was enough to gain my full attention, so I had to check out the song in full, instantly. I cannot pinpoint what exactly it is, but this particular song has that vague feeling of ”something”, that draws me to listen to it, time and time again.

Lonely The Brave: The Blue, The Green

Next up: yellow.

I was first introduced to Frank Zappa's unique music in the late 80's, by my classmate Jussi, who kindly exposed me to the timeless classic Bobby Brown Goes Down. At the delicate age of 15, it was a pretty anticipated reaction that the explicit song lyrics would strike a chord. A few years later, as I was browsing through the vinyl section at the local second hand record store, I came across a pure treasure: the gatefold vinyl edition of Roxy & Elsewhere by Frank Zappa & The Mothers. In mint condition, too! Dropping the needle on the first groove on the black vinyl back home was like taking the first hit of some mind-altering illegal substance. My perception of reality changed in an instant – and there was no going back. Such an exciting mixture of fusion jazz, rock and harsh satire was sure to make me an addict. So, in no time at all I built up enough tolerance and moved onto semi-lethal dosages, and purchased the albums Hot Rats, Grand Wazoo and Apostophe('). The last one was released in the year, when I was born (1974), and it included the hilarious 4-part rock suite about the unfortunate adventures of an eskimo named Nanook. One part of the suite is titled: Don't Eat the Yellow Snow. Sound advice at the time of a global pandemic, that originated from some peculiar pathogen spillover event in China, don't cha think?

Frank Zappa: Don't Eat The Yellow Snow

Not many colours left, I think...

Next up: purple.

I was exposed to the music of Jimi Hendrix via a documentary on TV, when I was a rosy-cheeked 7th grader in junior high. It happened around the same time, when I got my first electic guitar. So, I guess it must have been written in the stars, or something. The universe simply wanted me to focus on the noble art of guitarism, instead of getting a college degree on psychopathological marketing or accounting (fuck no!). My first guitar was a cheap stratocaster-copy with a Williams-logo on it. In a way, it resembled the vintage Mellotron keyboard: it simply would refuse to keep in tune. One of the first songs that I learned, despite the frustrating limitations imposed by the crap tuners on the guitar, was Purple Haze by Hendrix. I had to learn it by ear. You see, back in the gloomy days of the late 80's, there just wasn't that many guitar tabs around. Not in Finland, anyway. Later I did find an instructional guitar playing manual at the local library, with a few pages dedicated to the art of Jimi Hendrix. Mainly, the only viable option to learn any contemporary rock song, or even any classic from the days long gone, was either to learn it by ear, or to resort to the occassional tabs provided by the international guitar magazines – if you were fortunate enough to spot these much-sought publications at your local bookstore. (These fuckin' millennials have it SO easy!) On the other hand, learning to play primarily by ear must have developed my improvisational skills a great deal, as an added bonus. Improvisation is not so much about throwing up some pre-programmed fancy gimmicks at any given chance, but actually LISTENING to what your fellow musicians are playing and responding accordingly.

Next up: grey.

I think it was my dear wife, once again, who first introduced me to the band Thrice, by playing the song Digital Sea from the band's double album Alchemy Index, a long, long time ago. The band's vocalist/guitarist Dustin Kensrue is one of those few singers, who are blessed with a distinctive voice that speaks, or to be more precise, sings volumes. He might not have the same gravitas like Mark Lanegan or Tom Waits, but nevertheless, he has the voice of a protagonist who's been to hell and back. Mark Lanegan sounds like he's got a season ticket, and Tom Waits sounds like he's the devil running the show – or, to put it in Waits' own words:

”Don't you know, there ain't no devil,

that's just God when he's drunk...”

 Tom Waits: Heartattack and Vine

Anyways, the lyrics in a Thrice song could be compiled of a list of phone numbers, or the decimals of Pi (like Kate Bush actually did), and it would still sound like a profound wisdom concerning the transformative journey of being fully human.

Thrice: The Grey

Last but not least, the colour: turquoise.

For years, I actually thought that Boards of Canada was indeed a Canadian outfit. Y'know, indie bands in particular come up with these band names that have some funny and ironic twist. Somewhere along the way, it finally dawned on me that this magnificent electronic duo is actually from Scotland. Well, of course it is! If my memory isn't playing any tricks on me now, I'm pretty sure that Soulsavers and Hidden Orchestra are Scottish, too. And they all have something in common. Each of these electronic outfits has an extraordinary and unique, boss-level prominance in the way they manage to capture emotion in their instrumentals.

Boards of Canada released a 5-minute electronic epic titled Turquoise Hexagon Sun on the album Music Has the Right to Children in 1998. The name of the song is actually a reference to the duo's recording studio Hexagon Sun. It makes it even more marvellous, that an instrumental track with a title deriving from something so mundane can touch your heartstrings so deeply. It's not that often, when an electronic instrumental with a hip-hop beat, glassy vintage synth motifs and deliberately lo-fi production paired with grainy samples, manage to do that. These Scottish bastards must've been onto something...

Well, that's pretty much all there was to the first day in this music challenge! I was supposed to pick one song, and I ended up writing a fucking novel about it...Tomorrow the plot shall thicken even more, when I introduce you to the theme of the day #2.

In the meanwhile, you can do yourself a favour and listen to:

Boards of Canada: Turquoise Hexagon Sun

Stay tuned! Cheers!

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 07/02/2020

I’ll be transparent: my left ear’s blocked and I’ve been struggling to hear really, I feel I can’t properly critique music with that issue for many reasons, so I’m just going to BS my way through that one. I think that’s fair. Let’s “review” those charts.

Top 10

At the top spot, finally, it’s the amazing “Blinding Lights” by the Weeknd, up one space to #1 after 10 weeks on the chart! I’m glad it’s here, and I think it can last though it does face some competition.

At number-two is the runner-up, “The Box” by Roddy Ricch, up a single space from last week.

Last week’s #1 “Before You Go” by Lewis Capaldi is down two spaces to number-three this week.

“Don’t Start Now” is also down two spots to number-four this week.

Unfortunately still holding onto number-five after a one-spot drop is “Godzilla” by Eminem featuring the late Juice WRLD.

“Someone You Loved” has dragged itself up three spots from the depths of hell, rebounding to number-six. I have no idea how this is happening and I want to put a halt to it as soon as possible.

At number-seven, “everything i wanted” by Billie Eilish gets a slight one-spot boost possibly due to the Grammy’s performance.

“Life is Good” by Drake, then Future is down a position to number-eight.

“ROXANNE” by Arizona Zervas is still hanging on up a spot to number-nine.

Finally, to round off the top 10, we have “Adore You” by Harry Styles back at #10 after raving up four positions this week for whatever reason. I’m not exactly complaining; it’s a pretty decent song, but I have no idea why it’s back.

Climbers

We have only two climbers that are notable enough to earn a spot here, but they are very interesting and seem to be surprising hits. “You should be sad”, a country rock-infused hot mess (Or song, depending on how polite you want to be) by Halsey, is up seven spaces to #17 this week, with some true organic momentum, and “Roses” by Saint Jhn, a trap song that was made into an unauthorised house remix by Kazakh producer Imanbek, zoomed up 19 spaces to #21. These two songs seem like they could make the top 10 pretty soon, so I’d keep watch.

Fallers

There are a few more fallers, however, as there always naturally tends to be. First of all, J Hus had all three of his songs that debuted last week from the album bomb (for Big Conspiracy) fall dramatically in pretty expected fashion, but I’m surprised they’re all on the chart still, considering most of the time at least one of the songs tends to drop out. Leading the pack is “Play Play” featuring Burna Boy down eight to #19, swiftly followed by “Repeat” featuring Koffee down 12 spots to #33 and finally, “Big Conspiracy” featuring iceé tgm barely scraping the Top 40 at #40, down a whopping 21 positions from last week, which is a drop intensity I don’t think we’ve seen in a long while. There are also a few hits falling off due to the arbitrary streaming cuts rule, like “Pump it Up” by Endor down five to #23, right next to the absolute collapse of “Own It” by Stormzy featuring Ed Sheeran and Burna Boy, a former #1, down 19 spaces to #24. As I’ve always said, this rule mostly and usually solely affects hip-hop artists. It does have a notable effect on some pop and EDM though; “Lose Control” by MEDUZA, Goodboys and Becky Hill is down five to #25, and not all hip-hop has the streaming cut to blame. The mediocre “Ei8ht Mile” by Digdat featuring Aitch has only been in the chart for three weeks and is already at #28 after its 11-space decrease this week. Regardless, those are our only fallers this week... well, except “Those Kinda Nights” by Eminem featuring Ed Sheeran down 11 spots to #38 but do we really want to acknowledge that song exists? I’m not sure if we do.

Dropouts & Returning Entries

Novelty songs don’t last long, and neither do protest songs, so the anthem of the European Union, “Ode to Joy”, as performed by Andre Rieu and the Johann Strauss Orchestra is out off of the debut at #30, as should be expected. The other dropouts are just songs that have been slogging in the lower reach of the top 40 for at least three weeks, like “Circles” by Post Malone out from #31, “Darkness” by Eminem out from #37 and “Watermelon Sugar” by Harry Styles out from #39, but there is also the dropout for “Pee Pee” by M Huncho. The song’s growing on me too. Don’t think about that too much. There aren’t any returning entries as usual, so let’s run through some possible future hits in the top 75. Not all of them are good, not all of them are bad. We have “What if I Told You that I Loved You” by Ali Gatie at #71, “Charades” by Headie One and Fred Again at #67, “July” by Noah Cyrus at #66, “Momentary Bliss” by Gorillaz featuring slowthai and Slaves at #58, which is a fantastic comeback for Damon and gang, “Only the Young” by Taylor Swift from her documentary at #57, “High Fashion” by Roddy Ricch and Mustard at #56, as well as “Ballin’” by the same duo at #46, the returning entry of “when the party’s over” by Billie Eilish after the Grammy’s at #45, “Power Over Me” by Dermot Kennedy at #42 and finally, “Suicidal” by YNW Melly at #41. Let’s get to the new arrivals.

NEW ARRIVALS

Like I said, I’m going to BS my way through most of these; I can listen to these songs in their entirety completely fine but I won’t be able to have that pleasant of an experience through headphones so I’ll just be blasting it out loud from the crap speakers of my laptop, meaning I could be losing some notable production elements that I would usually further analyse. I’m sorry about that, guys, but I’m still reviewing the charts even with a hearing impairment.

#36 – “Better Off Without You” – Becky Hill and Shift K3y

Produced by Shift K3y, Jarly and Svidden

Is impairment a word? I am so tired right now, I apologise if I start droning on or meandering about garbage, but here we are. I actually got three predictions right last week, with our first three new arrivals all being songs I predicted would end up here this week! So that’s pretty cool. Uh, this is Becky Hill’s new single with Shift K3y? Who’s Shift K3y? I don’t know. Looking him up, he’s another one of those future garage and house DJs from London, and he had a pretty massive hit with “Touch” in 2014. This is his third UK Top 40 single and first in five years since “I Know” peaked at #26 in 2014. It’s Becky Hill’s ninth (eighth excluding the uncredited feature on Wilkinson’s “Afterglow”) and I think I know exactly what to expect. It’s going to be “Wish You Well” with Sigala again. I wasn’t exactly incorrect; there is the same fake handclap, the same breathy and dull vocal from the admittedly talented vocalist Becky Hill, who does have a certain sound to her voice that is recognisable albeit not particularly impressive. The chorus is especially awkward and leads to a lot of empty space vocally within the duration of the drop, it sounds really odd. Otherwise, this is barely anything more than just pop-house fluff and a bit of a waste of time. Oh, and Shift K3y actually provides backing vocals here, or at least that’s who I’m assuming they are. They might just be a heavily edited Becky Hill. Regardless, this is a slightly cuter rendition of what we get every other week on this show.

#35 – “Say So” – Doja Cat

Produced by Tyson Trax

Yay! So, okay, I’ve been a fan of Doja Cat for a while even though her discography is wildly inconsistent in quality, back when “MOOO!” happened, and I’m pretty excited to finally see her here and be able to talk about her first UK Top 40 hit, which I’ve actually already listened to so I can confidently say it is a pretty decent, fun song. It is actually the biggest hit from her album Hot Pink, which saw more success than her debut and contained her second break-out single, the “Juicy” remix with Tyga, which of course had the viral video, but this one doesn’t have a video and instead got big on both TikTok and its pure groove and musical merit. Surely, this is Doja Cat’s best possible “first” impression, yet it’s kind of generic and definitely lacks some of her usual charm. On another note, I don’t care at all; this is a bop. The groove is immediately recognisable as it’s a direct sample from “Good Times” by Chic, or at least damn well sounds like it, and it provides a pretty good foundation for the synth-heavy funk-pop production that, while it does feel flavourless, especially by the end of the song, is a perfect beat for Doja Cat’s light falsetto, especially in the infectious chorus and gorgeous first verse, with some very interesting melodies and harmonies, although her voice does falter at times and it does sound somewhat awkward and abrupt, especially when a shift in her cadence does not reflect a shift in the music at all right at the end. Her second verse is a more typical Doja Cat rap verse, and it has as much charisma and energy as she usually does, with some really sweet, fast and surprisingly aggressive flows. By this time, however, that chorus does really start to drone on, doesn’t it? There are barely any developments in the instrumental to keep it interesting. Like, maybe try a key change? Just don’t loop the same vocal line for the chorus six times, especially since the chorus’ melody is incredibly simple. The meandering outro doesn’t really do much for me either, it just feels like they couldn’t figure out an end to the song. Speaking of not figuring out stuff, the second verse is borderline nonsensical but, hey, despite all those flaws, the song works well as a little dance-pop venture for Doja, and I’d like to hear it more... or perhaps in this case LESS, refined in the future.

#30 – “Lonely” – Joel Corry

Produced by Joel Corry, Lewis Thompson and Neave Applebaum

You remember “Sorry”. Now he’s back with another house-pop song with a one-word, two-syllable title that nearly rhymes with his name and features an uncredited female singer. I have no idea how this one’s going to sound!!! Maybe I shouldn’t be too cynical, I mean “Sorry” was okay. This one seems to have Harlee Jayne Sudworth on it as the vocalist in place of Hayley May, but it could be a sample as I’m just going by the writing credits. It’s Corry’s second UK Top 40 hit, by the way, after “Sorry” was his breakout hit. Yeah, I’m sorry, I find it hard to care. The vocalist sounds exactly like Hayley May, the instrumental is just vaguely deep house-influenced preset loops, and the drop is one I’ve heard at least seven times this past month. The stuttering in the post-chorus and bridge is possibly the most obnoxious shit I’ve heard in EDM since “Like a G6”. AIt’s also way too long for how uninteresting it is. Pass.

#12 – “Physical” – Dua Lipa

Produced by Jason Evigan and Koz

Ah, there are two new songs just outside of the top 10, the first by Dua Lipa, serving as her second single from Future Nostalgia, which is shaping up to be a pretty interesting dance-pop/90s house and nu-disco throwback record seemingly from these singles and the vibrant, colourful aesthetic. This is “Physical”, and despite a pretty cool music video, this seems to have debuted pretty low, which is disappointing but she could easily gain more traction as “Don’t Start Now” starts to falter. I’m excited to listen to this with both ears, but regardless this is Dua Lipa’s 14th UK Top 40 hit, and let’s listen, I guess. First off, this sounds a lot less 90s than it does 80s, in fact I’d probably call this instrumental typical of let’s say, early Madonna, but with an extra injection of steroids inserted right into the tempo, with that first beeping synth melody sounding a lot more menacing and intense than intimate as I expected, but that doesn’t mean it’s bad. In fact, Dua Lipa herself is probably the worst part of this song, as her presence is questionably mundane here, sometimes having her Auto-Tune trail off awkward, in the verses especially. Otherwise, the additional bombast of the synths in that chorus are a pretty nice addition but without Dua Lipa putting that much effort this does feel a tad empty until of course that bridge which is the final release and climax, and that sounds beautiful, especially with the strings and all, but is it really worth it at that point? Not only that, but the chorus that follows feels neutered in comparison. The song feels like it’s a high-speed car chase that happens to constantly be in traffic. It’s not bad, but it’s hard not to feel at least a little disappointed.

#11 – “Wake Up Call” – KSI featuring Trippie Redd

Produced by S-X and Mally Mall

Well, this’ll be an ant-climactic one I think. This is KSI, British vlogger, rapper and semi-professional boxer, with her new song “Wake Up Call” featuring Trippie Redd’s first ever appearance in the UK Top 40, which is unexpected. He’s only ever been in the #80s before, but KSI is a different story, as it’s his third appearance in the UK Top 40 and his umpteenth in the singles chart overall. I’m not exactly excited to hear this since even though I am a fan of Trippie, he really would phone it in on a KSI feature, within reason, but we’ll see how it is. Just as I expected, it is kind of garbage, even though I actually love that quirky synth loop that acts as the main melody. Sadly, it gets pretty old two minutes in, and Trippie’s hook, drowned in reverb, is just unpleasant, as is the pathetic trap beat and KSI’s surprisingly anti-charismatic delivery. Like, I thought he was a YouTuber people liked for being happy and upbeat, right? Why is he just murmuring to kill time here? Yeah, this isn’t worth anyone’s time. KYLE and Lil Yachty could probably do this beat the little amount of justice it deserves, though.

Conclusion

Well, there’s nothing particularly amazing here but it’s clear that Doja Cat’s “Say So” is what is most worth listening to here, so it’ll get Best of the Week, I suppose. I guess I’ll give the Honourable Mention to “Physical” by Dua Lipa, and the Dishonourable Mention to... “Lonely” by Joel Corry, actually, as while it’s less interesting and probably has a larger absence of good than our Worst of the Week, “Wake Up Call” by KSI featuring Trippie Redd, at least there wasn’t any potential being wasted. Follow me on Twitter @cactusinthebank for more pop music rambles and I’ll see you next week – or sooner!

REVIEWING THE CHARTS 2020

[ridleymocki]

But I Was Rapt, Without A Name

Written for Pynch Week 17, Day 6. Prompt:  Fireflies // Language // Elements

Summary: There are some things about Adam Parrish that are still mysterious, even to his boyfriend. The way he can look at a mass of cards and find some sort of deeper meaning is among those things. Ronan's happy to learn, though.A cute hang out fic featuring guest appearances from the Gangsey, and entirely too much coffee drinking.

Notes: Guuuuuys, I’m really starting to feel the strain of this challenge, this was so goddamn hard. But when I think of ‘Elements’ I think of tarot cards, and how reading TRC actually finally made me study them and how to read with them, after years of idle fascination. Add the need for some actual plot and you get patient tutor Adam with hopelessly in love and attentive Ronan. Title is from 'Sirensong' by The Cure, which is an awesome freaking song and an awesome band, honestly.Thank you a whole great big awful lot for reading! And I hope you enjoy it <3

also on ao3

“You bring those everywhere with you now, Parrish?” Ronan stepped onto the back porch and smiled down at Adam where he sat, legs crossed on the wooden decking. Around him were cards. Lots of them. It wasn’t quite the multi-deck spread that could take over a whole table at 300 Fox Way, but it was complex in a way Ronan couldn’t understand, arcing around where Adam sat.

 “Yeah, pretty much” Adam said. He returned Ronan’s smile, so at least he knew he wasn’t intruding. “They help. It’s like free therapy.”

 Ronan quirked a brow and dropped down to sit next to him, handing over a coffee cup, its steam catching the yellow light from inside. “Sounds weird.”

They heard Blue yell out from inside the house, “Hey losers! You watching with us or what?” Adam snorted and shook his head.

 “No,” Ronan called back. “Don’t do anything gross on my couch!” And quieter he grumbled, “they probably will now, damn it.”

 Adam chuckled lowly, “You gave them ideas. Rookie mistake.”

 After Ronan had updated the living room to include an obnoxiously large television and home cinema system, and after the threesome of ambiguous relationship that was Blue, Gansey, and Henry had returned from South America, movie night inexplicably became a regular occurrence. They’d been watching the same show for four hours – some quirky sci fi thing that made Gansey happy because it was set in Wales, and made Blue happy because it had a female lead – but Adam had ducked out twenty minutes ago, and with him went half of Ronan’s interest.

 “So how’s this supposed to therapise you?” Ronan nudged his chin at the cards spread before them. He could see Adam physically bite back the that’s not a word, and smirked.

 “Do you really want to know?” Adam said, and Ronan nodded, immediately giving him his full attention. Adam was sometimes reluctant to go on about things that genuinely interested him, worried that it gave other people too much power. He preferred deep conversations on topics from which he was personally detached, because then at least if someone disagreed, it didn’t feel like rejection. But Ronan had been sure to show him from day one of their relationship that he didn’t have to worry about that, here. Adam gave him a small smile. “Well, tarot cards don’t always show the future. They show you possibilities. You ask them a question and they give you one possible answer. It’s when you analyse the answers the cards give you, and how they fit with you and how you react to them, that you get insight. So like–“ he reached out and tapped a card at the top, at the far edge of the spread– “the Three of Cups. I asked what I needed to focus on and this is what they said.”

 Ronan leaned over and looked at the card. Three women in long dresses seemed to circle around each other, each had a goblet in her hand that was raised joyously above their heads as though making a toast. “They want you to focus on getting drunk?”

 Adam punched him lightly in the shoulder. “Asshole,” he said to Ronan’s grin. “Look, to me anyway, it’s referring to stuff like tonight, with everyone here.” He looked at Ronan uncertainly, but was encouraged by whatever he found in his face. “There are hundreds of interpretations of every card. For a lot of people they’re as subjective as Rorschach paintings. But for me the Three of Cups has always been about the three women being friends, you know? They’re together, they’re in harmony. And they’re happy. They’ve reached a point where things are good and they can celebrate. So I see it and I think of all of us here, of how good things are. So I should focus on that, on friends and hanging out together. I agree with that card being there because it feels true, for me. But maybe I wouldn’t have made that conscious choice unless I did the reading.”

 Ronan nodded, but honestly he was surprised. “That’s a hell of a lot more rational than the way the witches do it.”

 Adam grimaced. “Yeah well, they’ve got a better connection to time than I have. When they get an answer it’s definite. But with Cabeswater gone it’s harder for me to do it like that.”

 “So you’re just going to be a nerd about it instead?” He nudged Adam’s shoulder, going for levity to get that sad little frown off his face. Cabeswater’s absence was something they all felt. Ronan was working on it. Gratifyingly, Adam stuck his tongue out at him, and laughed into his coffee cup.

 “You wouldn’t think it, but yeah.” He said eventually. “You can actually nerd out about this stuff. Tarot is… complicated. Systematic.”

 “Yeah?”

 “Mhmm. I mean, look.” He pointed to a card labelled ‘The Fool’. “This is the first card in the deck, but it’s an outlier, that’s why it’s marked with a zero. From there you get the twenty-one majors. They show what the Fool has to go through and deal with in life, the kind of stuff everyone has to deal with; fear, imbalance, moral principles. Tarot is a universal narrative, that way. Then you have four suits, all with their own meanings and elements, all with ten pip cards and four court cards. The Aces are the pure energy of the element of that suit, the rest of the pips are different possibilities, and the courts are like characterisations for how those elements work.” Adam turned to check he was still listening, and caught Ronan looking at him heavily.

 Ronan listened alright, thought that if he were in a room crowded with raucous people and Adam began to talk, he’d still hear it. But he loved Adam like this, loved his brain and the way it worked to push him ever forward and above everyone else. When Adam let him have a glimpse inside his mind, it was only understandable that Ronan would take a long look. The way his eyes sparked with knowledge pulled at him more than Ronan could explain.

 Adam raised a judgemental brow at him, smirking, and Ronan cleared his throat. “Elements?”

 Adam frowned for a moment before recalling what he’d been saying. “Oh. Yeah. Wands are fire, and represent creativity–“ he pointed to a card, then another, each one featuring the symbol he explained– “Swords are air, and represent the intellect, rationality. Cups are water, they’re about emotions; how you contain them or how they overflow. And pentacles, or coins, they’re earth. That’s about resources, usually material ones.”

 “Right, okay. And that all makes sense? When you do a reading like this?” he gestured to the general sprawl of cards before them, probably half the deck laid out on the wood.

 “More or less.”

 Ronan hummed, and drank his coffee, aware that Adam was watching him, mouth turned up at the corners. He didn’t know why so many of their conversations felt like this; like resting something on the edge of a table and watching it teeter. They were always on the edge of something. “Am I anywhere down there?” He nodded to the spread.

 He’d meant it teasingly, but Adam suddenly looked a little nervous. He waved at a set of three cards at the lower right edge of the layout, set side by side. “Well, this is your bit.”

 “I get a whole bit? What about me don’t you know, Parrish?” He tore his gaze away from Adam’s face and actually inspected the cards. Ronan felt something unpleasant unfurl in his stomach when he saw what must have given Adam that look. The cards in the middle and on the right seemed unassuming enough. Blue skies in the background, just ordinary scenes. But on the far left–

 “The Devil?”

 Two nudes were chained to a post, demonic tails curling beside them. Above them sat a rotund, goat-horned demon, wings like a bat’s and an inverted pentagram upon his head. The background was black and the demon wielded a lit baton like a bludgeon.

 “Don’t freak out.” Adam rested his fingers against Ronan’s wrist, curling them against his vulnerable veins. “It’s not bad.”

 Ronan looked at him skeptically. “It fucking looks bad.”

 “No, okay. I laid out those three cards to mean past, present, and future. The Devil’s in the past–“

 “Great. So I only used to be Satan.” If he sounded childish he didn’t care. There were some nights he wondered about he and Adam, the intrusive whisper in his thoughts that Adam could do better, that Ronan was bad for him at best and downright corrosive at worst.

 “Fuck. No.” Adam scrubbed a hand through his hair. “The Devil isn’t literally the devil, or any devil. It’s just– It’s temptation... Pure freaking temptation.” He was avoiding Ronan’s eyes. On impulse, or maybe just intuition, Ronan reached out and passed the back of his finger down Adam’s cheek. Adam startled, turning to him in confusion, but not quick enough. His cheek was hot. “I wanted you for a long time,” Adam said lowly, after a moment. “Even when I didn’t realise. And then when I thought it was dangerous for me.”

 Ronan didn’t know what to do with that, the words ‘a long time’ rang again and again in his head and he wanted to throw something. “What changed?” Because something had to have changed.

 Adam shrugged. “Eventually I knew better.” He smiled when Ronan just raised a brow, uncomprehending. “You’re an asshole, but you’re good for me. I like being with you. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.”

 When Ronan had stepped out the back door earlier and joined Adam out here, he hadn’t been counting on this. He would’ve been happy to lie down nearby and hear the buzz of summer’s insects, leaving Adam to do his thing. Now that he’d heard those words pass Adam’s lips, he couldn’t go back. The sense that he was on borrowed time evaporated, the future spreading out instead.

 As he stared, struck dumb, Adam’s smile grew wide and he leaned forward to press their foreheads together. Ronan let out a long breath. “Fucking hell.” Adam just hummed.

 “Do you want to know the rest?” Adam asked after a minute. Ronan nodded, and Adam kissed him softly for a moment before pulling away and downing the rest of his coffee, long since cold.

“Alright, so in the past I was lusting after you, or whatever.” He looked infinitely pleased at Ronan’s helpless laugh. “In the present, you’re the Two of Cups.” This card looked markedly more pleasant. Two people stood opposite one another beneath a lion’s head with wings, and clinked their goblets together. It looked like a bright day, blue sky and vivid colours. “This basically means that you’ve made a connection with someone complimentary to you. Me, I would assume. It’s the card of a good beginning, a good relationship.”

 “Are you sure that one bit cardboard is telling you that?” Ronan teased.

 “Hey, that’s just what it means. If I happen to agree that’s neither here nor there.” He reached and ran his hand up and down Ronan’s thigh, a touch just for the sake of touching. “And this one, in the future spot: Temperance. I don’t know if it’s about you or about us but Temperance is all about balance. It means that you’ll get what you need but it won’t be spoiled by being too little or too much. It’s a healthy card, peaceful. That’s what you have to look forward to.”

 “Huh,” Ronan was a little surprised. “That’s oddly optimistic.”

 “Like I said,” Adam leaned into him, “the cards just show you a possibility. If you decide you like it, it’s your sign to head towards it.”

 Ronan scoffed derisively, and shifted to loop his arm around Adam’s shoulder. Even in the still warm summer night, it was comfortable. “I could have told you I wanted this to go well even without the damn cards.”

 Adam smiled. “I know. Still, it’s nice to turn over a good card and realise for yourself how much you really want it.”

 Ronan didn’t say anything. It had only been a few months, but he’d bet good money on what they had. Or at least, on how far he was willing to go to keep it as good as it had been so far. There was something enduringly right in being with Adam, and every hint he got that Adam felt the same was a clarion call to keep going. It would get difficult, of course, when Adam went away for college or when their interests pulled them in different directions. And they still had to deal with the issue of Ronan’s dreaming and what to do about their burnt up magic forest. But in the middle of it they were good. The fact that Adam had even set out a card for the future, and indirectly shown he counted on having one that included Ronan, was big enough that as they lapsed into silence, Ronan felt uncommon contentment well in his chest and settle there.

 “Are you doing gross things on the porch!?” Henry suddenly yelled out, shattering the silence, and poked his head out the living room window. “We’re going to start a game of Twister, you want in?”

 “Fuck no,” Adam called back immediately, making Ronan laugh. Henry grinned wide at him, then seemed to take in their current position – Adam’s hand on his thigh, Ronan’s arm curled around him – and his smile grew softer before he ducked back into the house.

 Ronan turned his head and pressed a kiss to his hair, his hand finding Adam’s and linking their fingers.

 The back door burst open and Blue crooked her head cheerily around the frame. “Come on, assholes. You had all summer to be all over each other, come hang out.”

 “In a minute,” Adam said airily, and Blue made a disgusted noise at them, rolled her eyes and went back into the house.

 Faintly they could hear her say, “They’re too busy sucking face and sighing. Dammit Gansey! Left foot on red!”

 “I don’t even have to say anything now,” Ronan said quietly. “You’re sending everyone away before I can.”

 Adam sighed. “We should go in. They just got back. But I don’t want to, yet.”

 Ronan rubbed his hand up and down Adam’s arm. “Then what do you want?”

 Adam sat up and looked him, his gaze dark and sparking, and Ronan had to resist the urge to swallow down his want. In a second, his empty coffee cup was being gently taken out of his hand and set aside. Ronan barely had time to look up before Adam’s lips were on his.

 This wasn’t the kiss of familiarity he’d gotten just before. This was hungry. This was a you feel too good not to touch kiss. A stay close to me kiss. An I’m not going anywhere kind of kiss. Adam’s ridiculous hands came up to cradle his face, like he needed to feel him under his palms to know this was real. Ronan wrapped his arms around him and pulled Adam close, and they fell back to lie on the wood, Adam sprawled over him as their mouths worked.

 Time must have passed but Ronan couldn’t have said how. When they parted, lips red and breaths heavy, Adam’s thumb was still running over his cheek, passing back and forth.

 Ronan cleared his throat. “So how often do you do tarot readings?”

 Adam began to laugh uncontrollably, shaking over him, and Ronan caught his face to bring their mouths together again.

 (They went back inside twenty minutes later with their cheeks red and hands clasped. Ronan carried their cups while Adam grasped the cards they’d eventually piled back together. Gansey looked at them fondly, even where he was contorted with Henry on the Twister mat. Blue threw a pillow at them, just so they knew she was happy for them.)

[silviascorcella]

Fashion Conversation: LEE WOOD - L72

Contemplare le sue creazioni, e intanto scoprire dalle sue parole garbate quel che racchiudono, regala la soffusa sensazione di trovarsi come di fronte ad un’opera di pittura intimista, dove le composizioni quiete di luce morbida e colori nitidi sono invero un loquacissimo sguardo sulla realtà. 

Lui è Lee Wood e il suo brand L72 rappresenta un’avventura stilistica molto recente, ma che ha già conquistato il vasto plauso del pubblico e trionfato, tra le altre, sulla pregiata passerella di Who is On Next? 

La sua moda racchiude percorsi compositi che per buona parte si sono svolti al fianco di Donatella Versace. Una moda che oggi si racconta attraverso la più nobile e sovversiva forma di lusso: la libertà.

[ENGL.]

Going through his creations, and in the meantime discovering from his nice words what they encompass, makes you feel like being in front of a piece of intimist art painting, where the quiet combinations of tender light and vivid colors are indeed a very eloquent glaze on reality. He is Lee Wood and his brand L72 represents a very recent stylistic adventure, but that has already won the ample plaudit of the public and triumphed on the prestigious stage of Who Is On Next? contest. His fashion universe embraces multi-faceted paths, that to a great extent took place alongside Donatella Versace. A fashion universe that today reveals itself through the noblest and most subversive kind of luxury: freedom.

Tell us about yourself and your background: when did the very first encounter with fashion happen and how did it become your professional way? I’m English, born and raised in the countryside near Reading, in the Berkshire county, along the famous River Thames. After the compulsory education I decided to start following my artistic path by entering The Berkshire College of Art & Design, where I studied art, fashion and design. So, when I was 19, I decided to move to London in search of a job and new horizons. I remember two incisive moments concerning my approach in fashion: the first one, when I was a child and my mum, coming back from a ski holiday, was wearing a custom-made dove gray mink coat. That was the first time I ever saw anything like that closely, and that, especially, I could even touch it. So my mum, all proud, showed me the lining with her initials jacquard-woven … I couldn’t believe it, it seemed like a miracle! The second moment was when I went with my mother (it’s always her fault!) to the hairdresser: while waiting for her turn, she was reading some fashion magazines and I gazed at those pictures so glossy, so impeccable, so far from my world, and my mind ran formulating a thousand ideas and as many thoughts. My career began in London, when I started to be the assistant of the stylist David Thomas: it’s thanks to him that one night I had the chance to meet Kinder Aggugini that, in his turn, introduced me to Donatella Versace.

How, why and with what style vision was your label L72 born? My brand comes from my urge to give voice to my personal aesthetic. I’m a reserved person, rather quiet and loner, but inside me my imagination continuously creates, wherever I am and all hours of the day. I’m like a Marcello Piacentini’s building: rigorous, symmetrical, neat, but with the interiors designed by Lorenzo Castillo. After 16 years at Versace, I felt the need for trying new creative ways. I had decided to open my own design consulting studio in 2013 when, while I was making some samples for promoting my activity, I realized that I was subconsciously laying the foundation of my own line. I spoke with different people and friends within the sector and the feedback was more than positive, everybody said I was crazy! I was happily surrounded by products speaking a common language, that could be a total look, without even thinking of it, it was pure instinct. Thus, the things that had been existing in my fantasy for years became concrete and my vision became real. At that point I could not come back anymore !

Your own creative world is instinctual, beauty is a personal point of view, materials are the issue of experimentations and entrepreneurship is essential: what do these elements entail and how does their harmony happen in your fashion? For me everything is connected, I’m always present in my job and in every planning phase of the creative path. I don’t like staying at the desk, I prefer staying around instead, with the suppliers, at the studios, with the printer, at the photography studio to work together and “get my hands dirty” with the people helping me to realize my dream. And it’s thanks to them too, their energy, experience and diligence, if today I am here: every day I learn something new, and this is my nourishment. Today being creative is not enough, unfortunately: our world has become too much complicated and contradictory. You can’t create if you don’t have a support structure; you can’t have a support structure if you don’t have the resources and if you don��t have the resources you can’t make a production that would allow you to produce the next season … as they say in Italy “a dog chasing its own tail”! The expectations have become so much high and strict, accompanied by a very frantic pace of life, that there is a strong risk of implosion. Today a fashion designer must be also a manager, director, sales representative, and self-assistant: that’s crazy! I pay attention to the business and numbers: I’ve been working for 22 years as a salesman and creative director, I would be fool if I wasn’t concerned with the business aspect too, I have a lot of experience and I’d like to improve more and more, but doing things right takes a lot of time and energy and I often find myself leaving the creative part aside for the nights or weekends, when the rest of my world rests and grants me the silence and peace I need to think clearly. My instinct is strong, when I draw my first thought is always the right one for me: if I linger on too much developing  and redrawing, I always end up going back to the beginning. I love neat and graphic fashion, the proportions and the blending of male and female: a sort of “uniform for the future”, a combination of history and street.

Describe your last collection: what kind of inspiration does it originate from and how does this imagery take tangibly form within the creations? The spring/summer collection is called “Primary”: the concept of starting from zero. Last February (2015) I launched my brand with an exclusive press presentation, the project was called “Collection Zero: Non Conditioned”, so I was really starting from zero for the summer production. It’s a journey inside my childhood, moments where I became aware of the world I was in, a pure and instinctive approach, when colors enthralled me and at the same time taught me the chromatic circle, that the primary colors, red, yellow and blue were the main base for all the color blocks, like when I was a kid and I played with Legos, or rather I had fun organizing them by color. I thought to juxtapose this idea of nostalgia with a reflection on the expression of the time we’re living in, so it’s not only a mere memory of my naïf world. I added an embroidery made of real mini-disks: a while ago we used to think that CDs and mini-disks were so futuristic, but today almost no one touches music anymore, CDs have already turned old and young people think they’re something outdated. Our world changes so quickly and the primary colors of that time, my RGB, today are different because our reality is enclosed in a 2.0 world that broadcasts images and colors through the light. Today the main colors are red, green and blue. Ultimately, between a picture you hold in your hand or the same picture that you can see by Internet apparently nothing changes, but I know that the base is truly different.

One name inside and one outside the fashion world you would love to work with? Inside the fashion world I would really love to collaborate with Melanie Ward. I already had the chance to meet her and work with her when she was working with Versace: I really love her style, she’s English like me, and I think that her sensibility marries beautifully with my aesthetic. Whereas, outside the fashion world I’d say Olafur Eliasson, the Danish artist, I think he’s absolutely brilliant. His works begin with a different perspective on our world through lights, colors and science. They’re studies involving the environment to emphasize “hyper reality” concepts: his art captivates me, moves me, amazes me and destabilizes me at the same time, but gladly. I get a powerful and harmonious vibe from it, but with strong social messages.

Beauty will save the world, a renowned quote holding some truth for those who create fashion: what is your ideal about beauty? Will beauty really save the world? How can we categorize beauty in order to realize, then, if that kind of “beauty” could be our salvation? It’s so compelling, personal, it doesn’t mean we want to rely on beauty as if it was a religion, hell no! As for me, the idea of beauty must be dissected and employed depending on the subject. The proportions of a dress, the finishing of a table, a woman walking on the street, the sound of an instrument, things that people may even not like, meanwhile. But we all have our point of view, luckily! Perfection doesn’t exist, thank goodness; here’s what I think is good, the fact that imperfections exist and when we’ll be aware and at peace with this thought, we’ll finally get free from the so called “classic standards” that only bother me. I think nature gets close to perfection, it has its own balance that makes it unapproachable and mystical; but then the human being arrives and thinks he can enhance it, but he only makes disasters, as he often does for himself trying to reach “beauty”. Last summer I worked with MEG for her tour where she featured the album “Imperfezione”: we hit it off, we have several things in common. In an interview she states “I suddenly realized that the possible takes place within the imperfection and not within perfection, that is an abstract world, strict, an archetype, always the same as itself” and this is what we must convey to the world, the diversity, and teach the young people to accept themselves and their neighbor. This is my idea of beauty. A nice, respectful, natural creature.

If I say “imitation of life” (the theme of this Hachi Mag issue n.d.r.): what comes into your mind? I believe that what we’re living is an “imitation of life”. There’s something so insane in our today’s world that I can not think otherwise. I don’t think that this can be considered life, but that we’re literally surviving. We’re conditioned, directed, fed, driven by people and mechanisms that don’t want our prosperity. The world has turned into a game of powers and abuses and our lives are put on the line to bolster a media spectacle that can make us believe the unbelievable, and keep us quiet. As for me, life is something else.

Among the accolades received and the exquisitely personal dreams: what are your projects for the future? My first thought is to continue working, learning and living the best life I can: maybe this is a little fanciful vision, but it’s true. For my brand, I would be able to develop a well-established business that can create the L72 lifestyle by extending the product categories in order to include various licences. Then, if I could dream, think freely without any limits … I would love to buy a plot of land in the countryside and build a brand new home where I could live in complete peace with a lot of animals, where I could finally resume my love of horseback riding and keep on creating from a studio overlooking the hills.

Silvia Scorcella

[Published on Hachi Magazine issue n°4]