#mine is the pink and theirs is the brown

[electrical-communication]

Some magma drawings with @tasty-sour-lemonade

[kryptid-writes]

Chapter 5 - The Bearer of Bad News

Just as Y/N starts to settle into the bunker, a mysterious pain leaves her feeling helpless and scared. Castiel must be the bearer of bad news, leaving Dean to pick up the pieces. (3.3k)

The echo of footsteps grows louder by the second as Lucifer slowly creeps closer. His soft adoring eyes meet mine, igniting with passion. He's drenched in blood from the tips of his fingers to the crook of his elbows. His arms hang limply at his sides as the blood drips from his hands onto the leaves of the forest floor beneath us. The brown leaves, long dead from the bitter winter air are painted a rich crimson color, one drop at a time. The colors swirl together like some realistic macabre painting, hauntingly beautiful.

He stops in his tracks, until he’s all but a few inches away. He closes his eyes and leans down to rest his forehead against mine. 

I can feel the familiar buzzing sensation connecting us in the most enticing way. 

His hand takes mine and intertwines our fingers, the wet feeling of blood sticking between my knuckles, still warm from the slaughter. 

I let out a quiet sigh, feeling oddly at ease despite the eerie situation.

“Admit it, you miss me,” he says in a cheeky tone. One side of his lips tug upward revealing a sly, charming smile. 

I look away, avoiding the question. The truth is some disturbed part of me did miss him. He was dangerous and rude. He kidnapped me, for fucks sake. But something deep inside pulls me to him like a magnet. Two opposite forces drawn together in unforeseen ways. I can’t help but lean into the feeling.

“You feel the connection don’t you?” He says, his voice low.

I look up at him through my eyelashes, gazing into his beautiful ruby eyes, my face flushing a light shade of pink.

“You do.” He lets out a breath of laughter, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. “Don’t worry my beloved, I'll be coming to get you very soon.” He places a soft kiss on my forehead.

 “Those Winchester boys are bad news, and If they believe they can steal you away from me, they’re sorely mistaken.” A flash of anger and jealousy appears on his face. “You're mine, not theirs. Do you understand?” His mood suddenly very serious.

“I don’t belong to you, I don’t belong to anyone.” I snap in protest.

“Tsk. Tsk. Tsk.” He shakes his head disapprovingly. “You and I are destined to be together and you’re gonna need my help sooner or later. And when that time comes,” he leans in, his lips hovering over my ear whispering, “I’ll be here waiting for you.”

My breath hitches in my throat, butterflies fluttering in my stomach. He snaps his fingers and the world goes black. 

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I shoot up in bed, my breathing shallow and slightly painful. My sweaty hair sticks to my forehead and my throat feels as dry as a desert. 

The dream felt so real, but I suppose they all do. It’s different now though, knowing that they’re actually real, that he really is communicating with me through the dream realm.

 I can’t help but wonder what he meant when he said, “I’ll be needing his help sooner or later.” Asking Lucifer for help is the last thing I want to do, the thought alone sending chills down my spine.

I swallow down my anxiety and step out of bed onto the cold wooden floor. I enter the bathroom, getting ready for the day and slipping back into my clothes from the night before and step out into the hallway, closing my door behind me. 

The aroma of sizzling bacon and eggs fills the air. My stomach growls painfully in hunger, reminding me that it has been far too long since I've eaten anything. 

I follow the smell down the twisty hall into a quaint little kitchen. It’s lined with light green tiles, illuminated by the fluorescent lights on the wall. Pots and pans dangle from hooks above the metal center island where dishes of breakfast foods are displayed by a stack of plates and silverware.

 Dean stands by the stove, frying a batch of fresh bacon, unaware of my presence in the doorframe.

 Sam, on the other hand, sits at the small wooden table, eating a piece of buttered toast and sipping on a cup of black coffee. His eyes flick back and forth, scanning over the newspaper in his hand as he mindlessly bounces his leg. 

Castiel is nowhere to be seen, not that the lack of angels bothers me.

I clear my throat, attracting the attention of both the brothers. 

“Morning Y/N!” Sam gives a genuine smile, taking another sip of his coffee. He catches my eyes glimpse over the food, my mouth flooding with saliva.

 “Dean cooked breakfast, please help yourself.” He gestures to the plates of food on the island and I quickly make my way over.

“Hope you like bacon,” Dean chuckles, throwing a glance at me over his shoulder.

“I love bacon,” I happily reply, filling my plate to the brim with eggs, bacon, and toast. 

Dean smiles at this.

 I take my seat across from Sam, shoving forkfuls of food into my mouth. I’m sure I've forgotten my manners, but the wonderful blend of tastes melting in my mouth distracts me far too much to care. I close my eyes, forgetting the world around me and savoring every bite. When I open my eyes, I see Dean filling a mug placed in front of me with freshly brewed coffee that’s never seemed so appealing before.

“Did you sleep okay?” He asks, sitting down in the seat next to me. His plate is nearly overflowing with crispy bacon. 

Sam looks at him slightly disgusted, but not entirely surprised. 

“Um. I guess you could say that.” I take a bit of toast, keeping my mouth full so I don’t have to talk.

“Right, well we decided to take the day off from hunting, so we’ll be around if you need us,” Sam says, shooting me a reassuring look.

“Hunting?” I didn’t take the Winchesters to be the trigger happy animal shooter type.

“Yeah, we uh, we save people and hunt monsters for a living. It’s kind of a family business,” Sam replies, his eyes scanning my face, gauging for my reaction.

“Oh,” I place my fork down, processing the information. “So you guys actively search out the crazy?” I raise my eyebrow in question.

“Yeah, it’s kind of our thing” Sam nods with a polite smile.

I let out a half hearted chuckle in disbelief. None of this seems real. I mean, just 2 days ago I was living a relatively normal life in blissful ignorance of what the world was really like, completely unaware of the existence of angels, demons, and monsters, and now, here I am in the middle of it all like the eye of an unrelenting storm.

“Look,” Dean says, catching my attention. “We’re almost certain that Lucifer will not be able to find you here, you should be safe. But we’re gonna stay close, keep an eye on you just to be sure.” He looks me in the eye, making sure I understand the full gravity of the situation.

I nod in response, picking up my warm coffee mug and bringing it to my lips. I sip on the coffee, its hot liquid warming my throat and leaving a pleasant bitter taste behind. Just as I was finishing the drink, my muscles seize up and I drop the cup, spilling the coffee everywhere. My eyes screw shut as bolts of pain run through my spine into the nerve endings throughout my body. I hiss at the feeling, grinding my teeth. The pain quickly subsides, gone just as soon as it came.

“Y/N! Y/N! Are you okay? What’s wrong?” Sam asks, his voice filled with concern, and  grips my shoulder.

“Yeah, Fine,” I groan, opening my eyes to meet their concerned faces. “Just a muscle spasm,” I assure, in an attempt to dismiss their worries and grab a napkin to mop up the spilled coffee from the old wooden floor. The spill doesn’t look entirely out of place among the myriad of old stains that litter the smooth gray tiled floor.

I have never experienced a random burst of pain before, but I'm sure it’s probably just related to the physical and mental stress I've endured recently. 

“That was one hell of a muscle spasm,” Dean says with a scoff.

“Nothing a hot shower won’t fix.” I give a weak smile and excuse myself from the table.

“Hey, uh, i’ll bring you some fresh clothes to change into. You can borrow some of mine until we’re able to get you your own,” Dean says, getting up to toss his now empty plate and coffee mug in the kitchen sink with a loud clunk.

“Thanks Dean.” I give the brothers a final glance, putting on my best brave face, before exiting the kitchen and making my way back to my room.

Despite the bunker being bigger than a stadium, I’m able to navigate through the labyrinth of halls with ease, running my fingers along the winding tile walls. In college I had done my fair share of camping in national parks and retracing my steps when lost in the forest is a skill I have down to perfection.

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The hot water does wonders to ease my muscles as I step into the steady stream. I sigh, and lean my head back to rest on the foggy glass wall of the shower, and to my relief, everything fades into blissful silence, my head pleasantly empty. 

The peace lasts only a moment before another bolt of shooting pain racks through my body. This one is far worse than before. It feels as if every nerve in my body is on fire simultaneously. I let out an involuntary scream that I can hardly hear over the rush of water and loud ringing in my ears.

“Y/N?” Dean shouts on the other side of the door, knocking incessantly. 

I try to respond, but am interrupted by another wave of pain flowing through my body, knocking out the air from my lungs like a punch to the gut. The pain is so unbearable that my legs give out and I collapse onto the tiled floor with a thud. The cold tiles quickly turn into a feeling akin to being pressed against a hot grill. Everything burns.

“Y/N!” He yells, furiously jiggling the locked doorknob.

I curl up into a ball, pulling my knees into my chest. I close my eyes as hot tears flow down my cheeks, mixing with the shower water streaming directly onto my face. The water gets into my nose and mouth. I choke as it becomes harder and harder to breathe, but I just can’t muster the strength to move my body to safety. 

Wave after wave of pain hits me, starting from the top of my spine, flowing between my shoulder blades, and rushing through the rest of my body. I want to call for help, I want to call for Dean, but all I can manage is a measly whimper. Once again, I'm left feeling completely helpless.

After what seems like an eternity, Dean finally kicks the door down and rushes to my side, dropping to his knees. I can’t open my eyes to see him, but I can feel his presence looming over me like a real guardian angel.

“Y/N,” He says, pulling me out of the shower and into his arms. 

I tuck my face into his chest, breathing in his musky scent that's immensely effective at calming my nerves. The pain doesn’t stop, but when I’m in his arms, for just a moment, it feels like everything might be okay.

“Breathe Y/N,” Dean says, keeping his voice steady. “I need to pick you up and move you to the bed.” He places his arms under my neck and the back of my legs.

“No!” I mumble in protest. The thought of moving my body at all from my current position on the bathroom floor makes me feel sick to my stomach. Everything hurts. Even the slightest movement of my body sends spikes of pain through my core.

“I’ll make it quick, I promise,” His voice is calm, trying to hide his panic in an attempt to soothe me.

All I can do is whimper in response. I know he’s right, but the rational part of my brain is offline. I cry out a choked sob as he lifts me from the floor and carefully moves me to the bed. The satin sheets that felt so comfortable before now sting when they come in contact with my skin.

“Shh you're okay,” he coos, cradling my head. 

Tears stream down my face as the vision in my eyes starts to blur. Blotches of blue, purples and greens dance along my line of sight as the black abyss crawls from the corners of my eyes. My cries and whimpers grow silent as I go limp in his arms. My consciousness slowly slipping away.

“Y/N? Y/N! Stay with me! I need you to stay awake!” He shakes me lightly. The sensation burns, but I'm too tired to care. “SAMMY!” Dean yells, his voice booming off the walls of the bunker.

I fall into sweet unconsciousness, a temporary relief to my pain.

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Lucifer cradles me in his arms, tentatively wiping away my tears. 

My breathing comes out choppy, followed by the occasional hiccup. The pain is gone, but the sickly panicked feeling still bubbles in my core. 

He runs his fingers through my hair, massaging my scalp. 

I lean into his touch. My head lulls back, physically exhausted.

“Everything is going to be alright my love. I would give anything to be there with you right now, help you through this adjustment period.” He places a kiss on the top of my head, resting his head there for a moment before pulling away. “It will all be worth it, you’ll see.”

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The dream lasts for only a fleeting moment before I’m pulled back to reality by a wave of pain flowing through my body. A strangled scream rips through my throat. My body thrashes and shakes in agony, unable to cope with the overwhelming feelings. Once the tremors calm down, I peel my eyes open to see Sam and Dean sitting on either side of my bed, staring at me intently, looking incredibly concerned.

“It’s okay, we’re here.” Sam says in a calming voice, moving stray locks of hair out of my face.

I want to respond, I want to thank them for keeping me company, but all that comes out are sobs that rack through my body. I hug the large red flannel that they must have placed around me, into my chest. Clutching the fabric in my fingers brings me some unexpected comfort.

They exchange looks with one another, seeming to have a silent conversation without ever opening their mouths.

“I don’t know what’s happening,” I croak. “I’m scared,” the last part comes out as a whisper. I stare up at the ceiling, feeling utterly hopeless.

Dean takes my hand in his, giving it a comforting squeeze.

“I think it’s time you make a call,” Sam says to Dean, giving him a knowing look. 

He responds with a nod and places his hands together in prayer. “Castiel, we need your help. Get your feathery ass down here… please,” he says, his tone turning from confident to desperate.

Barely a moment passes until the sound of wings fills the room. 

I have to fight my panicked gut reaction to the noise, reminding myself that it’s not Lucifer, that I'm safe here with the boys.

“Dean,” Castiel says, in his deep monotone voice.

“You have to help her, something is seriously wrong.” He gives the angel a pleading look.

He shuffles to my side, hovering over me with no regard to my personal space. 

I turn my head to look at him, hot tears flowing from my eyes, staining the pillow below. 

His face is void of emotion, unreadable as always.

“Please make it stop!” I beg. I wince and groan, feeling smaller waves of pain shooting through my spine and shoulder blades.

He looks at the brothers before placing two fingers to my forehead and closing his eyes in concentration. 

I wait for the sweet relief that never comes and let out an almost inaudible whimper.

 His brows furrow in frustration. “My healing grace isn’t working on her.”

“What do you mean, it’s not working?” Dean barks in anger. “Try again!” He demands.

Castiel shoots him a knowing look, but tries again regardless. Yet again, nothing happens. “There’s something blocking my energy. Something that’s not entirely human.”

“What does that mean?” Sam asks. 

I look at Cas, my eyes searching his for any kind of answers.

He turns to look at Dean and Sam. “I’m sensing the presence of angel grace in her nervous system. I’ve never seen anything like it,” he tells them, as if I'm not even there.

“WHAT?” My voice is clear for the first time since the pain started and eyes wide with horror. 

He ignores my outburst and continues what he was saying. “Lucifer has done something to her, I'm certain it’s the cause of her pain.” 

They exchange silent glances once again before turning their attention back to me.

A sickly feeling washes over me as realization dawns on me. I clench my jaw as the traumatic memories flash across my mind. “He…. he injected me with something while I slept.” 

“Was it a glowing white substance?” The angel asks. 

I nod my head in fear of what it means.

“He’s transferred some of his grace into her body. It’s completely unheard of, but theoretically it may create some sort of human and angel hybrid.”

“No.” I shake my head in disbelief. “That’s not true. Please tell me it’s not true!” I plead, grasping onto the sleeve of his tan trench coat.

“I’m sorry.” He gives me a look of pity. 

“I need to talk to you,” Sam says to Cas. “In private…” He glances at me. 

Clearly whatever he has to say, he wants me out of the loop. I should be offended, but I'm in too much a state of shock to care.

The two men exit the room and Dean stands to follow.

“Wait.” I grab his arm, catching his attention. “Please don't leave me here alone,” I plead, my eyes wide with hope.

He pauses for a minute, weighing his options, but ultimately agrees with a short nod. He crawls into bed next to me, pulling me flush against his warm body, providing a silent comfort.

I rest my head on his chest, draping my arms across his torso. He smells of beer and musky cologne that I find oddly comforting. 

He wraps a muscular arm around me, his hand resting on the small of my back. It reminds me of the way Lucifer held me after injecting me with his grace, but this feels safer, more genuine.

“You’re gonna be okay,” he whispers, placing a soft kiss on my temple. 

My body tenses in surprise, but I quickly melt into the feeling, a peaceful sigh escaping my lips. In all of the chaos that seems to surround me, he’s the only thing grounding me, keeping me from simply drifting away.

We stay there for God knows how long. After what feels like forever, his breathing becomes deep and heavy. But sleep doesn’t come so easy for me, my mind still trying to process the life changing information of the day.

Many hours later, after tracing my eyes over his figure too many times to count, memorizing every freckle, scar, and curve, I finally join him in slumber, my body still exhausted from the agonizing pain. It seems as of lately I've slept more than I ever have in my whole life. I won't complain though, it’s a much needed escape from the horrors of reality. The peace in a wake of pain.

Series Masterlist

Full Masterlist

[rebelscums]

Bad Guy (Tech x Bounty Hunter reader)

Ratings: Fluff

Summary: A deal between a group of pirates that needed to be made for Sid goes off the rails when your lover shows up.

“Boys and kid. Meet the best bounty hunter in the galaxy.” Sid introduced as she pointed to her bar.

“Quite the flatterer Sid.” I muttered not bothering to look behind me.

I was mindlessly shuffling through the credits I collected from my recent bounty, trying to figure out what I could use for my ship.

“She seems harmless.” Wrecker stated, squinting his eyes at my flowery dress and sandals.

“It’s the best disguise is it not?” I asked as I spun around on the stool.

The guy looked even bigger than I expected, but that wasn’t what caught my breath. No… It was the tall soldier to to the left of the big guy.

Right there stood someone I knew for sure was going to be the death of me.

“Are you strong?” The big guy continued, “How do you catch all those bounties?”

“Her specialties may lie elsewhere Wrecker. Just because someone may not hold physical strength doesn’t mean they can’t subdue their opponents by other means.” The handsome one with the goggles stated, “That doesn’t mean they are not strong.”

“Should I be flattered or offended?” I wondered with a raised brow.

“My apologies, I only meant to compliment your possible skills.” He said while adjusting his goggles, “Given your stature and height. It is clear that you are agile and clever minded, giving you an advantage against your opponent.”

“No offense taken.” I stood up, taking a few steps to meet him, “I think it’s fascinating how your mind works.”

His eyebrows raised as he watched me skeptically. I gently raised my hand in front of me waiting for him to grab it. He did so with uncertainty.

“My name is…” I offered my name along with the sweetest smile meant only for him.

“Tech.” He stuttered out his name.

“Well Tech, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” I grinned, running my thumb across his battle worn hand.

“The pleasure is mine.” He replied, a pink dust sweeping across his face.

“So that’s how she gets them.” I heard one of the other men whisper to the guy in the red bandana.

The bandana man chuckled, “She’s going to eat him alive.”

Oh how wrong he was…

Music blared throughout the club, a sweet scent wafting through the air from the specialty Asmos cocktails being made. Yet I had no time for a drink if the group of pirate thugs in front of me had any say about it.

A chip containing information that Sid needed sat just out of reach while a case of credits sat out of theirs. You would think this would be a simple switch. Case closed, but pirates were greedy. Especially them.

I’m a bounty hunter not a dealer. I thought as I held back an eye roll. Of course Sid would make some do her dirty work.

“What is a little thing like you gonna do to us?” The pirate Zen sneered, his gold eyebrows glittering under the purple low light of the club.

“There’s ten of us and only one of you so why don’t you slide those credits over and call your serpent of a boss to double the credits for this priceless information.” He stated smugly, his read scarf doing nothing to hide the tattoos across his neck.

“I suggest you comply Zen.” I tried to give him one more chance at a civil exchange.

I watched as his gold earring swayed as he leaned back in his seat.

“Or what? You got some knight in shining armor at your beck and call?” He scoffed.

It was at this point that I sighed, completely bored with this interaction. The soft look on my face fell as I glared at the group.

“I don’t think you understand who’s in charge here.” I leaned my elbows onto the table, my gaze turned from impassive to a look that had the pirate looking between my and the table nervously.

I grinned, “You see… I’m the bad guy.”

“Hello Cyar’ika.”

Every ounce of aggression, any thought process that I had to intimidate these pirates left my body the moment his voice graced my ears.

I practically melted under his gaze as I turned my head to meet his brown eyes.

“You were saying?” The pirate crossed his arms, clearly disinterested in my scare tactic.

It would have worked too…

“I’m the…” I trailed off.

If it weren’t for his alluring presence…

Suddenly I felt lost in thought as I stared at a pair of glittering amber eyes gazing down at me.

It had been a few weeks since I had seen him, the only thing keeping us in contact with one another was the bracelets on our left wrists. Tech made it for us after our one month anniversary.

We had too many jobs given to us by Sid to see each other that often and so he made something that was only meant for us without any prying eyes. It was a bracelet that would buzz and light up on the others wrist each time either one of us would tap it.

To me each tap signified that I loved and missed him and so I tapped it… I tapped it a lot.

My heart leapt for joy even with the small smirk that graced his handsome face, the same face that looked tired and yet collected all the same after a tough mission.

I hope his mission wasn’t too tough… I will have to asked him about it later tonight. Maybe after we grab a bite to eat?

My thoughts suddenly disappeared as Tech leaned in close.

His left hand gripped the back of my chair as his breath fanned across my face and I couldn’t help the small noise that came out of my throat as he said, “You’re the what?”

“I’m the…” I barely remembered his question as my eyes flutter closed when Tech tilted my chin up towards him.

“What she means to say is you and your crew are going to cooperate or you have me to deal with her soldier not shining knight.” Tech stated, his demeanor unfazed.

“We’re not afraid of you.” Zen huffed without any truth showing in his eyes or the way he fidgeted in the booth.

It didn’t help the pirates menacing stance as they all suddenly began to toy with their weapons.

Of course Tech would have this effect on them. He was a highly skilled clone trooper after all. He’s seen more battle and bloodshed then all of them put together.

This had a smirk spreading across any face at the thought.

They are all dead meat.

“Your hands are shaking.” Tech glanced to the man, “By my calculations you have -1 chance in making it out of those doors alive if you don’t give her that chip.”

“And why is that?” Zen motioned to his group as if he still had the upper hand.

The group of pirates chuckled alongside their captain even if it was evident that fear laced their entire beings.

If only they knew.

“Because he’s not alone.” I spoke as the rest of the bad batch surrounded the pirates.

I couldn’t help the fluttering in my chest as Tech helped me out of my seat, reaching over to grab the case with chip.

“I suggest you take your credits and call it a night.” I recommended as I slid the case over to the pirates.

They didn’t even have a moment to blink before the rest of the Bad Batch were on them. A satisfied feeling filled my chest watching Hunter press a knife to Zen’s throat, finally wiping the arrogance from him.

Hunter waited silently for an answer with all the patience in the world. He knew how to deal with pirates and when Zen relented… Hunter casually released the scarf around his neck, at the same time removing the knife from his throat as well. The stony look on his face never left as he took as step back, sheathing his sharp blade.

Wrecker huffed at the lack of excitement, pushing the pirate with purple hair down into the booth. Echo remained quiet and composed as he stepped back from the woman, lowering his blaster.

“It was pleasure doing business with you.” I smiled before the boys and I walked away.

“I had it handled you know.” I stated the moment we were out the door.

The night was warm yet I still couldn’t help, but wrap my arms around his waist as we walked to their ship. It felt nice being able to hug him without feeling his muscles tense.

I remember the first month of us dating. I chuckled inwardly at the thought of how hesitant he was to touch me.

I knew it wasn’t his form of showing affection, but he also knew that it was mine and so with time we finally began to understand each other.

Now look at how much he has changed…

“I know you did. I just couldn’t help it… Plus, it’s fun make you blush mesh’la.” Tech teased.

“How did you know where I was?” I asked as we walked up the ramp.

“He asked Sid the moment we got back.” Wrecker slapped Tech’s shoulder as he walked by.

Tech huffed as he stumbled from his brother’s blow. A smile forming on my face as we steadied each other.

“You asked about me?” I wondered, “Why not call?”

“Sid said you were on a job and I didn’t want to interrupt you.” A soft laugh fell from his lips, “However, it seems I did just that by walking in on your deal.”

Echo didn’t help as he smirked at his brother, “To put it simply he missed you.”

My heart soared at the words, “You missed me?”

Throughout our time together, he’s never outwardly said that he missed me.

He was always composed after missions, meeting me when we set a time and place. He’s never crashed one of my deals like this before... All because he missed me?

A rare blush crossed his face and it made me squeeze onto him tighter, the smile never once leaving my face.

He was even cuter when he became all shy like this.

“I missed you more than I would like to admit.” Tech stuttered over his words, failing to look me in the eyes.

I giggled at his cute reaction, leaning up to place a gentle kiss on his lips. It was a kiss that made my heart melt and his eyes flutter close before looking at me again. This time his shoulders were more relaxed and a calm smile rested on his plush lips.

“Now that this love fest is over, get on board. I don’t know how long Sid can keep Omega settled before she starts trying to track us.” Hunter chuckled as he waved his hand to the two of us to follow him.

“I missed you too brown eyes.” I spoke softly as the two of us walked up the ramp, “More than i would like to admit.” I teased his words back to him.

His hand to wrap around my waist, pulling me into his side.

“I’m glad we’re on the same page then.” He smiled.

“Me too, my love.” I said as my heart filled with warmth.

I have never felt this way with anyone before I knew for a fact that…

I will never be able to let go of this sweet and gentle man.

[are-you-a-star]

Revenge for my friend Luma!!! @stardecahedron !!! I drew our kindness soul OCs; William (left, mine) and Pepper (right, theirs).

They are playing fireball tennis with Will's magic :] just kids being kids 💚

[ID: Pepper and William doing as described above. They hold up cooking pans like tennis rackets. The fireball is bright green; the background is dark green with a triangle pattern drawn on it.

Pepper is a curly-haired, brown-skinned kid with blond hair and a competitive smile on their face. He has a pink and blue striped dress with poofy princess sleeves and a heart pattern along the bottom. Over the top of it is an orange and yellow apron. She wears purple socks, purple earmuffs, and yellow slippers.

William has dark curly hair and darker brown skin. He is a fat young boy. William is smiling happily; he has on a stained tan apron, and a green t-shirt with bright green stripes.]

[cleolinda]

Sugar, sugar (Pink Sugar, 2004)

(Pink Sugar Amazon store)

Have you ever taken the lid off a sugar bowl and really stuck your nose in there and given it a good huff? There's a texture to the scent that reminds me a little of sand; I couldn't quite explain it in terms of amber, and I still can't here, but I swear to you, it's an ambient dryness that smells distinctly different from the liquid sucrose of a green hunk of sugar cane. And this is different from powdered sugar (even holding a powdered donut to my nose, I don't smell much), which is different from brown sugar (a touch of molasses that actually smells sticky), which is different from marshmallow (fluffy, slightly vanilla), and incredibly different from caramel (cooked sugar, rich, almost buttery) or praline (nutty, possibly creamy) or cotton candy (vanilla + strawberry/raspberry). What I like about a good sugar perfume is the nuance of the type of sugar, the character that is something beyond the literal sweet—and this is itself entirely different from the floral nuances of a honey perfume, which I also love.

Ideally, you'd apply a sugar perfume with a light hand, so that the nuances will blend with the scent of your skin and become A Secret Third Thing. If you're traipsing around smelling like a candy shop, you—well, I won't say you're doing it wrong, but that's not what I'm advocating for here.

Let's rewind a moment to that sugar cane I mentioned. Demeter Fragrance's single note Sugar Cane was the first scent of theirs that I tried, partly because I wanted to know what the hell they'd done to win two FiFi Awards with it. Demeter prides itself as a company on their Proustian sensory experiences (which is why they have scents like Crayon, Dirt, Paperback, and, uh, Fuzzy Balls), but they could not have known that Sugar Cane would take me back specifically to preschool. I have an incredibly vague memory of standing on a (dirt? paved?) road among the other kids on a field trip to a farmer's market, holding a four-inch chunk of freshly-cut sugar cane. I have no idea how we ended up there or if the preschool even got our parents' permission (it was 1983, a lawless time), but I do remember gnawing on this green hunk of cane, and my mom remembers me bringing it home. (She did not seem the least bit bothered that I'd been off who knows where chewing on produce, because it was 1983.) Everything is vague but for the olfactory memory: Demeter's Sugar Cane really, truly has that fresh-cut, not "vegetal" or even "green," exactly, but that ineffable sense of a juicy plant that is not yet dried and crumbled and cubed. It's lovely, and I wore it off and on for years.

Another favorite sugar perfume of mine is Black Phoenix Alchemy Lab's Sugar Skull ("A blend of five sugars, lightly dusted with candied fruits"), a seasonal offering. As time has gone on, my 2004 bottle has taken on a richer brown-sugar tone, but it actually started out with that whiff of dry sugar bowl. I'm not sure what the fruits are supposed to be, but I might guess plum and strawberry, like the sugar-dusted strawberry candies I used to get in my childhood Christmas stocking. Which means that I might guess something like Furaneol is involved: "Intense caramel and fruity note, reminiscent of cotton candy. Indispensable ingredient for strawberry, pineapple and exotic fruity accords. Often used to bring a jam effect. Naturally found in coffee, malt, grape, guava, pineapple, raspberry, strawberry." I tried Sugar Skull on the other day for this post, and while the fruit accord comes out more distinctly now, the perfume itself is still fairly subtle, a restrained golden sweetness that hangs back rather than yell at top volume.

No, top volume would be Pink Sugar.

In my experience, ethyl maltol (the caramel/praline note you may remember from last week's Mugler Angel) might be strong when it's fresh, but it's Godzilla when it's aged. My bottle of Pink Sugar (maybe 2007?) has also turned from clear to brown, which might be the vanillin. I would be willing to bet there's a strong dollop of furaneol in this thing as well, and the musk isn't helping; all together, I remember being like, "Let's give it a lil spray, see if it's still good," and having to evacuate the room. The powdery candy musk cloud, my GOD. So for this post, I went and ordered a fresh decant (for the princely sum of $0.99 USD), so I could at least see what Pink Sugar's ideal state is, and also I could control it with a tiny wand cap.

A couple of swipes, and this, this is why I liked Pink Sugar back in my twenties. I'll say up front that, these days, the Italian company Aquolina doesn't seem to have much of an internet presence anymore, except for a pinksugar.it site that mostly exists to redirect you to the Pink Sugar Amazon store (and a US Instagram that redirects to Macy's). So I had to dig a little to get the creator(s)' name and the full list of notes: raspberry, orange, fig leaf, bergamot, cotton candy, licorice, red berries, strawberry, lily of the valley, caramel, vanilla, musk, tonka bean, sandalwood.

Secondly, I'll quote two other reviews from people with sharper noses than I have:

Bois de Jasmin:

On a technical level, Pink Sugar is a clever thing, and I find it impressive how its creator, Pierre Nuyens, chose to offset the dessert extravaganza with plenty of sharp citrus, tart berries and crunchy anise seeds. The drydown of musk and sandalwood is like a sprinkling of confectioner’s sugar on warm brioche. Its softness offers a respite after the burnt caramel overload. It’s a long lasting, tenacious fragrance and a little goes a long way.

[I'll note here that I have seen Pink Sugar credited to either Pierre Nuyens or Shyamala Maisondieu of Givaudan, and I don't know what's with the discrepancy. Are we possibly talking about old and new formulations?]

Now Smell This:

Pink Sugar opens on an extraordinarily sweet blend of fruit and caramelized sugar. There is a hint of citrus, but the red berries dominate the first 15 minutes or so. If you love the smell of strawberry candy, the top notes may well be your idea of heaven; I'm afraid it is not mine. [...] There is lots of vanilla sugar, a teensy little whiff of licorice, and a pale, woody-musky base with a hint of powder. It is, as advertised, very reminiscent of cotton candy.

That mention of "offsetting the dessert extravaganza" is similar to the logic that Olivier Cresp and Yves de Chirin used with Angel: it was so unexpected in 1992 to build a fragrance around ethyl maltol that they balanced it with a tornado of patchouli so intense that I can't smell a single other damn thing in it, other than some fruit in the first ten minutes. But by the time Pink Sugar came along in 2004, truly, nobody gave a shit. Trying to balance candy with more candy is, if we are honest, just the slightest gesture towards optimizing your Eau de Toothache (I say this lovingly). There's a reason that Angel is considered a Hall of Famer and Pink Sugar is something people generally scoff at.

So I open my new sample, and I brace myself. The current decant opens with, yes, a pretty strong citrus to immediately counterbalance the sugar. And yet, while I said that Dior's new Joy has a "vanilla lemonade" feel, that's not the kind of sugar + lemon we have going on here. There are several things going on, including some kind of musk, but mostly, my nose can't distinguish what they are; "it's very well-blended" is what you say when you can't figure that out. I'll also say that I couldn't perceive strawberry, or even strawberry candy (no matter how much I love it), in all this; what I get is Cotton Candy™. I remember how surprised I was to find out that the traditional flavor of American cotton candy is just vanilla, often with some strawberry if it's pink, and definitely with raspberry if it's blue. Cotton candy is just A Thing Unto Itself to me (ask me how shocked I was to find out that yellow cake mix is just vanilla. Mm, tastes like yellow), and that's mostly what I smell in Pink Sugar. A specific whiff of caramel emerged about two hours in, but that was the best my nose could do.

Four hours in, as I sat drafting this post with Pink Sugar on the back of my hand, the citrus notes had evaporated, and I was getting just that cotton candy—but dry and fluffy, on a floating bed of musk, not a sticky, just-melted-in-your-mouth, washed-by-a-confused-raccoon note. So the first hour is when Pink Sugar is most interesting to me. And I'm gonna tell you—I can't distinguish fig leaf or lily of the valley or even sandalwood in this thing, but I get something in that first hour that I haven't seen anyone else mention: something shadowy.

There's something sultry about Pink Sugar early on to me, and that may be the combination of licorice and musk, going by the notes listed. (You'd think I could pick out licorice after two posts about it, but not specifically in Pink Sugar, no.) You're at the cotton candy stand, sure, but there are dark clouds gathering overhead. For some reason, Johnny Jewel's "Windswept" popped into my head—something noirishly forlorn. The fairground is closing at the end of summer, the boardwalks are empty; up in the late afternoon sky, something watchful and gray is rolling in.

And this stage does pass. But that first hour, that's the interesting stage, the part where I get why "counterbalancing the toothache" is such an important consideration. I also have Demeter Fragrance's Cotton Candy single note (does what it says on the tin), and sometimes a simple sugar is what you want. But if someone could actually cook up Film Noir Cotton Candy Stand, combining two things you would pretty much never think to put together, you would have a story on your hands. Pink Sugar has that for about an hour—except for the fact that I think I must be hallucinating it, because I've never seen a review where anyone ever accused Pink Sugar of having one iota of depth to it, much less darkness.

That's the thing about fragrance: it's so wholly dependent on what your own nose can pick up and how it interacts with your own chemistry, as opposed to anyone else's. I could hold out my hand thirty minutes in and say "SMELL IT. SMELL THE FILM NOIR," as you do, and it might be that no one else would smell anything "sultry" or "gray" or "forlorn" in Pink Sugar at all. You ever have that Super Deep Thought that maybe nobody sees color the same way, and maybe what's orange to you is blue to someone else? With fragrance, that might be a little bit true.

The other thing I've realized is that most people smell a perfume on you after you've been wearing it a while—people at work or a party or wherever you actually left the house to go, they'd mostly smell the base notes and maybe a few mid notes of your fragrance by the time you got there. (Unless you're reapplying it frequently. I... do not advocate for that.) Everything I find interesting about Pink Sugar would have faded by the time anyone smelled it on me, leaving just a vague aura of musky sweet. I'd actually love to smell a fragrance made of all the notes that aren't cotton candy: Pink Sugar Without Sugar.

I'll end by pointing out that I started with a nostalgic story about preschool and sugar—and a different fragrance. Most people reviewing Pink Sugar mention nostalgia as part of its appeal, but it doesn't evoke memory for me at all, and I think that's because the musk is so strongly present for me all the way through. I will argue, though, that the Secret Third Thing it comes up with is more sophisticated than people give it credit for.

Perfume discussion masterpost

[littlefluffbutt]

Squeeee!!! My babies came today!!!!

Seeing other people post theirs I totally fell in love and had to get my own little cuties! I chose these two (I picked vs blind box as I always get the ones I don't want). The pink one's hair remind me of Princess tutu and the brown one's hair looks like mine as a kid:) I can't wait to make them cute clothes!

[st-clements-steps]

Ohhh, crunchy! 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 15, 24, 36, please :D

Hey, hey, hey, lovely, the questions are from here

2. A minor or extinct house you need more lore on; you think I'd go Mallister, but no, I want to be part of the people making the Mallister lore, I have stolen them from GRRM, they are mine now, I'll share them obviously with other patrek, patrek, patrek enthusiasts. All those really borderline magical houses intrigue me, House Reed and all the other Crannogmen please; the Knotts and the Liddells and the Flints of the mountains, all those nomadic northern ones; that one at the edge of the Iron Islands, House Farwynd, are they Selkies? Are they warging into seals? Are they just a little bit like Shetlanders? Also it's kind of basic bitch of me, but House Dayne, they're very bloody sexy but I just want to see their real depth. (Also were House Poole once Crannogmen, their name kind of fits?) 5. Dead female character I need to save: Kyra. Obviously. Also I really should save Elia because personal affinity reasons. And then I think I'd have to save Lyanna too (I have written a POV of an older, saved, her, thanks to Eva being galaxy brained, and oh it was so interesting). Also Dacey so I can marry her please. Plus let's save all the live women, Jeyne P. and Jeyne W. and Pia especially. 6. A book or character you didn't like at first but have come to love - had a difficult initial relationship with feast and at first I found Brienne's chapters tricky but I came to really enjoy them. (I love her and I love wee Pod). And I didn't dislike Arya at first, but I was a bit bored by her, she just seemed quite like all those tomboy preteens I'd read as kid, Scout and Lyra and Tyke Tiler (British 70s children's novel that was still the kind of thing forced upon you in English in 90s Britain). But actually once she gets to Braavos, I'm much more enthralled and the Mercy chapter, oh, it floors me. 9. Build your small council - Tyrion, Gilly, Missandei (even though she's 11), in fact let's go Shireen too, and Wex (master of whisperers), and then before Tyrion kills me for making it a model UN class project, Barbrey, Arianna, Davos, and one of Asha's ratboys to be master of ships (She's busy ruling the Iron Island in my head). 10. A quote so good it makes you crazy -  Tyrion ruminating on the inevitability of history (and it feels like nature and nurture too, how generational trauma gets woven into us); It all goes back and back, Tyrion thought, to our mothers and fathers and theirs before them. We are puppets dancing on the strings of those who came before us, and one day our own children will take up our strings and dance on in our steads. Theon arguing vociferously that trauma does not need to be physical; The noose I wore was not made of hempen rope, that's true enough, but I felt it all the same. And it chafed, Ser Rodrik. It chafed me raw. Sansa realising how her trauma has a molded her; My skin has turned to porcelain, to ivory, to steel. (I love this, I steal it for characterisation constantly, because being porcelain is such an interesting image especially)

And finally my boy Jon being a poet; The pale pink light of dawn sparkled on branch and leaf and stone. Every blade of grass was carved from emerald, every drip of water turned to diamond. Flowers and mushrooms alike wore coats of glass. Even the mud puddles had a bright brown sheen. Through the shimmering greenery, the black tents of his brothers were encased in a fine glaze of ice.

So there is magic beyond the Wall after all. He found himself thinking of his sisters, perhaps because he'd dreamed of them last night. Sansa would call this an enchantment, and tears would fill her eyes at the wonder of it, but Arya would run out laughing and shouting, wanting to touch it all. 15. Favourite Parent - Cersei (she's a terrible parent I realise, but she's the only parent who lives in my pocket) 24. A ship that gives me the ick - Jon Arya (actually find shipping her with anyone very difficult, she's very 11 in my head, I know its weird because I ship Sansa with a whole raft of people and there's only 2 years between them, but it is what it is, but also for me the idea of them being romantic very much diminishes their current love for another, why does a heartfelt sibling (or platonic in some other sense) relationship need to be really just oh its actually all lust filled romance?) 36. All the dub-con, non-con that gets sexy, I'm just there scrunching my nose, wondering if there's something GRRM needs to properly address with his therapist rather than continually writing into asoiaf. Oh and the timelines piss me off no end, House Stark in charge of the North for 8000 years! Eight Bloody Thousand? Really? And there's been basically no systemic change in society over that time? Was feudal back then? Still feudal now? Hardly any linguistic evolvement over those thousands of years? Etc. Thanks so much.

[thebrownssociety]

So I've been thinking about what else the dwarfs wear apart from there on-screen outfits. No, I've no idea why either, but here we are.

So...for nightwear they wear Ebeneezer-Scrooge style nightshirts in a corresponding colour for them.

Doc - Red

Grumpy - Brown

Sleepy - Blue

Sneezy - White

Bashful - Black

Happy - Yellow

Dopey - Green

At first they stuck to their on-screen outfits, but eventually they've kinda caught up with the modern world. Kinda.

Sleepy: Jeans with boots/trainers, usually with a tee-shirt. He doesn't seem to feel the cold/heat as much as the others so he'll wear 'warm' outfits even when it's hot. Ironic as he's both the oldest and one of the thinnest. The tee-shirt is usually a soft fabric, it's more comfortable if he falls asleep. Not technically clothing, but he usually carries round a pillow in his hammerspace so he's always got something to rest his head on.

Happy - Jumper, normally with a tee-shirt underneath it so he can take it off if he gets to hot [useful for working in the mines].Usually he wears bright colours, but not crazy patterns. He usually wears jeans and trainers.

Grumpy - Shirt, pants/jeans and trainers. It used to be boots until trainers became more commonplace. He usually wears a jacket as well. Subdued colours. The guy likes blending into the background. Helps him observe things better.

Sneezy - Whatever he wants. Out of all of them he's the one more likely to wear something appropriate to the weather and usually prompts his brothers to do the same. [Like, Doc where are you going in that shirt? There's snow on the ground!] Like Grumpy it's subdued colours an d trainers, but he does have a collection of brightly-coloured/patterned washable handkerchiefs.

Bashful - Like Sneezy he'll wear weather-appropriate clothes and subdued clothes, but his clothes tend to be patterned. Bashful does like a pattern, hearts and stars are favoured. As he's got older and more confident he cares less about what others think and he's discovered he likes wearing trainers with bright patterns on them as well. Like Sneezy with his handkerchiefs he has quite the collection and gets complimented on them whenever he goes out. He's quite artistic, so can put together a nice-looking outfits. [He sometimes does this for his brothers to, otherwise some of them - Doc, I'm looking at you - will go out looking like they got dressed in the dark.]

He's also not shy to wear pink, often pointing out it used to be a 'male' colour, before becoming 'female.' Bashful will also brain his beard as well [as do Sleepy and Sneezy], it helps keep it out of soup and stuff and just looks nice. While Sleepy and Sneezy just braid theirs simply, Bashful does complicated patterns and rock them. He'll even do the princess's hair if they'll let him. [He was thrilled when Disney finally created Rapunzel.]

Doc - Shirt, pants/trousers [not jeans usually] and boots. Pretty similar to what he wore in the movie and he prides himself in looking 'smart' when not down the mines. He tends to stick to simple colours and tends to wear various shades of blue pants/jeans with the same boots as the film. The shirt it doesn't really matter what colour it is [He'll even go for pink and/or purple] it's all about the fabric. Soft fabric such as cotton yes, Scratchy fabric like sequinned things, no. He wears his belt as well and has the same glasses as the film. Yes, he needs them and no it's not funny to take them off him and see if he can find them behind a rock in the mine. [Dopey did this once and Doc was so furious he didn't speak to the younger dwarf for a week. Dopey hasn't done that since.]

As mentioned he likes to wear the same thing, and won't always adapt it to the weather. Bashful usually 'suggests' outfit choices to him, but even he can't always change Doc's mind. This was worse in their younger days, but now after a few fainting episodes or getting sick after being in the rain in a tee-shirt, Doc listens. [Yes, Toons can get 'sick' they just decide they're being sick and change their looks appropriately. Green face and stuff for sickness. Shivering violently and icicles hanging from there noses for a cold.]

Dopey - Like Sneezy he'll wear pretty much whatever. Unlike Sneezy this extends to dresses and skirts because Dopey likes the look/feel of them. [At first his brothers tried to talk him out of this - it was the 30's/40's after all] but now they don't bat an eyelid.] He does wear pants/jeans and shirts and stuff, it just depends on how he's feeling. Despite being mute he has no issue deciding what he wants and when he was younger he'd kick of badly if not allowed to wear what he wanted. Think temper-tantrum, locked doors, that kind of thing.

As clothes didn't really matter in the Toon world as much as in the human world, his brothers soon gave up the fight. It helped that Doc understood his brother at least a bit, having his own issues with the feel of certain fabrics. [Not exactly the same thing, but it helped Doc rationalise, so - eh.] Dopey tends to copy clothing, so he'll see something on TV and decide he wants to wear the same thing. As well an Snow White's dress, he's worn copies of Belle's yellow dress, Elsa's dress, Raya's outfit, Mulan's kimono and Cinderella's dress. He sometimes copies the male characters as well. Prince Ferdinand, Prince Henry [Cinderella's prince], Prince Phillip as well as Aladdin [both street clothes and prince clothes], Kristoff and Prince Eric. Most of the princes and princess's don't mind, it's long been accepted this is just Something Dopey Does.

[feyhunter78]

Six Times Helaena and Jacaerys were Soulmates (6/7)

Description: Soulmates know each other's greatest secret, and Heleana's secret is bigger than most.

It’s torture, Jacaerys isn’t sure how his father survived this way for all those years. Watching his children grow, not be able to claim them or hear them call him father. At least Harwin was his mother’s sworn sword, so he was able to interact with them in public and show affection in private. Jacaerys does not have that option. He has to stand aside while his children are ignored by Aegon, has to watch as they grow up without a father. Luckily his pain will soon come to an end.

He doesn’t regret the twins, nor does he regret his love for Helaena. They’re soulmates, he was born knowing her greatest secret, that her children were not Aegon’s.

When he was younger, he assumed they would be Aemond’s. He was kinder, more affectionate to Helaena, and Jacaerys was aware of the tensions between his family and theirs. If he could not be with his soulmate, then at least she would be loved.

It was the day her betrothal was announced. She found him in the dragonpit and whispered his secret in his ear. “You resent Laenor for his weakness, for his failures as a father.”

He jerked back, scanning her face for any signs of mockery or jesting. “Why would you say such a thing?”

“It is your greatest secret, I heard it when you were born.” Helaena said, violet eyes staring up at him. “We’re soulmates.”

His eyes dropped to her stomach, “your children will not be Aegon’s…you would have them be mine instead?”

Helaena wrapped her arms around herself. “I do not wish to marry my brother, but there is no way to save myself. If Aegon has his whores, then I wish to be allowed happiness as well.” She ducked her head, a pink blush tainting her cheeks. “Not that you would be my whore. You would be my love, my heart.”

Jacaerys turned her proposition over in his mind. He’d always thought Helaena was beautiful, and he admired her grace and kindness.

He’d been distraught when he’d heard of her betrothal. “No one could ever know, they would kill the children, perhaps even us.”

“I am quite adept at keeping secrets.”

Jacaerys sat against the wall near the secret entrance to Helaena’s chambers.

Her screams of pain echoed off the stone, and he buried his face between his knees, cursing his fate. He should be in there, by her side as she brought their children into the world. It was her first time bearing children, his mother said it was a terrifying endeavor.

It had been surprisingly easy to make sure only his seed would take. Aegon was predictable, he’d rut into her like a dog every few moons, then Jacaerys would bring her moon tea after he’d left and hold her as she cried.

When they laid together, he and Helaena, it was gentle, full of love and adoration. He did not stop until she was delirious with pleasure and held safely in his arms while she recovered.

The screaming stopped, and soon two separate cries rang out, he jumped to his feet, a wide smile on his face. Twins? Were they blessed with twins? He paced back and forth waiting for the chaos to die down.

A knock on the wall, the signal he and Alyra had discussed, had him bolting through the entrance and into Helaena’s chambers.

Helaena looked up, her face worn and sweaty. She looked beautiful, more beautiful than he’d ever seen her before. Alyra slipped outside and stood watch as Jacaerys sat on the bed besides Helaena.

“I heard two cries.” He said, smoothing down her hair, before kissing her forehead gently.

“Twins, a boy and a girl.” Helaena confirmed. Their children were bundled up in her arms, and she cooed down at them.

“You are a goddess, Helaena, braver than any great warrior.” He said, voice hush with awe, as he reached out to stroke their son’s tiny face.

Their children opened their eyes and Jacaerys swallowed hard. Two pairs of brown eyes blinked up at him.

“They have your eyes, I’m so happy.” Helaenasaid, turning her head to kiss his jaw, the only part of him she could reach.

“Will Aegon not know? Neither you nor he has brown eyes.”

“Theron has Alyra’s golden eyes, no one calls him a bastard.” Helaena hummed, rocking their children slightly.

“Exactly, he has Alyra’s eyes.” Jacaerys began to panic, he’d only just set his sight on his children, but he would burn down the Keep for them.

“My mother has brown eyes; I will say they got them from her.” She said calmly, smiling softly up at him.

Jacaerys relaxed, slightly. They’d attempted to make the same claim about he and his brothers, but it was like a strip of gauze over a mortal wound.

“Come and lay with me, I missed you.” She pats the space right up against her, and he obeys without question, sliding an arm behind her shoulder, the other supporting her arm that cradled their children.

He presses a kiss to her temple, she still smells of roses, even after her hours of labor. “My sweet flower, how glad I am for your efforts today.”

Helaena snuggled into him, resting her head on his arm. “My love, knowing you were just through the wall gave me my strength.”

They laid in silence watching their children, basking in this pure moment they were sure to never fully obtain again.

“My Queen, Prince Aegon please give me a moment to inform the princess that you’ve arrived.” Alyra’s voice is loud, louder than needed, and Jacaerys bolts up.

“There’s not enough time, hide under the bed.” Helaena urges, smoothing out the blanket where he had laid.

Jacaerys squeezes himself under her bed and tries to remain as still as possible.

The door opens, and soon the queen is beside Helaena’s bed, cooing over her grandchildren. “Oh Helaena, you did so well sweetling, I’m so very proud of you.” Jacaerys hears her sharp intake, and the breath catches in his throat. “Oh…their eyes, they’re brown?”

“Like your eyes, mother, isn’t it wonderful? Finally, the Hightower blood makes itself known.” Helaena says happily, shifting on her bed, so her mother can get a closer look.

“That is wonderful, your grandsire will be pleased.” Alicent seems to believe Helaena’s words, and Jacaerys relaxes.

“Yes, good job, wife.” Aegon drawls, his voice thick with drunkenness.

Jacaerys grits his teeth. Aegon did not deserve the wife he was blessed with, and he continued to prove that day after day.

“Mother, would you tell the others to visit in the morning? I’m quite tired and would like to rest with the children.”

“Of course, you have endured a great deal today, we will let you rest.” The bottom of Alicent’s gown disappears from his sight, and Aegon’s boots follow after it. He waits until the door shuts, to shimmy his way out from under the bed.

“Good job, wife.” He mocks, slipping back into his place beside her.

“I do not believe he even looked at them.” Helaena sighed, leaning into his warmth.

“Good. I wish for him to never darken their lives with his wine addled presence.” He grumbled, gently stroking the tuff of silvery hair on their daughter’s head.

“What do you wish to name them?” Helaena asked, shifting so that Jacaerys may take their daughter into his embrace.

“Whatever your heart desires. As long as it is not Aegon.” He grimaces and she giggles.

“I was thinking perhaps Jaehaera and Jaehaerys. They’re twins, their names should signify the bond between them.”

Jacaerys rocks his daughter, “do you like your name Jaehaera?”

Jaehaera yawns and her tiny fingers find purchase in his tunic.

His heart melts, he would give this little girl the entire continent if she so desired it.

“It will be our secret too, J names, like their true father.” Helaena slips down her bodice and allows Jaehaerys to latch onto her breast and feed.

“You are not using a wet nurse?” Even his mother used a wet nurse, and she was quite hands on with her children compared to other women of noble birth.

Helaena shook her head, her violet eyes, a soft lavender as she gazed down at their son. “I figured it would give me more uninterrupted time to spend with my family…” Her words trail off, and he knows what she’s implying.

“You would put yourself through this process so that I would be able to spend time with the children?” His voice is full of disbelief, his heart full of gratitude.

Uncertainty flashes across Helaena’s face. “Yes, did you not wish for that? I apologize, I only thought that—”

He silences her with a kiss, pouring every once of joy, of gratefulness, and love that he holds for her into it, hoping his lips against hers will convey what his words cannot.

She breaks the kiss, a breathless expression on her face. “I assume that means you are happy?”

He kisses both her cheeks, lips upturned in a smile. “Helaena, you are perfect, I could not ask for a better soulmate, or a better mother for my children.”

He remembers that day, keeps it in his mind as he stands before his Grandsire, Aegon’s dead body at his feet.

“Tell me again, boy, how did you come upon Aegon’s body?” His Grandsire’s voice is firm, his good eye piercing through Jacaerys as if he can read the sins burned into his soul.

His mother stands beside the throne, her violet eyes watching the scene carefully.

“I was doing my rounds with the kingsguard, we walk through Fleabottom to ensure peace is being kept. I saw a flash of silver in one of the alleyways…” He breaks off to wipe tears from his eyes. “Uncle Aegon was lying there, with that black liquid leaking from his mouth and ears.”

Queen Alicent is distraught, clinging to Sir Criston Cole in her grief. Aemond stands beside them, his amethyst eye inspecting Aegon’s body, at his side stands Alyra, his hand keeping her head tucked into the crook of his neck.

Only Helaena, his sweet Helaena, fully averts her eyes.

His Grandsire sighs heavily. “It cannot be helped; the boy is dead. Helaena will need a new husband.”

“Why not Jacaerys, Grandsire?” Alyra suggests, putting on her sweetest voice, her golden eyes bright with tears. “He has always been kind to her, and the twins greatly admire him.”

“Jacaerys? You would wish to betroth my daughter to Jacaerys? He found Aegon’s body, how do we know he isn’t Aegon’s killer?” Alicent sobbed, turning her pleading eyes to Viserys.

“You would accuse my son of kinslaying? Perhaps consider that I do not wish to hitch my son’s proverbial wagon to your mumbling daughter.” His mother seethes.

Jacaerys would be concerned if he did not know the women of his family so well.

Alyra leaves Aemond’s embrace and kneels down before the Irone Throne. Much like a child would, she places her hands on Viserys’ knee before resting her head upon them and looking up at him. “Grandsire, I know that my marriage to Aemond dashed your hopes for uniting your family, but little Aemma was too young then, and now you have a chance once more.”

Viserys leans forward and strokes her flaxen hair, a fond smile on his face. “Your words ring true yet again, my darling good-daughter.” He looks to Jacaerys. “Do you wish to wed Helaena, and take responsibility for her and her children?”

Jacaerys bows his head and walks over to Helaena, taking her hand between his. “If the princess will have me, then I will commit every fiber of my being to her and her children.”

“I will marry you, after Aegon is committed to the stone, I will not disrespect my late husband by marrying again so quickly.” She sounds like a queen, her words steady and calm.

“No. Not until an investigation into my son’s death has been had, I will not allow it.” Alicent protests.

Jacaerys bows his head towards Alicent. “Of course, My Queen. I am in not rush to force Helaena through another wedding.” He then presses a chaste kiss to Helaena’s hand. “Please, take all the time you need to grieve, there will be no prodding from my hand.”

“I thank you, Jacaerys.” Then she moves to tend to her grieving mother.

Viserys claps his hands. “It’s settled then, the maesters will conduct an investigation, then Aegon will be laid to rest. Once Helaena has mourned her husband, she will wed Jacaerys.”

He lays in Helaena’s bed, arms wrapped around her, his face pressed into her thick hair. He feels her shift and raises his head to see a frown on her delicate features.

“What ails you, sweet lady of my heart?”

“Did you have Alyra pay the madam off, or did she kill Aegon for free?” Helaena asked, her fingers trailing down his bare chest.

“She agreed to kill him for free, then Alyra smuggled her out of the city. She’s halfway to Pentos by now.” He reassured her.

“Oh, good then. I will pray she finds a comfortable life there, since I could not thank her myself.” Helaena snuggles closer to him, her hand resting on his chest, fingers splayed as she falls asleep.

Tag list: @nyctophilic0vitnir, @svtansdaddyx , @fan-goddess, @dc-marvel-girl96

[switchbladedreamz]

<3 Read My Poetry Or Die <3

The rain is falling down

Autumn has turned to gray

Is this how love feels? Observing through a different perspective?

The beauty only some see as others see a dreary day

A gorgeous day out of gray skies and decaying leaves

Green to yellow to orange and red to brown and dead

Fall intwines itself into the olfactory senses as familiar as greeting an old friend

~~~~

I can see clearly now

The grey of skie through wilted green leaf

With no warmth to radiate from the concrete, it's cold outside.

The wind sends only chills when last season it gave relief

The sky no longer brings perspiration and chaffing but goosebumps and promises of bare trees

Soon the snow will fall leaving warmth a memory in cold bones as grandfather christmas sits on his throne.

~~~~~

After Marimba

Like a moth drawn to a flame say my name summon me

Let the fire spread through you into you (out of me) (it came from me)

Feel my whisper against your neck like a breath of spring let the chills run down your spine take me away say your mine

Like a rabbit running down the hole, youre my home

An eternity

Feel the rush as our lips twist like the thread of fate

I can feel you absorb my sin make it yours i am free

As your body starts to decompose they wont know

That its me

Now ill find another muse just to use

Its makes me free

~~~~~

What is solemn

Is it deep

Shallow

Does it fill the hollow

Does it come in waves or is it a blanket

Suffocation

No air

Is this fair

That you were taken and we're still here

The fresh disturbed ground seeping underfoot

Mascara clumps from weeping

A hole in the heart of those you left, we wish you the best in the next life as the pain of your absence grows rife.

Gray washes into my veins, muscles, bone.

A slate of slate slammed into the ground, molded with my words of sorrow

A peaceful serenity waits, sleepless night of grief taking over routine

The serenity lurks, we think it waits. Graceful in a grove, waiting to embrace you into white.

Serenity is a nice name for earths most brutal hunter, nothing can run from Serenity.

Inside of flesh, flush with every pore, the sun poured from you like your heart was the source

~~~~~~~~

Let Me Be the Rocky Shore your Ship Breaks On

Feel my waves crash around you, consuming sound and sanity

Feel my salt in your wounds

My wind taking your screams no one hears , carrying them endlessly among my tumultuous tides

Lose yourself in my blues and greens like starry eyed star-crossed lovers staring in each others eyes on a starry night

Waves gorge themselves on you, are the stars blinking you wonder

My love fills your lungs full but you only choke on my waters

The water gets darker the deeper you go, my embrace is the pressure compressing your ribcage into your entrails

My love fills you as you sink.

I just wanted to show you how dearly I loved you.

~~~~~~~~~

I want someone that wants to kiss me because they wonder if my lips taste like cherries because they're so soft and pink

I want someone that misses the feeling of my smaller fingers between theirs when we held hands

I want someone that would tell me they thought of me in passing at work

I wanted to listen to you to you ramble about your favorite things, when the dog bites, when the bee stings

Hold my hand and discreetly fall in love with the idea of me and feel cold when I leave you.

~~~~~~~~

:: I Can't Go Back ::

I walk on a broken road

Its red and made of brick

Any scrape

Every nick, you had a mean word and a gentle bandaid

Bandages dont stick well after tears fall

Wicked words laced

Tell her she's nothing

Take her apart

Staring at her bare complexity you refuse to see

Refusing reusing

Trying to seduce me

Spells and chants hold no affect

The feelings churn, hearts burn

Havoc is wrought

Its been 622 days

The overcast is gone and the sun is out

Yet you linger like a distant winter breeze; a chill runs down my spine

Nightmares of your face on my body

No escape

Took everything and more

As if my essence was your oxygen

Crowding crowding crowding

No room to breathe with you breathing down my neck

Machines pump air into my lungs

Was this all worth it for you in the end?

Now i see its been worth it for me, thanks to your misguided misjudgment of who i am, i now have everything and more

Mark my words i know you'll take the life from me if i find myself on the broken brick road

[raiyne--teh--kitteh]

what is the RaiyneKittehArchives?

the RaiyneKittehArchives (RKA for short!) is a digital horror passion project based on nostalgic furry animations from the late 2000s - early 2010s, taking inspiration from old internet horror.

it tells the story of RaiyneKittehProductions, a furry animator that was semi-popular on youtube in 2010 to 2011, yet their channel was deleted without explanation in late 2012 and was never heard from again.

years later, a fan of theirs found a handful of their old videos on the wayback machine and decided to reupload them to youtube for archive purposes. but, somewhere along the way, it went horribly wrong - the videos corrupted beyond repair and revealing a tale of tragedy, grief, guilt, and how the past can render a person completely unrecognizable.

so... who are they?

Raiyne (he/him): a gray cat with a signature blue scarf, and RaiyneKittehProductions' fursona. he's very soft spoken, gentle, and he cares deeply for his friends. yet his inability to self reflect and face his issues leads to severe, sometimes permanent, consequences.

Kiara (she/her): a purple and blue winged cat with spiked wristbands and a magenta collar. she's a good friend of Raiyne and is very close to Cocoa. she's confident, strong, and passionate - but she can be brutally honest and stubborn, unintentionally hurting the ones she cares about.

Zane (he/him): a gray and light green wolf wearing a spiked collar and always has headphones on hand. he's the closest to Raiyne, knowing each other since childhood. he's optimistic, funny, and always wants to see the good in others. he can be ignorant, even with good intentions, and often struggles to understand what others are going through.

Cocoa (they/he/she): a brown and cream-colored cat with purple aviator goggles and a bandana to match. they're very polite, humble, and generous; however he gets easily startled and is quick to run away from conflict of any kind. she's close to Kiara and its rare for the two of them to be seen apart.

Miyah (she/they): a red and orange fox/fairy hybrid with a pink flower in her hair. she's upbeat, supportive, and sincere- and wants to do what she can to help her friends. she tends to not think things through and can be very naive.

what's this blog for, anyway?

everything RKA related!! art i make, updates about upcoming episodes, and additional info about my characters and the project in general. i may also reblog stuff that i think would fit my characters. spoilers will be tagged under '#RKA spoilers'.

this is a huge passion project of mine and it means a lot to me personally, and i hope you all enjoy it as much as i enjoy making it <3

interested in watching? click here to go to the RKA yt channel!

(disclaimer: the series itself deals with heavy themes such as mental illness, trauma, substance abuse, violence, and death. the videos contain eyestrain, flashing lights, loud noises, and disturbing imagery. please watch with caution!)

[bow-and-beg-before-me]

TCK's Lament

When I was 8, I thought I knew what home was. A place to stay for a while, a place which grew comfortable and familiar. I'd had many homes before. Green carpet and gravel driveway for a year, a school with blue carpet and books in the library they wouldn't let me read because I was still supposed to be on picture books. Red brick and a park with the tree I could only climb with daddy's help for two years. The snow and the yellow school bus and my pink dress with daisies for two years before that. Tales of places I didn't remember were home, too. They were mummy and daddy's home, so they just must have been mine.

This was going to be another home, as I stepped off the train. A house of wooden floors and a room in the middle of the stairs less than a metre tall. For suitcases, daddy said, and so it was called the suitcase room. I had a new school, with green lunch trays and a dusty playground. I didn't look like the other students, with their shiny straight black hair and skin that didn't burn easily. I didn't care, I was 8. I wonder how much they cared; me with my fluffy blonde hair and lighter brown eyes, different but ignorant of it. I told them I was only there for 4 years. I wanted to warn them, to warn myself. I was going to disappear soon. Oh, 4 years sounds like such a short time. Maybe I was always different, but I was part of their group nonetheless. I made friends with a quiet girl, whose skin was like theirs but her black hair was wavy like mine. We taught ourselves to ride unicycles together, dust and falls and clinging to railings. We drifted apart as the months went by, but I played in the class games of tag and never felt alone. The whole class worked for weeks on our sports day dances, because sports day was an Important Event. It was Important to me, but not to my parents who grew up where sports days were an afternoon of egg and spoon races. They came anyway, tried to reach my world, and I was happy. When I was eleven, the whole class had a trip to the mountains. We hiked and milked a cow and made butter and sang songs and made noodles and watched Despicable Me in the bus on the way back. We were family. My parents changed the deadline. Instead of leaving in March, when the school year ended, we would go in the summer to arrive with the school year. I was 11, just starting to understand that not all rules were absolute. Why couldn't we stay untill I finished school, I asked. We had another trip this year that I didn't want to miss, to the sea this time. Graduation was an Important Event. I wanted to stay, I told them. This wasn't like other homes, this was part of me. There were Important Events I didn't want to miss, a second family I wanted to stay with.

It wasn't Important to my parents. Not enough.

We were leaving in the summer. Wasn't I happy to be going back to see Grandma and Grandpa? To see my cousins? I was always so good at moving, I'd bounce right back. I didn't have the words for it then. How can a 12 year old understand that my home was my family, and every time we'd moved before I'd taken everything important with me? But this time, my home was the people, the school, the sports days and the lunches and the games and the trips. My first real home that I couldn't take with me. I made gifts. I sewed dolls for all the girls in my class and made paper crabs for the boys. I cross stitched a kitten for church. Little crumbs of myself, left behind like they could anchor me to my home. It was all torn away. Distance and time and noisy aeroplanes and everyone waiting for us as we left the airport--aren't you so glad to be back? how does it feel to be home? But I wasn't home. I wasn't I wasn't I wasn't I WASN'T home and my home was gone and everyone assumed I would be fine because I had been before but they don't understand how much difference 2 extra years make. We were only in the new place for a year. I rebuilt my tattered home, patched up the holes, pulled the rips together.

Then we flew again, a train ride away from the shell of my old home. The people were gone, the school was different, and I didn't want to hurt so I never went to look. For 3 years, it was fine. I had a new home of people like me, American and Korean and Japanese and maybe I was the only Brit but we all understood what it was like to be different and yet belong, to have different Important Things from the people we lived with. We made a home of red lockers and a hideous lemon yellow wall on the new cafeteria. There were teachers we liked and teachers we didn't, tests and APs for the older students and the ominous Senior Capstone research project. There was a week in each autumn where we didn't have school and instead went to a lake or hiked and camped or watched movies and walked through the hallways blindfolded. There were class beach days and student council events and dress up days. I found a new set of Important Things. My parents don't know what the fuss was about high school graduation--getting your degree is the important thing. Oh, they understand so much of me, love me, listen to me, but they don't share my Important Things.

My brother went to a school like mine, brown haired in a sea of black. We visited for his sports day and my ragged stumps of what home had been, screamed out their loss and agony. I miss my home, even with the new. I miss what was, and what could have been. I wish I knew, when I arrived, just how long 4 years would be. I don't want to graduate and leave this home, to go back to where the people look like me but I'm still different. I don't know how supermarkets work, I don't know how to order over the counter medication, I am foreign, alien, different.

I left behind my first home, I won't fit in my second much longer. I'll leave behind my family soon.

I want my fourth home to be my last.

I don't want to lose more than I already have.

[katherinadeluca]

VI - N I G H T S H A D E

(GIF NOT MINE) Credits to original creator

*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。

!!Warnings!!Dub-con, Adult Dialogue, Mature Themes, Age Gap(Gloria-18, Draco-22), Innocence Kink, mentions of sub-space, oral (male receiving), un-established relationship

THIS IS FANFICTION IS ORIGINAL NO ONE HAS BEEN GIVEN PERMISSION TO REPOST IT UNLESS IT’S REBLOGGING

*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。

Pairing: Professor!Draco x Student!OC(but you can pretend it’s y/n)

*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。

Summary: Basically just Professor!Draco smut

*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。

"If it doesn't burn a little, what's the point in playing with fire?" -Bridgette Devoue

*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。

Her gaze drifts from the lines in her potions text to the podium affront the class to Professor Malfoy, he sits careened back in his chair with a book in hand- Arithmancy. The first few buttons of his black dress shirt undone. A small silver glint emits from the dainty replica of the Draconis constellation hanging from his neck. The pale, porcelain hue of his skin heavily contradictory to the dingy atmosphere of the dungeons.

As though sensing the presence of her stare, he looks up. A small smirk playing at his plush lips as he sends the girl a discreet wink, causing her straight face to falter as her light honey colored cheeks turn hot. Gloria quickly looks around to see if anyone seemed to notice but the entire class is taken as they either finish work from other classes or scribble away at scrap parchment.

She turns to look at Draco again, only to find an accomplished expression settled on his face. His soft grey eyes leaving hers only when the pitched ringing of the bell in the courtyard dings. The class quickly files out till theirs no one left.

The Slytherin hastily mutters a short "colloportus" and walks toward Draco. Peeling the book away from his hands, he let's her place it on the table. Draco's hands rest on her hips, guiding her to stand between his legs.

"Hadn't gotten chance to say hello?" He teases, reminded her that she'd failed to come by his quarter's this morning.

"M'sorry." Gloria mumble, moving to straddle him and bury her face in his neck

"S'alright love." He chuckles, placing lazy kisses on her neck.

"Think I can make it up to you?" She says, the playful guilt evident in her voice.

"Yeah? How do you plan on doing that darling?"

Arrogance practically dripping from his tone as his hands travels under her skirt, undoing the blush pink fabric of her thong and retiring it to the pocket of his slacks.

With response to his question, her slender digits to unbuckle his belt, the argentum alloy clinking softly. The sound of his zipper coming undone chimes his ears as she picks herself off his lap and drops to her knees.

Draco lets out a breathy groan as a result of her warm mouth wrapping around his cock. His hands instinctively go to her hair, bunching the dark brown strands. Her cunt clenching and pulsating around nothing but air at his choked sounds.

His large hands began guiding her to bob her head in tandem with his bucking hips, his otherwise clear eyes were now eclipsed with illicit pleasure. The tell-tale sheen of heavy, sitting lust coated the steel grey in his irises. She gives another languid suck as he twitches, threatening to come undone. The grip on her hair tightens, his hips rutting into her small mouth, hastily traveling in an out of her swollen lips. A string of drool dripping from the side of her mouth.

"M'going to cum down that pretty little throat."

She chokes out a small hum as he gives another ravenous thrust before climaxing at the back of her throat. He hastily pulls her of her knees and lifts her to sit on his desk causing her to let out a small squeal.

His hand cups the side of her face, wiping the excess cum from her lips and pushing it back into her mouth, forcing her to swallow the liquid lust. Draco slowly pries her leg apart, resting his hands on her thighs, caressing the smooth, light-coffee colored skin.

"So pretty aren't you. So-so fucking perfect." He claims, completely enamored by her. He trails his lips below her ear, leaving open-mouthed kisses on her sweet spot, still unable to fathom his fortune. She seemed so letting that it perplexed him- annoyed him even.

He places a soft, lucid kiss on her lips, the distinct flavor of white tea and fairy floss gladdened his senses.

"Draco." She mewls. The whine so needy yet content, so small and pure yet so ridiculously sinful.

If he could, he would record the sound and play it over and over till he was senselessly drunk off the sound of her sweet voice. Her very existence felt like a drug, a drug he would unquestionably smoke for the rest of his life till he died of asphyxiations. What he felt for her wasn't love- no it was farther- an obsession. So incredibly destructive. Like a flame dancing across their hearts and in the process setting their beings on fire.

With the next proceeding scenes, it was inevitable. Gloria Lightwood was an angel and he wanted to rip her wings off and keep her for himself.

*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。

FULL STORY ON WATTPAD:

TEACHER’S PET || D.M

*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。*★,°*:.☆:*.°★* 。

-Mischief Managed/*

[kenyaraae]

sounds of spring ✨

“Once, there was a thing called spring. When the world was writing verses like yours and mine” — Ella Fitzgerald.

Springtime is here — my favorite time of the year. Warmer weather and fields of poppy and lavender bloom. Many artists also emerge and spring forward with what they have been working on. Here are my favorite albums this spring(in no particular order).

Lucky Daye is undoubtedly the next big thing. Coupled with the likes of Chris Brown and Usher, Daye possesses the talent to showcase quite literally everything, Dancing, singing, rap, and poetry. In "Candydrip," the name speaks for itself -- so does the album cover. Soulful and sensual, like his chocolate skin and sweet as honey, we get a taste of all that Lucky Daye has to offer. Switching the flow through interludes and outros as he's done before, Daye inserts his love for spoken word poetry. Upon that, the album is a perfect blend of new and old R&B, funk, and neo-soul. The first single and smash hit "Over" proves that sampling can be experimental just as it used to be, if not better. (And the acapella version on Youtube strips his vocals raw and will leave you speechless) Songs like "God Body" featuring Smino and "Cherry Forest" take us back to funk and neo roots expressing the praise for his muse. "F***n' Sound" is an exciting love-making song with a mix of R&B and gospel. A Lucky Daye is certainly an experience, one that is perfect for any spring.

Pink Moon sounds just like anything you'd expect from Pink $weats. But, not to be seen as a negative — $weats is one of the best acts that can capture the true vision of an album rollout. From his repetitious hues sprinkled throughout his covers to the soft and subtle strums of guitars, each Pink $weats song is the epitome of spring. I want to categorize his sound as somewhat of neo-soul and R&B. His beautiful and collaborative harmonies with those such as Tori Kelly, Kirby, and Sabrina Claudio bring life to this euphoric dream. You're guaranteed to feel like you are floating down from a blissful high, surrounded by the blooming flowers emerging this season.

Following their 2020 R&B staple album titled "It Was Good Until It Wasn't," Kehlani introduced us to her anticipated work called "Blue Water Road." In this spacious journey, they included the perfect blend of pop and R&B for this body of work. The lyrics are always personal when listening to any album of theirs. Kehlani said it perfectly themselves in an interview -- this isn't a healing album. It racketeers between moments of bliss and confusion and the beats. Water flows wherever the wind takes us, and Kehlani makes sure to bring us on a journey of lessons of motherhood, love, loss, and self-realization. This is a new favorite of mine this spring since it brings diversity in tempo, showing us a low rhythm like "get me started," featuring Syd to upbeat jams such as "up at night" with Justin Bieber.

One thing you will be able to count on from Alex Isley & Jack Dine is a magical-sounding project. "Marigold" showcases Isley's smooth jazz vocals and delicate riffs and runs more than ever. "Under the Moon" is a turning point of the album, coming from the hurt break and accepting a breakup that has run its course. The lyrics in "Marigold" never stray from the hopeful nature matching an earthy tone of being grounded from finish to end. The best work on this project wasn't the most popular as they were "Love Again," a clear realization of a connection, and the staple jazzy tone of "Still Wonder," featuring the great Robert Glasper. Overall the production from Dine and musical ladders from Isley in this album is the proper entrance to the spring season as it showers glitter and manifests a still day of peace.

I am delighted I fell upon Ego Ella May's work. Her discography stretches to the show "Insecure" by Issa Rae and introduced her to a broader audience. Following her first EP, "Field Notes," Ella May expanded upon that, bringing us "Field Notes PT II." If you are a fan of Erykah Badu or Jill Scott, you will Enjoy Ego Ella May. The sultry vibes she included in this project are simple yet mesmerizing. Her accented soft tones in her voice, coupled with an awareness of herself and situations, make for a great feel-good this season. Funky tunes like "Introverted Hotline" explains the mere fact of wanting to be alone. A personal favorite is "for the both of us," a slow and somber one with a spin on breaking up. It follows her reminiscing about a past lover in of her new ones.

[sundaysundaes]

Monochrome

Lee Donghyuck/Haechan X Reader/Female OC | Romance, Eventual Smut, Fluff | NC-17 | Soulmate AU, Childhood-Friends-Become-Lovers AU

CHAPTER 1 OF 2. Part 2, titled Spectra, can be read here.

Summary: Lee Donghyuck once believed in the concept of soulmates—how fate would connect a red thread from one lover to another, in a form of dreams and memories. That was how his parents met, that was how they claimed their happiness, and he wanted nothing more but to live his life the way they lived theirs. Until one day, as he sees her slipping away from his hands, he has no choice but to stop believing entirely.

It was the color of amaranth red, Donghyuck remembers now, though he was still too young back then to know the name. It was the color of amaranth red that painted her cheeks and the tip of her nose as they were kissed by the morning breeze. It was the color of amaranth red that tinted her shoes, her knitted sweater dress, the two ribbons she wore on her hair. And it was the color of amaranth red that burst onto his cheeks, as his eyes widened in both glee, curiosity, and sheer excitement. He was four years old and she was five, but the way she spoke so courteously as she introduced herself upon their first meeting was something little Donghyuck could only imagine doing.

But it didn’t matter, Donghyuck was too distracted anyway. If he was older maybe he would’ve been left dumbfounded at the sight of her breathtaking smile, or the perfect curves of her lips, or the vibrant eyes she had hidden behind her symmetrical bangs. But he was merely a four-year-old, so he was more distracted with a jar full of chocolate cookies she carried in her arms.

“We’re the family that’s just moved in next door.” The older lady, who looked like the exact doppelgänger of the little girl, mentioned with a polite smile and a formal bow. “I hope we can become friends.”

Donghyuck’s mother cheered and took her hand in a friendly handshake before she beckoned the little girl to come closer. “Oh my, look at how adorable you are! You’re about the same age as my son. I hope you two can get along.”

Donghyuck, who had been hiding behind his mother’s legs, took a step forward. He was only interested in the jar full of cookies that she carried in her arms, licking his lips once as his eyes bore into it. But when the little girl offered the jar, grinning widely from ear-to-ear, and chirped, “Brought you some cookies! I helped my mother with these so I bet they’ll taste great!”, Donghyuck decided that he liked her more.

It was the color of azure, the crayon she held between her fingers back then, as she tried to imitate the look of his clothes on a stick figure. She was quite a painter, four-year-old Donghyuck thought, because there was no way for him to know how to draw mountains and the sun lurking behind them with that little head of his.

“Okay, so this is you,” she told him, smiling to herself as she finished perfecting her sketches of him. “And this is me. And this is our pet dog, Jelly Bean.”

“But we don’t have a dog.”

“We can have one in the future.”

“We can?”

“Of course. When we grow up, we can have whatever we want.”

Donghyuck believed her. He believed everything she said because she believed everything he said, even about the monsters living under his bed that his parents completely ignored. During their sleepovers, which occurred nearly three times a week in his room, she would always stand by as a guard, saying, “I’ll keep watch. If it appears, I will destroy it with my sword. Nothing can hurt you when I’m around.” And he would feel content, knowing she was there to protect him, even when in the end she fell asleep way before he did with her toy sword hanging loosely around her fingers.

Donghyuck would sleep next to her, curling up like a baby that he was, seeking her warmth. Their little feet would dangle out of his teepee tent and he would breathe in the scent of his grapefruit shampoo from her hair. And secretly, under his breath, as he tangled his pinky finger around hers, Donghyuck would say, “I wish we could stay like this forever.”

“Why do you always draw the sun?” Donghyuck questioned one day with his round, chocolate brown eyes scanning the giant yellow circle that she drew repeatedly with her crayon.

“Because I love the sun,” she answered, searching for another yellow crayon so she could paint it even more. “It’s bright and it’s warm, and I can play outside when it’s out. Don’t you feel happier when it’s sunny outside?”

Donghyuck thought about it, he really did with the very little experience that he had. “Probably. I can play soccer when it’s sunny.”

“See? The sun is amazing. Nothing can beat the sun. Do you know that the sun is the biggest star in our solar system?”

If he was smarter, he would've told her that of course, it's the biggest star, you idiot, it's the only star in our solar system. But little Donghyuck, who could barely remember what came after the letter S, innocently asked, “What’s a solar system?”

She sighed, shaking her head. “I forgot that you’re only four.”

“Hey, you’re only five!”

“But I know what a solar system is and you don’t.”

Donghyuck pouted. If only he was older, perhaps he could reciprocate with a better argument. But then again, she was quite smart—the smartest girl he had ever met. Well, in his whole four years of living anyway.

“You’re kinda like the sun, actually,” she suggested, gathering his attention back to her. “You have a bright smile and whenever you smile, you make me want to smile too. You’re like the sun because you always make me happy. Oh!” She suddenly jabbed one finger into the air, making him jump on his little feet. “I know! You should be called Haechan, as in Full Sun! And I’ll be calling you Haechannie because we’re friends.”

And Donghyuck smiled the way he always smiled, which made her point a finger to his face, shouting, “Yes, that’s it! That’s the smile! That’s my Haechannie!” And he liked the sound of it. He liked the way she called him Haechannie but not as much as he liked being called hers.

Because he’s always been hers, from the beginning of time till the end. It’s always been her who owns his heart, who paints a spectrum of colors to his monochromatic life, and who breaks his soul to pieces and tones everything down into black and white.

It’s always been her. No one else owns him but her.

***

It was apple green, the color of the duster his mother was wearing when she had her eyes glued to the TV screen, watching another episode of her most awaited romance series. It was way past their bedtime so Donghyuck performed his best ninja skill which was tiptoeing his way out of his room with his bunny socks enveloping his feet and his deer plush toy accompanying him in his arms.

He was five and she was six, but she had learned how to forgive when he could barely remember to send an apology after making a mistake.

“You stay here and be on guard, okay, Haechannie?” She whispered before she tiptoed her way to the kitchen, leaving him alone in the hallway.

He grabbed the sleeve of her rosy pink pajamas. “But what if my mom finds out?”

“She won’t find out. She’s busy watching TV.”

“What if she walks into the kitchen?”

“Then that’s the time you should give me a signal, Haechannieeeee. Will you ever listen to me?”

“I don’t wanna stay alone. Mom can be scary sometimes.”

“Ugh, fine, take my hand. We’ll get in together. You can help me hold my chair when I reach up to steal those cookies.”

“Can we just go back to bed? I don’t need any cookies.”

“No, no. When you have nightmares, you have to eat cookies.”

“But will you still sleep beside me?”

A delicate hand ruffled his raven hair until it got all tousled and adorable. “Of course, Haechannie.”

The moonlight did not shine as bright as the girl’s cherished smile. But it was okay, he thought, she could replace the moon with her lips. She could replenish the stars with her eyes. They did not sparkle nearly as beautiful as they were anyway.

On their way back to their room, Donghyuck heard two sentences being exchanged by the lovers inside the screen so he stopped and listened, carving every word into his memories. When he arrived back in his room, he ran toward her, circled his short little arms around her waist, and muttered the exact same words.

“There’s no life without you, Noona.”

And she didn’t question him anything, wasn’t surprised of him, wasn’t disgusted with it. She simply smiled back, turning around to embrace him properly, and whispered.

“There’s no life without you too, Haechannie.”

***

It was the color of cherry blossom pink, the petals of flowers that flown into his room, coming from the window that he just slid open. He stood up on his little wooden chair, waving his hands back and forth like a drowning man desperate for attention, as he shouted, “Noona! Wake up! They’re blooming!”

He was six and she was seven, but she had memorized how to count one to ten in three different languages when he could barely count all the planets in the solar system.

When she opened her window, her eyes were all squinted trying their best to adjust themselves to the brightness of the sun—or Donghyuck’s smile, considering it shone just as bright. “I’m still sleepy!”

“But you promised we’d go for a walk!”

“Ugh, fine! I’ll meet you outside my house in an hour. Don’t forget to wear your jacket, Haechannie, because I’m not lending mine again!”

He nodded, smiling all the way. But by an hour later, he had forgotten yet again to carry his coat with him because he was too busy remembering the look on her face whenever she called his name, and too excited to have her hold his hands during their little trip outside.

And it was fine, really, because she already brought two jackets with her, knowing him like the back of her hand.

***

It was the color of crimson, the droplets of blood that stained his shirt. He could barely breathe through his broken nose, and the pain stung so much that his eyes began to water. But knowing that she was there, sitting beside him on the side of the pavements with worried eyes observing his expression, he had no other choice but to rub his tears away before she could catch the sight of them falling to his cheeks.

He was twelve and she was thirteen, but she already had her own preferences of clothing, knowing exactly what kind of dress could accentuate her beauty, while he, on the other hand, was still pretty much wearing the exact same type of clothes like what his mother bought him two years ago.

“Are you okay?” Her eyes examined his face as she dabbed an ice-cold napkin to his bruised jaw. Donghyuck swatted her hand away, stealing the piece of cloth from her fingers so he could do it himself.

“I’m fine. I’m not a baby,” he muttered and he knew how harsh the tone he was using but he did not apologize for it. She most likely had forgiven him anyway.

“What happened exactly?” She was still tentatively reaching out to him, tidying the tousled strands of his brown hair. “Why did you get into a fight?”

“Who said I was in a fight?” He was. He absolutely was. It was against a boy with the stupidest haircut he’d ever seen on a male, in his classroom after he caught him stealing her sketchbook. Donghyuck saw him raking his pen back and forth on her drawings, grinning mischievously to himself as he did it. He didn’t stop to ask for an explanation. The second he saw her beautiful drawings get tainted by something that wasn’t made from her hands, he began to launch his fist, directly to the boy’s poor face. Donghyuck had always been more temperamental, so he fought more with his rage than his strength, which usually ended up with him getting a fair share of beating as well.

“Here.” He handed her sketchbook back and saw her widening her eyes in surprise. “That’s right, stupid. You forgot your stupid book. I was on my way back to the class to get it when I tripped down the stairs.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize I even took this out of my bag.” She blinked, checking her book and stopping after she flipped a few pages. Donghyuck froze on his seat. He’d already predicted that she would find out sooner or later that one of her pages—the one that was ruined by that asshole—was missing; he just hoped she wouldn’t notice right away. But maybe she also noticed the anxious look on his face when she went through the pages, which was why she decided to close the book, and do nothing but smile that stupidly blazing smile of hers.

“What?” He asked, already feeling quite flustered even when she hadn’t said anything yet.

“I’m just happy,” she replied, leaning in to kiss his cheek. “Thank you for, uhh, for getting this back for me.”

And he looked up to the sky, not caring if the sunlight was burning every inch of his skin and blinding his eyes, as long as she didn’t notice the rosy blush that painted his cheeks.

***

It was the color of lemon meringue, the chunk of tart that Donghyuck shoved into his mouth. They were celebrating his fourteenth birthday and he had a bunch of friends coming over. And yet, there he was sitting on the bench in his backyard, next to a girl dressed adorably in a yellow lace party dress, who was scowling at him.

“What?” Donghyuck muttered, yet plopping another big chunk of the tart. “Why do you look like you want to murder me? Is it that time of the month already?”

“No, jackass.” She rolled her eyes. “That’s my tart.”

“Sure, but,” he pierced the cake with his fork, taking another piece into his mouth with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. “It’s my birthday cake.”

She sighed—a habit that she did a lot whenever she was with him. “Why are you even here? Shouldn’t you be opening the presents right now? I think your friends are looking for you.”

“Nah, I’d rather talk to you.” He shrugged, pushing the empty plate back now to its owner. “Besides, you look like you’re seconds away from crying. I figured I can be a jerk to you another day and play the role of your prince charming for the rest of the evening.”

“You literally just ate every bit of my tart.”

“You’re welcome.” He sent her a flying kiss and a wink.

They both leaned backward, resting their spines against the bench, staring blankly at the cloudy sky with their fingers lying idly just a few inches from each other.

“Have you heard about that thing with our soulmates?” Donghyuck suddenly asked, his tongue still tracing every little bit of the sugary taste left inside his mouth. “About how we’ll begin to constantly dream about them after we turn eighteen, even if we’ve never met them before.”

“I thought that was just a rumor?”

“I thought so too, but then my parents told me that the exact same thing happened to them.”

“They met each other in their dreams?”

“No, it’s like—” Donghyuck scratched the back of his head, furrowing his eyebrows. “I don’t know for sure, but it’s like your dreams are a mixture of your soulmate’s past and present memories. My mother said that she lived through his memories every night, until one day she met my father by coincidence during the day, and then she saw herself in the dream the following night. That was when she realized that he was her soulmate.”

“This is giving me headaches, but I kinda get the idea.”

“So whose memories do you think you’re going to see in your dream?” Donghyuck wiggled his eyebrows. “Mine?”

She snorted. “You wish your soulmate was me.”

“Actually, I do,” he stated, making her froze for a split second before she looked at him in bewilderment. “No, wait, don’t get me wrong,” he immediately corrected, raising a hand in the air. “It’s not like I’m into you or anything, ‘cause that’s, like, so gross since we’re basically like siblings by now, but if it really is true—this soulmate thingy—I wouldn’t mind if it turns out to be you because we get along really well, don’t we? Being soulmates doesn’t necessarily mean we have to marry each other—eww, God, no—” He made a show about it, sticking his tongue out in disgust. “It’s more like saying we’re connected. Know each other’s mind—like, we understand each other, you know what I mean? Don’t you feel that way about me?”

She thought about it, and with every second passing by, Donghyuck became more aware of how embarrassing his lines sounded in his ears. “You know what? Forget it. It’s dumb. I don’t know why I said—”

“Well, I guess, if you put it in a non-romantic way, then yeah, sure.” She smiled, a bit awkward and shy but sincere like always. “We can be soulmates. But I will only marry you if we’re the only two people left in the world. And even then, I would still think about it.”

He rolled his eyes but inwardly thanking her for not making this even more awkward than it already was. “Right, but for our friendship’s sake, let’s never talk about this again.”

“Agreed.”

They stood by in silence, hearing a bunch of children laughing in the background as they danced to the blaring music. “So on that note,” he said again, slicing through the awkward tension. “What are you so upset about today?”

She huffed, playing with her fingers. “I don’t know, I feel like everybody’s looking at me weird. I knew I shouldn’t have worn this dress—I know it’s too much—everyone is wearing shirts and jeans and I’m here looking like—”

“—a pretty girl,” he finished, staring nonchalantly at the clouds as he said it. “I don’t know what these guys think, but you’re prettier than any girl in the room today. You’re prettier than me, even, and that’s saying something.”

She bit her lower lip, holding back a laugh. “You just turned fourteen today and suddenly you’re old enough to flirt.”

“I wasn’t flirting.”

She smiled sheepishly. “Well, thanks, I guess.”

He looked to his side, a lopsided smile on his face. “Feel better now?”

“A little.”

“Good. Now go fetch me another plate of that thing I just ate ‘cause I’m still hungry.”

***

It was the color of ruby, the lipstick she wore on her lips for the very first time, which made Donghyuck knit his eyebrows together, both in confusion and bewilderment.

He was fifteen and she was sixteen, but she already read a bunch of novels about first kisses and sappy love stories when he barely even owned a novel.

“Are you wearing make-up?” he uttered with a frown, scrunching his nose. He was sitting on the edge of her bed, his black Michael Jackson shirt falling a bit loose around his shoulders with the bottom edge of his light-blue jeans folded.

“Yes, and before you judge me for it,” she began, but Donghyuck was already sticking his tongue out at her, making the most disgusted look on his face. “You’re an ass, do you know that?”

“You look like a clown, honestly.”

“Well, this clown is going on a date.” She looked proud, which made him furrow his eyebrows even deeper. “And if she’s lucky, she’s going to get her first kiss by the end of the evening, while you, on the other hand, are just going to sit there in your room watching The Kissing Booth for God knows how many times and pretend like you’re handsome enough to date the female protagonist.”

“I am handsome enough to date the female protagonist. Handsome enough to date the male protagonist even.”

“Yeah, in your dreams. You’re just a virgin with a stupid bowl cut in reality.”

“Whatever. You still look like a clown.”

“Whatever. Now turn around, I need to change my clothes.”

“To your clown costume?”

“Turn around!”

Donghyuck had little options in his hand, when she brought her high heels in the air, ready to hurl them to his face, so he exhaled loudly in annoyance and lied down on her bed, turning his body around so he was facing the wall.

“Who’s this idiot you’re going with?” He eventually asked, because the rustling sounds of her clothes hitting the floor were getting too distracting.

“Na Jaemin. You know, that extremely cute boy from P.E Class.”

He knew who exactly Jaemin was. Heard his name being spoken several times as he walked down his school’s corridor. Girls were obsessed with him, and they would scream as if the world was ending whenever he played a game on the basketball court. They might be thinking why is someone as perfect as Jaemin interested in someone like her? And he hated the fact that he was thinking the same thing, just the other way around.

Why is someone as perfect as her interested in someone like him?

But on the outside, he toned it down to a simple grimace. “What the hell is a Na Jaemin?”

She threw her heel at him, hitting his spine and making him groan. “Hey, that hurts, you bi—” But his words died on his tongue when he saw her standing in front of her mirror in nothing but her matching underwear, with her dress threatening to fall from her arms.

“Hey!” She shrieked, squatting down to the floor and trying her best to gather as much clothing to her body to stop herself from being so exposed to his eyes. “I didn’t say you could turn around!”

And Donghyuck would’ve played it cool, he really would have, if he wasn’t too aware of the heat rising to his cheeks. “I, uhh—” He turned around again, clearing his throat. “Well, it’s your fault for throwing your shoe at me! I turned around in reflex.”

“Ugh, you’re so annoying! From now on, you wait outside!”

“Fine!” He scrambled to his feet, making sure that he didn’t spare any glance at her—no matter how badly he wanted to—as he made his way out. “You have small boobs anyway.”

She screamed his name in both shame and anger but he was walking out with a cheeky grin on his face. He waited outside her room with his hands buried deep in the pocket of his jeans, yawning as he pressed the back of his head against the wall. A moment later, she opened the door with her face down, trying to tuck her bra strap under the collar of her dress. When he called her name, she nearly jumped out of her skin. “Damn it, Haechannie, I thought you’ve left!”

“I wanted to see your clown costume.”

“Why you little—” But this time, it was her turn to be lost at words because Donghyuck was staring at her in the way he never stared at her before. His eyes were gleaming as they took in her features—her lace cocktail dress that matched the color of her lipstick, her red ankle strap heels, her natural make-up that gave prominence to her eyes, and the way all of her clothing just fell perfect on her skin, embracing her every curve.

“W-what is it?” She asked, carding her fingers nervously through her hair—her soft, beautiful hair that always made him a little bit weak whenever she tucked a loose strand behind her ear. “Do I look weird?”

He forced himself to close his gaping mouth and act nonchalant again. After nine years of training, he was beginning to master his act. “Well,” Donghyuck said, shrugging, “It’s not exactly like the clown costume I remembered it to be, but it’s okay, I guess. So now tell me where is this Halloween party you’re attending because I’m going too.”

“I can no longer tell whether you’re joking or not, honestly.” She waved him off, tightening the straps of her heels. “Look, it’s my first date with a really cute boy who I really like. Can’t you at least wish me luck?”

Donghyuck didn’t answer right away. His heart was still conflicted about the whole thing and his head was still swirling over the thoughts of how pretty she looked. “I can’t believe you’re blowing me off for something as lame as Na Jaemin.”

“Someone as lame as—wait, he’s not lame!”

“But does he know you the way I do, though? Like, does he know how loud your snores are? I know that, and I accept that.”

“Haechannie, we literally spend every weekend together for the last nine years. I’m just taking one night off.”

“Doesn’t change the fact that you’re still blowing me off.”

“Look, if it wasn’t a date, I would’ve asked you to come but since this is a date,” she stopped to smile, tapping her fingers against his cheek, “You be a good boy and wait for me at home, okay?”

As she walked out of her house, with him trailing behind her with heavy steps, Donghyuck said, “I hope his breath smells like shit when you kiss him later tonight!”

She laughed it off, raising her middle finger playfully at him, probably thinking he was upset because they didn’t spend the weekend together when he was entirely livid about something else.

He wasn’t sure how he felt towards her, but he was pretty certain that he didn’t like the fact she went out with some boy who probably wasn’t aware of her full name—or the way she would bite on her bottom lip from being too deep in concentration whenever she sketched something down, or the way she would puff out her cheeks in the most adorable way when she got teased too much. That fucking Na Jaemin wouldn’t understand her the way Donghyuck did.

So for the first time in his life, Donghyuck prayed something bad happened that night so her date would get canceled and she’d come running back into his arms, snuggling close with a popcorn bowl on their laps as they watched the same movie for the hundredth time.

Unfortunately for him, his prayer was not answered.

***

It was sapphire blue, the color of his hoodie was when he swung by to her house again, casually letting himself inside without even greeting her parents because he did it so many times within a day. It started to feel more like his house compared to hers.

“Oh,” she sneered, a smile appearing on her face. “You again.”

“What’s with the under-appreciating tone?” He clicked his tongue. “Most girls would actually scream in joy when I graced them with my presence.”

“Scream in horror, more likely.”

He ignored her banter, taking a seat on her bed again. She was lying down on her duvet, stomach pressed against the fabric with a fashion magazine under her fingers. “So,” he began, casually laying his head down on the dip of her spine, staring at the ceiling and secretly loving the feeling of knowing directly every time she took and released her breath. “Did he smell like shit when you kissed him?”

She flipped through a page. “As a matter of fact, we haven’t kissed. But that’s none of your business anyway.”

Donghyuck couldn’t help a smile creeping up his face. It was his luck that she didn’t notice. “Oh, but it is my business,” he said, trying not to sound as gleeful as he felt inside. “I really want to know whether he smells like shit or a dog's piss so I can make fun of him every time I see you.”

“Well, from the close proximity I had with him during our conversations inside the cinema, he smelled deliciously wonderful.”

“Deliciously? So he smelled like tacos?”

“Smelled way better than you, at least.”

“You’ve never kissed me so you wouldn’t know.”

“I already can tell without having to kiss you, asshole. You reek from a hundred feet away.”

“But just to be sure, wanna make-out with me for a while? I won’t bite.” Then he leaned in to whisper in her ear. “Unless that’s what you’re into.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

“AUNTIEEEEEEE, SHE’S SAYING THE F WORD!”

“SHUT UP!”

***

It was Navajo white, the color of her knitted scarf was, as it hanged loosely around her neck, matching the color of her duffle coat.

“Oh,” Donghyuck flatly said as he opened the door to his room, answering her persistent knocks. “You again.”

“Haechannie.” The way she said his name sounded like she was desperate for help, and that made his heart flutter a little bit at the thought of being needed. But the words that followed soon after, crushed every bit of his happiness within an instant. “Jaemin asked me to be his girlfriend.”

He could feel how tightly his fingers were sinking into his palms but he tried to keep his voice steady. “And you’re confused because you just found out he’s a girl?”

“What should I do?” She whined, completely ignoring his sarcastic reaction. She seemed anxious, jumping a little on her feet every now and then, which was so adorable for his eyes to take but whenever he remembered the reason why she was acting that cute, he could feel his jaws tightening again.

“Do whatever you want, it’s not my business,” he muttered, walking back to his room but leaving the door open for her to follow.

“I like him, Haechannie,” she continued, and with every word that came from her mouth, a javelin seemed to strike him even harder in the chest. “I really do, but am I ready to have a relationship? Like what do I do? I know I joke a lot about having my first kiss but now that we’re about to become official, and knowing that he’s most likely going to kiss me soon, I get so nervous.”

Donghyuck didn’t say a word. He had nothing nice to say, so he kept himself in silence.

“W-what would you do if you were me?” She sputtered. “I mean, if a girl you like asked you to be her boyfriend?”

Donghyuck had his hands hidden in the pockets of his hoodie, so she wouldn’t be able to tell when his fingers curled into balls of fists. He had the back of his hips pressed against his desk, locating his eyes on his shoes instead of hers. “This girl I like is actually talking about being someone else’s girlfriend,” he professed, “So I’m not sure I can give you proper advice.”

“Stop messing with me, Haechannie, I’m seriously begging for your help here.”

It was goddamn annoying, he thought, how she could be so dense when it came to things like this. Well, to be fair, he did have his fair share of flirting with her from time to time whether he meant his words or not, and knowing how playful he was, it’s a given that she grew to become accustomed to his teasing personality. It was nearly impossible for him to be taken seriously nowadays.

“Why are you even asking me?” He spat out, now looking at her eyes—almost glowering. “I’m not your boyfriend.”

“I don’t know, I really need someone to talk to, I guess.” She played with her hair, biting her lower lip worriedly. “And you’re my best friend so I naturally just come to you. You always seem to have the answers to everything.”

There was a pang in his heart when she singlehandedly decided on their relationship status and he knew he shouldn’t have asked for something more but with more days passing by where it was only the two of them walking side-by-side under the first snow, or calling each other’s names the first thing in the morning through their windows, Donghyuck couldn’t help but to hope for something more.

“Well, like I said,” he repeated, voice sounding low and foreign even to his own ears. “Do whatever you want. As long as it makes you happy.”

She took a proper look at his face. “Are you angry or something?”

“No.”

“What, like, did I do something wrong?”

“No.”

“Then why—”

“I said nothing’s wrong!” His voice thundered through the thick tension that was hanging between them and he felt his own heart shaking in pain from the tone he just made. They stared at each other’s eyes in what felt like hours before Donghyuck finally covered it with a tired sigh. “I’m sorry, I’m just really tired right now. Didn’t catch any sleep last night from playing too many games.”

It took a good few seconds for her to regain back her composure. “Well, I don’t want to bother you then.” She didn’t sound angry, but she did sound hurt. Donghyuck was still in the middle of sorting out his feelings when she walked out of his room, saying, “I’m sorry for pestering you like this. Goodbye, Haechannie.”

He had never hated someone as much as he hated himself then.

It took him five hours for his mind to finally make up the decision to go into her house and apologize in person, but only a second for him to immediately do it once he’d made up his mind. He ran down the stairs so fast, he almost fell face-first on the carpeted floor. When he stood in front of her house, desperately pushing back air into his lungs, the door was locked and no one came to answer no matter how many times he rang the doorbell.

Muttering a train of expletives under his breath, he turned to his iPhone and found the first number in his emergency contacts. He was about to press dial when suddenly her name popped out on his screen, asking him to answer her call.

“Noona?” Donghyuck called, breathing in relief. “Hey, I was about to call you. I wanted to apologi—”

“Haechannie.” She sounded so happy, almost to the point of shedding tears. “Haechannie, he just kissed me.”

Donghyuck’s lips were parted in shock, his throat felt like burning, even though puffs of air still tumbled down from his mouth. His heart almost stopped beating entirely.

“What do I do, Haechannie, I’m so happy,” she said, laughing between tears. “I’m actually crying right now. I’m so lame, I know, but—God, I can’t believe I got kissed by my crush—no, wait, my boyfriend—oh God, it’s still embarrassing to say that but—”

As if turning deaf, her voice in his ears was reduced into a silent murmur before vanishing entirely. The loud beating of his heart soon replaced it as it pumped more anger and jealousy through his veins but Donghyuck wasn’t going to repeat his previous mistake. He wasn’t going to let his emotions take control again.

“Well,” he breathed out, unfamiliar with the sound of his own voice. “I’m happy for you then.”

“You are? Oh, thank God, because I thought you’d whine about me for not spending time with you anymore.”

“Do you really think that lousy of me?”

“I’m kidding, Haechannie. I love you. You know that, right?”

And it hurt, the way she said it, because it meant nothing more than a platonic love and he wanted it to mean more. Perhaps he had been waiting for those three words to mean more for the last nine years of his life.

“Of course,” he simply said, hoping she wouldn’t hear the crack in his voice. “There’s no life without you, Noona.”

It took her a while to respond, and he was worried whether the cold tone in his voice stood too vividly again, but she laughed before he could think too much.

“It’s been a while since we said that. Of course, yes, there’s no life without you, Haechannie.” She giggled again, “It’s kind of embarrassing to say that when we’re already this old. Maybe we should start looking for another catchphrase. I don’t want Jaemin to catch me saying that to you either—”

“No, don’t—” Since when did speaking to her become this hard? “It’s something that we’ve been doing since we were kids. I’m not gonna change our tradition just because of one asshole that you happen to like.”

A silence, then a chuckle. “Seems like you’re back to your old self again. I was beginning to worry. All right then, let’s keep it that way. I’ll just have to be more careful.” He could tell that she was smiling all the way when she said her sentences.

“When will you be back?” I miss you. “I want to see you.” I want to hold you. “We haven’t really talked these days.”

“Oh, umm…” She sounded so apologetically soft, so quiet, so out of his reach. “Jaemin actually just asked me to go somewhere with him, but I’ll be back soon. Is there something you need?”

He curled his fingers. “Nothing important. It can wait.”

“Great. Oh, Jaemin just called, I gotta—”

“Stop saying his name.”

When a small gasp came from the other line, Donghyuck raised his head, startled by his action. “I mean,” he cleared his throat, his stomach doing somersaults. “It’s just—” He couldn’t think of anything fast enough. “You’re right. I’m sorry for taking your time.”

“Oh, no, it’s…” A pause, which struck like a hurricane. “It’s fine. I’ll see you tomorrow morning, okay?”

“Sure.” But he didn’t hold her on her promise, because she now belonged to someone else.

He just had to get used to being alone.

***

It was the color of eerie black, the denim jacket that he wore above his white shirt as he prepared himself for his date. Donghyuck had cut his hair short, ran his fingers through his bangs so they no longer covered his eyes, and sprayed the new bergamot perfume he bought around his neck.

He didn’t notice it at first, but he had become more popular in school for the past few months, after being a vocalist in a band and performing during the school festival. Girls were approaching him, asking from what class he was, wanting to know whether he wanted to hang out with them from time to time and it felt weird, although he had been quite popular back then too, it was more because he was the funny kid—not the hot kid in school.

So eventually he started going on dates, and every time he managed to spend a day with a girl, he’d come home to brag about it to his neighbor, wanting to evoke a reaction but what came out of her was only a small chuckle and a shake of her head, “What are you talking about? You’re just a boy. You know nothing about girls, let alone going on a date with one.” And he would drop the topic, fuming for the rest of the day.

“There.” He straightened his jacket, gazing at his reflection in the standing mirror. “New day, new beginning, Hyuck. You can do this.”

You can forget her and move on.

So he checked on his phone, noticing a new chat just popped up under the name of the stranger he had been seeing for two weeks, and felt his heart beating as steady as usual. Everything felt the same. Even after he’d kissed her for the first time, intertwined his fingers with hers as they walked from one cafe to another, or hearing her laugh over his words even when he didn’t try to be funny—everything felt the same. So… plain. Unexciting. And after two weeks had passed by, meeting this stranger—the girl with the auburn colored hair, crooked teeth, and waist thinner than most—began to feel like a chore.

No, you said you’d do this. You said you’d move on from her.

“Ah, Haechannie!” The way his childhood friend immediately smiled upon his presence, waving a hand back and forth as if they were long lost companions instead of neighbors, almost made him stop in his tracks. “You’re going somewhere? You look so nice!”

His resolution faltered as simple as that. Only by the sound of her voice calling his name, only by her contagious grin creeping to his face, only by simple praise that made his stomach flip most delightfully.

“What do you mean, I look nice? I always look nice.” Donghyuck was proud of himself to be able to conceal his feelings most of the time, and not actually acting like a blushing seventeen-year-old boy with the hugest crush on his childhood friend that he was.

She took her time analyzing him and for the first time in his life, he began to fidget on his feet, swallowing his breath.

“Stop staring at me, you’re making me feel weird.”

“Sorry, I just can’t believe you’re this big,” she said, her eyes sparkling in amazement. “Like, I know we’re neighbors but we’ve been busy dealing with our own things these days so I haven’t really taken a closer look at you but man, look how much you’ve grown. You’re way taller than me now.”

“Yeah, if you weren’t too busy playing tonsil hockey with that fucking Na Jaemin all the time, you would’ve noticed.”

“Indeed.” She looked amused, even proud somehow. “But I got to make-out and stuff. What have you done so far, cherry boy?”

He clenched his jaw, jealousy coursing through his veins. He tried to shove the picture of Jaemin running his hands all over her body—her perfect body—to the back of his head and he thought he did a remarkable job at it. But when he smiled, his eyes didn’t follow through.

“None of your business,” he simply said, tucking his hands inside the pockets of his jeans and walked away. “I’m going on a date. See you later.”

“You’re going on a date?!” She shrieked, eyes wide. “With who?”

“A pretty girl.”

She took a hold of his hand, stopping him from walking further. “Is this the girl you’ve been seeing for the last two weeks?”

He didn’t realize she kept count. “Yeah. What about it?”

“Nothing, I was just…” She awkwardly shrugged, her fingers hanging loosely around his arm. “Just curious, that’s all. So, like… Do you like her? What’s her name?”

It was almost possessive the way she asked the questions which on one hand, made him feel happy, hoping that she was jealous about it, but on the other hand, also pissed the hell out of him because if she was indeed jealous—if she ever felt the same way as him, even if only slightly—why did she go to Jaemin’s arms instead of his?

“Her name,” he glanced at her with lifeless eyes, “is Miss None-of-Your-Fucking-Business.”

Her smiled dropped instantly. “What is your problem? I just wanted to know—”

He knew he had the worst temper and patience in the world when it came to her, and he was not always like that before. Ever since the feelings he harbored for her grew bigger and bigger with each day passing by no matter how hard he tried to make himself fall in love with somebody else, he grew even more anxious, even less patient, and he hated the way he’d become.

But he couldn’t help it.

“Want to know what?” He asked, now facing her, circling his long fingers around her wrist and raising it in the air. “What do you want to know, exactly? It’s not just her name, is it? You want to know the things I do with her too? Want to know how I feel for her?”

Her eyes began to shake, frantically trying to understand him. “What—why are you so upset?”

“I’m not, I—” He sighed with a groan coming from the back of his throat, letting her go before he massaged his temple. I’m just so stressed out knowing how clueless you are of both your own feelings and mine. “Look, I gotta go. I’m running late.”

When he walked away, taking just about three steps ahead, she shouted. “Haechannie!”

He turned his head around, just enough to see her smiling softly at him. “This weekend,” she said, “Spend time with me this weekend. Please.”

“Noona, I—”

“I miss you.”

Just like that, she had him wrapped around her fingers again. It’s not fair. You’re not fair. You can’t keep doing this to me. But he smiled back, his gaze growing gentle, almost longing. “Then I’ll see you this weekend.”

He was in a fight he knew he’d lose every time.

***

It was coral pink, the color of the girl’s lip cream but he felt it pressed against his lips before he could see it properly. He felt his collar being tugged as his body was pushed further into her room, hasty hands pushing the jacket off his shoulders.

“You smell so good,” she said, giggling as she brought his bottom lip between her teeth. “And you look so fucking hot in this outfit.” Donghyuck hit the back of his knees against her bed and tumbled down onto her sheets, with his self-proclaimed girlfriend following shortly after.

“Wait—” he said, his eyebrows joining together in the middle from feeling both confused and uncomfortable. “What about your parents—”

“They’re not home,” she said in a rush, climbing onto his lap. “And I want you.” She tangled her lean fingers around his locks, pulling his head back to expose more of his neck. “I’ve been wanting you for so long, Hyuck,” she gasped, her mouth latching on his skin, tasting his bergamot perfume with her tongue. “And we’ve waited long enough, don’t you think?”

A little more than two weeks had passed since they first went on a date, and he really thought he could like her but whenever he closed his eyes during the kiss, his mind would start acting on its own, morphing her face to someone more familiar. Someone who could pull on his heartstrings and play with them only by the sight of her smile.

It felt wrong. All of this felt wrong. But he said he’d move on, he promised himself he would, and this was one of the ways to do it.

“You seem distracted,” she moaned softly against his ear, pressing her hips against him. “Am I boring you?”

He didn’t say a word and instead forced himself to kiss her better. He held her by the nape, angling her head to the side, and she sighed against his mouth, hooking her fingers around his silver necklace to pull him even closer.

Donghyuck was lost deep in his thoughts, and his heart just wasn’t there, but he didn’t push her away. She spread her legs and tangled them around his waist, pressing herself down until she could feel the zipper of his jeans grazing against her underwear. Donghyuck hissed under his breath, not agreeing with how his body reacted on its own and she grinned against his lips, guiding the hands he reactively laid around her waist to move further down her body.

“Touch me here,” she begged, taking his right hand and slipped it under her shirt, pushing her breast against his palm. Donghyuck let out a heavy breath as he let her tongue slipped past his lips and he closed his eyes again because that was the only way that this could all feel right to him.

Noona…

But no matter how good her touches felt on his skin, guilt was the only sensation he could feel in his heart. The more they kissed, the more he realized that she was not her, and she could never be her. He couldn’t smell the scent of strawberries from her hair. He couldn’t hear the cute giggle she made when his jokes got to her head. And no matter how they seemed physically similar—the look of her hair, the shape of her eyes, the way she dressed—he still couldn’t lie to himself and pretend she was her.

“Wait—” He pushed her gently off his lap by landing both hands on her shoulders. “Let’s stop.”

“Why?” She was upset, he could tell. “What is it?”

You’re not her. “I feel like we’re going too fast.” I don’t want you, I want her. “And what if your parents come home?” I feel sick. I need to get out of here. I need to see her.

“They won’t be home until midnight, I promise.” She had her fingers curled around his nape again. “Please, Hyuck, don’t you want me?”

She didn’t give him the chance to answer, swallowing his protest with her lips, tasting more of his mouth with her tongue. “Mmph—no—wait!” he pushed her away again, firmer this time to the point she almost toppled over. “Look, I’m not in the mood, okay?” His tone was getting harsher, which only led her to feel even more agitated.

“Why the fuck are you even here then?” She spat out, throwing her hands in the air.

Donghyuck shoved her away none too gently this time, stepping down from her bed. “I don’t fucking know,” he growled under his breath, putting his denim jacket back on. “I’m leaving.”

“What are you, gay?!” She was screaming as he stormed off, slamming her bedroom door on his way out.

***

It was the color of sunset that illuminated her face, as she sat on her porch with her knees pressed together to her chest and her spine glued to the wall. Her eyes were blank, almost lifeless as she stared into space, her previous conversation with her beloved childhood friend replaying non-stop in her head.

Does he really like her? Why didn’t he tell me anything about this? How far have they gone? Has he kissed her yet?

The heat was spreading to her cheeks at the thought of Donghyuck leaning in close, his eyes going half-lidded before he closed them entirely, his lips—his beautiful, plump lips—slightly parted in anticipation before he—

She buried her hands in her palms. What is wrong with you?! He’s practically your brother!

It wasn’t like she never thought about him as something more. She just never allowed herself to think about him that way. What they had was special—Donghyuck was special. He was her only true friend, the family that always stood by her side even when her parents didn’t. The one who noticed the simplest things about her without having to be told—like handing her a brand new sketchbook whenever she was about to run out of pages, or the way he would always take a day off school whenever she was sick in bed so he could accompany her the whole day, watching re-runs of her favorite show while munching red velvet cakes the way he knew she liked.

He was the one who could see behind her lies and excuses, and the only one who would come over to her side at any hour just to fulfill her dumb requests—even though he whined the whole time. And she knew she was special to him in some ways as well, because she was the only one who he allowed to see him cry while watching Titanic which to this day, still brought a smile to her face whenever the thought came up.

It was getting pretty distracting when puberty hit him like a truck somewhere in his first year of high school. His shoulders got broader, his jawlines became more prominent, his voice got a tad deeper, and he was getting taller and taller that she had to tilt her head upward to see his face properly during conversations. He was packing more muscles too, from all the soccer activities he did after school, turning his complexion from slightly pale into the perfect color of a sun-kissed tan. While she, on the other hand, only had two pimples appearing on her cheeks and her chest growing slightly bigger.

She adored him. To her, his existence had become such an integral part of her life that whenever she didn’t see him for a day, she would sit on her porch, counting the minutes until he walked past her house, calling her, “Noona,” with that cheeky smile on his face before he told her about his day.

That was before she dated Jaemin, though. Because after that, he became quite distant. It felt weird and slightly out of character for him to give her the cold shoulder whenever she mentioned his name, but she thought perhaps it was just a boy thing. The whole conversation about her drooling over her boyfriend was probably too boring for his ears, and Donghyuck was always straightforward with the things he wasn’t fond of so she shouldn’t have been so surprised.

Maybe he just wanted to give her the time she needed, so she could spend her days with her boyfriend—like what she was supposed to do—but she couldn’t help it that whenever Jaemin called her noona because he was also a year younger than her, the thought of Donghyuck’s teasing eyes and lopsided smiles crossed her mind.

And then the thought of him, holding another girl on his bed, his lips brushing against hers—

Ah, she mentally groaned, attempting to massage her scalp but ended up yanking on the roots of her hair. Lee Donghyuck, what am I supposed to do with these thoughts of you?

“You look like you’re going insane, honestly.”

She’d recognize that voice in a heartbeat even if she had her eyes closed and when she saw him slouching over her fence with a teasing smile painted on his lips, she nearly crumbled to the ground.

“Were you waiting for me, Noona?” He questioned with his eyebrow raised in a teasing manner, causing her to blush even harder.

“Of course not, idiot, why would I?” And the sound of his small chuckle warmed her heart. “You’re coming back pretty early. I thought you were going to spend the night with her.”

“Yeah?” He dragged open the fence, walking closer to her spot. “You were thinking about me spending a night at her place? Doing what, exactly?”

“Shut up.” She threw her sandal at him which he easily dodged before he took a seat beside her. “Did something happen on your date?”

“We had sex.”

She wasn’t sure whether it was because of the way he just casually said the words as if he was talking about the weather, or simply because he said those words at all, but she found herself frozen to her toes, her heart dropping into a bottomless pit, her chest suffocating.

“O-oh…” She gulped, bringing her eyes down to her fingers. “That’s great… I guess.”

“It was great,” he said, leaning back to press his spine against the wall as well. “But her parents came home soon after so I had to bail.”

He was still talking but she could no longer hear him, as if he was drowning in the background, his voice turning into whispers.

There was a feeling she couldn’t understand that kept appearing in her chest, sending fire to her fingertips. It felt like he was crushing her heart little by little with every word he said, choking her until she couldn’t breathe. She never felt like this before. Was it sadness that she felt—knowing that her little Haechannie was not her little Haechannie anymore? Or was it loneliness, knowing that he had someone else in his life—someone who could feel his touches, and made him feel theirs, in the way she could never do?

“Noona.”

She blinked herself awake. “What?”

“You’ve been quiet for a while.”

“I was just…” She desperately sought an answer. “I’m sleepy.”

It was a terrible lie and he could tell, but he didn’t say anything. Instead, he offered her his shoulder. “Come here, then.” And she obliged, lying her cold cheek against his warmth and for the first time in her life, she began to be more conscious of everything.

Of his intoxicating scent. Of his slow breathing. Of his velvety voice sounding dangerously close to her ear.

Of his presence, entirely.

“So,” he pressed the side of his head against hers, voice turning gentle and quiet. “You’re not playing tonsil hockey with your stupid boyfriend today?”

“He had something to do, like a group project or something. And it’s fine, I needed some time alone to sort out my—” feelings. “—thoughts anyway.”

Donghyuck snorted. “Thoughts? Like, plural? You with that one brain cell of yours?”

She poked him on the side of his abs, forcing him to laugh in the way he usually did in the past. “All jokes aside though, Noona.” He sighed, staring at the way their hands were lying side by side on the wooden parquet. If only he could just move slightly… “Are you happy with him?” was the question he asked, but he actually wanted to hear the answer to Are you happier with him compared to when you’re with me?

“I think I am,” she said, and he could hear the smile in her words which ironically sparks pain to his every nerve. “I mean, it’s my first time being in a relationship so I barely know anything at this point, but… He does make me feel something in a way that no one has ever made me feel before.”

“What, like, horny?”

“That too, but—” She huffed. “I don’t know, like, he makes me feel wanted. Desired. He makes me feel pretty and I feel like I’m more confident now as a person, knowing that there’s someone out there who wants me that way, you know?”

Donghyuck stared into space, his tongue felt heavy in his mouth. “But does he need you, though?” Does he need you like I do?

“Is there a difference?”

“Well, wanting you would be like he wants to hold hands with you, kiss you, touch you, be intimate with you or something but you can be replaceable as soon as he’s satisfied with you and starts wanting someone else.”

“I don’t think Jaemin is the kind of person who thinks like that.”

I don’t fucking care about Jaemin. “Yeah, I hope not. I don’t ever want you to have your heart broken.”

There was a silence that hung around them, and it started to make him feel flustered at his own words so he immediately added, “By anyone else but me. The only one who can mess with your head and your stupid heart is me. That’s like the reason for my existence—to make sure your life is a living hell.”

She smiled, taking his hand in hers, and squeezed him softly. “Yeah. You’ve always been my little devil after all.”

The word ‘my’ had a nice ring to his ears, enveloping his heart in a warming sensation, and Donghyuck blushed again, for an entirely different reason but as long as she didn’t notice, he would be fine.

***

It was ash grey, the color of his sweater that she borrowed to be worn as her sleeping attire during their sleepover at his house. It felt strange for two young adults in their primal stage of life to be sharing a room, but Donghyuck was more than pleased to offer her his bed while he slept on the floor, and his parents also didn’t mind, as long as they kept their bedroom door open.

“Final chance to back down, Noona, because I’m not stopping once we go all the way,” Donghyuck warned, suggestively raising his eyebrow, making her gulp nervously.

“I-I’m ready,” she said, nodding her head shakily a few times.

“You sure.”

“Just do it.”

“Well then, here we go.”

And as he clicked play, the movie started. It felt like it had been years since the last time they watched a movie together, sitting side by side on a carpeted floor, with a popcorn bowl on her lap, and a MacBook on his. They shared earphones, forcing them to sit as close as possible to avoid having them slipped out of their ears. Horror movies were her weakness so he always insisted to watch one of them to torture her—and also to see her cute reactions but Donghyuck scratched that off his mind—and somehow, she always ended up agreeing to it.

Donghyuck could watch every jumpscare in the movie without batting an eyelash, but his heart jumped every time whenever she clung on to him, her arms wrapping tightly against his, her head sinking at the crook of his neck, her frantic breath fanning his skin.

“What are you so scared about?” He asked, thanking God that he didn’t stutter. “It’s just a ghost of his dead girlfriend, haunting him for vengeance while singing a creepy tune as she does it.”

“Literally everything you just said!” She sobbed, her fingers clutching tightly to the fabric of his shirt, her fingernails nearly scratching his skin.

Donghyuck knew he was blushing and he hated it, and if she kept doing that, who knew what he’d become. “Let’s just stop then.”

“But you want to see this movie, don’t you—AAAH!”

His ears began to ring. “Not with you screaming like this!”

“It’s okay, I can handle this.” She puffed out her chest, taking a deep breath. “But can I hold your hand, just in case?”

It was his turn to take a deep breath. “Sure.”

It was scary, Donghyuck thought, how his mind could pay no attention whatsoever to what was showing on the screen, and instead focusing every nerve in his body on the sight of her fingers resting on top of his, squeezing them tightly whenever she was scared out of her mind.

There was a knot in his stomach, making him feel lightheaded and he tried to push the thought of lifting her fingertips to his lips and kiss them until she could think about nothing but him away from his mind.

By the end of the movie, he knew nothing about the storyline but she was bawling her eyes out. “I can’t believe I’m crying over a ghost’s background story, this is so stupid,” she said, sobbing fervently until her entire shoulders began to shake.

Donghyuck lifted one knee to his chest, laying his arms on top of it before he rested his cheek on them, He gazed at her with a pair of longing eyes, gleaming in adoration. “You’re so cute,” he sighed in a breathy voice.

Still rubbing the tears out of her eyes, she asked, “What?”

“The way you get so worked up over stupid things like this is just—cute. You’re so cute.”

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Stop saying those kinds of things to me. You already have a girlfriend. It’s not right to do this to her, even if you’re just joking around.”

Maybe it was because she seemed a bit hurt, her voice sounding strained and plaintive, or maybe it was just her line entirely but whatever it was, it made his skin crawl and he could no longer control what came out of his mouth.

“What if I didn’t have a girlfriend then?” He questioned, eyes deadly serious. “What if I wasn’t just flirting with you? What would you do if I told you I meant everything I said, every praise, every feeling I had for you?”

Her hands froze mid-air as she tried to wipe the rest of her tears away from her eyes. “What are you—”

“What would you do if I told you I loved you?” He leaned closer, brushing his fingertips against her tear-stained cheek. “Would you believe me if I say I’ve been in love with you ever since I met you?”

Silence struck like a hurricane, and there was a storm swirling in her chest. “I…” Her throats felt dry. “I, uhh…”

She looked so conflicted that it began to hurt him even when she didn’t intend to, because Donghyuck wanted her to immediately say, “I would’ve said the same thing,” straight to his face without having to trip on her words. Without her voice sounding so brittle. Without her face looking like she was about to break someone’s heart.

So he simply got up to his feet, forcing a train of laughter to erupt from his mouth. “I’m just messing with you, idiot. Stop looking at me like you got your panties in a twist, I was just kidding.”

And he expected her to be angry. Angry enough that she would shout while throwing things at his face, but instead, she broke down in tears again but smiling so widely in relief.

“I’m so glad,” she said, nearly choking on her tears. “I’m so glad you were just joking.”

He knew he wouldn’t be able to hide the pain that fleeted on his eyes, so he turned around, sinking his nails deep into his palm so he could focus on that pain instead of the one in his heart before he gathered his quilt with both arms. “Let’s just go to bed, it’s late.”

“You’re sleeping on the floor again?”

“What do you think?”

“But…” She nibbled on her lower lip. “It’s, umm, I don’t mind if we sleep together—I mean, on the bed, like, side-by-side, not—” She caught herself, shaking her head. “Anyway, it’s big enough for both of us anyway, and also…” She grew quiet, fiddling with her fingers. “I’m still so scared right now so if you could just, you know, sleep right next to me, that would calm me down a lot, I think…”

Donghyuck had his tongue poking the inside of his cheek, glaring at his ceiling, asking his Lord, why must you test me like this?

“You do know that your boyfriend would kill me if he knows I’m doing this with you, right?”

She winced, smiling sheepishly. “Can’t you just keep it a secret?”

He sighed, making sure that he had the expression that said I’m-so-done-with-all-your-bratty-requests when deep down inside, he was shaking in both excitement and fear of not being able to hold himself back.

“I’m a man too, you know,” Donghyuck grumbled, slipping himself underneath the comforter. He didn’t take off his shirt this time, unlike the other nights when he slept alone. “I could attack you in your sleep.”

“Isn’t that the very reason why we’re keeping the door open?” She giggled, though the tremble from her previous breakdown was still there. “This is actually rather exciting. It’s been years since we slept side-by-side like this. It reminds me of our good old days.”

“Yeah?” He jeered. “Remember what else we do in our good old days? We take baths together.”

“Just shut up and go to sleep.”

Donghyuck slept on his side, facing the other side of the wall while she laid on the bed with her spine pressed against the sheets and her eyes glued to his ceilings. Though she was the one who said those words, it took her forever to fall asleep. “Haechannie?”

“What?”

“You’re still awake?”

“No, this is his voicemail speaking.”

“If you’re too tired to talk, could you sing me a song or something? It’s too quiet and I can’t help remembering that creepy tune she sang every time she showed up.”

“My God, what are you, a kid?”

“You forced me to watch that, so take responsibility for it!”

“Ugh, fine,” he groaned, turning to his back with his eyes locked on his ceilings and then started to hum. She listened to it wholeheartedly, a smile popping up on her face but it didn’t stay long before she realized something.

“Are you singing the theme to Mario Bros?”

“If you even begin to complain, I’m going to kick you off the bed.”

“Right, okay, continue then.”

She listened again, prepared for the same tune, but he changed it at the last second. “I can’t believe you changed it to Spongebob’s now.”

“Jesus fucking Christ, just go to sleep!”

“Okay, geez!” Her smile became permanent on her face. “You just said the F word. Mommy’s gonna be pissed at you tomorrow.”

It ended up with them throwing playful punches and kicks under the duvet and Donghyuck laughed a lot, missing and loving every second of it because this was how they used to be—playing around like kids, messing with each other’s hair and faces. At one point, he began to hover over her, trapping her body between his arms, his knee placed on the small space between her thighs. The pendant of his silver necklace was grazing along her collar bone, making her shiver slightly from the cold.

She was sweating, her bangs sticking to her temple, and she was as breathless as he was, panting for air. It felt like time began to slow for Donghyuck the second his eyes were locked on hers, his surroundings vanishing into a blur. He was so close, too close, that he could feel her breath on his lips, could almost taste the scent of her shampoo on his tongue, and if he could just lean in…

The sound of his name tumbling down her lips in a soft, almost inaudible manner was what stopped him from pressing his lips against hers, and he was thankful because otherwise, he could’ve done it, and then everything would be ruined.

He couldn’t afford that to happen.

“Your breath stinks,” he said instead and pecked her quickly on her forehead. He immediately scrambled to his other side of the bed, shouting, “Go to sleep, you idiot,” as he gave his best effort to pretend he was sleeping.

You were so close, Donghyuck thought, you almost ruined everything. Pull yourself together.

And if I can’t have her, just let me have this moment for the rest of my life.

***

It was the color of ivory, her trench coat was as she wrapped it harshly around her body, all the while fuming in anger. Her phone was buzzing non-stop, alerting her to the new messages that arrived almost at the same time and she knew exactly who they were from.

I still can’t believe you’re choosing him over me to celebrate your birthday. - Haechannie, 09.10

We do this every year, Noona, we PROMISED to always celebrate our birthdays together. - Haechannie, 09.10

And now that you have Na fucking Jaemin giving you sloppy blowjobs as your birthday gift, you suddenly just forget about me?! How fucking ridiculous is that?! - Haechannie, 09.11

Does he even know it’s your birthday today? Did he congratulate you on it like I did? Showing up at your door at midnight, carrying the world’s most gigantic alpaca doll in my arms when it was fucking freezing outside?! Because I sure as hell didn’t see his stupid donkey face! - Haechannie, 09.12

Also, not trying to be an ass about this, but do you even know how hard it is to find a one-meter tall Alpaca doll?! Why can’t you just like teddy bears like everyone else for fuck’s sake. - Haechannie, 09.13

“Oh my God,” she groaned loudly to the air, almost stomping her feet in fury as she texted back, “I’m not ditching you, you selfish idiot! I’ll be back before dinner and then we can spend the rest of the day together so for once in your life, stop sounding like a fucking asshole!” She paused, thinking more words to add before she jabbed her thumbs to her phone screen again. “Also, I didn’t ask you to get me anything so you can take that stupid ugly doll back if you’re going to be a bitch about it because I don’t need it!”

And she pressed send. But before she could catch her breath, another response came by.

Great. Do me a favor, will ya? Don’t show up at dinner. I’m not your fucking backup plan. - Haechannie, 09.15

She was so close to smashing her phone against the wall, but the text coming from her boyfriend, telling her that he was waiting for her downstairs, made her heaved the heaviest sigh she’d ever made, shoved her phone into her purse, and stepped down the stairs with angry clicks of her heels.

The entire birthday date was a disaster for her because Jaemin was discussing something important but she couldn’t decipher a word he said. The look on Donghyuck’s face when she said she had promised Jaemin she’d go on a date with him on her birthday—how shocked and disappointed he was, not to mention furious—was the only thing that she could focus on. She kept replaying it over and over again in her head, until Jaemin took her hand and called, “Noona? Did you hear what I just said?”

And she was so terribly upset that she began to lose control of her mouth. “Don’t call me that. I have someone back home who calls me that a lot and it’s getting annoying.”

“O…kay,” Jaemin awkwardly said, pulling his hand away from hers. “I was just trying to be respectful.”

She threw her head back, sighing loudly in exasperation. “You’re right, sorry. I didn’t mean to take this out on you.” She took a deep breath, waited until she calmed down a little bit before she continued again. “I just had this fight with someone and it keeps bugging me.”

“Let me guess. Is it Lee Donghyuck again?”

She raised her head in surprise, looking at him. “What do you mean again?”

“He’s all you’ve been thinking about, for as long as I remember.”

“Yeah, because he’s like a little brother to me who annoys the hell out of me.” She rubbed her temple, feeling her energy drained. “Well, he’s not actually my brother, but he acts like one—he gets on my nerves, teases me a lot, calls me stupid all the time—”

“Why do I get the feeling that he’s more than just a little brother to you?”

She frowned. “What do you mean? You’re not listening to me—”

“Look, you know what?” Jaemin ran a hand through his hair. “I think it’s best to end this.”

“What?” She nearly dislocated her jaw. “What are you even saying—are you breaking up with me?”

“Well, you’re going to graduate soon and you told me once that you’d probably leave town for college, and with all this Donghyuck thing going on…” Jaemin sighed. “I just don’t see how this is going to work.”

***

It was the color of dark grey, the heavy clouds that hovered above the earth with thunders flashing between them. She stood in front of Donghyuck’s door, fingertips shivering slightly from the cold as she rang his doorbell. The boy came to answer shortly after, his usual gaze quickly turning into a menacing glare at the sight of her. He was about to rave over their previous fight when he noticed how she was all drenched from the rain with tears streaming down her face. She glanced up at him, murmuring his name between sobs, and Donghyuck hastily gathered her in his arms, not caring one bit how the rain seeped almost instantly to the grey Nirvana shirt he was wearing.

“Are you okay?” He attentively asked, cupping her cheek with his lean fingers. He lifted her face, examining every detail of her features, making sure she wasn’t hurt in the slightest. “Did something happen?” His voice suddenly turned gravelly. “Did he do this to you?”

She sniffled, burying her face in his chest. “Jaemin broke up with me.”

“On your fucking birthday?!”

She nodded.

“I’m gonna fucking kill him,” Donghyuck said, almost growling as he embraced her tighter. “I’m gonna keep you company today and make sure you’re okay first, and then I’m going to kill him.”

There was no need for apologies to be exchanged, because Donghyuck already had his arms around her, drying her hair with a towel and lending her his sweater that he knew she loved. His parents weren’t home at the time, so they sat on the kitchen counters, legs dangling a few inches above the porcelain floor with a cup of hot coffee in their hands.

“This is the worst birthday in the history of mankind,” she said, slurping her coffee. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

“Well, there was actually this girl who got murdered on her birthday—”

“Just humor me, will you?” He chuckled and patted her hair. “But to be fair, I don’t think he’s aware it’s my birthday today. He hasn’t said anything, didn’t give me anything. I also never told him, and he…Well, he never asked.”

“And yet, you still went out with him.” He sighed, now tucking a loose strand of her hair to the back of her ear. “I know you’re an idiot, but I didn’t think you were this much of an idiot.”

She grew smaller. “Please be mean to me another day. I’m currently wounded.”

“Right, okay, come here.” He cradled her in his arms, placing his chin on top of her head. “You smell like a wet dog, by the way.”

“Thanks.” She was about to lean more to his touch when his phone began to ring.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?” She questioned when he did nothing about it and when he kept quiet, she broke apart from his embrace, jumped down, and grabbed his phone from the table.

“Unknown number,” she mumbled when his ringtone stopped playing. “Wait, there’s a text.”

“Don’t read it.”

“It said aren’t you coming over.” She raised her eyebrows in question. “Is this your girlfriend?”

He yawned. “A different one.”

“What, that fast? Were you supposed to meet her? Oh my God, I’m so sorry for taking your time, why aren’t you—”

“Rather than saying that,” he took a sip of his coffee, “We should begin our revenge plan on that stupid ex of yours. I mean, I could just straight-up punch him in the face, but you already know his weakness. It’s time to strike, baby.”

She blinked, her puffy eyes soon began to gleam mischievously. “I’ve already planned it all out. Do you wanna hear it in alphabetical order?”

***

It was the color of burgundy, the quilt that covered her body when she suddenly woke up from her dream with a jolt, surprising the man who slept on the floor next to the foot of her bed.

“What happened?” Donghyuck asked, rubbing his eyes away from sleep. “Nightmare?”

Her eyes were wide when she looked back at him, gulping hard before she said, “I just had the dream.”

“What dream?”

“The dream, Hyuck.”

“Wet dream? I thought that was only for boys—”

“No, you’re not listening to me. The dream.” She threw her blanket away, scrambling back to her feet, and kneeled in front of him, taking his hand in hers. “I just met my soulmate.”

Donghyuck almost shuddered. “What?”

“It’s true, Haechannie, it wasn’t just a rumor,” she said, looking at her trembling fingers. “They said the dreams would start sometime after we turned eighteen and I saw it. I saw him. And it felt so weird. It wasn’t like a dream, it was—” Realization befell her eyes. “A memory. You were right, it was a memory—his memory.”

“Okay, wait a sec.” He held up a finger in the air. “What exactly did you see? And talk like a normal person this time.”

She nibbled on her lower lip, deep in her thoughts. “So, you know how when you’re dreaming, you can’t tell if it’s a dream? Like you’re suddenly somewhere, doing something that you can’t remember the beginning of it but it felt normal so you kept doing that, until suddenly you wake up and you start noticing how weird it really was.” Donghyuck nodded, albeit still a little unsure. “Well, this isn’t anything like that. You’re completely aware that it’s a dream—at least, I was. I remember telling myself it was a dream but now I realized it was a memory.”

“My God, you’re taking too long,” he complained. “What exactly did you see? For fuck’s sake, just tell me!”

“I was in a classroom at some school that I’ve never seen before and there was this guy who looked just about my age, sitting on the last row—just right by the window. He had the softest hair, a pair of big, beautiful doe eyes, cute thin lips, broad shoulders—”

“Hold up.” He grimaced. “You’re not talking about me, are you?”

“One of these days, Lee Donghyuck, I’m going to strangle you in your sleep, I swear to God, I will.”

“Right, apparently not then. Please, continue.”

She took another two seconds to throw ice daggers at him with her eyes before she finally started again. “He was scribbling something down on his book. And I tried to talk to him, but he couldn’t hear me. I could hear him, though, and everything else that was going on in the classroom. I could hear him hum a song before he nodded his head, looking like he just figured something out, and then he was writing things down again. I tried to reach out to him, but I couldn’t physically touch him too. I was just a bystander that saw everything—like watching a movie or something.”

“A completely boring movie, if you ask me.”

She rolled her eyes, completely ignoring him. “Then, when I blinked my eyes, I was standing somewhere else. There was this lake, so beautiful, surrounded by mountains—like the entire scenery of it was just breathtaking, and I don’t think that’s in our country so he might have traveled somewhere overseas.”

He snorted. “Sounds like an annoying rich kid.”

“Can you just—” She sighed, calming herself down. “So, I saw him there with a camera in his hands and a guitar case strapped to his back. He was taking some shots of the landscape and, uhh,” she shyly chuckled, “I know it’s too fast for me to say this, but his face when he’s concentrating—“

“Constipating?”

“Concentrating,” she corrected and Donghyuck sent her a kissy face. “The face he made when he was concentrating was so cute.”

“Ugh, enough with the lame commentary.” He yawned, stretching his arms above his head. “Why are you so sure he’s your soulmate? Sounds like just another weird-ass dream to me.”

“I can’t really explain it, but…” Her eyes turned soft, cheeks going a bit rosy. “It feels like I just found something that I didn’t know I lost—something important, something that was a part of me, even. And it just makes me feel whole, you know? It’s weird saying this when I don’t even know his name but… That’s just how I feel. Everything just clicked.”

“Huh…” Donghyuck’s tongue was protruding against the inside of his mouth as he tried to process his thoughts. It suddenly felt like his heart was being cut into several pieces, the moment his reality sank in. He didn’t realize it was that serious. Or at least, he didn’t want it to be that serious.

She squeezed his hand. “You understand how I feel, don’t you, Haechannie?”

He sent her a timid smile before he pulled her body into him, pressing his chest against hers, leaning down to rest his chin on her shoulder. “Yeah,” he muttered softly, his lips grazing the fabric of her sweater. “I get it.” And she giggled, embracing him tighter, thinking that maybe he was just as happy as her.

She didn’t notice the way his fingers slowly curled against the back of her sweater. She didn’t notice how he deliberately pressed his lips against her clothed shoulder as he spoke so he could hide the shivers in his voice. And she didn’t notice how his eyes were shaking in the fear of losing her, how he could barely bear the pain in his chest, how his mind almost made him vomit the words he’d been dreading.

It’s okay. She hasn’t met him yet. Maybe it’s just a dream. It doesn’t mean anything.

God, please don’t let it mean anything.

***

It was a shade of purple, the color she used to paint a lavender in her sketchbook before she drew the rest of the landscape. But before she could finish painting the next thing, she sighed dreamily into the air, closing her drawing book with both hands.

“He’s in a band,” she said as they laid side-by-side on the grass, enjoying the warm sunlight on their faces and the scent of the pine trees in the garden near their homes. “Was. Or still is, I’m not sure.”

And she laughed, she always did whenever she talked about him and although the sound of it used to warm his heart, it made him struggle even more with jealousy. So he just hummed, scrolling down his Instagram feeds to distract him.

Three months had passed by ever since she had that dream, and Donghyuck was conflicted between wanting to know more or hearing none of it for the rest of his life. She had the dream every single night, reliving every single one of her soulmate’s memory—both past and present—every time she closed her eyes, and to him, she seemed more alive when she was about to go to bed, rather than after she woke up.

“I heard him sing once during his band practice when his vocalist had a sore throat. He sounded great but like, a bit hesitant, you know? Like he’s not confident with his voice.” She turned around to her stomach, staring at him with excitement in her eyes and a speck of scarlet painting her cheeks. “Well, he doesn’t sound anything like you, but I still think he’s great.”

“Good to know,” he coldly replied. She seemed to take notice of that.

“I’m sorry, Haechannie,” she said, “I must have bored you to death with all this soulmate talk.”

“Yeah, well, he’s your soulmate, not mine, so I couldn’t care any less.” He could’ve been nicer about it, but then again that wouldn’t be him.

“Well, guess what?” She landed half of her body on his stomach, knocking some of his breath with her weight but he just threw a glare in response and not pushing her away. “Somebody is having his eighteenth birthday in a month. So then, we’ll have your soulmate to talk about too.”

“Yaaay,” he weakly cheered, face flat and ignorant.

She pouted. “Why aren’t you excited about this? You’re gonna be dreaming about your soulmate! I’m excited to know who’s that lucky girl going to be.”

His chest felt heavy and it had nothing to do with the girl on top of him. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“I hope she’s nice and pretty,” she said, smiling genuinely at him. “Because only the most perfect girl in this entire universe can deserve my Haechannie.”

But he didn’t want a perfect girl. He just wanted her, so why was it so impossible to ask?

“Wish I could wish the same for you,” he said, placing his phone on his chest and leaned back on his elbows so he could focus his gaze on hers.

“What do you mean?”

And he switched their positions, rolling their bodies on the grass until she had her spine pressed against the ground with him hovering above her. “H-Haechannie?”

She looked so perfect like this—trapped between his arms, her doe eyes widening in surprise, taking in his sight, her lips parted making a soft gasp of his name.

Ah, I want to make her mine. Why can’t she be mine?

He leaned down, the tip of his nose almost brushing against hers. And if he could just forget everything—their friendship, her future life with her soulmate—for a few seconds and allow himself to be selfish, he would close the gap, meeting her lips with his, bask himself in her warmth, and he would let her moan against his mouth, would caress her cheeks with his fingertips, and would just wish the time to stop so they could repeat that for eternity.

But this reality of his was not that.

This reality of his felt more like a nightmare—one that he could never wake up from.

So in this reality, he brought his lips dangerously close to her ear, and whispered, “I hope your soulmate picks his nose and eats his booger whenever you’re not looking because only then he’d be perfect for you.”

And before she could kick his abs in response, he already scrambled back to his feet, running away as if his life depended on it.

***

It was the color of cerulean blue, the scarf that Donghyuck wore around his neck because he was a bit sensitive to cold even when spring was about to come to an end.

“Let’s go somewhere,” Donghyuck said, adrenaline rushing through his veins. “Anywhere. Just you and me.”

“What, now?” She frowned, looking at the clock on her bedroom wall. It was two hours before midnight—before he turned eighteen. “But it’s late—”

“I don’t care—”

“And it’s freezing outside—”

“I’ll keep you warm.” He was already tugging on her hand, pulling her up to her feet. He wrapped his scarf around her neck and placed his beanie on her head. “I don’t have my gloves but I’ll hold your hand all the way, so no more excuses and let’s go.”

Because it might be his last chance to spend his time with nothing but her presence filling his thoughts. He dreaded the possibility of having that dream sometime after the clock struck twelve. He didn’t want his heart to be taken by someone else—let alone, a stranger. And he knew he wouldn’t dream about her because she had found her soulmate and he was not him.

And if it was true—if having that dream changed his entire perspective where he could only love that one girl for the rest of his life then…

Just let me have this moment with her, where I can still love her with all my heart, even if she doesn’t love me the same way.

“Where are we going?” She demanded as they broke past the front door as quietly as they could since her parents were sleeping in their room.

“I don’t know—I don’t care—I just—” He breathed into the night air, puffs of warm breath painting the space between them. “Anywhere is fine. I just want to be with you.”

He saw her cheeks turning scarlet but he didn’t hope for too much. It was probably just the cold playing tricks on him.

“Okay, well then,” She tightened her duffle coat around her body. “Lead the way.”

He smiled, feeling blessed for having her putting so much faith in him, even after all this time.

There weren’t many places open at that hour, and it was fine because they already felt content just from walking side-by-side under the cherry blossoms that had withered all of their flowers. The way she held his hand reminded him of their younger days, both gentle and somewhat protective—like a sister to a younger brother and it made him feel both joy and sadness because he wanted to intertwine their fingers together as lovers, embrace each other under the dim glow of the streetlight, and connect their lips together while whispering loving words between chaste kisses.

“Haechannie,” she said, snapping him out of his reverie as she stopped them both in their tracks. “Happy birthday.”

Donghyuck blinked, not realizing how two hours just passed in an instant. “I’m as old as you, already?” He sneered. “I feel so gross.”

But she didn’t laugh the way he thought she would. Instead, she was looking at him with a glint of loneliness in her eyes which made him wonder why. “I bought you something.” She rummaged her coat’s pocket before she showed a little black box the size of her palm with a red bow wrapped around it.

Donghyuck faked a gasp. “No way, you’re proposing to me? But honey, I’m already carrying your child!”

She stomped her feet on his. “Shut up and just be serious for a sec, will ya?”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry.” He chuckled but he could hear how nervous he actually was from the little crack in his voice. He took the little present with a shy, slightly awkward smile. “Can I open it now?”

“Sure, as long as you don’t mock me for it.”

He furrowed his eyebrows at her before he opened the box to find a silver oval locket necklace displayed inside it. He glanced at her. “Don’t tell me you have a picture of us taking our bath together as babies in it.”

“Interesting, but no. I did have something written on it, though.”

“Okay, but if you wrote something stupid, I will—” He froze, hands stopping mid-air after he opened the locket and read the words engraved on the silver plate.

To my first love, Lee Donghyuck.

“Okay, before you say anything,” she cut him off, fidgeting a little on her feet. “Let me explain about it first. I don’t want to come out as weird or anything because after this, we’re both going to find our soulmates and go our separate ways so let me assure you that I’m not saying I love you that way, but—”

He pulled her into his chest, wrapping both of his arms around her shoulders, his lips pressing against her hair.

“Haechannie—”

“Shut up,” he said, closing his eyes as he calmed his racing heart. “Just shut up and let me have this moment.”

She wasn’t sure whether he got her previous message but she no longer cared, because at the end of the day, he was her first love in every way—as a family, a brother, a friend, and even a lover once, though she never allowed herself to think about him like that. So she tangled her arms around his waist, burying her face in his chest, and closed her eyes for as long as he would let her.

Donghyuck wanted this moment to last forever but he knew time was running out even if he tried to stand still. It would be over the second he had that dream and fell in love with someone else. It would end the day she’d meet her soulmate, treating his existence merely as a bystander in her love story.

But for now… Just for now…

“I love you,” Donghyuck whispered so softly against her hair, almost inaudible by the sound of the wind passing through their ears. “I love you, Noona. So much that it hurts.”

She chuckled, embracing him tighter. “I love you too, Haechannie.”

Then why does this feel like a goodbye?

He pulled back, pressing his temple against hers. “There’s no life without you,” he said, a shy smile forming on his lips.

She cupped his cheek, rubbing comforting circles on his skin. “There’s no life without you, Haechannie.”

***

“So, umm, thanks for today,” Donghyuck said, as he walked her back to her house, rubbing his nape awkwardly as he said it. “And thanks for the gift. I’ll treasure it.”

“You better.” She playfully punched his arm. “It was pretty expensive, just so you know.”

“More expensive than a one-meter tall made-by-order alpaca doll I bought you?”

“Sorry, I’ll take that back.” She winced, and Donghyuck chuckled a little bit under his breath, patting her head and letting his fingers linger a little longer than usual on the soft strands of her hair.

“Well…” He retracted his hand, placing them in his coat’s pocket. “Good night.”

“See you tomorrow.” And she leaned in to kiss him on the cheek at the same time he was about to do the same and their lips grazed each other, soft lips meeting softer ones in the faintest of touch but carved something deep both in their bodies and minds.

They both took a step back at the same time, startled. He was busy looking anywhere but her face, and she concealed her lips with her fingers, bringing her head down to hide her eyes underneath her bangs.

There was a silence that made his skin crawl. “S-sorry, I was—”

“No, it’s okay, I get it,” she immediately said, forcing a smile before she hastily turned on her heels, her shaky fingers searching for her doorknob. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

Donghyuck still had trouble breathing. “Y-yeah, sure.”

She timidly smiled again before she stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

Now that they were both out of each other’s sight, Donghyuck inaudibly cursed into the air, running a hand through his hair, feeling his heart ramming against his ribcages while she slid down to the floor, hugging her knees to her chest and pressed her spine against the back of her front door.

The thought of their brief, accidental kiss was the only thing that painted their minds even behind their closed eyelids as they laid on their beds, hoping for exhaustion to take over their bodies. Once it did, they both fall into a soundless sleep where she began to think about another pair of lips but it wasn’t the case for Donghyuck.

Because, as he fell into his first soulmate dream, he was facing the same person—the girl who owned his heart, whose lips were just as soft as he’d imagined them to be.

Noona, he spoke inside the dream, staring at the sight of her, why am I dreaming about you?

***

[aclickbaittitle]

A study of the friendships in Brimstone Valley Mall

If you are like me, you probably stalk follow your favorite podcasts in Instagram, and if so, you’ll know that we are getting a season 2, baby! And in celebration of that I want to talk about one key factor that made the podcast so special.

Philia love; The second type of Greek love. Is the reciprocal quality of love you feel for a friend. It’s about showing loyalty to your friends, sacrificing for them as well as sharing your emotions with them.

Author C.S. Lewis wrote that Philia “has the least commerce with our nerves; there is nothing throaty about it” but BVM (Brimstone Valley Mall) is here to prove him wrong. Philia or platonic love can cause as much ruckus as any other.

[Image ID: Two disembodied hands one pink and one dark brown making a pink promise]

From Belzagor undying (and possibly misplaced) loyalty in Hornblas, Misroch’s desire to be seen as an equally valuable member of the gang as him, to Trainee’s and Xaphan’s longing to be part of a group. This podcast shows us different kinds of friendships, and how mess up can they be while still having beauty in them.

MISROCH

[ID: Misroch crossing their arms with a frown on their face, next to it a quote that says: “I probably wouldn’t put you in the fryer if you passed out]

Of all the things the first episode “Where the hell are you?” pulls off, I think that at the end of the day these 30 minutes are theirs (and Belzagor’s of course).

Belzagor comes to the Wiener’s world and Misroch is quick to tell Trainee that even if they have NO clients whatsoever that their friend can come here and have anything free of charge. This immediately sets up the fact that the love language of the Demon is food (which is also mine). One of the most notable scenes for Misroch’s character in relation to the gang is in episode 8 “Attention Port Authority Bus Terminal”, when we hear Misroch list the separate snacks they brought for their friends.

Food was also the first common ground Misroch found between themselves and Xaphan.

BELZAGOR

[ID: Belzagor with one hand on her hip and in the other a screwdriver next to a quote that says: “I’d share my dumpster booze with you, valentine]

There is no question Belzagor isn’t a good friend -most of all to Hornblas-. Her second line is literally expressing how much she likes him, which when put against emotionally constipated Misroch and their ex-boyfriend Asmoraius, is for lack of another word BIG. She is the most concerned on finding Hornblas and cares a lot about his mental wellbeing, understanding the rough patch his being going through.

In that same episode she shares her Holly water with Misroch who had been not that nice with her, and then says, “Love you too Misnis”.

Is Belz love language words of affirmation? Possibly.

One for my favorite scene and the one that probably get birth to the Xaphan/Belzagor ship. Is in episode 9 “Happy Y2K, Part 1”. Xaphan has return to the too small too hot Boiling room of Hell and Belzagor is here to come rescue her.

Xaphan, curse her innocent soul, thought the gang would not come to rescue her and that she was all alone again, and her comes Belzagor and casually reassures her that she is important to the gang and that people need her. For Xaphan this might be the sweetest thing someone has done for her, and so she said “Belzagor...I owe you-”. But Belzagor, as being just a good friend for the sake of it and as with her friendship with Misroch is based on slushie just says, “A slushie? Yeah, you do.”

ASMORAIUS

[ID: Asmoraius blowing a kiss with a text that says: “valentine, I’d ________ and we could_________ so much.]

Asmoraius did not only serve us the only and very sweet romantic storyline of an angel and a demon (which we are all suckers for), him and Misroch also show us that ex-partners can be friends.

One of the most beautiful scenes and that stay with me in this podcast was on episode 8 “Attention Port Authority Bus Terminal” when him and Misroch are the only ones awake on the trip to Hell. As a Misroch kinnie it was so gratifying to hear how the lust demon reassures them that their friends like them the same as “Perfect Hornblas”.

We also discover that he is very observant, and that maybe if him and Belzagor don’t have as many interactions, you can see he cares about her and vice versa because he pays attention to what he likes.

Additionally, in episode 3 “Moral Kombat” Asmoraius is the only one that doesn’t threat Xaphan as a nuisance the first time he sees her (yeah, he ditches her for his romantic interest, but not before explaining the rules of the world to her and stating is a solo adventure). He answers her questions, he motivates her to earn her first sin coin and seems genuinely impressed with how well she did.

He boosts her confidence in the same way that he did Misroch’s and Trainee in episode 4 “Don’t call me darling.”

XAPHAN

[ID: Xaphan with a hand in the air, appearing to be waving and next to it a text that says: “Valentine, I’d let you be in my band if I was in the band.]

I think she has one of the most tragic backstories on this whole podcast, alone with nothing more to do than stoke the flames of hell, she didn’t any experience to learn about friendship, or anything at all, really.

Then when she firsts meets the gang, they are reluctant to have it, understandably so since she is “Hornblas’ replacement” and the idea of a member of your friend group being replace is not one you take lightly.

For me Xaphan’s journey is about coming into her own through the different things that the band gave her: an obsession with wieners, a lesson on how to make people sin and (at the end) words of affirmation that she is more than the “stoker of the belos of hell”.

To conclude

C.S. Lewis wrote: “To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it.” -he also went to say friendship was unnatural because you can breed without it which is cow poop.

I think one of the things that makes this podcast so great is how at is core is the story of a friendship, how it started, its problems and how it is changing into something different and probably better. In a story about human-eating demons Brimstone Valley Mall reminded us of what The Ancients (whoever they are) already knew: platonic love is the most fully human.

Image Credit:

#1https://dribbble.com/shots/9547608-Philia-Affectionate-Love

#2,3,4,5 https://misnis.tumblr.com/post/643199691865096192/i-am-a-leetel-late-but-happy-valentines-everyone