#that sounds awful out of context but naturally I had do see what it was

[mrdrhenwardhykle]

Since when could mans afford to get a nice black button down in the 1400’s????

[moonlightspencie]

don't want you like a best friend

Description: James is nervous about his inexperience with girls. Luckily he has a best friend who's more than willing to help. (based on an idea formed in part by @amiableness. check out the post)

Pairing: best friend!James Potter x fem!Reader

Warnings: DESPERATE!james, inexperienced!james, blowjob (m receiving), porn with barely any plot

Word Count: 2.5k

a/n: kind of muggle!au? doesn't really matter in the context of this though lmao

You walked into James's flat, quite pleased he'd given you a key. It was much easier to bother him whenever you pleased when you could just waltz in any time.

"James!" you called out, toeing off your shoes.

"In here!" he shouted back.

You followed his voice to his room, seeing him laying on his tummy watching tv. You ran up to his bed and flopping down on it next to him. He laughed in that squeaky, joyful way he only ever seemed to do around you.

"Hi," he greeted with a cheeky smile.

"Hi," you replied with an equal grin, then glanced at the television. "What are you watching?"

"Nature documentary about penguins," he responded simply.

You glanced up at him with a quirked brow. "Why?"

"Cause I like penguins," he shrugged.

"...we need to get you a girlfriend."

He went a little quiet, prompting you to look at him again. You tilted your head.

"James?"

He chewed his lip. "I– I do kind of have a date. Tomorrow."

"What?" you exclaimed, suddenly sitting up straight. "Who? Since when?"

His cheeks went a little pink. "Sirius set it up for me."

"Oh my god! Why didn't you tell me?!"

"I'm nervous!"

You chuckled softly, still in a bit of disbelief. The boy had been single for far too long in your opinion, especially considering how much girls threw themselves at him in school. He always said that it was just because he had high standards, but part of you was half-convinced he must be terrified of girls. Or commitment. Maybe both.

"I just... I can't believe it. Is she cute?"

He almost grimaced. Not a great sign.

"Uh oh," you snorted a laugh.

"It's not that she's ugly! She's... she is pretty, its just," he sighed, shrugging a little, "she's not really my type, I guess."

"At this point, I'm beginning to believe you don't have a type."

He frowned. "Hey."

"Just saying, James. You never date, and it's not for lack of girls who like you."

"I kind of have to like them back for that to work."

"You sure you're not scared of girls?" you asked with a laugh.

He chuckled a little, shaking his head. "No."

"Commitment?"

"No."

"...Sex?"

"Ugh, don't say that," he groaned, dropping his face against the mattress.

You laughed again. "Sounds like a yes. It's really not that scary."

"It's kinda scary," he mumbled against his comforter.

"James," you called quietly, resting your cheek on the mattress to look at him.

He turned his face towards you, his cheeks pink and his hair even messier than usual. His lips were slightly pouty. Frankly, it was absolutely adorable.

"Everyone but me has done it at this point. The furthest I ever got was touching a boob over clothes in fifth year."

You couldn't help but to laugh at that, causing him to whine your name in protest.

"Sorry..." you said, not all that apologetic. "It's just... cute. You get so flustered. It's really not a big deal."

"It is a big deal to me."

"Aw. I'm sorry, Jamie. I just mean that nobody's going to fault you for being inexperienced."

"They might!"

"No they won't."

"You don't know that."

"At any rate, I think it's sweet."

"But I'm not having sex with you," he argued, then snapped his mouth shut, his cheeks going even darker. "That sounds... I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," you ran a hand through his hair, and he leaned into the touch. "I just mean to say that I'm sure if I think it's sweet, other girls would also probably think it's cute."

"I'm a man. I shouldn't be cute, I should be... strong and masculine. Hot."

"You're very hot, James."

He sighed, still pouting a little.

"Put that lip away," you muttered, tapping his bottom lip.

"You're being mean."

"No, I'm not."

"You're teasing me," he pouted again.

"What? How?"

"You're very hot, James," he mocked in an overly-high-pitched voice.

You snorted a laugh. "Heaven forbid I tell my hot best friend that he is, in fact, hot."

He fell quiet for a moment. "You really think so?"

"Of course I do."

"Mm," he hummed softly, then sighed. "Why can't there be more girls like you?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" you asked, smiling curiously.

"You're always so sweet to me. I just wish there were more girls who act like you, cause then I could just... do it with them and not be so worried about it."

You raised your brows, trying to hold back another laugh. "Oh, really?"

"Don't tease me."

"I'm not. Just, why don't–" you stopped abruptly.

He looked at you with wide eyes. "What?"

"If you're so worried about getting your first time over with, then why don't you just do it with me?"

He looked like he got the wind knocked out of him in that moment, blinking a few times as if he was trying to wake up from a dream. He opened his mouth a few times, though no sound came out.

"I just mean that... you said you'd do it with a girl like me, so why not me? You trust me, I know what I'm doing, you know I won't judge," you listed off some reasons. "It could work, you know?"

"Cause you're... you're my best friend."

"And?"

"And friends don't do that."

"Friends do that all the time," you replied with a shrug.

"What?" he asked, looking totally mortified.

"Friends have sex all the time."

"Since when?"

"Since forever," you chuckled a little. "I'm not saying we have to. Just putting it out there, since you're so nervous about it and all."

"I–I don't..."

"You don't have to say yes."

"I know," he nodded, looking a little uncomfortable. "It's just... I don't think I'm ready to do all of that right now."

You smile a little. "I'm not saying I'd take you to pound town right now..."

"Ugh," he groaned.

"Sorry. I just mean to say that, if you wanted to, we could start slow. Work you up to the main event."

He chewed his lip, looking away from you. You sighed softly, then stood from the bed.

"Alright. Let's go and grab a snack or something and take your mind off all this. Stop stressing so much," you said, trying to grab his arm to pull him up.

He shook his head. "Can't."

"What? Yes, you can."

"No, I can't," he emphasized, his cheeks still dark.

"Why not."

He stared at you for a moment, then whined, dropping his head into the comforter again. He mumbled something into the fabric, causing you to groan in annoyance.

"What are you saying? I can't hear you when you mumble."

"You don't understand," he said, looking at you again with a pouty face. "You're not a guy."

"What the hell is that supposed to... Oh," your eyes widened. You let out a disbelieving, delighted little giggle. "Are you–"

"Please don't talk about it. It'll make it worse," he said quickly in his whiny little voice.

"Aww. Poor baby."

"Stop it."

"Let me see."

His eyes widened comically. "What?"

"Let me see. Come on, turn over," you giggle, trying to turn him.

"Lovie, no, I..."

"Please?" you pouted, knowing he could never resist it.

He whined. "Please don't. It's embarrassing."

"It's hot."

He gulped. "...It is?"

You nodded. "Yeah. It's kind of flattering, too. The fact that I barely suggested it and you got all excited."

"It's not my fault. I just... my brain started thinking..."

"Yeah, brains tend to do that," you joked, relishing in him being all flustered. It was so unlike his usual demeanor. "Come on, Jamie. I just want to see."

He swallowed, nodding a little awkwardly before he turned onto his back. You smirked a little to yourself at the obvious bulge in his sweatpants. You sat back on the bed right next to him, glancing back at his nervous face.

"Can I touch?"

"I... I don't know."

"Just over the pants right now."

He considered it for a few moments, before taking a deep breath, nodding.

"Okay," he said quietly, his hands balling into fists.

You smiled. "Relax."

You let your hand rest on his thigh first, watching him as his eyes trailed your every move. You slowly slid up his leg, teasingly, just so you could see him sweat a little at the thought of being touched for the first time. He was generally quite confident, but somehow missed out on anything and everything intimate outside of kissing.

He sucked in a breath as you reached his hip, looking as if he could pass out.

"Hey," you said gently, trying to catch his eye. "Take a deep breath. Relax. It's supposed to feel good."

He sniffed, nodding shakily. "Y-yeah. Sorry."

"Don't apologize, Jamie. Just... relax. Okay?"

"Okay."

You let your hand move again, barely ghosting over his bulge, the tips of your fingers touching the fabric of his sweatpants. You looked up at his face. His cheeks were red, and his eyes were wide and almost glossy. His pretty, pouty lips were just barely parted as he waited in anticipation for your next move.

You lowered your hand, gripping him gently through his pants, forcing a shaky gasp through his lips. You smirked to yourself a little, stroking him through his pants.

"Feels good, huh?" you asked in a quiet voice.

He opened his mouth to respond, but all that came out was a pathetic little moan. You chuckled at the sound, stroking him again. He was bigger than you expected him to be, but not terribly massive. His hips bucked into your hand, another soft whine coming from him.

"Aww. You like it, huh?"

He nodded, breath coming in short.

"Can I do a little more?"

"Uh..."

"I think you'll like it."

"M-maybe," he gasped out, looking utterly wrecked already.

"Can I take off your pants?"

He looked at your face again. "Huh?"

"Can I take them off? I wanna touch you," you stated simply.

He whimpered. "Um... For... for what?"

You furrowed your brow. "So I can feel you. I just want to touch your skin. It'll feel better for you, too. You touch yourself, right?"

"I... Y-yeah. Yeah, sometimes."

"And I assume you don't do it through your pants, right?" you laugh a little.

He merely swallows, nodding dumbly. "Right."

"So... Can I touch you like that? I won't do it unless you say yes."

"Oh..." he sucked in a shaky breath. "O-okay."

"Okay?"

"Yes."

You smiled, hooking your fingers in his sweatpants and underwear. "Hips up, please."

He followed your instructions easily, lifting his hips for you. You tugged everything down in one go, leaving it all pooled at his ankles on the bed. You nearly moaned yourself when you saw him, hard and leaky and ready. You traced his dick softly with your fingertips, impressed with him, and drawing another moan from his lips.

"So pretty, Jamie. Look at you."

"Don't... fuck," he gasped. "Don't say that."

"I mean it. Your cock is perfect."

He whimpered again, sounding like he could cry. You wrapped a hand around him, stroking him softly as hips bucked into your hand, soft moans and squeaks leaving him in utter desperation.

"P-please," he begged, staring at you as if you hung the stars.

"Please?"

"I... I don't know," he shook his head, his lip quivering.

"You need more?"

He sniffled, nodding quickly. "So bad. Please."

"Can I suck your cock, love?"

The sound that left his lips was utterly pornographic, his chest heaving like he'd run a marathon.

"God..."

"That's not my name, baby," you stroke him again. "I need you to say yes if this is what you want."

"Y-yes. Fuck yes," he said, his hips still shifting under you, trying to get more friction from your hand.

"So needy," you chide jokingly, moving to settle between his legs.

He whined watching you climb between his legs, nearly hyperventilating at the sight and feeling of you kissing along his stomach with your hand pushing his shirt up.

"So pretty," he groaned, stroking your hair.

You smiled against his stomach, licking nearly up to his chest just to hear him make that sound again. You kissed back down his stomach, barely ghosting over the tip of his cock at you looked back up at him.

"Ready?"

He nodded, in a trance as he watched you. You kept his eye contact as you darted your tongue out, tasting him for the first time. He practically sobbed in pleasure, pulling on your hair slightly.

"Told you it would feel good, baby," you mutter, licking from base to tip as he squirmed under your touch. "Isn't this nice?"

"Mmmm..." he nodded, chest heaving.

"Good boy," you kissed his tip.

You stared up at him, smiling to yourself at his sweet little reactions as you started stroking him. He looked so adorable totally wrecked. Like he could pass out at any moment. You couldn't help but to want more.

You wet your lips, figuring you could probably fit most of him into your mouth in one go: so you decided to give it a go. You licked him once more, then shoved his cock down your throat, letting it hit far enough to make you gag.

He shouted, gasping for air before he fell into a puddle of moans and desperate praises of your name. You pulled off of him, but only for a second before you went back down, sucking on him as if your life depended on it. It felt like it did.

He gripped the fabric of his comforter, sobbing in pleasure as his hips jutted up into your mouth. You were about to pull off to make some sly remark, when he whimpered loudly, shooting his cum down your throat. You hummed around him, swallowing everything you could despite your utter surprise that he had finished so quickly. He whined and kept his grip tight in your hair until he was done, his seed dribbling past your lips as you couldn't quite swallow everything. You weren't sure if you'd ever witnessed someone cumming so much before.

You did your best to clean him off without making him overly-sensitive, and finally pulled off.

"Mm... Holy fuck, Jamie. You cum that much every time?” You ask, chuckling a little despite being wildly aroused.

He shook his head, sweaty and still whimpering.

"Awww," you cooed softly, reaching up to stroke his cheek. "You okay?"

"That... that felt..."

"What?"

"Best thing ever," he managed breathily.

You laughed. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," he uttered, a small smile on his face as he opened his eyes. "I... you're really good at that."

"Apparently too good," you snorted.

"Maybe," he nodded, then hummed softly in pleasure. "Sorry for cumming so fast."

"It was sweet."

"It's not sweet," he shook his head.

"I think so. You're so sensitive," you kissed his cheek.

He hummed again, then sighed softly. You watched him as he took a few steadying breaths before he moved his eyes back to you. He let his eyes linger on your form for several moments, then chewed his lip. He looked up at you, clearly debating something in his mind.

Then he smiled a little.

"Can I return the favor next time?"

[sorryimananti-romantic]

Star 1117

human!wooyoung x alienoid!reader

space apocalypse au

genres and warnings: fluff, angst, slow burn, bittersweet i hope, bits of hurt/comfort, alien yeosang and human jongho scs, coachella yun cameos, violence warnings

wc: 26k

synopsis: on your mission to save your home star 1116, and to find the last planet in the temporal nexus galaxy called star 1117, you arrest the human from earth- jung wooyoung. you find that he's been receiving cryptic messages from your galaxy, ones that make you question your purpose. together, you uncover secrets and take big risks to find the truth about the galaxy and star 1117's existence while wooyoung teaches you the true meaning of 'home'.

manager-nim: @eightmakesonebraincell ("or just die bro" "yeah it's not that hard" - famous last words from loren and yumi) (disclaimer: ^said in the context of the fic)

Home is not where the heart is.

You’ve always thought that it was a very human thing to think of the ‘heart’ as anything but the organ that it was. The heart’s only function was supposed to be to pump blood into your body and keep you running. But often, it was romanticised as a repository that stored human emotions in all their hideous glory. That was human nature in its nutshell which eventually doomed your forefathers, resulting in a bitterness that etched itself on the strands of their genes of which you carried generations worth of despite your half-human nature. 

The bitterness was justifiable. Your great-grandfather did not know that when he left his home, the planet Earth, he would get lost in the endless expanse of space and never find his way back. You often wondered if the humans ever even looked for him but you wouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t. Somehow, he ended up receiving help from the Nexi and ended up on a planet just like his homeland and died trying to find his way back.

It was him who introduced that saying- home is where the heart is. You often read his journals and found it strange how he described everything that was close to his heart- the family he had left behind, a ‘cat’ which was supposed to be some strange, harmless feline creature that often dwelled in the homes with humans, and a lot of other things that made little to no sense but often sparked curiosity in you. He had left his heart back on the planet Earth and he died trying to find his way back. Perhaps, his home was where his heart was. But to you…

Home was Star 1116, the land where your parents gave birth to you and the land where they were never accepted. The planet that resembled the Earth that had been their home had their forefathers never left in search of finding something similar. Home was the land that had raised you with its magnificent, tall, iridescent mountains and deep, dark valleys that glowed from within when it met the golden gleaming soil that lit up your planet. Home was a location- the place where you took your first steps and found out what it meant to be half human- dangerous yet protected. Home was the place they told you to leave because they were scared of what you could do, even though you looked just like them. You had a human heart, which was an insult, not a compliment, even though your father insisted that it was the latter.

Your heart was inside your body. Your home was tem-nex units away, so far that you could not even see it anymore. Your home was not where your heart was.

“Any more reminiscing and you will find that you can blast lasers through your eyes too.”

“Yeah. I’m getting tired of her sighing. It sounds awful,” Yeosang said but you ignored him, shooting a glare at Jongho who shielded himself as if you really were going to blast lasers from your eyes.

“You’ll be the first to know if I do,” you told him, tossing your grandfather’s drawing of his cat on the desk where it landed between a pile of journals. “Any update on our target’s location?”

“Just a few tem-nex units away now,” Jongho said, adjusting his vision glasses. “Wanna place bets? I have a feeling it’s one of our old human friends in a dusty old spaceship running away from the Nexi.”

“I have a feeling that it’s just a poor rock and our systems need a big software update,” Yeosang sounded tired even though all he had done recently was lay limp on his couch. 

“I’m with Yeosang on this one,” you went towards him and he raised his hand to share a fistbump but you just pulled him up, earning a startled yelp from him. “Go check the exhaust outlets and our guns. If it’s a rock we need ammo to blast it. And I’m tired of hearing your tired voice when all you’ve done is rot the last few days.”

“Nothing’s fun anymore,” Yeosang pouted, collecting himself. “Our exhaust outlets are fine, our ammo is all loaded. We still have no clue about Star 1117’s location or purpose. I’m just making the same old mandatory assessments and I’ll come back right here and lie down just like before-”

Your pupils must have contracted in warning because he raised his hands in surrender before scurrying off. Jongho’s low giggles echoed in the control room and you took your seat back, sharing a grin with the human. It was always fun to bully the oldest in the room, especially to Jongho who was the youngest and the only human aboard.

You were both in the middle of checking if all the buttons on the panel of your rather old spaceship were working, with you making a few quick repairs, when Yeosang’s hasty footsteps caught your attention. He took a few deep breaths before he knocked on the metal wall to get Jongho’s attention.

“Is our radar not working?”

“It is,” Jongho confirmed, “What’s wrong?”

“I can spot a spaceship not far from our current location- unidentified,” Yeosang said and Jongho frowned, checking the radar. He looked at you and you touched the panel, allowing the silver, branch-like neurons to extend from your fingertips and read the device, trying to assess any damage but detecting none. 

“Radar’s fine. Are you telling us that it might be an unregistered spaceship?” You asked. 

All the spaceships in your galaxy, the Temporal Nexus, were supposed to bear a location tracking device and if in the rare instance that a spaceship did not have one, it was never a good sign.

“Come, check it out,” Yeosang urged and the two of you uncertainly got up, following him towards the back of your ship to the window. Indeed, you could spot the outline of a rusty old spaceship in the distance and Jongho lent you his glasses so you could zoom in and take a closer look.

It was definitely not a Nexi spaceship, yet it was in Nexi territory, far from where humans had ever dared to roam. The only time humans had attempted to cross over was how your great grandfather made it to Star 1116, which led to a lot of complications with the planet Earth and its humans and eventually, the Temporal Nexus Accords were penned. The crux of it was that both Nexi and humans would follow these rules and regulations for harmony in space- harmony was a funny way to put it when the humans knew that they could easily be outmatched. 

“It can’t be a human, right?” Yeosang asked, his glinting silver eyes indicating that he felt threatened. “It must be someone fooling around. Should we take a look or let it go?”

“It’s still an unidentified spaceship,” you reminded him. “We’re literally space patrol, Yeosang. We can’t let it go.”

“You know it was just an excuse to kick us out of Star 1116 because we were snooping around,” Jongho scoffed and you rolled your eyes- somehow, you were still more butthurt about it than the human himself. “But yes, we should take a look.”

“Alright, steer closer. Yeosang- you and me, dome, now. Get the guns.”

While Yeosang went to the storage, you hurried behind Jongho back towards the control room and pressed the button at the far end to get access to the ladder that led you to the observation dome. You made room for Yeosang and Jongho passed you binoculars. Crouching on all fours, you narrowed your eyes in focus as you peeked through the lens, muttering curses when you found how tinted the viewscreen was. There were human alphabets inscribed on the spaceship which confirmed your suspicions.

“Anything ring a bell?” Yeosang asked as he crouched down next to you, taking the binoculars from you. Yeosang was referring to the ships on the watchlist that you had been monitoring for a while now. 

“Nothing. You?”

“I don’t see anyone inside. What are the chances that it’s abandoned?”

“Only one way to find out,” you smirked and Yeosang shook his head. 

As Jongho decreased the speed when your spaceships got closer, you noticed something odd- almost like a few lights flickering inside the spaceship from what you could grasp, considering the heavily tinted viewscreen. You wondered what that was for. Yeosang warned Jongho to take care of the oxygen levels as he pressed the button on the glass dome, opening it and activating the manual shield just in time-

You got your answer in the form of a rocket colliding with your spaceship which rattled you despite the shield. You gripped at the shaft tightly, allowing yourself just a moment before joining Yeosang outside and asking him to lift the shield so you could prepare for the offensive. Yeosang passed you the revolver and you wrapped your hand around the hilt, a grim smile starting to spread on your lips as you allowed the neuron extensions from the tip of your nails to grow and slide inside the gun to wrap themselves around the bullets. 

While Yeosang provided cover, shooting any rocket that came in your range, you fired and shut your eyes, waiting for the bullet to hit the exterior. As soon as you felt the collision inside you thanks to the neurons, you let the bullets sink into the spaceship so you could read it.

There was a single human on the spaceship, as young as you. Strangely, the fear factor the human was displaying was less than the aliens you had caught on patrol, which was commendable. Perhaps, the human was a fool and had no idea what he had gotten himself into- you may be half-human but that did not mean you were going to pity the intruder. 

“He’s going to run out of ammo soon,” you opened your eyes, switching your weapon and helping Yeosang, shooting bullet after bullet that disintegrated the man-made ammunition in a mere blink. “I wonder how much he brought to have lasted this long- he’s so far from planet Earth.”

“I guess you’ll ask him soon,” Yeosang fired at the last rocket and snickered. You started making your way towards the ladder, preparing to gain access to the human’s spaceship and making sure to keep your revolver with you. Perhaps, the human would like seeing that in your hand.

When Jongho stopped the ship, you opened the hatch on your spaceship to access the ladder so the two of you could walk across to the other. You started knocking on the entry hatch once you reached the human’s spaceship but you didn’t get a response. You placed your hand on the surface and spoke, making sure your voice would be heard inside the vehicle.

“You can either open and welcome us, or we will welcome you. You won’t like that.”

A few moments later, the hatch opened with a loud shudder, allowing you both inside. You waited until it shut before walking forward, observing your surroundings which weren’t much, just equipment, until you heard a shuffle. 

And then came in front of you a man, a human man who felt as familiar as Jongho whom you had spent all your life with, yet so different. Even though he looked at you with a sort of surprised glare, dark tendrils of his hair covering his furrowed brows, his presence had a warm quality about it and you wondered if it was a human thing- you had definitely felt it with the humans around you. Some of them.

He stood his ground, defenceless and squaring his shoulders with every passing second. “Welcome to my humble abode. I’m Jung Wooyoung, at your service.”

Yeosang raised a brow and looked at you- you were far too busy identifying the possible layers within that delicate voice. Your lips parted as if to say something but you couldn’t produce a single sound at the moment so Yeosang decided to take over.

“What in the stars is a human doing here alone?” His voice boomed in the room as he asked. “You’ve violated just about a handful of the Temporal Nexus Accords. Do you have any idea what that means?”

“Well,” he shrugged. “It’s not like I can go back. I’m wanted on Earth too.”

“And you thought it was a good idea to roam around? You’re almost out of food and you just ran out of ammunition-”

“But it looks like I haven’t run out of luck,” he breathed, collecting himself with a wink in your direction which threw you off. “What do you usually do with people like me?”

“Escort them to the station for judgement.”

“Yikes,” he said. “I have so many questions but I’ll hold back.”

You spotted the nervous shift from one leg to another as he put his hands in the pockets of his black trousers. He was obviously considering all his options which frankly were quite limited. He had just about two choices- get escorted to the station or face execution right here.

“How did you make it so far?” You asked, frowning deeply. “Even the Nexi find it hard to avoid the patrol when they try to reach human territory.”

“Let’s say I possess a special set of skills,” he grinned wickedly. “Stealth, for starters.”

“I don’t quite believe that,” Yeosang commented.

“Well, your ship did not catch mine on radar, did it?” Wooyoung asked and Yeosang confirmed that it hadn’t. “Also, when you’re running from two groups of species, you find that there is no better fuel to reach the victory line than desperation.”

“Why are the humans after you-”

“What do you mean by victory line?” Yeosang asked at the same time and you both exchanged glances- this sure was an odd individual. You urged Yeosang to continue. 

“How far did you want to travel with such limited supplies?”

“Not that limited,” Wooyoung began to argue but you raised a hand in the air, making him raise both his hands in mock surrender. “Alright, I’m doomed anyway. Go ahead. Finish your job.”

“Why are you here, and why are the humans after you?” You asked, stepping towards him. “Answer properly this time.”

“I’m looking for someone.”

“In space?” You looked at Yeosang, knowing that the human wasn’t telling the whole truth. “And so far away from your home?”

“Yes, and I’m not sure if that someone is still… well, alive, in one form or another. But I needed to check a few things for myself,” he said in all seriousness. 

“You’re looking for a human? Did your human get lost in space?” Yeosang asked.

“Not my human,” Wooyoung let out a frustrated sigh. “It’s complicated, but I’m not sure if it’s a human or an alien I’m looking for. Could definitely be one of the humans from the group  that got lost around here a few decades ago- a descendant of them. I don’t think they got ‘lost’, by the way, but maybe that’s just me.”

You licked your lips in thought, trying not to look at the very bewildered Yeosang but you both knew that the humans he was talking about must be your ancestors and the group of them. “What’s it to you, then? Who are you to try to find them?”

“Again, I’m not trying to find them, they must be dead by now, but I’m curious to investigate. I was obviously a fool for taking matters into my own hands, but they didn’t take me seriously, the people back on Earth,” he admitted. “And when I started looking into the matter, they tried to get rid of me. Subtly. But I’ve always been known to possess maniacal qualities, and here we are.”

You grimaced at that, “So you’re an idiot. Yeosang, take him.”

“Wait,” Wooyoung snatched his hand away before Yeosang could grab him. “Let me grab my things.”

“You won’t need them,” you told him. “You should have stayed back on Earth. You might have lived longer.” 

With that, Yeosang strapped the vitals regulator watch on Wooyoung and you started to leave the ship, wanting to go back to the comfort of your own ship as soon as possible.

“You’re a human, aren’t you?” Wooyoung asked and you stopped in your tracks, turning back to meet his eyes as a deadly silence overtook. “He’s an alien, this one, even though he looks human, but you… You must be human.”

“I’m an alien,” you glared at him, the neurons from your fingertips branching like claws to prove your point. “And it would do you good to shut your mouth.”

However, you weren’t sure if your words triggered him or if he just had a mouth on him- was it a human thing? Jongho was talkative but a different type- cracking random jokes.

But this man?

He was getting on your nerves. You had to admit that his lung capacity was admirable considering the long string of sentences he sprouted as soon as he entered your spaceship. You caught a few words- something about a ‘cool’ spaceship, some technical stuff that to your horror, Yeosang was happy to provide his input for, and then something about his own rusty old spaceships and how ‘humans could never’.

“Oh, now that’s a human if I’ve ever seen one,” Wooyoung clapped his hands as soon as he saw Jongho. 

“How can you tell?” Yeosang asked. “I thought I looked like a human too.”

“Nah, you’re too pretty,” Wooyoung waved a hand in dismissal and you blinked. “It’s the sheer… presence of him. You wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh, I know what you mean,” Jongho started chuckling after he recovered from the initial surprise of seeing a human on board- a human that was not a resident of one of the 1117 planets in this galaxy. 

“I don’t know what you both mean,” Yeosang almost pouted.

“Come closer,” Wooyoung called and you watched in horror as Yeosang obeyed, the three of them huddling close to each other. “This human- the warmth, the smell-”

“You’re telling me you could tell I’m human because I stink like one?”

While your crew burst into giggles, afraid to laugh properly in fear you would react aggressively- which you seldom did but you made sure the fear factor was a constant- Wooyoung started profusely explaining that he didn’t mean it like that but there was something about humans that smelt and felt like home to him. He did not comment on how you had admitted that you were human too. 

“Oh, you humans and your associations with the word home,” you spat, getting morbid flashbacks of the time your father tried to explain how association worked and failed. “Lock him in the cell- he’s too talkative.”

“Hey!” Wooyoung yelled at you but Yeosang reluctantly patted his back, telling him the cell wasn’t that bad, just a room where he could take his final rest before being presented in the station for his execution, which did nothing to help the human. Meanwhile, Jongho started going through Wooyoung’s things and you joined him, finding a few strange food wrappers and pens, a compass that made you smile in awe because it looked very much like the one you possessed, a bundle of notes and folders, an odd device that you set aside for the time being, and then his own journal.

You held the journal in your hands and allowed yourself to look at his memories associated with it, shutting your eyes and watching the images that flashed in your mind-

Grass. More vibrant than the grass on Star 1116, decorated by little colourful flowers that you had always heard of but never seen. The laughter of a woman and the laughter of kids, spreading warmth through your chest. Large bodies of water, as blue as the sky, welcoming you in its cool embrace. 

And then… anger and confusion. Screaming and shouting- your face suddenly felt wet. Were those tears? You hear incoherent yelling and loud thumps of things as they smashed against each other. You felt terror consume every fibre of your being and you felt out of breath- you were running. Soon after followed a sense of dread before guilt consumed you-

“Captain- hey, y/n,” Jongho cautiously shook your arm, bringing you back to reality. “You good?”

You retracted the neurons and set the journal aside, realising your face was wet. “He knows about Star 1116.”

Jongho pursed his lips in thought. “Is that really something we should worry about?”

“He knows our ancestors made it to Star 1116,” you added for clarification. “He mentioned that he didn’t think they got lost in space like everyone claimed they did.”

“Ah… that complicates things, doesn’t it?” 

“Are we sure the station wouldn’t have caught his spaceship on their system?” You asked, moving towards the control panel which was displaying normal readings. 

“What are you thinking?” Yeosang’s voice interjected as he entered the room. 

“I need to have a talk with Wooyoung,” you said, looking at your partners. “He intended to find Star 1116 and the humans living there and collect some evidence regarding them.”

“Well… he’s found them,” Jongho raised his hand. “I think his mission was successful in that case.”

“Half successful, and he might not know that Star 1116 is a habitable planet for humans. He might be thinking you’re from Earth.”

“One way to find out,” you stifled a devilish grin.

“Don’t go all kitty claws on him,” Yeosang warned with a chuckle and you hissed at him- he always used that phrase, having heard your father call you that when you were younger and more reckless with the alien traits that you inherited from your mother. 

You told him that you would not need to do that. He was here on a mission and this was the perfect opportunity to use that to gain a possible ally. You took a closer look at his navigation equipment before going to your room to rest, taking the strange device that looked like a radio with you- you didn’t want the boys seeing you get emotional again-

And talking about emotions- why did the human’s overwhelming feelings cause your heart to clench in pain? Why did it bring tears to your eyes? You didn’t despise human emotions- you thought they were beautiful in their own strange way but never did you think you would be able to relate to them on an intrinsic level. Perhaps, it was the human in you. No matter how much you tried to repress it, it would always remind you that it was a part of you, integrating with your Nexi gene as one.

But you soon found out that there were other forms of emotions that involved tears, and not just the embarrassing ‘crying’ you had almost done earlier.

There were tears rolling down the cheeks of both the human and the alien in your crew as they laughed their lungs out. You had heard a bunch of inhumane noises in your sleep which prompted you to wake up and take a look, but the last thing you expected was-

“Are you having a fucking party here?” You grimaced at the sight of the three boys in a circle with half eaten food in between, noticing a bunch of new dishes that you hadn’t seen in a while, the fragrant scent of it filling your nose and almost calming you. Wooyoung looked at your disgusted expression and only laughed harder.

“This one was supposed to be in the cell,” you pointed at Wooyoung as you looked at Yeosang and Jongho in question. “What is going on?”

“He was complaining about being hungry and when he offered to make us food, we decided to check how good a cook he was,” Jongho answered. “Surprisingly good, turns out. You should have seen him in the kitchen, y/n.”

“Since the station hasn’t sent a message yet, that means they haven’t figured out that we have a human aboard. We could use him as our servant,” Yeosang’s eyes gleamed with mischievous hope.

“That’s what you think of me?” Wooyoung smacked his biceps, looking hurt. “I thought we were friends!”

“No one is becoming friends with anyone here,” you clapped, prompting the boys to start cleaning up. “Don’t make me call the station myself, Jung Wooyoung.”

“Aren’t you a boomer,” he clicked his tongue.

“A boomer?” You asked, wondering what that meant. 

“A true boomer,” Wooyoung grinned, passing you a tray of food he had kept for you. “Basically means you don’t know how to have fun.”

“I’m not here to have fun,” you grimaced at the word and he pressed the tray into your hands before resuming tidying the floor, leaving you standing awkwardly in the middle. Yeosang caught your eye and urged you to sit and try the food and you reluctantly obeyed-

And immediately thought of home.

Home, when your grandfather and grandmother were alive and cooked the human dishes for you- the dishes that they had learned from their parents. You could taste the familiar spices that your grandmother loved in the broth Wooyoung made, the scent immediately transporting you to one of your happier memories when you didn’t have to worry about being an anomaly and could enjoy simple moments with your family. You looked at Jongho who was smiling knowingly- he could definitely understand what you were feeling right now.

“I can’t eat this,” you looked at Jongho.

“It’s okay, Captain,” he chuckled. “It’s just like our grandparents made for us, yeah? Go on, have a taste of the vegetables too.”

You hesitated but reluctantly took a spoonful of the vegetables with rice, a sense of dread washing over you but Yeosang’s hand on your back calmed you and you realised that maybe, the feelings of dread were present because you were scared to accept that there was a human on board who was making you acknowledge the human parts in you through food, of all things. 

That’s what you disliked about being human- that you were so easily swayed.

Wooyoung watched you cautiously from a corner while he absently sweeped the floor with a broom- he hadn’t expected you to react that way and it was surprising to see the group of you interact. If you weren’t fully human, he wondered why you weren’t as hostile towards Jongho as you were to him.

You finished your food before you knew it, and though it annoyed you that Wooyoung was proudly grinning, you decided to give it a rest for now and focus on the more important matters. 

“What is this device?” You placed the black rectangular, almost hollow box on the table and Wooyoung pursed his lips, tossing the broom in the corner and joining your crew on the table. 

“What do you think it is?”

“A broken radio?” You asked, opening its back to show how it had no batteries. “I can’t read it.”

“And what would you mean by that, sweetheart?” Wooyoung asked and once again, you had to repress the anger bubbling in your throat at the term while Jongho and Yeosang shifted uncomfortably in their positions.

“I can read memories and emotions or feelings associated with objects, and I can’t read this,” you clarified for him. “And I want you to tell me why unless you want me to read you.”

“That’s… strange, actually,” Yeosang cocked his head, taking the device from you. “Are you sure you can’t read it?”

“I’m sure,” you confirmed, looking at Wooyoung. “So?”

Wooyoung’s hesitation was palpable. You narrowed your eyes in suspicion. “Don’t even think about lying,” you told him, the neurons protracting from your fingernails making him jump a little.

“Whoa, put your murder mittens away,” Wooyoung shielded himself with his hands raised between you. “You probably can’t read because it’s what it looks like- a broken radio. It has no deeper meaning-”

“Everything has a deeper meaning,” you glared at him. “You wouldn’t bring a broken radio to space, for starters. Have you been getting some sort of a signal?”

When he didn’t answer, you knew what you had to do. You looked at Yeosang who nodded and came in front of Wooyoung. “If you really want to get somewhere with her, you better cooperate.”

“I would, but I don’t know if I can trust her- you guys with the information I have,” he admitted, sounding serious. “I do receive signals sometimes, but they don’t really make sense. I’ve been able to trace them, though, and it looks like they come from around here.”

“An alien sending signals to a human on earth?” Jongho looked at Yeosang. “Doesn’t sound implausible. What for, though?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Wooyoung shrugged. “It’s mostly gibberish- I can’t make sense of it.”

“Did you at least note them down?” Jongho asked.

“Yeah, in a notepad- it should be in my bag,” Wooyoung said, getting up and grabbing his bag from the couch, shuffling through it while you made eye contact with your crew, all three of you as sceptical as the other.

“It’s not here?” Wooyoung looked at you. 

“Everything that belongs to you is in that bag,” you said. 

“We didn’t touch it,” Yeosang said, and the boys raised their hands in surrender.

“Did you drop it?” Wooyoung looked incredulous.

“I’m not that clumsy,” you got up, snatching his bag and looking through it yourself but finding no signs of a notepad. You shot him a dirty look. “You left it behind on purpose, didn’t you?”

“That thing?” Wooyoung pointed his finger outside, the veins on his neck and arms popping out in anger. “It contains everything I worked for. It’s the reason why I risked my life to come here, and you’re telling me that we left it behind because you were in a rush?”

“So it’s my fault now?” You scoffed in disbelief. “You could have mentioned you needed to get your little notepad when we were transporting you!”

“Well, I obviously did not want someone to see the contents of it!” 

“Guys!” Jongho butted between you two, making you both sit down on the couch. “It’s okay. Wooyoung, just allow y/n to look into your head so she can copy everything that was on the notepad here for you. Simple! No biggie!”

“I won’t let her do that,” Wooyoung folded his arms. “That’s invading my privacy.”

“You’re invading our privacy by being here too,” you commented. 

“Then throw me outside,” he simply said and you groaned loudly. Yeosang stifled a smile- he had never seen you so riled up and he made a mental note to thank the human later.

“Please, cooperate,” Yeosang requested gently. “She knows the importance of privacy and will do her best to not snoop around in your mind and only look through the contents of the notes. Right, Captain?”

You nodded. You opened your mouth to add that you couldn’t help it if the person you were reading unintentionally pushed a memory your way but Yeosang knowingly ignored you and continued. “Wooyoung, if we think the message you’ve been receiving is important, we might not deliver you to the station at all. You sound like an excellent navigator and… we kind of need that.”

“We don’t need that-”

“Oh, shut up,” Yeosang waved a hand and you pouted. “You can take your time thinking about it- we don’t have to do that now. But we will have no choice but to report you to the station if we can’t find some common ground.”

“Between death and joining you, there’s not much of a choice here, is there?” Wooyoung asked grimly and you almost felt sorry for the human. “Okay, go ahead. I’ll write what I remember from the notes, but you can help me fill the gaps.”

“Wonderful,” Yeosang clapped. “Let’s scatter now.”

—--------------------------

You had to admit, you felt a little sorry for reacting that way towards the human who, like he had said, really had no choice but to cooperate or face death.

Or perhaps, it was the Wooyoung being human and sneaky and making you feel guilty on purpose. You wouldn’t put past humans to do that- sure, you were the daughter of one and a friend of another, but you had seen your fair share of humans hiding behind the excuse of their ugly nature.

However, your guilt solidified when you found the man diligently scribbling in a new notebook with a jug of coffee by his side. You shook your head at the sight- what was with humans and their addiction to caffeine? But you supposed you couldn’t complain- whatever kept the human running and made your job easier. 

You sensed Wooyoung’s body getting tense when he sensed your presence and you knocked on the door right at that time, pretending you hadn’t been standing there for a solid few minutes. He nodded and you entered, sitting down next to him.

“What are you writing?”

“Anything about navigation that I can recall from the top of my head,” he showed you the notes and you made an impressed face. 

“Are humans on Earth that advanced in space navigation already?”

“As of recently, yes, but not many, and they usually keep it to themselves,” Wooyoung told you. “They’re afraid the government and the space councils will exploit their services.”

“Sounds like our government,” you scoffed.

“I guess we do have something in common then,” he grinned. “I was one of the few who kept my research to myself, but I also made the mistake of snooping around and finding things I shouldn’t have learned.”

“You said something about the group of humans who got lost in space,” you asked, shifting on the couch so you were facing him. “Do you remember their names?”

Wooyoung narrowed his eyes slightly. “Those humans settled on Star 1116. Jongho’s one of them, right? A descendant of them?”

You nodded and he wowed at that, taking a few moments to let that information sink in. “And what about you?”

“I’m one of them too,” you admitted. No harm in him knowing. “My mother is a Nexi, though. My father was the grandson of one of the humans who got lost- but why do you believe they didn’t get lost?”

“I heard the superiors talking about how their spy network failed to achieve results,” he sighed and you felt your heart sink. “The plan was  to pretend to get lost and settle on one of the planets in the Temporal Nexus so they would keep reporting back to Earth with their findings.”

“Did they?” You asked, unconsciously holding your breath.

“I guess they felt welcomed enough that they stopped very soon, and my people never looked for them in fear that their secrets had been exposed. The Temporal Nexus Accords happened right after so the humans on Earth had to pretend they had no knowledge of those humans in space and thought they died.”

You fell silent, staring at the rings on Wooyoung’s fingers while you processed that.

Your great grandfather and great grandmother were spies. If anyone were to find that out now… 

“They must have lived well,” Wooyoung said gently with a smile. “I won’t tell anyone, if you’re worried about that. I’d say Jongho, at least, deserves to know the truth though.”

“Thank you,” you said. “I’ll tell Jongho soon. They lived well, but after they had kids and our grandparents were old enough to have their own, the Nexi started discriminating. It got a little messier afterwards, but we’re still here. Just… kind of outcasted.”

“The Nexi are just like humans then. It’s such a human thing to discriminate among races, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, well, I don’t blame them,” you scoffed. “They will have a field day if they learn that they were right about humans all along.”

“But who’s gonna tell them?” Wooyoung pretended to zip his mouth. You smiled at that and he smiled back. “Did you come to read… me?”

“Unfortunately, yes,” you said and he resigned into the couch. “It won’t hurt.”

“That’s not what I’m worrying about, but okay,” he urged you to start and you raised your palms in the air, letting the neuron extensions protrude from your fingernails. Wooyoung watched in awe as the silver steel-like branches curled around each other in an intricate pattern. 

“I’ll touch your forehead and close my eyes when I read,” you felt the need to tell him. “I will try not to look into your private memories but I can’t control what you send me, and unless you have a good mental fortitude I will only see what you show me.”

“Interesting,” he said, gulping when you scooted forward. You locked eyes with him, finding it almost endearing how his mismatched yet beautiful eyes widened when you gently placed your palms on his temples, letting the neurons extend and entangle with his hair to stick on his scalp.

“Ah… that tickles a bit,” Wooyoung muttered and you stifled a smile. “Do I close my eyes too?”

“You don’t have to,” you answered and shut yours. “Think of your notepad, now. I’ll have a general look before I start noting down.”

“Got it,” he said, shutting his eyes to focus.

You saw the notepad, as clear as day, and the last place he recalled using it was the control room in his spaceship. You relaxed when you realised he had indeed been telling the truth. You then saw the navigational reading and glimpses of incomprehensible messages- incomprehensible to him. 

You were about to draw back but you saw a montage of his memories in the spaceship- you felt the loneliness that he had felt being alone in space for so long- a few months and no human or alien contact. You felt a bit of dread as he wondered if he made a wrong decision leaving the Earth in the manner that he did- stealing information and sneaking past them. You felt his will to live fluctuate when it started to feel like he was on a wild goose chase. 

And then you felt just the briefest moment of acceptance when he noted down how long he had to live with the amount of food he had left on the spaceship. He was mostly relying on supplements but he wasn’t sure how long that would keep him healthy.

Before you could draw back, he pushed one memory in focus- the reason he cooked for all of you tonight. He was grateful to be alive and he needed the food more than you- more for the joy of cooking for himself and for others, for the act of simply eating with company, no matter who it was.

When you opened your eyes, you found that you were just as breathless as him. You didn’t know if he had intentionally pushed that memory into focus but it was enough. 

“Well,” you retracted one hand away, keeping the other at its original position. “Might be a little uncomfortable but we should start writing now. You can help me fill in what I don’t understand, is that okay?”

“Uh, yeah. Sure,” he adjusted himself so the notebook was between you two on the couch now. You rested your elbow against the cushion so it wouldn’t hurt. “Shall we begin?”

It took you about an hour of filling in the gaps but thankfully, Wooyoung had done most of the work. The navigation section was finished soon and then you moved to the messages he received from the radio which you realised were in one of the Nexi codes. It required a series of messages to be arranged in a specific numerical pattern to decode it. Thankfully, Jongho had the right device for it so you intended to let him handle that department.

While writing the notes, you learned about his time at the space centre on Earth. Wooyoung seemed to be a talkative person and you listened to his story about how he and a few other astronauts and space scientists always disagreed with the government which ultimately controlled their operations. Apparently, the humans were always on the lookout for a number of things- a planet like Earth, for starters. The secret to stop ageing or extend the age cycle.

“Why would they want to extend their miserable lives?” You grimaced when you heard that. 

“Sometimes, the little things are enough to want to live a little longer, I suppose,” Wooyoung mused, taking the pen from you and finishing a string of messages for you before handing it back. “There’s a race of you that has an unusual cycle, isn’t that so?”

“The Original Nexi,” you told him. “A few descendants of them still live though they are scattered and stay low. They don’t age like we do- after a certain age, I suppose around sixty, they start ageing backwards. They get to be young again but the fun ends there. They’re back to being babies and then one day, they turn into stardust and scatter in the atmosphere.”

“How poetic,” Wooyoung scratched his chin. “I suppose it has its pros and cons.”

“More cons,” you commented. “No one wants to take care of you by the time you become a baby for the second time.”

“Yeah, I bet that’s a sight,” he snickered, asking you to skip an irrelevant section and you started on the last page. “Look at that. We’re almost done.”

“Thank you for cooperating,” you meant it. “Your navigational skills… they’re quite impressive. I might just have a place for you on this ship. Depends on your behaviour though.”

“You are on your worst behaviour, I want it just like that~” Wooyoung started singing and you smiled- his voice really was pretty. 

“You seem to like that song.”

Silence filled the room and you finished writing the last sentence, shutting the notebook and turning to him, finding him surprised.

“How did you know?”

Oh. You had made a mistake.

“What did you see?” Wooyoung asked again, and this time, involuntarily you saw more memories and you shut your eyes because of the intensity of those memories-

Wooyoung’s voice. He was singing the song in a small room with the lyrics on the screen, loud background music blasting in that space along with the sound of uproarious laughter, the bass of the music in synchronisation with his heartbeat. Bright, colourful kaleidoscopes of lights danced with their bodies, swaying around one another. You felt joy, in its pure and raw form, and then-

You were transported to another memory associated with that song- back in the spaceship as he sang it alone, his voice the only thing echoing off the walls with only the dim white light to accompany him. There was no joy anymore- just yearning for something that was not and might never be.

“Get out of my head, y/n,” Wooyoung gently wrapped his hand around your hand that was still placed on his temple. You opened your eyes in surprise at the contact, blinking a few times to let your vision adjust. His words finally registered inside you and you looked into his eyes.

He wasn’t angry. He simply looked tired and perhaps, he knew exactly what memories you had seen. You retracted the neurons from his scalp and now that it was just your fingers tangled in his hair, you unconsciously caressed the soft strands. He moved your hand away softly, placing it in your lap and looking at the joined hands for just a moment before he pulled away.

“I… I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to-”

“I know,” he nodded in understanding. “It’s okay.”

You nodded, realising you were still leaning into him. Taking a deep breath, you picked the notebook and got up.

“The notes will be with Jongho- he can decode the message,” you told him. “You can rest now.”

“Can I ask you something?” Wooyoung looked at you expectantly. You raised a brow and he took that as a sign to continue. “Do you only read the memories or are you able to feel the emotions or feelings associated with the memory too?”

Your silence was enough for him. He nodded in understanding, having gotten his answer.

As you made your way back to your room, you wished you could have told him that this was the first time you felt human emotions in such depth, in such an unfiltered and almost vulnerable way. Such innocent, humane feelings that almost made you forget that alien blood ran through your veins.

—---------------------------

While none of you had officially announced Wooyoung’s position as a navigator in the crew, he seemed to take on that role naturally. He made home in the control room with Jongho and they learned a lot from each other- Jongho about navigation and what it was like to be a human on Earth, and Wooyoung about the Temporal Nexus Galaxy and what it was like to be a human among the Nexi.

However, the more interesting part was how he managed to make Yeosang warm up to him. Yeosang wasn’t one to talk a lot and none of you in the crew were very physically affectionate, yet it seemed like Wooyoung had claimed the man as his target. He was always clinging to him- holding his hand, clutching his arms as he rubbed his cheek against him, casual pats and ruffling of hair (of which Jongho was also a target), hugs of all and every kind, and smooches. What was funnier was how Yeosang claimed to dislike all of that yet you would find him smiling to himself afterwards. 

Whatever it was, Wooyoung had a magnetic personality and everyone’s eyes followed him, as did yours. You were often in your designated corner with your journals and equipment, making calls to the station to send daily reports, sending messages to anyone who would want to hear your theory about Star 1117 and possibly help you in any way while not reporting you to the authorities. It was hard to be in the same room as Wooyoung and not look at him and lean towards him, you were finding. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t try to be as physically affectionate with you as the rest, or not include you in whatever stupid debate they decided to have for the sake of passing time- he was simply hesitant to touch you because he wasn’t sure if you could read him without your neuron extensions- or ‘murder mitten’, as he referred to them. Kitty claws was not the only term thrown around now.

Jongho’s device had successfully decoded the message but you were all waiting for the next signal as there were still missing parts. The radio was kept in the middle of the room so anyone could hear it if it woke up. Meanwhile, you shared your knowledge about Star 1117, the planet that could not be found. 

In the Temporal Nexus Galaxy, there were exactly 1117 stars or planets in the beginning, as marked by the Original Nexi, the first aliens born out of the celestial matter when the galaxy came into being. While the 1117th planet was never located, it was historically and scientifically accurate information that your galaxy had 1117 cycles. Each complete orbit of the planets around the core marked by the presence of a single sun- almost like the sun in the solar system- caused one planet to disintegrate into celestial matter. 

Wooyoung shared his knowledge of your galaxy and you found out that the humans were also aware that the only remaining planets in your galaxy were Star 1116, which was your home, and Star 1117. Star 1117 existed but it could not be located no matter how much the authorities and everyone else tried- there was too much clutter in the galaxy, they claimed. 

All the planets that finished their cycle disintegrated into rocks and stars. Some of the rocks the aliens made habitable when there weren’t enough planets to accommodate them, while some aliens resorted to pods and spaceships as their home. The further you went to explore in the Temporal Nexus, the harder it got to navigate and find your way back which was why a lot of the explorers who tried to locate Star 1117 or its byproduct (in case they were wrong about Star 1117 still being whole) never returned.

You were just discussing the myths surrounding the star while you ate lunch- Wooyoung was also the designated chef now, and you had to admit that part of the reason you were okay with his presence in the spaceship was because of the food he made for you all and not just because you had delayed your decision until you could properly decode the message. 

“I personally think Star 1117 was the first planet to die and our home is actually Star 1 instead of 1116 and they’re all wrong about the number of cycles that has passed. It’s a reverse order,” Yeosang said. “This, or there’s no Star 1117 in the first place.”

“Yeah, the Space Council could have easily modified the data,” Jongho nodded.

“But I read them,” you said, referring to the council members that you had secretly read. “They don’t think that’s true.”

“Maybe they’re made to think that that’s the truth,” Yeosang pointed out and you shrugged.

“Maybe Star 1117 isn’t a planet like your other planets in this galaxy,” Wooyoung added casually while munching on a potato stick. “Maybe it’s just an ugly old rock and you all think that it has to be a planet like Star 1116.”

“Well, I hope the authorities are looking into that possibility because the current cycle is ending soon. That means there won’t be a habitable planet for humans,” you said, looking at Jongho- while you were part alien, you functioned more like a human and couldn’t just travel in space without a certain amount of oxygen, just like Jongho. “And that also means that we will lose our home.”

Yeosang passed a tight-lipped smile at that- you all had family who lived in Star 1116 and refused to leave even though they were aware that this planet would soon disintegrate. They wanted to live there until the last possible moment before making a decision- die with the planet or move to a space pod. They were too old to do anything to save their home so you were using this opportunity to try to save it for them, along with your crew. While the government did not allow such missions for the common people, you were carrying it out secretly. You would be labelled criminals if you interfered with their mission.

“That’s a shame. I’ve heard Star 1116 is a very beautiful planet,” Wooyoung said and you all nodded- it really was the most beautiful planet to ever exist in that galaxy. “What do you plan to do about it?”

“Honestly, we have no idea, we’re just trying to find more information on when the cycle will end so we have a clue about how much time we have instead of waiting for the government to announce that we have numbered days,” Jongho said. 

He was about to continue when you heard static and you almost thought it was one of your own radios until Wooyoung got up and brought his radio back to the table, the four of you huddling closer to watch the messages appear.

“Pass me a pen,” you asked Yeosang who obeyed and you gave it to Wooyoung who had already opened the notebook to write down the message. It was mumbo jumbo to the three of you but all the colour seemed to leave Jongho’s face when Wooyoung finished writing the message.

“What’s wrong?” Yeosang asked, patting his cheek to make him come back to his senses.

“Uh, let me confirm the message,” he mumbled weakly and you rushed to get his decoding device. He thanked you and started to insert the message in the device while already knowing the final version since he had played with this device enough to not need it anymore. When he typed the decoded message, he looked at all three of you before setting it in the middle of the table.

“‘I am 1118,’” Wooyoung read the message, frowning. “‘Do not save 1117.’”

Silence filled the room as the message hung in the air over your heads, your hands getting clammier with each passing second. You looked at Yeosang who looked just as lost and then at Wooyoung who was checking his readings again as if making sure that he hadn’t made a mistake.

“There is no Star 1118,” you said what everyone was thinking out loud. “Isn’t that right? Wooyoung?”

“I’ve never heard of Star 1118,” he admitted in all seriousness. “Star 1117 has always been the focus of attention, right?”

“Yes,” you nodded. “But someone from Star 1118 is sending you a message and telling you not to save Star 1117? Is that what it is?”

“There can’t be a Star 1118,” Yeosang frowned. “We can’t even locate 1117. I think if there were two missing planets, we would have found at least one, right?”

“Unless the government is hiding something?” Wooyoung suggested. “Wouldn’t put it past them.”

“Yeah, he might be right,” Jongho agreed with Wooyoung. “But I think we should start with locating where this message came from. That would certainly make things easier.”

“I suggest an infiltration of your space council to find information because it looks like you’ve had no luck so far,” Wooyoung raised his hand while looking at you, asking if everyone was in.

“That’s too risky-”

“But you can read the aliens, right?” Wooyoung interrupted and you folded your arms. “You can read objects. You can read their data- all we have to do is sneak past them,” he said, folding his sleeves with a smug face. “And I happen to be a pro at that, as you already know.”

A jab, but also an attempt to smoothen the rocky beginning of your relationship. You scoffed in answer, knowing all too well what he was talking about from the bits you had seen from his journal. “We’ll be labelled space criminals. They would do anything to find us and have us tried in court.”

“Well, from what I’ve heard, you’re all space criminals anyway,” he shrugged. “You’ll only be living up to that title. Besides, don’t you want to save your home?”

“You will help us save our home?” 

“If I can be of help,” he nodded. “I came here to find Star 1117 too. We have the same goal, right? Find Star 1117 and save your galaxy. You get to save your home, and I get to rub this in my government's face and… clear the name of my friends who got caught in this mess without me.”

“Didn’t catch that sob story when I read you,” you told him and Yeosang snorted, resulting in all of you sharing a laugh, the room echoing with nervousness, anticipation and excitement-

And hope. You met Wooyoung’s eyes and he nodded earnestly, his smile making your heart feel warm, a feeling you had forgotten.

You smiled back this time.

—--------------------------

“Wooyoung, I swear to the all one thousand, one hundred and seventeen stars, if you don’t move your knee right now-”

“I’m trying,” he hissed, smacking your back and you let out a horrified gasp at his audacity. “I can’t move it- bear with it.”

“It’s digging into my calf and it hurts,” you sighed. 

“Whose genius idea was it to sneak through the vents again?” Wooyoung asked and that shut you up.

It took you all just about two days to form an elaborate plan that would involve Yeosang getting access inside the Space Council building to present the monthly report physically with the excuse of meeting up with his cousin who worked there. When he called his cousin, the poor guy was quite surprised since they weren’t on friendly- or any terms, per se. He did complain about the strictness of the Space Council and how visitors weren’t usually allowed, but since Yeosang’s parents were ex-employees of the Council, it helped his case and his request to visit was almost immediately approved.

That left Jongho in charge of camouflaging the spaceship and he contacted a few of his friends who happened to be mechanics and had some spare technology that they could share with him. They were sceptical about why the human needed camouflage- it definitely raised suspicion, but Jongho had always been good at shutting people up with money so the mechanics were more than happy to help him out, thanking him for helping their declining business. 

You and Wooyoung, of course, had to be the ones to sneak in. You were hesitant to take the human with you- his vitals weren’t the problem since he was wearing the watch just like you which ensured your vitals remained normal. The problem was the risk of taking an unregistered human inside the very space that made sure all humans were registered in their data. 

Plus, Wooyoung’s claim that he could ‘watch out’ while you read their data wasn’t very helpful- you weren’t sure if he would be able to get you out of a tight spot if you got caught. He claimed to be good with guns so you reluctantly loaded him with as many weapons as possible and when you were almost sure he wouldn’t be a liability, if not a help either, you agreed to let him accompany you.

He was good at sneaking in. He had studied Jongho’s inventory of machines and tools and taken anything he thought was useful. While Yeosang entered from the main door, the two of you turned on the camouflage on Jongho’s illegally obtained wristwatch and took access inside the building through the backdoor while another alien entered. Before you could be scanned, Wooyoung pointed at the vents and you squeezed yourself into the tight space, crawling on all fours with Jongho’s voice guiding your directions. 

“Can you both fight later?” Jongho huffed. “Take a left and then jump down- you’ll land in a storage room. I can’t guarantee that it will be empty, so make sure your camouflage is working and you’re silent when you land.”

“Got it,” the two of you muttered in unison and you angrily tucked your hair back before leading the way again, having Wooyoung follow behind you. You paused before it was time to jump down, extending your neurons to read the room and after finding no signs of life for now, you landed softly with a thud, signalling Wooyoung to come down as well.

“That’s convenient,” Wooyoung pointed at your fingernails. “Can they act as a weapon?”

“Haven’t tried that yet but I suppose I’ll be forced to, soon,” you pointedly looked at him and he stuck his tongue out before Jongho asked you to find your way to the storage room that was across the hall. Wooyoung opened the door just a fraction and you pushed him with your elbow to take a peek.

“No one outside?”

“Doesn’t look like it,” you whispered. 

“Well, that’s what your kitty claws are for. Go ahead,” he said and you sat down on the floor, extending the neurons once again and finding a few men who seemed to be on duty, stationed in front of the rooms that were on either side of this room. You got up and moved away to talk to Jongho.

“Is there no other way?”

“None,” Jongho sighed. “Should I ask Yeosang to do something about it?”

“No, I have a sacrificial lamb right here,” you smirked dangerously at Wooyoung, who pointed at himself with wide eyes and furiously shook his head.

Moments later, he was carrying a bunch of folders and going out of the storage room as if he belonged there. You watched from the crack in the door as he pretended to look at the room number and went just a few steps ahead before dropping everything to the floor.

“Curse the stars,” he huffed angrily. “I’m gonna be late and my boss will kill me.”

One of the guards came into your vision, looking at Wooyoung with narrowed eyes. “Who’s your boss again?”

“Just the angriest one here- no need for names, am I right?” He shook his head and the guard seemed to buy that for the moment. “Asked to get some files,” Wooyoung started gathering them and the guard bent down to help. Wooyoung looked back, meeting eyes with you for just a second before looking at the second guard. “Would you help? I need to grab another bundle from the storage.”

The second guard hesitantly joined the first, grunting as he bent down. Your heart seemed to be beating between your ears as Wooyoung came back inside the room.

“What do you say I knock them out?” 

“Just keep yapping- I’ll make it,” you told him and he signed okay, grabbing another box of files and going back outside. You heard the three talk among themselves and you mustered all the courage before making a dash across the hall, turning the knob-

To find it locked. It would need an identification card to open it, and you didn’t have enough time for Jongho to do his thing. Panicking, you looked at Wooyoung who visibly swallowed and you made a neck-slicing motion.

“Now who’s that?” The second guard spotted you and that was all Wooyoung needed to take out his gun from the jacket and smack the guard’s head with the butt of the gun. The other guard punched him in the stomach with such force that Wooyoung doubled up as he let out a weak exhale-

And before you knew it, the neurons were extending from your fingernails and slashing at the guards while forming a protective barrier around Wooyoung at the same time. Wooyoung yelled an ‘I’m okay!’ which finally made you stop- not after having inflicted enough cuts on the guards to make them clutch at themselves in pain. 

Wooyoung looked at you, half-impressed and half-horrified. You decided to make sense of it later and said, “We should probably… shut them in the storage.”

“Yeah… why don’t you use your murder mittens for that too?” 

You scowled at him but did exactly that and Wooyoung smacked them hard enough to knock them unconscious though you were pretty sure it was petty revenge. He dusted his hands and looked proudly at you afterwards, catching you stifling a grin. He raised a brow and you finally let out a laugh at the absurdity of the situation.

“If you have both had your fun,” Jongho’s voice interrupted though he sounded amused- while he couldn’t see what was happening, the audio was enough. “Yeosang’s almost done and you’re still doing god knows what.”

“Sorry, Wooyoung’s having too much fun,” you put the blame on the human and moved along, ignoring the earfull that Jongho started to give Wooyoung. You used the identification card of one of the guards to open the door, finding yourself in the recent archives section of the control room- you didn’t need to tap into the alien parts to hear the chatter from the main room that leaked into this one.

“I’ll keep watch, you can start,” Wooyoung said and you nodded, wasting no time and shutting your eyes, letting the neurons branch out and touch everything in your surroundings- the shelf where hundreds of files were stacked, the numerous hard disks along with paper notes, the walls that contained memories of the people who had touched it recently, the floor where the employees must have walked a million times-

And where Wooyoung stood, and you almost thought your eyes were open when you saw him watching you in awe while staying alert. Despite not wanting to read him without his consent anymore, you saw the brief flash of what was playing in his head right now-

The sight of you slashing at the guards to protect him.

You pushed that scene and the feelings associated with it aside and let the neurons store every bit of information that they could until you started losing your breath and feeling faint- a sign that you couldn’t take it anymore. You thought you heard Wooyoung call your name before you retracted the neurons and rested your back against the wall, catching your breath.

“Too much?” He asked and you nodded, wiping your forehead. 

“We’re done, Jongho,” you said and he hummed in response, letting Yeosang know so he could leave as well. 

“Good job everyone,” Jongho said as you all started to make your way back out. “I’ll serve you all drinks tonight. And maybe sing for you.”

—--------------------------

If you thought Jongho was a good singer, he certainly had competition now. 

Sure, Jongho could move stars with his voice. You always joked that perhaps Jongho was an alien and his voice was his alien characteristic because there was no way a human could sound so powerful and mesmerising.

But perhaps, it was a human thing to sound so captivating, to sing like you intended to break the heart of the listeners and heal it again, to have your voice flow like the honey aliens only heard stories of- something they could describe and perhaps create association with yet only dream of having. Perhaps, it was a human thing to possess a voice that could make you feel like you were floating among the stars as one.

Or maybe… it was just Wooyoung. 

And just you, feeling all of that and more.

You tried reasoning with yourself- you had been hearing Jongho sing since he could speak so it probably didn’t sound so special to you anymore because you were used to it. If you could experience his singing for the first time again, you were sure you would be as blown away as the other person- as Wooyoung was.

But when Wooyoung sang in a voice so soft and mellow, you could feel your heart melt and you felt the sudden urge to sit out on the deck of the spaceship, in the hollow silence of the space and watch the stars.

“No way he’s the same person who sounds like an animal when he talks, right?”

You exhaled in relief when Yeosang said that but you were sure his drunken heart wasn’t as moved as yours was. 

And it didn’t help when Wooyoung locked eyes with you as he sang about the human emotions of longing, sadness, happiness and love. Of sorrow and bitterness, of peace and hope. 

You had been fine for the most part of the night- after returning to the spaceship, the boys started to prepare a meal while you passed out on the couch, surprising Wooyoung who was told that you were just taking a power nap to recover your energy. They woke you up when the table was set and while you ate, you told them that you were still processing the information you had absorbed and nothing you could process so far was relevant. While Yeosang told you all about his ‘adventures’ and how wonderful an actor he is, the room filled with overlapping chatter and laughter with the tinkling sound of your glasses as you drank. 

And now that the humans had been singing for a while, you silently excused yourself with a smile on your face that had been plastered on your face since you woke up. You exited the spaceship and laid down on the deck to watch the endless expanse of the universe. With your hands resting on top of your beating heart, you let your chest rise and fall in synchrony with the glimmering of the stars around you. 

You could hear your own breaths but Wooyoung’s voice still seemed to be ringing in your head and you found yourself smiling again. You recalled when your grandfather had told you stories of his father and his time on Earth- how humans used to sing at gatherings around fire while they ate candies or drank warm beverages. You had never experienced that but you always thought they might have looked strange doing that, until tonight when Jongho and Wooyoung started singing and Yeosang started clapping along- perhaps, this was what it was like to be truly human. To enjoy the little moments in life and make the most of them.

“Now that’s one way to stargaze.”

You almost jumped, letting out a startled sigh and Wooyoung grinned at that. “Can I join you?” 

“Uh, sure,” you patted the space next to you and he settled down, watching you for a moment before he assumed a similar lying position next to you.

“It’s beautiful,” Wooyoung sighed dreamily. “The stars.”

“Sometimes I wonder which of these stars were planets where we lived,” you said. “I think a lot of people here must look and wonder which one of them is their home.”

“It’s a shame how the cycles here work, but isn’t it somewhat relieving to know that the place that was once your home is now all around you? In the form of celestial matter.”

You turned your face sideways to look at him. “Is it though? To know that you have no home anymore?”

“But home is where the heart is,” he smiled, looking at you.

“Do humans still use that phrase on Earth?”

“We’ve always been using it,” he said. “Where did you hear it?”

“From my great grandfather.”

“He’s still alive?” 

“No,” you chuckled. “I have his journals. He missed planet Earth a lot but he said that home is where the heart is and his heart was here with his family. It never made sense to me, though.”

Wooyoung shifted his body to lay down sideways so he could look at you as you talked. “And why is that?”

“I don’t know,” you shrugged. “Home is a place, not an emotion or a feeling. My home is under the shade of the tree near my house where I grew up.”

“That’s where your heart is,” he told you.

“No, my heart is here,” you patted your chest. “It’s pumping blood.”

“My dear y/n,” he pinched your nose and if you had been sober, you would have smacked him. “Heart is an organ, yes, but it’s also a feeling. You leave a piece of your heart everywhere- back home, with your friends, with the people you lose. It is what makes you a whole person.”

“Still does not make sense to me,” you pouted.

“It will, one day,” he assured you, a knowing look on his face.

“What was your home like?” You asked after a few moments passed.

Wooyoung took a deep breath, folding his arms, his hair beginning to fall sideways slowly. You turned to face him too, unable to resist the urge to tuck them back. He didn’t comment on it, knowing it would remind you of the distance you were always consciously creating. “My home was near the sea- you have it here too, don’t you?”

“Something like that,” you told him, recalling the human sea you had seen flashes of from your great grandfather’s journal. 

“My home was the place where I spent my whole life, where my parents were,” he said and you noted how there was something sad about the way he smiled. “My home is with the friends I left behind, and even though my workplace started resembling a prison… that place is also my home.”

“Was it hard to leave home, knowing you might never go back?”

“Well, I didn’t think too much about it, I trust my navigational skills,” he said and you rolled your eyes. “But yeah. It started feeling like a mistake until I met you guys.”

You nodded- you knew all too well what he was talking about, having felt his loneliness firsthand. “Don’t you want to see your home again?”

“Maybe I’ll go back, but… I think I have a home here with you guys too,” he said cautiously and your brows furrowed as you tried to unravel its meanings. “Don’t you feel like you have a home here too? With the boys?”

You fell silent, pondering over that. “Will you show me your home, Wooyoung?”

“How- oh, with your kitty claws?” 

“I call them neurons, but yes,” you locked eyes with him. “I’ve always wanted to see what Earth looked like from my great grandfather’s mind. His journal doesn’t really give much.”

“What do you want to see?”

“Everything special about planet Earth, and… cats.”

“Cats?” Wooyoung frowned. “I thought you had them here? Yeosang called your neurons kitty claws?”

“It’s just a phrase we adopted from the description of cats and feline creatures we have in his journals,” you told him and he clapped, saying a long ‘ah’ in realisation.

“What about dogs?”

“We have something like that here, but I’d like to see that too,” you smiled.

“Okay, there’s so much to see- do you want to see now?” Wooyoung asked and you shook your head. 

“I’m still processing the information I got from the Space Council. Maybe some other day.”

“Sure, whenever,” Wooyoung said and you watched him for a few moments, the silence surprisingly comfortable.

“Did I scare you earlier?” You finally asked the question that had been weighing on your mind since you came back. “When I attacked the guards?”

Wooyoung stifled a smile. “I think I was more surprised that you went all murder-mode to protect me rather than being scared,” he confessed, “but I won’t lie. It was a little scary.”

You bit your lips, feeling something like guilt wrapping around your heart. Wooyoung inched his hand closer, looking at you for permission before holding your hand and caressing it.

“You don’t scare me,” he admitted, “I don’t care if you are capable of slitting throats with your nails or neurons or whatever they are. I saw how frightened you looked when the guards attacked me. I can’t get that out of my head.”

Now that was new. “Why can’t you get it out of your head?”

“You and your questions,” Wooyoung laughed, bringing your hand closer to inspect. “Hey, your hands look pretty normal. Like human hands. Where do the neurons even come from?”

You showed him by protracting them just a fraction and he wowed, taking both your hands and examining the skin around your nails when they retracted. “Pretty seamless, huh? Can you produce them out of your feet too?”

“Yeah, Yeosang had a wonderful time having me try that,” you laughed at the memory. “I can, but I don’t for obvious reasons.”

“You would look like a frog if you did,” Wooyoung told you.

“What’s a frog?”

“I’ll show you when it’s time, but… I’m scared you won’t like it.”

You narrowed your eyes at him and when he started describing a frog, he finally earned the long due smack, your laughter ringing in the space while Jongho and Yeosang watched from the window.

“Didn’t realise she could laugh like that,” Jongho wiped a fake tear from his eye.

“She laughs with us too,” Yeosang said.

“Oh, you wouldn’t understand,” Jongho waved a hand in dismissal. “Her laugh sounds different.”

“Really?” Yeosang looked at Jongho. “Sounds the same to me.”

“It’s a human thing,” Jongho smiled and Yeosang shook his head at that, knowing all too well what he was talking about.

—---------------------------

“We have a big fucking problem, guys.”

All three heads turned dramatically in succession and you looked away, suddenly feeling overwhelmed.

“Did you finish processing already?” Jongho asked and you nodded, slumping down on the couch next to Yeosang who had been pretending to take a nap. The younger two, who had been playing some board game that Wooyoung had been teaching the boys, rolled their chairs in front of you and you nervously fiddled with the sleeves of your black shirt.

“Yeah, I sped things up and… do you want the good news or the bad news first?”

The boys exchanged glances and everyone agreed on the good news first. You took a deep breath, “The Space Council has identified all of us and are sending out ‘wanted’ posters. They know we stole information and they’ve put a bounty on us.”

“That’s the good news?” Yeosang looked just about as horrified as the rest of them. You let out a short laugh.

“Congrats on officially being labelled space criminals now, I guess?” You offered and Jongho groaned loudly, muttering something about how his parents were going to kill him, bounty or not. “Now, the bad news?”

“Go ahead,” Jongho muttered, folding his arms in bitter resignation.

“Well, I don’t know how bad it is but they have secrets that they’ve hidden so well that even I couldn’t read them,” you started and Yeosang whistled at that. “I kept hitting a dead end whenever I came across something related to Star 1117, and there’s absolutely no way of locating the planet- not that they know of, or if they do know, they’re hiding it a bit too well.” 

“So was our attempt futile after all?” Wooyoung asked.

“Not really- it means that they do know a lot about Star 1117- at least the higher-ups. They’re just hiding it from everyone else.”

“Why are they keeping it to themselves? Do they want to keep Star 1117 all for themselves when the time comes?” Jongho questioned. “Do they not want the rest of us finding out?”

“Or maybe they don’t really know a lot and are just as clueless as us,” Yeosang offered. “Did you find something about how to locate it?”

“I think radio waves are our best option, so Wooyoung’s radio will have to do. I have something that can help with that, so let’s just track whoever is sending us that message and get answers from them?” You suggested.

“Sounds like a plan. We’re already working on using the radio as a navigational device so let us know what needs to be done next,” Yeosang agreed.

“Sure. There’s also something strange I came across,” you added, “but I don’t know if it’s of any value.”

“Let’s hear it anyway,” Jongho leaned forward in anticipation.

“You know the stories about the first aliens in this galaxy? The Original Nexi who are supposedly the first aliens in this galaxy?” 

“Yeah, that bloodline still exists, right?” Jongho asked, having recalled hearing rumours about them. “The Original Nexi who are born, grow up until a certain age and then start ageing backwards until they die?” 

“The humans would love to hear their secrets by the way,” Wooyoung looked both ashamed and proud of his people at that moment.

“Yeah, so,” you continued. “I think the first aliens are from Star 1117- that’s what I read in one of the files. That must mean the planet exists. If we can find one of the Original Nexi descendants who are alive today, we might be able to get some information about Star 1117. Maybe some of them even live there and we just haven’t been able to find them. Maybe that is why they’re trying so hard to hide the planet.”

“Woah,” Jongho exhaled deeply. “Now that’s news.”

“Yeah,” you sighed, a sombre silence taking over while all of you collected your thoughts. You decided to break the silence and give them a heads-up. “Since we’ll be wanted criminals now, let’s cut all contact with the station and destroy any tracking devices on this spaceship. Jongho, I trust you can take care of that?”

Jongho nodded and you continued. “Yeosang, please make sure our families are safe when they go to investigate- make sure they know that it might get messy so they can defend themselves if need be, okay?”

“I’ll let our friends know too- especially people we’ve been in contact with recently,” he said in a grim voice and you agreed, the realisation that you would all be in danger soon washing over you with a crash and you involuntarily shivered. Yeosang patted your back. You glanced at Wooyoung who had an unreadable expression on his face.

“We’ll do everything we can,” Wooyoung assured you and you nodded in answer. “Let’s speed up our radio navigation first.”

You agreed and got up, moving towards the control panel with Jongho, and Wooyoung looked at Yeosang, wiggling his brows.

“I guess my role is still chef?”

Yeosang chuckled. “You can keep doing whatever you’ve been doing. Kind of like an anchor, don’t you think?” 

Wooyoung was pretty pleased to hear that, immediately cheering up at Yeosang’s acknowledgement of his role as an ‘anchor’ when he had previously been referred to things like ‘maid’, ‘comic relief’ and worse. He disappeared into the kitchen knowing he didn’t have a lot of time before he would be called to help with the navigation.

And it was about an hour later that the smell of meat prompted everyone to drop what they were doing and join Wooyoung at the table. The meal was mostly silent, all of you feeling spent now that there was a threat hanging over your heads. Wooyoung could feel the palpable stress in the air but let you all have a moment to yourselves. After clearing the table, he was called to help with the navigation and he worked in harmony with Jongho and you, the hours passing by in a blink and sleep forgotten until-

“A signal!” Wooyoung shouted, making you and Yeosang get up with surprised grunts from your half-asleep state while Jongho high-fived him. 

“And, it’s gone- but it was there,” Jongho quickly input the readings into the radar and got a location. “Just a few tem-nex units away, should take us a few days.”

“Brilliant,” you felt hopeful all of a sudden, laughing in relief as you looked at Wooyoung in gratitude. He smiled in return, hand on his chest as he nodded. Yeosang clapped dramatically when Jongho started to yawn, making the two giggle and you got up, looking at the time.

“I think we should set our route and get some sleep, all of us. It was a long day,” you said and everyone agreed, Jongho immediately taking his place on the couch, pushing Yeosang away with little kicks.

“Go to your own room and get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll sleep here in case something fishy happens.”

“Alright, geez,” Yeosang rubbed his thighs, the youngest smiling as he swaddled the blanket. Yeosang saluted you and Wooyoung mockingly before going to his room.

“Want a drink, Captain?” Wooyoung offered and you gave him the side-eye. 

“Shouldn’t you go to sleep?”

“The adrenaline will take some time to wear off,” he explained and you shrugged. “I’d really like to take the drinks outside this time, and I could do with some company, unless you’re too tired?”

You decided to join- you could do with a drink and some company too, you reckoned. It had been a stressful few hours and your nap hadn’t helped at all- you kept thinking about whether you had been too reckless and doomed your friends and family by infiltrating the council and stealing top secret information. Sure, it could be justified- the government was all but dooming the people with the way they were handling things. If this really was the 1116th cycle, they had done little to nothing to prevent an apocalypse and the people were still in the dark about the ensuing damage which could be anywhere from just Star 1116’s collapse to the whole Temporal Nexus galaxy swallowing itself.

And you had never felt so worthless. You were merely a speck of dust in this vast galaxy and everything that you were doing to save it looked like it was all in vain.

“Cheer up, eh?” Wooyoung said as he clinked his bottle with yours. “It will be okay. We’ll be fine.”

You had to admit, you were rather impressed by his ability to read the room or the emotions of someone. He did it better than you could with your neurons and that was saying something. 

“I just feel like I’m going in circles. It’s not the first time we’ve received a signal that indicated that we might be close to Star 1117, but it’s the first time I’ve felt hope. I don’t know what I will do if it turns out to be nothing.”

Wooyoung hummed in thought. “If it turns out to be nothing, you’ll try again, just like you have for so long now. You won’t give up.”

“I know I won’t give up,” you nodded. “I want to do anything to make sure Star 1116 stays like it is, even if… even if I can’t ever go live there again.”

And perhaps, it was that possibility that had been weighing you down all along- what if you were chasing after something you shouldn’t and risking your chance of ever going back home? What if your last memory of Star 1116 would be when you got drafted as space patrol?

You recalled that day- just another morning with you munching on some snacks while you worked at the office with Yeosang and Jongho. The three of you had always been a unit even in the Space Centre in Star 1116. Your unit was the one in charge of detecting foreign matter around your planet but you were always abusing your power- since you had access to a lot of devices and archives, you were conducting your own research about Star 1117 which almost everyone was aware of. It wasn’t something you did secretly anyway.

But even though you saw it coming, the notice that your unit was transferred to Space Patrol still made your heart sink. You went to the superiors to have them change it- Jongho and Yeosang shouldn’t be dragged into something that you insisted on doing, but the two were already there trying to do the same for you. The three of you laughed like fools afterwards as you processed what this meant-

That you were on to something and the Space Centre did not want you snooping around anymore. That was how you ended up harbouring spite for the Space Council and continuing your mission in secret. It had been a long and lonely journey for the three of you but at least you had each other. And with Wooyoung’s addition to the crew… 

Things had definitely changed for the better.

“I can understand,” Wooyoung smiled wistfully. “I didn’t exactly leave Earth on good terms either. It was quite a similar situation as yours- I would have been imprisoned for trying to expose state secrets if I had stayed any longer, so I just decided to sneak away and collect evidence about their dealings with Star 1116 and their plans for Star 1117. I feel sorry for the people I left behind- they must be dealing with my mess.”

You recalled hearing about his friends earlier- he seemed to worry about them a lot. “Do you want to go back… once you collect your evidence?”

Wooyoung shook his head. “Do you think I’ve been doing my job ever since I met you?”

“Well, I didn’t stop you from doing what you needed to do,” you muttered and he laughed.

“Look… there’s no way I’m going to go back to Earth and tell them that you exist. You’re the evidence I was trying to find, and… I’d rather keep you all to myself.”

“Jung Wooyoung,” you warned but he only took a few chugs of his beer in response. You crossed your legs, shifting to face him.

“I understand how much home means to a person, and I wouldn’t want to be someone who prevents you from going home and clearing the name of your friends. Please, I already feel guilty as it is…”

“Look, I came here to find out if the humans that got lost here were still communicating with my people back on Earth, right?” Wooyoung began. “Turns out those humans had morals after all, from what you told me. They never betrayed the aliens here and lived in harmony with the rest of the aliens here. They made a home here. Isn’t that beautiful?”

“And what about Star 1117?” You asked and Wooyoung’s lips tightened in a smile. “What have you been trying to find about Star 1117?”

“Well, you know why they sent your great grandfather and his group to the Temporal Nexus. Humans have always been in search of anything they can get their hands on; they're greedy like that. Be it slowing the ageing process or finding another planet that they can make their home. After all, Earth will collapse one day. In the solar system, they haven’t had much luck so they’ve always been secretly exploring other galaxies.”

“Is that such a bad thing?” You asked. “We’re the same. Our planet collapses and we go live on another.”

“But you take everyone with you, don’t you?” Wooyoung asked grimly and you frowned in confusion. “You do not leave your people to die, do you?”

You shook your head in denial and when he sighed, you had your answer. 

“Are humans that selfish?” 

Wooyoung stretched his arms, a melancholic smile plastered on his face. “Sometimes. Not all of them, I like to believe. It’s just the power that makes them lose their morals.”

“I guess it’s the same here then,” you shrugged. “The Space Council does not want us finding any information on Star 1117.”

“I have a feeling that they have a good reason for that. Let’s hope I’m right,” he settled the empty bottle on the deck. Yours was still half full and in your hands. You watched Wooyoung trace shapes on the surface of the deck, his dark hair falling down on his forehead. 

“Will you show me your home?” 

Wooyoung looked up at you in surprise. “Now?”

“I feel like this is the moment that I should read you,” you answered in all honesty and he looked a little confused but agreed anyway. You scooted closer and raised your hands in front of him. He awkwardly raised his own, intertwining them with yours before he realised-

“Oh, the forehead, right?” He was about to pull his hands away when you let the neurons extend and wrap around his hands, effectively binding them to yours and Wooyoung raised a brow in response, speechless for once. You stifled a smile and let the neurons wrap along the bulge of veins in his arms, the silver branches sneaking under his sleeves and taking shape along his collarbones before appearing on his neck.

When you felt Wooyoung stiffen just a fraction, you stopped, the neurons curling around his neck. You couldn’t help but notice how beautiful he looked with the silver branches on him, and it awoke a spark deep inside you. You almost felt breathless, as did he, before you asked him the one question that would make or break this moment.

“Did I scare you?”

Wooyoung looked at you for a few moments too long, watching your pupils contract and dilate in anticipation, silver like the extension of you around him. And he asked himself-

Was he scared of you? Did the idea of being so exposed to you make him want to cower away? Did he not like the way you had him trapped under you? Did he not appreciate that you were still asking for permission? 

Weren’t you only human too? Figuring out these unfamiliar feelings just like he was? 

Wooyoung decided to take a leap of faith in you and tightened his hold around your hands in answer- you had read him for a long time when he was first brought in your spaceship but that was a wholly different experience from this moment. This was so much more intimate with darkness enveloping the space, the stars twinkling like an endless glimmer around you, and the shift in your relationship now that you had warmed up to each other. 

A different way than he had warmed up to the boys, he noticed. 

“I’m not scared,” he caressed your hands in answer. “I told you before- you don’t scare me, y/n.”

You smiled in response and let the curled branches extend along his temples, wrapping around his head like a crown. You wished he could see himself in that moment, but you shut your eyes as he pushed his memories to you.

Earth. 

So different from the Earth that you had seen in your great grandfather’s memories. There was more architecture- tall greyscale buildings that threatened to touch the sky. Where was the green grass? Why did the sky no longer seem as blue as it had in the Earth that you had seen?

Suddenly, you saw exactly that- a sky of fluffy clouds with rays of sun emerging through it and painting the lush fields of grass yellow. You saw the flowers that you always loved- the same roses and daisies from your memories. There was the sound of water in the distance- waves. It had to be waves. There was the sound of a woman calling Wooyoung’s name and you looked into the distance at the small cottage. Someone zoomed past you and you twirled around again, taking a scared step back as you saw a little ball of black fur-

A cat.

A startled laugh left your lips as the cat rubbed its soft body on your bare legs. You picked it up and kissed the top of its head before running towards the smell of food- Wooyoung’s food- no, his mother’s food. The person he learned to cook from, the taste that he carried in his hands. 

The scene shifted yet again and this time, your legs were submerged in water and you looked around in confusion- why was the water falling from the sky? You craned your neck upwards to find that it was not the sky where the water was coming from but the top of a mountain, the stream crashing against deep brown rocks just like the one you sat on, a green carpet around it- moss, it was called. You had a stick in your hand and before you could figure out what to do with it, you felt two taps on your shoulders. You turned around to see a child who had a stick just like yours with a tiny creature lodged in it, threatening to fall on the ground. Scared, you cupped your hands and let the creature take refuge in your palm. You watched it carefully, the dark green bulge of its throat rising and falling in quick successions, and its tiny, webbed feet-

A frog. 

You were laughing as the frog jumped out of your palm and landed on the rock near you, joining its own little gang of friends. You washed your hands with the cool water and splashed it on the children around you.

This was what it was like to be a kid on Earth. 

You opened your eyes and saw Wooyoung smiling widely. He grinned before he asked, “Did you see it?”

“I did,” you pouted. “And I do not look like a frog, Wooyoung. Shame on you.”

Wooyoung laughed loudly, squeezing your hands subconsciously. “What else did you see?”

“Well, I saw a cat, thank you very much for that,” you smiled. “I could smell food- your mother cooked for you, right? It smells just like your food.”

“Really?” He seemed pleased to hear that.

“Exactly like that,” you confirmed. “And… I saw tall buildings. What was that?”

“That was the city where I lived before I came here, where I moved to after I grew up.”

“It looked… void of life,” you told him and he agreed. “Earth has changed.”

“We call it ‘modernised’,” he shrugged. “But yeah. Earth has changed, and so have its people.”

“Do you want to see my home someday?” You asked, beginning to retract your neurons and he shivered slightly. “It’s not much, but it’s definitely something like the Earth that my great grandfather left behind. And I wish I could show you like you showed me, but… you can see it in person.”

“You’d take me to Star 1116?” He asked in surprise.

“Yeah, well, don’t think I’m doing it for you,” You started and he scoffed. “It looks like we’ll have to go anyway- at least to warn the people if things don’t work out.”

“Well,” Wooyoung kept his hands intertwined with yours even after your neurons were fully retracted. “I’m not one to give false hope but let’s not give up and stay optimistic about this, okay?”

You nodded and looked at his hands that fit so well with yours, and you found yourself thinking how truly incredible it was to be this fascinated by such a simple thing as your hands in someone else’s. And that led you to think about how much you had changed since you met the human from Earth.

Wooyoung seemed to have noticed that you were deep in thought and he leaned down a bit to enter your vision, gently asking, “What are you thinking?”

You looked at his deep brown eyes that glinted with mischief and curiosity as he held your gaze. You let your eyes travel along the slope of his nose, pausing at his parted lips that were starting to curve into a smirk.

“I’m thinking you’re too close,” you muttered, pushing him back but he only pulled you closer which induced a startled gasp from you. 

You sucked in your breath just as quickly when he caressed your knuckles with his thumb before planting a kiss on both your hands. He then proceeded to look at you, his gaze almost darkening.

“Too close?” He asked, almost as a challenge. You were too surprised to answer, an unfamiliar but pleasant feeling pooling in your stomach. 

“Let go of my hands before I chop your hands into pieces,” you warned and he immediately let go, raising his hands in surrender and he would have thought that you were serious were it not for the laugh that you let out afterwards.

“And you said I don’t scare you?” You scoffed. “Try harder, Wooyoung.”

“Hey,” he scoffed back in utter disbelief. “You played dirty. I cherish my hands, okay? If you shred my hands into pieces I can’t do this-”

He grabbed your wrist and pulled you close- a bit too close, so that your faces were mere centimetres apart. Your eyes widened in surprise and when his initial surprise wore off, he tilted his head a bit, his eyes scanning your face and looking for any signs of apprehension. Upon finding none, he proceeded to cup your face with his other hand.

“If you hurt my hands, I can’t hold you like this, can I?” He whispered.

“Wooyoung-” you began but he shook his head, planting a chaste kiss on your forehead and grinning cheekily afterwards, making you smile shyly. 

“I’ve wanted to do that for a long time,” he said, letting go and scooting away this time. “Don’t go all kitty claws on me please-”

This time, you decided to show him just what Yeosang had meant when he called your hands kitty claws. If it was the planet Earth, or even Star 1116, his shrieks and laughter would have woken creatures from their deep slumber.

But since it was just your spaceship, it only made Jongho and Yeosang grunt in their sleep and his voice was lost to the stars.

—------------------------

“This is insanity,” you managed to say, your breaths quickening with every second as you monitored the radar, watching not one, not two, but three patrol spaceships enter the range of your spaceship, quickly covering the distance behind you.

“We’re running away, right?” Jongho asked but didn’t wait for the answer, pressing a button and activating the speed boost, though that did nothing to calm you. You climbed up to the dome to take a look at your surroundings, zooming through the glasses that all of you had on since you spotted a spaceship following you. 

A number of things had happened in the last few days which led you to this point, so close to finding out the source of the signal Wooyoung had been receiving on his radio. Your names were circulated among all the residents of the Temporal Nexus with a significant bounty on your head, and even Wooyoung’s face was plastered on the ‘wanted’ posters. That prompted you all to cut contact with everyone including your family and acquaintances, though Yeosang had sent a warning to the families and assured them that you would be okay. However, the anxiety that came with the possibility that you all might not ever be able to go back home gnawed at all of you.

For now, there were more important matters. Jongho worked on camouflaging the spaceship as best as possible while the rest of you worked on tracing the signal to the most accurate location, finding yourself in unfamiliar territories. The Temporal Nexus was a vast galaxy and your spaceship was well-equipped so it allowed you to cover a great amount of distance in a short amount of time but there were some spaces in the galaxy that were considered ‘red zones’ or unsafe, to put it simply. These spaces were usually considered to be a hotspot for mysterious, unexplainable spatial activity and it was thought to be the points where a planet may have completed its orbit in time, resulting in a ‘tear’ in space. To the naked eye, it would seem like a mass of vividly coloured gases with little electrical sparks emerging from it. All the residents of the Temporal Nexus knew to avoid it-

But the residents of Temporal Nexus weren’t nosy like you were. And how could you ignore it when the signal was coming right from that point? It was only a matter of time before the Space Patrol around the red zones would detect your spaceship and be on your tail-

And here you were. Just a few hundred tem-nex units away from the red zone, from the source of your signal, the Space Patrol quickly catching up, the boys preparing to attack while you monitored the situation- it was just an excuse to take a breather and think where did it all start going so wrong. If you got arrested now, it would be the end.

“Captain?” Jongho called. “We’re closing up on the red zone. What do we do?”

“We can’t steer around it, can we?” You asked grimly, climbing down and going to look at the map that highlighted all the red zones in the galaxy- there were about eight red zones in your proximity alone and the only clear path was your way back which was now crowded with space patrols.

“Not really- I don’t think we can lose them,” Jongho took a deep breath.

“I say we keep going,” Wooyoung said. He had been monitoring the radio which started malfunctioning as soon as you entered the range of the red zone. “We’re getting signals from there- all the messages we got are from that mass,” he pointed at the blue cloud of gas not far from you now. 

“It’s dangerous,” Yeosang shook his head. “There’s no telling what could happen once we enter that mass.”

“Only one way to find out,” Wooyoung’s lip curved in a smirk. “I have a feeling there’s a reason the space patrol is hell bent on catching us before we reach the red zone, and it’s not our safety.”

“Makes sense,” Jongho agreed. “There have been instances of people trying to get to one of the red zones but never have the space patrol been so active in trying to stop them. Usually one ship is enough.” 

“We are wanted criminals,” you reminded them. “They have a reason.”

“And what’s the reason?” Wooyoung asked. “That you almost found out information about Star 1117’s location? And now you’re going to the red zone? Hell, if I had to say, it would look like you’re on the right path.”

Yeosang exchanged glances with you- Wooyoung was on to something. It made sense- if you had tried stealing information about any other thing, perhaps the Space Council wouldn’t have reacted so brashly. 

“Alright, forwards we go,” you announced and Jongho nodded, immediately going back to steering the spaceship. “But if at any point we feel like it’s dangerous, we’re going back, space patrol or not.”

“Got it,” Jongho grinned, speeding up the ship once again. You went back to the dome to activate the shield, deciding not to go on the offensive for as long as you could manage- you didn’t want more charges added to your criminal record.

For a few moments, all of you focused on your tasks- Yeosang blasting any rocket that came your way, Jongho focusing on entering the red zone while Wooyoung assisted him, monitoring the radio. You gave directions from the dome, silently praying that this mission would not be a futile one when you heard the familiar static noise from the broken radio. 

Immediately, all of you were hovering around Wooyoung and watching the radio try to display a message on its screen but failing to. It looked like something was disrupting its signals.

“It has to be because we’re near, right?” Wooyoung looked up at you and you nodded. 

“Keep following the source- I’m going to try and get readings from outside,” you told them but before you could move and anyone else could verbally stop you, Wooyoung grabbed your wrist.

“Don’t go outside. It’s too dangerous.”

“I’m only opening the dome,” you told him gently, your heart clutching at the sight of worry in his eyes- for you. “I’ll be right here.”

Wooyoung hesitantly let you go and you gave him a small smile before going back up and opening the dome, taking a little peek out. You rested your palms on the surface of the exterior and let the neurons spread around the spaceship so you could read the air and the surroundings- it didn’t always work but sometimes when there was something foreign in the air, you could read it.

“We’re entering the red zone in front of us in about two minutes, Captain,” Jongho warned. “You sure you want to be out?” 

“I’ll be fine- it’s not dangerous,” you assured him but still shut the dome halfway in case you would have to retreat in an emergency.

However, nothing could have prepared you for what happened next. 

Jongho announced that you were going to enter the zone in about thirty seconds and Yeosang positioned himself beside you with his gun. The two of you were covering the back of the spaceship when the air around you turned foggy, indicating that you were in the red zone’s range. You were just trying to get a reading when you saw something from the corner of your eye-

“Jongho!” You warned but it was too late- another spaceship came out of nowhere from within the red zone and hit the back of your spaceship so that Jongho lost control of the steering. The impact of the collision made your spaceship swerve dangerously to the left, making it spin. Yeosang lost his footing and unceremoniously landed down, shouting in warning and you retracted your neurons just in time to draw your hands back before the domed window fell back in its place. You would have fallen in a painful position but Yeosang managed to catch you just in time, though the rocking of your spaceship still made your head bang against the ladder rather painfully.

“I got it!” Jongho shouted and managed to stabilise the ship, and the gasp that he let out when he finally got a clear view outside made you wonder if something had gone wrong-

But Wooyoung looked just as speechless. Yeosang helped you up, making sure you were okay before you two joined them to look at the scene outside-

It was the same pitch black darkness of the space, void of any stars but surrounded by the blue masses of gas. And right at the centre was a small, glowing thing- it was too far to make out its shape but it looked like a rock from afar.

“Are we inside the red zone?” You asked in confusion.

“We crossed it, and now we’re inside the space surrounded by the red zones,” Jongho settled back in his seat in surprise. 

“And we’re getting a proper signal- look,” Wooyoung managed to add amidst the confusion of the situation, pointing at Jongho’s device that you had used to track the signal from Wooyoung’s radio. 

“There’s no one following us anymore” Yeosang went to check from the dome as if he couldn’t believe the radar readings. “We’re alone here.”

“Did you see the ship that crashed with ours?” You asked and Yeosang shook his head in denial. “Damage report?”

“Minor, nothing to be worried about for now,” Jongho assured. “So? Do we inspect that? Why is it glowing like that?”

You looked at the luminous thing in the middle of the space- this couldn’t be Star 1117, right? It was too small to be a planet. Was Yeosang right then? Was this just a byproduct rock or mass of the star that was once a planet?

“Before we go,” you began, a suspicion gnawing at you. “Let me read the collision real quick. There’s something odd about the spaceship that collided with ours.”

“Right? We didn’t detect it on the radar,” Jongho said. 

“That might have been because of whatever was messing with the radio signals?” Wooyoung suggested but you weren’t sure. You went back to climb the ladder that led to the dome and this time, you sat outside on the surface while you protracted the neurons to read.

And what you saw made cold wash all over you- you must have let out a surprised sound because Yeosang was outside with you, his eyes filled with worry.

“It can’t be,” you shook your head. Nothing made sense anymore. 

“What is it?” Yeosang asked. “Tell me.”

“It was our spaceship,” you told him and he frowned in confusion. “I saw our spaceship- this exact one.”

“That’s impossible,” Yeosang shook his head. “Maybe you’re wrong?”

“I’ve never been wrong,” a grim realisation started to dawn on you and you beckoned him to follow you down. “It wasn’t detected on our radar because it’s our spaceship. And it must have crashed with ours to bring us here, to this point.”

“Are you thinking… duplicates? Time travel?” Jongho looked at you in disbelief. “I could call you crazy if we weren’t here right now, but… you know those are just theories, right?”

“You can choose not to believe me,” you said, understanding his point, “But I know what I saw.”

“Time travel in the Temporal Nexus, huh?” Wooyoung scratched his chin in thought. “Isn’t that what Temporal Nexus means in the first place? A point where different timelines intersect?”

“That refers to the points in our galaxy when the cycle of one planet comes to a completion right when the cycle of another planet begins,” Yeosang said, his eyes narrowing in thought. “Unless…”

“Unless your Space Council decided that’s what you all should know?” Wooyoung smiled knowingly. “Just like they didn’t tell you about that thing? About the red zones? About Star 1117? About Star 1118?”

“Let’s just… inspect that first before we start drawing conclusions,” Jongho said weakly and you all agreed, taking a seat next to the two. You sat next to Wooyoung and looked at him- could he be right?

He seemed to understand exactly what you were feeling, and when he slid his hand in yours, you didn’t draw away. You held it and squeezed it back. You needed that.

And it seemed like he needed that more when you started getting closer to the luminous form and realised that it looked more like a person than a rock or a star.

“Am I… going crazy?” Jongho asked, pressing the side of his glasses to zoom in, “or is that a literal fucking person hovering in the middle of space?”

“Are you sure that’s our source?” Yeosang sounded doubtful as he looked at Wooyoung who was beyond speechless, for once. You checked for him and sure enough, you were on the right path.

“Stop the spaceship,” you said when you saw the figure move and Jongho immediately did. The figure- person- turned around and all of you wowed and cursed under your breaths. 

“That’s just… an Original Nexi, right?” Yeosang stood up to get a better view, prompting Jongho to continue approaching the figure. “Apart from the… glowing part.”

It sure looked like one- it had the characteristic androgynous appearance of one, with a stone etched under one eye like a teardrop. Jongho stopped the spaceship and looked at you.

“Are we inviting them in or are you going out?”

“No way that thing steps inside,” Yeosang shivered involuntarily. “I don’t want my spaceship glowing and sticking out like a sore thumb.”

“I’m pretty sure the glowing isn’t contagious,” Jongho laughed. “But he’s right. It’s better if the two of you go out. We humans can chill and watch, right, Wooyoung?”

“Right,” he sank lower in his seat. “You’re on your own, sweethearts.”

Yeosang scowled at the human before extending his hand for you. 

“Don’t even try to read that thing,” Wooyoung warned in a low voice. You pursed your lips in answer before you joined Yeosang, exiting the spaceship from the dome and climbing down at the shaft that Jongho had opened for you to stand on. 

You were now facing the figure, standing tall and powerful- there was no way this was just one of the Original Nexi- this person and everything about their presence was making you want to sink to your knees. 

“Ah… how many times have we crossed paths now?” Its voice, smooth as silk, sounded inside you. Startled, you looked at Yeosang who was just as shocked, if not more.

“I don’t think we have crossed paths…” you narrowed your eyes as the person smiled knowingly. “Who are you?”

“I take it you got the message, then? It must be our first time meeting,” the person sighed as if the weight of the world was crushing it down. You noticed how up close, the glow from its skin wasn’t as obvious- perhaps, you were engulfed in it now. 

“Who are you?” Yeosang asked. “And how are you here, like this?”

“Who do you think?” It asked, positioning itself so it looked like it was perched on an invisible surface. “You are looking for Star 1118, right?”

“And how do you know that?” You asked. This time, there was no apprehension in your voice but simply curiosity and wonder. 

“Because I am the one you have been looking for,” the smile on its lips was so sad that it made you want to cry. “I am the one you saved and the one you let go of. I am the beginning and the end of this Temporal Nexus- I am Temporal Nexus, in its truest form. I am what you call Star 1117, and what you will call Star 1118 if you make the mistake of saving me.”

This time, your knees did go weak and Yeosang let out a gasp, utterly astounded. The person just watched you both with eyes that were both apologetic and full of resentment.

“Star 1117… is a person?” You breathed. 

“Not really,” Star 1117 shrugged, the golden long hair flowing like a halo around its figure. “Just one of my forms. Just one of my names.”

“I don’t understand,” you said, turning to look at Jongho and Wooyoung who were listening in to your conversation from inside, both equally dumbfounded.

“Sweet child of the Nexi,” Star 1117 began. “I am the Temporal Nexus. I am all the stars in this galaxy and their cycle. I am the Original Nexi, the very first, and all of you are my descendants. At this moment, I am Star 1117- Star 1116’s cycle is almost complete and as a cycle comes to completion, I start assuming the next form. This is my final form, for the final cycle- there are no planets anymore- not after 1116.”

You did not know for how long you simply watched the person’s figure shimmer as if it was also a mass of gas- perhaps, if you touched it, your hand would pass right through its form. You and Yeosang stood in shock, trying to process your thoughts.

Star 1117 was a person, not a planet. This being was the core of the Temporal Nexus.

“If you are the Temporal Nexus,” Yeosang began, glancing at you for a moment before continuing, “you must be the past and the present. Isn’t the last cycle supposed to be the 1117th?”

“As the fates have intended, yes,” Star 1117 nodded. “And you’re out here to change that. In fact, you do. You find a way to save me and have the Temporal Nexus live its 1118th cycle. But that is where everything goes wrong,” the person smiled in a melancholic manner. “The Temporal Nexus is supposed to die with its intended last cycle. If you try to change the design of the universe, the universe finds a way to retaliate.”

“‘Do not save 1118’,” you quoted. “Why?”

“Because you triggered not only the end of the Temporal Nexus but the end of the galaxies surrounding me!” Star 1117’s voice boomed this time, making you clutch Yeosang’s hand. “The solar system is next- it will swallow in on itself, before its intended time. There will only be an end and no beginnings anymore.”

“That’s impossible,” you shook your head in disbelief. “You sent a message- to not save 1118. That means you were alive.”

“Oh, I was alive long enough to find a way to make things right,” Star 1117 smirked. “The human in your spaceship- it is he who sent my message. It is him who crashed into your spaceship just now so you made it here- it is him who gave us another chance to make things right and not make selfish decisions.”

You turned to look at Wooyoung who had an incredulous look on his face as he pointed at himself. You turned back to the Original Nexi.

“How?” Yeosang asked.

“In the time when I’m 1118, I’m weak and I fall,” Star 1117 admitted grimly. “The human who never made it to Star 1117 and never met any of you found my weak form. With his help, we formed the last link to the past and here we are. He does not remember because it is not him- it is the person who crashed his spaceship in yours. His origin and conclusion will remain to be unknown until you make a decision- save me, which will lead me to the human on Earth, or let me go, which will take us to a new path- perhaps, one where the world doesn’t end like that.”

“It was our spaceship that crashed into us,” you said.

“And I always wondered how he came to possess it,” Star 1117 sighed. “I hope you make the decision that leads to that moment in this timeline.”

“The decision to let you go?” You scoffed. “We will have no home- what about all of the Nexi? Aren’t they your children? Do you not care for them?”

“I do. But I have lived long enough, and I have seen what happens if you try to save your galaxy. Do not make the mistakes you have made so many times now,” Star 1117 almost pleaded. “Do not save me. Save yourselves.”

“I will save my home and the people who matter to me,” you said through gritted teeth. Yeosang put a warning hand on your shoulder but you shook it off. “You are the Temporal Nexus. You can’t die like this- you can’t take away my world- our world,” you motioned at the boys inside the spaceship. “I will find a way to save you and the galaxy.”

With that, you turned on your heels, not waiting for Yeosang. You were far too overwhelmed to think or care. 

“There is no other way. You have tried everything. You have failed every time.”

Star 1117’s words were lost to space. Yeosang stood awkwardly, wanting to follow you inside but having too many questions of his own to do that. He turned to the being. 

“If you are the Original Nexi, does that not mean that you grow old and young like your descendants?”

“I did, in the beginning, when I was young. When I was Star 1,” Star 1117 smiled. “After a certain time, when I started approaching my end, I got stuck in this miserable state, unable to age and unable to do anything but exist and die a little with each cycle,” the star raised its hand, proving that indeed, there was a translucence to its body indicating the weariness that dripped from its voice in a physical form. “Your people- the Space Council- they protected me and tried to help me, but to no avail. They realise that there is no answer to this. Some things are meant to die at their time, Kang Yeosang. Tell your friends that I have suffered enough for this world.”

—-------------------------------

You must be human, you thought, because you couldn’t stop crying.

Ever since the conversation with Star 1117, you had been overwhelmed to no end. You came back to the spaceship and shut yourself in your room. You knew the boys let you have your space for a while but it was Jongho who came to knock on your door first. 

“Captain? You alright in there?”

You didn’t respond though you were pretty sure he could hear your sniffles. He continued. “I’m not exiting the red zone until you’re out, okay? Until I have your orders. Take your time, I understand.”

You muttered a thank you and that was enough for Jongho. It was Yeosang who came next to check on you.

“All that talk about not being as emotional as a human. Tsk tsk. Look at you,” Yeosang said, attempting to lighten the mood. You did let out a dark chuckle though that only made you cry some more. 

“Come on. Tell me what’s got you crying so much.”

“I just need a few minutes,” you told him. “I’m sorry for being a mess.”

“It’s okay- just… come to us if it’s too much, okay? You’re not alone.”

You knew that. You were not alone, however, you had never felt more lonely. And you were starting to realise why-

You had subconsciously read Star 1117. While Star 1117 had been making all those claims, your neurons protracted just a fraction. The luminous light around you was a part of the being after all-

And all you got to read was pain. Extreme pain- not the physical kind, but the one that weighed on your soul. You felt utter loneliness- one that crushed you like nothing else. You felt the urge to cease existing but also felt helplessness like nothing else. No wonder Star 1117 had sounded so weary. You couldn’t imagine being in its place.

But then… what about your home? What about your people? What guarantee was there that you could all make it safely out of the Temporal Nexus when the last cycle comes to a conclusion? You had only one purpose in life ever since you understood how your home would die in your lifetime- and that was to prevent it. If you could not stop the unavoidable, you would have liked to have found a new home-

But there would be no home in the Temporal Nexus anymore. This spaceship was not a home. Space pods were not home- besides, you would have to find a place in another galaxy. What if you were never welcomed anywhere anymore? What if your family and friends refused to leave this galaxy?

You must have stopped crying a while ago, staring endlessly at the plain ceiling when a knock sounded. You had no energy to hum a response. The door clicked open and someone peeked in.

“I’m coming in,” Wooyoung announced, sitting next to you on the floor in a similar crouching position, your backs against the wall.

“Drink some water- please,” Wooyoung requested and you finally spared him a glance, taking the water bottle and drinking a few gulps.

The water from Star 1116. That was your home.

“Did you finally process all of it?” Wooyoung asked.

“I don’t know what to do,” you told him, “I’m so lost.”

“You read Star 1117, didn’t you?” Wooyoung asked gently, already knowing the answer. He couldn’t help but slide closer when you nodded with an absolutely heartbreaking expression, tears in your eyes. He intertwined his hand with yours and let you rest your head on his shoulder- he could tell you were tired but he needed to tell you something too.

He told you that he went outside to have a conversation with Star 1117, and he told you what he learned from it- specifically about Star 1118 and Wooyoung’s role in all of this.

“The Temporal Nexus is the point where the past, the present and the future meet,” Wooyoung explained, his voice uncharacteristically soft. “In the past, there was an alien girl who was half-human but had beef with her own human counterpart. Her name was y/n-”

“Wooyoung-” you warned though the two of you shared a chuckle over that. 

“She was the captain of her little crew, with Jongho the human driver, and Yeosang the pretty alien… fighter? Engineer? What even is his role?”

“We don’t have roles, we just… make do with what we can do,” you shook your head. “But carry on.”

“Right. So, the Captain learns that Star 1116’s cycle is about to end, and that Star 1117 is not a planet but a being by infiltrating into the Space Council- this time through the main door, not the vents,” Wooyoung laughed. “She learns about how the Space Council have also been trying to find a solution to save their home but are closer to giving up than to finding answers. Together- because that time you don’t become a space criminal- you find a way to prolong Star 1117’s cycle by concentrating the energy of all the red zones scattered out in the galaxy and transferring it to the last cycle.”

“That makes sense,” you nodded. “Red zones are energy byproducts of the previous planets.”

“Right? Star 1117 reluctantly agrees, and you all succeed- Star 1116’s cycle prolongs and leaks to Star 1117’s. The original last cycle, the 1117th, was supposed to be a shorter one since it’s just the galaxy ending itself before it reaches the 1118th cycle. But this time, the 1118th cycle begins. You all realise that you made a grave mistake and that the galaxy will eat itself like it was supposed to, but since it requires more energy to do that now, it will swallow the neighbouring galaxies and possibly trigger the end.”

You took a deep breath. “I triggered the end.”

“Not you alone, but basically… yeah. It suits you, doesn’t it?” Wooyoung chuckled, letting go of your hand to wrap his arm around your shoulders and caress your arms assuringly. 

“Not helping,” you muttered.

“Well,” Wooyoung huffed in resignation. “You try to make things right. You get this spaceship to Star 1117 and get it on board- its form is weakened by then and it is Star 1118 by that time. You set the destination to Earth, knowing someone on Earth would have figured out that their solar system was going to collapse soon and would do anything to change things. You leave the poor Star alone and go to save your family and friends.”

“And Star 1118 makes it to you?”

“Somehow, yes,” Wooyoung nodded. “I have always studied the Temporal Nexus deeply, so when I receive signals on my radio- yes, the radio I have now- I go to investigate the source and find your spaceship underwater near my hometown. With the help of my friends and the Space Centre on Earth, I recover that ship and find an ethereal being inside- Star 1118. Since the being is the Temporal Nexus- the past, the present, and the future of your galaxy- it finds traces of itself on me from another time.”

“Oh heavens,” you raised your head up to look at him. “It’s a time loop, isn’t it?”

“More romantic than that. We were meant to meet, y/n,” he smiled widely, pinching your nose but you were too surprised to react. “Star 1118 sets the loop into motion- or rather, propels it forwards and backwards, forwards and backwards. Jung Wooyoung now has one mission- to find the tear in space that will transport him to that moment to warn you-”

“The spaceship that collided with us,” you breathed, understanding how it worked. “It must have taken a few attempts.”

“Hence why it is a loop,” Wooyoung nodded. “However, Jung Wooyoung also did something else, which was quite genius of him if I have to say.”

“And what’s that?”

“Jung Wooyoung and Star 1118 worked together to send messages to my radio, which prompted the present me to make different decisions. And here we are,” he concluded with a dramatic sigh. “Things have changed. You can still make the same decisions and it might lead to a time where Star 1118 is not able to go to Earth to warn Jung Wooyoung. That would be the end. Or…”

“Or I could let it be,” you shrugged away from Wooyoung’s arm and buried your face in your hands. 

“I think you already know, but Star 1117 has suffered a lot,” Wooyoung said, and you were once again amazed by how gently he talked to you despite knowing what you had done- what you might do. “It suffered alone for 1117 cycles. You put an end to its sufferings and you might find a new home. A better one.”

“My home is Star 1116,” you said, though the words started to sound like a weight over your heart now. “Not everyone can let go of their home.”

“I thought you understood by now that home is where the heart is,” Wooyoung said and you looked at him to find him smiling. “Where’s your heart, y/n?”

Like the soft embrace of a mother, you felt the answer wrap around the physical organ that was your heart- the answer that was a feeling, an emotion- and not strictly a human one at all. You didn’t have to be human to understand that your heart belonged to the people around you- to your family because they were yours, to Jongho and Yeosang who were your friends, and to Wooyoung- the human who had to be your saving grace. 

Home was also the house and the land where you grew up, but it was not the location or the building that made it a part of your heart- it was the things that you associated with home. Your alien mother, your human father. Their parents who had once lived there, whose memory clung to the walls and was etched in the frames that sat on the mantle. Home was the lake next to your house but what made it a part of your heart was the memories of splashing water on Jongho and Yeosang, and the memories of your parents teaching you how to swim.

Home was where the heart was. And as long as you had the pieces of your heart next to you, you would be home.

“Did you find the answer?” Wooyoung cupped your face to wipe the tears that left your eyes, smiling knowingly. You smiled back, clutching his hands that were caressing your cheeks.

“Home is where the heart is,” you told him, your voice wet with emotions. “And you are my heart, Jung Wooyoung.”

Wooyoung’s eyes curved like moons as his smile grew wider. He nodded, the two of you sharing a laugh. You couldn’t help but notice how beautiful this piece of your heart was. You leaned forward to rest your hands on his neck, surprising him a bit. His hands went to rest on your waist and you pecked his lips, looking at him shyly before pecking them again, unable to look at him any longer so you closed the distance between you two as you hugged him. He let out a laugh of disbelief before he relaxed, burying his nose in the crook of your neck and hugging you back just as tightly, rocking your bodies slightly.

“I found a home with you too,” he whispered. “Thank you.”

You nodded, your heart filling with foreign emotions- like a pleasant tickle to your heart. Perhaps, this was what it felt like to give your heart to someone.

—-----------------------------------

Everything was happening too soon for your liking, but with the help of your friends, you were coming to terms with the fact that you could not save the Temporal Nexus Galaxy- that there was nothing that could be done and the best decision you could make was to let Star 1117 go. 

You stayed in the red zone for a whole day after your talk with Wooyoung. Exiting the red zone would mean confronting the Space Patrol and you had to make a decision before that. Jongho and Yeosang were coping by studying about time loops and talking to Star 1117 about how it worked and if there was any possibility that could work- if Star 1117 was all the past, present and the future of the Temporal Nexus, it would know if any of the decisions the residents of its galaxy made led to a hopeful future. But there was none. 

After exhausting every possibility, they finally came to talk to you and let you know that they had made their decisions- they were going to get their families out of Star 1116 and find a new home. They were also aware that some of their families and acquaintances might choose to stay and disintegrate with the planet, with their home. Now they were just waiting for you to make your decision.

And it was a little conversation with Jongho that made you wonder just what you had been so bitter about.

You joined him by the window as he stared at the blue masses of energy around the spaceship. He smiled to acknowledge your presence before saying, “Wouldn’t it be so good if we could just go back to the past and relive our childhood?”

You smiled back- your childhood really was a fond memory, something you kept very close to your heart. “How young are we talking?”

“Hmm… good question. What would you say is your happiest memory on Star 1116?”

“Honestly? Probably the time when I showed you and Yeosang that I finally learned to swim. We had a little fight afterwards about whose technique was better,” you said and he grinned at that. 

“What do you think? Would you like to go back to the past?”  

You pursed your lips in thought. Sure, your past was a golden memory and saying that you missed that time and wanted to go back wasn’t supposed to hold literal meaning, but if you were offered to go back, would you?

“What about you?” You asked.

Jongho exhaled, putting his hands in his pockets. “I wouldn’t. I like where I am now. I’m still with you and Yeosang. Nothing has changed.”

You nodded- your answer was the same. 

“And I will continue to be where the two of you are,” Jongho added. “Create more happy memories. Hell, maybe we’ll look back to this moment one day, right?”

You nodded slowly. Wooyoung had changed your perspective a lot and you were finally starting to understand Jongho.

“I might even visit Earth and see what the hype is about,” Jongho suggested and you chuckled. “Maybe we can all go to drop Wooyoung. He’s slowly taking over the spaceship. Next thing we know we’ll be calling him captain and he’ll be slaving us.”

“Right? Maybe we can chuck him into that mass and see where he lands,” you pointed at the red zone in front of you, sharing a laugh with Jongho. 

“You know, I thought about it a lot, why in all the timelines that exist, according to Star 1117, you- we keep making the same decision- trying to save the galaxy. Do you know what’s the only difference this time and why we all are seriously considering letting things be?”

“Wooyoung?”

“Yes,” Jongho confirmed. “This is the only timeline known to Star 1117 where he makes a different decision and ends up being a part of the crew. Makes you think about how the butterfly effect works, right?” He ruminated. “In all the timelines, we made different decisions that led us to the same outcome- apocalypse. Things are very different now, and this might be our last chance at making sure we do not trigger the apocalypse.”

“I know,” you folded your arms around you, hugging yourself. “We can’t be the only factor triggering the apocalypse though, right? What if we make the right decisions this time but we still end up losing everything?”

“Well… only one way to find out- if we make the right decisions now,” Jongho looked at you, hope in his eyes. “So. Did you make a decision?”

“I think you know,” you looked wistfully into the space around you. “Let’s go say goodbye to our home.”

Jongho smiled proudly at you. “Star 1117 told me that you were very bitter and hellbent on saving the galaxy in all the timelines. It’s good to see you smile like this, Captain. You seem almost human.”

“I am human,” you said casually but for Jongho, it was the first time hearing you acknowledge your human lineage and he put a hand over his mouth dramatically to stifle a gasp. You only rolled your eyes in response, spotting Wooyoung from the corner of your eye who simply passed you both a cheeky smile and waved before disappearing into the kitchen. You recalled just how adamant you had been about not accepting that you were human too. 

But being human didn’t sound so bad anymore.

And with that decision, you said your goodbye to Star 1117. The being did not thank you for making the right decision. It simply curled in on itself and weeped, the tears escaping its eyelids and evaporating into the air like glitter. You felt the being’s exhaustion and sadness as though it was tangible and that only made you more sure about what you had to do.

Right as you exited the red-zone territory, there was a spaceship waiting for you. It signalled for you to stop and a person stepped out, displaying their Space Council id and demanding to enter your ship. For a moment, you were scared of the consequences of your action- were you going to be arrested now? Would you not get to say goodbye to your home? But when the person made an okay sign, a collective sigh of relief passed and Yeosang pressed the button to open the door for them.

The tall figure clad in a black striped suit with a waistcoat entered, looking around your spaceship with curiosity. You noticed silver extensions on one of his hands, kind of like your neurons except they almost looked like an accessory. The other hand was covered in a black glove and you wondered why.

“Greetings,” he smiled. “I’m Jeong Yunho from the Space Council. It’s good to finally meet you, y/n.”

“Me?” You frowned. “Do I know you?”

“You don’t,” he shrugged, “but I do. From multiple timelines. I’ve been on your case since the very first timeline, working with Star 1117 to find a solution that does not involve exterminating you because Star 1117 insisted that while you and your friends may be its doom, you could also be its saviour.”

You suddenly felt dizzy at his admission.

“Maybe one day I’ll tell you about my adventures chasing your crew,” Yunho chuckled. “But for now… I’d like to accompany you to Star 1116 and make sure you stay on the right track. You will need me if you want to go home because I have not yet lifted your criminal charges. And… you have an unregistered human aboard,” Yunho glanced at Wooyoung who waved his hand awkwardly. “We have a lot to do, folks.”

You scanned his figure with suspicion, your neurons extracting subconsciously wanting to get a reading from him. He noticed that.

“If it helps,” he began. “I’m one of the Original Nexi. There’s a group of us that work in the Space Council solely for the sake of protecting Star 1117.”

“You’re letting Star 1117 die, though,” Yeosang commented in your stead and you silently thanked him. That had been on the tip of your tongue too.

“The Temporal Nexus is called temporal for a reason, isn’t it?” He retorted. “To protect the essence of Star 1117 and this galaxy is to protect its heart- its residents. But I think you all already understand that by now.”

The knowing smile he passed you made you want to ask more questions but he interrupted with clapping and barking orders- you were apparently short on time now and needed to inform the residents of Star 1116 and the rest of the galaxy as soon as possible so everyone could make the big decisions and they could initiate their final operation- to leave the galaxy for good.

And it was no surprise that it was Wooyoung who got the Original Nexi to talk and open up. While Jongho set the spaceship on auto towards Star 1116, the three of you watched from a corner, huddled next to each other. Not too far on the table sat Wooyoung with a warm meal for Yunho, learning anything and everything about the Original Nexi and Yunho himself, learning about his experience with your crew in the different timelines and more. You didn’t even realise that you were biting your nails with narrowed eyes full of scepticism until Wooyoung looked around for you and laughed at the sight of the three of you.

“I guess I’m relaxed because it is actually our first meeting- we haven’t met in any other timeline,” Wooyoung grinned. “Not that I would have known if we had anyway. Right?”

“Right,” Yunho grinned back, shaking his head at the three of you. “Just a reminder that we were friends in some timeline and enemies in the other.”

“Yeah, I think I can understand why,” Yeosang muttered, looking pointedly at Wooyoung. 

“How are you able to remember the timelines?” Jongho asked his first question in a while.

“These,” Yunho raised both his hands and shared a look with you. “We’re quite similar, but I’m able to look into different timelines too.”

You made an impressed face and the blinkers lit up, indicating that you were reaching Star 1116’s territory. Jongho went to steer the spaceship himself and Yunho joined him, striking up a conversation having noticed the equipment on the dashboard. While the two talked, Wooyoung joined you and Yeosang, resting his hand on your knee and squeezing it to make sure you were okay. You nodded in response and pointed at the screen, your heart filling with warmth at the sight of the star.

“We’re home.”

Home. As soon as you could see the lush green fields that surrounded your house, you were on your feet and making your way to the screen, eager to step out. You would have to land at the Space Centre where you previously worked and Yunho made sure you could pass through every security check without any inconvenience. Wooyoung stood next to you and you told him all about the Space Centre and your time as a unit there. 

Wooyoung’s eyes were filled with awe, his mouth parted in surprise as you all stepped out of the spaceship. The view from the screen had been good, yes, but nothing compared to stepping inside that picture, and for Wooyoung who was a human from Earth… you wondered if that was what your great grandparents and their team must have felt when they first landed on Star 1116.

“It’s like Earth, you were right,” Wooyoung nodded, almost jumping when a few will-o’-the-wisps circled his figure and fluttered away. Jongho giggled at his reaction and smacked his back.

“Like Earth but prettier, right?” He said. “That’s what I keep hearing.”

“No, you heard that right,” Wooyoung agreed. “Our grass looks dull compared to this- how is it so vibrant?”

“Wait till you see the lakes,” you told him, knowing that was probably the most surprising part from the memories of your great grandfather. 

“We should show him the cave too!” Yeosang joined you both. “It’s a nice spot to bury him- no one would know. He’ll be dust along with the planet-”

“And he would never make it past the tarantulas that protect the cave,” Jongho chuckled darkly and Wooyoung decided he felt safer with Yunho, falling in step with him while the Nexi shook his head in amusement at the interaction. 

“You should have chucked me in the red zone,” Wooyoung folded his arms and you snickered until you realised that he must have heard that bit from your conversation with Jongho. You exchanged a glance with the youngest who pointed at you, transferring all the blame. Wooyoung’s pout deepened and you took a deep breath.

“Boys, I’m going to steal this one for a while,” you went towards Wooyoung and hooked your arm around his, your crew hooting in appreciation and suggestively wiggling their brows, Yeosang going as far as pretending to gag. You asked Yunho if it was fine and he assured that it was, asking all of you to meet up back at the Space Centre in a few hours. You intertwined your hand with Wooyoung’s.

“What would you like to see first?”

“Hmm…” Wooyoung took a while to think, his eyes scanning everything in sight the further you walked away from the Space Centre, looking at the passersby with curiosity- you couldn’t blame him. The residents of Star 1116 looked far from human in their appearance- from looking almost human like Yeosang to having iridescent coloured skin or accessories like horns or wings.

“Show me your favourite places- all of them,” Wooyoung looked at you, kissing your temple. “Show me the shade of the tree near your house where you grew up, the lake… the places from the journals that you talked about- everything.”

“Would you like to meet my family too?” You asked hesitantly, not sure if the human would be up to it but his warm smile erased any doubts in your heart.

“I would love to.”

“My mother will love you,” you laughed. “My father can be a little… hard to please.”

“Well, I know just how to win his heart,” he winked at you and you accepted the challenge.

You showed him all your favourite places, keeping your house for the last. You walked around the streets without a care in the world for the first time in a while, making him try some local delicacies and showing him the animals unique to Star 1116- it was more of a surprise to him to find that the things you called ‘dogs’ here were more spiky than furry and he told you that you were missing out on the joy of hugging a dog. You grimaced- hugging a dog here would create pokes in your skin unless you had scales or a protective barrier like most of the aliens here.

You took him to one of the bigger lakes in the area and he was utterly fascinated by the way he could see almost every creature inside the lake thanks to the glowing properties of the soil under the lake. He experimentally dipped his hand inside the water, feeling the coolness of the lake quite like Earth’s but somehow feeling more at ease- it always unsettled him when he was near a water body on Earth and could only imagine what was prowling inside. He looked around, noticing the little things that made Star 1116 so beautiful- mountains made of smooth, patterned rocks. Trees with leaves of multiple colours, unaffected by the season and with little gems dangling from the tips of its branches where flowers would have been. The strange birds with their unusually elongated bodies that flew in the sky. The sky that was dark and the ground that he stood on that lit the planet.

It was truly a magnificent sight, and Wooyoung could understand why you- why everyone was reluctant to let go of their home.

Lastly, you walked to your house and you pointed at all the places on the way which had some memory associated with them. You told him about how the humans lived in a little community here- most of them were too old to leave their home. Some of them rarely came home, opting to explore the space instead- like you. Then you told him about your family- your mother was a crime scene investigator and your father was a medical researcher. Wooyoung was impressed to hear that and told you he would love to hear more about that.

When you reached the little cottage by the lake, you paused and took a deep breath, taking in everything. It was still the same- the wooden exterior looking worn out, the smell of wet mud filling your nose, the sound of children in the distance. You pointed at the house.

“That’s me.”

Wooyoung nodded, giving your hand a squeeze to tell you that he was ready. You walked towards the door and pressed your thumb on the lock, the door clicking open and then you heard the familiar footsteps of your mother approach you. Her face lit up at the sight of you and then she paused when she saw your hand in Wooyoung’s. She scanned him with curiosity. You looked back and forth between the two- it would only be a moment until your mother would realise that Wooyoung was not a human. And Wooyoung-

You could tell why he looked surprised- your mother wore her neuron extensions like a crown over her head at all times. Apart from her striking copper hair, she looked very much like you. 

Your mother smiled knowingly at the two of you before spreading her arms and you grinned, walking right in her embrace and melting into it. 

“Well done, love,” she whispered. “I heard about what happened with the Space Council and Star 1117. You did so well.”

“I’m sorry,” you told her, knowing that she didn’t need your words to hear what you were sorry about, nor did she need to read you. She simply knew what you meant. She always did.

“No need for that,” she drew back with a kiss to your forehead. “I see you have a guest.”

“Yes, this is-”

“A human,” your father completed that for you, clad in a mismatched outfit which was indication that he had been holed up in his room with some research again. Wooyoung finally bowed at your parents. 

“Nice to meet you. I’m Jung Wooyoung… from Earth.”

“And what are you doing here with my daughter?” Your father inquired. You may have rolled your eyes if this was any other situation but your mother let you know that she had also heard about Wooyung’s role in the recent events. Relaxing a bit, you let Wooyoung handle the situation.

“She arrested me, sir.”

The room was silent for a moment before your mother snorted, ending up with all of you laughing and you shook your head at Wooyoung- you had never told him about how your parents met but it was something similar. Your father welcomed him with a pat and kissed the top of your head before steering him to the lounge, eager to hear the stories from Earth. 

And just like that, the house became a home with Wooyoung and your mother cooking together while they chatted, your father and you catching up with each other. Not too long after, the doorbell rang and in came Jongho and Yeosang, claiming to have ‘smelt’ Wooyoung’s cooking all the way to their house. They definitely didn’t get a message from your mother to join them.

You had about half an hour left until you had to go to the Space Centre. Your heart felt full watching all the people you loved gathered and Wooyoung fitting right in as if he had always been a part of this little unit. He caught you watching him with a smile on your face and raised his brows in question. You signalled that you were going outside and once he joined you, you asked if he wanted to sit by the lake.

“I’ve been soaking up all the memories of today,” you told him, showing the neurons on your fingertips shaped like nails. “I don’t think I can ever forget today’s events.”

“I did well, right?” He smiled proudly when you nodded in response. “Well, I’ve always been everyone’s favourite even back on Earth.”

You made a face at that and he scoffed. “Read me if you don’t believe me.”

“I do believe you- you have a way of charming people,” you admitted and he grinned. You showed him the spot next to some big rocks where you used to sit when you needed space. 

“This is probably my favourite spot on the whole planet,” you told him, flattening your hands on the ground once you sat, reliving the memories of this place in quick flashes. 

“I can see why,” Wooyoung looked around. With your home on the back and the view of the mountains in the front, he thought he could stay here forever.

“Yunho told me that Star 1116 will die soon, but the galaxy itself won’t end soon- it will take some time and if we’re lucky, it won’t happen in our lifetime,” you sighed deeply. “I don’t know if that’s good or bad. We will still need to find a new home. We can’t make one in the Temporal Nexus anymore.”

“Well… if you hadn’t told me that Star 1116 was your home, I would have assumed the spaceship was,” he said and you raised a brow. “It has such a homey feel to it. We can take all our time to explore the other galaxies and find a new home.”

“We?” 

“You don’t think I’m going back to Earth just like that, do you?” Wooyoung tsk-ed. “Not without you, at least.”

“Really?” You made a face. “I thought I’d be getting rid of you soon-”

Wooyoung leaned forward right when you turned, your noses brushing and your heart fluttering. Wooyoung’s gaze fell on your lips and a little smirk creeped on his own lips. 

“I know why you have your kitty claws out, sweetheart,” he tilted his head just a fraction and you instinctively gulped. “You’ve been saving all the memories of this place- with me this time.”

Well. He wasn’t wrong. Your lack of response was an answer to him and he fully smirked as he drew back. 

You wanted to tell him that you brought him here to make one final memory of this place. You curled your fingers around his hand and when your eyes met, it was like he understood your intentions. He took your other hand and pulled you over him so that you settled on his lap.

You trailed the pointy tips of your neurons along his temple and his spine, making him shiver. He loved it when you watched him with fascination and teased him experimentally as if you were afraid of his reaction. However, he welcomed every little thing you did to him. He let you cup his face and when you kissed him, he groaned in relief before kissing you back, one hand supporting him up while the other curling in your hair. You moved your lips along his in synchronisation and you loved the way he held you.

You drew back once you were out of breath, sharing a grin- this was your first proper kiss. You rested your hands on his shoulders and he lay down on the ground, eliciting a surprised sound from your mouth at the new position. Before you could comment on it, he cupped your face and brought you in for another kiss, the other hand going to rest on your waist. It was slow and sensual, not a care for time or any other thing. Just you, Wooyoung and your favourite spot in the Temporal Nexus. 

When you broke apart and settled down next to him in his arms, you watched the stars together and you showed him one that glowed with a very familiar golden tint.

“That must be Star 1117.”

Wooyoung agreed, absently caressing your arm. You looked at him, finding him deep in thought. You scratched his chin like you had seen him do to the black cat from his home and he smiled at that.

“What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking… will you watch the stars with me every night from now on?”

You kissed his cheek in response.“Only if I get to sleep in your arms- you are my home, Jung Wooyoung.”

[v3nusxsky]

Reader cheating on her husband for her ex-girlfriend, Emily because reader still loves her. So, for a little context— Emily broke up with reader about 2 years ago, reader gets married to this man in hopes that she would forget all about Emily but she never does. Reader drives like, 5 hours to see Emily even though they haven’t seen each other in years because girly still loves her(and so does Emily). - 🐦

Reconnecting 18+

*Authors note~ gahhh this has been sat in my inbox for such a long time! I'm so sorry. But I must say it's lovely to see you again anon*

Trigger warnings~ cheating homophobic parents? Arranged marriage (mentions of forced sex) broken heart long distance, meeting online daddy em subby r strap on finegring praise kink degrading kink bite kink

Prompt~ see ask^^**

*ding*

That was the sound that started this all. Truly it was just another boring day playing house wife to a husband who you felt nothing but hate for. You never wanted to fall into a loveless arranged marriage, but what else could you do when your true love left you in tears at the airport to follow her dreams? If only you'd had enough courage to come out to your family and move with her. She couldn't hide anymore and that's why you both separated. You often thought of her, when the news showed a crime or when you would seen birth and marriage announcements on your socials. Had she finally found someone worthy? Someone who wasn't afraid to be openly hers? Part of you wished she had, but the more carnal selfish part wished she hadn't. But every day you lived with the fact you lost her.

Coming home from the airport broken hearted, left you vulnerable and your parents saw that. The took you in and nursed your broken heart before their intentions came to light. That's when you were introduced to Robin. There wasn't much about him really, successful, rich, arrogant and well typical alpha male attitude. You remained polite until her pulled out the ring. Immediately, you went to reply with a no, and your mother must have knew that because she quickly mimicked your voice to answer an affirmative. And that's how you really got stuck here.

You'd tried to wriggle out of the situation but your family had a power over you, one you weren't quite ready to admit. The day of your marriage they blabbered on about how proud they were of you, how you were making the right choice for the family. You'd be happy as long as you did everything Robin demanded. Your mother made sure you knew your job was to serve your husband, his every need. No wasn't allowed to be a word in your vocabulary. The moment you whined and tried to protest was the moment her right hand walked your cheek. You soon learned that was only the taster of what was to come, starting with your wedding night.

Blinking away the tears from those awful memories where he forcibly took what he wanted, over and over again until he finally got tired, not caring that he was so rough he'd caused you to bleed. After all you were nothing but a dumb possession of his now. That happened every night for years. Which reminds you, the message. Only one person had you number, Robin, to ensure you never planned to leave. So you naturally assumed it was him. But it wasn't. No it was your beautiful past calling.

It started with a simple Facebook message, something you hid from Robin. Every day at 18:59 you would mute her chat and delete it, preventing him from taking your one bit of happiness in this godforsaken world. She found you through Garcia, after a few months of looking, and just wanted to say she missed you. Until she saw him. The pictures where you looked so uncomfortable stood with his hand around your waist. You'd never been overly comfortable with men, so to see you'd married one was a shock. Naturally, Garcia had found more on you, and that was how she knew, this wasn't your choice. That's why she messaged you that day.

After months of talking back and forth between Emily's cases she knew more of your life now. In fact she'd asked you to phone her discreetly after your husband took whatever he wanted from you. He wouldn't care for you but she would do her best from a distance. If you knew she was on a case, you'd text and two seconds later Garcia would be phoning on her behalf. Those calls always made you crave a life with your first and only love. The stories Penelope shared with you sounded so wholesome. It helped a little to know they were there. Being raped by your husband was never easier but they just seemed to help the tiniest bit. And for that you were so glad Garcia managed to find you for Emily.

You still knew in your heart you loved Emily Prentiss, of course you did, but what you didn't know was how you'd ever be together when Robin was still alive. On some of the darker days you'd ponder on staging his suicide just to make sure he could never put his grubby hands on you ever again. But you wouldn't be with Emily in a prison cell. So you held out. Emily didn't find it easier, knowing the abuse you were still experiencing from family and now some kind of husband, really did he even deserve to have that title? You would be much safer in her arms, in her bed as her wife. So that's why she suggested meeting up.

With some extensive planning and a lot of help from the BAU you managed to sort a plan, you'd be seeing Emily this upcoming week. After all these years, you just hoped she would forgive you for your mistake. As soon as Robin left, you set out to travel the five hour journey while you knew the BAU were working on causing havoc in his business. The closer you got the more anxious you became, what if she hated you? Well that was so unrealistic you actually laughed. How could she hate you when she's made all this happen to see you? But you weren't deluded either, this wouldn't be a run away into the sunset together, you'd have to return tonight to surrender to his needs.

The moment you made it into her arms you felt safe, for the first time in years. She held you like you were a delicate flower. Someone crafted by the gods above us. Hand in hand she took you to her hotel room, she really owed her team for the personal day, and she would be straight back out to help catch the unsub tonight. But for now you were here. You'd changed a lot though, your eyes were more dull and your were slimmer than before, you're smile didn't quite reach your eyes and you held yourself like a scared child. All these things broke her heart, they'd really done a number on you, but here and now she'd promise herself to help you escape. If that was what you wanted.

You knew Emily was being cautious of you, she knew what you'd been through over the years so maybe that's why you took the lead, slamming your lips to hers and stunning the other woman. She immediately reciprocated, it's been fair to long since she's had your lips on hers. Buy reality sets in and she needs to be sure you want this. She'll never hurt you like your husband does. "We don't have to" she murmurs resting her forehead against yours as you both tried to catch a breath. "Emily, I need you to touch me. Make me feel your hands. Make me yours Emily, I've always been yours but please. I just want to feel you on me like we use to. That's all I want. Show me what it's meant to be like" you trailed off at the end scared, truly you weren't expecting to be this okay with the thought of sex, it's been something you hate for years but here and now you need her and that was all you knew.

"Okay" caused you to breathe a sigh of relief and immediately start tugging at her clothes only to be stopped by her firm hand, "we take this slow y/n I love you too much to rush this Angel."  That caused you to do a double take. Angel? Love? Such a foreign concept for you. But when she kissed your lips again it was filled with love and care. Immediately, you submitted to her, her lips kissing every inch of skin in sight. But not taking anything off. "Emily please" you whimpered trying to communicate your want. "Shhh sweetheart, I wanna take me time my love, let's get on the bed okay? Remember we can stop anytime no matter what just say the word."

But saying the word would never come. Not with Emily. But still it felt reassuring to have a choice. But as always the raven haired woman was diligent and carful with you, just how she was before. A stark contrast to what you'd been through for years. She wasn't even using her kinks for the first orgasm. Just wanting you to get use to the feel of gentle touch. You had to practically beg her to degrade you. The praise was always wonderful but you really wanted to hear her spew that perfect mix that only she could do.

"Oh sweetheart, you wanna be daddy's good little slut? A precious whore for me hmm" she purred watching your body for signs she'd gone to far, only to be met with your hips bucking against her hand and a desperate plea for more, "daddy" you whined, "make me yours please I need you." By now you were too drunk on the love to care, with Emily everything feels right and safe, and all that does is fuel your need for more. With a particular curl of her fingers that brushed just right against your G-spot you sunk your teeth into the junction between her neck and shoulder. "Oh fuck sweetheart! Good girl, such a good girl for me" she cooed working back down as your body withered beneath her.

"Em, do yo-uh -I" you panted, the confidence you use to have faltering. "You can ask Sweetheart, do I have?"  You blushed a bright red and mumbled, "your strap?" With a nod Emily when to her bedside table and low and behold, the strap laid there just ready to be used. You were surprised she still kept it, perhaps not the same one but a replica. Inserting the smaller end into her own needy cunt she strapped up watching as you liked your lips. "Do you want to wet it darling?" Panic flashed through your eyes, that would hurt. "Shhh you don't have to, I remember you use to like that, that's why I asked Angel."

Just like that the fear is soothed, Emily won't hurt you. But you stand by your answer and she secured a small bottle of lube to run along the shaft before teasing your slit the the tip of the faux cock. Her hand came to join yours, intertwining your fingers gently. "Ready?" She murmured looking into your beautiful eyes, your pupils blown so wide she could hardly see the colour anymore. "Ready " you mumbled before she pushed into your fluttering hole.

Unlike with Robin, this didn't hurt, no. You felt a serge of pleasure course down your body as you adjusted to her size. "Oh god I've missed you" you whimpered  learning up to tug her closer. The feeling of warm spots on her shoulder concerned Emily, "sweetheart? Do you want to stop?" You couldn't help but whimper a no. You truly didn't but this was just so perfect, you didn't want to leave.

Emily was always so precise in her thrusts, a slow and gentle rhythm that hit all the right spots, you  two made for each other as you tumbled over the edge together. This was everything and more but the best part was when she cleaned everything away and just held you close, threading her nimble fingers through your hair. "You're perfect" you mumble still I'm your haze of sub space, "I should've left with you all those years ago. I'm so sorry Emi" you sobbed as your shoulders shook with the pure weight of the emotion.  "Hey hey hey, I get why you couldn't. And I know what that bastard is doing to you love, with your safe so I have the team waiting for your word to take you away from him. He won't ever have to touch you again. "

That was news to you, clearly stunned you looked at her. "Garcia found out his company has links to our Unsub, that's how he's finding the girls. Robin has multiple clubs trafficking girls as young as sixteen" she explained delicately, making sure not to hold you  as she didn't want you feeling restricted. "He would go away?" Was all you had. "Of course, for a long time sweetheart. You'd be safe."  The two words weren't said but were implied, "with me." You'd always be safe with Emily, so you have the nod. Emily hurrying to make her phone call, "Garcia? Tell  the team we are a go" she rushed into the receiver. Clearly Garcia had said something but Emily was quick to shut her down and end the call. "Don't you have to go and help them Em?" You pondered, you knew what your husband was capable of and so did she. "The only place I need to be is with you. I'm never gonna lose you again." A few hours later Emily got a text saying everything went well and they even saved a few girls. You were safe now and ready to finally be with her.

Word count~2359

[romandaandromeda]

How Azumanga Daioh tells the difference between the "Old Web" and "Modern Internet"

a content warning for mentions of rape, pedophilia, and ableism (well, better safe than sorry!)

i had an entire thing written before this, but i decided to scrap it for when spacehey comes back online

so, the old web. we know what it is, we know how we see it, geocities, crunchy gifs, flashes and whatever. but have you ever seen the difference between its societies scattered across websites whether it be an imageboard, geocity, or forum against our discorded societies on major social media platforms?

a while back, i had begun watching azumanga daioh as a result of a sudden reinterest in the anime in this decade. this reminded me of how prevalent anime was on the internet as a whole 2 decades ago (and more or less, azumanga's iron grip on anons and lurkers alike), which led me to searching for how different this era was with memes.

memes, or a fad, wasn't very accessible as they are today, while some could be laughed at as an outsider (think awesome face, shoop da whoop, nyan cat, impact font memes), memes outside of the public conscious were mostly inside jokes spawned from forums like something awful or imageboards like 2chan or 4chan.

out of those many, azumanga was one of the more popular ones. think about it, funny teenagers do funny things and combine that with a major love from anime communities, you get things like these:

now what i've noticed about these memes from pre-2010 is their inside joke nature. ask the modern user what a sticky is or why they think osaka is pretending to be a nazi, they wouldn't know or be a bit offput. plus using kaorin's little lesbian crushing on sakaki to project their straight love for sakaki would probably be looked down upon now but that was just normal. if you couldn't handle it then it was either hit the road or deal with it.

you can probably guess that kimura was probably the most relatable character ever in those days, don't even get me started on the normalization of pedophile/rape jokes back then.

now that's fun and all, but how about nowadays? we no longer have a scattered culture, everyone is using one single site for entertainment and posting, and all of the forums and imageboards have been designated a hazard zone as their users have mutated into despicable folks that have been shunned away to the point where they seem more depraved than their past. AKA, they no longer care for relating over a character or talking about a show, they'd rather argue about their nitpicks of a specific character or show and just skulk on what used to be a thriving community. well, nowadays it seems you don't need to be part of a specific community anymore, just see a meme and laugh without any context. with azumanga's revival in interest, this has sort of spawned what i like to call "azumanga autism memes" (TO CLARIFY: I AM AUTISTIC, FEEL FREE TO MAKE UP YOUR OWN NAME IF MINE DOESN'T SOUND RIGHT!). as they've mostly just become the most nonsensical and silly images ever, you practically don't need to watch the show to understand because its so disconnected from the source material it's like a cup of coffee, just pick it up and have a taste.

some examples:

notice anything? suddenly, osaka takes the center stage! with exception to the one chiyo image, osaka has become the face of azumanga as the modern internet knows it. compare that to how every character had about the same love through different edits in the old web, and it seems that most people would think that osaka is the main character of azumanga instead of the multiple characters' stories spread through the series. this has seemed to piss off many a gatekeeper, who are mad that this series is only gaining interest because of one character and her vague memes. to which i believe gatekeeping such a building block of the internet like azumanga is like trying to defend an unstable shack, it's useless.

so, what can we tell from the differences between ye olde and the new? to cut to the chase, the old web's fad culture was built from inside jokes outside of the "webcore/y2k-integrated" memes used for aesthetics. and nowadays people have publicized memes to a point where context is thrown from the picture and anyone can enjoy a meme instead of enjoying its source.

which is better? i can't tell you, you don't see much enjoyability and genuine appreciation in editing in today's memes than you did with old fads (you have to make people laugh, lest you be banished to the "reddit" label hell) but the normalization of taboo topics like racism, rape, and ableism should definitely be left behind in the old. it's just personal preference, really.

that's the end of this post, please enjoy kasuga.swf:

[ahgasegotarmy116]

Falling for You | Choi Yeonjun

Summary: You like Yeonjun, and he knows it. But what happens when you figure out he just might like you too? Pairing: f!reader Noona x Yeonjun, f2l (age gap 2 or 3 years, take your pick lol) Word Count: 3.6k a/n: I am so so so so so sorry to my anon that sent this a while ago! I hope it was worth the wait <3 p.s. not edited well because I was happy I finished it and wanted to post it asap! Let me know what you think!~

"I didn't know you were such an adrenaline junkie" Yeonjun says while fastening my harness and pulling the straps tighter, making sure everything is secure. "Why do you say that?" I ask, ultimately knowing but not wanting to admit it. "Well you've been here like 4 time since I started working here and I just started last month" he says laughing at what he probably believes is my clueless nature. "I don't know, it's exhilarating. Plus it was my first time so I don't know I guess I've been addicted ever since" I finish off getting a bit defensive but ultimately it's the truth. 

"You know, in another context that could sound really dirty" he teases making my cheeks heat up. "Yeonjun!" I scold hitting his arm, looking around to make sure no one had heard him. "What? Am I wrong?" he says, clearly loving my reaction. "No you're not but aren't you supposed to be acting professional while at work?" I question, crossing my arms over my chest. He ended up getting a job at an adventure park with bungie jumping, sky diving and zip lining, amongst other not so extreme activities.   

"Yeah but I don't need to act professional in front of you because you're my friend right?" he laughs, making excuses for himself. "Yes we're friends but still!" I argue, "Aw are you getting shy?" he teases, tilting his head at me. "You wish" I say scoffing at him, fed up with his cocky attitude already. Deep down though he knows I'm loving this...and that's the dangerous part. 

I like Yeonjun, and he knows that. I've liked him for years but we've never actually addressed it and he hasn't acted on it. Which pretty much shows me he doesn't feel the same way. So this is what we do, I act like I can't stand him but go out of my way to not so subtly be around him. Where as he does everything in his power to tease me until he gets a reaction out of me. Which honestly isn't very hard when it comes to him. 

That's been our friendship dynamic for years now and I don't want to mess that up, even if it means that we can't be together the way I want us to. "You ready to go? You know the drill so if you're all set I'll get you hooked up" he says referring to the zip lining contraption. You know, I might've been here multiple times already but I still don't know any of the proper terminology besides harness and carabiner, the latter being one Yeonjun had made fun of me for calling it 'the clippy thing' just today.

"As ready as I'll ever be" I say taking everything in. "Hey, you've done this before so don't let it psych you out" he says in a softer tone, placing a hand on my chin and pulling my face back over to his, my eyes now focusing on the floor not wanting to make eye contact with him. "Eyes on me Pretty" he says and I snap my eyes up to his but take a step back when I start choking on air. 

"Cute" he chuckles at me before bringing me back over to get hooked onto the zip line. I walk with him and let him drag me along, still caught off guard by the pet name and end up overthinking and spacing out until I get to the front of the line. "Oh hello again!" the girl that works on getting people ready to go on the line says. We've spoken a few times and she seems really nice but sometimes I get a bit insecure seeing her interactions with Yeonjun. 

"Hey!" I respond, still kind of unsure if I want to do this again. "Hey!" Yeonjun yells over to me, "Just close your eyes when you take off and count to 10 then open your eyes, that's when the best part comes into view". I nod my head at him and turn back around to face the girl as she helps me get connected. 

"You and Yeonjun seem pretty close" she says, clearly fishing for information. "Yeah we've been friends for a few years so I guess you could say that" I say. "Oh you guys are just friends? I could've sworn you were his girlfriend" she says with her brows slightly pinched together. "What would make you say that?" I ask, my heart beating a little faster. "I mean he talks about you all the time so I thought that maybe..." 

"Oh no, yeah we're um, yeah we're just friends" I say awkwardly after gaining that new piece of information and looking back over to him. "You know, if you like him you should ask him out" she says following my gaze to see him smiling and laughing with another one of their coworkers. "No I couldn't, plus I'm a few years older so I don't know" I say getting kind of embarrassed at the fact that I've admitted that I have a crush on a younger guy, and not only that but a close friend that's a younger guy.

"Wouldn't that be a bit weird?" I question, bringing my attention back over to her. "I don't think so. I mean it's not like you're 40 years old or something. Two or three years isn't that bad. Just think about it, I've seen you here so many times and I know for a fact that you both would make a really cute couple" she finished.

"I don't know about that" I say still turned towards her. "Don't know about what?" Yeonjun says sneaking up on me. "Don't sneak up on me like that! Do you see how far that fall is?" I scold and point towards the forest hundreds of feet bellow us. "You would've been fine silly. Plus you're already hooked up to the line. What's been taking you so long? I thought you went already" he asks, puzzled and looking back and forth between me and his coworker that I had been talking to.

"We were just catching up a bit" she says with a smile making an easy excuse. "You know Summer" he asks, speaking to me while pointing at the girl that I now know as Summer. "Yeah I've helped her out a few times since she's been here" she says and he nods, pacified with that answer. 

"So are you ready to go now?" he asks, double checking what I can assume is my harness, making sure I'm as safe as I can be. "I guess so" I answer again, kind of losing the thrill of the activity because of what Summer had just told me. 'Should I really ask him out?' I think to myself. "Noona?" he calls for me. "Huh? Did you say something?" I ask, feeling bad that I had spaced out on him. 

"I asked if you would like me to go with you? We can race if you want! Then I'll walk you over to the next thing you have planned. Skydiving right?" he asks trying to recall my agenda for the day. "No not yet, after this I'm going bungie jumping and then sky diving to finish out the day" I say filling him in once again.

"Sorry, with so many people that come here I sometimes get things mixed up" he says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck which is strange since things like these aren't usually what gets him acting like this. In fact I don't think I've ever seen him act like this "It's fine Yeonjun don't worry about it. So are we gonna race or not?" I ask deciding to just move past what could turn into an awkward conversation. "Sure, just give me a sec and I'll put on a harness" he says and runs off to do as he's said. 

"Did you see that?" Summer asks, "See what?" I question back. "How he wanted to help you when you get to the other side and how he offered to race you to make you less scared and how embarrassed he got with the fact that he forgot the order you're going in today, how much he lit up when you asked him if he still wanted to race how-" "Okay Summer, okay I get it" I laugh cutting her off. "Well, if you don't ask him out soon then I'll ask him out for you if you want?" she questions trying to help me out. 

"That would be even more embarrassing than just doing it by myself" I say shaking my head and getting nervous just thinking about it. "What would be embarrassing?" Yeonjun asks, this time thankfully not sneaking up me. "Nothing don't worry about it. You ready?" I ask, trying to run away from this conversation. "Yeah um, sure" he says getting even more suspicious with us than he had been before. 

"Just think about it okay?" Summer says when she comes back around after double checking Yeonjun's connection for him and now triple checking mine for an excuse to encourage me one last time to which I just nod and get myself mentally prepared for this zip line as well as the prospects of potentially asking him out myself. "Alright guys, three...two...one...GO!" Summer yells and we both set off with Yeonjun just a second faster than me, already gaining a clear lead. 

"Hey that's not fair!" I yell, laughing at his awkward position which makes him go a lot faster, knowing that I wouldn't dare do something like that. "Hurry up then!" he says going back to sitting normally to which I take advantage of and decide to try out what he had been doing before, zooming past him. "Noona! Not fair!" he whines behind me and tries his best to catch up. "Hurry up then" I tease using his own words against him and this all goes on back and forth until we finally reach the end with me finishing just a second or two before him. 

"I took it easy on you" he says making excuses for his loss. "Sure you did" I taunt, knowing full well that he pretty much did. "That's the last time though! I want a rematch!" he demands, needing to regain a sense of pride. "Maybe next time, come on let's go!" I say excitedly and drag him right along with me. 

The walk to the bungie jumping area isn't too far off and it's spent still bickering with each other about the results of the race. "Fine you won, but I'm gonna go upside down when we go bungie jumping and then I'll win this round" he says and speeds up, trying to get there first. "Hey! You can't win at bungie jumping, you either jump or you don't jump, that's it." I argue, failing to see his logic. 

"Yeah but we can one up each other" he retorts and gets in line. "Fine, then I'll go upside down too" I say once I catch up to him. "Wait really?" he asks, completely surprised that I would even say that, let alone go through with it. 

"Why? Are you trying to get me to back out so you can win?" I say raising a brow at him. "So there is a winner" he says and pokes my side, to which I return with a slap of his arm. "By your logic, yes there is. But if we both go upside down then it's a tie which means I'm still in the lead" I say, satisfied by the outcome, but only if I actually do it.

"Do you want to go first or should I?" he asks. "Is that even a questions? You go first" I say and push him in front of me in line. "Fine but don't chicken out after I go because you think it's 'too scary' he says in air quotes. I give him a sarcastic smile and a wack him in the arm as a response. "OW!" he yell, obviously playing it up. "Well then stop making fun of me and just go" I say showing him it's his turn already.

I watch every step they take in hooking him up to make sure I'll be mentally prepared for my turn. "You got this loser" I yell as encouragement after they put him in position and he does nothing but smile in response. "Alright you ready?" the worker asks and Yeonjun sends a quick nod before they give him a countdown from three and drop him a few seconds afterwards. I lean forward a bit to try to get a better look at him but by his screaming and laughing alone I can really tell he's having a great time.

"Noona oh my gosh that was so fun!" he says coming over and giving me a hug enveloping my whole body, probably in an effort to steady himself on his feet. "You ready?" he asks with a huge smile and I can't help but laugh and say yes after seeing how happy he seems. A few seconds later though, that's another story. 

"Wait Yeonjun, can't I just go the regular way?" I plead, questioning all of my life choices up until this moment. "Nope, you promised me that you would do it if I did" he scolds. "I did no-" "Shhh" he quiets me before telling the guys I'm ready to go. They start placing everything they could possibly need to to keep me from dying on my ankles as well as answer any of my questions and assuring me I'll be fine. 

"Hush you'll be fine, just tell them when you're ready" Yeonjun says, peer pressuring me into doing it. "Fine" I mumble before letting the guys know. As they start to hoist me up into the contraption that drops me I shut my eyes trying to imagine myself anywhere but here. "Noona open your eyes!" to which I shake my head just enough for him to notice, not daring to make any sudden movements. 

"Open your eyes or I'll kiss you" he yells and at that my eyes open as wide as they possibly could seeing him with a smug smile before giving me the countdown. "Three..." "Yeonjun no!" "Two" "No stop I'm done playing get me down!" and before I hear him say one I feel myself drop and get the wind knocked out of me. Once I regain some air in my lungs after the first bounce I start to scream which slowly turns into laughing like crazy just as Yeonjun had done moments before. 

"How was it? It was amazing right?" he says with a huge smile on his face, still so amused at my reactions before the drop. "OW!" he says rubbing his forearm after having hit him for a second time. "Next time listen to me!" I say and try to take a step but stumble backwards a bit, still needing to regain my center of gravity. "Careful there" Yeonjun says pulling me back up by my harness. 

My eyes widen at the proximity between us now and I look up at him and he leans closer until his nose brushes against mine with my eyes closing shut getting flustered by everything about him. "I guess I shouldn't kiss you since you opened your eyes back there huh?" he whispers and before I'm able to process what he's said he's already ten steps ahead of me. 

"Hey!" I yell and jog to catch up with him. "What was that about?" I ask him with a deep crease between my brows which he puts his thumb on to encourage me to stop furrowing my brows. "What was what about?" he asks, playin dumb. 

"You know, all that kissing talk" I say deciding not to shy away from the subject. "Why? Did you want me to kiss you Noona?" he asks with a devilish smile with his eye facing forward keeping an eye on where we're going. "I didn't say that" I retort, unamused with this entire conversation but taking advantage to look up at his side profile nonetheless. "Sure you didn't. Race you to the airport!" he says and takes off running. "Hey! No fair!" I yell and run after him anyways even with no chance in hell of beating him.

"Took you long enough" he says cheekily, already having the chance to catch his breath while waiting for me. "Your legs are longer than mine are" I pant, with my hands on my knees. "You okay?" he asks, placing a hand on my back. "Peachy keen" I say, almost having calmed my breathing down after a minute or so. 

"Drink this" he says and hands me a bottle of water, to which I gulp down half of it. "Thirsty huh?" he says with a smirk and I roll my eyes at him, not bothering to dignify his statement with a verbal response but he takes satisfaction with what little I've given nonetheless. 

"So are you ready?" he asks when I've finally gotten back to normal. "Yeah but I haven't done this one before so I don't know what I should be doing" I admit. "It's fine let me teach you, that's what I'm here for right?" he says with a genuine smile. "Right" I say, matching his smile and he walks me through all of the procedures and safety precautions. 

"Did you want to go with me or did you want one of the other instructors to go with you?" he asks. "How would it be a competition if we went together? I'll go with one of the other instructors silly" I say, surprised by his question and pushing his shoulder a bit to go grab them. "And you better go with one too so it's even!" I yell after him as he jogs over to where they're at. 

Once we get up in the air and are close to jumping I notice that Yeonjun starts to space out a bit. "Are you okay?" I ask concerned as to if he should actually be jumping or not. "Yeah no I'm fine don't worry about it" he says and we both get pulled away from the conversation to get hooked up to each of our respective instructors. 

"Hey!" Yeonjun yells at me before we jump. "What?" I yell back so he knows for sure I've heard him. "Will you go out with me?" he yells and jumps off right after leaving me stunned. "You ready?" the guy I'm jumping with asks me. "Um yeah" I say and he gives me a countdown before we drop out of the plane. 

Falling through the sky is a feeling that I can't even begin to describe, with the wind in my face and seeing how tiny everything looks from up here it's actually insane. I'm not able to focus on that though ever since Yeonjun asked me if I would go out with him. Was he kidding? Was he just trying to tease me? How am I supposed to respond once we finally parachute down and we're back on the ground. 

I'm broken out of my train of thought when the guy behind me asks me if I'm okay since I haven't hardly made a sound. "Yeah I'm fine" I yell back. "Well then let me hear you say YEAH!!!" he yells, obviously trying to make sure that I'm actually not freaking out to which I respond to with a 'HELL YEAH' which seems to make him laugh.

Once we finally get close enough he pulls the tab to the parachute and we slowly but surely make our way back into the field next to the airport we had started out at. "So?" Yeonjun asks after coming over and helping me up off the ground. "So what?" I ask, not sure exactly what he's referring to since I'm still not sure if he meant what he said back there. 

"What's your answer?" he asks with a shy but excited smile, clearly hoping I say yes. Instead I grab one of the straps on his harness and pull him into me and kiss him, only lingering for a few seconds, although I want more. Once I pull back he rests his forehead against mine and whispers "Well I guess I got my answer then" before angling my face back up towards his to kiss me properly. 

Pushing back from him afterwards I push on his chest to create some distance between us as he's grabbed my waist in the meantime. "You better not make me regret this" I say giving him a stern look, making sure he'll take this seriously. 

"Don't worry Noona, I won't let you slip away"

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[overelegantstranger]

madpunk inflected mental health and hearing voices talk under the cut

i've been thinking about the hearing voices thing. For a little clarity I'm going to define my terms. by "hearing voices" I'm meaning three things:

the near constant thoughts of "you should die, you should kill yourself, everyone would be better off if you weren't around" that happen on my period, and which always feel like they're coming from, if not literally outside my head, outside "my space" in my head. At at least one point, they felt/sounded like they were coming from a female, mother-y person, whose voice was very specific and distinct

the similar, but not identical, thoughts that can happen when i'm, or possibly Tank is, struggling with feeling angry or resentful or upset. The last time he experienced it, he described it as an internal radio he couldn't get away from, to the point of trying to physically block his ears and drown it out. These often start as like, for example, "I can't believe they would do that" and might be Tank's or my thoughts, and escalate until they become a "radio", causing feelings of anger and resentment that are disproportionate to the thoughts that either of us would have laid claim to

The having of at least two other people in my head who seem able to project thoughts to me. This one is, in a way, the hardest to identify, because I thought it was normal for a long time, and I don't precisely know how much internal dialogue is "normal" and how much is potentially included in "hearing voices". So say I might be saying in my head "I'm just feeling x, y, z" and then I might "hear" "yeah, because a, b, c", such as you might have when telling a friend what you're feeling. and sometimes these dialogues would confuse me, like, why am i having these "yeah, and" thoughts? it's just rephrasing what i JUST said, or put words on what was vaguely in my mind. But overall I thought they were just normal and maybe they are.

I've been thinking about all these, but particularly the first two. Initially I was looking into menstrual psychosis, because psychosis is a "scary", stigmatised term and I wasn't sure if I had discounted it because of stigma (context: I maybe have PMDD but the timing is always on my period, never before. But menstrual psychosis, while timed correctly, doesn't seem to match my symptoms).

And I just kept thinking. There was something about being at therapy on Monday, and being openly plural and talking a little about my childhood, and having my pluralness accepted as fact, that made me kind of see it from outside and think that this isn't really super "normal", like, idk.

I guess, because my mum has depression, that me developing an intense anxiety issue and even OCD, is "normal". I realise for most people this is an Issue, but for me, while it's scary and awful and disabling, That's Just What Brains Do. I have at least four generations of mental health problems on that side, you know? I have just sort of absorbed the idea of being mentally ill without it shifting my mental perception of myself, because to me, it was as natural as being blue-eyed.

But now, I'm beginning to both clearly see that firstly, my anxiety and ocd was not a forgone conclusion and not an unfortunate genetic side effect but instead a response to how I was raised and how fucked up my childhood was, and see that what I'm experiencing now is something that someone outside of me might call insane (no stigma necessarily intended; we're a madpunk household).

Like, I was, while living with my parents, actively experiencing symptoms that are socially a shorthand for "insane". I still am now but the point is that that was so invisible I didn't even recognise it for the potentially worrying symptom it was. And maybe in a clinical sense what I'm talking about Isn't really hearing voices. I don't really know. But the point is I'm finally seeing myself as actively, actually, mentally ill, due to largely avoidable incidents and patterns of behaviour from my caregivers, and that those patterns of behaviour have, and i'm using this language for emphasis, actually driven me insane.

[pinkriaji]

Sooooo on the note of me not being able to sleep, I will give you my experience on not consciously manifesting for an ENTIRE year

In a ✨️non aesthetic post✨️😗

Trigger warning⚠️: mention of bad mental health, bad experiences, unaliving, long post too btw

Do you guys remember how your life was before you found out about manifestation?

Well I didn't, I found out subliminals in 2018 and Loassumption in 2020, so all this time I've been manifesting, changing limited beliefs, reprogram my mind and all of it.

Last year, exactly around this time, I felt stuck, I've had success in manifesting things but my life hadn't had a BIG change, I've seen posts here about people waking up in their desired reality, manifesting out of thin air, incredible changes in their beauty or body, etc

While I haven't, and that really affected me, so I decided to start a little challenge for myself, not manifesting for an entire year, exactly as it sounds. Not that I wanna scare you, cause ay the end of the day, it was my experience. But 2023 was a really hard year, it sort of felt that manifestation sort of became this veil that kept things in my reality under " a positive control" (for a little context in 2020 I had a really really really bad awful mental breakdown and at the same time I was struggling with a stalker) when I found Loassumption, that man did got out of my life, but I noticed that my focus was to sort of recover my mental health and maintain it, and sort of nothing happened in the years that follow, so when I decided to stop consciously manifesting, that sort of veil got lifted and i had a really bad year.

I struggled with loneliness, I lost friendships, my family got into debt, and more things that just made life difficult. It was my last year in college and I had lots of problems with that too, I had to do a bunch of things and I couldn't rely on consciously manifesting anything.

Now I can't come in here and tell you that after all of that, I had a fairytale ending where I woke up in my desired reality/dream life, and suddenly, everything was perfectly ok. Sadly, that wasn't my experience, I had to face my emotions and the experiences that I went through instead of escape. I had to see and experience all of my limiting beliefs, and ultimately come to terms with the idea that even if I don't live the life I want, there's still life.

I was sooo attached to the idea of a dream life, that when I started asking myself what exactly is my dream life, I noticed that it was empty, it was based on ideas and prompts that could be aesthetically pleasing and desired by many, but it didn't have something important, it didn't had my actual genuine desires and wants.

So let me ask you, do you really know your dream life? Do you actually know what you want? Cause that could be what is stopping you from seeing results.

Don't take this in a way of me telling you that some things are impossible to manifest or that you can only manifest what is "meant" for you.

I believe that since we all create our own realities, we also create our own destinies, but that doesn't stop our souls from desiring something specific that we may not be in the right tune to know about it.

Meditate if what your manifesting is something that you naturally want and desire or if is something that everybody told you to desire

+ also meditate on the idea of not getting what you want, it doesn't have to be pessimistic nor a sentence.

For example, if you are manifesting being a model, try to think how it would be if you became a teacher? Or a chef or a writer. Not because you can't manifest that desire path, but as a way to show yourself that whether you get what you want or not, life will keep happening. If you mediated on that, think, "Yes, life continues, but nothing else feels right." Then congratulations, I think you have really found what is meant for you 🫂💖✨️

[iceiclehorned]

Where only seconds ago March 6th had held a dramatic monologue with her back turned, a fight between Stellaron Hunter and the Nameless being an inevitable part of the script (she thinks, she nevr got too proper instructions compared to the others)…but it was interrupted when she turned around and spotted March 7th.

"Wait a second! Timeout!" She looked in awe at the other, blinking once or twice before letting out a dramatic gasp "Are you like my lost sister???"

She moved over more closely, this was amazing! It was perfect even! A bright smile formed on her lips as she clapped her hands together. "I can't believe it! We've so much to catch up on once I've done my part of the script here! We should maybe get some ice cream! There is this nice place I wanted to check out later..."

It was so nice to have a younger sister finally! She assumed at least she was the older one, she always wanted to be the older one…

(for context march 6th is my stellaron hunter!verse march uwu)

The intensity of the situation had March 7th body straining to its maximum, utilising every acquired skill to fend off the oncoming enemies. There had been a split (as per usual, and she couldn't understand why they bothered to split up sometimes), with her appearance becoming slightly lagged. A flood of destruction in the path of the Trailblazers, only to lead to somebody that looked ominously familiar. It hadn't been until she heard her own voice echoing out did she take the time to peer upward, to see a devious counterpart of herself. At first, she wondered if this had been some sort of prank, but the other's initial response to her existence quickly flipped the script on the matter.

"W--wait, but that can't be right! There's another version of me that's a Stellaron Hunter?"

Welt and Himeko always took the time to teach the Nameless about remaining cautious in any face of danger. However, could a carbon-copy of her truly count as such? It was like a reflection of absolute cuteness, and despite the uncertainty enveloping her heart, there was some part of her being that wondered if this was a case of cloning. Surely, if that had been the case, a being to mirror her absolute moral-codes and natural disposition of life, the path she chose wouldn't stray from it so absolutely, right?

What if their circumstances to life mirrored, with two different factions taking them in?

"If you are my sister, wouldn't it have been written in Elio's scripts?"

Why would Elio not inform one of his own about something so intricate? Kafka had once mentioned under interrogation that the entirety of a situation is not always knowledge they are privy to, pertaining to the logistics of how his scripts worked. If knowing the right thing at the wrong time could trigger a collapse in THEIR overall plan, then why not inform a person as unpredictable as March's sister (??) about something that could distract her from that overarching mission? Clearly, something was not lining up, but what was she to do when the glaring possibility was in her face?

"Either way... ice cream doesn't sound so bad."

Winning her over was a piece of cake, even if she did not want to admit it. Something sweet to lighten a confusing moment in time was more than enough to have her elevating with joy. Even when the mischievous Trailblazer would spoil her, the lengths somebody as cute as her potential sibling would understand her wavelength would be on a different scale! The idea itself was having her mind swirl around with images of different delights she could indulge in, a stomach giving a rumble in response. Many theories about the workings of this situation surfaced, but the one thing she was terrified of? If the Stellaron Hunters had such big bounties, and March's sister is apart of that circle, would that not mean there's a big number above her head, too?

"W--wait a minute! You can't hurt my friends!"

Reality would catch up with her eventually, disapproval laced in with her tone, but there was also a burning determination not to let anything happen to them. This situation was easily sticky, but there would be no allowance in sight for it to become anything too soppy. Newly developing circumstances blossom at all over the world simultaneously, aiding those in need, as well as those that appeared to already possess a great prowess for utilising situations to their advantage, outside of their karmic region. There would be no way something of this caliber would suddenly distract her from the fierce desire to protect her family.

[sweetcloverheart]

Clover Rants Miraculously: “Okay, but why?”

Warning for spoilers below for “Transmission (Pt.1)” and the script/bible leak for “Derision” and plotstuff, so read on with caution

I see a lot of talk about Chloe’s comment in “Transmission” about having forced Marinette to request to come to school and...wasn’t feeling any of the anger some of the rest of the fandom was feeling about it. Like, it’s still an awful thing to do to someone and to go through as a 14 year old, but the urge to revile Chloe for tormenting Marinette like that just didn’t bubble up.

At first I thought “Maybe it’s because I like both characters that how awful the thing she did is isn’t hitting me” - but I was able to hate Chloe in the beginning, and I do remember being genuinely angry when she locked Juleka in the bathroom in “Reflekta” so I knew it couldn’t be that. Then I considered that maybe I was finally reaching the point of being burnt out by the show, but despite my upset over various plot developments and reveals (*glares at Gabriel and the season finale*), I still have some love for the show and a handful of characters as well as the fandom, so it wasn’t that either. And then after scrolling through tumblr and letting my thoughts wander, I finally realized why it wasn’t clicking with me - because it has the same issue I had with Zoe and her backstory in that we’re told “Chloe did bad thing to Marinette” without really giving any setup or context for it.

“Chloe bullied Marinette so badly she needed her permission to go to school in the past.” sounds and is terrible on it’s own and naturally kicks off the gut reaction to be sad for Marinette for going through this and angry at Chloe for instigating it - but then I have to ask “Okay, but why?” Why did she do it? What actually happened? What led up to the incident? And most importantly - Why Marinette? What is it about her (aside from her being our plucky underdog protag) that made Chloe hone in on her and begin a years long bullying campaign from Kindergarten that apparently resulted in her forcing her out of school for how long until she had beg to come back?

And I feel like it should have been made a thing/explained since we’re speedrunning so many plot points right now and also because we’ve had five seasons and still have not been given any real explanation for the story behind Marinette and her struggle against her “Civilian Hawkmoth” Chloe Bourgeois. Since the conflict between them was already happening in the beginning, I didn’t think much of it because “average everyday kid MC has a bully they have to deal with” was staple for magical girls and the like. But then the show revealed the bullying has been happening since kindergarten (which has me asking how the mayor’s daughter and a baker’s kid managed to be the same circles enough to know each other well enough to become bully and victim? Unless this was before Andre took office, but even then I can’t imagine they had the opportunities to interact...), and I found myself intrigue at the story behind such long standing animosity and wanting to learn more about it and how exactly we got to Chloe constantly sabotaging and tormenting Marinette before getting Marinette being able to snap back with her head held up high

And I still do because I feel it would have gone a long way in properly setting her up as our heroine’s foil and future opponent more. Chloe just being an asshole to Marinette (alongside everyone and their mother) for kicks with no explanation was fine back in season 1 when she was just a minor antagonist who was just supposed to try and hinder Adrienette progress/cause the akuma of the day, but now that she’s being made Lila’s future flying monkey and the show’s trying to hype her up as “Worst than Gabriel#2″ alongside everything that’s been revealed about her, you’d think we’d finally get to the bottom of what started her one-woman crusade against Marinette (and imply maybe learning just what exactly happened between them that spited Chloe so much that she went as far as forcing Marinette to stay home until she had to literally get Chloe’s verbal permission to attend classes again). But so far, like with Adrien never learning his true origins, the show doesn’t see to want to actually give a proper story on what set the two against each other. (Also, how come we didn’t get this info sooner? Why wasn’t this relevant back when Tikki and the rest were pushing Marinette to let Chloe be a hero? Or after she took back the Bee Miraculous? How come we didn’t hear more about her previous Pre-Series bullying incidents against Marinette when they would have been useful in setting up Chloe’s betrayal in “Miracle Queen” instead of being (yet) an(other) unsubtle “See, Chloe’s terrible! Hate her!” tossaway line)

It also doesn’t help that Chloe has...basically been a huge non-entity for a majority of the season (and also prior). Like why should I care she forced Marinette to have to ask her to go to school who knows how long ago if she 1)Is not involved in the episode plot of the day, 2)Isn’t going to be a major player in the current storyline regarding Hawkmoth and the Rings, or 3)The information isn’t going to be relevant other than the show once again begging the audience to hate Chloe. I mean, it’s a messed up thing, yes - but Chloe has been doing bad/messed up stuff to everyone the entire series since episode one. This is less “Oh god Chloe’s just the worse! >:C” and more “Okay...thanks for telling me this?”. Just more of the usual. It’d be one thing if she had revealed it in a threat against Marinette (”Back off of Adrien, Baker girl - or do you need another few months off school again?”) or casually told Adrien and it helped facilitate his eventual dissolving of their friendship, but it’s basically being used to go “Oh, you thought Chloe was evil? Well this will show you that she’s not just evil - but super duper evil!” And instead of feeling the carnivorous urge to pray for Chloe to get slapped hard across the face with violent karma as I finally “accept” that she’s actually a evil horrid monster the show has been begging me to see her as, I just can’t help but go “You told me this last episode. I already know Chloe bullies Marinette and is super duper evil, you can stop selling me on it. Also Lila did this first (“Ladybug”) so this feels like a repeat. Don’t you guys have any new material? Actually, can we talk about Lila instead - you want her to be the next big bad right? I want to know what’s she’s doing to lead up to that.”

Also, as mentioned in a another post, the entire thing is...very small potatoes compared to what’s going on the plot right now, especially with Chloe’s role being so reduced since S4. I know a lot of people tend to get defensive when it comes to how people talk about Chloe’s bullying/behavior towards Marinette (especially when they themselves were bully victims in the past and the dismissiveness some people treat it with hits too close to home), but as a former bully victim myself also, I genuinely can’t really find it in me to force myself to focus on Chloe and her past cruelty to Marinette with everything else going on (yes, even with the ability to multitask and care about multiple things at once). Like, is it really that important Chloe’s bragging about forcing Marinette to stay home back in the past when our two leads just now had to give up their miraculouses and are uber depressed about that while Hawkmoth has tracked down the people they passed them on to and is planning another big plan to swipe them. Especially when, again - this information is not and will not be relevant to the plot at hand. It’d be one thing is it was meant to foreshadow/set up for “Derision” (and maybe it is) or was leading up to a flashback episode explaining what triggered Chloe into targeting Marinette in the first place, and maybe it will be relevant/explained next season or later in the future, but until then if it isn’t about something to either build off of for Chloe getting involved as a major villain by her own right, Marinette’s growth as a character, or the overarching plotline either involving Hawkmoth or the Lovesquare progress - I’m not sure what the show wants me to do with the info at this point (other than squirrel it away for future fanfic material)?

And before anyone goes “Well bad people don’t need reason to be bad”, and yes I know not every bully character gets this huge dramatic backstory for why they hate the lead or needs their evil justified - I’m not asking for that. I don’t need a reason for why Chloe is doing bad things to Marinette, I just want actual buildup/a proper background to when it started and what kicked it off so I can properly be angry/sympathetic like the show apparently wants when it drops lines like this.

TLDR: The show has basically dragged out the “Chloe bad/did evil bad thing once” thing too long and now every time they bring up one of her “crimes” I’m just bored instead of righteously angry like the show wants be to be, especially when they haven’t explained why Chloe started bullying Marinette in the first place.

[flutteringfable]

finally found the time to watch generation loss and oh??? my gosh!????? i love ranboo’s stuff and i already had high expectations from hearing all the buzz about it but this totally blew me out of the park in a way i didn’t expect at all.

go watch it, even if you aren’t into ranboo it’s a great thing on its own. it starts a little slow but that’s on purpose!! just trust the process, as they say <3 (i’m using that in the wrong context i know but shhhhh)

anyway time to scream about it in an essay long post because i’m so incredibly normal about this series and not being a horror/arg nerd about it at all nope no way why would you think that ahaha.

[spoilers ahead! there’s only three episodes, all up on their vod channel and about an hour each! it’s so worth a watch!!]

okay, so, episode one was nothing like what i was expecting right off the bat.

i’ve seen the stuff on the actual genloss channel, and i figured it would all be sort of that vibe. imagine my surprise upon seeing ranboo sneeg and charlie being a little bit silly in a cabin in the woods (and also christian hell? for some reason?). i stuck through it, though, no matter how taken aback i was. it was so worth it in the end, but i’ll get to that later teehee <3

the cyoa aspect was cool! i wish i had been there to see it live, because i’m the biggest sucker for choice based stories and arg-style games.

not much more to say abt ep1, to be honest. just know that it’s definitely a completely different vibe than what you’ll probably expect (ranboo said this was on purpose!!). oh also i love squiggles he is everything to me. a little guy. a blorbo even. even if he uh, did turn out to be evil like i originally suspected.

ep 2! this one was almost equally silly in nature, but you can see the “cracks” begin to show a lot more in this one. (“why is cracks in quotes?” you may ask. well, iykyk, and if you don’t, watch episode three.)

the puzzler was great, i think it was hilarious that the mask was basically just how he looked anyway. the beginning was a good hook, i genuinely thought we were getting into the juicy stuff when ranboo was locked in the chair.

when he found charlie, i’m ashamed to admit that i didn’t expect charlie’s guts to be slime. that’s his thing. he’s a goopy gushy guy. i should’ve known. anyway. the part where the “illusion” starts to break and the slime turns to blood for a moment?? DELICIOUS. SO GOOD. MWAH.

NIKKI’S SUDDEN SWITCH IN HER INTRO ON THE CAROUSEL????? so good. everyone’s acting was incredible tbh especially in ep 3, i’m so happy. the silly death dialogue from ethan was great (until it wasn’t. iykyk, i’ll get to it), too. THE HAT BIT??? WHERE THEY REPROGRAMMED SNEEG??? AAA?????? so in love with this episode, it was the perfect transition to the hell that is ep 3.

okay so. ep 3. where do i start omg. i guess at the beginning, that makes sense.

i was really excited to finally have a name for hatch! honestly, even though my villain-senses were sounding off all sorts of alarms in my head, i was fooled for a short while as he was guiding ranboo. learning about the drones was interesting, too. lots of good lore built around the company and those guys! very cool ^^

WHEN RANBOO WENT AGAINST THE AUDIENCE AND CHOSE THE YELLOW CODE. IM RUNNING OUT OF WAYS TO EXPRESS MY EXCITEMENT AND AWE,,,,, UHHHH YIPPEEE???? I GUESS????? that was the thing that really set me off about hatch being maybe not so great. good stuff!!!!

ranboo finding the streamers pretty much locked in those mall restaurants!! AND CHARLIE DOING AN ACTUAL STREAM DURING IT!!!!!! gah, this series is so cool!!!!!! them constantly on the run from the drones and security (TERRIFYING monster, btw, i love when evil dystopian corporations have monsters as security <3) was so wild to watch. i don’t think i’ve been that anxious for the main characters of a series for quite some time.

them seeing the cabin set. ohhhhh my gosh. and then charlie dying (? presumably) at the hands of security before ranboo hits the button to stop everything. graaagh i ate that UP. again i’m running out of ways to express my love for this series lmaoo.

the “ending.” oh my goodness the fakeout “ending.” i was so thrilled, so happy for ranboo i let my guard down and was like “yes!!!! evil bad guys stopped woohoo!!! get this guy some rest and therapy!!!”

and then they bowed.

when i tell you i GASPED. like it was my fault for not checking the time on the video and having my guard down but i GASPED.

hatch letting the audience choose if ranboo lived or died. hearing ranboo scream and beg to be set free, and then beg to die…. i genuinely teared up. despite the rather grim choice to have them die, i think it was for the best. though i do wonder what would have happened if the votes stayed 50/50….. if anyone knows if ranboo has talked about that anywhere, do let me know! if not, i’ll shoot them an ask about it, because i’m sure it would’ve been interesting.

anyway, this series was so much cooler than i ever could’ve imagined. i was already invested in the stuff on the genloss channel, like i mentioned, but seeing the project for myself and getting to watch this incredible series was breathtaking. i’m a huge nerd for dystopias and horror, and ranboo somehow nailed combining them both with great comedy and a great story.

and i’ve heard it’s been nominated for an emmy? or something???? that’s literally so cool!!!! i wish ranboo the best of luck in future projects, genloss was a fantastic watch and i can’t recommend it enough <3

[bridgertonbabe]

You know I love throwing real royal happenings at you for the Royals AU (& at @silverhallow for her royal footballer AU), so inspired by the most chaotic royal event in modern history (Princess Ariane's christening) what event/occasion is going on? Are the children on a sugar rush or...? Yeah, basically, how did we end up here?

No, but seriously, I love children being children & especially in royal context but this is just... Whenever I see pictures of this I'm just like "control your children for goodness sake! the guy can't do his job!" 😂

So a few months after the family photo fiasco comes Charlie's christening and the baby prince is adorably engaged with all of his surroundings, gazing about the cathedral in awe, curiously watching the archbishop when she spoke, and even gurgling appreciatively after the choir sung - but what he was most engaged by was the constant activity of his cousins.

It had started off innocently enough when Caroline got up from her chair, grabbed her cushion, and walked over to Queen Violet and Princess Francesca before dumping her cushion on the floor and sat herself down between her grandmother and aunt. Carrie had never really been a disruptive child and her parents breathed a sigh of relief, naively believing that was the most any of their children would act out.

However just a few minutes later Belinda got to her feet and before her father could grab a hold of her, she had waltzed off and began peering round pews and going for a wander around the cathedral. Though they no longer had eyes on her, they knew she wouldn't be able to walk straight out of the building and seeing as she wasn't causing a scene her parents decided to just let her be.

But Amelia had other ideas. She frowned on after her sister and once she had disappeared out of sight, Amelia jumped to her feet and marched after her.

"Belle!" Amelia's squeal was heard around the sacred chapel and with a peeved exhale the Grand Duke had to politely excuse himself to fetch his eldest daughters.

Meanwhile Crown Prince Edmund crossed the floor out of reach of his parents and came face to face with Charlie, pulling faces and nattering away to his baby cousin and provoking delighted giggles out of Charlie. The king and queen quietly tried beckoning their son back over but he didn't pay them any attention as he began playing peek-a-boo with Charlie, eliciting excited squeals from the baby of the family every time his cousin "reappeared" right in front of him.

Simon marched his daughters back to their chairs but now the two little girls wore matching scowls and pouted petulantly at one another. Their father had sat back down for all of thirty seconds before Belinda firmly decided she didn't want to be sat next to her sister and took her cushion and stormed off to pop it down on the steps of the alter before sitting herself down and sticking her tongue out in Amelia's direction. Daphne's hand was clamped down on her eldest enough to prevent Amelia from charging over to her sister, though the little girl still whined and huffed sulkily.

During another hymn one year olds Miles and David toddled about, rather sweetly hugging each other and then decided to dance along to the religious song, bopping on the spot in front of the congregation to music that wasn't technically boppable. Edmund, noticing his little brother and cousin decided to entertain them instead and led the pair in rolling around on the floor, much to King Anthony's chagrin as the boys giggling sounded over the archbishop. Charlie was thoroughly amused by his older cousins' behaviour and began wiggling in his mother's lap and flapping his arms eagerly, gurgling with delight.

As she watched her son and nephews playing, Daphne was distracted long enough that her grip on Amelia loosened and her daughter took the chance to take off, armed with her own cushion and proceeded to wallop Belinda around the head. Naturally Belinda retaliated and the pair kept hitting each other around with cushions until their Uncle Benedict intervened, being the closest by, and separated them long enough for Daphne to grab a hold of Belinda and take her back with her to her seat. Amelia meanwhile was beckoned over by Violet to sit with her, which she obediently did.

As soon as Amelia plopped her down by her grandmother's feet, however, Caroline then popped up and walked over to her Uncle Colin. She wordlessly shoved a hand in his jacket pocket and extracted, much to those watching's amazement, a handful of smarties before returning to her cushion and eating the chocolate bites one by one. Violet, Anthony, Kate, Simon, Daphne, and Eloise all stared pointedly at Colin, but he willfully ignored them all and pretended as if nothing had occurred.

Edmund then hurtled over and loudly requested smarties from his uncle as well, at which point Prince Colin offered his nephew his pocket and allowed the three year old to help himself to the smarties. As two of the youngsters ate the confectionery, Miles and David simply lay on the floor, both of them staring up at the cavernous ceiling in boredom as the ceremony dragged on.

Despite the pair of toddlers laying dormant right in front of the alter, everything seemed to be relatively calm for nearly ten whole minutes, so much so that Daphne allowed Belinda to sit back in her own chair. Belinda remained sat for approximately five seconds before she hurtled off to investigate something that had caught her eye. Seconds later, it transpired the thing that had caught Belinda's eye was the archbishop's vestments and the little girl decided to get down low by the archbishop's feet and look right up them. Simon cursed under his breath at his daughter's behaviour - behaviour which had captured Miles and David's attention and the pair toddled over to her, flopping down beside her and joined in on looking up the archbishop's alb. The congregation collectively had to suppress their laughter, though several members of the royal family including Princes Benedict, Colin, Gregory and Princesses Sophie, Eloise, Francesca, and Hyacinth all did a very poor job of hiding it (though luckily the archbishop herself took it all in her stride).

Finally it came time to baptize Charlie and also the opportunity for Simon and Daphne to grab Belinda and David and for Kate to grab Miles before returning to their seats. Charlie beamed as he was anointed with the holy water and gurgled happily when his uncle, the king, later presented him with his royal insignia in the form of a miniature blue sash. The ceremony ended on a well-behaved note - well, so long as you weren't counting Amelia and Belinda tugging on Prince Colin's jacket until he emptied his second pocket of smarties to them.

(Oh and I'm imagining Prince Charlie to look like Prince Alexander of Sweden on his christening day because look how cute!!!)

[rufusthewretch]

Formal Introductions (Wretched Father Story)

(For context: This took me longer than expected and ended up shorter than I wanted. I realized that despite all the art I had of Rufus, he didn't actually have any kind of defined personality yet. Same with Elizabeth. I'm not going to lie she was just a name in reference to the song from Opus Eponymous, with zero thought put into her character originally. This was going to be a big info dump on the 'lore' ideas I had for Papa Rufus/The Wretched Father, but I decided to shorten it down and use it to try to...establish at least something about how Rufus and Elizabeth behave. )

The courage left Elizabeth as quickly as it had come. A combination of shock and awe had given Elizabeth the fortitude necessary to stand before the inhuman, unnatural creature that had revealed itself before her. Given her the boldness to speak to it, even. “What...What are you?” The question tripped from her mouth, stammering. “I am the Wretched Father, and you are safe in my Church.” Came the reply. A dead unnatural voice, from a dead unnatural thing. Elizabeth's vision blurred, the adrenaline leaving her system. Darkness closed in around her. Her legs gave out and she fell. She did not strike the cold stone beneath her.

Some time later her eyes opened once again. Through bleary eyes she saw pale blue light spilling into the church from the window. Feeble daylight warped by stained-glass. She shifted unsteadily. She discovered she had been laid on one of the pews. She pushed herself upright, looking around. Memories of the night before flashed through her mind. Her pursuers and the creature that had killed them. She looked around the room, looking for any evidence that her memories were true. She could see no bodies, nor blood, nor bullet holes. She turned to the dais, finding an empty throne upon it. The dead priest she had seen seemingly gone, or never having been there at all. She placed a hand on the pew, and pushed herself to her feet. Elizabeth considered the possibility that the last night's event had been a dream. It certainly seemed more likely than not. What she had seen was impossible. But if none of that had happened, then how had she ended up in the Church. For her to end up here at all, she must have been pursued. Had she escaped them by hiding in the Church, and the rest had been some kind of nightmare? Perhaps. She moved from the pew into the aisle, turning towards the door. She stopped for a moment. A pair of candlesticks flanked the door. She hadn't seen them the night before, lost in the gloom. Their presence was not what made her pause. What made her pause, was the flames dancing atop them. They were natural, yellow flames, as one would expect. But their presence required some one to light them. She wasn't alone. A tune drifted into her ears, a voice gently singing.

“Siamo con clavi. Siamo con dio. Siamo con il nostro dio scuro.”

Footsteps tapped gently against the stone, and a gentle hush of robes tracing across the floor accompanied the sound. Elizabeth turned. Her eyes landed upon a figure walking across the dais. It casually approached a candlestick, a long, lit candle in it's hand. It held the lit candle in it's hand towards those on the stick, lighting them one by one. Elizabeth stared in silence. The figure eventually turned. It was the same beaked corpse clad in peculiar vestments that Elizabeth believed she had simply dreamed of. It twitched, a start of surprise which caused her to gasp in surprise herself. “Oh! You're awake! Sorry I wasn't entirely sure when you'd be, uh, up and about again.” The figure said. It's beak opened slightly, allowing the voice to escape from within, though the beak didn't move with the words. “How do you feel?” The figure stood, awkwardly holding the candle in it's hand at an odd angle. Elizabeth stared silently for a few moments more, her mouth hanging open. She attempted to speak, but a confused squawk was all that came out. She cleared her throat and tried again. “I'm...Fine.”

The figure visibly relaxed. “Good, that's good.” It nodded. In one of it's empty eye sockets a little flicker of a blue flame danced. It turned away for a moment, lighting the remaining candles on the candlestick before turning back to Elizabeth. It took a step forward, then paused, glancing at the candle in it's hand. It turned in place, looking this way and that, before raising the candle to the side of it's beak. A gentle puff of air could be heard as it blew the candle out before placing it on the arm of the throne that still sat upon the dais.

The figure approached Elizabeth, wringing it's gloved hands. “Please, sit. There's no need to stand on my account. I would offer you something to drink or eat but, I'm afraid it's been quite some time since last there was anyone other than me in this Church.”

Elizabeth sat back in the pew, her head tilted to the side slightly as the creature approached her. The somewhat baffled and anxious behavior of the otherwise monstrous seeming figure striking her as almost comical. “It's okay. I'm not really hungry or thirsty I'm...” She trailed off, before beginning to laugh. The figure drew closer cautiously, it's own head tilting slightly. “I'm glad you are in sufficient spirits to laugh. But I'm at something of a loss as to at what.”

“You!”

Again the figure tilted it's head. It now stood in the aisle by Elizabeth's pew. “What is funny about me?” It asked, it's tone gentle.

“You're some clearly paranormal thing. You look like a corpse! Like Hades from that old Disney movie if you glued a beak onto him and put him in a pope costume! But you're acting nervous about ME!”

The creature's cheeks shifted, and it took Elizabeth a moment to realize that it was smiling. It's expression was mostly hidden by the beak. “I suppose it must seem rather silly. Forgive me. I often forget how unusual my appearance is. I assure you, I am not a corpse. I can't speak to the rest of what you said, I'm afraid I'm only familiar with Hades as a figure from Greek mythology. And my attire is not a costume, dear, though I'm no pope. I'm a simple priest, and not a Catholic one.” He gestured to the pew. “May I sit?”

Elizabeth nodded. “Sure.” The figure gathered up it's robes about it and sat down on the far side of the pew, keeping as much distance between itself and her as possible. “My name is Rufus. My title, as I informed you last night, is the Wretched Father. I am a priest in service to the Lord Below. And you are?” He gestured to her. Elizabeth looked back at the figure, at Rufus. “I'm- wait. You...you said my name last night. Why are you asking me my name now?”

Rufus looked away for a moment. “It is...impolite to use some one's name without asking it first. I am attempting to rectify that error. I'm sorry.”

She smiled slightly, again, confused but oddly put at ease by the contrast between the clear supernatural nature of the priest and it's socially awkward mannerisms. “My name is Elizabeth.”

Rufus turned back to her, the hint of a smile on his cheeks again. “Elizabeth. It is my pleasure to meet you. I imagine you have many questions. You can ask them if you wish. I will do my best to answer them.”

Art by: GreaseGoblin

[toa-kohutti]

A Gift The Great Spirit Left Unnamed Chapter 5:

Waves and Flames

Ohmeni and Pysie get a chance to talk, and the village has a celebration. Puigren wonders about the serendipity of Ohmeni's return.

This village had less than a hundred Matoran in it. Why in the name of the Great Spirit could they possibly need this much firewood? I thought to myself. As I hoisted my third armful of it across the open area bordering the village, I looked over the stack of it to try and get a sense of what was going on. I saw Pysie, crouched down to nearly the height of the Matoran, talking to them, seemingly directing them to do things. She turned to one, said something, and then turned to another as they walked off, several times in a row. Only when I got into earshot could I get a sense of what was going on, and even then, I was only catching the tail end of her particular plot.

"Good! Make sure he remembers." She said, patting a Matoran on the shoulder, to which she seemed to beam with pride. As I carried the fire over to the pit, the small series of benches, fashioned out of wood and stone and giving a head's height of space for the Matoran to see over each other, were already filling up, despite the sun only barely starting to set.

As I sat the armful of wood down on the pit, now stacking half a Matoran tall, I turned to Pysie, now standing and holding her hands close to her chest.

"So, now that I've hauled all this, are you going to let me in on what all this preparation is for?" I folded my arms in a bit of mock displeasure, a veneer of sarcasm over my genuine curiosity. "And what are all of the Matoran doing? There's a few hours til nightfall."

"You know, for someone who is so unwilling to impose, you ask an awful lot of questions." She folded her arms in a more exaggerated version of my own gesture, twisting her hips and shoulders for the full teasing effect. At least, until she burst out laughing, causing me to laugh a little along with her. When she finally regained her composure, she sighed happily and looked at me, that magnetic smile in her eyes. "Seriously, it’s more fun if you find out later.."

"Alright, alright, it's a surprise," I conceded. "But I do have a question I think I should be asking, though." I said, shifting my gaze towards the Matoran all abuzz at the seating structure, which grew more impressive for the context of the village. The structure's stone seats and bases were reinforced by wood beams with plenty of cord connecting them, forming a rigid structure that looked like it could hold steady with most of the village atop it.

"Go on," Pysie said, as I turned back to catch her eyes, seemingly studying me.

"I... uh..." When I finally felt the bravery to say what was really on my mind, it felt like it had gone away in an instant. "...Can we take a walk together?" I said, my sudden change in demeanor obvious enough. Immediately, I cringed internally, sounding like a recently-made Matoran falling off the assembly line with all the knowledge of how to work but none on how to socialize.

"Is that your question?" She chuckled. "Yes, we can. And then you can say what’s really on your mind.." She gently waved me over towards the beach, beckoning me to follow her.

We walked together, a little awkwardly, as I struggled to match her walking pace. Through no fault of her own, she was so much slower than I was - the amount of walking she and I were used to were quite out of step, and the natural gap in our height was no help either. When we were sufficiently out of earshot of the Matoran, I resolved to get over myself and ask the stupid question.

"...When I first came to the village, why were you so excited to see me?" I asked. 

The question hung in the air, like a Rahi bird gliding against the wind. I heard her breathe in before halting, clearly thinking a lot about it. After a time, she finally spoke.

"It's been a long, long time since I've seen another Toa." She said, although the tone of her voice made it clear that the answer wasn't the whole story. "That, and you're... so different from every other Toa I've ever met, I guess." She stared off the coast, watching the waves pass by. 

“I’ve probably met a lot more,” I said, my pace finally matching hers in a somewhat comfortable mask. “But you’re really different, too.”

“Really?” She chuckled a little. “How am I different, miss ‘I know a ton of Toa’?” She asked in a mock accusation. 

“I’ll tell you…” I said, thinking for a moment. “...But only if you tell me what makes me different after.” 

“I, well… “ Pysie stammered. “I… F-Fine!” Her last words were huffed out. Had I upset her? Accidentally backed her into a deeper corner? I prayed that I hadn’t. To avoid this trouble, I began to speak. 

“Alright. Well,” I took a deep breath. “You are…” I began to think aloud. “Gentle. You’re more gentle than so many Toa, for one. And generous, too,” I put my fist to the bottom of my mask as I thought. “I mean, you haven’t made me pay you for any of your services, and you saved my life.” 

“It wouldn’t be right to.” Pysie said, quietly. “If we can save a life, I think that the Great Spirit tells us that we have to. It’s.. our duty, right?” 

“The Great Spirit says nothing about widgets, and I’d be happy to repay you,” I grabbed the strap of the bag that was over my shoulder, and shook it a little, letting her hear the jingle of the meager widgets I had within. “I wonder if you’re too nice for your own good.” I said, quietly, but with a soft smile. 

“That’s what Turaga Puigren says, anyway.” She hung her head, and absentmindedly kicked a rock. “I don’t think I’m much of a good Toa, anyway. All I do is sit in my hut and fix things and Matoran.” 

“How could you possibly think that?” I asked, a little bit taken aback by the mere idea that someone as kind as her could be a bad Toa. 

“What if we get attacked, and I’m not strong enough to stop them?” Her voice was heavy and shaky, like her insides were grabbed and rattled, leaving her twisted and shaken. “I know others are afraid of it too. And I think that Turaga Puigren…” 

“Woah,” I said, quickly moving in front of Pysie’s path and stopping her. “Hey, Pysie.” I said, softly. “I bet you are. I bet you are strong enough.” I hoped my words, even if I didn’t have a reason to believe what I was saying, could calm her. And I did believe it, despite the lack of evidence. 

“I’m not.” She choked, before flopping down on the ground, sitting in the sand with her head in her hands. “I know it. That’s why Puigren is going to make another Toa. I’m not enough, I’m sure of it...” She trembled, clearly overwhelmed by emotion. “It’s what the village deserves. It’s better that way. It’s better that way.” Her last words were quiet, as if they were a mantra to herself only. 

I placed a hand on her shoulder. Her trembling seemed to slow down, her body reacting to my touch as if…  I was calming her. She looked up at me, eyes twisted with deep sadness, silent. She started to speak, but said nothing. Eventually, her head drooped back down again. I was no good at this, I knew. I was a fighter, and barely good at anything else. This didn’t come naturally to me at all, and I felt my stomach drop. 

“...Well, you’re enough for me.” I murmured, awkwardly. 

“W-what?” She croaked out, her voice straining against the heavy emotion. 

“I said that you’re enough for me,” I moved a little closer to her, and put my other hand on her back. “You saved me. You can’t possibly not be enough to me.” I hope that my emotion would get through to her, and she would know how grateful I was, how much I admired her. 

In return, I got a quiet, sad chuckle. “That’s not what I meant, Ohmeni.” She said, gently shaking her head. “But… it does mean a lot.” She looked up at me, her eyes looking a little less sad. The sun was beginning to set, and the orange waves painted upon her mask, in front of the shore where an orange light scattered over the waves, looked so beautiful, so free. And yet, the Toa wearing it was weighed down, a shackle of doubt making her wonder if she was anything other than her job. I looked past the waves, into her sad eyes, holding their own against the same weight as the rest of her. And before I knew it, my body was almost moving on its own. 

I moved closer to her, our armor now touching as we sat on the shore, the wet sand starting to settle around us as the waves rolled in. Both of my arms were around her, and I moved close, holding her like I was carrying a Matoran to safety close to my chest, but staying here, as the water washed over us. I didn’t understand why I was doing what I was doing, but I knew, somehow, that it was necessary. Some instinct propelled me to pull my arms tighter, the plates of our armor pressed together, and we sat like that, in silence. 

I felt the waves around my legs start to move strangely, wrapping around me. Pysie’s arms suddenly wrapped around my middle, her head tucking into my chestplate between the two blades extending to my shoulders. I opened my eyes and looked around, trying to understand what was going on, what we were being pulled to do. When I saw it, I let out a silent gasp of wonder.

 The waves were not the ocean, they were Pysie, the power over water she wielded forming a gentle whirlpool around us. A spiral, a tiny piece of the ocean sparkling in the sun, wound around us, as if she were trying to draw in time, keep us here. The water was calming, healing, safe. And yet, in a moment, I could ruin it. My lightning could shatter our peace, course through us and harm us. But it didn’t. No involuntary spark scattered through the waves, making us jerk and shout in pain. We sat there, in the calming spiral, a moment lingering, time itself seeming to bask in it with us. 

The spiral softly collapsed, the water returning to its ocean home, and I gently released Pysie. She held onto me for a second longer before her arms fell back to her side, much like the water that wrapped around us. She looked up to me with that smile in her eyes, a weight lifted but not fully gone. She twisted over to see the sun, now sinking down towards the horizon, the whole ocean cast in an orange glow. 

“We should probably start back, shouldn’t we?” She said, softly. “Tonight’s important. We can’t miss it.”  

“Yeah.” I replied, quietly.  Let's get you up, okay?” I stood up and offered her my hand to help her up, which she took before barely putting any weight in it as she stood up gracefully, ready to walk us back to Gavo-Koro. 

The way she walked made it seem like she hadn't broken down at all, a quiet, elegant confidence only broken by a quiet sigh of relaxation. I saw her shoulders start to loosen, the gears and pistons around her frame moving freely. But my focus was on her strides, watching her legs move back and forth in rhythm. Something about her motions were hypnotic, calm and mundane yet incredible to watch, almost as if her steps channeled the waves that she could control. I couldn’t help but watch the pistons compressing and expanding on her thighs, watch the steps and feel some part of me move with her, whether it was somewhere in my body or my mind. 

I had little time to think about it deeply, as before I knew it, we had returned to the huts and were close to the fire pit. Most of the Matoran in the village were on the seating structure near the flame, although some seemed to still be working nearby on the other side of the fire. I noticed Puigren sat down, to the left of the structure, atop a stone. A Matoran pushed a similar, yet larger stone beside her. Pysie touched my arm, getting my attention.

“Usually, I sit on one side and Puigren on the other. I… think you’re invited to sit there,” She said, a bit of uncertainty in her voice. Or was it… disappointment? Either way, far be it from me to disrespect the Turaga’s wishes. “You’ll have to tell me what you think when we’re done.” 

“I will,” I said, looking at her, a soft smile forming from her touch on my arm. “You’ll know where to find me, I suppose.” I placed my hand atop hers for a second, until she pulled it away. I hoped she took that as appreciative. 

I sat down next to Puigren on that stone, a little too short for comfort, but better than the bare sandy ground. She acknowledged me with a nod, and I looked at her. The Matoran were all laughing and talking, but she was deadly serious. After a moment, I spoke to her. 

“...What is all of this?” I said, in a hushed voice. “I hope I didn’t interrupt anything for you tonight.” 

Puigren let out a rattly sound, a chuckle, but missing a little of the warmth I’d expected. “It’s a dance, Toa,” she said quietly. “A ceremonial dance. Like a Takara, except instead of honoring the Great Spirit…” She trailed off. “Well, you’re a smart girl. You can figure it out. Just watch and enjoy yourself.” Her speech to me was finalized with that tic of hers, the bottom of her staff making a quiet tink! as it hit the stone she rested upon. 

On cue, that noise drew attention, an unspoken signal of silence spread throughout the night as the Matoran understood. A wave of quiet washed over us like the waves of the coast, leaving a hushed tension like the waves leave wet sand. For a few moments, the only sound in the air was the crackle of the fire, the wood that fed it snapping as it was consumed in the warm glow. 

 After hanging for what felt like a moment too long, the sound of a horn, a singular long and brassy note, cut through the silence like a blade through grass, wavering with the breath of the Matoran playing it. As it faded, drumbeats filled the void that it left, deep, woody thumps bringing rhythm to the open air, soon joined by the horn. Deep, colorful notes filled the village, and I could easily imagine being drawn in from kio away towards this ceremony. I leaned forward instinctively as I heard a new sound, the quiet sound of feet in the sand, belonging to a group of Matoran in well-decorated ceremonial clothing. 

The music ebbed as the six Matoran dancers turned to face the audience, each wearing the colors of different elements and painted Kanohi imitations above their own masks. I saw them all hold out ceremonial weapons, each looking fearsome in the unstable flicker of the flame. Their masks were carved to resemble Great Kanohi, full of power and befitting Toa, but imperfect enough to never be mistaken for a true Kanohi. Yet, with the fire’s light behind them and the magic in the air, they seemed more real than the genuine article ever could. 

In unison, they drew their weapons, slow beats of the drums drawing out the power in their simple yet dramatic movements. The horn launched from the slow music of the beginning to a braver, more purpose-filled tune, and their movement followed, spears and blades striking the air with bravery and determination, with confidence befitting Toa. I couldn’t let myself blink for a second, utterly enraptured in the performance these Matoran gave. As I watched their well-practiced dance, I studied their ceremonial armor, and a realization began to form in the parts of my mind that weren’t fully enraptured in the ceremony. 

One dancer wore a Great Pakari, colored in an inversion of the warm whites and dusty blues of the one next to me -  the Toa before me could only be playing the part of Puigren. Beside her, back-to-back, the vivid armor of a Toa of Water fought the imagined threats, the pair constantly checking each other and guiding their team in the dutiful dance. The actress seemed every bit as brave as I could imagine the Turaga sitting next to me was when she was a Toa, and the ritualistic motions she took seemed like second nature. She struck, blocked, and turned the attacks she took back out with poise I had rarely seen from a Matoran, all the while moving as one with the song that rung out from the passionate instrumentalists behind the fire. Some part of me knew that it was just a dance, a rehearsed routine, and yet my soul understood the bravery and harmony that the Toa of Puigren’s team fought with as protectors, as heroes. 

Even though I knew, deep down, that it could not last, I clenched my fist as the horns and drums changed to a darker tone, a serious mood sweeping through the magic cast in the unstable rays of bonfire light. A seventh approached, wearing a gnarled, pointed mask that could only be worn by a Makuta, its power likely a sick twist on the powers given to us by the Great Spirit. They remained unnoticed, and the six dancing Toa were unaware, still in unison but no longer with the music, all while the danger crept up behind them. My heart tugged at me to shout and warn them, to save them from this threat, but even if I had tried, I couldn’t have changed a thing. No, I couldn’t save them, like I couldn’t save them years ago… 

The Makuta dancer struck, a blade colliding with the Toa of Water. A singular deep note from the horn held, seeming to almost freeze time as the Toa dancer was slain. She fell in time with the life of that note fading into what could almost be a solemn wail, the horror of the moment cast through sound. The other Toa vanquished the Makuta with quick, sweeping attacks, driving him back in a graceful display, the anger and passion to protect their sister not breaking their practiced, heroic strikes. As the rage in the air decayed into mourning, they crowded around their fallen sister, and bid her a desperate final farewell. 

The horn was silent now. Puigren’s actress stayed, collapsed, even as the others carried her fallen comrade away and went in separate directions. She was alone, and only the crackle of the flame and the drum were with her, having now taken the role of a heartbeat. She turned to the heavens and pleaded, the dancer praying to the Great Spirit for guidance with her motions, alone, her team now long left her. There was nothing but her, a heartbeat, and a prayer.

A powerful, hopeful tone filled the air as she rose. Was that prayer answered? Matoran, with their normal armor, walked into the stage, all looking lost and alone. Puigren’s actress stood tall and proud, drawing these lost Matoran in with broad arms. They shuffled towards her with uncertainty in their movements, and were met with grace. The wordless song told the rest of the story, a modest but hope-filled climax underscoring Puigren’s embrace, the story coming to a close, a tale fully told. 

A final note was held as the Matoran in front of the fire knelt with Puigren in prayer. A rushing sound was what finally drew my attention away from the performance, and I turned to the source. A coil of water wrapped around the flame as the note held, flowing from Pysie’s outstretched hands. As the horn’s sound faded, the water struck with a final drum beat and snuffed the fire out in one quick hiss, leaving us shrouded in darkness and silence before our eyes adjusted to the light of the moon and the stars. 

The Matoran erupted with cheers, celebrating the ceremony and what was no doubt another job well done to them. But all I had was silence. The villagers clambered off the seating structure, all talking amongst themselves with excitement and amazement, but I said nothing, and Puigren noticed almost immediately. 

“Do you understand now, Toa?” Her creaky voice cut through the commotion to reach me. “Your expressions say you seem to.” My jaw must have been dropped behind my mask, and I quickly struggled to collect myself as I turned to her. 

“Gavo-Koro…” I murmured. “You… led this village after your team disbanded.” My voice quivered, the emotions the performance had drawn from me utterly impossible to conceal. 

“Founded it.” She said, matter-of-factly. “Today is the seventy-first anniversary of this village’s founding. And despite knowing nothing of our village's history, you came today.” Her voice took on the tone of questioning me, as if she was trying to prove me a liar. There was nothing I could do but give her the truth, even if it wasn’t what she expected. 

“I…” My voice creaked as the words struggled to leave me. “...It was our Toa of Earth.” 

“Your?” She questioned, her tone holding firm. 

“I-I was a part of a team. T-Talaimh, he was the soul of it. His bravery and kindness…” My eyes had adjusted to the starlight now, yet I was staring at nothing at all. The darkness in the night sky seemed to stretch on forever, and it was the only thing that I could look to as my own story began to pour from me. “Something killed him. I think it was a Dark Hunter. But it doesn’t really matter, does it?” 

The commotion was dying down around me, Matoran returning to their huts, yet I remained with Puigren, my hands shaking, a beautiful performance unearthing memories I wasn’t ready for. And yet, she listened intently and quietly as I spoke. “We couldn’t look at each other and not see him. They all left for new teams,” my hand quivered as it wrapped into a fist. “And I was alone.” 

“Destiny,” Puigren said, her voice thoughtful. “In the end, Gavo-Koro was my destiny. Perhaps you were brought here to hear my story and find yours.” She stood up, hands wrapped around her staff, and began to hobble off in characteristic Turaga fashion, leaving me alone sitting on a rock by the embers of a fire. “But your destiny is not tonight,” her voice grew smaller with each step, “so sleep on it.” The Turaga I was used to were wise and gave passionate advice, and she was content to walk off with that.

I sat on that stone in the quiet and the dark, a great weight on my soul as I struggled to grapple with everything. The performance, my memory, Pysie’s touch… Pysie’s touch on my shoulder brought me back to reality. I looked up to her, and saw her yellow eyes glitter in the dark with a deeply concerned look in them. 

“Ohmeni…” She murmured, as my eyes diverted from hers in a moment of shame. 

“How much of that did you hear?” My voice was quiet, serious, and dry, my body deciding there was little emotion left to give. 

“I think I heard everything.” She said, moving in front of me and offering her hand. “Come on, Ohmeni. You need some rest. Let’s go back to the hut, okay?” I accepted it, my hand in her gentle grip as the rest of my body pushed me up without needing to pull on her, letting her lead me to the medicine hut to lay me down on the bed that barely fit me. 

We didn’t talk much that night, or the following morning. I needed quiet and time, which Pysie let me have, graciously. We said our polite goodbyes, and I left. I walked from the village to think, to give myself some space, leaving unsure of my return. If I had never returned, I would have regretted it for the rest of my life. I can’t imagine my life if I did. And I could never forget the next time I limped into Gavo-Koro.

[stxrmnight]

Endwalker Story: Meeting Venat...

First Elpis Replay post, Previous to this part 2.

Post is what the title says. Yuri under the cut. Don't like? don't read

Leaving the transporter, Nemi asked what the hell was the bizarre Shark man in the distance. She probably had felled one of this before but to see someone deliberately created that was... icky. She heard Hyth start to rant about receiving more fads of this concept with no real thought for practicality of sense of an about to be living thing, when she tried to shake her arms and make him move away from the beast plunging at him, and then... A woman in white and a sword that, singed with familiar energy knocked out the Sharknado. Nemi knew who this is, but seeing her just swoop in like that...

"Oh wow... she's strong," escaped her mouth. "Heh, excus me?" ("Shit, I said that out loud," was regretted in her mind.)

That her first word was to bully Emet and expose him as a young piece of shit? And he wasn't retorting. Incredible. She must be a knockout at bars and parties but ah... what is she doing thinking this of the one fated to become something as distant and irrelevant as Hydaelyn? They were so, different.

"She sounds fun- AH SHE IS LOOKING AT ME"

She should have known Venat would recognize her own magic in the Blessing of Light. There was no point in denying it, much as she smiled courteously and swallowed. At least the fact Venat's acceptance of uncertainty meant that, she was taking this well. Others would likely freak out and attack her or something like that.

When Hades scolded her for keeping secrets of the fate of the star, she just crossed her arms and explained she couldn't have an impact, stipulating it was one of their own who said this before sending her here. Venat enthusiastically remarked they were "meant to meet" then, and she was looking forward to knowing more the person bearing her "mark." Nemi might have exploded.

She recovered quickly and helped her search for the lost concept, commenting "You sound like you prank people like that often." How exactly? Venat wondered and Nemi pointed to the idea of her, marking someone. Like what did that mean in this context? Venat explained it's really to find lives again in the great expanse of the world, be a small bee she gave water to or a traveler from another biome. She'd even begun fashioning a way to try to find this traveler magick for other people to use to find each other, but others were vexed by its complexity. This made Nemi surprised later, at the dinner in Venat's chambers, that botomless bags seemingly were not invented yet.

With the time come to tell everything... she concluded she might as well come clear and take the sash off her eyes, but keeps her hair tucked underneath. Venat was awed by her eye tattoo, warmed by its family inheritance meaning that Nemi shared with a smile. There wasn't such a sense of family permeance in Amaurot, and carrying something form your origin through your life was such a beautiful way to live the nature that made you. making her smile and say it's passed down and mixed in her clan of family.

Hythlo kindly intervened they needed to get talking, pointing to Emet sitting grumpily. He saw Thanatos' lesbianism bleed way worse from Nemi. And though he didn't want to believe what she would tell, it'd at least mean he didn't have to fear his colleague secretly hated him.

Nemi joined her hands and gave a heavy sigh. Her face was now stern with a heavy frown. "Well, form the beginning? be warned, you won't like what you hear... or maybe not, from what I've gathered here."

After she's done speaking, she just sits back with irreverent air, but does lean when Venat is vexed by Hydaelyn's decision to cause the sundering. That she finds odd opposing the 14th.. is she happy with society as it is then?

As they try to figure, Nemi just looks away, feeling mixed about pushing them to guess to themselves, wanting to argue with Venat that it's been millenia and people change over time drastically. "You don't have to fit yourself to this mold of the future. You are you right now." But Venat stresses she knows herself. It's just an exercise to find answers and logic to help the future.

Then Hades' interjection made her jaw drop and need to cover her face. Never would she think she'd feel second hand embarrassment for this guy. If only the Scions could hear this...

"Hmm, you do sound like the asshole I killed, I gotta say." "Neirmer! You said yourself we're not like the after!" "Sorry, I'm not gonna lie about what I did. You will come to threaten all I hold dear as well, and such fate can't be changed." "Even if your ridiculous story was true, I would not hurt you just for having an insufferable mouth! I'm a civilized man!" "True... it's just hard when you're not that different in personality of disrespect, you know? But let's move on." "..."

When saying she feels Hermes and Meteion seem center of the mystery, she expresses their grievances feel natural to any person of the future. She tries to ask who started the philosophy of "the will of the star" and if there were other rituals to deal with the grief of elected passing, and everyone looked lost for an answer. Nemi incquired if anyone ever passed away to disease or accidents, and they said even murders are inconceivable. Then Nemi wondered if they're truly so good warders of the stars if they can't understand the creatures who are mortal, specially the ones they create. Only Venat could respond that, she came to love them in their travels, and didn't neglect one detail to ensure her concepts' happiness... but she stopped creating after Argos. She didn't find the vastness of the world lacking of more life. At this, Nemi smiled and said they should search clues together.

They were surprised by how well they flowed with inquiries. Nemi got to make people open with casuality of their interests, letting Venat get to the heart of the matter in an unsuspecting way. Nemi wondered if Venat's travels made it so, since not everywhere can be like Amaurot's cushy walls. Venat said there are many people outside of these walls of all kinds, even some who don't like the Ancients, but people in the city rarely do acknowledge they exist unless they're to be saved of natural phenomena. Nemi recalled the volcano situation with Thanatos... but didn't ask about it.

Nemi drops the fact Meteion has more sisters casually, making Venat wishes she mentioned it earlier. Nemi apologized for this flaw, too used to filling reports that filled everyone up to speed. Venat squinted at her and she admitted it was more regular than that. Venat laughed and patted her back, saying she's so earnestly sincere and honest then. Nemi blushed as they walked closer to their next inquiry.

When the archivist lament Venat hasn't returned, Nemi is shocked. She almost yelled at them if not for Venat side hugging her and replying too briefly. way from them, Nemi asks baffled if everyone says they look forward to watching you her die, why do they think death is rest when they know it erases their self, not even taking breaks in their lives! No one sounds like they take a break in their actual lives! "This, this is bonkers! And I can tell you're not happy with it either. Don't throw that honor bullshit at me as well."

Venat looked at her transfixed, then admitted she, wished that people understood her choices. That walking with her makes her wonder if a future of mortals would think differently... Then asks her, how beautiful is the future?

Nemi says the future is more beautiful, that everything is free to take its own shape and form. There are always new discoveries, and... There are customs and beliefs, shaped by the nature one lives in, and traditions and beautiful art that would not flourish in this past.

When Venat asks of her adventures... she would tell her of the avdenturer guilds, of finding the crystals, of the floating city of Nymnh, of the many minerals that fortified her craft, of her village's ways of survival, of the rivers of Doma... every person she weeped for in her imprisonment in the lightwarden, the joy of Ala Mhigo' back's flag flying, the Winds of the Churning Mists, seeing the Night bloom in the First, what she has treasured with the scions and her friends.

When Venat responds with her speech about life, Nemi is totally awed, intertwining her own fingers and taking them to her heart. She asks why she talks of needing to help humans stand.To her, it just sounds like she just wants to behold life's beauty.

"That is alright... you have done a lot already." "What is it with you and this talk of winding down?" "Well, I heard you all don't know how to play but, you don't seem that lame. Surely this is a rest for you too inbetween?" "Hmm, maybe I'm as shaped by this rhythm of life you find so monotone." Venat took Nemi's wringing fingers and interlocked them with her own. "Maybe, you could stop me." Nemi gasped with heated cheeks. "B-because others don't appreciate the world how we do?" Venat smiled and lowered their hands. "Because you may hold answers I seek... tell me, has your journey been good has it been worthwhile?

Venat's question makes tears spring, but she rasps her breath and nods determinedly. , or well was going to. she is irritated by the interruption, wanting to talk to Venat more and her passion, and a measure of concern. But this moves her to think of the next possibility, and that is when she excitedly points at Argos. She is amazed by how much gruffier he is now, then fucking, questions why in the goddamn is the dog picky about fighting skills.

Nemi is intimidated by Venat's sagacious air, but she takes courage and takes her hair cover off. "If this is what it is, then I won't censure myself any further. You'll see my kicks fully!"

After Nemi endured Venat's last blast to one knee, Venat held her up and checked over her robes. Nemi gestures her to stop fretting even as she struggles to stand, giggling in her hold. "You should know... my real name is Nemi, Nemi Norxares. That's who endured your ravaging today." She smiled so wide that Venat's face burned up.

This only didn't continue cause Argos jumped on them, making them go witness the flight of the Meteia through the echo. Nemi would connect the tree nearby to the forms of those at Ghyr Abania,but colors of Lakeland. Venat wondered if she could gaze them through her mind, if she allowed of course... Nemi batted the hand caressing her hair away playfully, saying they really need to focus.

When they walked back to the others, Hythlo perked at seeing Nemi's face fully uncovered, and for what reason this time? When Venat teased Nemi to be civil, Hythlo grinned at Nemi knowingly. She could not hide, specially when Venat grabbed her hand strongly after she returned from the morbol gardens.

At the garden, she claimed to Hermes that she felt more safe to unveil in this world, now that she met someone like Venat. Hermes is puzzled, and Nemi explains she sees nature more freely than she thought. Something told her to, ask Hermes if it's alright, and give Meteion a hug and carry her on her shoulders. Hermes had to scold her the morbols were still around.

Nemi looks downtrodden when Hermes says "even you Venat." Guess she overstimated her a little or, assumed too much of her lives experiences, but it's not what she wanted to imply. Nemi stressed that "Despite everyone's lack of tact,"she really thought there was more to this they had to find out, for the sake of everyone's safety. This relaxed Hermes while Emet glared, continuing to formulate why the blasphemies were formed as they were.

Emet gruffed that she has capacity of better behavior and, well.I think there is no more to say lol.

Then when Meteion was invaded by the doom of necrospace, Nemi tried to reach her to calm her even as she too was twisting in pain and agony on the floor. She teared up when Meteion begged to be left alone, screaming into the nothingness to please not bottle up her hurt. She needed both Venat and Hermes to get her up and settle, struggling to explain what even just happened. Whatever it really was, they needed to find her fast. Who knows how a small mind like hers would decide to, make it stop.

Nemi tried but failed to counter Emet's insistence to take Meteion into the city, knowing stopping this would just be denial of what inmerse hurt had just occured. Hermes thanked her kindness, lamenting this society would not listern to her either. And so, he had to take flight to the top of Ktisis Hyperboeia. Though she fought to the top, she was the first to approach Hermes and beg to let her be present, at least to find a way. Hermes smiles sincerely at her before trapping them all in chains, putting her too distant to pass Meteion's last words before losing herself: "Please, protect all..."

When chaos unfolded at the escape, Nemi concentrated and broke her chains with her claws, hissing with her tongue and scaring Hermes off into losing concentration. She argued her presence meant to be the steps of humans of a different kind, who deserved to know the physical step to what their kind struggled with emotion. She recited Matsya's prayer, and showed her claws and tongue as evidence of the torture she'd endured for survival, and coming out of the other side with friends and love. Hermes looked up at Nemi's tearful gaze, and weeped as the Death of his kind acknowledged his suffering. He peacefully let her and Venat go, begging her to give Meteion a kinder fate.

Once they descended, Nemi asked Venat if she's okay. She asked if Nemi was okay, with all the twisting and corrupting she claimed to go through. Nemi sighed and shook her head, saying that was just for Hermes to hear really. Venat gasped and asked if she didn't trust her. that she too was horrified at the idea this world might be the last to love life. Nemi said it was not about that, but how she seemed to not be concerned to limit Emet and Hythlodaeus' pushing. She said they were just doing their duty as convocation members, and Nemi waved her hand exasperatedly.

"Exactly that! In your travels you've never learned how to treat people who are unwell? Maybe if I didn't show up, this calamity would have started way worse....."

Venat took a deep breath, and said they had to check on the others. Nemi sighed and followed, weirded but not opposed to Argos' mode of espionage. Nemi scoffed offended being called a manner of creation by someone else. "it's not my fault I got transmogrified!"

Venat begged her again to tell her what exactly happened to her, and Nemi questions her interest. Did she look at her like another bizarre creature like everyone else here? Was that why she was coming off so strongly on her? Venat stepped back like slapped,

"In that case, what do you think of Meteion? Do you think we have to simply stop her, or save her from the cacophony neither she nor the world that created her could bear?"

What is Venat's Answer?

I'll make that post, soon hopefully...

[mariacallous]

Since the 1990s I’ve been interpreting events in Britain for an American audience through my journalism. Sometimes it’s easy: London’s glorious renaissance, Tony Blair’s rise. Sometimes it’s less easy: the strangeness of a “special relationship” where one side cares too much and the other too little, the post-imperial hangover that courses through British life.

And sometimes it’s hard: the puzzle of Brexit, the precipitous downfall of the Conservative party. It helps that for Americans still living through the Donald Trump saga, nothing is outside the realm of possibility any more. It also helps when I explain to them that those two latest chapters of British history are connected.

I tell them that from the 2016 referendum onward, Brexit increasingly gave the Tories a focus. Never mind that Brexit was the most divisive event in postwar Britain; over time, the struggle to make it happen unified the party. Boris Johnson’s “Get Brexit Done” 2019 election campaign cemented the transformation and, as far as Brexit went, silenced Labour.

Within six weeks, however, the Tory tide would turn. Once Britain formally left the EU, the Brexit-imposed discipline within the Conservative party began to unravel. Admittedly, the pandemic would have thrown any government off course, but Johnson’s conduct in office didn’t help the Tory brand or party unity. Swamped by scandal, he was out. Enter Liz Truss.

As the US and the world looked on, Truss’s first weeks in office did not exactly restore confidence in Downing Street. Suddenly, the new government was shredding the Tories’ reputation for fiscal prudence and sound economic management. Friends of mine in the States could barely believe what they were witnessing. Even Americans who are ideologically opposed to the Conservatives were shocked to see the party of Churchill and Thatcher flying off the rails.

The Truss-Kwasi Kwarteng “Growth Plan 2022” started out as a budget at war with itself, with vast emergency spending sitting alongside big unfunded tax cuts. It was also at war with Bank of England monetary policy. That was bad enough. Then came U-turns, the defenestration of Kwarteng and the naming of a new chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, hardly an ideological soulmate of the libertarian prime minister.

This story is far from over. From the outset, the reaction to the new government’s “fiscal event” abroad was awful. Former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers said the world’s fifth-largest economy was “behaving a bit like an emerging market”. President Biden himself said that Truss’s original plan was a “mistake”. The International Monetary Fund, which usually reserves its sermonising for developing economies, said: “we do not recommend large and untargeted fiscal packages at this juncture, as it is important that fiscal policy does not work at cross purposes to monetary policy. Furthermore, the nature of the UK measures will likely increase inequality.”

Still, with all the opprobrium heaped on Truss, it’s easy to forget that the damage began long before she got hold of Britain’s finances. What’s happening today cannot be separated from what happened in the last decade, leading up to Brexit. To explain those days to non-Britons, you have to wade into the weeds of British politics. There, we come upon Nigel Farage, who though never elected to parliament had an extraordinary influence on Westminster politics. Had it not been for the threat Farage and Ukip posed to the Conservative party, David Cameron may never have decided to call for a referendum. But, fatefully, he did.

As a dual US-UK citizen who’s lived in London since 1996, the closest I could get to understanding a rationale behind Brexit was to see it in the context of what Blair once called “post-empire malaise” – a vague if deep-seated yearning to regain the confidence and sureness of identity that, at least in the imagination, went hand in hand with running an empire. “Take back control” was surely part of that, fuelled also by heightened economic insecurity in the wake of the 2007-08 financial crisis and a concomitant unease about immigration.

Setting that logic aside, I have to say that virtually all the economic arguments in favour of Brexit looked specious at best and cynically misleading at worst. In that sense, Brexit is a kind of original sin that sits at the heart of today’s UK economy. That should have been evident in the myriad dire economic forecasts blithely dismissed as “remoaner” scaremongering in the run-up to the 2016 referendum – forecasts that turned out to be mostly accurate. And it should have been obvious– as it was to the rest of the world – in the downward trajectory of the “Brexit pound”, which fell from 1.50 to 1.33 to the dollar overnight after the 23 June 2016 vote and ultimately hit its lowest-ever recorded level of 1.03 on 26 September of this year.

Being “liberated” from the EU was never going to live up to the counterfeit promises made by the Vote Leave campaign before the referendum. Britain’s borders are no less porous than they were. The post-Brexit trade deals the UK has negotiated are insignificant compared with the loss of its largest trading partner. The jewel-in-the-crown deal with the US is not even on the agenda, as Truss admitted last month.

The pandemic, whose arrival coincided with Britain’s departure from Europe, camouflaged much of the toll Brexit was inflicting on the economy. But the harm is real. A year ago, the Office for Budget Responsibility was estimating that Brexit’s long-term impact on economic growth would be more than twice as damaging as that of Covid.

The effect on trade has been devastating. Modelling by the Centre for European Reform found that solely because of Brexit, British trade in goods was down during the first half of last year, ranging between 11 and 16% month to month. “There is evidence that businesses face new and significant real-world challenges in trading with the EU that cannot be attributed to the pandemic,” the House of Lords European affairs committee reported in December.

Ending the free movement of labour between Britain and the continent – a Brexit cornerstone – is hollowing out the workforce. According to the Office for National Statistics, the number of job vacancies stood at 1,246,000 in the third quarter of this year, up from about 823,000 before Brexit and Covid-19 set in. These shortages afflict businesses large and small, from cafes and pubs to farms and manufacturing plants.

Meanwhile, the OBR analysis from May shows a number of economic indicators all going in the wrong direction: as a result of leaving the EU, long-term productivity will slump by 4%, both exports and imports will be around 15% lower in the long run, newly signed trade deals with non-EU countries “will not have a material impact”, and the government’s new post-Brexit migration regime will reduce net inward migration at a time of critical labour shortages. It has been some story to tell.

There’s a scene in the House Commons that keeps playing in my head. It’s 2019 and Jacob Rees-Mogg, now Truss’s business secretary, is speaking of the “broad, sunlit uplands that await us” thanks to Brexit. Then I contemplate where Britain is today: heading into a protracted recession under an enfeebled prime minister leading a wounded, fractious party. I hope I’m proved wrong, and those sunlit uplands are out there over the horizon. No sign as yet. But I’d be pleased to come back and tell everyone who has listened so far that I was mistaken.