#late night posting is not very profound but it is full of heart

[apollo-just-ice]

Uhhhhh Bruno. That’s it that’s the post.

I miss u my guy,,,

[kelleah-meah]

I am so ready for this Full Moon in Pisces

Ok. Maybe I'm a little too zealous, but the fact that I have a sun, moon and Mercury in Pisces plays a huge part in my love for astrology, astronomy, and the occult. Even as a kid -- being a child of a mother who is an Aries sun/Virgo moon (aka very focused on all things logical and mathematical) -- I was obsessed with that which I could not explain, but still felt on a profound level.

When I was a kid, I kind of had to hide it a bit out of fear of being judged and ridiculed. But now, as an adult, I can let my "freak flag fly" and be all up in my feels.

Which is where I am right now. I've been juggling a lot at work (in a good way, kind of, thanks to a promotion), at home (finally bought a new refrigerator after a grueling 7-week process of research and hunting down a decent bargain), and at the doctor's office (long story, don't ask).

So the emotional overwhelm as we approach the Harvest moon is no joke.

I love being a Pisces, but I loathe having my birthday in winter. Mainly because I hate the cold and by the time my birthday rolls around, I'm so ready for winter to be over (March 18th, in case you're wondering).

But now I feel my reward for enduring that less-than-awesome timing of my birth is the beauty and knowledge that comes in the form of the Full Moon in Pisces, which always falls near the start of my favorite season. (Yay for autumn!) And appears in the form of that big, magnificent Harvest moon.

Even though I'm dealing with a lot, my heart is full because when I look up at the full moon at night, I feel blessed. Blessed to have something that doesn't have anything to do with me, in its own way, represent me.

So bring on the detailed tarot spread while I charge my crystals and make moon water. Bring on the incense and morning yoga, followed by peppermint tea and donning my favorite pair of blue jeans. Bring on a bike ride in the park as a much-needed break from my screens and to-do lists. Bring on the journal writing and the late night painting session while I go to bed early because my body told me to, but only because it wanted me to wake up and write a blog post at 1:30 am.

Bring on going with the flow, and living in your feelings. Mercury in Retrograde be damned.

I am going to fill my weekend with grocery shopping for my autumnal equinox/Mabon celebration, cleaning my home, and taking a long relaxing shower so I can decompress and head into the best season with a song in my heart, even if I have a limp in my step.

Pardon my gushing. The moon made me do it.

[icequeenbae]

Stay with Me (m) | BBH

Pairing: Baekhyun x Reader

Long-distance relationship, established relationship, grumpy Baek, smut

Warnings: explicit content, unprotected sex, upset sex (is there such a thing), oral (f receiving), consent is not explicitly stated but implied

Word Count: ~2.6k

Summary: Baekhyun was upset because you had to leave again. His frustration made things escalate to an unexpected extent. He might’ve just wanted to make you late for the plane though.

© Please do not copy/ post on other platforms without permission.

Let’s celebrate my first ‘writing comeback’ anniversary together ❤❤❤  [February 17, 2020 – forever]

Author’s Note: Soooo… This was actually the first fic I wrote after many years of my writer’s coma. Wasn’t going to post it, but it’s important to save the date. A year ago during a business trip I was listening to Baekhyun’s ‘Stay Up’ in the backseat of a cab, and it suddenly got to me in a very new and profound way. As soon as I got to the hotel, the doc was created. Countless sleepless nights later, I can admit that I haven’t really stopped writing ever since.

Baekhyun isn’t just my bias or my favourite character to write, he’s so much more special to me than that. I’m not sure how long this journey is going to last or where it leads me, but so far he’s gifted me with one full year of this magic. He’ll always have a precious spot in my heart 🤍

Okay, done with the sappy times now (no). As usual – big thanks to @baekshoney​​​ for having a look, and I hope you guys enjoy this little oneshot!

This was one of those days. One of the days you hated, and Baekhyun didn’t do much to make it better for you. On the contrary, he was sulking since early morning. First, because you’d left him alone in bed and he woke up being cold. Then he just kept getting annoyed with everything. Why were you having coffee for breakfast again, when you should sleep on the plane? Why weren’t you packing snacks, when the airport food always made your stomach upset? You should’ve definitely worn one of his hoodies, since none of yours were warm and comfy enough, did he have to remind you?

Yes, this was the day you had to fly back home, leaving him behind once again. Which was exactly what brought his tsundere ways to the surface. He was just… upset.

‘Baby, it’s not the first time I’m going home, I’ll be fine,’ you grinned at his grumpy expression and poured him a cup of coffee as soon as he sat his butt down on the kitchen stool.

Baekhyun wasn’t exactly subtle in how he felt about you going away. The two of you had been doing this ‘long-distance thing’ since the very beginning of your relationship. You’d met during your first ever trip to Korea around two years ago and instantly clicked – just like that – not spending a single day without at least a quick message exchange with one another.

It was tough at times. There was no way for you to see each other more frequently, and you were often apart for months. Granted, you were keeping in touch religiously – texting every single day, having video calls every other night (whenever you could manage the schedules and time zones), posting ambiguous pictures on social media only for each other to understand. Still, you missed each other so terribly…

‘I don’t understand why you have to go anyway, you can just stay here with me,’ Baekhyun grumbled, eyeing the kitchen floor with a frown. You pursed your lips to contain the coo about to fly out of your mouth at how cute he was, pouting and complaining. Like an angry little bird. Before you could stop yourself, you reached out your hand and ruffled his already messy bedroom hair.

The way his nose scrunched up meant he wasn't in the mood to be playful. You sighed and leaned on the corner of the kitchen table.

‘You know I have work to get back to, Bae, I can’t be on vacation all year long.’

He was being rather childish about your departure, especially when you were already fully dressed and ready to go. The only thing stalling you was that Chanyeol, who insisted on being your ride to the airport today, hadn’t come to pick you up just yet, giving you some time to smooth over your boyfriend’s feathers.

Truth be told, you were only holding up the appearances for him. It was very possible that you were even more upset about having to go than he was. In fact, every time your week or two together were nearing an end, you felt nauseous at the thought that you wouldn’t be able to see his face, or hold his hand, or feel his warm breath on your skin, or kiss the tiny mole on his cheek.

In all honesty, you were... a mess. You only displayed yourself as calm and collected during your goodbyes because you knew his moodiness was merely a tactic to conceal his pain. So, you tucked your own feelings away to make it a bit more manageable for him. In reality, you broke down as soon as you arrived home and walked into your lifeless apartment. Each time, you had to find excuses and avoid talking to him via video messengers during those initial weeks, pretending to suddenly be swamped at work. You realized that seeing your eyes all red and puffy from crying every night would most definitely break his heart and worsen his longing. That you knew, because seeing him unhappy was excruciating. You wanted more than anything to deliver him from any further suffering.

It took all of your self-restraint not to reach out for his warm embrace or let the tears flow freely. He’d probably not let you go then, always telling you to just stay with him anyways. But you were both adults and had commitments, although hundreds and thousands of miles apart.

As your eyes were beginning to prick from observing his state and getting overwhelmed with your own feelings, you decided it was safer to move out ten minutes early, despite the call from Yeol not coming through yet. Anything to not let Baekhyun see you cry or cling to him desperately the way you wished to in that moment.

‘Well, you can pout all you want, I’m going to get my stuff,’ you said in an airy tone trying to elevate his mood slightly.

‘No.’

He stopped you in your tracks, grabbing your wrist. You gazed at him, confused as to what he meant. He was still looking down, eyebrows knitted together and chest heaving with almost anxious breaths.

‘Bae?’

‘No,’ he repeated, softer this time, but still not making eye contact with you. Instead, he tugged at your wrist and pulled you closer to him. You felt his grasp weaken until your wrist was free, however, your waist was not. His arms snaked around it, and he pulled you into himself, basically nuzzling his face into your chest.

‘Baekhyun?’ You squeaked, doing your best to fight off the goosebumps that littered your skin immediately after the contact. Your body never once asked for permission to react to him, and this time was no exception. His right hand traveled down your spine to the curve of your ass as his nose nudged one of your breasts. You shivered, grabbing at his shoulders, and he suddenly growled, knowing, sensing that your nipples had already perked up underneath the fabric of your bra.

Although he was trying to put you into one of his many oversized hoodies all the time, it was summer, so you were wearing a sundress (like any sane person would). Lucky for Baekhyun, this type of clothing made it even easier for him.

He rose from his seat and hoisted you up so abruptly that you only managed to yelp and grab at his neck for balance. You were then placed on the empty side of the dining table away from the leftover breakfast. Looking down at where your boyfriend’s hands were, you watched him frantically pull your dress up, before coming to your senses and trying to stop him.

‘Bae… What are you doing? Yeol is gonna be here any minute, we can’t just f…ugh!’ You cried out in surprise as he yanked your hips forcefully up to his face, completely ignoring your words. There’s no way he was going to...

‘Baekhyunie, please stop, you know I’m going to be late, what is…’ He didn’t even let you finish your rant, leaving a trail of insistent wet kisses upon the sensitive skin along the panty line while leading up to your protruding hip bone. Breath caught up in your throat, you couldn’t get the rest of the sentence out even if you wanted to. Did you really want to? With his head right there between your thighs, his dark burning eyes looking at you – completely immobilized by him – in the most intense and intimate way possible. His lips were glistening after he ran his tongue over them habitually, and when he leaned in and licked at your still clothed center, you belatedly realized that you weren’t even breathing. The realization only came with the wheezing gasp you’d let out, when your legs wrapped around his head as if on cue. Like fuel to the fire, your responsiveness only spurred him on. You didn’t even have time to realize that your boyfriend had already moved your panties out of the way when his impatient lips were on you again.

‘B- Baekhyun…’ You muttered, reaching your hand down to give pushing his head away a feeble try. ‘We can’t do this now, please stop... the airport…’

His ears seemed deaf to your reluctant pleas as he only employed more of his tongue to make you lose the last bits of your sober mind completely, melting and thrashing underneath his touch. He eased one of your thighs off of his shoulder, pushing it up and spreading you out before diving back in, paying no attention to your increasingly disheveled state.

At this point you could only sob, speech incoherent, all attempts to push him away or close your legs futile. And that alone made him grow feverish with the need to be inside you, to feel you once again before he had to let you go.

He was really good with his mouth, as usual, so by the time one of his hands left your thigh to tease you a little further with his long deft fingers you were so ready to take more that you barely registered the burn of two digits sliding inside. You were still a little sore from the night before, which you’d spent making love for hours on end, knowing that you won’t be touching each other anytime soon. But that was meaningless now.

His tongue expertly swirled around your clit, while his wrist found a familiar angle that always made you get vocal. Your back arched instantly as you cried out his name, barely grasping that you were still tugging at his soft locks and possibly causing discomfort. It was clear that your release was mere seconds away with your legs shaking and inner muscles clenching, and that was exactly where Baekhyun wanted you. Aching for his touch, needing him as much as he needed you. Just the two of you, caught up in the act of lustful desperation.

He’d worked his tongue diligently, almost pushing you over the edge by sucking on your most sensitive spot for just a second, and... then you suddenly felt him pull away.

‘No, no- what?’ You could barely form sentences, let alone complain, but your frenzied tone made his already rock-hard flesh twitch. His pants were down in seconds, and there wasn’t even a thought of pausing to get a condom on or cool off a little bit. You were both on the verge of getting overwhelmed by this passionate longing when... your phone suddenly lit up, indicating an incoming call. Before you could snap out of the moment you were having, Baekhyun had you flat on your back, all slick and ready for him to push inside. And that he did — in one quick and rough movement, filling you up and giving you no time to even make a sound before his hips tested you out with a couple of low amplitude thrusts. The table moved slightly, soft clanking of tableware falling on deaf ears. Meanwhile, Baekhyun grabbed onto your hips, lifting your ass in the air for more control over the penetration.

‘Baek, I swear… You have like 2 minutes before Chan-’ A vicious thrust reached further than before, definitely getting your friend’s name out of your mind for good. And anything else for that matter.

Baekhyun snapped his hips as if he wanted to get as deep as humanly possible, as if he wanted to literally ruin you, and you could only scratch at his forearm while losing yourself in the feeling of his hips colliding with yours and the delectable sounds the action produced.

‘Baby,’ Baekhyun suddenly breathed out hoarsely, eyebrows knitted together as if in pain, ‘I can’t hold it off-’

Hearing his voice so strenuous and somehow vulnerable, you threw your head back and closed your eyes, spreading your legs further apart to allow him to better angle his powerful thrusts.

Your limbs were starting to grow numb and the veins on your neck popped when you moaned, and that’s when Baekhyun let out a strained ‘ah’, holding you in place by the hips to give you his erratic final thrusts.

In that moment you felt like something snapped inside you. Your core was tight around your lover’s cock, your body shaking in pre-orgasmic bliss, and you’d never experienced it this way. You felt so full and content in this moment when he was still moving his hips and groaning stiffly above you, riding out his high. There was nothing else he needed to do to take you along. The sensation of his warmth inside you made you pulsate, wailing so loudly that Baekhyun had to cover your mouth with his palm. He kept going for a bit to prolong your orgasm and let you slowly come back to your senses.

Your eyes stared vacantly at the kitchen ceiling and your throat was dry, although Baekhyun’s hand was still clasped over your mouth. When both of you managed to catch your breath, you just gazed at each other for a few long moments. You were so spent that you couldn’t even read the semi-blank expression on his face. He slowly slipped his palm off of your face, still hovering over your body.

‘Baekhyunie…’ You murmured, touching his cheek gently. He was usually lowkey annoyed whenever you went on to kiss the little mole on his face instead of his lips. This time, however, he only lowered his head further to let you do your thing. You pressed your lips to the tiny dot on his skin, leaning back onto the table to find his eyes with your own.

‘I love you,’ he suddenly whispered in a broken voice, then cleared his throat and started over. ‘I really want you to stay with me.’

It was… bittersweet.

You winced, feeling him pull out, and accepted his help sitting up. Holding your boyfriend close by the shirt, you nudged his nose with yours and looked up to his sad dejected eyes.

‘I know, Bae,’ your voice sounded as uplifting as you could manage. ‘I will find a way to come see you on tour in the next couple of months, I promise.’

Baekhyun was about to say something else if not for the sudden ring of his phone that made both of you snap out of your tiny little world.

‘Dang, I bet it’s Yeol. Pick up!’ You pushed your boyfriend towards the phone and eased down from the table, grabbing the tissues to clean up quickly.

‘Yes,’ Baekhyun responded.

‘Are you two fucking?!’ Your nose scrunched up at Chanyeol’s vulgar shout.

‘Yes?’ At this you paused and smacked Baekhyun’s pec for the shameless (yet truthful) response. ‘Whoa- feisty. Chanyeol-ah, better hang up before you hear her- Ow!’ He raised an arm to defend himself from your playful hits.

‘You realize that if you do not come down in ten you’re most likely missing the flight?’ You heard Chanyeol reply after a frustrated sigh.

‘Not a problem for m-’ Baekhyun was interrupted by your yell.

‘We’re gonna be down in ten, please check the fastest routes to the airport, Yeolie!’

You ran out of the kitchen barely catching Baekhyun’s grumbling as he repeated after you.

‘Yeolie. Why the hell does she even call you that. It’s not like you- What? Shut up, you bastard!’

You smiled to yourself. At least his friends knew how and when to mess with him. If you weren’t there… They got him. He'd be okay. And with that you were happy for now.

A/N:This piece was my reintroduction to writing, and I’d love to hear any type of comments you have^^  Thank you guys for all the interaction and amazing responses so far, I cherish each and every one of them. You're the best <3

[honeypiehotchner]

i knew you (Bucky Barnes soulmate AU) -- part one

I know, I know. I just finished a story and I started another one and now I’m posting a different one...I’m insane. But I’ve had this idea for a while, just never wrote it down until last night! Enjoy xx.

Also! It’s Bucky x Reader, but it might read as Steve x Reader. I promise it’s platonic!Steve x Reader, though. Steve has no intentions of stealing Bucky’s girl. He knows Bucky would haunt his ass if he did (this is set in The Winter Soldier movie, so Steve still thinks Buck is dead).

Warnings: just some general sadness and angst, mentions of depression, it’s angst city honestly it made me cry

You watch as the old footage replays of Bucky’s wide grin. The only kind of smile that his best friend, Steve Rogers, could draw out of him with one single look or gesture. The only kind of expression that knocks the wind out of your lungs and sends chills down your spine.

“Best friends since childhood, Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable both on schoolyard and battlefield. Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country.”

You hastily wipe a tear away. It’s been months since you put the pieces together. Months since your parents told you that they had known for years. Months since they told you they didn’t want to tell you because they didn’t want to see you hurt. 

Months since you’ve realized the man you keep seeing in your dreams is Bucky Barnes.

At first, you thought you were crazy. People dream of faces they’ve never seen all the time, right? 

Soulmates are said to be rare, but not nonexistent. You’ve always thought they were real, just that the world was so cynical to really talk about them. The idea that there is one person out there whose soul is connected to yours is exactly the kind of thing that would send this generation walking the other direction with their middle fingers raised and eyes rolling in disbelief.

Then you started remembering your dreams. You started to see his face more clearly. Granted, you had no idea it was Bucky that you were seeing. 

You came to the Smithsonian almost half a year ago now with your best friend. She realized you both had never been before, and she basically said fuck it one day and took you with her. Her exact words were, “How have we gone to college here for a year and a half and we’ve never been to the damn Smithsonian?”

You weren’t expecting to meet your soulmate that day. 

Of course, you use the word “meet” very loosely. Your soulmate isn’t alive, which explains the emptiness you feel on a daily. It’s been said that soulmates can feel what the other is feeling. Often times it’s muted, but recognizable. 

You got to see his face, to finally realize that it’s Bucky. The Bucky Barnes. 

It sounds ridiculous — and God, you love your best friend for not calling you pathetic that day — but when you walked up to the very exhibit you’re standing at right now and saw Bucky’s smile...you knew. Instantly, you knew. And it moved you to tears.

It was like your soul had finally found her counterpart, here, grinning like a madman next to his best friend, all the way back in the 1940s. 

Your parents knew simply because of things you would say, offhandedly, without even realizing it. 

Your interest in WWII caught their attention, but it surprisingly didn’t last long -- only from about the time that you turned thirteen to a few months before your fourteenth birthday. You would’ve found Bucky a lot sooner had your interest in the war itself lasted much longer, but it didn’t. You wonder now if you subconsciously knew it was Bucky, but steered yourself away from it in an attempt to save yourself the heartache at such a young age. 

Your taste in music has been the constant that they didn’t quite understand at first. You listen to modern tunes, sure, but you’re a sucker for the music of the 40s. Even clothes. You sometimes found yourself leaning toward the styles of the 40s in subtle ways, not realizing it. 

The true confirmation of their suspicions came, though, when your mom said she heard you say Bucky’s name. The first time was on a road trip. You had fallen asleep in the car. You were sixteen at the time. You were dreaming and you have no recollection of ever saying his name. You weren’t even aware that you said his name while you were dreaming until she confessed that day.

You haven’t told anyone about it. Your best friend doesn’t even know. She still believes you got too excited about seeing Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, that’s all. She doesn’t know the real reason, the real aching pain that you feel every day. 

The only thing that eases the ache is this. Hogging this exhibit. Watching the footage over and over again. Watching Bucky’s smile and being unable to hold back your own, despite your tears.

You know the staff must think you’re delusional. Somehow you haven’t cared enough to entertain the thought. But you have seen the security guard give you strange looks when you walk in almost every other day.

It used to not be this bad. You came every day for a few weeks, but then you were able to calm down to once a week, sometimes twice a month, if you were too busy with school to think about Bucky much.

But lately, something has changed. You don’t know what it is. You still feel the emptiness, but something is different. It’s...troubled. That’s all your mind can come up with.

It makes no sense, though. How can Bucky be troubled? He’s dead. You believe in ghosts and all -- you’ve never been given a reason not to -- but you’ve heard more stories than you can count from people whose soulmate has died. They all say the same thing. They felt it when it happened. Because it was like a switch was flipped. They were feeling everything one moment, and the next, it was all gone. Empty.

Empty. How you’ve felt since the day you were born. You’ve been to therapists and they all told you the same thing. It’s just your thinking. Change your thinking processes. You’ve never slipped or spiraled far enough for it to be classified as a depressive disorder or anything else, just...empty.

When you found out about having a soulmate, and even more so when you found out it was Bucky, you still felt empty, but not as much. It was like everything suddenly made perfect sense. The emptiness had a purpose, a reason for existing.

When you see him smile, everything makes perfect sense. You feel like you have a reason to exist.

“Excuse me, miss?”

You slowly drag your eyes away from Bucky, preparing yourself to deal with a disgruntled museum-goer or staff member complaining about how long you’ve been standing here. But that’s not who you see.

He’s wearing a hat, but the resemblance is unmistakable.

Quickly, you glance at the video before looking back to the person beside you. That’s him. Steve Rogers.

“Hi,” you say hesitantly, quietly. He’s obviously hiding, which he is right to do. If anyone got wind of Steve Rogers walking around here, there would be mass chaos.

“Hey,” he replies just as quiet. “Um...Wanna get a coffee?”

You have no idea why he’s asking, but you nod anyway. Who would say no to coffee with Captain America?

Outside the Smithsonian and down the block, you bring Steve to your favorite spot to get coffee. Your best friend turned you onto it when you first got here for college, and you’ve gone here weekly ever since.

After grabbing your coffees, you pick a table far enough away from everyone else on the patio to talk without anyone listening in.

“So, uh…” Steve exhales, shifting in his seat. “Are you okay?”

“I’m okay,” you shrug, holding onto your cup with both hands. “Why did you ask me to get coffee?”

“You looked familiar,” Steve says, slowly. “What’s your full name, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Y/N L/N. Why?”

“Y/N…” Steve mutters under his breath, a crooked smile crossing his face. “I can’t believe it’s you.”

“Huh?”

“Bucky used to talk to me about you,” Steve continues, and you swear your heart stops. “He had me draw pictures of you. He couldn’t draw for crap, but he kept describing you to me from his dreams. I’ve drawn so many I’d recognize your face anywhere.”

“He dreamt about me?” You whisper. “Really?”

“All the time,” Steve nods, smiling sadly. “So you’re his soulmate?”

“I guess,” you say. “My mom says I used to say his name in my sleep all the time. I dreamt of his face, too, but I never knew it was him. Until my friend took me to the exhibit a few months ago.” You pause. “It sounds stupid. But seeing him there makes me feel...better.”

“I’m sorry,” Steve says suddenly. “It can’t be easy being born in a completely different generation.”

You smile softly. “Thank you. I’m sorry, too. I can’t imagine how hard it is to still be here after all this time. And without your best friend, too.”

“Yeah, it hasn’t been easy,” Steve admits. “But thanks. I appreciate it.”

“If it’s not too much to ask,” you begin, pausing to think about if you’re going to regret this. “Would you tell me about him? Just anything. It doesn’t have to be anything profound, just...anything you want to talk about. But if it’s too hard, don’t worry about it.” You wave your hands in front of your face, already preparing yourself for Steve to politely turn you down.

But he doesn’t.

“Bucky, he…” Steve pauses, shaking his head. “He was a lot wealthier than me back in the 40s. I had no business acting the way I did, picking fights with people three times my size, but I still did it. And Bucky was always there to pick me up off the ground and give me a ride back home.”

“Yeah?” You chuckle. “You used to be super skinny, right?”

“I was really sick, actually. Bucky had every reason to treat me like anyone else, but he never did. We grew up together -- though I used to joke that he grew up. I stayed the same size. But he never made fun of me for it.”

You can’t help but grin. “That video in the museum -- his smile. I see it in my dreams all the time.”

“Yeah, yeah that was Bucky’s signature grin. He could give any woman that smile and they were his.”

“I can see why,” you admit quietly, averting your eyes when Steve raises his eyebrows. You change subjects, not wanting to talk about how attractive you find Steve’s dead best friend -- despite him being your soulmate. “What was his favorite thing to eat for breakfast?”

Steve takes the bait, and for the next four hours, the two of you sit on the patio, talking about Bucky Barnes. 

His favorite color? Your eyes. Which you think is a little ridiculous, but Steve swears it’s the truth.

His favorite thing to do? Go dancing. Hands down.

His favorite thing to talk about? You. Again, you give Steve a stern look, and again, he swears it’s true. But when he wasn’t talking about you, Steve says Bucky talked a lot about the future. He was an optimist. Steve has no idea how, but Bucky always saw the brightest side.

Bucky was kind. Kinder than a lot of men his age, at the time. He had that blinding smile and instead of hiding it and going for the mysterious, brooding attitude, he chose to smile as much as he could, to anyone who looked like they needed it.

Realizing that the sun is beginning to go down, Steve decides to get you home.

“It’s alright, I can walk,” you tell him, feeling high on everything Bucky. “It’s just up here. I go to college here.”

“At least let me walk you to the campus,” Steve offers.

You raise an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

“Bucky would kill me if I let his girl walk home alone. Especially when it’s getting dark.”

“Fine,” you cave. Hearing Steve refer to you as “Bucky’s girl” sends chills down your spine -- the good kind of chills. The kind that makes you wish it was the 1940s. The kind that makes you wish Bucky was here, holding your hand, walking you home.

Once you reach campus (you decide to let Steve walk you all the way to your dorm building), you ask Steve the question you’ve been wondering about ever since you first saw Bucky in the museum.

“Hey Steve?”

Hands stuffed in his pockets, Steve turns his head toward you. “Yeah?”

“If this was the 40s...do you-- Do you think I’m the kind of girl Bucky would want?”

Steve’s steps falter. You slow your pace to match his until you’re both stopped, looking at one another.

“What is it?” You ask.

“Yes,” Steve says simply. “Yeah. I do. I know for a fact he would’ve torn down every building until he found you. Because he tried.”

Your breath hitches. Deep down, you had convinced yourself that you weren’t the kind of girl Bucky would want. Not that it’s your fault because you were born this side of the millennium. But to hear Steve tell you otherwise makes you freeze.

“What?”

“Bucky didn’t have me sketch you because he wanted me to practice my drawing. He did it because he wanted to see a picture of you. Something he could keep in his wallet and look at every night. He was a ladies man, yeah, but every single one...he wanted them to be you. But they never were.” Steve shakes his head. “It really tore him up, that he never found you. He still held out hope, though. Until the very last second.”

Tears have sprung to your eyes before you even realize it. 

“Before he fell, he--” Steve pauses. “He told me to promise that I’d find you. I guess I kept my promise after all.”

He looks up to see the tears in your eyes, streaming down your cheeks. Without a single word, Steve pulls you into his chest, and without hesitation, you let yourself cry.

He’s not Bucky. And you’ll never find your Bucky, but he’s close enough. Steve promised Bucky that he’d find you, and he kept that promise. Now he’s going to do everything in his power to keep you safe.

Because he knows for a fact Bucky would’ve wanted that, too.

[autumnleaves1991-blog]

College AU Week 1 Day 3 - Evgeni Kolpakov

A/N: I have never written for Evgeni but I kind of love the way this turned out. Let me know what you think. Thank you for reading, reblogging, commenting, and liking. This is day three of the January AU Writing challenge/300 follower celebration! 

* I posted a video I listened to while writing this if you wanted to listen while you read. It helped inspire me. 

Pairing: Evgeni Kolpakov X G.N Reader (please let me know if I missed any pronouns)

Warning: I don’t think anything, it’s pretty romantic/fluffy. 

My Masterlist 

My computer crashed, and you're the student worker at the IT center. 

Most people would be happy to have a night off from work. Ordinary people who don't go to school all day, spending their evenings at the IT center troubleshooting with students who've procrastinated their assignments. Shouting at you because their computer has decided to crash or their internet in their dorm has failed. Honestly, any person who works in customer service would be happy with a night off and away, but not you. Not since he first called. 

You sigh, thinking of the way his voice makes you hum in the squeaky rolling chair you find yourself perched on nightly. The Russian accent thick and shooting straight through your core as he talks to you about everything and nothing, making your heart beat faster. Evgeni, the enigma from your work who never failed to call you every evening for the past month; you'd never seen him, nothing more than a voice on the phone. His words honey to your ears as he makes you laugh. You want to know him. You have to know him. 

"Hey! Are you okay there? You seemed really out of it," your friend Charlotte looks concerned until you smile and embrace her outside the club. 

"Oh, I'm okay just thinking about someone," you pull back, and she grins. 

"Oh, is this about the mysterious caller that has your brain in a tizzy? Are you missing him already?" she teases, and you nod. The smell of cigarettes and cheap perfume waft onto the darkened street outside the piano bar. The ivories' tickling makes you think of Evgeni and how some nights he would play his piano over the phone. He was a very talented player, and you dreamed of hearing him play in person. The way his hands would move across the keys as he would coax the sweet music from them. 

Charlotte taps you on the shoulder and points to the bar, "I'm sure he can survive without you for one evening." 

"He wasn't able to call tonight; he had a prior engagement." 

"He plays the piano, right?" 

"Yes." You see the wheels turning in her head as she points towards the bar, "No, he didn't mention that he was playing anywhere tonight, just that he had something and wouldn't be able to call." You open the door and step inside, her following close behind. The bar is lit up on one wall with a single spotlight on the small stage. A black baby grand piano sits atop it, and the sounds of the keys sing to your heart. 

You walk over to the bartender, order a gin and tonic and take a seat at a two-seater towards the middle of the club. Taking a moment to soak in the music before you observe the player. He's handsome in a white button-up shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows; the chords in his arms shine under the light. He's got on a black fedora, but you can see the hint of a buzz cut underneath. His face with a light speckling of stubble just beginning to form—smoke curling from the ashtray perched on the top and a half-drunken glass of red wine. 

As the piece comes to a close, you feel yourself in a slow trance. The world around you slowing down as the music fades, and he does a small bow of his head as the crowd erupts into applause. You sit there frozen as he reaches for the cigarette, pulling drag and holding it between his fingers. Almost as if he can feel the magnetic pull, he looks up into your eyes, and you drown in the deep brown of his own. Lips parting on a small gasp when his gaze sears into your soul and ignites the fire in your blood. 

He leans towards the microphone, "Thank you, everyone, for this next piece…" but you stop listening as your heart stops. You would know that voice anywhere. It's the voice you'd heard every single day for the last month, the one who colors your dreams. The voice you dream of as you touch yourself at night, wishing it was really him whispering sweet nothings in your ear. 

*********** 

One Month Ago 

The phone rings more than you would believe for an evening IT department, and you pick up on the second ring already opening the form to fill out for the request. "Thank you for calling the  NYU IT department helpline; this is Y/N; how can I help you?" 

"Yes, hello, my computer keeps crashing when I try to submit an assignment," a man with a deep Russian accent coos in your ear. 

"Okay, and have you tried turning it on and off again?" He sighs and agrees, going through all the usual motions of a phone call this late. 

"Well, it would seem to be an issue with the server, I will put in a work order request for the IT department heads to take a look, and they will get back to you within 24-48 hours." 

He let out a groan, "But I need to submit the assignment tonight. Listen, I am not some privileged child who waited until the last minute to submit the assignment. I take night classes for business and work all day as a security guard. I really need to get this turned in on time. Please, there must be something you can do." Something about the tone in his voice gives you pause. 

"Maybe…" you try to think, "maybe I can send your professor a formal message from the IT department and submit your assignment for you. Can you email it to me?" 

He agrees, and he scrambles for a pencil, writing down your email and quickly sending it off. His name pops up a few minutes later, Evgeni Kolpakov. "Evgeni? Where are you from?"

You can hear the amusement in his tone when he says, "Vermont." 

You let out a chuckle, "Vermont really?" 

"A refugee camp in Vermont," oh shit, you try to apologize, but he lets out a laugh, "It's okay. Vermont is full of surprises, you know." 

"Oh really now," you finish composing the email and attach his essay before sending it, "done, it's sent." He lets out a relieved breath. 

"Thank you so much," he chuckles, "what do I owe you for the trouble?" 

"Tell me more about Vermont," you smile and lean back as he fills you with stories of his childhood. You spend two hours on the phone, and when you look at the clock and gasp, he quickly apologizes. 

"I'm sorry about taking so much of your time...but I'm not sorry for talking to you," you can hear him put something down in the background, and you sigh. 

"I'm not either," you whisper, "this has been one of the best nights I've ever had at this job." 

He chuckles, "You mean the universities IT department is not a bustling hub of excitement during the evening?" 

You laugh, "No...would you," you know you shouldn't ask, but you can't help yourself, "would you call again if you had any other problems?" I work ten to four in the morning this week." 

"I promise," his voice gets more profound as you hold your breath, "I will call back tomorrow with another problem if only to talk to you again." 

You tremble at his tone and hang up with a longing, "I'll be waiting." 

*********** 

Present Day 

"Evgeni," you whisper under your breath, but it's almost like he can hear as his head snaps up and looks at you again. His hands are poised above the keys, and he smiles. 

"This is for you," he whispers and makes love to you through the music. A personal symphony just for you as his fingers caress the keys like the ways of a lover. 

You listen, transfixed eyes never leaving him, your drink, Charlotte, and the world around you fading into nothing until it's just you and him alone. The music swarms around you, and you feel yourself rising slowly towards him as the song ends and the cheers of the crowd flow. But you don't care as he stands and holds out a hand for you to take, leading you outside and into the fresh air. The chill December evening shocks you back into reality. 

The feeling of his jacket, he grabbed draped over your shoulder as he rests his forehead against your own, and you feel the rough exterior against your back. "It's you," he whispers, and you feel his moist breath upon your lips. 

"It's you," you reply before closing the distance between you and sealing your lips together in a kiss that is soft and gentle. He groans, placing his hands on your cheeks and pulling you closer, deepening the kiss. You feel alive and consumed by him as he takes control and melds you to him, caressing you like his fingers caressed the keys on the baby grand. 

When he pulls away, you both smile, "I've been waiting for you," he whispers against your lips. 

"Oh Evgeni, I've been waiting for you too." The long days of waiting for the phone to ring are long gone as your fantasies and realities bleed together to make one complete vision. Love. 

Taglist: @oldstuffnewstuff​ @yespolkadotkitty​ @heythere-mel​ @justanotherblonde23​ @artsymaddie​ @anetteaneta​ @lunarthoughts​ @aellynera​ @lucifer-​ @houseofthirst​ @chicken-ona-stick​ @phoenixhalliwell​ @letoartreiides​ 

Tagging some extra people who may be interested (I hope that’s okay, let me know if not): @writefightandflightclub​ @tinygaydemonbby​ @itspdameronthings​ @damerondjarin​ @wasicskosgirl​ 

I listened to this while writing if you wanna listen while reading: 

[falllingstyles]

Spreading you open is the only way of knowing you

Y/N isn’t quite ready to be with Harry the way he wants, resulting in many nights of unspoken words and sweaty bodies. 

2.5k words // TW: mentions of sex and minor mistreatment (can’t exactly call it abuse but it wasn’t love or an appropriate relationship)

The cacophony of noise from the city below was no match for what had echoed from the walls of Y/N’s flat for the past twenty minutes. She was sure she would be quite embarrassed to see her neighbors the next morning with the noises that were undoubtedly loud enough to be heard through the walls. She was even more embarrassed by the thought of them not even being phased anymore. But her discomfort was worthwhile as they all kept their mouths closed. 

The sight of Harry Styles frequenting her front door was something they saw quite often, and the shock of a massive celebrity leaving out the same door the next morning had worn off over the past few years. Meeting the year of his second to last tour with One Direction, the two had grown close behind closed green room doors and over long phone calls. But it wasn’t until he left the band that Y/N had noticed a change between them. It was quite crazy to think of how that change let them to their position now.

Y/N laid on her bed, basking in the shadow that Harry’s body created, watching his chest rise and fall as he slowly fell back onto the sheets. Taking one last moment to right himself, he ran his hands through his hair, despite it being far too obviously unkempt to pass as simply bedhead. After seeing his hair look so many different ways over the years, his hair after her hands ran through it was easily the best looking, but she’d never admit it.

He looked down at her, finding her stare within seconds as he always did. His eyes had become such a comfort, that it was hard to picture a night without them roaming over her body like they had done for years now.

His smile, ever-present, was different. His eyebrows slightly furrowed, Y/N could tell he was thinking hard. Struggling to find the words he was searching for, Y/N simply ran her hands along his bicep, hoping it would bring him some solace.

“I’ve, uh, got to go to Bath next week to work on something I wrote a little bit ago.”

Y/N perked up. “A song! You’ve written a song!”.

He giggled a bit, “Well it is my job.” The nerves washed over him again, the song he had written wasn't something he really wanted to have to explain to her. The inspiration coming after a difficult night they had spent together while on a break from his first tour. “But, me and some guys found a great studio there and I think it’d be nice to hash it out with them.”

Y/N propped he head up now, closer to Harry’s lips than he thought he could handle. “For a second album?” She whispered, trying to hide her excitement at the possibility.

Trying his best to conceal the truth - behind both the prospect of a second album or the fact that it was entirely thanks to her - but ultimately failing, Harry nodded. Y/N didn’t even bother to cover herself up, leaping from her position under the sheets to straddle Harry, whispering about her excitement.

He lifted her off his torso and more onto his chest, with the anterior motive of not being able to handle another round of her body atop his waist, and basked in her excitement.

“That’s wonderful Harry, I'm so happy for you. How fun! A new album, more pretty suits, more touring.”

“Maybe you’ll come along for more of it this time”. He asked apprehensive, not being able to muster the courage to look into her eyes.

Y/N moved further from his body, letting out a small laugh. “Me?”

“Me?”

It was obviously not the response he was expecting to hear, such was evident in his rapidly falling smile.

“Who else?” He asked slowly.

“A real date?”, she asked.

“Yeah,” He said, his confidence from only a few moments earlier almost completely gone, “At the place Ben was telling us about.”

“That restaurant is always jam-packed with people, I don’t think-”.

“We don’t have to go to that restaurant, there’s a nice trail-”.

“A trail? Harry, I’m not quite sure I could...”

Fumbling over every word made the thoughts race through her head even faster. Not a single cohesive idea was around long enough before the fear of being seen shot it down. The cameras, the fans, the press. She could see the headlines now, ones calling her a slag and a gold digger, the posts making assumptions about her and her relationship with Harry. Comparing her to his past girlfriends, the girls with ultra-slim waists and perfect pouts.

“It’s alright we don’t have to do anything big, I just wanted to-.” He muttered whilst reaching out to caress her thigh. A nervous habit she noticed he had over the past two months since she met him.

“No, we can’t do anything.” She said louder, cutting him off again. Her breathing became heavier, and the feeling of his eyes on her was unbearable.

The ‘anything’ that he was referring to was a broad range, one in which they both were scared to breach the subject of. Admit that they had both thought of some sort of future together, in which all their worries melted away with a simple touch. A future full of late nights and hectic mornings, picking children up from school, eating a big dinner, and asking how their days went. A future that started with a date, and led to many many more.

After a long pause, filled only with the sound of their heavy breaths, he whispered; “You don’t want to go out on a date with me?

“I can’t”, Y/N choked out.

“You don’t want to be with me?” She could see the tears threatening to spill from his eyes.

“I do, I just can’t”.  Just the same as she couldn’t tell him how deeply in love with him, that every beat of her heart was for him. She loved him, but what came with his heart wasn’t something she could carry.

“Nobody has to know, no one but our friends. I know you don’t like the paparazzi but-“

“What kind of relationship would that be! We just fuck in private and pretend we don’t know each other in public?”

Funnily enough, it was exactly what they ended up doing. When you researched ‘Y/N L/N’ online all that came up was her name and photo from the ‘about us’ page of the production company she worked for, just as she liked it.

If you really looked hard enough in the foreground of a few photos of Harry taken at restaurants or beaches you could spot her, but her face among their sea of friends wasn’t one worth recognizing. Despite Harry saying otherwise. He didn’t often pay attention to the people who called themselves fans of his when they picked apart the photos transpiring from invasive cameras with too bright flashes. But when some would pick up on a glance between the two of them, a grappling of hands, or a stolen smile he couldn’t help but dwell on it. He understood what simply being seen with him brought upon her, but is he too optimistic for thinking she’d ever be willing to endure it for him?

It was easy for Y/N to ignore the fact that their relationship, or whatever it was called, had become exactly what she didn’t want it to be. The moments in which she would look at him and wonder what it is they were doing would end as his lips would be on hers in an instant.

It wasn’t that they didn’t have anything else to do, they spent a very long time as nothing more than friends and they undoubtedly had fun. Being able to wander the halls of arenas, gorging on expensive foods in restaurant back rooms, and jumping off yachts. Until things became - complicated - they never doubted their friendship. There were no secrets that they hadn’t whispered to each other under the cover of a starry night. Or so they thought.

Y/N couldn’t believe what they had done, not that she could bring herself to fully regret it, but having sex with her best friend for the past three months - even after she turned him down - was something she could never have imagined. She had sat at his kitchen island many times beforehand, but never after having just been underneath him. She watched as he meticulously placed the cheese for his quesadilla at the stove in front of her. He had insisted he make them a small meal after she had mentioned hardly eating much of a dinner.  

Harry had always taken very good care of her, but this was different. He always paid for meals no matter Y/Ns resistance, invited her to parties with his hot shot friends, and gave her gifts she never felt she fully deserved. But this wasn’t something she had ever really had before, this realization being so profound that she told him. He grinned, now focusing on chopping the onions. The sizzling in the pan filled the kitchen, filling the void of silence that Y/N was debating breaking.

“Ryan was never so … gentle with me”.

The sizzling continued, but Harry paused. After Ryan had broken up with Y/N she had spent the proceeding two weeks at his flat watching shitty TV and crying into his shirts.

“Ryan wouldn't have made you a meal…. after?” Harry asked, not daring to breach the subject of what they had just done.

“I mean, sometimes he would but I’m talking about … when we…” Y/N felt like a child, she couldn’t say it. Couldn’t say a stupid word. Harry’s head whipped to her, an unrecognizable expression on his face. “He didn’t like … do anything” referring to one of her worst fears “but … sometimes I wasn’t able to tell him to loosen his grip or slow down when I needed him to.”

Harry had done everything she had told him to. When she asked him to change positions, he obliged without a second thought. Telling him where to put his hands, what she liked, and how fast to go. But not only could she feel his consideration with every stroke, but something else as well. Something that they shied away from at every second except for in bed.

He didn’t expect her to laugh at his question, after having spent so many nights hyping himself up to ask it. Trying to remind himself that Y/N was his friend and that he would take a question like that seriously (because she’s always taken his other serious questions with the reaction he’s hoped for in the past). He looked into her eyes, a pair that he thought of in the moments before he fell asleep. She quickly realized the seriousness in his face and moved a bit further across the bed.  Despite not being able to make it far considering the mass of pillows along the edge.

Harry wanted nothing more than to reach out to her, but it was obvious at this point, six years into their friendship and three years into whatever it was they were doing now, that there was no point. Not unless she was underneath him could he evoke the reactions he wanted from her. The careless smiles of absolute bliss were like a secret he could only be privy to at night.

“I… I’m sorry Harry, you know that I ca-“

“You can't do what!? Y/N? You can’t…”

Y/N’s suddenly felt every inch of her body that was touching Harry’s, his torso underneath her, her feet at his thighs. Every inch burned. The affection that had just been pouring out of her, both emotionally and physically to both their delights, had suddenly run dry. There was nothing but unsaid words and rumpled sheets now, the passion long gone.

Y/N could never tell if what they had been doing for months was ruining their friendship, or that their friendship ended the second that he leaned in and kissed her that night in New York all those years ago.

Y/N could never understand how someone could ever say that the magic to being in New York City could ever be lost. She had lived in her apartment for a few months now, and it was easy to say that she loved it. A space to herself, if you ignored her three roommates of course. It was only temporary of course, being needed back in London in six months, but there was no way she was going to sit idly by and let those six months slip away.

Making her extra grateful to have Harry come visit. Y/N had fixed the creases on her comforter at least nine times before she received his text telling her he was on her way up. Sprinting past her roommate's doors and into their well-decorated foyer she stood excitedly waiting for him.

The second Harry stepped in before he even got a chance to look around - there was Y/N running toward him -  she had a hard blazing look in her face as she threw her arms around him. And without thinking, without planning it, without worrying about the fact that the roommates he had heard plenty about were watching, Harry bent down and kissed her. After several long moments, or it might have been half an hour (or possibly several sunlit days) they broke apart.

The grin that had been on both of their faces only moments before was still plastered on their faces but now covered with cherry red lipstick. Lipstick that Y/N rushed to wipe off Harry’s soft lips as she slowed her breathing to avoid the person attached to the footsteps that were steadily growing louder.

But with each kiss, they communicated just what they couldn’t say out of bed. The words that they could hardly even dare to think, let alone say out loud. So when it came to conversations in the space they usually used for sex, it became difficult. Leading them to one of their two usual answers. Have sex, and if they already did, have sex again, but ultimately to leave and pretend like it hardly ever happened.

So, when Harry watched Y/N slowly crawl off the side of the bed, he could hardly force words to come out. Only being able to push a final “Why can’t you? Y/N? please.”

The tension grew stronger with each article of clothing Y/N put back on. She took her time meticulously fixing the hem of her shorts to ponder his question. Why? Why couldn’t she? But, she was already two steps from the door. Leaving the room that fostered the only space Harry and Y/N would truly allow themselves to be open.

I’ve never written for Harry before so go easy on me please! I really do like this though, it was a lot of fun!

[shinydelirium]

MLQC Season 2 Chapter 12 (Kiro) Part 4 [Confession of the Stars] Translation [CN]

***SPOILERS*** THIS POST CONTAINS HEAVY SPOILERS FOR CONTENT NOT YET RELEASED ON EN SERVER!!! READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!***

For previous translations of Season 2 Chapter 12: Part 1/ Part 2/ Part 3

Enjoy~

[Confession of the Stars]

Even so, I still didn’t see Kiro’s face. The hospital still expressed his unwillingness to see anyone.

But nonetheless, it was fine for me to text him. I want him to know that he is not alone.

As long as he wants, I will appear in front of him immediately.

In the past two days, Kiro has asked Savin to bring his belongings to him from time to time and sometimes buy a few books.

After entrusting a lawyer to submit my alibi for me, I no longer need to go to the Task Force for regular reports.

However, the previous hospital hostage incident triggered more and more group skirmishes and discussions on the Internet continued on.

Everyone wants become the one who wins the right to speak. On the other hand, the hostile takeover incident of LFG, which had been raging before, was gradually suppressed.

There hasn’t been much movement on LFG’s side, so the problem probably isn’t that serious. I also successfully sent out the USB flash drive according to Gavin’s instructions.

Many departments of the company are asking whether or not to follow the hot topics to produce a show. I was so busy that I could only text Kiro at night.

Such days lasted for more than a week.

After nine o’clock in the evening, I had just entered the house, dragging my weary body when Kiro called.

Kiro: ….Miss Chips?

His voice was a little cautious, wary, and even quivering.

MC: What’s wrong?

Kiro let out a little laugh from the other end.

I’ve been so out of it lately. It’s been a very long time since I heard him laugh so enthusiastically.

Kiro: MC, say my name.

MC: Kiro, are you okay? Why are you so happy?

He didn’t answer but just laughed happily.

Kiro: What are you up to?

MC: Of course, I just got home from a rough day at work. ***Changed some wording***

Kiro: Thanks for all the hard work, Miss Chips.

I was lying on the sofa and complaining to Kiro about recent events. He listened carefully, and from time to time he also grumbled about his troubles to me.

This moment gave me a certain illusion, as if nothing was wrong.

The next day I heard that Kiro asked Savin to bring his guitar.

At the same time, the Task Force came forward and started to take control of the chaotic situation reasonably and accurately.

I checked Weibo and found that more and more people are no longer emotionally angry, but deeper in discussion about the relationship between Evol and ordinary people.

Along with the nice weather, I think a lot of things are heading in a good direction little by little.

I had a rare chance to get off of work early today. After thinking about it, I went and bought Kiro’s favorite canelé and arrived at the door of his ward.

MC: It would be wonderful if I could see him today…

While I muttered this, I stretched out my hand to knock on the door.

Before I could, an overly harsh and messy guitar chord came to my ears and left me frozen in place.

The crude, sharp sound felt as if it was forced out like a shout being torn from a person’s throat and the chords held some frustration within them.

It was so depressing. It was even hard to breathe.

After a profound silence, a few faint guitar notes came quietly as if crying. The voice was soft and desperate, as if it was not a note.

But a shattered dream.

I leaned on the door and listened to the broken chords, holding my breath without making a sound.

Finally, I left the snack in the nurse’s care. I told her to give it to Kiro after waiting for a bit and then left.

On the way home, a new advertisement shot by Kiro some time ago is being displayed on the large screen on the side of the road.

Passerby A: Kiro clearly announced that he’s an Evolver. Why is he still so popular?

Passerby B: Kiro is Kiro. What does that have anything to do with being an Evolver?

Passerby A: Maybe he used some special Evol to control you and made you like him so much.

Passerby B: Do you actually know him or even understand him?! Of course, there’s a reason why Kiro is so well-liked. Do you think Evol can do everything?

Passerby B: I’ll show you this collection. You’ll understand after reading it. Why hasn’t he released a new song yet….?

The girl and her companions walked away slowly and I watched their backs disappear into the night.

In this turbulent moment, there are still many people talking about him, expecting him, and waiting for him. But at this time, I don’t want to tell him this.

Stars dotted the night sky, watching the whole city tenderly and peacefully.

I took a photo of this night sky with my phone and sent it to Kiro.

I don’t know what Kiro is struggling by himself, but I hope he won’t make all his expectations become his own burdens.

There was no reply from Kiro that night.

Until 7:25 the following evening, my phone rang.

***During this next scene, the 3rd anniversary song is being played. It made the entire scene so much more emotional and touching but also sad. The BGM in this whole chapter was meticulously chosen.***

Kiro: Good evening, Miss Chips.

Kiro: How did you know that I wanted to eat canelé? When I ate it yesterday, tears were about to come out.

MC: Tears from the corners of your mouth? ***T/N: She means drooling***

Kiro: Hehe, hurry up and remove the camera you installed on me!

MC: If there really was a webcam, that would be great….by the way, how are you today? ***Woah, woah, MC!!! So you want to upgrade from sneaky pictures to sneaky videos? MY GIRL!!!***

Kiro: Of course, I’m doing well!

MC: That’s good. It seems that the retreat is working effectively.

Hearing what I said, he laughed. His voice full of energy.

But we both know that these are all tacit masks.

Kiro is too clever. He must know how weak his excuses for shutting himself up are.

So weak that he doesn’t believe them himself.

When 7:30 came around, Kiro stopped talking. Then suddenly he spoke solemnly.

Kiro: Miss Chips, I want to play some songs for you.

MC: Okay! I haven’t heard you play a song in a long time.

Gentle guitar music came slowly from the other end of the phone. I imagined Kiro playing right now and closed my eyes, feeling a little nostalgic.

Soon, one song was finished.

Kiro: Sitting on the bed and closing my eyes just now, it felt like I was in a concert.

MC: That’s not right. The audience hasn’t arrived yet and you can’t have a concert with just you.

Kiro: Then come to the special concert. A concert dedicated by Kiro himself.

Kiro: Miss Chips is the only special guest.

MC: That’s not very monotonous.

Kiro: How could it be?

Kiro: Miss Chips, are you standing by the window right now? Can you see the stars outside?

Listening to what he said, I immediately got up and went to the balcony.

The stars outside the window twinkled and hung in the night sky like little lights.

MC: I can!!!

Kiro: My favorite stage is like this starry sky.

Kiro: That was my first stage. It was not very big and crowded with people.

Kiro: That day was the same as today, a sky full of stars. There was a long passage leading to the main stage.

Kiro: Every time I stepped on a square, a star will light up under my feet.

Kiro: The audience turned on the flash from the back of their phones and the whole world seemed to be connected into a sea of stars.

Kiro: In that moment, I told myself to shine in this sea of stars and become the brightest one.

I slowly listened to him talking about his beloved stage and the brightest star in his heart.

I was on this end of the phone, looking at the starry night outside. I could feel him holding my hand and leading me towards the stage.

I saw him piously touching the places he knew and missed the most, holding the guitar and standing in the most radiant place.

His entire being seems to be shining.

Kiro: Miss Producer, would you say I’ve done it? 

MC: Of course.

MC: You did it long ago.

Kiro laughed lightly. This time the guitar music was accompanied by his singing.

His voice is so soft and sincere, like some kind of long-distance reunion. Like a farewell to something.

After a dozen songs were sung one after another, Kiro’s voice was already a little hoarse.

MC: ….Since it’s a concert, can I still have an encore?

Kiro: (chuckles) Since it’s MC’s request, I would definitely not refuse it.

Kiro: This is the last song called “Confession of the Stars”.

***T/N: Decided to include both the EN and CN versions of the lyrics. I’m not a songwriter so the CN version is what Google Translate gave me. I really love Bian Jiang’s singing in this scene so do give it a listen 😉. Also, I love how there’s no BGM music playing while he sings because I feel like that would just take away some of the emotion.***

Kiro: (EN version) “I got a song that I wanna sing for you~ It may not be perfect, but it will have to do~”

“Dreaming your dreams and going your own way~ Sometimes you feel lonely, sometimes heartbreak…”

(CN version) “There is a song I want to sing for you~ For you who work hardest in the world~”

“On the road towards your dream~ Sometimes you feel a little lonely….”

***Now I can’t hear this song the same way ever again. WHY, KIRO!?! TELL ME WHY!?!? YOU SURE KNOW HOW TO BREAK MY HEART!!! TAT***

When I heard the familiar, leisurely melody, I was overwhelmed. The song seemed to pass through time, embracing me tenderly.

I always feel that something will end after this song. I want to try my best to hold onto it, but I can only grasp at nothingness. ***FORESHADOWING!!! Actually, this entire “concert” is.***

Eventually, I could only wait quietly for it to come to an end.

Kiro: (sighs) The concert is over. Thank you, Miss Chips.

Kiro: (In the sweetest, most tender voice): Good night.

-End of Part 4-

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

July 9, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

[It appears this did not go out last night. My apologies.]

On July 9, 1868, Americans changed the U.S. Constitution for the fourteenth time, adapting our foundational document to construct a new nation without systematic Black enslavement.

In 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution had prohibited slavery on the basis of race, but it did not prevent the establishment of a system in which Black Americans continued to be unequal. Backed by President Andrew Johnson, who had taken over the presidency after an actor had murdered President Abraham Lincoln, white southern Democrats had done their best to push their Black neighbors back into subservience. So long as southern states had abolished enslavement, repudiated Confederate debts, and nullified the ordinances of secession, Johnson was happy to readmit them to full standing in the Union, still led by the very men who had organized the Confederacy and made war on the United States.

Northern Republican lawmakers refused. There was no way they were going to rebuild southern society on the same blueprint as existed before the Civil War, especially since the upcoming 1870 census would count Black Americans as whole persons for the first time in the nation’s history, giving southern states more power in Congress and the Electoral College after the war than they had had before it. Having just fought a war to destroy the South’s ideology, they were not going to let it regrow in peacetime.

Congress rejected Johnson’s plan for Reconstruction.

But then congressmen had to come up with their own plan. After months of hearings and debate, they proposed amending the Constitution to settle the outstanding questions of the war. Chief among these was how to protect the rights of Black Americans in states where they could neither vote nor testify in court or sit on a jury to protect their own interests.

Congress’s solution was the Fourteenth Amendment.

It took on the infamous 1857 Dred Scott decision declaring that Black men "are not included, and were not intended to be included, under the word 'citizens' in the Constitution, and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for and secures to citizens.”

The Fourteenth Amendment provides that “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

The amendment also addressed the Dred Scott decision in another profound way. In 1857, southerners and Democrats who were adamantly opposed to federal power controlled the Supreme Court. They backed states’ rights. So the Dred Scott decision did more than read Black Americans out of our history; it dramatically circumscribed Congress’s power.

The Dred Scott decision declared that democracy was created at the state level, by those people in a state who were allowed to vote. In 1857, this meant white men, almost exclusively. If those people voted to do something widely unpopular—like adopting human enslavement, for example—they had the right to do so and Congress could not stop them. People like Abraham Lincoln pointed out that such domination by states would eventually mean that an unpopular minority could take over the national government, forcing their ideas on everyone else, but defenders of states’ rights stood firm.

And so, the Fourteenth Amendment gave the federal government the power to protect individuals even if their state legislatures had passed discriminatory laws. “No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws,” it said. And then it went on to say that “Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.”

The principles behind the Fourteenth Amendment were behind the 1870 creation of the Department of Justice, whose first job was to bring down the Ku Klux Klan terrorists in the South.

Those same principles took on profound national significance in the post–World War II era, when the Supreme Court began to use the equal protection clause and the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment aggressively to apply the protections in the Bill of Rights to the states. The civil rights decisions of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, including the Brown v. Board of Education decision outlawing segregation in public schools, and the Loving v Virginia decision permitting interracial marriage, come from this doctrine. Under it, the federal government took up the mantle of protecting the rights of individual Americans in the states from the whims of state legislatures.

Opponents of these new civil rights protections quickly began to object that such decisions were “legislating from the bench,” rather than permitting state legislatures to make their own laws. These opponents began to call for “originalism,” the idea that the Constitution should be interpreted only as the Framers had intended when they wrote it, an argument that focused on the creation of law at the state level. Famously, in 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Robert Bork, an originalist who had called for the rollback of the Supreme Court’s civil rights decisions, for a seat on that court.

Reacting to that nomination, Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA) recognized the importance of the Fourteenth Amendment to equality: “Robert Bork's America is a land in which women would be forced into back-alley abortions, Blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters, rogue police could break down citizens' doors in midnight raids, schoolchildren could not be taught about evolution, writers and artists could be censored at the whim of the Government, and the doors of the Federal courts would be shut on the fingers of millions of citizens for whom the judiciary is—and is often the only—protector of the individual rights that are the heart of our democracy….”

It’s a funny thing to write about the Fourteenth Amendment in the twenty-first century. I am a scholar of Reconstruction, and for me the Fourteenth Amendment conjures up images of late-1860s Washington, D.C., a place still plagued by malaria carried on mosquitoes from the Washington City Canal, where generals and congressmen worried about how to protect the Black men who had died in extraordinary numbers to defend the government while an accidental president pardoned Confederate generals and plotted to destroy the national system Abraham Lincoln had created.

It should feel very distant. And yet, while a bipartisan group of senators rejected Bork’s nomination in 1987, in 2021 the Supreme Court is dominated by originalists, and the principles of the Fourteenth Amendment seem terribly current.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[miss-choco-chips]

From Baby to Babe~

I once wrote this  https://miss-choco-chips.tumblr.com/post/190983954737/theres-a-point-in-all-the-rouges-gallerys-lives and @theturdis wanted a fic about it, so... Just remember, you asked for this hon. This ain’t my fault.

Tagging @animemangasoul who just told me to tag them the next time I wrote something. 

Fair warning everyone, I somehow did this in one sitting, and, I can’t stress this enough, there’s no edit whatsoever. Like, none. Enjoy, if you can ignore the eyesore of my multiple mistakes.

----.----

Bruce despairs in the knowledge of his sons growing up hot.

---.---

When Dick came back to Gotham as the new Nightwing for the first time ever… well. 

Bruce didn't like to think about the first suit, back then. All those feathers and glitter, the plunging V neck, the mullet… His son had insisted on it being the trend at the time. Bruce just couldn't grasp how was he supposed to blend into the night and take anyone by surprise. There was too much... everything, and not nearly enough stealth.

He was an innocent man, back then. He looked at a horse gift in the mouth and was completely blindsided when it raised on it’s hind legs and kicked him where it hurted.

When Selina approached him a few weeks after N had come to him with the blueprints of his new suit, he had been quiet relaxed. Or as relaxed as one can be when crouched like a gargoyle and looking over the city. He was just getting back on track after… Jason (it still hurted, and probably always would, to think about him), his new partner helping in ways he couldn’t foresee, violence tampered by Tim’s brilliant smile every time he came to Bruce with the answer to a particularly difficult riddle he had been having trouble with. He had to get his act together, because Tim was so bright, mind so beyond what Bruce could ever aspire to, and he was at such an impressionable age… If Batman allowed himself to fall deeper into despair, he would set a dangerously bad example to the kid, which could be really damaging… to the world at large. He was the kind of kid that B wanted on the side of Justice, because the opposite would be quite catastrophic.

So yes, he had been very distracted lately, merely glancing over Dick’s blueprints, noticing the lack of brilliantine and gold, and giving his wholehearted approval. 

Stupid, innocent man he was. He had needed Catwoman of all people to open his eyes.

(To this day, he still wondered about Alfred’s reason for not warning him sooner. Perhaps, and this was the theory he had running, the old butler had been just so delighted at seeing the Disco suit gone, he would approve almost everything in its place, and Dick’s virtue had never been his responsibility to preserve, so to hell with it.

Betrayal always hurted the worse when it came from those closest to you)

-Hey handsome.

-Cat.

She rolled her eyes, already beyond his brood, and just walked out of the light, joining him into the shadows with a sigh at his dramatics. 

-No theft today?

The woman grimaced a bit, letting herself fall at his side with as much grace as she did everything else. Diamond claws scratched at her scalp, carefully not tearing the frail skin, and Batman finally conceded and turned his head to look at her directly. She was never so hesitant.

-Look. I really, really don’t want to be the one telling you this. I would literally rather leave this to anyone else, but… it’s getting out of hand.

-What is it?

-Nightwing. Hadn’t you noticed anything about him?

That got whatever rest of his attention she hadn’t already caught. Speaking of his sons always had that effect on him.

-What happened to him?

-Nothing, just… He’s been out a lot, hasn’t he? I thought he didn’t operate in the city as much…

She was stalling, which was worryingly out of character for Selina. But since this was about Nightwing, he had to be patient and let her talk her way into whatever information she was going to lay on him.

-I’ve been… -training a new Robin, not that he could tell her that- busy, lately. He’s picking up the slack while I’m focusing on it -a.k.a helping him both patrol the streets and teach Tim. 

-I noticed the changes, yes, whatever therapy you’re doing is great for you -she encouraged, more honest than he thought her capable of. He could already see her deadpan when she figured out the reason for his change, his ‘therapy’ as she put it, was an eleven year old thrusting himself at this dangerous life of his.

-Hm.

-Well… Anything noteworthy about him lately? Crime Fighting related?

Since she was stressing the words so much, he gave them deep thought.

-He has been on a streak lately. A lot more arrests… What’s your point?

He could almost see the second she internally said ‘fuck it’ and just blurted everything out.

-That’s because his new suit is, and this is coming from me, B, indecent, and every criminal out there is focusing more on his ass than his punches and flips so he’s kicking ass easier.

Bruce kicked his way to the forefront of his mind, the father in him hip checking the vigilante out of the way so he could properly freak out.

What? He knew the suit was a lot more tight than the former one, but he’d been so relieved at it being mostly black he hadn’t given more than a cursory look… and he barely saw the man in it, often training together in workout clothes and coming and going to patrol at different times. He… wasn’t prepared for this.

-Excuse me?

-I’m sorry, someone had to tell you. Normally, I’d be completely on board with a suit change from boring to daring, and you know of my good relationship with leather, but I’ve literally seen that kid grow up. If I have to listen to Harley talking about Nightwing’s ass one more time, Ivy won’t need to worry any more about the Joker killing her, because I will do it myself.

He wanted to thank her for standing up for his son, but he was still busy internally screaming.

-You want to hear Riddle’s last work? While looking directly at N, he asked ‘is buttcheeks one word? Or should I spread them?’. And then he winked. Winked, B. At your eighteen year old kid. You need to get your ass on gear and make sure Nighting changes his. I mean, I’m getting used to it, but you’ve been doing great lately, violent wise, and I’d hate for you to relapse because you heard Zsaasz asking N to tie his ropes tighter and harder.

B… needed to go back to the cave and call N back early. They had to talk.

----.----

When Jason came back, the first thing to break past the ‘holy shit my son is alive’ wall surrounding his brain was just how tall he had grown. How strong, how broad, how big. The little boy he had picked up from the street, underfeed and hurting everywhere, had turned out almost bigger than B himself and twice as brave. The wave of pride he felt was massive, but the feeling was short lived. 

Jason was killing criminals, had even attempted to murder Tim. Even if the father in him could, in his desperation, try and overlook the first bit, the same side couldn’t get past the second. Tim was as much his as Jason, and he couldn't turn a blind eye to it.

The relief of him being back that overflowed from Bruce clashed horribly with Batman’s unbending morals, and the two sides warred for days for control. The attack on his youngest son had been the deciding factor in who finally won; Bruce couldn’t fight the darkness in him when he needed it to help protect Robin from his predecessor, as much as it pained him.

Theirs was a long road, a difficult path to come back together as a family after so many mistakes on both parts (more his than Jason’s, he knew, but admitting so was so hard…), but they had finally, finally came back together. All his children, sitting around the dinning table at the manor, throwing food at each other behind Alfred’s back, Dick failing to give Jason a noogie, Tim succeeding in elbowing his way past both of them to claim first picks over the brownies, Damian rolling his eyes while sneakily drawing in his notebook what B suspected was a portrait of the three of them, Cass and Steph laughing at their antics… His heart felt like it could give out.

Again, his mind was anywhere but in… that. Already used to the dirty looks aimed at Nighting, he focused his anger into strength behind every punch, taking care to kick specially hard when aiming at the criminal’s genitals as light punishment for the lust they aimed at his oldest, but not longer trying to essentially castrate them.

He had the hang of it, and it was just one child. He could do damage control with one, it wasn’t that hard. Stephanie wasn’t really his, just under his protection as a mentor, and even then, she was mostly Barbara’s; Cass could and would take care of anyone who dared look at her in a way she didn’t like, so she was also good. Seventeen year old Tim and thirteen year old Damian were babies, so they wouldn't be an issue for a long, long time.

And then. And then, Steph had opened her mouth.

-Why can’t Tim do this? -she had whined, raising the heels to eye level and studying them with profound distaste- I hate fighting on these. He’s much better than me at that anyway, and he makes a hotter chick than I when he goes full out on his undercover gig.

Red Robin, who was walking past her on his way to the training mats, high fived her.

Barbara’s voice came from the Batcomputer, Oracle’s voice filter not needed while they still were on the Cave.

-Because he and Jason can’t act like a couple for more than two hours before one of them breaks into hives or laughter, and this is an all night long gig. 

-Then why can’t Tim and Dick go? You just need a girl as pretty arm candy distaction, the guy is the one who’s gonna do the work, and Nightwing can take care of a few drug dealers himself.

-While Dick is certainly pretty enough to gain permission to enter this very private party -the man, stretching with Tim, stopped mid motion to give the computer finger guns. Barbara coughed to cover a laugh and kept going-, the goal is for him to be invited into the boss’s personal office, and we can only do that if he’s interested in what he sees. From what Tim gathered for me on his last recon, he favours… Jason’s body types more than Dick’s.

Bruce, who was just getting out of the locker room, suit fully in place except from the cowl, raised an eyebrow at that, stopping to analyze his second oldest. Tilting his head, and still as confused, he asked what would undoubtedly bring him an unhealthy amount of regret in the very near future.

-What does that mean? Jason’s...body type? You mean tall? Dick is also pretty tall.

There was total silence in the cave for a few moments. Dick and Tim got up from their positions, shared a look, and made a run for the showers, claiming they were ready for patrol (they weren’t, not warmed up enough, but he had other things to focus on now). Damian, already fully suited, tutted and dragged the hood of his cape over his face, almost completely covering it. Cass looked on impassively, and Stephanie seemed to be getting a worryingly amount of glee from whatever this was.

Jason himself was… blushing? What?

-Who’s gonna tell him? -finally asked Barbara, amusement breaking her professional facade.

-Oh, me, me! Let me do this!

Apparently still a naive man, he nodded at the blonde, ready for someone to clear this up for him.

He was regaled with a half an hour long rant about biceps, pecs, and thighs that could compete against tree trunks and win. It was supported by apparent citations from different criminals that ranged from appreciative to full on scandalous.

In the end, everyone left the cave, Batgirl with a notorious spring on her step, and Bruce had to stay home instead of going out, needing the night to fully process about his second son, almost twenty one but twelve in his mind’s eye, apparently featuring in multiple Arkham calendars. 

He came out of that realization a scarred man, to say the least.

-----.-----

It was barely a few months after his traumatic chat with Stephanie when it happened again. He’d like to say he was ready for this.

He wasn’t.

When Conner Kent found him, he was completely focused on his WE’s work. For once on the office, with the TV providing some white noise in the background, he was fully prepared for a day catching up. He couldn’t keep letting Tim take over most of the work, the kid deserved to have a normal (or as normal as any of them could achieve) teenage life.

He was of course notified the moment the meta breached the city’s limits, but figured he was here on Titan’s business or hanging out with Tim. The light knock on his office window was a big surprise.

-This is unexpected, Conner. What can I do for you? -he greeted after letting him in- Tim isn’t here today, he’s giving a press conference.

-Yeah, I know. I’m actually here for you. We, the team, heard from Tim you’re making the blueprints for his next suit.

This conversation was already going in a very confusing way. Why did they care about Tim’s gear?

-Yes?

-Well, you need to double check with us before you show anything to him -something akin to indignant surprise must have shown in his face, because the meta quickly raised both hands-. We don’t mean that as you needing our approval, of course you’d know better how to keep a non-meta well protected. We know jackshit about kevlar and armor. But it’s the… style, that has us worried.

He let the anger bleed out of him, replaced with puzzlement.

-What do you mean?

Conner looked down, as if gathering strength, then up and straight into Bruce’s eyes, a feat very few younger heroes could achieve. This was serious.

-Tim isn’t big like Jason, or as… stretchy as Dick, but he has… very, very attractive features. I won’t go into detail with you about how thin his waist is, how shapely his legs or cute his ass. That’s not something I need to say or you to hear.

Yes, it definitely wasn’t. Bruce was having an inkling as to where this was headed, and he didn’t like it. Tim was a baby! Barely eighteen and so damn small!

-But I do need to tell you, his ugly ass suits have been good at keeping that all on the downlow. We made fun of him for them, sure, but never encouraged him to change, because we know what will happen if he does. It would be awful. You think Nightwing and Red Hood have it rough? Tim has Ra’s Al Ghul’s undivided attention and appreciation. If we add attraction to it? Mayhem. Absolute mayhem. We can barely keep him from being kidnapped by older, nasty villains as it is. We don’t need the extra work, sir. I’m begging you on behalf of the team, don’t let him get anything that would look good on him. Like that Untranet suit he told me about, for example. That one would be so bad. Or the Red Robin one with tighter pants and a domino under the cowl so he can take it out and flash the world his luscious hair. 

Bruce fell back into his desk chair. Elbows resting on the table, he buried his face into his hands.

A long silence filled the room.

-You already approved and made one of those, right?

A small, shaky nod.

-...The Ultranet one?

A firm shake. 

-Fuck me. The Red Robin with tighter pants and domino?

Another nod. Conner sat abruptly on the empty chair in the other side of the desk, like a puppet with its strings cut.

-Well, fuck. 

Fuck indeed. 

Bruce despaired.

----.----

This time, he would be ready. He swore it on his honor, on his oath, on his parents.

So when Damian turned sixteen, growth spurt kicking in (he towed over Tim, and it wouldn’t be long until he left Dick in the dust as well), he made a thought but necessary call.

He phoned Talia.

-We need to talk. About Damian, and… sex appeal.

Her shock was evident even through the phone.

-Excuse me? My son is a child. He has no such thing.

He closed his eyes. Once, a long time ago, he’d been just as naive. Now he knew better. 

It was a hard lesson to learn, but she needed to. And quickly. Damian was growing faster than his other children. Time was of essence.

-Let me tell you what I wish I knew years ago, when Dick decided to change his Nightwing suit.

She was probably going to hate him for opening her eyes like this, but Bruce just couldn't do this alone. 

He could deal with Talia’s hate, but criminals lusting after his baby son? Hell no. He might actually go rouge.

[yessoupy]

i think i have to unstan harry styles.

best weekend of my life (so far)

it's been a week [a fucking year] and I still haven't posted my review. at this point y'all know the show was awesome. hannah is posting her pics after a week straight of actually working (let's take up a collection to hire hannah to go to harry shows and produce exclusive content for us, what do you say?). after a week [a YEAR] away from the harrie commune all I can say is.... I don't know if I can continue on this way without it. i might have to stop altogether. [somehow, i’ve made due.]

after the last show of the 2018 tour I had such a fierce feeling that I'd missed out on something I would have really loved. there was nothing to do for it, since it was my sister's wedding day, so I moved on pretty quickly. but I also made the decision that for harry's next tour, I was going to go all out.

my dudes, what a way to ring in the new era. [and present me needs to interject here that i think i knew that something was going to go horribly wrong in 2020. even with tickets in hand to such faraway shows as phoenix, denver, and raleigh, i could NOT book flights or hotels as late as february. i knew about coronavirus in late december because i was traveling abroad and acutely aware of travel warnings about wuhan province. and in early february we had our mardi gras party and franny showed up kind of sick and i hugged her but cautiously, mentally cataloguing her symptoms. so when it finally happened i think i was just ... resigned. and that’s why i wasn’t as upset as i would have been if nothing had changed from the time i started writing this review.]

this kind of show always seemed like something that happened to other people. getting the actual tickets was rather stressful (though not as stressful an experience as others had...) but once everything shook itself out i couldn’t even think about the weekend or else I’d implode. thank god for @chasm2018‘s organizational abilities. 

we missed a measles exposure at LAX by 2 days (bless). my first harrie commune™ experience of the weekend was riding the connections shuttle to pick up @papiermachecat at terminal 6 like she was a conquering hero (she is). we rode the connections shuttle to pick up @stylesinthewild and found a little table at starbucks in the baggage claim to wait for the bay area harries to arrive in their rented minivan full of goodies.

we piled in and hannah got us to our two hotel rooms, one with three queen beds, and somehow we got to the forum twice, once to buy pre-show merch and then the final time for the fine line show. we all dressed up and then took just ONE picture. one.

you know how the show went. i’m trying to cover ground that the squad hasn’t already posted [a YEAR AGO]

here is the note I DM'd to harry the next morning, which i think sums everything up nicely:

thank you for the show last night at the forum. I flew in from Houston and met up with friends from all over, only one of whom I'd gotten to hug in real life prior to yesterday. today we're sharing beds and toothpaste and fond memories. thank you for being you and bringing us all together. 💜

i don’t remember WHEN i sent it, maybe 3am, but later that day i took an uber to a vegan tattoo artist’s backyard studio to get a planned tattoo that @papiermachecat had sketched for me and my impulse tattoo of a fine line around my left wrist. while i was doing that, the squad finished up eating breakfast with other harries and then went to stand in the pop-up shop line.

you’ve heard the line stories. i fucking LOVE standing in a line for something because of the people you meet. in front of us we had a personal DJ who’d play what people wanted to hear and airdropped a picture of harry’s dick from WMYB. we’d break off in pairs to go to CVS or visit other people we knew in line. and this hasn’t been written about before, but one of those times hannah and i were walking around the block we saw some men standing by some cars near the entrance and we kind of stopped.... and i think at the same time realized who we were looking at ... and after looking around and realizing that no one else in the fucking line recognized jeff azoff hannah went in for the kill. we thanked him for taking such good care of harry, answered questions he had for us, thanked him again, i had the presence of mind at the end to tell him our names, and we took the pop-up shop merch menus that hadn’t been passed out to anyone yet, and then walked back to our spot in line silently, processing that moment. sometimes i’ll think about that conversation and get all warm and fuzzy thinking about that show and how well it went and how much LOVE there was for everything and harry and between all of us and it sustains me through a shitty, shitty pandemic day at work.

eventually we got through the line and got our merch and looked at all the things they had set up and after moving our reservation back we got to cafe habana to sit at a very familiar table and i took off my bandages to show my tattoos to everyone (to this day i regret not having the presence of mind to show jeff my brand new fine line tattoo, he would have loved it) and we ate and laughed and had the server take our picture and that’s probably what i miss most about the weekend, being in that place imbued with such silly meaning to us and all FEELING that gravity of where we were and being able to recognize it in each others’ eyes and smiles. perfect weather, amazing food, the best company.

the early morning saw our three queen room breaking up, and @papiermachecat left a single zyrtec in the middle of the room on the floor, bringing me to tears laughing even without her physical presence. @chasm2018 and i went to randy’s donuts (where we met up with @treatpeoplewithnice again) and GOD i want to eat donuts that good again. 

it was sad to leave LA that afternoon, wearing my new tpwk oversized hoodie. it wasn’t the last time i was around a big crowd of people, wasn’t even the last concert i attended before all of this happened (that was in vienna on december 30), but it was the last time i was going to be full of unbridled joy. that weekend was the real ode to joy.

we’ll get back to it, it’s just going to take some time.

@stylesinthewild, @papiermachecat, @greeneyesharry & emily, @treatpeoplewithnice, @aggresivelyfriendly, and @chasm2018: fine line forum squad forever in my heart. that weekend will always be so special to me for so many reasons and it wouldn’t have been the same without each and every one of you.

@accidentalharrie and @styloff - ONE of these times we’ll be in the same place for long enough to do more than hug and grin at each other.

@ferryboatpeak and @ticklefighthockey - it was great to meet you! and la who would have thought then our next meeting would be in the backyard of an airbnb sitting six feet apart because we don’t want to spread a disease?

to harry, who isn’t reading this but i need all of you who ARE to know my heart ... thank you for bringing these people into my life. this experience of being your fan has changed me in such profound ways that there’s really no way to express it. it’s less about you and more about those who love you like i do, and i love them. and you.

to jeff, thank you for taking such good care of harry and having his best interests at heart. 

to anne, thank you for raising such a good person and giving him to the world.

to camille, thank you for fine line. without you, that weekend doesn’t happen the way it did and i love that weekend. 

[kpopdancings]

FROM UP ON POPPY HILL - THE STRUGGLE OF YOUNG GENERATION

New Post has been published on http://www.whatsupkpop.com/from-up-on-poppy-hill-the-struggle-of-young-generation/

FROM UP ON POPPY HILL - THE STRUGGLE OF YOUNG GENERATION

FROM UP ON POPPY HILL – THE STRUGGLE OF YOUNG GENERATION

Link Video:

  As a film from the famous Ghibli production studio, “From Up on Poppy Hill” must be the best choice for those who are looking for a beautiful movie with both photo and content.

The love of school age is always a topic that makes them flutter when turning on the screen. “From Up on Poppy Hill” a rare Ghibli work on the subject. Directed by Miyazaki Gorō, son of legendary filmmaker Miyazaki Hayao. The main theme of the film is the love between Umi and Shun, a love that is both beautiful and complex.

The journey to light up “From up on Poppy hill”

From the  beginning, this was a huge challenge for Miyazaki Goro, the wounded son who suffered an invisible pressure from his father, Miyazaki Hayao, who brought his life to the works. associated with our childhoods such as: Spirited Away, Howl’s moving castle,  My neighbor Totoro, … Everyone expected that he was “the second Hayao”, and that expectation overcame on his shoulder a huge burden. Until his debut Tales from Earthsea was released to the public, despite being well-received and successful in terms of sales, it was a failure when the work received a lot of words. Disparaging comes from critics. And when he decided to do his second animation, but this time he was making the movie with his father, Miyazaki Hayao. This unique father-son combination led to the birth of one of the Ghibli works that I consider to be worthy of viewing, From up on the poppy hill.

This is the highest-grossing Japanese film of 2011 with the proceeds of 4.46 billions yen.If you haven’t seen From Up on Poppy Hill, enjoy the movie now. If you have seen this movie or don’t care about the spoiler, Let’s start now.

Main content

Set in 1963, in the port city of Yokohama, near Tokyo. The drama revolves around 2 main characters Umi and Shun. Umi is a 16 years  old girl, energetic and courageous. She lives with her grandmother and two children in the family building, an old hospital that has been renovated to become a hostel for several girls. Umi’s daily jobs are cooking, cleaning, looking after the children and running the building while her mother is in America. The building is located on Kokuriko Hill. Every day, to commemorate her late father, who was a captain who died in the Korean War, Every morning she pulls colored flags that carry the message of asking for a safe journey for each ship.

Kazama Shun – a male student at the same school as Umi, is seen as the hero by a stunt performance to attract interest in the school newspaper – the club he joined after school. Wanting to get Shun’s signature, Sora – Umi’s sister asked her sister to come to the Quartier Latin. It is a very old building and is also the site of historical events and full of club memories. Here, Umi watched Shun and his friends devote themselves to keeping the building in danger of being dismantled. Realizing the sagging, old building of the building, Umi came up with an initiative to call the girls to come clean and renew it together. 

They gradually became close to helping each other in everything. Then one day in a meeting at the house on the top of the hill, they accidentally discovered they have the same bloodline. When Shun avoided Umi, after demanding, Umi also discovered that the two were siblings.

They  decided to hide their feelings and continue to be friends, and then one day, when the sun was still shining in the green bushes, Umi’s mother returned. It was also when Ryoko revealed that Shun’s biological father was Tachibana Hiroshi – the second man in the photo. In 1945, Tachibana died in a shipwreck accident. Shun’s mother passed away after giving birth to him, and relatives all died during the US atomic bombing on Nagasaki. Ryoko was unable to adopt Shun because she was pregnant with Umi, and was currently a medical student. Yūichirō issued a birth certificate for Shun in his name so that he would not have to become an orphan in the tumultuous post-war years that followed. Shun was eventually adopted by the Kazama couple. After being verified by Captain Yoshio, they rejoiced … not only because from now on being together and not worrying anymore … 

The film’s success is not only based on the content, but also on the profound meaning that is meticulously incorporated in the movie

  Image of  dynamic and enthusiastic young people

  The fact that the Quartier Latin was about to be dismantled at the behest of the district president was a challenge for the students living in the clubs in this building. Young students who are still day and night diligently devote their youth to research projects, they learn and cultivate everything outside of school, they do not hesitate to choose the difficult path of resisting directives to pursuing what they think is right.

They are willing to devote all their energies to renovating the building, which is not an individual’s work but a collective work of a team with so many enthusiastic people working. They try to the last minute, with only a little hope, the students here still make efforts to create opportunities, not easily surrendered. The trio of  Umi, Shun, and Mizunuma together went to Tokyo to meet the chairman, waited patiently and bravely asked the president to visit the building before executing his dismantling instructions.

Young people working together to save the club can be a metaphor for the country’s rebirth. Together With other students, they are the embodiment of the future Japan, enthusiasm and determination, enthusiasm and optimism, passionate love and foolish youthful aspirations. touched and inspired those of the same generation. The film recreates the spirit of a time that helped that generation to rise up to revive the country, heal the wounds of war in the past, protect and preserve traditional values.

 “From Up on Poppy Hill” can be said to be one of the most “Japanese” films of the Ghibli studio.Not only because the port area’s street space is faithfully reproduced in every small detail/, but also because of the strong and resilient spirit hidden in the characters’ personalities. They embody the country with determination, youthful enthusiasm and optimism for the future.

History lessons are appreciated without being cliché

Every effort comes from the thought: “… There will be no future for those who always talk about the future but forget the past …” that Shun raised in an argument between students. One detail I really like in the movie is the image of everyone singing solemnly and singing the national anthem of Japan. Never before has the atmosphere of national pride exploded so deeply, it crept into the consciousness of each student. Everything they are fighting for seems to be for the noble purpose of preserving and promoting historical and cultural values.

  “Eliminating the old means erasing the memory of the past”

Actually, this statement by Shun is very correct. Always remember that history is the connection between the future and the past, there is the past, the present, and the present, the future. Thanks to the cultural identities, customs, monuments, and historical records, we can look back on our own country’s past and take it as a lesson to rise later. 

Even the girls who do not join the club in the building, still spend time, effort and enthusiasm to renovate it, to give the Quartier Latin a new interface, with the desire for prices. Historical values ​​are preserved.

The story of a group of young people fighting together to protect the old clubhouse building /with sacred memories of generations of seniors is a metaphor for Japan in its renovation towards development. /Still fighting to preserve precious traditional values. /Through these activities, they met and gradually a love between them began to arise …

The pure love of the young couple

Actually, Shun still notices and responds to the signals that Umi sends to her father every day, but because her garden is out of view, Umi has not noticed it for a long time. The author of the poem about the girl pulling the flag on the top of the hill is also written by Shun for Umi. We can feel the sincerity and very cute before the subtle vibrations integrated. The scene of Umi holding his hand during the show, the scene of Shun passing Umi down the hill to buy some evening preparations, the scene where the two of them go home together and discuss the upcoming exam, or simply keep quiet and intently together. After completing the school newspaper, all the videos are lovely and gentle.

“I like you, Shun, even though we are bloodline, even if you are my brother, my feelings won’t change”  Umi’s words in the movie.

Love is like a Rose, sometimes sleep quietly, like Umi once buried in her heart … there is also a compromise between the pain, so go on or stop … /maybe expect peace , when the waves are quiet, the sea is together …/ and sometimes simple, reunited after days away. /Far away from war, distant because of obstacles, distant because of painful feelings … /but in the end, it will be as sweet as a child’s sleep, still meeting.

Family affection is always warm

Umi’s memories of her father are still standing, as evidenced by the flags she sends every day to inform her father at sea about the way back home. She still loves her father even though she is doubting Shun is his son. Or Shun’s adoptive father, who insists he always loves him like his own son, is willing to find ways to let Shun know the identity of his deceased father.

Both Shun and Umi are poor children who lost great fathers because of the war, but still cherish and are happy with their current family.

General conclusions

From Up on Poppy Hill, a work from Ghibli never disappoints from image to sound. The poetic and artistic scenes have always been the specialties for each of us, the films to feel the life, the daily activities from the  beginning of the film, combined with the melodies from the composer Takebe Satoshi, has created an extreme … peaceful atmosphere. 

See and feel the daily beauties of life, love and cherish our values, and constantly strive to dedicate living in accordance with the youth we currently have.

  Although building a love story between two high school students in the most pure, sweet and vague way, From Up on Poppy Hill still makes us wonder, is it the ideal type of love, when two  people have opposite personalities but a common desire?

[keytomythoughts]

Eleutheromania | Chapter 06

Chapter Index

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Ｌｕｃａｓ

Settling back into my bunk, I cross my arms underneath my head, closing my eyes briefly for sleep to take me over. Today’s training was intensive, all of my muscles and limbs sore from over-exerting itself. The moon is bright tonight, though it’s well past midnight—almost three in the morning. Yet, I’m restless. My mind isn’t just tired. 

Because every time my eyelids shut, I picture her. 

It’s almost like a routine, every night. Even after long and tiring days, seeing her conjure right in front of my eyes fills my body with this profound energy, this light that carries me through my darkest days. Jaeun, my heart. My soul, my love. The woman who I’ve grown to love with this compelling passion. The feeling never fleets from my heart, because I know how much she’s going through already. And I know that as long as she’s a part of my life, I will always come back to her. As will she to me.

My lips twitch into a small smile. I picture her, standing in her angelic glory. A true goddess, no doubt. How long has it been since I’ve last seen her? Last been with her? 

I frown. Almost four years now. And yet, she has been patient all this time. Her eyes, those beautiful flecks of an emerald—like a glowing, gorgeous gem—shimmering with pure delight whenever she sees me through her screen. The darkened rays of the sun spooling down her shoulders like a waterfall of gold mixed with rich Earth. The way her locks would curl around her slender fingers when she was anxious. Her scent, so captivating and sweet, similar to lavender and peaches. The smell drunkening my senses with every closing proximity. Silky-smooth skin leaving traces of electricity wherever she touches me, yet her touch is always gentle and pure. Her laugh, a sound so rich and lively that it would put angels to shame for being nothing compared to her.

Everything. God, just everything about her.  

Seeing her like this gives me strength and courage, the hope that one day I’ll leave this wretched place and take her far away where we can live the way we want to. No social system. No Sabres. No monarch. And no restrictions.

Just me and Jaeun, gazing out at the many sunsets until the warm glow has sunken to allow the night sky to take its place. For the long walks we’d take through parks and beaches, hands intertwined. Running through fields and lying down next to each other, one of us eventually cuddled up in the other's embrace. Desiring nothing more than to simply be with one another.

I picture this reality almost religiously, praying that soon I would be able to make it a reality for us both. To feel pleasure and peace, love and despair, longing and remorse, nostalgia and reminisce. As long as it’s us two against the world, I wouldn’t give a damn what came in our way to stop us.

I would fight it all, for her. So that she would stay by my side.

The slumber nearly pulls me in until I feel my pocket vibrating. My eyes open right away, knowing the only person who would be calling me at this time.

When I hold my phone to my face, I see that it’s indeed a call. 

From Jaeun.

I glance around quickly to make sure no one else is in here before answering it. My heart catches in my throat, fearing something must’ve happened to her for her to be still up and calling this late. I wait anxiously as our videos load on either side of the screens. Fixing my position, I wait as her video focuses on her face. I smile. She’s curled up on my side of the bed again, her body clad in one of my favorite hoodies. Looking at her from across the screen, I can’t help the grin that comes to my face, seeing her angelic face after a while. 

But, today, her radiance is a little dim. It isn’t completely snuffed out, just dull. The expression on her face…I don’t know. It didn’t rub me the right way.

“Jaeun, baby, is everything okay? It’s not like you to be up this late.”

Her eyes shift around nervously, and I know that something’s visibly wrong. I wish I could, at this moment, reach out and hold her in my arms. To comfort her in any way that I can.

I hear her breathe heavily. 

“I’m fine, babe. It’s just…I wanted to see you.”

There’s no way I can bypass the way her voice wavers. Never has she been like this, as if she’s scared, hesitant. 

Jaeun…

“Babe, what’s the matter?” I cut right to the chase, knowing full well the scope of my girlfriend and her emotions all too well. Whether it be face-to-face or through a medium, I can always decipher her, read her expressions. But this time, it feels very unsettling.

I shift so I can get a better view of her. She still doesn’t respond, but I can tell she’s taking a little too long to answer, as if she can’t find the right words to say. 

I frown. What’s wrong, my love?

“L-Lucas..” 

The way my name leaves her mouth confirms my suspicion that something definitely has happened, and she’s troubled by whatever it is. How desperately I want to be there next to her right now, she has no idea. I see her lips tremble, the way she casually tries to bring up her sleeve to obscure her face from my vision. My heart races, the desire to protect her growing even stronger.

“Jaeun, you’re scaring me. Talk to me, baby. Please. I’m right here,” I coax her gently, begging her to reveal why she’s in such discomfort. 

That’s when I see her tears. One by one, little drops of water spilling from her beautiful pearl-green eyes. Those pretty, shining orbs are now clouded with sorrow. My heart wrenches painfully in my chest as my eyes widen, nervously darting around her face. 

“Are you—Jaeun are you crying??”

She doesn’t respond, but the tears continue to streak down her soft cheeks, her shoulders shaking in the process. 

“Oh god, baby, why are you crying? Did something happen? Are you hurt?” My fingers grasp the device tightly in my hand, the other going to pull the strands of my hair. The uncertainty is making my heart race at an abnormal speed, the adrenaline rushing throughout my body as my muscles tighten. 

She shakes her head in denial, but the tears don’t stop. Her loud sobs echo through the call, and I find my own heart sinking. Painfully wrenching in my chest as I watch her. Uselessly watching, hating myself for not being able to do anything for her right now. Despising the fact that I can’t comfort her when she’s at her most and needs me the most. My Jaeun, my beautiful girlfriend, the complete love of my life. 

What caused you so much pain to make you cry this much? 

“Breathe, love. Please, just try to calm down.”

Lucas, you idiot. Is that what you say? You’re hopeless.

I release a deep sigh, fingers still tugging at my roots to the point that it hurts my scalp. I didn’t care, though. I just need to know why Jaeun is the way she is right now. “Shit, why am I not there with you when I can be at your side and wipe your tears away?”

Her sobs quiet, but the tears still shine on her cheeks, the new wave replacing the old trail. She parts her lips, and I try to inch closer to the phone. As if by doing this will make me reach her physically.

“L-Lucas…” She breathes through her tears, her voice slightly hoarse from the result of her crying so hard.

I hold my breath, waiting for her to continue. She sniffles.

“Y-You know that I love you, right?”

My heart plummets into my stomach. Seeing her so broken, so hurt…and the only woman I will ever love no matter how many lifetimes I live is asking me if she knows that my heart only beats for her, that everything I do is so that I can be with her forever.

“Of course, baby. And I love you even more,” I pause, the air collecting in my lungs, struggling to say all that I can to her to make her never doubt that notion. The notion that I can never live without her. That I long for her. That I wish to kiss her pain away, to enclose her in my arms, feeling her skin radiate the heat that I’ve grown to crave as each day passes without her near me. To make her feel love, the way she deserves it. Every inch of my being for her, and only her.  

I swallow, my own tears threatening to make their appearance. “God, I miss you so much. Every day, I just want to come home. To be with you. Not a minute goes by where I’m not thinking of you, Jaeun.”

Jaeun remains silent again, but her expression softens, the initial discomfort gone, but there’s something else hidden in her eyes. The hesitation. Her lips part, then close. When they open again, she whispers something almost inaudible.

“I-I…I'm pregnant.”

I freeze. My eyes widen as I feel all the muscles in my body go stiff.

Did I hear her right?

I gulp. “W-What did you say, love?” My voice sounds shaky, but it’s purely an accident. The sudden delivery of this news leaves me speechless. Pure shock. My mind runs through a series of thoughts, not one making complete, concrete sense. 

Her voice sounds a little stronger now, resolve replacing the remorse. 

“I’m pregnant, Lucas.”

Fearing someone may have overheard her, even though I made sure that I was completely alone, I immediately slide off my bunk and go outside. The outside air is definitely cooler than in the barracks, but at least out here, there’s a less chance of someone hearing this conversation. Positioning myself near a lamp post, I let the dim light bathe me in its glow, luminating the device in my hand.

I sigh, my hand resting on top of my head. Then it falls to the side of my face.

“Are you serious?”

She nods shyly. “I took the test earlier today. It came out positive.”

I purse my lips. My eyes travel around my surroundings. Anywhere away from the camera. The barrage of emotions I’m feeling right now is very hard to distinguish, so I stay silent, letting my thoughts slowly process. 

Oh my god. Oh my god.

She’s pregnant. 

Jaeun’s pregnant. 

I get so caught up in my thoughts, that one thought shining through the rest that I barely hear her voice calling out for me. 

“Lucas? Baby, say something,” she pleads. I make out the slight shakiness in her voice, realizing if I didn’t respond, she would feel doubt and guilt. This time, her tears will be because I didn’t brush away the misconceptions when that’s what I needed to do. That’s the last thing I would ever want to make her feel. Her tears, for as long as I live, will never be because of me. Not if I can do anything about it. And right now, I know what I have to do.

My chest heaves, the tears springing free and travelling down my face. I make no attempt to wipe them away. 

I breathe out an airy laugh, a small smile forming on my face.

“I’m going to be a father..”

I turn back to her as more tears pool in my eyes, each dripping slowly. She gasps, but the tears she sheds are not out of pain or sadness. No, they’re from happiness. Her laughter fills my ears, and I can’t help laughing along with her, the sound resonating beautifully. Our laughs and tears mixing as one, our hearts unravelling all that had been entrapped.

“Jaeun, you’re carrying my child,” I manage to say. “Our child!” My chest inflates, but my smile still remains, as does hers. “You have no idea how desperately I want to go running to you, right now. Baby, it’s taking every ounce in my being to control myself.”

She laughs, dabbing at her eyes with her sleeve.

I grin, the love shining from just my expression alone. All of it directed to her, the only person in my life who I will ever look at the way I do.

“So,” she sniffles once more, “you’re not mad?”

The answer comes out before I have time to think about it, but it comes directly from my heart. “Baby, no, god no. Why would you ever think that? I would never.” 

I run my thumb across the screen, wishing I could touch her. The ache I feel from being away from her for too long filling my senses once again. 

My voice lowers just with that overwhelming sensation. “I love you with all my heart. And nothing will ever change that, Jaeun. Nothing.”

Either I say it once or a million times over until I sound like a broken record, my heart will always accept this as the one solid truth in my life. No matter what, this love I have for Jaeun is sound. 

The sound of her laughter rings in my ears again. “I love you so much, babe. I miss you. God, I really do.” 

Judging by the way her voice lowered at the end, I had a strong feeling she would burst into tears again. And while she always appears beautiful to me no matter how she looked, I didn’t like to see her cry. Not with me around. 

She tilts her head upwards, and I’m unable to see her face anymore. If I were there, I would gently, slowly, use my fingers to hook her by her chin and bring her face to my level, to make sure she’s looking straight into my eyes. To close the gap between us in a sweet, passionate kiss. Lips syncing to match the rhythmic beats of our elated hearts, our hands pulling each other closer to convey the love mere words can’t do justice for.

“Jaeun, babe, look at me.”

A couple seconds pass before she brings her head back down. I never get tired of looking at her, never. It always amazes me how lucky I am to have someone like her walk into my life and fill each and every corner with her light. Her smile, the cute way her nose crinkles when she laughs. Her beauty, dazzling. Those emeralds that remind me why I continue to fight so hard. She’s mine, and I’m hers. Our hearts have sealed this from when we were both teens to our now adult lives.

My heart skips a beat, the excitement bubbling up all over again.

“I promise,” I start, my voice thick, “I’ll come back home soon. I swear, I’ll do whatever I can.” I gaze into her eyes once more, the flames of desire burning from the tips of my fingers to the organ beating wildly in my chest. The resolve growing hard in my mind that it’s preventing me from thinking straight. These feelings, the ones I’ve kept in check for so long come pouring out. And I don’t stop them. I want her to see just how crazy she makes me feel.

I lick my lips, realizing they were dry. “God, I…I just want to kiss you so badly right now, jagi. I want to feel you again.”

Despite the poor lighting, I take note of her cheeks growing pink. Not going to lie, it’s cute to see her embarrassed. Blushing, because of me. 

God, how badly I want to feel her skin against my own. It’s driving me wild.

“I guess that will give you more of a reason to come, right? And besides,” she shifts, her hand now pressed to her stomach, “it’s not just me you’ll be coming home to.”

I can’t help but smile, knowing that our baby is growing in her as we speak. It’s strange, but there’s this feeling of joy, of pride, that I’m fathering this child. That I was able to put a part of me in Jaeun, my love blossoming a new creation within her.

My smile changes to a smirk as my mind divulges into my more darker and sinful desires. Despite the chill outside, I find my body growing hotter, overcome with this burning lust.

“You better be ready. I won’t go easy, love.”

Teasing, tempting. It’s one of the ways I enjoy drawing her in, luring her like a prey to its predator. And her eyes, wide with this somewhat misty look, convey the same feeling as mine.

Insatiable thirst.

“Neither will I, babe.”

God, how can she be so freaking sexy and goddamn cute at the same time?

Jaeun giggles, not realizing I half-muttered what I was thinking. A deep chuckle escapes my throat, fighting back the urge to not think any more sinful thoughts. 

Looking at the glint in Jaeun’s misty-green eyes, I realize the same effect she has on me, I have the same on her. Imagining her body writhing under me, the waves of pleasure I would deliver to her. The endless time we spend in each other’s grasp. I miss it. I want it. All of it, even if it is for just a moment. I long to be with her again more than anything. A moment of showing her how much I love her, care for her, miss her, desire her…the feelings only she’s capable of making me feel. 

All, only for her. 

I snicker, trying to divert my intense passion onto her restless state. “I’ve fired you up, haven’t I?”

Her cheeks burn brighter, like the color of strawberries. “Shut up, Lucas!”

I laugh, her reaction so pure and genuine.

Oh baby, you have no idea what I’m feeling right now, even if you can’t see it. It’s all because of you, making me feel so vulnerable.

These moments, times like these, they’re ones I wish to cherish with her face-to-face. Calling like this doesn’t do our love justice. Eventually, our love will grow, transgressing from the two of us to our unborn child.

We’ll be a family. 

I drift off thinking about our future. Even though I know how risky this is, our lives now both at a higher stake if someone were to have us figured out, I picture it all. The three of us together, loving and happy. Failing to realize, again, that I’m blurting my questions out loud.

“Do you think it’s a boy? Or a girl?” My heart skips a beat, not giving a chance for Jaeun to answer before my momentum picks up its giddiness. “What if they’re twins??”

She giggles as she shakes her head. “I guess you’ll have to wait and see, babe.”

I pout, a grunt of disapproval escaping from deep in my throat.

“No fairrr,” I purposely drag out the last word, whining to get my point across.

All she does is smile, the whites of her teeth flashing their way through my chest and into my heart that beat erratically. Jaeun then rubs her eyes, and I can tell she’s exhausted. And for the following months after, she’ll have to be careful not to exert herself too much. For her and the baby.

“Jagi, get some rest, okay? I’ll talk to you as soon as I can, I promise,” I say, softly.

She shakes her head. “But I’m not tired.”

My heart softens, seeing her struggle to stay awake because we can’t guarantee when a conversation like this can happen often, if ever again for some time.

“You can’t lie to me, baby,” my voice still soft and whisper-like.

Jaeun shakes her head again. “I can’t sleep, not without you.”

Oh, Jaeun. 

A ghost of a smile forms on my lips, my chest heaving out of this pure ecstasy of love, wishing to reach out and brush the dark blonde strands away from her face. Letting my fingers trace over her delicate features one by one. Planting soft kisses. 

I’m sorry, I know how hard this must be for you. Thank you for being patient with me. I’m forever in your debt, my love.

I lower my voice, this time to purposely lure her into the sleep she desperately needs. “Just think I’m right there, laying down next to you. My arms wrapped tightly around you. My fingers stroking your hair, the soft kisses I would leave on your skin.”

Each scenario, I imagine myself with her there as well. I feel a dull pang in my chest, desiring so much but accomplishing none.

Soon, I think wearily. I’ll be with you soon, Jaeun.

Her eyes slowly flutter closed, surprised how she’s able to continue holding the phone in her hand. I watch as her breathing becomes rhythmic, her body finally giving in to slumber. Watching her is pure bliss. It reminds me of the countless mornings we woke up together, sometimes catching her still sleeping. She always looked peaceful, so beautiful. 

I hear her sigh, words leaving her lips in a hushed whisper. But I catch every single one. 

“I love you, Lucas..”

I chuckle, heart swelling no matter how many times she has said the same phrase. “Not as much as I love you, Jaeun. Good night, my love. I’ll visit you in your dreams, just wait for me soon.”  

With that, I take one good look at her before I end the call and slip the device back into my pocket. I slowly make my way towards the barracks, seeing as there’s not much time left before sunrise. Hard to believe we were talking for over an hour. 

I can’t believe I’m becoming a father.

I look down to the gravel beneath me, aimlessly kicking at the loose stones. Yet, I smile. A small one, but it’s there. The air isn’t as chilly now, and I find the outside atmosphere slightly comforting, knowing now that both Jaeun and the soon-to-be born child will be waiting for me. 

I stop in my tracks just before the door to my barracks. I glance upwards, the few stars still present twinkling in the early morning haze. 

Jaeun…just hold on. Just a little longer. I’ll be home soon.

I promise.

Chapter 05 | Chapter 06 | Chapter 07 

[tomhiddleslove]

The screen and stage star is making his Broadway debut as the bottled-up husband wearing a “mask of control” in Harold Pinter’s romantic triangle.

[ By Laura Collins-Hughes

Aug. 21, 2019, 5:00 a.m. ET ]

Tom Hiddleston was posing for a portrait, and the face he showed the camera wasn’t entirely his own.

That had been his idea, to slip for a few moments into the character he’s playing on Broadway, in Harold Pinter’s “Betrayal”: Robert, the cheated-on husband and backstabbed best friend whose coolly proper facade is the carapace containing a crumbling man. And when Mr. Hiddleston became him, the change was instantaneous: the guarded stillness of his body, the chill reserve in his gray-blue eyes.

“It’s interesting,” Mr. Hiddleston said after a while, analyzing Robert’s expression from the inside. “It gives less away.” A pause, and then his own smile flickered back, its pleasure undisguised. “O.K.,” Mr. Hiddleston announced, himself again, “it’s not Robert anymore.”

It was late on a muggy August morning, one day before the show’s first preview at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theater, and Mr. Hiddleston — the classically trained British actor best known for playing the winsomely chaotic villain Loki, god of mischief and brother of Thor, in the Marvel film franchise — had been in New York for less than a week.

He’ll be here all autumn for the limited run of the production, a hit in London earlier this year, but he wasn’t going to pretend that he’d settled in. “I literally have never sat in this room before,” he’d said at the top of the photo shoot, in his cramped auxiliary dressing room, next door to the similarly tiny one he had been occupying.

He’d had nothing to do with the space’s camera-ready décor. So there was no use making a metaphor of the handsome clock with its hands stopped at 12 (“Betrayal” is famous for its reverse chronology; far more apt if the clock had run backward), or of the compact stack of pristine books that looked like journals, with pretty covers and presumably empty pages: a bit off-brand for Mr. Hiddleston, who at 38 has a model-perfect exterior with quite a lot inscribed inside.

Take the matter-of-fact way he said, in explaining that he’d first encountered Pinter’s work when he studied for his A-levels in English literature, theater, Latin and Greek: “It was a real tossup between French and Spanish or Latin and Greek. I thought, I can always speak French and Spanish, I can’t always read Latin and Greek, so I’ll study that and I’ll speak the other two.”

Though, to be fair, he only said that because I’d teased him slightly about the Latin and Greek, and I’d teased him — not a recommended journalistic technique — because he was so disarmingly good-humored and resolutely down to earth, chatting away as he waited for the photographer to set up a shot. It didn’t seem like it would ruffle him. He laughed, actually.

From a one-night reading to Broadway

In this country, Mr. Hiddleston is mainly a screen star, known also for playing Jonathan Pine in the John le Carré series “The Night Manager” on AMC. There are plans, too, for him to bring Loki to Disney’s streaming service in a stand-alone series.

But at home in London, he has amassed some impressive Shakespearean credits, including the title roles in Kenneth Branagh’s “Hamlet” and Josie Rourke’s “Coriolanus,” and a turn as Cassio in Michael Grandage’s “Othello” — a production that Pinter, saw some months before he died in 2008. That was the year Mr. Hiddleston won a best newcomer Olivier Award for Cheek by Jowl’s “Cymbeline.”

Jamie Lloyd’s “Betrayal,” which has a staging to match the spareness of Pinter’s language and a roiling well of squelched emotion to feed its comedy, is Mr. Hiddleston’s Broadway debut. Likewise for his co-stars, Zawe Ashton (of Netflix’s “Velvet Buzzsaw”), who plays Emma, Robert’s wife; and Charlie Cox (of Netflix’s “Daredevil”), who plays Emma’s lover, Jerry, Robert’s oldest friend.

Beginning at what appears to be the end of Robert and Emma’s marriage, after her yearslong affair with Jerry has sputtered to a stop, it’s a drama of cascading double-crosses. First staged by Peter Hall in London in 1978 — and in 1980 on Broadway, where it starred Roy Scheider, Blythe Danner and Raul Julia — it rewinds through time to the sozzled evening when Emma and Jerry overstep the line.

The most recent Broadway revival was just six years ago, directed by Mike Nichols and starring Daniel Craig as Robert, Rachel Weisz as Emma and Rafe Spall as Jerry. It might seem too soon for another, let alone one with sexiness to spare — except that Mr. Lloyd’s production is also marked by a palpable hauntedness and a profound sense of loss.

Reviewing the London staging in The New York Times, Matt Wolf called it “a benchmark achievement for everyone involved,” showing the play “in a revealing, even radical, new light.” Michael Billington, in The Guardian, called Mr. Hiddleston’s performance “superb.”

What’s curious is that Mr. Hiddleston, so good at bad boys, isn’t playing Jerry, the more glamorous role: the cad, the pursuer, the best man who goes after the bride. But Mr. Lloyd said that casting him that way was never part of their discussions.

Last fall, when Mr. Lloyd persuaded Mr. Hiddleston to read a scene with Ms. Ashton for a one-night gala celebration of Pinter in London, part of the season-long Pinter at the Pinter series, there was no grand plan. Having asked Mr. Hiddleston about a possible collaboration for years, since “just before he became ridiculously famous,” Mr. Lloyd said, this was the first time he got a yes.

“I just really admired his craft of acting, the precision of his acting, as well as his real emotional depth and his real wit,” Mr. Lloyd said. “And he’s turned into what I think is the epitome of a great Pinter actor. Because if you’re in a Pinter play, you have to dig really deep and connect to terrible loss or excruciating pain, often massive volcanic emotion, and then you have to bottle it all up. You have to suppress it all.”

This, he added, is what Mr. Hiddleston does in “Betrayal,” where characters’ meaning is found between and behind the words, not inside them.

“Some of the pain that he’s created in Robert, it’s just unbearable, and yet he always keeps a lid on it,” Mr. Lloyd said.

The scene Mr. Hiddleston and Ms. Ashton read at the gala appears at the midpoint of “Betrayal”: Robert and Emma on vacation in Venice, at a moment that leaves their marriage with permanent damage. Within days, Mr. Hiddleston told Mr. Lloyd that he was on board for a full production.

‘What remains private’

Photos taken, back in the faintly more lived-in of his Broadway dressing rooms, Mr. Hiddleston opened the window to let in some Midtown air — and when you’re as tall as he is, 6 feet 2 inches, opening it from the top of the window frame is easy enough to do. Then, making himself an espresso with his countertop machine, he sat down to talk at length.

“I’m always curious about the presentation of a character’s external persona versus the interior,“ he said. “What remains private, hidden, concealed, protected, and what does the character allow to be seen? We all have a very complex internal world, and not all of that is on display in our external reality.”

He can tick off the ways that various characters of his conceal what’s inside: Loki, with all that rage and vulnerability “tucked away”; the ultra-proper spy Jonathan Pine, in “The Night Manager,” “hiding behind his politeness”; Robert, a lonely man wearing “a mask of control” that renders him “confident, powerful, polished,” at least as far as any onlookers can tell.

In “Betrayal,” each of the three principals has an enormous amount to hide from the people who are meant to be their closest intimates. It’s a play about power and manipulation, duplicity and misplaced trust, and what’s so threatening about it is the very ordinariness of its privileged milieu. This snug little world that once seemed so safe and ideal — the happiest of families, the oldest of friends — has long since fallen apart.

But to Mr. Hiddleston, Pinter’s drama contains two themes just as significant as betrayal: isolation and loneliness.

“The sadness in the play — it’s not only sadness; because it’s Pinter, there’s wit and levity as well — but if there is sadness in the play,” he said, “I think it comes from the fact that these betrayals render Robert, Emma and Jerry more alone than they were before.”

Trust and self-protection

One-on-one, Mr. Hiddleston was more cautious than he’d been during the photo shoot, surrounded then by a gaggle of people affiliated with the show. Still, when I asked him about betrayal, lowercase, he went straight to the condition it violates.

“To trust is a profound commitment, and to trust is to make oneself vulnerable,” he said, fidgeting with a red rubber band and choosing his words with care. “It’s such an optimistic act, because you’re putting your faith in the hands of someone or something which you expect to remain constant, even if the circumstances change.”

“I’m disappearing down a rabbit hole here,” he said, “but I think about it a lot. I think about certainty and uncertainty. Trust is a way of managing uncertainty. It’s a way of finding security in saying, ‘Perhaps all of this is uncertain, but I trust you.’ Or, ‘I trust this.’ And there’s a lot of uncertainty in the world at the moment, so it becomes harder to trust, I suppose.”

An interview itself is an act of trust, albeit often a wary one. And there was one stipulated no-go zone in this encounter, a condition mentioned by a publicist only after I’d arrived: No talk of Taylor Swift, with whom Mr. Hiddleston had a brief, intense, headline-generating romance that, post-breakup, she evidently spun into song lyrics.

That was three years ago, and I hadn’t been planning to bring her up; given the context of the play, though, make of that prohibition what you will. Mr. Hiddleston, who once had a tendency to pour his heart out to reporters, knows that he can’t stop you.

“It’s not possible, and nor should it be possible, to control what anyone thinks about you,” he said. “Especially if it’s not based in any, um —” he gave a soft, joyless laugh — “if it’s not based in any reality.”

That’s something he’s learned about navigating fame — about being put on a pedestal that’s then kicked out from under him. He knows now “to let go of the energy that comes toward me, be it good or bad,” he said. “Because naturally in the early days I took responsibility for it.”

“And yes, I’m protective about my internal world now in probably a different way,” he added, his tone as restrained as his words. He took a beat, and so much went unsaid in what he said next: “That’s because I didn’t realize it needed protecting before.”

Even so, he doesn’t give the impression of having closed himself off. When something genuinely made him laugh, he smiled a smile that cracked his face wide open.

And the way he treated the people around him at work — with a fundamental respect, regardless of rank, and no whiff of flattery — made him seem sincere about what he called “staying true to the part of myself that’s quite simple, that’s quite ordinary.”

That investment in his ordinariness, as he put it, is a hedge against the destabilizing trappings of fame, but it doubles as a way of protecting his craft.

It’s also of a piece with his insistence that vulnerability is a necessary risk to take, at least sometimes.

“If you go through life without connecting to people,” he asked, “how much could you call that a life?”

[giftwrappingpaper]

excerpt from a collection of first-hand accounts of the Siege of the Burial Mounds

Account of Fu Li of Yiling, collected and transcribed by Huang Peizhi during the 30th year of the reign of Xuanzheng, the year of Gengyin: 

They arrived just as the sun set, parading through our town’s central road with little regard for common courtesy. Most armies have the sense, you see, to at least warn of their arrival to local officials in advance so we can clear out before they come. There was no warning this time, and so we had to scramble back into our homes to get out of their way. With how they all seemed to act — so incensed, as if they were possessed — I didn’t think they would’ve stopped for anything.

There were so many of them. At first I thought they were a militia group. So rowdy and mad, acting without any discipline. I would’ve assumed we were being raided if they hadn’t kept to the streets and left us alone. It was only after seeing them wave banners with the crests of the Four Great Sects that I realized it was a mob of cultivators. And it was a mob: no formation, no order...just a crazed intent to pass through our town and storm that godforsaken Burial Mounds.

I didn’t know why they were so passionate. I didn’t know why they were raiding the Burial Mounds. But I did remember the Sunshot Campaign and all the grief that came with it, even for us common folk — my sister and her family had just rebuilt their home that had burned down during the invasion of Yunmeng. So I kept out of their way and watched from my window as they marched.

My youngest is the only one out of us who keeps up with cultivator politics. As the entire family crowded at the window, she told us about the commune in the Burial Mounds, made up of refugees from the Sunshot Campaign and their ward, the Yiling Patriarch. He was a hated figure among you cultivators, I learned. Apparently he did something unforgivable a few months beforehand up north. My daughter said that he was the reason for the army. They were here to execute him.

At the time, I couldn’t believe one man could be so hated by so many.

They marched for hours. My husband thought himself a tactician and criticized them for single-filing into what we thought was a battlefield. There’s only one known path into the Burial Mounds, but the main mountain borders the Long River, and he said that an accompanying naval assault would be effective against an army with the higher ground. I now know that there was no army waiting for them. But we didn’t at the time.

We still heard them long after they’d gone: their footsteps, their swords, their yelling. I still remember their chants — not the words, I mean, but the fury in them. But they were gone. I thought that was the end of that.

It was late when it happened. I was still awake, manning the night shift even though the cultivators had scared off any potential customers. People were still scared to leave their homes. And maybe it was good they were scared, because the world — it, it rumbled. I thought it was an earthquake, one strong enough to shake all our cabinets open, to topple everything off the tables. I hid under the counter, scared out of my wits. Didn’t even think to check on my kids.

An invisible force knocked me to the ground. Nearly fainted from the shock of it. But it wasn’t — physical? Well, not all physical. I could feel it inside of me, too. And it made me...angry. Very, very angry. I had never been that angry before, and never have been since. And I wasn’t even angry at anything, I just was. I wanted to scream, I wanted everyone to hear me screaming, to stop everything and just listen to me scream. I wanted to laugh, to cry. I wanted to rip my own heart out with how angry I was.

I’m sorry. I know I’m not making much sense. This is very hard to explain, and it was such a long time ago…

Anyway. It didn’t last long. After, I don’t know, a minute? The air, it almost felt like it — became less dense. Like an overwhelming presence had entered into my restaurant without me even noticing and just...left. 

[Note: Fu Li paused here for a very long time.]

And then I wasn’t. Angry, I mean. Only sad. A mixture of inexplicable grief and profound guilt. I felt like I had lost something, but I didn’t know what — just that I, I couldn’t have it anymore, and it was my fault I couldn’t. And I wanted it, I wanted it so much…And if I couldn’t have it, what was the point of all this? What was the point of anything? I started crying right then, all alone, lying fetally underneath my counter, consumed by this horrible sense of loss. 

This lasted much longer than the anger.

I asked my family later if they felt it, too. They did. The whole town did. It was consoling, in a weird way, knowing we had shared this strange experience together.

They came back the next day. My restaurant was full of cultivators of all sects — gold, purple, green, white. They wanted to celebrate, to recount again and again what had happened. That was where I learned that all the refugees on the commune were killed and that the Yiling Patriarch was dead. A fate well deserved, they said. I never got a concrete answer as to how he died, but it mustn’t have mattered because they were very happy either way that he was gone. 

So I indulged them with rounds of food and liquor. Good business, that day.

But even after a day full of celebration, I could only feel pity. Yes, the people up there living in the Burial Mounds must have been horrible people who had done horrible things. Not that I would know. But they did nothing to me, and through my ignorance I couldn’t think of anything anyone could do to warrant such an inhumane slaughter. I still can’t.

We’re located at the foot of the Burial Mounds, but even from here we could still see and smell the fires the cultivators lit during their march up the mountain. Some of my neighbors even claimed to catch a whiff of decaying meat, but I thankfully never smelled anything that sinister. The cultivators only put out the fires when they returned a week later with those stone beasts. Still, the stench lingered for days afterward. I never did see them bring any bodies down.

Who could ever deserve that?

You know. We’re the closest town to the Burial Mounds, and they would visit us sometimes. I was certain that’s where they came from because they smelled the way the mountain smelled — cold, unchanging, unfeeling death. 

Usually it was a young man — I remember him fondly, for he had a nice smile; he was often with that timid friend of his and a child I assume was his son. They dressed humbly. They sold vegetables. Radishes, mostly. The man was always so eager to talk with whoever was willing to talk to him. He seemed friendly. Kind.

It feels odd to talk about them. The all consuming anger and grief I had felt that day wasn’t my own, but it had to have come from somewhere. And I haven’t seen that man since, nor any of his friends. They’re probably dead now, long dead. Slaughtered on that hill by a mob that went crazy with bloodlust for their heads. How depressing. To be honest — and please, don’t take this the wrong way, Master Huang — I’ve always found you cultivators to be so steadfastly unforgiving.

-----

originally posted on twitter

[padfootagain]

The Flower Shop Around The Corner (X)

Part 10: The Night

 Here I come again with a new chapter! We're so close to the end, guys!! I'll post the next and last part very soon. Also, we have reached over 30900 words with this story! So thank you for sticking around all the way through and beyond these 100 pages :D

Here we go, I hope you like this part, tell me what you think about it, okay?

Gif not mine

Word Count: 3089

His pace was confident as he climbed up the stairs to your apartment. It was fast, and devouring two steps at a time, not caring for the way his heart sped up under the effort.

He had been saying again and again in his head the words he meant to confess to you while on his way to your home. They were close to the ones he had written in this letter of his, although a little different, he guessed. The meaning was the same though.

He finally reached your door, a little out of breath, but he wasn't sure if it was because of his nerves or the climb to the fourth floor.

He took a deep breath before he would knock on your door. He tried to calm down, but found that he couldn't.

It was better this way. If he told you now, before things would get too far with either himself or Wallet Guy. He heard you walking to the door, and found himself wishing he could stop his heart altogether because it was beating so fast…

He had to speak the whole truth, before you would get hurt. Before you would both get hurt. Maybe you could forgive him. Carlotta had said that you were starting to like Chris too. He had a chance. He simply needed not to blow it up, which meant that he needed to enter your flat and tell you the whole truth as fast as he could.

It would be alright. And if it wasn't alright? Well, he would have tried, at least. He would have done his best. It was too late to take it all back anyway, all he could do now was to limit the damages he had caused.

You finally opened your door, welcoming him with a shy smile.

That wasn't butterflies flying in his stomach anymore, these were true fireworks exploding, sparks spreading all the way up through his veins to his heart.

"Hi! Come in," you moved to the side, and he thanked you with a nod as he walked inside.

You took his jacket and asked him where Dodger was.

"Home. He'll be fine. I've given him all his medicine."

"Right… Do you want to drink anything?"

You were fidgeting, clearly nervous. But he needed you calm and relaxed to confess everything to you…

"No, thank you. I'm fine," he shook his head.

He finally searched for your eyes, but regretted it as soon as he met your gaze. Now that he was staring at you, he wasn't sure to be able to speak the words he so desperately needed to utter.

No, no… he couldn't do it…

He clenched his jaw, and turned his hands into fists. It didn't matter if he couldn't tell you. He had to. It wasn't an option. There was no pushing the issue to tomorrow, he was running out of time.

"Y/N…"

"Chris…"

You spoke at the same time, the same urgency in both your voices.

He could read a fragility in your eyes that he wasn't used to witness. He guessed that you wanted to talk about the kiss…

… maybe he could tell you everything right after he had cleared the air about that issue.

"Go ahead," he invited you to speak first, and you gave him a weak nod.

You struggled to swallow, looking for the right words, but your mind was blank. You had imagined a full speech in your head before Chris arrived – or well, more like a hundred version of that speech - but now, you merely stuttered instead.

"I… Maybe I'm just being ridiculous but I… I need to ask you… Because, the truth is… it's driving me insane. Not knowing."

You shakily breathed in a little bit of air, but it felt like your lungs refused to open for it and kept on pushing the oxygen out instead.

"I… I mean, that kiss… That wasn't my first on-screen kiss… obviously… but… it had never felt like that. Is that… Is it just me? Or…"

Your voice broke, and you needed a few seconds to get it back.

"Or did you mean that kiss too?"

Chris stopped breathing altogether.

"You meant it?" he asked in a shaky whisper.

"You didn't… feel it… like it was… more?"

He took a moment to find the right words. He had only one shot at this, and he knew it. Could he really answer that question earnestly without telling you everything first? How he knew you more than you thought he did, how he had fallen for you, why he was so scared of losing you…

But you took his stretching silence for an answer he didn't mean.

You took a couple of steps back, letting out a nervous and heartbroken laugh.

"Right, right. Silly me! I must be so tired, I'm imagining things now!" you shook your head. "Dear God, Chris, I'm so sorry. This is so embarrassing…"

"No, no…"

"You don't have to be kind to me. You… you wanted to tell me something, and instead, here I come, with my crazy fairytales and I…"

You heaved a frustrated sigh, doing your best to withhold the tears that were forming at the corners of your eyes.

"What did you want to talk about anyway? It sounded important."

There were words on the tip of his tongues, but he couldn't speak them. Not now. Three words. How crazy was it that three little words could mean everything. But he couldn’t just blurt it all out this way. He bit his tongue instead.

He had to tell you everything now. It was the moment, wasn't it? He had to tell you that he wasn't just Chris, that he was Wallet Guy too.

He opened his mouth to let it all out. He remembered some of the words in the letter he had written but hadn't had the courage to show you. It was the moment to speak them out loud instead.

And yet, no sound would leave his throat.

He stared at you, stared at your trembling lips, stared at your eyes so filled with emotions he felt too.

If he told you the truth, he would lose you. Maybe. Probably. What were the odds?

But you doubted him as Chris now, because of this kiss, because you weren't sure of how he felt for you. He had to reassure you about that first, the more he thought about it, the more he could see that it was the best thing to do.

He searched for other words then. This time, words of reassurance instead of explanation. How to calm you down, tell you he felt the same, that this kiss… Christ, it was everything but meaningless. And yet, when he opened his mouth to speak, he found that no words truly expressed what he meant to tell you.

So instead, he acted on an impulse, closed the distance between the two of you in two long strides, held your face in both his hands and crushed his lips to yours.

You needed a few seconds to realize what was happening, but as soon as your brain processed the fact that Chris's lips were glued to yours, you reciprocated the kiss.

When you finally broke apart, out of breath, you pulled away just enough to look at him.

A little smile appeared on Chris's lips as he caught your gaze.

"Does that answer your question?" he asked with a humorous and yet tender smile growing across his features.

"Kind of," you nodded.

He cleared his throat before speaking once more.

"Would you mind terribly if I… did that again?"

"Please, do," your voice was a little bit more desperate than what you wanted it to sound like when you answered, but Chris didn't seem to notice.

He was too busy kissing you again.

And again.

And again.

The little voice in his head that kept on reminding him that he should stop, pull away, and talk with you was shushed more and more with every kiss, every touch, every shared breath.

Tell you the truth. Tell you the whole truth…

Instead, your hold on him tightened as his lips glided across your skin from your mouth to your neck, and a jolt of electricity ran through his spine as you gasped under his touch.

"Do you want me to stop?" he asked in a shaky breath, stopping his movements for just a second.

You let out a little laugh.

"Do I look like I want you to stop?" you asked him as you held him yet a little closer.

"Not really."

"Then don't stop."

But after a couple of minutes more spent kissing you, as you started to guide him across your flat, he broke away again.

"Y/N?"

"Yes?"

You were both standing in the middle of the corridor leading to your bedroom, out of breath, holding on each other so tightly, as if you were afraid he would leave if you let go a little, as if he was scared you would disappear in thin air and he would wake up from his dream if he didn't hold you so. Your hair, just like his, was a mess already, but you couldn't find a way to care. You let your fingers trail down the line of his buttoned shirt, but didn't dare to get rid of them before Chris would be back at kissing you.

There was something so intense going through your heart and veins as you stood there, in his arms. It wasn't just desire, it was something more profound, more personal, something that echoed with your very essence. Something that looked a lot like love.

So… was that all it was about then? Was that how it was supposed to feel like? That intoxicating feeling that made your head dizzy, your heart pound, your skin tickle… Yes, somehow, you knew it was.

And for as long as you kept him close, there wasn't a thought of yours that could be wasted on the world outside your embrace, on your job, on your life and its complicated things, on Wallet Guy.

It was just you and Chris, and it was more than enough.

"I don't want you to regret this in the morning," he whispered, uncertain, fragile.

You could see in his blue eyes that he didn't hesitate, that he did want to go further. But you could also see right through his heart the fragility and the fear that you might not feel the same.

"Do you want us to stop? Grab a dinner instead?" he offered.

But you gave him a warm smile, shaking your head.

"No, I don't want to stop. Do you?"

"No."

"Then, let's kiss again."

"I don't want you to wake up tomorrow morning and regret this."

"I won't."

It sounded like a promise, and he believed you.

Finally, his lips were back on yours, and you could get rid of these buttons…

 -------------------------------------------------------

 Dawn was already there, creeping through the cracks of dark clouds, gold and pink and purple against a grey world. A little bit of that light came in through the window of your bedroom. You looked at the sunlight crossing the room, glimmering on tiny particles caught in the air, to land on your skin… and Chris's too.

A few particles of light got caught in his beard and hair, golden hues on darker shades. He was still asleep, his long eyelashes joined in two dark lines over his cheekbones, stretching out as if reaching for the sunlight too. His breathing was calm, soothing, and as you rested your hand again his chest, you felt his heartbeat echo under your touch.

You checked the time on the alarm clock on your bedside table. It was almost time…

If you wanted to go to flower shop and not be late to work, you should get up in a few minutes.

Would you go though?

Things had changed, and not in a bad way. Memories of the previous night with Chris came back to you and you couldn't help but let out a content sigh. What a wonderful night, and yet…

You had asked Wallet Guy to meet you. You needed to see his answer. You needed to see him. Was it for closure, or for the hope of a new beginning though?

Chris stirred by your side, his eyelids fluttering and opening. It didn't take him long to turn a sleepy pair of blue eyes towards you.

"Hi," he breathed with a groggy grin.

"Hi."

You were so beautiful like this, by his side. He trailed his thumb across your cheek. Damn, maybe all would turn out fine. Maybe he didn't need to tell you anything, after all. Maybe he could simply be with you, and nothing more. If he didn't tell you the truth, then no one would. It wasn't really lying, it was simply… omitting a fact to preserve you from unnecessary pain. Preserve both of you. Yes… yes, it could work…

"Is it late?" he asked in a voice made hoarse by sleep.

"No, it's quite early."

"Good."

He turned to his side to wrap his arm around you, and dropped a sweet kiss to your forehead, his beard tickling your skin.

"Are you alright?" he asked after a few moments spent holding each other close.

"Sure," you nodded, but he rolled his eyes.

"Why are so tensed up, then?"

You took a few seconds to reply, but he had already thought about a reason.

"Ha… you regret about last night, then…"

"No, no," you shook your head, pulling away just enough to stare at him. "I don't regret anything about last night, it was amazing."

"But?"

"But I…"

You fell silent again.

"Is it because we're colleagues? Because we won't be anymore in like… 5 days," he proposed, but you shook your head again.

"No. I don't regret what happened. Would you like some breakfast?"

But he didn't bite to the distraction.

"What is it then?"

"I just…"

The more you stared at his eyes, the more you knew that you couldn't lie to him. You needed to tell him.

"There's something we need to talk about."

"I'm all ears."

You ran a hand through his beard, up his cheek and to his hair. A tender, loving gesture that had his entire frame relax under your fingertips. How could you have such effect on him?

But you pulled away and sat up, pulling up the sheets to cover yourself up to your shoulders.

"I… I told you about that man I've been writing to," you said in a trembling voice.

Chris sat up as well next to you, struggling to keep a detached tone, but failing already.

"Yeah. What about him?"

"I… I've asked to see him. Yesterday morning. Before we… before this happened between us."

Chris frowned.

"You can say what happened between us. It's nothing wrong."

"That's not what I meant."

"That's what you make it sound like."

You gave him a pointed look, before complying.

"Before you and I had sex. Happy?"

"I don't see where you're going with this."

"I…" you stuttered, tripping on your words just like your heart was stumbling on a rhythm. "I need to see him. I told him I would. I have to."

"Because you promised him?"

"Because… I need to sort this out."

He slowly nodded. But despite his best efforts, it wasn't hard for you to see how much pain was passing through his eyes now.

He could feel it shattering, under his ribcage, this heart of his that had become yours as time passed and he learnt to know you. It wasn't your fault though. You had never claimed it as your own, the beating organ had decided to paint your name across its ventricles, and there was nothing either of you could do about it.

Still, it hurt so much…

"I see."

"It has nothing to do with you, and it's just... I need to see him, that's all."

"To tell him that you met me? That nothing can happen between you then? Or to choose between me and him?"

You didn't answer. You couldn't. Because you didn't know the answers to his questions either.

He let a sigh, but there was no anger in his gesture. No disappointment either. As if… he had been expecting it all to happen this way. And in a way, in his heart, he had.

He could tell you everything. Right now and then. Tell you that there was no need to set up a rendez-vous with this man, because you would be only waiting for him to come. Tell you he was sorry. Tell you, finally tell you, that he loved you…

Then, you could either accept him, kiss him, forgive him, or you could hate him for it. He could be with you, or lose you for good. It was a 50/50 chance.

And this morning, he wasn't ready to take that risk. He wasn't strong enough. He needed you, for just a little longer, even if it was just a dream, even if he would wake up and lose it all in a few hours. For now, you were there, and that was enough for him. He guessed he was just back to his original plan. He would tell you everything at lunch today.

"When will you meet him?" he asked, although he knew the answer already.

"Tonight, I hope. If he has accepted."

"Alright then. I guess the date night for tonight is out," he went on in a calm, forgiving voice.

"You're not angry?"

He shrugged.

"What do you want me to say?"

"Nothing, I just… I thought you would be mad."

A sad smile formed on his lips, and he cupped your cheek.

"I want this," he answered earnestly. "You and me. I want it all. But then, you need to want it too. And if meeting him shows you what you need to see to decide, then so be it. Meanwhile… can we have this morning? Without thinking about him, about work, about anything just… us. Can you give me just this morning?"

You sank back into the bed, and he imitated you. You knew that time was ticking by, but you ignored it. You guessed you would be late at work today, it didn't matter. Chris mattered much more.

"Yeah. Yeah, we can have that."

And before you could speak again, Chris was kissing you again.

And again.

And again…

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

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[sharinluna]

Love and Producer(MLCQ) Kiro Kiss Date Translation

Copy pasting my translation from Reddit.

Kiro's Kiss Date is a future karma but the timeline of the date is assumed to be during chapter 12 before Kiro announces his retirement. So I'm posting my translation based on KR text. I translated about 80% and tried to keep to the original Korean text as possible, but took liberty to paraphrase some sentences to make it sound more natural in English.

Also, MC’s name is Yōurán because that is the unofficial default CN name.

Star Cluster Date

I underestimated Savin’s work as Kiro’s agent. It was just as, no, harder than my job as a producer. I went over the schedule again, checking each item with my finger one by one.

Yōurán: 9:30 is rehearsal, then we have to try on the stage costumes, then to the concert… oh no! I screwed up!

Kiro: Screwed up what?

Just then Kiro slided next to me and glanced at my notepad, then he sighed in an exaggerated manner.

Kiro: How cruel, Yōurán! You didn’t even give me time to eat!

Yōurán: That’s why I yelled “I screwed up…” But we still have time to order some takeout…

Kiro: But I was looking forward to a lunch you cooked out of love!

He pursed his lips and began to torture my conscience with puppy eyes. In the yellow light, his eyes looked even more pitiful. He must have practiced making that face!

Yōurán: All right, all right… Today is late, but how about tomorrow?

Kiro: That’s a promise. I knew you would care for me! I hope you become my one and only agent from now on.

Yōurán: Savin will be upset when he hears that…

Although I said that, my heart was fluttering. If I could continue being Kiro’s agent… My thoughts went back to the day Kiro barged into my house in the middle of the night to ask me about this.

Kiro: For real! Just for a week!

I wanted to help him of course, but I couldn’t readily accept this kind of offer right away!

Yōurán: But… I have never worked as an agent before, do you really want me to? You must know other people who are more experienced in this job.

Kiro: But there’s no point if it’s not you.

I couldn’t say no to his insisting. Truth was, I was also eager to accept this offer.

Yōurán: Okay, I’ll do it.

As soon as I answered I heard a yell through the receiver. I began to feel excited as well.

Kiro: Great! Get ready because I’m going to your house in 30 minutes!

Yōurán: What, now?! What’s all the hurry?

Kiro: There was a change of plan, my friend wants to start practicing tomorrow. Why else would I bother you like this in the middle of the night?

Yōurán: But like you said, your schedule is tomorrow… why do I have to start tonight?

Kiro: To get to know each other more intimately, of course. For an entire week we have to be the best of partners sharing our daily schedule from meals to transportations.

Wait, was this also part of an agent’s job? So, I have to stick to Kiro every moment of the week?

And he really took me along everywhere he went for the following week. But I did little to manage his schedules as a celebrity. It felt more like I was getting to see his world that I have never seen before.

Even without my clumsy help he was already the perfectly radiant sun. Whether it was rehearsals or social relations, he managed his affairs meticulously. I doubted whether he needed me as his agent in the first place.

Yōurán: You can manage yourself just fine without my help, right?

Kiro: Don’t lower your worth like that.

His answer was serious. I could faintly smell his sweat that still remained from his rehearsal as he came closer. His voice lower than usual surrounded me. I could feel heat emanating between us.

Kiro: I wouldn’t know what to do without you.

Yōurán: But I didn’t do anything…

Kiro: You’re next to me, that’s all I need.

Kiro: Do you think it’s childish, wanting to show only your best side to someone you like?

He looked softly at me. Underneath the light his eyes were like honey, sweet and profound.

My head was filled with his words “someone you love”. I couldn’t find my voice, so I shook my head to tell him that no, I did not think it was childish. Which he must have found funny because he laughed out loud. His hair tickled my neck as he shook with laughter but I couldn’t push him away.

Kiro: Haha, look at you all worked up.

Yōurán: It’s because you’re suddenly being all mushy…

Kiro: Then, get used to it from now on…

He pulled me into his arms and his continued confessions conquered my ear, defeating all coherent thoughts left.

Kiro: I love you… I love you, Yōurán… I love you the most in the world…

(like 好きだ in Japanese, 좋아하다 in Korean means “like”, but it can also mean “love”. So Kiro and MC are repeating the same word but the meaning slowly changes from “like” to “love”.)

His hand was supporting the back of my neck, preventing me from escaping the sweet whirlpool that I was slowly drowning in. My hands landed on his shirt after not knowing where to go, and his palm covered them warmly.

Kiro: If I ever leave…

He was whispering next to my ear, but I felt like I could hear him from a thousand miles away. I hugged this sensitive, lonely soul without knowing what would happen in the future.

I knew that his “leaving” meant something serious, but I felt like I should inquire like everything was normal.

Yōurán: Are you leaving the country again? How long are you going to be gone this time?

A short pause passed, then he resumed his playful way of talking.

Kiro: Yes. I’m going somewhere very, very far, and will be gone for a very, very long time. You’d better not sob your heart out for me because you miss me. (He is saying “sob/sniffle” but in the sense of “crying like a little kid.” I don’t know which is the most appropriate, sob? wail? bawl? sniffle? whine?)

Yōurán: I’m not going to! I’m not a child!

Kiro: But I’m going to.

Kiro: So, will you promise me? That you won’t forget me if I’m gone.

I had so many things I wanted to say to him, but I had to accept that there must be a reason he was like this. So I nodded firmly, then he laughed lightly and our foreheads touched. It somehow felt like a farewell.

Since that day, he never once brought up anything about “leaving.” It felt like I was worrying for no good reason. I didn’t know where the “somewhere very far” was, nor did I know how long was “a very long time”.

Two days later, I heard him talking to someone on the phone in the dressing room. The voice was him, but I’ve never heard him sounding so cold like that.

Kiro: …………more time……... ………after I leave…………

The way he spoke reminded me of what he said earlier, and I couldn’t ignore it. My head told me to walk past, to not concern myself with this. Everyone has a side they don’t want others to know, and Kiro was no exception. But concern that was growing bigger in the silence made me go toward the door.

While I was hesitating, the door – which turned out to be unlocked – pushed open by itself. Kiro hurriedly ended his call when he heard me. His face was calm just as always.

Kiro: What’s up? Are they looking for me?

Yōurán: Umm… no, I was just…

My eyes landed on his phone before I could come up with an excuse. His eyes followed suit and glanced at his phone, then he gave a sigh full of meaning and approached me. The sharp way he held himself made me take a few steps back, but I couldn’t escape the flick on the forehead.

Yōurán: Oww!!

Kiro: It’s bad habit to eavesdrop on people.

Yōurán: I wasn’t… I was just passing by and happened to…

Kiro: That’s not good either. I can tell by your face. You heard everything right?

Yōurán: But I really didn’t….

Kiro: That was classified information. What should I do with you now?

Yōurán: I will never tell anyone!

Kiro: You’d better, or else…

His always bright and cheerful eyes narrowed to emit a threatening atmosphere. I was suddenly reminded of the “You know too much, I’ll have to kill you.” scenes in movies. I felt a shiver in my back.

What was he hiding? What did this have to do with his “leaving”? Was he in this willingly? Or did he get caught into this without a choice? If the latter was the case, he must be facing a really difficult predicament. What should I do to help him then?

Having reached this thought, my desire to help him get over this drove away my fear. Making my decision, I spoke from my heart.

Yōurán: Your phone call… does that have to do with your “leaving”? If you could let me help…

…then could you stay? Instead of going someplace far away from here?

But my words were interrupted by his sudden burst of laughter.

Kiro: Hahaha! You got it very wrong!

Yōurán: But you said something about leaving on the phone…

He laughed even more harder when he heard my words. He laughed so hard that tears were hanging on his long lashes.

Kiro: That was my line from the new movie I’m going to shoot. I was acting as an emotionless killer. I was practicing on my own, but I had no idea that you were listening.

Yōurán: And the classified information thing…?

He motioned exaggeratedly to be quiet. The icy atmosphere was long since gone, everything was warm and bubbly again.

Kiro: Shh… Of course it’s classified. It’s not even announced to the public yet! Savin won’t let me hear the end of it if he knows. So you have to keep it a secret!

So everything was concluded as his impromptu prank.

Yōurán: You should have told me earlier.

Kiro: Sorry, sorry! But you should have seen your face! I just had to tease you a bit.

Yōurán: Thanks to you, I’ll probably get “The Best Reaction Award”.

Kiro: Then I, Kiro, will award Miss Chips “The Best Reaction of the Year”!

He went along with my bad joke in a witty way.

Before I could say anything further, he removed the pendant from his neck. One could immediately tell how much it meant to him. His lips held the silver pendent, giving it a kiss, then he continued his speech.

Kiro: Will Miss Chips kindly come up to the stage to receive her award?

Then he placed his pendant on my neck like it was a medal. His fingers brushed the sensitive skin on my neck and I held my breath. I thought he would take the necklace back after he was done joking, but he clasped the chain and stepped back.

Kiro: Keep it safe for me while I’m not around.

Yōurán: Wait! This necklace means so much to you! I can’t have something like this!

Kiro: That’s why I’m putting it in your care.

He stroked the pendant with utmost care, a forlorn look appeared on his face for the shortest moment.

Kiro: I’ll have you again when I come back.

I didn’t know whether he was talking to the pendant, or to me whose hand was still caught by his.

And did my heart feel like it was being teared apart because I knew he was leaving? Or was it something else?

My one-week experience as Kiro’s agent was about to end. And the show was about to start. Kiro did his best to ensure that this show was perfect. The show started at night, but he'd begun preparations since morning. He was always ready to help the staff with a welcoming smile.

Under the spotlight, with the stage and music, he will always be a star. But seeing him like this only made me fear more about his leaving.

If Kiro the sun leaves, what should they do – the crowds cheering for him under the stage?

What should I do?

My thoughts were thrashing and turning as I listened to his music. I clutched the bouquet for him tighter.

What stance should I take when I give this bouquet to him? As his one-week agent? As his ardent fan? Or….. as Yōurán, who doesn’t wish to see him go.

Before I could find the right answer, the show ended with thunder-like applause. The audience kept shouting for an encore.

Kiro: Do you have anything to give me?

I held the bouquet out to him, my hands still shaking from all the excitement. He was smiling tenderly like always, but his eyes held so intense an emotion.

Kiro: The flowers are really cute. But that’s not what I want.

Yōurán: Oh, don’t you like them…?

Kiro: I like them. But what I want right now is…. you.

He reached his hand out and pulled backed the clothes hanging above me, and trapped me inside the narrow space.

His bangs brushed my nose as the abrupt kiss landed on my lips. His tongue pushed inside roughly and hastily. I put my hands against his chest but couldn’t find it in me to push him away.

I could hear the fans shouting for an encore not far away, but their din faded out in my ears. All I could hear were us breathing heavily. Our breaths entangled drinking in each other, and I was out of oxygen. I felt dizziness and couldn’t think anything. I could only open my mouth wider and thirst for more like a fish out of water. He held himself while checking my response, then moved in deeper to meet my craving. It felt like my every cell was getting infected by him. I couldn’t keep myself from getting closer to his body, wanting, asking for more.

We forgot that we were at the backstage with the crowds waiting behind, until we heard his friend looking out for him.

Friend: What about Kiro? Where is he? He was right next to me just a moment ago.

Yōurán: They’re looking for you!

He released me reluctantly, then he leaned down to kiss the pendant on my neck.

Kiro: Next time, it might be you who have to find me. No matter how far and long I’m gone, it’s up to you to find me.

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Yōurán(MC) already knows that something's going on, but she chooses to go along with Kiro and pretends that nothing wrong is happening. But they both know that their time together is about to end soon.