#some kid gave me a confessing letter in primary

[lucid-fate-if]

Your response to the valentine's ask is very telling istahil 😂😅

It's either Imma joke about it or I'm gonna be scared shitless 🥲

[futurewriter2000]

Bookshelf

A/N: Had this in my drafts for a long while. I don’t know what it is exctly but I do kind of like it. Yeah... 

PAIRING: Harry Potter x Muggle!reader 

XX

Harry would always think that the Wizarding world was better than the Muggle one. He would think of so many reasons to think wizards, witches and magic was the best thing that had ever happened to him. 

“Muggles are so odd- like he is pouring himself. You just swish a wand and lay back. Let it pour itself.” Ron kept staring at the old man in the coffee shop, whose hand was shaking agressively due to age or some disesase or pure alcoholism. He tried many times to put sugar in his tea with a spoon but each time, it fell right back into the sugar cup. He started cursing himself, grabbing the sugar with his fingers and throwing it into his tea until it made a splash, pouring some of the tea on the table.

Ron kept smiling at the old man’s unfortune meanwhile Harry only rushed forward without a glance at the old man. He wanted this to be over. Fast and efficiant.  “Muggles don’t know about magic.” he chuckled, turning the corner and up the stairs. 

“Some do.”

“Most of them don’t.” he stopped, grabbing the doorknob and grinning. “If they knew, they wouldn’t want to be Muggles anymore.” he smiled and swung the door open, walking into the library. 

“Bet.” Ron stood behind before chuckling and running after him. “Reckon they’d think we have long noses, witch hats and brooms to fly on, which we do but still.” he continued to talk, hearing Harry laugh as he shuffled through the books. 

“Just go and find the dumb book. It has to be among the G’s.” his finger traced among the book spines. He heard Ron’s footsteps distancing themselves from him and that gave him plenty of time to focus his eyes on the book titles. His eyes did not remove themselves from the thick, thin, black, grey, green, blue, wrinkled, ironed, smooth and harsh book covers until he went to the far edge of the bookshelf, bumping his hand into a wall. He slightly moved his hand at it, shaking it and noticing something catching his eyes on the other side of the shelf. 

It was only a flicker, a glance, not even a full, long look and he knew. 

He stopped and stared through the gap between the shelves. 

There you were. Your nose was stuck in a book, your fingers quickly turning the pages as your mouth mumbled something incoherently. If he focused on it, he could hear exactly what you were hearing. 

“Come on. Come on. It’s not like I haven’t analyzed you a hundred times. It has to be Cortazar- except.” you closed the book with a thud and stared at the distance, turning back to the bookshelves, letter C. “Except, except, except...” your hand touched the shelf and your eyes scanned every single book from right to left. “Conti?” you pulled out a book and started shuffling through it. 

Harry only smiled.

He could remember you from your primary school when he was still going to the Muggle school. The two of you were classmates from year 3 to year 6 before he went to Hogwarts. 

You were always nice to him, always found something to talk about but never much a friend. He was a classmate and only a classmate and you were just the same to him, except when you were the only girl who didn’t listen to Dudley and actually treated him, Harry, as a normal boy. 

You always had good grades. Sometimes with a comment, snarky or smart, either way you reminded him of Hermione. 

You’ve grown up. 

He’s grown up. 

He’s an Auror for 2 years already since the whole battle and Voldemort. What are you? 

“Oi, Harry! I couldnt’ find it but it was worth a try-” Ron came back with a book in his hand, perplexed when he could see Harry panic. “What? What is it?” he tried to pull out a wand and by now you were already looking for the source, finding yourself watching two men waving their hands at each other. One whispering, one speaking quite loudly. 

“Ron! Shut up!” Harry whisper-yelled. 

“Why?” he tried pulling out the wand but Harry grabbed his hand and shoved it back. “Harry- mate? What’s got your knickers in a twist?” Ron kept getting more confused by the minute as Harry was desperately trying to not be seen or heard by you. 

“There’s someone from primary school I know.” Harry stood straight, galring at his best friend. 

“You went to primary-” 

“Ron!” he shoved his shoulder to be quiet but it was too late. 

“Harry?” you asked, walking on the other side of the shelf you two shared and finding him looking at you. “Harry Potter?” you smiled, trying to figure out whether it was really him or not.

Though that was never a discussion. He still wore an oversized T-shirt, only that this one was a bit more his size and covered in leather jacket. His eyes were still as green as emerald, almond shaped and hiding behind his round glasses. They used to be broken- he had a ducktape on the bridge. You remembered becuase you were the one to do it after Dudley broke them. His hair were sticking up in all directions and his awkward grin was still so known by him. 

Ron stepped next to Harry, glancing between the two of you as he tried to figure out what is happening. 

“(y/n). Hi- hey.” he raised his hand but quickly put it down due to the awkwardness in the air.

“Wow- it really is you.” you beamed, leaning on the shelf and crossing your arms over your chest. “You’ve completely gone awol after 6th year. Dudley said you went to boot camp but you don’t look like a soldier to me.” 

Harry tried to think fast but all he could do was chuckle nervously. 

“Trust me, he did his fair share of fighting.” Ron interwined, reaching out his hand and offering you a big, kind smile.  “I’m Ron Weasley by the way. I went to boot camp with this twat. Thought him everything I know.” he started to joke and you laughed. 

“Nice to meet you, Ron. I’m (y/n)(y/l/n). Harry was my classmate in primary school.” 

“Is that so?” Ron smirked, mischief in his eyes, something Harry would usually find in Fred’s and George’s identical eyes. The twinkle in Ron’s seemed to match perfectly with the twins’. “Huh?” 

“Yes, that’s so.” you started to get a bit suspicious. “So, how are you Harry?” you started to talk, the curiousity getting the better of you. 

You haven’t seen this boy in ten years and suddenly he reappears out of thin air. He was shy but always nice to you. Quite a short temper but threw quite a punch as well. 

“I’m good. Great even.” Harry started to speak, his hand running up and down the back of his neck. “You?”

“University.” you lifted up the book. 

“I always wondered about that-” Ron started to speak but Harry only elbowed him in the ribs and sent him a glare. 

“Why don’t you search under the Z letter, Ron?” he grumbled out of him.

“But we don’t even-” he stopped after figuring it out not so fast enough. “Oh- yeah. Zetinski.” he nodded and left the space, causing you to laugh. 

“Zetinski?” you took a step forward and Harry only laughed.

“Haven’t heard?”

“No, I haven’t.” 

“Well, Zetinski is quite famous for...”

“For?” you quirked an eyebrow but he kept his cool smooth and calm. 

“Writing some physchological novels. Experimental psychology. Like Zola.”

You couldn’t help yourself to smile. “You know of Zola?” 

“I know a lot of things.” he was the one to cross his arms over his chest, digging his hands under his biceps and tugging the leather into nice defined arms. “So how about you? University?” 

“Yes. I want to be a literature teacher.” you smiled, getting a closer look at the tall boy who once used to be smaller than you. 

It almost made you giggle at how the time stops and goes, sways and bends. It was as if you’ve known this boy back in primary school and 10 years passed, you would think it would be like talking to a stranger. He looked like a stranger but his eyes were so familiar. It felt like you’ve known him for a long time, mostly since you knew whose his family was. He told you his parents had died in a car accident and he was living with his aunt and uncle, Dudley unfortunately as well. It sort of gave you some sort of understanding but also a surprise that he had not gone barmy or rebellious in his teenage years.

He appeared to look like someone who’s gone through a lot but still kept to his morals. He was still the nice boy you remember. 

“A literature teacher?” he took a deep breath, marveling at your answer. “What does that do exactly? Force kids to read books?” he started to tease, leaning a bit forward.

“No.” you shoved him back playfully. “We analyze certain books and try to find a deeper understanding. It’s not just about reading books. It’s about finding your understanding in the things other people don’t. Sometimes it holds a message. Sometimes a poem isn’t just a confession of emotions. Sometimes the structure and the figures, the rythm and other literature techniques that helps you understand more of what the writer wrote.” you realized you had been trying to explain something you could barely understand yourself but it was love for you. You loved literature and love was hard to explain. So you put it shortly: “It’s not about reading. It’s a bout individual understanding, thinking and percieving. It’s hard to explain.” 

He could see your eyes getting a bit frustrated for trying to prove him that what you’re doing isn’t useless. And he knew it wasn’t. You got the same sparkle in your eyes as Hermione did when she talked about Elf rights. It was adorable.

“I know.” he chuckled. “You were always such a Ravenclaw. Watching the teacher and making your notes like your life depended on it.”

“Ravenclaw?” you furrowed your eyebrows. 

Oh shit.

“Uhm...it’s a phraze from boot camp.” he tried to brush it off.

“Stop pulling by the nose, Harry. We all know you haven’t gone to boot camp at an age of 11.” 

“You don’t know that.” he started to tease again, something he was quite mastering but didn’t realize he was. 

It set you a bit on the edge, but the good kind. 

“So what are YOU doing in the library?”

“Looking for a book to read?” he shrugged but you only narrowed your eyes at him as he chuckled once again. 

How could a boy so shy once upon a time be so darn attractive when he chuckles. 

“I’m just looking for an information.” 

“Anything I can help you with. I know this library like the back of my hand.” you offered but he only let out a chuckle and started to pass you by. Before he did, he stopped next to, looking down with his green eyes and finding you looking up at his. Seemengly, your facial structure, your eyes and your whole-self evolved quite beautifully in a strong, intelligent woman- someone that would make his nerves burn as it did right now. 

A boy he was, he would only pass you by and let it go awkwardly but he was the Chosen One. He killed Voldemort. So why shouldn’t he take a risk with you?

He didn’t pass you at all. He put his hand on the shelf above your head and leaned forward, his muscles flexing a bit. 

You felt your breath catch up in your throat, your heart racing along with the miliseconds that passed. You couldn’t feel enough strenght in your voice to speak, not when his sharp cologne went up your nostrils and into your brain, fuzzying your mind.

“How about over coffee?” he spoke low and seductively, leaning a bit forward as you continued to look up at him and his long hair falling on his forehead. 

Your hands had gotten clammy, your books too heavy to carry in your hand and your knees were a moment away from giving up. You smiled shyly, nodding. “I’d- I’d love that.” you seemed to stutter, feeling feverish from all the sexual tension between the two of you. 

His belt clawed his hips so perfectly. The way his dark jeans hugged his thights, his jacket giving you a glipse of his muscled hips as his T-shirt rose up with it. When Harry put his hand off the shelf, the T-shirt fell back down and covered it. Harry took your hand in his and kissed the back of it. “I’ll call you then.” he said putting your hand back down and backing away. As he was further away, he called out for Ron and they both left. 

They left and you were stuck standing there with reddened cheeks yet it felt as if his presence, his energy and his eyes were still lingering on you. It felt like magic.

[robininthelabyrinth]

I love your story with LW and JC raising LS! Do you plan on writing more?

Delight in Misery (ao3) - part 1, part 2

-

“So, I have a problem,” Jiang Cheng said, bursting into the room.

Sometimes Lan Wangji wondered if Jiang Cheng had ever heard of any other way to enter a room. Through the window, perhaps, since clearly walking wasn’t seen as a valid alternative.

“Just one?” he asked, not looking up from where he was repositioning A-Yuan’s hand on the guqin.

“No, I – hey!”

A-Yuan giggled, and that made Jin Ling, currently nestled in blankets next to the guqin, giggle as well, and predictably, Jiang Cheng forgot all else in front of such adorableness, immediately crouching down to make faces at Jin Ling.

“Your problem?” Lan Wangji prompted after a few moments.

“Ah..? Oh! Yes. Remember how I got into a fight with – what’s his name, that idiot?”

Lan Wangji pointedly remained silent. Jiang Cheng got into any number of fights, given his temper, and those were only the ones he told Lan Wangji about – and he wasn’t always reliable on that score, either.

The doctor that came to visit every week was not given to gossip, as Jiang Cheng had promised, but his assistant who waited outside the door, never entering, sometimes said things.

Disturbing things, sometimes.

Lan Wangji had not yet found a way to ask Jiang Cheng if he really did capture and torture demonic cultivators to death – mostly because he didn’t know what he’d do if the answer was ‘yes’.

He knew Jiang Cheng believed that Wei Wuxian had been corrupted by demonic cultivation into something unrecognizable, that he believed it was his own fault for not having stopped him sooner, that he thought it was his responsibility to stop demonic cultivators before other innocent people suffered the way he had because of Wei Wuxian; he knew that Jiang Cheng both longed and feared any success in finding Wei Wuxian’s spirit, wanting desperately to have any hint of him again and yet terrified by the possibility that it had been Wei Wuxian, in the end, that had destroyed him utterly. There were many flaws in his thinking, but without that defense mechanism, Jiang Cheng’s psyche would collapse.

When Jiang Cheng was a little steadier, he’d bring it up, Lan Wangji promised himself. When things were a little calmer. 

Soon.

“Right, right, I fight with too many to count,” Jiang Cheng said, grimacing. The expression made Jin Ling giggle again, as if it had been made to amuse him, and that lifted Jiang Cheng’s mood a little. “The one who called me a filthy cutsleeve that shouldn’t be allowed around children.”

Lan Wangji remembered. Even if Jiang Cheng hadn’t told him, A-Yuan would have: he’d been full of excitement at how Jiang Cheng had foregone even whipping the man with Zidian and just punched him full in the face with a fist full of purple sparks. And then there’d been some kicking, according to A-Yuan, and a great deal of shouting about how people who abused children were people who abused children and that being a monster had nothing at all to do with anyone’s preferences in bed.

That poor man – he might have escaped with fewer broken bones if his timing hadn’t been so bad. That confrontation had taken place just after Lan Wangji had finally confessed aloud that his feelings about Wei Wuxian were, in fact, of a romantic nature. Amusingly enough, Jiang Cheng had not guessed it – he’d spluttered and waved his hands and said really?! at least six times – which in retrospect was in line with his general level of obliviousness. After he’d finally realized Lan Wangji was serious, though, he’d responded well enough: he hadn’t said a word about cutsleeves or anything like that, not a single word. Instead, he’d immediately leapt into criticizing Lan Wangji’s poor taste in men, claiming that actually living with Wei Wuxian would have driven him mad within weeks.

He hadn’t said that Lan Wangji could do better, though. They both knew that that was impossible.

“I remember.”

“Well, all sorts of rumors got started after that – no, don’t look at me like that, I told you that I don’t care one way or another! I don’t even want a wife right now; could I even handle having a wife the way I am now, more nightmares than sleep and no ability to control my temper?”

Lan Wangji shrugged and continued to strum the guqin in a repetitive motion, demonstrating to A-Yuan. Jiang Cheng would remember to get to the point eventually.

“Anyway. Rumors. People have started – asking.”

Lan Wangji’s hands paused. “You’ve been propositioned?”

“No! Well, I mean, yes, but dealing with propositions from men is the same as from women; you just glare until they go away –”

Sometimes Lan Wangji felt certain that Jiang Cheng would never find a wife.

After all, one would have to put up with him long enough to find the tolerable parts buried deep (deep) under all the prickliness and bad temper, and that was a task fit only for the inhumanly patient.

“– and anyway, no, I meant…someone asked me for help.”

Lan Wangji finally turned his head to look at him. “Help?”

Jiang Cheng sat down next to him. “Jin Guangshan’s bastard, the new one – Mo Xuanyu. He came to me during one of the conferences recently. He’s…he’s not fit for Lanling.”

Lan Wangji frowned.

“He’s getting bullied at Koi Tower, and pretty badly, too,” Jiang Cheng said. “He gave me some examples. Nothing truly intolerable in isolation, but when you put it all together…He’s very weak. Sensitive.”

“And he approached you?”

“I know,” Jiang Cheng said, long-suffering. “What’s the point of being infamously bad-tempered if people still approach you to ask for things…? He said that he trusts me because he thinks I’m, you know, like him.”

“A cutsleeve?”

“Exactly. It’s not looked on favorably in Lanling, to say the least.” He sighed. “Sometimes I wish we were all like Qinghe. I’m pretty sure if Nie Huaisang announced that he was marrying a sentient rosebush, Chifeng-zun’s primary concern would be how good its saber skills were.”

Lan Wangji felt a similar pang. His own sect elders, at Gusu, were not especially favorable to the idea either – Lan Xichen had long ago warned him that he would need to keep his inclinations to himself and that, if he ever found a partner, it would be best if the two of them could maintain low profile, pretending as much as possible to be merely brothers or close friends.

He’d thought that had all sounded quite reasonable, right up until he met Wei Wuxian, and little by little the idea of denying the way he felt had become utterly repulsive to him.

“Anyway, I feel like I should do something? But I can’t interfere with anything in Lanling, you know that.”

Lan Wangji knew. Matters between the Jiang sect and the Jin sect remained highly precarious. Jiang Cheng’s agreement not to marry or have children had maintained the alliance between them, but there was always the looming pressure that they could one day revoke the agreement and reclaim Jin Ling – perhaps even going so far as to bar them from seeing him again.

It was one of Jiang Cheng’s many nightmares.

“I can’t not do something,” Jiang Cheng was saying, waving his hands, and that was sign enough that whatever Mo Xuanyu had told him had made an impact. Normally if something touched on Jiang Cheng’s bottom line – Lanling and its threats – he stopped thinking about it immediately. “If this isn’t stopped, it’ll only get worse and worse, and the kid’s unstable as it is…I wouldn’t be surprised if he killed himself. Maybe not immediately, maybe not for years and years, but – one day.”

The Lan sect prioritized the preservation of human life over all else.

Lan Wangji considered his options.

“But then we get back to the fact that it’s Lanling. It’d be one thing if he were a nobody, but he’s Jin Guangshan’s son – I probably wouldn’t even be able to get near him, usually –”

“Brother could.”

Jiang Cheng twisted to look at him. “What?”

“Brother could,” Lan Wangji said. “He is sworn brothers with Lianfeng-zun; he has an entry token into Lanling and is familiar with much of Koi Tower.”

Jiang Cheng blinked. “And this helps me…how? I don’t think even Zewu-jun, however kind, would make trouble over a second-hand story that’s not even objectively that bad.”

“He would believe me.”

Jiang Cheng went quiet for a moment, and there was nothing but the innocent plinking of A-Yuan’s fingers on the guqin.

“This had better not be one of your attempts at self-sacrifice,” he finally said. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to – especially for Mo Xuanyu, of all people, you don’t even know him – ”

“I am ready,” Lan Wangji said, and Jiang Cheng looked abruptly stricken. Lan Wangji didn’t understand why until he saw the way Jiang Cheng’s eyes flickered towards A-Yuan, then away, and then back again – as if he were simultaneously trying to memorize his features and also distance himself. “To speak with him only. I will not return to the Cloud Recesses at this time.”

Jiang Cheng gave a guilty start. “Really? You know you don’t have to –”

“I have decided,” Lan Wangji said simply.

Jiang Cheng rubbed his nose. “Well, good,” he said, not looking at Lan Wangji. “It’s better for A-Yuan to get a good grounding in the basics in one place before you move him around. You can always reconsider later, when he’s older.”

Lan Wangji hummed in agreement and looked back down at the guqin. “You may choose how to tell him.”

“Wait, what? Me?” Jiang Cheng asked, looking appropriately horrified by the idea. “Are you crazy? You remember that I have only the most passing familiarity with tact, right?”

“It will probably be better that way,” Lan Wangji said, and even mostly believed it. A letter would be too impersonal, a passed-along message almost certain to get garbled – he had never been eloquent in his terseness.

Jiang Cheng, however tactless, would at least be able to offer some context.

Besides, Jiang Cheng’s inevitable rant about the Lan sect’s mistreatment of Lan Wangji would likely take up several minutes, giving Lan Xichen time to recover from the shock and for his mixed emotions to settle into joy at finding Lan Wangji again. He had made his brother suffer, he knew, and he would have to explain himself and account for that – but enough time had passed, time spent here in the room where his beloved had lived, where they might have lived together if the world had been different, that Lan Wangji felt that he could do it without fear.

He was fairly sure Lan Xichen would respect his request not to share his location with the rest of the sect, and accept his refusal to return – and if he didn’t, well, possession was nine-tenths of the law. It would be very difficult for them to force him to return through anything other than emotional pressure.

A-Yuan broke a string and yelped, making Jin Ling start fussing, and Jiang Cheng immediately panicked, all other thoughts forgotten, and even as he unfolded himself to go over and make peace, Lan Wangji thought to himself that there was enough here to make resisting that pressure worthwhile.

Besides – if it came right down to it, Lan Wangji suspected he would look quite well in purple.

[ericsonclan]

You Done Tattooing That Piano?

Summary: After missing her chance to tell Louis how she really feels, Clementine comes up with another way to reveal her affections.

Read on A03:

Notes: Wrote this after playing Louis' friendship route and being convinced the entire time that those two were just fooling themselves by labelling what they have as "friendship". Those crazy kids... <3

Clementine was in trouble. Here she was, nearly two months into meeting Louis, and all she seemed to be able to think about in every spare moment was him. This shouldn’t be a bad thing. After all, she’d never expected she’d even get a chance to feel like this again. The last time anything even approaching these feelings hit her, she’d been young, alone and too focused on her mission to pursue anything further. Now she had a home, a family, a boy who made her spine tingle every time he smiled at her from across the picnic table... she was finally in a place where she could start a relationship. The only problem? She was pretty sure she’d already turned Louis down.

She hadn’t known what to expect that night she decided to accompany Louis to the piano room. Hearing the music fill the room as Louis sat alone in the candlelight had stirred something within Clementine, a feeling that at that time she couldn’t quite place. Sitting beside Louis at his beloved piano in the dead of night had driven one truth home for Clementine: she cared for this boy, deeply. But when the knife was placed in her hand and she’d finished carving her initial next to Louis’, Clementine had frozen. Everything was happening too quickly. She’d only known Louis a little over two weeks. Were these emotions bubbling up inside her something permanent or a side effect of the nerves she had from waiting for the raiders to attack. Could she really take a leap like this when any second the Delta could tear down their gates and all this could be taken away from her.

She’d handed the knife back to Louis. Then Louis had opened up to her, thanking her for the times she’d listened when no one else had, how she understood him as someone beyond the jokes he told. Clementine hadn’t known what to say to that. How could she encapsulate the admiration she held for Louis, the gratefulness she felt that he’d forgiven her and A.J. after everything had gone so wrong? She went with what she knew. “Friends are all we’ve got, and I’m glad we’ve got each other,” Louis had offered her a fist bump which she’d returned with a bit too much force, the song Louis composed was named “Super Fun Times Friend Song” and they’d shared a few more laughs before Clementine was called away to watch duty. It had been nice, but something in the back of Clementine’s mind left her feeling that things could have gone in a different direction.

The weeks following the attack on the Delta had confirmed this for Clementine. Every step of the way, Louis had been there for her. During the battle to rescue their friends, when he’d circled back to help her and A.J. find their way to the school, and when he’d run breathlessly through the forest with Clementine cradled in his arms, desperate to get her to Ruby before it was too late. He’d sat by her bed for weeks as she recuperated, playing music on the gramophone since he couldn’t bring the piano to her. He’d helped her navigate the school with her crutches, saved her from many a spill, and was always there to cheer her up when she was feeling down.

Every time her eyes met his, Clementine saw something in them, a look that no one else gave her, one that sent her heart tumbling within her in an instant. She knew there was something between them. But Louis went no further than those looks. He never took the next step, never asked or said anything that did more than proclaim their undying friendship for each other. Three weeks out of bed and on her crutches, Clementine was forced to face an uncomfortable fact: that night at the piano room had been Louis’ move. If she ever wanted anything more to happen between them, the ball was in her court.

Considering how spectacularly she’d flubbed a verbal confession to Louis, Clementine doubted she’d have much more luck with a second attempt. Should she write a letter? No, her writings skills and penmanship had basically dried up at a third-grade level. She wouldn’t be able to express all that she wanted to say on paper. Perhaps a gesture then: taking on his chores, offering him some of her stew at dinner, picking flower from the greenhouse. Clementine quickly decided none of those would work. Louis wouldn’t accept her taking on any extra chores or giving up her food so soon after losing her leg and as for the flowers, Clementine could just hear Louis’ voice in her head as he told everyone at the school about the lovely “friendship flowers” Clementine had gotten him. No, it had to be something undeniably romantic.

Clementine was lying on her bed one morning when inspiration finally struck. Of course. She didn’t need to come up with something new at all. What she should do to prove her feelings was the very thing she’d been too afraid to do that night. Grabbing her crutches, Clementine snuck down the hall as quietly as she could, making her way to the music room. On her way there, she spotted Louis standing on watch duty. Good. She didn’t want to risk him walking in on her. She wanted to keep it a surprise. As soon as Clementine reached the piano, she plopped down on the bench, casting her crutches to the side. Pulling out her own knife, she tattooed the piano once more, adding a heart around her and Louis’ initials. Next time Louis sat down to play, he would see the heart and know what it meant: that Clementine was willing to give something beyond friendship a try if he was. Her work done, Clementine pocketed the knife and picked up her crutches, making her way out of the room before anybody could spot her there. Her heart beat excitedly within her. She wondered how long it would be until Louis visited his piano again.

That evening, things seemed to be going normally at Ericson. Omar had ladled out the stew and almost everyone had sat down to eat. Ruby and Aasim were sitting by each other with Willy to their right, Violet sitting across from him. A.J. sat to Clementine’s left while her right side, the spot normally taken by Louis, remained open. Clementine wondered where he was. It wasn’t like him to miss out on their biggest meal of the day.

Suddenly the doors to the admin building burst open. Louis strode out looking angrier than any of them had seen in some time. Making his way over to the picnic table, he stood at the head of it, his hand on his hips. “Alright, whoever thought it would be funny to graffiti my piano better own up right now,”

“What are you talking about, Lou?” Violet asked, placing down her spoon and squinting at him with her good eye. “That piano’s already been graffitied more times than I can count and you never cared before,”

“I’m not talking about the old graffiti. I’m talking about the new addition somebody made today. Now who thought it would be funny to draw a heart around Clem and I’s initials?”

Clementine’s heart dropped into her gut. He’s angry about it? Maybe she’d been misreading things this whole time.

“Louis, this is silly,” Aasim stated dismissively. “Why in the world would any of us want to do that?”

“Bold words from one of my primary suspects!” Louis declared, jabbing a finger in Aasim’s direction. “If you feel the need to get back at me for all the times I’ve teased you, leave Clem out of it. Our friendship isn’t a joking matter. It’s something I take very seriously, and I thought you of all people with all your talk of “privacy” would respect that!"

“It wasn’t me!” Aasim’s eyes narrowed at the accusation.

Ruby tried to place a comforting hand over her boyfriend’s arm. “Now let’s not fight about something so silly-”

“Silly? Don’t act as if you’re not a potential culprit too, Ruby,” Louis interjected.

“Now why in the world would I be a suspect?” Ruby challenged, her lower lip jutting out as she frowned.

Clementine wished she could disappear into the ground right about now. This wasn’t how she’d expected things to go at all.

Louis rolled his eyes. “You’re always complaining about how everyone’s teasing you and Aasim for being so lovey-dovey around each other. Did you think pretending Clementine and I were a thing would get some of the heat off of you two? Clementine is my best friend, that’s all! You can’t go spreading lies to make yourself feel better,”

Ruby gasped, clearly insulted. “You think you can just go around making claims like that? Well, let me tell you-”

“This is all fucking stupid,” Violet grumbled. “Someone just ‘fess up,”

“Was that a deflection, Vi?” Louis challenged, his eyebrow raised. “Did you-”

“Alright, enough!” Clementine shouted, her volume bringing everyone to a standstill. “I was the one who left the heart, OK? It was me,”

“You?” Louis asked, looking utterly lost.

“Yeah,” Clementine looked down at the table, her cheeks burning in embarrassment. “It wasn’t a joke or anything. I thought it’d be an easier way to let you know. Guess I was wrong,”

Everyone at the table was silent. Willy and A.J. were watching in confusion, their faces still covered in leftover stew. All eyes were on either Louis or Clementine, waiting for either of them to speak. Neither did.

Louis was the first to do something. Without a word, he turned around, heading straight back to the admin building.

Shit. I fucked up. Clementine didn’t have to raise her head to feel the heat of the stares upon her. Silently, she picked up her spoon and resumed eating her stew. I don’t get it. Would it be that bad to be with me? There’s not a single other available girl his age anywhere near here. Everything I thought I saw though... I must have made it all up myself.

“Clementine…” Ruby’s voice was soft, almost sad.

She couldn’t stick around for this. Grabbing her crutches, Clementine rose to her feet. “I’m gonna call it a night,” With that she made her way back toward the dorms, unwilling to look back and see the pitying gazes following her. I can’t believe it went down like this. Here I was so confident it was a sure thing, and then…

Clementine paused in her journey, looking toward the admin building. Louis was in there right now, probably trying to figure out a way to scratch out that stupid heart from his piano. Did he hate her now? Clementine couldn’t bear the thought of that. Did she owe him an apology for what she’d done, humiliating him in front of all their friends when he could have turned her down in private if she’d just had the guts to confess? Maybe there wasn’t anyone to blame here. It was all a misunderstanding. Still, she didn’t want to go to bed thinking Louis was angry at her. Steeling her resolve, Clementine switched course and set out for the admin building.

Everything was completely silent as Clementine entered, slowly turning down the hall to the music room. She tried to keep as quiet as possible, her crutches softly tapping the floor and her foot lightly scuffing it each time she took a step. She could feel her gut twisting in dread. She didn’t know what she would say to Louis when she got there. Perhaps he wasn’t even in the music room after all. No sound came from it now. As she neared the ajar doors, Clementine peered through the crack, trying to get an idea of what was happening inside.

Louis was in there after all, sitting at the piano. He wasn’t playing though. Instead he was staring at the carved heart. He reached out to touch it, his other hand coming up to cover his mouth. What was going on? After a minute of reflection, Louis reached inside his coat pocket, pulling out his dagger. He’d decided to scratch the heart out after all. As he dug his knife into the wood of the piano, Clementine looked away. It was a mistake coming here. She should go.

When she turned her crutches to leave though, one ran into one of the empty cans scattered throughout the hallway. Clementine winced as the sound echoed down the hall.

“Who’s there?”

No escaping now. Clementine pressed open the doors, too ashamed to meet Louis’ eyes. “Louis, I just came by to apologize. I never meant to embarrass you like that. Whatever you want to do to get rid of that stupid heart is fine with me,”

Louis looked confused for a moment before a soft smile crossed his face. He patted the spot beside him on the piano bench. “Care to sit with me for a minute, Clemster?”

Clementine was puzzled but complied. Sitting down beside Louis, she leaned her crutches against the piano before turning to face him.

“Guess I shouldn’t have run off like that,” Louis scratched the back of his neck, not making eye contact. “I wasn’t really thinking that clearly after I heard you say you were the one who left the heart. I had to visit again to make sure it was actually real. And it is,” He looked back to where the heart with their initials lay. “Then I wanted to add something of my own,”

Clementine glanced up in surprise, her eyes locking on the carving. It wasn’t scratched out after all. The heart was still there, and their initials, but something new lay between them. Where before there was simply a C and an L, now there was a plus sign connecting the two. Clementine’s eyes shot over to Louis. She saw that same look there that had been making her heart flutter these past few weeks.

“It’s complete now,” A small grin formed on Louis’ face.

“I can see that,” Clementine felt a smile tugging at her own lips, a giddiness bubbling up inside her. “So I guess that means… we’re more than friends now,”

“Definitely,” The grin had widened, covering Louis’ entire face now. “More than best friends too! Man, who would’ve thought after that card game where you denied having feelings for anyone that you were in fact lying. You do have feelings for someone, someone named Louis. Which just so happens to be my name!”

Before Louis could say anything more, Clementine leaned upwards, capturing his lips in a quick kiss. Screw caution, she was going for what she wanted.

Louis met the kiss eagerly, his own lips pressing against hers, causing a small moan to escape Clementine’s lips.

Clementine immediately drew back, her face overheating as she realized the sound she’d just made. She glanced up to see how Louis was taking it, but he seemed to be in some sort of blissful haze, giggling excitedly as he looked over at her.

“God, how lucky am I? I’ve got the coolest best friend in the world and now it turns out she likes me too? That’s the dream,”

Clementine smiled up at Louis, basking in the moment. This was what she’d wanted all along. She’d just been too scared to let herself admit it until now. Thinking of the others, she turned her head to look back, hoping that none of them had thought to come check on them. “Do you think we ought to head back? We did stir up a lot of drama back there,”

“Ah, it can wait till tomorrow,” Louis waved his hand dismissively. “A moment like this calls for celebration. I’ll have you know I did not plan to call the song I played for you that night “Super Fun Times Friend Song”. I hereby retract that title so I can assign it one more befitting,”

“And what exactly did you have in mind?” Clementine asked, her eyes crinkling in amusement at Louis’ excitement.

“’Clementine’. Y’know, because I like fruit. And I like you even more so… there,”

That had Clementine blushing. She felt her face heating up as Louis began to play the song, the beautiful melody filling the room and dancing around them. Clementine let the music seep into her bones, taking in how much this song meant to Louis. It was the first thing he’d ever composed and he’d named it after her. That was the greatest gift she could ever imagine.

Slowly Clementine let her head rest upon Louis’ shoulder. She felt him flinch for an instant, but he didn’t miss a beat, continuing on with his music without dropping a single note. Clementine closed her eyes. She could see why Louis had gone to double check the piano. She didn’t quite believe this was real herself. But it was. She was home, she was happy, and her best friend was now something so much more to her. She felt complete.

[magicalwardrobe-mw]

Magic at your fingertips.

Summary: Emma Swan was a strange child. The dozens of families she’d been into could attest to that. Lights would twinkle when she was scared and glasses would break when she was angry.

Then a woman dressed in blue found her sleeping behind a dumpster and decided to tell her she was a witch.

(Or the Hogwarts AU nobody had asked for).

Find it in AO3.

Chapter One: Just the beginning.

When Emma was little she used to imagine her parents loved her very much. She used to believe they would have taken care of her if they could, but something happened that made them leave her alone in the middle of the road. She used to hope they would appear someday, take her away from the foster families that didn’t care for her and they would love her like she never had been.

After all, if they didn’t care for her would they have left her with a handmade woollen blanket with her name stitched on?

But the years on the foster system, jumping from family to family, made her childish beliefs disappear like smoke.

Emma Swan was a strange child. The dozens of families she’d been into could attest to that. Lights would twinkle when she was scared and glasses would break when she was angry. Sometimes objects would move around the room of their own accord and there was that one time Mr. Thompson’s skin had turned blue when he was trying to hurt her.

That was probably why nobody wanted her.

Emma was a freak.

So she ran away, until the police caught her and then she waited some weeks, a part of her still hoping that family would be the one, and then she would run again.

That’s it, until a woman dressed in blue found her sleeping behind a dumpster and decided to tell her she was a witch.

Because of course.

Emma, just turned eleven, hadn’t believed her. She had outgrown fairy tales long ago. But then the woman (“I’m Professor Blue”) had offered to take her to a coffee shop and pay for lunch if only Emma heard her out.

And Emma, cold, hungry and tired, followed her.

“I teach at Hogwarts,” Professor Blue said while they were making their way through the busy London streets. “Charms,” she added. “It’s a powerful kind of magic.”

Emma nodded though she kept looking around. The street was full of people and she really didn’t want anyone to see her walking with that madwoman.

“Where are we going?” Emma asked. “We’ve passed like a dozen coffee shops by now.”

Professor Blue blinked down at her. “Oh! We aren’t going to a coffee shop! We are going to a pub. The Leaky Cauldron. Is one of the most famous pubs in wizarding London, you’ll see. It’s also the entrance to Diagon Alley, which is part of our visit.”

The Leaky Cauldron, Emma could see, wasn’t all that great. It was dark and smelled of alcohol, there weren’t any electric lights and the only illumination came from the candles and through the dirty windows.

“Come on,” Professor Blue said. “Why don’t you go find a table? I’ll get us something to eat.”

‘Something to eat’ was enough food to feed an army, not that Emma was complaining. She hadn’t eaten in two days and free food was free food.

“Now, why don’t you let me tell you about Hogwarts, huh?” and Professor Blue got out a long, thin stick and waved in the air. In the table suddenly appeared the same strange letter Emma had been throwing in the trash for weeks (sensibly thinking it was some kind of prank) and Professor Blue cleared her throat.

“How did you…?”

The answer was simple. “Magic.”

Diagon Alley was something else. The shops were close together and street was very crowded for a Tuesday at noon in late October. But as Professor Blue had explained over lunch, it was the heart of the British wizarding community.

Their first stop was Gringotts, the bank. Instead of humans behind the counter, there were small creatures with pointy teeth and ears. Goblins, Professor Blue had said.

There they got out some money form a vault put aside for orphans like her, with no family to pay for their supplies and no money of their own. It made Emma feel like charity and she didn’t like that feeling. At all.

Professor Blue took her to the second-hand stores where they got her books and some equipment (“you will have until next September to read these books. I expect you to be prepared”). The robes she was supposed to get them some weeks before she left for school (“girls your age are always growing”) as did the Potions kit.

And then they stopped for a wand (cedar, phoenix feather core, ten inches, springy), which took a surprisingly long amount of time, and Professor Blue declared their shopping trip over. She handed her a train ticket and explained how she had to get into the Platform once the time came.

Then she asked her the directions for her current foster home. And that’s where things got interesting.

Ingrid Fisher seemed like a nice woman. But Emma had been around enough seemingly nice people to know it didn’t always match.

When Emma had told Professor Blue of her current living situation (had she really thought Emma was behind a dumpster for fun?) the woman had gotten them to the Ministry to fix it.

Since Emma know knew of her true nature it would be inadvisable to send her back to live with muggles. So the young girl had been sent to waiting room in the Ministry while they looked for a magical foster family to take her in.

At least the food from the Ministry cafeteria was good, not what Emma had been expecting. And they gave it to her for free, which made it even better.

It had taken them almost four days until they found Ingrid Fisher. Emma was just happy to finally leave the big Ministry she had already explored from top to bottom and sleep on a real bed.

Ingrid lived on Horizont Alley over her ice-cream shop. It was pretty popular with the families and she even let Emma help her paying her with ice-cream and some pocket money.

Emma had to admit Ingrid was pretty great.

She didn’t ask for Emma to see her as a mother («Mother sounds so old, I’d like better to be an older sister») and didn’t seem to mind her sky-high walls. She was smart, almost always knowing what was going on through Emma’s mind. After half a year, the girl started regarding the older woman as her somewhat family.

Maybe magic wouldn’t be so bad after all.

O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O

“Are you excited?”

Emma looked up from the book she was pretending to read. “What?”

Ingrid smiled warmly at her from the other side of the kitchen table. “For Hogwarts,” she said. “Are you excited?”

“I guess,” Emma made a grimace that tried to be a smile. “Mostly nervous,” she said.

“I was the same,” confessed Ingrid. “I woke up at five in the morning,” Emma grunted at that. “and couldn’t eat a thing. I regretted it later,” she admitted. “It’s a long trip to Hogwarts to go without eating almost anything. And the trolley lady’s sweets are good but they don’t make much of a meal.”

The «that’s why I made you lunch» was left hanging in the air.

Ingrid cleared her throat. “But still, I don’t get why you’re so nervous. You already know a couple of your classmates.”

Emma’s face deadpanned. “I know Jasmine and that’s it,” she said.

Emma had been attending a sort-of-magic-primary-school, though it wasn’t very different than a muggle one, in Horizont Alley with the rest of kids from the entire magical shopping district. There weren’t a lot of kids in Emma’s class, and most of them would keep going to that school (to help their parents on the shops or because the just didn’t have enough magical ability for Hogwarts) or go to other magical schools aside from Hogwarts.

Jasmine was the only one of her classmates to join her in Scotland. Her father owned a branch of successful, and expensive, luxury goods and they certainty could afford losing her most of the year.

“She’s nice and all but she’s kinda stuck up,” Emma said.

Ingrid laughed. “Well, with her family as rich as it is I can’t blame her. She even seems more down-to-earth than I expected.”

Emma just grimaced again and forced herself to eat some of the scrambled eggs in front of her. Ingrid’s face softened and the knot on Emma’s throat tightened.

“Don’t worry,” Ingrid said. “You’ll be fine,” she promised.

Emma managed to gulp down the bite. “Will you write to me?” she asked trying not to sound vulnerable and failing spectacularly.

“You don’t even have to ask,” she assured.

Emma had ended up in a compartment with Jasmine, who had been all too happy to see a familiar face, two enthusiastic redheads named Ariel and Merida and a moody boy who had been on the compartment when they’d arrived and refused to look out the window to even introduce himself.

«Rude» Emma had thought with a scowl.

“Oh, I’m a muggleborn,” Merida had said when the conversation had, inevitably, switched to their families. “Mah family was verra surprised when mah letter came.”

At first Emma hadn’t understood a word that came from Merida’s mouth due to her thick accent, but she was getting better.

“Well I’ve got a big family and all my sisters have already gone to Hogwarts so it wasn’t a big surprise. I think most of our teachers won’t be happy when they see another Waters around,” Ariel explained.

The three girls bit back a smile and Jasmine sighed wishfully. “I wish I had siblings,” she said. “My father does his best but it can get lonely. He’s the owner of the Agrabah line so he was a lot of work.”

Ariel’s eyes went wide. “Your father owns Agrabah?” she gaped at Jasmine. “Holy Morgana!”

Emma could see Jasmine starting to regret ever saying anything about Agrabah so she decided to help her out (also stopping the questions about her family before they could even start). “Where do you think you’re gonna end up?” she asked. “Which house, I mean.”

That distracted Ariel enough and Jasmine sent her a grateful look across the compartment.

“Oh, I don’t know!” Ariel beamed excited. “I guess Gryffindor would be great, because bravery and stuff, you know? But the other houses could be awesome, too. I wouldn’t say no to Ravenclaw but I don’t think I’m smart enough to go there. And all that studying…” she shivered.

Merida smiled. “Me too,” she said. “As long as isnae Slytherin…”

That broke the silent guy out from his brooding. “What’s wrong with Slytherin?” he snapped at Merida.

“Well… everybody says is th’ hoose where all th’ evil wizards go,” she said.

The kids blue eyes flashed. “My brother is in Slytherin and he’s the best wizard in the world!” he said. “Besides, you shouldn’t judge a whole house just by some people.”

“Isnae just some people,” Merida muttered.

The guy glared at her but Merida remained silent, even if Emma could see she was dying to burst out in a screaming match with him. The fiery redhead looked at the other girls, probably seeking their support.

“My father is in Slytherin,” Jasmine said almost like an excuse. “Most of the greatest businesses are owned by Slytherins, in fact.”

Ariel also looked sheepishly at Merida. “A couple of my sisters are in Slytherin,” she admitted. “Though we are so many it would have been really weird if all of us ended up in the same house.”

And then they all looked at Emma, as if daring her to pick a side. “From what I’ve heard, there’s a lot of bad people who came out of Slytherin,” she started. “But I don’t think that means all of them are bad? Maybe it’s just that Slytherins have more potential to become bad?”

That didn’t seem to satisfy the boy, for he scowled at her and stormed off the compartment with a huff.

“Geez! I wonder what crawled up his arse and died!”

The three girls gaped at Emma and her crass language.

Even if Emma had become used to magic there were some things that would still surprise her from time to time.

Like a singing hat.

It was raining when the train had dropped them at Hogsmeade, the town right next to Hogwarts. Instead of taking the carriages, the first years had to follow a stern looking woman (named Maleficent of all things) through a dark path to the shore where some boats awaited them. And while the view of the castle was amazing from the water, Emma would have preferred a less wet and cold route.

Professor Blue had greeted them on the doors of the castle and guided them to a small room and then gave a speech about the Hogwarts houses, and the House Cup and the Sorting that Emma, truthfully, didn’t pay much attention to.

But Ingrid had already explained it all to her, and even Professor Blue had, too, on their trip to Diagon Alley.

Everybody started muttering nervously once she left and Emma had to admit the Sorting thing sounded a little painful. But Ingrid would have told her if it was something of that kind, right?

Professor Blue wasn’t gone for long and they followed her to a huge hall with a ceiling that looked to the night sky. And that was pretty cool.

And then the hat started to sing.

And everybody stared at it like it was the most normal thing ever.

When the hat finished its song, Professor Blue walked to stand next to the stool the hat was sitting on and unrolled a long parchment. “When I read your name you will come up here, I will put the hat over your head and, after it sorts you, you shall go to your House table. Now… Agrabah, Jasmine!”

Jasmine tried to mask her nervousness but she looked pale and her wide eyes denoted her fear. She walked up the stairs and remained some long moments under the hat, which tilted from side to side as if musing, until it shouted:

“RAVENCLAW!”

The Ravenclaw table burst into a warm applause for their newest recruit, and they did it again when the next kid, Arendelle, Elsa, also belonged to their house.

Baker, Celia, a short blind witch that confidently walked to the stool, was next. The hat sorted her in Slytherin after some seconds and the house cheered for her. One of the older kids jumped from the table to help her get to a free seat.

“Beasley, Adam!”

“SLYTHERIN!”

“Bell, Tina!” Professor Blue called.

Bell was a short blond girl who, as it seemed, gave the hat some problems, for it spend almost two full minutes thinking before placing her in Hufflepuff.

Blanchard, Mary Margaret was next, and she seemed excited more than scared. “HUFFLEPUF!” the hat proclaimed just barely touching her head.

Then there was Booth, August, another Ravenclaw, and a guy unfortunate enough to be named Fulbert Deforest, who was the first Gryffindor. De Vil, Cruella also had it bad in the name department and Emma wasn’t even really surprised to see her going into Slytherin.

“Dunbroch, Merida!”

The Scottish girl had just sat down on the stool, the hat barely grazing her head, when she was proclaimed a Gryffindor. For her satisfied smile, she was pretty happy with her new house.

After that Emma sort of spaced out, already nervous enough to pay any more attention to the sorting. She stared at the stool without seeing, her palms started to sweat and blood pounded on her ears.

(The Slytherin guy from the compartment turned out to be a Hufflepuff. Emma didn’t think he was nice enough to be a badger and she had hoped he would end in his loved house just so that Emma wouldn’t have any chance to end up with him).

(Because Emma knew herself and she knew Slytherin was not for her. Or Ravenclaw for that matter).

They got to the S’s and Emma thought she was going to throw up. One guy went to Gryffindor and another to Slytherin. And then she knew she was close.

“Svensson, Kristoff!”

“HUFFLEPUFF!”

“Swan, Emma!”

Her heart stopped. Emma took a deep breath and forced herself to go sit on the stool. She could do it, she could do it.

Professor Blue nodded at her in recognition and she lowered the hat.

«Ugh» she heard a voice say. Was that the hat?

“GRYFFINDOR!” it announced right after.

«Well,» Emma thought to herself as she stood up, her knees shaking with relief. «That wasn’t so bad».

The Gryffindor table was cheering for her and Emma sat down between a blond boy and a happy brunette.

“Hi!” she said. “Great house, isn’t it?”

Emma smiled. “I’m just happy to be in a house, you know?”

The blond boy snorted. “I also was worried that I would somehow fail the Sorting.”

“I don’t think that’s possible,” one of the oldest girls with a shiny badge on her tunic smiled at them. “There’s always a house for everybody,” she assured. “I’m Milah, by the way. Milah Gold. I’m the Head Girl.”

They all turned their attentions to the sorting after that. The hat called Hufflepuff for the girl under the hat and she scurried to her house, clearly relieved.

“Waters, Ariel!” Professor Blue read.

Ariel hadn’t even sat in the stool for more than a second when the hat put her in Gryffindor. Then came the last kid, Whale Victor, who ended up in Ravenclaw.

Professor Blue dispatched the hat and the stool while the Headmaster, Merlin Knight (it was rumoured he was a descendant for the Merlin) stood up to say some words.

“I know you all must be starving, I know I am,” he joked. “So all I’m going to say is «Let’s eat»!”

And suddenly all the empty plates filled with all kinds of food. Emma dug in, far too hungry to care for the people around her and ate in silence while Merida drilled poor Milah into all there was to know about Hogwarts. Some of the older kids also joined and soon they were explaining the secrets of the school to a bunch of very nervous eleven-years-old.

Around the time of deserts, things had calmed down enough. Emma was listening to Ruby Lucas, the girl sitting next to her, talk about her Grandmother when she spotted the Rocky Road half-hidden between a bowl of strawberries and some pudding.

She launched herself towards it at the same time her other neighbour did. They both stopped to look at each other with one hand on the platter each.

Emma blinked and the guy copied her. She narrowed her eyes, readying for a quick snatch when she realized the absurdity of the situation.

The guy’s lips twitched with amusement and he helped her lift the ice-cream over the strawberries towards them. Emma handed him a spoon and they shared a knowing look, then they both dug in directly from the platter.

“So…” he said. “You like Rocky Road, huh?”

Emma smiled at him. “It’s my favourite.”

“Mine too,” he beamed. “I’m David Nolan,” he introduced himself.

She grinned, her mouth full of chocolate. “Emma Swan.”

[davidjjohnston3]

It appears as if my dream is coming true without me; racial understanding and unity are being achieved.  Madison, Wisconsin these days reminds me of Rutgers and China.  The sky seems almost unreal. In the past I didn't realize how big China is; I only thought about Chinese moms and girlfriends... or spies. * When I was 14 I seem to have been offered a happiness.  At 16 I had that happiness taken away and distrusted the people broke it up.  At 17 I liked or loved one of those people but was wary of her father whom I never met and didn't dare to ask a question. Instead of taking nothing, I took something else which was offered. I was offered a second or final chance recently but was unprepared or failed to follow through  / deliver the complete ready 'suitcase.'  Today I feel beyond sadness.  I have not felt guilt in a long time either but fear of the sky and the new day.  I also sense I taught the wrong things to the wrong people at the wrong time, and they became... I don't know why I tried to be so many things, or hold so many dreams.  I never followed through on one true thing.  I never awaited or sought God's confirmation. All I see is light and beauty.  The population of the United States is increasing / has increased.  I thought my life was over; I was satisfied with my 'museum.'   I wonder whether this is a new 'classical' age a la Yeats 'Leda and the Swan' but I hate things like that. I remember my Taiwanese aunt Jamie and I am thinking of Chairman Mao. Originally my aunt's name was 'Gloria.'  I do not know her Chinese name.  I know she lives in Redlands, CA, and last I checked had a long commute in LA traffic to a Buddhist college. I just want to disappear.  In all my life only two people trusted me, and I ripped them off - one I misunderstood; the other I miscarried or betrayed. I had all these dreams that were alive or lifelike, physical, fleshly - 'carnal' as Houellebecq says in 'Liquid Birth.'  But what's the point? I used to ride the bus around Korea thinking about an old war but now I don't know why.  It was one of those 'parallel' novels with small and large: here is the war, here is someting else, a relationship, as though to say, 'And while __ also __.' I was in Delafield which I visited first in 2009 and thought about the Iraq War.  I thought about General Mattis.  Before attacking a certain Iraqi city the Marine Corps played 'Hell's Bells.'  Why were they so eager to hurl souls into Hell instead of reaching out to them some other way?  Or am I misunderstanding? I was sitting by this river in 2009, wondering about renting an apartment - 'Do you like Asian art' said the person.  In the end I gave him like 500 dollars for the rent-deposit but didn't live there or something.  'Dirtbag!' I met Zola Jesus the same year and also gave her and her brother 500 or so. The Great Recession was cozy for me.   I was happy in a way with my downsized life, as if the pressure were off. I remember the McCain v. Obama election.  At first I was happy John McCain came from behind to win the Republican primary. It occurred to me again that I and McCain are 'Japanese' in some sense of accepting failure and wanting to go down as having had the right idea. I don't know why I lobbied for so long to get fair treatment from the world when I wasn't even asking either what I meant or ultimately wanted, or what God wanted for me, or what was going on or had been going on perhaps since the Lutheran Reformation and the Reformation Wars  - one long war, perhaps since the civil wars marking the Fall of Rome.  As if everywhere is 'Germany; the Holy Roman Empire.' * In the past I read Ecclesiastes a lot - 'and the ocean is not filled.'  I don't know why in some sense I thought I could fill the ocean, or wanted to keep sinking things in there. I remember in 2007 or so I ate buffet food with Taiwan-GF and her parents and they said, 'Why do white people eat Jell-O?'   We also ate some rice with raisins and nuts or something. I don't know why I was eating everything with everyone, trying to be cultured in small ways instead of 'made,' 'made for a purpose.' Nowadays everything seems like Rutgers with these modded cars and people 'expressing themselves.'  I don't want to critique others anymore 'cause I am not a teacher or social critic or columnist or whatever.  I wish I wrote a column for the Joongang but I don't understand their 'angle' or 'cropping' either.  I always just want to make giant arguments and if my organized argument doesn't work I tend to take a 'Red Army' approach as with pedagogy; cf. Kruschev in 'Enemy at the Gates,' saying 'Lose the other half [of your troops].'   People gave me all kinds of 'sign' advices and I don't know what I was thinking experimenting with their advice. I wish I were just working at a gas-station or something with my wife like my boss's Korean parents who became millionaires but the world is bigger now.  These country road I used to yearn to have one of to myself; my grandfather's house at the foot of the San Bernardino's, somehow reminding me of Belgium(?) or Alsace-Lorraine.  I guess in retrospect my happiness place was my apartment in Korea with its fire-door or suicide-door or whatever it was, feeling like a coffin of safe-deposit box; and 'office-tel.' I used to get mad at people for not doing what they talked about.  'My dream school; I'm offering you an idea...' No you're not.  'I want to start a kongbubang' - then he made a Smoothie King instead.   I don't know what anyone is trying anymore or what they dream.  Everyone seems to be trying everything; relationships are what they would have.   I thought of 'a small personal voice,' Chekhov, or something Nabokov said about Chekhov, about people confessing things in quiet voices.  I wanted to scream and yell at people when I was younger but I couldn't in my family and then the moment passed; I wanted to teach HS but was corrupt by then.  Nowadays people can't guess my height; they said I look 6'1 or somtehing but it's really like 5'10 5'11.  All kinds of failures and people I nuked and feeding toxic chemicals to people who love chemical-warfare. I remember in a way the person I wanted to be or the one person I tried to be was in 2002-2003 at the South Mountain Arena ice-skating with HK-ex-girlfriend.  I just liked that image of myself with my nose.  But why?   I keep trying to make a self.  There is this Korean poem, 'I made a self; like peeling an apple; like running off with a woman who was my social superior.'   I never ran away with anyone that I know of; I went to 'Taiwan and Its Contexts' Yale Conference with TW-1, ate some rice and shellfish and the guy said, 'Many of my white students become lawyers.'  I thought about IP and wrote some stuff about teaching HS civics after making money when in the back of my mind I thought, 'If a BigLaw associate makes 160K first year, in 10 years how much money can I have so I can retire and write.'  then at UW-Madison the average starting was like 90K, so... then I remmebreed S'hai's letter about not wasting your 20's and was like what if I just made a ittle deal with myself, my parents, a semi-noncomittall offering to S'hai-1?  What is the point of such gambits(?). I miss 'Maria.'  I like her sunny voice and wish I met her mom or knew more about her.  I taught 'process-writing' which in retrospect was a mistake b/c 'process-writing' is 'German, socialist, patching, bit-by-bit.'  It also mixes past and future, admits failure, and denies individuality or rather implies that individuality comes from other people or something.  Like if Chairman Mao kisses me here, KJU kisses me here, Rose-Apple kisses me here, overall, I'm the Blarney Stone of David Johnston, 'the glass man without external reference.'  Why?   The Bible says, 'God will establish you' or something... I remember all these Democrats saying stuff like, 'In my day we took our neighbors' kids aside and blah blah...'  Communists... My uncle 'Uncle Hammer' once told my dad, 'Discipline your kid.'  My dad walked out and never entered that house for years.  Years later he said, 'Actually Uncle Hammer is right DAvid is a terrible arrogant person etc...'  at the same time Dad was stealing my IP like, 'Let's figure out all DJJ's pornographic adventures, eat his brain and live vicariously...' Everyone was like, 'When everyone says something about you it's probably true...' I don't know if I have anything to say fairly about any of this.  People supposedly derive their impression of God from their parents / father but I've had more than enough time and spiritual 'invasions,' really, to have more direct knowledge of God.  I just had all other affections and dependencies and side-projects and assumed 'trying this would be good enough' without asking. I just wanted my 'little life' and later felt done.  I thought I was sincerely schizophrenic.  I was glad the pressure was off b/c everyone seemed to blow up in my face or doors closed; or I didn't know.  I looked all these Edu. programs but never determined in my heart or mind or prayed for the right to join. All these psychopaths... My dad studied Economics - my family are 'Chinese' - and now his dreams are coming true.  I wanted to be 'RCCP Mediator.'  I studied nuclear weapons but never wanted to drop them.  I was interested in 'nuclear sublime' an idea about Japanese cinema / anime.  'God gave us nuclear weapons to _ _ _.'  I wasn't there to hear His voice so I wouldn't know.  Truman said, 'The power of the sun, something something...'   Later I became intent on 'petite culture' and 'the feminine' and so on.  'I am not gonna think about this.'  I don't work for the Pentagon.  I should've applied to Cornell Hotel Management.  In the summer of 2003 I ate the hearts of burnt-outside oatmeal-cookies and thought / didn't think about Korean-Presbyterian.   * Xi Jinping is going to visit Korea after Covid.  'What's his angle?'  I didn't dislike Xi; I believed in 'Rule of Law,' questioned the Cultural Revolution.  My 'apologetics' for all this were / was flawed in that I argued about weapons-systems killing everyone and how that's why we should love each other, love / obey God.  'OMG weapons-systems?!'   I thought today of my Ukrainian old friend Stan.   I once wrote or started, 'Everything Is Spies.' I think it was about Jiheon Fromis_9(?).   Today I thought about, 'Brides.'  I wanted to say, 'You were like this, that, Korean, Black - just be someone's wife or rather you could be a bride, w/ covered hair.'  I admire the aesthetics of the Catholic Church and their talking about demons and stuff but what if... I feel like I was always reading to lose everything and I gave everything to the wrong people who just eat and eat and eat, then examine the excretions too.  I saw this picture of LOONA Yves and thought, 'My daughter, hold her.'  A beautiful hand, neither boneless nor bony like it has many purposes.  'A wifely smile.'  None of these people care what I say; they don't see what I see.   I remember being happy listening to Wonder Girls' 'Draw Me' and writing stuff.  Most of these people will never care.  Glee, glee, glee.  'Spend my life-savings!'   I wish I could offer myself as a resource to someone but no one's got questions for me anymore.   Everyone figured out what I had to say and what I was right about; those who didn't are determined to be wrong or evil anyway.  And I was evil in trying to make everyone 'right.'   I thought about 'character.'  I pretended to have good character but never stuck to it. I wasn't manly either and never studied manliness.  I didn't think about offering myself to a woman or loving a wife as Christ loved the Church; only 'making deals.'  Later I thought investing in the younger generation would be better; and I was happy to 'downsize' myself. I do not know either why I believed everything was suddenly going to change after Covid Alpha.  People still have secrets, holdings, ambitions, relationships, things which made them special, records, fellowship or lackthereof.  I thought the Millennium was upon us; foolishly as well 'engaged every target' in job-hunting and wasn't ready and I didn't understand journalism either or things like whether NK, TW is a legitimate government in terms of God ordaining a government.  I also didn't know how much of news was propaganda or not; I used to believe everything was lies or disblief was smart then believed everything in books.  I didn't understand 'the game.'  I loved Creation.  'Classic garden.'  Why not train people well?  All these well-made Koreans.  Before KR I hated others and in KR 2012 hated myself or felt alone or IDK.  It's a big country.  These AmKor Twitter ppl, Korea small blah blah.  IDK if they are even being sincere or just peddling cliches. I thought today, 'I am a failed Korean' - or 'failed to be a Korean.'  For a while I thought everybody in the future wanted to be a Korean but I guess they wanted to watch the Olympics. The Midwest is full of farmland more than ever. Man is continuing to subdue the Earth, to be fruitful and multiply. I have no excuse for myself.  What is the future? I didn't go to China so perhaps I do not know. I wonder whether people in the Midwest are still thinking, 'Sth's going to happen.' I have had too many options.   I always thought that I could 'parlay this in to that.'  I considered my CV as a series of changes or mutations.   'Seek thee first the Kingdom of God / and His righteousness'

[daughterofanarchangel]

The thoughts of a sixteen year old part one - FRIENDS

On this blog there is AJ Winchester, a fictional character created as an OC in the Supernatural universe, and there is the mod/owner of the blog aka me. And I believe that I haven’t posted on this blog since before the season 12 premiere which makes it ideal for me to just say stuff that I need to say and work out without certian people seeing it before it’s time. So let’s get started.

The first issue is friends. And before I start I want to make it clear that I love my friends and they are some of the greatest most awesomeness people I know. But as everyone should know, everyone has problems and my friends are no expection. And neither am I. I should probably start with myself.

As a young kid I had two really close friends. They are Lara and Sarah M. I use their names because as far as I know they don’t have tumblr and will probably never see this post because of reasons that I will explain later. Lara, Sarah M and I saw each other on a regular basis; we all went to the same church. We’re all the same age with me being the oldest. At our church at the time of my early childhood we were literally the only ones our age; both Lara and Sarah M had older brothers and Sarah M and I both had younger brothers. I guess it was out of nesscessity that we all became friends. And we were really close. I mean for our fifth birthdays we got matching kiddie purses (although mine and Sarah M’s were “from Lara” and Lara’s was from her parents) how much closer could we get? I will admit looking back that I was probably closer to lara than I was Sarah M. Anyway during the summer when I was seven, Lara’s family moved away. I had gone on holiday for Christmas thinking I’d be able to see Lara one last time when I got back. When I got back she had already gone. We never really said a propper goodbye. My friendship with Sarah M soon became nothing. I still see her regularly - it’s hard not to when you both still go to the same church every week and go to the same high school. Lara and I have seen each other since she moved with the latest actually being just under a year ago. Our dads are friends on facebook so I occasionally hear how she’s doing with her rowing. But that was my first real lost with friendship.

In my first two and a half years of primary school (half a year of Year 0, with the other two years being Years 1 and 2) I don’t recall having any real close friends that I kept for long. Our short friendships lastest a few months and strangely enough the two friendships I can remember I now know their grandmothers and one old friend’s grandfather because I play the same sport as them. Towards the end of Year 2 I made a few friendships with people who would later become my friends for the rest of my time at primary.

These were Gemma and Sarah W. Again I was the oldest. At least I was until we became good friends with Jess who was three weeks older than me the year later. Jess and I being in the same class for Year 3 while Sarah W and Gemma were in the same class. We had other people come and go from the group but we were good friends. In Year 4 I was the only one who wasn’t in the same class as everyone else. Year 5 was another repeat. These two years I was alone in class but I knew I had friends who liked me and we remained friends. Year 6 being our final year at Primary, I was finally in a class with all my friends bar one. Our friendship was strong enough that we remained friends despite rarely being in the same class. But it wasn’t perfect. Looking back, Sarah W was abusive. She would often hit us and once she threw an apple at another friend’s head that made the apple split into pieces. I think younger me knew what Sarah W was doing was not right because I remember that she gave me a chinese burn so hard that I yelled at her with tears in my eyes that I no longer wanted to be friends with her because she hurt me for the last time. I didn’t speak to her for a few days but I ended up becoming friends with her again. I don’t remember exactly when this happened, because I try to block as much memories of primary as I can and I also have little memory of this time anyway, but I do remember that one day Sarah W and Gemma told me something that I still find to sting a little today. Let’s get something staright - I’ve never been popular and that hasn’t really bothered me. But it did when Sarah W and Gemma told me that they gave up their popularity to be friends with me back in Year 2. Their comment made me realise how unimportant I was to them as well as how unpopular I knew I was.

I didn’t stay friends with that group. The next two years were Intermediate and they were great compared to Primary. In Year 7 I made a great guy friend who really boasted my confidence. He was also my first lgbt friend. Back then I didn’t even know what lgbt was (i grew up in religious home and my parents never told me about gay people. They also never gave me the birds and the bees talk. Yep that’s right, I had shitty ‘health’ lessions, which literally had one lesson on the sex part of sex ed and all the other lessons about emotions and stuff which is important and all, teach me the birds and the bees in Year 7 at age 12 and even then it wasn’t until Year 9 that I really learnt anything sex ed). And while we remained friends in Year 8, I became better friends with a girl in my class in the year below me whom I still friends with today. I will mention her as Demon in future.

Year 9 was my first year of High School. For the first two terms I was almost basically a loner - I had a guy friend in the year above who sat with me and we watched the first season of Geronimo Stilton on his ipad. Then I become friends with Squirrel. Squirrel and I bonded over our mutal love for Supernatural and Teen Wolf. In Year 10, Demon joined me and Squirrel as friends, with Angel literally joining the group the next day.

We’re all still good friends today. We added Squish and Small to the group last year in Year 11. Then there’s Home. Home is a friend of mine who I’ve been friends with since I was 10. They’re home schooled but know Squirrel, Demon, Angel and Squish because of me. So what I started out with one friend became five, six when you include Home. But I don’t feel like its going to keep like this for 2018.

Angel had a fucked up childhood. Its left her with scars and believe me when I say that it’s still messing with her now three years after she left that toxic environment. As much as I care about them and love them, sometimes they bring me down. They were one third of what I like to call my emotional overload around the time of my practice exams. It’s not their fault that I feel the way I did - it’s mine because I don’t have a good handle on what I’m feeling.

Squrriel has recently opened up about her problems that I should have noticed or at least picked up on a little. They’ve decided to not sit with us this year as they are taking care of themselves because we weren’t there like they were for us. I dont blame them for that decision - we created a toxic environment and to be honest, especially towards the end of Year 11, I always felt that this was going to happen anyway since it seemed back then that they were always sitting with their other group of friends and to be fair that group of friends is a lot more mature (it seems) and less toxic than our group of friends.

Demon. There’s a reason I gave them that name. Demon is a little piece of shit. In light of Squirrel’s confession, they made their own. They admitted that they were a piece of shit, walking the fine line between joke and insult. Having been frends with them for almost four years now, I’ve learnt to take all the insults they give as jokes. At the end of last year I wrote her a four page essay letter about my feelings about some stuff that I needed to say to someone but I couldn’t go to my usual person because they’d asked not to get involved. That was the first time I ever really had a deep and meaningful thing with them.

Then there’s Home. Out of all my friends I’ve known her the longest. But last year in particular I started feeling like we weren’t going to be friends for much longer. There were some things said, written and unsaid (thankfully) between us that really got to me. Although now I feel we’ll continue being friends for a long time, I still have a small scab from that time thatI occasionally pick at.

I don’t have any problems with Squish and Small because we haven’t been friends for all that long.

I’m also a problem. I’m most definitely an introvert - always have been. During breaktimes I generally have something to do like read or scroll tumblr while only listening into my friend’s conversations, and saying a few words here and there. In the group chats or in one-on-one chats I am mostly silent and if I do take part in a conversation I usually end up ignoring notifications because I don’t want to talk.

Some day I hope that I can work out what to do because I don’t want to be truly alone. I’m scared of losing the group of friends that are so important to me and are probably the best group of friends I’ve had to date. I don’t want to lose them but sometimes I wonder why I’m even friends with them

[prince-boi]

I’ll be With You ‘Til The End

Pairing: Reader x Taehyung

Angst ahead lol.

When we were young:

Our mothers bumped into each other at the grocery store, “Eomma! Who’s that girl!” a small boy asked in while pointing to y/n.

“Yah! Don’t point! It’s rude Taehyung!” nagged the parent. The boy pouted, he only wanted the answer.

Y/n’s parent bent down to his level, “I’m your mother’s friend, this is y/n, they will be staying at your place for a little bit because I need to do some grown-up things. Is that okay with you?” Taehyung looked up to his mother with a questioning face, she chuckled and nodded. Taehyung sneaked a glance at the shy girl that was hiding behind the unfamiliar adult and held out his hand, smiling as he did so,

“Let’s be friends!”

When we were in primary school:

Our parents sent us to the same school, we knew no one but us and some other kids from our neighbourhood. We all ran into our class lines, ready to be welcomed into a neat classroom as the bell rang.

“Good morning students! My name is Mr Jung, I will be your teacher”

The teacher started calling the roll after that was our first lesson: Art.

Paint few here, pencils shreddings were being emptied in the bins, chalks was being scribbled, crayons were being snapped in half.

“Art is my favourite subject” Taehyung stated happily to y/n. Y/n and Taehyung had grown close to each other since the first day they met, they were a troublemaking duo, partners in crime.

“Taehyung! Come sit with us!” Y/n called over. It was lunch-time, Taehyung was sitting on the swing-sets alone, eating his chicken sandwich. Y/n ran over, grabbing his wrist and lunch box, dragging him back to her lunch table with all her other friends. After they all finished eating, they played tiggy with all the other kids until it was home time.

Secondary school, where kids change and grow up, figuring out who they are: “Boys are better than girls!! We’re stronger!”

“Wrong! Strength doesn’t make someone better! It’s OBVIOUS that girls are way better!”

Here we go again, the groups are fighting over the lunch tables, Taehyung could see y/n wasn’t having any fun in this and wanted to get out ASAP. Sneaking over, he held a firm grip on your arm, pulling you outside, sitting you under a tree, starting to eat lunch with you.

“It sucks that you’re taller than me, you’re a girl!”

“Nah, you just haven’t had your growth spurt yet.” you loved teasing Taehyung with your height, it was typical for girls to be taller than most boys at this age, after all, we just hit puberty.

You and Taehyung had kept your distance during your time on the secondary campus, everyone always seems to think that someone was dating even if they were JUST friends.

High-School, we’re mature and fully grown, standards have changed as well:

It wasn’t a surprise that you two got shipped in school, almost the entire year level knew you guys were the bestest of best friends, it was obvious too, you two were the derps of the class.

However, that was when you found out you had a heart disease, a sickness that affects the function of the human heart that could lead to death if not treated. Nobody knew this, only the people in your circle.

The first time you found out, you were crushed, devastated. It caused you to fall into deep depression, but Taehyung was alway there by your side. It took a while to pull you out of your hole of darkness, but he did. Though tears were shredded, you made it out safely, unharmed as well.

You were finally pulled out from diving into darkness, but also fallen back again, but for a different reason… Love.

Which lead to leaving a secret love letter in his locker on Valentine's Day.

University and College, we got separated, but we were only a few blocks away from each other. Could this be fate?:

Laughing filled the dorm room.

“HAHAHAHAHA, STOP IT NOW MY STOMACH HURTS.” one of your colleagues cracked. You just pulled off your prize-winning joke, the best joke you had used since you were young.

Life was good, well, except for the fact that you still had the heart disease and still never told Taehyung how you felt. It was too late now. Since you guys were separated into different study centres, he managed to find a girlfriend. Well, the girlfriend found him really. It hit you hard the moment he told you, but you were happy for him, even though you felt a BIT bitter.

The future - one thing no one can fully predict, nor can they promise success or failure, that could send you to the streets or lead you to your dreams:

You were happy, we had your dream job, you were still young and beautiful, Taehyung had made it through BigHit EntertainmentTM, he was in a group called BTS now. Another thing was that he wasn't dating anymore, the female he went out with turned out to be the brattiest person in the world, she was a backstabber and used him to get what she wanted: to make her crush jealous and date him instead. Leaving Taehyung hanging with haunting memories. You still loved him, you still looked at him with the love you first gave him in an anonymous love letter way~ back in high-school, which you still haven’t told him about… yet.

Halfway through the year, you got an emergency call to go to the hospital.

“Miss (your last name = L/n), I’m afraid your heart can’t take the pressures anymore, you don’t have long left. We estimate you to only live 1 more year, or if we find someone willing to donate their heart, we have no other options.” the doctor said in a sympathetic tone. You broke down, your life was perfect the way it was, a loving best friend, a wonderful job, a beautiful home, what did you do to deserve this?

Later that month, you manage to find to confidence, after getting a grip on yourself and went to Taehyung’s apartment to tell him the news.

3 knocks on the door were all it took for you to suddenly hear someone storming to the door, ripping it open.

“WHY DIDN't YOU TELL ME EARLIER?!” Taehyung screamed, you saw that he had dried tears on his cheeks, flushed cheeks, glassy eyes and red tipped nose. You glanced behind him, seeing a wire bin, filled with squishy tissues, probably from runny snot and tears.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t want to--”

“I AM YOUR FRIEND, no. YOUR BEST FRIEND, I THOUGHT YOU WOULD TELL ME THESE THINGS.” you’ve never seen Taehyung like this before.

You were about to reply when he embraced him in a hug, “I’m sorry for yelling….” you felt your shoulder getting wet, and lead him instead, sitting him down on the sofa.

You both calmed down and consulted, you lightened the mood a little by telling Taehyung his favourite joke. Laughter was heard throughout the night, he invited you to stay at his place for the night.

You only had 3 months left, I promise to give you everything, even if it kills me:

Y/n never felt so alive for so long. Taehyung had shown you places you never thought you’d see, both physically and spiritually. Nothing was on your mind but what was happening at the moment: Taehyung had taught you how to live - to live in the present and not worry about the future nor dwell in the past. You hadn’t seen him in almost 2 months. The first month he had some issues to sort out with his company, before meeting you again. It was only a short visit before he returned home to his mother, staying with her for the month.

You received a letter from the hospital, saying your life expectancy will be confirmed in 3 months. You only had 3 months left….. But you had a lucky chance, you had a healthy heart donor! You were so happy and in bliss. You wanted to call Taehyung and tell him about the notice, but he didn’t pick up. You tried again for the next few days, he still never picked up.

Until the day before you had your transfer:

Taehyung: Don’t worry, you’ll be okay, the surgery will go smoothly. Trust my heart.

I’m sorry, I can’t say good-bye:

You entered the operation room, today was the day you had your heart surgery. You were scared, but you thought of the text Taehyung sent, it calmed you just a little.

When you healed, the first place you went to was Taehyung’s apartment. You kept knocking, but no one answered.

“HelLO!! ANYONE HOME?!” no answer. You found the spared keys to his apartment under the doormat and used it to unlock the door.

You run in the living room, not a sign of life. There were only boxes and the sofa, which had a large white sheet over it.

Slowly, you walked into his room, it was the same as the living room, lifeless, boxes stacked in neat towers, the bed covered in a large white sheet.

You walked around the room, observing everything closely. You passed his desktop, a red note catching your eye.

You picked it up carefully and read it, you realised that it was the same love letter you wrote to him in high school, but there was more writing on the back, with his handwriting;

I’m so, so sorry, be happy and smile for me okay?

I always knew this letter what from you y/n, I always had.

I dated her to get my mind off you, I wanted to do that because I knew we can never be together forever, I wanted to confess, but when I heard you had heart cancer, I made it my goal to get rid of it.

I worked hard to become an idol and make enough money to pay for the surgery, I needed to visit my mother to confirm my decision, it took a while, but here we are.

If you haven't figured it out yet, yes, I am your heart donor.

I always wanted to be beside you, all the way to the end. That’s not gonna happen,

I’ll never be beside you forever, but I will will be with you, inside you, for many years to come.

Now smile my sweet-pie, you’re the apple of my eye, I’ll always be watching, and you’ll always have me....

  From your dearest, Taehyung ♡

[babyangeldan]

Living up to your dreams Chapter 2

Phil was for sure in heaven. It's been only two weeks and seven meetings with Dan, but he felt like there was nothing more important than theirs conversations on the fluffy rug, laughs and secrets shared with shushed voices. Dan was mesmerised with outside word, especially Phil’s work. He had never met omega who liked listening about algorithms and process of making an app, game or general computer’s work. When he was telling Alexander about this idea, of game with challenges and time limit, young blond teen snorted and told Phil to man up. He is not a kid anymore and, even if he is any good in all this stuff, won’t it be better to use his skills in different way? Alex was really keen on Phil’s future in weapons construction. War and conflicts terrifies alpha so that idea was a big no no.


- Honey, you like this boy, don't you? - his mother asked when they were siting together in living room and watching her favourite TV show. Black haired man just nodded. He felt, of course, something to Dan at first sight - arousal. But right after few meeting, when boy opened a little, Phil found out that they have actually a lot of in common. Omega told him all about what he could or could not do. He has all electronics in his condo, made specially for omega, so he briefly knows how outside word looks like. He even told Phil in shushed voice that if he is sitting in this one place in his room he can catch Alpha’s father wifi and read articles made for betas. Right after his confession Dan curled to small ball and disappeared in his room in belief he told too much. It wasn’t, in eyes of society, for him to do that - but Phil didn't mind. If he liked betas stuff more why forbid it. The only thing Phil thought was different that he understood them. Everybody rather knew that omegas are far less intelligent.


- I’m sorry, but you need to decide quickly. Alpha Peter pressures me to seal the deal. - Catherine wasn't at ease. She knew that Dan was a true omega, and her son didn't know this before meeting. And she was truly glad. When he told her about Howell’s son she was really afraid Phil was wanting just a brain washed and obedient partner, but she raised him right. However it was still to much strange fog around this whole agreement. All this hurry…


- I already decided. - he told her taking a sip of coffee. 
 - I really like him, he is my omega I can feel it, but I can’t make him decide so early. He is still a little afraid of me. - Phil had all this plan, maybe in the next few months Dan will warm up to him more and agreed to marriage by his own choice.


- I’m worried we don't have that much time, my dear. You need to make a decision, yes or not. Peter gave us 24 hours. - Alpha Lester was now looking at his hands. What? 24 hours? Phil took of the couch almost immediately, he needs to go meet with Dan! Explain him this whole situation and ask about it. Yeah, thats not that bad. He will propose but as a friend and and…


- He banned you from his house till the wedding… I’m so sorry dear.



Phil was raised in quite modern household. His mother always said that omegas need to be cherished and loved, treated with respect and gentle manner. Young Lester never saw this domestic behaviour towards his father. They’ve lost him in tragic car accident. They have never spoked about it and Catherine never even tried to look after someone else. As Martyn said: she loved him too much to accept any different partner. So it wasn't really strange for Phil to want relationship like that. He dreamed that his future husband will love him and theirs kits. He has never even considered that his omega will be crying his eyes out on their wedding. He has never even considered that his omega will be crying his eyes out on their wedding only in white lace panties.



Taking any omega from theirs family was something like rite of passage. From this day alpha is obligated to take care of him and to take all the responsibilities of his actions. As figurative expression omegas come nowadays to the wedding in white simple dress or white trousers with shirt. Nothing fancy. They are coming to the new life with nothing but hope and trust. Phil heard that traditionally they needed to be naked, for everybody to see if „it was a good purchase”. And as living proof of this awful outdated tradition - Dan was standing there, in big room in Howells mansion only in fucking lingerie, trembling profusely. If Phil wasn't in such a shock he will probably end all this farce and made them put something on him.
 Brown haired boy was walking to him slowly and unsurely looking down. Meanwhile on the other hand all quests from Howells side, all alphas, was cheering like in the fucking strip club. Someone even whistled. Every alpha, beside Phil, in the room was obligated to wear scent concealing mask to sidestep any dangerous and primary behaviour, but Dan was smelling so strongly that they still felt uneasy. God, he was perfect. Milky skin, thin but with a little pudge near hips, not even a single hair on his body. No stop. Phil didn't know where to look. He can’t check him out here, without his consent. When Dan has stood in front of him something strange appeared to Phil. His future husband was nearly as tall as him, only few inches shorter, what was kinda strange. Omegas was usually smaller than alphas and black haired man never saw someone like him. Priest started talking, not even a little taken a back by appearance of the groom. He was chosen by Peter so clearly this whole deal wasn't new. Dan didn't even looked at him, the only thing Phil saw was tears on the carpet. 



- Alpha Phil Lester, as our Lord said, you can now take this omega as your property and do what you like. We trust however to be loyal to ours traditions and beliefs. - old man said. Was this right decision? If Phil wouldn't agreed to the wedding so quickly, they will find Dan another alpha, probably someone like Mark or even worse, someone like Peter. He wanted so badly to see this sweet boy and explain everything, from stars to finish, than this whole thing will be just to make Dan safe. They didn't need to be partners, just friends. Phil was going to give him space and support every action. Under young Lester life would be so much better than in Howell’s household. 
But now, as omega was still crying and alpha was fastening a big, black collar our boys neck he wasn't so sure. His mother choose this one, just a plain one with blocky DL letters. Daniel Lester.


- Dan, I’m so sorry… - he murmured kissing omega on the cheek delicately. Brown haired teen didn't answer, but looked up at his, from now on, husband, It wasn't a look Phil was hoping for. Newly wed was looking at him, still crying, with loath and pure anger. He was like scared animal, not composed and weak, but still ready to bite. It was all that alpha could take. It was an end of nice fucking Phil. He is now fully an alpha, Dan is his and they all can eat shit. He took off his jacket and put it around boys naked shoulders, took his hand. Theres no time to be gentle right now.


- I’m taking him home. - he said to Catherine going to the front door, fast and unapologetic, Dan stamping weakly behind him. 


- But, quests and the dinner… - They had still obligation to Howell’s family and their own one. They needed to show everybody that it was a good decision.


- Fuck this, I can do with my omega the fuck I want. - he hissed and almost drag said omega to the car outside. After all this he need to probably apologise but right now Dan was the most important thing. Still in amuck he tossed his husband near him and fasten his seatbelt. 


In this brief time they was driving to Phil’s private flat, their future flat, Dan ended his big cry and now was only clenching fists and teeth. He looked so small, despite the high. All this anger and emotions started to wander off him. Oh god, he was too rough with Dan and now omega is probably even more afraid. 


- Let’s go home… - he took Dan’s hand and now really cautiously lead him to Lester’s penthouse. 

 - Wait here for me, I’m gonna come right back. - he said with said voice leaving omega in the kitchen. Dan needed something to wear, something clean and soft, to make him feel safer. Phil in the most sincere dreams couldn’t even think about what he saw, when he came back to the kitchen.



- Don't come near me! - his sweet omega was screaming profusely, standing in the middle of the room, with knife aiming at Phil.
 - Dan, what? - alpha was in shock. Why, what’s going on? 
- Don't even try to touch me… - Boy was trembling with fear, but firmly holding his weapon. Phil was the same, just like them. Awful and sneaky alpha. Dan almost believed that he was different, that he was caring, a good friend… But it all was a fucking game, some kind of fetish. Liar. 
Phil took few subtle steps to him.


- Dan, please. I will not hurt you… - he whispered holdings his hand up, to show that everything is alright, no-one will hurt anybody.


- Fuck you! I’m clearly your omega and you can do whatever you want, just like you said! - he screamed Lester’s word, from no more that twenty minutes before. Oh god. Dan thought he will take him, mark him, scent him, make him his without consent. Phil eyes went big. No no, it wasn't like that. To alpha’s terror now knife was aiming into Dan’s belly. Boy was smart, there was no chance to win this if man attacked. 


- Don't come closer, don't please… - now omega was crying weakly digging blade in his abdomen, not cutting skin yet. He couldn't take it, not anymore. Phil betrayed his trust, but Dan still liked him. He never liked anyone before, he never had a friend like this. Ha couldn’t take it, if Phil will hurt him.


- Daniel, stop it. Put knife on the worktop. - Phil hadn't have choice and used his alpha voice. This sweet doe eyed omega listened, of course - he had to obey. Right after that, Phil grabbed his husband and hold him in strong embrace. Oh god, it was so close to tragedy, what if Dan killed himself? 


Omega was crying, not in fear anymore, but confusion. Today was too much for him, being betrayed, then put in the room full of strangers almost naked… He didn't even see that many people at once! 
- I’m so sorry sir, I’m so sorry… - he was mumbling into Phil’s shirt. Even if he didn't like it, alpha's scent was soothing. Black haired man shushed him and kissed top on his head. God, its too much emotions for one day.


- Listen, I will never hurt you, I will never do something you are uncomfortable with. I’ m so sorry for today. - he mumbled into his head. Dan is safe right now, it’s the most important thing. Of course Phil fucked up, but it needed to be done. To omega’s surprise Phil kneeled in front of him.


- I’m hoping you will forgive me and trust again. - he whispered delicately hugging boy’s legs, being really cautious to not touch with his head front of Dan’s underwear.
 Omega couldn't comprehend what is going on. Alpha is kneeling before him? Oh god, if anybody will see this, Phil would be stoke off in alphas circle. God, brown haired boy was so confused.

- You don’t… want to… take me? - he mumbled looking down at Phil. He said he don't want to hurt him, so he will not. And Dan don't want to be touched like that, probably never.


- If you don't want me to, no. We are friends, remember. - Phil was now looking at him with affection. Of course he wants to take him. Omega smelled so strongly, so erotic and was standing before him almost naked - but he is not a rapist. Everything will be alright, they will be happy. He is sure. 


- Friends..


- Yeah, Dan. Friends, best friends. I promise. - Phil took his hand and hooked theirs little fingers with his, in kids manner. Omega was in too big shock to do something else, than nodded delicately.

After that Phil profusely described Dan how they relationship will work. As said they will be friends, not husbands right now. If omega would like them to be romantically involved in the future he will be more than happy, but Dan should feel safe and comfortable.


- And please, don't ever try to hurt yourself. I couldn’t live with the knowledge its because of me. - he murmured gently patting brown haired boy on his head. Omega still didn't have new clothes, but old Phil’s sweats worked just fine. They were too big, of course - but in alphas opinion boy looked even cuter in bigger size than in his usual tight shorts and as quite normal visibly felt safer, even putting his hands in sweater paws.
- You must be tired, goodnight Dan. - Phil kissed omega on the forehead and got up to leave quest bedroom. There was to much to assume that young Howell will like to sleep with him, even if Phil was wanting to feel his heat on so badly.


- Friends… - he heard standing almost near the exit. Dan was tucked safely in the bed, but still was looking at him with this big curious and wary eyes.


- Yeah, best friends. - he breathed while leaving.

[accuhunt]

11 Tips to Ease Your Transition Into a Vegan Lifestyle.

Veganism had been on my radar for a few months when I arrived in Jordan. The idea was daunting, scary even. But the things I had learnt about the food on my plate tugged at my heart. So I decided to set myself a deadline. After leaving the country (September 2015), I’d completely cut out animal products from my diet and lifestyle. No matter the challenges, I’d figure out how to turn vegan.

Since then, I’ve made plenty of vegan friends and everyone’s journey has been different. Some turned vegan overnight. Some took months, even a year, to fully embrace the change.

If you’re curious about how to transition into veganism, this post is for you. Based on my experience and that of some friends, I’ve tried to address some pressing questions: How do you stay motivated, mentally prepare to deal with family and friends, eat healthy, travel and connect with other vegans?

Here are my 10 practical tips on how to turn vegan:

In this post:

Figure out your motivation

Do your research

Transition into veganism at your own pace

Ensure you eat healthy as a vegan

Monitor your nutrition, especially Vitamin B12 and D3

Mentally prepare yourself to break the news to your family and friends

Connect with other vegans

Look up vegan-friendly cafes / restaurants in your location

Learn to read the labels and figure out alternatives

Subscribe to inspiring vegan bloggers, Youtubers and Instagrammers

Share your journey and spread the awareness

*Bonus* When the going gets tough, remember your reason for turning vegan

Have you ever wondered how to transition into veganism? What are your major challenges?

Figure out your motivation

Veganism is a choice that stares you in the face every single day. Every meal, every visit to the supermarket, every time you buy something, wherever you travel. People often ask me how I stay vegan, especially since I’m always on the road and often reliant on others to feed me.

Over the years, I’ve realised that the only way to stay committed is to figure out your strongest motivation.

For me, the primary motivation is animal suffering. The moment I visualise the pain inflicted on animals so I can consume that little bit of meat, milk, cheese or ghee, I know I don’t want to contribute to it.

You might feel the same way for animals. Or about the environment (the global carbon emissions of raising livestock for food is 14.5%, more than the entire transport sector). Or your own health.

Among my friends, Bhavna Kapoor turned vegan when it helped her deal with some debilitating health issues. Aakash Ranison turned vegan when he learnt about the environmental impact of consuming meat and dairy. Vinita Contractor turned vegan while pregnant, upon realizing how a whole foods plant based diet could ease her pregnancy.

In Iran, I met three generations of a vegan family. The grandmother embraced veganism after it helped reverse her diabetic condition. Her son and his wife turned vegan motivated by their spiritual guru. And their daughter turned vegan after learning about the plight of animals.

Think long and hard about what YOUR motivation is. What tugs at your heartstrings? What drives you? Because when the going gets tough, you’ll need to remind yourself of all the reasons you transitioned in the first place.

Also read: [BBC] Confessions of a Slaughterhouse Worker

Do your research

Whatever your motivation(s), it’s important to learn about the hard truths.

Watch documentaries and read credible articles about the horrors of meat, dairy and other animal products, their impact on the environment and how they affect our bodies. Earthlings, Cowspiracy and Game Changers – though America focused – are a good place to start. Better still, find ways to practically verify what you see and read online.

I’ve lived with small-scale cattle farmers in the Himalayas and visited free-range dairy farms in India and Europe, sheep rearing facilities in Lesotho, animal rescue sanctuaries and horse riding estates. I’ve learnt to ask tough questions and gathered some shocking answers.

When I think of cheese, I immediately remember that it comes by forcefully impregnating a cow and snatching the kid away from its mother – unfortunately even in so called “free range” farms. When you feel like riding a horse again, remember the male horse is often castrated and its spirit broken just for you to be able do that.

If you ask me, in-depth research is the best way to deal with any cravings. They’ll go away once you associate them with animal suffering, environmental degradation and the adverse impact on our personal health.

Also read: How a Chicken Bus in Nicaragua Transformed the Way I Travel

Transition into veganism at your own pace

There is no right or wrong way on how to transition into veganism. For me, it was both a slow and overnight transition. I gave up meat and seafood overnight as a teenager. After many years of living under a rock, I finally learnt what happens behind the scenes to produce eggs and milk products. It took me a while to digest those facts, then I gave up eggs and dairy overnight.

Your journey could be very different from mine or anyone else’s. Here are some things to consider:

How to turn vegan slowly: If you prefer to make changes in small doses, by all means start slow. Maybe it means eating vegan every Sunday. Or for one week every month. Maybe it means first cutting out all animal products except that one thing you really can’t get yourself to give up (chai or curd in many cases). Or allowing yourself one cheat day a month. Maybe it means setting out a timeline for yourself and slowly eliminating animal products from your diet. Maybe it begins with the commitment to never buy cosmetics tested on animals again. Or silk or leather or wool products.

How to turn vegan overnight: If you believe in all or nothing, by all means turn vegan overnight. But do your research, especially on how to stay healthy through the transition. Which brings me to my next point.

Also read: The Ultimate Vegan (and Vegetarian) Survival Guide for Japan

Ensure you eat healthy as a vegan

Many people think that just by virtue of eating vegan, they’re eating healthy. But things like potato chips, coke, maggi and refined sugar are vegan too. Whether to eat junk food or not is your call, but especially as a newbie vegan, try to incorporate major foods groups into your diet. Lentils, chickpeas, beans, leafy greens, veggies, fruits, millets, grains, nuts, seeds. There are tons of incredible vegan recipes online, of which smoothies are my favourite. They’re easy to make, delicious and pack in a ton of nutrition!

While it’s possible and often easy to get enough protein, calcium and other nutrients on a vegan diet, we do need to eat more consciously. This guide by the NHS is a good starting point to work out what to include in your food.

Also read: [NHS Report] Might a Vegan Diet be Healthy, or Even Healthier

Monitor your nutrition, especially Vitamin B12 and D3

Many people ask if eating vegan is natural since most vegans need to opt for Vitamin B12 and D3 supplementation. So allow me to bust some myths.

First, many non-vegans (vegetarians and meat eaters) are also deficient in these essential vitamins. In my family for instance, I’m vegan, my dad is vegetarian and my mom eats meat and seafood. We all take B12 and D3 supplements. Irrespective of your diet, you must monitor their levels.

Second, the natural source of Vitamin B12 is bacteria in the soil and spring water. Unfortunately much of our soil and spring water is contaminated now. These days even poultry animals are given B12 supplements!

The natural source of Vitamin D3 is sunlight, but not all human bodies are able to process D3 directly from the sun.

As you consider how to transition into veganism, it’s a good idea to do a blood test to monitor your nutrition, including calcium, iron, Vitamin B12 and D3. If you can compare your diet now and 3-6 months after you transition, you’ll discover what food sources to include in your diet.

Also note that it’s important to balance two major amino acids – lysine and arginine – on a vegan diet. While most vegan sources have a higher arginine:lysine ratio, only a few like beans, avocados and lentils offer the reverse. Make sure to incorporate plenty of those into your food.

Also read: What No One Tells You About Writing and Publishing a Book in India

Mentally prepare yourself to break the news to your family and friends

I won’t lie. When you think about how to turn vegan, you should know that this big transition will likely affect some of your relationships. When people close to me heard that I no longer consume animal products, they either made fun of me or went on the defensive. My food choices were scrutinized way too often – so much that I often wished for a meal where we’d talk about anything else.

Over the past 4 years though, I’ve learnt to pick my battles. I try to make things easier by catching up with friends over tea rather than a meal, or doing my research and suggesting a vegan-friendly place if they’re up for it. When I visit family, I’m super grateful that they go out of their way to ensure that I’m well fed.

Perhaps it was easier for me to adapt my lifestyle because I don’t live with family. But if you live at home, know that after my friend Monica Chopra turned vegan, she convinced most of her family to go vegan over time too! She says what really worked for her was making her family try things they love (vegan variations of cheese, curd, meat etc). She also enrolled in a nutrition course and was able to answer all their questions about calcium and protein scientifically. Her mom ended up reversing her thyroid problems, and that was reason enough to embrace a plant-based lifestyle.

Also read: An Open Letter to Indian Parents: Let Your “Kids” Travel

Connect with other vegans

Remember that everything you’re going through – from wondering how to transition into veganism to the challenges and deep anger / sadness / guilt that might follow – someone has already been through it. Being a vegan in a non-vegan world can feel pretty lonely. Join vegan groups in your area on Facebook, follow vegan hashtags on Instagram, participate in a vegan event in your area (or initiate it), go for vegan potlucks, attend vegan festivals and conferences, and meet fellow vegans in person as much as you can. Friendships built on strong common grounds are some of the strongest.

Also read: Inspiring Indians Using Social Media to Drive Positive Change

Look up vegan-friendly cafes / restaurants in your location

At first, I was sad to figure out that many cafes / restaurants I frequented in my pre-vegan life could no longer offer me satisfying food. But believe me when I tell you that in the months and years since, I’ve had some of the best food of my entire life! I’m thinking of forest mushroom sandwiches, vegan cheese pizzas, homemade smoothies, chocolate desserts and much much more. It’s not always easy to find such food, but as the vegan movement grows, cities around the world are becoming increasingly vegan-friendly.

As you figure out how to turn vegan, make sure you download the HappyCow App that maps vegan-friendly places near you, wherever in the world you are. Look for cafes and restaurants with vegan options on Tripadvisor / Zomato. Ask for recommendations in your location’s vegan Facebook group. Scout Instagram hashtags for delicious finds.

Also read: How to Travel as a Vegan and Find Delicious Food Anywhere in the World

Learn to read the labels and figure out alternatives

I’m sure most vegans will identify when I say how tired my eyes felt from squinting, trying to read every label of every product in a supermarket! Besides looking for the obvious suspects, I’ve learnt to look for ingredients like whey powder (made from milk), gelatin (obtained from boiling the skin and bones of animals), isinglass (obtained from fish bladder) and casein (milk byproducts).

The good news is that after the first few times, you’ll figure out what is accidentally vegan and what is not. In India for instance, Uncle Chips contain milk solids while Hide and Seek biscuits are accidentally vegan!

Vegan alternatives are pretty contentious in the vegan world. Some feel that we don’t need alternatives for cheese, milk and meat at all. Some are wary of their environmental consequences (almond milk for instance, can be a huge drain on water resources).

Personally, I think it’s important to use local and sustainably sourced products as much as possible. Other than that, it’s upto each individual to decide whether or not to opt for alternatives. If consuming peanut curd and adding some oat milk to your chai makes it easier for you to stay off animal products, go for it.

Also read: 8 Easily Available Alternatives for Cow’s Milk in India

Subscribe to inspiring vegan bloggers, Youtubers and Instagrammers

Social media can be a treasure trove of inspiration if you follow the right people. And luckily, there are many who’ll inspire you to stay vegan. I love Bite Size Vegan‘s extremely informative Youtube videos and SimpleVeganBlog‘s seriously easy vegan recipes. I follow several vegan hashtags on Instagram. And have started my own #TSSVeganSundays series to answer popular questions on veganism.

Also read: Amazing Vegan Travel Bloggers to Follow in 2020

Share your journey and spread the awareness

Once you’ve worked out how to transition into veganism and embarked on your journey, chances are, you’ll want to spread the word. Like I said, being vegan is a choice that stares you in the face every single day. If your motivation is strong enough to stay vegan, you’ll likely want to do something more than being vegan on a personal level.

Most vegans I know have also transitioned into work that enables them to spread the word about veganism. Many of my vegan friends are now animal rights activists, health consultants, chefs, vegan business owners, yoga teachers, climate activists and more. Others have weaved in elements of a vegan lifestyle into their existing professions.

Personally, it has been an internal battle to figure out that my strength is writing, even when it comes to spreading the animal cruelty message. I’ve written about my vegan travel adventures for National Geographic Traveller, Travel+Leisure and Condé Nast Traveller. I’ve reported on India’s vegan movement for FirstPost, started #TSSVeganSundays to discuss hard hitting perspectives on Instagram and have many more stories in the pipeline.

Also read: 15 Responsible Travel Tips for Authentic, Meaningful Experiences on the Road

*Bonus* When the going gets tough, remember your reason for turning vegan

You know you’re serious about making the transition if you’ve made it so far in this post. So here’s a bonus tip for you. A few days, weeks or months into your vegan journey, the going will likely get tough. You might crave something you loved (or didn’t care for) in your pre-vegan life. You might feel exhausted from all the jokes thrown at you by friends, family and random acquaintances. You might find yourself walking the familiar aisles of your favorite store, realizing there’s nothing there you can eat anymore.

Having survived those phases, I want to tell you that this too shall pass. Don’t be hard on yourself. If you must give into a craving, do it. If you must explode from anger or sadness or guilt, do it. If you must escape it all and seek refuge in a vegan potluck or vegan group or vegan cafe or vegan friend, do it (my Instagram DMs are always open for you, btw).

Most of all, remember why you quit animal products in the first place. Reach within you to find that conviction, strength and compassion again. Remember, if you think that being vegan is difficult, imagine how difficult it is for the animals that you’re not vegan.

Have you ever wondered how to transition into veganism? What are your major challenges?

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