#JACOB MY LOVE | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

juyeoniemyhoney · 1 year

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tattooed heart

Who knew finding your soulmate could be as easy as going over to your friend's flat? Oh, and of course, the tattoo that everyone else gets on their eighteenth birthday.

pairing: jacob bae x reader

genre: FLUFF (do i even write anything else other than this anymore LOL), acquaintances to lovers, college au, soulmate au where soulmates get the same tattoo on the same part of their bodies, moonbae bestie crumbs cos i love them

warnings: lowkey Y/N jumps Jacob... idk what it is with me and borderline sexual assault.... that's all i think

word count: 3162 words

honey's notes: hello everyone... i am not dead.. surprise!! i actually was only going to publish this for jacob's birthday next year but i'm impatient and can't wait so here it is!! promise that i'll only work on rent a boyfie after this. always thankful for you guy's support for my works😘😘 love yall😍

You didn't think you could miss someone as much as you did in this moment. Perhaps it is because you can feel the etching of the tattoo onto the skin of your right clavicle, or perhaps it is just a placebo effect, but right now, you miss your soulmate. Someone you have yet to meet, someone you have yet to fall in love with, someone who doesn't know you exist; whom you too, have yet to learn of their existence.

On your eighteenth birthday, you spend the first few hours of your special day writhing in pain as inked lines drag across your skin, an invisible tattoo gun imprinting the tattoo into your smooth skin forever. Perhaps it wouldn't have hurt this much if the tattoo were anywhere else on your body. But the process is drawn out and miserable as the lines form on your skin, the tattooing so painful you almost think the collarbone beneath your skin is being branded too. Maybe that is why you feel the ache in your bones, the longing for your soulmate so great you feel it hum beneath your skin, with each line embedded, the wistful feeling growing stronger.

You didn't think you could miss someone as much as you did in this moment, especially when their existence causes you three hours of agony in the early hours of your birthday.

By the time the tattooing is complete, you rip yourself from your bed and stand in front of your mirror. Your shirt is drenched in sweat and though it doesn't feel like a knife is dragging through your skin anymore, the sharp pain of the needle is replaced with a sore ache that you are sure will not subside until after a few days.

Gazing into the mirror, the skin surrounding the tattoo is bright red and inflamed. But then, you realise the tattoo, a sequence, a blossoming; fruition. The lines are dainty and thin as they outline a pear, first whole, then cut in half with its seeds showing, then— you assume— the pear's flower. It's beautiful, in a way you would not have appreciated if this tattoo didn't have any subliminal connection to your future significant other.

But you can't help but think that these tattoos are supposed to give you a clue on what your soulmate is like and how to find them. The sequence of pears baffles you. Are you going to buy pears and meet them somehow? Or are you going to go pear picking and meet them amongst the shrubbery? Or does your soulmate just really like pears?

You spend the rest of the night pondering, and your entire commute to school a few hours later is spent learning everything you can about pears and its flowers, though there really isn't much to learn about pears and pear blossoms.

By the time you reach school and are settled into your first class, your frustration overwhelms you. Just what is it with your soulmate and pears? Why do they like pears so much or why are they associated with pears? Of all the things in the world it had to be pears and not, maybe, a volleyball? Then at least you'd know that they play volleyball or like it very much. Volleyball would be so much easier to bring up in a conversation. But pears? Were you going have to ask every new person you met if they liked pears?

You spend a whole week distracted, upset and frustrated. You almost wonder if you should go pear picking just in case that's what the universe wanted you to do. You also spend the entire week looking at peoples collarbones like a maniac, leaving your own collarbones exposed with lower cut shirts and blouses just in case your soulmate spotted you first. And when the week ends, you are wholly and utterly exhausted, giving up with a huff about it to Kevin.

"Already?" Kevin drawls, knowing full well how you need always need little reason to give up. You sulk on his couch, splayed unceremoniously across the small thing, your face shoved into the cushions as you pray for the couch to just swallow you whole.

"You know," Kevin starts. And you think he is finally going to give you advice rather than criticising you on how you have to 'let love find you' and all that bullshit but Kevin, as long as he's been your friend, is always unpredictable. "A lot of butts have been on that couch. You're kissing like maybe twenty butts right now."

You groan, the butt couch cushion muffling your sound of displeasure as Kevin breaks into a fit of giggles as you attempt to push him off the couch with your foot digging into his side. When he refuses to budge, you emerge from the cushion, sitting upright to begin pushing Kevin with all your might, only adding insult to injury as his laughs get louder and louder when you fail to drive him off his own couch.

Just as Kevin is half a butt away from falling butt-first onto the carpet, the door to his apartment swings open and Kevin's roommate walks in. You and Kevin freeze, as the two of your laughs halt almost immediately, your attention directing to Jacob at the door.

The sight from Jacob's point of view is comical. Kevin is basically hovering in air with how little of his ass is still on the couch and you are pushed up against his back, your arm flush against him between his shoulder blades as you push against him like he is an immovable wall.

"Hey, Cob," Kevin greets him, lifting a hand from where it was gripping onto the couch for dear life, refusing to lose to you and your childishly petty antics. Kevin thinks that one hand is enough to hold up against you, but he forgets that five years of volleyball never leave your body (even though the muscles do after years of not playing it) and while he is distracted, you play dirty and finally push him from the couch, the thump of his butt hitting the floor a fanfare for your victory in your ears.

"Hey, so not fair!" Kevin turns to you and complains. You ignore him and smile at Jacob who only smiles silently as he enters the apartment and closes the door behind him.

"Hi Jacob," you say with a wave, directing your smile at him. He smiles and mutters a greeting back that you don't quite catch, far too immersed in your victory to have heard it.

"How's the birthday boy?" Kevin asks Jacob as he removes his shoes and places a bag onto the kitchenette counter. Silently, Jacob removes groceries he'd bought before coming home as Kevin continues to talk to him, placing a box of cereal in a cabinet, restocking the fridge with bottles of barley tea and chugging the near-empty jug of milk in favour of putting a fresh one in its place.

"You still haven't shown me your tattoo," Kevin says in a sing-song voice, standing from his position on the floor to flutter and hover over Jacob's shoulder as he makes himself a sandwich, ignoring Kevin and treating him like he would a housefly.

You stay quiet on the couch, focusing your attention on the forgotten television as you try your best not to listen in on their conversation. It's usually like this. Jacob hasn't made many efforts to talk to you in the six months he's lived as Kevin's housemate. You don't really mind, though. Jacob is nice and offered you cereal on many occasions when you were over at Kevin's. The two of you are just amicable, quiet people and neither of you have had a problem with that for six months. And it's not like you don't ever talk if Jacob's around, you do join the conversation sometimes but this one, this horrible, annoying, frustrating topic that Kevin has chosen for the conversation, is one you'd rather sit out, lest Jacob find out your wrath.

"Because I don't want to show you, Kev. I know you'll make fun of me," Jacob retorts, the clang of the butter knife against the counter like a judge's court gaval, signifying the end of the discussion. Jacob looks up to Kevin with his pear jam bread and takes a bite out of it, chewing loudly in Kevin's face as if to mock him for yet again failing to sneak a peek at his soulmate tattoo.

Kevin grimaces as he feels goosebumps arise on his skin, the sight so revolting he almost vomits right onto Jacob. "I don't understand why you can't be normal and just eat strawberry jam like everyone else. Pear jam? C'mon, Cob," he complains with a shudder of disgust.

"Hey, everyone has their own pref—" Jacob argues back, but halts halfway when he notices you march into the kitchen from the living room, a crazed look about you as you lean over the counter and hover your face so close to Jacob's he almost spits.

"Jacob."

"Y/N?" he greets back, though it sounds more like a question; sounds more like: Yes? Whatever do you need? I will give you anything you ask.

"You like pears?"

"Yes, I do.... Why?" The shirt that Kevin lent you when you first stepped into his apartment from your presentation falls off your right shoulder as you continue to press into Jacob, leaning further and further over the counter until you are almost completely on it. Jacob adverts his eyes from where your skin shows and is forced to look you dead in the eye, your face so close to his, his eyes almost cross and your noses almost bump.

You say nothing else and simply examine his face in silence. Kevin watches on and wonders how you have enough strength to be holding yourself up in such an awkward position but does nothing to voice his concerns, figuring that desperation does things to the best of people, you included.

The silent eye contact continues as you push the items on the counter to the side, careful enough to not let anything fall onto the ground as you climb onto the kitchen counter, holding Jacob's gaze with your own, wide-eyed and frenzied like a wild animal.

Kevin, right beside the both of you, uses all the cells in his body to hold himself back from laughing. He wishes that he could record this moment but his phone is charging next to the couch and he refuses to miss a moment of the most awkward flirting he's ever seen. Kevin is a good storyteller and it will just have to suffice.

Eventually, you narrow your eyes at Jacob, gaze darting from his eyes down to the collar of his shirt and Jacob lets out a breath he didn't know he was holding, thinking this extremely bizarre encounter has finally come to an end. He soon finds out he is wrong, however, when you lurch forward and grab him by his collar, almost looking like you're about to sock him right in his face.

Shutting his eyes as if waiting for impact, Jacob panics. "W-Wait! Y/N! Whatever is bothering you can be solved with words! Violence is never the answer!" he blurts out in lightning speed, the words spilling from his lips in a panic he's never felt before. You are usually a quiet, demure person. Just what has gotten into you?

When Jacob doesn't feel your knuckles digging into his cheekbone, he peels his eyes open, relieved. Only to have complete and utter horror wash over him as he opens his eyes to see you glaring down his shirt.

Jacob, horrified and utterly embarrassed, flushes all the way down to the base of his neck, finally coming to his senses as he snatches himself from your loosened grip, and hugs his shirt close to his body, violated and shocked beyond words. Because Jacob didn't want you to see him like this! He's on break from the volleyball team! He isn't in top condition! He'd wanted you to look at him when he was at the best of his game, not when he's had one too many bowls of cereal!

"Y/N!" Jacob manages to cry in horror, but doesn't say anything else.

Kevin, having witnessed the whole thing, finally cannot bear to control himself any longer, bursting into a fit of maniacal laughs as he falls to his knees, so unadulteratedly stricken by humour his legs can no longer bear to hold himself up.

"You guys are insane!" Kevin exclaims between laughs, the words coming out breathless as Kevin tries not to laugh as hard as he is laughing, only to laugh even harder when he realises his attempts at decorum fail miserably.

"Find what you're looking for, Y/N?" Kevin asks with a mischievous lilt in the tone of his voice, finally finding enough composure to not wheeze his every word. But once the sentence is finished, he bursts back out into laughter, holding his stomach as he continues to laugh at you and Jacob.

"Yeah, whatever, Kev," you say with an eye roll and a scowl, turning your gaze back to a beet red, shock-ridden Jacob, who stands with the collar of his shirt over his mouth, an attempt at hiding the hot blush that ravages his neck and the apples of his cheeks.

You hop off the counter, this time on the same side as Jacob, avoiding his bread that he'd dropped on the floor in shock by a hair as you approach Jacob who backs up until his back hits the cabinets behind him, wavering gaze flickering between you and the still-laughing Kevin in anxiety.

Gently, you place your hand on his, gesturing him to lower down his shirt. It takes a long, reassuring gaze for Jacob to let down his guard again but eventually, his hands lower, bringing the collar of his shirt along with him. Then, ever so gently, you tug his shirt aside so that his clavicle is no longer hidden, and lo and behold, there it is. The same blooming sequence of a pear, dainty and small scrawled across Jacob's skin in thin, inked lines, the skin surrounding the tattoo red and inflamed as you trace over the outline of the tattoo.

This close, Jacob can feel your breath tickle the skin of his neck and Jacob, surprised, horrified, shocked, a mix of every possible emotion in this moment cannot compute anymore emotions, especially one of this intensity. He feels his heart swell, the dull vessel thudding like the hooves of a racing horse against the ground, the muscle galloping in his ribcage so violently he wonders if it is going to give way and fly right out of his chest.

He swore, to himself (and Kevin that one night Kevin couldn't stop asking him questions about you) that he only thought you were pretty. But now that you are basically leaning your entire body on him, lithe, gentle fingers tracing his tattoo with the pad of your finger, Jacob swears he's in love with you.

By the time your finger traces over the flower, your other hand comes up to your own tattoo, fresh but not quite as raw as Jacob's, tracing over both tattooed flowers simultaneously, entranced, in awe, so utterly at a loss for words your brain barely thinks about anything but the pear and the pear's seeds and the flower that arises from the seed.

"To think you were so close this whole time," you finally whisper and Jacob feels it against his neck. Your scent is beginning to waft into his nose, your sweet vanilla shampoo and citrus body wash so intoxicating Jacob swears he hears his cells run around his brain in a frenzy.

"Ok, stop this now, it's not funny anymore," Kevin finally says from behind you, recovered from his fit of laughter as he rises from the floor.

"I think I peed myself a little," he comments offhandedly, like it isn't embarrassing at all to have peed yourself at nineteen from uncontrollable laughter.

Free from your frenzied state, you peel yourself from Jacob as he continues to process things, eyes fixated on the ink that rests gently atop your clavicle. So, you are soulmates. And you found out because Kevin expressed his disgust for pear jam.

Jacob and you are soulmates. Soulmates. Bound together by the universe since before the two of you were born, a connection so indisputable that the planets and stars cannot separate the two of you. Jacob is soulmates with you. Jacob Bae is soulmates with Y/N. You are Y/N..... he is your soulmate. Jacob's mind doesn't seem to work anymore, too tired from the unexpected plot twist or too giddy with joy that you are his soulmate; that he is yours.

"Okay," you declare with a clap, Jacob awakes from his stupor and swears you can see smoke arising from his head, so utterly spent mentally that he just wants to nap on the couch like he was planning to in the first place. He hopes you will join him.

"Let's restart this. Hi, I'm Y/N. I'm Kevin's best friend and I study botany."

Jacob finally lets an amused smile tilt the corners of his lips upwards as he takes your outstretched hand in his and shakes it, ignoring the way his heart stutters at the feel of your hand in his.

"Nice to meet you, Y/N. I'm Jacob and I study music," Jacob greets back and lets go of your hand only when he feels you retract, your smiling expression morphing into one of shock. At first, Jacob thinks you're acting, smiling along with an amused grin he feels is going to split his face open soon if he doesn't stop, but he can't help but smile when you look so adorable like this.

"Your surname is Bae?"

Jacob's grin falters a little but he still continues to smile through the mild confusion. "Yeah, why?"

Jacob doesn't get an answer but the most adorable squeal and a hug. He doesn't understand what he's done to deserve these things but he doesn't complain, wrapping his arms around your shoulders as you hug him, so excited that you're hugging him so tight he almost feels his stomach come up through his oesophagus.

When you pull away, grin as big as his, you see his slightly confused smile and cannot help but laugh, sandwiching Jacob's face in between your hands and gently kneading his soft, pliant cheeks with your hands.

"Jacob! Don't you understand?"

"Not really," he says though the sound is muffled with you playing with his cheeks and all.

Kevin's sigh comes from behind you and he speaks up, though this time his voice sounds soft and content, possibly happy. "Bae means pear in Korean, Cob."

Jacob didn't really get all the happiness around birthdays. Sure, he was happy to receive presents and kind words from his favourite people, but he has always felt normal on his birthday. With your hands on his face and your pretty eyes gazing back into his; with the dull throbbing at his clavicle and the thunderous thudding of his heart, Jacob is beginning to understand just why people love birthdays so much.

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corvidcall · 2 years

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None Of You Know What Haiku Are

I'm going to preface this by saying that i am not an expert in ANY form of poetry, just an enthusiast. Also, this post is... really long. Too long? Definitely too long. Whoops! I love poetry.

If you ask most English-speaking people (or haiku-bot) what a haiku is, they would probably say that it's a form of poetry that has 3 lines, with 5, and then 7, and then 5 syllables in them. That's certainly what I was taught in school when we did our scant poetry unit, but since... idk elementary school when I learned that, I've learned that that's actually a pretty inaccurate definition of haiku. And I think that inaccurate definition is a big part of why most people (myself included until relatively recently!) think that haiku are kind of... dumb? unimpressive? simple and boring? I mean, if you can just put any words with the right number of syllables into 3 lines, what makes it special?

Well, let me get into why the 5-7-5 understanding of haiku is wrong, and also what makes haiku so special (with examples)!

First of all, Japanese doesn't have syllables! There's a few different names for what phonetic units actually make up the language- In Japanese, they're called "On" (音), which translates to "sound", although English-language linguists often call it a "mora" (μ), which (quoting from Wikipedia here) "is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable." (x) "Oh" is one syllable, and also one mora, whereas "Oi" has one syllable, but two moras. "Ba" has one mora, "Baa" has two moras, etc. In English, we would say that a haiku is made up of three lines, with 5-7-5 syllables in them, 17 syllables total. In Japanese, that would be 17 sounds.

For an example of the difference, the word "haiku", in English, has 2 syllables (hai-ku), but in Japanese, はいく has 3 sounds (ha-i-ku). "Christmas" has 2 syllables, but in Japanese, "クリスマス" (ku-ri-su-ma-su) is 5 sounds! that's a while line on its own! Sometimes the syllables are the same as the sounds ("sushi" is two syllables, and すし is two sounds), but sometimes they're very different.

In addition, words in Japanese are frequently longer than their English equivalents. For example, the word "cuckoo" in Japanese is "ほととぎす" (hototogisu).

Now, I'm sure you're all very impressed at how I can use an English to Japanese dictionary (thank you, my mother is proud), but what does any of this matter? So two languages are different. How does that impact our understanding of haiku?

Well, if you think about the fact that Japanese words are frequently longer than English words, AND that Japanese counts sounds and not syllables, you can see how, "based purely on a 17-syllable counting method, a poet writing in English could easily slip in enough words for two haiku in Japanese” (quote from Grit, Grace, and Gold: Haiku Celebrating the Sports of Summer by Kit Pancoast Nagamura). If you're writing a poem using 17 English syllables, you are writing significantly more content than is in an authentic Japanese haiku.

(Also not all Japanese haiku are 17 sounds at all. It's really more of a guideline.)

Focusing on the 5-7-5 form leads to ignoring other strategies/common conventions of haiku, which personally, I think are more interesting! Two of the big ones are kigo, a season word, and kireji, a cutting word.

Kigo are words/phrases/images associated with a particular season, like snow for winter, or cherry blossoms for spring. In Japan, they actually publish reference books of kigo called saijiki, which is basically like a dictionary or almanac of kigo, describing the meaning, providing a list of related words, and some haiku that use that kigo. Using a a particular kigo both grounds the haiku in a particular time, but also alludes to other haiku that have used the same one.

Kireji is a thing that doesn't easily translate to English, but it's almost like a spoken piece of punctuation, separating the haiku into two parts/images that resonate with and add depth to each other. Some examples of kireji would be "ya", "keri", and "kana." Here's kireji in action in one of the most famous haiku:

古池や　蛙飛び込む　水の音 (Furu ike ya　kawazu tobikomu　mizu no oto) (The old pond — A frog jumps in The sound of the water.)

You can see the kireji at the end of the first line- 古池や literally translates to "old pond ya". The "ya" doesn't have linguistic meaning, but it denotes the separation between the two focuses of the haiku. First, we are picturing a pond. It's old, mature. The water is still. And then there's a frog! It's spring and he's fresh and new to the world! He jumps into the pond and goes "splash"! Wowie! When I say "cutting word", instead of say, a knife cutting, I like to imagine a film cut. The camera shows the pond, and then it cuts to the frog who jumps in.

English doesn't really have a version of this, at least not one that's spoken, but in English language haiku, people will frequently use a dash or an ellipses to fill the same role.

Format aside, there are also some conventions of the actual content, too. They frequently focus on nature, and are generally use direct language without metaphor. They use concrete images without judgement or analysis, inviting the reader to step into their shoes and imagine how they'd feel in the situation. It's not about describing how you feel, so much as it's about describing what made you feel.

Now, let's put it all together, looking at a haiku written Yosa Buson around 1760 (translated by Harold G. Henderson)

The piercing chill I feel: my dead wife's comb, in our bedroom, under my heel

We've got our kigo with "the piercing chill." We read that, and we imagine it's probably winter. It's cold, and the kind of cold wind that cuts through you. There's our kireji- this translation uses a colon to differentiate our two images: the piercing chill, and the poet stepping on his dead wife's comb. There's no descriptions of what the poet is feeling, but you can imagine stepping into his shoes. You can imagine the pain he's experiencing in that moment on your own.

"But tumblr user corvidcall!" I hear you say, "All the examples you've used so far are Japanese haiku that have been translated! Are you implying that it's impossible for a good haiku to be written in English?" NO!!!!! I love English haiku! Here's a good example, which won first place in the 2000 Henderson haiku contest, sponsored by the Haiku Society of America:

meteor shower . . . a gentle wave wets our sandals

When you read this one, can you imagine being in the poet's place? Do you feel the surprise as the tide comes in? Do you feel the summer-ness of the moment? Haiku are about describing things with the senses, and how you take in the world around you. In a way, it's like the poet is only setting a scene, which you inhabit and fill with meaning based on your own experiences. You and I are imagining different beaches, different waves, different people that make up the "our" it mentioned.

"Do I HAVE to include all these things when I write haiku? If I include all these things, does that mean my haiku will be good?" I mean, I don't know. What colors make up a good painting? What scenes make up a good play? It's a creative medium, and nobody can really tell you you can't experiment with form. Certainly not me! But I think it's important to know what the conventions of the form are, so you can appreciate good examples of it, and so you can know what you're actually experimenting with. And I mean... I'm not the poetry cops. But if you're not interested in engaging with the actual conventions and limitations of the form, then why are you even using that form?

I'll leave you with one more English language haiku, which is probably my favorite haiku ever. It was written by Tom Bierovic, and won first place at the 2021 Haiku Society of America Haiku Awards

a year at most . . . we pretend to watch the hummingbirds

Sources: (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)