#perhaps as a guitar he has absolutely no musical talent of his own but likes to pretend he does

[starleska]

my favourite headcanon for Nordic Bunny is that he has an absolutely killer metal scream, which he can use as a weapon. and it's so high/powerful that it comes off like a brutal electric guitar riff. i just!!! think it would be sick if he also had musical powers!!! 🎸🤘

[louisupdates]

FULL ARTICLE ON EUPHORIAZINE

By Saskia Postema 26.4.2024

Mere days after winning “Artist of the Year” at the inaugural Northern Music Awards, Louis Tomlinson is celebrating the only way he knows how – by giving back. Tomlinson just dropped a surprise album, which includes a curated list of live performances over the past years. It’s a risky move, as live albums are notoriously difficult to make worthwhile. But there’s no doubt about it: Tomlinson is deserving of that award, and the recordings on Louis Tomlinson: LIVE deserve to live forever.

After an initial stop-start to his solo career, Tomlinson has certainly flourished since finally getting to hit the stage. He’s been touring extensively over the past few years, performing a mix of tracks from his first two albums. Both were solid records that heavily referenced anthemic, rich sonic soundscapes. In fact, Tomlinson previously admitted that he wrote certain tracks with a live show in mind. Indeed, songs like “Face The Music,” “Out Of My System” and “The Greatest,” from his No. 1 selling album Faith in the Future, absolutely benefit from the live instrumentals compared to their studio versions.

It isn’t often that live performances consistently seem to not only live up to but objectively improve the perfectly engineered studio recordings. Perhaps it’s the love that the album so clearly captures for live music that does it. The singer-songwriter is an avid fan of his own fans and gets to share a collective experience of joy with them. Just listen to the crowds serenading Tomlinson in return during “Chicago,” recorded live in – you guessed it, Chicago. From Tomlinson’s perspective, audiences across the world have always been part of breathing life into these live recordings. Now, people get to live that same experience with him by listening to this record that is woven together with impeccably mixed joyful screaming in the background.

Tomlinson’s storytelling isn’t hindered by the crowd’s reaction. Rather, it is bolstered by it. In both power ballads like “Common People” as well as raucous tracks like “Silver Tongues.” The live setting seems to function almost akin to a prism – each song shining brighter, richer, fuller. Perhaps the only track that is tighter in the original version, is the seductive “Written All Over Your Face.” Nonetheless, the instrumental break and palpable, wild excitement make for an enjoyable listen.

Similarly, right in the middle of the highly addictive “All This Time/We Are Beauty” mash-up, a fan can be heard screaming “I love you” if you listen closely. The sheer adulation of the crowd is decidedly earned. Tomlinson has worked hard to prove himself, despite never having lacked the talent. Perhaps merely the confidence that he could do it, would do it, has done it. Nevertheless, he’s been open about the tension between his own love for music, and his at times debilitating need for perfection. As he’s settled into his career, a quiet undertone of determination and grit, of relief and fulfillment – of gratitude remains in every single show.

On “Saturdays,” you can actually hear Tomlinson mumble that the view’s never been better from where he’s stood on stage. It’s a high-maintenance track with all the right ingredients for a Tomlinson classic. There’s confessional lyricism, emotive delivery, and a gradual yet powerful crescendo in musical arrangement. It needs to be sung with conviction, and it’s clear that Tomlinson pulls power from the audience to deliver.

Notably, none of the covers that Tomlinson frequently incorporates in his concerts made it onto this live album. With that in mind, perhaps this release signals that Tomlinson has finally embraced his own artistry. Because if anything, Louis Tomlinson: LIVE is a reckless celebration record. An ode to joy, the synergy between artist and audience, and the impact of well-timed, flawlessly executed live guitar solos.

[libraincarnate]

astrology notes: 8 🧸🍬

quick note: i'm absolutely not an astrologer. these are just a collection of some observations, thoughts, theories, and personal experiences. above all this is just for fun. lastly, these may or may not apply to you but you might find something to be true about your friends, family, or lover. enjoy!

🧁 scorpio mercury: okay if you didn’t know i have a thing for eyes, but i also have a thing for voices and i have placements that indicate that too. anyways, people with scorpio mercury? wow just wow. probably one of my favorite placements and one of the most captivating ones in my opinion. i recently heard someone’s voice and i guessed they had a scorpio mercury and i was right. girls with this placements may have a deeper voice but regardless it’s so damn sexy and sultry. their intelligence and broad vocabulary and various expressions leave their lips with ease. they ooze seduction unintentionally. this is THE bedroom voice. such power behind their words, the power to both uplift and destroy. it demands attention. speaking like they know more than they let on, discerning what you know and don’t know so that they can decide what and how much to reveal. hard to lie to these individuals. they’re quick to detect deception. they use their words decisively & directly.

🧁 uranus dominant: community & togetherness is a wonderful thing to these folks. they find it beautiful to see people working together to accomplish a common goal or simply sticking together, loving & supporting one another. unfortunately society isn’t always like that but when they do witness something like that it makes them happy. they think, “see? that’s how it should be.” it’s a wish they have for the world, more unity.

🧁 neptune-pluto aspects: rock star alice cooper has neptune sextile pluto in his birth chart. he suffered from alcohol & drug addiction. some of his songs have meanings that have a double entendre. for example, when listening to his song called poison for the first time, it sounds like a love song about how badly he wants this person even though they may not be good for him, they bring him both pleasure and pain. but really that song is about his toxic relationship with drugs and alcohol.

he’s a libra rising & his chart ruler is venus in pisces which is in the 6th house of health, routine, and habits.

his neptune is a prominent placement for him being in his 1st house & conjunct his ascendant.

his neptune is at 12° (pisces degree) which is also associated with drugs/alcohol, addiction, a lack of boundaries, but also spirituality, musical talent, healing, the emotions, and creativity. and his pluto which brings transformation is at 13° (aries degree) which can indicate some form of struggle or abuse but there’s also courage, determination, and perseverance.

alice cooper has overcome his drug and alcohol addiction, has helped others including other rock n’ roll artists to do the same, and he became a christian and gave a lot of credit to Jesus Christ as the reason why he was able to beat these addictions.

i’m not saying everyone with this aspect will have a similar story, it’s just one way i’ve seen this aspect play out.

🧁 leo venus/venus in the 5th house: you might be attracted to people who are talented. somone who plays an instrument really well. maybe you find it attractive watching someone play the guitar and rocking out, headbanging and stuff lol

someone who is really good at sports, seeing their athleticism, their skill, their dedication to the sport they play. touch down celebrations might be something you like to see if football is your thing. perhaps play fighting with your love.

someone who is a talented artist, seeing them use their creativity and skills to create something out of nothing. seeing their passion come to life in their art, how it tells a story. how they assign their own meanings to the colors, shapes, and materials they use.

🧁 harsh mars-uranus aspects: might be more willing to do something bad if they feel like they’re doing it for a good reason. reminds me of thomas shelby from peaky blinders. he does a lot of bad things for the sake of his family/loved ones, to better their lives. he shows his loyalty in extreme & intense ways. he also performs some philanthropic deeds. he’s smart, ingenious, unpredictable, has been to war and applies a war-like strategy or mindset in his approach to achieving his goals. he does what he wants when he wants and rarely takes the advice of others.

🧁 jupiter in the 4th house: motherhood may be a blessing for you. your child or children might feel like you’re the best mom ever and you might feel like that too lol your child may make your life better, more meaningful and fulfilling. you pass on the wisdom you’ve gained to them. encouraging education and spirituality in their upbringing. motherhood definitely alters your perspective on life. you learn so much from being a mom and part of that is because your child teaches you so much including by just watching them grow.

🧁 one thing i feel like is underrated about virgos is their sense of style. they can dress & it’s authentic. they stand out among the sea of fad loving doppelgangers because of their originality. and while they may not vocalize their judgements, i promise you they are analyzing every detail of your outfit, hairstyle, choice of accessories, etc. all in silence. they notice the smallest details which is part of the reason why they look so pristine & put together. they simply have good taste. potential as a stylist & designer.

🧁 4th house ruler in 11th house: this native may have, want, or prefer a chosen family rather than the family they were born with. their friends may feel more like a family to them and they may spend more time with them. may be an adopted child or feel like one, and you may want to adopt if you decide to start your own family. the people you look to as your mother or father figure may not be your biological parents. a community or sense of family with the ones you are closest to but not necessarily the ones you are related to.

🧁 the sign in your 2nd house may show you how you feel about sharing the things that belong to you (food, money, clothes, car, info on where you got something, and so on):

capricorn would probably only share with you if they actually like you or respect you.

virgo might be picky about who they share with or who gets to touch what.

libra i think would be both of the above but may feel bad when they want say no so they might just say whatever and give in for that reason.

sag is ruled by jupiter which is associated with generosity so i think they’d be more willing to give things away or tell you where they got their stuff from like a nice shirt that they have.

aquarius is another sign i feel like would be willing to share, since they’re about community & philanthropy but regardless of how social aquarius may be i think they’re a bit detached from people & they like their originality so they may not want everyone looking like them or having what they have so they may say no to most but yes to those closest to them.

scorpio may be a bit more possessive and private about what’s theirs so they may only share with those they trust.

gemini likes to talk and exchange information, they’re lighthearted individuals who may have no problem sharing or telling you where they got something.

to me taurus is 50/50. they’re known to be savers and spenders. they know how to gather and save their resources, can be hoarders and a bit selfish but they also like pleasing themselves, indulging in the things they like. they know how to spoil others as well so they’d probably just buy it for you instead of giving you what’s theirs.

🧁 aquarius lilith: might be a misanthrope, someone who dislikes humanity or society as a whole. however you may like people as individuals. i see this being a lone wolf/outcast placement.

🧁 your jupiter in their 1st house (synastry): you are a blessing to this person’s life. you definitely make their life better and an impactful difference would be felt with out you in their life. you make them feel good about themselves, make them feel confident, you support them. you broaden their outlook on life, providing fresh perspectives. you share the knowledge you have with them, make them wiser. the 1st house intrigues jupiter and wants to understand the 1st house person better. jupiter person could be one of if not the 1st house person’s favorite person.

you lift them up, bring optimism and encouragement. you guys feel good around each other, have a lot of fun together, make each other happier. you help them in their journey of self improvement whether you know it or not. the jupiter person sees the potential in the 1st house person during the times they don’t see it themselves. they encourage you to be your best authentic self. jupiter person may also discover things about themselves through their relationship with the 1st house person. jupiters perspective and understanding is broadened as well. also, jupiter probably spoils the 1st house person & 1st house person appreciates them so much and just knows how much they mean to them.

🧁 omg how many people with prominent 7th house placements have walked in multiple weddings? like you could’ve been a flower girl, ring boy, a bridesmaid or groomsman etc. especially with venus, jupiter, asteroid juno (3) here, or a 7th house stellium.

🧁 placidus vs whole sign house system: i mostly use the whole sign house system but i encourage you not to ignore the placements in your chart using the placidus system. you won’t relate to or notice the impact of all of your placements at once. you grow and develop as a person and this takes time, so it may take time to see the influence of certain placements and aspects in your chart regardless of which house system you use. people experience different areas of life at different times. i may experience the 6th house and 7th house related themes earlier in my life but you may experience much them later in your life.

remember each house has themes and different areas of focus. take the 8th house for example: you may not relate to the theme of death in this house (either literally or figuratively in the form of rebirth/transformation) and so you may not relate to the inheritance aspect either (or not yet) but you may relate to the themes of the occult along with sex & intimacy in this house. it’s normal to not relate to everything related to that house, and it’s normal not to relate to everything all at once.

i relate to the placement of my sun using the whole sign system more than the placement of my sun using placidus. when using placidus my sun is in the 4th house. initially i didn’t relate to this placement what so ever. but then i recently noticed something, i literally am the kim k of my family. if i die the light goes out in this family. i’m not even trying to be funny, vain, nor am i trying to boast. my relatives love me and are always asking for me. they adore me, think i’m funny and they just like hearing from me. they talk to me the most. most of my parent’s friends mainly ask about me and want to talk to me on the phone and i’m not the only child. i literally ask my parents if their friends forgot that they had more than one child. their friends are always giving me money and gifts and food. i play an important role in this family, i’m basically a leader & i manage a lot of things in this house/family. my parents tend to brag about me as well.

however there are other themes in the 4th house which i do not relate to and there are other placements in the chart that i don’t relate to at all, or perhaps not yet.

apart from that, there’s something called intercepted signs, houses, and planets & duplicated signs and houses. they apply to house systems like placidus but not to those like whole sign. you may have these in your placidus chart. it might be something you relate to and you may learn something about yourself as well.

i cannot and will not attempt to explain but them if you’re interested here are some posts that do explain them:

https://www.tumblr.com/boyzgotojupiter/706271020564234240

https://bobmarksastrologer.com/intercepted-signs/

https://bobmarksastrologer.com/duplicated-signs/

https://www.tumblr.com/boyzgotojupiter/706271008694353920/duplicated-intercepted-houses

if you read this until the end i hope you enjoyed it & thank you so much for reading. ♥︎♥︎♥︎, those hearts are for you.

[hldailyupdate]

Mere days after winning “Artist of the Year” at the inaugural Northern Music Awards, Louis Tomlinson is celebrating the only way he knows how – by giving back. Tomlinson just dropped a surprise album, which includes a curated list of live performances over the past years. It’s a risky move, as live albums are notoriously difficult to make worthwhile. But there’s no doubt about it: Tomlinson is deserving of that award, and the recordings on Louis Tomlinson: LIVE deserve to live forever.

After an initial stop-start to his solo career, Tomlinson has certainly flourished since finally getting to hit the stage. He’s been touring extensively over the past few years, performing a mix of tracks from his first two albums. Both were solid records that heavily referenced anthemic, rich sonic soundscapes. In fact, Tomlinson previously admitted that he wrote certain tracks with a live show in mind. Indeed, songs like “Face The Music,” “Out Of My System” and “The Greatest,” from his No. 1 selling album Faith in the Future, absolutely benefit from the live instrumentals compared to their studio versions.

It isn’t often that live performances consistently seem to not only live up to but objectively improve the perfectly engineered studio recordings. Perhaps it’s the love that the album so clearly captures for live music that does it. The singer-songwriter is an avid fan of his own fans and gets to share a collective experience of joy with them. Just listen to the crowds serenading Tomlinson in return during “Chicago,” recorded live in – you guessed it, Chicago. From Tomlinson’s perspective, audiences across the world have always been part of breathing life into these live recordings. Now, people get to live that same experience with him by listening to this record that is woven together with impeccably mixed joyful screaming in the background.

Tomlinson’s storytelling isn’t hindered by the crowd’s reaction. Rather, it is bolstered by it. In both power ballads like “Common People” as well as raucous tracks like “Silver Tongues.” The live setting seems to function almost akin to a prism – each song shining brighter, richer, fuller. Perhaps the only track that is tighter in the original version, is the seductive “Written All Over Your Face.” Nonetheless, the instrumental break and palpable, wild excitement make for an enjoyable listen.

Similarly, right in the middle of the highly addictive “All This Time/We Are Beauty” mash-up, a fan can be heard screaming “I love you” if you listen closely. The sheer adulation of the crowd is decidedly earned. Tomlinson has worked hard to prove himself, despite never having lacked the talent. Perhaps merely the confidence that he could do it, would do it, has done it. Nevertheless, he’s been open about the tension between his own love for music, and his at times debilitating need for perfection. As he’s settled into his career, a quiet undertone of determination and grit, of relief and fulfillment – of gratitude remains in every single show.

On “Saturdays,” you can actually hear Tomlinson mumble that the view’s never been better from where he’s stood on stage. It’s a high-maintenance track with all the right ingredients for a Tomlinson classic. There’s confessional lyricism, emotive delivery, and a gradual yet powerful crescendo in musical arrangement. It needs to be sung with conviction, and it’s clear that Tomlinson pulls power from the audience to deliver.

Notably, none of the covers that Tomlinson frequently incorporates in his concerts made it onto this live album. With that in mind, perhaps this release signals that Tomlinson has finally embraced his own artistry. Because if anything, Louis Tomlinson: LIVE is a reckless celebration record. An ode to joy, the synergy between artist and audience, and the impact of well-timed, flawlessly executed live guitar solos.

[dailytomlinson]

Mere days after winning “Artist of the Year” at the inaugural Northern Music Awards, Louis Tomlinson is celebrating the only way he knows how – by giving back. Tomlinson just dropped a surprise album, which includes a curated list of live performances over the past years. It’s a risky move, as live albums are notoriously difficult to make worthwhile. But there’s no doubt about it: Tomlinson is deserving of that award, and the recordings on Louis Tomlinson: LIVE deserve to live forever.

After an initial stop-start to his solo career, Tomlinson has certainly flourished since finally getting to hit the stage. He’s been touring extensively over the past few years, performing a mix of tracks from his first two albums. Both were solid records that heavily referenced anthemic, rich sonic soundscapes. In fact, Tomlinson previously admitted that he wrote certain tracks with a live show in mind. Indeed, songs like “Face The Music,” “Out Of My System” and “The Greatest,” from his No. 1 selling album Faith in the Future, absolutely benefit from the live instrumentals compared to their studio versions.

It isn’t often that live performances consistently seem to not only live up to but objectively improve the perfectly engineered studio recordings. Perhaps it’s the love that the album so clearly captures for live music that does it. The singer-songwriter is an avid fan of his own fans and gets to share a collective experience of joy with them. Just listen to the crowds serenading Tomlinson in return during “Chicago,” recorded live in – you guessed it, Chicago. From Tomlinson’s perspective, audiences across the world have always been part of breathing life into these live recordings. Now, people get to live that same experience with him by listening to this record that is woven together with impeccably mixed joyful screaming in the background.

Tomlinson’s storytelling isn’t hindered by the crowd’s reaction. Rather, it is bolstered by it. In both power ballads like “Common People” as well as raucous tracks like “Silver Tongues.” The live setting seems to function almost akin to a prism – each song shining brighter, richer, fuller. Perhaps the only track that is tighter in the original version, is the seductive “Written All Over Your Face.” Nonetheless, the instrumental break and palpable, wild excitement make for an enjoyable listen.

Similarly, right in the middle of the highly addictive “All This Time/We Are Beauty” mash-up, a fan can be heard screaming “I love you” if you listen closely. The sheer adulation of the crowd is decidedly earned. Tomlinson has worked hard to prove himself, despite never having lacked the talent. Perhaps merely the confidence that he could do it, would do it, has done it. Nevertheless, he’s been open about the tension between his own love for music, and his at times debilitating need for perfection. As he’s settled into his career, a quiet undertone of determination and grit, of relief and fulfillment – of gratitude remains in every single show.

On “Saturdays,” you can actually hear Tomlinson mumble that the view’s never been better from where he’s stood on stage. It’s a high-maintenance track with all the right ingredients for a Tomlinson classic. There’s confessional lyricism, emotive delivery, and a gradual yet powerful crescendo in musical arrangement. It needs to be sung with conviction, and it’s clear that Tomlinson pulls power from the audience to deliver.

Notably, none of the covers that Tomlinson frequently incorporates in his concerts made it onto this live album. With that in mind, perhaps this release signals that Tomlinson has finally embraced his own artistry. Because if anything, Louis Tomlinson: LIVE is a reckless celebration record. An ode to joy, the synergy between artist and audience, and the impact of well-timed, flawlessly executed live guitar solos.

[louistomlinsoncouk]

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Mere days after winning “Artist of the Year” at the inaugural Northern Music Awards, Louis Tomlinson is celebrating the only way he knows how – by giving back. Tomlinson just dropped a surprise album, which includes a curated list of live performances over the past years. It’s a risky move, as live albums are notoriously difficult to make worthwhile. But there’s no doubt about it: Tomlinson is deserving of that award, and the recordings on Louis Tomlinson: LIVE deserve to live forever.

After an initial stop-start to his solo career, Tomlinson has certainly flourished since finally getting to hit the stage. He’s been touring extensively over the past few years, performing a mix of tracks from his first two albums. Both were solid records that heavily referenced anthemic, rich sonic soundscapes. In fact, Tomlinson previously admitted that he wrote certain tracks with a live show in mind. Indeed, songs like “Face The Music,” “Out Of My System” and “The Greatest,” from his No. 1 selling album Faith in the Future, absolutely benefit from the live instrumentals compared to their studio versions.

It isn’t often that live performances consistently seem to not only live up to but objectively improve the perfectly engineered studio recordings. Perhaps it’s the love that the album so clearly captures for live music that does it. The singer-songwriter is an avid fan of his own fans and gets to share a collective experience of joy with them. Just listen to the crowds serenading Tomlinson in return during “Chicago,” recorded live in – you guessed it, Chicago. From Tomlinson’s perspective, audiences across the world have always been part of breathing life into these live recordings. Now, people get to live that same experience with him by listening to this record that is woven together with impeccably mixed joyful screaming in the background.

Tomlinson’s storytelling isn’t hindered by the crowd’s reaction. Rather, it is bolstered by it. In both power ballads like “Common People” as well as raucous tracks like “Silver Tongues.” The live setting seems to function almost akin to a prism – each song shining brighter, richer, fuller. Perhaps the only track that is tighter in the original version, is the seductive “Written All Over Your Face.” Nonetheless, the instrumental break and palpable, wild excitement make for an enjoyable listen.

Similarly, right in the middle of the highly addictive “All This Time/We Are Beauty” mash-up, a fan can be heard screaming “I love you” if you listen closely. The sheer adulation of the crowd is decidedly earned. Tomlinson has worked hard to prove himself, despite never having lacked the talent. Perhaps merely the confidence that he could do it, would do it, has done it. Nevertheless, he’s been open about the tension between his own love for music, and his at times debilitating need for perfection. As he’s settled into his career, a quiet undertone of determination and grit, of relief and fulfillment – of gratitude remains in every single show.

On “Saturdays,” you can actually hear Tomlinson mumble that the view’s never been better from where he’s stood on stage. It’s a high-maintenance track with all the right ingredients for a Tomlinson classic. There’s confessional lyricism, emotive delivery, and a gradual yet powerful crescendo in musical arrangement. It needs to be sung with conviction, and it’s clear that Tomlinson pulls power from the audience to deliver.

Notably, none of the covers that Tomlinson frequently incorporates in his concerts made it onto this live album. With that in mind, perhaps this release signals that Tomlinson has finally embraced his own artistry. Because if anything, Louis Tomlinson: LIVE is a reckless celebration record. An ode to joy, the synergy between artist and audience, and the impact of well-timed, flawlessly executed live guitar solos.

[i-am-trying-my-best-okay]

So these Alien Stage videos by VIVINOS has changed me and I’ll never be the same and it’s time to hype fixate right now. And so, here’s some characterizations I have on these characters based on basically nothing:

Mizi (Pink Haired Girl): She might be seen as a bit of an underdog, on the shy side so doesn’t show off her vocals often, coupled with low self esteem too. But, unlike the others (except Till), she actually really likes singing, regardless of it being her best shot at survival. I think despite everything, she’s a very kind person, maybe secretly helping her fellow humans get through the days without them ever knowing, but Sua saw, and maybe that’s how her interest peaked in Mizi. I think after Sua’s death she changes; before she accepted their enslavement as just a part of life, but after Sua dies she becomes absolutely reckless, doing whatever it would take to make humans free, to ensure this never happens again, even if it means her own downfall. I think while Sua was the smarter of the two, Mizi is good at coming up with elaborate schemes that have a high chance of not even working, which is why she never acted on them, but after Sua dies she just doesn’t care anymore.

Sua (Black Haired Girl): Maybe a bit of a child prodigy along side Luka, the ones that were expected to rise to the top. Of course, that only ended up being true for Luka (I think both she and Luka were probably close in that ‘we’re talented but our talents are used to entertain those that enslave us so lets be cynical about it together’ kind of way). I think she’s a very quiet person, not seeing a point in talking if it’s not necessary. She can come off as cold, but if you’re close to her, she’ll treat you very warmly, allowing herself to actually be a very silly, funny person if she’s comfortable. Of course, she’s slow to trust, and the only person she trusts completely and truly is Mizi. Honestly, if it wasn’t for Mizi, I think she would have given up trying to live, trying to play the alien’s games. She’s very smart, and I think she’s one of the few humans that see a future where humans aren’t enslaved. She probably talks to Mizi about this a lot, able to see that possibility, and this probably adds flames to Mizi’s desire to fulfill this request after Sua dies.

Till (Silver Haired Boy): He’s not an amazing singer, he’s okay but nothing special, what he really excels in is instruments, with guitar being his specialty. I think his love of instruments is probably completely pure, where as the others don’t feel much love to their singing, just using it to survive in this world, his music is important to him. He doesn’t see it as just something to appease their enslavers, but something he enjoys. But, I think the aliens took that and twisted it, for it seems like there’s an odd sort of leash on him. Perhaps they mutilated his throat, making the sound of his guitar come out of his mouth when he sings, or just something like that. He hates that, he doesn’t want that, he just wants to play his instruments regularly. In personality I think he’s very straight forward, incredibly blunt and doesn't’ realize when people get upset about it, but if you tell him it upset you then he’ll apologize and know to not say that again. With Ivan, I think he sees him more as a close friend, but I’m assuming it’ll turn romantic. 

Ivan (Black Haired Boy): For sure very much into Till; I think maybe it stemmed from they were kids and how Till was obviously so different from them when involving music, loving it and being in his own little world (Of course Mizi was into her singing but was much more private about it, and her and Till probably bonded about how they actually enjoy what they do but the enslavers keep getting in the way of that). Starting from when they were kids I think both Ivan and TIll looked out for each other, making sure the other will make it through. Also, I lowkey think Ivan is an amazing actor, able to command a presence, to manipulate how others, especially their enslavers, see things. I think this probably came from since they are under the authority of these aliens, then he knows he needs to lie in order to get away with things. While I don’t think he’s a malicious person, he is quite used to getting what he wants thanks to his lying and manipulating skills.

Hyuna (Brown Haired Girl): She lost someone very important to her as a child, that boy she imagined running behind her. I think she blames Luka for this, and perhaps he was involved somehow even though it wasn’t really his fault, and so she hates him, probably wants him to die (although I’m guessing the two of them are going to end up being romantically involved, very enemies to lovers of them). She’s probably very good at bending the rules in secret, able to get and do certain things the other humans would never dream of doing, but she’s very careful about it. I bet they’re not even allowed to smoke, but she found a way. She honestly probably has a network of people that owes her favors for getting them things. She’s just a very sneaky person, knowing when to keep secrets and knowing when to use them to her advantage. 

Luka (Blond Haired Boy): So he’s very popular among those aliens, a huge celebrity. But he hates the attention, is disgusted that he’s the ‘favorite’ of those that oppress him, of all of them. He probably has to attend all these events, being shown off like a prized dog, having to act a certain way, and he’s just sick of it. It definitely makes him an outcast among the other humans, as he’s probably getting special treatment for being the favorite. They mostly keep their distance from, but Hyuna, the girl that hates him in a far more personal way, talks to him often, insults him often, and ironically, in Luka’s eyes, that makes her the person he’s closest with. I think overall Luka is a very apathetic person, probably used to just gritting his teeth and doing what is needed of him, no matter how vile the requests. He finds himself trying to cling to his humanity, to think of himself as more than what they see him as, and it grows weaker by the day.

That One Guy That Was Tied Up Watching Luka On A Screen And Crushing A Red Flower: I think this is the boy Hyuna lost when she was a child, the one Luka was inadvertently responsible for. I think maybe they all think he’s dead, but really he’s tied up, experimented on. I can’t tell if he hates Luka or is in love with him or both. 

[shytastemakerthing]

I saw your matchmaking was open! No pressure but, I'm looking for an MHA match up! I'll put some info about me.

I have blond hair to my armpits with bangs, blue eyes, I'm 5'4. I typically dress in more dresses or hyper feminine. I like to wear my hair in bubble braids or pigtails, sometimes both.

I'm going into film and directing, and I am a cheerleader, on the dance team and in track for extra curriculars. I like being theatre kid too, I love putting in shows for the crowds and playing a character.

My biggest passion really is films, I love creating new videos, to me it's an art form and I've loved it since like junior high. Though I can go on stage and do a play or give speeches, I am more on the shy side when one-on-one, I struggle to know what to say when I'm not going by a script, afraid I'll say the wrong thing. I play the guitar, mainly rock music, since rock and metal are what I listen too.

I have IED(Intermittent explosive disorder) and I struggle with night terrors, so I'd love someone understanding when it comes to that.

I'm not sure what else to put, but I'm an extrovert, I like being in crowds, just need a little time to warm up. I like going to the gym and working out. But I really do mostly spend my time doing anything with directory(ect, watching films, coming up with ideas, making mini-movies)

My biggest pet peeve is like-people who are constantly on their phones. Like always taking pictures or videos to post and not actually enjoying what's happening. Or people who brag about how high their snapscore is and how many followers they have.

No pressure to answer this!

Hello and thank you so much for your request! I am sorry that this took so long to get too but we are finally here! I do so hope that you like your request! I wasn't sure if you wanted romantic or platonic so I went with a romantic request!

Tw: None

I match you with........

Sako Atsuhiro (aka, Mr. Compress)

He was the very first person that came to mind as I was reading over your information and he stuck like a leech with all of the possibilities that would come from this stunning man.

Sako is a showman, that much is very known as we have seen throughout the episodes that we have seen him in.After he hears of your love of film and creating your own mini-movies, oh he was beyond thrilled.

You wouldn't mind him shadowing you right? He could provide some very helpful insight.

On a serious note, he absolutely loves this talent of yours. Oh how creative you must be when you come up with all of these ideas.

(He gets you a nice little journal to pen down your thoughts when they come to you)

His quirk comes in hand as well when it comes to your hobbies. He will merely compress down what would be needed and carry it around with him, bringing it out when you need it and once finished, it is back to being compressed and into his pocket.

With your night terrors, he is certainly there the moment that he hears anything is wrong.

Being a villain, he has had his fair share of them after everything he has seen, but right now, his attention is on you.

After having your permission, he will lay down next to you, gently soothing you. You can tell him what plagues you or not, whatever you are more comfortable with, it will not bother him. All he cares for is your well being.

On days where there are no missions that he needs to be on, he will don a disguise and slip into the city with you, perhaps to take you shopping for more of those beautiful dresses that you love.

Overall, he is a very attentive partner. One who encourages what it is that you love with such a passion in his voice and a fire in his eyes. You are his perfect muse and he will forever protect and cherish you.

Thank you for your request!!

[mywifeleftme]

126: Don Gibson // Oh Lonesome Me

Oh Lonesome Me Don Gibson 1958, RCA Victor

The back cover blurb is a lost art in today’s record design business, and I think it stinks! How many generations of music buyers have been robbed of the opportunity to read some record producer or anonymous A&R flack hyping up Kool Keith as a “talented young man with a sound that is really out there” or Radiohead as “the next James”?

I bring this up as I look at the back of Don Gibson’s Oh Lonesome Me, which features an ‘introduction’ to the man behind the music by Lowell Blanchard, the station manager at WNOX, Knoxville, Tennessee, where Gibson had worked on “The Midday Merry-Go-Round” programme for the past seven years. Although the album contains two all-time country standards in the title track and “I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You,” Blanchard’s write-up reads more like a letter of reference for an applicant to the pipefitter’s union. “I think you’ll enjoy Don’s album,” Blanchard concludes. “It’s good music by a nice guy who likes people.” That’s very mild flogging for the album that launched both Gibson and producer Chet Atkins to stardom, and inaugurated the Nashville Sound that would dominate country music for the next two decades, but perhaps Tennesseans are a more reserved people than I’d figured them for.

A friend who’s weathered my periodic bouts of Gibson mania calls him “Buddy Holly as an Adult Man,” and I think that’s pretty good; stripped (by Atkins) of the usual fiddles and steel guitars, Gibson’s sound is as legible as rock ‘n’ roll as it is country. He was a fine singer, if not a particularly distinctive one, but as a songwriter, he was a wonder. It’s no exaggeration to say every Gibson song is fundamentally about the same thing, or that pretty much all of them are maddeningly catchy. Nicknamed “the Sad Poet,” the large-domed chanteur wrote fizzy hit after hit about the car door being slammed on his (emotional) dick. It’s hard to choose a favourite sadsack Gibson lyric: “Give Myself a Party” maybe, in which he throws a solo rager with all the stuff his ex left behind; or “(I’d Be) A Legend in My Time,” one of several songs where he turns being a loser into a competitive sport. Despite this artistic fixation on misery, his lyrics aren’t a baroquely weird psychic mess like Roy Orbison’s (a fan who once recorded an entire LP of Gibson covers); his writing has such an elemental simplicity any performer can make them their own. That’s why he’s such a popular cover choice, with “I Can’t Stop Lovin’ You” alone having been recorded over 700 times.

Still though, I tend to prefer Don’s steady, reliable takes to those of his interpreters. Oh Lonesome Me has a lot of his biggies (including both “Bad, Bad Day” and “Blue, Blue Day”), and with Atkins’ eye on not only the country but the pop charts, everything gets the star treatment. The (cut me into little pieces and mail me around the country) unsung heroes are Elvis Presley’s backup singers, the Jordinaires, who hang a heavenly gauze over the ballads and lend the fast ones a bubbly excitement. It doesn’t hurt having Atkins, the ace of session ace guitarists, sitting in either—his jazzy, Les Paul-ish licks on slow blues “Heartbreak Avenue” are an absolute treat.

I’ve got quite a few Gibson records on my shelf, and you can’t really go wrong with any of his ‘50s and ‘60s output, though things get a little ropey by the ‘70s. To name but two, the ’63 compilation I Wrote a Song is a desert island disc for me, and Girls, Guitars and Gibson from ’61 is every bit as good as Oh Lonesome Me despite not being quite so laden with hits.

126/365

[existentialmagazine]

Review: Kahone Concept’s new indie-pop single ‘Amicably’ holds a deep narrative underneath the vibrantly bubbly instrumentals

Indie-pop artist Kahone Concept takes his aesthetic inspiration from 70s pop culture and retro-futurism, aiming to create a raw and realistic project with his musical art that documents his journey regardless of his success. After he began gaining traction during the quarantine of 2020, Kahone accumulated over 500k Spotify Streams and 27k followers on TikTok, and now aims to rebrand slightly in this new era of his musical career to formulate a sound that feels most him at heart. Latest release ‘Amicably’ sets the tone for what we can expect to see from this talented upcoming musician, and it’s absolutely a work of art within itself.

Leaping straight into ‘Amicably’, there’s an immediate setting of tone from Kahone’s bubbly, bright instrumentals that’ll encourage you to dance and sway along like there’s no tomorrow. Dipping in and out with euphoric bass riffs alongside gentle acoustic guitar strums, the soundscape of ‘Amicably’ flourishes most with its unusual concoction of ebbing and flowing instrumentals that make it all the more exciting to listen along and unpiece. Echoey synth-esque beats boldly power their way through the track, proudly keeping the melancholy mostly at bay along with the jazzy riffs seen from a few different instruments. Despite that, there’s a definite hint of sadness buried within every striking note, particularly as the chorus sees a fade out of sounds to allow for the track’s narrative to be front and centre. Such a primarily lively, vibrant atmosphere is topped off best with Kahone’s own vocal performance, radiating a hint of torment in the choruses lower tones, before rising up with some much needed summery spirit for every verse. His wide-ranged and airy exploration of notes sells the dream of ‘Amicably’, expressing a natural charisma and charm that’s undeniably needed for such an anthemic tune. Kahone Concept has truly created a piece that masterfully dominates the indie-pop genre with something a little refreshing and one-of-a-kind, and no matter how much this groove riddled sonic experience can sound impressive in our words, it’s only right to put in your earphones and listen to it for yourself to understand quite how powerful it serves to be.

Quite aptly exploring the human instinct to deflect blame and preserve oneself at the expense of another, ‘Amicably’ does an incredible job at pairing a rather deep narrative with a sound that’ll have you mindlessly dancing along. Despite the immaturity displayed from such a quick-trigger reaction to save yourself above all else, ‘Amicably’ aims to remind listeners that your mistakes do not define you, and that nagging conscience that keeps you in check is there to remind you that you can always make things right. Penned from his own experience of getting broken up with, Kahone Concept explores the notion of how he played victim despite being a completely terrible boyfriend, and the growth that came with this heartbreak - such as teaching him how to love, care, and value those he’s with because that’s what truly matters. Speaking in third-person at times to perhaps reflect his deflection or allow for more truthful opening up, Kahone’s lyricism poignantly explores feelings like ‘Across the board there’s things that should be said, but he’s afraid if he’s fixed he’ll have nothing left’, which incredibly bravely pick up on Kahone’s difficulties with bettering himself when he’s so afraid this core part of who he has become will leave him with nothing left in his personality. Whilst this behaviour is certainly not healthy for himself or a partner, ‘Amicably’ is not here to sugarcoat any truths, in fact defining itself to be brutally honest while speaking up on the sometimes harsh truths of life that sometimes everything and everyone cannot always be perfect or make the right choices.

Added to the authenticity that is evident in Kahone’s music, this talented musician notes that “Whether I ‘make’ it or not, I’ll be doing this until I die, and the thought of the amount of cool songs I’ll make between then and now, is extremely exciting and why I do it.”

To enjoy your own youthful summer nights with a track to match, or to remind yourself that mistakes are allowed as long as you make strides to becoming a better person, you can give a listen to ‘Amicably’ for yourself here!

Written by: Tatiana Whybrow

Photo Credits: Ari Riser/Ben Orrvick

[obey-me-rot]

You Shouldn't Be This Cool

A/N: Something purely self indulgent to kickstart this Obey Me writing blog. The idea mostly belongs to @warm-meelk because of how they drew their MC playing bass and then sprinkled in the fact that Levi would be the pianist and I just kinda...went from there q wq. And I also play bass so...all the more reason to write this!

Warnings: Levi trying to justify some of his more weird actions while MC seems to not only know...but enjoy the attention.

Levi wasn’t a creep, he was passionate.

He was passionate about TSL, he was passionate about anime, he was passionate about his idol groups and he was even passionate about learning new skills in order to better evolve himself into an ultimate fan.

So what he did today was not because he was a creep!

It was because he was passionate.

“Can you play that for me again, Levi?”

The third born tucks his feet on his chair, sipping up the noodles of his second cup of ramen as he watches the video feed from this afternoon. He smiles as the camera zooms in on your fingers, each one plucking the string of your bass absentmindedly while you listen to the melody he had composed.

As a TSL fan, he was ‘in the know’ of most TSL fan events whether they were held in the Devildom or in the human world. If they were worth the trouble he would attend and if it seemed like it was just a repeat fan event for one he already attended then he would just get the merch from the safety and comfort of his room.

Yet a completely new fan event had popped up on his radar one day, an online one.

One that challenged each and every TSL fan to create a song dedicated to their favourite lord.

Levi doesn’t remember much after that announcement, all he remembers is knocking on your door at devil knows what hours of the morning and shoving the music sheets in your face while pleading for you to help him out.

Your musical talent wasn’t hidden in the House of Lamentation. While most of the brothers could boast about having pretty decent singing voices or being ‘okay’ at certain instruments, your ‘weapon’ of choice was perhaps the most random but also well fitted instrument for someone like you.

You played the bass.

If he wanted to get specific, you played the TCB1006 Ibanez electric bass. You had mentioned in passing when you and him had met up to start ‘jamming’ out and Levi had retained that fact along with his hundreds of other facts that had to do with your particular interests and likes.

Again, because he was passionate...about your friendship.

The camera zooms out to film both of you, a happy giggle taking him over as he saw just how chill you looked.

How unfair was it that out of all the instruments you could play, you had to play the one that just made you look even cooler?

You were laying in his tub while he sat on the very chair he was sitting on now, plucking strings seemingly at random but humming some bars and trying to fit them with his melody. Your feet were propped up on the edge and the soft brown color of the guitar meshed so well with the glowing blue lights of his room that he is so glad he picked this spot for his hidden camera because you looked ethereal.

“I still can’t believe you composed this. It’s pro-level.”

“H--Ha! Of course! This is nothing but a piece of cake for me! If it's about the Third Lord and Henry then I’m all over it!”

Eyes take in the way you sit up and position your bass higher, fingers having a better reach as you start to ‘slap’ the strings in order to create a more wavy and deeper sound.

“Okay...I think I got it. Can you play the melody from the beginning?”

Oh here it was.

Sitting up, Levi puts his cup noodle down and grabs the nearby music sheets, pen already in hand as his attention on you becomes laser focused.

The beat you play is, well, playful. It is a high contrast to his almost operatic piano melody and he could almost hear himself playing a bit slower as if wondering if you had even heard what he was playing

“Uh MC…?"

“Trust me.”

Levi bites his lip as he feels his heart skip a beat, not even having to look at the screen to see that he was blushing. His past self was so predictable…

Although wasn’t his present self all the more pathetic for reacting to your words a second time?

He’d rather not think about it too much.

Your purpose had come shining through the moment Levi started to really hear the notes you were playing. It was almost as if you were mimicking Henry’s character with the bass. Cool, collected and eager to learn more about the world he had been thrusted into, your bass managed to capture the curiosity of Henry’s while his piano clearly symbolized the shy but deadly Third Lord.

The bass would go high, the piano would go low but as the melody started to harmonize so did the way your playing did with his. It was if he was the Third Lord, shyly peeking at the way Henry interacted with the world around them…

Only to turn around and invite him to join along.

His eyes go up to the screen.

You looked so happy, your fingers plucking away as he continued playing along with you. Your eyes turn to look at him and he almost wants to punch his past self in the face for not looking back. The camera had been perfectly placed to capture the way you tilt your head as you stare at him, chuckling as he clearly gets far too into the music for his own good.

To miss such an exclusive UR moment from you, he should be ashamed of himself.

“Haha. Thank the devil I came up with this camera idea!”

Levi blinks as he looks around, coming face to face with his beloved Henry as the fish stares at him from his bowl.

“...don’t look at me like that, Henry…”

The fish blinks.

“I wasn’t doing it to be a creep! I just wanted to write down the notes MC played before I forgot them.”

Henry’s mouth opens and then closes.

“And see! I even missed such exclusive moments from them! Look!”

He pauses the video and turns the screen so his fish can take a better look.

“5:06. I even timestamped it. Right here, MC is smiling and looking at me so cutely that it would be almost a sin to not record it!”

His fingers tap a couple of keys as he goes back to another point of the video.

“3:58, they smile and do such a cool trick with their fingers that I didn’t even notice that they stick their tongue out whenever they get too into playing! Do you see that Henry?”

A couple more taps as he keeps the video playing, the goldfish swims close to the edge of the bowl.

“I missed so many great moments all because I was so lost in playing! And I just didn’t want to ask them if I could record them because then they might think I’m using the footage for some sort of weird purpose and I would never do something like that to them! My Henry is far too amazing for me to just watch them one time! I just wanted to make sure of the notes they were playing! This is all for passion--!”

“Levi?”

He stops talking as he looks back at the screen, Henry swimming away while Levi tuned into the video once again.

“Was that good? I don’t know why but having the bass go a bit higher as I mute the strings feels almost like--”

“Like a conversation! It’s like the instruments are talking!”

Okay maybe this camera idea wasn’t the greatest after all, that was such a stupid thing to say and if he could go back and just slap the words out of his very mouch, he would.

Yet once again, his MC showed just why they were at the top of their ‘favourites’ list.

“Yeah! Like a convo!”

The conversation dissolves into randomness as Levi sighs and looks down at his sheet music. He only got a few notes down. Devildom, what was the point of having perfect pitch if he didn’t use it all the time? He straightens his screen out as he grabs a pencil instead of a pen, knowing full well that if he wanted to get this done he would have to rely on listening to you play and not looking at the screen.

If he finished this quickly then he would be able to stare at yo--it...he would be able to stare at it the rest of the night.

He goes to rewind the video but stops when he notices the scenery has changed just a tiny bit. You were out of his bathtub and looking at his aquarium, tapping the wall twice as some of his other fishes came up to greet you.

They were already so accustomed to you that he was sure even Lotan would know who you were.

Your attention goes from his aquarium wall to his computer, looking at all of his figurines and other merch he proudly showed off. A few more steps to the right and you were looking at his bookshelf--

Only for your eyes to lock with his.

He rolls his chair back immediately, his heart dropping to his feet as you reach out to the camera and pluck it from its hiding place.

No. No no no nononononononono!

This was it. You were done with him. Levi didn’t have a lot of friends but he knew that this was probably a friendship ender. His pupils contract as he sees you look at the camera with a confused look, already guessing your thoughts before you could vocalize them.

This weirdo was filming me the entire time. And he was hiding the camera? Disgusting. I’ll make sure to never come by his place again. What an absolute creep.

“MC...I didn’t--”

His jaw clicks shut as small tears gather at the corners of his eyes, not yet falling down his cheeks as he sees you smile and wave at the camera.

What--?

“Levi. If you wanted to film you didn’t really have to hide it. I want something to remember this session too. Next time you can just ask~”

You wink and Levi can feel his heart going from the floor all the way to his throat.

“Oh and send me a text when you have the footage ready. We can watch it together.”

He lets out a breath he didn’t know he had been holding as you place the camera back before his voice rings out from the video, exclaiming about all the snacks he had brought. So that’s why he had found you standing up, and here he thought you were leaving…

Send you a text...the footage…?

His hands scramble to his phone as he quickly enters the passcode, blushing as he sees a new message from you.

“Mind if I come over again? I have a new bassline I want to show off.”

Levi puts the phone down slowly before getting up---

Only to immediately fall down, hands over his face as he curled up on the floor.

Of all the characters he thought he would be in a shoujo, the last one he thought he would end up as is the heroine.

Not that he was regretting it, this was perhaps the best outcome that had happened in his now not so miserable life.

[karls-writing-space]

GF, Tommyinit, and Quackity with a fem best friend (or S/O) who plays guitar in a rock band that reader and her friends made and they got a gig in a restaurant and reader is super nervous? (My band just got a gig in a restaurant and I’m freaking out)

Absolutely!

And ayyy!! That's amazing, Anon!! I hope that your band's gig goes well!! Best of luck!!

I'm gonna have the reader be GF's S/O, while CC!Tommy and CC!Big Q will merely just be platonic, if that's chill?

— ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆—

Girlfriend, CC!Tommyinnit, and CC!Quackity With A Fem!Best Friend/ S/O Who's Rock Band Got A Gig At a Restaurant.

[All separate - CC!Tommy and CC!Quackity are platonic]

— ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆ — ☆—

Girlfriend

She's so happy for you!

Girlfriend is super happy that her lover's band has a gig at a restaurant.

She'd hug you so tightly and [almost] exclaim how happy she is for you and your band.

"Babe, that's amazing! I'm so happy for you. Look - Look where you've all come!"

Now, she doesn't really listen to rock music as she isn't very fond of loud noises, but GF is still going to cheer you and your band on.

She has actually heard one of your songs, and she thought you all were really good!

Girlfriend wants to show her support for you and your band as much as she can.

When she sees that you're nervous, she can totally relate. She knows what it's like to be nervous when going in front of people and performing. She's felt the same way. Even her mother felt the same way before a few of her own shows too.

"Is there anything I can do to help you calm down, love? I can help you get prepared, or -"

She loves you, and she's willing to do anything it takes to help you feel at least a little bit better.

If you wanted to rehearse in front of her, GF will gladly be your practice audience for then. She would compliment you too.

If you were rehearsing with your band in front of her, she will hype you guys up, and be in awe of the talent that your band has.

If you rather rehearse alone in front of her, she will understand and still hype you up!

I'm just imagining her headbanging a little to the music and it's one of the cutest things I've ever thought of-

GF will also make sure that you look after yourself.

"Babe, c'mon. I get you got a show tomorrow, but you need sleep."

"If you sleep now, you'll have a good chance of having an outstanding show tomorrow."

If she's sleeping over at your place, GF will cuddle you until you fall asleep.

On the day/night of the show, she will go to that restaurant, order something, and watch you and your band perform.

After your songs, she will cheer so, so happily.

Again, rock isn't her favorite genre, but she could listen to you and your band play for days on end.

Girlfriend is so proud of you guys - especially you. She's very, very proud of you.

CC!Tommyinnit

When this guy hears that his best friend is going to be performing with her band, he couldn't be happier.

He's FREAKING OUT. {Postitvely}

"Holy SHIT, ___. This - This is - so pog. Pog-fucking-CHAMP!"

He's telling his parents, his pets, your guys' friends. Anyone that you both know.

"Mom mom mom - did you know that ___'s band has a gig?"

"Tubbo. ___. Has. A Gig. Ain't that great?!"

"Walter, Betty. ___ and her band have a gig!"

"...Woof."

Whoever Tommy told about your and your band's upcoming gig sent you support.

I mean, Walter and Betty can't speak English, so you got woofs of support from them both-

In all honesty, Tommy is really happy for you and your band. He thinks that the fact that you guys landed a gig is really cool!

He has a likening to Rock music and , given the chance, he will rock out with you guys.

LOVES your music. Covers or Original music - this guy just LOVES it all.

When he notices that you're nervous, big guy over here turns it down a couple of notches. He doesn't want to make you feel too nervous or overwhelmed or anything.

"Hey, hey, ___. You good? I didn't overdo anything, did I?"

When you tell him that you're nervous, he will ask why. He does understand why someone would be nervous about something like this.

Tommy's going to try to find ways to help you calm those nerves of yours down one way or another.

He will suggest that you play video games together.

Or maybe watch some videos together?

Perhaps you guys could do some dumb shit together too. Anything to get your mind off of what was happening soon and to calm you down.

If you want to rehearse in front of him, Tommy will watch and listen to you. All with a grin from the fluffy blonde boy.

This would end up with the two of you joking around with the instruments and microphones.

Just you two jamming out and singing random songs.

"I suck his di-"

"NONONONONO-"

Just an evening with a bunch of laughs between two good friends.

The day/night of your performance with your band, Tommy will go to that restaurant with his and your friends to go and hype you up.

After a song, Tommy will clap and cheer with the gaggle of friends.

"WOOO! AWE YEAH ___! GO [Band's Name]!!!"

He will VERY MUCH HAPPILY tell the people sitting near him and your friends that you're his best friend.

"Y'know, that's my best friend up there. Isn't ___ great?!"

He'll fight anyone who disagrees. /j

All and all, Tommy is really glad that you managed to land a gig with your band and hoped that he had calmed your nerves enough the night before.

CC!Quackity

"NO WAY- REALLY?"

"Really!"

"LET'S GOOOOO!!!"

Quackity is STOKED that you AND your band got a gig. He's really happy for you!

He's gonna pull you in this huge tight-ass hug while rambling about how great you'll be. You are his best friend, after all.

He even over exaggerates his rambling by dramatically playing air guitar, air drums, and singing random gibberish.

"And then there'll be 'bang-bang-bang-ching-bang' while the singer's like "la-la-laaaa~!""

He's doing this to get at least a laugh out of you.

Big Q likes your music a LOT. If you're a cover band, he will sing that song you covered to himself. And if you're a band that writes original music, he'll play some of your songs on his streams to show his support - all while trying not to get copyright troubles.

He really thinks that you AND your band are amazing.

Once he notices that you're nervous, like Tommy, he turns his hype down a few notches. he really doesn't want to overwhelm you or make your nerves worse.

"Hey - what's up, __? You alright...?"

When he hears that you're nervous, he nods. He kind of understands why you feel like that. And it's a totally valid feeling to feel. Hell, you're going to be performing in front of live people.

"Listen, listen. You're gonna be so great out there, ya know? You're talented. Like, really talented. And so are your bandmates. If anyone says otherwise, fuck them. Don't listen to a damn thing they say. Hey - I'll be there to cheer you on, alright?"

For once during this conversation, he's actually being serious. Quackity really thinks that you're talented, and genuinely thinks that you'll do well.

To try and calm you down as much as he can, the two of you think of something to do.

There was playing Minecraft... Playing Roblox...

"Wanna play Rock-Paper-Scissors with my cat?"

Tiger's gonna eat your hand, so be careful with that, mate.

The two of you spend the night playing some really crackhead-y versions of games such as Monopoly or Clue with one another. The two of you were making dumb jokes and getting "angry" if you lost.

Big Q over here will also be over you, making sure you look after yourself that night too.

"___, GO TO SLEEP." He says as you called him for the third time that night.

"But I can't, Q."

"C'monnn, please? If you don't, you won't be able to play with your band tomorrow."

"Hmmm... No."

"Now listen here, you little shit. Don't make me go over there. I'll make you sleep."

"Oh, I'm so scareddd~"

Next thing you know, this guy is driving over to your place so that YOU GO TO S L E E P.

Anywho, the day/night you and your band performed, Quackity stayed true to what he had said and was sitting at a table eating something while watching you and your band perform.

He would cheer loudly after each of your songs, which DID earn him some looks from other people, but he didn't seem to care.

Quackity is happy that he's able to see you perform, and to be honest, he thought that you - his best friend - were amazing.

[dropsofletters]

that’s how people move

 summary: dongyoung has learned how to blend in the background of the little shoe store he works in. no one cares about the wooden exterior, the shoes he makes or fixes, or about himself, really. it’s in the hopes of living a more luxurious life that he learns the world doesn’t have a meaning when it’s moving, but rather, when it stops.

title: that’s how people move

pairing: kim dongyoung x reader

genre: shoemaker!au ; assistant!au ; strangers to lovers!au ; slowburn!au  

word count: 18,785

type: fluff ; humor ; romance ; drama ; angst

Around him, richness exists. Not in him, but in the buildings that create barriers around his tiny workplace. Some people like vintage and indie, but for someone like him, it just means tranquility…yet, not an accomplished dream. As he stares off into the tall white buildings from a window, his forehead resting against the woodened railing, Dongyoung wonders if he fits into the dreams, he had built for himself. Of being successful when thirty-something, of bathing in so much money that having a new car doesn’t seem like a luxury, and drinking a glass of champagne is just a beverage for him.

His calloused fingertips work against the leather of the shoes he is building, eyes training away from the scenery to let the sunlight bathe his skin in warmth. Instead, his mind goes back to making the boots stand out in excellence—as well as comfort, the heel tall enough to fit anyone, not too outstanding, but a classic nonetheless. Back hunched, he can feel every muscle aching as the perfectionist side of him brings out the worst in him, eyes burning at the early hours of the morning he is working on. For no one but a few clients, whoever still believes in shoemakers, or some companies who inherently want to resell their hard work.

Go back, as Kim Dongyoung, aged seventeen, and ask him if this is what he wanted for his life. If spending summers with his uncle, who was also a shoemaker, was going to build his life for his adulthood. Back then, he thought he was really going to get the scholarship he always desired, or that the money from his parents would last him a lifetime. It didn’t. The bird left the nest, only to end up in the only thing he would have never imagined himself doing. Sure, he’s good at it, but at what cost?

Seeing people move in front of the shop, every single day, and wonder if he’s going to be like them someday? Maybe, if he had been accepted into school, he’d be rushing into the kind of work he’d like. A producer, maybe, or even a manager. He’d be rushing through the streets with clothes far fancier than the ones he is wearing right now—pink t-shirt under a denim jacket and dark jeans—, but that’s only part of his imagination.

The clear wood of the flooring creaks under the weight of someone’s tall boots, and Dongyoung lifts his gaze to meet the only person that is always in this store apart from himself. There was someone else before, but the young woman had left the job because of college. Typical.

In between the tall shelves that display their shoes, and what they exactly work in, is Yuna. Thirty-two, thriving, living life in colors with recently dyed red hair and a twist to her body that makes the yellow dress on her body stand out. The roundness of her face has been reducing after the birth of her first child, with someone who she doesn’t hold any relationship with anymore. Still, she seems to be the happiest she has ever been, now with a life far more complete than she would have ever imagined.

“Dongyoung, straighten your back.” Yuna instructs, motherlike even when her daughter is only three months old. Her short hair falls on top of her shoulders, the dry ends capturing his attention as he squints his eyes at her. Yet, she knows him, before swords can make way through his lips, she speaks up. “I already have enough with one child, I don’t need a man child.”

“You’re not my mom. I already have one. Thanks.” Dongyoung mumbles, sewing the leather into the shoe as he waits for Yuna’s clear intentions. The woman rarely reaches him out of nowhere, and around this moment of the afternoon, she leaves to pick her daughter up.

“I’m going to pick Kaia up. Can you take care of the store while I’m not here?”

Truthfully, not a lot of clients come by around this time. Or ever, really. “Sure,” He conquers, because he doesn’t want to make Yuna feel bad, and part of him also wants her to be with her daughter. Kaia is the smallest little bean he has ever seen, with big rounded eyes and black hair that can’t seem to be controlled with a brush, or his hand, or even the oxygen. “Why do you even ask me if you know I’m going to say yes?”

“You’re a PMS queen. I’m asking just in case.” Yuna says after a heartbeat, picking up her long coat from the hanger before draping her arms inside of it. “Besides, a client booked an appointment with us, and I wanted to make sure you’re going to be here.”

Stopping his ministrations on the shoe, Dongyoung looks up from his work to talk to Yuna face to face. “A client? Those exist?”

A smack finally lands on his brown hair, shaking a smile away from him as well as ruffling his hair in the process. ��And an extra rich client, at that. I want you to be good.”

“You only had to say money, and I was already set for being a good guy.” Dongyoung jokes around, licking his bottom lip in the process. The faint sound of a guitar plays in the background, coming straight from his playlist—and at her departure, Yuna must have remembered to put his music on—, and tranquility overtakes him. Maybe, after such a drought in the working area, someone will believe their talent. “But, why did they even book an appointment here? We’re always free.”

“The client is, apparently, rich enough to make me believe that we booked an appointment with them.” The words barely meet his ears as she opens the doors of the store, staring ahead for a second before fixing the bag over her shoulder. “Her name is April Lim. She is supposed to come here in an hour.”

“I’ll take care of it.” Dongyoung replies after humming the sound of the song playing in the background, giving a small, tight-lipped smile to one of his longtime friends. “Just go to your daughter.”

“Thank you.”

“Goodbye.”

“Bye-bye, Dongyoung!”

When the door closes behind her, he immediately perks up. Staring around the room, he wonders about the twists of life, enough to rake a sigh out of his plethora of worries. The possibilities of ending up being a shoemaker for the rest of his life bite him in the ass. It’s not that he is unhappy, but this isn’t anyone’s dream. It’s not the kind of thing that kept him up at night with the excitement of living. Then again, the world knows what it is doing…and things will fall into place if he just earns his money rightfully and keeps working.

The needle goes through the leather, does a circle in the air, and enters from the other edge. Stormy outside but calm in his heart as his pink lips tut out the song that he can’t quite remember, but his heart recognizes as if it was his. Music does that, make us all into one and bring us to one story.

Minute after minute, the vase fills until he hears the door opening again, his back creaking under the weight of his quick motions when he welcomes the visitor with a glare. The first thing he notices is the long ponytail that cascades down the woman’s back, the black strands thick and perfectly straightened. The elastic is imperceptible, but her face is one to remember. Chic, elongated eyes; a small nose and thick lips. Her body dips in ways that has his eyes going down to capture a glimpse of the diamonds around her neck, the curve of her chest, and the way his imagination goes wild with the image of the perfect woman.

She’s the first one to enter, in a white button down that fits her perfectly and a skirt that stuns just about anyone with how expensive it looks. Behind her, however, someone closes the door with delicacy, the strands of her hair falling on her face and covering most of her features. From what Dongyoung can see, she’s far more simplistic—a pair of high-waisted floral pants and a typical black t-shirt. An agenda rests in between her hands, but before she could finalize her greeting—something along the lines of ‘good afternoon’—, the luxurious woman ahead of her speaks up.  

“Afternoon,” She says, eyes barely noticing him and yet, feeling like they have shed every layer of his skin away from him. Dongyoung can’t help but stand up from his seat by the window, a smile displayed on his features as he bows to her. A dream woman. “Do you work here?”

“Yes. Kim Dongyoung. At your service.” He introduces himself, not missing a beat with the twinkle of his eyes and yet, he awaits a response that is far more enticing that whatever his client says.

“I’m April Lim,” The charismatic woman instructs as she crosses her arms over her chest, not forgetting to jut her chin towards the person behind her. “And that’s my assistant,” The name escapes her easily, as if she is used to calling out that name endless times in order to get things done. It wouldn’t surprise her; if he had an assistant, as well, he’d ask for far more things than he’s proud of admitting.

The assistant lifts the corner of her mouth. Snowflakes lay on her lips in the white speckles of her lipstick, glistening on the dim lightning of the shoe store. When he sees her from up close, he can see a few marks growing on her chin, and the half-moons that taint her skin in delicacy—birth-marks, perhaps, or simple moles. Far less chic than her boss, but somehow more dulcet. “April has been in the eye of the paparazzi lately, and she wishes to have her own pair of shoes. The least she wants is to seem…typical, basic.”

Dongyoung trails his eyes towards April, who has her arms crossed behind her back with ease. “That’d be impossible.” He relays on the sound of his voice but it comes out a bit breathy, the tips of his ears burning in absolute embarrassment. Jackass. “…But I’ll do my best, if you let me know your tastes, that is—”

April’s eyes don’t change; interest doesn’t part them from their usual stoic nature. Instead, behold of the adoration that everyone feels about her, she nods with an enigma at the tip of her being. “You’ll have to talk to my assistant. I’ve already filled her in with whatever it is that I want. I’m going travelling in a month from now and I need a new shoe wardrobe. For now. Right now, even better.”

With his Adam’s apple bobbing, he wonders if he’s incredibly annoyed or attracted to her bossiness. The assistant, however, becomes more of a picture for him now that he is about to be left alone with her—around her neck, she has a more simplistic necklace, a flower resting in between a clear heart, the petals remain long dead, but they fit her. The split-ends match her, as if there is too much time in this world to worry about everything, but she chooses to not worry about the simplicities of life. The intricacies, even.

“Okay. I will do my best…for you, miss.”

April looks at him up and down, as if studying every portion of him, before scoffing with a smile on her face. “You sounded like my assistant.” She replies, shrugging her shoulders after speaking with that lowered tone of hers, as if she’s seducing the air with the mere existence of her. Instead, she wraps an arm around her assistant, shaking her lightly. “Have fun, and go back to the building in less than three hours. I need to have lunch.”

It seems like she can’t even ask for food on her own. “I will, April. But I already ordered some Bolognese pasta for you, accompanied by your favorite wine.”

“Alright, thanks.” April pulls away with a swing of her feet, high heels clicking against the tiles as she puts her sunglasses up her face. Some people never show who they truly are—or all of us do, but April feels like a pair of eyes that stare at him from behind a wall. Tall. Endless. His hands try to dig into the surface of the wall to reach her, get her attention, but he falls down every time. “Nice talk.”

That’s how she leaves, the asphalt welcoming her as if she’s part of the city. Screw that. The first skyscraper ever created, so classical and beautiful that he can’t quite get used to her. His eyes trail behind her with the movement of her hips, not quite catching his bottom lip slipping in between his teeth until he hears the sound of someone clearing their throat by his side.

Oh, shit.

Right.

He has a client.

The first client in a while.

“Sorry,” Dongyoung recomposes himself, moving towards the main desk and picking up his leather agenda, the one he uses for sketching, before opening it in some random page. The yellow-toned pages have been forgotten by him these days, freestyling his work, but this project must be huge based on the kind of client he has just met. “Ah, what does your boss want exactly? How many shoes?”

“An entire new wardrobe. Around forty or fifty.” He jots that down, because it’ll take a lot of inspiration and some brainstorming for him to come up with that many shoe designs. He still wears his old, worn-out sneakers, and that’s not such a concept when he’s a shoemaker. “She loves chic clothing, but she wants to add some spice. Some uniqueness to her. I—Uh, I don’t know quite how to explain it…”

“Shoes are not such an important part of the outfit, I’m sure it doesn’t have to be super specific with explanations.” Dongyoung tries to shrug the matter off with a laugh, but the woman shakes her head.

“Shoes are everything.”

Instead, he chuckles again. “They are not.”

“Of course, they are!” She argues, clearly not the type to raise her voice, but leave an impression with that smile of hers. It’s not perfect—not quite as shiny as her boss’, but it’s so outstanding that Dongyoung has to take a second glance. Not his type, but not quite bad looking. “It’s the foundation of everything. What we step on. If they look wrong, they’re gonna be noticed. That’s enough for—” Instead of continuing, she sighs. “Cinderella.”

Dongyoung’s eyebrows become one when he frowns. “C—Cinderella? What?”

“Cinderella had her love story because of a pair of shoes,” She replies. “And a pretty pair of shoes at that. Imagine if Cinderella was wearing sneakers or, or—” Overexcitement takes up most of her voice. “I don’t know, muddy boots? Like, that’s not memorable, it’s not…it’s not classic. I feel like April wants her Cinderella moment.”

He may not be a prince, but he may give her just that if the chance arises. “If the shoe fits…”

She nods. “If the shoe fits.” Instead, she taps her finger against the top of those old agenda pages. “And I need her shoes to fit and be memorable to the paparazzi and fashion magazines if I want to do my job right.”

Dongyoung looks down at the piece of paper, fabrics, styles, memories of April coming up to him. If he does his job right, he may get a kiss or two, perhaps a date, something to hold onto from the diamond met woman he just met. “Mhm, we just need to think together. You know her. I know how to do my job. We’ll have some designs done so you can show her by the time you have to go back to your workplace.”

Resting her elbows against the desk, all her teeth are shown in her smile, nose scrunching up and that cuteness doing something to lift his eyebrow. Surprisingly, enough to capture his attention. “Okay, let’s start.”

“Yes.”

The pages of that agenda had never been quite as filled, and the dim shoe store feels as though it can revive from the death again.

###

The first time she lied, her tongue itched so badly it rolled onto itself, and her cheeks hollowed with the feeling of disappointment. It’s the sensation of not knowing if her reality is the same as her dreams, and if what happened was only part of her imagination. It’s the hope that it was, or that the lie suffices to keep the happiness in her life. People lie. People lie. People lie, she tells herself.

And they do.

Just like how she lies to April’s boyfriend whenever he calls, his baseball cap falling so low on his forehead that he doesn’t realize her cheating ways from far away—too separated while they are the most together, they have ever been. She lies to the world when she waits for the train and feigns like she isn’t anxious of losing her train. She is. Everyone looking at her would think she is just another worker that lives with educational knowledge that she uses to serve someone else, headphones pulled so far inside her ears that she feels like she becomes one with the Italian music she is listening to today. As if the flowers bloom around her, the claps and rasps of life simply tell her to let it be. To lie, but never lie to herself.

She lies when she says she has it all together—as if the rebel in her doesn’t tell her to simply ruin something for once. Make a mess of the job she has, not serve April as often as she does, not being there all the time. Learn a new language, the language of being free, but she doesn’t. Instead, she pulls her earphones down, eager to get inside her train ride and get to her office as soon as possible.

She needs coffee.

She needs to hear the stories of her coworkers, with dating lives and kiss-and-tell stories.

She needs to smile again, even if it’s a lie.

Rolling her tongue, she hears the melodious tone of someone singing. It’s a male’s voice, but it’s both exciting and shrilling at the time that she hears it. Six in the morning, with a beige cardigan draped over her body, sleep-ridden and missing her bed. Her hair messes itself up even more when she turns around, footsteps resounding against the tiles, the almost-empty space about to be filled once the work hours arrive. For now, it’s just her and Mr. I Fall In Love Too Easily.

Song dedicated to her when she was fourteen, and she dated one of those poetic boys in class that hadn’t even read a single book in their lives. First kiss with too much tongue. Her mouth always ended up feeling as if it was drowning in saliva, and it wasn’t exactly hers.

I fall in love…too easily.

I fall in love…too fast.

The voice becomes closer, breathy, accompanied by soft nods of the man that sings and by the time she whispers out the continuation, she realizes the face is not quite as foreign as she imagined. The world is so big, and so small at the same time. Feverous to make people connect, to have some drama, some spice, some touch to touch moments. “I fall in love terribly hard.”

The gray walls contrast the existence of him, the dark bags under his eyes, the tussle of his equally as dark hair. Dongyoung, from the shoe store, so memorable and yet, so unfitting to be a part of her imagination. When thinking of the men that would make her heart flutter, she thinks of opened button downs, kisses down her neck, a cigarette in between his lips and the scent of flowers clinging to him. Dongyoung, on the other hand, feels like a rejected nine-to-five worker. Someone whose time came around too early, and he had to pick whatever he was good at.

But she’s just judging.

And suddenly, she’s looking into his eyes, his brown eyes recognizing her and saying her name into the air as if it’s a greeting. As if, for once, she has become the universal word of beginnings. “I didn’t know you liked Sinatra.” He says, and she has to cover the width of her beam, the one thing she has always felt insecure about. Too strong. Too out there.

“Well, you don’t know a lot of things about me apart from me being April Lim’s assistant.” She replies just as the wind starts blowing on his face. The strands of his hair don’t curl, but they push back enough to showcase his forehead, void of lines of stress and oldness. Instead, he gives a smile, staring ahead with a purpose so dull it almost feels like he isn’t living.

“That’s already something,” Dongyoung starts, tightening his hold against the straps of his backpack. “How’s April?”

With legs opened like a door, perhaps, sedated by sex—by the lies she has telling everyone. That her meetings come around late not because she is dating some good for nothing, but because she is working too hard. That she enjoys the presence of most of her investors, when she actually doesn’t. April Lim is one of those businesspeople that will make a living out of nowhere—they know how to live life, how to play it as if it was Monopoly and everyone around them are just pieces that move for her. Whether they end up in good places or not doesn’t fall on her shoulders.

“Fine, as always.” After all, this is what she has to do: lie for April Lim.

“I’m glad.”

“…And how are you?”

Dongyoung lifts his gaze at that, finally sparing her a glance of those pretty brown eyes. The shade reminds her of her last date’s eyes, but far deeper than she could ever explain. As though he holds the answers of the universe in just one simplistic twinkle of his eyes, putting NASA to shame with the discoveries he has done. “I could be worse, so I’m alright.”

“I didn’t know you woke up early to go to your job.” But, what would she know about him when she had only met him last week?

“You don’t know much about me either.”

“Now I know you wake up early.” She jokes, and the swoosh of the train arriving doesn’t pull her attention away from the tension in Dongyoung’s eyes. This is the kind of man she tries to pull away from—or, rather, she tries to pull away from all men. They’re creators; like to pull pieces together only to tear them down after and try to build something new. They never give up on just destroying everything at their reach. “That’s my train.”

With a pull of his backpack, he trails right behind her after saying those words. “It’s mine, as well.”

“It’s weird how I’ve never seen you here.” She adds after taking a seat on the brown leather seats, welcoming the coldness that seeps through her sweater. Her fingers tangle her earphones around themselves to get them in a nice circle and being able to fit them inside her bag. “Are you sure you’re not following me?”

Instead of taking the joke, Dongyoung’s eyes widen in a movie-worthy way before shaking his head. “I—I would never. I had also never seen you here.”

“I’m joking, Dongyoung.” She replies with a swat of her hand, so different from one another even in the way they sit. Dongyoung is more upright, while she lets her back hunch and her legs part, taking up some space.

“Oh.”

“Yes.” Instead of lingering in the awkward silence, she turns to look at him, inspecting his nose—it fits his face nicely, giving him almost a prince-like look. If a prince was as obstinate as he seems to be. He gives the vibes of what once was a class president. “How are those designs going? You only have four more days left until you show the first few shoes to April.”

Clearing his throat, Dongyoung doesn’t seem to be used to working under pressure. “It’s going fine. I’ve been working like a dog, hence why I’m up early.” He replies, putting his backpack over his long, slender legs before huffing. “I hope she likes them.”

One could say that if Dongyoung creates shoes with as much diligence and perfection as he sings, then there shouldn’t be a problem. “I’m sure they’re fine, come on.”

“Yeah, but I want to make a good impression.” There, the tip of his ears become a crimson red, a fever rising upon him but never breaking a sweat. She has to squint her eyes then, wonder and wonder why it is that men always fall for people like April Lim. She’s nice, don’t get her wrong, and awfully good looking for how much she works—but it’s strange how most people feel attracted to certain types of individuals. There is a set line of rules that we never talk about as society. “…Ah, is your boss single, perhaps?”

There it is. Intentions in the form of positions of a chess game she never takes part of. “Not at all. She’s dating a baseball player—”

“Huh?”

“Yeah…”

Dongyoung chuckles at himself, though she can see the strain on the muscles by the side of his face. “Right…yeah…it’s obvious someone like her would be dating.”

“For five years.”

“Oh, five years…” Dongyoung has to cover his face then, laughter taking over him in a way that covers up his embarrassment. “Let’s forget we ever had this conversation.”

“Forgotten.” She says, for she knows this feeling all too well. Men who never settle. Men who get tired. Men who try, but then don’t. Men who would rather have a thousand nights out than spend one with her own presence. Men are difficult. Women are, as well. People have decided to make matters worse for the world—apart from the obvious of being the own destroyers of the place they live in—by creating the world of dating, of kissing and telling, of so many other things like one-night stands and marriage. Two people rarely want the same thing. “But I can’t forget about your voice, though. Where did you learn how to sing?”

Changing the conversation works for him, leaning his weight back on his seat before sighing with a smile on his face. “I asked my mom to sign me up for singing classes when I was a child. I dropped out of it when I applied for college.”

“Wait—you didn’t study anything music related?”

“If I did, would I be making shoes?” He asks, rhetorical, sarcastic, much like him in a way that she doesn’t know yet. Instead, he shrugs his shoulders. “I got denied, over and over again. Had to spend some summers with my uncle who taught me the art of shoes, and now I’m here.”

“Shit, I see…” She whispers, though he doesn’t miss a beat to ask—

“And how did you end up being April’s assistant?”

The memory burns her, not once thinking about what she wanted in her life, wishing to travel but never planning it, letting herself drown in the uncertainty of living one day at a time. The future came around and it drained her of energy, leaving her in a wandering hell of seeing everyone continue with their lives after high school and college. The smoke of not finding herself, even when she is in her own body, led her to have someone else take the decisions for her. “My sister had connections and she needed an assistant. That’s what happened.” And she fell, hard, deep, in a way that she feels she may never raise herself from. But she tries not to think about it—overthinking stops her from living, and yet, she isn’t living at all.

“I see,” Dongyoung replies. “It must be a nice job.”

It isn’t. “…Ah, could be better, but it could be worse as well.” She answers. “It’s not my position to judge life for bringing me here. Maybe, this part of my life has to teach me something.”

Dongyoung scoffs at her words, so different yet bringing a smile up to his face. “You really think that way?”

“Life always brings us down for a reason,” She says. “It’s not about drowning, it’s about learning how to breathe underwater.”

Even though she feels like she will be erased some time in her life, and she won’t be needed by anyone for more than a week instead. She serves the world, only for it to mock her instead. Breathing underwater ignites her lungs and her nostrils in absolute pain, but it’s what life is. “That’s wise.”

“That’s life.”

And talking life with Kim Dongyoung for the rest of the ride until she had to get off is exactly what she does, for she sees the figure of him, hypothetical at that, lifting his chin over the water to breathe again…and somehow, it feels like he will.

People like him are perseverant.

People like her are liars.

###  

Hating. Wanting. Loving. What’s the difference?

It’s in the eyes. The only part of our soul that can’t give itself the benefit to lie, and those who dare lie with their eyes have mastered the art of never feeling quite the same again. When he sees the people getting out of the building that belongs to no other than April Lim, he discovers she has created a guard of zombies that protect her, work for her, and do anything in their willpower to end up in her good list. The only list to ever exist, if he’s honest, for the suitcases that follow after him, all filled with shoes that she has to try on as soon as possible, resound against the pavement and remind him that he is, indeed, attracted to a woman of power like her.

The kind of person he always imagined himself to be. Dongyoung has kissed around twelve people in the entirety of his life. Five out of those, he liked being around of. The only girlfriend he has had, however, ended up being someone he couldn’t quite reach out for every time he wanted—she was too busy living her youth, partaking on parties, visiting malls to spend every penny that entered her bank account, twenty and ready to die hypothetically, exist socially, and live in a limbo of not knowing who she is and changing with the passing of time. She was expensive, like everything Dongyoung liked, he would be lying if he said he’s not a lover of a nice perfume, a floating skirt, and a smile behind a nice set of red, lipstick-covered lips. That, however, doesn’t make or bend it all.

The marble tiles welcome his weight once he is inside, and the receptionist is monotone when she talks to him. Her bubblegum pink nails tap against the keyboard as if she’s losing time by breathing, and with a quick check of his name in April’s itinerary, he is put inside an elevator and pushed to the highest floor in the skyscraper. Everything seems to be made out of greeneries, no matter how faux the entire building is. Walls in gray tones, but with hints of aquamarine, the elevator moves and he can see glimpses of the other offices—with plants, flowers, though probably not real. It’s the essence of April Lim—everyone wants her, lives for her, and yet, no one realizes just how made up she can be. How people like her move.

Dongyoung is feverish like a future like the one he sees in front of him once the elevator doors open. A big office that only belongs to her, consisting of desks in green tones that don’t belong to her but to the people that work for her. The more he moves beside the selected worker to lead him to April Lim, the more he realizes every desk includes a piece of the person that works there. Family pictures for some, others have a package of cigarettes, when he passes by one of them he can hear a song in French, moving and dance-like, yet too soft to capture anyone’s attention. Only when he gets to the last desk, he realizes everyone has their personalities but none like hers. None like April Lim’s assistant.

Her hair twists up messily, barely held together by an elastic, a few strands standing up in protest. A thin layer of sweat pools at her forehead, welcoming her eyebrows as she moves with diligence, organizing everything on her own desk, with the same plants as the others, if not more. Dongyoung catches a glimpse of the black tea package on top of her work spot, the same as the one she has poured on a cup with flowers wrapping around themselves. Sunflowers, he notices, probably her favorite flower. The air smells like incense, or probably it is just her scent, the collar of her white button down accompanied by the same flowers on her cup. It’s as though she’s a mood breaker, a ray of sunlight in this peaceful rain.

The young man that had been leading him inside the building finally looks up from his phone, clearing his throat at the assistant in front of them. “Here’s Kim Dongyoung, he has brought Mrs. Lim’s shoes.”

“I know who he is,” She answers, playing it cool by extending her arms over her head and fixing her bun with the littlest of precision, soon after fixing the waist of her beige pants, hanging loosely around her hips, leaving little to nothing to the imagination. “Dongyoung, how have you been?”

“Busy, thankfully.” Dongyoung replies, sparing one glance towards the young man and just about to say the typical ‘thank you’, but his voice is cut off when he takes off with his phone at hand. “God, is everyone in a mood in this building?”

“They are.” She replies, unlike April Lim in the way her rosy lips wrap around themselves to lick them up before taking a sip of her tea. “That’s why I drink so much tea. Stress-controller, baby.”

The sound of the nickname has Dongyoung lifting his eyebrows. Mhm, so there’s some confidence to her. Old-school, but completely different from what one would think of April Lim’s shadow, or what April wants her to be, actually. “I can’t do that.”

“Can’t drink tea?”

“Can’t control my stress.” Letting go of the suitcases, he takes the seat across her desk, sparing one look around the office. People immerse themselves on their jobs, not once listening to them, and if they do, they’re not paying attention. “It’s difficult not to be stressed when people are annoying ninety-seven percent of the time.”

“Welcome to the three percent.” Her tone is playful as she takes a seat on her chair, extending her legs long enough for them to briefly caress his. Though, the action flees before he can actually pay attention to it. “Stress can’t do anything to you if you don’t let it.”

“We’re a little bit too late for that conversation.”

“Dongyoung, you’re young.” She replies, dragging her voice the slightest as she lulls her head back, looking up at the ceiling with her train of thought invading her. “You’re going to end up old, wrinkly and bitter, and possibly with hypertension, if you don’t just let things be.”

Dongyoung chuckles. It’s the same with people who don’t worry—with those who didn’t have their lives absolutely destroyed by the turns of the world. “So, how do you do it?”

“It’s not only the tea, actually. I’d have to have edibles along with my tea in order to let things be all the fucking time.” The thought has a genuine smile appearing on his face. For someone who lives under someone’s shadow, she can clearly make a conversation and grasp anyone talking to her by the face in order to give all their attention, undivided, to her. “But,” She rests her cheek on her palm, threading her fingertips through her hair. “I just like to believe everyone has a happy ending, or at least, everyone who deserves it.”

The clock ticks on her desk, reading five minutes past the time he should’ve met up with April. It’s eleven and five, and he can’t bring himself to care. Instead, he tilts his head to the side. “That’d be the ideal, but I doubt it’s actually true.”

“We don’t know,” She says. “And I think that’s beautiful. It’s better that we don’t know what happens to everyone, or what happens after we die. It gives us the opportunity to make the most out of what we have…to enjoy what we have and realize that the only time we can truly choose if we’re happy is when we’re alive.”

Balance is what he takes out of her, pensive, eradicating everything that has ever existed to create something that would have never crossed his head. Instead of pondering about it, Dongyoung tries to protect his own believes—you see, it’d be a little bit too happy for everyone to get the grand ending they want and need. “Did you happen to major in philosophy or something?”

“Not really,” She argues back, softly. “If we’re getting technical, I pushed away the thought of my future until the future got to me and oh boy, I didn’t even know what I was going to do with my life.”

“Don’t we all?” Dongyoung asks, soon after shaking his head with a laugh. “I got denied from university, so…”

“Oh.” She answers, voice shaped in a perfect ‘o’ that captures his attention. Okay, so maybe, her cuteness is her charm. “Honestly? Fuck university.”

“Your tea should work with that anger issue.” Dongyoung jokes around, only to earn a smack on his shoulder and the biggest grin on her face.

“It’s called reality.” The retort follows her statement. “Do you know how many people stress out about getting to university, going through university or, just not going through it, or going through it and failing? Like, it’s insane. It’s truly the worst thing ever.”

“But it’s life.” He vaguely remembers her voice telling him so, and she seems to reminiscent the words she said in the train.

“But it’s the awful part of it.” She pushes her fingers together, making circles with her index and thumb, raising the three resting digits before sighing. “And that’s why I do breathing exercises, just so I don’t think about it.”

Dongyoung looks around, and yet, no one seems to pay attention to quite clearly the most interesting person in that office. “And you don’t feel ashamed?”

“I don’t.” She shrugs. “I’m going to die anyway, but at least, I’m not going to die of breathing problems.”

The main door glides open and a man appears instead. Dongyoung is not one for gossip, neither does he know every celebrity in this planet, but he is sure he knows that face…or that voice, rather. One of the singers in his playlist rubs his reddened lips to hide the glimpses of dark red—to no avail, clearly—, plush lips even plumper by the time he makes his way towards the elevator and away from the seas of wandering eyes. April Lim is supposedly dating a baseball player, but it must not be the only man by her side.

“Oh, my shoes!” Are the first words she says after tucking her shirt inside her skirt, pushing her hair off her shoulder to show bitten lips, filled with sin. It’s a wonder why most people look at her and never realize the malice in her, but they don’t realize that the most beautiful companion she has had by her side is none other than her assistant, clearly aware of the situation and giving her a tissue to wipe the smeared lipstick off her face, one April takes gleefully. “Come inside, we have much to talk about and shoes to try on.”

Dongyoung finds himself stopping for a second, looking over his shoulder towards the assistant—the one that clearly interests him more, whose presence alone can make him feel as though a new world exists beside his own, and it’s not terrible at all. “Don’t you want to come in?”

She lets her hair freely fall at that moment, eyes glistening when she smiles, tight-lipped and beautiful, yet so real, and she says: “It’s not like I wasn’t going to come in either way. I have to see what you’re made of, Dongyoung.”

“Of talent.” He replies just as he walks behind her, the door shutting off at the same time that she replies to him.

“And much more.”

###

Fifteen minutes, thirty-seven seconds, read on an ignited sign that is not normally there on that building, but it’s there for everyone to see from nearby. Restaurants, parties, houses, all celebrating the start of a new year alike, with hope and need of a new start…or fearing what that may include, who knows.

Most of her friends are guys—it comes with the fact that she may have grown up while being in the soccer team, or perhaps because most of her female friends made plans for New Years, and did not procrastinate until the last minute left her alone, away from her family and definitely trying to make-do with what she has. Drinks sit on the table in front of them, the dark colored surface welcoming the perspiration of the shots. Taeyong, who has downed his sixth beer since he got to the restaurant, now lays his head on her shoulder with reddened cheeks and messy gray strands falling on his forehead, though the smile on his face doesn’t leave him, no matter how nauseous he is.

Sicheng clicks his tongue from his own side of the table, taking a sip of his piña colada with his excellent alcohol intake. After all, he doesn’t down his drinks in one go. “I told you not to let him drink them all in one go.” He spares one look her way, the only person by Taeyong’s side, since Kun is too busy fighting his girlfriend over the phone, and Johnny has, since then, gone straight towards a stranger woman’s arms to get his New Years Eve kiss.  He doesn’t give that much importance to it, apparently.

Kun continues typing on the phone, with one hand alone, and the furrow of his brows tells her that he is probably having another one of those arguments about going out with his friends. Something about Johnny just doesn’t sit well with Kun’s girlfriend, and it feels absolutely annoying. It’s not like Johnny would incite Kun to cheat, after all. Or maybe, she’s jealous about the fact that she’s with them? Meaning, a female? “Taeyong,” He swats his hand in the air to capture the man’s attention. “Stay up for a little bit longer, let’s celebrate the New Year, and then I’ll take you back home.”

“I—I’m okay!” Taeyong cheers from his spot, rubbing his cheek against her uncovered shoulder, the pink fabric of her shirt would have otherwise been stained by what she considers must be drool on her skin. “I…uh…I just want to throw up, okay? I need to—” His words are cut off by a gag, and her motions are far too rapid, reaching for the bucket by Taeyong’s seat that had once been filled with beers and ice, but may now be filled with Taeyong’s vomit. The action is quick enough to get the bucket to his mouth, emptying his stomach in one go, but the gasp that comes from Sicheng doesn’t mean good business.

Kun’s eyes are widened by the time she takes a seat again, working on taking off his blazer with quick motions as he shakes his head. “Oh no, oh no, oh no—”

“Wait, what?” She asks by the time Kun puts his hands on each side of her waist, wrapping the red blazer around her body with ease before covering his face with his hands. “What? Why are you covering me with your blazer?”

“I just saw your ass, oh my fucking God!”

“My…ass?” Her voice tries to comprehend the situation she is in. Rewind. Taeyong was throwing up, or on the verge of throwing up, meaning she had reached for the bucket and leaned down over his body to get to it. The pants she is wearing are the tightest she has worn—a gift from April that she couldn’t quite miss, and according to Johnny, the reason as to why she is going to get the attention of the world just by wearing them. Her legs looked nice, and she had paired it with an off-the-shoulder pink top that she hadn’t worn in years. That much she knows. Though, she doesn’t know why Kun would look at her ass. “…Okay, you checked out my ass? That’s what you’re saying?”

“No!” Even through the pink and red lights of the dim restaurant she can make out the blush on his features, only more noticeable with his brown hair sleeked and pushed back.

“Kun!” Annoyance fills her tone this time around. “Can you just be clear for once?!”

Kun is not the clearest of men—someone of action? Yes, but not quite the frankest of people. Sicheng, however, prides on his silence and even more on his short-coming answers. “You ripped your pants and I am sure anyone close enough can see your ass.”

Oh no.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

“Whose ass is out?” Taeyong asks softly, eyes widened as innocence overtakes his features, almost like he is offended at those words. She stands up from her spot then, looking around to see any pairs of eyes lingering on her. None at the moment, and whoever did notice has done a good job at hiding it.

“Mine.” She whispers, humming out as she tightens her hold around Kun’s blazer. “But I can’t keep this, Kun.”

“Why not?” Kun asks, playing with the collar of his black button down before she raises an eyebrow.

“You’re arguing with your girlfriend. It’s only a matter of time until she decides to come here, and if she sees me with your blazer around my hips, she’s going to think—”

“Oh,” The brown-haired male shakes his head. “She’d lose it.”

“I didn’t bring a jacket with me.” Sicheng replies, tugging at the fabric of his white sweater before looking over at Taeyong. “Did you bring a coat, Yong?”

Taeyong finally lets go of the bucket in between his hands, sighing deeply while he shakes his head. “It didn’t go with my outfit.” And he’s right, the shirt he is sporting is wild enough with its pattern for it to be paired up with a coat. “What about J—Johnny?”

“We won’t find him here.” Her eyes scan the seas of people, those who are eating, those dancing, and those drinking. They are all bundling together, enough for her to lose the tall friend that must be somewhere in there, making out with a stranger. Life is never easy for her, shit. “I’ll go to the bathroom and see if I find a way to fix it, don’t worry. I’m sure some girl will pass by and feel bad about me.”

She’s already tugging at Kun’s sleeve, pulling him up with her as he speaks. “But, there’s only seven minutes left on the clock.”

“I can’t receive the new year with a hole on my ass!”

“Well, your ass already has a hole, doesn’t it? Now you’ve got two.” Kun asks lowly, trying to ease the tension but only leaving her with a furrow of her brows and a scrunch of her nose. Making her way through the groups of people, she only spares Kun a glance when she unwraps the blazer from around her waist before placing both hands on her bottom. “I’ll try to find a pair of pants for you.”

“Don’t—Really, I’ll fix it. Just…wait for the countdown with the guys.” Opening the door while hiding her back, Kun is about to say something else before she pointedly threw a glance at him. The least she wants is Kun’s girlfriend somehow using her spider senses to smell her perfume on his blazer. People will be their own weird ways in the oddest of situations. “Okay?”

Kun calls out her name various times, drowned with the noise of the music and the door closing behind her.

Bathrooms are not normally a place she scans with precision. She is a woman of observation, but not quite a detail person to be exact. The white tiles remind her of a horror movie, but suddenly, her heart picks up with the realization of a numerous, turmoil-worthy matter. Urinals scatter around the walls, clearly not necessary in a women’s bathroom, but a clear indicator as to why Kun was calling out her name.

The mirror instructs her to look at the back of her black pants, the big slit leaving her butt-cheeks on display, as well as her white panties. Cursing internally, she closes her eyes tightly, sitting down on the counter in hopes of being alone. But something about the God of destiny suddenly playing with the timeline of her new year has one of the cubicle’s doors opening, the sound of someone flushing the bathroom accompanying the gasp that comes soon after.

Manly.

Yeah, that’s a man.

And she should really open her eyes, but what is she supposed to tell him?

Hey, dude, uh, my pants ripped, I accidentally got inside this bathroom and I really don’t know what to do…?

May I please have your pants?

Okay, no. That’s a real fucking red sign.

Her name is called in a deep vibrato, one that shakes her with the memories of the past month. Black tea. Stress. Dongyoung comes around with new designs for shoes, filling April’s wardrobe but never quite meeting her expectations. It’s more work for him, as well as more money, but she can’t quite go past that stage of respect towards one another as workers of April Lim.

When she opens her eyes, she curses herself for not liking the preppy ones. Really. What’s so fucking wrong with some tastelessness? It doesn’t always have to have clear spice for it to taste nice, right? For, Dongyoung is ready to steal the night with a few strands of his black hair resting on his forehead, the rest pushed back, straight eyebrows defined and almost reaching his hair-line with how far up they are in surprise. His dark eyes would be an enigma had he not been so confused, but his lips become the owners of his look, two triangles on his upper lip that invite her to get lost. Bermuda be damned when Kim Dongyoung has those soft, thin, yet appealing lips.

“What are you doing here?” Dongyoung asks, confused, though not once stepping back and it’s even worse to look at him from up close. A ‘v’ neckline black shirt rests under his black blazer, an elongated necklace with a key pendant resting just above his heart, and damn, maybe it’s the ounces of beer inside her body speaking, but what would she do just to have the key to that soul. Instead, her eyes trail down to his toned thighs under black pants. Pure and a sin, God will only know.

The truth is not something she tells often, but with Dongyoung, it’s difficult not to. “I ripped my pants because they’re too tight.” Those words don’t even digest well on him before he is chuckling, hiding his laughter behind his palm. “In my defense, though! I didn’t buy these pants. April insisted that they would make my ass look great, and now look at me!”

“I mean…it probably made your ass look great…because everyone looked at it.” Dongyoung conquers, crossing his arms over his chest before scoffing, never once stopping the laughter that creeps up on him. “You did that minutes before the new year?”

“You took a dump minutes before the new year?”

“No. I just don’t trust urinals,” Dongyoung states as if it’s a political stance. “And for a reason. Anyone could walk in and look at my penis. You would have looked at my penis had I not decided to lock myself in a cubicle and have my privacy.”

Releasing a sigh, she rests both her hands under her thighs, swinging her legs while seated on the counter. “True.” She answers, looking at him for the briefest of seconds, studying his expression before speaking up again. “Want to help me or do you have to rush to have your New Year’s kiss?”

“I don’t like having someone for the holidays.” Dongyoung replies with ease, taking off his jacket with ease before shaking it off harshly to get the wrinkles away from it. As if there are any, but Dongyoung details life as if it’s a puzzle game. “You get too attached, and then, it all falls down. I’d rather not lose my time.”

“Harsh.”

“Do you have someone?”

“You see, I wish I had someone.” She replies, watching as he extends his jacket towards her and she takes it with certain fingers. Their eyes don’t disconnect as she speaks. “But men are creatures that I can’t seem to understand.”

“How so?”

“They don’t…they never give me clear signs of anything, and I don’t like figuring things out. I can’t figure life out, let alone another person’s life.” She stands up then, her feet hitting the tiles obnoxiously and it is at this moment of rare innocence that she realizes her mistake. Behind her, a full-length mirror gives Dongyoung a sight of her ripped pants and her backside, and she doesn’t miss the way his eyes go down the slightest before looking up at the ceiling.

“Shit, sorry.” He replies, placing his hands over his eyes as a tinge of red takes over the tips of his ears. “I just looked at your ass.”

“Uh, ah, yeah…” She whispers, wrapping his jacket around her waist and somehow, feeling better with his than Kun’s. Maybe, it’s the fact that she can catch a glimpse of his arms that way. “Do I have to say you’re welcome?”

“Did I thank you?”

“You should.”

“Gosh, you surely know how to make someone awkward, don’t you?”

“Only you. I think you’re the only man I’ve managed to get to react like this.”

Dongyoung pulls his hands down by then, rolling his eyes at her antics. “Come on, you’re just saying that to say it.”

“I am not!” She argues, turning around to fix the last few bits of her makeup—or what she has left, better yet—and her hair. “You see, I don’t make the best choices with dating.”

“I mean, it’s clear.” Dongyoung replies. “If they don’t react to you…like…like you’re pretty, and real pretty at that, they’re just shitty men. Or not into you.”

“I think the latter.”

“But I’m sure there are a handful of men who would be interested in you.”

This time, she scoffs. Men are interested in whatever is easiest—and you see, maybe she is not the best match for the kind of men she likes. “Yeah, sure, because the hippie assistant of a cheating businesswoman who spends most of her days glued to that woman’s hip sounds like a real fucking wifey.”

Dongyoung takes the time to unhook one of her long earrings from her hair, shaking his head at her words. “You’re cute.” He says. “And I am not saying it in the sense that is just…beautiful. It’s in the sense of someone who just exudes that…that energy of having a purer sense of life. It’s refreshing to have someone in this world that doesn’t hate everyone and everything.”

“Because you do?” She speaks, voice barely audible before he chuckles.

“Because I hate everyone and everything.” He replies, looking over his shoulder before clearing his throat. “I really have to go back to my friends and get you out of here. Someone could come here anytime and think we were having a quickie.”

At the mere thought of Dongyoung’s hands pressed against her thighs, his hot breath fanning on her face, lips conjoined to hers, she has to talk to stop her mind from roaming. “Ah, yes, I’ll just get going.” She answers, though, something stops her before she gives her first step, taking the restaurant’s pen that is placed on a small cup on the corner of the counter, taking Dongyoung’s hand in between her fingers. “But…if you ever want me to stay, you can call this number.”

The red ink splays on his skin like people on the beaches while in summer, and it’s beautiful to see the contrast between their hands, the numbers, and what they aren’t. What they are, for one night, is the promise of ever talking again—and not only because of April Lim.

Because Kim Dongyoung may be the absolute opposite of what she would have imagined for her, but when he smiles—all gums, rainbows, sunshine, and much more, she thinks she can imagine him perfectly, wrapped around her finger, or maybe she would be wrapped around his.

“I’ll call someday.”

“Let’s hope you do.” She answers, tugging at the bow around her waist and tightening it before saying her goodbyes in a quick mumble.

When she rushes out the door, she sees the countdown. Only one more minute and a new year will start…

And maybe, this shoemaker will be part of it for her.

###

The glide of a bag of chips against his palms ends with the resounding noise of it falling onto his cart, a reminder that he shouldn’t be having those meals—but they damn right fit him for a lonesome Sunday night. With his hood pulled over his head and his night done a mess, Dongyoung’s mind wanders on the sea of what he lacks, thereof. No longer working on shoes for April Lim and having received the beautiful paycheck on December of last year, now February welcomes him with a tight schedule and an even tighter bank account. His pocket screams for something that isn’t coins, but what else can he do?

The grocery store has upbeat music even though it’s almost one in the morning, enough for Dongyoung’s fingertips to tap against the cans of beer in one of the refrigerators. He could, but he shouldn’t. Alcohol shouldn’t be a distraction for one of those times in which he has to lie to his mother—tell her that he is doing amazingly, that not a single meal has been skipped out of stress or because he didn’t just feel like eating. Mom believes him, but he doesn’t think he believes himself.

He takes out his phone to read one of the texts one of his closest friends had written him, the dark lock-screen welcoming his password before his eyes come in contact with a text from Doah.

Doah went to the university he always dreamt of—a friend from high school whose life has been doing great. A vocal trainer for one of the biggest companies in the country, nothing seems to go wrong for her. Sweet, tranquil, with her life as organized as the pins on her head whenever he sees her, a nineties baby over everything.

From: Nam Doah.

I have a bad feeling, Dongyoung.

Are you alright?

A bad feeling, a sense of the sixth voice in our heads that Dongyoung hasn’t heard in a while. If bad feelings really existed, he would’ve known not to put all his hopes in just one university only to end up as a shoemaker, right?

To: Nam Doah.

I’m fine.

Grocery shopping.

From: Nam Doah.

Okay.

Drive safely.

To: Nam Doah.

Always.

We’re still having beers with your husband next week, right?

From: Nam Doah.

Yep!

Are you bringing a plus one?

A plus one, he can’t think of someone even when he looks through his seas of contacts, thumb going up and down to find a name that relishes some kind of reaction out of him. Some are exes he has saved just in case they call him back, and he has to ignore them. Some are kisses he can’t recall. Some are simply not what he wants. Only when he comes across the certain name of an assistant does he stop, reminiscent of the last time he saw her on the male’s bathroom of the restaurant he spent the start of the new year in.

His mind vaguely remembers seeing her clinging to a group of guys from afar, his blazer tied around her waist and tightening the skin there. For a second, he wondered what it would feel like to wrap his arms around that waist and swing from side to side, leaning in to steal a kiss, perhaps his overexcited mind not helping him think straight. One of them was tall enough to have her bending by the waist the slightest, the face of someone who was probably the soccer team’s leader or something of the like. Very jock-esque, he’d say.

The other man that hugged her held his girlfriend’s hand as he did so, not once letting go of her. Then, came two people, the last one practically dragging her down with the weight of his drunken body, the scream he let out something along the lines of ‘happiest of new years!’. Dongyoung moved his face away then, and never saw her again.

But he has her number.

Maybe, the hum of a more tranquil song reminds him of her. The tea beside the refrigerators filled with alcoholic drinks reads out the same brand she enjoys, somber and black, but inviting enough for him to take the box and throw it inside his cart before moving along. He needs to get some steam and stress off, but his mind can’t stop worrying about the consequences of texting her. They’re not compatible, after all.

So entirely different, she lives her life thinking the clouds will give her the answers of her hardships and that everything falls into place eventually. Dongyoung is a pessimist, through and through, jealous of the sun that beams too brightly, or of the sky for being infinite. A date between the two could lead to nothing.

But opposites attract. It’s in the laws of physics, and that damned black tea must be a sign.

To: Nam Doah.

I’ll see if I can take someone.

From: Nam Doah.

Someone cute!

To: Nam Doah.

I always bring someone cute.

From: Nam Doah.

…

No comment!

The bravery that comes at one in the morning while being in a grocery store is surprising, tapping the text application beside her name to start working on a text. Dongyoung has many things to say—but something about the new year must not be it. He can’t ask about her pair of pants, neither can he a for his blazer back. Or, he could. Why not?

Just as he’s about to type a message, his screen is taken over by a new call, a number that he doesn’t recognize making him frown deeply. Who could be calling him at midnight?

Dongyoung has always been told that the world is too big for the population that it has, but why does it feel cramped in the worst of moments, as his lungs contract for one last breath and anxiousness overtakes him just as he takes the call?

“Hello?” His voice is soft, trying to distract himself by taking the utmost necessities for groceries. Tea and chips don’t sound like the best of meals, after all.

“Good night, am I talking to Mr. Kim Dongyoung?” The voice is professional, the old timbre of someone over her forties, and the tone alone has him swallowing thickly.

“Indeed.”

“Sorry for calling at such a time, but it was the only number we could find for Mrs. Kang Yuna…” The mention of Yuna’s name has images flashing before his eyes. Yuna interviewing him for the first time in her own store, when there were more people with them. The smile she’d always give him when trying to reassure him that everything was going to be okay with their jobs. Even this morning, when Dongyoung was complaining about the lack of employment in their own store, Yuna had been quick to shrug her shoulders and say it was going to be alright. A mother the entirety of her days and yet, able to take care of people around her. “I am deeply sorry to announce that Kang Yuna took part in a car accident early this night. We assume it was around eight, when she was going to pick up her daughter from her mother’s house. The car glided because of the old, worn out tires and her car…it rolled onto itself. It started turning—”

God, Dongyoung recalls exactly what Yuna was talking about this morning. His heart picks up when he imagines her playing with the strands of her red hair, speaking with glee about the gift that she had bought for her daughter—a new set of toys that she had been saving money for. She insisted on leaving her daughter at her mother’s, even if it was far away from the city, just to get enough time to buy the gift, wrap it up, and prepare it for her baby. “What happened to her?” His voice is rough, barely coming out as his fingertips become white at the pressure he puts on the handle of the cart.

“She had a traumatism, since she flew out of the car…basically. Sir—” His ears are unable to make out the next words, kneeling onto himself as he brings his free hand up to his face, the cold skin only freezing under his touch. The first tear falls down the moment the woman on the phone speaks again. “We’re talking from the hospital, and we were unable to communicate with her mother. Sadly, uh, she wasn’t alive when the ambulance got there.”

When you lose someone, it happens in the blink of an eye. You plan days ahead, think of them in your future, and for that, you never think of them as creatures that have an end, as stories that you can’t read forever. Yuna was with him in the morning, in the afternoon, had been with him every day for the past few years…and now, she was gone. Away from life just because she wanted to give her daughter a better life—a normal one, because of rules of life that seem incredibly unfair. Enough to finally steal the entirety of his breath away, knocking it out as tears continue falling.

“No…”

“We’d like for you to come. Maybe with Yuna’s family?”

But her daughter needs a mother, and Yuna’s mother needs a daughter. She was too young to end up like this—too ready to give her daughter exactly what the baby’s father never promised for her. If anyone deserved to die, Yuna wasn’t one of them. “Oh, fuck—”

“Sir, calm down.”

“I—I’ll call her mother…Please, tell me the address. Where can I find her?”

The hope he has is going to that hospital, only to see Yuna’s eyes wide open, her head patched up, and her lips engulfing one of those smiles that tell him that she got him. Like the jokes she played, and the ones he always hated. Yet, at the mention of the hospital and the dull silence that follows after he hangs up, he comes to the realization that if life is one thing—it’s fucking unfair. Vision dizzied by tears, Dongyoung can only press down in Yuna’s contact number, hearing the beeping that comes soon after, rhythmic, only to bid him farewell with a few last words…

“Hi, this is Yuna! I’m not available right now, but if you leave a message after the tone, I’ll get to you as soon as possible. Bye!”

The cheery tone has him closing his eyes tightly, because she won’t get back to him. Or anyone, for that matter.

Parting his lips to say a few last words as well, ones that he had never mentioned, he whispers: “I’m sorry for never saying how thankful I was to have you.”

And he won’t have her anymore.

###

Qian Kun is getting married to a snake. And sure, she likes snakes—the normal amount; if she sees one on the street, in between a set of deep green bushes, peacefully sticking their tongue out or just relaxing on the muddy flooring, she won’t mind about their existence. If they are creatures put in nature, they must exist for a reason. Though, those who are human beings and decide to let layers of snake-skin grow on their personalities don’t settle well with her. Kun may be an excellent elementary school teacher, but his level of intelligence has stopped in that level. His fiancé is not only a snake, but an ogre, one of those brides that will eat the groom’s head if the flowers are not the shade she wants.

Hence, it feels strange as she talks to Kun on the phone, weeks after he proposed to his girlfriend. Six weeks, maybe, she isn’t counting. The pavement welcomes her white sneakers, giving rhythm to her thoughts as the device rests against her ear, but no matter how close she puts it to her eardrums, the words from Kun’s lips still come out the same way.

“She wants you as one of her bridesmaids.”

Take it back to four years ago, when Kun started dating his current girlfriend, much younger and practically spending months just dating, just kissing, just hooking up, until she decided to give him an affirmative answer to the unspoken question of being serious with each other. Kun’s girlfriend, Lia, had almost lost her mind at the mention of a friend who is a girl. She remembers the call she had to pick up at the time, hearing Lia’s loud voice asking her to be honest—if Kun had ever slept with her, for the matter, or if they had even kissed.

Lia is enchanting, sure. It’s the kind of beauty that matches her short, brown hair, and her rounded glasses. Her turtlenecks match her chicly, and her beauty damn right translates into her intelligence. She’s serious, with the right amount of spice behind her dark eyes, but she is just downright…jealous.

“But, why?” Though, she is already moving with diligence, taking the free time she has for lunch to be able to work into finding the shoes that match the picture of the dress Lia had sent her way. It surprised her that the greeting before those texts had been paired with hearts in all colors, shapes, and ways. Maybe, Lia is just planning a way to poison her in her own wedding. “Listen, I know she doesn’t hate me, and I don’t hate her…but she has always been a bit iffy about our friendship.”

Kun sighs deeply. “She has grown out of that.”

“Kun?”

“What?”

“Don’t lie to yourself.” She comments, returning the greeting to one of the old men that pass her by while trotting. Health must be at its peak this time of the year; February is still early for the goals that people put up on a pedestal for their new year. “Listen, I get her. You’re a handsome guy, and I’m sure you have at least three bitches behind you asking for your number or your attention…but me? You’re as spicy as tofu for me.”

“Reason as to why she trusts you now, and she likes you!” Kun argues, the sound of kids speaking in the background cut short when he closes the door behind him. “And she would love it if you went with her when she tries on dresses and stuff.”

“I’m afraid of bridezillas.”

“You’ll be one someday.”

“Ha!” She answers, turning on the corner to go to Yuna’s shoe store. “If I ever get married. I think Johnny has more opportunities of settling down, and he’s the King of Players, than me.”

“Time knows what it is doing.” Kun replies quickly, though the subject return to its normal course soon enough. “So, I count with you for the bridesmaid thing, right?”

“Yeah, I’m on the way to buying some shoes because I don’t have high heels for being a bridesmaid, or ones that match that dress, so…”

“Okay, I have to go teach the new generation of little people. Talk to you later, alright? And thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Bye, Kun.”

“Bye.”

Trouble follows after her steps as the rain falls down on the length of her pink maxi skirt, dragging the fabric down through the pavement and cringing at the wet feeling of her clothes after forgetting her umbrella at home. Rushing through the streets brings her to the front of the shoe store, the walls of the building becoming duller under the gray skies. It may be a sign of just how stupid it is to be Lia’s bridesmaid, but she does it for Kun.

The strands of her hair cling to her face when she tries to open the glassed doors of the store, only to have her chest pushing against the surface, a line of mud resting in between her breasts. The groan that rips from her throat is loud enough to have her stumbling back the slightest, looking up at the building in hopes of finding some big sign that reads ‘closed’. Normally, whenever she passes by the store, it’s open continuously.

One of the windows is opened, the railing doing nothing to conceal the man that is seated by the edge, hand extending forward to catch the droplets of rain in between his fingers—as if it would do something to wipe the clear tears on his reddened eyes. Dongyoung’s hair stands in various spots, though it remains as dark as the somberness on his eyelids—as if he hasn’t slept in days. A black sweater rests on his body comfortably, but the part of his lips lets her know that he hasn’t breathed comfortably in a while.

“Dongyoung!” She calls out, hand waving in the air to capture his attention. It works; his brown eyes trailing down until he meets up with her gaze. The last time she saw him was two months ago, when giving him her number had seemed like a good idea—though, she’s even surer now. “Dongyoung! Hey!”

The back of the sleeves of his sweater meet the raindrops that don’t come from the sky—the tears that capture his existence, that move him into everything that he is against of. Feeling this hard, for example. “H—Hi…how have you been?”

“Hey, is everything alright?” She asks, though the question is stupid. Of course, crying under the rain while looking out the window isn’t alright.

“Yeah!” Dongyoung breathes out, a small smile appearing over his face that doesn’t feel genuine at all. “I haven’t seen you in a while.”

She lets her hands fall on each side of her body, the smack collecting some droplets of water and making them jump dramatically. “Well, this is me here.”

This is her here, saying sorry about something that she doesn’t quite know of—because she wishes that those tears would dry with the soft gush of wind that follows the smile that he gives her. “Does April need some shoes?”

“Actually, I need some shoes.” She tells him, though, when she gives one step forward, she sighs. “But I need to know why you’re crying even more.”

“I got a thing in my eye. Don’t worry.”

“Dongyoung, I swear I’ll climb these walls to get there and get the answer out of you.”

“It’s—” His voice cuts off, different from the night of December—almost January—in which they met, though the sound is continued by the sound of keys, hitting the pavement with a swish of water. “Use the third key and we’ll meet on the main desk. We have to work on your shoes.”

Her heartbeat rumbles hard enough for her to feel it inside her ears when the glass doors open, the dull shoe store unlike any of the times she had seen it before. The scars of Dongyoung bleed in the place in ways one would never imagine could happen in a workplace—pictures scattered across the main desk that he is not fast enough to cover up, each one showing new phases of Kim Dongyoung and his boss, Yuna, the one she had talked to over the phone before getting to know the shoe store on its own. The shadows of her coexist in this place, making the lack of her noticeable when the last set of stairs creaks under the weight of Dongyoung’s shoes.

He comes back to life in a way no one would expect him, shielding himself with his hands extended on top of his arms, his cheeks hollowed with the memory of his tears—perhaps, not eating as much as he should, or as frequently as it’s needed. His eyes stare forward, the breath he gives trying to recompose himself, put a shield of him up that makes him look more like a man. Like the man people like Dongyoung are pushed to be, but that wall doesn’t do enough to cover up what brings him down.

“Dongyoung…” She whispers his name softly, splaying her hand on top of one of the pictures. Dongyoung and Yuna are standing in front of a fountain, a little girl seated on Yuna’s lap and Dongyoung’s index finger taking by said baby in between her palm. Life seems good in that picture. “Where’s your boss…Yuna?”

The man rests his forehead against the woodened walls as his lip remains stuck in between his teeth. A war crosses his head when he says: “Six feet under because of a car accident that shouldn’t have happened. That’s where she is.”

Sometimes, she likes to believe no matter how bad our days are…the ones that have the littlest bit of happiness become the best days of our lives. We don’t realize it—finding that one that is too outstanding to be real, but being able to wake up healthy and with those whom we love equally as well should be enough, and it is. Her hands extend without noticing, capturing the spot over his shoulders as his hands splay on her waist, tugging her closer, enough for his arms to wrap around the skin there, encaging her as a shaking breath left his lips. Dongyoung is on the verge of breaking down again, and she can only hope he does.

Because that’s what people like him should learn—that feeling in passion, with enough power to bleed and let it hurt, is the cycle of life and a damn good one at that. Heartbreak should be felt, because it always happens that something goes wrong, someone leaves, whether we like it or not, whether they meant to or not. It’s what we’re ordered to suffer through by life, and Dongyoung just so happened to try to be the stronger person, when he’s already strong enough.

“Dongyoung, I’m so sorry…” She breathes out, her fingers raking through his soft hair, not finding the right answer to tell him. Maybe, they were really close—shit, those pictures show just how close they had been. “It’s not your fault.”

“It’s life’s fault.” He says. “If only she hadn’t insisted on buying those toys for her daughter. If—If only the man that got her pregnant was enough of a man and took care of both of them, they wouldn’t have had to go through this!” His voice is much too fast, like a boat that can’t stop moving, going through the waves that clash against the one soaring with it. Dongyoung’s face becomes the only sight she wants to see when she pulls away from him, absentmindedly rubbing the tears away as if they were cream gliding across his skin. “…And I was enough of a dick to never tell her how much I care about her. How good of a friend she was to me…”

“I’m sure she knew.” She replies, though the knows the words do nothing for him. Perhaps, her hopes are too high as their chests remain close, eye to eye, heart to hear. “Write her a letter. I’m sure she’ll read it, wherever she is.”

That brings a smile up Dongyoung’s face, shaking his head in the process. “That’s bullshit. She’s dead, she can’t read anything.”

“How do you know?”

“I just do.”

“Believing that they still see us is the only way you’ll ever feel better.” She replies, grasping the heart pendant that rests in between her collarbones, turning around on his hands and moving her damp hair away from her nape. “Help me take this necklace off.”

His hands work on it just as he asks: “Why, though?”

She turns around when the necklace falls in between her fingertips with ease, opening the heart pendant to show him the slice of a piece of paper that she kept inside. “Whenever I write a letter to someone I’ve lost, I take a small piece and put it inside. It reminds me I still have them with me.”

Suddenly, when she looks up, she feels Dongyoung’s eyes already on her, studying her expression, his eyes as red as the tip of his ears. He chuckles for a second, the first sound that she feels happy of hearing ever since she got there. “I don’t think that’s something I can quite believe in.”

“Well, you can do plenty of things with a necklace, too—” She replies, bringing the necklace up her palm, the pendant facing the middle of her hand, easily capturing his attention. “There’s this thing I learnt when I was a kid, if you let the pendant just…move to its will, it’ll show the number of children you’ll have. I think…I think if it’s a circle, it’s a girl. If it draws a line, it’s a boy.”

Amusement overtakes his features as he takes the necklace in between his hands, stopping the ministrations. “That’s the wind.”

“That’s the kind of things we have to believe in, Dongyoung.”

“Of course not! How would a necklace know how many children you’ll have?”

“I don’t know! That’s a thing, Dongyoung, not knowing and still trusting things!”

The excitement on her tone must have gotten him to bring a smile up his features, letting go of the necklace to talk to her instead. “I won’t do that, but I can work on a pair of shoes for you. After all, I haven’t had clients in a while.”

She bawls her hands to grab her dangling necklace, looking for her—hopefully dry—phone inside her bag, looking for her conversation with Lia and showing the picture of the extremely blue bridesmaid dress. “I’m a bridesmaid, and I think the topic is something like water…ocean…I don’t know, it’s by the ocean, that I do know, and I need a good pair of shoes.”

“I think I can make some for you, and I’ll give you a discount for being…” Dongyoung stops looking at the screen to trail his eyes over her face. “You.”

“It’s not necessary. I’ll pay you completely.”

“I insist.”

“No need to insist.”

“Are you always this stubborn?”

“Only sometimes.” The answer comes quickly from her lips, looking down at her phone with widened eyes before sighing. “Can you take my shoe size and actually text me about this after? I need to go back to my job soon…but I don’t want to leave quite yet.”

She wishes she could stay with him—heal those waterfalls and mend them with a hug, but staying would mean potentially losing her job. April is a nice person in most occasions, but leave her hanging for one minute and she’ll lose it. “Right…now I have an excuse to text you, don’t I?”

“You do,” She says. “And now we have an excuse to talk about how much we agree on disagreeing.”

“That sounds like a plan.”

Though, as she watches Dongyoung work quickly on a design for her, fingertips holding his pencil as if it belonged to his hands, she realizes that there is so much more in him that aches only to go unnoticed by people. Words that remain silent. Worlds that he doesn’t let anyone discover. Rarity overcomes her when she makes it a plan to get to know the parts of him that embarrass him, but that only make him more human to her. And she will.

###

Ink stained pages rest beside the first shoe he had worked on since Yuna’s death, the light bulb on top of him asking for mercy at this ungodly hour of the night. Dongyoung has been unable to go home lately—not because of the waves of jobs, because that’s far from the case, but rather because there is something holding him back. The need to revive this place, as if it would bring his friend back, drives him to work more hours than necessary. Or maybe, it is the person that had given him the hopes of getting better, trusting his process for her shoe-wear at some grand event such as a wedding.

Pain kisses his neck, leaves him implanted in front of the desk as the joints of his fingers extend at the mere stress of working there for so long. His phone rests beside his workplace, plugged in so he doesn’t forget to charge it, and calling out his name with the irony of it all. In the only few moments he had taken for himself, just to rest the long hours of working, he could only think about her. The obnoxious innocence that invades her and makes her so herself. Most of the time, he wants to scoff—he needs to not to feel enchanted by how different they are. A pendant he finds hangs in between his hands, until he tests exactly what she says, and it comes up with different answers.

Two children first.

Then three.

Then possibly five.

And sure, he’s a young man but he’s sure he won’t have that many children. Two, at maximum.

How many would she want?

Dongyoung throws his head back, sighing at the crack of his neck and closing his eyes tightly out of tiredness. He still needs to work on the pair of the high heel he had just finished, in a perfect white shade with straps that cross elegantly over the foot, the density of the shoe nice enough for her to dance the night away and not feel pain at any moment. He doesn’t know why, but he takes her as the type that buzzes around in parties—imparting those slices of happiness of hers like lemonade on a summer evening.

And he really needs to stop thinking of her as charming.

But, she is. The kind of physically charming that would have any of his friends nodding at him to just go for it, but also what he thinks of her goes past her physical appearance. There is something about her—naivety, maybe, or the profoundness of knowing and seeing more than most people. It is as though the world is a book for her, and she doesn’t think about the ending. She enjoys every page as if it’s the last, and it may be. In this book that we have written, alongside one another, everyone moves at their own pace. How do we know which one is the past, the present, the future? Whose characters are bad, whose are good?

From: Kim Dongyoung.

Is it too late to text something?

Hi.

How are you?

When he looks at the time on his phone, he realizes it’s nine at night. Everyone around their age is fast awake at this hour, right?

To: Kim Dongyoung.

I’m organizing some dinner for April and her boyfriend.

From: Kim Dongyoung.

Is she still dating the baseball player guy?

To: Kim Dongyoung.

Yep.

Why?

Interested on a date with her, still?

Nice tastes you’ve got there, bro.

He bites down on his lip. In any other occasion, he would’ve said yes. April Lim is the conceptualization of what most people want, but it’s not what he wants anymore.

From: Kim Dongyoung.

I think I want a date with someone else.

Shit, make it more casual, he thinks.

From: Kim Dongyoung.

Haha.

That has to do it. Casual as ever.

It takes her a few minutes to answer, though he can already imagine the smile plastered on her face.

To: Kim Dongyoung.

Ooh, has someone managed to capture your attention?

I wonder who it is…

From: Kim Dongyoung.

I think you know.

To: Kim Dongyoung.

Do I?

From: Kim Dongyoung.

Yep.

To: Kim Dongyoung.

She must be real pretty.

From: Kim Dongyoung.

She is.

What are you doing on Saturday?

To: Kim Dongyoung.

Isn’t the girl you have in mind going to get jealous?

From: Kim Dongyoung.

I don’t know, are you the jealous type?

With his hand trailing over his neck, a smile plastered on his face, Dongyoung finally decides that he is not going to waste another opportunity in his life. If he wants to do something or say something, he will; tongue sharp, heart on his sleeve, ready to take over the world, not for the world to take over him.

Embarrassment embarks him with the number of laughing emojis she sends soon after, laughing at his words and antics. In a little golden-bathed room, on the verge of bankruptcy, having another chance at life because not a lot of people get to do that.

To: Kim Dongyoung.

Not really.

From: Kim Dongyoung.

Then, the girl I plan on going in a date with isn’t jealous.

To: Kim Dongyoung.

There’s a music festival on Saturday.

My friends invited me to go and I would love it if you tagged along.

Great music, you know.

And we can get to know each other better.

 Music is part of him, but the bitter part—the one that is scared because his North has long disappeared from the picture, lost and not found, but for some reason, going with her doesn’t sound so bad. A melody appears inside his head, creating a song for the first time in a while out of the image of her, the tune of her voice, and her mere existence.

From: Kim Dongyoung.

We’ll see each other there.

Send me the details.

Taking the finished high-heel in between his hands, he inspects it with conscience. If the shoe fits, then, he may find someone whose differences with him only complement portions of him he had never gotten to know, too lost in his bitterness—too afraid of living a life that had not been the one he wanted.

Yet, it was the one that destiny decided for him and it was only up to him to shape it to what he wanted.

###

The band on the stage has the crowd going crazy in cheers, beers and cigarettes butts thrown on the floor, equally as intoxicated as the group’s names (erm, Dongyoung doesn’t even know why they would call it this way, but that’s the band name—The Intoxicated). Meanwhile, he sits on the far back, seated on a plaid fabric that folds over the mere weight of him and his date. The rays of sunshine fall on his eyes uncomfortably, not quite as prepared as his companion—an expert in music festivals—with some rounded glasses a la John Lennon seated on the bridge of her nose, a white blouse with only one button put together, the rest leaving her chest in display, a bralette underneath in a beige color, a pair of ripped jeans barely cladding her legs, halfway folded on top of his lap. Her head nods along to the music, enjoying it to the best of her capabilities.

People like her do not live carelessly, but they quite feel like they do. Instead, her mind becomes a sea that he hasn’t travelled—one of the many things he doesn’t understand about her, but he can’t bring himself to resolve the mysteries of her. Though, he tries to reach for her heart, thumb rubbing the top of her soft hands, feeling the bones there stand out the slightest, and if her eyes widened at the action, he doesn’t even notice behind those sunglasses.

Dongyoung turns to look at her just to memorize the small smile that appears on her face, the way she grabs his hand and rests it on her warm thigh, placing her own palm on top of his. The thin layer of pink lipstick that he got a sight of early in the evening has left the image, now implanting thoughts of what it would be like to taste her lips—bathed in the tiniest bit of soda, and perhaps, ready to taste a drink in the near future. He hopes the drink comes directly from him in the shape of a kiss.

There are people who make everyone fall in love with them with a smile, a shrug of her shoulders and a tilt to her head that has him pulling himself closer to her. “Loosen up a bit, Dongyoung. You’re a great singer, you should be shouting along to the lyrics.” Her hands reach for his snapback, moving it back until she can get a good glimpse of his face, studying his lips for a second before biting her own. Tension.

“I don’t know the lyrics, that’s the thing. I’ve never heard this song.”

“Then, just pretend you’re singing along.” She answers, running her fingertips along his neck and collarbones, burning in drips of rain—in droplets of her that feel like they may kill him at that moment. She chuckles again. “You know, in my head, I like to call you class president, because you’re extra uptight.”

Memories of high school embark him on a trip that has him shaking his head. The past is there, but he’s unable to change it. “I was class president. Is there anything wrong with that?”

“No,” The words escape her quickly, her fingers dancing away from him before humming. “I actually had a thing for the class president back when I was in high school.”

“Did you date?” Dongyoung asks, splaying his hand on her skin, as if that somehow makes him feel more of her. It’s never enough of her.

Instead, she looks forward, taking off her sunglasses and absentmindedly placing them on his face. They do shield him from the harsh sun, but just as he’s about to refuse wearing them, she speaks up: “Not really. I always thought I’d never fit a good-and-perfect guy.”

“What? Why? Who thinks like that?” The questions roll around his head as an ignition to their conversation, and she laughs.

“Dongyoung, I liked trouble. Guys who ignored me, guys who think they’re going to be the last man I love, those who smoked a cigarette and passed the smoke down to me.” The image fits her, somehow, as if it’s the kind of person that should be there instead of him. “…But I’m tired of that. I don’t need sex before breakfast and good music, I need an actual man. A conversation that doesn’t feel like they think exactly like me.”

“You deserve more than whatever asshole you’re describing.”

“I do.” Her eyes roam over his features, leaning forward until they are face to face, but before she could part her lips to say something else, set him free with a few words that keep him tied to her, they hear the sound of someone calling her name, along with Dongyoung’s.

Earlier on the evening, Dongyoung had been introduced to the tall man in front of them, his white t-shirt long gone and now displaying the tattoos on his chest, his arms, perhaps even down to his legs. A cigarette rests in between his lips, his long blonde hair different from the hairstyle he had seen on the New Year’s party he had seen him in the night she ripped her pants. Johnny Seo, he had said he was before he had fleeted away to talk to a bunch of people, perhaps just to leave them alone, or only because he wanted to socialize.

The man brings a cigarette up to his lips, taking one out of his pocket before extending his hand and offering it to him. “Come on dude, it’s a music festival, have one.”

The first time he tried a cigarette, he was in high school…and he can’t say one thing: it tastes like paper, smoke, and something of the lines of shit all in one thing. Not exaggerated at all, he doesn’t even wonder why people like it. Horrid. “Nah, man, I’ll pass.”

Johnny lifts his eyebrows at his friend, chuckling at his words. “You’ve got a serious one right here.”

“Ain’t he charming?” She asks, wrapping both arms around his shoulders and looking at him with a smile on her face that he could get used to, as if it’s early in the morning and she has just woken him with a kiss. The cutest face that had gone through a bunch of shit that he wants to get to know, write a future out of the past she wouldn’t want to remember when around him. No regrets out of this.

“He is!” Johnny replies, blowing the air from his cigarette before pointing with his thumb behind him. “If you need me, I’m going to be backstage. I’m going to meet one of the singers because of a girl I dated.”

“That’s okay.” She says, watching her friend retreat before speaking loudly. “Get me a signature of whoever that is, John!”

“Okay!”

When she turns back to him, a big smile on her face, though he can’t stop himself from saying: “Have I ever told you I really love your smile?”

It’s the kind of smile they should share as perfect on social media, not too bright, not too straight, just simply real. With one hand coming up to cover her mouth, Dongyoung takes it in between his fingers, pressing a kiss to her knuckles when she speaks up. “It’s the thing I’m the most insecure about.”

His arms take solace in her waist, bringing their chests closer until he can feel the rhythm of her heart, and it’s quicker than whatever shitty drummer on the stage. “Well, let me be here long enough and I’ll make it the thing you’re the most comfortable with.”

“A lot of promises, Dongyoung.”

“I don’t make promises.” He says. “I’m just stating the truth.”

When the Milky Way meets moonlight and the music changes to something he enjoys more, Dongyoung finally lets go a bit. His snapback now rests on her head, his arms wrapped around her waist from behind as they swing to the sound of the music, both shouting the lyrics to the top of their lungs, the buttons of her shirt undone as she looks over her shoulder and gives her a beam that shouldn’t even be covered. Every portion of her speaks about living, feeling, raw and without fear of hurting, even if that’s how most stories end.

How he hopes theirs don’t.

The stars contrast on the sunglasses that now hang from his shirt, her cheek practically resting on his shoulder from the position, the faint smell of soda still lingering within her, arms intertwined behind his head, fingers raking through his hair absentmindedly. “You’ve got some fun in you, baby.”

“I do.” Dongyoung replies, biting his lip before trailing his hands up her waist, his fingertips trying to remember the feeling of the soft fabric that covers her skin, going up her sides until he reaches her arms, turning her around to rest his hands on her hips. “Something about you just makes me want to let go for once.”

It’s April, and Dongyoung is not thinking about what he is saying for once. “Why? Don’t I make you scared?”

“Not at all.” The words escape him with ease, water and alcohol falling from the skies, a few droplets falling on them, the people cheering too loudly and the two of them too far back to even be able to catch a glimpse of the singer. He doesn’t care. “You make me want to try.”

“Try what?”

“A chance at life.”

Her smile only grows wider when she leans forward, pressing her lips to his briefly, almost as if she’s tasting him, pulling away with a glint on her eyes that has him pushing himself forward, not an ounce of liquid courage inside of him when he parts his lips and tightens his hold around her hips. Her hands come towards his neck, thumb tracing his jugular as their lips part rhythmically, not perfectly, but synchronized in a way that they would only understand. Her upper lip tastes like soda and candy, exactly like what he would have never imagined, but too dulcet for him to forget, pushing his body forward until hers molds to his like puzzle pieces.

Abdomen contracting, hands wanting more of her, lips asking for another breath as his nose exhales to keep kissing her, head tilting to the side to take more of her, to let her kill him with one of those ways that she knows of. When he pulls away, his eyes take in the image of her, of the smile that takes over her features when she hides her face on his shoulder, barely letting a kiss rest on his neck before chuckling loudly.

He could get used to living like this.

###

Lying becomes more difficult when she has to do it straight to someone’s face.

Not only are we made out of bones, muscles, joints, arteries, veins, but we are also made out of our disappointments. The words we said once when we were teens and how they haunt us. That one class we took that we were really bad at. The relationships we tried and didn’t even last a week. The people we trust and never quite met out expectations. Eyes only twinkle in sadness when met with disappointment, and the downward shape of someone’s lips comes with the sadness that embarks them. It’s the cycle of relationships, how we’re trained to be—to hurt someone, and make them ache in the process. Not all of us, but most.

Seated on the flooring of April’s wardrobe, waiting for the woman to arrive, she watches the door open with expertise, though a bit uncertainly. Peaking from behind the door, she sees the face of April’s boyfriend, Minho, appear in her line of sight. Even when the door is not completely opened, she can see the bouquet of red roses that does not match the disappointment on his face. Minho finally lets go of the handle and shows him on his baseball practice clothing, though sporting his heart on his sleeve.

“April isn’t here?”

She knows where April is. In some hotel downtown with a singer that Dongyoung adores, whose high notes are enough to make people believe he is an angel and doesn’t hunt for taken women. That’s how life is, that’s how people move. Made to break, bend, turn life into messes just for their own pleasure. She always thought that she had to let it be—let the pain live inside her and the people around her, for it was inevitable. Lies are meant to be told. Trees are meant to pass by the racing cars that try to look for a future.

We are meant to hurt.

But we aren’t.

We are meant to feel, just not pain all the time.

She stands up then, looking at the set of shoes that she doesn’t even wear anymore—those that Dongyoung had designed, created and crafted months ago, before their dates, before she had kissed him more than she had kissed any man without being a couple, and she realizes just how much April has turned her into a shell of herself. Life got turned into a lie for her, dragging the sins she had not committed, a Lego piece under her feet as she tried to find something better for her.

And everyone deserves something better.

“I can tell you the hotel she is in, but I doubt you want to go.” She whispers, placing her hands inside the pockets of her jeans before watching Minho’s face with intent. It falls completely, just like the bouquet of flowers that pathetically takes place on the floor with a thud. “She’s been cheating on you for the last year, Minho.”

“No fucking way…” Minho breathes out, resting his hand on top of his forehead, and when she sees the heartbreak in his eyes, she decides that she is more than this. More than being just an assistant, more than helping someone lie, more than helping someone get fifty pair of shoes only not to wear them at all. Some people just aren’t people at all, but parasites instead. “Are you lying?”

“Not right now, but each time you asked where she was over the phone…I was lying to you.” She answers, shrugging her shoulders soon after before moving closer to him. “I’m deeply sorry.”

“That bitch—”

“She’s one.” She says, taking out her phone at that moment, aware that the mansion she finds herself in is not the place she should be in. She would much rather live in solitude but being honest to herself, getting little to no money but still, not having to cover up for someone who wouldn’t do the same for her. Just as the screen illuminates her face, she looks at Minho over her shoulder. The white walls of the wardrobe, the tall mirrors that clad almost every spot, and the perfectly organized clothes make him look like an outcast, and she realizes that she doesn’t take place in this life anymore. “If you’re staying, tell her that she doesn’t have an assistant anymore. I’m done with lying.”

The tapping of her shoes, not high-heels, against the tiles makes her feel powerful. It’s the first chapter of a story she hasn’t written, but it’s definitely far more worthy than making people ache and bend to the will of others. It feels natural, for there must be something else in this world than just being someone’s shadow.

To: Kim Dongyoung.

You gotta invite me to dinner now.

I’m officially unemployed.

The man replies just as she is walking out of the mansion, passing by April’s sports cars.

From: Kim Dongyoung.

No shit.

You’re finally free.

The air feels a bit purer as she breathes in, watching the night unfold in front of her as she waits for a taxi.

She’s finally free.

###

Sweat tinges at Kun’s hairline, but the smile on his face comes directly out of a magazine. Be damned immaculate models when you can have happiness in the form of love. People easily judge—hell, she is one of them, for she had never stopped once to think about why Kun tried so hard with Lia, and why he wanted to marry her during the summer. The grin she shares with him seems to separate them for the world, tonguing the words of the song that plays in the background directly to him, not because the party is straight out of a daydream, but because this is her daydream with him. Kun was someone Lia didn’t want to lose, and in her own way, she was just being human.

The garden Kun had saved money for comes relatively close to perfection. Only that the children plucking out some flowers at the corner of the event are not the most likeable in this scene. Everyone has cups on their hands, if not, they’re exchanging the dulcet champagne for something far more sober. A man with a long beard makes sure that the waiters serve in an order, taking into consideration everyone’s allergies or preferences. Kun and Lia had really thought the event through.

When she crosses one leg over the other, she pulls the yellow bridesmaid dress up her legs, not caring if people look at her weirdly, but she simply has to spare a glance to the white shoes that wrap around her feet like a vice. People never care about shoes, but she does—it’s a help to move forward and these ones are extremely comfortable. Not that she had been able to pay Dongyoung with more than a few kisses and a few turns in his arms, but one day, she hopefully will. When her job at the library makes her save enough money, after all.

Dongyoung always said she’d fit philosophy, and he wasn’t half wrong.

Winter and spring be forgotten when she feels the warmth of the summer that is him, wrapping his arms around her waist from behind like he normally does, his chin resting against her shoulder. When she looks at Dongyoung, she catches him already looking at her, his black hair pushed back and showing a smile she can’t get used to—too beautiful in its own way, matching hers that doesn’t make her quite as insecure as it did before. People grow, or so they say.

“They’re gonna throw the bouquet soon,” Dongyoung says, and though the words remain unspoken, she knows there is something between them. Something serious, a concept too foreign for people like them. “Do you want to stand there and see?”

“I doubt you believe in those things.” She says, feeling the expanse of his chest when she leans back, a smile on her face that can’t be erased in any possible way. Dongyoung nods along to her words.

“I don’t, but I know someone who probably does.”

“I don’t think I have a boyfriend to get married to.” The joke doesn’t work well with him, the tips of his ears reddening at the connotation of her words.

“Well, I do think you have a boyfriend, or have all these months not meant a thing—?”

“I’m joking.” She replies, though she only sighs, placing a brief kiss to his lips that she still doesn’t get used to. Sometimes, if she spends long enough without kissing him, she swears she can forget the taste of him and aches for a memory. “…I’m too lazy to stand up. I think I’ve had too many snacks since the party started.”

“Okay.” Dongyoung, or her boyfriend as he called himself, places a brief kiss to her neck before looking ahead. Lia has stepped away from Kun’s hold to have the masses of women going crazy behind her, jumping up and down and pushing each other. “Damn, people really go crazy over this.”

“Welcome to weddings. This always happens.”

Though, when the bouquet of flowers flies in the air, it almost feels like it happens in slow motion. She turns around to look at Dongyoung, first focusing on his thin lips, his delicate nose, his cat-like eyes before she watches his hand extending to capture something flying in the air. His expression fills itself with surprise, for he had caught the bouquet, and laughter creeps up on the invitees.

Dongyoung’s face is crimson red by the time he says: “Ah, uh…I didn’t mean to.”

All his teeth show in an uncomfortable smile as people call his name, but instead, she shrugs her shoulders. “It doesn’t mean a thing.”

“Since when did you stop believing in these things?” Dongyoung asks, putting the bouquet in between their bodies as a sign. Instead, she grins widely.

“Since my reality became better than my daydreams.”

And a bouquet that indicates the future can’t change the beauty of this city guy in front of her, whose words had been able to show her the truth always wins over a million lies. Good luck that her reality is much better than the lies she had once told.

[sprnklersplashes]

songwriter!janis fic (unrequited crush, no-very-happy-ending) 

also on ao3

It all started because she loved Taylor Swift when she was in middle school. Who is she kidding, she still loves Taylor Swift, but that’s where all this began. A middle school girl’s obsession with Taylor Swift. A confused, sad girl with a broken heart and smudged black eyeliner, finding refuge in lyrics about loneliness and anger and revenge. They became anthems for her, mantras to mutter when the warzone of middle school became too much for her.

“Someday, I’ll be living in a big old city, and all you’re ever gonna be is mean.”

“Cause I knew you were trouble when you walked in.”

“I can still see you, this ain’t the best view.”

It amazes her. It’s honestly as if Taylor Swift has managed to look into her life and given her a bundle of songs for whatever she needs. For when Regina has thrown her one too many snide looks, for when she’s standing at the door of North Shore High on her first day, for when she eats lunch alone, for when her mom is the best mom she could have asked for, for when she and Damian are lying on the grass in her backyard, staring up at the sky, laughing at absolutely nothing. The songs become the soundtrack to her life, the chords and those raw, honest lyrics an emotional outlet she so desperately craves. Taylor, and her songs, become a confidant, almost a close friend who always knows what to say.

With all that in mind, perhaps it was only a matter of time before she asks for a guitar for Christmas. She’s fourteen, braces and a slight lisp, and jumps up and down like a mad woman when she sees it under the tree.

She practices for three days straight, until her fingers bleed, but Should’ve Said No is the first song she learns off by heart. She yells the lyrics with maybe a little too much passion, but her parents applaud her nonetheless.

Like she said, that’s how it all started.

Because that same Christmas, she realises that screaming her feelings while playing guitar actually feels pretty cathartic. And that if it worked for Taylor Swift, it could work for her. So she writes stuff down, plays around with chords and strumming until the beat on the guitar matches the one in her head. She grabs a page and a pencil and writes and re-writes her innermost thoughts and feelings on the page until they sound the way she wants them to. She plays around with rhyme schemes and structure and everything she’s been taught about in English class, and a thrill runs through her as she does so. It’s the same breathless high she feels when she paints or draws, the rush that comes from creating something.

Her parents sit on the other side of her bedroom door, no doubt exchanging worried glances as she repeats the same verse, same chorus, with only a word changed. She watches them when they think she can’t see, peering through the crack in her door. The conclusion they seem to come to is ‘well, as coping mechanisms go, it’s pretty good, and she’s happy, so who are we to stop it?’.

It takes her four days to finish her first song. And it sucks. But she keeps it, writes down the lyrics and chords in one of the few empty notebooks she has, and there’s no going back from it now. She writes, and she writes, and she writes, near enough every day. She likes to think she gets better with each one. She learns more chords, buys a cheap ukulele the summer after freshman year, tries her hand at piano during a particularly difficult few weeks. She doesn’t plan on doing anything with them. They’re just her little pieces to hold on to. Her therapy sessions outside the carpeted office.

No-one knows about it. She has a reputation to keep up, after all. The loner-by-choice, too-cool-for-school, aloof art freak. Everyone has their roles to play in the ecosystem that is high school and, much as she hates the entire system, that is hers to play. And she plays it well, if she may say so. The fact that hardly anyone knows her past that facade suits her just fine. After all, if people think she doesn’t care, she can’t get hurt. No-one needs to know that Janis Sarkisian actually has feelings.

Even less need to know that she writes songs about said feelings.

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By the time she reaches her junior year, she’s onto her third notebook. She keeps them tucked away in her sock drawer, expertly hidden so only she can find them. Damian teases her about it, calling her “the protagonist of a Disney Channel Original Movie”. She just rolls her eyes and reminds him that “if either of us is gonna be Disney’s first openly gay character, it’ll be you”. He can’t argue with that.

It should be noted that when Janis said that no-one knows about her songwriting, Damian was the obvious exception. He found out just weeks after she started. There’s no keeping secrets from him.

Between all her notebooks, she’s written around forty songs.

Then she meets Cady Heron one day. The human embodiment of a labrador puppy, complete with wide, lost eyes. She likes her instantly, decides to take her under her wing because Lord knows the girl needs it. Cady’s smile is infectious, her laugh like a summer breeze. She has dimples and caramel-coloured hair and really likes maths.

She meets Cady on a Monday.

By that Saturday, song number 41-titled “Dimples and Curls” is more or less complete.

She plays it for Damian, hands only slightly shaking as she changes chords, the strumming short and upbeat, the melody strangely happy for such a bittersweet song.

He applauds her, but the subject of the song hangs in the air even after she’s played the last chord and the music fades. Unsaid, but not unknown. Just like her songwriting, Janis couldn’t keep a crush from Damian if she tried.

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“Hey, check it out.”

Cady drops onto the seat across from Janis, the whole table shaking as she does so. Like a small meteor just hit Earth. Janis looks up from her lunch, pretending like she had been doing her own thing and not watching the door until Cady came in. Pretending like her stomach doesn’t do little flips at the sight of her crossing the cafeteria. She pulls the flyer towards her and hums in amusement.

“The winter talent show,” she reads before chomping off a carrot stick. “Oh, is it that time of year already?”

“Seems like only yesterday we was welcoming the young’uns into this brave new world during the harvest season,” Damian sighs, putting on a delightfully over the top Southern Belle accent, no doubt influenced by their reading of Streetcar Named Desire in English class. Janis cackles, and nearly chokes on her lunch as she does.

“And now the cold winds of winter are descending upon us,” she replies, her accent equally heavy. She bats her eyes for good measure, because she can and because it makes Cady laugh. “Oh but I pray the children will survive this season, it is often rough for them.”

“I am never showing you two anything winter related ever again,” Cady says.

Janis just shrugs and runs her hand through her hair before her eyes go back to the flyer. Clearly, whatever sophomore they got to design it this year did their best; found the prettiest looking snowflakes on Google Images to put on the cartoon stage, decided to write in some swirling, slanted font rather than the start-studded block lettering they usually went for. It’s still the same as it is every year, meaning just as mockable, but she’ll give them points for tying.

“Well, anyone here going for it?” she asks. She looks from Damian to Cady and back again, a teasing smirk on her lips. “Last year and all that.”

“Not sure I can,” Damian sighs. “I mean, I’m booked up with Spelling Bee rehearsals and spring cabaret auditions happening next semester.” He drums his fingers against his throat. “Gotta give the little vocal chords some rest, you know?”

Janis’ response is to sing the lowest note she possibly can before turning to Cady and giving her a pointed look, the corner of her mouth quirked up.

“Who? Me?” Cady’s cheeks turned crimson and she shakes her head so much that the caramel curls bounced around her shoulders. “No way. Damian can take the stage, I’m fine with my calculators and textbooks.”

“You could always solve equations in front of everyone,” Janis says. “I could call out college-level questions from the audience and you solve them in under 30 seconds.”

“I think I’ll pass,” she giggles. She leans forward slightly, eyes glittering, and Janis does her best not to squirm. The effect Cady Heron’s eyes have on her should be studied by scientists. “What about you, Janis?”

“I don’t know.” She thinks back to when she helped on stage crew last year, as well as helping out (or taking over) with the set design. It had been fun, the kind of challenge she needed to keep her mind off the slowly-going-off-the-rails plan. And she was told it looked good on her college applications, because all people can think about apparently is college, college, college. “Maybe. They might need another genius stage manager.”

“And you’ll step in if they can’t find one?” She digs Damian in the ribs for that comment.

“But not performing?” Cady asks, and Janis freezes. Performing had never even crossed her mind before. She’s used to backstage, hell, she likes backstage. It’s not that she has stage fright or anything, and if she had, her stunt at Ms Norbury’s little healing session would have squished it. She had just never thought about it.

But Cady had, apparently.

“I-No, I-I don’t think so,” she stammers out. “Um, I might do backstage again, but not actually doing something, you know, talent related.” She bites her tongue and clamps her lips shut before anything else can come out.

“Okay then,” Cady replies slowly. She gets up from the table, her little empty water bottle in her hands. “I’m going to go for a refill, save my seat.”

“No problem,” Janis says, but Cady’s already jogging away.

She doesn’t know if it’s good or bad that Cady’s known her too long to think of her as cool, and so this kind of awkward babbling isn’t really surprising to her. Instead of thinking about it, she just sets her head on the table and lets Damian rub her back.

“You were nowhere near as bad as you think you were,” he assures her.

“Title of your sex tape,” comes her murmured reply. Damian chuckles and runs his fingers through her hair, like she’s his pet cat. It helps.

“So you’re definitely not going for the talent show then?” he asks.

Her first instinct is to say no, because of course she isn’t, because she never has before and she sees no point in breaking a three-year streak, but the answer catches in her throat. At the same time, something begins forming in her brain, pieces of a melody she’s already known, words filling in blank spots in her brain, and her fingers twitch involuntarily, playing the chords on an invisible guitar. Without a word, she grabs a notepad and pen from her bag and scribbles the words down before she forgets them, quickly becoming breathless just by sitting there. She forgets, for a moment, everything else, the talent show, Cady, even Damian next to her, and just revels in the task and the quick buzz she gets just from writing. Just like that she has one eye on the clock, itching to get home and put her notes into the rest of the song.

But with those notes came an idea, an idea so completely out of left field she almost laughs at it.

“Janis?” Damian asks, just slightly unnerved by her. If anyone else were at this table, even Cady (especially Cady), she would have had to excuse herself and run to the bathroom, or just hope the words stayed in her head long enough for her to get a quiet moment. “Did the Goddess of Music just possess you again?”

“Maybe,” is her response. He doesn’t know it, but she answered both the questions he asked in the past minute.

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She sits on her bed that night, her homework half-done and strewn across the desk, abandoned in favour of the guitar sitting in her lap and notebook open on her bed. She’s been working on his song for the better part of a week, inspiration and motivation seemingly striking and then fading whenever she gets a free moment. Abandoning it has crossed her mind-she’s no stranger to abandoning things that aren’t working-but for some reason she hasn’t quite been able to shake this particular song off.

Maybe it is Euterpe, the Goddess of Music, descending upon her because this song has to be finished, it has to be, Olympus willing it so.

Or maybe it’s because this song is one of the most personal things she’s ever written, a love letter she’ll never send, and the idea of it sitting unfinished drives her crazy.

She plays another chord and sings the line again, changing the ending slightly, and makes the adjustment in her notes.

She’s crazy. This is already crazy, her secret double life as a wannabe T-Swift, but now she’s gone beyond that. Thinking of actually playing it. On a stage. In front of people. She doesn’t care what people think of her, she stopped caring about that a long, long time ago, but holy shit what will people think of her after she does this? Life isn’t like the movies, she knows that much. It won’t be some pretty, softly-lit moment where the crowd sits with teary eyes, Cady runs onstage and kisses her and she’s offered a deal by some big shot producer, and they all live happily ever after the end. What could happen is people think she’s even more of a weirdo than they do now.

Or she gets tomatoes thrown at her head and she’s booed off the stage. That’s a possibility.

She calls Damian, because that’s the only way she sees out of her little thought cul-de-sac. She puts the phone on speaker and props it up against a pillow, keeping her hands free for her guitar and her pen. He picks up on the third ring, just as she’s strumming out a G chord.

“Oh, is someone prepping for her Grammy?” he asks. “You’re still taking me as your date, right?”

“Only if my dog can’t go,” she replies. She taps her nails against the wood, the rhythm too fast and frantic to just be a habit. Yes, she can tell Damian anything, and being nervous in front of him is laughable, but sometimes her body forgets that. “So, I was thinking about the talent show.”

“Oh? You’re going for stage crew again? Cool.”

“No-not exactly.” She knows he can’t see the smile creeping across her face, but she’d wager he can hear it through the phone. A small swarm of butterflies flutters in her chest, leaving her just slightly out of breath. “I… I. think I’m going to try performing in it.”

A burst of laughter comes through the phone, slightly tinged with static, and Janis wishes he were here so she could slap him. Even if it’s not malicious in intent at all, and she’s laughing right along with him. Slapping is kind of a love language for them.

“Okay, okay cool. What’re you going to do?”

“I’ll give you a hint,” she says, and then she plays the opening chords to her latest experiment. She doesn’t add in the lyrics, not yet. Still, she sits back and basks in his applause when she finishes, cackling into her hand. He might be one person, but he’s got enough enthusiasm to match a packed auditorium. “What do you think?”

“I’m into it,” he tells her. “So… that’s the one you’re doing?”

“Think so.” She tosses the pick between her fingers. Like he could feel her smile, she can feel his raised eyebrow through the phone, the elephant in the room poking her with its trunk. “Yes, I know.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“You thought it,” she tells him, and he doesn’t deny it. She looks back over the lyrics she’s written and re-written. Despite some adjustments, it’s still in essence the same. Still about a girl with pretty hair who smells like vanilla and cinnamon, who has a boyfriend and is unknowingly breaking the heart of a girl with black eyeliner and paint stained fingers. Because her boyfriend is pretty and clean and smells like soap and can do math, and how is the poor art girl even meant to compare to that?

“Yes,” she says after a while. “It is about Cady.”

“Aw, my poor lovestruck songstress,” he sighs. He shifts then, and the air shifts with him. “You sure that’s the one you want to sing? I mean you have dozens of other non-Cady related songs. I’m sure Mr Duvall would love to hear Angry Teenage Lesbian Anthem.”

“First off, I gave that one a title, it’s called Shattered,” she reminds him. “And-” She freezes, the rest of her sentence catching in her throat. He’s right. She could perform one of her other songs, that are already finished and therefore removing the pressure to have this one finished, polished and stage-ready. And of course, it would mean she wouldn’t be standing in front of her entire grade and telling them all how badly she’s in love with her best friend. Showing her deepest secret to the people who have already driven her out of school once. It’s a far safer, potentially less traumatic option for her.

But…

“No,” she says. “I know it sounds crazy but I feel like… I feel like I need to do this.” She swallows thickly and picks softly at the guitar strings. “It’s like… like this way at least I’m telling her, you know? Even if she doesn’t know it.”

Of course, Damian gets it.

“That’s beautiful, babe,” he tells her. “So you’re actually doing this?”

“I’m actually doing this,” she replies firmly. “And tomorrow, I need you to make sure I don’t chicken out before I sign up.”

“Got it. I’ll just order you to do it as Senior Co-Chair of the Student Activities Committee.”

“That’s an abuse of power.”

“Then consider yourself abused baby.” He laughs and she laughs with him, and then she hears something on Damian’s end. “I have to go. A certain little sister of mine has a princess costume that needs attending to. See you later.”

“See you later,” she replies before he clicks off the call. She looks down at her paper, then at her guitar, and thinks about what she just committed to. “I’ve got some work to do.”

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The song goes through four rewrites in the weeks leading up to the talent show. The whole first verse is changed, the chorus scrapped and replaced with a new one, then that one is scrapped and she goes back to the old one. She sits hunched on her floor with a pencil in her mouth, wondering if what she’s written is too personal or not personal enough. If it’s too obvious that Cady, smart cookie that she is, will work it out and that’ll lead them down a new, scary path. She cuts some lyrics that give the game away, opting to replace one about love for numbers with love for learning, because that opens up the pool to half their grade. She writes about Cady’s blue eyes rather than specifically those double dimples that make her melt. Maybe she’s compromising her artistic vision, but it might be worth it if it’ll keep her crush a secret. She keeps the old lyrics tucked in the back of her notebook, just to have them.

Meanwhile, she’s also dealing with the fact that people know she has signed up for the talent show. That Miss Too Cool For School Loner Art Freak Janis is actually performing at a school event. And she doesn’t even get extra credit for it. They’re surprised, and curious, and none more so than Cady. The other girl appears at her side almost instantly after first period, skinny little arms wrapped around her bicep and blue eyes alight.

Oh, the things those eyes do to her.

“Janis!” she squeaks. “I saw-on the sign up sheet-your name! Oh my God, is this a joke? Did Damian put you up to it?”

“No, no, I signed up of my own accord,” Janis tells her. That only makes Cady bounce more, ponytail bobbing up and down.

“Oh wow, that’s amazing!” she says. She stops then, her mouth freezing in its place and her cheeks turning pink. Slowly, she comes down to Earth, like a balloon that had the air let out of it. Janis can almost hear the wheeze. “I mean um, it’s pretty cool, I guess.”

“It’s pretty grool,” Janis replies, and just like that Cady bounces back up again.

“Oh my gosh, what are you going to do?” she asks. “Or do you want it to be a surprise?”

“You think I have some secret knife-throwing talent?” she grins. She hesitates for a moment, looking down at Cady’s excited face, because even if this isn’t telling her… it’s telling her. “I’m… I’m going to sing.” She pulls on the strap of her backpack and avoids Cady’s eyes. “Something I wrote.”

“Okay,” Cady says. “Who are you and what have you done with my best friend?”

“Hey!” she laughs. “I can write stuff. I can be deep.”

“Oh, I have no doubt about it,” Cady says, bumping her arm against Janis’. “But for real, Janis, I can’t wait to see it. I know you’ll be amazing.”

Warmth spreads across her pale cheeks, a pink blush no doubt colouring her face, and she somehow manages to choke out a “thanks” as her brain turns to static. Her only thought is ‘Cady thinks I’m going to be good’, and it’s written in glitter pen across her brain.

“This is going to be great,” she goes on. “Oh, wait until I tell Aaron. He’s got a break in his schedule that week so he’s coming up to see the talent show! Isn’t that great?”

And just like that, Janis’ good mood falls. Her face stays the same, because she’s trained to do it, but everything behind it crumbles.

“Yeah, that’s great,” she replies. Cady squeezes her hand, oblivious, and drags her along the hallway, chatting away about some lion documentary she had watched last night.

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She finishes the song that night. She arrives home with a heavy chest, so full of complicated, messy feelings, and her conversation with Cady still so fresh in her mind, her ears still ringing from the emotional whiplash. Her parents barely get a ‘hello’ as she enters and bolts up to her room, her hands shaking, the thoughts swirling around her brain desperate to be let out.

And let them out she does. She writes so quickly they look more like smudges than words, her fingers flying over rapidly changing chords, her voice broken and panting as she sings. The words almost write themselves, like the song has taken on a life of its own and she’s just along for the ride. She barely remembers to pause, to breathe, so wrapped up in the storm she’s created with just her guitar and pen.

It’s only when she finishes and falls back on her bed that she notices the tears in her eyes. She blinks them away and pulls herself up, her notebook in her hand. It’s done. The perfect blend of her own honest feelings and just enough smokescreen to keep people from knowing who it’s really about.

There’s no backing out now, she thinks. Her stomach drops, like she’s on the top of a roller coaster about to go down. A laugh bubbles up in her throat and leaves her breathless, her head spinning while she’s still laying there.

If holy shit were am adjective, she'd use it to describe how she feels. Because holy shit.

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Being backstage when she’s not on crew is a strange experience. She stands with her guitar slung around her body, in the middle of a current of students moving around her, half with the clunky microphones and walkie-talkies she’s used so many times before. She asks five of them if she can do anything to help-because they’re her people and she needs to do something to occupy her time-until she finally takes the hint and leaves them to it. Stagehands are the most efficient parts of any production, as she told Damian once. They’re a well-oiled machine at this point.

“Yo!” For a second, Janis thinks she imagined the whisper, just one in a jumble of backstage noises, until Damian appears at her side. A tiny ‘shit’ escapes her mouth, her body jerking. Barely anyone bats an eye at her, except him. “Sorry, didn’t mean to spook you.”

“Don’t worry. I think at this point a small breeze could knock into me and I’d crumble.”

“The great Janis Sarkisian gets nervous?” he asks, eyebrow raised.

“Only when she’s doing something incredibly personal and scary in front of her entire grade,” she whispers back. She swallows past the lump in her throat. “Aside from that I’m a beacon of confidence and unshakable will.”

“Hey.” He taps his knuckles against hers. “Remember how scared you were at Norbury’s assembly?”

“You mean after I had my picture all over the school with the d-slur written underneath it?” she mutters. “Yeah, I was shitting myself.”

“And yet, look what you did there,” he reminds her. “You were amazing. And you’re going to be amazing here too. Once you get on that stage, all those butterflies are going to make you fly, kid.”

She smiles, her heart warm, and pressed her face into the crook of Damian’s neck.

She doesn’t know how she got so lucky to have him, but she knows better than to tempt fate.

“Janis Sarkisian?” She lifts her head to find a freshman girl with a headset around her neck looking at her. “You’re up next.”

“Okay.” It’s only now she becomes aware that the last minute of Fairytale Of New York is playing, the notes will soon fade out, and that’s her cue. She turns to Damian and lets him straighten her black cardigan and fiddle with the collar of her shirt. “Wish me luck.”

“You don’t need it.” He drops a whisper of a kiss to her nose. “But good luck.”

She holds her half-heart necklace as he goes, the twin to the one around his neck. It’s as close as she can get to having him with her. Her chest tightens as she makes her way to the stage and she tries to breathe through it, because the next thign she knows, Mr Duvall is announcing her name, and she’s being greeted by a blinding spotlight that thankfully obscures most of her peers’ faces.

“Uh, hi,” she says into the microphone placed out for her. It’s just people , she reminds herself. Somewhere in that crowd, second row, seat 14, is Damian, and she breathes easier. And next to him is Cady, the girl this song is about, and for some reason that straightens her spine and irons out the shaking in her voice. She takes the pick out of its holder and tosses her hair back. “This is a song I wrote about being in love with someone who doesn’t love you back.” She blinks and hopes no-one sees the tears in her eyes. “So sing along if you get into it, because we all know it’s a shitty ass feeling.”

She plays the first chord, and then any and all doubts she had about this flee her. As cliche as it sounds, the song takes over her, and she blows through the nerves in the first verse. The experience becomes cathartic instead, like releasing a pressure valve on her soul. Even with the little diversions she threw in, she hasn’t felt this open and god damn free since last year, paraded on her peers’ shoulders with both middle fingers up. Except now she’s not flipping anyone off, or proving a point, she’s just finally telling someone how she feels, and holy shit, it’s amazing. Whatever the aftermath of this is, she won’t care, it’s worth it just for this feeling.

As she sings the last word, and that final note rings in the auditorium, her hands are shaking, her cheeks wet with tears and her hair sticky with sweat. She touches beneath her eye and her fingers come away stained black.  She hasn’t cried in front of people since middle school. She doesn’t care.

The cheers of her classmates ring in her ears, Damian’s whooping the loudest of all, and as she takes her bow, she hopes she’ll remember this moment for a long time.

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“Oh my God!” she’s barely into the auditorium when Cady launches herself at her, arms wrapped around her neck and legs circling her waist. Janis nearly topples over, digging her back leg into the ground just in time, and hugs Cady with the same ferocity. “You were amazing!” she yells into her shoulder, the sound muffled by Janis’ hair.

“Really?”

“Absolutely.” She sets Cady down, but the other girl keeps a tight grip on both her arms. Janis wonders if it’s to keep herself from flying away, given the amount of bouncing up and down she’s doing. “I can’t believe you wrote that! It was so good! You need to record it, Jan. Do you have any other songs?”

“Just a few,” she says. “And I don’t know if I’m in the business of making an album any time soon.” She swings her guitar case a little. “This might have been a one-time thing.”

“Well, even if it was, it was awesome,” she says.

“Thank you, Caddy,” Janis replies. “That means a lot.”

Her mouth runs dry as Cady smiles, all baby pink lipgloss and sparkling eyes and full cheeks. If this were a movie, she thinks, this would be the part where they kiss. No need for talking, or an explanation. Because Cady would have just known. The music would turn soft and twinkly, and the lighting would match it and it would look like they’re in a dream and they’d just kiss, and it will fix all of Janis’ problems. Maybe a single tear will run down her cheek. And then they’ll run off into their new lives as the end credits roll.

How sweet that would be.

But her life isn’t a movie. If she wants anything, she has to go for it herself.

And that includes-

“Caddy.” Her name is delicate on her lips, handled with care. Cady looks at her, giving a simple ‘mm-hm’ in response, and Janis’ heart beats out of control. “That song I just sang, it-”

“Hey, guys.”

Also if this was a movie, Cady’s sweet, lovely, nice boyfriend would not be barging in right now. He’d either be a douchebag who she doesn’t feel bad about hurting, or he’d be nonexistent.

Unfortunately, this is not a movie, and Aaron Samuels exists and is the human equivalent of a squishmallow.

“Hey Aaron.” He slings his arm around Cady’s shoulders, and she leans into his touch almost instinctively. “Janis, you were great up there. I didn’t know you wrote songs.”

“It’s a bit of a new hobby,” she says, her voice hoarse. She clears her throat, and finds a bottle of water being handed to-thrown at-her.

“Hydrate those chords,” is Damian’s greeting.

“This is what I get for being friends with a theatre kid,” she sighs before she takes a drink. She hadn’t realised how dry her throat was until now.

“Okay, so we’re all going for pancakes,” Aaron says. “I take it you two are coming?”

“How can I say no to pancakes?” Janis asks. “Uh, you guys go ahead, I have to get my stuff from the green room.”

“Okay, we’ll wait for you,” Cady says. “Aaron brought his car so he can drive us.”

“Grool.” Cady and Aaron turn around together, Aaron spinning his eyes around his finger and Cady lacing her fingers through his, talking about something she can’t hear. It’s like watching them through a sheet of glass.

Not a movie. Not unless it’s one of those really, really sad movies. Sad homophobic movies.

“You okay?” Damian asks. She snorts at the question. Nothing has changed, so of course she’s okay. But then, nothing has changed, so she’s not really okay.

“I did it,” she sighs. “It’s out there. I told her, unofficially. Whether or not she works it out…” She runs her hand through her tangled hair. “That’s something else entirely.” Damian hums in agreement, a sympathetic look on his face that soon morphs into a grin.

“Hey,” he says. “I’m proud of you.”

“Thanks Mom.” They snort, Janis caught between a laugh and a sob, and squeezes Damian’s hand. She’s not optimistic about any romance in her future, at least where Cady is concerned. She and Aaron are still rock-solid and she’s happy for them, whenever she isn’t angsting about it. It’s a weird combination to have.

And at least she’s done this now. Despite a future for her and Cady not being in the cards for now, she’s glad she did it. The secret isn’t out, not entirely. Just written on the walls in invisible ink.

“Come on,” she tells Damian. “I actually do have to get my bag, and you can use this as an opportunity to double check the ghost light is on.”

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

Cady and Aaron keep their promise and wait for them, waving off their apologies as they jog across the parking lot. Cady lets Damian take the front seat with Aaron and slides into the back with Janis instead. Janis frowns, confused as to why she isn’t taking her normal seat up front, and Cady rolls her eyes.

“There was a draw on the way here, and we lost,” she explains. “And now Damian has control of the aux chord,” She gestures with her head to the passenger seat, and Janis turns just in time to see him open his Spotify and scroll through his playlists. As the opening notes to Waving Through A Window fill the car, it’s met with three loud groans. Damian only turns it up louder, and adds in his own backing vocals.

“So, that song you sang,” Cady asks, leaning back in the seat. “Was it about anyone in particular?”

Janis looks down, her hands pressed together in her lap. If this is the moment the universe decided to give her, it’s a really terrible moment. Not only is Cady’s whole boyfriend sitting an arm’s length away from her, but she left her nerve back in the auditorium. Clearly, her and fate aren’t on each other’s wavelength.

“You wouldn’t know her,” she says. “She doesn't even go here.”

“Oh,” Cady replies. Her face falls, but she’s not too put out by it. Why would she be? She nudges Janis’ shoulder, a proud smile on her face, and squeezes Janis’ hand. “Well, if she has someone like you into her and she hasn’t taken the chance yet, then she doesn’t know what she’s missing.”

Janis only thanks her, and quickly changes the subject.

Someday she might tell her for real, but for now she'll stick to the songs.

[thoughts-on-bangtan]

MTV Unplugged presents: BTS

by Admin 1

What a time to not only be alive, but also be ARMY with BTS taking the MTV Unplugged stage on February 23rd 2021 as the first Korean artists in history to do so. It’s another marvelous achievement on the already highly impressive list BTS have to their name, another mark they’re leaving on history and another piece solidifying their place among musics greatest, at least if you ask me and everyone else who tuned in and was left extremely impressed and emotional, a mix of euphoria, emotional rawness, but also a sense of warm, soft, and gentle comfort and hope.

With this gorgeously put together setlist they’ve also proven, once more, that even when you take away all the high budget stadium stages, the dynamic and explosive choreographies and the fancy music video editing, and just focus on their craft as musicians and their most valuable instruments--their voices--BTS can stand their ground easily. Their talent and passion is unmistakable and shines brightly in all these songs, four of their own and one cover.

The performance was shown simultaneously on dozens of MTV stations across the globe, some watching on TV and others via official live streams, and yet others catching up with what they missed hours later. All the promo, hype and attention paid off and they showed that it was all worth it, that they are more than worth it, and that we as ARMY have every right to be proud of them and be proud of being ARMY.

So, let’s do what I love doing most and talk about each performance, shall we?

What an absolutely delightful, happy and funky way to open the show and introduce new listeners to just how fun BTS can be. The stage was one giant room filled with lost of little details, including a motorbike with a second passenger extension, arcade games, a football game, and a sofa. Right from the get go there’s this joyful aura around the members, smiles on their faces, little dance moves making their steps light and fun--they were having fun and subsequently we were, too.

How wonderful is it to also finally see Yoongi with them as well, even if it’s very noticeable (and understandable) that he’s keeping his shoulder steady and arm moving as little as possible? After all Telepathy was “his” song for BE and contains lots of little Yoongi signature features, most obviously his knack for playing with autotune in a way that is very audible yet never quite too much, just walking along the line in an interesting way. There’s a genius note change from Hobi in the second half of the song that’s one of the absolute highlights, just like Namjoon and Seokjin doing their little minimal movement dances in the back while grooving along to the music.

As Vminnies we get our own little treat with Jimin and Tae coming together to sing alongside each other and do their little dance as well which we’ve previously seen during the Dear Class of 2020 performance of Mikrocosmos. Then to finish off their little segment, they also do this funny little thing of pointing at each other with Tae as though acting like he (perhaps) wants to boop Jimin’s face/nose from afar. Absolutely adorable.

Speaking of which, can we talk about their cute Donald and Daisy Duck accents on their clothes and accessories which add this little sense of retro? As well as the fact that Tae is wearing the cardigan equivalent to Jimin’s Gucci sweater from his NOTES on Dis-ease video? I do very much enjoy these little details from the stylists. Also, has anyone else noticed that Tae has different in-ears? His usual ones were green yet here they’re translucent.

The way I gasped when the members turned to Tae and asked him to introduce the next song and he said it’s one that is very meaningful to him, honestly, I can’t even describe it. I was so, so happy but also getting ready to be swallowed by all the feels. I know ARMY sns had theories that we’d get Blue & Grey based on the visuals of that stage which we got in the teasers, and yet somehow I still wasn’t quite ready when the song began and we were graced with absolutely breathtaking vocals that went straight for the heart.

The visuals for this performance were perfect for the song while being interesting yet not too much that it would pull your attention away from the song itself. One by one the members sang their parts and found their places along the two main walls, the lighting cold yet on the white/grey side, none of them really interacting or looking at each other which was fitting with the atmosphere of that blue and grey feeling. Then, for the second half, the ‘stage’ switched to more of a blue lighting and we had moments where first Seokjin and JK sang together and then Jimin and Tae, their voices harmonizing so heavenly with each other yet still none of the members really looked at each other, at most looking into the camera.

I love how this performance put the focus on each member on their own but also in moments on the entire group, that feeling of being alone but never quite alone, that they have each other, and that we have them. Tae also really seemed to be highlighted during this performance, which makes sense when given the history of how the song came to be. But, really, each of them was just as visible and equally beautiful in this.

Speaking of beautiful, my jaw dropped when we got to see (and hear) Namjoon during his verse. Honestly, that mans beauty and handsomeness--it somehow keeps on increasing with each time we see him.

From anon: Omg vmin in blue and grey 😭😭😭. They coudnt even look to each other while singing “Don't say you're fine' Cause you're not Please don't leave me alone, it hurts too much” it’s my fav part by the way and their harmonization it’s heaven. I loved they choose this song to the mtv performance!

As much as this was supposed to be a surprise, MTV accidentally spoiled it hours before their performance was aired, and yet, despite knowing it was coming, I don’t think any of us were quite prepared for it right after Blue & Grey.

Fix You is a gorgeous song in its original version with a sad backstory, and it’s one of those Coldplay songs that they are extremely selective over when it comes to requests for official covers or use for commercials or movies/shows. They are about their entire discography, but I think it especially goes for this song, and yet they gave BTS the permission to do this official unplugged cover.

We also know the song means something more to the members, seeing as Jimin posted a video on their 6h anniversary showing the members during a trip they’d gone on together while the song is playing in the background. They also spoke about Coldplay during the press conference before their Wembley concerts, and Namjoon and Hobi had gone to one of their concerts a few years ago, as well as Tae on a different occasion. There certainly is a level of admiration and respect involved, a deeper connection to what they were singing, which was very clear and tangible during their performance as well.

Vocal line were truly outstanding in this, especially Seokjin (who took sns by storm as the “pink mic guy” with floods of praise and people wondering who he is, what his name is, because they’d all fallen in love with him--very relatable because same). Rap line switched between harmonizing with the vocalists in their low register and did a beautiful job of it. Namjoon harmonizing with Seokjin truly gave me goosebumps (and made my little namjin heart very happy). We also had Tae and Hobi harmonizing and sharing a brief smile with each other, as well as Namjoon harmonizing with Jungkook and Jimin, and Yoongi harmonizing with Tae and Jungkook.

The stage was also beautifully thought out, minimal yet captivating at once, all the members sitting on barstools in a line with the blinds drawn on the windows behind them, spotlights shining on them from above and others dancing behind them giving them a beautiful glow and turning something simple into something extraordinary and gorgeous. They truly didn’t need any more than that.

And like their performance wasn’t outstanding enough, we also saw Coldplay themselves not only tweet about it while calling the cover beautiful in Korean (and tagging the member’s twitter account instead of the _bighit one), but also post the same comment below the video on YouTube and share links to it on their facebook and IG stories, as well as sharing the video in their community tab on their YouTube channel. 

So, not only did BTS garner big approval from Coldplay fans and ARMY alike, but also from the original artist. A wonderful moment in music and between two legendary artists in their own right.

This acoustic version of Life Goes On is truly a masterpiece, so calm, soothing and offering that sense of comfort, togetherness, and this reassurance that life will go on, that we’re together in this, that we’ve made it through the blue & grey, that we’ve helped each other to “fix” ourselves, and that we can now slowly heal and grow from the things we’ve gone through. The electric guitar, the slow and quiet drums and on top of that the members voices, all of it coming together truly beautifully.

Their outfits kind of gave me UK private school or University secret society vibes, or as Admin 2 called it “ready to go hunting, we’re just missing our Beagles or Basset Hounds” which isn’t necessarily wrong. And yet the warm shades of brown fit the atmosphere of the song really well, complement it even.

While we’re “used” to vmin having their little moment, we only really saw Tae smiling towards Jimin, though the camera unfortunately didn’t give us a wide shot to see if Jimin returned his smile, though I’ll go ahead and say he likely did if he noticed Tae’s. Though honestly, Tae’s wide happy smile was enough to melt my heart on its own.

And then, to close out the night, we got a very funky and fun yet calm version of Dynamite during which, surprisingly enough, the members actually stay in their seats against all ARMY theories and bets (well, okay, Namjoon stood up for a moment, but sat down really quickly again and no one actually got out of their seats to dance). Who would’ve thought a day like this would come, especially looking at how they got up in previous seated performances of Dynamite.

I love the not so subtle flex of all their gold, silver and platinum records across the wall behind them, as well as their MTV moon men. With how humble they are about their awards and achievements, this felt like a good moment to highlight just how hard they’ve worked, how much they’ve achieved, before they got the chance to be on MTV Unplugged and that truly, if someone deserves to be there and showcase their talents, its them.

Looking at how many times we’ve seen and heard Dynamite, it’s fascinating how they still managed to create a version that was different from all the previous ones and felt fresh and new. Their outfits were simple and all white and thus didn’t pull too much attention onto them leaving the focus on the music and vocals. Tae’s adlibs were absolutely fantastic and they all just seemed to have so much fun with this performance, smiling and dancing in their seats, obviously having a great time. We even got Jimin smiling and scrunching up his nose happily at Tae while he sang! 

Overall this MTV Unplugged performance was a wonderful display of their talents and music merits, their vocals and rap, and just how outstanding they are as a group on this vast world stage. The setlist was perfect, though perhaps a little short. Honestly, if you ask me, they could’ve performed five or ten more songs and I would’ve remained glued to the screen through it all. And yet, still, I couldn’t have asked for more. I was left brown away and so extremely impressed despite being ARMY and knowing how good BTS are. They truly manage to find new ways to grow, evolve, and showcase their musicality with each performance. I also love how they don’t shy away from trying new things and challenges, like rap line singing and harmonizing with the vocals.

I’ll definitely come back to watching these stages many times in the future and they’re easily up there in my top ten of favorite performances of all time. Thank you, BTS, and thank you MTV Unplugged.

[vanderlindemangofarm]

The Van der Linde Gang - Jobs in a Modern AU

I’ve been really inspired to write about this lately and I’d love to hear your takes! These are the occupations that I think each gang member would have in a modern AU. Some were more challenging than others, but hopefully you guys can see where I’m coming from with each! 

Arthur: Film location scout. His natural eye for photography and framing makes Arthur the perfect member of a pre-production team. His no-bullshit approach to everything means he keeps to deadlines, although he’s known to go wandering off into the wilderness for unknown amounts of time. He enjoys the lone working side of his job and finding exactly the right spots that would make the film come to life. He doesn’t always like the films once they’re finished (in fact he’s often bought cinema tickets and walked out half way through, grumbling that it wasn’t worth the popcorn) but he can’t deny the excited buzz he gets every time he gets hired. In his early years as an assistant he met Bertie Mason, a nervous but talented photography intern. Despite an ill-advised hookup after a week joined at the hip they have remained close friends and still go out on shoots together. 

John: landscape gardener. John? Flowers? Yes, alright, I found it hard to believe too. But look, it’s not about the flowers, even if he does get misty-eyed at the sight of a sunflower in the early morning light. It’s about the challenge, the outdoors, and solving problems. After all the renovations he did to his house and garden (some more successful than others) John found how much satisfaction he got from digging and reshaping and planting. Don’t get me wrong, he’s often without a shirt, even in the colder months, much to the delight of some and the horror of others. He always makes friends with the household pets and is wonderful with the kids, always dropping his task to throw a frisbee around for a bit or cheekily accept an ice cold glass of lemonade from their mothers. Whenever he drives past one of his projects he feels himself glowing with pride - “I did that!”. 

Dutch: philosophy lecturer. As always, late with Starbucks. Will he actually grade your essay? Will it mysteriously disappear? Keeps you on your toes, doesn’t it? Sitting precariously on the very edge of his desk, leather jacket hanging off his shoulders and losing his balance every 15 minutes, Dr Van der Linde is nothing short of a wonder. For the love of all that is holy, do not get him started on Kant. Kant has no place here. You want to talk about your precious Kant? Get your butt down to Dr O’Driscoll’s class, he has plenty to say about Kant. Perhaps a little too fond of Socrates. Plato who? Completely illegible handwriting and definitely sleeping with several members of the faculty. But somehow his students always walk away with excellent grades. At the end of each term Dutch takes everyone out to a local bar for drinks, insists on buying tequila which no one really fancies at 11am. Claims to ride a motorcycle called The Count which no one has actually seen. Impossible to hate, and he writes everyone great references for their summer internships. 

Hosea: social worker. In a crisis, there’s no one better to knock on your door. Hosea has seen it all and he’ll see it all again, but that doesn’t stop him from treating every single case he gets with the upmost respect and care. His no-nonsense approach to his work means he gets things done, but he never sacrifices his compassion. He mostly works with teenagers and has a way of being able to connect to each individual without coming across as patronising. He’s been in the field for over two decades and is an invaluable mentor for any newcomers, always willing to share a word or two of advice or be a shoulder to cry on. 

Javier: guitar teacher and music therapist. During his worst years, Javier’s guitar was his lifeline. And he wants to help others find their lifeline, too. He works on a freelance basis, mainly going into mental health hospitals, schools and prisons. He runs workshops focusing on guitar playing, but brings other instruments (mainly percussion) to try too. He’s a gentle teacher, always with a joke in his back pocket for when you need it most. He has nicknames for everyone and remembers everything they’ve ever told him. He’s patient and never lets anyone feel bad for making a mistake. Javier also runs an after-school guitar club at the local middle school alongside playing his own music at gigs whenever he can. No, he doesn’t reply to DMs no matter how thirsty they are. 

Sadie: self-defense instructor. After surviving an attack several years ago, Sadie used her ferocity to get her qualification in self-defense to teach other women how to fight back should they need to. Her husband Jake helps out in her classes, happily allowing himself to be thrown around and slammed onto the mat as many times as required. Her students are terrified of her in the best and nicest way. Sadie also volunteers at a women’s refuge, providing emergency care and taking phone calls. 

Charles: environmental campaign manager. Charles has always been drawn to charities and started doing voluntary work for Greenpeace when he was at university, securing an internship with them in Canada which led to a full time job. Whilst Charles mainly hosts meetings and organises events, he also works closely with elementary schools and runs workshops with outdoor activities, crafts and music. Last week they made bird feeders! It was awesome. He’s also a keen activist and regularly meets up with Javier to go to protests and community events, most recently for BLM. 

Micah: motorcycle mechanic. Micah is massively invested in motorcycle culture and treats his beloved bike better than his own mother, if he still spoke to her. Although he pretends not to care, fixing bikes is his greatest passion and almost looks...happy when he’s doing it? Maybe? He likes knowing more than the people who stop by his shop and makes sure they know it. Occasionally he leaves his number on a scrap of paper inside women’s handbags when they’re not looking but for some reason none of them call. Like it or not, he’s incredibly skilled and will have your motorcycle singing a tune if that’s what you want. Euphemism? Of course not. 

Abigail: nurse. She was so shy when she realised she wanted to pursue nursing - would people laugh at her? Was she too impatient, too nagging, too shrill? Her dyslexia always put her off going into further education and she was always discouraged by her parents. But with lots of encouragement from Hosea (who helped her to fill out her applications and other forms) and her friends, Abigail went to university in her 30′s to get her degree. She graduated top of her class and now works full time in her local hospital, based mostly in the emergency room. From drunken brawlers to tearful children and grumpy old men with lumbago, Abigail has learnt to keep her cool and to have faith in her own ability. 

Molly: holistic therapist and masseuse. It took years to get that bastard of a philosopher out of her head (and out of her bed - damn those happy hour drinks “for old times’ sake”), but she’s finally free. Molly radiates a kindness that few took to the time to see, and she wanted to take strength from her past struggles to help others who may need someone to listen, just as she did. Molly took a bunch of online courses in various holistic therapies, including aromatherapy and massage, as this was something she had always been interested in. She runs a tiny clinic on a quiet street, the rooms filled with sunshine and the scent of geraniums. She also has a quite popular ASMR YouTube channel, Emerald Eyes ASMR, which she shyly admits just reached 500k subscribers. Her most popular video, ‘Irish Girl Helps You Fall Asleep (soft spoken, tapping, mouth sounds)’ just reached over a million hits. 

Kieran: veterinarian specialising in equine care. Much like Abigail, Kieran didn’t like the idea of going back into education. He’d had a rough time of it as a teenager, dropping out of high school early and working a string of menial jobs for the next decade. They paid his rent, but he still felt poor. His favourite job, however, was working at a stable. The horses made him feel calm and he found that he could read them better than most people. He went to the library and read as much as he could about them. From there, he got himself an apprenticeship which paved the way for him to earn his degree in veterinary science. He smiled so hard in his graduation photo his eyes disappeared into his cheeks. He travels all over the local countryside, visiting farms and ranches to care for the horses. His confidence picked up after the first few blunders, and little by little he’s saving up to buy his own ranch one day. 

Lenny: political science student. You know that kid who always looks amazing, even in 9am lectures? Yeah, that’s not Lenny, but he’s sat just behind. See him? Yep, the one rubbing sleep from his eyes as he pushes through the effects of another all-nighter. It’s not due to procrastination, but from perfectionism. He spends hour agonising over references, appendixes and even titles. One time he was so tired he signed his work “Ynnel”. He’s completely in love with his course and relishes every class he takes. Oh, he’s taking Dutch’s ‘History of Western Philosophy’ module by the way. Sitting in the front row, middle seat, directly in front of Dutch, his eyes glinting wickedly. Poor Dutch. Lenny has a counterpoint for absolutely everything and can barely stifle his laughter as Dutch gets more and more flustered. He’s been dating Jenny Kirk, an English Lit student, for the past few months and it’s going well. So well in fact, that he might stop hiding his Doctor Who merchandise every time she comes to his dorm room. 

Tilly: business student. Tilly started university at the same time as Lenny and they still always go to the library together, rolling their eyes at each other over their morning peppermint lattes. Tilly is at the forefront of any and all on-campus activism. Think of Sam from Dear White People - that’s our Tilly. She wears her Ravenclaw scarf all autumn and winter long and posts scathing Instagram stories about the cafeteria food. But she’s powerfully kind and very ambitious, taking on a part time job tutoring kids with dyslexia in their reading and writing. 

Susan: midwife. Think having a baby is scary? Try crossing Nurse Grimshaw. She’s here now, and that baby is coming out of you one way or another. She’ll hold your hand through thick and thin but if you dare say “I can’t do it” one more time she’ll unleash hell. Susan will make sure everyone has a job to do. Partner just standing there like a lemon? Not on her watch. She’s harsh but kind to her trainees and will always offer a cup of coffee and a shoulder to cry on, but there’s a time and place for slacking and it’s not on her labour ward. 

Trelawny: talent agent. Our Josiah is cunning, infuriatingly charismatic and with an eye for the best of the best - what else could he do so effortlessly? He’ll wrangle you a 10 second role as a latrine cleaner in a non-profit film and he’ll still make you feel like the next DiCaprio. You’re a diamond, don’t you know? Of course you could nab Elphaba, we’ll worry about the singing later. How do you feel about cat food commercials? No no, it’s not pornography, it really is cat food this time - he double checked. On top of this, he knows everyone in the business. No, really. He can’t move 3 feet down Broadway without someone booming his name. The tone of said boom depends, of course, but who hasn’t been caught with his bottom out in that director’s wife’s en-suite? 

Sean: outdoor activity centre instructor. You mean you can actually get paid to swim in lakes, ride ziplines through the forest and eat roasted marshmallows?! Sean couldn’t believe his ears. But it was true, and he’s living his best life. He may be on his penultimate warning for unruly behaviour, but he knows he could never really get fired. How could they? Everyone loves him. And to his credit, he’s a fantastic instructor, especially with kids. Everything from canoeing to caving, wild swimming to climbing, Sean has mastered it all and he always makes it fun. No one is allowed to feel left out or silly for not being able to do something. Sean has a way of making everyone feel included, even if you can only make it up the first few rungs of the ladder. Hey, that’s still off the ground! He once knew this feller Bill who cried because a moth flew into his face. You’re doing fine. 

Mary-Beth: librarian and YA author. Sweet Mary-Beth, how could she be anywhere else but surrounded by books? She adores her job at her small, local library and is always looking for ways to make it even better. She often gets tangled up in the stories she reads whilst organising shelves, but it’s quiet enough most days that she’s rarely caught. She loves helping people find their books or recommending her favourites. She also runs the toddler storytime groups and a writing club for older kids. Of course, she’s also writing her own books. The first of her ‘Valentine Mysteries’ books made a modest profit and she’s excited to write more about the adventures of Leslie Dupont. 

Karen: actress. Realising that she had a knack for accents and even after an especially successful high school lead role as Roxy Hart, Karen didn’t really acknowledge her would-be passion for acting for a long time. But she used her talents to get herself and her friends into X-rated films, dive bars and successfully pull off dozens of prank calls. It wasn’t until one of her friends was going to an open-call audition for a short film and wanted someone to go with her that Karen had her epithany. She was cast on the spot, much to the dismay of her friend. Since then, she’s been in a handful of arthouse films, a commercial here and there, and recently enjoyed a short run as Hermia in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at a small theatre downtown. Does she want fame and fortune? Honestly, she hasn’t really thought about it. Right now, she’s just enjoying the ride. And the phone numbers left for her at front of house from many admirers. 

Strauss: financial loan adviser. Oh boy, perhaps you saw this one coming. Then again, maybe not. Old Leopold isn’t quite the two-pronged-tongued eldritch horror people often mistake him for. In fact, he actually advises people against loan sharks. He had his fair share of debts y’see and he genuinely doesn’t want anyone else to go through the same thing. He’s not exactly sweet and cuddly, but he might let you have a free pen if you call by his office. I mean, technically they’re not free but...never mind, just take it. 

Bill: plumber. It was purely accidental that Bill bashed his way into his career. No, really. His sink was blocked and after an hour of poking and prodding the pipes he started hitting the poor thing with a spanner out of pure frustration, cursing all the way. To his shock, it worked, and he suddenly had running water again. What shocked him more is that he realised he wanted to know how. So, he bought a book. And he read the book. And one thing led to another, and now he’s the proud owner of Williamson Plumbing Inc. The money is very good, but for Bill that’s not it. You have to understand that for him, it’s the act itself of fixing something that brings Bill immense satisfaction. And Bill isn’t used to knowing more about something - anything - than those around him. For the first time perhaps in his life, he can sit down, solve a problem, and know that he’s done a good job. 

Swanson: AA group leader. After getting completely sober almost a decade ago and staying that way, Orville wanted to give something back to the people who had helped him out so greatly. Becoming a volunteer to help those who were trapped where he was seemed like the only path, and it felt so right. Orville is there in meetings, making coffee, handing out donuts and training new volunteers. If anyone wants to talk about their faith he’s all ears, but he never pushes it as a cure-all in any situation. Orville’s sobriety has also meant that he’s learnt to make the most phenomenal mocktails. 

Pearson: grocery shop manager and cooking teacher. Simon has his small grocery shop on the edge of town which has a wide range of regular customers. But he wanted to do more, so he set up a small class to teach fellow veterans how to cook. His wife helps out, and they grow the ingredients together in their garden and down at the allotment. It’s just an therapeutic for him as it is for his students, as he’s only just realising how much he wants to talk about his time in the navy. 

Uncle: unknown. For the longest time, everyone thought Uncle worked at one of the worst dive bars in town, as whenever they stumbled in for a nightcap he was there, behind the bar, happy as a pig in shit. Turns out that he just started going there one night and no one could get him to leave. And so every evening he’ll appear like a phantom, sit himself in the half-broken chair behind the bar (clearly labelled “not for customer use”), order the cheapest beer on the menu and sit there until midnight. No one can understand how he gets the means to live as he ragingly denies receiving any government handouts despite his lumbago. Claims to be a veteran but hasn’t fought in any wars anyone has heard of.