#zip code map

[medihertz]

Frequently Searched U.S. Zip Codes

Here are  frequently searched U.S. zip codes (including Boydton, VA) along with verified sources (USPS, Census, and government sites): 1. Boydton, VA Zip Code: 23917 Source: USPS Zip Code Lookup 2. New York, NY Zip Codes: 10001 (Manhattan), 11201 (Brooklyn) Source: NYC.gov 3. Los Angeles, CA Zip Codes: 90012 (Downtown), 90210 (Beverly Hills) Source: US Census 4. Chicago, IL Zip…

[victusinveritas]

Map illustrating the hierarchical relationship of USA ZIP Codes.

[angel-dust-addict]

//Happy 4th of July to all my fellow Americans! And make sure as we celebrate to remember whose labor built this country and whose land you're living on.

[inboundremblog]

Exploring Local Communities Through Carmel Zip Codes

Credit: Image by Republica | Pixabay

An Overview of Carmel Zip Codes and What They Offer

Imagine moving to a new city or planning a trip to an unfamiliar territory; without clear guidance, you may waste time searching for activities that match your interests. Well, the unsung heroes of geographical organization are zip codes! If you wish to explore the coastal area of the Monterey Peninsula and the beautiful Carmel-by-the-Sea, break it down into manageable parts to find what you're looking for with ease and precision. Here's an in-depth look at notable Carmel zip codes and what they offer.

What Are The Carmel Zip Codes?

Carmel Village itself and its surrounding areas are predominantly within the 93921 zip code. The more remote parts, such as Carmel Highlands and Carmel Valley, are zoned under 93923 and 93924 zip codes, depending on the specific area. These Carmel zip codes mark neighborhoods and districts and showcase unique lifestyles and attractions.

Why Use Carmel Zip Codes When Exploring?

Carmel’s zip codes help visitors and residents explore the area, understand its geography, and discover what each part offers.

Pinpoint Diverse Neighborhoods Carmel zip codes represent a unique aspect of living, from the bustling charm of downtown to the quiet luxury of cliffside communities or the sun-drenched appeal of inland areas.

Tailor Experiences to Preferences Carmel zip codes can guide you to areas with attractions that match your interests. Love the beach? Focus on 93921. Prefer vineyards and open spaces? Head to 93924.

Ease Real Estate Searches Homebuyers can use Carmel zip codes to target specific lifestyles, property types, and price ranges. These codes help streamline the search for their dream home, whether they seek a coastal cottage or a sprawling valley estate.

Discover Hidden Gems Carmel zip codes often include lesser-known spots that might not appear in general guides. For instance, 93922 offers serene hiking trails and stunning ocean views less heavily marketed than downtown Carmel's attractions.

Simplify Navigation Exploring the Carmel region using zip codes makes it easier to navigate, whether you're planning a trip or relocating.

Get To Know Carmel Zip Codes

93921: Carmel-by-the-Sea’s Storybook Charm

The 93921 Carmel zip code is inseparable from charming downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods. This area offers charming scenery of fairy-tale cottages, small-styled shops, and beautiful artistic galleries. Roads are easy to walk, and the neighborhood environment creates a village vibe, making it suitable for people who have retired, families, and working people.

Homes in this area range from small bungalows to multimillion-dollar estates. Dining options are abundant. Parking and home prices can be challenging, but the unique charm outweighs the drawbacks for many.

93923: Coastal Elegance of Carmel Highlands

93923 zip code covers Carmel Highlands, which is located to the south of Carmel-by-the-Sea. This area is affluent, with cliff homes and villas with breathtaking vistas of the Pacific Ocean from their balconies. Some rank among the most costly in the region and cater to luxury buyers.

Carmel Highlands appeals to those seeking tranquility and high-end living. The atmosphere is rural, the location is relatively secluded but it is only a few minutes’ drive from Carmel town proper. Places of interest include Point Lobos State Natural Reserve which offers trails as well as wildlife viewing opportunities.

93924: Carmel Valley’s Vineyards

Carmel Valley is famous for its sunny weather and wine-country vibes. Bernardus and Holman Ranch wineries are among the many that make this area a wine-lover destination. In addition to vineyards, golf courses, and equestrian properties define the area.

Homes in 93924 often have large lots, perfect for anyone seeking a quiet retreat. They are less expensive than coastal Carmel but require a longer commute to the beach and shopping centers.

93920: Big Sur’s Rugged Beauty

The 93920 zip code includes Big Sur, which is famed for its stunning topography along the edges of the ocean. Due to its aforesaid features, this region is perfect for those who are in search of solitude and stunning landscapes. Many houses rest at the cliff edges affording extraordinary views of the sea.

Big Sur is a haven for artists, nature enthusiasts, and those who crave privacy. However, living here means limited access to amenities. Residents often travel to Carmel or Monterey to shop and dine.

93940: Monterey’s Urban Convenience

93940 includes Monterey. Though not part of defined Carmel zip codes, it is definitely close. This area is ideal for those who want proximity to downtown Monterey, Cannery Row, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Homes here range from historic Victorians to modern condos, catering to various budgets. The area boasts excellent schools, parks, and family-friendly activities. Monterey’s vibrant cultural scene and stunning bay views make it a desirable destination.

93950: Pacific Grove’s Coastal Retreat

The 93950 zip code covers Pacific Grove, located just north of Carmel. This charming seaside community features historic homes, coastal trails, and a laid-back lifestyle.

The Lovers Point Park and Asilomar State Beach are favorite spots for outdoor activities. Homes here are more affordable than those with Carmel zip codes, attracting families, retirees, and first-time buyers.

93953: Exclusive Pebble Beach Living

Pebble Beach is an internationally renowned community. This area is synonymous with prestige and is known for its luxury estates and world-class golf courses. Residents enjoy gated privacy, stunning ocean views, and access to the famous 17-mile Drive.

Pebble Beach is perfect for golf enthusiasts and affluent buyers looking for exclusivity. The area’s top-tier schools and peaceful surroundings also attract families. With high property values and HOA fees, living here requires a significant financial commitment. However, for those who can afford it, Pebble Beach offers unparalleled luxury.

93955: Affordable and Accessible Seaside

Seaside is just north of Monterey. This area is one of the more affordable options near Carmel zip code addresses. It is a practical and budget-friendly option for coastal living.

It has a mix of older homes, newer developments, and some apartments. It is close to California State University Monterey Bay and Fort Ord National Monument.

Wrap Up

Carmel’s zip codes offer distinct lifestyles, from rugged beauty to unparalleled luxury. Whether you prioritize affordability, exclusivity, or proximity to nature, the Monterey Peninsula has something for everyone. Understanding what each zip code offers can help you find the perfect fit for your needs.

Visit https://heinrichbrooksher.com/zip-code-map/ to explore the unique neighborhoods defined by Carmel zip codes and find your perfect coastal home today.

Explore the stunning coastal neighborhoods, lifestyles, and attractions with our complete Carmel zip code guide!

[pittsburghbeautiful]

Bakerstown

Bakerstown Bakerstown, in northern Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, is within Richland Township, serving as a vital segment of the Pittsburgh metro area. This census-designated place, enriched with historical significance, is the birthplace of noted missionary Lizzie M. Guthrie, further adding to its cultural depth. History of Bakerstown The historical evolution of Bakerstown is marked by…

[gattermeirgroup]

Gattermeir Group

Ryan had never intended to become a Realtor. As he grew up by the Lake and pursued his education away at college, the idea of returning to his hometown wasn't part of his initial plans. His father had been among the pioneering realtors at the Lake, starting his journey back in 1970. He had built a thriving real estate brokerage, and everyone around him assumed he would naturally follow in his father's footsteps. However, he persisted in forging his path and proving them all wrong.

Following college, he went to St. Louis and embarked on a career in the office equipment industry, selling something remarkable for the time—fax machines! Surprisingly, that career took off, and before he knew it, he was a national sales manager for a company, traveling extensively across the country.

There was nothing inherently wrong with his trajectory. He was succeeding and could foresee a promising future ahead. But the more he immersed himself in the corporate world, the more he daydreamed about his cherished hometown. He came to realize that he truly missed the serenity of the Lake.

Thus, in 1999, he left his job and returned to the Lake, accompanied by his then-fiancée and now-wife, Jennifer. He worked alongside his father, absorbing the intricacies of the real estate business, and gradually began establishing his roster of clients, which steadily grew over the years. His father imparted to him the significance of nurturing enduring relationships and treating clients like family. His father often shared the unique allure of ""Lake Life"" with his clientele, inviting them to their home for gatherings or taking them out for boating adventures. That's how things were back then, and that's the ethos he still adheres to today. After over twenty years, he would keep everything the same and has facilitated the sale of hundreds of millions of dollars in properties. The Lake of the Ozarks holds a special place in his heart. He relishes its lifestyle and people, and he's eager to share this treasure with anyone willing to embrace it—from first-time homebuyers and families acquiring their inaugural Lake home or condo to investors seeking their next significant opportunity.

He takes pride in his expertise and candidness, guiding his clients to make informed decisions. Many of his clients would attest that he's dissuaded them from more properties than he's convinced them to pursue. Moreover, he's proud of his involvement in the real estate sector, having served as President of his Local and State Association of Realtors. Over the past couple of decades, life has undoubtedly transformed. He and Jen now have two children, a canine companion, and three feline friends! During the summer months, they're often found lounging on their dock at the 6-mile marker, riding wave runners, or cruising on their boat—whether scouting out properties, exploring coves, or heading to their favored Sunday morning breakfast spots. He considers himself profoundly fortunate to call this place 'home,' and he's unequivocal about having the most fulfilling job in the world!

Address: 752 Bagnell Dam Blvd., Suite A, Lake Ozark, MO 65049, USA Phone: 573-262-8887 Website: https://ryansells.com

[billa-billa007]

The Galveston West End District is a beachside neighborhood located on the western side of Galveston Island, Texas. It is known for its miles of sandy beaches, dunes, and beachfront homes. The area is a popular tourist destination, offering a range of activities such as swimming, surfing, fishing, and birdwatching.

[sweethomespokane]

Taci VanLeuven - Spokane, WA Real Estate Expert

After years in the industry, Taci VanLeuven acknowledges one recurring theme that drives her business: I LOVE WHAT I DO!

She places an incredibly high value on being a local resource and trusted advisor for my community. Above all, she wants to be the ride-or-die friend who goes above and beyond to advocate for you and walk by your side during some of the biggest transactions you'll likely ever be part of—buying your first home.

Let her guide you through the journey.

Are you selling your luxury estate? I have global marketing expertise.

Are you an investor? Me too!

Let's talk about multi-family and rentals.

Relocating? She got you. However, you might need a business partner and real estate expert. She's so looking forward to being your next call!

Address: 915 W 2nd Ave, Spokane, WA 99201, USA Phone: 509-230-5363 Website: https://sweethomespokane.com

[tobiosbbyghorl]

pairing: scientist!sunghoon x scientist! reader

wc:10.5k

released date: 05.17.2025

warning: PURE FICTION!!

synopsis: In the quiet of her lab, Dr. Y/N, a skilled scientist, sets out on a risky mission to bring back her late fiancé, Park Sunghoon, who died in a car accident. Using his preserved DNA, she creates a clone that grows rapidly in just two years. When Sunghoon wakes up, he faces the difficult reality of being brought back to life and the moral issues surrounding Y/N's actions.

a/n: ITS HERE!! Hope you guys will love it as much as I did writing it! feedbacks,likes and reblogs are highly appreciated!

In the cold glow of my underground biotech lab, silence is sacred. Down here, beneath layers of steel and earth, the world doesn’t exist. No grief. No time. Just me. Just him.

The capsule glows in the center of the room—a vertical womb of steel and glass, pulsing faintly with blue light. Suspended inside, wrapped in strands of bio-filaments and artificial amniotic fluid, is the reason I wake up in the morning. Or stay awake. I don’t know the difference anymore.

Park Sunghoon.

Or… what’s left of him.

One year ago, he died on his way to our civil wedding. A drunk driver. A rainy street. A second too late. I got the call before I even zipped up my dress. I still remember the way my coffee spilled all over the lab floor when my knees gave out. I never cleaned it. It’s still there, dried in the corner. A fossil of the moment my world cracked open.

⸻

He used to say I was too curious for my own good.

That I’d poke the universe too hard one day and it would poke back.

Maybe this is what he meant.

⸻

Sunghoon and I were both scientists—biotech researchers. We studied regenerative cloning, theorized about neural echo imprinting, debated ethics like it was foreplay.

He was against replicas. Always. “A copy isn’t a soul,” he’d say. “It’s just noise pretending to be music.”

But the day he died, I stopped caring about music.

I just wanted to hear his voice again.

⸻

I had everything I needed. A sample of his bone DNA—collected after a minor lab accident years ago and stored under a pseudonym. His blood type, genome map, neural scan from our first brain-simulation trial. A perfect match, all buried in our old hard drives. He never knew I kept them. Maybe he would’ve hated me for it.

Maybe I don’t care.

I called it Project ECHO.

Because that’s what he was now.

An echo. A ripple in the void.

⸻

The first version—ECHO-1—was a failure.

He looked like Sunghoon. But he never woke up. I ran every test. Monitored every vital. Adjusted nutrient cycles, protein growth, heartbeat regulators. But something in him was missing—something I couldn’t code into cells.

A soul, maybe. Or timing.

He died the second I tried to bring him out.

I cremated and buried that version in the garden, under the cherry tree he planted the first spring we moved in. I didn’t cry at the funeral. I just stood there holding the urn and whispered, “I’ll get it right next time.”

⸻

ECHO-2 was different.

I restructured the genome to prevent cellular decay. Added telomere stabilizers to delay aging. Enhanced his immune system. This time, I built him stronger. Healthier. The version of Sunghoon that would’ve never gotten sick that winter in Sapporo, or fainted in the elevator that one night after forgetting to eat. That version who could live longer. With me.

But the rest—I left untouched.

His smile. His hands. The faint mole scattered in his face. The way his hair curled when wet. All exactly the same. It had to be. He wouldn’t be Sunghoon without those things.

I even reconstructed his mind.

Using an illegal neural mapping sequence I coded from fragments of our joint research, I retrieved echoes of his memory—dream-like reflections extracted from the deepest preserved brain tissue. It wasn’t perfect. But it was him. Pieces of him. The things he never got to say. The life he never finished.

⸻

It took two years.

Two years in the dark, surrounded by synthetic fluid and filtered lights, modifying the incubator like a cradle built by obsession. I monitored every development milestone like a parent. I watched him grow. I whispered stories to him when the lab was quiet, played him our favorite records through the tank’s acoustic feed, left him notes on the console like he could read them.

⸻

One night, I touched the tank and felt warmth radiate back. His fingers twitched.

A smile cracked on his lips, soft and sleepy.

And I whispered, “You’re almost here.”

⸻

Now he floats before me—grown, complete, and terrifyingly familiar. His chest rises and falls steadily. Muscles formed and defined from synthetic stimulation. His brain is fully developed. His body—twenty-five years old. The age he was when he died. The age we should’ve gotten married.

And now, he’s ready.

⸻

The console buzzes beside me.

“Project ECHO – Stage V: Awakening. Confirm execution.”

My fingers hover. The hum of the lab grows louder. My heart beats so hard I feel it in my throat.

This is it.

The point of no return.

I press enter.

The Awakening didn’t look like the movies.

There was no dramatic gasp, no lightning bolt of consciousness.

It was subtle.

His eyes fluttered open, hazy and uncertain, like the first morning light after a long storm. They didn’t lock onto me at first. He blinked a few times—slow, groggy—and stared at the ceiling of the pod with a confusion so human it made my knees go weak.

Then his gaze shifted.

Found me.

And held.

Just long enough to knock the breath from my lungs.

“Sunghoon,” I whispered.

His lips barely moved. “…Y/N?”

And then—just like that—he slipped under again.

His vitals were stable, but his body couldn’t process full consciousness yet. It was expected. I designed it that way. A controlled emergence. Gentle. Like thawing from ice.

He would wake again. Soon.

⸻

Phase VI: Integration.

I had the room ready before I even began the cloning process. A private suite in the East Wing of my estate, modified to resemble a recovery room from a private hospital: sterile whites and soft blues, filtered natural lighting, automated IV drips and real-time vitals displayed on sleek black monitors. The scent of lavender piped faintly through the vents. His favorite.

I moved him after he lost consciousness again—quietly, carefully. No one else involved. Not even my AI assistant, KARA. This part was just mine.

Just ours.

He lay in the bed now, dressed in soft gray cotton, sheets pulled up to his chest. The faint hum of the machines harmonized with his breathing. It was surreal. Like watching a ghost settle into a life it forgot it had.

I perched on the armchair across from him, the dim lighting casting long shadows over his face.

“You’re safe,” I murmured, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. “And when you wake up… everything will be in place.”

⸻

I spent the next forty-eight hours setting the stage.

Fabricated records of a traumatic car accident—minor amnesia, extended coma, miraculous survival. Hacked into the hospital registry and quietly added his name under a wealthy alias. I made sure the media silence was absolute. No visitors. No suspicious calls. A full blackout.

I memorized the story I would tell him. Rehearsed it like a script.

We had been on our way to City Hall. A drunk driver ran a red light. I survived with minor injuries. He hit his head. Slipped into a coma. No signs of brain damage, but long-term memory instability was expected.

He’d been here ever since. Safe. Loved. Waiting to wake up.

And now—he had.

⸻

On the morning of the third day, I heard movement.

Soft. Shuffling. Sheets rustling.

I turned from the monitor just as he groaned softly, his head turning on the pillow.

“Sunghoon?”

His eyes blinked open again, more alert this time. Still groggy, but present.

“Y/N…?” he rasped.

I rushed to his side, heart in my throat. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”

His brows knit together, voice hoarse. “What happened?”

“You were in an accident,” I said gently. “The day of our wedding. You’ve been in a coma. Two years.”

His eyes widened—just a little. Then flicked down to his hands. The IV. The machines. The unfamiliar room.

“…Two years?”

I nodded, bracing for the confusion. “You survived. But it was close. We weren’t sure you’d ever… come back.”

He said nothing.

Just stared at me.

Like he was trying to remember something he couldn’t quite reach.

“…Why does it feel like I never left?” he whispered.

I smiled softly. Forced. “Because I never left you.”

And for now, that was all he needed to know.

But deep down, behind those eyes, behind the half-forgotten memories and muscle memory that wasn’t truly his—

Something flickered.

Something not asleep anymore.

He was awake.

And the lie had begun.

The days that followed passed in a quiet rhythm.

He adjusted faster than I anticipated. His motor skills were strong, his speech patterns natural—so much so that sometimes I forgot he wasn’t really him. Or maybe he was. Just… rebuilt. Reassembled with grief and obsession and the memory of love that still clung to me like static.

I stayed with him in the hospital wing, sleeping on the pullout beside his bed. Every morning he’d wake before me, staring out the wide window as if trying to piece together time. And when I asked what he was thinking, he always gave the same answer:

“I feel like I dreamed you.”

On the seventh day, he turned to me, his voice clearer than ever.

“Can I go back to our room?”

I paused, fingers wrapped around the rim of his tea mug.

He still called it our room.

I nodded.

“Yeah,” I said. “You��re strong enough now.”

And so we did.

I helped him down the hallway, hand in his, the same way I’d imagined it during the long nights of Phase II. His steps were careful, measured. But his eyes… they lit up the moment we entered.

It looked the same.

The navy sheets. The low lights. The picture of us by the bookshelf—framed and untouched. His books still on the shelf in alphabetical order. His favorite sweatshirt folded at the foot of the bed like I had never moved it.

He smiled when he saw it. “It feels like nothing’s changed.”

Except everything had.

I didn’t say that.

⸻

He asked about the lab a few nights later. We were curled together in bed—his head on my shoulder, our legs tangled like old habits finding their way home.

“How’s the lab?” he asked, voice soft in the dark. “Are we still working on the neuro-mirroring project?”

My heart skipped.

I’d gotten rid of everything. The pod. The DNA matrix. The prototype drafts. Scrubbed the drives clean. Smashed the external backups. Buried the remains of ECHO-1 under a new tree. The lab was as sterile as my conscience was not.

I turned toward him, brushing my thumb over the scar that curved above his brow. The one that hadn’t been there before the “accident.”

“It’s being renovated,” I said carefully. “After the crash… I couldn’t go in for a while. So I decided to redo it. Clear things out. Start over fresh.”

He nodded slowly. “Makes sense.”

He didn’t ask again.

And just like that, life began to move forward.

He followed me around the house again, stealing kisses in the kitchen, playfully poking fun at the way I never folded laundry properly. He rediscovered his favorite coffee, laughed at old movies like they were new, held my hand under the stars like it was the most natural thing in the world.

But sometimes—when he thought I wasn’t looking—he’d stare at his reflection too long. Tilt his head. Press his fingers to his chest like he was checking if something was still there.

Maybe he felt it.

The echo of what he was.

But if he did, he never said.

One night, wrapped up in each other’s warmth, he whispered into my neck, “I don’t know how I got so lucky to come back to you.”

I pressed a kiss to his temple, forcing a smile as my heart ached beneath the surface.

“I guess some things are just meant to find their way back.”

Even if they were never supposed to.

Time softened everything.

The sterile silence of the house began to fade, replaced by the quiet thrum of life again—the clink of mugs in the morning, the shuffle of his bare feet on the hardwood, the lazy hum of music playing from a speaker that hadn’t been touched since he died. I started to breathe again, and so did he.

Like we were rewriting the rhythm we’d lost.

—

Our first night out felt like time travel.

He picked the place—a rooftop restaurant we always swore we’d try, back when work kept getting in the way. I wore the same navy dress I had worn on our second anniversary. He noticed. His hand slid into mine under the table like it belonged there, his thumb tracing invisible patterns against my skin.

Halfway through dessert, he leaned in, grinning with chocolate at the corner of his lip.

“You still scrunch your nose when you’re pretending to like the wine,” he teased, eyes gleaming.

I blinked. “You remember that?”

He nodded slowly. “It just feels like… I always knew.”

I smiled, heart aching in that strange, quiet way it always did now.

“You’re right,” I said, brushing the chocolate off his lip. “You always did.”

Even grocery shopping with him became a date.

He pushed the cart like a child let loose, tossing in things we didn’t need just to make me laugh. At one point, he held up a can of whipped cream with the most mischievous glint in his eye.

“For movie night,” he said innocently.

I arched a brow. “For the movie or during the movie?”

He smirked. “Depends how boring the movie is.”

We walked home with one umbrella, our fingers interlaced in the rain, and the world somehow felt smaller, warmer.

He burned the garlic the first time.

“I told you the pan was too hot,” I said, waving smoke away.

“And you told me to trust you,” he countered, looking absurdly proud of his crime against dinner. “Besides, I like it crunchy.”

“You like your taste buds annihilated, apparently.”

We ended up ordering takeout, sitting on the kitchen floor, eating noodles out of the box with chopsticks, laughing about how we’d both make terrible housewives.

But the next night, we tried again.

He stood behind me, arms around my waist, guiding my hands as I chopped vegetables.

“You used to do this,” I said softly. “When I first moved in.”

“I know,” he murmured. “It’s one of my favorite memories.”

Cuddling became a ritual.

He always found a way to get impossibly close—sprawled across the couch with his head in my lap, humming contentedly while I read a book or ran my fingers through his hair.

Sometimes we didn’t speak for hours.

Just the quiet breathing, the rise and fall of his chest, his heartbeat echoing faintly against my thigh. Real. Solid. Present.

It was a miracle I could touch.

One night, as rain tapped gently on the windows and he was half-asleep on my shoulder, he whispered:

“I feel safe with you.”

I held him tighter.

Because if I let go—even for a second—I was afraid he might vanish again.

⸻

Love blossomed differently this time.

Slower. Deeper. Less like fire, more like roots. Tangled and unshakable.

And sometimes, in the quiet of our shared bed, I would watch him sleep and wonder if it was love that brought him back.

Or obsession.

But when he opened his eyes and smiled like the sun lived behind them, I told myself it didn’t matter.

He was here.

And that was enough.

For now.

⸻

I woke with a jolt, my heart pounding so violently it threatened to break free from my chest. The nightmare was still fresh, its vividness clinging to my mind like the smoke of a fire.

Sunghoon.

He was in the car again—his face frozen in the moment before everything shattered, his eyes wide with disbelief. The screech of tires, the crash. His body limp. The way I couldn’t reach him no matter how hard I screamed.

I gasped for air, my fingers clutching at the sheets, tangled in the panic that still gripped me.

My breath came in ragged bursts as I sat up, drenched in sweat. My chest heaved with the rawness of the memory, the terrible what-ifs that still haunted me.

A hand gently touched my back.

“Y/N?”

His voice, soft and concerned, cut through the haze of the nightmare. I froze for a moment, the world around me still spinning from the disorienting shock.

I turned, and there he was—Sunghoon—sitting up beside me in the bed, his eyes full of concern. The soft glow of the bedside lamp illuminated his face, and for a moment, it was almost as if everything had shifted back into place.

But only for a second.

“Are you alright?” He asked, his voice warm with worry.

I swallowed hard, trying to steady my breathing. “I… I just had a nightmare,” I whispered, avoiding his eyes. My heart was still trying to settle, and I didn’t want him to see the fear in my face. I didn’t want him to see how broken I still was.

Sunghoon leaned forward, his hands reaching out to cradle my face gently. He brushed a strand of hair away from my forehead, his touch so familiar, so tender.

“Nightmares are just that,” he said softly, his thumb grazing my skin. “They aren’t real. I’m here.”

I nodded, trying to pull myself together, but the knot in my throat wouldn’t loosen. There was something about the way he said it—so assuredly. So real. Like the past didn’t exist, like he had never been gone.

Like I hadn’t created him from fragments of grief and obsession.

He sat next to me, his arm around my shoulders as I leaned into him. The warmth of his body, the steady rise and fall of his chest, slowly calmed me. I closed my eyes and breathed in the scent of him—the same as it had always been.

“I’m here,” he repeated, his voice a quiet lullaby.

But somewhere deep inside, I couldn’t shake the question that had haunted me since the moment I had revived him: Who was he really? Was this truly the Sunghoon I had loved, the one who had filled my life with light? Or was this just a perfect imitation, a replica of my memories? An echo of a man who would never truly exist again?

I wanted to believe he was him. I needed to believe it.

But as he held me, his warmth seeping into my skin, I couldn’t deny the doubt that gnawed at my soul.

“Y/N?” he murmured, sensing my tension.

“Yeah?” I whispered, pulling myself closer into his arms.

He tilted my chin up, his gaze intense as he met my eyes. “I love you,” he said quietly, with such certainty that for a moment, it almost felt real—like the love we’d always shared before the accident, before everything shattered.

And in that moment, I wanted to believe it. I wanted to forget everything else, to let myself drown in the reassurance that this was him—my Sunghoon.

But the ghosts of the past still lingered in the corners of my mind.

“I love you too,” I replied softly, my voice shaky but true.

And for a few minutes, we just sat there, holding each other in the stillness of the night.

But as I closed my eyes and let the warmth of his embrace lull me back to sleep, the doubt remained.

Would I ever be able to escape the shadows of my own creation?

As the days passed, the weight of my doubts gradually lightened. Sunghoon’s presence—his warmth, his voice, the way he smiled—reminded me more and more of the man I had once loved, the man who had been taken from me.

The fear, the gnawing uncertainty that had once been constant in the back of my mind, slowly started to fade. Each moment we spent together was a little piece of normalcy returning. He didn’t just look like Sunghoon. He was Sunghoon. In every little detail—his laugh, the way he tilted his head when he was deep in thought, how he always made the coffee exactly the way I liked it. His presence was enough to reassure me that this was him, in all the ways that mattered.

We went on walks together, hand in hand, strolling through the garden I had planted the day we first moved into the house. It was filled with flowers that bloomed year-round—just like the memories I had of us, blooming and growing despite the heartbreak.

We laughed, reminiscing about everything we had shared before. Sunghoon was never afraid to be vulnerable with me, and it felt like we were picking up right where we left off. His sense of humor, always dry and sarcastic, never failed to make me smile. And slowly, I began to accept that the man who stood beside me, laughing at his own jokes, was truly my Sunghoon.

One night, as we cooked dinner together, I watched him carefully slice vegetables, his movements graceful and practiced. It was simple, domestic, but it felt like everything I had longed for since he was gone.

“Don’t forget the garlic,” I reminded him, teasing.

He shot me a look, smirking. “I remember.”

I smiled, feeling the warmth of the moment settle into my bones. This was real. The way he made sure I was comfortable in the kitchen, the way we worked together without needing words—this was our life, reborn.

The more time we spent in the house, the more at ease I became. We cooked together, watched old movies, read books side by side, and held each other as we fell asleep at night. There were no more questions in my mind. No more doubts. Just the feeling of peace settling over me, like the calm after a storm.

Sunghoon never asked me about the lab. And I never had to lie, because there was no need to. The lab had been dismantled long ago, every trace of Project ECHO erased. It was as if it never existed. My obsession, my grief—gone.

In its place was this. A second chance.

“I don’t think I’ll ever stop loving you, Y/N,” he said one evening as we sat on the couch, the sound of rain tapping against the windows. He held me close, his head resting against mine. “No matter what happens, no matter what changes… you’re the one for me.”

I turned to look at him, searching his eyes for something—anything—that might reveal the truth I feared. But there was nothing. Only love. Real love.

“I feel the same,” I whispered back, brushing my lips against his.

For a moment, the world outside disappeared. There was no past, no lab, no questions. There was only Sunghoon, here with me. And that was enough.

The days continued to pass in a peaceful blur of moments that I had once thought lost forever. With each sunrise, my doubts melted away, and with every touch, every kiss, I felt more certain that this was real. That he was real.

Sunghoon might not be the exact same person who had walked out of that door all those years ago—but in my heart, it didn’t matter. He was my Sunghoon, and that was all I needed.

Together, we built a life—one step at a time. And this time, I wasn’t afraid.

I wasn’t afraid of the past. I wasn’t afraid of the future.

I was just… happy.

Sunghoon’s POV

It had been a year since I came back to her, and in that time, I had slowly convinced myself that everything was okay. That what we had, what I had, was enough. That the woman I loved, the woman who had saved me—had done so much more than just revive me—wasn’t hiding any more secrets. But the past… it always had a way of creeping up, didn’t it?

I wasn’t snooping, not exactly. I was just cleaning up. I had offered to help her tidy up the office since she had been so caught up in her work lately, and well, I had nothing else to do. After all, it’s been a year now, and I’ve come to understand her more than I could ever have imagined. She’d been distant the past few days, and it made me uneasy. The kind of unease that makes you feel like there’s something you should know, but you can’t quite put your finger on it.

It was as I was sorting through the boxes in her home office—one that she hadn’t allowed me to visit much—that I found it.

A video tape.

It was tucked behind a stack of old files, half-buried in the clutter. At first, I thought nothing of it. She was always meticulous about her work, so maybe it was just an old research document, something from her past. But when I saw the words “Project ECHO – Development and Breakdown” scrawled on the side, my heart stopped. I felt a sickening knot tighten in my chest, and instinctively, my fingers curled around it.

What was this?

My thoughts raced as I fumbled with the tape, my hands trembling just slightly as I slid it into the old VCR player she kept in the corner of the office. The screen flickered to life.

There I was.

Or… the version of me that had once existed. The first one. My mind was running faster than my eyes could follow the images flashing on the screen. I saw footage of my development, from the initial growth stages to the first electrical impulses firing in my brain, as well as my physical appearance being tested and adjusted.

My stomach turned as the video documented every breakdown of my body—every failed attempt to bring me to life. I saw the wires, the artificial fluids, the machines that I had been hooked up to before I had opened my eyes, before I had woken up in that hospital room.

But it was the last part of the video that hit hardest. There, in her cold, emotionless voice, Y/N narrated her thoughts, her failed efforts, her obsession with recreating me.

“I couldn’t get it right… not the first time. But I will, because I have to. For him. For us.”

My chest tightened as the realization hit me like a brick. She had known the entire time. She had created me. I wasn’t the Sunghoon who had died. I was a version of him. A shadow of the real thing.

The screen went black, but the words echoed in my mind like an incessant drumbeat.

For him. For us.

The pain of that truth was like a knife twisting in my gut. The woman I loved had spent years trying to recreate me, to bring me back—because she couldn’t let go. She couldn’t let me go. But she never told me. She never let me in on the truth of it all.

I was a lie.

I wasn’t real. And all this time, I had been believing I was the same Sunghoon she had lost. But I wasn’t.

I could feel the tears stinging my eyes as I reached for the nearby papers, pulling them out in a frantic rage. More documents. More of my development—charts, genetic breakdowns, notes about my failed memories, and even the procedures Y/N had carried out. Every page proved it. I wasn’t just a clone; I was the culmination of her grief and desire.

The door to the office opened quietly behind me, and I didn’t need to turn around to know who it was. The air in the room grew thick, suffocating. I could feel her presence like a weight pressing down on me.

“Sunghoon,” she whispered, her voice barely a murmur.

I finally turned to face her. She looked pale, her eyes wide, clearly having seen the documents I had scattered across the room. She knew. She knew what I had found.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I choked out, my voice raw. “Why didn’t you tell me the truth, Y/N?”

Her eyes flickered with guilt, and for a moment, I thought she might say something—anything to explain, to apologize. But instead, she took a step back, her hands wringing together nervously.

“I didn’t want you to hate me,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “I didn’t want to lose you again. I—I thought maybe if you didn’t know… maybe we could have our life back. I just wanted to have you here again, Sunghoon.”

My hands balled into fists at my sides, and I could feel the tears building in my eyes. “But I’m not him, am I? I’m not the real Sunghoon. I’m just… this.” I gestured around at the papers, at the video, at the mess that had been my life. “I’m a replica. A copy of someone who doesn’t exist anymore. How could you do this to me?”

She stepped forward, her face pale with fear, but her voice was firm. “I didn’t mean for it to go this far. I just wanted you back, Sunghoon. I couldn’t let go. I couldn’t lose you. You were taken from me so suddenly, and I couldn’t… I couldn’t live with the thought that you were gone forever.”

I looked at her, the woman who had once been everything to me—the one who I thought had rebuilt me out of love, not out of desperation.

“Do you think I’m the same person? Do you think I can just pretend that I’m the man I was before? How could you think I wouldn’t want to know the truth?” My voice cracked, emotion flooding out of me like a dam breaking. “How could you do this?”

Her face crumpled, and I saw the tears well up in her eyes. “I’m so sorry, Sunghoon,” she whispered, her voice barely audible through the sobs. “I thought if I could just give you everything back, we could start over. But I was wrong. I—I should’ve told you from the beginning.”

I could feel the overwhelming ache in my chest, the confusion, the betrayal. But more than that, I felt the loss of something far deeper: trust. The trust that she had built between us was gone in an instant.

“You’re right. You should’ve told me,” I whispered, stepping back, my throat tight. “I need some space, Y/N. I can’t… I can’t do this right now.”

I turned and walked out of the room, my heart shattering with each step.

I paused at the door, the weight of her voice sinking into me like a stone. I didn’t turn around, not right away. The question lingered in the air, hanging between us, impossible to ignore.

“If I was the one who died, would you do the same?”

Her words were quiet, but they cut through the silence of the room with precision, like a knife through soft flesh. I could feel the tension in the air—the desperation in her voice, the need for an answer. She was asking me to justify her actions, to somehow make sense of everything she had done.

I clenched my fists at my sides, fighting the urge to turn and lash out. But I couldn’t do it—not when the pain of her question was a reflection of everything I was feeling.

“I… I don’t know,” I finally muttered, my voice barely a whisper. “Maybe I would. I can’t say for sure. But I don’t think I’d ever hide the truth from you. I wouldn’t keep you in the dark, pretending that everything was okay when it wasn’t.”

Her soft, broken gasp from behind me reached my ears, but I couldn’t face her—not yet. Not when the anger and hurt were still so raw.

“You don’t know what it’s like to lose someone you love that much,” she said, her voice trembling with emotion. “I couldn’t stand the thought of living without you, Sunghoon. I thought… maybe if I could just bring you back… we could have our future. But now, I see how selfish that was. How wrong.”

I wanted to say something—anything—to ease her pain, but the words stuck in my throat. The truth was, part of me still wanted to reach out to her, to hold her, to tell her it was going to be okay. But I wasn’t sure if that would be enough. Would it ever be enough?

“I need time, Y/N,” I said quietly, my voice cracking. “I need to think. About all of this. About us.”

The silence that followed was heavy, unbearable. And then, finally, I walked out the door, leaving her behind, standing in the wreckage of her choices—and my own shattered heart.

The days stretched on like a slow burn, each passing hour marked by the tension that filled every corner of our shared space. We were still in the same house, the same home, but it felt like we were living in different worlds now. The walls felt thicker, the silence heavier.

I moved through the house in a daze, keeping to myself more often than not. Y/N and I had an unspoken agreement—it was easier this way. She’d stay in the study or the kitchen, and I’d retreat to the room we used to share, now feeling like an alien space, void of the warmth it once held. We didn’t speak much anymore, and when we did, it was brief—polite, almost mechanical.

There were moments when I caught a glimpse of her, standing in the hallway, her head bent low, a soft frown on her face. Other times, she’d walk by without looking at me, her eyes fixed on the floor, avoiding my gaze as if she feared what might happen if she met my eyes for too long. I wanted to reach out, to say something—anything—but every time I did, the words felt inadequate, like they couldn’t possibly capture the weight of everything that had changed.

One evening, I found myself sitting in the living room, staring out the window at the moonlit garden. I could hear her footsteps in the hallway, the soft sound of her presence lingering in the air. For a moment, I thought she might come in, might sit beside me like she used to. But she didn’t. Instead, the silence stretched between us again, a reminder of the distance we had created.

I exhaled sharply, rubbing my eyes as frustration built inside me. The whole situation felt suffocating—like I was trapped between what I wanted and what had happened. I didn’t know how to fix it, or even if it could be fixed. There was so much to unravel, so many emotions to sort through. And then there was the truth—the truth of who I was now. Not just a man trying to find his way back to a life that no longer existed, but a clone—a replica of someone who once had a future, now burdened with a past he didn’t truly own.

The sound of her voice from the kitchen broke my thoughts.

“Dinner’s ready,” she called softly, her voice almost too gentle, too careful.

I hesitated for a moment, staring at the untouched glass of water on the coffee table. The empty space between us felt too vast to cross, but eventually, I stood up, making my way to the kitchen.

We sat across from each other, the dim light from the pendant lamp above casting shadows on the table. There were no small talks, no jokes exchanged like before. We ate in silence, the clinking of silverware the only sound between us. Every so often, I would look up, meeting her gaze for a fleeting second, but neither of us had the courage to speak the words that were hanging in the air.

The food was good, as always, but it didn’t taste the same. The flavor of everything felt hollow, like a memory that wasn’t quite mine.

When the meal was over, I helped clear the table, my movements stiff. The kitchen felt too small, the air too thick.

She turned to face me then, her expression unreadable, her eyes dark with something I couldn’t quite place. “I’m sorry,” she said quietly, her voice barely a whisper. “For everything.”

I swallowed hard, the knot in my chest tightening. “I know you are. I… I just don’t know what to do with all of this.”

Her eyes flickered with unshed tears, and she stepped back, as though the space between us could somehow protect her from the weight of the moment. “I never wanted to hurt you, Sunghoon,” she murmured, her words full of regret. “I thought… I thought if I could just bring you back, we could have another chance. But now I see how wrong I was.”

I nodded slowly, trying to process the ache in my chest. “I don’t know how to fix this either. But I know… I know I need to understand who I am now. And what we are.” My voice trembled, but I fought it back. “I need time.”

“I understand,” she whispered, her voice breaking slightly. “Take all the time you need.”

It felt like a farewell, and yet, we stayed in the same house. In the same life, but now it was something unrecognizable.

The next few weeks passed in the same quiet, empty rhythm. We moved around each other, living parallel lives without ever crossing paths in any meaningful way. There were mornings where I would wake up to find her sitting on the couch, staring at her phone, or nights where I’d catch her reading a book in the dim light.

Sometimes, I would linger by the door to her study, wondering if I should knock, ask her how she was feeling, but each time, I backed away, unsure if I was ready to face the answers she might give.

At night, I would lie in bed, staring at the ceiling, wondering if this was how we were going to live—side by side but separate. I missed her. I missed us. But I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was just a shadow of the man she once loved, and that was a weight I wasn’t sure she could carry anymore.

One night, as I lay in the dark, unable to sleep, I heard the soft sound of her crying. The quiet sobs seeped through the walls, and my heart clenched painfully in my chest.

I wanted to go to her. Hold her. Tell her everything would be okay. But I couldn’t. I didn’t have the words anymore.

And maybe, I never would.

The night stretched on, and despite the tension that hung thick in the house, I managed to fall into an uneasy sleep. The weight of everything—our fragmented relationship, the guilt, the uncertainty—had left me exhausted, though the sleep I sought felt shallow and restless.

It was around 3 AM when I was jolted awake by the softest sound—a faint, broken sob. My eyes snapped open in the dark, my heartbeat quickening. I froze, listening carefully, the sounds of her grief pulling at something deep within me.

It was coming from the direction of her room.

At first, I told myself to ignore it. After all, she had her own space, her own pain, and I had my own to deal with. But the sound of her brokenness—quiet and desperate—was too much to ignore.

Slowly, I slid out of bed, my bare feet padding softly on the cool floor. I moved silently through the house, drawn to the soft, muffled sounds echoing through the walls. When I reached the door to her room, I paused.

She was crying, the kind of sobs that wracked her body and left her vulnerable. I hadn’t heard her cry like this before—unfiltered, raw, as if the dam inside her had finally broken.

The light from her bedside lamp flickered weakly, casting long shadows on the walls. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, her head buried in her hands, the tears falling freely, like they couldn’t be held back anymore.

I stood there, frozen, my chest tightening at the sight. My first instinct was to rush to her side, to pull her into my arms and whisper that everything would be alright. But I didn’t. I just watched from the doorway, a spectator in my own home.

The sound of her pain made me feel powerless, as if I were too far gone—too far removed from who I once was to even be the man she needed. I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came. The silence between us felt like an unspoken agreement, a distance neither of us knew how to cross.

And then she spoke.

“I’m sorry… Sunghoon,” she whispered to the empty room, the words slipping from her like a confession she hadn’t meant to make. “I thought I could fix it. I thought… if I could just bring you back, we could be happy again. But I don’t know what I’ve done anymore. I don’t know who you are. Or if you’re even really you.”

Her voice cracked at the end, and I could hear the weight of her regret, the guilt, the fear of everything she’d done.

The flood of emotions hit me all at once—anger, sadness, confusion—and yet, there was something else, too. The overwhelming desire to reach out to her. To show her that I understood, that I knew how hard this was for her.

But still, I stayed frozen. Silent. The words that had once flowed so easily between us now felt like strangers.

She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but it didn’t stop the tears.

“I was selfish,” she muttered to herself, her voice barely audible now. “I couldn’t let go. I wanted you back, no matter the cost. And now… I don’t know if you can ever forgive me.”

That was when the weight of it all hit me fully—the pain she had been carrying, the burden she had placed on herself. The fear she had been living with, not knowing if I could ever truly forgive her for bringing me back.

I stepped forward then, unable to watch her fall apart without doing something.

“Y/N,” I said quietly, my voice hoarse, betraying the emotions I had kept bottled up for so long.

She immediately stiffened, her breath hitching as she quickly wiped her face, trying to pull herself together. “You’re awake,” she said, her voice faltering. “I didn’t mean for you to—”

“I heard you,” I interrupted, taking a few steps into the room. “And I’m not angry with you.”

She looked at me, her eyes filled with so much sadness, it was almost more than I could bear. “But I did this to you,” she whispered, her voice trembling. “I brought you back, Sunghoon. And I don’t know if you even want to be here. You didn’t ask for this. You didn’t ask to be—” She stopped, her breath shaky, as if even speaking the words caused her pain.

I knelt in front of her, my heart aching as I reached for her hands, gently pulling them from her face. “Y/N…” I said softly. “I am here. I’m here because I want to be.”

“But what if I’ve ruined everything?” she whispered. “What if I can never make it right?”

I shook my head, cupping her face in my hands as I looked into her eyes, searching for some glimmer of hope in her. “You didn’t ruin anything. You did what you thought was best… even if it was wrong. And I understand that. But we can’t live like this, hiding from each other. We need to talk. We need to be honest.”

She nodded slowly, tears still slipping down her cheeks. “But can we ever go back to what we were?” Her voice was barely above a whisper, filled with a quiet desperation.

I swallowed, my own emotions threatening to spill over. “I don’t know,” I admitted, my voice thick. “But I want to try. I want to figure it out. Together.”

There was a long pause, and then, slowly, she leaned forward, pressing her forehead against mine, her tears falling onto my skin. I closed my eyes, letting the weight of everything settle in.

In that moment, I realized that maybe there wasn’t a way back to what we once had—but that didn’t mean we couldn’t find something new. Something different. Something real.

And I was willing to fight for it.

I held her closer, whispering against her hair. “We’ll find our way. Together. One step at a time.”

The silence between us stretched out, thick with the unspoken words, the weight of everything we had been through. Her breath was shaky against my skin, and I could feel the warmth of her body pressed against mine, like she was finally letting herself soften, letting me in again.

I wanted to say more, to fix everything, but the words weren’t coming. I could only focus on the rhythm of her breath, how the vulnerability in her touch made everything seem both fragile and precious.

And then, almost instinctively, I pulled back just slightly, my hands still cupping her face, fingers brushing softly over the damp skin of her cheeks. I searched her eyes for something, anything—some flicker of permission, of trust.

The question formed in my chest before I even realized it, and before I could second-guess myself, it slipped from my mouth, quiet and uncertain but earnest.

“Can I kiss you?”

The words were soft, tentative, as if I wasn’t sure she would say yes, as if I wasn’t sure I even had the right to ask anymore. But something in me needed to hear it—to know if we could bridge that last distance between us, if the gulf of everything we had been through could be closed with something as simple as a kiss.

Her gaze locked onto mine, and for a moment, everything went still. She didn’t say anything. There was only the quiet sound of her breathing, the rise and fall of her chest under my palms. The world outside the room felt distant, irrelevant. It was just us now, alone in this fragile moment.

I waited. She could say no. She could push me away. But I needed to know where we stood.

And then, slowly, her eyes softened. She gave a slight nod, her lips trembling as if the simple motion of it took all her strength.

“Yes,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, but it was there. It was all I needed to hear.

Before I could even think, my hands moved to her shoulders, pulling her gently closer. I closed the distance between us, hesitating only for a brief second, just enough to feel the weight of the moment.

And then I kissed her.

It wasn’t the kiss I had imagined—the wild, desperate kiss of two people who couldn’t control themselves. No, this one was different. It was slow, careful, tentative, like we were both afraid to break something that had just begun to heal. My lips brushed against hers, soft and uncertain, as if I were asking for permission again with every gentle touch.

She responded after a moment, her hands finding their way to my chest, clutching at me like she was trying to ground herself in the kiss, in the connection we were rebuilding. I could feel her hesitation, but I could also feel the warmth, the pull, the quiet promise in the way she kissed me back.

The kiss deepened slowly, our movements syncing, building, and for the first time in so long, I felt something stir inside me that had been dormant—hope. A fragile, trembling hope that maybe, just maybe, we could find our way back to each other. That maybe this was the first step in learning to trust again.

When we finally pulled away, neither of us spoke for a moment. We just stayed there, foreheads pressed together, our breaths mingling in the stillness. I could feel her heart beating against my chest, a steady rhythm that told me she was here. She was still here with me.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice small, but it wasn’t the apology I had been expecting. It wasn’t guilt or regret. It was a quiet understanding. A promise, maybe.

“I know,” I whispered back, brushing my thumb over her cheek, wiping away the last remnants of her tears. “We’re going to be okay.”

And for the first time in so long, I actually believed it.

The air between us was thick with the weight of everything unspoken, but in that moment, there was only the soft brush of our lips, the warmth of our bodies pressed together, and the undeniable pull that had always been there. We moved slowly, cautiously, like we were both afraid of shattering something fragile that had just begun to heal.

The kiss deepened, an unspoken question lingering in the space between us. I could feel her heartbeat against my chest, fast and erratic, matching mine. It was as if we both understood that this was more than just a kiss—it was a reclaiming, a restoration of something that had been lost for far too long.

I gently cupped her face, tilting her head slightly, deepening the kiss as my hands found their way down her back, pulling her closer, as if I couldn’t get enough of her, couldn’t get close enough. Her fingers slid up to my chest, tracing the lines of my shirt before pushing it off, the fabric slipping to the floor without a second thought.

There was no more hesitation, no more doubt. Just the raw connection between us that had always been there, waiting to be unlocked.

She responded with the same urgency, hands moving over my body, finding the familiar places, the marks that made me me. I could feel the heat of her skin, the way her breath caught when we came closer, when I kissed her neck, her jaw, her lips. The taste of her was like everything I’d been missing, the feeling of her so real, so tangible, that for a moment, it was hard to believe she was really here. Really with me.

Our movements grew more urgent, more desperate, but still tender, as if we were both trying to savor this moment, unsure of what tomorrow might bring, but desperate to make up for the lost time. I wanted to show her everything, all the ways I loved her, all the ways I had missed her without even knowing how much.

The world outside the room disappeared. There was no lab, no documents, no research, no mistakes. Just us—finding our way back to each other, piece by piece. I held her close, kissed her as if I could never let her go, and when the moment finally came, when we both reached that point of release, it wasn’t just about the physicality. It was about trust, about healing, about starting over.

When we collapsed against each other afterward, breathless and tangled in sheets, I felt something shift inside me. Something I hadn’t realized was broken until it started to mend.

Her hand found mine, fingers lacing together, and she rested her head on my chest, her breath slowing, and for the first time in so long, I felt peace. A peace I hadn’t known I needed.

And in the quiet of the room, with her beside me, I whispered softly, “I’ll never let you go again.”

She didn’t answer right away, but I felt the way she squeezed my hand tighter, her chest rising and falling against mine. She didn’t need to say anything. I could feel it in the way she held me.

And for the first time in a long time, I allowed myself to believe that we could truly begin again.

The quiet stillness of the room enveloped us, the soft sound of our breathing the only thing that filled the space. I held her, tracing the curve of her back with my fingers, savoring the moment as though it might slip away if I wasn’t careful. The weight of everything—the doubts, the fears, the mistakes—was still there, lingering in the shadows of my mind, but for once, I didn’t feel like I had to carry them alone.

She shifted slightly, raising her head to meet my gaze. There was a softness in her eyes now, the guarded walls that had once stood so tall between us slowly crumbling. I could see the vulnerability there, but also the strength that had always been her anchor.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her voice barely audible, but it carried all the weight of everything she’d been carrying inside. “I never meant to hurt you.”

I brushed a strand of hair away from her face, my fingers lingering against her skin. “I know,” I murmured, my voice thick with emotion. “I know. But we’re here now. We’ll figure this out. Together.”

She nodded, her eyes closing for a moment as if gathering herself. The air between us was charged with unspoken words, and I could feel the weight of the past year pressing down on us. But there was something different now—something that had shifted between us, something I hadn’t felt in so long.

Her lips found mine again, soft and gentle, a kiss that spoke volumes more than words ever could. It was an apology, a promise, a plea all rolled into one. And for the first time in so long, I allowed myself to believe in it fully.

When we finally pulled away, her forehead rested against mine, both of us still tangled in the sheets, the world outside feeling miles away. I could hear the distant hum of the city, the night stretching out before us like a quiet, unspoken promise.

“I love you,” I whispered, the words escaping before I could even think about them. But it felt right. It felt real.

She smiled, her fingers brushing against my cheek. “I love you, too. I never stopped.”

And in that moment, I knew. No matter the struggles we’d faced, no matter the secrets, the pain, or the mistakes, we were still here. Still us. And as long as we could keep finding our way back to each other, everything else would be okay.

We stayed there, wrapped in each other’s arms, the world outside fading into nothingness. In the quiet, there was only peace. The peace of knowing that, together, we could face whatever came next.

And for the first time in what felt like forever, I finally let go of the fear that had kept me tethered to the past. Because with her by my side, I knew we could build a future. A real future. And nothing, nothing at all could take that away from us.

As the days passed, something began to shift between us. It was subtle at first, small gestures of kindness, moments of vulnerability that had been buried under the weight of secrets and doubts. But as we spent more time together, the trust that had once been strained slowly started to blossom again, like a fragile flower daring to bloom in the cracks of the world we had rebuilt.

Every morning, Sunghoon would make me coffee, just the way I liked it—strong, a little bitter, with just a hint of sweetness. It became our small ritual, something to ground us, to remind us that we were still learning, still growing. And every evening, we’d find ourselves lost in the quiet comfort of one another’s presence. Sometimes we didn’t say much, just the familiar silence that had always existed between us, but now it felt different. It felt safe.

One night, as we sat on the couch, wrapped in a blanket together, he turned to me, his expression soft. “I’ve been thinking about everything. About what you did…and why. I don’t want to just forgive you. I want to understand. I want us to really move forward.”

I smiled, the warmth in his voice soothing the lingering worries in my chest. “We will,” I whispered, “We’re already on the way.”

Sunghoon gave me a small, genuine smile, his fingers lightly brushing over mine. It was a touch so simple, yet it carried all the weight of the world. I had feared this moment—the moment when the cracks would be too deep to heal—but instead, I felt something stronger than before. Something more real.

As the weeks went on, we found ourselves sharing more than just physical space. We started talking about the future—what we wanted, where we saw ourselves. There was no more fear of the unknown between us. Instead, there was excitement. There was trust, slowly but surely, weaving its way back into our lives.

I could see it in the way Sunghoon would ask about my day, genuinely interested, and how I would lean into him when I needed comfort, no longer second-guessing whether I deserved it. Our conversations had depth now, unafraid of the things we once kept hidden. We didn’t pretend anymore. We didn’t have to.

One evening, while we were cooking dinner together, Sunghoon turned to me with a teasing smile. “You’ve improved. Your cooking’s actually…not terrible.”

I laughed, playfully shoving him. “Hey, I’ve gotten better!”

He wrapped his arms around my waist, pulling me into his chest. “I’m proud of you.”

I could feel the sincerity in his words, the love that had grown back between us like something tangible. The fear and doubt that had once plagued me were nowhere to be found now. In their place was a quiet certainty.

We weren’t perfect. We still had our moments of miscommunication, of moments when the past reared its head, but with each day, the trust between us grew stronger. It wasn’t about erasing the mistakes we’d made. It was about learning from them and choosing to move forward together, no matter what.

And as I looked into Sunghoon’s eyes, I saw the same thing reflected back at me—the understanding, the acceptance, the desire to never give up on us.

In that moment, I knew that trust wasn’t just something that had to be given freely—it had to be earned. And we were earning it every day. Slowly, but surely, we were becoming something new, something even more beautiful than before. Something that could withstand anything life threw at us.

And for the first time in a long while, I allowed myself to believe in the future again.

In us.

Life had felt like it was finally settling into a quiet rhythm, like the calm after a storm. Sunghoon and I had been living together in peace for the past year, our bond mended from the cracks of the past. The tension had faded, leaving room for love, laughter, and domestic moments that felt so normal and reassuring. We’d shared so many firsts again—first trips, first lazy weekends in bed, first home-cooked meals. Everything felt right. Almost.

It was during one of these peaceful afternoons that I made a discovery. I was cleaning out the attic of our home, something I’d been meaning to do for months, when I came across an old box. It was tucked away in the corner behind some old furniture, covered in dust and cobwebs. The box was unassuming, wooden with a faded label that simply read, “Don’t Open.”

Curiosity got the best of me. I knew it was probably something from my past, but that label tugged at something deep inside me, urging me to open it. I hesitated for a moment, but then, with a deep breath, I lifted the lid. Inside, I found an old video tape. It was yellowed and cracked with age, but there was no mistaking the handwriting on the label: “For Y/N.”

My heart skipped a beat. It wasn’t like me to leave things unexamined, especially if they seemed tied to my past. But this felt different. There was an unspoken warning in those words. Still, I couldn’t resist.

I brought the tape downstairs and found the old VCR player we kept for nostalgia’s sake. Sunghoon was in the living room, reading a book. I hesitated for a moment before calling him over.

“Sunghoon, you have to see this,” I said, holding up the tape. “I found something in the attic…”

He looked at me curiously, putting the book down. “What is it?”

I popped the tape into the player, and the screen flickered to life. At first, there was nothing—just static. But then, the image cleared, and I saw him.

The figure of a man in a lab coat appeared. His features were unmistakable—he was Park Sunghoon, the real Sunghoon, the one who had died in the accident years ago. But this Sunghoon wasn’t the one Y/N knew now. He looked younger, more fragile, and tears stained his face.

“I… I don’t know how to start this,” the Sunghoon on the screen murmured, his voice choked with emotion. “Y/N… is gone. She passed away. Leukemia. It was sudden. I—I couldn’t do anything. She was everything to me. And I… I can’t bear it.”

Y/N’s breath hitched. She glanced at Sunghoon, whose face had gone pale. He looked at the screen, wide-eyed, his expression unreadable.

“In my grief, I’ve decided to do something I never thought I would. I’m using her preserved DNA, the samples we took when we were researching regenerative cloning… to bring her back. I—I have to do this. I can’t live with the pain of losing her,” the real Sunghoon continued, his voice trembling.

The video cut to a series of clips from the lab: footage of the real Sunghoon working late nights, mixing chemicals, monitoring equipment, and seemingly obsessed with recreating Y/N.

“I’ve used everything we learned in our research. I’ll make her whole again,” the video continued. “But this is for me, I know. For us. I want to have a second chance. A chance to make things right. If you’re watching this, Y/N… then I’ve succeeded. I’ve recreated you.”

The video ended abruptly, and the screen turned to static.

It was strange, to know the truth about their origins—about the fact that their love had been recreated, in a sense, by science and heartache. But as Y/N lay in Sunghoon’s arms that night, she couldn’t shake the feeling that none of it truly mattered. What mattered was that they were together now. They had both fought for this. They had both fought for each other. And nothing in this world could take that away from them.

Their love had brought them to this point—not fate, not science, but love. It was a love that transcended life and death, pain and loss. A love that, no matter what had come before, had always been destined to endure.

They had started as two broken souls, unable to move forward without the other. But now, they were whole again. Their love, their memories—no matter how they came to be—were theirs to cherish.

And that, in the end, was all that mattered.

The rest, the science, the questions of whether they were real or not, faded into the background. Because, in the end, they were real. Their love was real. And that was all they needed to know.

©️tobiosbbyghorl - all rights reserved

taglist: @raavenarmy-blog @maewphoria @limerenceisserenity @honey-bunnysweet @crispysharkwizard @semi-wife @beomgyus11 @bambisnc @feymine @yujinxue @xoxorara @cyjhhyj

permanent taglist: @ijustwannareadstuff20 @hoonielvv @rjssierjrie @firstclassjaylee @morganaawriterr @rikifever @daisyintheskyewithdiamonds @kkamismom12 @pocketzlocket @semi-wife @soona-huh

[supernova2205]

Incorrect Quotes

Here are some incorrect quotes for you guys while I cook up some new stuff hope you guys enjoy!!!!! Also I will be putting up a poll soon for something exciting so keep an eye out!

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

Gaz: Why is there a four-year gap in your resume?

Reader: That’s when I went missing for a bit.

Price: You what?

Reader: Yeah, I don’t know what happened either.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

Soap: bursts through the door YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT JUST HAPPENED.

Ghost: You used a coaster?

Soap: …

Reader: You told someone ��no”?

Soap: …

Gaz: You took responsibility for your actions?

Soap: OKAY, YOU’RE CLEARLY NOT READY FOR THE LEVEL OF AWESOME I’M ABOUT TO DROP.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

Price: This is a tactical mission. No unnecessary risks.

Reader: raises hand Define “unnecessary.”

Price: Anything that gets you killed.

Reader: lowers hand

Soap: grinning What about using me as a human projectile?

Price: pauses …What?

Reader: nods Yeah, theoretically speaking, if I were to—

Ghost: interrupts They tried to throw him out of a moving vehicle to take out an enemy.

Gaz: AND IT ALMOST WORKED.

Price: I LEAVE YOU UNSUPERVISED FOR FIVE MINUTES.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

Ghost: sees Reader cooking What are you making?

Reader: Mistakes.

Ghost: …Need help?

Reader: Please.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

Soap: You know what they say: “A drunk mind speaks a sober heart.”

Reader: That’s cool and all, but you just told Gaz his forehead is so big it has its own zip code.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

Gaz: We’re not mad. We just want to know why you jumped off the roof.

Reader: Because Soap bet me five bucks I wouldn’t.

Soap: And I was JOKING.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

Ghost: I made a tactical decision.

Price: You fell down the stairs.

Ghost: AGGRESSIVELY.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

Soap: holding a map upside down We’re lost.

Reader: No, we’re on an adventure.

Ghost: We’re gonna die.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

Gaz: You’re being irrational.

Reader: No, I’m being hilarious. There’s a difference.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

Price: Where’s Soap?

Ghost: He and Reader got into a dumb competition again.

Price: What is it this time?

Gaz: They’re seeing who can eat an entire raw onion without crying.

Price: …Who’s winning?

Ghost: Neither. I think we’re all losing.

⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻⸻

[sweetreveriee]

WILDFIRE AID RESOURCES MASTERLIST

these are all the places ive found helping those affected by the la fires. please stay safe everyone <3

______________________

FREE THINGS:

Planet Fitness Offers Free Things (ends January 15)

Form To Get Free Temporary Housing From AirBnB (space limited, eligibility criteria required)

List of Restaurants Offering Free Meals (updated January 9)

______________________

UPDATED MAPS:

CalFire

Watch Duty

______________________

INFORMATION:

List of Updated Info

Spreadsheet of Resources (by location and type of aid)

If you have anything to add to the list linked above, comment here

______________________

SHELTER:

If you need shelter, text "SHELTER" and your zip code to 43362 for nearest open shelters

open shelters:

Arcadia Community Center – 375 Campus Drive, Arcadia, CA 91007

Ritchie Valens Recreation Center – 10736 Laurel Canyon Blvd., Pacoima, CA 91331

Pan Pacific Recreational Center – 7600 Beverly Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036

Westwood Recreation Center – 1350 Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90025

El Camino Real Charter High School – 5440 Valley Circle Blvd, Woodland Hills, CA 91367

Pasadena Civic Center – 300 East Green Street, Pasadena, CA 91101

Pomona Fairplex – 1101 W McKinley Ave, Pomona, CA 91768

YMCA of Metropolitan Los Angeles - locations unaffected by fire are open and providing free childcare to those who need it. also offering evacuation sites, temporary shelter, basic amenities, and showers.

for updates and locations click here

______________________

TRANSPORTATION:

CalTrans Updated Road Closure List

Fare collection suspended at Metro through January 9. A list of updates and changes that occurred because of the fires and winds can be found here.

Lyft is offering two free rides of 25$ each (50$ total) for 500 riders using code CAFIRERELIEF25. offer ends January 15.

Uber is offering a free ride of up to 40$ for those who use code WILFIRE25 in the wallet section of the app

______________________

ANIMAL CARE:

List of Shelters (check capacity and availability)

______________________

MENTAL HEALTH:

LA County set up a 24/7 hotline to help with anxiety, distress, and grief. Call (800) 854-7771.

______________________

WHAT TO PACK:

remember the six p's:

people and pets

papers, phone numbers and important documents

prescriptions, vitamins, and eyeglasses

pictures and irreplaceable memorabilia

personal computer, hard drive, and disks

plastic (debit, credit, ATM cards) and cash

what to put in your "go bag":

face masks/face coverings

three-day food supply (nonperishable)

three gallons of bottled water per person

map marked with AT LEAST two evacuation routes

basic first aid and medical supplies

sanitation supplies

toothbrushes, toothpaste, hair brush, deodorant

period products

prescriptions and medications

a change of clothes (bring AT LEAST one warm coat)

spare eyeglasses or contacts (if needed)

extra set of car keys

chargers for your devices

cash, credit/debit cards, traveler's checks

flashlight

battery powered radio

EXTRA BATTERIES

(copies of) important documents such as birth certificates, passports, insurance, a list of emergency contacts and phone numbers

your wallet (ID CARD)

food, water, and meds for your pets (checklist here)

a can opener

not necessary but you might want to bring:

valuable items that can be easily carried

family pictures that cannot be replaced

blankets

more than a day's worth of clothes

important school supplies (for students)

books

trophies, medals, certificates, awards

pens and paper

self defense tools (pepper spray, pocket knives, etc) (NOT ENCOURAGING VIOLENCE. FOR SELF DEFENSE ONLY)

extra shoes

fuzzy socks

non-essential hygiene products

gum/breath mints

ALWAYS PREPARE BEFOREHAND. EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT DIRECTLY IMPACTED, THE FIRES CAN GROW. KEEP YOUR BAGS IN THE CAR SO YOU CAN EVACUATE QUICKLY IF NEEDED.

______________________

WANT TO HELP?

Best Friends Animal Society

LA Fire Department (donations sent directly to first responders)

LA Food Bank

LA Works

MusiCares

Salvation Army

Santa D'Or (in need of fosters for displaced cats)

Silverlake Lounge (also offering a communal gathering place)

Sweet Relief Musicians Fund

Dream Center (in need of volunteers + non-perishable food items)

The Red Cross

We Are Moving the Needle

World Central Kitchen

United Way of Greater LA

As of January 9, the Westwood Recreation Center and Pan Pacific Park are at full capacity and not accepting additional donations. Check with all organizations by phone, text, or email before donating if possible.

______________________

IF THERE'S ANYTHING I MISSED OR MESSED UP PLEASE ADD IT OR LET ME KNOW SO I CAN FIX IT. REBLOG TO SPREAD AWARENESS!!!!!!!! stay safe everyone

[inboundremblog]

The Zip Codes of Tennessee: Music, History, and Nature

Credit: Image by The Polzel Group | Source

Understanding the System of Zip Codes of Tennessee

Tennessee is one of the many states in the southeast region of the United States of America. It is known for its music, its big and nice cities and of course, stunning landscapes. Like many other states, the zip codes of Tennessee correspond to various areas and districts. Every zip code has a story behind it; it can consist of a downtown area, suburban homes, and vast farmlands.

This guide will describe the various Tennessee zip codes, focusing on their relative locations and distinctive features.

Zip codes are area codes that the United States Postal Service (U.S.P.S.) uses to quickly identify specific areas where mail will be delivered.

Tennessee zip codes start from 37, 38, or 39 and show a position hearing its place in the national zip code system. Such codes have functions in day-to-day practical life and assist in recognizing and differentiating between several areas of the state.

Major Metropolitan Areas

Nashville (37201-37250)

Zip codes of Tennessee range from 37201 to 37250, and Tennessee has many fantastic cities, among which the capital city is Nashville. The home of country music, Nashville also features site attractions that include great eating and drinking points and landmarks. Key neighborhoods include:

Downtown (37201, 37203): The Nashville tour guides encompass the Ryman Auditorium bridge-stone Arena and the Country Music Hall of Fame.

East Nashville (37206): An artsy district focusing on elaborate outlets and appealing to the creative spiritually, with non-routine eating places.

Green Hills (37215): A luxurious district of Nashville with upper-class shopping, such as The Mall at Green Hills, and impressive houses.

Memphis (38101-38197)

Memphis has a musical and numerical history, especially in zip codes 38101 to 38197. This city in the United States of America is situated on the Mississippi River, with significant historical landmarks and traditions.

The city on the Mississippi River has essential cultural and historical landmarks and fantastic sites and attractions.

Midtown (38104): Unanimously considered for its cobblestone streets full of adorable historic houses, flamboyant arts culture, and the famous Memphis Zoo.

Germantown (38138, 38139): A peaceful residential town with good schools, parks, and everything a family may need daily.

Knoxville (37901-37998)

Knoxville is near the Great Smoky Mountains, and the zip codes available in this city range from 37901 to 37998. This city is known for its outdoor activities, cultural festivals, and the University of Tennessee.

Outdoor recreation, annual celebrations, and the University of Tennessee are related to this city.

Downtown (37902): It has the Market Square, Tennessee Theater, and a museum of art in Knoxville.

West Knoxville (37919, 37922): This area boasts well-established shopping malls, such as West Town Mall, and numerous parks and recreational places.

North Knoxville (37917): A color-drenched region with bright streets developed with renovated houses and attractive shops, cafes, and restaurants.

Regional Highlights

Chattanooga (37401-37450)

Chattanooga is a beautiful city with zip codes 37401 and 37450. Key attractions and neighborhoods include. Below are some of the key attractions and catchy neighborhoods to visit:

Downtown (37402, 37403): Tennessee Aquarium, the famous walking bridge, popularly known as the Walnut Street bridge and The Hunter Museum of American Art.

Northshore (37405): A place with numerous shops, restaurants, and cafes with water frontage parks.

East Brainerd (37421): This suburban area houses shopping malls like Hamilton Place Mall and other family-oriented institutions.

Clarksville (37040-37044)

Suited explicitly for bottled gas activity, Clarksville, neighboring the Kentucky border, encompasses zip codes 37040 through 37044. This city is known for its military presence and historical sites.

From what one can see, this city looks entirely military, and there are many attractions of archeological interest here:

Downtown (37040): This section illustrates the Customs House Museum, existing constructions, building arts, and emerging cultural scenes.

Sango (37043): A suburb with a recent formation, beautiful scenery of parklands, and education facilities.

Fort Campbell (37042): Serving a population near the famous Fort Campbell-based military, the company has the chance to access the larger population and social services.

Murfreesboro (37127-37130)

Murfreesboro is a city in Nashville's metropolitan area with zip codes 37127, 37129, and 3713. This rapidly growing city is known for its historic significance and modern amenities.

It attracts people owing to its history and facilities provided for the contemporary population.

Downtown (37130): It boasts Middle Tennessee State University, a well-known university, Cannonsburgh Village, one of the oldest towns in the state, and an active town square.

Blackman (37128): Neighborhood for new residential, child care centers, schools, I.G.A., and new shopping cart.

North Murfreesboro (37129): These neighborhoods are well-endowed with beautiful views of parks, golf courses, and family-based neighborhoods.

Rural and Suburban Areas

Franklin (37064-37069)

Franklin is a beautiful city with a historical background in zip codes 37064-37069. Known for its charming yet lively downtown and historic sites. Famous for lovely downtown and historic points of interest:

Cool Springs (37067): Provides excellent locations for all merchandising and shopping needs. Retail shops, boutiques, specialty shops, and larger, better-quality retail stores can do well here since the area is alive with people.

Johnson City

Johnson City is located in the northeastern part of the state and has zip codes 37601, 37614, and 37615. This city is known for its outdoor activities and vibrant arts scene.

It is generally an excellent place for those who like different types and levels of physical activity and for creative individuals.

Boones Creek (37615): Stretching suburban area with numerous residential buildings, schools, schools, and parks.

South Johnson City (37604): Home of the East Tennessee State University and James H. Quillen VA Medical Centre.

Maryville (37801-37804)

Maryville occupies a central position as a gateway town for the Great Smoky Mountains, and the city corresponds with postal codes 37801, 37802, 37803, and 37804.

The city is known for its outdoor recreation and family-friendly atmosphere. This city is all about the sunshine stretched across the landscapes and the friendly company of families.

Downtown Maryville (37801): Shows the capitol theater, shops in the area, and events in the community.

Alcoa (37804): A competitor city with an operational airport, other industrial-based areas, and residential areas.

Conclusion

Tennessee's codes are another exciting way of understanding counties in various areas of the state. Every city is unique, though they share general features; some are lively cities like Nashville, Memphis, and Knoxville, whereas others are beautiful places such as Chattanooga, Clarksville, and Murfreesboro.

So, no matter what area you wander from the central historic city to your Tennessee suburbs, the Tennessee zip code accurately represents the state's way of life.

Ready to learn more? Visit our website at https://livingthenashvillelife.com/zip-code-map/ for comprehensive information.

[strawberry-bubblef]

Hi! Could I request a platonic ignihyde fic with a child reader who is surprisingly good at coding?

Ignihyde with a Child!reader who is good at coding

Idia Shroud

To say Idia was surprised when Crowley dropped a literal child into his dorm would be an understatement.

He had stared, wide-eyed and frozen, the corners of his mouth twitching with something between panic and suspicion.

“…Okay,” he muttered. “Okay. The headmage finally snapped. I’m hallucinating a child. A child with a backpack. And stickers on their tablet.”

You, meanwhile, were silent. You stared up at the tall, nervous man in the oversized hoodie and fire-blue hair and tilted your head slightly.

“…You’re Idia Shroud,” you said flatly, stepping into his room uninvited and peering at his screens. “Your garbage collector keeps triggering on a five-second cycle. That’s inefficient.”

Idia made a strangled noise. “Wha—?!”

“I can fix it,” you added.

You sat down beside him like you’d done it a hundred times, pulling your tablet out and typing with quiet precision.

And somehow, Idia let you.

It was weird, having someone near him who didn’t need constant social buffering. You weren’t loud. You didn’t force him to talk when he didn’t want to. You liked silence, blinking cursors, logic loops, and cat-themed IDE skins.

Idia thought he might actually be dreaming.

Still, he kept his distance for a while. You were a kid. What if you cried when he got snappy? What if you tripped and broke a server blade? What if Ortho accidentally sent you to the Shadow Realm during VR testing?

But you didn’t cry. You didn’t break anything. You added new firewall protocols to his gaming network and reorganized his project folders in a way that actually made sense.

“…Okay,” he mumbled one night, awkwardly scooting over to make room at his desk. “You can help. But only a little. Like. One file.”

You fixed six and added a debugging tool of your own design.

“…I’m not crying,” he muttered later, face hidden behind a chip bag. “There’s just… too much screen brightness.”

You didn’t say much, and neither did he. But he got used to your presence,the soft tap of your fingers on a keyboard, the way you leaned against the side of his chair when you got sleepy. The way you hummed random game soundtracks while coding, and quietly slid snack packets toward him when his stomach growled.

And you got used to his muttering. His panic,rambling. His snarky comments. You even got used to how he covered his mouth when he was embarrassed.

“You don’t talk like other people,” you said once, blinking up at him.

Idia flinched. “Oh. Uh. Sorry, I guess? I can turn it down.”

You shook your head. “I like it.”

His hair turned a little pink at the ends after that.

He didn’t call you his sibling. Not out loud. Not even in his head, really.

But sometimes he’d look over and see you curled up with your tablet beside him, lines of elegant, efficient code dancing across the screen and he’d feel something settle quietly in his chest. Something warm. Safe.

“…Player Two,” he muttered once, brushing your hair out of your face while you napped.

No response, of course. But your fingers twitched in your sleep, like you were still typing.

He smiled.

Ortho Shroud

The first time Ortho met you, his eyes lit up,literally.

He zipped down from the sky like a comet, bright and excitable. “HI! Are you the new guest staying in Ignihyde?! Crowley told us someone really cool was coming but didn’t give details so I ran ten background checks just in case and—”

You blinked up at him, holding your tablet close to your chest.

“…You’re a robot,” you said simply.

“I’m a technomantic humanoid !” Ortho corrected, glowing a bit brighter. “But yeah! Basically a robot!”

You nodded once. “Cool.”

And then you offered him your tablet.

“Want to see my code?"

To Ortho, that was like being handed a treasure map.

He zipped in close, blue eyes scanning rapidly over your custom interface. “You coded all this yourself?! Wait—these are recursive functions written in HexaScript??”

You nodded. “I optimized the loops. The compiler doesn’t like it sometimes, but it’s fast.”

Ortho hovered in stunned silence.

From that day on, Ortho was stuck to you like a magnet. If you were in the room, he was hovering nearby,spouting programming facts, asking questions, or quietly watching you work while glowing with barely contained energy.

And in return, you liked having him around.

He was loud, sure, and sometimes he got too excited. But he treated you like an equal. He never talked down to you. He never made you feel small, even when you had to stand on tiptoe to reach the desk.

Plus, he let you “borrow” high-grade Ignihyde tech when Idia wasn’t looking.

Ortho often dragged you around the dorm to show you off.

“Look! They built a proxy network to bypass dorm firewalls!”

“They made me a new mini-game and I got the high score!”

“They reprogrammed the toaster so it says ‘good morning’ in binary!”

You didn’t mind. You liked seeing him that happy,how he buzzed with pride and sparkled like stardust.

He even started adapting some of his flight stabilizers to help you reach high shelves. And every time you successfully debugged something difficult, he did a victory spin in the air and called it a “micro hero moment.”

You never had a big family. Never had people who got your weird little projects or your late-night tinkering.

But now you had Ortho.

And he understood your code like it was a language only the two of you spoke.

English is not my first language !

[dxrlingluv]

I will come back, always

A/N : Reposted because I forgot to put tags, so for that, I will be posting another one-shot later! This was requested, but I forgot to take a screenshot of the ask, so I apologize. Hermes art is from Zieru.

WARNING : Slight angst if you squint really really really hard. GN!reader, protective!hermes.

Word Count : 1.8k

The air in the hidden meadow always tasted of sunlight and wild honey. It was a place tucked away from the world, a forgotten fold in the fabric of the Earth that mortals had long since erased from their maps and their memories. But you remembered. It was your sanctuary, your studio, your quiet kingdom. And, for the past few blissful months, it had become a secret shared with a god.

A blur of motion, a zip of displaced air that rustled the bluebells, and he was there. Hermes, the messenger of the gods, herald of Olympus, and patron of thieves, landed before you with the grace of a feather and the harried energy of a hornet trapped in a jar.

"I'm late, I'm sorry, I know," he said all in one breath, his winged sandals, the Talaria, giving a final, impatient flutter before settling. He ran a hand through his wind-tossed hair, his eyes, the color of a stormy sky, scanning your face with a mixture of adoration and anxiety. "Zeus had a sudden craving for ambrosia tarts from Hebe's personal kitchen and decided it was a matter of cosmic importance. Then Hera needed a message delivered to Iris that was so passive-aggressively coded it took me ten minutes just to decipher the proper intonation."

You couldn't help but smile, setting aside the charcoal pencil and sketchbook you'd been using to capture the dance of light on a spider's web. "Trouble in paradise?" you asked, your voice calm and steady, a stark contrast to his divine flurry.

"You have no idea," he sighed, but the tension in his shoulders instantly melted away as he sat down beside you on the picnic blanket you'd laid out. He leaned in, his lips brushing against your temple in a greeting that was both fleeting and electric. "The only paradise I'm interested in is right here." He looked at your sketchbook. "What masterpiece were you creating today?"

"Just trying to draw the impossible," you said, gesturing to the intricate, dew-kissed web.

"The impossible is my specialty," Hermes grinned, his charm as bright and effortless as the sun. He reached into a small, unassuming leather pouch at his hip—a bag that defied mortal physics—and pulled out a nectarine. It wasn't an ordinary fruit; it glowed with a faint, golden light, and its skin was so perfect it looked spun from sunset. "For you. Picked it myself from a tree on the sun-facing slopes of Mount Pelion. The nymphs there guard them jealously, but I'm very persuasive."

You took the offered fruit, its warmth seeping into your palm. This was your life now: quiet moments of art and solitude, punctuated by the sudden, dazzling arrival of a being who moved faster than thought and stole fruit from mythical guardians just to see you smile.

"Thank you," you said softly, taking a bite. The flavor was explosive, a cascade of sweetness and warmth that tasted of summer days and ancient magic. It was nothing like the pale, earthly fruits you were used to.

Hermes watched you, a genuine, unguarded softness in his gaze, as he whispered, "Anything for you." He leaned back on his elbows, the very picture of leisure, but you could see the way his eyes kept flicking towards the sky, the way one foot tapped a restless rhythm against the ground. He was meant to be somewhere else. A hundred somewhere elses. Delivering decrees, guiding souls, overseeing the endless, chaotic commerce of gods and men. Yet, he was here, with you. The weight of that choice was a constant, shimmering presence between you.

"Tell me about your day," he prompted, eager to anchor himself in your world. "Tell me something slow."

And so you did. You spoke of the stubborn goat you'd seen on the path to the meadow, of the melody a finch had been singing, of the way the clouds were shaped like a great, lumbering beast. He listened with an intensity that made you feel like your small, mortal stories were the most important messages in the entire cosmos. For him, in these stolen moments, they were. He would laugh, his voice a rich and melodic sound, and tell you a story in return—of a squabble between Ares and Aphrodite, or a prank he'd played on a pompous minor river god.

He was in the middle of describing how he'd convinced Demeter's disciples that turnips were the new fashionable accessory when he suddenly went rigid. His head snapped up, his playful expression vanishing, replaced by the sharp, focused alertness of a wild animal.

"What is it?" you whispered, your own heart beginning to beat faster.

"Shh," he commanded, his voice low and urgent. He placed a finger on your lips, his eyes locked on the northern horizon.

You heard it a moment later. A faint, impossibly beautiful sound drifting on the wind. It was music, the clear, resonant plucking of a lyre, a melody so perfect and pure it made the leaves on the trees tremble in reverence.

"Apollo," Hermes breathed, his name a curse. He was on his feet in an instant, pulling you up with him. "My ever-so-righteous, all-seeing, golden-boy of a brother. He's looking for me. Zeus must have sent him."

Panic, cold and sharp, tried to grip you, but Hermes's hand was firm in yours. His usual breezy confidence was gone, replaced by a fierce, protective urgency. This was the other side of him—not just the charming god of wit and speed, but the cunning god of thieves, the one who knew how to hide in the shadows.

"He can't find you here," Hermes said, more to himself than to you. "He can't know about you. They wouldn't understand." He scanned the meadow, his mind working at divine speeds. "The waterfall. Come on!"

He tugged you towards the far end of the meadow, where a small, brisk stream tumbled over a rocky ledge into a deep, clear pool. Behind the curtain of cascading water was a shallow cave, slick with moss and smelling of damp earth and stone. He pushed you gently inside, the roar of the water instantly muting the world. He followed, pressing you back against the cool rock wall.

"Don't make a sound," he whispered, his body shielding yours. Through the shimmering sheet of water, the meadow was a distorted, wavering painting of green and gold. The lyre music grew louder, closer. It was so achingly beautiful it felt like a physical pressure, a demand for truth and revelation.

Apollo's voice, as golden as his music, echoed across the meadow. "Hermes! Brother! The All-Father grows impatient! Your duties await. Cease your aimless wandering and show yourself!"

You held your breath, your cheek pressed against the rough fabric of Hermes's chiton. You could feel the frantic thrum of his heart against your own. He was a god, powerful and immortal, but here, hiding in a damp cave, he seemed terrifyingly vulnerable.

"I know you delight in your games of concealment," Apollo's voice continued, closer now. He sounded amused, as if this were just another one of Hermes's childish pranks. "But a message of great import must be carried to the Underworld. A king has died. The shades grow restless at the banks of the Styx. It is no time for truancy."

A king had died. Souls were waiting. And Hermes was here, with you, hiding from his sacred duty behind a waterfall. The reality of it settled in your stomach like a cold stone.

Through the water, you saw a flash of brilliant gold as Apollo stepped into the meadow. Even distorted, his radiance was undeniable. He surveyed the clearing, his head tilted. "A peaceful place. Quaint. Not your usual style, brother. I expected to find you haggling in a mortal market or dicing with satyrs."

He took a few steps, his gaze sweeping the area. For a terrifying second, his eyes seemed to linger on the waterfall. You squeezed your eyes shut, certain you were discovered. Hermes's arm tightened around you, a silent promise of protection.

Then, with a sigh of divine boredom, Apollo turned away. "Very well. Have your fun. But the wrath of Zeus is not so easily placated as I. I shall tell him I could not find you."

The lyre music began again, slowly fading as he departed. For a long time, neither of you moved. You just stood there, wrapped in each other's arms, listening to the roar of the water and the fading echo of divine power.

Finally, Hermes let out a shaky breath and sagged against you. "That was... too close."

He pulled back, his hands cupping your face, his thumbs stroking your cheeks. His eyes were dark with the aftermath of fear and a raw, fierce emotion that stole your breath.

"Are you alright?" he asked, his voice thick with concern.

You could only nod, your throat tight.

"I'm sorry," he said, his forehead resting against yours. "I never wanted to bring this danger to you. For them, a mortal..." He trailed off, but you understood. To the eternal, unchanging gods, your fleeting, fragile life was a curiosity, a plaything. They wouldn't understand why Hermes would risk so much for it.

"You're worth it," he whispered, as if reading your thoughts. "Risking Apollo's search, Zeus's anger... all of it. This time with you is the only thing that feels real anymore. The only thing that's truly mine."

The setting sun cast long shadows across the meadow, painting the water in front of you in hues of orange and deep purple. The danger had passed, but it had left something new in its wake: a profound understanding of what you meant to each other. This wasn't just a dalliance, a god's whim. It was a rebellion.

"You have to go," you said softly, your hand covering his on your cheek. "The king. The souls."

He closed his eyes, a flicker of his burden returning. "I know."

He didn't leave immediately. He leaned in and kissed you, a kiss that was nothing like his earlier, playful greeting. It was deep and desperate and full of the day's stolen joy and terror. It tasted of sun-warmed nectarines and cool, ancient stone. It was a promise and a goodbye, all at once.

When he pulled away, he reached down and plucked a single, impossibly small feather from the wing on his ankle. It shimmered with an iridescent light, catching the last rays of the sun.

"So you know I'll come back," he said, pressing it into your palm. "Always."

And then, with another whisper of displaced air, he was gone.

You were alone again in your quiet kingdom, the roar of the waterfall a constant companion. You stood there for a long time, the cool, magical feather a tangible weight in your hand. The meadow was silent, save for the crickets beginning their evening song. It was peaceful once more, but it was a different kind of peace now—one filled with the lingering warmth of his presence, the echo of his heart against yours, and the aching, hopeful certainty of his return.

[pittsburghbeautiful]

Clinton

Clinton Clinton, Pennsylvania is a notable area in Allegheny County near Pittsburgh, offering a unique blend of history and community spirit. Its connection to broader American history, though distinct from William J. Clinton’s storied political career, provides an intriguing backdrop for residents and visitors alike. History of Clinton, PA Clinton Township’s establishment traces back to an honor…